by Ian Irvine
‘Get a move on,’ he said, afraid that the fog would clear suddenly and the enemy would resume the attack.
One of Klarm’s soldiers appeared in front of Nish, staring the other way. He stabbed him in the back and pushed him aside. It was kill or be killed now.
He had not gone far when lightning flashed from the direction of the caduceus, turning the fog orange. Flydd bellowed in pain, his cry oddly muffled, and then the rain Klarm had held back could be restrained no longer. Tulitine the seer had seen truly.
The skies opened in a deluge like nothing Nish had ever felt before – not in Gendrigore, the wettest place he had ever lived, nor on the Range of Ruin, which was even wetter. This was solid rain, so heavy that his knees bent under the weight of it, rain that hissed and steamed away from the red-hot caduceus and flowed ankle-deep down the slope, tugging at his feet.
Even if the fog cleared, no one could fight in such weather. The enemy would put their shields over their heads, hunker down and wait it out. They knew that the militia was on its knees and, even if they ran through the fog, where could they run to?
‘Come on,’ he shouted to Tulitine, who had appeared to his left. He had to shout or she would not have heard him. ‘A downpour like this can’t last long.’
The fog thinned a little more and Nish saw Hoshi. ‘Where is she, Nish?’ he said anxiously.
He must be looking for Gi, who had been more than a friend to him, and Nish could not bear to tell Hoshi that she was dead. He did not want to think about her, for the look in Gi’s soft eyes as she’d died had reminded him of other friends, other deaths, and one especially – the best friend he’d ever had.
‘This kind of rain can last for ages, up here,’ said Tulitine.
Nish was thinking fast. ‘If it keeps up, it’ll flood the valley floor –’
‘The low-lying parts, certainly.’ Her eyes were on him. ‘And that won’t take long.’
‘What if we head for the lower clearing?’
She understood at once. ‘It would flood first, since it’s right by the river. Come on.’
Nish took the bow and quiver from a fallen archer and slung them over his shoulder. He must have died early on, for his quiver was nearly full. Nish had used both javelard and crossbow during the war, and had been a good shot with both. He was not an expert with the longbow but at close range he did not have to be.
The glimmerings of a plan were forming. ‘We can’t climb the ridge in this, but we might scramble through the gorge over the boulders on the right-hand side.’
‘We’d better be quick. These mountain rivers rise fast.’
‘And the gorge will soon be impassable … Tulitine, if we can get through quickly, the rising river might stop them from following. They’d have to climb out over the ridge, and by that time we could be anywhere.’
He tipped water out of the horn and sounded the signal again then, with a last glance around the battlefield, headed down.
‘Where’s Gi?’ cried Hoshi, grabbing his arm.
He had to be told. ‘I’m sorry. She died in the first assault.’ It was impossible to put it gently when Nish had to shout to be heard.
‘Where did she fall?’ Hoshi shook him. ‘She might still be alive.’
Not with a sword through the heart. Nish pointed up the slope, mutely, and Hoshi splashed through the mud, crying out her name.
Nish turned away, never hating war more than he did at that moment. He felt sick at the thought of leaving her body behind, to say nothing of the many wounded, but he could not do anything for anyone who could not walk unaided. He had to save those who were still on their feet and had little time to do it.
He skidded down the slope, sounding the signal over and over, and in a couple of minutes reached the eaves of the rainforest, where the fog was thinner, with the last of the survivors. They numbered two hundred at a rough count, which meant that a hundred and sixty had fallen.
He could not bear to think about the bloody, useless slaughter, the waste of young, precious lives, nor about those lying wounded on the battlefield who might, in other circumstances, have been saved. Nothing could save them now and even the walking wounded had little chance in this climate, where a scratch could turn septic in half a day. He had to become iron-hard and think about nothing except saving the able-bodied.
It was almost as noisy in the forest, with the rain hissing and rattling on the leaves high above, and just as wet. The ground squelched underfoot and the rain fell in cascades.
Everyone gathered around in a ragged, gasping circle. He saw Maelys on the far side, blessedly unharmed, along with Tulitine, supporting a tall, muscular man between them, though it took a few moments before Nish recognised him as Yggur. What had happened to him? Nish could not see any obvious wounds but Yggur seemed barely able to walk. And, being the only mancer still able to use his Art, he was the key to their survival.
‘Clech,’ Nish said to the huge fisherman, who was propping up a tree, panting, ‘can you bring Yggur? You’re the only one strong enough.’ Though not even Clech could carry him for any great distance.
Clech heaved Yggur over his shoulder like a net full of fish and grunted, ‘Which way?’
‘Down through the forest, across the lower clearing and through the gorge – if it’s still open.’
Flydd stumbled out of the fog, bent double and holding his belly.
‘Xervish?’ said Nish. ‘Are you –?’
Flydd straightened up painfully. ‘When the lightning flashed from the caduceus, it felt as though I was being torn in two.’ He peered into the foggy clearing. ‘What’s the plan?’
Nish explained. Flydd frowned. ‘Any hope is better than none, I suppose.’
‘I reckon they lost two hundred up there,’ said Nish, ‘mainly to our arrows. And if half their troops were illusions, that means Klarm only had five hundred, not the thousand we thought –’
‘It still leaves them with three hundred crack fighters to our two hundred novices. If they get among us, they’ll massacre us.’
‘They’re coming,’ someone yelled.
The downpour had not abated but the fog was clearing to ground-hugging patches of mist, between which Nish made out a dark mass moving down the clearing. ‘This way.’
He pushed further into the forest. The tangle of vines and creepers made it impossible to run except to his left, where deer had opened a winding trail wide enough for two people to move abreast.
Behind him, bowstrings twanged as his archers fired. He felt a trickle of hope – for the moment, he had the advantage. His troops could fire on the enemy from cover, while they could not fire back for fear of hitting him or Maelys. It would help to even the odds, and gain vital seconds. He began to jog on the slippery path.
Maelys slipped in beside him, wearing a huge knife in a scabbard on her right hip. He was pleased to see that she was armed, though she could be killed as easily as Gi had been, and he could not bear to think about that possibility.
‘I’ve never seen such rain,’ she panted, her breasts bouncing as she ran. ‘I didn’t think the sky could hold so much water.’
‘The Range of Ruin is the wettest place on Santhenar – and the really wet season is yet to come.’
Could this be the beginning of it? If it was, every gully would become impassable and they would be trapped here until it ended five months later – or, rather, until they starved to death.
She picked a leech off her forearm and flicked it aside, the puncture ebbing a thin trail of blood. ‘I reckon this rain has something to do with Yggur’s spell – and the caduceus. What if they’re feeding on each other?’
‘Mmm.’ He did not have time to think about that, though he felt sure the same interaction had temporarily heightened his dormant clearsight.
‘How far is it to the gorge?’
‘Half a league, I’d guess.’
As they hurried along, they brought each other up to date – what Nish had been doing since Vivimord had carried him to G
endrigore through the portal nearly six weeks ago, and where Maelys had been with Flydd and Colm. She told him about her visits to the Nightland; her encounter with Emberr and his tragic death, for which she felt responsible, though she did not say why, and her relentless pursuit by the Numinator and Yalkara.
Nish said little, for there was little he could say, but when he put an arm across her shoulders he sensed that it was a comfort to her.
She stopped for a moment, looking up at him as if she wanted to tell him something important. ‘Nish?’
‘Yes?’
Maelys gnawed her lip, flushed, then looked away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
They ran on. ‘So did you find it?’ he said. ‘I expect you didn’t, or someone would have told me.’
‘Find what?’ said Maelys absently.
‘The antithesis to the tears. That’s what you went to the Tower of a Thousand Steps for.’
‘I asked the Numinator but she didn’t know anything about it.’
The path curved to the left, he heard the river roaring not far away and they broke out of forest onto a long, narrow and sloping strip of grassy riverbank. The torrent, to his left, gnashed at the bank, which had partly collapsed up ahead, leaving just a crumbling rim of earth five paces long but less than a pace wide. The narrow strip of undermined bank, along the vine-tangled wall of the forest, was only held together by tree roots.
Maelys stopped, for the grassy river bank to either side of the collapse was saturated and nearly as dangerous. ‘Put one foot wrong and we’ll end up in the river. We’ve got to find another track.’
‘There isn’t time,’ he said roughly. ‘Go across and scout out the lower clearing. If the enemy find a faster path through the forest, we’re finished.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m going to set up an ambush. Run! See if the gorge is still open.’
She edged along the riverbank, hanging onto the looping vines. Nish closed his eyes, afraid for her, then turned back to warn the leaders, who were close behind.
‘After everyone crosses,’ he said, ‘I want ten of our best archers to take cover on the far side and ambush the enemy as they try to cross. But if they’re getting across under fire, the archers must retreat. I’m not losing another man if I can help it.’
The word was passed back and Nish hauled himself along the quaking riverbank. Maelys was out of sight. His worn boots could not grip the wet grass and without the vines he would have slid straight into the river.
Several dozen lancers crossed, a group armed with swords, then more lancers. The best part of a hundred of the militia had made it without loss, but there was no sign of the archers yet. Most would be at the rear, since they had been firing on the enemy who, judging by the approaching clamour, were close behind. A band of his swordsmen came pounding down the track and onto the grassy riverbank, but stopped at the edge of the collapsed section.
‘Come on!’
They came on, looking back fearfully, for they were exhausted, panicky and many were weaponless.
‘Where are the archers?’ said Nish, starting to sweat.
‘They’re coming,’ gasped a red-faced, yellow-bearded fellow whose name Nish could not remember. Yes, he was Avigg, a carpenter.
‘All of them, Avigg?’
‘Except the last dozen. They got cut off. Enemy came through the forest.’
And the rest must be low on arrows. Nish began to worry that he’d have to do the job for them. He had to gain a few minutes or the enemy would run them down before they reached the gorge.
He fitted an arrow to his bowstring, but did not draw it back. ‘Go on,’ he said to Flydd and Tulitine, who came next. ‘Follow the path. I sent Maelys to the lower clearing to see if the gorge is still open.’
‘What if it isn’t?’ said Flydd, who looked worse than before.
Nish waved him on without answering, scanning the forest for a place where he could shoot from cover. Half a dozen lancers crossed, then Clech appeared, red in the face and staggering under Yggur’s weight.
‘He’ll have to cross by himself,’ said Nish. ‘I don’t think the bank will take the weight.’
‘He can’t,’ said Clech, ‘and if I put him down I’ll never lift him again.’
Which would mean that Yggur was lost. ‘All right, but go carefully.’
Clech peered over the edge at the thundering waters. ‘Don’t worry! I’m not washing my filthy feet in there. You’d better not stay here long, Nish. The bank can’t last.’
Nish did not need to be told. The rising water was flowing so furiously that it was carrying small boulders with it, and if anyone fell in, they had no hope of survival. But there was no hope if the enemy caught them, either.
With a whoomph, a curving section of bank collapsed a third of the way across and was swallowed by the water, leaving an even more precarious passage across a suspended network of tree roots.
‘Climb through the forest,’ said Nish. ‘You’ll never get across there.’
‘I’m a fisherman. I’m used to slippery decks.’
Clech clambered across the roots, holding Yggur over his shoulder with his left arm and hanging onto the vines with his right. Nish couldn’t bear to watch, but when he looked again Clech was over and onto the grass.
Not everyone was so lucky. Three of his precious archers, clinging onto the same vine, were lost when the first one slipped and his weight pulled the vine down over the edge. It did not break, but none of the men had the strength to haul themselves up the wet vine and, one by one, they fell into the river and were pulled under.
Another group of archers appeared. ‘Go across and find an ambush site,’ Nish said. ‘Fire on the enemy as soon as they appear. We’ve got to gain some time.’
The leading archer held out his empty hands. ‘Sorry, Nish. All our arrows are gone. The next group might have a few left.’
Nish cursed. ‘Run to the lower clearing. I’ll wait for them.’
They had no arrows either, and nor did the band after that. They’d emptied their quivers firing at the enemy from the forest.
Nish cursed them black and blue. ‘What kind of fools use up their last arrows with the enemy close behind?’
‘We saved some arrows for last,’ said Lym, a short, stocky woman who had to shoot with her bow held horizontally, since it was longer than she was tall. ‘Then last came, and we had to use them. Sorry,’ she said anxiously.
He waved her across, knowing she was right, and followed. Even if his archers had carried a hundred arrows each, that number would only last ten minutes in battle. Readying his bow, he withdrew into cover on the downstream side, and waited.
The rest of his stragglers managed to cross the quaking root-path, save for the final group of six, four archers and two lancers, who burst out of the forest just ahead of the enemy. They might have made it along the dangerous strip of riverbank had they gone at once, but they baulked momentarily, and the enemy rushed them, forcing them over the bank at spear-point into the torrent, where they were driven with bone-smashing force against rolling boulders.
Once, Nish had almost been inured to the horrors of war, but this casual slaughter of men and women so dear to him stiffened his resolve to tear down the world his father had created, and replace it with a better one. I will do whatever it takes, he thought. I will never give in.
But first he had to win the war; no, first he had to survive this battle. Nocking his arrow, he fired and took the leading soldier in the throat.
Three more fell before the rest of the Imperial lancers scrambled back into the forest, but Nish’s plan was in tatters, for he could not ambush hundreds of men by himself. He moved further into the forest gloom. He had to try and hold them off, yet if he stayed here long they would hack paths through the jungle to attack him from all sides. But if he could delay them for another minute or two, the militia might just reach the gorge first.
He didn’t see the little wisp-watcher globe drifting though the canopy high
above, nor the one that came after, but their spoked irises contracted at the sight of him. One stayed on watch; the other drifted back the way they had come.
A soldier appeared at the far end of the grassy bank. Nish shot him and ducked backwards under a liana as thick as a giant python. As he did, three arrows struck the vine in a tight group at chest height, where he had been standing, and others sang through the vines to either side. They had been waiting for him to fire. Clearly, they did not expect Nish to be here in person, but their arrows could kill him just the same.
He slid around the next tree and sighted through the gap between its twin trunks, but no one else appeared. Were they cutting a path to bypass him? With the roar of the river in his ears he’d never hear them, and he could not afford to wait much longer.
A minute passed. What were they up to? I’ll give them another thirty seconds, he thought, and if they don’t come out I’ll go.
The thirty seconds were nearly up, with no further sign of the enemy, when something round and hard dug into his lower back and a deep, familiar voice rumbled, ‘Drop the bow, Nish, and raise your hands.’
How had Klarm got so close, without a sound? There would be no getting away from him.
FOUR
Maelys had seen battle before, from a distance, and it had been a haunting experience, especially the hours she had served in the healers’ tent with Tulitine, trying to repair the maimed and broken bodies. And afterwards, escaping past those huge piles of corpses – thousands of fresh young lives turned to the reeking dead – had been even more scarifying. If she closed her eyes she could still see them. And they had all died for nothing!
But this had been far worse, for she had been right in the middle of the fighting, and no matter which way she’d turned there had been violent, bloody death in front of her. Spears had fallen all around her, one flying past her stomach so close that it had torn her clothes; another time, an enemy’s wild backswing had nearly taken the top of her head off, though the soldier hadn’t known she was there.
Whatever Yalkara had done to the taphloid the other day, it seemed to be protecting Maelys from deliberate attack. The soldiers could certainly see her, but then their eyes would slide away as if diverted, and they would turn aside.