by Ian Irvine
‘Quickly, Nish!’
He pushed her away, weakly. ‘Leave me alone, Father.’ He’d relapsed into delusion.
‘Nish, I’m Fyllis’s sister, remember?’
Again her name calmed him and he made an effort for a minute or two, though by that time he was panting so heavily that she was afraid the distant loop-listeners would pick it up. She couldn’t take the risk – she’d have to carry him.
She was used to carrying heavy loads, too, but not this heavy. Maelys managed to heave him over her shoulders and continued, staggering under his weight and trying not to make a sound. The troops were only a few hundred paces away now, almost level with her. Cathim’s hut was further across, along the dry-stone wall between the terraces to her left, though she couldn’t see it in the dark.
She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Nish was squirming on her shoulders but she daren’t put him down for fear she’d never lift him again. Her calves were burning and her knees felt alarmingly rubbery.
He let out another muffled groan. ‘Hush!’ she said softly, putting her hand to his lips. He went still and she wondered if that had been a liberty.
Something passed across the sky to her right, making a rasping flutter that raised her hackles. Could it be a flappeter, one of the God-Emperor’s legendary flesh-formed horrors? Hunters in the air would make escape impossible. Maelys couldn’t think what to do. She wasn’t considered an adult yet; she wasn’t used to taking command, or being responsible for everything. It was beyond her.
The soldiers were gaining and she was beginning to feel really panicky. She prayed that Cathim had a Secret Art of his own or all was lost. She had to put Nish, and herself, in his capable adult hands.
Putting on an extra burst, she thump-thumped along the embankment, making too much noise. Might she get there first after all? She dared to think so, until a squad of soldiers swarmed up over the terrace wall to her left, starlight making pinpoints on their polished, horned armour, which was individually formed to fit each soldier by Jal-Nish’s uncanny Arts.
They were only fifty paces from the hut, a few hundred from her. Cathim was finished. She was on her own now. Maelys began to back around the corner of the terrace wall, scanning the night in every direction, and upwards as well. She couldn’t hear the flapping now. Was that good or bad?
Suddenly a bellow of rage echoed across the terrace, and Cathim’s hut was lit up from half a dozen points at once as the surrounding troops unshuttered powerful storm lanterns. She saw an open doorway, the door torn off its hinges, and a great bull of a man struggling with an armoured trooper.
The trooper was hurled into the front rank of soldiers, knocking two down, and Cathim surged forth swinging a double-bladed woodcutter’s axe in scything blows that cut down a fourth trooper, then a fifth. For an instant Maelys thought that he might win through but three troopers converged on him, thrusting out long, three-pointed tridents. They pinned him, he shimmered mauve for a second and, with a ringing roar, he fell.
Maelys turned away, feeling sick. Her cousin was going to suffer a terrible death and she couldn’t help him. But before he died, under the brain-searing torment of Reaper he was bound to reveal Nish’s destination, Hulipont. All was lost.
Maelys fought an urge to lay Nish down and run for her life. After all, his father would never harm him; at least, not the way he would her. But she’d given her word, and to abandon him now would be a betrayal of both duty and trust.
There was no point heading for Hulipont, which would take weeks to reach and would be captured long before she could get there. Her only option was to head up into the mountains and try to hide before it was too late, though she didn’t see how that could work either. By dawn Jal-Nish would have a thousand soldiers scouring the mountainside – maybe ten thousand.
Nish began to whimper. She put one hand on his forehead and he stopped at once, but it didn’t help. Her panic was getting worse, her heart crashing back and forth in her chest, her knees barely holding her up. It had all gone wrong from the beginning, as she’d known it would.
‘I can’t carry you any further,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Can you walk, Nish?’
After a hesitation she felt him jerk his head, so she eased him to the ground. He swayed; clutched at her arm. Maelys debated what to do. Should she implode the taphloid, as she’d been told to do in an emergency? If she did, the secret within it, vital for her survival later, would be lost.
No, the soldiers were too far away; they wouldn’t be affected. It would just tell the accompanying scriers where to look for her.
‘This way, Nish.’ Taking his arm, she headed along a stony, little used path between two terraces towards a large pond, hoping their tracks wouldn’t show on the hard ground. She could just make out a patch of reeds or rushes in one corner of the pond.
Nish was moving like an old man, but she daren’t hurry him in case he collapsed. She stared down the slope, trying to track her hunters by the starlight winking off their armour. It was her one advantage. The God-Emperor liked his troops to stand out, so their appearance would strike fear into all.
Maelys could see plenty of reflections now, moving up the mountain in lines that extended all the way back to the barracks behind Mazurhize. Could the scriers be tracking her? The aunts had said not; her taphloid would shield her, at least from a distance. But the aunts had been wrong about Cathim …
A breeze carried the smell of water to her and it reminded her of a hiding place used by the heroine in one of her favourite tales. Maelys plucked a handful of rice straws. ‘This way, Nish. Over the edge and down into the water. Can you swim?’
‘Enough to save myself.’ He sounded a little stronger, more normal.
‘You’re better than me, then. I can’t swim a stroke.’ Stupid, stupid! You’ve got to encourage him.
She led him down the slope then across onto a rock shelf that ran into the water. Sitting Nish down, she took off his boots and stinking socks, which she stuffed into the oilskin pouch containing her spare clothes. Wet footwear would be deadly up here at this time of year. She did the same with her boots, then her coat and jacket, pulled the drawstring, tied it to her pack and slung the pack on her back.
The water still retained some warmth from the afternoon sun, thankfully. At Nifferlin, a thousand spans higher than here, it would have been frozen by now. She waded out until it reached her shoulders, then drew him to her. ‘Hold on.’ Nish was twitching again and his eyes were the size of eggs. ‘I’m Fyllis’s sister, remember?’
He nodded stiffly; the twitching eased to a tremor. Maelys led him around the curve of the pond towards the rushes, careful not to get out of her depth. Her feet skidded on the sludgy bottom and it was hard to stay upright. They reached the rushes, where at least she had something to hang onto, though she had to be careful not to break the stems – the troops would check every sign. She kept Nish behind her in case he flailed at the rushes, pushed her floating pack into their centre, and waited.
The water felt cold now and was leaching all the warmth from her body. Nish’s teeth were chattering. She folded over a couple of straws and thrust them into his mouth. ‘Bite on these.’
He did so and the chattering stopped. She could hear the approaching soldiers; they were making no attempt to disguise their movements.
‘We’ve got to go under, Nish. Can you breathe through a straw and let out the bubbles among the rushes?’
‘Don’t – think so.’ His teeth were starting to chatter again, poor man. He was just skin and bones, and he’d chewed through the straws.
‘I’ll help you. Quick, out there where we’ll be hidden behind the rushes.’
Maelys eased her way between the clumps, pulling Nish through the water behind her like a sodden pillow, floating with head back and just his nose and mouth out of the water. At least he couldn’t cause too much trouble that way.
She reached the outer fringe of the rushes as the first lantern appeared over the rim of the terrace.
Moving into shelter, she put her mouth to Nish’s ear. ‘We’re going under now. Hold your breath. I’ll look after you.’
Maelys wasn’t sure she could but he nodded with a jerk that created a little splash. She held the straws in her mouth, ducked and pulled him under. He sank at once but she found it hard to stay down. Holding him with one hand, she grasped a clump of rushes below the water with the other. It kept her from floating up though she couldn’t use her straws.
She found his right hand and curled his fingers around the rush clump, praying that he’d have the sense to hold on. He did, so she did the same with his other hand. Poking the straw ends above the water, she drew breath.
It proved surprisingly difficult to draw air down the thin straws, and it made a faint whistling sound that worried her, but she got a breath, then pulled Nish closer to her. She had to feel for his mouth; she couldn’t see a thing underwater.
She slid the straws in but he bit through the ends, and they were her lifeline. She pulled his face hard against hers, sealed his mouth with her own and blew most of her breath into him. He jerked again.
His lips were almost dead with cold, and he didn’t move until she pulled away, yet Maelys felt acutely uncomfortable. It felt intimate, wrong, even though she was doing it to save his life, and it reminded her of the greater intimacy, the far greater wrong that she had to do with him if they ever got away.
FIVE
Suck and blow. Suck and blow. Maelys was doing it automatically now. It felt as though they’d been in the water forever, though it couldn’t have been more than a quarter of an hour. Her head was aching and she was shuddering from the cold, but Nish wasn’t even shivering. Was he sinking into a coma from which he would never wake?
One of her cousins had died of exposure when she was seven and she could still picture him lying by the fire, so pale and deathly cold. Nothing they’d done had been able to warm him. She dared not take the risk with Nish; she had to go up even if it meant being caught.
Squeezing his hands tightly around the base of the rushes, she gritted her teeth and drifted up, trying to break the surface as gently as she could. A breeze feathered the still water; on her wet skin it felt icy. Maelys floated, blinking water out of her eyes. It was darker now, for gauzy cloud covered the stars directly above. She couldn’t make out anyone on the pond wall to her left. Nothing on the right side, either, though the central portion of the wall was partly concealed behind rushes. That’s where they’d lurk if they thought Nish was hiding in the pond.
No, if they even suspected he was here they’d have come in at once, no matter the cold. What was a little discomfort compared to the wrath of the God-Emperor? Her teeth began to chatter. Maelys clenched her jaw. She’d have to risk it. She couldn’t endure the cold any longer.
Nish! It had been more than a minute. Maelys took a deep breath, went down hastily, drew his rigid body to her and blew the whole breath into him. His lips were freezing. Had she killed him? Panicking, she pulled him to the surface, grabbed her floating pack, then dragged him through the reeds and heaved him onto the rock. ‘Nish?’ she whispered, shaking him.
He didn’t answer; her heart turned over. She felt his cheeks, his throat and then, again feeling that she was taking a liberty, under his arm. Detecting a faint warmth there, she put her ear to his chest. He was breathing, though very shallowly, and was so cold that he might die. She spread her heavy winter coat on him, knowing it wasn’t enough. When someone got this cold they couldn’t generate enough warmth by themselves. She had to do it for him. She slipped under the coat and lay on him, pulling him tightly against her.
It was lucky he was unconscious, for the position was acutely mortifying. She lay there, rocking gently from side to side, feeling her cheeks flaming and the cold wind licking at her wet neck, until eventually she began to feel warmth at chest, belly and thighs, where they touched.
As she rolled off, Nish gave another little whimper. That was better. She stripped off his wet rags, thankful for the dark, and pulled her spare pair of pants on him. Her shirt wouldn’t fit over his broad shoulders but she managed to get him into her jacket and put his boots on. He was shuddering fitfully so she wrapped him in her coat as well. ‘Can you walk?’ she said, shivering in her wet clothes and wondering how she was going to cope. The cold was just bearable here, but further up it would be freezing.
‘Hungry.’ His teeth began to chatter.
Cathim had been providing supplies for the journey and all Maelys had were some soft biscuits made from dried fruit and nuts pounded together. She fed him one, then another.
‘Beautiful food,’ he said hoarsely, and starlight touched a tear on his eyelash.
Truly, he must have been starved. She gave him another of the precious biscuits. ‘Come on. We’ve got to get right away from here.’
They climbed the slope, rested briefly in a little dip then headed along the next ridge, which ran up into the mountains proper. It was hard, slow work, for Nish was so weak that she had to support him most of the time, but every step was another step away from Jal-Nish and widened the area he’d have to search.
A long time after that, but still a few hours before dawn, Nish ground to a halt and Maelys couldn’t get him going again. She was rubbing his cold face and hands when she heard the raspily unnerving flutter she’d noted earlier. Pulling Nish against her, she held him still and searched the sky. Was that a shadow passing in front of the stars? It was hard to tell.
Before she could move there came a wild swirl of wind and a shrilling wail of triumph. A beam of lantern light touched her, then a flappeter – one of Jal-Nish’s flesh-formed monstrosities – dropped out of the dark and began to hover just a few spans above them. How had it come so close without her hearing it?
Nish cried out in horror and Maelys had to choke back a scream, for she had heard dreadful rumours about flappeters since her childhood.
She drew Nish backwards across the slope but the flap-peter kept pace without effort, its feather-rotors scooping at the air like egg-beaters and blasting cold gusts into her face. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The barren mountain slope offered no concealment.
She looked up, shielding her eyes, as a man’s voice called, ‘Surr, I’ve found him!’ The flappeter had a rider and he was leaning forwards, his fist outstretched, evidently speaking to someone via a glistening loop-listener.
‘Found who?’ This voice was distorted to a glutinous hiss by the loop-listener but it sent shudders through her, for it reminded her of something unpleasant from her childhood. ‘Identify yourself and your location, fool!’
‘I’m Rider Hinneltyne, on Flappeter Rurr-shyve, surr. I’m right above Cryl-Nish Hlar. It’s definitely him, though he looks in bad shape. He’s with a boy, about twelve.’
‘A boy!’
‘Yes, surr. They’re not armed, Seneschal Vomix, surr.’ Seneschal Vomix. Maelys felt sick with horror. ‘Excellent,’ said Vomix. ‘The God-Emperor will be well pleased.’
‘Can you send another flappeter for the boy, surr?’
There was a short pause. ‘Not at the moment. Secure them, Rider Hinneltyne, but ensure not a hair of Cryl-Nish’s head is harmed. I’ll send a squad to escort him down. Where are you?’
‘On Nusimurr Mountain, surr, just to the west of Ironbar Col. And the boy?’
‘Teach him his first lesson but don’t damage him. Our God-Emperor has reserved that joy to himself.’
The rider drew back his fist; the loop-listener went dull and he looked down into Maelys’s eyes. She shivered and pulled Nish backwards, studying the hovering flappeter.
Even in the dimly reflected lantern light it looked bizarre. It was three times the length of a horse, but had an elongated body like a dragonfly, covered in large scales and bristly hairs. A pair of oval discs stuck up at the tail and four pairs of thin legs ended in scythe-like hooks.
One pair of luminous compound eyes were the size of large melons, another pair no bigger than lemons. Its triang
ular head was crested with two pairs of horns, a long curved pair which protruded sideways and a short straight pair extending forwards. But its wings were the greatest oddity of all, if they could be called wings, for they didn’t belong on any creature Maelys had heard of.
There were two sets, one above the other, sprouting above the rider’s head like feathered rotors from a stalk, as thick as her thigh, which arose from the middle of its back. Each feather-rotor had three long, curved, scythe-like blades driven by great muscle bunches below the stalk, and they spun rapidly, the rotors tilting and the angle of the blades changing all the time to keep the monstrosity in the air.
The flapping flutter was constantly rising and falling, an unpleasant sound that set her nerves on end, and the creature breathed with a revolting wet sucking gurgle. Its reek, as pungent as a squashed stinkbug, stung her nose.
‘Stop right there!’ shouted Rider Hinneltyne, swinging the flappeter around to stay above them.
‘Get ready to run, Nish,’ she said in a low voice, praying that he was capable of taking in their situation. She let go of him but he wobbled then slumped to his knees.
Maelys almost wept with frustration. She had never been attacked before and had no idea what to do. She couldn’t carry Nish, nor could she abandon him. She backed away so the rider couldn’t take them both at once, feeling on the ground for a stick, a stone or anything she could defend herself with, but the rocks littering the slope were either too big to throw or too small to do any damage.
The flappeter dropped sharply, its rider snorting in triumph. Maelys ran a few more steps, snatched up a stone the size of a plum and hurled it up at him. It missed. Even as a child she’d not been one for throwing stones. She was feeling for another when the flappeter swooped at her, tilting sharply. Rider Hinneltyne thrust one fist forwards and it disappeared for a second, then a double-beat of the feather-rotors blasted her off her feet, sending her rolling across the stony ground.
