Vengeance ttr-1

by Ian Irvine

  He closed his eyes, turned away, turned back. ‘I can’t, Tali. Please don’t ask me again.’

  It was worse than a slap in the face. It felt like a repudiation of their friendship. She turned away, alone again.

  ‘There are ways to uncover hidden or buried gifts,’ said Tobry. ‘Once we reach Caulderon I’ll consult a friend who’s far more skilled in magery than I am.’

  She swung around. The offer was worse than nothing. ‘You can’t tell anyone about it!’ she cried.

  ‘All right, all right.’ He thought for a minute. ‘There was a device for this purpose, a very ancient thing …’

  ‘A device?’ she said grudgingly.

  ‘It came from Thanneron with the Fleeters. What was it called? A pry-probe? Spectible?’

  He shook the reins and the horse took off, sending a shuddery pulse of pain through her and robbing her of the strength to question him further.

  She drifted …

  ‘No,’ groaned Tobry. ‘Get out, out, out!’

  Tali roused from tormented dreams with the call reverberating in her head like a pealing bell. She forced the shell to close around it and managed to choke it down to a whisper, though for the first time she could not close it off completely, and surely that meant …

  Tobry moaned, a piteous sound.

  She felt about in the dark. His left arm was thrashing up and down. She caught it and held him. ‘Tobry, what is it?’

  ‘Urggh! Unrggh-rrggh, rggh!’ He slumped onto her, squashing her down until her head hit the saddle horn.

  She pushed herself upright. He was hotter than Rix had been when she’d laid her healing hands on him by the lake, and from such an awkward position she could not help Tobry.

  If she dragged him to the ground, she would never get him back into the saddle. Tali heaved herself around until she was facing him, ignoring the spears of pain, and took his face between her hands. She was attempting to work the healing charm when her mind-shell was wrenched wide and the call went off like a shriek. No, like a beacon calling her enemy to her.

  She tried to close the shell but something was forcing it wide open from the other side. Something far stronger than her was trying to snap it at the hinges so it could never be closed. She could barely hold it, and Tobry was growing ever hotter under her hands. If she could not summon her healing gift he would die, consumed from the inside. Yet if she did use it on him, she would not have the strength to hold the shell at all, and that would be very bad …

  Mine, came a whisper, and she sensed shadows groping in a deeper darkness, familiar shadows, searching for her. You’re mine and you will bring her to …

  Tobry shuddered; panted; groaned, ‘No!’

  It was as though two people were fighting over her. She felt resistance, then the voice continued, I left my mark in you. You can’t keep me out. Bring her!

  ‘I won’t,’ she ground out, and lurched backwards in the saddle. ‘Get out of my head!’

  Shock! Alarm, then the sounds retreated until they were a meaningless buzz — coming from Tobry’s head!

  The voice had not been speaking to her. It had been giving orders to Tobry, orders about her. To bring her where? To the murder cellar?

  The familiarity crystallised. Rix had been right to be worried — the wrythen had left something in Tobry when it attacked him in the caverns. Now it was trying to take control of him and make him do the job Tinyhead had failed at. The wrythen and her enemy were the same, and if he took command of Tobry, she was lost. Tobry must have been expecting it — that’s why he had refused to help with her magery.

  Tali could not see how to block a presence that was within Tobry, not herself. Wait! The wrythen was tracking her via the call, and only after he forced open the shell had he broken through to Tobry. The call had to be blocked before she tried to help Tobry — if she still had the strength to block it.

  Tali squeezed her palms around her own head, one hand pressing against her forehead and the other on the back of her skull, as if by doing so she could prevent her enemy from doing to her what he had done to Tinyhead. She squeezed so hard that her thigh wound began to pulse. She had to ignore it; had to turn her enemy aside and block the call before it betrayed her.

  Harder she squeezed, and harder, conjuring up the image of the protective shell and forcing it closed with all her driving will.

  ‘Stop!’ Tobry cried, swaying wildly and almost falling out of the saddle. ‘It’s burning, burning. Tali, help!’

  One flailing hand struck her on the cheek, hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. She lost concentration for a second, the shell was forced wide and she heard another voice …

  The thing in the dark. Shadow and shape, shiftin’, always shiftin’.

  A huge, loping creature stopped, stood up on back legs until it would have towered over Rix, and turned in her direction, sniffing the air. Sickle-shaped pupils contracted to points; claws clotted with rancid fat and day-old blood extended; shadows fluttered around it, expanding and contracting. She caught a whiff, or imagined she did, of hot breath tainted with offal and carrion, then the maw opened wide, emitting not the roar she would have expected, but a repeated pinging sound, a false note like some corrupt mimicry of the note that was a distant reply to her call.

  Pinnnng, pinnnng, pinnnng.

  That’s it, said the wrythen. Fix on her. Steady, steady. Take her and you can drink the foul magian’s blood. But do not harm her.

  Tobry’s moan, deep in his throat, made her hair stand on end. His cheeks were glowing red in the dark, his eyes taking on the same gleam as Tinyhead’s had before his head had been burnt through, now showing a trace of yellow.

  Pinnnng, pinnnng, pinnnng.

  The sounds rose and fell as though a beam was sweeping across her and back, and sick terror overwhelmed her. She wanted to fling herself off the horse and run, anywhere. Tali struggled to fight it. She could not run. She would be lucky to stand up. And without her, Tobry was going to die. Clamping her hands harder around her skull, she squeezed with all the strength remaining to her.

  Pinnnng, pinnnng, pinnnng.

  ‘Close, close!’ she gasped, forcing physically and mentally at the same time.

  With an audible snap, the shell slammed, and both the call, the pinging and the presence in Tobry’s head cut off. So did the sense of that loping creature but she knew it was still out there, searching.

  With a little sigh, Tobry toppled sideways out of the saddle. Tali almost followed him, for she was shaking so badly that she could not hang on. Twisting her hands through the stirrup straps, she half fell, half slid down, hit the ground and her bad leg crumpled under her.

  Her head was ringing, her hands trembling so violently that she could not hold them against him. She crouched over Tobry and pressed her forehead to his.

  ‘Heal, heal!’

  Normally she could feel the healing force leaving her as she worked, but Tali was so drained that she felt nothing now. She lay beside him, her cold cheek touching his feverish one. From way out in the Seethings echoed an eerie shriek, so uncanny that she could not imagine any normal beast making it.

  ‘Heal,’ she whispered. ‘Please heal, Tobry, or we’re both dead.’

  CHAPTER 55

  Tali was lying on hard ground, so drained that she could not move, while the horror hunting her drew ever closer. She thought she saw it fleetingly, a shadow darker than the night, shifting, always shifting from one form to another. Was it shadow, dream or hallucination? In her feverish state she could not tell the difference between reality and imagining, sleeping and waking, normality and nightmare.

  Something leaned over her, half lifting and half dragging her. She flinched and tried to beat it off, but even the smallest movement speared jags of pain through her inflamed thigh.

  ‘Try not to move,’ said a hoarse voice, Tobry’s voice.

  ‘You’re alive,’ she whispered. She opened her eyes on a night black as a pit.

  ‘Thanks to you.’
<
br />   ‘I thought he’d got you.’

  ‘He nearly did.’ The rasping croak sounded as though his throat had been burnt. ‘I don’t know how you saved me, but — ’

  ‘It’s not over. The shadow-creature is out there, hunting me. For the wrythen. It’s big, Tobry. Bigger than Rix. And fast.’

  ‘Please, not a caitsthe,’ he said in a dead voice. ‘Was it catlike?’

  ‘Too dark to tell. Though it seemed hairy rather than furry. And foul — it really stank. And … it … the shadows seemed to transform it from one shape to another.’

  Tobry stiffened beside her, then slowly let out his breath.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Tali. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It sounds like some kind of shifter. And I’m mortally afraid of shifters. What if …?’

  He did not speak for a few seconds, but his hands, on her shoulders, were trembling and she could hear his racing heart. She recognised the signs. He was close to panic, and he must not give way to it.

  ‘Rannilt is all alone,’ she said. ‘We have to find her.’

  He gave a muffled sob.

  ‘What is it?’ she said softly.

  ‘I’ve only known her a day, yet I love her like a daughter.’

  ‘She gets under the skin. Cling to it, Tobry. We’re going to save her.’

  ‘Yes, we will.’ A little strength crept back into his voice.

  ‘What are shifters?’ Tali asked. ‘I remember you and Rix talking about them.’

  ‘Men that can change to beast-form. Or sometimes, beasts that can transform to man-shape.’

  ‘Isn’t that the same thing?’

  ‘Not at all. A beast doesn’t gain human intelligence when it shifts, but it makes up for it in cunning, speed and savagery. A man loses some wit when he becomes a beast, yet he’s still more clever than any wild creature. And more vicious. The beast-man kills because he must, but the man-beast kills because he enjoys it.’

  Tali pressed up against him. ‘You know a lot about them.’

  ‘A shifter helped to bring down my house — ’

  There came another howl, more shivery than the first.

  ‘Could you make some light? The dark is suffocating me.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Tobry.

  ‘The thing I saw has other ways of finding us.’

  ‘I hope it’s not another caitsthe,’ Tobry croaked. ‘More than anything in the world I hope it’s not a caitsthe.’

  ‘What’s a caitsthe?’

  He told her.

  ‘But you killed one in the mountains, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not me.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Rix fought it to a standstill while I lay on the floor in blissful unconsciousness. I’ve never heard of anyone else killing a caitsthe in single combat. Here.’

  The faint light from his elbrot revealed a scarlet face covered in blisters, and the whites of his crusted eyes were pink.

  ‘Not a pretty sight?’ he said wryly.

  But at least the eyes were his again. Did that mean the wrythen had been driven out — or was it just hiding? She looked away. ‘You survived. That’s what matters.’

  ‘For the moment. Did I thank you?’

  ‘I don’t need to be thanked.’

  ‘But I need to say it.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can get you into the saddle. Can you stand up?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  He took her under the arms and heaved, and such pain flared through her thigh that she cried out. It felt swollen to twice the size of the other.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Tobry.

  Getting her onto the horse proved to be the most painful few minutes she had ever experienced. Every movement was like having blunt needles forced into the wounds. When Tobry hauled himself up and took her in his arms, she closed her eyes and panted like a woman in childbirth, breathing to control the pain, concentrating on not screaming with every step the horse took.

  Not even pain could erase the image of the shapeshifting carrion eater, hunting her for its master. Pinnnng, pinnnng, pinnnng.

  ‘What if it finds Rannilt first?’ Tali whispered. She would have no chance.

  ‘Not even a caitsthe can catch a galloping horse.’

  ‘But Rannilt can’t ride.’ And no horse could gallop through the Seethings in the dark. It would end up in pit or pool or bottomless quick-mud within a hundred yards.

  She could not stop imagining Rannilt’s terror as the beast stalked her, hiding and revealing itself again, catching her then letting her go. Playing with its food …

  She bit down on a cry. Tobry put a hard hand on her thigh and began to whisper a healing spell. It was nothing like her own small gift of healing. This was real magery and she felt the pain fade, the hot tightness ease, the images in her head recede.

  ‘Sleep,’ he said in her ear.

  She was too on edge to sleep, but with his arm around her she felt safe enough to lapse into a daze. Tobry extinguished his mage-light, though from time to time he must have swung his elbrot through the air, for she could see moving trails through her closed eyelids.

  They rode on, and on …

  ‘Tali?’ Tobry said quietly, squeezing her. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

  Starlight showed that they were on the side of a small hill, moving through a patch of scrub. A wiry stem trailed across her shoulder, catching in the fabric of her ruined gown.

  ‘What is it?’ said Tali. ‘Are we out of the Seethings?’

  ‘No, we’re close to where we left Rannilt and the horses — ’ A sharp breath ruffled her hair.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ An odd smell hung in the air — slightly sweet, organic, grassy.

  ‘I don’t know, but something’s wrong.’

  ‘Maybe your horse took her home.’

  ‘I can smell fresh horse manure.’

  ‘Why don’t I call her?’ She took a deep breath.

  ‘If it’s here, we don’t want to alert it.’

  As his arm tightened around her chest, she felt the tremors running through him. Tobry could have said that there was no hope of finding Rannilt, or proposed any number of reasons why going after her was futile, yet he had faced his fears and not mentioned the shifter again. Could any friend do more than he had done, asking nothing in return?

  ‘If it’s here, it knows we’re coming. And Rannilt — ’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ said Tobry. ‘That only makes it worse.’

  Could anything be worse than the fate Tali was imagining?

  ‘Don’t think about it, either,’ he added. ‘If this is a trap, she may be unharmed.’

  If it was a trap, Rannilt need not be live bait. Tali imagined the shifter creeping up on the terrified child, taunting her, batting her broken body about. Then waiting, covered in her blood, for the real prey.

  She was tempted to snatch the reins and gallop away. She wanted to sweep Rannilt up in her arms and protect the child from all the horrors of the world. She burnt to hack the shifter to death, then destroy the wrythen the way she had killed Banj -

  ‘When you saved me earlier,’ said Tobry in her ear, ‘how did you manage it?’

  ‘I sensed my enemy, then blocked him out.’

  ‘See if you can sense him again.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’ll hear the call.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I told you earlier,’ said Tali. ‘Before it attacked you.’

  ‘I don’t remember — it feels as though I’ve lost an hour.’

  Because the wrythen is still possessing you, hiding in the background for the right moment? Tobry’s arm was now confining her, binding her. She pulled away.

  ‘Something the matter?’ he said.

  No, trust your feelings. If he is still possessed, you’ll know it. Tobry wasn’t himself when the wrythen attacked, and neither was Tinyhead. She had to trust Tobry.

  ‘That’s how the wrythen found me before. Via my call,
and his reply. I think it’s how he’s directing the shifter after me.’

  ‘How could he track you that way?’ mused Tobry. ‘What sort of magery can it be? Where does your call come from, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s making it?’ Tobry mused. ‘To call across such a distance is no small matter. Only great magians can do it at all, and only with the aid of a power fully enchanted device. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it mind to mind.’

  ‘Can you locate Rannilt with magery?’

  ‘Mine doesn’t want to work here.’

  ‘Why not?’ she said hoarsely. ‘Does that mean he’s here?’

  ‘Could mean anything, or nothing. Some places the gift just doesn’t work. It would be easier to sniff out the horses.’

  ‘I have a keen nose.’

  ‘You’d need to be well away from my horse. And upwind. But I don’t think — ’

  ‘Help me down.’

  He did so reluctantly.

  The pain in her thigh was still there, though muted, and the swelling had gone down. His healing had done more good than hers.

  ‘Take this.’ Tobry was holding out a knife by the point. The hilt was wound with yellow, worn leather.

  She took it, though she could not imagine it being any use against the shadow shifter. Tali moved upwind, into the dark, a herb-scented night breeze cold on her face. Her thigh felt peculiar, almost numb, though each time a spear of pain broke through it was worse than the one before. The healing was wearing off.

  She caught the odour she now recognised as horse manure and began to follow it, moving slowly across the stony ground to avoid being heard, but lost it again. The night had too many other smells: leaves crushed underfoot, some pungent, others with a lemony sharpness; baked earth; her own sweat; fresh blood as the arrow wound broke open. Finally she picked up the smell of horse again and began to track it up the wind.

  Tali stopped, took a deep sniff and gagged on the reek of carrion, blood and guts and ordure. The shifter could not be far away.

  ‘Rannilt!’ she whispered.

  Light flashed behind her and Tobry’s horse broke into a trot. ‘Stay where you are.’ He was holding the elbrot high, staring at the ground. ‘It’s come this way.’