The Steel Remains

“Well.” Ringil gave the Throne Eternal captain another brittle little smile. “You know, the thing about fucking is, it’s a lot less wear and tear than trying to kill each other with bits of steel. And it’s the sort of thing that does tend to lead to confidences and favors if you play it right. Ask any woman, she’ll tell you that. Unless of course your experiences in that direction are limited, as, come to think of it, yours probably are, to whores and rape.”

This time it was Halgan who surged to his feet with an oath on his lips and a hand on the hilt of the sword he wore. Ringil sat back a little where he was, met the other man’s gaze and held it.

“You clear that blade, and I’ll kill you with it.”

The moment held, seemed to creak.

“He means it,” Archeth said quietly. “I’d sit down if I were you, Halgan.”

Faileh Rakan made a short gesture, and his lieutenant sank back into his seat by inches. Archeth sighed and rubbed at her eyes.

“You’re saying you insinuated yourself into this Seethlaw’s affections in order to get your cousin back?”

“Yes, I am.” The tiny, fading ache of memory, like a small, blunt knife turning inside his rib cage. He didn’t know how much truth there was in the words. He couldn’t remember anymore. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“And you think Seethlaw’s coming to get you because, what, he feels betrayed? Pissed off that you let him down?”

“No.” Ringil drew a deep breath. “Seethlaw is coming to get me—and you, and you, Rakan, and you two, and everyone else in this fucking village—because he can’t afford to have his plans brought to light. There’s too much in play, too much he can’t predict. You’ve got to understand, Archidi, you’ve got to see it from the dwenda’s point of view. It’s thousands of years since they had dealings with us. They’re rusty, they don’t know how to gauge us anymore. Seethlaw’s had three years to learn contemporary politics in Trelayne, and that’s it. Three miserable fucking years. He’s hasn’t done badly, he’s built a covert power base, but by its very nature it’s got to be limited. And elsewhere he’s working nearly blind. He doesn’t know the Empire at all, except through the lens of northern opinion, and he’s smart enough to know you can’t trust opinion any farther than a whore with your house keys. He has no way of knowing how Yhelteth will respond if it knows the attack on Ennishmin is a ploy. Worse than that, he probably can’t tell what the parts of the Trelayne Chancellery he hasn’t managed to corrupt will do, or any of the other cities in the League come to that. For all Seethlaw knows, the League and the Empire will unite the way they did against the Scaled Folk. He can’t take the chance. Anybody human who knows about this, outside of his little cabal, has to die.”

“He was going to let you live before,” Darash pointed out. “He was going to let you go home. You sure this isn’t just a lovers’ tiff we’re dealing with here? A falling-out between faggots, maybe?”

Ringil spared him a weary look. “Oh, you’re a real fucking comedian, Darash. Yeah, Seethlaw was going to let me go home. He was going to let me go because he thought he could control me, and he thought I didn’t give a shit about any of this, about the Empire or the League. And you know what, he was right, I don’t.” The violence jumped out in his voice, sudden and glad. “I think your beloved Jhiral Khimran is a jumped-up little turd masquerading as a leader of men, and I think his beloved father wasn’t very much better. And I think the men who control Trelayne are carved from the very same richly stinking shit, they just haven’t been as successful up north at feeding it to the rest of us, that’s all.”

“You’ll answer for that, Eskiath.” Rakan made no dramatic moves, but his face was a mask of cold intent. “No man, imperial citizen or not, speaks of my Emperor that way and lives. The sworn law of Yhelteth forbids it, and I’m sworn to uphold that same law.”

“Oi, Rakan.” Egar jerked his chin at the Throne Eternal captain. “You’ll have to come through me first. Bear that in mind, won’t you.”

“He’ll have to live through the night first, as well,” said Ringil somberly. “None of us is going to have recourse to law, imperial or otherwise, unless we stop Seethlaw in his tracks.”

“Or we fall back,” said Archeth. “We take what we know and we run south. We can make Khartaghnal in three days if we push it. There’s a levy garrison there, four hundred men under arms at least, and they have King’s Reach messenger relay facilities on to the plains cities. We can get a message through to a heartland military governor inside another two days.”

“Makes sense,” agreed Halgan.

“No,” said Ringil.

Archeth sighed. “It does make sense, Gil. Look—”

“I said no. We aren’t going to do that.” Ringil stared around the table, met their eyes one at a time the way he had the captains at Gallows Gap. “We are going to stop them here.”