by Ian Irvine
A great cry went up. ‘It’s the God-Emperor’s flappeter,’ wailed the crones. ‘The prisoners were telling the truth. Set them free. Hurry!’
Someone moaned, and the sound spread though the throng, swelling like a low note on an organ. People began to run back and forth.
‘Quiet!’ roared the headman, crouching by the fire, head in hands.
‘They’re doomed and he knows it,’ Nish said quietly. ‘The village was about to commit an unforgivable crime against the Son of the God-Emperor, and the wisp-watcher saw it all. There’s nothing they can do.’
‘Then we’re saved,’ Maelys said, sagging with relief.
The headman sprang up. ‘Tear down the wisp-watcher! Bring down the flappeter as well. Gather your livestock and all the food you can carry then burn the houses. We must flee for our lives, into the wilderness.’
‘What about the prisoners?’ quavered a young man, all bravado gone. ‘Maybe if we set them free the God–’
‘Do you think he’ll show us mercy now? There is no mercy in the God-Emperor, only revenge for those who’ve harmed him in the smallest measure. Wait till the wisp-watcher is down, then kill them.’
The poker-wielders thrust their implements back into the bonfire. Ropes were looped around the pole on which the wisp-watcher was mounted. It began to buzz furiously; bluish auras crackled across the bowl below its iris, drifting around it before fizzing out. A band of youths heaved on the ropes, some shouting in exhilarated defiance, but most silent, wide-eyed and shaking.
Earth cracked and crumpled at the base of the pole; lightning crackled from the tip of the iris. The youths moaned and allowed the ropes to go slack, but the dwarfish crone hobbled forwards and beat them about the shoulders until they heaved again.
More earth moved and, with a furious crackle, the wisp-watcher crashed to the ground, the rim of its bowl carving a crescent into the dry soil. The youths let out a ragged cheer, followed by a full-throated cry of defiance. The tiny crone pointed to the river. Two youths ran forward and tried to lift the wisp-watcher. One seized it by the rim of the bowl, the other by the dirt-encrusted base of the pole.
‘Don’t touch it!’ screeched the crone.
It was too late. The youth who’d touched the base threw up his arms, arched backwards until his groping hands caught hold of his heels and locked as rigid as a wheel. Formed into a circle of flesh and bone, he began to roll down the slope towards the river, his head flopping and bouncing at every obstacle. Another youth tried to stop him but as soon as he touched the first he too whipped backwards into a living, helpless circle and began to roll away.
A third youth cried out and ran to help, but others restrained him and everyone watched in silence as the two young men rolled into the river. As they touched the water they both let out eerie, identical wails and began to thrash their arms. They floated for a while, churning in circles, then began to drift away with the current. The wailing from one youth was cut off by a bubbling noise as his head went under. The other sank without a sound, and there was silence apart from the cracking of the bonfire and a dull fizzing coming from the wisp-watcher.
The youth who had touched the rim was stuck fast, his eyes white holes in his head. He screamed, arched his back and managed to tear one hand free, but held it up to his eyes and screamed again. The tips of his fingers were glowing, there were luminous bands across his fingers where he’d been held fast, and the skin and flesh appeared to be peeling back to reveal the bones inside.
He tore the other hand free. The skeletal fingers were bending into curls like twigs in a fire. He held out his hands to his friends, pleading for help, but no one dared go near.
Someone shouted and pointed towards the river. The youth turned that way, his knees wobbling and twisting sideways, but after a couple of steps he turned around again and lurched back towards the wisp-watcher, holding his bloody arms out beseechingly. The bones in the palms of his hands were showing now, and his shrieks grew so loud and agonised that Maelys’s scalp crawled.
All the villagers were staring at the youth. A pretty, beardless lad had even taken a few steps in advance of the crowd, but stopped, afraid to approach. The glow from the downed wisp-watcher brightened; its iris was twisted and fluttering like a candle flame.
The youth let out a cry that might have been mistaken for ecstasy and began to trot towards it, though as soon as he touched the iris he screamed and turned away with the bones of his forearms emerging from the dangling flesh. He’d only gone a few steps before he turned back, holding out his arms again, and so the macabre dance continued, forwards and back, forwards and back.
A great shudder took him. He managed to tear free and threw himself to the ground, clawing at the dirt in an effort to drag himself to the water, but his finger bones broke off. He rolled over and began to hump himself backwards towards the iris like a caterpillar crawling across a leaf.
His feet passed into the circle and burst into flame. He tried to resist the pull but his muscles kept propelling him back. He tilted upright like a pole pulled to the vertical, half man and half animated skeleton, stood in the circle for a moment then slowly shortened as his flesh sloughed off and the unsupported bones collapsed. His disembodied skull remained for a while, mouth gaping, but no lungs remained to give it breath. Then, in a sudden flash, it crumbled into separate bones.
‘To the river with it, quick,’ hissed the crone.
The staring crowd caught its collective breath, then the youths took hold of the ropes again, very gingerly, and dragged the wisp-watcher down the slope, leaving a smoking, stinking trail behind it. Each time it passed over a living plant the leaves burst into brief fire.
The remaining villagers followed, keeping well out of the way. The youths hauled the watcher to the water and, under the direction of the headman, levered it in with sticks. It hit the water and sank like a rock, though from her perch Maelys could see a glow on the surface of the water. The water bubbled; a dark stain spread outwards and the currents could not shift it.
Someone let out a hollow victory cry but no one else joined in. The villagers drew back, alarmed that the wisp-watcher lay there, a blight upon their village and a grim reminder of their unforgivable crime.
The headman pointed up to the bonfire; the villagers headed towards Maelys and Nish, speaking in low, fluttering voices. A group to her left, mostly youths and young men but with a few girls among them, were urging each other on, clutching sticks and rocks. They wanted revenge but dared not look directly at Nish, perhaps afraid he shared the powers of his father.
Another group of youths on the right appeared to be urging caution, while a spokesman for the villagers shouted, ‘Leave them! We must fly before it’s too late.’
‘Stop!’ The tiny crone extended a trembling finger at the whipping post. ‘They brought this curse upon our village. Though they’ve cost us everything, we’re not creeping away from Byre on our bellies. The God-Emperor has abandoned us and now we’re doomed. Doomed! Yet we were proud once, and we’ll abandon Byre in pride, not cowardice.’ Her eyes flicked nervously towards the bubbling water as if she expected Jal-Nish to rise up out of it. ‘Kill the witch-slut!’
‘What about the Son of the God-Emperor?’ the headman said in a voice barely audible above the crackling of the fire.
‘The God-Emperor will crush us like roaches, but we’ll make him pay. Kill the Son! Kill them both!’
After a long hesitation, the crowd roared, ‘Kill them!’ The poker-wielders withdrew their instruments. The ends of the pokers were white-hot for a couple of hand spans. The two men headed for the whipping post, heads bowed, afraid to look into the eyes of the God-Emperor’s son.
The shorter of the two, a stocky bald fellow with a squinting left eye, stood by the post, breathing heavily as he tried to find the courage for this monstrous sacrilege. The other man, stringy and as leathery as Rurr-shyve’s saddlebags, waved the poker half-heartedly towards Nish, but his arm jerked it back. Maelys felt the heat
of it on her ankle. Nish flinched and screwed his eyes shut.
‘Put out their eyes!’ shrieked the crone.
As they started forwards, Rurr-shyve dropped out of the sky between the villagers and the bonfire with a trumpeting shriek, hovered and swung its long body in a circle around its rotor stalk. Its scaly tail slammed into the crowd, battering adults and children out of the way. Villagers screamed and ran in all directions.
The two men stared at the huge beast, a creature out of their nightmares, and the pokers drooped in their hands. The headman climbed to his feet, wiped blood off his face and shouted, ‘Kill them! Guards, hack the beast to pieces.’
The villagers were not armed but a group of men and youths ran for the houses. The crowd began to hurl clods of earth and small pebbles which bounced harmlessly off the creature’s hide. The stringy man gathered his resolve and thrust his cherry-red poker at Nish’s right eye. Nish jerked his head out of the way, desperately.
‘Hold him,’ the fellow said hoarsely, with a fearful glance over his shoulder at the flappeter. It was rising again, its feather-rotors kicking up clouds of dust as it moved.
The man with the squint took Nish’s head in his shaking hands and held him, but before the stringy fellow could do the gruesome business Rurr-shyve’s serrated beak tore his hand and forearm off. With a toss of its head, hand and poker went spinning through the air.
The squint-eyed man thrust his poker at Rurr-shyve’s neck and the red-hot metal hissed as it burned through the scaly carapace. Smoke puffed up. The flappeter swung its head sideways into the man’s midriff and Maelys heard ribs break as he was hurled across the dirt towards the bonfire. He crawled away, moaning.
The villagers were heaving up stones from outside the door of the largest house. The men and youths were creeping back, brandishing mattocks, scythes and picks. Not even Rurr-shyve could fight them all at once, though it didn’t need to. All it wanted was the amulet, and Maelys dead.
It lifted and came at her, its paired legs extended as if trying to snatch the amulet. Maelys flinched but Rurr-shyve caught hold of the ropes binding the hoop to the post with its foot hooks and rose sharply. The hoop creaked and cracked but the post held.
A broken chunk of paving stone came whirring through the air, just missing her hip. The crowd tore up another slab and began attacking it with a hammer, breaking it into useable pieces.
Rurr-shyve heaved again. The ropes groaned; the hoop cracked and rotated on the whipping post, tilting Maelys to the left. The armed men were moving in a spreading line towards them, trembling and trying to urge each other on. Despite everything, Maelys pitied them, for their peaceful village life was over and it was unlikely any of them would escape Jal-Nish’s vengeance.
Rurr-shyve spun in a circle, still gripping the ropes. A flying rock struck it hard on the upright discs of its tail, knocking it sideways. It recovered, heaved again and with a shudder the whipping post tore out of the ground. Rurr-shyve lurched upwards, labouring under the weight as stones whistled underneath its trunk. One of the bindings of the willow hoop pulled apart and Maelys’s foot ropes slipped free, leaving her swinging agonisingly from her wrists, with every lurch tearing more skin away.
The burly leader of the attackers raced towards them, swinging his scythe in wicked slashes. Her bare feet were dangling from the lower curve of the hoop, which was opening wider all the time. If the scythe didn’t get her, the next lurch was likely to drop her right into the middle of the attackers.
A lump of rock struck Nish in the belly. He convulsed but was held fast by his bonds. Maelys slipped further; the scythe whistled by so close that it could have cut her toe-nails. Rurr-shyve, struggling to lift the heavy post, wasn’t climbing quickly enough.
One of the youths, bolder than the others, came racing across, sprang and caught hold of the base of the whipping post. His weight almost dragged Rurr-shyve out of the air. The feather-rotors went flutter-thump as they tried to hold it up; the willow hoop groaned and its two halves opened wider, lifting her above the post and out to the side. Maelys could feel the hoop separating; she was going to fall.
The youth pulled himself up the post, clinging with hands and knees. He reached the top and attempted to drag her down, but the rope binding the remains of the hoop to the post slipped free and he fell with it. Rurr-shyve lurched upwards, carrying the hoop by the bindings, and Nish. The half Maelys was tied to separated. Her wrists slid free and she fell into the crowd.
The villagers swarmed at her, and she knew they would tear her apart. Rurr-shyve might be bound to save Nish, but it would welcome her death. She was staggering to her feet in a hopeless attempt to defend herself when Rurr-shyve dropped sharply, Nish held between its pairs of legs, and spun in a circle on its feather-rotor stalk. Its whirling tail sent people flying, then it caught Maelys by her rags and heaved her up. Another foot hook snapped around her upper thigh and it lifted her sharply, swaying through the air.
A hail of rocks and clods of earth arced up at her. A hoe just missed her dangling foot, a lump of wood caught her painfully on the knee, then the flappeter whirred up out of the light of the bonfire and the missiles fell away. It was completely dark here, for the moon had crept into thick cloud moving in from the west.
A minute or two away from the village, Rurr-shyve dipped down again, dragging them through the cold river until all the mud was gone and they were gasping for breath, before turning in the direction of the pinnacles. Maelys heard its gurgle of amusement.
‘Why did you save me?’ she panted, ‘when you could have taken the amulet and gone free?’
I’m compelled to look after the Son. I can’t go free.
‘But you didn’t have to save me.’
It’s easier with a rider. The God-Emperor made us that way. Besides, I’m partial to human flesh. I’m saving you up.
Maelys didn’t think Rurr-shyve was joking.
Nish didn’t say a word all the way back, or even after the flappeter had set them down by the embers of the camp fire. She hung in the creature’s hooks for a while, scrunched up and trying to cover herself. He wasn’t looking at her, though. Nish was staring into the dark, his jaw knotting and unknotting, in the grip of some powerful emotion.
As soon as he turned away she scurried into the shadows, retrieved her pack and dressed in her spare clothing, thinking that they’d be fleeing any minute. However, Rurr-shyve settled, devoured a spiny bush then tucked its head under its neck and its eyes dulled. It didn’t move, even when Nish fastened the tethers.
‘Hadn’t we better go?’ she said tentatively.
‘Once it’s rested,’ he said tersely.
She dropped her head, though after all she’d put him through, he had a right to be angry. ‘Yes, of course.’
She covertly watched him dress his thin body, overcome by her emotions. Nish had risked his life for her, a little nobody. He was staring at her now, his eyes smouldering in the firelight. What was he thinking?
Maelys went across, forced a smile and sank to her knees in front of him. ‘Nish, thank you so much –’
‘What did you think you were doing back there?’ he burst out, spit flying onto her shirt in his fury.
‘I – I – had to get food …’ She dared not admit what she’d really been up to.
He leaned forwards, red-faced. ‘You lying little toad! You went down to try and start a rebellion in my name, without saying a word to me. How could you think that would work? You’re the stupidest little fool I’ve ever met, and that’s saying a great deal.’
‘But you must –’ she began.
‘No!’ he said savagely. ‘No, no, no! Did you really think they’d rally to me just because you told them my name?’
‘Yes,’ she squeaked. ‘Because ten years ago you promised to come back and overthrow your father. The whole world is waiting for you to make good your promise.’
‘Is it? How do you know? And even if it is, what about me? What if I’d changed my mind, or discovered it
was impossible? How dare you try to manipulate me? You’re as bad as my father.’
It was as if he’d struck her. Maelys felt the blood draining away from her face. She swayed on her knees then tried to scramble away, but he caught her arm and went on.
‘And even if I were disposed to start a rebellion, which I’m not, I certainly wouldn’t begin it here. What can a couple of hundred peasants do in the middle of nowhere? When Father catches them, and he must, he’ll destroy them to the last woman and the last child. And it will be your fault.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. She couldn’t face him; couldn’t bear to think about what she’d done. How could her good intentions have gone so wrong? ‘I thought –’
‘You didn’t think. You’re a stupid, naïve little child. And worst of all, you’ve undone all the good you did in helping me to escape.’
‘What?’ She couldn’t think straight; didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
‘The wisp-watcher!’ he hissed. ‘It saw me and Rurr-shyve. Now Father knows exactly where I am and he’ll already be after me.’ He dropped his head into his hands. ‘I’d sooner have stayed in prison, with no hope, than to be given hope then robbed of it so brutally. I wish I’d never heard your name.’
TWELVE
Nish scowled at Maelys’s stricken face, then stalked off into the darkness, shaking. How could she have thought that the villagers would believe her sorry tale, or follow the Deliverer anyway? They had little to gain from doing so, everything to lose, and now they’d lost it. Within a week the survivors would be screaming in his father’s torture chambers.
What did Maelys want from him anyway? Nish knew she was after something, for he’d spent years among the most cunning manipulators in the world and could tell when he was being used. No girl’s clumsy deceptions and awkward half-truths could deceive him; he’d seen through Maelys’s story days ago. If she didn’t want something from him, the absurd aunts who’d sent her did.