The Cold Commands

CHAPTER 5

The hunt went on into the night.

At first, it was raw panic and confusion, yelling and the excited bark of hounds still chained up back at the camp. Crash of fleeing bodies through the underbrush around them as those who’d gotten free trampled and flogged their way up the wooded slope. Fading glint of firelight behind them amid the thickening picket of the trees. Gerin seared his throat with panting, felt himself stung bloody across the face with the backswing of unseen lowered branches as he came through them in the blacksmith’s wake. He blundered on, terror of the hounds driving him like a lash.

He’d seen them on the march: great gray shaggy-coated wolf-killers with long heads and mouths that seemed to grin sideways at the slaves as they paced restlessly about on their leashes. The fear they aroused was primal. Once, out on the marsh as a child, he’d seen a man brought down by dogs like these, a convict of marsh dweller family escaped from one of the prison hulks in the estuary and floundering desperately homeward in some blind hope of sanctuary. Gerin had been little more than four or five years old at the time, and the noises the man made as the hounds pulled him down stuck in his head at a depth reserved for horrors more basic than he had language for.

But the memory brought with it conscious thought.

He snatched at the blacksmith’s shirt, dragged on his staggering bulk, caught another branch in the face for his trouble. He spat out pine needles, wiped his running nose, and groped after words.

“Wait—stop, stop!”

Panting to a halt, the two of them, in some dry ravine declivity fenced around with saplings and thick-foliaged undergrowth. They stood and propped each other up, grabbing after breath. Off to the right, someone crashed on through the trees, too separated from them to make out in the dense brush and moving away, galloping, tramping sounds receding. The cool, resin-smelling quiet of the pines came and wrapped them. Abruptly, the knotted mess of stew in Gerin’s stomach kicked, crammed hotly up into his throat. He doubled over and vomited. The blacksmith just stared.

“Fuck you stop me for?” Though he didn’t move.

“No good.” Gerin still bent over, hands on knees, coughing and retching. Threads of snot and drool, silver in the faint light, voice a thin thread itself. “Running, like this. No good. Got hounds.”

“I fucking hear the hounds, kid. What you think we’re running for?”

Gerin shook his lowered head, still breathing harshly. “No, listen. We’ve got to find—” He spat, gestured. “—water, a stream or something. Got to lose the scent.”

The blacksmith shook his head. “What is this? Now you’re an expert on being chased by dogs as well?”

“Yeah.” Gerin got shakily back upright. “I am. Been losing the Trelayne Watch and their mutts out on the marsh most of my life. I’m telling you. We have got to find some water.”

The blacksmith snorted, muttered something inaudible. But when Gerin cast about, picked a direction, and started forcing his way through the tangled foliage again, the man followed him, wordless. Perhaps it was credit given for the way the foam-and-fit trick had worked, perhaps just a more general faith. There was a wealth of lore talked about marsh dwellers in the city: That they could scent water on the breeze and lead you to it was a common enough conceit. Gerin took a fresh grip on his fear and tried to believe the myth as much as his city-bred companion seemed to.

Surreptitiously, he squeezed blood from a small cut on his face, mingled it with spit on the ball of his thumb, and blew softly on the resulting mix. Under his breath, he muttered the swift prayer to Dakovash he had learned at his mother’s knee:

… salt lord, master of shadow and shifting winds, out of the wind’s cold quarter and the west, hear me now and put forth your crooked hand for me…

And maybe it was simply the custom of childhood, the simpler sense of self it brought around, or the fleeting memory of a mother’s warmth, but now the undergrowth seemed to give a little more easily before him, the branches and brambles to scrape his abraded skin a little less, and the ground underfoot to firm up and guide his steps.

The forest opened and breathed them in.

THEY STUMBLED ON THE STREAM ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, FAINT CHORTLE of running water and a ribbon of broken, bandlit gleam in the base of a shallow valley. The sounds of pursuit seemed to have ebbed away to the north, and they paused on the saddle of land overlooking the little river. Time to peer and grin at each other before they went loping down between the trees, breathing more easily now for the more considered paths they’d taken. It was a little like waking from a nightmare. Heads less stuffed with fear, room for thoughts other than just staying ahead of the hounds, room enough that Gerin was starting to feel the raw weals the march in manacles had left on his ankles and wrists. The feverish tremor in his limbs, the parched rasp in his throat as he breathed.

They hit the water’s edge, dropped to their knees, and drank in sucking gulps.

“You knew this was going to be here?” the blacksmith asked him when he finally came up for air. “You could really smell it like you said?”

Gerin shook his head, because in all honesty he wasn’t sure anymore. Something had been driving him, that was all he knew. He dragged muddied hands through his sopping hair and over his face. Winced as the water stung his manacle sores.

“We need to get off the bank,” he said. “Stay in the center and head downstream or up. Dogs can’t follow that.”

“How long for? This water’s fucking freezing.”

“A while.” Gerin already wading in, up to his calves. “They’ll run the dogs along both banks looking for scent, but it takes time to do that. And they have to pick a direction. That gives us a coin-spin chance either way. And I know some other tricks when we get farther along. Now come on.”

The blacksmith grumbled to his feet. He joined Gerin in the middle of the stream, picking his way awkwardly over the stones on the bottom.

“All right, marsh boy,” he said. “You’ve done pretty well by us so far, I guess. Can’t hurt to see what else you—”

He choked to a halt. His expression splintered in shards of disbelief and pain. He made a helpless noise, lifted one hand toward Gerin, then back to his own chest where the iron head of a crossbow bolt stood an impossible six inches clear of his suddenly bloodied jerkin.

“Stand where you are!”

The cry came from the downstream bend of the river. Gerin’s head jerked to the sound. Bandlight showed him three march-masters floundering upstream in thigh-deep water near the far bank, a pair of dogs held slavering at the short end of chain leashes. Black and silver, the bulk of the men and the dogs, the splash of water around them. The man with the crossbow stood apart, had his discharged weapon down, braced on a flattish boulder at the bank, cranking up awkwardly for another shot.

Blood bubbled out of the blacksmith’s mouth. His eyes locked on Gerin’s.

“Better run,” he said throatily, and fell facedown in the water.

“Stand, slave, or we shoot you down!”

Gerin saw the blood smoke muddily out from under the blacksmith’s floating body, the soaked folds of the man’s jerkin and the crossbow bolt sprouting stiffly from his back. He saw, down at the river bend, the crossbowman still struggling with his weapon. He felt the moment tilt under him like a skiff’s deck in choppy water. He whirled and fled.

Upstream, six frantic, plunging steps and out, onto boulders at the bank, wet print slap across stone on hands and slipping feet, scrabbling up to the yielding earthen forest slope above and into the trees. Behind and below, he heard the dogs let slip, the sound of the men cursing and splashing. He tore off time for one final panic-eyed look over his shoulder, saw the blacksmith’s spread-eagled floating form cradled in the river’s arms, the dogs surfing about in the water near the boulders, barking furiously up at him, but seemingly unable to climb out.

He fell back into the grip of the nightmare.

The slope was steep; he kept having to drop to hands and knees to stop himself from tumbling back down. The resin scent of the pines clogged in his throat as he scrambled upward. The march-masters were big, burly men for the most part; it came with the territory of what they did for a living. Amid the trees, he could probably stay ahead of them. But the dogs…

Only a matter of minutes before they found a way up.

The climb began to shallow out, the trees thinned. The slope became a broad, saddle-backed ridge, edged with eroded stone bluffs on the river side. A cool wind hooted off over the rocks, cut through his soaked clothing, chilled him to the bone. Gerin got properly to his feet, sagged into a staggering run along the top.

Something dark stood waiting in his path.

Gerin’s heart was already thundering in his chest, but it seemed to ice over as he saw the gathered black form ahead. For a single second it seemed he was looking at something blown together out of twisted remnants of bark and trees limbs charred to death. The figure was a sharp aberration in the smooth, bandlit open ground on the ridgetop. He slammed to an involuntary halt at the sight, and it was only then he understood he was looking at a man, a tall, cloak-wrapped warrior with the jagged rise of a broadsword pommel over his left shoulder, the stab of the scabbard out from his right-hand flank, the arms folded.

Overseer!

But it was not, and somehow, somewhere in his panicking brain, he knew that much already. He stared up into a gaunt face that might have been handsome once but was now clamp-mouthed and hollow-eyed and scrawled along one side of the jaw with a thin, snaking scar like the ones they gave to disobedient whores in the city. He met a gaze that offered no more passion than a fisherman watching his motionless line.

“Dakovash?” he husked. “Is it you?”

The figure stirred, gave him a curious, sidelong look.

“No,” it said, in a surprisingly gentle voice. “And I haven’t seen him up here, either. Were you expecting the Dark Court?”

“I…” Gerin shivered. A sneeze came and racked him, loud and sudden as surf bursting on the rocks at Melchiar Point. “I prayed for the Salt Lord’s intercession.”

The figure wiped fastidiously at its doublet with one hand. “Are you from the marshes, then?”

“Y-yes. I was—”

Behind him, the scrabbling of claws over rock and the full-throated whoop of the dogs as they saw their quarry. Gerin thrashed soggily around, saw the first of the pack hammering toward him, all teeth and grayish bunch-muscled sprint, felt a scream clog up in his throat—

At his shoulder, he heard the swordsman say something in a language he didn’t know. Saw, out of the corner of his eye, an arm lifted, a brief sign sketched on the air.

The hound yelped.

Skidded to a snarling halt a dozen yards off. It snapped and snarled again, but would not come closer. The swordsman with the scarred face took a step forward, made another sign, and spoke again. A finger wagged, gestured at the edge of the nearest bluff. The dog got up and limped hurriedly to the edge, looked down, looked back once at the cloaked figure, and then threw itself off into space. A long howl floated up, a crash of tree boughs breaking, and then silence.

The rest of the pack howled in unison with their fallen leader, but would not come ahead. They slunk back and forth on their bellies at the fringe of the trees until the swordsman took two more impatient steps toward them, spoke and signed again, and then they crawled whimpering away into the sanctuary of the forest, and fled.

“Now,” the newcomer said in his gentle voice. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me your name, lad?”

“Gerin,” Gerin managed, still shivering. “They call me Trickfinger, it’s because when I was still a boy I could—”

The figure twisted about, gestured impatiently. “Yes, I’m sure it’s a fascinating tale. You can tell me all about it later. You’re from the slave caravan?”

“Yes. We escaped. But they’re right behind m—”

“Don’t concern yourself with that. Your luck has just changed, Gerin Trickfinger. I am—”

The pain came and hit him a colossal blow in the side. Gerin blinked. For a moment, he thought the swordsman had stabbed him. He stumbled and sat down clumsily on the blufftop, legs out like a child’s. He looked down dully, and saw the quarrel sticking out under his ribs, the blood leaking out around it. He looked up at his new companion, met his eyes in wondering fear and something that felt ridiculously like embarrassment. He felt treacle-slow and stupid. He made a hesitant smile.

“Shit, they—”

And now, in the eyes that had been as dead as stones, he saw something flare up. The figure made a tight, harsh, sobbing sound and swung around, one pale hand already up and tugging at the broadsword pommel. The blade came up and around and out—some trick scabbard, Gerin thought muzzily, must be open all along one side—and it glimmered in the bandlight.

Two of the march-masters had made it to the top. The crossbowman was already cranking for his next shot; the other held his sword two-handed, covering his comrade, breathing heavily but ready to scrap.

“Escaped slave,” he panted. “No need for you to involve yourself, good sir.”

“But I am involved,” said Gerin’s new companion in an awful, shaking voice. “I’m a son of the free cities, and so is this boy. And this doesn’t look very much like freedom to me.”

The man with the crossbow finished his crank, crammed a new bolt into the channel, and got his weapon lifted with obvious relief.

“I won’t babble politics with you, sir,” the other march-master said, more steadily now. “I don’t make the laws, I’m just doing my job. Now if you don’t want the same breakfast as this slave just got, you’ll let us collect the scalp and be on our way. Just be a good citizen and stand back.”

“But you have no weapons to make me.”

It was like a thunderbolt cracking across the space between them. Gerin, watching it all unravel, saw the crossbowman drop his charged bow as if it were hot, gawp down at his empty, open hands in disbelief. The other march-master held up his sword in a loose-fingered grip and the weight of the weapon tugged it away, let it tumble to the stony ground.

The cloaked figure reached them in less time than it took Gerin to draw his next agonized breath. It was as if the space around the newcomer had folded up like a picture on a page, had let him step across the crumpled edges between. The blued-steel blade cut about, chopped the crossbowman’s belly open from the side, licked back up to take the other man through the throat. Blood splashed black in the bandlight, and the two men went down in choking, screaming ruin.

Movement in the shadows beneath the trees. The third march-master came flogging to the top of the slope, short-sword in hand. His voice was hoarse with effort, and furious.

“Guys, what the fuck did you do to my hounds? They’ve gone completely—”

He jarred to a halt, words as well as steps, as he saw the bodies of his comrades and what stood over them. His voice went up a full octave, came out shrill.

“Who the fuck are—”

“You’re just in time,” the figure rasped, and the blue blade flashed. The third march-master had time to blink at the glimmer of metallic light in his face, then he saw his view tip and tumble and spin, pine trees and cloud and patches of bandlit sky rushing by—he had that single moment to think he’d been pushed over the edge of the bluff—and then a painful thud, vision unaccountably dimming out now, taste of dirt in his gaping mouth, and his eyes came to rest on a final, closing glimpse of something he might or might not have had time to recognize as his own collapsing, blood-gouting headless corpse…

The swordsman watched the body fall, then turned back to Gerin, who still sat splay-legged on the ground, head drooping forward now. The cloaked figure crouched in front of the boy, touched the wound gently around the quarrel, and grimaced. He put down his blade and lifted the boy’s sagging chin. Gerin looked back at him blankly for a moment; then a child-like smile touched the corners of his bloodied mouth.

“Doesn’t hurt anymore,” he mumbled. “Did we get away?”

The figure cleared its throat. “After a fashion, yes. Yes, you did.”

“That’s good then.”

They looked at each other for a little longer. Blood ran out of one smiling corner of Gerin’s mouth. The figure saw it and let go of his chin, put one hand cupped against the boy’s lacerated, muddy cheek instead.

“Is there anything I can do for you, lad?”

“Out on the marsh,” the boy said indistinctly. “Salt in the wind…”

“Yeah?”

“Mother says…”

“Yes… Gerin, right? What does she say, Gerin?”

“…says don’t… get too close to…”

The swordsman put a single knee to the ground. Waited. After a moment, tears ran out of the boy’s eyes and blotched on his lap.

“Fuck them,” he wept. “Fuck them all.”

He did not lift his head again.

Ringil Eskiath kept his hand cupped at Gerin’s cheek until he was quite sure the boy was dead. Then he picked up his sword, and got quietly to his feet. He looked down at the small body for a while, and then away across the top of the rock bluffs, toward the distant, dotted fires of the slave caravan’s camp.

“That I think I can do for you,” he said meditatively.