by Ian Irvine
It was moving sluggishly, as if the stone-forming spell was not completely undone. Nish did the only thing he could think of. He dived between its spread legs, hit the ground hard and scrabbled out of the way.
The creature gave a drawn-out roar, tried to turn in that narrow space, and stuck. Nish came to his feet, looking back to gauge his peril. The lyrinx was caught at the hips. Kaising one mighty fist — slow, slow — it smote the pinnacle to its left. The limestone snapped off halfway. Nish fled.
The crashing continued behind him, which at least told Him where his enemy was. It was more unnerving when it stopped, for then there was only the pounding of his feet and ibe thumping in his chest. Until the footsteps began.
The lyrinx was after him. In the open it could run much faster than he could but, within this maze of pointed rocks and bladed pinnacles, Nish might just have the advantage. He could hear it crashing against the stone, snapping off the fragile tips. Its armour gave it an advantage there.
He turned left, found he was in a dead end and had to backtrack. Panic began to seize him. This wasn't the way he'd come earlier, and the low moon only illuminated the tips of the pinnacles. If he wasn't out of here before it set, he'd never find the way.
Nish went right but that led to another dead end. Letting out an inarticulate cry, he retraced his steps, then edged down a corridor of stone so narrow that he had to turn sideways to negotiate it. With luck it would hold the enemy back.
It did not. Fully flesh again, his hunter rose up on its wings and flapped across the spires directly towards him. Where could he go? A long straight lane, too wide to hide in, ran ahead and behind. Nish stumbled down it, gasping for breath. Spotting a crevice between a pair of low spires, he thrust himself into it.
The lyrinx turned this way and that, trying to see where he had gone. It climbed, flapping noisily, then used the Art to hover for a few seconds. Its head turned as it picked up the sound of his breathing. The creature glided towards him then dropped, attempting to trap him in his hiding place, to crush him. Nish threw himself deeper into the crack. The lyrinx came down hard into the darkness. Rock cracked all around Nish and he was sure he was going to die.
The lyrinx gave a muffled Ugh! and began to flail at the rock, hurling shards in all directions. Wetness flicked against Nish's cheek. The claws of one thrashing foot gouged scars across the soft limestone. He protected his eyes with his hands. The great feet gained a purchase and the thighs flexed, hurling the beast back into the air.
For a second it was outlined against the moon, then it plummeted into the next row of pinnacles, smashing them to fragments as its frantic wings beat back and forth. A spike of stone hung from the low part of its belly where it had impaled itself. The blade had gone in between the cracks in its armour.
Nish couldn't tell if it was badly wounded, and didn't wait to find out. He bolted along the corridor in front of him until he could no longer hear it. Then — crack, crack — ahead of him, and now to even' side, more lyrinx were freeing themselves. Had some master mancer among them decreed that it was time for the ambush, or were they coming to get him? He staggered on. There was not for to go now — he was almost through. Ahead, a last row of pinnacles guarded the rim of the escarpment like a row of sentries.
They were cracking open as he went by them, the lyrinx moving sluggishly as they strained against the fading spell. One threw out a claw and almost hooked it through his collar. A great fist, still partly stone-formed and as hard as rock, caught Nish in the chest, knocking him off his feet. He struck the ground on his back, the breath knocked out of him, and waited for his doom.
The lyrinx was slow to move. The blow must have been accidental. He did not give it the chance for another, but scuttled by it on hands and knees, came to his feet and ran.
Nish sprinted across the platform of white limestone and reached the cliff edge. Where was the precipitous way down? He ran back and forth. The cracking grew louder. Ah, there! As he gained the path, Nish looked back.
The moon, just tipping the western horizon, shone across the field of stone, illuminating a hundred thousand spikes, spires, pinnacles and blades of limestone. It was beautiful, for the tips and edges were as translucent as milk. In many of them he could see the bones of the stone-formed creatures.
A single clap of thunder reverberated across the valley, and before his eyes the spires began to burst open in waves that spread from one end of the pinnacle field to the other. Lyrinx thrust their heads high, moving as sluggishly as chickens just hatched from eggs. The moonlight caught their eyes, dozens of them, hundreds, thousands upon thousands, and still they emerged, stone into flesh.
The first lyrinx lifted, flapping ponderously, evidently still weighed down by the spell. Nish felt an internal sucking, which his charged senses knew was due to the creatures draw-on the field to keep them aloft. Within a minute, dozens were lurching into the sky.
'Soldiers, wake! Nish roared, bolting down the perilous goat track, screaming so loudly that it tore at the flesh of his throat. He gave no further thought to Jal-Nish. 'Wake, wake!
Ambush! The enemy are upon us. The lyrinx are coming down from the heights. Soldiers, wake. Xabbier, Xabbier!'
Nish never knew how he got down, and later, looking at the cliff in daylight, could not believe that he had. The previous time it had taken nearly an hour; this journey he completed in a scant ten minutes, leaping off boulders, skidding down loose gravel in miniature landslides, scarcely looking where he put his feet, giving his fate up to instinct. And, perhaps because his senses had been so enhanced by the tears, he had made it unscathed, apart from a badly wrenched knee where a stone rolled underfoot when he was nearly down.
He was still roaring hysterically when he reached the bottom. The camp was alive, the highly disciplined soldiers running to their formations, the watch-fires stirred to blazing brilliance. The great war machine had been alerted just in time and was grinding into battle position.
'Soldiers! Wake!' Nish kept shouting long after there was any necessity for it. 'Xabbier! Lieutenant Xabbier!'
A soldier caught him by the arm. 'Come this way please, surr.'
He ran, pulling Nish after him. Nish's mind was ablaze with that image of the enemy streaming into the sky. He could still see the skeletons through their flesh.
The soldier stopped by a blazing pyre. Xabbier stood there, tall and broad as a door, rapping out orders. He sent his troops off and turned to Nish.
'Cryl-Nish, that was you brought the alarm?'
'Yes,' Nish said hoarsely. It felt as though he'd screamed his throat out.
Xabbier took Nish's two hands in his, squeezing hard. 'Never was a warning more welcome.' He looked up at the sky, now full of wheeling lyrinx, touched by the setting moon.
Nish tried to estimate the number. More than ten thousand, surely, and still they cracked out of the pinnacles. There could be twenty thousand of them, even thirty. Not all would be fliers, of course, but those who weren't could come down the cliffs more quickly than he had Cold fear dripped down Xish's back. And if there were more on the other side of the valley …
'We'll talk afterwards,' said Xabbier. 'If there is one! Are you armed, Cryl-Nish?'
'No, I didn't think to bring a weapon. Stupid, isn't it?'
Xabbier sprang through the rear hatch of a clanker and tossed out a metal helm, a set of chest and back armour made of hardened leather, and a long dagger in a sheath. Nish buckled the helm under his chin — it fitted well enough. Taking off the forgotten skin of beer, he put the armour over his shoulders, settling it in place. It was made for a bigger man than he, but protected his body, shoulders and upper arms without encumbering him too greatly.
The lieutenant passed Nish a short, dark sword. 'This has a virtue set on the blade and may even penetrate the'armour of a lyrinx, if you strike a lucky blow.'
Nish buckled it on. 'I'm not much of a hand with a sword, Xabbier, but I can shoot a crossbow well enough.'
'I've none in my squ
ad, unfortunately. Ready?'
Nish took a hefty swig from the skin of beer. It no longer tasted sour; it was just what the situation required. He downed half and held it out to Xabbier.
The lieutenant shook his head, then said, 'Why not? It'll probably be my last.' He squeezed a stream into his mouth, grimacing at the taste. 'Ugh! I hope that's not my last memory of beer. Bring it. Fighting lyrinx is thirsty work.' He looked up at the sky. 'How many are they?'
'Ten thousand, at least,' Nish replied. The wheeling creatures now darkened the sky. 'Maybe twenty or thirty, counting the ones climbing down the cliffs.'
'So many? Why didn't they attack head-on?'
'Perhaps they're afraid Jal-Nish has a secret weapon. Or they've some weakness we don't know about.'
'I hope so. Come this way.'
xabbier's position was high enough for the fires to outline the shape of the surrounding valley and reflect off the screams. The camp lay at the upper part of the valley, which was a tilted bowl about a league across, mostly pasture land with patches of trees here and there. A pair of streams divided the width of the valley into thirds, though the camp lay in the southern third. Each stream was ten or fifteen paces across and, though not deep, was fast enough to cause trouble for a man weighed down with armour and weapons. The jagged escarpments to east, south and north formed the steep sides of the bowl, the tilted western side the valley entrance. The rocky neck midway down the valley could not be seen in the dark. They might escape that way if the enemy failed to defend it, though that seemed unlikely.
The lieutenant led Nish to the troop he commanded, called out his name and gave final orders. The soldiers assumed defensive positions behind their clankers.
'Who the blazes picked this place?' said Nish. 'If the lyrirrx come up the valley, as surely they must, we'll be trapped.'
'Your father chose it,' said Xabbier, 'against the advice of his generals.' 'Why?'
'He failed to communicate his strategy to his officers.' 'Where's my father's tent?' Nish had no idea where Xabbier had taken him on his previous visit.
'Further up, near the northern rim,' Xabbier pointed. 'Keep well away from there, and should we win—'
'Don't worry. I'll be out of here so fast that you'll see nothing but smoke.'
'Better keep away from the command tents, too. They're below your father's tent.'
'I forgot to mention,' said Nish, 'that Troist is coming around to hold the mouth of the valley open.'
'Who the hell is Troist?' Xabbier moved his sword in and out of its sheath.
'General Troist. He's come down from Almadin with an army of thirteen thousand soldiers and nine hundred clankers.'
Xabbier threw his arms around Nish and crushed him to his chest. 'Thirteen thousand, you say?'
'Yes,' said Nish. 'I served under him earlier in the year. He's a good man and a fine leader, though he's not fought a battle like this one.'
'None of us have, Cryl-Nish. How did he come to be nearby?' 'Flydd and I brought him here.'
'The scrutator is with him? Even better news. We must talk more of this later.' Xabbier called his messengers, a pair of tall soldiers who looked like twins. 'Run to the command tents. General Troist of Almadin is coming to our relief with thirteen thousand, and nine hundred clankers. He'll try to hold the valley neck. How long will they be, Cryl-Nish?'
'They were going to do a forced march from their camp, south of here. They left an hour ago, maybe more. How long would that take?'
'The country's rough that way,' said Xabbier. 'They'll be lucky to reach the neck of Gumby Marth before noon. I hope we can hold on that long.'
The messengers ran off, separately. Xabbier, one eye to the sky, marshalled the hundred and twenty soldiers under his command into a ring around the fires. All across the battlefield, other shadows were doing the same.
'It's a tactic we devised for night fighting,' Troist explained. The enemy see better in the dark than we do, but they don't like bright light. This way we have a tiny advantage.’
But we also have our backs to the fire, Nish thought, and they're much bigger than us. If we're forced to retreat, there's nowhere to go.
The last rays of the moon failed. The wheeling lyrinx dis-appeared against the black sky. 'That's what they're waiting for,' muttered Xabbier. 'It won't be long now.'
'Jal-Nish will have his commanders spread out through the |camp, of course,' said Nish, 'so the enemy can't attack them all at the same time.'
Xabbier frowned. That's normal practice these days, but Scrutator Jal-Nish has gone back to the old way — a central command area, heavily defended by troops and clankers. He doesn't like to delegate.'
'But surely …' Nish began. 'What use are such defences when the enemy can just drop out of the darkness on top of them? The officers will be slaughtered in the first attack.'
'The generals tried to tell him that, but he insisted his secret plan would overcome the enemy, and deprive them of their best and strongest.'
'Father loves to be mysterious,' said Nish. 'He has to prove that he's cleverer than everyone else. What can his plan be?'
I don't know, Cryl-Nish, but I pray it's a good one.'
Something to do with the tears, no doubt. Jal-Nish must be planning a great display of the Secret Art, to win the battle and prove himself to the scrutators at the same time. Nish's father was a competent mancer rather than a brilliant one but, with the tears enhancing his alchymy, who knew what he might be capable of?
It was another step in his campaign to gain admittance to the Council of Scrutators. Once there, he'd try to oust Ghorr and impose his twisted will on the world.
Thirty
'They're coming!' someone bellowed.
Nish scrambled up onto the shooter's platform of the nearest clanker, trying to get a picture of what was happening.
There were lyrinx everywhere, falling from the sky so thickly that they could not be counted. They seemed to come out of nowhere, and thousands more were swarming down the escarpments.
And, Nish saw, they fell most thickly further up the valley, above the officers' tents. It was the tactic they'd used in the battle for Nilkerrand, wiping out the commanding officers in a few minutes, then routing the leaderless army. Troist had gained his command that way.
There's too many, Nish thought despairingly. Unless Jal-Nish used his magic immediately, this was going to be a massacre. Another wedge of lyrinx were falling further down the valley, to bottle them in. They would try to drive them into the fires. Any who escaped would be forced into the streams or up against the escarpments. When Troist finally arrived, he would enter a valley of the dead, and the enemy would finish the story with him. Better that he hadn't brought Troist here at all, than bring him into this.
'Don't lose hope, Cryl-Nish,' said Xabbier as if reading his thoughts. 'We're a tough force—'
Suddenly the lyrinx were everywhere, landing in the darkness all around them, bounding down the lower slopes of the escarpments and running up the valley from the west.
Nish drew his sword, shrugged the armour into place and prepared to fight and die. The beasts roared their drawn-out battle howls, each with a vibrating whip crack at the end, then charged.
There came a shriek from further up the slope. Nish's hair bristled, for no human throat could have made that sound, nor lyrinx either. The enemy froze where they stood, then every head turned towards the source, as if on wires.
Nish stood up on his toes on the platform, but was not high enough to see. The sound went on and on. It was coming from the direction of the command tents, and his father's tent, where the lyrinx clustered as thickly as bats in a fruit tree.
A violet light appeared in the centre of the command area and began to swell like a balloon. The lyrinx surrounding it rose in the air and hovered, as if resting on the surface of a transparent dome. The violet surface developed spines like those of a sea urchin, and they slowly extended out and up, pushed by a metallic silver sphere whose surface roiled like the sur
face of the tears.
Nish felt the heat-cold again, and again that charging up of his unknown inner senses. Here and there, a violet spine touched one of the hovering lyrinx, which fell from the sky in flames. They did not seem able to move out of the way.
So Jal-Nish did have a secret weapon — his Art was bolstered with the tears. Nish prayed he would succeed; and prayed he would fail, too. His father was an evil man and the more power he gained, the worse he would become. But if he failed, it must be the end for everyone here.
It didn't look as though he was going to fail. More lyrinx fell, impaled on the thousands of violet spines that now bristled upwards and outwards like spikes on a helmet. The enemy seemed to be drawn to the spines like moths to a lantern.
That drawn-out, inhuman shriek came again. The roiling dome swelled prodigiously and more spines formed, until they might have numbered as many as all the lyrinx on the battlefield.
'I don't know how he's doing it,' said Xabbier, 'but he's luring them in.'
'He's going to beat them.' Nish said to the shooter, a rangy, balding redhead who was standing up behind his javelard, gaping.
All at once the shriek was cut off. The dome set and the violet needles froze. A great black Iyrinx spiralled down into the firelight above the command tents and hovered there, its head thrust down, wings beating slowly.
'What's going on?' Xabbier called from below. 'I'm not sure,' Nish yelled back. 'Got a spyglass?' Xabbier snapped an order and shortly a stubby brass ocular was passed up. Climbing to the top of the javelard frame, Nish focussed the glass.
'It's an enormous, black, golden-crested lyrinx, hovering above the dome just out of javelard range. It must be a mancer of surpassing power — I can feel it drawing down the field from here.'
'What's it up to? Quick, Nish! These lyrinx aren't going to stay quiet for long.'
