The Dark Defiles Read Online Free PDF Page A

we came down out of the mountains at Gallows Gap, I had this little half-pint guy marching at my side. League volunteer, never knew his name. But we talked some, the way you do. He told me he came from the Hironish isles, cursed the day he ever left. You want to know why?”
    Shendanak sighed. “I guess you’re going to tell me.”
    “He left the islands, married a League woman, and made a home in Rajal. When the Scaled Folk came, he saw his wife and kids roasted and eaten. Only made it out himself because the roasting pit collapsed in on itself that night and he got buried in the ash. You want to try and imagine that for a moment? Lying there choking in hot ash, in silence, surrounded by the picked bones of your family, until the lizards fuck off to dig another pit? He burned his bonds off in the embers—I saw the scarring on his arms—then he crawled a quarter of a mile along Rajal beach through the battle dead to get away. Are you listening to me, you brigand fuckwit?”
    Shendanak’s gaze kindled, but he never moved from the chair. Horse thief, bandit, and cutthroat in his youth, he’d likely still be handy in a scrap, despite his advancing years and the prodigious belly he’d grown. But they both knew how it’d come out if he and the Dragonbane clashed. He made a pained face, sat back, and folded his arms.
    “Yes, Dragonbane, I’m listening to you.”
    “At Gallows Gap, that same little guy saved my life. He took down a pair of reptile peons that got the jump on me. Lost his ax to the first one; he split its skull and while it was thrashing about dying, it tore the haft right out of his grip. So he took the other one down with his bare hands. He died with his arm stuffed down its throat to block the bite. Tore out its tongue before he bled out. Am I getting through to you at all?”
    “He was from here. Tough little motherfucker. Yeah, I get it.”
    “Yeah. If you or Tand stir these people up, you’re going to have a local peasant uprising on your hands. We won’t cope with that; we’re not an army of occupation. In fact”—Egar’s lip curled—“we’re not an army of any kind. And we are a long way from home.”
    “We have the marines, and the Throne Eternal.”
    “Oh, don’t be a fucking idiot. Even with Tand’s mercenaries and your thug cousins, we have a fighting muster under two hundred men. That’s not even garrison strength for a town this size. These people know the countryside, they know the in-shore waters. They’ll melt out of Ornley and the hamlets, they’ll disappear, and then start picking us off at their leisure. We’ll be forced back to the ships—if some fisher crew doesn’t manage to sneak in and burn those to the waterline as well—and we haven’t even provisioned for the trip back yet. It’s better than three weeks south to Gergis, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to do it on skewered rat and rainwater.”
    “Well, now.” Shendanak made a show of examining his nails—it was pure court performance, something he must have picked up on the long climb to wealth and power back in Yhelteth. It made Egar want to crush his skull. “Getting a bit precious about our campaigning in our old age, aren’t we? Tell me, did you really kill that dragon back in the war? I mean, it’s just—you don’t talk much like a spit-blood-and-die dragon-slayer.”
    Egar bared his teeth in a rictus grin. “You want a spanking, Klarn, right in front of your men? I’ll be happy to oblige. Just keep riding me.”
    Again, the glint of suppressed rage in Shendanak’s eye. His jaw set, his voice came out soft and silky.
    “Don’t get carried away here, Dragonbane. You’re not your faggot friend, you know. And he’s not here to back you up, either.”
    Egar swore later, if it hadn’t been for that last comment, he would have let it slide.

CHAPTER 3
    “ ou are not being reasonable, daughter of Flaradnam.”
    Archeth grunted, gritted her teeth, and hauled on the rope