by Ian Irvine
‘Before he attacks, he has to know if I’m here,’ said Nish. ‘And Maelys, and Yggur and you – his prizes and his enemies. If he knows I’m here, he’s got to extract me alive –’
‘Of course he knows you’re here. The guards who got away would have told him, and so would your friend Boobelar.’
Nish yawned. ‘But not Yggur or Maelys. Boobelar wouldn’t have known if they were among us.’
‘Klarm’s other worry must be how he lost the pass. For a man who takes pride in controlling everything, this defeat would have been an even bigger shock. How did we survive the flood; how did we break his defences with so few? He’s got to know before he moves. Get some more sleep, Nish.’
‘There’s too much to do. I’ve got to find a way to neutralise the air-sled – and his advantage in numbers.’
‘You’re not indispensable, no matter how much you might like to think so.’
Nish bridled, until he realised that Flydd was baiting him.
TWELVE
The afternoon passed, and most of the night, without a sign of the enemy. An hour and a half before dawn, the mist began to lift.
‘They’re here,’ said Flangers.
Nish looked over the wall and saw a vast carpet of lights fanning out down the mountain from a few hundred paces below them. Though he had been expecting it, the sight so shocked him that he rubbed his eyes and looked again.
‘It’s still there,’ said Flydd from his left, with a mirthless chuckle. ‘I wonder what Klarm’s plan is?’
‘It wouldn’t matter if he was the best general in the world,’ said Flangers. ‘There’s only one way to attack, and we’ve got it covered.’
‘We haven’t got the air-sled covered,’ said Flydd.
Nish glanced upwards, involuntarily, but saw nothing save the jutting, nose-shaped ridge of rock with the ice sheet on top. The cavities at the lower end were hung with icicles, like oozing nostrils.
‘Those icicles are hanging above the track,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Do you reckon we could shoot some off, down onto the soldiers as they come?’
‘Pick the nose and flick it at the enemy, as it were. I like it,’ grinned Flydd. ‘Though even if you killed a dozen or two, it wouldn’t make any difference.’
‘It might worry the ones behind them.’
‘Klarm will drive them up, no matter how scared they are. We need a better plan, Nish, a shocking, outrageous one. Your hundred and fifty simply can’t hold off eight or nine thousand in hand-to-hand fighting.’
‘I’m finding your pessimism a trifle irksome, Flydd,’ said Nish.
‘As I keep telling you, we can’t win by defending this place, no matter how stoically. Our only hope is to do something wild and unpredictable.’
‘Like what?’
‘Attacking Klarm. I’m going after the air-sled.’
‘What?’ cried Nish. ‘It’ll be too well guarded. How would you find it, anyhow?’
‘I’ve a feeling my serpent staff might help …’
‘How?’
‘I think it can find the tears,’ said Flydd.
That unnerving gleam was back in his eye. What was he really up to? Had the tears been his goal all along? And if he got them, what would he do? Nish wasn’t sure whether to hope for his success, or his failure.
‘I can’t get the tears, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Flydd said hastily. ‘They’re almost certainly set to attack anyone who tries to take them from their rightful owner. But I might be able to control the air-sled, if I had a good pilot …’
‘Chissmoul? She’ll never leave Flangers.’
‘I think she will, for the right price. Once you’ve experienced the wonder of flight, it’s not easy to give it up.’
Flydd and Chissmoul had only been gone an hour, temporarily and to Nish’s mind poorly cloaked via a ‘trifling mancery’ Flydd had worked with the mimemule, when dawn broke, another blue rocket burst high above them and the attack began – from both sides at once.
‘So that’s why Klarm delayed so long,’ Nish said to Flangers as they ran down to the eastern pass, below which the main force was concentrated. ‘He must have sent some of his troops around the mountain and over Liver-Leech, guided by Boobelar, and had to wait until they were in position.’
Flangers did not answer, for a company of the enemy’s biggest and strongest troops had stormed up the track and reached the wall with only four casualties to arrow fire. Half of the troops began to form living ladders in an attempt to boost men onto the recently constructed walls on top of the buttresses. The rest attacked the guards at the slot, which was now blocked with a head-high barrier of broken slate.
The defenders fired through arrow slots in the barricades and hurled rocks down from the heights, and finally the two surviving soldiers broke and retreated, leaving their backs exposed. Neither survived.
But Klarm sent another attack, and another after that, each time using as many men as could fit on the steep and narrow track, and as soon as each attack was beaten off he ordered another squad up. After several hours, the gully track was littered with so many dead that the attackers could partially shelter behind them. Only the final fifty paces, so steep that the fallen kept rolling away, remained clear.
Everyone took their turn in the slot, hacking down from the barrier at the soldiers trying to climb it, while the archers up top fired until their fingers were raw. The lancers thrust the living ladders away at spear point and the swordsmen fought until they could no longer raise their blades, when they were replaced by fresh militiamen. Huwld was up on top of one of the dry-stone walls, throwing rocks, along with Aimee and another small woman, plus a militiaman who had been stabbed in the thigh and could not stand up.
By mid-morning at least a thousand of the enemy had fallen, many to Gens the gnomish shoemaker’s consummate knife work, in partnership with Stibble the blacksmith’s skull-crushing hammer, but Nish knew it had made no difference.
He took his turn at the eastern entrance, and then the western. They were holding the enemy off, at little cost to themselves so far, but the militia were so few that any cost was prohibitive. He kept scanning the sky, expecting Klarm to attack from the air-sled or send a flight of flappeters after them.
Flappeters bothered him most of all, for the huge, flesh-formed beasts could land on top of the defenders and smash down half a dozen of them with one sweep of their tails, or tear the dry-stone walls apart, and either form of attack would mean the end. Flydd had been right but, try as Nish might, he could think of no clever plan to turn the tables on his enemy.
He kept praying that Flydd would turn up on the air-sled, but there had been neither sight nor sound of it. Flydd and Chissmoul’s suicidal plan must have failed.
On the eastern side, where Klarm had troops to burn, the attacks continued until the track was so slippery with blood that the enemy had to spread dry fern fronds on it before they could move. Nish’s casualties were mounting too, and he could not afford any of them.
‘All quiet at the western entrance,’ said Clech, coming up to the top of the pass to report in the afternoon. ‘We haven’t been attacked in three hours.’
‘Why do you think that is?’ said Nish, though he had a fair idea.
‘I don’t think they got many men over Liver-Leech Pass. That trek was hard enough for us, and we walk the mountains all the time. But flatlanders! I’ll bet half of them fell over the side.’ Clech hawked and spat on the rocks to the side of the path, then headed down to his post.
‘So they’re saving their strength for the final attack,’ Nish mused, ‘and it can’t be far off. How many of us left, Lieutenant?’
Flangers was being rested from his duties at the eastern defences. ‘Just under half – we have seventy-one still on their feet. We’ve lost at least fifty, killed, and the rest are too badly injured to fight. When I know all is lost I’ll put them out of their misery – I’ll not have Klarm taking them back for trial and torture. They’re heroes, every on
e, and they deserve heroes’ deaths.’
‘My Gendrigoreans are as brave as any I’ve fought beside,’ Nish said quietly, ‘and I’ll see them honoured. Can we last until sunset?’
‘I don’t know. Do we need to?’ Flangers had the look of a man expecting a miracle from Nish, but it wasn’t going to happen this time.
‘I was hoping Flydd could pull something off, as he’s done so often before, but … it doesn’t look as though he and Chissmoul are coming back.’
‘I always thought it was a suicide mission, yet how could I ask her to stay behind when she could fly again? I – I –’ Flangers’s lower lip trembled; he stiffened it. ‘I couldn’t hold her back, just for me.’
‘And yet,’ said Nish, regretting having been so negative, ‘if anyone can succeed at such an outrageous attack, it’s Xervish. I’m not giving up hope,’ he lied, for Flangers’s sake. For himself, Nish had given up hours ago. How could Flydd hope to steal the air-sled in the light of day, in the midst of that enormous army?
‘Ah, Chissmoul,’ said Flangers, bowing his head. ‘This is the first time we’ve been parted since the fatal feast.’
‘Fatal feast?’ said Nish, who was still thinking about Flydd.
‘Ten years ago, at the end of the war, when Jal-Nish turned up so unexpectedly.’
When he had ordered Irisis slain. With an effort, Nish shook off his gloom. ‘I’m sure they’re alive. Take heart, Flangers; we’ll win through yet.’
‘You’re right,’ said Flangers, brightening, ‘Flydd is probably waiting for darkness.’
‘Then we’ve got to hold out until he comes. I have a plan.’
‘I knew you’d come up with something, surr,’ said Flangers. ‘What is it?’
His faith in Nish was touching; also burdensome. ‘I’m going to climb up to that great nose of rock and see if I can knock some of the ice down on the enemy.’
Flangers’s eyes lifted. ‘How would you do that, surr?’
‘I’ve a mind to use my serpent staff.’
Nish didn’t want to say too much about that, because he wasn’t sure it would work. Indeed, he didn’t know why he thought it might, save that the staff felt right in his hand and, previously, Flydd had hinted that Nish might be able to use it, when the time came. Sometimes he felt as though the staff was waiting for him to use it, and that was worrying. Why had Stilkeen left it there? And if it was a trap, what would happen if he did use it?
‘Still warm, is it?’
‘Warm as ever.’
‘It might make a difference,’ Flangers said doubtfully.
‘It’s not much of a plan but it’s the only one I’ve come up with. The ice is directly above the track, and if I can knock enough off it might kill fifty of the scum – even a hundred.’
‘It won’t stop them, though.’
‘No,’ said Nish, ‘but if it delays them for an hour or two, it’ll gain us the time we need.’ Assuming Flydd was coming.
Flangers, a good soldier to the last, said, ‘How long do you need?’
Nish studied the ice-covered overhang. Climbing up there would take more than an hour, and even if he succeeded in dislodging some ice onto the enemy, it would take another hour to return. There was just enough time to do it before dark, as long as nothing went wrong.
‘Three hours. If we haven’t succeeded by then, we never will. I’ll take Clech – he’s a good climber.’
‘Then go. We’ll give you three hours, whatever it takes.’
THIRTEEN
Clech studied the route up to the nose-shaped ridge, rubbing his bristly jaw, which was covered in black stubble like fine wire. He turned in a circle to check the sky – what could be seen of it between the towering peaks. Nish felt his stomach churn, for the clouds were growing blacker by the minute and the light was fading. It could rain at any moment and, whether it fell as water, sleet or snow, it would make the climb immeasurably more difficult.
‘We can’t do it by ourselves,’ said Clech.
‘You sure?’
‘I’m a good climber, but not that good – spent too much time fishing. Besides, I’m too heavy to lead, and if I slip we both die. We need a mountaineer.’
Nish frowned. ‘One man less at the defences could mean the difference between …’
‘A quick defeat and a slow defeat?’ said Clech, grinning.
Nish marvelled at the Gendrigoreans’ capacity to laugh in the most desperate situations. ‘Precisely. Who would you suggest?’
‘Aimee,’ said Clech after a long pause. ‘She – she was born near the Range of Ruin, and she’s the best climber I know.’ He sounded wistful.
‘But she’s not much bigger than my thumb!’ That was a gross exaggeration, but Aimee, who had gone down on the rope after Boobelar escaped, barely came up to Nish’s shoulder and was as gracile as a reed.
‘People are always putting her down because she’s so little, Nish,’ Clech said with a hint of reproach. ‘It’s tough for her, and she tries so hard. You’ve seen her climb. Aimee’s light and strong, like a gecko. She can go places that lumps like me and you would never dare.’ He was glowing as he enumerated her qualities. ‘She’s clever, too. And she doesn’t have the reach to fight at the slot, so the defences aren’t losing anything if she comes with us.’
‘All right, if you can convince her. This is a volunteer mission, remember?’
‘She’ll volunteer,’ said Clech. ‘The thing is …’
‘Yes?’
‘Aimee feels a bit useless. She can’t take her place in the front line and she’s too small to be a good archer – she can’t pull a full-sized bow.’
‘And she sure can’t cook.’ Their cook had been killed down in the clearing and Nish remembered Aimee’s solitary turn on cooking duty with horror. He would not have thought it possible for anyone to make their dreadful food worse, but she had done it. ‘All right, go and get her.’
Clech came back with Aimee beside him, taking three skipping strides to his one. She wore her dark hair in a single plait over her left shoulder and her round brown eyes were fixed on Nish with all the seriousness of a child. Indeed, she looked about twelve, and Nish, who was in his mid-thirties, suddenly felt Flydd’s age.
‘How old are you, Aimee?’
‘Twenty-four.’ Her voice was high, childlike, and defensive; little wonder, being a mature woman yet always being looked upon as a girl. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Save us,’ said Clech, looking down at her fondly.
‘Don’t mock me,’ she snapped. ‘I thought you, of all people –’ She broke off, looking confused, though not as confused as Clech.
‘I would never mock you,’ he said.
Nish realised that he had often seen them together. Did they fancy each other? They would make an odd couple, though not the oddest Nish had ever seen. ‘Come over here.’ He led her to the other side of the pass, where there was a better view of the mountain towering above them. ‘How do you rate our chances, Aimee?’
‘We’re all going to die,’ she said without expression.
‘I agree, unless we can come up with a clever new way to attack the enemy. We’ve killed well over a thousand of them today, and General Klarm must have lost at least as many again on the way here, to fevers, falls, tropical ulcers, dysentery and the like, but that still leaves thousands of men.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘See the great overhang up there, shaped like a nose?’
It projected from the mountainside for over a hundred spans, before ending in an uptilted knob where the greatest depth of ice had accumulated, many spans deep.
She looked up and sniggered. ‘The Emperor’s Warty Pizzle, we call it.’ Aimee faltered, as if remembering that Nish was the son of the God-Emperor and, despite everything that had been done to him, might take offence at insults to his father.
He restrained a smile. ‘And the huge mound of ice? If we can knock a bit of it off, down on the enemy –’
‘You’ll never do it,’ said Aimee. ‘The ice will be welded tight to the rock. It would take an earthquake to shake it loose.’
She was quick, Nish had to grant her that. ‘There’s a fissure near the end. I saw it with my clearsight, earlier. If I can get to it, I might be able to send the ice below the fissure sliding off the Emperor’s er, Pizzle.’
‘How would you do that, Nish? It’s really thick there.’
He swung the serpent staff off his back. It felt warmer than before; almost hot. ‘Remember how this glowed white-hot after Stilkeen embedded it into the rock? Those fires still burn inside it, and once I set them free …’ If he could. Nish prayed he wasn’t taking Aimee and Clech up there for nothing.
She shivered and moved a little closer to Clech, who swallowed. Few Gendrigoreans were comfortable with mancery, and there could be no more deadly or unknowable power than Stilkeen’s.
‘All right,’ said Aimee. ‘I reckon I can get you up there. And maybe you can lever off some ice with your hot snake, but how do we stop the ice taking us with it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Nish.
‘Or are you asking us to commit suicide?’
‘I would never ask that of anyone. You’re the climber – tell me how we can do it, and survive.’
‘There are ropes and climbing irons in one of the enemy’s supply tents,’ said Aimee. ‘There might be a way, but I won’t know until I get there.’
‘You mean we’re going up onto the nose without knowing if there’s any way down?’ said Clech.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Though a big dumb lump like you could bounce all the way down on your head without doing any damage.’
He grinned. Clech wasn’t easily offended. ‘You can jump after me and use my belly for a pillow.’
‘It’s doughy enough!’ she snapped, though Clech was all muscle.