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

by Ian Irvine

  ‘Don’t know nothin’ about arrangements. Just a guide, I am.’

  ‘But there is a good spot for all our forces to come together there?’ Nish asked anxiously.

  ‘There’s a clearing big enough for all the troops you’ll have.’ He hawked and spat blue phlegm into the grass.

  The wet season had been unseasonably mild for the past week, with only a torrential downpour every second day, but as soon as they reached Wily’s Clearing, a precipitous opening in the forest not much bigger than a horse blanket, it began to rain in earnest. Nish closed his eyes and pointed his face to the sky, savouring the cool drops on his sweat-drenched, insect-savaged skin.

  ‘About time!’ he said, rubbing it over his face and looking around. ‘Where are the detachments from the east and south?’

  ‘That’ll be the men from Rigore province,’ grunted Curr, pointing into the trees.

  Nish made out a handful of troops sitting on a log, passing a wine skin about. The Rigore pennant, featuring a laughing dolphin bursting through a wave, hung from the branch of a tree. No guards had been set out, no defences prepared. Nish, as an old soldier, was disgusted.

  ‘There don’t seem to be very many. I was promised four or five hundred from Rigore province, and slightly more from Gendri.’

  ‘Expect they’re down at the river. There’s a fine bathin’ pool there, for those what like that sort of thing. Don’t hold with bathin’, myself.’

  Nish exchanged glances with Gi, whose snub nose was turned up. Curr’s assertion was redundant – he could be smelt a hundred paces away, against the wind.

  ‘What about Gendri province?’ said Nish.

  Curr shrugged. ‘Shoulda been here days ago. ’Course …’

  ‘What?’ said Nish.

  ‘Mostly sod-turners over east. Wouldn’t know one end of a spear from the other. Better off without them.’ Curr walked off, hawking to left and right.

  Gloom settled over Nish and he could not shake it off. His quest had been cursed from the beginning. ‘Hoshi, make camp, then put up the targets and get everyone practising. Gi, come with me.’

  He went across to the men on the log. They were a rough lot, almost as dirty as Curr, unshaven and dressed in mud-stained rags. The roughest of them all, a big, burly man with a green feather in his broad-brimmed hat, was swigging from the wine skin and belching loudly.

  As Nish approached he lowered the skin, wiped his mouth and said, ‘What do you want, shrimp?’

  Nish felt an instant and urgent dislike of the fellow, so strong that it took an effort to conceal it, but he began politely, ‘I’m Cryl-Nish Hlar, and I –’

  ‘I know who you are, you white-faced runt. I said, what do you want?’

  Nish restrained himself. ‘I’m the commander of Gendrigore’s combined militia.’

  ‘Be damned! I’m not serving under no poxy turd of a foreigner.’

  ‘That has already been decided by your betters,’ said Nish between his teeth. ‘Where’s your commander, soldier?’

  The burly man lurched to his feet, swaying wildly, but recovered. ‘I’m the commander here, you slimy little poop. I’m Captain Boobelar and I’m not serving under you.’

  Nish knew that he would have to break Boobelar; he also knew that now was not the time. Boobelar would have to be taken by surprise, and crushed, for he knew nothing else. Once it was done, Nish knew, the men of Rigore would bow to his authority, but they would forever hold a grudge against him for taking down one of their own, and if they caught him on a dark night he’d get a beating, if not worse. Just what he needed on the eve of battle.

  ‘My apologies, Captain Boobelar,’ said Nish, stiffly sketching a salute. ‘I did not recognise you out of uniform.’

  Boobelar did not know what to make of that. He nodded curtly but did not return the salute.

  ‘Where are the rest of your men, Captain?’ said Nish. ‘I was promised five hundred from Rigore.’

  ‘Rigore can’t afford to waste five hundred on a wild goose chase. It’s harvest time. I’ve brought eighty, and even that’s too many.’

  ‘Eighty is no good to me!’ cried Nish.

  ‘Then we’ll go home again,’ said Boobelar, taking another swig and tossing the skin over his shoulder at a soldier lying on his back at the other end of the log.

  It struck him in the face and he started up with a shocked cry, ‘Is it the enemy already?’

  The other men laughed, and Boobelar loudest of all.

  ‘Let’s not be hasty,’ said Nish, red-raw inside at having to mollify this brute. ‘The enemy is already on the march from Taranta with a mighty army. They may already be climbing The Spine.’

  ‘How do you know?’ said Boobelar.

  ‘The watch fires have been lit, and a runner has come from the lookout above the pass.’

  Boobelar swallowed, his triangular larynx bobbing up and down.

  ‘It’s true then,’ said a soldier with a red birthmark in the shape of a horseshoe on his right cheek.

  Boobelar glanced at him. ‘What if it is, Lucky? They’ll break on The Spine, like every other army has, and we’ll grow fat on the loot we plunder from their rotting bodies.’

  The man called Lucky licked his lips. He had three teeth, one on the top and two on the bottom.

  Nish desperately hoped that it was true, and that he could hold Blisterbone Pass with as few as a thousand men. He would have that number when the Gendri militia arrived. ‘Is there any sign of the army from Gendri?’

  Boobelar grinned, displaying a full set of fractured yellow teeth. ‘The best news of all.’

  ‘What?’ Nish’s spirits rose fractionally. ‘More than five hundred? A thousand?’ With a thousand more, he would feel relatively confident, if only they got to Blisterbone first.

  ‘They’re not coming,’ snorted Boobelar. ‘We won’t have to share the loot with them.’

  ‘Not coming?’ Nish couldn’t keep the dismay out of his voice. This campaign was a nightmare; no, a farce.

  With a wolfish laugh, Boobelar reached backwards for another wine skin. Someone put one into his hand. He turned his back to Nish, farted, then lay on the log and expertly directed a stream of purple wine into his mouth.

  Nish dropped his hand onto the hilt of Vivimord’s sabre, but withdrew it. Boobelar’s gestures were an insult and a challenge, and he wasn’t going to fall into the trap. He would challenge Boobelar at a time of his own choosing. Until he crushed him, though, he would look weak in the eyes of his men. Assuming I can crush him, Nish thought. Boobelar was a head taller and half as heavy again, with muscles honed from years of labour. Nish was fit from months of walking, but he was not strong enough to take this man down in unarmed combat.

  And if the troops from Gendri were not coming, could he afford to crush Boobelar and lose one more man? Indeed, was there any point going on with so few? Yes, even leaving Gendrigore’s fate out of the equation, he had to go on. If this was to be the first real battle of the war against his father, he had to fight it, and he had to win, even if he only had five hundred. He had to find a way.

  He desperately needed advice, but the one person he could turn to was never around when he needed her. Tulitine hadn’t been seen for days and no one knew where she had gone.

  After dinner, Nish sat by the embers of his cooking fire where the smoke provided some relief from the incessant mosquitoes, mud flies and blue-eyed gnats, and from Curr’s squalid reek. Nish was trying to get a picture of the track that wound over The Spine, but the guide was not being helpful.

  ‘So how long is it to the pass now, Curr?’

  Curr took out his blue-stained chaw, studied the soggy mess in the firelight, and put it back. ‘For me, five days. Your useless lot might do it in seven, if they walk hard and nothin’ goes wrong.’

  ‘Is there any chance the supply wagons can come partway up the track? It would be a big help if they could, otherwise we’ll be awfully burdened with supplies.’

  Assuming the supply wagon
s ever got here. The bulk of their supplies were coming from Gendri, which was closest to The Spine, but since Gendri’s troops had failed him, maybe the supplies weren’t coming either. How long could he afford to wait? No more than another day, and if they hadn’t turned up by then Nish didn’t know what he was going to do.

  Curr snorted, spraying blue saliva out in a poisonous cloud. ‘Forget everythin’ you know, captain.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Nish snarled, for it had been a rotten day of a lousy week and he could not imagine tomorrow being any better.

  ‘You keep calling it a track. Ain’t no road, no track, no path. It’s the worst country you ever saw for walkin’. One minute yer up to yer neck in snake-infested swamp, the next yer inchin’ sideways along a ledge with a hunderd-span drop below yer and rotten rock crumblin’ underfoot. Ridge goes straight up for five hunderd spans, then down the other side, then up another ridge, and another, and another. By the time you get to Blisterbone, with all the ups and downs, yer’ve walked halfway to the moon. You couldn’t lead a horse over The Spine, and yer talking about wagons!’

  Curr got up, scratched his scrawny haunches and walked off.

  Nish felt like getting so drunk he couldn’t stand up. They would have to carry all their supplies on their backs, but they could only carry enough food to last them a fortnight up such precipitous paths. If all went well they would have just enough to get to the pass, fight a quick battle and come down again. If they had to wait, or defend, for days, they would run out of supplies, and once these were gone they would have to live off the land or starve. But living off the land was very time-consuming; no army could do so and fight at the same time; not up there.

  So they would have to fight, and win, within days of reaching Blisterbone.

  Or fight and die, in which case the lack of supplies would not matter.

  It began to rain in earnest in the night, and it grew ever heavier until he could not sleep for the drumming on the canvas of his tent. Just what we need on the first day of the climb, he thought, though he had been expecting it. Gendrigore was a wet place and this was the wet season, and nowhere was wetter than The Spine that cut it off from the world. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like in the really wet season.

  ‘Nish? Are you awake?’

  It was Tulitine, outside the flap of the tent.

  ‘Can’t sleep in this,’ he muttered.

  ‘Just as well. There’s a lot to talk about.’

  ‘Come in.’

  He sat up and lit his lantern. Tulitine came in, water running off her oilskins to join the streams of water winding their way across the sloping floor of the tent.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

  ‘Here and there, listening to the wind in the trees and the croaking of the frogs.’

  ‘Why does everyone in Gendrigore talk in riddles?’ he muttered.

  ‘Those who demand plain speaking aren’t always equipped to deal with what they hear.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘The truth isn’t always obvious, even if the facts are clear. Sometimes truth is a riddle nested inside a paradox, and until you can puzzle out that paradox and solve the riddle you won’t know which way to act.’

  ‘Are you saying that I shouldn’t try to defend Gendrigore?’

  ‘It may be right for Gendrigore, but wrong for you – or the other way around. It may be right for you both, but wrong for Santhenar.’

  ‘What’s Santhenar got to do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know … but some of the forces determined to overthrow the God-Emperor may be worse than he is.’

  ‘Do you mean the Numinator?’ Nish often wondered about Flydd and Colm, and Maelys. Had they found the Numinator by now? If they could enlist the Numinator’s aid it might turn the tide their way, assuming they were still alive, of course.

  ‘The riddles written in the wind are more enigmatic than usual.’

  Nish sat, head bowed, as the rain pounded down. He had never felt less certain of his path and her words had not helped. ‘Tulitine, I don’t know what to do. Rigore has only sent eighty men, most of them drunks and troublemakers only here for the looting, and I don’t think Gendri is sending anyone. Is there any point in going on with so few?’

  She didn’t reply, and he added, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard any whispers about Flydd, Maelys and Colm? I really need help. I’m lost.’

  She sighed. ‘None at all. All right, Nish, here’s the plainest speaking you’ll ever hear from me. The enemy is making better progress than anyone expected and you can’t wait for the supply wagons. You must leave at first light and make a forced march all the hours of the day, and tomorrow and the day after. You’ve got to reach the top of Blisterbone Pass before Jal-Nish’s army does. If they get across before you do, Gendrigore is lost and so are you, and Santhenar may be doomed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve read the omens, but I know no more. Good luck.’ She offered him her thin hand.

  ‘You’re not coming?’ he said, dismayed. Though his troops were only ten or fifteen years younger than him, they felt like a different generation. They hadn’t grown up in a war where every waking thought was directed to the struggle for survival against a superior enemy. None of them knew anything about the real world beyond Gendrigore’s borders, and he could not turn to them for advice.

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ he said. ‘How could I have imagined otherwise? This is a road for the young and reckless.’

  ‘And I’m too old. I couldn’t climb The Spine with a heavy pack, and there would be nothing for me to do there anyway.’

  ‘Do you mean …?’

  ‘You know I do. For anyone badly injured up on The Spine, it will be a death sentence. Up there, bad wounds can turn septic in a day, and anyone who can’t walk must be left behind. You can’t carry the injured in that kind of country, Nish.’

  His lantern went out, though Tulitine had not gone near it, and with a rustle of wet oilskins she was gone.

  We can’t wait for the supply wagons, he thought, and they can’t go any further, so what are we to do without them? I’ll leave a man behind to tell the wagons to wait, if they arrive, until the force from Gendri gets here. If they come.

  Who said things could not get any worse?

  PART THREE

  THE RANGE OF RUIN

  FORTY-ONE

  They set off at first light, Curr leading, Nish following as close behind as he could bear the stench, scrambling on blistered hands and bloody knees up a ridge through rain-forest festooned with vines. The bedraggled army followed, grumbling at the early start. There was no track to follow, just an unmarked slope that went up and up forever.

  The heavy rain intensified; it was now a downpour so fierce that Nish could barely see and couldn’t hear. The whole mountainside was running with water and the ground a sponge into which his boots sank so deeply that mud flowed over their tops. Every step took an effort, especially for him. The Gendrigoreans were used to such conditions; he could never be.

  He soon realised how skin-deep his fitness was, for the first hour was more exhausting than his climb to the top of Mistmurk Mountain, about a month ago; the next hour loomed like an even higher peak. He staggered on, head down, drenched to the skin and feeling faint from the dreadful, stifling humidity. Got to keep going, he kept telling himself. If he showed any weakness, his sad little army would turn back. He had to be as hard as iron and as tough as the best of them. They would expect no less of the son of the God-Emperor. The only way to lead men was from the front.

  Three days went by and it was raining just as hard. It had not let up for a minute and Nish felt as though his continually wet feet were rotting. He wasn’t game to take his stinking socks off in case the skin came with them.

  ‘This must be how the world ends,’ he said to Hoshi, who had come back from the leaders. Despite all Nish’s efforts, a thir
d of his men had passed him today. He stepped carefully onto what looked like solid ground and sank thigh-deep into clinging mud.

  Hoshi heaved him out, as he had done a dozen times already. He was still smiling, though not as broadly, nor as often. Even the hardiest of the Gendrigoreans were struggling in the impossible conditions.

  ‘Not much further to go today, according to Curr,’ said Hoshi. ‘We’ll camp on the top of the ridge. A great overhang of rock there will shelter us all, and we might even get a fire going. Can you make it that far, Nish?’

  ‘I’ll make it, however far it is,’ Nish gasped, praying it was only another hundred paces. His iron determination had not yet failed him, but determination was not enough when the soles of your feet were covered in burst, weeping blisters and your muscles kept locking up with cramp.

  He staggered up and ever up, reaching the campsite less than an hour later. It was on a saddle-shaped ridge top with steep slopes to either side, the sodden ground covered in shattered trees and broken rock. Further along, the ridge reared up in an axe-shaped precipice of seamed brown stone whose top was concealed by the low-hanging clouds.

  ‘I thought there was shelter?’ said Nish. ‘An overhang or something.’

  ‘Musta fell down,’ said Curr. ‘Rock in The Spine is rotten – too much rain. Whole mountain fell down once – shook the ground all the way to Rigore.’

  The precipice looming above them looked none too secure either, but Nish was too exhausted to care. ‘We’ll camp here. At least there’s plenty of firewood.’

  ‘If you can get it to burn you’re a better man than I am,’ said Curr, spitting a blue deluge onto a nearby log.

  Nish wasn’t going to fall into that trap. ‘I’ll leave that to those who know how.’ He raised his voice. ‘Let’s get the targets strung up while the tents are being pitched.’

  There was a collective groan from those nearby, though they complied readily enough. There had been no time for target practice since they’d begun the climb and, as each passing day brought them closer to the enemy, few now doubted that they were going to see action.