The Steel Remains

“Can we stop them?” Archeth asked quietly, and the hilarity disappeared as fast as it had come. The gazes around the table tightened back to her. “At Khangset, they said they fired arrows that passed right through the blue fire and left the dwenda themselves unharmed.”

Ringil nodded soberly. “Yeah. Eril told me the same thing happened to Girsh’s crossbow bolt when he tried to stop Seethlaw. I think maybe when the aspect storm first comes through, it’s like the dwenda’s not completely there, like he’s a ghost of some sort. But your guys at Khangset weren’t as ineffective as they thought. Pelmarag said the expeditionary force he was in lost men. Six or seven of them on the beach alone. Now, that’s got to be before any close-quarters fighting, we’re talking about the moment the Khangset garrison realizes they’ve got company. So some of those arrows must have hit home. If I had to guess, I’d say this ghost aspect is short-lived. The dwenda has to let go at some point, has to become solid and grounded in this world. When they do.” He smacked fist into palm. “You’ve got them. Pelmarag told me they lost another half a dozen warriors in the fight across town. Your marines did get to them, they were just too scared and demoralized to realize it. That’s not a mistake we have to make. I crossed blades with Seethlaw, I felt the contact, even when the aspect storm was still around him. It can be done.”

“Yeah, they kill easily enough,” Egar rumbled. “I took two last night. Knife in the throat for one, fists and an ax haft for the other. They go down no different from a man.”

“And the damage we saw at Khangset?” Archeth asked. “The Kiriath defenses were melted right through. It looked like the sort of thing dragonfire would do.”

Ringil frowned and fumbled though memories already grown unreal and confused. He pressed his hands together, steepled the fingers, and pressed them to his mouth in thought. The small, carved figure in the swamp, the conversation with Pelmarag. Tell you a funny story.

“He said something about the talons of the sun. Something they unleashed through the aspect storm, before they went through themselves. Like an arrow flight before an advance or something.”

“These were not arrow marks,” said Rakan ironically.

“I don’t think they have these talons of the sun here in the swamp.” Ringil stared emptily off into dim recall. There was an odd ache in there with the memories, and he didn’t like it. “They were different tactics. It was some dwenda commander who didn’t agree with Seethlaw’s approach. He wanted a frontal assault. That’s not what Seethlaw’s trying to achieve here.”

“You know that for certain?” Archeth’s tone was skeptical. “The dwenda are committed to a stealth campaign?”

“I don’t . . .” Ringil sighed. “It isn’t as simple as that, Archidi. This isn’t like the Scaled Folk over again. It’s not some massive migration across an ocean to escape a dying land, a whole race on the move, an invading people who have to either conquer or die. The dwenda aren’t unified, they aren’t anything like unified. There are factions, disagreements over strategy, constant individual disputes. There don’t even seem to be that many of them at the moment, and even those, the handful I got to meet were squabbling with each other half the time.”

“The Helmsmen say they are impulsive and disordered,” Archeth said slowly. “Perhaps not even sane. Would that fit?”

Ringil thought again about the Aldrain marches. He shivered.

“Yes, it would,” he said. “It would make a lot of sense. Seethlaw was . . .”

He stopped.

“Was what?” asked Rakan.

Ringil shook his head. “Skip it. Doesn’t matter.”

“Maybe not to you, degenerate,” said Halgan angrily. “But to my men and I, it matters a great deal. You are asking us to stand and fight, maybe to die, on your word. Under the circumstances, I think you owe us the highest degree of clarity and confessed truthfulness.”

“That’s true,” said Rakan. “Like an explanation for how exactly you came to be so closely taken into this creature’s confidence in the first place. How it is that you traveled freely with him in these infernal realms, how it is that he allowed you to bring out your slave cousin.”

Ringil smiled thinly. “You’d like that explained with the highest degree of clarity, would you?”

“Yes. We all would.”

“Oh, well, it’s easy enough.” Ringil leaned across the table toward the Throne Eternal captain. “I was fucking him. In the arse, in the mouth. A lot.”

Quiet slammed onto the table like a pallet of bricks dropped from above. The two Throne Eternal lieutenants looked at each other, and Halgan made a tiny but distinct spitting noise.

“You are an abomination, Eskiath,” said Rakan softly.