by Ian Irvine
She shuddered at the memories and ran faster, splashing along the forest path away from Nish, but still worrying about him. She had wanted to tell him about lying with Emberr, and that she might be pregnant, but had felt too embarrassed.
Could she be expecting? It would change everything if she was, but there was no way of telling, since it had only happened a few days ago. She wouldn’t know for weeks – assuming she survived that long.
Maelys dismissed the distracting thoughts and kept running until she reached the lower clearing, then peered out. It formed a ragged circle extending for several hundred paces along the river to the point where it ran into the gorge, though the rain was so heavy, and the air near the river so full of whirling spray, that she could barely see the gorge.
The clearing rose steeply to her right, like a tilted saucer, up to the right-hand ridge of the valley, and she began to trek across the slope. The valley was narrower here and she had been told that the encircling ridges were connected via a natural arch of stone spanning the centre of the gorge, though she could not make it out. To her left the saucer’s rim formed a gentle lip up onto the river bank, and a curving pond had formed there. Further on a narrow gully ran into the river.
She plodded across the slope of the clearing, below a long, curving rock outcrop over which runoff poured in little cascades, towards the entrance of the gorge. It was hard to see through the spray from the roaring river, though on the right side a jumble of boulders the size of elephants might be negotiable.
Maelys gulped. She had never been adventurous – her idea of a perfect day was sitting by the fire reading a book – and the passage through the gorge looked extremely dangerous. The river’s torrential flow was grinding boulders together in its bed and flinging spray up a good three spans, while waterfalls cascading over the sides of the gorge would deluge anyone trying to pass through.
It might be possible to leap from one huge boulder to the next, though they appeared to be covered in moss and would be horribly slippery. We’ll lose a lot of people getting through, she thought, and I’ll probably be one of them. The Gendrigoreans were outdoor folk, used to climbing and naturally dexterous, but Maelys was not. Her knees went wobbly at the thought.
Not to mention that, at the rate the river was rising, the lowest point of the passage could be closed off by the time the militia arrived. She looked back, and through waves of driving rain made out the first of them entering the clearing. She splashed back.
‘There’s the gorge,’ she said to the huge militiaman carrying Yggur, whose eyes were closed; his arms and legs flopped with every movement. ‘It’s going to be difficult to get through, though, with the water rising so fast …’
‘And the longer we wait the more difficult it will be,’ the militiaman rumbled. His voice was even deeper than dear Zham’s, who had given his life at the top of Mistmurk Mountain so Maelys, Nish, Flydd and Colm could escape. ‘My name’s Clech.’
‘Maelys,’ she said, shaking a paw the size of a pumpkin leaf, but his grip was gentle around her little hand.
He set Yggur down in the mud and looked at her inquiringly, as if awaiting her orders, which was absurd.
‘Are the rest of the militia close?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. Do you want us to go through the gorge?’
She was not used to giving orders and had no idea what Nish would do. Was it better to send most of the militia through even if the stragglers were cut off, or should they wait until everyone was here? Either way, her instructions, made in ignorance, would be condemning some people to death.
‘I suppose so,’ Maelys said, then felt a powerful instinct that it was the wrong decision. ‘No, wait until everyone gets here. I’m sure Nish would want us to keep together.’
Gnawing a knuckle, she scanned the ridgeline and the edges of the clearing, knowing the enemy could appear anywhere and attack without warning. Maelys had never been a leader, nor had she any desire to be one, and she had no knowledge of battlefield tactics.
He broke into her panicked thoughts. ‘You and Nish are old friends.’
‘Er, yes.’ She did not want to go into their differences since she’d helped to rescue him from his father’s prison, months ago. ‘We travelled together for a long time.’
‘He was very pleased to see you, when you came through the portal.’
Was he? Nish had treated her badly in their early days together, partly because Maelys, to her shame, had tried to use him to fulfil an obligation to her family. However he had softened after his father caught them at the top of Mistmurk Mountain, and Nish had certainly changed during the time they had been separated.
Our experiences, and especially our choices, make us what we are, she thought, and I’m not the naïve girl I was when I met him, either.
More of the militia straggled in, men and a small number of women. Some were weaponless while the rest carried broken lances or notched swords. Most of the archers were out of arrows, and Maelys shook her head in dismay. Even if Nish had been the greatest leader in the world, he could do little with such a rabble.
Tulitine appeared, hobbling and supporting a staggering, feverish Flydd, but neither of them could relieve Maelys of the burden of command.
‘What’s the matter with Xervish?’ she said.
‘When the caduceus blazed up, it also hurt him badly, but he’s getting better.’
Flydd didn’t look it. ‘Are there many more to come?’ asked Maelys, scanning the circle of faces. People were hard to identify, being covered in mud, but she did not see Nish anywhere.
‘A dozen at most,’ said Tulitine hoarsely, rubbing her arm as if in great pain.
‘Where’s Nish?’
‘He stayed behind to ambush the enemy.’
‘All alone?’ Maelys cried.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What are we supposed to do now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tulitine repeated. ‘I can’t think.’
The militia were standing around, staring at Maelys. ‘What do you want us to do?’ said Clech.
She couldn’t send them through the gorge without Nish. ‘Go up there and get ready to defend yourselves.’
She indicated the waist-high outcrop of brown stone she’d passed earlier, near the top of the clearing. It curved across the slope for some thirty paces, and the two-hundred-odd militia might just cram in behind it, though it would be cramped to defend.
It was the only cover available, though if they had to run from there to the gorge they would be exposed all the way. Still, if the gorge became impassable, as was looking increasingly likely, they could retreat up into the narrow band of forest below the rocky ridge.
Maelys rubbed her forehead, trying to think like a commander. From there they might scramble over the ridge, which was no longer guarded, but then what? Klarm would hunt them down; he would never give up.
‘I’ll go along the track a bit and wait for Nish,’ said Maelys. ‘I’m sure he’ll be along any second.’ She had to keep up the pretence, for her own sake as much as theirs.
Clech was heading for Yggur when he sat up and said in a shaky voice, ‘I’m all right now. I can walk.’
Clech nodded and led the militia up the slope. Tulitine said quietly, ‘You can’t go unprotected.’
‘I’m not going far,’ said Maelys.
‘Wait!’ Tulitine put her hands over her eyes, stiffened and her head lolled forwards. ‘The pieces are moving into alignment,’ she said in her lower, whispery seer’s voice. ‘The next few days will determine not just the fate of this obscure militia, but all Santhenar, and the choices of these two matter most.’
Flydd’s head shot up; Yggur forced himself to his feet, swaying. ‘These two?’ said Yggur. ‘Nish and Maelys?’
‘That’s how I read the future.’
‘Then she must stay with us, where she can be protected,’ said Flydd.
‘You’re not listening,’ said Tulitine. ‘Our time is nearly done; Maelys must make her
own decisions.’
‘But I haven’t the faintest idea what to do,’ said Maelys. She was fed up with being the focus of obscure foretellings and could not bear the responsibility laid on her. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘Your choices are still vital,’ said Tulitine, ‘whether you accept the responsibility or reject it. Come here; we may be able to improve your defences a little.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Show us the taphloid,’ said Flydd. ‘Yggur, we might need a hand.’
Yggur lurched across. ‘What is it? You’ll be lucky to get anything more out of me today.’
‘We need to heighten the shield in Maelys’s taphloid. Can you – ?’
‘Her what?’
Yggur had never seen the taphloid, for the only time Maelys had used it in his presence, at the Tower of a Thousand Steps, she’d kept it hidden. She held it out.
Yggur glanced at it without interest. ‘What is it?’
‘A device my father, Rudigo, gave me when I was little,’ said Maelys.
‘I’ve a vague memory of having seen one before, though I can’t say where. So many years, and so many devices – they all blur into one another.’
‘Father told me to wear it always. It’s designed to hide the aura created by my gift, though it’s been behaving oddly ever since we ended up here.’
‘What gift?’ Yggur said sharply. ‘I didn’t know you had a gift for the Art.’
‘I don’t know what mine is, though some people in my family could locate the God-Emperor’s wisp-watchers, or hide from them. My little sister, Fyllis, has the strongest gift. She fooled all the watchers in Mazurhize, and Gatherer too, and got Nish out of prison all by herself,’ Maelys said proudly, ‘though she was only eight.’
‘Remarkable,’ said Yggur.
He did not seem overly impressed, but then, he must have known thousands of people more gifted than her, including the greatest mancers of all. ‘But I’ve never had any training,’ said Maelys, ‘and apparently I’m too old to start now.’
‘Very possibly.’ He held out his hand.
She lifted the taphloid over her head, more reluctant than usual to take it off. ‘Be careful. It’s set to protect me, and it’s hurt everyone who’s touched it – at least, everyone with a gift for the Art.’
‘I’m not everyone,’ he said curtly, closing his big fingers around the egg-shaped, yellow-metal taphloid. It had no apparent effect on him, and he closed his eyes as if thinking.
‘Yggur?’ said Tulitine shortly.
He shook himself and handed it back to Maelys, shaking his head in puzzlement. ‘It felt as though it belonged in my hand, like an everyday object from long ago suddenly found again, though how can that be? I don’t remember ever having one. Put it on, Maelys. It doesn’t just hide your aura; it also makes you harder to see, a considerable advantage on the battlefield.’
‘That must be Yalkara’s doing,’ said Maelys. ‘To protect the child she thinks I’m carrying.’
‘Hmm,’ said Yggur. ‘Well, I’ve done all I could to increase the protection, though I don’t think I made much difference.’
The taphloid seemed heavier, and warmer, and every so often it gave a little shudder, as though something inside it was wobbling like an off-centre spinning top. It had been doing that a lot since she’d come through the portal from the Tower of a Thousand Steps, and Maelys was afraid it was breaking down.
She set off without looking back, for five precious minutes had been lost and, though another fourteen stragglers had arrived, Nish had not. They were the last, they said, and they had seen no sign of him.
Maelys crept along the track with the rain pouring down as heavily as ever, increasingly afraid that Nish had been captured, or … or killed. She could not bear to think about that ... he had been a part of her life for too long.
As a little girl she had hero-worshipped him from the time she first heard, then read and re-read, the tales of his mighty exploits during the war. She no longer had any romantic feelings for Nish, thankfully, but she would always care about him.
She dragged her thoughts back to the present. If she went on, she was bound to run into the Imperial army and be captured; the taphloid would not hide her from their direct sight, but returning to the militia also felt wrong. No, she must keep going – if anyone could find Nish, she could.
Nifferlin Manor had been torn down by the God-Emperor’s troops when Maelys was still a child, but the family had remained in the ruins, for they had nowhere else to go. The estate had been searched a number of times and she had quickly learned how to find the best hiding places, and how to move silently through forest and across moor. The scriers had never found her.
She slipped into the rainforest, weaving between the huge, buttressed trunks festooned with vines of all sizes, some thin as string, others as large around as her waist. There was no danger of a stick snapping underfoot to give her away, for the ground was like a sponge made of rotten wood and dark brown humus like peat, and all was covered in ankle-high moss, downy ferns and huge, extraordinary fungi. Many of them were a luminous green or blue in the dim light, with suggestive or vulgar shapes and unpleasant odours.
She hadn’t gone far when she heard soldiers running down the track. Maelys slid behind a phallic fungus taller than she was and peered around its oozing side. The troop splashed past, only a few paces away, led by a burly, toad-faced sergeant.
Another squad followed close behind, and finally a smaller figure clad in sodden brown robes and dripping hood, moving with a sliding, slithery stride. A battle mancer? Maelys froze.
Even worse; far worse. The unblinking iris of a little wisp-watcher was mounted on the man’s head, a shimmering loop-listener clamped to his left shoulder, and as he drew near she caught a whiff of burnt bones – scrier! She feared scriers more than any of the God-Emperor’s other servants, for they had hunted her family many times, and twice they had almost caught them.
He stopped, raised his flared nostrils and began to sniff the air. His head rotated left and right like an oiled piece of machinery; now he was staring at the stalk of the fungus. Could he make her out in the gloom? The huge wisp-watchers could see in the dimmest light but a little one might not be so keen-sighted. She dared not move, not even to clutch her taphloid.
Though the rain was almost deafening, Maelys scarcely dared to breathe in case the loop-listener could detect it. A scrier’s spying devices could be linked to Gatherer, and if he did hear her, Klarm would soon be told about it.
The scrier reached up with a long-nailed hand and caressed the loop-listener, which rotated back and forth before pointing at her hiding place. Behind the stalk of the toadstool, Maelys slid her hand down to the big knife on her hip, not that it would be any use against a scrier. He would call in the troops, then torment her while they held her down.
Don’t see me, she thought. I’m far away and, the longer you waste here, the less chance you have of finding me.
The taphloid warmed slightly. The scrier turned away, looked back, then shook his head and moved on. More troops ran by, and more. Once they’d gone, Maelys shivered and crept away, now really anxious about the time.
The best place for Nish to ambush the enemy was the dense forest at the nearer end of the partly collapsed path next to the river. She struggled through the dripping jungle beside the track, fretting about how much time she was taking, but if she went further into the forest she was likely to get lost.
Another squad of troops ran by. The enemy would soon be in a position to attack, and they would quickly overwhelm the militia sheltering behind the outcrop. She had to go faster.
Maelys only just stifled a cry as another scrier came slithering around the bend, just paces away on the track, and for a second he was looking right at her. She tried to blend into the forest, hoping the mud all over her would help.
The scrier stopped abruptly and squinted between the trees, nose up. She stared at him, restraining the overwhelming urge to bolt.
He moved the iris of his wisp-watcher back and forth, but it was pointing slightly away from her. She took hold of the taphloid and, after a few seconds, he too headed on.
She was approaching the collapsed section of path now – Maelys could just make out the dangling roots through the trees. There seemed to be far more exposed than before, and the river was a lot higher, which explained why the enemy had been so far behind; presumably they’d had to hack their way through the tangled vines.
The ground shook then heaved under her feet, and not far ahead a gigantic tree began to topple as its roots were undermined. A thick root tore up through the ground, pulled as taut as a hawser, then snapped, flinging mud in all directions. A clot smacked stingingly into her right cheek.
Scrambling backwards, she caught hold of a vine as other roots tore out of the ground, the tree tilted and, with majestic slowness and a deafening roar, crashed into the river, sending waves in all directions. As the tree was dragged downstream by the current, the roots tore out and the ground where it had stood liquefied before Maelys’s eyes. The slurry poured into the river, leaving a hole the width of a cottage.
Now a series of concentric cracks formed in the soil, centred where the tree had been, then began to widen and the ground between them to sink. The earth moved under Maelys’s feet; it was cracking out here as well. She ran the other way and caught hold of a solid vine as the river flooded into the hole and began to eat the soil away.
Scrabbling across to the most likely ambush point, she noted arrows embedded in a branch. Nish had been fired upon, but had they got him? Maelys saw no blood, though the downpour would surely have washed any away. If he’d escaped, he should be in the lower clearing by now and, with the enemy about to attack, could not afford to wait for her.
Afraid she was going to be left behind, Maelys was heading for the track when she trod on something that did not give under her weight – the hilt of Vivimord’s black sabre. Nish would not have left it behind, therefore he must have been taken. Which way? The spongy ground held no tracks, but a company of soldiers would have trampled the exotic fungi and mound-mosses underfoot and she saw no sign of that. Who, then?
