Then, abruptly, he smiled, and it was the Ringil she remembered.
“Do you think they’ll be back?” she asked him.
He was quiet for a while, so quiet she thought he hadn’t heard. She was about to ask again when he spoke.
“I don’t know. Maybe we scared them away, yeah.”
“We can stop them,” she quoted his own words back at him. “We can send them back to the gray places to think again about taking this world.”
The smile came back, faint and crooked. “Yeah. What idiot said that? Sounds kind of pompous, doesn’t it?”
“Even idiots get it right sometimes.”
“Yeah.” But she could see that somewhere inside he didn’t really believe it enough to dwell on. He turned instead and gestured at the great black buried spike of the Kiriath weapon. “Anyway, look at that fucking thing. It murdered an entire city, and turned what was left into swamp. If that won’t scare you off, what will?”
“Scares me,” she agreed.
It did, but not for the reasons she let him assume.
When they finally found the place—and even with the scavenger guides and Ringil’s help, it took longer than you’d expect—most of the humans in the party could not see the black iron spike any better than the Aldrain bridge that led to it. She didn’t know whether that was the dwenda’s doing, some cloaking glamour to keep the scavengers away, or if it was something her own people had done when they built and unleashed the weapon in the first place. She saw it clearly enough, and so did Ringil. Some others could manage it for a few seconds at a time, if they stayed and stared and squinted for long enough, which most did not care to do. The majority claimed to see only an impenetrable mass of dead mangrove, a tangle of poisonous-colored vegetation, or simply an empty space that every instinct screamed at them not to approach.
“This is an evil place,” she heard one grizzled levy corporal mutter.
That was one way to look at it, and another helpful corollary was that the evil came from the dwenda presence here, either the once-long-ago mythical city or the more recent incursion. But Archeth could not help, could not stop herself from wondering, if that sensation of evil came from the weapon itself; if there was not some smoldering remnant of its awful power still buried at the tip and if that was what came rising from the surrounding swamp like some ancient phantom in black rotting robes.
She had for so long been confident of Kiriath civilization, of a moral superiority that lifted her and her whole people above the brutal morass of the human world. Now she thought back to some of Grashgal’s and her father’s more brooding moments, their less intelligible meditations on the past and the essence of who they were, and she wondered if they had lived with this knowledge, of weapons to murder entire cities, and had hidden it from her, out of shame.
These fucking humans, Archidi, Grashgal had told her, and shuddered. If we stay, they’re going to drag us into every squalid fucking skirmish and border dispute their short-term greed and fear can invent. They’re going to turn us into something we never used to be.
But what if, Archidi, that wasn’t the truth of the revulsion in his voice at all. What if the truth of Grashgal’s fears was that these fucking humans are going to turn us back into something we haven’t been for a long, long time.
She didn’t want to think about it. She buried it in the day-to-day tasks of the clear-up, the creation of the new garrisons at Beksanara and Pranderghal and half a dozen other strategically placed villages around the swamp. If the dwenda were coming back, it was her job to ensure that the Empire was equipped to repel them with massive force. For the moment, nothing else need matter.
But for all that, the knowledge would not go away.
Even here and now, in the sun and the garden at Pranderghal, the great black iron spike stayed buried in the back of her mind just the way it was buried in the swamp, and she knew she’d never get rid of it. Knew, abruptly, looking at Ringil’s slowly healing face and the stitched wound that would inevitably leave a scar, that he was not the only one the dwenda encounter had damaged for good.
He caught her watching him and gave her a grin, one of the old ones.
“Want to finish your beer?” he asked her. “Come out and wave goodbye?”
SO THEY ALL WENT OUT TO THE START OF THE ROAD TO SAY FAREWELL. Archeth had gifted Ringil and Sherin both with good Yhelteth levy mounts—and she thought she’d seen the faintest of sparks kindle in Sherin’s eyes when the woman glimpsed her horse, and understood that it was hers to keep. It was a tiny increment, a trickling spring-melt droplet of good feeling inside Archeth, but she supposed it would have to do.
“What are you going to do when you get back?” she asked Ringil as they stood beside the horses.
He frowned. “Well, Ishil owes me some money. I guess that might be first port of call, once I’ve seen Sherin here safely home.”
“And after that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve done what was asked of me, there wasn’t a plan after that. And to be honest, I doubt I’m very popular in Trelayne right now. I’ve dishonored myself and the Eskiath name by not showing up to a duel. I’ve crippled a member in good standing of the Etterkal slave traders’ association, and killed most of his men. Fucked up the cabal’s plans for a new war. I have a feeling it might be time to leave town again, soon as I’m paid.”
Egar grinned and poked him in the chest. “Hey, there’s always Yhelteth. They won’t give a shit what you’ve done, long as you can swing a blade.”
“There is always that,” Ringil said gravely.
He took his arm out of the sling to get on his horse, winced a little as he swung up. In the saddle, he flexed the arm again a couple of times and grimaced, but he didn’t put the sling back on.
“See you again, then,” he said. “Someday.”
“Someday,” Archeth echoed. “Well, you know where I’ll be.”
“And me,” the Majak said. “Don’t leave it too long, though. We’re not all semi-immortal half-breeds around here.”
Laughter, again, in the warm sun. They made the clasp all around, and then Ringil nudged his horse into motion and Sherin, wan and quiet, fell in alongside. Archeth and Egar stood together and watched them ride away. Fifty yards out, Ringil raised a hand straight into the air for them, but that was all. He didn’t look back.
Another five minutes and watching the tiny figures recede started to seem faintly ridiculous. Egar nudged her with an elbow.
“C’mon, I’ll buy you another beer. We can watch them disappear over the hill from the garden.”
Archeth stirred, as if from a doze. “What? Okay, sure. Yeah.”
And then, as they wandered back toward the inn, “So, did I hear right? You’re going to come back to Yhelteth with me?”
The Majak shrugged elaborately.
“Been thinking about it, yeah. Like Gil said, I’m not exactly popular back home right now. And I could use some sun. And from what you said about the Citadel, you could use some armed protection about the house.”
“Nah.” She shook her head. “I’m a fucking hero now. No way they can touch me after this.”
“Yeah, not publicly, maybe.”
“Okay, okay. You’re invited. Stay as long as you want.”
“Thanks.” Egar hesitated, cleared his throat. “You uh, you ever run into Imrana these days?”
Archeth grinned. “Yeah, sure. Seen her around the court, on and off. Why?”
“Dunno, just wondered. I suppose she’s married by now.”
“A couple of times at least,” Archeth agreed. “But I don’t think she lets it get in the way of anything that matters to her.”
“Really?”
“Really.”