But there were others.
The weak and the stupid, in their dozens, huddled now in among their fellows, afraid of the cold night beyond the firelight and anything in it. Afraid almost as much of anything new that might unseat a vision hemmed in by vast empty skies and the unchanging steppe horizon. Egar saw their faces, knew them for the ones who looked away as he met their eyes.
And behind these faces, feeding and playing on these fears, stood the greedy and the entrenched, whose hatred of change welled up from the more prosaic concern that it might upset the old order, and so their own privileged position within the clan. Those for whom the Dragonbane’s return as a hero had been hailed not with joy but with cool mistrust and a sharp look to herd ownership and hierarchy. Those who—it shamed him to admit the fact—included a couple of his own brothers at least.
For all these people, Poltar the shaman and his stubborn beliefs represented everything that the Majak stood for, and everything that might be lost if the balance shifted. They would not stand with Egar; at best they might only stand by. And others might well do something worse.
Clouds shredded across the band as if frayed by its edge; silver light spilled on the plain to the south. Egar cast a seasoned commander’s eye across the simmering uncertainty he saw in his people, and called it.
“If Urann the Gray has something to say to me,” he said loudly, “he can come here and say it personally. He doesn’t need a broken-down buzzard too idle to earn his meat like a man to speak for him. Here I am, Poltar.” He held his arms wide. “Call him. Call on Urann. If I have committed sacrilege, let him open the sky and strike me down here and now. And if he doesn’t, well, then I guess we’ll know that you do not have his ear, won’t we?”
There were gusts of indrawn breath, but it was the sound of spectators at street circus, not outraged faith. And the shaman was glaring poisonously at him, but he didn’t open his mouth. Egar masked a savage joy.
Got you, you motherfucker!
Poltar was trapped. He knew as well as Egar that the Dwellers were not given to manifesting themselves much these days. Some said it was because they were elsewhere, others because they had ceased to exist, and still others because they never had existed. The true reasons were, as Ringil would have put it, hugely fucking immaterial. If Poltar called on Urann, nothing would happen and he’d be made out a fool, not to mention powerless. And Egar’s borderline flirtation with sacrilege could then be safely construed by the other men of the clan as warrior honor in the face of a mangy old broken-down charlatan.
“Well, Shaman?”
Poltar drew his moth-eaten wolf-skin robe about him and cast a look around at the crowd.
“The south has addled this one’s brains,” he spat. “Mark me, he will bring the ruin of the Gray One upon you all.”
“Get to your yurt, Poltar.” The boredom in Egar’s voice was layered on but entirely manufactured. “And see if you can’t find your misplaced manners there. Because the next time I see you lay hands on a grieving parent like that, I’ll slit your fucking throat and hang you out for the buzzards. You.” His arm shot out to indicate the oldest acolyte. “You’ve got something to say?”
The acolyte looked back at him, face rancid with hatred, biting back the words that were so obviously swilling around in his mouth. Then Poltar leaned across, muttered something to him, and he subsided. The shaman threw one more haughty look back at the Dragonbane, then pushed his way rudely into the crowd and left, followed by his four companions. People turned to stare after them.
“Help for the family of this fallen warrior,” called Egar, and gazes swiveled back to where Narma still crouched weeping over her dead son. Women went to her, laying on soft hands and words. The Dragonbane nodded at Marnak, and the grizzled captain crossed to his side.
“That was well done,” Marnak murmured. “But who’s going to officiate at the pyre if the shaman stays sulking in his yurt?”
Egar shrugged. “If needs must, we’ll send to the Ishlinak for a spellsinger. They owe me favors in Ishlin-ichan. Meantime, you keep an eye on that particular yurt. If he so much as lights a pipe in there, I want to know about it.”
Marnak nodded and slipped away, leaving the Dragonbane to brood on what might be coming. Of one thing he was certain.
This was far from over.
CHAPTER 7
Ringil went home, bad-tempered and grit-eyed with the krin.
The Glades presented an accustomed predawn palette for his mood—low-lying river mist snagged through the tortured black silhouettes of the mangroves, high mansion windows like the lights of ships moored or run aground. The cloud-smudged arching smear of the band, nighttime glimmer gone dull and used with the approach of the day. The pale, unreal gleaming of the paved carriageway beneath his feet, and others like it snaking away through the trees. All the worn old images. He followed the path home with a sleepwalker’s assurance, decade-old memories overlaid with the last few days of his return. Nothing much had changed on this side of the river—excepting of course Grace-of-Heaven’s polished insinuation into the neighborhood—and this might easily have been any given morning of his misspent youth.
Bar this bloody great sword you’ve got slung on your back, that is, Gil. And the belly you’ve grown.
The Ravensfriend wasn’t a heavy weapon for its size—part of the joy of Kiriath blades was the light and supple alloys their smiths had preferred to work in—but this morning it hung like the stump of some ship’s mast he’d been lashed to in a storm, and was now forced to drag on his back one sodden step at a time up onto a beach of doubtful respite. Lot of things have changed since you went away, Gil. He felt washed up with the drug and Grace’s caving in. He felt empty. The things he’d once clung to were gone, his shipmates were taken by the storm, and he already knew the natives around here weren’t friendly.
Someone behind you.
He drifted to a slow halt, neck prickling with the knowledge.
Someone moving, scuffing softly among the trees, off to the left of the path. Maybe more than one. He grunted and flexed the fingers of his right hand. Called out in the damp, still air, “I’m not in the fucking mood for this.”
And knew it for a lie. His blood went shivering along his veins, his heart was abruptly stuffed full with the sharp, joyous quickening of it. He’d love to kill something right now.
Movement again, whoever it was hadn’t scared off. Ringil whirled, hand up and reaching past his head for the Ravensfriend’s jutting pommel. The sword rasped at his ear as he drew, nine inches of the murderous alloy dragging up from the battle scabbard and over his shoulder before the rest of the clasp-lipped sheath on his back split apart along the side, just as it was made to. The rest of the blade rang clear, widthways. It made a cold, clean sound in the predawn air. His left hand joined his right on the long, worn hilt. The scabbard fell back emptied, swung a little on its ties; Ringil came to rest on the turn.
It was a neat trick, all Kiriath elegance and an unlooked-for turn of speed that had cheated unwary attackers more times than he could easily recall. All part of the Ravensfriend mystique, the package he’d bought into when Grashgal gifted him with the weapon. Better yet, it put him directly into a side-on, overhead guard, the bluish alloy blade up there for all to see and know for what it was. Their move—up to them to decide if they really did want to take on the owner of a Kiriath weapon after all. There’d been more than a handful of backings-down in the last ten years when that blue glinting edge came out. Ringil faced back along the path, hoping wolfishly that this wouldn’t be one of them.