The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

Author:Richard K. Morgan [Morgan, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: sf_fantasy
ISBN: 0-345-49303-6
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2009-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Ringil tried, just the once, on fading hope, for the outrage of imperial nobility.

“Just what is the meaning of this? You intend to rob me, like common criminals? My father will have you—”

Terip Hale shook his head. “Let it go, friend. I don’t imagine that accent is any more real than the rest of this charade, so drop it, why don’t you. This is going to be painful enough for you as it is. Now, like I asked you before, who the fuck are you? What are you doing here, asking after barren marsh dwellers?”

Ah.

“All right,” Ringil said, because he guessed he had perhaps another half a minute, at most, before Hale did the obvious thing and had them all disarmed.

Yeah, and after that, it’s down to whatever disciplinary facilities Hale keeps around here for recalcitrant slaves. Where we’ll be put to the question repeatedly, until Hale gets what he wants to hear from us, and then, if we’re lucky, they might put us out of our scorched and mutilated misery with a quick slit throat.

Nice going, Gil.

Ringil measured the possibilities. Eril and Girsh had both frozen when the trap was sprung, arms well out from their bodies so as not to invite a crossbow bolt for twitching a hand the wrong way, faces taut with concentrated tension. They looked like men wading belly-high across an icy river, like adults caught out midstep in a children’s game of closer-closer-statue. They would have already assessed the odds. Now they watched for Ringil’s lead.

There were three crossbows leveled at them, as far as he could see. The rest was hand-to-hand cutlery.

“All right what?” grated Hale.

“All right, you win. I’m not Laraninthal of Shenshenath, and I’m not an imperial. My name’s Ringil Eskiath.”

Hale blinked. “The Ringil Eskiath? Yeah, right.”

But Ringil had seen how that same taken-aback flinch ran around the armed men in the alcoves. He felt the way their casual thug focus gave way to curious stares. He saw a couple of them mutter to each other. The siege of Trelayne was eight years in the past, the triumph at Gallows Gap a year older than that. The war itself had been over now for more than half a decade. But the stories lingered on, attenuated maybe, yet still there in the city’s consciousness.

“Eskiath died at Ennishmin,” someone sneered. “Fighting imperials.”

Ringil forced a calm he didn’t feel.

“Heard that one before a couple of times,” he said lightly. “And it’s almost true. Still got the scars. But it takes more than three Yhelteth sneak assassins to put me away.”

Another of the men voiced a faint cheer. His companion elbowed him savagely to shut up. Ringil pushed as hard as it would go. He raised a cautious thumb, well out from his body so it wouldn’t be misinterpreted, gesturing up at his left shoulder.

“This is the Ravensfriend,” he said loudly. “Kiriath steel. Forged at An-Monal for the clan Indamaninarmal, gifted to me by Grashgal the Wanderer. Rinsed in lizard blood at Rajal Beach and Gallows Gap and the siege of Trelayne.

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