Free The Cold Commands (v5.0) (html) by Richard K Morgan - [A Land Fit for Heroes 02] Page B

into your thick steppe nomad skull when you got to training with him was that
down here there is no Skaranak, Voronak, Ishlinak, you’re all just ignorant mothers’ sons from the same featureless shit-hole stretch of buffalo pasture, and your gracious, imperial employers have exactly the same amount of contempt for you all. And you know what, they’re
right,
so leave your tribal horseshit at the door and let’s get on with turning you into soldiers, shall we? Stop fucking nodding, you, that’s what we around here call a rhetorical question
.

    Darhan broke the clinch—Egar let him—and clapped a violent arm around the Dragonbane’s shoulders.

    “It’s fucking great to see you, Eg. Just come and have a look at these idiots we’re working on, see if it brings back memories.”

    IT DID.

    Across the training yard in the strengthening morning light, the paired young men went back and forth with yells and the volleyed knock of staff on staff. Darhan stood by the south wall with a mug of hot stock cupped in his injured hand and gestured at his charges.

    “ ’Bout a month,” he said reflectively. “I reckon that’s the most I’ve got before the palace comes calling and packs them all off to Demlarashan. They’re emptying the barracks as fast as I can train them up. You think these ones’ll be ready?”

    Egar squatted with his back to the wall, his own mug drained and set aside. He watched the exercise with narrowed eyes. In among the lines, someone fumbled and dropped his staff. His opponent stumbled into him as he bent to pick it up. Another pair of trainees stopped what they were doing to laugh at the mess. A trainer rushed in, bawling.

    Egar rubbed at his newly shaven chin.

    “Is that what we around here call a rhetorical question?”

    Darhan sipped from his mug and grimaced. “I know. Thing is, regional command’s saying it’s not going to take crack troops to break this thing—not that Jhiral’s got any to spare with all that swamp demon shitgoing on up north—so they’ll take whatever we’re turning out here, whatever they can get at short notice. They’re saying it’s just the usual desert moron suicide brigade, but—”

    “But a lot of them.”

    “Right.” Darhan stared at the trainee lines as they formed up again. “Remember the reptile peons?”

    Egar chuckled, but the sound was rusty in his throat. “Trying to forget.”

    “Yeah, well.”

    “Ah, come on, they had fangs and claws and a tail lash they could break your fucking leg with. Not going to be the same thing at all, is it?”

    “Let’s hope not.” Darhan downed his stock, threw out the dregs on the training yard dirt. “So anyway, what you doing up here, Eg? You looking for a job or something?”

    “No, mate. Just some information.”

    “About?”

    Egar squinted into the brightening light across the yard. Now, with the sun up and another human being around to broach the subject to, his newfound sense of purpose suddenly seemed a bit foolish.

    “You heard anything about any of the brothers down here taking the Citadel’s coin? Hiring on officially, I mean. Livery, the whole works.”

    “Citadel?”
Darhan blinked. “Don’t think so. Reckon I’d remember pretty well, too. Not like the holy robe mob were ever very keen on our kind. Where’d you hear this anyway?”

    Egar gestured vaguely. “Around. You know how it is. Just thought I’d chase it up, see if …” He gestured vaguely.

    “If what?” Darhan was, he knew, looking down at him quizzically. “What’s your end of this, Eg? Why should you give a shit?”

    Why indeed?

    Come on, Dragonbane. Make some sense a fellow steppe thug can follow
.

    “Thing is, Darh …” Slow and measured. Laying it out in words for the first time since he’d had the idea, and pleased it didn’t sound quite as half-arsed as he’d expected. “I’ve got this bodyguard gig right now. High ranker at court, and she’s had some scrap with the robes.