The Covenant Rising

by Stan Nicholls

  “How long can you hold your breath?”

  “What?”

  He glanced back at the tracker. It had nearly reconstituted itself. “We’ve no time, so listen. The gas down there comes from waste; it’s highly inflammable. If we can get out the other end while the tracker’s still behind us, then ignite the gas –’

  “Are you crazy?”

  “There’s only one outcome if we stay here.”

  “Do you know if we can go through it without choking to death?”

  “No.”

  “Or getting blinded by the stuff?”

  “Not really.”

  “Or whether the trapdoor at the other end isn’t locked?”

  “No idea.”

  “Or if the tunnel’s big enough for us?”

  “No.”

  She took a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”

  He ripped a piece off the front of his shirt and tore it in two. Then he dunked the scraps in the not entirely filthy water trickling past. He handed one to Serrah. “Keep it over your face, it should block some of the gas.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Let’s go.” He reached for the rung on the trapdoor.

  “Wait! How we are going to set off the gas?”

  Reeth dug his hand into a pocket. He brought out one of the fuses they’d used earlier.

  “I thought they needed twenty minutes.”

  “I’ve already started it.”

  “When?”

  “When we first heard the tracker. I figured it could be useful. I knew I could always get rid of it.”

  “Reeth, how long ago did we first hear the tracker?”

  “I haven’t really been keeping track.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “There’s a more pressing reason not to dawdle. Look.”

  The tracker had reconstructed itself and was racing their way.

  “Gods, Reeth, I hate you for this.”

  “Brace yourself.”

  He grasped the trapdoor’s ring. They both took deep breaths, then clamped the sodden cloths to their mouths and noses.

  The trap was stiff and heavy, and took an effort to lift. Once it did, a cloud of foul-smelling, obnoxious gases billowed out. Hardly able to see, their eyes already watering, Reeth and Serrah quickly clambered down. The trapdoor thudded shut above them.

  It was all they could do to make out their hands in front of their faces, even with the light from their glamour medallions. The space in the tunnel was very restricted and they had to go on hands and knees to enter it.

  Overhead, the tracker arrived at the trapdoor and immediately set to investigating it with strands of milky ectoplasm. The trap was a tight fit, the cracks around its edge almost impossible to see. That was no bar to the tracker; it sought out the tiniest of clefts and started to infiltrate.

  Reeth and Serrah were making slow progress. The fumes were so dense they felt like they were moving through an abrasive fluid. If there had been more than one way to go they would already be lost. Their skin was growing itchy and tender.

  Not far to their rear, the tracker was oozing into the tunnel. It penetrated faster than it had with the earlier door, despite the smaller gaps. Trackers learned from experience and adapted accordingly. The spell that bound them was predicated on maximising their efficiency as hunter-killers.

  Serrah’s lungs were bursting. She could barely see Reeth, crawling along ahead of her. Her mind was on how she was going to die. Most likely the tracker would catch them in this horribly confined tunnel. Or they’d find the other trapdoor sealed and be asphyxiated by the gas. She wasn’t opposed to the idea of death, but had definite preferences about the method. Given the present options, she’d prefer the fuse to go off. She wondered, fleetingly, if that would be enough to kill Reeth.

  The tracker proclaimed its triumph over the trapdoor by letting out one of its dreadful wails. Untroubled by the gas, unhindered by poor visibility, it resumed its pursuit.

  They couldn’t fail to hear the tracker’s caterwauling; it reverberated around them like a stone in a shaken metal bucket. Serrah could just about turn her head enough to look back along the tunnel. She didn’t expect to see anything. Yet for all its abundance, the haze couldn’t quite obscure the glow of the thing tracking them.

  Reeth was moving more rapidly, and she forced herself to match his pace. Her shins and palms were painfully sore. The cramped space made her want to scream.

  The sound of the tracker was so ear-splitting she was sure it was at her heels. She considered the possibility of cheating it by cutting her throat.

  Reeth stopped, and she almost collided with him. Then he was standing, which meant they must have reached the tunnel’s end. Serrah prayed they’d get out. There was no way she could hold her breath any longer.

  Suddenly, Reeth was up and stretching a hand to her. She hauled herself, feet kicking, and came through the trapdoor. He dragged her free. Serrah gulped for air, her eyes streaming.

  Down below, bleached tracker flesh came into view, its feelers climbing to the opening. Reeth had the fuse. He flung it along the tunnel at the advancing tracker. Then he slammed the trap and both of them fell across it.

  She thought the impact might have set off the fuse. But nothing happened. They lay there, breathing hard.

  The tracker attached itself to the underside of the trapdoor and began burrowing. It toiled patiently, inflexible determination as much a part of its nature as bloodlust.

  An intense flash of light illuminated the tunnel. A blink later it was filled with fire, burning with the vigour of a furnace. The tracker was blown to atoms, devoured, pulverised by blast and heat.

  The force of the explosion lifted the trapdoor, even with Serrah and Reeth draped over it. There was a rank odour in the air.

  They lay still for a while.

  When they finally climbed to their feet, Serrah said, “Get me to where I can see the sky, for pity’s sake.”

  Devlor Bastorran and his group were gone from the schoolhouse cellar before the explosion.

  A breathless messenger had arrived. “Sir! The records depository’s in flames! There’s unrest on the streets. The High Chief wants you to oversee pacifying the mob.”

  “Those Resistance bastards. Damn their eyes! All right, all of you, out!”

  Timidly, the sorcerer asked, “What about the tracker, sir?”

  “If any rebels were still down there it would have got them, wouldn’t it? We were just too late this time. There’s no point wasting ourselves here.”

  And so they left.

  But they hadn’t gone very far when Reeth’s head poked out of the pit. The coast clear, he and Serrah climbed up.

  “You have no idea how good it feels to be out of that cesspool,” she said, stretching her arms.

  “I didn’t exactly relish it myself. But we’re not home yet. If that tracker was deliberately set on us, if it wasn’t a defence glamour we tripped, then they knew we were using the tunnels.”

  “Why no guards here then?”

  “Maybe they were relying on the tracker doing its job.”

  “That’s reasonable, considering they always do.” She added, “That was a smart move, Reeth, even if it did age me a decade.”

  “You might not have finished ageing. We’ve still got to get out of here and to a safe house.”

  “Reeth, what if the tracker was in the tunnels when Kutch and the others came through?”

  “That thought had occurred to me. But when trackers finish with their victims they leave them as husks. We didn’t see anything like that down there.”

  “Doesn’t mean to say –’

  “No. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. We have to concentrate on getting ourselves out.”

  “Right. And once we’re on the street we should separate.”

  “Agreed. Ready?”

  They crept from the cellar. There was nobody on the stairs or in the corridors they walked. But it was a different matter when they reached the open
door to the street and peeked outside.

  The street itself, a wide avenue, was streaming with Freedom Day celebrants. Their mood had a sour edge, fed by ripples from the trouble several blocks away. They were still bent on enjoying themselves, though their revelry was likely to take a form the state hadn’t intended. Militiamen were trying to shepherd them.

  Of more concern to Reeth and Serrah was the cluster of paladins at the foot of the schoolhouse steps. One of them was a commander, high-ranking.

  “What now?” Caldason wondered.

  “Look along the street. See those horses, by the wagon? There’s only the wagon driver guarding them.”

  “It’s not a good day to ride.”

  “They’ll get us a few blocks, then we can lose ourselves in the crowd.”

  “What about them?” He nodded at the paladins.

  “Simplest is best.”

  “Let’s get going.”

  They sprinted down the stone steps and bowled into the group of red jackets, scattering them. Then they ran for the horses. The paladins dashed after them, and others began running in to intercept.

  Serrah made it to the horses first. The wagon driver leapt from his seat to challenge them, sword drawn. Still moving, she deftly tossed one of her knives. It struck the man’s shoulder, spinning him aside and out of their path. She grabbed a horse’s reins, put boot to stirrup and swung into the saddle.

  “Hurry!” she called.

  Reeth was a few paces behind. “Go on! I’ll catch up!”

  She hesitated for a second, then spurred her mount and galloped into the flow of revellers. Several paladin horsemen went after her. It was additional entertainment for the crowd, and a cry went up.

  As Reeth clambered onto a horse a pursuing militiaman loosed his bow. The arrow skimmed the animal’s head. Unhurt but spooked, it reared, dumping Reeth in the back of the open wagon. He fell awkwardly, bruising his ribs and winding himself. As he rose, somebody vaulted in beside him.

  It was the paladin commander, a sword in his hand. Reeth swiftly drew his own weapon and met the attack. In the melee a wide stroke from the paladin cuffed the wagon’s brake handle. The team of four horses, unsettled by all the noise, were already champing. There was a lurch and the wagon swayed.

  Then, to a roar from the crowd, the horses bolted.

  Chapter Thirty

  The panicked, driverless team of horses broke into a full gallop. Revellers, paladins and militia scattered in their path.

  In the back of the wagon, Caldason and Devlor Bastorran fought furiously.

  Caldason had no idea who his opponent was, but he quickly discovered that he faced a swordsman of rare ability. Even in the hostile environment of a runaway wagon the paladin fenced with exquisite skill and remarkable agility. He displayed a streak of recklessness, too, which Reeth suspected was inherent in the man’s style. Good fighters were often prey to overconfidence, and sometimes it could be turned against them.

  But that assumed the careering wagon didn’t come to grief first, a prospect that grew more likely by the minute.

  It went over a pothole, its wheels briefly leaving the ground. Both men held on with their free hands. The wagon came down with a bone-jarring crash and they immediately resumed their duel.

  The paladin unleashed a series of blows that took all of Reeth’s dexterity to counter. He repaid with a succession of blistering strokes that would have downed a lesser foe. The frenzy of their combat stepped up a notch.

  A mounted paladin appeared beside them. He matched pace with the charging team and stretched a hand to the bridle of a leading horse, hoping to halt the stampede.

  The speed, the uncertain way ahead and the irascible team all conspired against him. He over-reached and lost control of his own steed. Bucking with fright, the animal tossed him from the saddle. The paladin spiralled past, his cry swallowed by distance. His horse bolted and ran off into the heaving throng.

  Unstoppable, the wagon’s team plunged headlong into the even more crowded heart of the city. The masses of people and the cacophony of sounds added to their alarm.

  A thick column of smoke rose from the city centre, marking the spot where the records office burned.

  Reeth and the paladin battled on. As far as swordplay went, it was a contest of equals. Each doled out ever more complex combinations of thrusts and parries. Neither could broach the other’s guard. Their swinging and hacking grew wilder.

  Pedestrians dashed screaming as the lawless wagon ploughed on. Exotic, abnormal or plain ordinary glamours with no sense of self-preservation were slower to move, and the team rode through them, converting their forms to shimmering dust or golden implosions. The more expensive models re-formed themselves afterwards.

  Bastorran didn’t know who he was fighting. But as the man was obviously a Qalochian, and given his facility with a blade, he could guess. The probability that it was Caldason spurred him to greater effort, and to hell with special orders concerning the man.

  The world went by in a blur, its noise one continuous clamour.

  Up ahead, a marching band was crossing from one side of the street to the other. At the sight of the runaway horses they fled, many dropping their instruments. The wagon thundered through the diving bandsmen, crushing lutes and pipes under its wheels, sending drums rolling in all directions. Open-mouthed fist-wavers saw off the renegade. Yells and curses were aimed at its disappearing tailboard.

  The duellists’ swords continued to flash, despite the bumps in the road that threatened to dislodge them. They knew nothing but conflict. It was the centre of their universe, no matter how turbulent the surroundings or desperate their plight. They fought on, steel hammering steel, sweat beading their brows.

  The wagon team, mouths foaming, rumbled across a small park. Walkers jumped for their lives, picnics were ground to mush, clods of earth flew left and right.

  Then the wagon entered a narrow lane, bouncing and rattling over the cobbles. Mothers snatched children to safety, people flattened themselves against the walls. Here there were flagpoles sticking out of upper windows. Reeth and Bastorran’s duel was punctuated with ducking, lest they be struck. Hanging ensigns slapped their heads.

  The wagon hurtled into a broad avenue and met a parade containing horse-drawn floats bearing larger-than-life caricatures of imperial and Bhealfan notables. One of the floats, transporting an enormous wood and papier-mâché representation of Prince Melyobar’s head, half blocked the wagon’s path.

  Swerving by instinct, the team almost missed it. But clipping the float’s corner was enough. The nation’s foremost head slipped its moorings and thudded to the road, then it trundled towards the onlookers and downed a swathe of the crowd like tenpins.

  Still the wagon travelled on, a posse of mounted paladins and law enforcers in its wake. In the back, its passengers continued their affray unabated.

  They shot along the avenue, cutting a trail through revellers, causing rigs and carriages to collide. Brave, foolish or drunk people occasionally ran out in front of the wagon and tried to stop it by waving their arms. At the far end of the avenue stood Bhealfa’s Royal Mint. The road turned at an acute angle to avoid it. Whether the wagon would do the same was debatable.

  Even Reeth and Devlor Bastorran took note of the hazard. Their slashing and swiping continued unabated, but was seasoned with glances ahead.

  The maddened team raced on unswervingly. The sober edifice of the Mint loomed larger.

  At the very last moment they turned. But too fast and too sharply. One side of the wagon lifted off the ground, causing the combatants to clutch at handholds. It moved along on two wheels for a second, then flipped and smashed into the road. Caldason and Bastorran half jumped, were half thrown clear.

  The horses broke loose and kept going, trailing tackle that jangled.

  Reeth hit the road and rolled. Dazed and bleeding, he got to his feet. The paladin lay nearer the wrecked wagon. He wasn’t moving.

  A small army of mounted pursuers w
as almost at the scene. Reeth limped to the crowd and melted into it.

  Friendly hands found him and spirited him away.

  Serrah had no such trouble.

  She was chased for several blocks, but had little difficulty losing her pursuers. At the first opportunity she left the horse tied to a hitching rail and blended in with the crowd. Then she spent some time waiting for Caldason to arrive. She didn’t know he’d been taken in the opposite direction.

  Finally she gave up and decided to make her way to Karr’s house in the hope that Reeth might be there. It was a long way to her destination, and the packed streets didn’t make the journey any easier.

  Serrah had been in Bhealfa only a short while and knew hardly anyone. So the odds against her meeting one of the few people she did know, especially in such dense crowds, must have been astronomical.

  But as she was making her way along a crammed street someone lightly touched her shoulder. Hand to sword, she spun round, expecting denunciation, exposure, arrest.

  Instead she found herself facing Tanalvah.

  “What are you doing here?” she blurted.

  Tanalvah smiled. “I might ask you the same.” She leaned closer and whispered, “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Though I seem to have lost Reeth somewhere in this mob.”

  “He can look after himself.” She looked Serrah up and down. “If you don’t mind me saying, you seem rather hot and bothered.”

  “I’ve just come from a hot and bothersome place.”

  “I understand. It might be an idea to clean up a bit before going further. And getting off the streets sooner rather than later could be a good plan.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I was about to go in there.” She nodded at a temple. It was an impressive pile dedicated to the hierarchy of gods, not any one in particular.

  “You could freshen yourself inside. Kinsel’s going to pick me up later in a carriage, though goodness knows when in this crush. We can take you back.”

  Serrah looked at the temple. “All right.” She didn’t really know Tanalvah, but somehow she was glad she’d run into her.

  They weaved across the crowded sidewalk and went through the portal.