Rise of the TaiGethen e-2

by James Barclay

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jeral, anxiety in his voice now. ‘And can you fix it?’

  ‘You’d better hope so,’ said Hynd. ‘Lie down.’

  Hynd poured everything he had into the casting while trying to ignore the knowledge of his own situation. The shape came together in a fractured form but it would be all right. All Hynd could think to do was smother the disease in a thick blanket of mana then blow it clear out of Jeral’s body. He was sure there was a more delicate, targeted spell that would do the job but he didn’t have time for complexity. Hit it now and hit it hard.

  Hynd suppressed the worry that grew with the discomfort inside him and poured his casting into Jeral. He felt the soldier relax muscles he hadn’t even known were tensed and a sigh of relief burst from his lips. It quickly turned into a stream of expletives.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Hynd, falling to the side, gasping in air and trying to still his tired body. ‘Fixed you, didn’t I?’

  ‘Fucking pissed myself,’ said Jeral.

  ‘Oh yeah, probably should have warned you about that.’

  Jeral pushed himself on to his back and sat up, his expression turning from ire to concern at the sight of Hynd.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Not sure, really. Some pain, much fatigue. That’s spell casting for you.’

  Hynd could feel the pain edging deeper. The disease was gaining ground rapidly. It would be affecting hundreds in the camp: almost all of the First Company and their Sharps.

  ‘Sleep later. Fix yourself first.’

  ‘Sorry, Captain, that was a one-cast-only job. You’re fixed so you can organise help for as many of the First as you can from Loreb. I’ll try and hang on while you do.’

  Jeral shook his head, stood up and dragged Hynd to his feet.

  ‘Fuck that,’ he said.

  Jeral dragged Hynd through the camp. Hynd didn’t feel he was in immediate danger of death but he knew he didn’t have the stamina to heal himself. He’d have thanked Jeral but the captain was too busy roaring for help.

  ‘You! Get over here.’ A young mage walked over. ‘Don’t they teach you to run in Triverne? Move! Name.’

  ‘Selyak, Captain Jeral.’

  ‘Selyak, get casting. Hynd, tell him what to do.’

  Hynd did and the mage, tired from a night’s vomiting and the fear of death at the hands of the TaiGethen, made a reasonable fist of the construct. The mana smothered his lower back, snuffing out the disease and flushing his kidneys clean. He voided his bladder, as Jeral had before him, but the warmth of urine across his crotch and down his leg felt like salvation.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hynd. ‘Now, how are you feeling? Can you do the same thing for yourself?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Something doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘Get yourself to another mage. The whole of First Company is in danger because the poison is still active. Go. Don’t die of it.’

  Selyak smiled. ‘I’m honoured by your care.’

  ‘Care has nothing to do with it, youngster,’ said Jeral. ‘He just doesn’t want to feel guilty over your sorry corpse. Now go. Help will come. And make sure you take a piss before you let anyone fix you.’

  Jeral and Hynd ran towards the command post. They could see it through the mass of soldiers of the First Company, their mages and Sharps. Jeral ordered his people to look to themselves, find mages, get themselves healed. To trust him, not question him and to believe that they would die unless they did.

  Hynd backed him up, shouting to any mage that could hear what was required. But he could count too. And there were nowhere near enough mages to carry out the healing. They desperately needed help from other companies. Loreb would have to listen, and quickly.

  The inebriate general was leaning on a broad log looking at a map of the known routes through the forest. His inner circle surrounded him, no doubt speaking the words of the inane, the sycophant and the ingratiating. A cohort of guards and mages ringed them and within the eaves of the forest there were more wards than any one man could really want — except perhaps Pindock.

  Jeral was stopped by one of Loreb’s aides.

  ‘The general is busy, Captain. You will have to wait.’

  Jeral spat on the floor between his feet. ‘I’ll make myself comfortable, Ishtak. But please tell the general, at your leisure and his convenience, that you will shortly be hearing the First Company dying en masse.’

  Ishtak was a soldier by title only; a glorified administrator and obfuscator by trade and the epitome of the type of man Jeral detested. Ishtak narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

  ‘Been having bad dreams again, Captain Jeral?’

  Jeral smiled. ‘I’ll put it another way: they are all going to die. Let me talk to the general or I will break your stupid cringing neck and then talk to him anyway.’

  Hynd looked back over his shoulder. The beginnings of panic could be heard in the tenor of the shouts and the bunching of multiple groups of soldiers and mages.

  ‘You can’t just march i-’ began Ishtak

  ‘When my company is about to be wiped out, I’ll do what I damn well like.’

  Hynd threw up his hands and marched past the bickering pair. He shouldered two of Loreb’s strategists aside and spoke straight into the general’s ear.

  ‘Order mages from across the army to report to the First Company. Please. The elves’ poison is about to claim hundreds more lives. Sir.’

  Loreb started in surprise and turned his face to Hynd. He was unshaven, looked as if he had barely slept and his breath stank of alcohol. A large goblet was cradled in his hands. His expression darkened.

  ‘I am unused to being disturbed while planning the next stage of our conquest.’

  ‘I make no apology for trying to save hundreds of your men and mages from elvish attack.’

  Loreb raised one finger for silence and drank deeply from his goblet. Hynd could hear Jeral’s voice behind him, low and menacing.

  ‘The one thing that raises us from the level of the savages around us is a sense of order and a proper chain of command. You will report to my aide and your concerns will be given due process.’ Loreb drained his goblet. ‘More wine, Ishtak.’

  Hynd knew he was gaping. ‘General. Please! You must listen.’

  ‘Ishtak!’

  Hynd heard the unmistakable sound of a fist meeting flesh. Jeral hurried to his side.

  ‘Ishtak can’t hear you right now, General, but you must listen to us,’ said Jeral. ‘We need as many fresh mages as possible to come to the First Company now. The poison is-’

  ‘Jeral! Good. Tell me, why did we pass the temple at Aryndeneth and leave it unmolested?’

  ‘What?’ Jeral looked genuinely confused. He stared at the sneering expressions of the inner circle ‘Sir, we have a critical situation here. You have orders to give.’

  ‘I think Aryndeneth will make a fine residence for the general who claims the prize. Jeral, organise a raiding party and see to it. Clear the place. I need more wine. One of you, the flagon is over there by my sword.’

  Hynd put a restraining hand on Jeral’s shoulder. ‘Don’t do it. It isn’t worth it.’

  Jeral’s fist unclenched and he dropped his voice to a hiss. ‘Get to Pindock, go to anyone. Beg other mages. We don’t have time to wait for common sense to prevail.’

  ‘I’m on it.’

  Hynd turned and ran hearing Jeral’s next remarks as he went.

  ‘Sir, I will do as you ask. But if you do not do as I ask, there will be no First Company left to secure your prize.’

  Loreb stared past him at the growing noise from the head of the column.

  ‘I see. Well, tell Ishtak to organise it. And you can reflect on your failure to foresee this incident as you make your way to the temple.’

  ‘Welcome back,’ said Auum.

  ‘You look terrible,’ Elyss replied.

  Auum hadn’t slept for two days. Elyss had walked so close to the embrace of Shorth. Her breath had become so faint and
her heartbeat so frail. Merrat had refused to leave them and the five TaiGethen had sat around her, praying to Yniss to spare her for other tasks in the forest. Auum had prayed silently too, beseeching Yniss to let her enjoy the gift he had bestowed upon her; to let her play her part in the continuation of the Ynissul thread.

  Her fever had finally broken shortly before dawn and Auum had watched her relax into healing, dreamless sleep. Even then he had refused to leave her, needing to be the one she saw when she opened her eyes.

  ‘I’ll fetch you a mirror.’ Auum smiled. ‘Tell me how you feel.’

  ‘I ache. And I feel weak. Hungry though, really hungry.’

  ‘Good,’ said Auum. ‘Merrat, broth and meat. Our patient is hungry.’

  ‘Well that is good news indeed,’ said Merrat.

  Auum helped Elyss out of her hammock and to a sitting position with her back against a tree. Merrat brought over a steaming bowl of broth — a hare, root and herb soup infused with guarana. Auum held the bowl and gave the small wooden spoon to Elyss. She reached out a trembling arm from a shivering body and Auum shook his head.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll only spill it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Elyss.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I’ve delayed us, stopped us from fighting. I-’

  Auum proffered a spoonful of broth to stop her speaking.

  ‘Quite the reverse,’ he said. ‘You’ve bought us all time and we have landed a heavy blow.’

  Elyss managed a thin smile. A dribble of broth ran down her chin.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Hang on. Ulysan? Come over and tell Elyss what you saw yesterday morning.’

  Ulysan trotted over. He knelt by Elyss, kissed her cheek and then sat down facing her.

  ‘Good to have you back.’

  ‘The mushrooms worked then?’

  ‘You could say so. Hundreds of them died yesterday morning. Their mages weren’t prepared and there was confusion in their command. We lost elves too, to man’s revenge and to the mushrooms, but we knew that would happen. Be happy that the ClawBound have freed so many or we would have lost more.’

  ‘Are we winning?’ she asked.

  Auum shrugged. ‘It would be premature to think so. Perhaps after Haliath Vale we will be. But four thousand started out from Ysundeneth and only a clutch over three thousand now remain. We are tearing the heart from them and draining the courage from their souls. But we must not let our guard down. We are so few that one reverse could turn the tide.’

  Auum glanced around him. All six of them were gathered to listen. He offered Elyss another sip of broth.

  ‘Ulysan, what of the direction of our enemy?’

  ‘They’re on the move again but very slowly. Their defence has become far more solid. Mages are evident on the flanks of the army and I believe they are lacing the forest with wards as they go, determined not to be taken by surprise while they march, whereas before they only really feared the dark hours.

  ‘Their strength of arms on the flanks is also much increased. For now, it seems, speed has been sacrificed for security. Unless they change direction, they will pass close by Haliath Vale, and at their current speed they’ll reach it in five days. We’ve done well. Their warriors are nervous and their mages are using up their stamina casting so many extra spells.’

  ‘We won’t attack them again until they walk into the teeth of our ambush. Let’s rest here today while Elyss regains her strength and move on tomorrow at dawn,’ said Auum. ‘Men’s blood will flow at Haliath.

  ‘Tais, we pray.’

  Chapter 20

  Today was a dark one. I had to formulate legislation concerning the manufacture and distribution of narcotics. Katura was built as the elven sanctuary. From where did this great evil grow?

  The Diaries of Pelyn, Governor of Katura

  Boltha was too old for another fight but the Apposan spirit within him would not let him step aside for the younger of his thread. It had always rankled with him that they had been forced from the Olbeck Rise to Katura by a combination of human expansion and elven harmonic pressure — or something like that.

  The irrevocable descent of Katura had given him the excuse he had needed to take his people back into the forest and to the Haliath Vale, a place he had coveted for decades. A broad valley floor was threaded through with a fish-laden tributary of the River Ix. The great head of the canopy hid them from human mages’ prying eyes and the richness of resources here allowed a sprawling settlement to grow up along both banks of the stream.

  Far to the south, the steep-sided valley was packed densely with trees clawing at the sunlight and eventually led into the sheer landscape of the Katura approaches. To the west, the rainforest ran towards the main flow of the River Ix. To the north, the river broadened into a swamp that was impassable by river craft and was only risked by the foolish, stocked as it was with crocodiles, large constrictors and other lethal predators.

  That left the east as the only viable route from the River Ix to Katura. It was very easy to miss the Vale. First you had to find the hunting trails through the forest and up the long steep slope to the crest of the Haliath valley.

  If you missed them, you would walk along the sludge of rain runoff, heading gradually up a narrow cut in the forest whose sides fled away into shadow even on the brightest of days. It was a place made by Yniss to trap and slaughter enemies of the rainforest and the place which Grafyrre of the TaiGethen had made his own. It was known locally as the Scar.

  Boltha and Methian had been preparing the Apposans to retake Katura, but Grafyrre’s arrival and his news of the human invasion of the forest had changed all that. For days they had put themselves under the command of the twelve TaiGethen cells that had run into the Vale on that dreary morning. Boltha had tried hard not to be excited, he was very old after all, but there was something undeniably exciting about working with the TaiGethen and that feeling was not tempered by the thousands of enemies flooding their way.

  Today, though, new excitement had gripped the entire settlement with the arrival of Auum, Merrat, Ulysan and their Tais; all three were legendary TaiGethen warriors of fame and renown who brought an aura of invincibility with them. Word of Auum’s arrival brought old and young alike from their houses and ensured an expectant crowd awaiting his every gesture.

  Auum, though, spent little time in the settlement, just enough to see one of his cell, Elyss, to comfortable rest. His only other concern was the Scar and the work that had been done there. Boltha almost burst with pride when he and Methian were asked to accompany the TaiGethen inspection.

  The two old friends hung back behind Auum, Grafyrre, Ulysan and Merrat but the Arch motioned them into the heart of the group.

  ‘This is your land,’ he said.

  Boltha met Auum’s gaze.

  ‘This is a fight for all elves,’ said Boltha. ‘And I will do everything in my power to see it won.’

  Auum put his hands on Boltha’s shoulders and kissed his forehead.

  ‘It is for elves such as you that the TaiGethen fight. For you and for the true heroes still inside Ysundeneth. For Koel.’

  Boltha gasped, his heart leapt. ‘Koel lives?’

  ‘He lives and is at the centre of the rebirth of harmony among elves. When we are finished with the humans in our forest, we will free every slave in every city on Calaius. Koel will be first. Then you and your people can go home,’ Auum said.

  Boltha smiled. ‘I wonder how many will. Much has changed.’

  ‘You will always be welcome in the forest and we will always protect you.’

  Auum had walked down to the base of the Scar and was looking along its length. Boltha and Methian flanked him with the other TaiGethen grouped just behind them. The Scar ran in an almost dead straight line north to south, the merest easterly curve taking it off true.

  The edge of the swamp was a hundred yards to their right and the approaches at their back narrowed naturally to drive tr
avellers along the Scar.

  ‘Graf, speak to me.’ Auum began walking. ‘Thoughts, plans and positions. Everything.’

  Grafyrre fell in beside Boltha. The two had formed a friendship over the last few days, adopting a familial relationship that had some of Boltha’s friends joking that he had adopted a new son and bodyguard combined.

  ‘The Scar is eight miles long and the Vale runs beside it the whole way. We will allow the army to walk in unmolested for three miles. I’ve worked on the assumption that they will travel four abreast; it has been their chosen column width so far and the Scar allows it comfortably. This will leave them well short of the first dwellings in Haliath beyond the ridge, but those three miles will mean the whole army is inside the Scar when we can close the jaws of our trap on them.

  ‘We are assuming they will send flanking forces up both slopes, but given they will have to stay within earshot of the main column, we have set our principal trigger points about two thirds of the way up either side. The ideal situation is that the tail of their army is only just inside the Scar when the traps are sprung.’

  Grafyrre trotted on a few paces and crouched, pointing up the left-hand slope. Boltha knew what he was indicating. Auum looked on and nodded his approval.

  ‘We have forty disguised log runs, twenty to either side of the scar. The greatest concentration is at the one-mile point, where we hope to break the back of the army and split it in two around a significant obstruction. We expect the army to do two things: exit and retaliate. And they will fracture further while they are doing so.

  ‘The rest of the traps, snares, log swings, pits and spikes are designed to drive the enemy back down the slopes. We plan to harry the rear of the column into the swamp and I’ll have a significant number of Apposans with TaiGethen waiting to show them the way. We aim to scatter them and pick them off as they attempt to climb out further up the Scar.’

  Auum gestured up the slopes. ‘And what happens to those who continue climbing through the traps?’