Ричард Морган - The Dark Defiles

And an immortal black-skinned witch with dark magic from the veins of the Earth at her command.

Let’s not forget that one, Archidi.

She found Menith Tand sat at a table in one corner of the otherwise empty tavern bar, flanked by two of his mercenary crew and playing out a deck of cards in some version of solitaire she didn’t know. If he was concerned about the path of recent events, it didn’t show. Lamps had been lit for him against the late afternoon gloom, and in the light they cast, his narrow features were composed to the point of boredom. She saw he’d recently had a shave, and his ostentatiously undyed gray hair was gathered back on either side of his head with twinned clips the color of ivory—carved, so the rumor went, from the bones of an escaped slave. He met Archeth’s eye as she came through the tavern door and nodded, then leaned back in his chair to speak with one of his men. As she approached the table, the man stepped forward and for a moment her pulse ratcheted up. But the mercenary just made a clumsy bow and set out the chair opposite Tand for her to sit down.

“Greetings, my lady.” The slave magnate placed a new card, frowning at the pattern for a moment before he looked up. “Won’t you sit down?”

Archeth ignored the snub. She rested her hands on the back of the chair. “I hear you’ve taken some kind of bet with Klarn Shendanak.”

“Yes.” Tand went back to brooding on his cards. “What of it?”

“Are you entirely fucking stupid, Tand?”

The slaver turned over a card, did not look up. “Not entirely, my lady, no. Why, what seems to be the problem?”

“You really think going to war with the locals for a bet is a smart thing to do? You think we can afford that right now?” Quick, dark pulse of krinzanz rage. “I’m talking to you, Tand! Did your krin-whore mother drop you on your fucking head when you were a baby?”

The mercenary who’d put out the chair stiffened, laid hand to sword-hilt. Archeth peeled him her best lethal-black-witch look and watched with satisfaction as the hand slid away again. Tand, meanwhile—

The slaver had paused, theatrically, midway through playing out a card. Momentary stillness, and it was hard to tell if she’d got to him or if it was for show, but—yes, there. A vein pulsed in one temple. Archeth cheered inwardly at the sight. Then Tand completed his play, laid aside the slim sheaf of cards in his hand, and sat back in his chair.

“My mother was a noblewoman of Baldaran stock, my lady.” The pale, cold eyes swiveled up to meet her own, and for just a moment she saw the fury chained there, she saw how dangerous he was. But the slave magnate’s voice, when it came, was cool and even. “And as for krinzanz, I think it’s likely she saw less of it in the course of her whole life than is currently coursing through your half-blood veins. So. Perhaps we can dispense with the cheap insults now and behave a little more as befits our station, yes?”

She leaned on the back of the chair. “I’m all in favor of that, Tand. Let’s start by knocking off the occupation tactics. You were there at Lanatray, you signed the accord like everybody else. We are diplomatic guests of the Trelayne League, permitted access to the Hironish isles on that basis. Let’s act as such.”

“They made us their guests because they didn’t have a choice. The peace is fragile, my lady. They’d hardly deny us passage and risk the Emperor’s displeasure.”

“I think you overestimate imperial influence. By the best route home, we’re nearly three thousand miles from Yhelteth.”

Tand made a dismissive gesture. “We’re the best part of a thousand miles from Trelayne as well. By the time word of what we do here reaches anyone who matters, we’ll be long gone. That’s if anyone cares in the first place, which—if my knowledge of Trelayne Chancellery affairs is anything to go by—they won’t.”

He probably had a point. Ringil had told her exactly how remote from League affairs the Hironish isles were. Some of the dignitaries they met with in Lanatray had even been a little vague on where exactly the islands were to be found, how far north or west they would have to sail to reach them. And Tand, in his capacity as major player in the slave markets, had spent enough time back and forth between League and Empire in the last few years to be accurately informed. Still—

“The peace is fragile on both sides, Tand. What you’re doing here could be just the tinder it needs. You throw your weight around like this under the auspices of an imperial expedition and you’re creating a perfect pretext for war.”

“Frankly, I doubt that. But in any case, what we’ve done so far is considerably more controlled and less destructive than what will probably happen if the men are left much longer without some outlet for their frustrations. You have dragged us to the ends of the Earth, my lady, and now we’re here, you give us nothing to do. That’s not an ideal situation for fighting men.”

“So you don’t believe there’s anything to learn from these interrogations? The whole thing’s a sham, just to keep the men exercised?”

The slave magnate nodded sagely. “No call to let Klarn Shendanak know that, of course, but—yes, more or less.”

“I doubt I’ll be telling Shendanak anything in the near future. The Dragonbane put him in a coma.”

“Did he now?” There might have been admiration in Tand’s voice.

“You didn’t know that? You were there, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I thought the old tub of guts looked rather mauled when we arrived. But you know what these Majak are like—up on the steppe, they’re beating the shit out of each other the minute they drop out of the womb. They breed for thick skulls.”

“Well, Shendanak not so much, it seems.”

“No.” Tand looked genuinely thoughtful for the first time since she’d walked in. “That does put a different complexion on things. We’d better—”

The door of the tavern banged back. Twitchy with the crashing krin, Archeth jumped at the noise it made.

“Sire!” It was one of Tand’s men, grinning triumphantly in the doorway. “Sire, we’ve got it!”

He advanced into the room, campaign cap off for respect, shaven head gleaming with sweat in the low light. He seemed to have been running, he was panting hard. Took a moment to get his breath under control.

“We’ve got it,” he said again.

“I’m sure you have, Nalmur,” said Tand patiently. “But perhaps you could tell the lady Archeth and myself what exactly it is that you’ve got?”

Nalmur glanced at Archeth, apparently noticing her for the first time in the gloom. His expression grew a little more wary, but his face was still suffused with delight.

“The thousand elementals, my lord. The bet. We know what happened to the Illwrack Changeling!”

He felt the change as soon as he stepped over the threshold of the croft. It came on like icy water, sprinkling across the nape of his neck.

He tilted his head a little to send the feeling away, traced a warding glyph in the air, like taking down a volume from a library shelf. Around him, the croft walls grew back to an enclosing height they likely hadn’t seen in decades. The boiling gray sky blacked out, replaced with damp-smelling thatch overhead. A dull, reddish glow reached out to him from the hearth. Peat smoke stung his throat. He heard the slow creak of wood.

A worn oak rocking chair, angled at the fireside, tilting gently back and forth. From where he stood, Ringil could not tell what was seated there, only that it was wrapped in a dark cloak and cowl.

The ward he’d chosen was burning down around him like some torched peasant’s hut. He felt the fresh exposure shiver through him. Reached for something stronger, cracked finger-bones etching it into the air.