The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  But it did not strike. As Pazel watched, the demon began to tremble, then to writhe with great violence, beating itself against the bridge. The party fell back, for the very bridge was shuddering. It was worse than any seizure — worse than what the creature’s own body should be capable of, Pazel thought.

  He cast his eyes about for an explanation — and found it. Ramachni had come back to them. His fur stood on end, and he was shaking, shaking in wild fury, snapping his tiny head back and forth as minks do when they mean to kill the pray in their teeth. The demon was twenty times Ramachni’s size, but was caught in his spell all the same, and Ramachni meant to shake it to death.

  The maukslar screamed and flailed. It clawed at the bridge, ripping stones away. It tried to fold its wings before they were crushed but could not turn its body to do so. The others lunged and stabbed, and Neda’s sword pierced its side. Even as she did so, however, the beast knocked another stone free with a swing of its arm. The stone ricocheted off the wall of the chute, narrowly missed Neda’s head, and struck Ramachni on the flank.

  The mage was briefly stunned — and in that instant the maukslar was free. With a croak of pain it released the bridge and fell into the chasm.

  ‘Arpathwin, it can still fly!’ cried Thaulinin, gazing over the rim. ‘It is departing! It is going to Macadra!’

  Ramachni stood and shook his fur. ‘That disguise,’ he said. ‘I should have guessed. Once upon a time I would have guessed. And now there is only one way to proceed.’

  He leaped deftly onto the rim once more. Then he looked back at them, a tiny creature buffeted by the wind. ‘You know what you must do,’ he shouted. ‘Fight on, stop for nothing. Find and kill them all.’

  ‘Ramachni?’ said Thasha.

  ‘I hoped never again to leave your side,’ he said, and jumped.

  Thasha screamed. Pazel grabbed at her, irrationally fearful that she would try to follow the mage. ‘Where is he, where did he go?’ shouted Neeps, leaning over the rim.

  Pazel heaved himself up and looked into the abyss. He could not see Ramachni, but he could see the maukslar: the demon was soaring away, following the contours of the Parsua like a great bird. Then came the ghastly thought: Ramachni’s magic had failed, the demon had blocked it somehow; he had stepped off the bridge and fallen straight down to his death.

  Then Thasha pointed.

  Far below the bridge, yet still hundreds of feet above the maukslar, soared an owl. It was no creature of the mountaintops; it looked very small and out of place. Yet its wings churned the thin air powerfully, and when the demon turned, so did the owl.

  ‘That’s him,’ shouted Neeps. ‘He took that same shape exactly in the forest. But what will he do if he catches that thing?’

  No time for further talk. The enemy had regrouped, and five or six hrathmog archers were firing from the tower. The three dlomu, including their fell-looking commander with his Plazic knife, waited by the foot of the bridge, with the athymars circling and baying at their heels.

  ‘Assemble, assemble!’ Thaulinin was shouting. ‘Shield-bearers, forward!’

  Clenching his teeth, Pazel stepped back into the frigid water. The column reformed; they scrambled on and up. It was hard to climb in a crouch, and harder still when one’s feet were numb with cold. The floor of the water-chute was very slick. But between the shields and the walls of the chute the hrathmog archers could find nowhere to sink a shaft. Beside Pazel, Bolutu’s eyes were streaming. He and Big Skip had become fast friends.

  Finally they reached the great crack. There were hisses and oaths, for it was even wider than they had imagined, and the gushing torrent made it difficult to tell just where the edges lay. Still lofting the shields they tried to squeeze past it, two by two, feeling out the stones with their feet. Pazel’s head was reeling: a few inches to his left there was nothing: air, spray, sucking wind. He felt a stone shift under his foot.

  Think of walking, nothing else. Others had done it, somehow. He stilled his heart, and inched forward, and he was through.

  But things only grew worse. Above the crack they were right in the flood, wading uphill against a ripping current that splashed to their thighs. Pazel wanted to scream: the cold was agonizing, like long-nailed fingers stripping the flesh from his bones.

  Now, he thought. Wait any longer and you’ll fall down dead.

  With clumsy fingers he tugged the beetle from his vest pocket and put the frozen, scaly thing into his mouth. But he could not bite; his teeth were chattering like some strange machine. At last he used his hands to force his jaws together, until the beetle’s shell cracked like a nut.

  Oh Gods.

  The heat passed through him in a scalding wave. His mouth was a furnace; his head was on fire, and even his vision changed, as though he were seeing the world through pale red wine. He half expected to see steam rising from his body.

  Remembering Arim’s warning, he spat the beetle out, along with a fair amount of blood: the insect had literally burned his tongue. Other beetles floated past him: he was not the only one who had decided the time had come. But what of Valgrif and Shilu? The wolf was almost swimming, and Lunja was even now struggling to tie a harness around the neck and shoulders of the dog. They should have waited on the cliff, thought Pazel. They’ll die if this takes too long.

  Hercol stood up suddenly from beneath his shield. He fired the selk bow twice in rapid succession, and two archers fell. How many did that leave? Hrathmogs were still firing from atop the tower, several more from the foot of the bridge. A selk cried out: he had raised his bow as Hercol had done, but this time one of the hrathmogs sank a shaft deep in his side. Thaulinin lifted the wounded man, trying to guard them both with his shield. Hercol fired again, and another hrathmog fell.

  The dlomic commander turned and ran for the tower. Pazel was close enough now to see that a massive archway opened in its wall on the northern side. The commander stopped at the threshold and shouted into the tower, pointing imperiously at the bridge as he did so.

  There was a rumbling sound, and the archers on the towers swayed, as though the building had just rocked beneath their feet. Those still firing from the bridge turned and fled. Only the ravenous dogs held their ground.

  Through the tower arch something huge and pale was crawling. At first Pazel could only see its face: an old woman’s face, bloated, pockmarked, with protruding eyes and a mouth full of black and rotting teeth. An iron crown, spiked and bloody, sat upon her head, and from beneath it yards of grey, matted hair hung like sheets of bog-moss. Then the creature rose to its feet.

  ‘Miyanthur, save us!’ shouted the selk. ‘That is a Thrandaal brood-mother, an ogress of the race that conquered the Mountain Kings!’

  She towered over them, dressed in rotting leather from which a few shells, bones, glass beads and other trinkets still dangled. A sack tied to her waist leaked a soot-like powder that stained the snow. A mighty chain dragged from a manacle at her wrist.

  The creature’s first act was to pounce on one of the fleeing hrathmogs. It tore the beast’s armour away, then stuffed the hrathmog head first into its mouth. The hrathmog’s legs still protruded, still kicked; then the ogress bit down and the kicking ceased.

  ‘Fear no devils!’ bellowed Cayer Vispek. ‘Forward, while yet we may!’

  They tried to climb faster, but the current was too fierce, the ascent too steep. The ogress was chewing thoughtfully, an old grandmother with a mouthful. It was slow to notice the Plazic commander, who was howling with fury: ‘Not them! The bridge! Kill the creatures on the bridge!’

  The ogress trained a lazy eye in the party’s direction. It spat a bone at the commander, and began to turn away. The dlomu leaped into its path.

  ‘By the curse I carry, animal, you will obey!’

  The commander gripped the handle of his Plazic knife. The ogress hesitated, suddenly wary. Then with a gesture of agony (like one ripping stitches from a wound) the commander jerked his arm upwards. In his hand shone a ghost-knife, t
he pale image of a blade that had once been long and cruel, but was now corroded down to a few blunt inches of bone. The commander himself gazed at it with hatred. But with that stump of a blade he struck fear into the monster: it recoiled, shielding its eyes from the weapon. Then it groaned and rushed the bridge.

  The party had sixty feet to go when the ogress climbed atop the aqueduct. It stared at them with dull hate, then it raised its manacled arm and swung the chain over its head. The chain came down with thunder, and the last iron link struck the wounded selk leaning on Thaulinin’s arm. Thaulinin himself was not touched, but the man was torn from him, and Pazel watched with horror as the flood bore the lifeless body away. The ogress hauled in the chain for a second swing.

  ‘Back, back!’ cried Hercol. ‘That chain will be the end of us!’

  But backing up was not something they had tried; it was hard enough to keep one’s feet when climbing forward. Warning shouts; then the chain struck again. There was a great splash: this time everyone had managed to dive to one side or the other. But in so doing many had lost their feet. They clawed at the stone, the ice, each other: anything to stop themselves from sliding headlong into the crack. Pazel, luckier than most, managed to lock an arm over the bridge’s rim. Prince Olik, nearly submerged, reached out wildly and caught his other hand. With a single furious tug Pazel hauled him from the water, and then saw with amazement that he had somehow found the strength to lift Thasha too: the prince had hold of her belt.

  As he struggled to gain his feet again Pazel looked back along the bridge.

  Neda!

  His sister was whirling down the chute. She was limp, barely conscious; he thought she must have fallen and struck her head. So fast. Pazel had barely time to scream, to feel a part of him dying, to wish for death for the first time in his life. One moment his sister was there in the sunlit water; the next her body folded down through the crack and was gone.

  He howled, the world blurring with tears. He let go of the bridge and tried to follow her, and Olik and Thasha had to fight him with all their strength. Then came the next ghastly shock, as a second body reached the crack and was sucked away to oblivion: Cayer Vispek. But the elder sfvantskor had not gone helplessly. He had been wide awake. He had aimed his body for the hole.

  Crash. The chain fell again, splitting stone, but for the moment the party had slid beyond its reach. The ogress screamed at them from the edge of the watercourse; clearly she had no wish to climb out over the abyss itself. Plunging a hand into the sack at her waist, she drew out a fistful of black powder. Thaulinin bellowed a warning, but it was too late: the ogress blew the powder from her hand, and as she did so it burst into flames.

  A plume of orange fire billowed towards them. Above the rim of the chute it was soon dispersed by the wind, but just over the water’s surface it slithered on until it broke against the warriors’ shields. Pazel saw their faces: some of them were burned. Already the ogress was raising another fistful to her lips.

  Hercol’s bow sang again. The ogress gave a murderous scream, dropping the powder and clawing at her face. The shaft was buried in her eye.

  The monster’s scream went on and on. She tore the shaft away, along with much of her eyeball. She whirled and swung the chain blindly, and the remaining archers were swept from the tower. When she managed to strike the bridge again the chain passed inches from Thaulinin’s face.

  Then the selk leader did an amazing thing: he dived upon the chain. The ogress had fallen to her knees, one hand over her bloody eye socket. With each jerk of her arm Thaulinin was pulled further up the chute.

  The dlomic commander saw what was happening and cried out. Two athymars burst onto the bridge and were crushed when the ogress rolled on them in her agony. As she struggled to hands and knees Thaulinin released the chain and drew his selk sword. Then he reeled. A hrathmog arrow had pierced his leg below the knee.

  The ogress saw Thaulinin then, and fumbled for him. But Thaulinin was not bested yet: he leaped sidelong into her blind spot, then reached up and caught a handful of her matted hair. The ogress whirled around, swinging him through the air, and Thaulinin drew his blade in a precise, slashing motion across her jugular.

  Blood exploded from the creature’s neck. Thaulinin was tossed high and landed in the clearing. The ogress fell forward into the chute, and for a few seconds they all felt the warmth as the torrent around them turned crimson. Then the flow stopped altogether. The body of the ogress was blocking the chute, and the water was spilling over the sides.

  Like some crazed band of cannibals, blood-splattered from feet to faces, the survivors charged. Pazel heard the savagery in his own voice and did not recognize himself. He was changed; he had lost his sister. He climbed the body of the still-quivering ogress and plunged his sword into her stomach. Only killing could blot out the death inside him. He leaped down into the clearing, howling for more.

  It came. The hrathmogs were returning, now that the ogress was slain. The party outnumbered them, but the creatures were tall and ox-strong, and they were better with both axes and teeth than they had been with their bows. Still Pazel felt no fear. And as he attacked he felt the rage and grief diminish also. There was no room for them; in his mind there could only be deeds. He danced through axes, judging, voracious, calm, and then he feinted left and whirled about to the right beneath an axe-blow and cut a hrathmog’s throat to the bone.

  He did not kill again that day, although he helped Corporal Mandric do so, distracting one of the creatures with his charge long enough for the Turach to drive his blade through the creature’s back. Pazel was not tired, he was not cold. Through his mind all the practice and the forms and the earlier battles of the voyage danced like lightning, and he followed without a conscious thought. Hercol had said it: In the battle you make choices; when it is over you find out what they were.

  A time came at last when there were no more hrathmogs to kill. Pazel turned in a circle. A selk was hacking the last of the creatures to the ground. One dlomic soldier lay twitching feebly. Another selk had died upon a heap of snow, an axe still buried in his chest.

  Then Pazel saw Thaulinin.

  The selk leader was near the edge of the clearing, the two remaining athymars had him in their teeth. One dog had sunk its fangs into his thigh, the other his opposite forearm. Behind them, the dlomic commander stood with his back to a tree and his ghost-knife pointing skyward. Thaulinin was awake but not resisting. Within two yards of him, Valgrif lay still.

  Lunja was racing to Thaulinin’s aid, and Hercol was not far behind. Pazel sprinted after them, but even as he ran he saw Lunja fall forward, helpless and stunned. Hercol tried to stop as well, but it was too late: he dropped beside Lunja and lay still.

  Pazel skidded to a halt. All three warriors had rushed into a trap, a spell-field created by the Plazic blade. Valgrif was another victim: Pazel saw now that the wolf was awake.

  ‘Disarm!’ screamed the commander. ‘Throw your weapons into the gorge, or I will kill him here and now!’

  ‘You muckin’ bastard!’ cried Mandric. ‘We’ll chuck you over that cliff, one little piece at a time.’

  The dlomu shouted a word of command. At once the dogs released Thaulinin’s limbs and pounced on his unguarded face and throat. Pazel closed his eyes — too late; he had seen it and could not unsee. He turned away and vomited. Thaulinin was dead.

  When he looked again the dogs were standing over Lunja. The dlomic commander pointed at the gorge. ‘Every last weapon!’ he shouted. ‘Or do you wish her to die next?’

  There were no taunts this time. Thasha had thrown her arms around Neeps, who was staring at Lunja like a man deranged. Everyone was still. Pazel heard the distant cry of some mountain bird. He noted with a stab of disappointment that Prince Olik had fled somewhere; indeed he realised now that the monarch had skipped the fight altogether.

  The dlomic leader, calmer suddenly, turned them a ghastly smile.

  ‘I will not be counting to three,’ he said.

>   Deep inside, Pazel felt his decision: the decision he would understand only when it was over; when everyone who was going to die had died. He walked to the cliff and threw his sword into the depths. Then he went to Bolutu and took his sword, and asked for his backpack as well.

  Bolutu shed his pack, dumbfounded. Pazel tried to lift it from the ground, and failed. The pack was suddenly unnaturally heavy. Since the fight with the hrathmogs began Pazel had thought his strength inexhaustible, but it was deserting him quickly.

  Not yet, he told himself. But he had to settle for dragging the backpack to the cliff.

  When he was as close as he dared, he tossed Bolutu’s sword over the edge. The commander watched him, increasingly confused. ‘Why is the boy the only one who obeys? You wish the dogs to kill her? Very well, watch them, if you have the stomach for it.’

  With great difficulty Pazel lifted the pack from the ground. ‘All the weapons, Commander?’ he said.

  ‘All of them! Is your whole company deaf?’

  Pazel heaved the pack over the cliff.

  ‘What did you have in there, boy? Stones?’

  Pazel gazed at him, winded. ‘Just one,’ he said.

  The commander froze. A look of terror came over his face. He sprinted for the bridge and dashed up the stairs, bounding onto the corpse of the ogress. Looking down into the chasm, he lowered his knife and shouted: ‘Valixra!’