by Ian Irvine
The officers suddenly woke up to what had happened. ‘It’s Monkshart!’ one shouted. ‘Take him in the name of Jal-Nish, the God-Emperor.’
The Imperial Militia went for Monkshart but the green nimbus expanded until it was spans wide all around, and they bounced harmlessly off it. Monkshart appeared to summon the last of his strength, expanded the nimbus even further, then stumbled downslope and hurled himself into the steep part of the gully. The flickering, fading nimbus bounced once, twice, slowed then drifted down like a balloon, carrying him out of sight.
Nish didn’t see how the zealot would be able to summon the strength to do anything further. However, Jal-Nish was surely keeping watch from on high and would move to the next phase of the attack as soon as he could come close enough to swing it into action. Nish scanned the sky but couldn’t see anything save the luminal. He turned away. Zham was throwing the last of the barrels over.
‘Save one,’ Nish yelled, ‘just in case.’ But it was too late. The last barrel was gone.
Suddenly the wind reversed direction and a churning fog swept in, reducing the brilliant glare of the luminal to an eerie glow that appeared to come from every direction at once.
Nish stood on the edge for a moment, wondering how much time they’d gained and remembering the look on Monkshart’s face. He, Nish, had made a life-long enemy, though that wasn’t what bothered him most. Monkshart had driven himself too hard. The rages were getting worse, and lasting longer. What would happen if they drove such a powerful, charismatic man over the edge into insanity?
Zham tapped his shoulder. ‘We’d better get to the hut. Mr Xervish might be done by now.’
How touching his faith was. Nish didn’t have much left but he followed the giant. By the time he reached the hut he could only see the outline of the luminal, though he couldn’t tell whether it had faded or the fog had thickened. However, the God-Emperor might be able to see via other Arts and Nish didn’t want to give away the location of the hut, which hopefully was still shielded by the red amber-wood.
Inside it was nearly as dark, and more gloomy. The lantern was guttering, the fire just a few glowing coals which picked out the renewed Flydd lying on his back on the floor, his chest rising and falling minutely. The last of the old skin was shredding off his face, hands and legs.
Beneath it Nish saw a muscular man of middle height and uncertain age – fifty at the most – with wavy, iron grey hair receding at the temples. His olive skin was baby-smooth, apart from several faint small scars in roughly the same places as Flydd’s most prominent scars had been. In other respects he resembled Flydd not at all. His eyes were staring straight up, though Nish could not make out their colour.
‘Xervish?’ said Nish.
The full lips parted and the barest wisp of voice issued forth, a whispery croak, though deeper than Flydd’s voice. ‘More time.’
Nish glanced at Zham, who was hanging back, then Maelys, crouched by the fire. Her skin had a greenish tinge, there were beads of sweat on her brow and upper lip, and if she hadn’t supported herself on her arms she would have fallen over.
Outside, the luminal brightened momentarily; Nish heard a distant grumble of thunder.
‘Deliverer?’ said Zham, head cocked as if trying to distinguish a different sound over the howling wind.
Another grumble of thunder came, closer this time, though surely that wasn’t what was bothering him. No, it was a faint blatt-blatt. Nish looked out.
The fog had thinned again. The luminal had faded to an eclipsed globe but now a storm cloud was forming above the plateau, a gigantic thunderhead condensing out of the empty air. Was his father using weather mancery to create a downpour that would wash away the gunk from the barrels and allow his ground troops to storm the plateau? Doubtless it would wash some of his soldiers away as well, though that wouldn’t bother Jal-Nish.
Where was he? He had to be near, surely? Nish strained his eyes upwards, and when the lightning flashed he caught a faint, crystalline ripple, like light reflecting off cut glass as it moved, but the thunderhead grew until it covered the centre of the sky and he didn’t see another flash.
Jal-Nish was there, though; Nish knew it. His father was waiting like a gigantic, deformed spider for the moment when his prey was helpless.
The drizzle had stopped and it was now warmer than at any time since they’d reached the plateau. Nish began to sweat in his coat, though, oddly, his exposed skin had a dry, itchy feel and he could feel his hair rising up from the top of his head. Lightning flashed out over the mire, illuminating Zham, whose short hair was also streaming upwards, and in the darkness between flashes tiny sparks were discharging from the tips.
‘I don’t like it, surr,’ said Zham, rubbing his left hand through his hair and creating a flurry of sparks. ‘There’s something not right about this storm.’
‘Nor I, Zham. It’s unnatural.’
‘Is it the God-Emperor’s doing?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking.’
A quadruple flash of lightning curving down over each of the clefts was accompanied by ear-shattering thunder, then gusting waves of heat. Nish’s cheeks grew hot. Sweat trails were trickling down his chest and back, and the itching was almost unbearable. He pressed his palms to his ears but couldn’t stop them ringing.
‘I wish it would storm proper,’ muttered Zham. ‘I can’t bear the waiting.’
It had only been a few minutes but Nish couldn’t stand it either. ‘That’s what Father wants,’ he said in a leathery croak. ‘To provoke us.’
‘I wish it would rain.’
‘So do I.’
‘Maybe he’s enjoying tormenting us,’ said Zham.
‘That goes without saying.’
A flash of lightning struck the swamp not far away, hurling mud and burning plant fragments in all directions. A speck of scalding mud struck Nish on the cheekbone. He smacked it off, rubbing furiously at the burn. Steam rose from the swamp.
Now more lightning struck, and more, viciously and violently, dozens of strokes at once until they lit up the plateau more brightly than the luminal had done. Nish was so dazzled that he could barely see; his ears ached as if they’d been pummelled by flailing fists.
Zham jerked him back into the doorway. ‘This isn’t right, surr. He’s out of control.’
Nish felt it too. It was the wildest storm he’d ever seen; a rage against them. The thunderhead had gone a boiling black and now covered the sky, save only for a paler rim around the horizon. The air was warmer and stickier than ever, though not a drop of rain had fallen. Nish longed for cooling rain yet exulted that it wasn’t happening. It was as if Mistmurk Mountain were defying his father, and Jal-Nish couldn’t bear it.
The display continued, growing ever more furious and the lightning strikes more menacing, until the plateau was thick with wavering steam trails from boiling bogs and blasted pools. Then the lightning stopped abruptly, as if Jal-Nish had tired of the game – or formed a better plan.
The air was steamy now, whirling about in wild, choking eddies, but Nish lost sight of them as the night went black. The luminal was a bare outline and the sinking moon could not penetrate the cloud. Dawn must be close, though there was not a trace of light in the eastern sky.
‘What now?’ muttered Zham, creeping out a few steps. ‘There’s that noise again …’
Blatt-blatt, blatt-blatt.
It was the faintest red flash, dim lantern light reflecting from a pair of globular eyes, that warned Nish. He threw himself sideways just in time, the beast’s claws skimming through his short hair, and landed hard on hip and shoulder. He was rolling over, trying to free his sword, when Zham gasped.
Nish kicked the door wide, for the light. Something huge, bat-like and bloated had hold of Zham by the back of the neck and one shoulder. Great wings were beating furiously; the creature’s already distended belly now inflated to several times its former size, lifting Zham’s feet off the ground. The canine, sharp-toothed muzzle was arching
over his head, down towards his eyes.
Zham tried to hold it off with his forearms but his struggles became increasingly feeble, as if it had injected a fast-acting venom. Another of the creatures darted at Nish, blatt-blatt, blatt-blatt. He came up off the ground in a rush, swinging his sword wildly, and a lucky stroke hacked through its left wing. It rolled over and spun head-first into the ground. Nish went for the other one. He couldn’t reach its wings but the bloated belly hanging above Zham’s head made a tempting target and he thrust the sword at it.
It went straight through thin, leathery skin, air hissed out and a spark from Zham’s hair ignited it in a roiling blast of orange fire that blew the creature to squealing pieces. Zham fell to the ground, hair smoking, and didn’t move. Nish felt the hairs on his sword arm shrivelling from the blast, and his cheeks stinging.
Something scratched at his heels and he swung the sword around blindly, momentarily dazzled. The other bladder-bat had dragged itself across the ground towards him, inflating its body until it began to lift, and its remaining wing had touched him. His sword carved through its belly and it went limp, though this time the gas didn’t ignite.
The luminal began to glow again and he made out dozens of bladder-bats, whirling down from an aperture in the centre of the storm cloud. He couldn’t fight them all, alone. He began to back towards the door but trod on Zham, who was sitting up, wiping at the claw marks in his neck and shoulder, then a puncture on his forearm, with a chunk of moss. His hair was frizzled, his cheeks blistered from the explosion and his eyes were streaming.
‘It numbed me for a minute. I could hardly move. You saved my life, surr.’
‘They’re coming,’ said Nish. ‘Dozens of them.’
He put up his sword. Bladder-bat fluids ran down the blade onto his fingers, which began to go numb. Nish tore up a clump of moss and scrubbed the sword clean, then prepared to fight for his life.
But these bladder-bats were in trouble. Though their abdomens were deflated, they were having trouble descending through the wild, corkscrewing winds near the edge of the plateau. The leading one folded its wings and plummeted down at him, but before it reached halfway a gust sent it spinning, whipped its span-long wings out to their fullest extent then tore them off.
A second bladder-bat had gone out wide, away from the edge of the plateau, and now came gliding in towards the hut, though as soon as it struck the updraught near the cliffs its wings collapsed as if their bones had shattered. It inflated its abdomen furiously but could not generate lift in time and slammed into the ridgepole of the hut with such force that it broke its neck.
It slid down the roof towards Nish, who batted it out of the way with his sword. It was surprisingly light for such a large creature. It must have had hollow bones.
He dispatched the last of that flight with a weary flick, but seconds later another flight of five raced in wingtip to wingtip. Nish and Zham put their backs to the wall and wove a barrier of steel between themselves and the bladder-bats, working desperately to keep them out.
They weren’t going for Nish, but making coordinated strikes at Zham, trying to lure him away from the wall so they could attack on all sides. Zham was still sluggish from the venom and Nish was weakening rapidly as he struggled to defend a man twice his size. He’d forgotten how exhausting a few minutes of battle could be. He could barely hold his sword up.
Bladder-bats now littered the ground around them, many dead, others trying to drag their way across the ground to attack, though on the ground they were helpless creatures, easily put down.
Another group of three hurtled in low over the centre of the plateau where the updraughts were less fierce, and began to beat across the mires at reed height. Nish was despairing of being able to deal with three at once when the water swirled, snap, snap. The maw of a stink-snapper closed and began to withdraw back into the mire. The remaining bladder-bats scattered and Nish didn’t see what became of them.
But the attack was far from over. As a blush of pink spread across the eastern horizon, he heard the distinctive thup-thup of a flappeter’s feather-rotors. Shortly a flight of ten appeared, circling the plateau, their riders urging them in.
The flappeters turned towards the rim with evident reluctance, fighting the vicious updraughts with their feather-rotors twisting and buckling, sending the beasts plunging towards the cliffs before they recovered and darted out to safer air.
‘Ten flappeters,’ said Zham, dazedly. ‘We can’t fight ten of them.’
‘That’s almost all Father’s got left, I’d say, and he’ll risk them reluctantly. But risk them he will if there’s no alternative. He was never loath to break a precious thing in pursuit of something he wanted more.’
‘I think we should move away from the hut,’ said Zham. ‘Just in case they see us and it gives Flydd’s location away.’
There was a good chance that Jal-Nish already knew, for the bladder-bats had come straight for them, though if they weren’t magical creatures they might have seen him and Zham without being able to communicate it to the God-Emperor.
‘Good idea,’ said Nish. They went out towards the main cleft, keeping close to the rim where the turbulence was greatest.
Something flashed in the thunderhead. It wasn’t lightning, but white light focussed to a pinpoint, followed by a rolling echo that sounded as if there were words in it, harsh orders. Nish couldn’t make them out.
There came an almighty ground-shaking thump, as if something massive had fallen a long way away. Blue light jagged down from the clouds towards the centre of the plateau, followed by a long, echoing boom. Nish couldn’t see anything out there, though.
The leading rider hauled his beast in their direction. Had the flappeter seen him? Nish couldn’t be sure – the red amber-wood was supposed to conceal them, but if they’d seen through it his father must be close by, wielding Gatherer. The flappeter fought its rider for a minute or two, until he raised a stubby rod in his right hand and pressed it to the nub at the back of the beast’s skull.
It jerked convulsively, the feather-rotors missing a beat and its back arching up until its tail almost touched the back of its head. Curving around in a great circle which took it a league out over the rainforest, it turned and raced towards them.
Nish wearily raised his sword, though nothing save an exceptionally long and well-aimed spear would be any good against a racing flappeter. The beast hurtled towards them, its feather-rotors a blur, clearly planning to use its momentum to cleave straight through the turbulence.
‘Leave this one to me, surr,’ said Zham, pushing Nish out of the way.
He sprang forwards towards the edge of the cliff, his great sword held out and up. He looked as solid as one of the giant trees in the rainforest below, though next to a flappeter even Zham was small, and it was coming so fast that it would smash right through him, or drive his shattered body through the low rocks behind them.
Zham crouched abruptly. What was he up to?
Nish suddenly realised that it wasn’t attacking at all. It was coming straight for him, as the first one had, that night in the Defiance camp before the battle. Its intention must be to snatch him, then fly inland and climb through the air over the marshes, which Jal-Nish was now calming with his weather Arts.
As Nish stumbled backwards, Zham sprang up into the path of the flappeter. It saw him just as it entered the zone of the updraught. It baulked instinctively at the obstacle, reared up but lost way and was caught side-on in the boiling wind. The flappeter was flung upside down, then stopped dead in the air. The rotor shaft appeared to lock under the strain but the feather-rotors kept spinning until they twisted the shaft right out of the creature’s back in a sticky spray of scales, flesh and horny carapace. The rider, screaming in sympathetic agony, tried to leap to safety but couldn’t get free of the saddle in time. The flappeter crashed upside down onto the edge of the cliff, stoving the rider’s head in and breaking its own back, then lay there, kicking and screeching, until Zham da
rted across and severed its head from its body.
‘Well done, Zham,’ Nish said, putting a hand on the big man’s shoulder. ‘I never would have thought of that.’
‘I always try to think of a way to avoid fighting, first.’
After that, not even the most furious flashes and thundering orders from above could induce the other flappeters to approach. Jal-Nish’s flesh-formed creatures were ingenious and deadly, but that wasn’t enough to overcome the plateau’s natural defences. Flydd had chosen his lair well.
‘Is that it?’ Zham said hopefully as the remaining flappeters curved away towards the forest. ‘Have we beaten him?’
‘Never. He’ll wait, and in an hour or two his troops will be able to pass our burning barriers …’
‘What are you thinking, Nish?’
‘That he’ll beat us if we give him time. We’ve got to force Father’s hand and make him attack now, before he’s ready. Before his troops can get here.’
‘How will that help?’
‘Maybe it won’t, but it can’t make things worse. Keep watch. This is our final hour – it’s all or nothing now.’ He shook his fist at the black sky, shouting, ‘I defy you, Father, and I’ll win, for you don’t have the courage to face me.’
A growl of thunder made the cloud swirl. Nish shivered then went into the hut.
Flydd – it was almost impossible to think of him as Flydd, because he looked so different – was sitting up now, holding a wooden mug of water to his lips. His hands barely had the strength to keep it there.
‘Surr!’ said Nish. ‘Your renewal worked!’
‘Did it?’ croaked Flydd. ‘I don’t – know.’
‘Of course it did,’ Nish said uneasily. ‘Surr, that wasn’t Vomix we saw before, it was Monkshart, under an illusion …’ He trailed off, looking around the dark hut. ‘Where’s Maelys?’
‘Sent – her out.’
‘You what?’
‘Renewal – took four – crystals.’ Flydd could barely get the words out. ‘Had to have – more power.’
‘When, Xervish?
