The Steel Remains

“Sacred fucking Mother of the Revelation.” Mahmal Shanta, distracted as he struggled to control his prancing horse at her side. It was unclear if he was cursing the animal or the destruction below. “What the hell happened here?”

“I don’t know,” Archeth said thoughtfully. “Doesn’t look good, does it?”

Shanta glowered and struggled to sit his mount with a modicum of dignity. He was useless in the saddle, always had been. His age-knobbed hands clamped the reins like a rope he was trying to climb.

“Looks like a fucking replay of Demlarashan, is what it looks like,” he growled.

Archeth shook her head. “Dragons didn’t do this. There’s too much left.”

“You know anything other than dragonfire that would go through Kiriath moldings that way? God damn this fucking horse.”

Archeth reached across and laid a soothing hand on the jittery animal’s neck. Murmured and clucked to it the way her father had taught her. The horse settled a little, partway convinced that here at least was someone who knew what was going on and could control it.

Be nice if that were true, she caught herself thinking, perhaps more wryly than current circumstances merited. Failing that, be nice if humans were as easy to fool as horses.

Hey, Archidi, last time I checked, they were.

Oh yeah, that old warrior disconnect. It came on in full force now, humor bleak and black while homes smolder around you and the unarmed afflicted weep for what’s lost so you don’t have to. Pull on the cold, clinking mail of your professional detachment, Archeth Indamaninarmal, inhabit it until it starts to feel warm and accustomed, and in time you’ll forget you’re wearing it at all. You’ll only notice when it works, when it stops you feeling the steel-edged bite of something that might otherwise have gotten through and done you some damage. And then you’ll just grin and shiver and shake off the blow, like warriors do.

It was a part of herself she’d never quite been able to hate.

Which was perhaps fortunate because lately, that very same amused detachment was proving handy at court.

She glanced back over her shoulder, down the ridge to where Pashla Menkarak, Most Holy and Revered Invigilator first class for the Revelation Divine (Throne Eternal attached), sat wrapped in the black-and-gold cloak of his office and perched in his saddle like a vulture. His head was tipped at an angle to beat the sun’s rays, and he was apparently staring directly back up the slope at her.

“Motherfuck,” she muttered.

Shanta saw where she was looking. “You’d better watch what you’re saying around him,” he said softly. “From what I’ve seen so far, this one’s keen.”

“Yeah,” Archeth sneered. “Well, they all start out that way. Give him a couple of months at court, then we’ll see. Be rolling around on a bed of tits and ass getting his dick greased just like all the rest.”

Shanta rolled his eyes at the vulgarity. “Yes, or maybe he’ll remain as immune to court sophistication as you have, Archeth. Ever think of that?”

“Guy like that? He lacks my moral core.”

“Perhaps not. Stories I hear out of the Citadel these days, that’s not the way things are moving. They say it’s a whole new breed coming through the religious colleges now. Hard-line faith.”

“Oh, good.”

Movement down the line. She wheeled her horse about, and the ashen wind blew in her face. Faileh Rakan, captain of the Throne Eternal detachment, was trotting his mount down the rank of his riders toward them. She sighed and put on the mask of command. Shanta sat his horse in expectant silence. Rakan reached Archeth and dismounted for respect. He took sword hilt in his right hand, capped it with his left, and bowed.

“Commander, my men are deployed. We await your orders.”

Archeth nodded.

“Right then,” she said brightly. “I suppose we’d better go down and take a closer look.”

ONCE AMONG THE RUINS, THOUGH, THAT COUNTERFEIT ENTHUSIASM stained through into something that was almost the real thing.