by Ian Irvine
He pointed downslope, though nothing could be seen in that direction save a wall of rainforest marking the lower edge of the clearing. ‘The valley floor is covered in forest, apart from another clearing lower down, near the gorge.’
‘Is it more defendable than this one?’ said Flydd.
‘I don’t know. What do you think, Tulitine?’ Nish said to the tall, striking woman to his left.
The old seer had used a Regression Spell to temporarily restore herself to a relatively young age, then made a desperate attempt to reach Nish’s militia and warn them that they had been betrayed, but she had arrived just as the trap had been sprung.
Tulitine thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think so, for the valley narrows down there. The enemy archers could fire into the clearing from the stone arch, and from the nearby ridge.’
‘Forget it,’ said Flydd. ‘We’ll make our stand here.’ He turned towards the river that ran down the centre of the valley; it could just be made out through the trees. ‘Can they cross the river and attack us from behind?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Tulitine. ‘It’s partly dammed by fallen trees just upstream; that’s how I got here.’
‘Can you stop them crossing with your Art?’ said Nish.
‘I only know healing charms. Besides, the Regression Spell is already fading, and when it comes undone …’
Tulitine had hinted earlier at what it would do to her. The consequences were going to be horrific and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the spell failing. That left only Yggur, who towered to Nish’s left, craggy as an ancient cedar and seemingly as indestructible.
‘I know you’ve got power, old friend,’ Nish said, ‘and we’ve never needed it more. If you could create a concealing mist or …’
‘Ordinarily, that would be the easiest of spells,’ said Yggur. ‘Especially here, where there’s water everywhere …’
‘But?’ cried Nish. Yggur had been his last hope.
‘Gatherer is watching everything I do, and the moment I try to draw power Reaper blocks me. I’m not strong enough to take on the greatest force on Santhenar.’ Yggur rubbed his inflamed wrists. For seven years he’d been held prisoner by the Numinator, whose enchanted bracelets had continually drained him of his powers of mancery to bolster her own. ‘Besides, I feel strangely hobbled in this place.’
‘What do you mean, hobbled?’ said Maelys sharply. She pressed a hand between her breasts, and frowned.
Nish had seen her make that unconscious gesture many times, and knew that she was making contact with her taphloid, the mysterious little device she’d worn around her neck since childhood. Touching it normally comforted her, but she seemed troubled now.
‘I don’t know.’ Yggur’s gaze flicked towards the red-hot caduceus, the height of a small tree, embedded in the centre of the clearing. Whatever uncanny force drove its internal fires, it was unquenched by the teeming rain. ‘There may be a way to hide what I’m doing from Gatherer, but … it will take time to find it.’ He headed towards the caduceus, shielding his eyes from its glare.
Time we don’t have. Nish could feel the radiance beating upon his bruised face. The caduceus, a winged shaft tightly entwined by a pair of open-mouthed serpents, was made of black iron forged from the heart of a meteorite and, when Stilkeen had hurled it down, its point had penetrated half a span of solid rock.
Hostage! For – white-ice-fire! that tormented being from the void had cried as it seized the God-Emperor and carried him off, but what had it meant?
Had Stilkeen meant that Jal-Nish was held hostage until it regained the chthonic fire – the force that had once bound its physical and spirit aspects together – stolen from it in ancient times?
Or did the caduceus signify that the whole world was Stilkeen’s hostage? Either way, Nish had no idea what to do about it. No one on Santhenar had faced an immortal being before and not even Yggur, oldest of them all, knew how to deal with it.
‘Then I’d better organise our defences.’ Nish turned away, sick at the thought of the coming massacre. The professional soldiers up there were going to tear his rag-tag militia apart.
His eye fell on the ginger-haired cook’s boy, Huwld, a cheerful, scrawny lad of eleven.
‘What the blazes are you doing here?’ Nish cried.
‘Got better,’ grinned Huwld.
He had suddenly appeared halfway up the range, as though the militia had been hiding him from Nish all that time. Nish had sent the boy back with the third of his militia who had contracted dysentery, but somehow Huwld was still here, and it made the coming battle so much worse. The boy was going to die, along with all his people, and Nish couldn’t bear it.
The Gendrigoreans seemed to have no idea what an army was really for, or how brutal and savage warfare was. And why should they, Nish mused. No enemy had successfully crossed the Range of Ruin into Gendrigore in over a thousand years.
At first he’d thought of them as little more than carefree, pleasure-loving innocents, impossible to turn into a decent fighting force, but he knew better now. Inside, they were tough as the gnarled roots of an old tree.
Huwld had vanished again and, as Nish scanned the militia for the boy, he saw Aimee, a young woman so small and slender that she made Nish look tall. Whatever had possessed him, allowing her to join the militia? She was as brave as any warrior, but what use was she going to be when the fighting started? A heavy blow would break her in half.
Nish shook off the gloom and self-doubt before it became despair, and looked up. Above the western ridge, Jal-Nish’s deputy, the dwarf General Klarm, stood spread-legged on a drifting air-sled the size of an emperor’s bedroom. He appeared to be issuing orders to his troops, who were lined up along the ridge like pegs on a washing line. Nish estimated their number at a thousand, three times his militia, and they were big, brutal men, twice Klarm’s height. The God-Emperor’s white standard, mounted on a wooden pole at the bow, flapped high above him.
Nish still couldn’t come to terms with the betrayal, for Klarm, who had been a friend and ally during the war, was one of the bravest men Nish had met. Yet after Jal-Nish seized power ten years ago Klarm had, inexplicably, taken service with him and was now his commander-in-chief, even trusted with the Profane Tears in his liege’s involuntary absence. And because Nish’s militia had refused to surrender, Klarm would show no mercy.
‘They’ll shoot us down from the edges of the clearing,’ said Gi, a gentle, sturdy young woman, one of Nish’s lieutenants and his closest friend in the militia. ‘No need to risk their own lives.’
‘The God-Emperor doesn’t give a damn for his soldiers’ lives,’ said Flydd, ‘but he would not risk his only surviving son’s life, and neither can Klarm. They’ll have to come on foot, and an agonising death awaits any soldier who harms you, Nish.’
Nish took no comfort from that, for no one could control the course of a battle, and in its chaos soldiers were often killed by accident, or even by their own people. Besides, he would sooner die in battle than be captured and see all his friends and allies slain.
‘Take them!’ Klarm’s amplified voice rang out from the air-sled, and his troops began to move down the steep ridges towards the rainforest covering the floor of the valley.
‘What if we run into the forest?’ said Gi. ‘It’s dark in there. Some of us might escape.’
‘They’ve ringed the valley and they hold the only exit,’ said Nish. ‘Klarm will make sure that no one escapes. We’ve got to stay together.’
He raised his voice. ‘Form into a circle, facing out. Archers at the front, lancers behind them and swordsmen at the rear. Archers, when I give the order, fire until they’re just ten seconds away, then fall back. Lancers, hold firm and make them come onto your spears. They won’t dare fire at you for fear of a stray arrow hitting me or Maelys.’ At least, Nish hoped they wouldn’t.
The militia formed a tight circle, about forty paces across, surrounding the caduceus with their backs to it.
&nbs
p; ‘What good will it do?’ said Hoshi, a big, enthusiastic youth who had been an apprentice potter in Gendrigore. Nish had tried to train him in leadership but Hoshi had no head for it, his only tactic being to go straight at his opponent, whacking furiously.
Nish rubbed his scarred left hand, which was aching again. Many years ago, on the battlefield of Gumby Marth, his father had thrust Nish’s hands into the tears in an attempt to control him, but the compulsion had failed and Nish’s feeble, unreliable clearsight had appeared instead. Last month, in a cavern at the clifftop of Mistmurk Mountain, he had put his left hand into Reaper in a desperate effort to enhance his clearsight and find Flydd’s lost Art, and had partly succeeded, though his hand had been hideously burned.
He kneaded the scars as he considered Hoshi’s question. The poorly armed and untrained militia stood no chance in hand-to-hand combat with Klarm’s crack Imperial Militia, but Nish’s archers were skilled hunters and could do great damage if he used them well.
‘From the edge of the clearing it’ll take the enemy at least a minute to reach us through the mud, and our archers can each fire ten arrows in that time. If we can even the numbers, and delay them a minute or two, Yggur might be able to do something …’
‘He’d better get a move on!’ snapped Flydd, for he and Yggur had always been rivals and, clearly, Flydd felt his own helplessness keenly.
‘I don’t think you should use your Art so close to the caduceus, Yggur,’ called Tulitine, who was standing a few paces from it.
‘Why ever not?’ said Yggur imperiously. He did not appreciate being told what to do.
Nish would have been cowed, but Tulitine was unfazed. ‘If you do, it may go ill for you.’
‘Death may go ill for us all,’ said Flydd wryly.
The enemy were skidding down the wet slopes and moving into the forest; they would reach the edge of the clearing in minutes. It was still pouring, Nish was sweating rivers in his sodden clothes, and the humidity was so thick he could have sliced it with his sabre.
‘We can’t get away,’ said Tulitine. ‘We’ve got to concentrate on saving you, Nish, so you can rebuild your forces and fight again.’
‘I led my militia here,’ Nish said, ‘and I’m not running out on them now.’
‘You must,’ she said urgently. ‘When your father took over with the tears, you swore to return, bring down his corrupt realm and restore freedom to Santhenar.’
‘And I’ve failed,’ he groaned. ‘Again and again.’ Nish deeply regretted that despairing vow after Jal-Nish had slain his beloved Irisis, for he was never going to fulfil his oath. The enemy was too strong.
‘You’ve got to try harder,’ said Tulitine. ‘You gave hope to a million desperate souls – indeed, your vow has been the people’s only hope over the ten years of your father’s brutal rule, and you cannot let them down.’
‘I can’t do it, Tulitine.’
‘You’ve got to try and get away. Even if you die in the attempt, striving valiantly to keep your word, you will become a beacon of hope for generations to come – just as Irisis’s self-sacrifice has strengthened you.’
‘What kind of a man escapes at the cost of his friends’ lives,’ said Nish, ‘and the loyal militia that has followed him all this way?’
‘A man who does what he has to do for the greater good,’ said Flydd, ‘no matter how hard it is.’
‘Or a man who abandons his friends in their most desperate need,’ Nish retorted. ‘When Father returns, as I’m sure he will, he would call me a coward and an oath-breaker. How could that make me a beacon of hope?’
‘It’s a difficult choice, but you have to make it.’
‘I’ve made it.’ Nish turned and passed through the circular lines towards the centre. ‘I can’t stand in front of my troops and tell them I’m running away.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ said Tulitine, ‘because it must be done for the good of the empire.’
‘No, you won’t! I will not abandon my people.’ He walked away.
‘I can’t bear it either,’ Maelys said quietly, going with him.
‘The waiting?’ said Nish, glad she was there. Though only nineteen, and of a quiet, shy disposition, Maelys had an inner strength the equal of anyone here, and he felt better for having her at his side.
‘The knowing that everyone else is going to die, while I’ll live because of the possibility that I may be bearing your child.’
After an interval he lowered his voice and said, ‘And are you?’
‘Of course not,’ she muttered, meeting his eyes. Hers were the colour of dark chocolate and showed nothing, though a pink flush spread across her pale cheeks. Maelys blushed easily, and rather prettily, despite the mud on her face. ‘I made that story up to save our lives.’
She had told his father that she had gathered Nish’s nocturnal seed months ago, while nursing him, and placed it inside herself so as to become pregnant. And Jal-Nish, desperate for a grandchild, had believed her.
‘You did save our lives,’ said Nish, ‘so it was worth it.’
‘It cost me my friendship with Colm. Afterwards, he looked on me as no better than a – a whore!’ Her flush deepened.
‘You can’t be a virgin and a whore.’
‘In Colm’s eyes I was,’ she said plaintively. ‘I really liked him, Nish. He was good to me, in the early days.’
Nish restrained the urge to tell her just what he thought of Colm, who had lost his clan’s estate in the war and would forever be bitter about it, as he was about a number of other injustices. Colm also resented the stain on his clan’s name left by his distant relatives Karan and Llian, once heroes of the Time of the Mirror, who were now known as Karan Kin-Slayer and Llian the Liar.
Nonetheless, Colm had treated Maelys better than Nish had in the first month they had travelled together. But Colm was gone. He had accepted Klarm’s offer of amnesty and was now their enemy; he and Nish could be fighting each other in minutes.
It was time to make amends. He put an arm across Maelys’s mud-covered shoulders and drew her closer. ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this. And sorry for the way I treated you, after all you’d done for me. Can … can you forgive me?’
She looked up at him and her dark eyes were shining. How little it took. ‘Of course, Nish. I – I wasn’t honest with you in the early days; I should never –’
‘They’ll be through the forest any minute!’ cried Flydd. ‘Yggur, are you ready?’
‘Not yet.’ Yggur was walking in a spiral around the caduceus with his right hand upraised, the fingers hooked as if he were clinging onto a bar.
‘What’s he doing?’ whispered Maelys, pulling away and turning to stare at Yggur.
Nish knew that she was fascinated by mancery. Maelys had been told that she had a gift for it, but she had never been trained and now she might be too old to learn.
‘He’s trying to find a point where Gatherer can’t penetrate the field surrounding the caduceus,’ said Flydd in grudging admiration. ‘Yggur is taking an awful risk, but if he can find that point, he may be able to use his fog spell there without Gatherer instantly cancelling it.’
‘Assuming that the caduceus doesn’t cancel him,’ muttered Maelys. ‘I can feel the power radiating out from it. It’s a horrible, alien thing and we shouldn’t go near it.’
‘Tulitine was right,’ said Flydd. ‘By its very nature, or the nature of the being that created it, the caduceus affects all spells done nearby.’
Nish was also afraid of it, but Yggur was their only hope now. Nish headed towards him and she followed but, as they approached, Yggur’s hooked fingers clenched and the caduceus flared white hot.
Momentarily, Nish felt a throbbing pain behind his temples. One of the iron serpents around the shaft was displaying its forked tongue, while the other had its mouth wide open, baring two pairs of fangs. The upper ones were huge, the lower pair smaller and curved backwards to hold its prey, and in a flash of clearsight he noted that the serpent with the fang
s had something burning at its core.
‘Stilkeen is in pain,’ said Maelys, wrapping her arms around her chest and squeezing hard. ‘Terrible pain, just from being in our world.’
‘Tell it to bugger off, then.’ Nish turned away, for there was no more time.
He called his signallers and his four lieutenants – Hoshi and Gi, Clech the giant fisherman, and the dapper joker, Forzel – and they agreed on signal codes, both flags and horn blasts, in case Yggur succeeded and there came an opportunity to retreat.
‘Chief Signaller Midge,’ Nish said to the fuzzy-haired young woman whose size belied her name, for she was tall and solidly built, ‘stay close to me. If Yggur manages a fog, we’ll need to retreat at once.’
‘How will we find our way?’ asked Midge, wiping her muddy face on a yellow flag and turning it brown.
‘Not on the signal flags, Midge, please.’ Nish scraped the mud off with his sabre and handed the flag back. In some respects they were like children, his loyal Gendrigoreans; he didn’t think he’d ever turn them into soldiers. ‘If we get a chance to retreat, we’ll head downslope and gather at the lowest edge of the clearing. We can tell we’re going down-slope even in fog.’
‘What then?’ said Hoshi.
‘How would I know?’ Nish snapped. He thought for a moment. ‘We’ll go through the rainforest to the lower clearing and try to get out via the gorge.’ There was still no sign of the enemy. He raised his voice. ‘Lancers, ready your spears. Archers, fire the moment they come out of the forest, and again as they rush us. Keep firing until they’re twenty paces away, then draw back so the lancers can meet their attack.’
The clearing, which was shaped like an egg, was about four hundred paces by three hundred. Running soldiers, even on this boggy ground, would not take long to reach the centre.
‘How’s Yggur going?’ Nish said to Flydd.
‘Do you see any fog?’ Flydd snapped. He’d been really cranky of late.
‘Isn’t there anything you can do?’
