by Ian Irvine
The timing, partly by accident, was right, for the moon was about to set and once it did there would be ten minutes of darkness before the first light of dawn. It was the best time to attack, for the sentries would be weary from their chilly night vigil. Nonetheless, Nish’s stomach spasmed at the thought of what he was about to attempt. If Boobelar had already found Klarm’s army, and he had warned the guards at the pass of the imminent attack, it would be a quick and bloody form of suicide.
His head was throbbing again. He adjusted the staff on his back, now grateful for its warmth, crawled to the edge of the ridge and looked across and up. The rocky mountainside was extremely steep, and mostly bare of cover. The setting moon showed parts of the track, which ran up a shallow gully, little more than a notch in the flank of the mountain, to the pass.
The only concealment was low-growing ferns and a few windswept bushes, though most had been tramped flat by Klarm’s advance guard. At least, he prayed that it was the advance guard. If the whole army had gone by while they were climbing Liver-Leech, they had made the nightmare climb for nothing.
‘I – I could creep up and scout the defences for you,’ said a small voice to his left.
‘Is that you, Huwld?’ said Nish.
‘Yes. Can I go? I’ve got to –’
‘Don’t be silly, lad,’ said Nish, as kindly as he could. ‘Run back now, this is soldiers’ business.’
With a muffled choke, Huwld crept away. What was the matter with the lad? And what would happen to him if everyone was killed?
Flydd slid in beside Nish to the left; Flangers settled on the right, stifling a groan. Chissmoul was further around the curving ridge top, looking downslope, though the lower parts of the mountain were wreathed in mist and there was little to see.
‘How are your bones holding out, Sergeant?’ said Nish in a low voice.
‘I can feel every one of them,’ said Flangers. ‘It’s been quite a walk.’
Nish was amazed that he had come this far, for Flangers had lost a lot of weight while he was the Numinator’s prisoner and had not looked well when he’d come through the portal. But he was a professional soldier, knew nothing else, and the more that was asked of him the more he seemed to grow.
‘It won’t be easy to attack,’ said Flydd.
A mighty understatement. In the moonlight, Blisterbone Pass formed a perfect natural fortress, with the precipice-bounded flanks of the white-thorn peak looming over it to the right and its lower but bulkier twin guarding the left, equally unclimbable. High above the track an ice-covered horn of rock protruded from the side of the white-thorn peak like the gigantic, beaky nose of an ever-watchful guardian.
The track up the rocky gully was such a steep climb that at several points they would have to go down on hands and knees, and the last hundred paces had no cover whatsoever. Could they do it in ten minutes, in darkness? They would have to.
The pass itself was a mere slot between buttresses of rock that appeared to be at least a span and a half high, and too steep to climb. The enemy could shoot from their tops but would be almost impossible to pick off from below, and once the fighting started Nish’s archers could not fire at all for fear of hitting their own people.
‘I don’t see any lights,’ said Flangers. ‘Nor any firelight, either.’
‘Doesn’t mean they aren’t keeping watch,’ said Nish, taking out a packet of rations and breaking off a chunk of purloined journey-bread, a dense cake-like substance made from flour, eggs, pounded nuts and dried fruit. It was dry and almost as hard as wood, but tasty and warming; just the thing to line the stomach of a hungry soldier before battle. ‘They’re disciplined soldiers; if they do have a fire it’ll be small and well back, so it doesn’t destroy their night sight.’
He squinted up at the pass, willing his clearsight to see through solid rock, but it had deserted him yet again. ‘We’ve got to know how many guards there are. It’ll be a tough battle if the garrison is twenty men; if it’s two hundred, we’ve got no chance.’
‘There’s no way of finding out,’ said Flydd, clutching his iron serpent like a wizard’s staff, ‘and dawn isn’t far off. We’d better move.’
A sudden wind rustled the shrubs further down. Nish shivered and pulled his thin coat more tightly around him.
‘Surr?’ Chissmoul hissed.
‘Yes?’ Nish said distractedly.
‘I can see lights, far below.’
He crept across to her vantage point. The wind was breaking up the mist and he made out three tiny points of light, widely separated; now seven lights; now dozens; hundreds. A chill that no warmth could disperse spread over his back. ‘It’s Klarm’s army. Have they been there all the time?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Flydd. ‘So if Boobelar hasn’t reached their camp already, it won’t take him long.’
‘If he’d reached them already, we would have heard Klarm coming on the air-sled.’
‘Not if he took a roundabout route. Alternatively, he could have flown up to the pass before we got here. And even if he isn’t there yet, he soon will be. The army is surely less than two hours away. What do you know about their path, Nish?’
‘I was told it’s as hard a climb as the way we came from Gendrigore.’ The wind died and the mist swept back, obscuring all lights save the initial three. ‘Chissmoul, are those lights moving?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘They’re coming this way.’
‘And even if Klarm doesn’t know yet,’ said Flydd, ‘once either the garrison above or the army below gets wind of us, they’ll signal to their comrades and we’ll be trapped – between an impregnable fortress and an army so vast it’ll annihilate us.’
Nish considered that prospect in silence. The moon went down and darkness settled over the mountains; the first light of dawn was but ten minutes away. ‘We’re going up. Pass the word. We must have absolute silence.’
The message was relayed back. Nish stuffed the rest of his journey-bread into his pack, for his mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow. ‘Clech?’ he said to the huge fisherman. ‘I’d like to have you with me.’
‘It will be an honour, Nish.’
‘I don’t want you risking yourself –’ began Flydd.
‘My militia don’t have the experience,’ said Nish. ‘I’ve got to lead them. And of all the sergeants I’ve ever met, I’d choose you to be my right hand, Flangers.’
‘I’ll be there. It’ll be just like old times,’ said Flangers.
‘And you, Chissmoul, to my left,’ Nish added, sensing that she was about to ask it. She could not bear to be parted from Flangers, though Nish suspected that this was going to be their final hour. ‘More than anything I need a good pair of eyes and an unflinching heart.’
‘I’m with you, Nish, to the bitter end.’
‘Thank you.’ They roped together for the climb, not because it was particularly dangerous, but to be sure they kept close together in the dark. ‘Check your weapons and follow me.’
TEN
It would be the bitter end for him, too, most probably, but Nish wasn’t going to think about that. He slipped the sabre up and down in its sheath to be sure it would come free when he needed it, tested the knife on his other hip and adjusted the serpent staff on his back.
When everyone was roped up and ready, he went hand over hand down the broken ridge rock and onto the track. The chill breeze drifted up past him, carrying that faint tang of wood smoke, though the lights could no longer be seen.
Nish didn’t try to suppress his anxiety. It was right to be afraid before battle, and there was much to fear: ignominious defeat, or the price of victory if they should achieve it, and most of all, the loss of so many more friends …
He cancelled all such dismal thoughts and concentrated on what he could see of the track, now no more than a glimmer of reflected starlight here and there. The pass was about four hundred paces up.
He began to feel his way up the track, step by step, and knew that he was taking much to
o long. At this rate dawn would expose them halfway, and even in this forsaken place there was no chance of the guards being asleep at their posts. In the Imperial army, the punishment for neglecting one’s duty was dire.
He stopped for a second and Clech ran into him, then caught his shoulder, steadying him. ‘I can’t see a thing,’ Nish whispered. ‘We’re too slow.’
‘Let me go first,’ said Chissmoul and, without waiting for permission, she untied her rope and scrambled up past him. ‘I can see a bit; enough.’
They retied themselves and she went ahead, though Nish did not like it. It was his responsibility to lead and, during the war, it had been second nature for him to be alert to all manner of dangers, expected and unexpected. Chissmoul was as solid as Flangers, in her own way, but he felt the loss of control keenly.
She was quick, though. The rope was tugging at his chest and he stepped forwards, trying to guess where she had put her feet on the broken rock, but before he found a secure foothold the rope had tightened again and was pulling him off-balance.
‘You’re too fast for me,’ he said quietly.
‘Go any slower and dawn will beat us.’ Chissmoul was off again.
His heart was pounding and his palms felt sticky. He wiped them on his pants, stumbled when the rope jerked again and would have brought her down with him had Clech not held him up again.
Nish did not think that the scuffling sound could have been heard, for they were still three hundred paces below the pass, but sounds carried a long way across a bare mountainside. And if the enemy had scriers or wisp-watchers they would be walking into a trap.
Within minutes they had halved the distance without incident, though Nish was developing a cramp in his right calf and the bruised and blistered soles of his feet were throbbing.
‘Stop! Cramp,’ he whispered.
Chissmoul stopped and Nish was stretching his calf muscle when, from below, metal clacked on stone. He froze, for the sound had been loud enough to carry all the way up.
‘Down!’ he hissed, and lay prone on the wet rock. ‘Don’t move.’ The order was relayed back in whispers and he heard the faintest scrape of leather scabbards on stone as everyone lay prone.
There was no sound from above, but without warning the beam of a storm lantern stabbed down the slope from the slot, then began to sweep across the path from side to side.
‘Don’t look directly at the lantern, surr,’ said Chissmoul. ‘It’ll reflect off your eyes.’
Nish watched it from the corner of an eye, sweating. Had they been fifty paces further up, they would have been seen at once; even at this distance a keen-eyed sentry might spot them. The beam passed back and forth, moved down, then back and forth again. The guards were taking no chances.
‘They’ll come down to make sure,’ he muttered.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Clech said. ‘The night is full of odd sounds when you’re on guard duty.’
Nish eyed the defences, which he could see clearly now in the light from the lantern. The entry to the pass was a slot-like gash through sheer rock, barely wide enough for three men to fight abreast. Attacking the defenders in the slot, up such a steep slope, would put his militia at a massive disadvantage, while the enemy could fire down at them from the rock buttresses on either side. No wonder the pass was considered impregnable.
A sharp edge of rock was digging into his breastbone but he forced himself to ignore it. The next pass of the beam would come across Chissmoul, himself and Flangers. The guards might not make them out at this distance but any scrier with a wisp-watcher surely would. And Nish had an unnerving feeling that they did have a scrier.
Holding his breath, he counted the seconds. The beam fanned across him, swept back further down, and went out.
‘Stay!’ he hissed.
Stay, stay, stay was repeated down the line. A minute went by in silence, then without warning the beam swept back and forth, right over them. If anyone had risen, they would have been seen.
The beam went out but he waited another minute, feeling their chances ebbing away with every tick of his internal clock. Only minutes until dawn.
‘When we get near,’ Nish said quietly, ‘try to breathe shallowly so they don’t hear us. And before you attack, don’t forget to discard the ropes.’
While the word was passed back, he worked his leg muscles, hoping to prevent a last-minute cramp. After the brutal all-night march he had just enough left for one brief onslaught, and it had better succeed. He would not have the strength for a second attempt, or even a long fight.
‘Go,’ he whispered. ‘Quick and quiet as you can.’
Chissmoul sprang to her feet as if starting a race, and Nish marvelled that she was able to. The rope pulled him forwards; he felt icy cold now, no longer afraid, and perhaps because of that his clearsight snapped on and he could see the track.
She went as fast as it was possible to go up such a steep slope, and he went with her, counting the steps and concentrating on placing his feet squarely and softly. Behind him Clech was moving easily, his long legs covering a pace and a half with every stride, his huge feet finding a steady purchase on the roughest surface.
They dropped over a lip of rock into a broad, shallow bowl. Three or four spans deep and maybe twenty across, it had not been visible from below. The sudden descent was so unexpected that Nish would have sprawled on his face had the taut rope not held him up.
At the bottom, grit squeaked underfoot, as if the rock here had been smashed by a mallet-wielding giant. He found his footing, moved carefully across to minimise the noise, and up the other, steeper side of the bowl.
Ahead the track curved left around a knob shaped like a bladder-bat, then ran up steeply for the last sixty paces. Chissmoul turned around the knob, slipped and her arms wheeled, but she found her feet and kept going.
‘Rope!’ whispered Nish.
They untied, dropped it to one side and headed up the steep pinch, and Nish felt a faint hope that they would make it to the slot undetected. Fifty paces to go and his throat was burning; he was short of breath, and trying to breathe shallowly and quietly made it worse.
Even so, he was making more noise than he cared to, and someone behind him was panting. Forty paces; he landed hard on a small rock and his right ankle almost turned; he just managed to save it from going over though he felt a stinging pain in the top of his left foot and another shot up his leg. Had he pulled a muscle?
He couldn’t stop. Thirty paces and his leg began to throb; now a cramp was building in his right calf. He tried to adjust his stride to stave it off but that made the pain in his left leg worse.
Twenty paces, and he didn’t think he could go much further. But he had to; everything depended on surprise and the strength and determination of the leaders. If they failed, the troops behind could not make up the difference. He had to keep going, no matter how much it hurt.
Ten paces. They had to burst through the narrow slot before the enemy realised they were there. If the sentries were alerted, even a handful of soldiers could hold the pass against his little force.
Far below, someone lost their footing, fell with a stifled cry, and a shield went clattering down the rocky slope, making enough noise to rouse sleeping guards. But Klarm’s guards would always be at their posts.
‘Left!’ hissed Flangers and, like the trained soldiers they were, Chissmoul, Nish and Clech went left off the path to the span-high buttress blocking the left side of the pass. Flangers turned right.
‘I’ll throw you two up and over,’ whispered Clech. ‘Ready?’
They shrank against the rock face as a guard loomed in the gap, drawing back the shutter of a lantern.
Chissmoul touched Clech’s arm to signal that she was. He caught her under the arms and tensed.
The metal shutter scraped and the beam shone down the track, revealing the next four militiamen only ten spans down. ‘We’re under –’ the guard cried, then died with Flangers’s knife in his throat.
He fell
forward and down. Flangers tore the knife free and shouldered him off the path. As he did, Clech sent Chissmoul flying up onto the top of the buttress, then took Nish under the arms and, with a mighty heave, hurled him after her. Nish landed in black shadow, wrenching his foot again, but recovered and lay prone. Flangers was thrown after him, landed like a cat and caught his arm.
‘It’s Nish,’ Nish said. ‘Chissmoul is ahead.’
Behind the other buttress, a lantern was unshuttered momentarily, revealing a group of sentries coming to their feet, half a dozen or more. Good, Nish thought, squinting to protect his vision. They’ve just lost their night sight and we still have ours.
‘We’re under attack!’ bellowed one of the sentries, and there were a few moments of chaos while they snatched up their weapons. ‘Reinforcements, down to the eastern pass!’
In the slot, sword clanged on sword. Clech was trying to force the entrance to the pass all by himself.
‘We’re in and they don’t know we’re here,’ whispered Flangers, and Nish could tell that he was smiling. The warrior was back in his element at last, and with his vast experience he was worth three ordinary soldiers. ‘I’ll take these guards from behind. Go up; stay in the shadows and attack the reinforcements as they come.’ He crept down the upper side of the buttress.
A long way up the pass, the embers of a small fire glowed faintly, as if through the cracks of a stone fireplace. The camp would be nearby, no doubt, and presumably the other, western entrance to the pass would also be well guarded, though Nish did not know how far away it was. He and Chissmoul headed up.
Swords clashed at the slot; the leading militiamen would have reached Clech by now. Unfortunately they could only fight three abreast and, striking up such a steep slope, would be at a severe disadvantage. And if Flangers fell …
‘We’ve got to stop the reinforcements,’ Nish said to Chissmoul. ‘I’ll scout further up. Wait here to ambush any I miss.’
