by Ian Irvine
Flydd had been on edge ever since speaking to his spies last night, and he had landed well away from the manor, just in case.
Karan stopped in mid-stride. He continued for ten yards, then turned. ‘Yes?’
‘What keeps you going?’ she croaked. ‘When there’s nothing but bad news?’
He came back. ‘My earliest memory – I would have been three or four – is of my father’s despair that the lyrinx were going to wipe us out. He was a good, kind man, but his nerves were too close to the surface. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t work, and one day he didn’t wake up. I was only seven, too young to understand, but I swore that despair would never control me. That no matter how bad things got, or how hopeless it seemed, I would never stop fighting for the world and the people I loved.’
‘And the day I do – No!’ he cried, shaking his fists. ‘The enemy may torture me and try to break me, but until I lie dead before them I will never stop fighting. For my father’s sake, I will never despair.’
He walked on, though not as vigorously as before, and his shoulders were slumped. Yet Karan, treading in his footsteps, found her spirits unaccountably lifted.
‘Nifferlin was home to Maelys’ huge clan,’ he said a few minutes later, ‘but the manor was destroyed during the God-Emperor’s reign and many of the men, including her father, were killed or died in prison. Most of the clan scattered – only her mother and two aunts, and her little sister, Fyllis, stayed, hiding in the ruins. Maelys and Nish started to rebuild two years ago, after the God-Emperor’s death. It’s a beautiful place.’
Another pang. No one would have called Gothryme beautiful, but it had been home and Karan was lost without it.
‘We’ll be just in time for breakfast,’ he added. ‘I’d walk twenty miles for Maelys’ quarter-inch bacon, triple-yolker eggs and crusty bread with bitter marmalade.’
Her stomach rumbled.
As they approached the lower edge of the walnut forest, Flydd stopped abruptly. ‘Smoke!’ He gestured to her to keep low. ‘Not the good kind.’
She slipped behind a mossy trunk. Ahead stretched acres of vines, plentiful with bunches of tiny grapes that would not be ready for harvesting for months. Beyond, the patchwork fields forecast a rich harvest.
But it would never be taken in.
Below the vineyards, the new manor had been reduced to three broken walls at one end, two at the other, and a central pair of chimneys rising from smoking rubble.
Flydd choked. ‘I should have flown here the moment the Merdrun found my Histories.’
Karan took his spyglass and tried to focus on the ruins, but her hands were shaking too badly. This raised too many bad memories. ‘Not much smoke. They must have torched the place hours ago.’
‘But did the bastards get what they came for?’ Flydd drew his sword and hacked down a walnut sapling. ‘And are they still here, somewhere?’
‘You any good with that?’
‘Used to be. What about you?’
She drew her knife. ‘I’m better at throwing knives than fighting with them.’
He headed down, muttering to himself. ‘You’re a scrawny old bastard who should have been pensioned off years ago. What difference can you make?’
‘Wouldn’t call you old, exactly.’
‘Younged myself by a decade or two when I took renewal for a second time, a few years back.’
‘You took renewal, and kept the same appearance?’
He managed the faintest smile. ‘This scrawny body has served me well; this ugly face, too. Even with the ladies, believe it or not.’
‘Not,’ said Karan.
As they went down, the smell of charred flesh reminded her of past battlefields, and atrocities she would sooner have stayed buried beyond recovery. They emerged from the vines onto a close-cropped lawn scattered with sheep droppings. Smoke drifted into their faces.
‘Your gift telling you anything?’ Flydd whispered.
‘I’m picking up terror, violence, agony – and grief.’
‘Grief suggests someone’s still alive. Have the enemy gone?’
‘I think so,’ Karan said slowly.
The sun broke out from behind the clouds. The lawn was thick and green except near the manor, where it had burned out in a series of lobes. Away to the left, the doors of a stables stood open.
‘Front door was this way.’ Flydd headed around to the right, across the lawn and onto a driveway gravelled with the half-shells of thousands of black walnuts. They rattled and clicked underfoot. ‘No one could sneak up on this place.’
‘Merdrun don’t have to sneak.’
The sense of grief swelled again, and it reminded Karan of her mother. Every step took an effort now.
Flydd propped, staring at a body sprawled on the front steps. An old woman, tall and lean, with a nose like the bow of a rowboat. The middle of her gown was blood-soaked, and it had run down the steps in banners.
‘Haga,’ he said softly. ‘Maelys’ last surviving aunt. A tough, plain-speaking woman.’ He touched her neck with the back of his hand. ‘Dead for hours.’
Maelys, still grieving for her sister and stillborn child, had now lost her last relative, and her home. If not her life.
He went in through the charred front door opening, sword in hand. Karan followed. There were more bodies inside, two men and a woman, all partly burned.
Flydd bent and checked the faces. ‘House staff. I never knew their names.’
He surveyed the mess of rubble, half-burnt timber and furniture, and smashed roof slates. Halfway along, a bed, neatly made including the pillow, was perched on a mound of brickwork. The green quilt was covered in ash and pieces of slate, and charred around the edges. The rest was unburnt.
They searched the hot wreckage but found no more dead.
‘They could be buried under the rubble,’ said Karan.
‘They didn’t come to kill Nish and Maelys,’ said Flydd, ‘but to take them.’
There were tracks aplenty on the southern side of the house, where the shaded lawn was softest: deep imprints of many hooves and many pairs of boots, the soles fixed on with big, square nails. And another body.
‘Aimee!’ Flydd ran. Lying on her face, arms and legs asprawl, was a tiny, bird-like woman, killed by a sword thrust through the back.
He turned her over. ‘She was brave and loyal and good and true – and great fun, too. But where’s Clech, her man? They were inseparable.’
He knelt beside Aimee, laying a gnarled hand on the top of her head. ‘She was one of the team that fought beside me against the God-Emperor,’ he said brokenly. ‘Why did she have to die? Why not me?’
The question had no answer, but Karan attempted one. ‘Because no one else can lead the fight-back.’
Flydd planted his fists in the ground and slumped over until his forehead touched the grass.
She studied the tracks. ‘They came up across country but left via the entrance road. No need for stealth then. Twenty mounted Merdrun, maybe more.’
‘Enough to take a village. They wanted Nish and Maelys badly.’ He rose stiffly. ‘This is a blow, Karan. I don’t know what I can do without them.’
They searched the stables, bakehouse and brew house, and the other outbuildings, but found no one else.
‘They must be taking the prisoners to Fadd,’ said Flydd. ‘It’s the only city they hold within a thousand miles.’
‘How far?’
‘Three day’s ride east, the first day down a winding mountain track.’
‘Why would they ride? Why not use a gate?’
‘It’s hard to make gates around here. Fields haven’t regenerated yet.’
The grief Karan had sensed earlier swelled painfully and she clutched at the sides of her head. ‘Someone’s still alive.’
‘Where?’
‘Can’t tell.’
‘We’ve searched everywhere …’ said Flydd, then started. ‘Apart from the cellars!’
‘If they’re under the rubble –’<
br />
‘No, they’re ancient. Up behind the old manor.’
They scrambled up through the vines and Flydd turned right along an overgrown track which ended, a few hundred yards later, at a rectangle of ground, a good sixty yards by forty, scattered with tall weeds, broken stone and slates.
‘Must’ve been an enormous house,’ said Karan.
‘More than sixty of the clan lived here in the olden days.’
The waves of grief grew stronger; they were almost overwhelming Karan now.
They followed a path downslope, made a U-turn and passed through a broken archway of yellow stone feathered with blue-grey lichen. Flydd opened a wide wooden door in the side of the hill, proceeded down a set of five worn steps, touched a glowglobe to light and held it up. A tunnel with an arched roof ran into the dark. Racks on the left held curved barrel staves and timber. Further on were stacks of used barrels. Full barrels stood on a low platform along the right-hand wall.
‘Anyone here?’ he called.
Karan heard a sharp intake of breath.
‘Xervish?’ said a small, choked voice.
A young woman crept out from behind the furthest stack of barrels. She was shorter than Karan and more full-figured, with a round face winged by chin-length char-black hair and eyebrows that might have been brushed on with black ink. She would have been pretty but for the deep purple hollows under her eyes. Her blouse and trews were smoke-stained and torn, there was blood on her right knee and the palm of her left hand, and she carried a wicked carving knife.
‘They killed Aunt Haga and Aimee, and took Nish.’ The knife shook. Maelys dropped it, stumbled to Flydd and wrapped her arms around him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Haga was a good woman. And Aimee –’ His voice cracked. ‘How will we do without her?’
Maelys pulled away, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘You must be Karan.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry for –’
But Maelys had turned away. ‘We’ve got to rescue Nish, today! Once they get down onto the plain it’ll be too late.’
‘We can’t take on twenty seasoned Merdrun warriors.’
‘Twenty-four, led by a sus-magiz.’
‘Maelys,’ Flydd said slowly, ‘I need Nish as much as you do … but it can’t be done.’
‘Can you hope to defeat the Merdrun without Nish?’
‘No, but –’
‘He’s all I’ve got left. We’ve got to find a way.’
When Karan closed her eyes she could see the abyss in front of her. Flydd would mount a suicidal attack on the enemy force, and they would all be killed.
15
How Can It Be Gone?
They laid the bodies of Haga, Aimee and the servants in shallow graves in the lawn, since there was no time to dig deep ones, and covered the mounds with stone from the collapsed walls.
The sky had clouded over and a gusty wind spat cold raindrops at them. Karan trudged up to the vineyard, leaving Flydd and Maelys to their grief. Was this the way the world she loved would end, house by house and friend by friend, until the Merdrun had destroyed all trace of humanity? She cupped a bunch of tiny grapes, new life in the midst of death, but found no comfort in them.
Maelys came up, wearing a small pack and holding a yellow, egg-shaped object on a fine chain around her neck. She squeezed the object and slipped it down her blouse.
‘I’m ready,’ she said to Flydd, who had followed. ‘How are we going to do it?’
‘I have no idea.’
He set such a fast pace up the slope that Karan, whose bad leg was aching, struggled to keep up. Who among her old allies could still be alive? Only Yggur, who was old and weak now, and fading to his longed-for end, and Malien. But Malien had gone to Aachan two years ago with most of Clan Elienor and many thousands of other Aachim. She would never return to Santhenar.
The walnut forest now had a cold and dismal air. Here and there, fallen walnuts from last seasons sprouted vigorously, though few would survive.
‘If we can find Clech –’ Maelys began.
‘He’s alive?’ said Flydd, brightening.
‘He went down to Morrelune two days ago. How am I going to tell him about Aimee?’ Maelys stopped, knuckling her eyes. ‘I had three wisp-watchers out – Nish got them from Mazurhize – but –’
‘What’s Mazurhize?’ said Karan.
‘The ruins of Jal-Nish’s underground prison, a few days’ walk from here. But the wisp-watchers didn’t warn us of danger.’
‘That’d be the sus-magiz’s doing,’ said Flydd.
‘A grey-faced, angry fellow with white eyes,’ said Maelys. ‘We were packing our gear, getting ready to leave at first light, when Aunt Haga –’ She stopped again, her eyes leaking tears.
‘She’d been poorly, but she heard them on the drive and went out and ordered them begone … And they killed her! Then kicked her aside and cut our servants down inside the front door …
‘The sus-magiz paralysed Nish before he could move, bound him and carried him out, then torched the place. There was nothing Aimee and I could do; we got out a window and ran. But Aimee – you know what she’s like – crept after them and I – I couldn’t stop her. I should have gone with her.’
‘They would have killed you too,’ said Flydd.
She slumped. ‘I let everyone down. Didn’t know what to do. In the olden days –’
‘There were twenty-four of them!’ He crouched before her, holding her by the shoulders. ‘Maelys, think! What would Haga want you to do?’
She found a feeble little smile. ‘Family is everything. She’d want me to get Nish back and destroy our enemies. And make Nifferlin good again.’
Flydd lifted her to her feet and led her to a cluster of round rocks jutting out of the dark soil. ‘And we will – though I can’t think how.’
Karan sat on another rock, thinking bitter thoughts. He had refused to lift a finger to look for Llian, yet now he was planning an attack that could only be suicide, and she could not get out of it because she had given her word.
‘How long until the Merdrun are out of reach?’ he said to Maelys.
‘A day. The track down the mountains is deadly in the dark; they would have waited at the top ’til dawn. And even in daylight they’ll have to lead their mounts down the worst sections.’
‘Then if we’re to ambush them, we’ve got to do it before dark. But we haven’t a hope by ourselves.’
‘Flangers and Chissmoul stopped by three days ago,’ said Maelys. She pronounced the name kiss-mool. ‘Ferrying people into hiding in their air floater.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Somewhere north of here.’
He jumped up. ‘Come on.’
They went aboard and he sat at the controls, frowning. ‘Flangers was one of my best lieutenants in the war,’ he said to Karan. ‘A brilliant soldier and a good, decent man … tormented, though.’
Few people who had gone through such a war, and had done what they’d had to do to survive and win, would not be tormented. Karan certainly was. ‘And Chissmoul?’
‘The best pilot we ever had … but … difficult. Highly strung. The bond between pilots and their craft is a powerful one, and she lives to fly. With them and Clech –’
‘Maelys said he went down to Morrelune. Would he be coming back on the same track?’
‘Part of the way. Maelys, where would Clech be now?’
She took a canvas map from a rack and spread it out on the deck, and they knelt next to it.
‘Could be anywhere down here,’ said Maelys, pointing. ‘Depends how long it took him in Morrelune.’
‘I can’t fly up and down the road looking for him. The enemy will hear us. I’ll try to locate the air-floater.’
He went below and shortly came up again, carrying a wooden box. ‘This might do it.’
Inside was a conglomeration of crystals and wires, with a small yellow glass sphere resting in a brown bowl at its centre. He put it on his little table in the rear
corner and sat with eyes closed and right hand cupped over the top of the device. Every so often he adjusted one of the little levers, then rotated a toothed wheel. Coloured rays moved across the surface of the glass sphere, blue and grey, then lime green. He traced their paths absently, eyes still closed. The lime green ray turned scarlet.
‘North 40 east,’ he said softly. His eyes came open but he did not look down.
‘How far?’ said Maelys.
‘It only gives direction.’
Karan was staring at the scarlet ray when it flashed and vanished.
‘Ugh!’ Flydd clutched his head, then turned slowly and stared at the sphere.
‘Was that the enemy, attacking them?’ said Maelys.
‘I hope not.’ He went to the controls and the sky galleon lifted and headed north-east.
‘Can you get it back?’ Karan carried the contraption across and set it down on the binnacle in front of him.
He touched the glass sphere. ‘No. It’s gone.’
‘What’s gone?’ said Karan, frustrated.
‘The air-floater’s controller …’
‘How can it be gone?’
‘Maybe the Merdrun took it,’ said Flydd. ‘There are less than a dozen air-floaters in the world, and they would have done everything in their power to locate them.’
‘Why so few?’ said Karan. ‘They’re not hard to make.’
‘The fields that have regenerated are still weak, so it takes a supremely powerful crystal to make a controller work, and a pilot of rare gifts to operate it. There aren’t many of either. And the Merdrun want all of them.’
‘Then why can’t you see this one anymore?’
‘I don’t know,’ Flydd said grimly.
‘If they can find air-floaters via their controllers, can they also find the sky galleon?’
‘I desperately hope not.’
Without warning, Sulien’s voice burst into Karan’s mind.
Mummy, I really hate this place. The old woman never says anything nice. She just orders me about, from sunrise until I’m sent to bed. I’m her slave, Mummy.
And … and Jassika still hasn’t come back. I’m really afraid for her –