by Ian Irvine
He slipped, slid down on his knees, came to his feet at the bottom of the slope, took one giant stride, then Klarm blasted him so hard in the back that Wilm fell and could not move. He was paralysed.
‘Go and get him,’ said Klarm.
‘I can’t carry Wilm,’ Wilm heard Ilisial reply.
‘Then drag him! On his face, if you have to, but get the mutinous little shit up here.’
19
The Faint Psychic Trail
‘What’s that from?’ said Maelys from the bow of the sky galleon. Smoke hung low over the trees a mile ahead.
‘Forest fire,’ Karan said absently, still agonising about that fleeting mind-call from Sulien. If she used her gift to probe the enemy about Llian’s whereabouts, they would find her. And then –
‘Must’ve been a fierce one,’ said Flydd. They had been searching for hours on his bearing of north 40 east, the only clue to the air-floater’s location. ‘It rains here most of the year.’
He slowed and dropped lower. The sky galleon bucked and dipped in a strong breeze. The wind-driven fire had burned the trees in a triangle half a mile long and a few hundred yards at the base, before going out.
‘Got a bad feeling,’ said Maelys.
Everything had gone bad since Karan brought her family to this accursed future.
Flydd headed to the origin of the fire, keeping out of range of any attack from the ground. It began in the centre of a large forest clearing.
‘That was an air-floater!’ Maelys choked.
Flydd stifled a cry. His knuckles were white on the controls. Flangers and Chissmoul were also old friends.
As they drew closer, the smoking debris took on the shape of a hull.
‘Theirs?’ croaked Karan.
‘Who else could it be?’ Flydd snarled. He set down. ‘Maelys, load the javelard and keep watch. Karan, come with me.’
The grass was wet, the ground soft, and misty rain drifted in her face. There was no sign of life as Flydd headed towards the smouldering remains. The airbags, being mainly fabric and cordage, had burned away, and most of the air-floater’s hull and cabin. The black, twisted shapes in the middle had once been people.
The smell of charred flesh hurled Karan back to the cave, the red-hot brazier, the stab wound in her belly, and the insane triplets-magiz preparing to kill Llian and Sulien.
She still did not understand how Llian, the world’s clumsiest man, and little Sulien had overcome three big, powerful women. Karan’s heart lurched, the healed wound burned hot and cold, and she felt an overwhelming urge to run.
‘Steady!’ Flydd caught her by the upper arm, his hard fingertips gouging into her flesh. ‘Stay back. Keep watch.’
Karan fought the panic, as she had so many times before, though it was getting harder, not easier. She scanned the wall of trunks around them, the charred path the fire had made through the forest, the sky. There was no sign of the enemy apart from a pair of dead Merdrun, their uniforms and hair burnt off.
She shuddered, wiped sweat out of her eyes and went after Flydd, who was poking the charcoal and ash with the point of his sword.
‘Happened hours ago,’ he said.
He stepped carefully into the ashes, probing around him, and headed towards the middle. How could he bear it? She had seen far too much violent death during the Time of the Mirror, and subsequently fighting the Merdrun, and it hit her harder each time. A human being only had so much resilience. Hers had almost run out.
Flydd had seen far more, and far worse, during the war. How did he keep going?
He reached the bodies and bent over, lifting something away with his blade. Three people had huddled together, and another was a few feet away, but all were charred and twisted. He turned aside and Karan picked up a psychic cry of anguish.
‘Are Flangers and Chissmoul among the dead?’ she said softly.
He turned to her, his gaunt face grey. ‘No way of telling.’
He tramped to the bow end, damp ashes falling from his boots with every step, and prodded here and there among the heaps of charcoal. He came back and probed beside the bodies.
‘Their passengers were probably old allies. I’m almost out of them.’ He inspected Karan for a moment, perhaps wondering if she had what it took. ‘We’ll search the clearing. Take the western side. I’ll do the eastern. Don’t trample any evidence.’
Karan scowled at Flydd, but he had already turned away. She made allowances.
Prints in the damp earth had been made by large, heavy boots, the soles nailed in a jagged pattern that raised her hackles. Merdrun, four of them. And a fifth print, smaller and lighter, presumably a battle mancer or sus-magiz.
Flydd came around the bow, studying the ground. She pointed out the prints.
‘Flangers and Chissmoul had camped here when the Merdrun attacked,’ he said. ‘Via a gate, presumably.’
‘Can the enemy locate controllers?’
‘I hope not. This is bad, Karan. Flight is the only advantage we have, but we won’t have it long if they can find our craft and gate to them.’
Again she picked up a faint cry of pain. No, despair. Maelys? Karan glanced at the sky galleon but Maelys was out of sight behind the javelard. ‘Why did they burn the air-floater?’
‘I don’t know. But now they have its controller, and our best pilot.’
‘We don’t know that.’ Karan followed the prints.
Why would the enemy burn a precious air-floater? Maybe they hadn’t. What if Flangers had, to prevent it falling into enemy hands? And Chissmoul was highly strung, and passionately bonded to her craft. What would its destruction do to her?
‘Come on,’ said Flydd. ‘This could be a trap.’
‘Wait!’ Near the edge of the clearing Karan saw a small footprint, then a second and a third, gouged into the soft earth as if the person who made them had been running wildly …
She gestured to Flydd, then followed the small prints into the forest. After a couple of hundred yards they were joined by another set, rather larger. A man’s boot prints, but not Merdrun. She looked back; the clearing was lost to sight.
Could it be Chissmoul, bolting in despair when the air-floater blew up, and Flangers running after her? Had he burned their craft after the passengers were slain, to deny it to the enemy?
She curved around a vast, buttressed tree and stumbled over an enemy soldier, on his back with a smear of blood between his eyes and an inch of crossbow bolt sticking out. His uniform was charred in places, his eyebrows and eyelashes burned off.
Flydd came up behind her. The dead look had gone from his eyes but he seemed to be ruthlessly reining in hope. Twenty yards further on they found another enemy, the bolt embedded in the centre of his forehead.
‘Masterly shooting, on the run,’ said Flydd.
Now Karan understood why Flydd couldn’t do without Flangers.
‘The tracks end here,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t the others hunt Flangers and Chissmoul down?’
‘Too risky against such a skilled archer. The magiz must have called them back to the gate.’
‘But did they get the controller?’
Karan followed the faint psychic trail, over a ridge then down into a steep valley, her boot heels gouging into the soft soil as she skidded down. She went around a yard-high waterfall, down again, then stopped.
Under an overhang of yellow sandstone, a long, lean man, his once handsome face weather-beaten, his hair almost white, rocked a small woman in his arms. She was scrunched into a ball, her head pressed against his chest. Karan’s eyes stung. No doubt that this was true, painful love. It had been a long time since she’d felt –
Flydd could contain himself no longer. ‘Flangers, you’ve made my day. My year!’
They were but two, yet Karan was moved. If he could hope again, surely she could too.
Flangers raised a hand. ‘They gone?’
‘Looks like it.’ Flydd skidded down to them. ‘They came through a gate?’
‘Less th
an a hundred yards from our air-floater. Six soldiers and a sus-magiz, and they killed our passengers at once. I was gathering firewood and Chissmoul getting water, else they would’ve had us too. I – I had no choice, Xervish.’
Chissmoul thumped her head against his chest and moaned.
‘Fire arrow?’ said Flydd.
‘Straight into the airbag,’ said Flangers. ‘It went up like – well, you know what it’s like. For a minute or two I was back in the war.’ He quivered. ‘The blast killed two enemy outright and burned the others, and the sus-magiz. He kept going, though, trying to get the controller.’
‘Did he?’
Flangers shook his head. ‘I kept a flask of naphtha under the control binnacle, just in case. It went up in a column of flame fifty feet high.’
Another moan, another spasm from Chissmoul. Flangers stroked her hair. She banged her head repeatedly into his chest. ‘I hate you!’
‘And I love you. I can’t do without you, Chissie.’ He looked up at Flydd, despairingly.
‘I’ll – never – fly – again,’ she wailed, slamming her head into his breastbone with every word. ‘Never, never, never!’
‘Stop that whining and get up!’ snarled Flydd.
She jerked and stopped banging her head but did not look around.
‘I’ve got a job needs doing, but I won’t give it to someone I can’t rely on.’
Chissmoul and Flangers stood up. All pilots were small, because weight mattered in air floaters, and she barely came up to his shoulders. Her face was creased from being pressed against his coat and her eyes were red. She looked eagerly at Flydd, noticed Karan and lowered her eyes like a shy child.
‘What job?’ she whispered.
‘One that needs the best. You are still the best, aren’t you?’
She looked up and her eyes flashed. ‘I’ll never let you down, Xervish.’
‘I know you won’t,’ he said more kindly. ‘They killed Haga and Aimee, and took Nish.’ He looked at Flangers. ‘What happened to the other soldiers and the sus-magiz?’
‘After I downed two in the forest, he called the last two back and they retreated through the gate. He wasn’t happy.’
‘The Merdrun don’t tolerate failure,’ said Karan. ‘The survivors will be punished.’ She introduced herself.
Flangers’ eyes lit up. ‘With you on our side, anything is possible.’
Flydd choked. ‘What about me, and all we’ve done together these past couple of decades?’
Flangers laughed. ‘Never saw you as a man needing to be praised, surr.’
20
I’ve Got An Idea
They boarded the sky galleon and Chissmoul looked hungrily at the controls, but when Flydd showed no signs of handing them over she threw herself down on a bench and scowled. He scowled back at her.
Flangers sat beside Chissmoul and reached for her hand. She punched him. ‘Go away! I hate you!’
Hurt shadowed his lined face. He went and stood beside Flydd, who headed south down the spine of the mountains.
‘Where are we going?’ said Flangers.
‘A town where I can hire half a dozen fighters. Then we’re going to rescue Nish.’ Flydd told him about the attack on Nifferlin Manor, and the plan.
‘With rustic guards? Fifty wouldn’t be enough.’
‘I don’t have the time to find more or better. We’ve got to ambush the enemy today.’
‘This is a fraught enterprise, Xervish,’ Flangers said quietly.
Karan’s stomach clenched.
If Flangers, that vastly experienced soldier, had such reservations, what was the point? What would Sulien do if she, Karan, was killed? Sulien was deep, and could be secretive, and had a strong sense of justice. She would not sit idly by; she would do something dangerous.
‘How did they find us?’ said Flangers.
‘You said the gate opened near the air-floater. They must have detected the controller’s power draw – which means every air-floater on Santh is now at risk.’
Flangers did not reply.
Flydd looked across at Karan. ‘Get some rest; it’ll be hours yet.’
She went below, lay on one of the narrow bunks and pulled her coat over her head, not expecting to sleep, but drifted off at once. She was vaguely aware of the sky galleon landing, and shortly whining into the sky again.
She woke when it landed again, rather heavily. Judging by the light it was well into the afternoon. The sky galleon stood on a wet outcrop of blue-grey slate. Tall spurge trees with fleshy leaves and broad green flower heads surrounded them. Their white sap was both poisonous and corrosive, Karan recalled.
The guards Flydd had hired stood at the bow, laughing at something. There were only four, all were clad in grubby homespun, and the stocky one was toothless. The man next to him was prodding the deck with a rusty sword.
Karan’s heart sank further. If they were the best Flydd could hire, even with the promise of massive bonuses, the ambush was doomed.
‘Karan, would you come here?’ called Flydd.
‘Maelys, you know the mountain track,’ said Flangers. ‘Where’s the best place for an ambush?’
On a sheet of paper, Maelys drew a sequence of long, tight hairpin bends down a mountainside, then a river.
‘The path is too steep to ride here,’ she said. ‘Their horse handlers will be leading the mounts. This river is deep and fast, and it can only be crossed via a pair of rope and board suspension bridges half a mile apart.’ She pointed them out.
‘Wouldn’t fancy leading a horse across one of them,’ said Flydd.
‘I’ve done it,’ said Maelys. ‘Hope I never have to do it again.’
‘If we strike after they cross the first bridge, and get Nish away across the lower one, we can cut it behind us.’
‘There’s twenty-four Merdrun,’ said Flydd. ‘And assuming two of us stay with the sky galleon, we have only seven ambushers.’ He eyed the unkempt guards and grimaced.
‘We’ll have to be quick, and lucky,’ said Karan. ‘They’ll kill Nish rather than let him be rescued.’
‘What about a night attack?’
‘Too dangerous in the dark,’ said Flangers.
‘Dusk, then.’ Flydd sat back on his haunches. ‘Karan?’
She was out of her depth. ‘Um … if we can spook the horses, they’ll bolt down the track and across the bridge. With luck, they’ll trample a few of the enemy.
‘Good, but not enough. Any thoughts, Maelys?’
‘Nothing that doesn’t risk killing Nish at the same time. If we can’t put at least half of them out of action at the very beginning, we haven’t got a chance.’
‘Wait,’ said Karan, looking up at the trees. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘Ready to go?’ said Flydd.
Chissmoul had landed on the far side of the ridge, out of sight from the track and the ambush location. Flydd was tying a pair of blasting charges to one side of each of Karan’s sap-filled leather buckets. The four guards finished sharpening their weapons, under Flangers’ direction.
‘Get airborne the moment you hear fighting,’ Flydd said to Maelys and Chissmoul. ‘Keep well out of the magiz’s spell range.’
The sun was setting behind them as they crept across the ridge. The other side, which ran down to the track, was steep and wooded, with overhanging rocks at the crest. Bare strips down through the trees marked the paths of old landslides.
‘Don’t leave any footprints on the track,’ said Flangers.
The track was also steep here, cutting across the slope and curving around the end of the ridge towards the second bridge, which was out of sight. The outer edge of the track fell steeply to the river twenty feet below. Karan looked over. Below, a landslide had blocked a third of the river, creating a backwater pool. Further out, the current was too fast to swim.
‘Can their sus-magiz make a gate here?’ said Flangers. ‘That’s the big unknown.’
‘The field is weak in this region,’ said Flyd
d. ‘But it might be possible to open a gate to here from somewhere else.’ He looked up and down the track, frowning. ‘If this goes badly wrong,’ he said to Karan, ‘and you can call the sky galleon down without risking it, do so. No point us all dying for nothing.’
‘Call it down, how?’
He handed her a small silver box, etched with a swirling design on one side, like water going down a plughole. ‘Press the centre and you’ll be able to speak to Chissmoul. Don’t let the enemy get it – the sky-galleon is worth an army to them.’
She pocketed it. ‘All right.’
‘Stay free,’ Flydd said to Flangers. ‘And if Nish or I are caught and there’s no hope of rescuing us, shoot us down.’
‘Xervish?’ said Flangers.
‘It’s an order, soldier. We know too much.’
‘Surr!’ Flangers stood there for a moment, blank-faced, then shuddered.
Reliving past horrors, Karan thought. ‘We’d better win, then,’ she said darkly. Talk about lost causes!
The guards got into position, concealed in undergrowth on the slope above the track, and Flydd erased their tracks. Flangers was higher up, between a cluster of boulders. His crossbow was loaded and half a dozen bolts lay on a flat rock beside him.
‘Ready?’ Flydd said to Karan.
She nodded jerkily.
‘I’m relying on you,’ said Flydd. ‘Maelys –’ He hesitated. ‘Maelys has been lost since her baby was stillborn, and I have no idea what to do for her.’
‘Give her time.’ It was all Karan could think of.
‘Time is the one thing we don’t have. Come on.’
Karan put on gloves and goggles, picked up the leather buckets of milky sap and carried them down to the track. Flydd followed with something long and cylindrical in a bag.
‘Don’t see how this can work,’ he muttered. ‘Must be off my head.’
Karan kept her misgivings to herself. She placed the buckets ten yards apart and a couple of yards in from the edge of the track. Flydd cast a glamour to conceal them from view.
‘What if the sus-magiz detects your spell?’ said Karan.