Chimaera twoe-4

by Ian Irvine

  Troist sank the rest of the potion and continued to knuckle his rebellious belly. The hour passed with agonising slowness. More reports came in, of isolated squads slaughtered to the last man.

  Nish turned the hourglass, setting it down with a clatter.

  Flydd’s eyes flicked to the glass. ‘I’ll contact Tiaan again.’

  ‘And if there is no concrete news?’ said Troist.

  ‘I fear we must turn back to Lybing. Tiaan?’ he called.

  ‘Still the same,’ Tiaan’s voice came clearly over the whine of the thapter.

  ‘Can I speak to Malien?’

  ‘Yes, Xervish?’ said Malien.

  ‘The enemy are attacking all around the borders. We’ve lost thousands of men already and if they’re really heading for Lybing …’

  ‘Are you asking me to back up Tiaan’s report?’

  ‘If she’s wrong, Lybing will be destroyed and the west will fall. I need confirmation.’

  ‘I’m not able to see the effect that Tiaan has reported,’ said Malien, ‘but I have no reason to doubt her.’

  ‘In any respect?’ A river of sweat ran down Flydd’s cheek.

  ‘If you’re questioning her sanity, have the goodness to speak plainly.’

  ‘The world is at stake here, Malien.’

  ‘Then you have quite a decision to make,’ she said coldly. The farspeaker cut off.

  Flydd wiped his face with a rag that was already drenched with sweat. ‘What am I to do, Nish? How am I to decide?’

  ‘I don’t know, surr.’

  ‘The effect Tiaan’s seeing must be a decoy – a spread-out group of lyrinx carrying node-drainers. They’ve lured us here so they can destroy the rest of Borgistry unhindered. That has to be it. I can’t delay any longer. Order the turnabout, General.’

  Troist sprang to the farspeaker and changed the setting. ‘Captains, this is General Troist. Turn back to Lybing immediately. Follow Plan Three.’

  The orders had just been repeated when the farspeaker squealed.

  ‘This is Tiaan. I can see the enemy, surr. Surr?’

  Flydd jumped out of his seat. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They’re coming out of the forest in their thousands, from the point where the Great North Road meets the forest, then west for a couple of leagues. There’s thousands of them.’

  After a long pause, Malien added, ‘I’d say tens of thousands.’

  ‘Thank you! Thank you, Tiaan and Malien. Stay on watch.’ There were tears in Flydd’s eyes. He embraced Troist and then Nish. ‘To war!’

  ‘To war,’ said Troist, then snatched the farspeaker globe.

  ‘Captains. General Troist again. Ignore the last order. The enemy are coming from the forest north of Ossury, from the Great North Road west for several leagues. This is the main attack. Put Plan Six into action.’ He broke off and ran to the door. ‘Guards, the war begins. Ready the command-centre defences.’ He came inside and buckled on his armour, made from boiled leather, and his steel helmet.

  ‘I think I’ll go up in one of the thapters,’ said Flydd. ‘Even in this weather we might see something useful. Will you join me?’

  ‘My place is here, with my men. I’ll send up my best tactician, Orbes, and he can report back.’

  ‘Very good.’ Flydd called down the nearest thapter. ‘Nish?’

  ‘I’m with Troist, at least until the battle is over,’ said Nish, shrugging his armour over his shoulders.

  FIFTY

  The sun came out and the clouds blew away, but it was going to be a desperate day.

  ‘They’re not fighting as hard as in other battles I’ve seen,’ said Nish around midday. The command circle had been set up on a bald hill overlooking the battlefield. He was standing at the edge, within the ring of guards, acting as an observer.

  ‘They do seem a little wasted after their hibernation.’ Troist had just come from the command tent to join him.

  ‘I wonder why they’re fighting now?’

  ‘After Klarm discovered their whereabouts and we sent the army to Strebbit, I suppose they had no choice.’

  ‘Then why didn’t they attack there? They had the numbers.’

  ‘They were just out of hibernation and needed the past week to recuperate.’

  ‘Why not take a fortnight and recuperate fully?’

  ‘How the blazes would I know, Nish?’ snapped Troist. ‘They may have been afraid to wait, in case we discovered them. It’s not easy to hide that many lyrinx and they wouldn’t want to be forced into battle at a ground of our choosing, as they have been here.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Nish scanned the battlefield. ‘Our light-blasting weapons don’t seem to be having much effect.’

  ‘There are few miracle weapons in war. They’ve worked about as well as I’d expected. They are making a difference.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘A lot of small advantages make a big one. We’re fighting the lyrinx on our terms. Good visibility, open land and bright sunshine. We can use our new tactics to best effect.’

  The soldiers were fighting in tight formations, making it difficult for the lyrinx to get through their walls of spears and shields. And when the lyrinx attacked in groups, as they had to, they were vulnerable to the clankers, which could fire their catapults and javelards from the side or the rear, over the heads of the soldiers. The thapters were also taking a toll, maintaining a height from which they could fire at the enemy but above the altitude where the enemy’s catapults could reach them.

  ‘I do believe we’re gaining a little,’ said Troist in the early afternoon, watching the battle through a spyglass and relaying orders over his farspeaker. ‘They don’t seem to be fighting quite as ferociously as I remember.’

  ‘I was thinking the same. We’ve taken heavy casualties though,’ said Nish, gingerly feeling a shoulder wound. A small band of lyrinx had broken through the lines just before noon and gone straight for the lookout. It had been a brief but vicious struggle. He hadn’t killed the lyrinx that had attacked him, but fortunately one of Troist’s guards had.

  His shoulder was throbbing. It was not a bad wound, as battle wounds go, just three long claw marks. Nothing like the blow that had practically taken his father’s shoulder off a year and a half ago. Another ell, though, and Nish would have been in the same situation.

  Troist was going through the latest tally sheets. ‘We’ve lost nine thousand men, and as many injured. They’ve about twelve thousand dead, so it’s evened the odds a trifle, but they still have the advantage if they dare to press it. Pray that they break soon, Nish. They can take these casualties better than we can.’

  He called Flydd on the farspeaker. ‘Scrutator, we can’t manage much more of this.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Flydd. ‘It’s time for a different approach. A strike at their morale.’

  Shortly, five thapters appeared in the west, flying in a line, low and slow. As they passed over the enemy formations a soldier on the shooter’s platform of each machine emptied a bag of what looked like brown flour over the side. Dust clouds slowly sifted down onto the lyrinx. At the edge of the battlefield the thapters wheeled and came back on a different track, flying just above catapult height. They kept this up until they’d covered the bulk of the enemy troops and all the bags of dust were gone.

  At the end of that line, four thapters turned away and resumed the bloody work with their javelards. The fifth went back and forth across the battlefield again, a second man standing on the rear platform, though he didn’t appear to be doing anything.

  Nish raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘Something Yggur came up with,’ said Troist. ‘Did you hear about those lyrinx at Snizort that caught a dreadful skin inflammation?’

  ‘I did. The creatures had to be put out of their misery.’

  ‘Klarm discovered where they’d been buried, and Tiaan thaptered there and recovered one of the corpses.’

  ‘So that’s what she was doing,’ said Nish
.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘She showed up at Snizort when we were trying to make thapters from the wrecked constructs. Tiaan didn’t say what she was doing there, and I was so pleased to see her I didn’t think to ask.’

  ‘The disease was some kind of fungus. Yggur grew it on offal, harvested bags of spores, and that’s what we’ve just dumped all over the enemy.’

  ‘A fungus could take weeks to infect them,’ said Nish. ‘It’s not going to make any difference today.’

  ‘What does it look like that second man is doing?’ smiled Troist.

  ‘It’s a bit hard to tell from here.’

  ‘Take a closer look.’

  Nish focussed his spyglass. ‘It looks like he’s holding a flagon to his mouth. No, it’s a speaking trumpet. He’s giving them a message. He’s got only one hand. Is it Merryl?’

  ‘It is. He’s telling them, in their own tongue, what the dust is and what it will do to them.’

  ‘To break their morale.’

  ‘Hopefully,’ said Troist.

  ‘I wonder what they’ll do in retaliation?’

  Another hour went by. Whatever the effect of the dust, the enemy continued to fight, though it did improve morale in the defenders. The advantage turned their way, then back to the enemy after a furious counterattack.

  Nish was working his spyglass back and forth, counting casualties, when something small and dark streaked across the bloody ground and hurled itself into a formation of soldiers. There were screams, the formation collapsed in the middle and broke up. It reformed quickly, though with three fewer members than before.

  ‘What was that?’ said Nish.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the scribe who was tallying Nish’s figures and sending them with a runner to the command table.

  A second creature lunged into a formation and broke it as well. By the time it had reformed the little beasts were everywhere. One raced up the hill towards them, as if directed to the command post. Nish dropped the spyglass and reached for his crossbow but the creature disappeared.

  ‘What was that?’ said Troist, hurrying down from the chart table.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nish, ‘though I’ve got a nasty suspicion …’ There had been something about the way it had scuttled, low to the ground. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. Flesh-formed. Was it another nylatl, or something even worse?

  Fortunately he’d prepared a remedy in case of this eventuality. Reaching into his pack, Nish withdrew a small metal phial with a tight stopper that had been wired on for safety. Carefully taking the stopper out, he touched it to the tip of the crossbow bolt, stoppered the phial even more carefully, twisted the wire over it and packed it away.

  ‘I don’t much go for poison,’ said Troist. ‘It’s a dirty way of fighting.’

  ‘Don’t see what the difference is,’ said Nish. ‘War’s a dirty business. This stuff is an easier death than the fungus, by all accounts. Besides, if those little creatures are what I think they are, we’ll need every advantage we can get.’

  Troist turned away to the farspeaker and began calling urgently. Nish crouched low, the crossbow cocked. Where had it gone? The creatures could camouflage themselves almost as well as a lyrinx.

  It shot out of the low grass, a spiny, toothy creature the size of a dog. Scooting across the bare earth of the path, claws scrabbling and raising puffs of dirt, it leapt at Troist.

  ‘Surr, look out!’ cried Nish.

  The general turned and the nylatl, or a near cousin, struck him in the chest, knocked him down and lunged for his throat. Troist desperately tried to fend it off with the farspeaker globe but it was knocked out of his hands and rolled away. The claws tore his chest and arm, and Nish could not shoot for fear of hitting him. Soldiers were running from everywhere but they wouldn’t get to the general in time.

  Nish dropped the crossbow, which fortunately did not go off, sprang and grabbed the nylatl by its tail. Its spines went through his palm and the venom burned. Nish bit down on the pain, heaved with all his strength and tore the creature off. It tried to go for him but he swung it around his head and hurled it at a rock three or four spans away.

  It rolled into a ball in mid-air and the spines took the impact, bending then springing erect. The creature twisted to land on its feet and streaked for the general again. Nish grabbed the crossbow and, as the nylatl sprang, put the bolt in through its open mouth.

  The bolt must have torn all the way through it. The nylatl screamed, turned over in the air and landed hard on its back with its legs spread. It kicked twice then went still, though its eyes remained open and its flanks heaved for a minute or two.

  ‘Don’t go near it!’ cried Nish as a bloody Troist wavered towards the beast. Troist froze.

  Nish wrenched the sword out of the general’s hand and came up behind the creature. It rolled over and raised its bloody maw to snap at him. Its back legs scrabbled on the ground. With a savage blow that buried the blade a hand-span into the turf, he cut it in half lengthways.

  ‘Now it’s dead,’ he said after a careful look. ‘They’re flesh-formed creatures, surr. The spines drip poison and they can even spit venom at your eyes, if they get close enough.’

  ‘You’ve fought one before?’

  ‘I have, and it was one of the defining moments of my life. Aah!’ Nish wrung his hands, which were already swollen and burning. The pain grew until they felt as if they’d been skinned and dipped in vinegar. He wiped them on the grass, which did no good at all.

  ‘I owe you my life,’ said Troist, signalling behind him. A healer was already running towards them.

  While she was attending to Troist, Nish took up the spyglass again to scan the battlefield. He could barely hold it. ‘I’d say they had about a hundred of these creatures, surr. Aah, Aah!’ The spyglass fell from his hands and he couldn’t pick it up again. ‘They’ve savaged hundreds of our troops. And hundreds more have been killed after their formations collapsed and the lyrinx attacked. If they’d had a thousand nylatl, it might have won them the day.’

  ‘It might anyway, the way things are going.’ Troist sat down suddenly.

  ‘How are you, surr?’ said Nish, wincing as a second healer began to bathe the poison off his fingers.

  ‘I feel … a little faint.’ Troist lay back and closed his eyes.

  ‘Is he bad?’ Nish asked the healer.

  She pulled back Troist’s shirt. ‘He’s been clawed about the chest, but he’ll recover. Unless the poison takes hold or infection sets in.’

  ‘It knew how to pick its target, surr,’ Nish said to the general. ‘It went straight for you.’

  Troist didn’t answer. ‘Bring the farspeaker, quick,’ he said in a faint voice. ‘And get me Flydd.’

  An attendant ran up with it.

  Flydd answered immediately. He knew about the nylatl attacks. ‘It’s not looking good, Troist. I think we’d better go with the dust again, just to reinforce the idea.’

  ‘I think so,’ said Troist, and closed his eyes.

  The five thapters repeated the operation, exactly as before, except that this time one flew a little too low. Four javelard spears caromed off the sides and a fifth went just over the head of the pilot, who was flying with the hatch open. The sixth and seventh spears converged on the soldier hurling the dust from the rear platform, sending him spinning into space, dead before he hit the ground.

  The battle swirled back and forth. The thapters finished their work and the four swept around and back, firing their javelards furiously. The fifth flew across as before, Merryl repeating his message with the speaking trumpet.

  Nish looked down at his casualty sheets, adding up the dismal numbers. It was clumsy work with his bandaged hands, but when he finally looked up there was hardly a lyrinx to be seen.

  ‘Where have they gone?’ he said. When the nylatl had been released there had been more than twenty thousand of the enemy. ‘Troist? Troist?’ It must be another trick.

  Nish sw
ept the spyglass across the battlefield. The remaining lyrinx changed colour before his eyes until they blended with the grass. They’d had enough.

  ‘It’s over, surr!’ he roared. ‘The battle’s over. They’re running away.’

  The healer helped Troist to sit up, and he took the spyglass in shaking hands. ‘A strategic withdrawal, I would say. There they go, back into the forest. We haven’t exactly beaten them, but we’ve severely damaged their morale. It’s the first time we’ve overcome a superior force on the battlefield. We’ve shown that it can be done.’

  ‘And we have Klarm to thank for it,’ said Nish. ‘Had he not forced them to battle we’d never have done it. And Yggur’s fungus spores have won the day.’

  Troist chuckled. ‘Indeed, the fungus.’

  ‘I could use a laugh, if there’s some secret I’m not aware of.’

  ‘Yggur was only able to collect a cupful of spores. The rest was just flour stained with tea.’ Troist roared with laughter.

  The victory turned out to be far greater than they’d first thought. On the east coast, from Tiksi north all the way to Crandor, every lyrinx force in the field withdrew on the same day, as if the reversal had shaken confidence in their tactics.

  ‘Their mindspeech must be better than we’d imagined, to call all the way to the east,’ said Flydd four days after the battle. They were back in the White Palace in Lybing, reviewing the struggle to see what could be learned. ‘I’d like to know more about it.’

  ‘I don’t know how you’re going to find out,’ said Yggur.

  ‘Did anyone notice any difference in the lyrinx this time?’

  ‘They didn’t seem to fight with as much conviction as before,’ said Nish. ‘I’d put that down to the after-effects of hibernation but … I’m no longer sure.’

  ‘You’re not the first to note it,’ said Flydd. ‘And I thought so too.’

  ‘And this time they didn’t feed on our dead,’ said Flangers. ‘Not a single body was despoiled, though there were plenty they could have fed on during respites.’

  ‘Now that is odd,’ said Flydd. ‘Something’s changed. I wonder what it could be?’