by Ian Irvine
He put the circlet on, turned around and froze, looking back the way he had come.
“I can see the master pearl,” he whispered.
“What’s it doing down here?”
“And the link to that boy, Benn. I’ll be damned!”
“What?”
“When I broke my link to the boy, months ago, it didn’t completely break. He’s used it to track me—for Tali.”
“What sort of a woman would use a child so recklessly?” said Errek.
“A desperate one. She must have followed us, hoping to get the circlet first.”
“Where is she now?”
“Not twenty yards to our left.”
“Had Grandys gone that way, instead of back the way he came, he would have run into her.”
“And this story would have had a very different ending.”
“It hasn’t ended yet,” Errek cautioned.
“But it’s going to.” With the circlet on his head and the power flowing in his ethereal veins, Lyf knew he was going to take Tali. “Go through the stone around to the right and block their escape. I’ll come at her from this direction.”
For once, it went as planned. Errek emerged behind Benn and said softly, “Stop right there.”
Benn yelled, “Tali, look out!”
Before she could move, Lyf emerged from the wall beside her.
“Run, Benn!” Tali screamed.
He did not move.
“You promised, Benn. Get going!”
Lyf pressed a finger to the side of Tali’s head and said, “Sleep!”
“Benn, find Rix—”
Tali slumped to the floor. Benn dived through Errek, let out a shuddery yelp and fled.
CHAPTER 70
Glynnie was exhausted but there was no possibility of the briefest of naps. Not with the enemy attacking the walls, the Five Heroes barricaded in North Tower and Rix risking his life to break in. He always led from the front and sooner or later his luck was going to run out.
Probably today. Glynnie was beginning to think that Garramide’s luck was about to run out, for the first time since it had been built almost two thousand years ago.
She went looking for Benn but could not find him. Glynnie plodded down to the healery, where she found all the patients well attended to—for the moment there was nothing for her to do. Her muscles were as tight as clock springs and, needing something to occupy her hands, she headed up to tidy Rix’s rooms, but one of the maids had already been through it and all was in order.
She sat by the ashes in the fireplace, trying to calm herself. Her eye settled on the portrait, which was propped against the side of a chair. Why was Rix so obsessed with it? She went to her knees, staring at the wyverin. It was so big, so alien.
Rannilt had said it ate rock and ore, breathed sulphur, peed quicksilver and crapped out slaggy chunks of spent rock. How could such a creature exist? Was it another kind of shifter?
Lyf had made the first shifters with the art of germine—a vile corruption of his healing magery—as a terror weapon against the people of Hightspall. But the wyverin was far older than Lyf. Errek First-King had built the stone Defenders in that entrance tunnel, and he had died ten thousand years ago.
Therefore the wyverin must have been here before that. So where had it come from?
Her eye was drawn to the man in the portrait, Lord Ricinus, who had been a disgusting drunkard. As a maidservant in Palace Ricinus, Glynnie had encountered him thousands of times; she had known his face better than she did her own. Rix had been praised for his rendering of Lord Ricinus in the completed portrait; even the chancellor had said it was a masterpiece. So why did Lord Ricinus’s face now look so wrong?
Everything about him was wrong. The man was bigger, fitter, stronger, and his aggressive posture oozed a determination that Lord Ricinus, even in his finest moments, had never had. A determination that Rix, obsessed with painting truth, would never have portrayed in the portrait.
The face was different, too—it was much fleshier; almost bloated. The eyes were smaller, the nose a great horn. Glynnie trembled; it could almost be Grandys. The image was closer to him than to Lord Ricinus, and it had changed recently. When she’d first glimpsed the portrait in the Hall of Representation it had definitely looked like Lord Ricinus.
The germ of an idea came to her, but before it fully crystallised, Benn burst in.
“Sis, Sis! Quick!”
“Where have you been?” she said sharply. “I’ve been looking for you for hours.”
He went bright red but did not answer. “Where’s Rix?”
“Outside North Tower, but you can’t—”
Benn turned to run out. She caught him by the arm. “He’s attacking the tower. Don’t go anywhere near the fighting. Why do you want him?”
His mouth opened and closed. He looked as though he was going to explode, then it burst out of him. “Lyf’s got Tali.”
She rose so suddenly that she felt faint; she had to cling to the chair until her head steadied. “Where?”
“Taken her to the old ballroom,” he mumbled.
“How do you know?”
He did not answer.
“Benn?” she said sharply.
“Followed them… after they caught her,” he muttered.
She pressed a hand to her thumping heart. “Lyf’s here? You—you followed—Lyf?”
“Not closely. Just with that old link he tried to break. Tali needed—” He broke off and looked away, flushing.
Glynnie’s fists knotted and a red rage washed over her. She opened her mouth but no words came out. She tried to calm herself, then caught Benn by the shoulders, gripping him so tightly that her fingernails dug in.
“Please tell me Tali didn’t put you up to following Lyf?”
“It’s not her fault,” he gabbled. “It was my idea. She knew Lyf would follow Grandys and she needed to track Lyf, to get the circlet first. I offered to help…”
Glynnie clutched at her heart. “And she let you?”
“Not at first. But… you don’t understand. I betrayed the Resistance, Glynnie. I had to make up for it.”
She shook him, slapped him and shook him again.
“Firstly,” she said in icy rage, “you didn’t betray the Resistance. Lyf used you; it’s not your fault.” She slapped him again. “Secondly, you’ve got nothing to make up for.” Benn squirmed and tried to escape but she held him tightly and would not let him go. “Thirdly, when I find Tali, if Lyf hasn’t already killed her, I will!”
“She saved your life,” gasped Benn.
“And by using a little boy,” Glynnie said savagely, “by taking a little boy into deadly danger, she’s cancelled the debt.”
“I’m not a little boy—I spent months looking after myself.”
“You’re brave, determined and clever. And only ten.”
“Sis, Lyf’s got her. He’s going to cut the master pearl out, I bet.”
“Good! I hope it hurts.”
“You don’t mean that!” he cried.
“I suppose not,” she said wearily. “But I don’t know what to do about it. Rix is attacking North Tower and trying to defend the walls of Garramide at the same time. He can’t do anything else.”
“Then you’ve got to do something.”
But what? Every man who could stand up was on the wall, trying to hold the enemy out, and every able-bodied woman and child was working night and day to support them. Who could help her?
“The kitchen women!” she said. “They’re experts in knife work.”
She ran for the door. Benn followed. She turned on him.
“Not on your life!” Glynnie said ferociously. “Go and help in the healery.”
He started to protest, took one look at her face and trotted off.
“I’ll be checking on you,” she yelled after him. “If you put a fingernail outside the healery door without my permission I’ll give you such a walloping that you won’t be able to sit down for a year.”
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br /> There were at least twenty women in the castle kitchens, all working furiously. With Rix’s army added to the normal complement of the fortress they had twelve hundred people to feed, three times a day.
Glynnie burst in. “Lyf’s got Tali in the old ballroom and we’ve got to get her out. Bring your biggest, sharpest knives.”
She held her breath. After the way Tali had treated Rannilt and Tobry, she was cordially disliked. Would they risk their lives to save her?
After a long pause, Catlin, the chief cook, pointed to ten women, one after another. “Arm yourselves. Let’s get the bastard.”
They picked up knives, meat skewers, and a cleaver or two, and streamed after Glynnie.
As she ran for the old ballroom, Glynnie could not help wondering whether Catlin had been referring to Lyf as “the bastard”, or Tali.
CHAPTER 71
Rix was fighting two battles at once and losing both of them. “At all costs we’ve got to hold the wall,” he said to Nuddell, who had come running across to the base of North Tower with the latest grim report. “If the enemy come over it in numbers they’ll take Garramide within the hour.”
Nuddell studied the battered door of North Tower, which had resisted all attempts to break it. “It’ll take more than a ram to get through that.”
“Grandys has been in there for over an hour,” said Rix. “If he gets the circlet, and takes Tali, not just the battle is lost—the war is!”
“We need you on the wall, Deadhand—at least for a few minutes. It’ll give the men confidence. They don’t like being led by a mere sergeant.”
“I’ve got confidence in you.”
“It ain’t enough, if you’ll pardon me saying so.”
“Radl is up there too.”
“She’s a fearless fighter, but she ain’t one of us.”
Rix sighed, but took his point. He instructed the battering-ram team to keep trying, told the men who were to storm the door to stand by, then ran with Nuddell back to the wall. When he reached the top of the main guard post he saw that the situation was dire. The Herovians had thrown two thousand troops into the latest attack, keeping only a few hundred in reserve. The remainder of the enemy littered the boggy ground before the walls, either dead or dying.
“They’re running in everywhere with scaling ladders,” said Nuddell. “Raising them quicker than we can push them away. If they get a couple of squads up on the wall and clear out a section of our guards, they’ll soon put up a hundred ladders.”
He paused, spat over the side, then added, “And that’ll be it.”
Half a dozen arrows sighed through the spot where his head had been moments before. “Whoops,” said Nuddell.
“You’re right,” said Rix. “It’s time to use our emergency weapon. Get the crystal.”
Nuddell grimaced, went into the guard’s hut and came out carrying an object swathed in a blue velvet cloth, and a large hammer. He put the object down halfway between the inner and outer walls, took away the cloth and stepped back, wringing it in his hands.
“Can’t say as I like such uncanny things,” he said, wiping his leathery neck with the cloth.
“Me either,” said Rix.
A fist-sized white crystal was revealed. It was round like a ball, with many facets reflecting the light dazzlingly, and gave off a faint acrid smell. Rix’s belly muscles clenched.
“How does it work?” said Nuddell.
“I wouldn’t have a clue. Holm came up with the idea after he picked up all those enemy bombasts at Reffering, weeks ago. He worked out a way to set them off from a distance.”
“Pity he’s not here now.”
There had been no news of Holm since the crystal-borne warning Rix had received at Manor Assidy. He prayed that Holm was safe in Grandys’ camp. No, he prayed he had escaped and was a hundred miles away.
“You can set the mines off if you like, Sergeant.”
“You wear the commander’s hat, Deadhand.” Nuddell managed a small smile; it was a reversal of something Rix had once said to him.
Rix used a polished steel mirror on a pole to check over the wall, and to the left and right. Further down, at Basalt Crag, the enemy had a dozen ladders up, though he did not think they would prevail. It had once been the weakest point on the wall, though since then he had greatly reinforced it against this kind of attack.
The assault on the gate was a different matter. Eight hundred men were attacking it and they were bringing up dozens of scaling ladders. A squad of archers were a hundred yards back, directing such devastating arrow fire at the guard posts and wall walkways that the life of any exposed guard was measured in seconds. It had to be now.
Rix took up the heavy hammer. “Stand well back, Sergeant, and cover your eyes. This isn’t the recommended method of setting off a bombast…”
He swung the hammer up, aimed carefully at the centre of the crystal and struck, turning his head away as he did. The crystal shattered into a flat patch of white powder.
“That all?” said Nuddell. “Expected something a lot flashier.”
The white powder burned with a small yellow flare, though no smoke or flame. Rix dropped the hammer and raised his pole mirror above the wall. An arrow struck it, spinning the pole in his hand. He steadied the mirror and raised it again.
“Didn’t work,” said Nuddell. “Got another crystal?”
Rix turned the mirror from side to side to cover the area outside the gates, and for a hundred yards to right and left. “Afraid not—”
Then suddenly the ground erupted in dozens of places at once, flinging grass, mud, rocks and bodies a hundred feet into the air. Thousands of huge mud clots spattered the walls, the tower and the walkways, and the massive stone wall shook so violently that every man in Rix’s line of sight was tossed off his feet. Two men went over the side.
Then it rained blood. And pieces of men.
Rix picked himself up, wiped blood out of his eyes and went, wobbly kneed, to the battlements, stepping carefully around the ghastly fragments. He edged his head around a battlement and peered over.
His caution was unwarranted. The men who had been attacking the gate were gone, and so were the archers further out, apart from a handful who were dragging themselves away as fast as their broken limbs would allow them. The knots of enemy troops further along the wall stood frozen in horror, then backed away.
“Hold fast!” an enemy officer shouted. “Hold, hold!”
They did not break and run, as they might well have done, but they did not hold either. They retreated in a relatively orderly fashion for a few hundred yards, then stopped.
“They’re afraid you’ve got more of them… what did you call them?”
“Mines,” said Rix. “What the Cythonians call bombasts. I wish I had.”
“Isn’t there one in—?”
Rix gestured him to silence. “I’ve kept it for an emergency, but there’s no reason the enemy shouldn’t think we’ve mined the rest of the ground. You can taunt them to that effect.”
Nuddell grinned and picked up a speaking trumpet. “Pleasure.”
“I’ve got to get back to North Tower. Keep the gate area well guarded; they know they can attack there safely now.”
“If they have the guts.”
Rix headed for the steps. “Get the blood and bodies cleared off the walkways—and make sure the men keep low. I don’t want any more casualties.”
He ran down to the store, collected the last bombast and carried it over his shoulder to the door of North Tower. The battering-ram crew were hauling the ram back for another attempt, but they were so weary now they could barely hold it up. There was no point continuing; someone would be badly injured and he needed every man.
He waved them away. They dropped the ram and sat on it.
“Further away,” said Rix.
They rolled the ram across the yard. Rix put the bombast at the base of the door, inserted the fuse and packed pieces of stone around the sides.
“How a
re you going to set it off?” said Ellem, the captain of the ram crew, a stringy man with a shock of yellow hair and pale, watering eyes.
“Drop something on the fuse,” said Rix.
He began to stack heavy pieces of stone one on another, up the right side of the door.
“If that topples while you’re stacking—” said Ellem, blinking furiously.
“It’ll kill us both. Move away.”
He kept stacking stone until it was higher than his head, then tied a rope around a large block of stone and perched it precariously on top. He backed away with the rope as far as it would go, only thirty yards. Rix frowned and indicated to his troops to shelter around the corner of North Tower. He yanked the rope and ran, but he did not reach the corner in time.
The blast drove him to his hands and knees and fragments spiked into his back in half a dozen places. He rocked there for a moment, decided he was not badly wounded, and stood up.
His men peered around the corner. Rix felt his back. He was stuck all over with shards of shattered rock and splinters of wood, though only the longest ones had penetrated through to the skin. He picked them out; it hurt more than they had going in.
The door was broken. Rix gestured to his men and they charged.
“Search the place,” he rapped. “If you find Grandys or any of the other Heroes, sing out and retreat. Don’t take them on by yourself.”
He checked inside. Two men—Grandys’ door guards—lay dead, killed by flying splinters from the door. There was no sign of the Five Heroes and no way to tell where they had gone, though Rix assumed that Grandys would be searching under the tower. He ran to the top of North Tower, scanning every level on the way.
He stood on the flat tower roof for a moment, looking around him. The golden bulk of the castle was to his right. He was at the same level as the domes of its four corner towers, though the massive central tower rose another hundred feet above this level, and the platform at the top of its enormous copper-clad dome stood another seventy feet above that.
There was no sign that any of the Heroes had been up here. Surely Grandys would have gone down, not up. Nonetheless, as Rix headed down, he checked each room. On the second level below the top he made out a heavy rasping coming from behind a closed door, as though someone was struggling to draw breath. He eased the door wide. The sound came from by a window, though it was so covered in dust and cobwebs he could not tell who was there. He checked behind him in case it was a trap, then moved across, his sword out.