by Ian Irvine
Because he had not fully recovered his inner power it was much harder this time. It took most of his reserves to direct the gate hundreds of leagues south, to the cave. But if it proved sufficiently accurate they would take the enemy by surprise, kill them and seize the secret weapon in under a minute.
Bang!
As Wilm started to run, the blot of darkness outside the mouth of Klarm’s cave flowered into a gate. Ten yards away, at the end of the ledge, Ilisial crumpled.
Six soldiers in red battle armour stormed from the gate, followed by the big sus-magiz who had taken M’Lainte. They had come for the spellcaster. Had Klarm called them here? How else could they have gated to the cave so precisely?
A yellow beam zipped from the cave, and again. Wilm dashed across the lookout, jumped a gap, cruelly jarring his sore shoulder, and began to scramble down the ridge. The enemy would probably kill him out of hand, but it wasn’t in him to hold back.
Because the moment they laid eyes on Ilisial, they would kill her.
Skald opened the gate and the broad cave mouth was two strides in front of him. Perfect! If they could be in and out in a minute, he should be able to hold the gate open, which would save a lot of power.
He stormed in. The dwarf was at the rear of the cave, crouched behind the secret weapon. The other two enemy were not here.
The dwarf raised his hand and something round and brassy glinted there. A searing yellow flash, a shattering blast, and gravel and grit stung Skald’s face and arms. Part of the roof fell on the soldiers behind him, then he felt a thump in his side, crack. A flying rock had broken the primed crystal in his pouch. When his sight returned the dwarf was gone, and as Skald turned, the gate folded in on itself and disappeared.
He cursed; it would not be easy to reopen it. He wiped blood out of his eyes and from his lower lip. Had the dwarf escaped via a gate? No, he must have scuttled through that crevice up the back. Skald blasted after him but did not think he had hit.
He took stock. Five of his six soldiers were down. Two had been killed by the rockfall, two were badly injured and another was on his knees, face scorched and eyes bleeding. He had been right in front of the dwarf’s blast. The sixth soldier was unharmed.
But the secret weapon was unguarded. ‘Watch that crack in the back of the cave,’ said Skald.
The uninjured soldier stood before it, blade extended. Skald checked outside. The tall youth was scrambling down from a lookout far up the rocky ridge, though it would take him several minutes to get here. The young woman lay unconscious ten yards away. He would deal with her once the secret weapon was his.
The spellcaster. Their interrogation of the old mechanician had taught them much about it, including that it was malicious and predictable, and how to disable it. Gingerly, remembering how it had killed the last of his previous force in under a minute, Skald approached it. It did not quiver. Had the dwarf deactivated it – or was it luring him in?
Sweat drenched him as he took slow steps towards the device, and his heart was beating painfully fast. As a soldier, he expected to die in battle and had no fear of it, but this was different. The spellcaster had killed his troops with fiery, mutilating blasts and he did not want to go in so terrible a way.
He felt the fear all the way down to his bowels.
Another step. Another. He could hear a faint ticking inside it now, as if it were counting down to something. Or waiting for the perfect moment. The soldier guarding the rear of the cave glanced over his shoulder and Skald could see the terror in his eyes.
Skald almost choked. He fought an urge to turn and run. No! I am not my father!
He sprang, flipped up the top hatch and plucked out the green crystal M’Lainte had told them about. The spellcaster was safe now. Relief hit him so hard that his knees went weak. He pocketed the crystal, heaved the spellcaster up and lugged it to the cave entrance, staggering under the weight.
But as soon as he attempted to conjure the gate, Skald knew that, without the primed focus, he did not have the power for it. The previous gate had drained too much from him. He needed much more power and there was only one place to get it, dishonourable though it was.
But failing his oath could not be countenanced. He cast the emotion-protecting charm on himself, reached out towards the blinded soldier, spoke the life-drinking spell and established the psychic link, and used it to drain the life force out of the doomed man.
Power exploded in him; his veins throbbed and his nerves stung. It was glorious!
The guard watching the back of the cave whirled, staring in horror. No wonder soldiers hated and feared all who could use that dreadful spell. But the blinded soldier did not have much life in him; not nearly enough for such a long-distance gate.
Skald reached towards the next injured soldier, a woman who had suffered two broken legs, though the moment he looked into her eyes he knew she wasn’t going to go easily.
‘Curse you!’ she shrieked. ‘May you rot from the inside before you die a coward’s death, like your father, and be buried in a traitor’s grave!’
The abuse brought up memories and emotions Skald had sworn never to experience again, and he lost focus and had to begin anew. She could not stop him, but she had shaken him, and he drew her life in desperate gulps, wasting half of it. The other injured soldier, whose chest had been crushed, died easily but his life force yielded little of value. Some people were like that.
Skald still lacked the power to reopen the gate, and the tall youth was racing down, recklessly leaping from rock to rock. He carried a black sword whose magical aura stirred a great unease in Skald, for he had been taught about it in training. A similar youth, with a similar black sword, had led the slave’s rebellion during the Merdrun’s ill-fated invasion two centuries ago, and with the sword’s aid that youth had fought Gergrig, their leader and greatest warrior, to a standstill. Shortly after, one of the freed slaves had killed him. The shame had tainted every Merdrun since.
Skald dared not take the risk; a lucky blow from the black sword could mean the loss of the spellcaster. He leapt into the cave, pointed at the uninjured soldier and cast the life-drinking spell.
‘Captain, no!’ shrieked the soldier.
‘I need your life more than you do,’ said Skald, and laughed, for the ecstasy was on him now.
The betrayed soldier cursed him too, for as long as his breath lasted, but it was not long. Skald sucked his life dry and cast the husk aside. He had the power now, more than he needed. He raised his right hand and a fiery, crackling nimbus sprang into existence around him. As he went out of the cave the spider webs above, and the leaves and twigs underfoot, burst into flame.
He recreated the gate and was about to carry the spellcaster through when he remembered his orders to kill all three enemy. The young woman lay crumpled at the end of the ledge; the explosive opening of the gate had knocked her out. He could have cut her throat, but the lust for lives burned in his veins now. Why not have hers as well?
But as Skald cast the life-drinking spell at her, the emotion-protecting charm, which he had only made strong enough for one life-drinking, faded and he was hammered by the emotions of his four victims.
May you rot from the inside before you die a coward’s death! Their collective agony was so powerful that he lost purpose for a moment. What had he done?
With sheer will he blocked the disabling emotions and cast the life-drinking spell anew. The young woman convulsed and her life force had just started coming across the link when, with a roar of fury, the youth with the enchanted sword leapt down onto the ledge and hurled himself at Skald. Skald ducked the blow and his spell snapped. The youth slammed into Skald’s fiery nimbus and was driven back, his clothes smouldering.
But it did not stop him; even when his shirt caught fire the youth kept attacking, thrusting and hacking savagely with the black sword, which greatly amplified his speed and skill and power. With it he might even be Skald’s match, and Skald could not take the chance.
He drove the youth backwards with a flurry of blows, heaved up the spellcaster and backed into the gate with it. The youth came at him again but the gate knotted a fist around Skald’s middle and heaved, carrying him and the spellcaster away.
But he had failed to complete half of his orders. Was taking the spellcaster enough to save him – or had he condemned himself and his entire family?
The bastard Merdrun was gone with the spellcaster. Ilisial lay still, her eyes open, and the sight so reminded Wilm of Dajaes, his first and only lover, that tears ran down his cheeks.
He tore off his burning shirt, beat out his smouldering hair, poured a pannikin of water over his burned chest and left shoulder, and crouched beside her. Was she still alive? If he had failed her as well, it would break him.
He thought he could feel a pulse in Ilisial’s throat, but what if the sus-magiz had partly drunk her life? What would that do to her? Would she be better off dead?
He was utterly out of his depth. Wilm stumbled into the cave. The air had an acrid odour that he had sometimes smelled after a lightning strike. ‘Klarm! Klarm!’
Wilm expected to find him dead, but he was not there, just his wooden foot, heaps of broken rock, and the bodies of the six Merdrun. Four were withered, their lives drunk.
A groan, a scuffling sound, and Klarm crawled out of a hole at the rear of the cave.
‘I thought they’d killed you,’ said Wilm.
‘Don’t sound so disappointed.’ Klarm put on his wooden foot, grimacing. ‘They would have, if I hadn’t brought the roof down and crawled around the corner.’
‘Why didn’t you use the spellcaster against them?’ Wilm’s suspicions rose again.
‘The cursed thing had gone dead. Sulking, I expect. Where’s the far-speaker? I’ve got to tell Flydd –’
‘Klarm, that sus-magiz tried to drink Ilisial’s life. If I’d been a couple of seconds slower …’ Wilm related what he had seen on the way down.
Klarm knelt beside Ilisial, felt her heart and throat, then rolled his knoblaggie across her brow, and back. Her eyelids fluttered, she came to and jerked upright, eyes wide and staring, mouth opening as if to scream her lungs out, body rigid.
‘You’re safe,’ said Klarm. ‘Wilm, hold her.’
Wonderingly and gingerly, Wilm put his arms around Ilisial. She gave a half scream.
Klarm touched her with the knoblaggie again. ‘You’re safe,’ he repeated. ‘Wilm risked his life to save you. He’s the better man, Ilisial.’ From the look in Klarm’s eyes, it pained him to say it.
Ilisial sighed, her iron-hard muscles relaxed, and she subsided against Wilm, weeping. Her face was pressed against his blistered chest but the pain seemed worth it.
He looked up at Klarm. ‘Did he start to dr–?’
Klarm held up a hand, mimed, Not now.
‘How did you know what I did?’ Wilm said quietly to Klarm.
Klarm shrugged. ‘I was a scrutator. I read people.’
‘He got away with the spellcaster. How do you read that?’
Klarm did not reply. He showed no emotion at all.
‘They’ll take it to a manufactory,’ said Wilm, ‘and build a thousand like it.’
Klarm took the farspeaker up to the other end of the ledge and, after a series of attempts, spoke in a low voice for a minute or two. He packed it away and came back. ‘Flydd’s not happy. And he can’t come for us.’
‘Why not?’ said Wilm.
‘Bigger problems. We’ll have to make our own way home.’
‘But we’re hundreds of miles from anywhere, in one of the most barren places on Santhenar.’
Ilisial pulled away and wiped her swollen eyes. She looked haunted, desolate, lost.
‘If we go down to the Sink of Despair and walk west,’ said Wilm, ‘there are towns we could reach in a few weeks. We’ve got food enough.’
‘My stump isn’t up to two leagues, much less a hundred,’ said Klarm.
‘Then what’s the plan?’
‘Sleep. I’ll think on it.’
Wilm put salve on his burns and bedded down, fretting. Klarm did not seem upset at the loss of the spellcaster. Was that why he had hidden? Had he wanted it to be taken, to ingratiate himself with the Merdrun? But if so, why hadn’t he gone through the gate with them?
Because he had more betrayals to engineer? Nothing made sense about him.
Skald staggered out of the gate in Guffeons, his knees shaking under the weight of the spellcaster. Blood ran into his eyes and he could not wipe it away. The power was draining from him almost as quickly as he had stolen it from its owners. He locked his knees, went forwards stiff-legged and put the device down in front of Durthix and the magiz.
Dagog blanched and leaped backwards. Durthix, trained to never show fear, suppressed a shiver.
‘This is the secret weapon I swore, upon my high commander’s honour, to bring back,’ said Skald.
‘You have done well, Captain,’ said Durthix.
‘Has he?’ snarled Dagog. ‘He may have kept to his oath, Durthix, but yet again he returns with all his troops lost, leaving no witnesses to what he did or how he did it.’
‘We have the spellcaster. It’s enough.’
‘What about the three enemy he was ordered to kill?’
Durthix looked to Skald, who could barely stand up. ‘Are they dead, Captain?’
‘No,’ Skald whispered.
‘What, none of them?’ said Dagog.
‘None of them.’
Dagog smiled. ‘There will be consequences for this failure. Won’t there, High Commander?’
‘It will be taken into account,’ said Durthix.
32
You Will Tell No One
Several days after Skald returned with the spellcaster, Durthix called him to another private meeting.
‘What do you know about thapters, Captain?’
‘They were mighty flying and fighting craft,’ said Skald, who now spent all his free time reading about the enemy’s magical devices, ‘developed from abandoned Aachim constructs. Which, in turn, were based on the original construct designed and built by Rulke during the Time of the Mirror. But all failed when the fields died fourteen years ago, and most were taken to pieces for their metal. Parts of one were used to create the enemy’s sky galleon.’
Durthix grunted. ‘A thapter lies intact in the desert near the southern end of the Sea of Perion, and –’
‘You want me to recover it,’ Skald said eagerly.
He regretted his rash words the instant he spoke, for Durthix scowled. Skald had made the error of presuming.
‘Clearly you think more highly of yourself than I do, Junior Captain,’ he said coldly. ‘Perhaps your lofty ambitions even stretch as highly as my position.’
‘Never,’ said Skald truthfully, his voice trembling.
‘Are your emotions getting the better of you, Junior Captain?’ Durthix said like a whipcrack.
This was getting dangerous. ‘No, High Commander.’ Skald exerted iron self-control. ‘It was just excessive zeal.’
Durthix curled his black-bearded lip. ‘Your ambitions lie in another direction, don’t they? You want to be magiz.’
‘That’s entirely beyond my imagination, High Commander,’ lied Skald. ‘It will be many years before I’ve mastered all the skills to even become a senior sus-magiz.’
‘If you live that long.’
‘If I live that long,’ Skald echoed, his heart sinking. Had he made an enemy of Durthix too?
‘A squad led by a senior officer has been sent to find and guard the thapter while a team of skilled slave artisans repairs it. If it cannot be repaired, it will be destroyed so the enemy can’t use it.’
‘Are they likely to, after all this time?’
‘Xervish Flydd is also after the thapter.’
‘How do you know? Do you have a spy in his inner circle?’
‘If I did, I would hardly tell a junior captain about it.’
‘Your pardon, High
Commander.’
‘As it happens, I know Flydd is after the thapter because I instructed one of my spies to hint that we want it.’
‘But why – ahh! Bait for a trap.’
‘Flydd must not get it.’ Durthix considered Skald thoughtfully, then said, ‘that’s why I’m sending you.’
‘Thank you, High Commander,’ said Skald, maintaining even more rigid control over his emotions.
‘You are permitted to ask the nature of your mission,’ Durthix said wryly.
‘Am I to assume that it’s Top Secret?’
‘No one save you and I can know why you’re there.’
‘You’re concerned that Flydd has spies and informers in our midst?’
‘Precisely. You will even keep it from your magiz.’
‘Umm …’
‘Can you swear to this, Captain, on your sacred rue-har? Because if you can’t ...’
If he could not, or if Durthix came to doubt his word, Skald would not leave this room alive. The thapter mission was that critical.
‘I can and I will,’ said Skald, meeting and holding the High Commander’s gaze.
After Skald swore on his rue-har, Durthix continued. ‘The thapter is of great importance, but it is not the most important matter.’ He paused, looking at Skald meaningfully.
Skald could not see what Durthix was getting at or why he wanted Skald to be there.
‘Xervish Flydd,’ said Durthix. ‘A meagre little man; you could crumple him up in one hand. But a fine swordsman, I’m told, a great mancer, an even greater leader, and very probably the wiliest opponent we have ever faced, apart from Rulke himself. Flydd sees farther than other leaders and is known for swift, unpredictable and decisive action. He’s assembling a team, many of whom distinguished themselves in past wars and conflicts, and he must be stopped.’
‘You want me to capture him?’ said Skald, awed at the magnitude of the task.
‘No, Captain Skald, I want you to assassinate him.’
Skald shivered; he could not help it. ‘Why me, High Commander?’