The Steel Remains

“Oh, I think you’ll find that out soon enough.”

“I’m not a patient man, Terip.”

The slave trader scraped together an awful, lopsided grin. “It doesn’t matter what you do to me, if you kill me here or not. They’ll find out about this either way.”

Ringil, out of nowhere—some combination of twanging battle-comedown nerves, general weariness, who knew what besides—took a blind leap.

“Going to stick your head on a tree trunk, are they?”

He saw the jolt go through Terip Hale, almost as if the slaver had been struck by one of his own men’s crossbow bolts. He saw the fear in the one unswollen eye.

“You—”

“Yeah.” Grab the advantage, run with it. “I know all about it. That’s why they sent me. See, Terip—I used to kill lizards for a living. One time in Demlarashan, I helped take down a whole fucking dragon, me and just one other guy. So I got no problem putting away your pet dwenda if he gets in my way. Now, you tell me—what’s so fucking special about Sherin Herlirig Mernas that you’ve got to try to kill me when I ask after her?”

“Who?”

“You heard.”

“I don’t know that name.”

“No?” Ringil produced the dragon knife and held it up in front of Hale’s good eye. He breathed deep. “You remember well enough that she’s barren, that she comes from marsh dweller stock, but you don’t know her name? That’s lizardshit. Now where the fuck is she?”

And something seemed to break in Hale. Maybe the talk of sorcery, maybe Janesh’s murder, or maybe he just wasn’t as tough as he used to be. He flinched back from the tip of the fang.

“Don’t . . . wait, listen to me. I can’t—”

Ringil tapped his eyelid with the knife. “Yeah, you can.”

“I don’t fucking know, all right.” Hale seemed to see an opening, to grab at it. The desperation in his voice scaled down a little. “Look. This marsh bitch you’re looking for, how long ago was she sold?”

“About a month.”

“A month?” A harsh, high-pitched laugh—the slaver’s bravado was seeping back in. “A fucking month? Are you insane? You got any idea how much cunt comes through this place every month? You think I got nothing better to stuff my head with than their fucking names? Forget it. Give it up, man.”

Ringil slammed his palm against Hale’s forehead for purchase, dragged the dragon knife tip down the man’s cheek, and tore the skin open to the bone. Blood spritzed everywhere. Hale shrieked and flailed. Ringil let him go, as if he were hot to the touch. He felt his own face twitch, felt a deep pounding start somewhere in his chest. The moment was an unbroken Yhelteth horse, bucking under him, taking him away, body and soul. With shaking hands, he fumbled in his pocket, found the charcoal sketch of Sherin and rolled it open in both hands, still holding the dragon knife at the top edge of the parchment like some ornate scroll end. He tried to get his breathing back.

“You are going to tell me,” he said tightly. “One way or the other. Now. Let’s try again. This girl. You bought her, right?”

Hale cupped a hand at his wounded cheek, staring.

“You know she’s barren.” Ringil was shouting now, somehow couldn’t stop himself. Could barely stop himself, in fact, from going back to work on Hale with the knife right now. “You know she’s got dweller blood. You give her to me, or so help me Hoiran, I’ll take your guts out hand-over-hand right here and now.”

“It’s not her.”

Ringil seized him by the throat. The sketch of Sherin fluttered away. “You fucking piece of shit, that’s it—”

“No, no.” Babbling, working weakly at Ringil’s grip with both hands, voice gone almost sleepy with terror. “Don’t, don’t—it’s not her.”

“What’s not her?”

“It’s not . . . I didn’t think you . . . not one girl—it’s all of them, fucking all of them he wants. He takes them all.”

Something portcullis-heavy seemed to clank down behind Ringil’s eyes. Abruptly the rage drained out of him and he felt the shiver of an apprehension he couldn’t name in its place. He let go of Hale’s throat.

“He? You’re talking about the dwenda?”

Hale nodded brokenly, still trying to edge away from Ringil along the curve of the wall. Ringil took a handful of silk robe and dragged him back. He leaned close.

“Talk to me.” Voice trembling from the sudden collapse of the fury. Blood singing in the depths of his hearing like the sea. “You want to live, you talk to me. You tell me about this dwenda.”

“They’ll kill me if I do.”

“And I will kill you if you don’t, right here and now. Make a choice, Terip. The dwenda. What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know.” The slave trader made a peculiarly morose gesture. “He talks to the cabal, not me. Word came down. Any marsh cunt, anything looks like it might have the blood, make sure the warlocks check it out. If it can’t breed, you set it aside. Count it as a tithe.”

“Right. And anyone comes asking after a woman like that, you show them the joyous longshank girls. Right?”

Hale stared downward, would not meet Ringil’s eye. The silence stretched. Blood dripped off the slaver’s face and into his soiled silk lap.

Eril came over and crouched at Ringil’s side. “We’re done here,” he murmured. “No one breathing left. You want me to do him, too?”

Ringil shook his head. “Get me that mace over there. We need a messenger. I don’t want to leave Findrich and the rest in any doubt about what happened here.” He raised his voice. “You hear that, Terip?”

The slave trader twitched at the sound of his name. He would not look up. Ringil leaned in and took Hale’s skull firmly in his two cupped hands. He tilted it with a lover’s care, until the slaver was forced to meet his eyes.

“You pay attention,” he said quietly. “You tell this to Findrich, or Snarl, or whoever it is you report to in this idiot cabal of yours. You tell them Ringil Eskiath wants his cousin Sherin back. Soon, and unhurt—it’s not negotiable. If I don’t get what I want, I’m coming back to Etterkal to ask again. Believe me, they don’t want that, and neither do you.”

Hale jerked his head out of Ringil’s hands. Outrage at the intimacy, or maybe just the knowledge he was not going to die, seemed to kindle a new fire in him.

“Fucking touch me,” he muttered. “Piece-of-shit queer.”

Silently, Eril handed Ringil the mace. Ringil smiled faintly, beat it very gently in the cup of his palm.

“You’re missing the point, Hale.”

“And you’re fucking insane.” The slave trader managed a shaky laugh. “You do know that, don’t you, Eskiath? Come in here talking like some relic out of the prewar, some gang tough from harbor end. Don’t you get it? Things aren’t like that anymore—we’re legal now. You can’t come around here acting like this. You can’t touch us.”

Ringil nodded. “Go on telling yourself that if it helps. Meantime, tell the others I want my cousin back. Sherin Herlirig Mernas. There’ll be records, and I’ll leave you the sketch. You make sure they get the message. Because if I do have to come back to Etterkal and ask again, I promise you it’ll make what happened tonight look like a minor toothache. I’ll kill you and your whole fucking family, and I’ll burn this place to the ground around the corpses. Then I’ll move on to Findrich, and Snarl, and anyone else who gets in my way. I’ll torch the whole fucking neighborhood if I have to. You think things changed after the war, fuckhead?” He reached out and chucked the slave trader hard under the chin. He hefted the mace. “Got news for you. Things just changed back.”