by Ian Irvine
“Careful. It’s fragile,” Yulia said anxiously.
He wiped his muddy hands, unrolled the sheet, held it out in his right hand and gripped the hilt of Maloch with his left. He scanned both sides of the sheet, his lips moving.
“I sense no wrongness here…” He frowned. “What’s that?” He scanned it again. “No, it’s eluded me.”
“Yulia’s magery is the subtlest,” said Lirriam. “And the most suited to this purpose. If she says there’s some wrongness in the Immortal Text, I believe her.”
“Can it have been tampered with?”
Lirriam held out her hand. Grandys gave her the text. She passed her left hand over it, back and forth, up and down; she subvocalised a charm. After several minutes she said, “It’s not been touched in this land. Any fault or failure or falsity in it—if such exists—has been in the Text since Envoy Urtiga carried it onto the flagship of the First Fleet.”
She handed it back. Grandys gave it to Yulia, who replaced it in its cases.
“I’ll need stronger magery to probe it fully,” said Yulia.
Grandys handed her an ebony pearl, the smallest one. “I’ll have this back when you’re finished with it.”
“I’ll look in the morning, when my mind is fresh.”
He nodded and wheeled his horse away.
“Still think the omens are good?” said Lirriam as they rode back, shoulder to shoulder.
He grimaced, drove his stallion to the lead and raced along the perimeter of the fortress wall, only two hundred yards away this time. He was within range now, though even for Rix’s best archers it would be a difficult shot. He stopped, faced the wall and spread his arms wide, taunting his enemies. Yulia’s doubts about the Text nagged at him and only risk taking could quiet the inner voices.
Arrows fell around him though none struck. Rix appeared on the wall. Grandys stood up in his stirrups, swept his hat off and bowed ironically. Rix plucked a longbow from the nearest archer, aimed and fired in one furiously controlled movement. The arrow plucked the hat out of Grandys’ hand and drove it into the mud ten yards behind him. He flinched, instinctively, then cursed himself.
The guards on the wall let out a collective roar and banged their swords on their shields. Behind Grandys, Lirriam laughed.
“It was a bad shot,” Grandys said sourly. “He was aiming for my head.”
“But he gets the credit,” said Lirriam. “Round One to Rixium.”
Rix ran to the topmost tower and took up a speaking funnel.
“The great man Axil Grandys claims to have built Garramide for his daughter,” he boomed, speaking to his own troops as well as Grandys’, “but he’s always kept secret that she was adopted. Grandys had no children, and do you know why?”
He paused for half a minute, making sure he had their attention.
“He’s impotent,” Rix bellowed. “Grandys is a failure as a man—that’s why he always has to win. It’s a desperate attempt to prove he’s a real man.”
The Herovian army stared at Rix in silence, then turned as one to Grandys. He let out a roar of laughter, though to his own ears it sounded forced.
“It’s true that Mythilda was my adopted daughter,” he yelled. “It is also true I have fathered no children. If that makes me less of a man, then I’m one among many. Neither will Rixium Ricinus ever father children—because I’m going to kill him.”
As he rode back and forth before them, Grandys could see his men looking at their neighbours and wondering about him. That could not be allowed, though to take back the initiative he would have to put on a show no one would ever forget.
“I have nothing to hide,” said Grandys.
He climbed onto his saddle, stood tall, then stripped off his clothes item by item and dropped them. Finally, balanced on one foot, then the other, he removed his boots and socks and let them fall into the mud. His huge feet and thick ankles were still red and inflamed, but he was used to putting that pain out of his mind. Proudly naked, his patchy opal armour glinting in the sun, he urged his horse forward, directing it by moving his weight, and rode back and forth before his army.
He raised his fists skywards. “This is the man I am,” he roared. “What you see is what I am, without concealment, falsity or artifice. Am I enough for you?”
It was the kind of gesture only Grandys could have pulled off, and he grinned when he saw Rix scowling at him from the wall.
“Yes, Lord Grandys!” several of his soldiers said.
A flight of arrows came his way and he remembered, too late, that he’d dropped Maloch in its sheath, along with his trouser belt. It was now a hundred yards away—too far for its protection to keep arrows at bay. He ducked, but too slowly, and a low arrow embedded itself in his left shoulder. As wounds went it was more painful than most but he forced himself to show no pain, no fear, and rode on.
“That’s a taste of what it’ll be like when Maloch deserts you for its true master,” said Rix.
Grandys stood up straight and tall again, raised his fists high once more and boomed over the top of Rix’s voice. “Am I your man?”
“Yes!” they roared.
“Cut the bastard down!” shouted Rix.
Grandys calmly turned and rode down past the front lines again. Dozens of arrows were fired from the walls of Garramide, and some came close. He did not flinch. When he passed his sword, he reached down and it flew up into his hand.
“I—am—your—man!” Grandys roared. He thrust Maloch heavenwards and a jagged spear of red fire roared up from its tip.
“Yes, yes, yes!” they shouted, beating their swords on their shields.
“Does Rixium Deadhand have the courage to bare himself?” said Grandys, turning towards the gates of Garramide and throwing down the challenge. “Will Deadhand show us what he’s made of?”
“No, no, no!” chanted his men.
“Whether he does, or whether he doesn’t,” said Grandys quietly, “I win.”
Rix did not move. Grandys had not expected that he would.
“Rixium talks loudly,” yelled Grandys, addressing his own troops and the people of Garramide, “but he doesn’t have the spine to back his words with action—it’s as dead as his right hand. Garramide will fall.”
He saluted his army, rode back to his clothes and pulled his trousers on, knowing he had turned a small defeat into a morale-boosting win. The other Heroes clapped, even Lirriam, though she did so with ill grace.
“How much of that display was Maloch, and how much was you?” said Lirriam.
“I don’t need Maloch to prove I’m a man—the way you need Incarnate to prove you’re a woman.”
“There was a time when you didn’t need to make such extravagant gestures—old man.”
“I make extravagant gestures because that’s the kind of man I am.”
Grandys’ smile faded as he turned to Yulia and, for the first time, revealed how much pain he was in.
“Get the damned arrow out,” he gasped. “It’s grating on bone; pinching a nerve.”
Yulia worked the arrowhead out, then pressed a bloody hand against his shoulder and cast a healing charm that slowed the blood flow to a trickle. She bandaged the wound.
“That the best you can do?” he said roughly.
“At the moment, yes. I’m worn to the marrow, Grandys.”
“I need to use the arm.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning, at the latest.”
“Why then?”
Grandys lowered his voice. “Tomorrow we break into Garramide.”
“How can you be sure you can?” said Lirriam.
“There’s more than one way to crack a nut, and a fortress. I built this place, remember? I know all its secrets.”
“You built it near two thousand years ago. There must have been hundreds of changes since then—buildings torn down or rebuilt, passages unpicked, resealed, blocked, collapsed—”
“Do you imagine I haven’t checked already?” said Grandys.
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“How?”
“What do you think I do on my nightly walks? There’s a secret way in, known only to me.” He turned back to Yulia. “I’ve got to be fit to fight. I’ll soon be taking on Rixium hand to hand, and he’s the toughest opponent I’ve faced since we came out of the Abysm.”
“I’ll work on your shoulder again tonight,” said Yulia. “Rest the arm as much as possible. And don’t rely on it too much tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 68
“Grandys has broken through!’
The cry rang through the fortress, and was followed by a cacophony of trumpets and warning horns.
“Grandys is inside the walls. Reinforcements to North Tower at once!”
It was the moment Tali had been dreading. She scrambled up to the open-air observatory, the one place from which most of the fortress could be seen. As she passed the deeply chiselled wall where Rix had once painted his twisted Grandys mural, she noted that the outline was still visible. She stopped, staring at the stone. It had been a powerful, prophetic work. It still was, even in outline.
It reminded her of Rix’s portrait. That thought led to the wyverin, to Tobry and Rannilt, and to Rannilt’s note about never coming back because of that horrible woman. It was so painful that even the bloody battle going on outside was a welcome distraction. She went to the surrounding wall and looked down.
Grandys’ army had attacked the gates at dawn, and shortly afterwards the whole eastern wall of the fortress. The attack had been going on for hours now and dead men littered the sodden ground outside the wall. The defences were holding, though only just. But everyone knew Grandys was toying with them—he had held a thousand men back in reserve.
Rix had no reserves. Every healthy man in Garramide was on the half-mile-long wall, either firing arrows, crossbow bolts or catapults, dropping rocks on the enemy outside, or using long hooks to tear away their scaling ladders. Boys and girls and old men were hauling up baskets of arrows and stones, dragging their comrades’ bodies off the walls and walkways so the defenders would not trip over them, and washing away the blood. Even shrivelled little Gummy Ned, the oldest person in Garramide, was up there doing his bit, and he would not have had it otherwise.
Healers were sorting the injured into three groups: those who were liable to die, those who would probably live even if treatment was delayed, and those who, with immediate attention, might be saved. Teams of stretcher bearers carried the wounded down, either to the healery, the resting rooms or the screaming hell of the dying chamber.
Tali was the only person in all Garramide with nothing to do, and since the inhabitants of the fortress all avoided her, no one was likely to ask her to do anything. She felt like a ghost who did not belong anywhere, but could not escape.
No, she did have one job—to find the circlet. But where could she look where she had not already searched several times? She trudged around to the other side of the observatory, where she could see the surroundings of North Tower.
“How did Grandys get in?” she muttered. “If I knew that—”
“He came up through a secret tunnel,” said a small voice behind her.
Tali whirled. It was Benn, now recovered from his fever, though he had not put on any weight. “What are you doing up here, Benn?”
“Keeping watch.”
“All by yourself?”
“There were three guards, but they were called down to fight. And the other messenger boys haven’t come back.”
“Did you see where the enemy got in?”
“Yes, I gave the alarm,” he said proudly. “The Five Heroes came up out of a secret shaft, down there.” He scrambled up onto the wall and pointed.
“Careful,” said Tali. “It’s a hundred-foot drop. Where was the shaft, exactly?”
He leaned right out, hanging on with his left hand, his right arm waving wildly as he tried to point to the place. Tali leaned out as far as she dared but wasn’t tall enough to see it.
Rix came pounding up the steps. “They’re saying Grandys has broken in. Tell me it’s not true.”
“I saw him,” said Benn. “See that black square, across the yard by North Tower?” He leaned out again, too far. Rix caught him and held him. “They must have had a tunnel, because they lifted the flagstone from underneath and—”
“How many?”
“The Five Heroes—”
“What, all of them?”
“Yes,” said Benn. “Is that bad?”
“Hop down off the wall, lad, and don’t ever lean out like that again.”
“Sorry,” said Benn.
“If all the Heroes have sneaked into Garramide, and he’s left the fighting to his troops, that’s worrying,” said Rix. “It means he’s close to what he really wants.”
Benn’s face fell. “But you’ll beat them… won’t you?”
“Who else was with them?” said Rix, flexing his fingers. He had the steel gauntlet on his left hand again.
“Ten big, tough soldiers. They burst into North Tower and closed the door. That’s all I saw.”
Rix looked across to the top of the tower, but it was empty. “I don’t like this,” he said to Tali. “Why break into North Tower, of all places?”
“It’s got its own defences, hasn’t it?” said Tali.
“Yes, it was the first tower built here, in ancient times. The walls are ten feet thick and solid stone all the way through—but even so, five people, or even fifty couldn’t hold it against us for more than a few hours.”
“He’s after the circlet.”
Rix punched his steel-encased fist into his cupped left hand, smack, and looked down. “My attack squad’s on its way. I’m going to winkle the bastard out.”
“Be careful.”
Rix raced down the steps.
“Why are you frowning, Tali?” said Benn.
“I’m trying to work out what Grandys will do,” said Tali. “The Five Heroes are taking a huge risk, coming inside so early in the siege.”
“Maybe they don’t need to hold North Tower for long.”
“Good thinking. There must be a secret passage running underground from North Tower, to where Grandys’ hoard is hidden. But how to find it…” She turned, frowning. “Wait a minute. Did you hear Rannilt’s story?”
“Bits of it,” said Benn.
“Apparently she said that Lyf was going to hide close by… waiting for Grandys to go after his hoard, so Lyf could snatch the circlet from under his nose.”
“But we don’t know where Grandys is going.”
“There’s a way we might find Lyf,” said Tali. “And if he leads us to the circlet, we might grab it first.”
It was a mad, desperate plan, but then, they were desperate. If Grandys or Lyf got the circlet, they lost.
As Tali looked down at the small, scrawny boy, she saw Mia’s dead face overlain on Benn’s, then Lifka’s, and then Radl saying that Tali would use anyone to get what she wanted. “No, forget I mentioned it.”
“You’re talking about the link Lyf put on me,” said Benn. “Aren’t you?”
She did not answer.
“When Lyf’s near me, he leaves shadows in my mind,” Benn said excitedly. “Shadows that’d let me track him.”
“I couldn’t take a child on such a dangerous mission.”
“You let Rannilt go through the gate to Caulderon.”
“I had no say in it—Rix asked her. Besides, she was with Glynnie.”
“And a mad shifter.”
“How dare you!” she cried. “He’s Tobry. Always Tobry.”
Tali could see the judgement in Benn’s eyes, not that she needed to. Whenever she thought about what she had done to Tobry, she felt like throwing up. Radl had been right about her.
There came a tremendous crash, down in the yard.
“Again!” Rix yelled.
Some twenty men were moving backwards from the door of North Tower, carrying a pole the size of a small tree trunk. Armoured squads stood to either side of the great do
or, their weapons drawn, ready to rush in.
“It’s a battering ram,” Benn said excitedly. “They’re going to smash the door down.”
“North Tower is strong. They won’t break in easily.”
The ram struck the door three times but it did not give. And somewhere below North Tower, Tali knew that Grandys was going after his hoard. The moment he recovered the circlet he would come for her master pearl. Pain spiked down through her skull.
“Please, Tali,” said Benn. “I need to do this.”
“Why?”
“Because Lyf used me! He followed the link he put on me to the Resistance, and killed dozens of them…”
“And you feel guilty,” said Tali. “But you’re not responsible for their deaths; you did nothing wrong.”
“I knew Lyf was after something,” he said quietly. “Why else would he spend so much time on a kid like me? But I went back to the Resistance because I had nowhere else to go. I led Lyf to them, and he killed them, and I’ve got to make up for it.”
“Only if Glynnie says you can.”
“She’ll never let me.” Benn clutched Tali’s hand. “And if you wait to ask, we’ll be too late.”
She bit her lip. Tali looked over her shoulder at the observatory steps, expecting to see a cold, knowing Radl there, or a furious Glynnie. Tali could imagine how she would react. She paced, stopped and turned to Benn. It couldn’t hurt to ask, could it?
“Is Lyf making any shadows in your mind now?”
“Haven’t looked,” said Benn. “Since he killed the Resistance fighters I’ve tried to keep him blocked out. Those shadows, they’re scary… but if you need me to look, I will.”
His eyes were alive. For his own peace of mind he needed to help.
“Just quickly,” said Tali, massaging her conscience. “We need to know what Lyf is doing—if he’s following Grandys…”
Benn sat and rested his chin on his hands. “It takes a while.” He closed his eyes, then let out a yelp.
Tali jumped. “What is it?”
“Lyf’s really close. He’s here!”
“What, in this tower?”
“No, but he’s somewhere in Garramide—or under it.”