The Cold Commands by Richard Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

he could derail the intentions of Nyanar and Hald if they chose to back her—an invigilator’s so-called supreme moral authority was actually a pretty tenuous thing when it butted up against the blunt pragmatism of the Empire’s career military officers—but he could certainly pour some cold ecclesiastical water on any enthusiasm she managed to generate in men who, to be honest, were already looking decidedly dubious about the turn events had taken.

    “We are a small force,” Hald pointed out. “And we don’t really know what it is we’re dealing with. Would it not make more sense to carry this news back to Yhelteth and organize a fully equipped expedition?”

    It would—except for the fact that, under current circumstances, Jhiral wasn’t about to spare such a fully equipped force for anything that didn’t involve securing the northern borders or holding the line against rioting religious idiots in Demlarashan. And while the young Emperor had no time for the warmed-over superstitions muttering out of the Citadel these days as dogma, he didn’t have much time for the Helmsmen, either. Certainly, he wouldn’t trust one any farther than you would a steppe nomad with your wife. And in this he was, for once, representative of the people he governed. An-Monal stood empty and decaying for a reason.

    So no, she fucking
couldn’t
go back to Jhiral with this one, and Hald probably knew it. She paced her words for conciliatory aplomb.

    “I do not believe, Commander, that this is an operation requiring much military force. Certainly nothing that your men could not handle. Manathan was vague, but—”

    “Vague indeed,” rumbled Nyanar. “A messenger in need of escort. Quote, unquote. That’s not much to go on.”

    “And not much out there.” The frigate’s second officer nodded soberlyat the map they’d spread across the table. Pinned out between a pair of heavy silver paperweights carved like slain dragons, the thick yellow parchment showed the full extent of the Y’hela River as it reached back from Yhelteth and the coast, past the huge bulk of the volcano where An-Monal was built, and then on into the interior. The land around it was largely arid and featureless. No cities marked. “If this is a messenger, then where’s he come from?”

    “Shaktur, perhaps?” Someone trying to be helpful.

    “They are already represented at court,” Hald said. “And anyway, if this messenger’s come all the way from the Great Lake, why does he suddenly need an escort now? We’re deep inside imperial territory here. No barbarian incursions, no banditry to speak of. Compared with the eastern marches, this is a pleasure park.”

    “From the south, then?”

    Nyanar shrugged. “Same applies. Anyone coming up from the desert has to pass through rougher terrain than this. They made it this far, they don’t need our help with the last leg.”

    “Unless they’re in trouble,” Hanesh Galat offered unexpectedly.

    Everyone looked at him. He blushed, seemingly as surprised as anyone else that he’d spoken up.

    “That is,” he pressed on, voice gaining a little force as he spoke. “Perhaps in coming this far, the messenger and his party have suffered privations that mean they can go no farther without our help. In which case, it would actually be our bound duty under the Revelation to bring aid to them.”

    Archeth shut her mouth. Cleared her throat.

    “Well, quite,” she said.

    An uncomfortable silence settled around the table. It was an instinctive reaction where matters of doctrine were concerned. No one who valued their position in Yhelteth society would ever willingly be seen to call the tenets of the Revelation into question, least of all where those tenets had just been subject to interpretation by an accredited invigilator. However …

    “My concern,” said Hald carefully, “is that this may be a trick. Maybe even an ambush of some kind. The Helmsman has said that this messenger