Ричард Морган - The Dark Defiles

“ You were fighting with Shendanak? What the fuck for?”

“Basically?” Egar shrugged. “Because he’s a fat imperial fuck who’s forgotten where he’s from, and he needed a good spanking to help him remember.”

The Throne Eternal bristled. Archeth closed her eyes. “Great. Where is he?”

“In here.”

Shendanak lay on the big four-poster bed, belly up, unconscious. He’d been stripped down to a loincloth and Archeth thought the impression was rather like a butchered whale she’d once seen landed at the docks in Trelayne. One arm was splinted, the head was bandaged with windings through which blood had already soaked. The face was a torn-up mess—broken nose, both eyes blackened, the jaw looked lopsided with bruising, might be dislocated…

She gave up trying to assess. Salbak Barla, ship’s doctor from The Pride of Yhelteth, was bent over Shendanak with a poultice. He nodded absently at her.

“My lady.”

“How is he, Doctor?”

Barla sucked in air through his teeth. “Well, he’ll live. Your barbarian friend here was restrained enough for that. But it may be awhile before he walks anywhere unaided. He’s taken a lot of heavy blows to the skull. One knee is badly bruised, the joint may be cracked. Severe bruising to the groin as well. Ribs broken in numerous places. The arm”—a gesture—“as you see.”

“Yeah, that was when he did the ear.” Egar, behind her, voice still apologetic. “Like I said, I just lost it.”

“You certainly did,” agreed Barla.

Archeth held down the edges of a krinzanz rage. She turned to face the Dragonbane, who’d gone to stand at the window.

“So what was the plan, Eg?” she asked mildly. “I mean, I assume you had one.”

He would not look at her. Stared out at the rain instead. “I already told you, I lost my temper. But that fat fuck and Tand have both got their men out there beating up the locals for information they don’t have. Something you’d know about, if you got off the boat occasionally.”

“Don’t you fucking try to make this my fault.”

He spun from the window. “Archeth, they are betting on who gouges some information out of these poor bastards first. Someone had to put a stop to it.”

“Yeah—that’s what Rakan and Hald are here for.”

“Hald went with Gil. And anyway, I didn’t need any help.”

Breathe, Archidi. Keep it together.

“And what’s going to happen now, Eg? Who’s going to keep Shendanak’s steppe cousins in line now he’s not awake to do it?”

“I will.”

“ You will?” Disbelieving. “Eg, the mood they’re in on the stairs, I’m surprised they haven’t broken in here and lynched you already.”

He gave her a grim smile. “Not the way it works, Archidi. Those kids are pure steppe. I can handle them just fine.”

“The two down in the stable were handled well enough,” said Barla, without turning from his work with the poultice.

“The two in the stable?” Archeth asked with dangerous calm.

Egar nodded. “Yeah, couple of Shendanak’s guys came out in the street while I was stomping him. That was before Tand showed up. I had to take them down as well. No big deal.”

“No big deal, I see. Doctor?”

“Superficial injuries,” Barla confirmed. “I’ve given both men a grain of flandrijn to keep them happy. They should sleep it off and be fine by the morning.”

“I see. Egar—let’s get this straight. Exactly how many men have you… damaged today?”

“Just the three. The others backed right off.” The Dragonbane paused. “Well, and there was the one in the tavern earlier, the other tavern, where I’m billeted. I bottled him because he was groping my whore, wouldn’t give it up.”

Archeth shook her head. “I’m sorry? You bottled him because what ?”

“Yeah, it’s how I knew this shit was going down in the first place. The way they came in, throwing their weight around. Two he was with probably would have let it go, but—”

“Wait, wait. ” She held up her hands, palm out. “Stop. Eg, suppose you act like I don’t know what the fuck is going on for a moment, and tell me what the fuck is going on. From the start. What happened? How did we end up like this?”

HOW DID WE END UP LIKE THIS?

It would have been a reasonable question for anyone on the expedition to ask.

Five months back, it was all bright spring sunlight and cheering, as the freshly minted flotilla sailed downriver through Yhelteth and out to sea. Fair winds and a high quest, the Emperor’s blessing and the city turned out in force to see them off. Jhiral, in a shrewdly calculated crowd-pleasing gesture, had made the day of their departure a public holiday, and the banks of the river were thronged on both sides. Every ship in the harbor flew sky-blue and silver pennants for luck. Even the Citadel—or at least the more collaboration-minded among its mastery—had been prevailed upon to offer up prayers for the expedition’s success and safe homecoming. Incense billowed from blessing braziers along the river, smoked out over the water, mingled with the crisscrossed traceries of a thousand fireworks set off.

Pretty noisy for a secret mission, Ringil reckoned as they left the estuary, shadowed on all sides by a mob of smaller craft filled with waving, bellowing well-wishers. But you could see even he was enjoying himself.

That’s “voyage of scientific discovery” to you, son, Mahmal Shanta told him, grinning.

And the wind stropped at the unfurled canvas overhead, the sun glistened on the foaming churn of their bow-wave, and Archeth, who was already starting to miss Ishgrim, found a quiet smile despite herself.

Now two out of three vessels sat storm-battered and damp, huddled into Ornley harbor like whipped dogs in a kitchen corner. Dragon’s Demise was off up the coast, chasing another pointless lead, and it seemed the rain would never stop.

And for lack of other enemies, we’re tearing each other apart.

She heard Egar out with weary patience—the brawl over whores, Tand and Shendanak’s bet, the fight with Shendanak in the street, the stand-off with his angry cousins over his beaten body, the arrival of Tand and his men…

“Didn’t really need them,” sniffed the Dragonbane. “But it got things wrapped up a lot faster, you know.”

No surprise there—Tand’s mercenaries were a cold-eyed, scary bunch, a couple of hundred years’ brutal enforcement experience between them and all the scars to show for it. You’d have to be either pretty sure of yourself or pretty far gone to get into it with them. Shendanak’s cousins were tough enough in their unseasoned steppe-grown fashion, they were mostly younger men, and there were more of them. But in the end, methodical battle-trained competence was always going to tell. It was the axiomatic truth they’d all learned in the war.

“Where is Tand?” she asked.

Egar shrugged. “He got them to call Rakan, then he fucked off. Went back to his rooms, I reckon. You know how much he hates the rain.”

“Right. I’m going to talk to him.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. You won’t.” Archeth jerked a thumb in the direction of the door and the men gathered on the stairs beyond it. “You say you can handle Shendanak’s crew? Then you stay here with Rakan in case we need you to do exactly that. You let me worry about Tand.”

IT WAS BRAVADO SHE DIDN’T MUCH FEEL. THE KRIN HAD PEAKED ON HER back aboard Sea Eagle’s Daughter, and now it was starting to wane. All she really felt was tired. But she lacquered on a thin shell of pretense as she went up through the streets to Tand’s inn, forced the ghost of strength down into her legs with each step, and reminded herself that she was the Emperor’s Named Envoy for the expedition, the Authority of the Burnished Throne made Flesh.