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“Makes sense,” agreed Halgan.
“No,” said Ringil.
Archeth sighed. “It does make sense, Gil. Look—”
“I said no. We aren’t going to do that.” Ringil stared around the table, met their eyes one at a time the way he had the captains at Gallows Gap. “We are going to stop them here.”
“Gil, I’ve got seventeen men, that’s including these three sitting here now. With you two and me, that’s twenty. The militia’s going to run at the first sign of trouble, you know that.”
“Like we’re pla
Darash bristled. “This is a tactical withdrawal we’re talking about, Dragonbane.”
“Is it?” Egar shook his head. “Well, you know, there’s a Skaranak saying for times like these: Ru
“Egar, it’s like I said to Gil.” Archeth spread her hands, gestured at the gathered company. “It’s twenty of us, against something we can’t quantify, something that scared my people four thousand years ago and still scares the Helmsmen now.”
The Majak shrugged. “Ghost stories. Come the crunch, it can’t be any scarier than a dragon, can it? Look, I killed two of these fucking dwenda things last night, and like I said they bleed and fall down just like men. And we all know how to kill men, don’t we?”
“Everyone’s afraid of what they don’t understand,” Ringil said quietly. “You want to remember that, Archidi. The dwenda are as uncertain of us as we are of them. They’ve got less reason, but they don’t know that, and anyway it’s not a rational thing. You know what Pelmarag said about your poor, scared shitless marine garrison at Khangset? Fucking humans everywhere, he said, ru
The others looked at him in silence. No one offered an answer.
“And you, Archeth? Look at you, look at what you represent to them. They have legends about the Black Folk, the way we do about them. Horror stories about how you destroyed their cities and drove them out into the gray places. They talk about you as if you were demons, the same way we used to talk about the Scaled Folk until we understood them. The same way your fucking imperial history books probably still talk about them. Look, when Seethlaw and I arrived in the swamp, there was a minor panic on because one of the dwenda scouts had heard some artifact scavengers talking about a black-ski
He rested his arms on the table, and his gaze hooded for a moment.
When he looked up again, Archeth caught his stare and a chill slithered between her shoulders and up her neck. It was, for just a moment, as if a stranger had climbed into Ringil Eskiath’s skin and stolen his eyes.
“When I trained at the Academy,” he said tonelessly, “they told me there is nothing in this world to fear more than a man who wants to kill you and knows how to do it. We make a stand here, and we can teach that truth to the dwenda. We can stop them, we can send them back to the gray places to think again about taking this world.”
More silence.
The moment tipped, was falling away, when Rakan cleared his throat.
“Why do you care?” he asked. “Five minutes ago you’re telling us how you don’t give a shit about the Empire or the League. Now suddenly you want to take a stand, make a difference. What’s that about?”
Ringil looked coldly at him.
“What’s it about, Faileh Rakan? It’s about the fucking war, that’s what it’s about. You’re right, I don’t give a shit about your Emperor and I care even less about the scum that run Trelayne and the League. But I won’t watch them go to war again. I’ve been to war, you know, to save civilization from the reptile hordes. I bled for it, I saw friends and other men die for it. And then I watched men like you piss it away again, the civilization we’d saved, in squabbles over a few hundred square miles of territory and what language the people get to speak there, what color their skin and hair is and what kind of religious horseshit they get crammed down their throats. I saw men here, right fucking here in E
Ringil’s eyes glittered as he stared the Throne Eternal captain down.
“I watched men who’d given everything come back home to Trelayne and see their women and children sold into slavery to pay debts they didn’t know they’d incurred because they’d been away fighting at the time. I saw those slaves shipped south to feed your fucking Empire’s brothels and factories and noble homes, and I saw other men who’d given nothing in the war get rich off that trade and the sacrifice of those men and women and children. And I will not watch it happen again.”
Abruptly, he was on his feet. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. His voice grew low and grating, almost another man’s altogether.
“Seethlaw doesn’t know the Empire, but I do. If we run south, and if we make it, then Jhiral will send his massed levies, and Seethlaw will bring on the dwenda, and behind him will come whatever cobbled-together private armies this fuckwit cabal has managed to assemble in the north, and it will start all over again. And I will not fucking permit that, not again. We stop them here. It ends here, and if we die here, ending it, I for one won’t be too fucking bothered. You will either stand with me, or all your talk of honor and duty and necessary death is a posturing courtier’s lie. We stop them here, together. If I see anyone try to leave between now and tonight, I will hamstring their horse and break their fucking legs and I will leave them out in the street for the dwenda. There will be no more fucking discussion, there will be no more talk of tactical withdrawal. We stop them here!”
He drew another hard breath. He stared around at them all. His voice dropped, grew suddenly quiet again, and matter-of-fact.
“We stop them here.”
He walked out. Slammed the door open, left it gaping on their silence. They heard his boots clatter down the stairs, sound fading.
Egar looked around the faces at the table and shrugged.
“I’m with the faggot,” he said.