The Cold Commands

The Cold Commands is a fantasy novel by the British writer Richard K. Morgan, published in 2011.

Ringil is a hero by reputation and a liability to everyone who knows him, and the novel is comfortable with both facts: the man who killed a dwenda lord in the earlier book has become a fugitive in his own country, dependent on the goodwill of a half-kiriath woman who has her own trouble with the court she serves. Archeth Indamaninarmal is an advisor to Emperor Jhiral Khimran II, which means she sees the schemes of the Empire from the inside while being permanently an outsider in it, and her house guest Egar the Dragonbane, a former steppe nomad who works as her bodyguard, has been given a plot of his own. Morgan writes the politics of a decaying empire with the same attention he gives to fighting, and the trilogy's argument is that the people who saved the world once are unlikely to be rewarded for it. The book follows The Steel Remains and was continued by The Dark Defiles.