The Steel Remains (57 page)

He saw the boy— he'd utterly forgotten him in the fight— watching him, frozen where he stood about ten feet away, wide- eyed with not much less terror than he'd had of the dwenda. Ringil shook his head and found himself laughing, an insane, dribbling little chuckle.

“Dragonbane's right,” he said vaguely. “They fall down just like men.”

The boy's eyes shifted, left over Ringil's shoulder, and he darted away like a spooked deer. Ringil swung about and found himself facing one of Rakan's soldiers. Relief stabbed through him.

“Ah. How you doing?”

The man made a noise. He was wounded all over, but none of it looked too bad. He still had his shield, but it was buckled and split, and he was down to a long knife for a weapon. Ringil turned and pointed, still breathing heavily.

“See that ax? If you can get it out of that motherfucker's head, it's yours. Then we'll go see what's going on at the blockhouse. Okay?”

The Throne Eternal stared at him. “They, they…” He gestured wildly over his shoulder. “They're fucking everywhere, man.”

“I know. And they glow in the dark, too.” Ringil clapped him on the shoulder. “Should make it easy, huh?”

EGAR CAME THROUGH THE BLOCKHOUSE DOOR WITH BITS OF DWENDA
intestine on both blades of the staff lance, just in time to see Archeth stabbed to the floor. Fury detonated through him like an instant high fever. He yelled, berserker shrill and full, and leapt in on the two dwenda without thought. The first turned just in time to get the lance blade through the belly. The second stumbled back a step, as if from an actual blow, then came in swinging its sword. Remorseless, Egar drove the impaled dwenda back until it tripped over Archeths body. He caught the swing of the other's blade on the lance shaft and kicked its legs summarily out from under it. He leaned hard on the embedded end of the lance, twisted the shaft back and forth, and the wounded dwenda screamed in his helmet and thrashed. Egar judged the damage well enough done, jerked the lance free, crouched and swung about to face the other dwenda just as it climbed back to its feet.

“You want to die, too? Come on then,
motherfucker.”

The dwenda was very fast. It whooped and leapt high over the lance thrust, cleared it entirely, lashed out with one foot and kicked Egar in the face. He staggered, didn't quite go down. Blood in his mouth, felt like a broken tooth, but—

The dwenda had landed only a couple of feet away, was twisting about to bring its long- sword to bear. Egar rushed it, slammed the lance shaft up and into the creature's chest, and bore it backward across the room until they both fell among the bodies and broken chairs. The dwenda dropped its sword. Egar rammed the lance shaft desperately up under the jut of the helmet. He got to his knees. The dwenda had a long slim knife from somewhere; it slashed at him but the lance shaft had its arms pinned and ineffectual. Egar got on his knees, rammed the shaft up again, and bore down with all his weight. The dwenda made an awful gurgling sound. The slim knife slashed again, gouged into his side, slid
off a rib. Egar snarled and let go of the lance, grabbed the featureless helmet, and smashed it against the flagstone floor. The knife stabbed him again, felt like it got through this time. He gasped, struggled for purchase on the helmet's smooth sides, felt another fiery lash of pain along his ribs, stabbed out with a knee to hold the arm off. He gripped the helm's surface, squeezed and twisted with everything he had left. The dwenda thrashed and squawked. Egar bared his teeth in an awful grin, and kept on twisting. His voice grated from his throat.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Nearly— done— just a—”

—the knife again, he barely noticed through the rising red mist, his voice came out small and tight with the effort—

“—little more—”

—the thing was screaming now, battering at him with the knife and a clenched fist, kicking, didn't matter, didn't matter, ignore that shit—

“
—little
more—”

Crack.

And the dwenda's head was suddenly loose and lolling in his hands. The creature's arms dropped to its sides. He heard the knife clink free on the stonework.

“That's it,” he hissed. “Quiet down now.”

He drew a hard, panting breath, yelped immediately at the flare of pain as his ribs moved. His eyes teared up. He blew breath through pursed lips as if he'd just swallowed something that was too hot.

“Ah
fuck,
that hurts.”

“Tell me about it.”

He turned about and there was Archeth, on her feet, limping toward him clutching one shoulder. But there was a bloodied knife in her hand on the injured side, and she seemed to be hanging on to it okay. He coughed a laugh, then wished he hadn't.

“Hey, you're alive.”

“For the moment.” She nodded behind her. “Finished your other pal for you.”

He heaved himself up off the dwenda's body, looked under his left arm at the blood and grimaced.

“That was nice of you. I thought he was pretty much done. Saw his guts come out, that's for sure.”

“Well.” She shrugged and winced. “Aldrain magic, you know. Best to make sure. What's it like out there?”

Egar took a couple of careful, testing breaths. He ground his teeth and snarled in frustration. Bent to pick up his lance.

“Don't know, these motherfuckers are coming out of the dark everywhere you look. Saw at least five of your Throne Eternal boys down in the street, no idea if they took any bad guys with them. It's not good.”

Archeth peered about on the floor for her other knives. She spotted Wraithslayer, crouched awkwardly, and picked it up.

“We'd better get out there, then,” she said.

“Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say—”

And then they heard it, and at the sound the Majak's face lit up as if someone had magically wiped away all his pain.

Ringil's voice, bawling hoarse but crystal clear in Tethanne, out in the street.

“Stand! Stand your fucking ground!
They fall down just like men! Stand with me! STAND!”

FAILEH RAKAN LAY DEAD IN THE STREET, HEAD SPLIT BY AN ALDRAIN AX.
He'd accounted for a brace of dwenda— they lay about his feet— but the third was too fast. Ringil, jogging rapidly up the street toward the blockhouse with a mauled squad of survivors, saw it happen but got there too late to do anything about it.

The dwenda who'd finished Rakan spun about at the sound of his footfalls. Ringil rushed in. Shield up to block the ax, heave and shove it aside. The Ravensfriend chopped in for the thigh. He'd learned, in the past frantic quarter hour, that the Aldrain armor was strong below the knee, like some kind of incorporated greave under the material, rising to knee height. Above the knee, strength gave way to flexibility; the black leg garb was thinner. Human steel might not get through easily, but the Kiriath blade chewed it apart like rotten sailcloth. He hacked the width of a hand into the dwenda's leg, withdrew, and stepped back. Watched the creature fall to its knees and then skewered it under the helmet.

It was beginning to feel practiced.

He looked wildly about. What was left of Rakan's patrols had pulled back to the blockhouse as planned, but hard- pressed on every side by the encroaching dwenda. He counted four men— no three, there went another, spun about and down into the mud off a dwenda blade, spurting blood from a half- severed neck— and he had four more at his back, one of those in none- too- good shape.

And from all angles, still shedding tiny blue flickering flames as they moved, the rest of the dwenda came on. The krin hammered through his head, wrote the answer in fire behind his eyes.

He put a boot on the dead dwenda's helmet, tipped it back, and hacked down with the Ravensfriend. It took three desperate, brutal strokes, but the head came off. He bent— felt an odd, crooked smile slip onto his mouth— and plunged his left hand into the gory mess at the helmet's opening. Meat and pipes and there, the rough central gnarl of the severed spine. He grasped at the ragged bone end, picked up head and helmet, and strode to the blockhouse step.

Held it aloft in the light from the torches. Filled his lungs, and screamed.

“Stand! Stand your fucking ground!
They fall down just like men! Stand with me! STAND!”

For a moment, everything seemed to stop. Even the dwenda appeared to pause in their onslaught. The torchlight gleamed hot yellow off the black curve of the Aldrain helmet. Blood ran down his hand and wrist.

Somewhere, someone human cheered long and low, and the others took it up.

It became a roar.

A dwenda came howling across the street at him, blade raised. Ringil swung the helmet and hurled it at his attacker, ran in behind.

Somehow, as he leapt in to meet the dwenda, he already knew it was Seethlaw.

The rest was a nightmare blur of blood and steel and speed. Seethlaw was fast, as fast as Ringil remembered from Terip Hale's courtyard, maybe faster, and now he was no longer constrained by whatever had stopped him from killing Ringil the first time around. He whirled and
leapt, slashed in and out as if the long- sword were no weightier than some courtier's blade- for- show. He had no shield to slow him down, and he was clearly— Ringil could feel it coming off the black- clad figure in waves— raving with hate.

A dark lord will rise.

Ringil gave himself over to the krinzanz, and the memory of a young woman's living head, mounted on a tree stump, weeping silent, swamp-water tears.

It was really all he had left.

“Come on motherfucker,” he heard himself screaming, almost continuously.
“Come on.”

Seethlaw ripped open his face along the jaw, the gouging point of a thrust Ringil couldn't get his head away from fast enough. Seethlaw stabbed him through a gap in the ill- assorted pieces of plate on his right arm. Seethlaw slashed him across the top of one thigh. Scorched his neck where it emerged from the cuirass, smashed apart an already damaged section of armor on his right shoulder and ripped the flesh beneath. Seethlaw—

To Ringil, it felt like nothing. Like nothing at all.

He waded through the pain. He grinned.

And later, much later, one of the surviving Throne Eternal men would swear he saw a flickering blue light spark along Ringil's limbs in the dark.

Seethlaw struck down at his wavering shield. The blow ran a long split into the battered metal and the wooden backing, ruined it for the next blow.

But the blade stuck.

Ringil let go the straps. Seethlaw tried to withdraw, the weight of the shield dragged his sword down. Ringil leapt in, swung, yelled, hacked savagely down.

The Ravensfriend found the dwenda's shoulder, and bit deep.

Seethlaw howled. Still could not free his sword. Ringil sobbed, drew breath, hacked down again with both hands. The arm went dead, hung half severed. Seethlaw fell to his knees with the shock.

Once again, everything seemed to stop.

The dwenda reached up, let go his useless sword, and tugged at the helmet. Ringil, in sudden, numb suspension, let him do it. The helmet came off, gave him Seethlaw's beautiful dwenda face for the last time, contorted with pain and rage. He glared up at Ringil. His teeth gritted.

“What,” he spat, in panting Naomic, “have you done? Gil, we— we had—”

Ringil stared bleakly down at him.

“I've had better than you drunk in a Yhelteth back alley,” he said coldly, and chopped Seethlaw's head and face open with the Ravens-friend.

Withdrew the blade, brandished it high and screamed.

A dark lord will rise.

Yeah, right.

Then he set his boot on the dying dwenda's chest and shoved him aside. He took two suddenly shaky steps down into the street and what remained of the battle. The roar of the remaining men went on, the dwenda looked to be falling back. Ringil blinked to clear vision which had suddenly, unaccountably gone blurred. He stared around him.

“Who's fucking next?”
he screamed.

And crumpled bleeding into the mud.

he road northwest out of Pranderghal rose into the hills on slow, ooping 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.