The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2)

by Ian Irvine

  ‘He must,’ said Tulitine.

  ‘Do you think he’s on the way?’

  ‘I have been reading the wind, and listening to the cries of the birds and the squeaks of the bats, and the calls of the dolphins.’

  What was she trying to tell him? That she was a Wind Talker and a Bird Caller? Or was she merely in tune with the natural world?

  ‘What do they tell you, Tulitine?’

  ‘The bats squeak about a great army on the march from Pashnak and Huccadory, cities east of here in Northern Crandor. The dolphins talk of a fleet of ships leaving the safe harbour of Turtle Haven, heading west towards Gendrigore.’

  He sprang up so hastily that he slipped on the wet rock near the cliff edge, and his arms windmilled for a few seconds before he regained his balance. He moved well back. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ he said hoarsely, shocked at his carelessness.

  ‘I knew how you would react,’ she said drily, ‘and I didn’t want you to fall over the cliff before I was sure what the signs meant.’

  ‘But you’re sure now.’

  ‘The cry of that dolphin confirmed it. A battle fleet is sailing east, though that doesn’t mean your father intends to attack Gendrigore.’

  Nish knew in his bones that Jal-Nish was coming. ‘Barquine said Gendrigore can’t be attacked by sea. Is that right?’

  ‘I believe so. The few inlets along Gendrigore’s coast are cliff-bound, and the currents that race between the reefs surrounding this little peninsula are vicious. Only a foolhardy captain would approach such a shore.’

  ‘Jal-Nish cares nothing for the lives of his men,’ Nish mused, ‘but he won’t risk the humiliation of losing a fleet. It will be carrying more land troops, and all manner of engines of war. How long do we have, Tulitine?’

  ‘They will reach Taranta in days, and disembark there. The land armies? Perhaps another week and a half.’

  ‘The troops from the fleet won’t head for The Spine until the armies arrive. Father only attacks when he has overwhelming strength. How long would it take his army to march from Taranta to the top of The Spine?’

  ‘You’d have to ask Barquine, though I expect it would take another week.’

  ‘And how long for Gendrigore’s army, which it doesn’t have, to get into position to defend Blisterbone Pass?’

  ‘A couple of weeks, from here.’

  ‘How big are Father’s armies?’

  ‘The birds and the bats didn’t say. They’re not very good at counting.’ She smiled.

  Panic tied Nish’s intestines into a painful knot. Jal-Nish would hardly come with an army of less than ten thousand men, plus battle mancers, flesh-formed beasts and all manner of terrible engines of war. How could Gendrigore oppose such a force, even with its advantages of mountain and cliff and wild, wild weather? It wasn’t a populous land, and its few towns and many villages were far apart. It would take weeks to round up a core of raw recruits, assuming he could convince them to come at all, and if a militia of a thousand men could be raised, he would be astonished.

  ‘A thousand untrained, ill-disciplined and badly armed youths,’ said Nish, ‘against a professional force of battle-hardened men ten times that number – it doesn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘It’s not quite that bad, Nish. No army could cross Liver-Leech Pass, though the survivors of a broken army might scale The Spine to Blisterbone, if the weather allows it. But there a few hundred men, if they stood fast, could hold the pass against an army in the wet season, which is now.’

  ‘What about the dry season?’

  ‘Gendrigore doesn’t have a dry season. There’s only the wet season, and then the really wet season – and in the really wet season not even a forest rat could cross The Spine, for there are no bridges, no fords, and every gully is a torrent of wild water and rolling boulders that will grind everything in it to paste.’

  ‘How long is it until the really wet season?’

  ‘A few weeks, if it comes on time, and it lasts for five months. so if you can hold Blisterbone until it begins, Gendrigore will be safe for half a year. A lot can happen in that time.’

  ‘If The Spine becomes impassable, how do we get down again once the really wet season comes?’

  ‘In great haste,’ chuckled Tulitine. ‘It takes a week or two to build up.’

  ‘Leaving a small window for the enemy to follow us.’

  ‘Not in the really wet season. Your father would call his generals back, be sure of it.’

  The Spine sounded like a nightmare but Nish couldn’t see any choice. His new-found resolve was burning in him, and if he had to fight his father all the way he was going to start here, right now.

  ‘I’ll try to defend the pass, if I can raise a force. I dare say Gendrigore will have armour, weapons, and so forth?’

  ‘Nearly everyone hunts from time to time; they have bows and know how to use them. And I imagine there’ll be a rusty sword or two lying around,’ she said lightly, ‘though most would have been reforged into more useful tools long ago, since iron is rare here, and expensive. But as for armour – who could wear it in this climate? You’d collapse with heat stroke.’

  Nish rubbed his stinging neck, dislodging a thousand gnats bloated with his blood. He’d moved too far away from the edge. ‘There won’t be time to make many swords, even if I can get the steel; good swords take ages to make from scratch and they won’t be a match for the equipment Father’s soldiers have. Our smiths can make spearheads, at least, though amateurs with spears against trained swordsmen … No, to defend the pass I’ve got to have a force armed with bows, spears and swords; a few hundred, at least, and they’ll have to be trained.’

  He thought through all that had to be done before they could leave for the pass, then sank his head in his hands. The conclusion was inescapable. ‘It can’t be done. If it takes a week to round up a small militia – I can’t possibly call them an army – and another fortnight to get them into place, there won’t be any time for training.’

  Tulitine laid her old hand on his arm. ‘It looks bleak, I agree. You can’t possibly fight him in battle and win, so you must find another way.’

  ‘What other way? Father thinks of everything. He will have identified his army’s every weakness by now, and found ways to strengthen them.’

  ‘Then forget about trying to identify his weaknesses. Work out his army’s strengths and try to find ways to turn them against him.’

  ‘I’ve no idea how,’ Nish said acidly. ‘Perhaps you’d care to point out a way for me.’

  ‘I’m a healer, not a warrior. I don’t fight wars.’

  ‘I wish I didn’t.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘Ketila, No!’ Colm screamed. He threw his arms up to catch her but she was already falling out past him.

  Maelys managed to get a couple of fingers to Ketila's billowing shirt. The weathered fabric tore apart. She watched her all the way down to the rocks at the base of the cleft, then wished she hadn’t.

  ‘Ketila!’

  In all her life, Maelys had not heard such anguish. He threw his arms up, clawing at the sky; his mouth was a raw hole, his eyes black pits of despair. Then he started down the crevasse, springing from rock to rock with reckless desperation.

  ‘She’s gone, Colm,’ said Flydd, swaying into his path.

  ‘Get–out–of–my–way!’

  Flydd put his arm out, blocking the way down. ‘You can’t do anything for her. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Ketila could still be alive and I’m not leaving her to die alone, Flydd. I’m all she’s got.’

  He tried to force Flydd out of the way. Flydd raised his hand, touched Colm in the middle of the forehead and his eyes went blank.

  ‘You can’t do this to me,’ he said in a dead voice.

  ‘Go up!’ It was a command this time, with all the Art Flydd could summon behind it.

  Colm gave a terrible moan, deep in his throat, but he went. Maelys followed, barely able to look at him, or
Flydd. She did not glance down again, for Ketila must have died instantly. Even so, Maelys would not have stopped Colm.

  ‘Why did I throw away the amulet?’ she whispered. ‘With it I might have kept Rurr-shyve back. I might have prevented this. If only I had …’

  Colm turned stiffly, his white-hot stare on her. You allowed her to die, he seemed to be saying. It’s your fault. Maelys’s eyes locked with his and she could not tear away.

  ‘Go up!’ said Flydd.

  Colm went, and Maelys followed, every nerve screaming fool, fool!

  Flydd dragged himself up the crevasse on will alone, until finally they reached the top. It was a dome some five spans wide, with a chilly wind rushing across it. The male flappeter was spiralling down, still trumpeting in agony. Rurr-shyve’s rider was circling the pinnacle and the archer who had fired the fatal shot held a clenched fist high in triumph. The leading soldiers coming along the ridge to the north went to their knees and aimed their bows.

  ‘Surely they can’t hit us from there?’ said Maelys, ducking just in case.

  ‘If they put enough arrows into the air, one or two are bound to find their mark. Get down, Colm.’

  Colm stood on the brink of the crag facing the archers, as if daring them to shoot him. A flight of arrows soared up at them. Maelys flinched. The archers following them up the cliffs were almost within range.

  ‘Keep low,’ said Flydd. ‘Stand by me and be ready.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The instant the portal opens – if it does – take hold of Colm and make sure he comes through.’ He knelt down and took a small grey globule from his pocket. It had a rubbery appearance.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Maelys.

  ‘An envelope formed from the wall of the Nightland.’

  ‘And it’s for?’

  ‘I inflated it around the virtual construct before I came through the portal, then allowed the envelope to shrink to its original size. Everything inside it should have shrunk proportionally.’

  ‘What if it squashed the virtual construct into a blob, like parts of the Nightland had been squashed?’

  ‘The construct isn’t solid, so it can’t be squashed … at least, I hope not.’ Flydd did not sound as certain as he had previously. Holding it out on his palm, he began to mouth the words of the mancery that would restore it to full size.

  Maelys kept watch on their attackers. For the moment, the male flappeter didn’t offer any threat, though Rurr-shyve was climbing rapidly into the window of clear air to the north-east, the one place unaffected by the archers’ attack.

  A rain of arrows flashed silver as they climbed into late beams of sunlight, then fell around the left side of the crag. None hit, though one shattered not far from Maelys, driving splinters into her left knee.

  Hurry, Flydd.

  The archers fired again. Rurr-shyve had climbed above the level of the crag and was hovering, waiting for the arrows to fall. Down below, the male flappeter was climbing slowly. Its rider had regained control.

  Arrows rattled on the sides and top of the crag. One speared through the back of Colm’s right boot heel, another flashed past Flydd’s outstretched hand. He dropped the globule but caught it again, still mouthing the spell. His eyes were screwed up as he attempted to visualise their destination.

  The Island of Noom – the Tower of a Thousand Steps. After all she’d heard about the Numinator, it was impossible to think they would be safer there. And yet, surely anything had to be better than Jal-Nish?

  Flydd completed his spell, but the little envelope of the Nightland failed to expand. The archers on the ridge fired a third time and this volley was tighter, focused on the top of the crag. The male flappeter was climbing rapidly now, heading straight for them, toothy maw gaping, its collapsed compound eye fluttering in the wind.

  ‘It’s racing Rurr-shyve,’ she said absently, watching it hurtle towards them, fluid leaking from its eye.

  ‘Why won’t it work?’ muttered Flydd. ‘Can some other Art be interfering with it?’ Laying the envelope carefully in a hollow where it would not be blown away, he went down on his belly and peered over the edge.

  Maelys went with him. ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Mancers, or scriers, though I can’t see any. Those men are just soldiers, yet something is interfering with my Art.’ He began to take objects out of his pockets: a tiny knife, a wooden comb with half its teeth missing, a collection of coloured pebbles. ‘Hold these for me.’

  He put them in her hands, then drew out the dirty leather pouch containing the mimemule he’d taken from the cavern, but the instant she took the pouch, there came a pfft behind them.

  The envelope of the Nightland split open like a flower and the construct expanded up out of it, two spans high and floating in the air, whole and complete. Before Flydd could speak the Words of Opening, a funnel-shaped portal snapped into being directly in front of it and freezing air howled out, coating the curving rim of the funnel with frost. Icicles grew before their eyes, iron hard and sharp as spikes. The funnel kept lengthening on the inside, though all she could see at the other end was fog. It cleared suddenly and beyond the small circle that formed the exit of the funnel, Maelys saw a frozen wilderness of grey ice.

  ‘Go through!’ cried Flydd over the roar of the wind.

  Maelys hesitated, but Rurr-shyve was falling towards them; the male flappeter was hurtling in to their left and a tight knot of arrows arching towards them from the right. She ran, caught Colm’s arm and, before he could resist her, dragged him against the wind into the funnel. The wind slammed into her, but she pushed harder, harder, forcing herself into the mouth of the funnel, where a countervailing force caught her and Colm and sucked them through. Blue lights flashed in her eyes; she felt a gut-wrenching inner twist that brought the taste of Ketila’s smoked fish up into the back of her throat, then she and Colm were hurled out the other end into a grey land that did not look as though it had ever seen the sun.

  Flydd came tumbling after her. ‘Get out of the way!’ he screamed, clawing across the ice to his right.

  Maelys looked back as the male flappeter hurtled through the virtual construct, scattering its myriad intangible components, its feather-rotors reversing as it tried desperately to brake in the air. Its rotor beats punched a hot fist of compressed air through the portal, sending Maelys tumbling across the ice.

  The male could not brake in time; it loomed ever closer, a monstrous winged shadow; its head entered the mouth of the portal, where the gate-force caught it and dragged it in, but it was too big to fit.

  Its feather-rotors were sheared off to a blood-gushing stalk, its four pairs of legs ripped out and smashed into spindly segments. Its immensely long body was sucked through in a storm of bloody feathers and fragments of leathery skin and scale, thrashing wildly, its maw snapping and its tail swinging from side to side.

  It shot out the other end of the portal, bellowing in agony, shattering lumps of ice and flinging shards in all directions. The remains of the leather-clad rider, crushed to a paste along its spine, slid off and plopped redly to the ice. The flappeter’s tail smacked into a boss of ice too big to break and its front half was swung the other way, right at Maelys. She tried to run ahead of it but her feet slipped and she went down. The flappeter’s neck and shoulder came driving towards her, its good eye and ruined one rolling in different directions, its huge mouth open. Thick blood was still spraying from its rotor stalk.

  The good eye focused on her just before it struck and the span-long maw twisted around to snap at her. Maelys didn’t have time to reach for her knife; she just swung at it with the object in her hand – the leather pouch with the mimemule inside.

  The pouch grew so heavy that she could hardly move it, and momentarily she felt herself to be a warrior swinging a mighty war hammer. It crunched straight through the eye and the tough carapace surrounding it, into the flappeter’s fore-brain, splattering grey and white matter in all directions.

  Its ruined head thudded to the ic
e. The four pairs of leg stumps waggled back and forth and the tail continued to twitch blindly, then it went still. Maelys slumped beside it, covered in congealing muck and shaking all over. She didn’t have the faintest idea what had happened, though she felt as though she had swung a warrior’s war hammer, and the muscles of her right shoulder were so strained she could barely move it.

  The portal was gone. Colm was standing a few paces further off, staring at the dead creature, though she did not think he was seeing it. His eyes were expressionless pits, at least until Flydd got up and limped over. As he crossed into Colm’s field of vision, his eyes registered such hate as she had never seen before. Flydd’s dazing spell had worn off.

  ‘Take me back to Ketila,’ Colm ground out.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Flydd. ‘When the flappeter went through the virtual construct, the mancery at its core tore it apart. Without it I can’t reopen the portal.’

  Colm stalked across, drew his knife and put it to Flydd’s throat. ‘My sister lies dying at the bottom of the crag. Take–me–back.’

  ‘She fell fifty spans onto rock,’ said Flydd. ‘She died instantly.’

  ‘Take–me–back.’

  ‘Do your worst,’ said Flydd limply. ‘I couldn’t open the portal again if the Profane Tears lay unguarded on the other side.’

  Colm’s knife hand jerked, and a thin line of blood appeared on Flydd’s throat, but he did not move nor acknowledge it in any way. After a couple of frozen minutes, Colm hurled his knife into the ice, stumbled away and fell to his knees, weeping in broken, choking sobs.

  Flydd, rather wobbly at the knees, helped Maelys up, saying softly, ‘How did you do that?’

  She rubbed her sore shoulder. ‘I have no idea. I imagined I was attacking the flappeter with a war hammer and, momentarily, I was.’