Read Online The Dark Defiles by Richard K. Morgan - Free Book Online Page A

street, it was still raining and the daylight had all but given up. A damp gray gloom hung over everything. Ornley had no formal street lighting, even here on League street, one of the town’s main thoroughfares. There was a local ordinance commanding residents to burn candles in their windows during the hours of darkness, but around here this kind of murk apparently didn’t count as dark, so—no candles yet. Egar and the doctor picked their way with care over rain-slick cobbles they could barely make out, and presently the street began to slope downward toward the harbor.
    “What will you do if Shendanak does not waken in three days?” Barla asked him when they’d negotiated a hairpin curve that took them out of sight of the tavern.
    “I’ll think of something.”
    “That’s very reassuring.”
    Egar shrugged. “Look on the bright side. Maybe he’ll be up and about day after tomorrow. I didn’t hit him that hard in the head.”
    “No, but you did it repeatedly. Which makes it far more like …”
    Volume soaking out of Barla’s voice like piss into sand. Then silence. Egar glanced over at him curiously.
    Saw where the doctor was staring and followed his gaze, down League street to the next bend, over the low roofs of houses to the harbor waters beyond.
    And the big, lean League man-of-war anchored there.
    H E SPRINTED THE REST OF THE SLOPE DOWNWARD, LEAVING B ARLA PUFF ing in his wake. Skidded on greasy cobbles, stayed upright with the long habit of battlefield charges in his past. Around the final curve on League street, where it splayed wide to meet the wharf, down the broad cobbled mound it made, and so out onto the waterfront proper. He let his pace bleed down to a slow jog and came to a halt at the edge of the wharf, staring out at the new arrival.
    Trying to calculate exactly how much bad news this might be.
    The League ship was a little smaller than Pride of Yhelteth, but with that sole exception, she dominated the harbor. Her bulk dwarfed the few local fishing boats tied up along the southern quay, her lines rebuked the sturdy merchantman build of Pride and Sea Eagle’s Daughter, and she somehow gave the impression of having shunted the moored imperial vessels aside to make room for herself in the center of the little bay. Shielded archer’s platforms armored her railings fore and aft. The cumbersome snout of a war-fire tube poked over her bows like some huge sleeping serpent’s head.
    She was anchored squarely across the harbor exit.
    Her colors flapped wetly at stern and mainmast—he’d recognized them from that first glimpse up on the hill, had seen plenty like them on the ships in Lanatray harbor a few weeks back, while the expedition restocked provisions and waited on the diplomatic niceties. The eleven-star-and-band combination of the League topped the mainmast, above a bigger flag denoting city of origin—in this case some piece of nonsense involving a gate, a river, sacks of silver, and a couple of large buzzards; Trelayne itself, he recalled. The League flag was repeated at the stern, and dark reddish pennants flew off both secondary masts. He’d seen those before, too; couldn’t remember where. Couldn’t remember what they meant.
    Footfalls behind him—he glanced round, saw Barla crossing the deserted wharf at a limping trot, lugging his bag from one hand to the other as he came.
    “Sacred Mother of Revelation,” he panted. “What’s that doing here?”
    Egar shook his head. “I’d love to believe it’s a standard patrol. But from what we heard in Lanatray, I don’t think they bother with that sort of thing up here. Fits with what Gil told me, too—no one in the League gives a shit about these islands.”
    “Apparently they do now.”
    “Yeah.”
    Movement on Pride of Yhelteth ’s main deck. Egar squinted in the failing light, made it for Mahmal Shanta, up out of his cabin for the first time in days, huddled in a heavy blanket and trailed by solicitous slaves. He stood