Justice

by Ian Irvine

  This battle was to be man to man, Grandys against Lyf, and no one would be allowed to interfere.

  When Grandys was thirty yards away he sheathed Maloch. “You’ve just forfeited your right to an honourable death by sword, Lyf.”

  “Because I attacked a woman who’s killed hundreds of my people? Or because I used magery to break through your magical defences and render it a fair fight?”

  “Because I say so. I’m going to choke you to death with my bare hands.” Grandys held up his massive hands.

  Lyf nocked his second arrow, knowing that he would be lucky to succeed again, even with all the power of two ebony pearls to drive his arrow through Maloch’s defences to the target. Grandys was fast, he was expecting the arrow, and Maloch was forewarned.

  Lyf moved the arrowhead in a figure-eight that extended from Grandys’ head to his groin, so he would not know where the arrow was aimed until it was fired—by which time it would be too late. The arrow would reach its target more quickly than any man, even Grandys, could move.

  He made another figure-eight as Grandys slowly paced towards him, and began a third. Midway down the figure-eight, Lyf fired without warning.

  The heavy, barbed arrow went directly where it was aimed, at the centre of Grandys’ massive neck. It should have torn his throat open, but Maloch flicked across so fast that Lyf did not see the blade move. His arrow struck the titane blade full on and the hardened steel arrowhead shattered.

  A jagged piece of steel shot upwards and embedded itself in the underside of Grandys’ chin, but otherwise he was unharmed.

  “You’ve shot your last enchanted arrow,” he said, grinning wolfishly. Grandys pulled out the bloody fragment and held it up. “I’m going to shove this through your right eye, into the middle of your brain, and twist it round in one of your figure-eights.”

  Lyf cast the useless bow aside. He couldn’t run on crutches, he no longer had the power to fly, and he could not fight effectively. Though he wore a sword and carried a knife, neither were any use against a master like Grandys. He checked on his King’s Guard. The survivors were still fighting desperately to get to him, and gaining the advantage, but even if they broke through it would be too late.

  He had to fight for time. Lyf opened the pearl case and touched the two pearls, drawing all the power he could from them, though how could it be enough? He’d fought Grandys face to face at the peace conference, when Lyf had possessed four pearls and Grandys had none, and Grandys had still won.

  “Lord King!” cried Moley Gryle.

  She came running towards him through the bloody battlefield, her black hair flying in the wind. Grandys stopped to watch her, a faint smile on his bloated face.

  “Go away, Moley!” said Lyf.

  “I’ve thought of something.”

  “Go, and that’s an order.”

  She stopped. Despite that she had been running, her face was paler than usual. She took a long, choking breath, made a hand sign over her heart, then kept coming.

  “Two dismembered corpses for the price of one,” leered Grandys.

  Since Moley Gryle had twice disobeyed Lyf’s direct order, there was no point in repeating it, but his heart throbbed as if it was being torn open at the thought of her coming death. His most loyal servant, the closest person he had to a friend, was going to be hacked to pieces by Grandys, and it was unendurable.

  She reached his side, her breast heaving, then said under her breath, “Use a reversal spell, Lord King.”

  “What for?”

  “You can’t use magery directly against the enchanted sword, but a reversal spell might turn Maloch’s strength against itself.”

  “How would that help me?”

  “Tell Grandys that your spell gives Maloch the option to choose its true master. Then, if it doesn’t obey him, he’ll think you’ve succeeded. His confidence will be undermined and it might just give the King’s Guard time to get here.”

  Only eighteen of his Guard survived, battling a dozen of Grandys’ men. The chances were that none of his Guard would reach him, but it was worth the risk. He touched his ebony pearls, created a deception spell so Grandys would not recognise what he was doing, then wrapped it around the strongest reversal spell he could make.

  Lyf met Grandys’ eyes. “I’m giving Maloch the option to choose its true master, and it won’t be you.” He cast the spell.

  Grandys swung Maloch in a circle as if batting the spell aside, then pointed the sword at Lyf from thirty feet away. Lyf felt a massive blow to the chest, as if he’d been struck with a full barrel of ale. He went flying backwards, lost his grip on his crutches and hit the ground hard.

  Grandys sheathed Maloch, grinning. “I’m its true master all right.”

  He advanced, flexing those thick, stone-hard fingers. Moley Gryle ran backwards and threw herself onto Lyf, vainly trying to protect him with her own body.

  “This cannot be,” she wept.

  Lyf could see the desperation in her eyes as Grandys closed in. She slid her hands in between Lyf’s, closed them around the pearls and, to his utter astonishment, cast a perfect, disguised reversal spell.

  There came a crack-crack-crack and Grandys staggered backwards as though struck a blow the equal of his own. He cursed and went for Maloch but the sword would not come free of its sheath. Though he was not aware of it, the disguised spell had reversed the normal impetus of the sword to propel itself up into Grandys’ hand. The harder he tried to remove it, the more tightly Maloch’s own power held it in place.

  Lyf pushed Moley Gryle off, sat up and said, “The sword’s going to abandon you, Grandys, for the true master it’s been looking for all along.”

  Grandys gave another heave. “I’m—Maloch’s—true—master,” he said through bared teeth. The sword did not budge.

  “I think not,” said Lyf. “I think it’s Rixium, and one day soon, when he challenges you for the sword, it’ll betray you.”

  “You won’t be around to see it,” snarled Grandys. Taking hold of the hilt with both hands, he roared, “Obey your master!”

  The sword remained in the sheath as if it had been riveted into it.

  “Lord King!” a deep voice yelled. “Hold on. We’re coming!”

  Grandys looked around wildly. Lyf’s guards had cut down the last of Grandys’ men and now the King’s Guard came storming in, nine of them, determined to protect their king at any cost. Grandys let out a cry of fury then, realising that he was defenceless without Maloch, backed away. Five guards leapt at him. He turned and bolted, the sheath slapping his thigh as he went.

  The King’s Guard surrounded Lyf and helped him to his feet.

  “Surely that’s the first time Grandys has run from a battlefield,” Lyf said wearily. “It must be his bitterest moment.”

  “And your greatest,” said Captain Rembloy, his finest warrior, a huge rectangle of muscle. “Whatever that spell was, it was a mighty one, Lord King.”

  “Yes, it was,” said Lyf. “Would you step back please, guards?”

  They retreated; he turned to his deathly white adjutant and lowered his voice. “I’ve no idea how you did that, Moley, but you saved my life.” He paused. But it had to be said. “How long have you been secretly studying forbidden magery?”

  “I don’t know any magery,” she whispered.

  “Then how—?”

  “You know I’m an intuit. That’s how I came to be your adjutant at such a young age. I—I must have intuited how to do the spell…”

  He stared at her. The situation was unprecedented. “What am I to do with you, Moley?”

  She dropped to her knees and bent her slender neck.

  “Mag-magery is forbidden to us, Lord King. The penalty is death and there are no exceptions. There’s only one thing you can do.”

  CHAPTER 14

  It only took the Heroes ten minutes to pass over the rise and out of sight of Lyf and his King’s Guard, though by then Syrten was drenched in Yulia’s blood and she was failing so
rapidly that Lirriam began to fear that no healing magery could save her. The bloody arrow was still embedded in her belly, her chest hardly moved with each breath, and she was as pallid as a corpse. Even her opal fingernails had lost colour; they barely shimmered in the fleeting rays of sunlight.

  “Don’t leave me, Yulia,” said Syrten. “You—mustn’t—die. Lirriam, do something.”

  Lirriam took off her sweat-soaked cloak and laid it on the driest patch of ground she could find. It was still cold from last night’s frost; she could feel it through the fabric. She shed her green coat, laid it on the cloak and stood there, shivering, the keen wind raising goose pimples on her back and arms.

  “Rufuss, I need your cloak.”

  His face hardened as if the mere request was an outrage. Perhaps it was to him; almost everything angered Rufuss these days and he had only one remedy for it—blood. She met his eyes and refused to look away, and shortly he drew off his black cloak and threw it at her.

  “Stand guard,” said Lirriam.

  “I have my orders. I don’t need them repeated.” He stalked off.

  The cloak had the same charnel smell that Rufuss trailed after him, though Yulia was beyond sensing it. Nonetheless it had a virtue that Lirriam’s coat did not—it was huge as well as thick. She folded it three times, laid it on top of her coat to make the best bed she could, and gestured to Syrten.

  He set Yulia down on the cloak and knelt beside her, holding her slender hand in his golem hands and gazing at her with tragic, dog-like devotion. Lirriam had to get him out of the way.

  “If I’m to save her, I’ll need a fire and hot water, lots of it,” said Lirriam. “Right away.”

  He rose without a word, and ran. No one was better than Syrten at following orders—he lived to be told what to do. She did not check on Rufuss. Grandys had ordered him to guard them, and Rufuss would obey. Momentarily she wondered how Grandys’ confrontation with Lyf was going, then dismissed the thought to focus on the healing.

  Lirriam tucked the cloak around Yulia’s feet and legs to keep them warm, then cut away her coat and blouse to expose the entry wound, which was in the lower belly, midway between her navel and pubic bone. It was only an inch-long slit on the outside but her middle was swollen as if she had lost a lot of blood internally, and while the arrowhead remained inside her she would keep bleeding. Unfortunately enemy arrowheads were barbed to make them difficult to remove; pulling it out could cause more damage than its impact.

  With less dangerous wounds it was often simpler, though agonisingly painful, to push the arrowhead through and out the other side, but the arrowhead was in a dangerous place, packed with organs—bladder, womb, bowel—and blood vessels, and Yulia’s spine was behind it. Pushing it through wasn’t an option. Lirriam tugged on the arrowhead, very carefully. It moved towards her. Not embedded in bone, then, but dark blood ebbed from the wound and Yulia let out a little gasp.

  Syrten staggered up, carrying a small dead tree over his shoulder. He dropped it six feet away and stood there, staring at Yulia’s face and swaying on his broad, square feet.

  “No change,” Lirriam said without looking around. “Get a fire going, then fetch water.”

  Syrten smashed the tree’s trunk to pieces with his iron-hard fists and made a pile of kindling and larger pieces of wood. After crumbling a chunk of wood in his hands he rubbed it together so furiously that it smoked and burst into flame. Ignoring the flames licking around his opal-armoured fists, he thrust the burning material into the kindling. It blazed high. He turned and ran.

  Lirriam considered the arrow. Had Grandys been here he might have used brute-force magery to crush the barbs on the arrowhead flat, then draw it out through the entry wound. Lirriam could not do that kind of magery; hers relied on subtlety rather than strength. She could probably shatter the arrowhead, though how could she be certain of getting all the fragments out? If any piece remained in the wound it was unlikely to heal, and sooner or later infection would kill Yulia.

  Lirriam checked the vital signs again. Yulia was fading; if Lirriam did not act immediately it would be too late. There was only one thing to do.

  She took a firm hold of the arrow’s shaft and pulled. It moved a quarter of an inch before meeting resistance. She rotated the shaft each way until the resistance lessened and drew it out further. Resistance again. She was bound to be doing more damage to the organs the arrow had passed through but there was no alternative. Lirriam continued, rotating the shaft each time until she felt the least pressure on it, and finally it came free in a gush of blood.

  And Yulia’s heart stopped.

  Lirriam sensed it in a tiny part of herself that had been bonded to the other Heroes ever since they had sworn to each other on the First Fleet. She felt the emptiness of loss, too. Tossing the arrow aside, she put her bloody hands over Yulia’s breastbone, created a mental image of her heart and directed a sharp pulse of power through it. Yulia’s heart beat once, twice, and stopped. Lirriam sent another pulse. Yulia’s heart beat four times before stopping.

  Why? Presumably she was still bleeding internally and there was only one hope of stopping it—by sealing the wound from top to bottom. Lirriam put her hands around the arrow wound and pressed down firmly. Blood flowed from the slit, at least half a pint. She pressed again, expelling a little more blood, then opened the wound with two fingers and looked in. What she saw, even through all the blood and torn flesh, shocked her. With the index finger of her right hand, Lirriam directed a searing blast down through the wound as far as it extended.

  Yulia jerked convulsively and smoke wisped out of the arrow slit. Lirriam put her hands over Yulia’s heart and sent another pulse of power through it. After a second Yulia’s heart started—and this time it kept going, faint but steady. Lirriam moved her hands to Yulia’s belly and gently began the healing process.

  Thud, thud, thud. Syrten reappeared with two metal buckets of water. He put them on the fire.

  “She’s a little better,” said Lirriam before he could ask.

  Syrten crouched to take Yulia’s hand.

  “Go and stand guard,” said Lirriam.

  “She needs me,” Syrten said brokenly.

  Lirriam could not concentrate with his massive presence close by, radiating dumb terror.

  “Go now!”

  He went. She heated one of the buckets of water by thrusting her fist in and directing power through it, then washed her hands carefully. She tossed in the rags torn from Yulia’s blouse, heated the water to boiling, fished the rags out and cleaned the wound as best she could. As she finished, Grandys appeared from behind her. He stood at Yulia’s head, looking down. His mouth opened and closed. She saw a large squad of guards further out. He must have brought them with him.

  “I think she’s going to live,” said Lirriam. She took the second bucket, which was boiling, out of the fire. “Though at some cost. I had to cauterise the wound—I don’t know how much damage that’s done…”

  He did not speak. She looked up, sharply. His face, where the skin could be seen through his patchy opal armour, was a bilious yellow-green, a colour she had never seen on human flesh before—at least, not on live flesh. His eyes were staring, his breath ragged.

  “Grandys? Are you injured?”

  Icy sweat dripped off his chin. He jerked his head from side to side. “Lyf attacked Maloch. Said I wasn’t its true master. Said its true master was Rixium.”

  “That’s absurd,” said Lirriam. She had heard the true master mentioned before. Where, though?

  “Lyf cast some spell and—and—” It exploded out of Grandys: a cry of pain and rage and, to her astonishment, no little terror. “Maloch refused me!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It held itself in its sheath so tightly that no force or order of mine could budge it.”

  Lirriam put her hands on Yulia’s cold belly and directed a gentle, healing force through her. She was breathing steadily now; she would live.

  “Did you
kill Lyf?” she said.

  “No,” Grandys gasped.

  “He escaped?”

  “Not exactly.” He swayed on his feet, then scrubbed at his face with both hands. Small pieces of armour crumbled off.

  Lirriam had never seen Grandys so shaken. A part of her wanted to gloat that the bastard had finally been mastered; another part was shivering. What did it mean? Were the Five Heroes finished?

  “What happened?”

  “I was weaponless. And his King’s Guard were racing in, nine of them. I—I had to retreat.”

  “You ran?” she said incredulously. Lirriam struggled to contain herself. Was this her reward for Grandys breaking her jaw? “The invincible Axil Grandys,” she said mockingly, “the greatest warrior of all time, ran from the field of battle like a rank coward?”

  “I retreated,” he said stiffly, “the better to fight again.”

  He drew himself up to his full, intimidating height. The bilious colour was replaced by his customary tomato-red flush, and his eyes hardened. Clearly he regretted telling her, though there had been little choice—Lyf would spread the story soon enough. But she knew that, more than anything, Grandys regretted revealing his own deep-seated terror to her.

  “What if the true master is Rixium?” Lirriam said thoughtfully. “He’s only twenty and a brilliant warrior, strong and fast.”

  “I’m bigger and stronger,” snapped Grandys.

  “But you’re forty-four,” said Lirriam, “and you look older. You’re past your prime, Grandys, while he’s yet to reach his. What are you going to do?”

  “I can’t believe what Lyf said was true. He must have used some kind of deception…”

  “You sound doubtful.”

  “I’ll sort it out.”

  “Are you losing your nerve?”

  He bridled, as she had known he would. “Once I’ve taken the power of king-magery I’ll be able to command Maloch’s loyalty, and no power in the land can break such a command. Even if Rixium should be the true master, which I very much doubt, he won’t be able to do anything about it.”