Justice

by Ian Irvine

  “He fights well enough,” said Rix. “I’ve slugged it out with the swine, twice.”

  “And the first time he only won by cheating,” she said hotly.

  “Since I cheated the second time, I can hardly complain.”

  He took a last look through his glasses—no change to Grandys’ inexorable movement north—and lowered them. “I’m doing the rounds one final time,” he said. “You’d better get going.”

  Glynnie’s head shot around. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. The ruins. Or Garramide…” He realised they’d never talked about what they would do next.

  “You’re expecting to die, aren’t you?”

  He couldn’t say it; not directly. “It doesn’t look good.”

  Her green eyes flashed. “Do you see me as a faithless friend? We promised to ride together, forever.”

  “I don’t see the point of you dying as well.”

  “Then you’re a stupid, stupid man!”

  He smiled. Her loyalty warmed him. “I dare say you’re right. Tobry was always saying that.” On that thought, his smile faded. “I’d better do the rounds before Grandys gets here.”

  At each of his thirty-one companies Rix swung down, shook hands with the captain and several of the soldiers, and reminded them that they were fighting for the very survival of their country. Judging by the amazement on the men’s faces no commander had ever spoken to them personally before. No wonder morale was so low.

  When he reached the third-last company, he discovered that the captain was Libbens and his lieutenants were Krebb and Grasbee.

  Rix froze, his hand outstretched. “You’ve risen swiftly in the ranks,” he said to Libbens.

  “Someone has to take over the leadership when you fail your men.”

  “You’re certainly an expert in that.”

  Libbens’ hand dropped to his sword, though he wasn’t fool enough to draw it. But if he got a chance, he would not hesitate to stab Rix in the back, even in battle. Rix realised that he had done the wrong thing, sending them to the ranks. He should have dismissed them from the army at once. It was too late now.

  “Under a mile,” called Glynnie.

  Rix mounted hastily and rode back to the mound. Grandys was so close that Rix could see his bloated face in the binoculars.

  “He looks different. As though he’s aged. And—angry…”

  “Perhaps it’s his battle face,” said Glynnie.

  “When he goes into battle he’s normally roaring with glee, as though he’s drunk on power. Or blood. This is… worrying.”

  “Why?”

  “Grandys fights even more ferociously when he’s in a bad mood.”

  Rix gave his final orders. His archers were to prepare to fire at his command. Once they had weakened Grandys’ leading ranks, Rix’s cavalry would try to break through the front lines and destroy their battle formation. Then the infantry would attack the breach. A simple plan, though he had little hope that it would work.

  The signalmen worked their flags. He stood up in his stirrups again. “Five hundred yards.”

  Then, “Four hundred. Hold fire.”

  His palms were so wet he could barely hold the reins. “Three hundred yards. Not yet, not yet.”

  Rix had his right arm upraised, the mailed glove glinting on his dead hand. He was about to signal his archers to fire when Grandys’ army veered off to the west, heading towards the foothills of the Crowbung Mountains.

  “What’s he doing?” said Jackery, whose squad was in the front lines, directly behind Rix.

  “I have no idea.”

  Was Grandys planning to come at them from the flank or the rear, or split his force and attack from two points at once? Rix shadowed Grandys’ army, which continued marching over the hill and out of sight.

  Rix rode back and ordered the scouts out. “The march-past was just a boast,” he said to Glynnie. “I can take you any time I want. He plans to break me before we even begin to fight.”

  “He won’t break you that easily,” she said loyally.

  As it was late in the afternoon, and they had been on alert all day, Rix stood the men down and ordered rations distributed. Before they had finished, Holm’s squad rode in. Holm dismissed his men and came across to Rix.

  “Rannilt went back to the ruins,” said Holm. “But I searched every bit of rubble, and every crevice big enough to hold a cat, and found no trace of her after that.”

  “She knows how to take care of herself,” said Rix. “She’ll come back; she’s nowhere else to go. I’ll ask Glynnie to take another look there this evening. What about Tali?”

  “We tracked Rufuss for a mile and a half. He held her in a thicket for a while… questioning her, I suppose. I hope it was just questioning…”

  Rix and Glynnie exchanged glances. “I know what his interrogations are like,” said Glynnie quietly. “I hope—”

  “Any signs of a struggle?” Rix said hastily, to avoid thinking about the unthinkable. “Any blood?”

  Holm shook his grey head.

  “His tracks continued south, in the direction of Red Mesa. We lost him after a while—the tracks simply vanished. We spent all yesterday afternoon looking for them, and hours more this morning. When we saw Grandys’ army on the march it seemed prudent to come back.”

  “You did the right thing,” said Rix. “I can’t afford to lose you as well.”

  “What are we going to do?” said Glynnie.

  “There’s nothing we can do until I find out where he’s holding Tali. And—”

  “If we do find out,” said Holm, “it’ll be because Grandys wants you to know. It’ll be the bait in his trap.”

  CHAPTER 10

  They saw no more of Grandys that day, though Rix’s scouts reported that he’d taken his army in a circle west then north, before heading south and making a slow turn between Rix’s army and Lyf’s, then disappearing into a forested valley.

  “Bastard!” Rix pounded his mailed fist into his left hand. “He’s thumbing his nose at us.”

  “Why doesn’t he attack?” said Holm.

  Rix ordered the camp to be set up, the troops stood down and the sentries doubled. By the time he’d done the rounds, had a few words with each of his captains except Libbens, and finished planning for the day ahead, it was midnight.

  He went to his bedroll exhausted but slept fitfully, every sound startling him awake. It was past 3 a.m. when he finally dropped into a deep sleep, only to jerk upright an hour later, gasping from another nightmare.

  “What’s the use?” he muttered, and hauled on his boots.

  There was a light in Holm’s tent. Rix put his head in. Holm was reading by the light of a hooded lantern. “You can’t sleep either?”

  “Not these past thirty-five years. Fancy a warming cup?”

  They strolled across to the camp kitchen, where the cooks were baking bread and preparing breakfast for five thousand. Glynnie was helping, looking as hollow-eyed as he was. She served them bread and cheese, huge mugs of tea sweetened with honey, and took one for herself.

  “What are you doing up at this time of day?” said Rix.

  She was always up working when Rix rose. Her eyes were puffy and she had been irritable lately. But then, given their probable fate, why wouldn’t she be?

  “You woke me,” she said. “Crying out in your sleep.”

  “You didn’t come in to find out what was the matter.”

  She flushed a pretty shade of pink. “It would hardly be good for morale.”

  “What?”

  “Me creeping into the commander’s tent at four in the morning, when the camp followers were sent packing days ago.”

  Holm chuckled.

  “I suppose not,” said Rix, not without a hint of regret.

  “What were you yelling about, anyway?”

  He looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. “I had another nightmare about the wyverin.”

  Holm looked up from his bread and cheese. “Wh
at wyverin?”

  “The one in the portrait I painted for Father’s Honouring,” said Rix. “You never saw it—”

  “I’ve heard about it.”

  “In my dreams, it’s always rising, preparing to attack.”

  “It seems to me,” Holm said carefully, “that you’ve got plenty of real problems to worry about—”

  “Before the war began I kept dreaming that I was being ordered to ‘go down and cut it out’,” Rix said irritably, “and it turned out that Lyf had put a secret compulsion on me to cut the master pearl out of Tali. And some of my other paintings have come true…”

  “Like that mural you painted in the crypt below Palace Ricinus—” began Glynnie.

  Rix cut her off with a hand slash. The mural had shown himself and Tali about to kill Tobry, and that was too raw to think about.

  “So when I start having nightmares about one of my greatest paintings,” said Rix, “I’ve got to take them seriously. Tobry said, ‘I’ve a feeling the portrait will be found one day, and then it’ll reveal its true divination.’ ”

  “What true divination?” said Glynnie.

  “I assume it has to do with the wyverin rising. Where do they live, Holm?”

  “There’s no they. Just it.”

  “What are you talking about? You mean there’s only one wyverin left?”

  “To the best of my knowledge there’s only ever been one.”

  “How can there only be one? That’s against the laws of nature.”

  Holm shrugged. “So are shifters.”

  “Where did it come from?” said Rix.

  “No one knows. It’s too long ago.”

  “Then how do you know it exists? It might just be a legend.”

  “To the enemy it’s the most powerful alchymical symbol of all—a symbol of regeneration and rebirth. That’s why Cython’s alchymists used a wyverin as their sign.”

  “To Hightspall it’s a sign of the end of the world. In my portrait, Father was symbolically slaying the enemies of House Ricinus. And Hightspall’s enemies.”

  “It didn’t work, though,” said Glynnie.

  “I always hated that portrait,” said Rix. “The wyverin was supposed to be dead but no matter how often I repainted it, it always looked as if it was secretly laughing at us…” He paused. “And there’s another thing bothering me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My last painting—the mural on the observatory wall at Garramide—changed by itself. Several times.”

  “What are you saying?” said Holm.

  “I’m wondering if the portrait has also changed.”

  “It was lost in Caulderon,” Glynnie said in a frosty voice. “It was probably destroyed.”

  “Tobry said Salyk hid it—before she was executed.”

  “He also said Lyf ordered her to burn it. Forget it, Rix, we’ve got far more pressing things to worry about.” She put her head in her hands.

  “What’s the matter?” said Holm, putting an arm around her.

  Rix realised, belatedly, that something had been bothering her for days. “Glynnie?”

  “I’ve also been having nightmares—about Benn.”

  Her ten-year-old brother, who had disappeared during Rix and Glynnie’s escape from Caulderon three months ago. Rix assumed he was dead, but Glynnie could not give up hope.

  “What kind of nightmares?” he said.

  “Benn’s always sick, or in pain,” said Glynnie. “And before our mother died, I promised I’d look after him. It’s my fault—”

  “If it’s anyone’s fault Benn was lost, it’s mine,” said Rix. “I was in charge when we escaped.”

  She waved his words away. “The only thing that matters is what I’m going to do.”

  “I don’t see there’s anything you can do.”

  She knotted up her fists as if she was going to punch him in the nose. “That’s been the excuse for doing nothing for three months.”

  “It’s not an excuse, it’s reality. Caulderon is a huge city—it’d take weeks to search it. But if we went back, as soon as we started asking questions we’d be arrested and put to death as spies.”

  “I know!” she yelled. “But Benn’s a little boy and I promised to look after him. And you promised to help me.”

  “ ‘When it’s over,’ I said,” said Rix, uncomfortably. He often remembered the promise, and felt guilty that he’d done nothing about it, but the enemy occupation of Caulderon was a barrier he did not know how to overcome.

  “You always put things off,” cried Glynnie. “You never keep your promises.”

  “That’s a bit harsh,” said Holm in his most reasonable voice. “What can Rix do—?”

  “I didn’t ask your opinion,” Glynnie snapped. She turned back to Rix. “Benn’s a little boy, lost in an enemy city with no money and no friends. He’s got no one to turn to, and I’ve got to help him.” She looked at him expectantly.

  “I’ll help you as soon as I can,” said Rix.

  Surely she could see that he wasn’t free to do anything right now except try to save his five thousand men?

  “I thought we were a team,” Glynnie snapped.

  “So did I.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Eight a.m. and a cold mist lay over the plain, reducing visibility to a couple of hundred yards. Grandys could be anywhere. His army could be creeping up on them right now.

  “What are the scouts telling us?” Rix said to Jackery, whom he had brought in as his adjutant. Being only a sergeant, Jackery did not have the rank for it, but he was a far better soldier than any of Rix’s officers.

  “They haven’t come back… yet,” said Jackery.

  The infinitesimal pause was telling. “What, none of them? They went out hours ago, for a quick recon.”

  “Eight went out. Two to each point of the compass. None have come back.”

  Rix looked all around but the mist defeated him; he could barely see past the edge of the ranks. A cold breeze stirred his cropped hair, sending shivers down the back of his collar.

  “Signallers!” he rapped. “Signal full alert.”

  The chief signaller waved to his trumpeter, who blew the warning signals. The signaller waved his flags. The troops moved into formation and the archers strung their bows.

  “I’ll bet he’s killed my scouts,” said Rix, pressing his knuckles into his throbbing belly. “He must be preparing to attack.”

  In this weather, the first sign of an attack would be when the enemy charged into view. And they would have only twenty seconds to prepare for it.

  The mist was thickening; visibility was now down to a hundred yards.

  “If he’s going to attack, now’s the time,” said Rix.

  Holm grunted. Visibility dropped to fifty yards, twenty, ten, then the mist began to thin again and, within minutes, it was gone. Rix and Jackery rode towards the highest point, a gentle mound only fifteen feet higher than the surrounding plain. A watery sun attempted to penetrate the rushing clouds, but failed. A flurry of rain struck his face. At the top of the mound Rix stared all around him.

  The Pale army was still camped where it had been for the past three days. The Cythonians, six formations of some eight thousand each, were also in their original position. They had been in practising drills and manoeuvres for days. He scanned the land all around. The plain was empty. A thin plume rose from the top of Red Mesa.

  “What the hell is that?” said Jackery, who was standing on his saddle to gain a few extra inches.

  “Where?” said Rix.

  Jackery pointed. “The ground south-east of Lake Bunt is all blotchy, yet I’d have sworn it was pancake-smooth yesterday.”

  “You’ve got good eyes, Sergeant.” Rix focused his field glasses on the patch of land half a mile south of the Cythonian army, between it and the Pale force. “Looks like someone has spread thousands of brown blankets across the land. I don’t—”

  “It’s a bloody army!” cried Jackery. “Grandys’ army.”


  “Signaller, sound the battle horns,” rapped Rix.

  As the horns were sounded, Grandys’ ten thousand men tossed their cloaks over their shoulders and rose into battle formation in one coordinated movement. They were only half a mile from Lyf’s army.

  “Surely Grandys wouldn’t be so stupid as to attack Lyf,” said Rix.

  Holm came running up onto the mound, with Glynnie close behind. “What is it?” she panted. “Are they attacking?”

  “Yes, but not us.”

  “They’re charging the Cythonians,” said Jackery in an awed voice. “From behind that small rise, and the Cythonians can’t see them from where they’re camped. Grandys must have killed their scouts as well.”

  Rix peered through his binoculars. “Grandys is out in front, on foot. He’s running straight towards the enemy. Rufuss and Syrten are there too, out very wide on either side.”

  “Any sign of Lirriam and Yulia?” said Glynnie.

  No one answered. Then two riders came galloping out of nowhere, one from the west and another from the east, careering down the narrowing gap between Grandys’ concealed, charging force and the oblivious Cythonians. The rider from the west was a woman, standing up in her stirrups with a metal rod or staff raised above her in both hands. Her shining hair streamed out behind her and her heavy bosom bounced with every stride.

  “That’s Lirriam,” said Glynnie. “No one else has hair like that.”

  “Or a bosom like that,” Rix said absently.

  Glynnie glared at him.

  “It just makes her easy to identify at a distance,” he said hastily, but compounded his error by glancing sideways at Glynnie’s modest chest.

  She made a noise like a kettle boiling over.

  “The other rider’s too far away to identify,” said Holm, “but you’d have to assume it’s Yulia. She’s also holding up a staff—or maybe a sceptre.”

  “Grandys’ men are coming over the rise. The Cythonians have seen them now,” said Rix. “They’re swinging round their bombast catapults—they’ve got at least thirty on this flank.”