The Steel Remains

The road northwest out of Pranderghal rose into the hills on slow, looping hairpin turns, fading finally to a thin, pale gray line as it disappeared over the saddle between two peaks. On a day with clear weather—like today—you could see riders coming for a good two or three hours before they hit town.

Or you could watch a couple of them riding away.

Archeth and Egar sat out drinking tankards of ale in the garden of the Swamp Dog Inn, still slightly disbelieving that the warmth and good weather could hold up this long. There was a sporadic, ruffling breeze out of the north that robbed the sun of some of its comfort whenever it gusted, but it was tough to see how that would have justified complaint. Mostly, they were both just glad to be alive when so many others they knew were not. It was, Egar supposed, much the same feeling Marnak had talked about—you start wondering why you made it to the end of the day, why you’re still standing when the field is clogged with other men’s blood and corpses. Why the Dwellers are keeping you alive, what purpose the Sky Home has laid out for you—but mellowed into a slightly numb bliss beyond caring, beyond worrying much about the why.

“Swamp dog,” said Archeth, tapping idly at the raised emblem on her tankard. It was a crude miniature copy of the painted sign that hung on the street side of the inn, and showed a monstrous-looking hound, up to its belly in swamp water with a dead snake in its jaws and a spiked collar around its neck. “Always wondered about that. First thing Elith said to me—get between a swamp dog and its dinner, I had no idea what she meant.”

Egar snorted. “Seems pretty fucking obvious to me.”

“Yeah, but you were out here working scavenger crews for months, working with swamp dogs day in, day out probably.”

“Working a month before you showed up, a single month, and that was only because Takavach told me I had to. Not like I exactly took to the trade. Anyway.” He spread his hands, gestured at her tankard. “Swamp. Dog. Got a sort of self-evident ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Ah, fuck you then.”

“Yeah, you keep promising, I keep waiting.”

She kicked him under the trestle. But her grin smeared away almost immediately, and she grew serious again.

“This Takavach. You say he wore a leather cloak and a brimmed hat.”

“Yeah. Always does, it’s in all the stories. He’s from, uhm.” Egar frowned, groping for a decent translation from the Majak. “ ‘All the places the ocean will always be heard.’ Something like that. Cavorts with mermaids in the surf and so forth. Cloak and hat’s like a symbol for it; it’s like a northern ship captain’s rig.” Egar propped himself up a little in his seat and peered at her. “Why?”

Archeth shook her head. “Forget it.”

“C’mon. Why?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Just, the day Idrashan got better, got back on his feet again, one of the stable boys swore to me he’d walked in on some guy in a hat and cloak like that. Apparently, he was leaning over the rail of Idrashan’s stall and talking to him in some weird foreign language. And I remember now, there was some talk of the same figure walking the streets at evening in Beksanara when we first arrived. Thought it was just the usual swamp horseshit at the time.”

They looked at each other for a few moments in silence. For Archeth at least, it seemed that the breeze chose just that moment to chill the air, and a cloud wiped out the sun. But Egar only shrugged.

“Sure, could have been.”

“Could have been what? Horseshit?”

“No, could have been that fucker Takavach.”

Archeth blinked. “You believe that?”

Egar leaned forward a little. “Look, if he took the trouble to save my arse and magic me all the way down to Ennishmin, just so I could procure our old pal Angeleyes for the battle of Beksanara . . .” A shrug. “Well then, he’s certainly not going to balk at feeding your horse a few rotten apples to keep you pinned there for the same reason, is he? Or are you going to tell me you don’t believe in gods and demons and dwenda?”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she muttered.

“Believe it, if it’s cruel and unjust and brutal on the weak,” said a somber voice behind her. “That way, you won’t be far out.”

They both turned to look at him, and it was still a struggle for Archeth not to catch her breath at the sight.