by Ian Irvine
‘Leave him, Nish,’ said M’lainte. ‘It’ll do no good and we’re out of time.’
Foam flecked the corners of the youth’s mouth. He was moving slowly and warily, swinging the heavy staff from left to right, then right to left, making it difficult to approach him.
‘Get going, Nish; you too, M’lainte,’ said Persia, ‘You’ve got a job to do, and so have I.’
Never on the battlefield had Nish taken shelter behind a fellow soldier, especially not a woman, and as he went behind Persia his cheeks burned with shame. She held her staff lightly in the two-handed grip and moved up and down on the balls of her feet as she waited.
She might be skilled in armed and unarmed combat but the youth was much bigger, fit and muscular from heavy work on the monastery’s farms, and had the uphill advantage. Springing down three benches, he swung the staff at her head. The blow was so furious that it was difficult to parry, and Persia did not try. Angling her own staff up, she deflected the blow above her head, then swung down and into the right side of his body.
He let go of his weapon, took the blow with a grunt and, swift as a striking snake, caught her staff in his right hand. She tried to heave it away before he gained a firm grip but he was too quick. The youth yanked on the staff, pulling her towards him, and she came forwards a half-step before realising that she did not have the strength to tear it from his grasp.
Persia allowed him to draw her in, used her momentum to propel herself at him before he could raise the staff, and drove her head into his midriff. The youth went backwards, winded, and in an instant she had spun him around, twisted his arm up behind his back and forced him face-down onto the benches, her knee into the middle of his back. Nish’s admiration for Persia grew; he had never seen anything like it.
‘Bind him!’ she rasped.
Nish bound the youth’s hands behind his back with a length of cord. Up above, Allioun and Beyl were tying two of the monks, but the other had fled, and so had the old monk.
Sick at heart, Nish ran up to the floor of the temple and looked out through the columns.
‘How long do we have left before Vomix gets here?’ he said as he reached the square of columns. ‘I’ve lost track of time.’
‘No more than twenty minutes, I’d say,’ said M’lainte, puffing along behind him.
Outside, the militia had formed a semi-circle around the temple entrance and were defending themselves against at least forty enraged monks, who were attacking with staves, clubs and reaping hooks without heed for their own lives. They were led by the burly monk with the black beard, and very effectively: two militiamen lay on the ground, while many others bore bloody wounds. Nish counted eleven monks down.
‘What a fiasco,’ he muttered. ‘We’ll never subdue them; they’re too handy with their weapons, even the old fellows.’
‘They’re trained to defend their temple,’ said Persia.
‘Call Chissmoul,’ said M’lainte. ‘I’ve a feeling Vomix is closer than we think.’
‘She would have warned us,’ said Nish. Nonetheless, he ran out into the open, looking up. The air-sled was still circling the top of the temple. He waved; Chissmoul banked and curved down. ‘See anything yet?’
‘No,’ she yelled over the wind.
‘Go higher!’
She turned in climbing spirals, far above the temple, and came zooming down again. ‘The leaders are crossing the river, about fifty of them. They’ll be here in minutes.’
THIRTY-FOUR
‘Come on!’ yelled Nish to his militia. ‘We can’t fight Vomix; we’ve got to go now.’
‘Surr, look out.’
Another dozen monks burst from a door on the other side of the great wheel of the monastery, a hundred paces away, waving lengths of timber, kitchen cleavers, and axes. Clearly there were far more monks here than he’d been told. Panic flared; Nish fought it down as he tried to think.
‘Do you want me to land?’ yelled Chissmoul.
‘Yes. No, wait!’ Nish scanned the green battlefield, looking for Flangers. There he was, holding a bloody shoulder. ‘Lieutenant!’ Nish ran to him.
‘They’re putting up stronger resistance than I’d expected,’ said Flangers.
The monks were advancing from either side. ‘Can we hold them off long enough to get everyone onto the air-sled?’
‘There’s too many of them. Unless we use our swords …’
‘No! No killing.’
‘They’re happy to cut us down, surr,’ Flangers said quietly.
‘I know. Hoshi was killed inside,’ said Nish. ‘But I’m not going to start my campaign by slaughtering innocent monks.’ He turned to M’lainte, who had come to the front of the militia. ‘Can we get out through the roof?’
‘You want Chissmoul to land on the top of the dome?’ She considered. ‘It’ll be tricky getting the wounded up through the hole – it’s a couple of spans above the platform – but I’ll find a way.’
‘Then do it. Flangers, organise the retreat,’ rapped Nish. ‘Chissmoul?’ He pointed to the top of the dome. She repeated the gesture, questioningly, and he yelled, ‘Yes!’
The air-sled curved that way, but they’d lost a lot of time and the monks were close now.
‘We’ll never hold them off long enough to get the injured aboard,’ said Persia.
‘Unless I can scare them,’ said Nish. ‘Get going, Flangers!’
Edging through the semi-circle of the militia, Nish drew the serpent staff from his back and brandished it at the monks. They stopped, watching it warily. They recognised power when they saw it.
‘Stand back,’ he said, pointing the open serpent mouth at them.
The monks swayed away. From the corner of his eye Nish watched the militia backing towards the temple entrance, the ones at the rear carrying the wounded, the men at the front making a barrier with their staves. He backed after them, Persia moving in step with him.
‘Flangers, send everyone up the ramp. You, Persia and I will form a rear-guard.’
Over the groans of the wounded and the clash of weapons, Nish made out the drumming of hooves. Vomix was close.
The monks must have thought Nish had called for reinforcements, for they attacked in a mass. Three of them ran at him and Persia, swinging clubs and reaping hooks, while more surged past on either side, going for the militia. Nish and Persia defended as best they could as they backed between the columns into the temple.
‘This way,’ called M’lainte breathlessly from inside. ‘Get the wounded up first.’
Two monks came at Nish, the black-bearded, thickset leader bearing a spiky cudgel made from the root of a tree, the other a reaping sickle on a long handle. Nish parried the sickle blow; the curved blade rang as it struck the serpent staff and was torn out of the monk’s hands. Nish kicked his feet out from under him then went for the neck of the black-bearded monk who had the raised cudgel. The monk took the blow on his shoulder, twisted around and swung the cudgel with enough force to dash Nish’s brains out.
He could not get out of the way in time, and Nish was sure he was going to die when Persia, who was to his left, dived and knocked him aside. The cudgel swept down and again he heard the sickening sound of bones snapping.
She gasped and tried to rise, but could not. Nish scrambled to his feet as the monk raised the cudgel to strike her dead. His face was a bloody, engorged purple, there was blood on the white patch in his black beard and he had a murderous look in his eye.
Nish sprang over Persia, putting himself between her and the monk as he began his ferocious downswing. There was no time for niceties now; if Nish had misjudged the moment, both he and Persia would die. Aiming the staff like a javelin, he thrust it at the monk with all his strength, and the tip of the serpent’s iron tail went through his chest to the heart.
As he fell dead, the other monk backed away, eyes like twin eggs. ‘He killed the abbot! Murderer! Blasphemer! Despoiler of all that is sacred!’
Nish threw the cudgel at him, but it miss
ed and the monk ran out into the middle of the lawn, roaring, ‘Murderer!’
The other monks gathered around him, staring at the abbot’s body, now pinned to the ground by the staff, which had taken on a blood-red glow.
‘There was no help for it,’ said Flangers. He helped Persia up.
Nish wrenched the staff out and brandished it at them, and they backed away. It was hot and heavy again, churning inside, as if the blood sacrifice had woken it. He didn’t like the way it felt, not at all, but he couldn’t leave it now. He looked around; the militia were out of sight, inside the temple.
As he retreated, holding the staff up threateningly, the drumming of hooves grew ever louder. The seneschal’s troops were just outside the monastery now, and the monks were staring at the entrance in dismay.
Nish turned to Persia, whose left forearm hung at an odd angle and was swelling visibly. ‘Thank you. You saved my life.’
She was staring at him as if she’d just had a revelation. ‘I simply did my duty, but you risked your life to save mine.’ She shook her head. ‘My arm is badly broken. I’ve let Yulla down.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You don’t understand. My indenture –’
He cut her off, for the huddle of monks was breaking up. ‘They’re going to attack again. Go up the ramp.’
‘I can’t!’ cried Persia; her chocolate skin had gone a muddy grey. ‘Yulla ordered me to guard you.’
‘I’m in charge of this disaster. Carry her up, Lieutenant.’
Heaving Persia over his shoulder, Flangers went into the temple. Her troubled eyes were on Nish all the way, but she did not struggle. She appeared to be in too much pain.
There was no time to wonder about the nature of her indenture to Yulla. He dismissed them both from his mind and concentrated on keeping the monks at bay. The saturnine woodsman, Beyl, fell in beside him, and two others, one left, the other right.
‘We can do this, Nish,’ said Beyl encouragingly. ‘We’ll beat ’em the way we beat the enemy up at Blisterbone.’
Nish hadn’t realised he’d looked so downcast. ‘We must.’
The monks were almost onto them when the leading riders burst through the entrance of the monastery and stopped on the green lawn. The monks froze, then turned to face the new threat.
Nish slipped behind a column, gestured to his rear-guard to go up, and peered out. The horsemen leaned forwards over their saddle horns and raised their swords. The warhorses pawed at the lawn.
The monks must have seen their doom approaching, for their rustic weapons would be useless against armed and armoured troops, but not one of them turned and ran. They were brave men.
The officer at the head swept his blade down and the horses leapt forwards. Uprooted grass flew up from their hooves as they raced across the turf, and at their head, directing his mount with touches of his knees, was the man Nish despised most in all the empire – Seneschal Vomix.
He had never been a handsome man, but since Maelys had tricked him into taking hold of her taphloid, months ago, Vomix was grotesque. His nose was a flattened blob, while his face looked as if it had been torn off, ripped into three pieces and nailed back on. Half his teeth were gone and his right arm, severed at the wrist, now ended in a triangular, three-bladed spike. In his left hand he held up an enormous scimitar, the light winking off its polished, curved blade.
‘Go up!’ Nish hissed to his lurking men, and they went, reluctantly.
Nish waited, knowing there would be a crowd at the top of the ramp. He had to see what Vomix was up to, and what he knew. If there was treachery afoot, he might reveal something that would give away the traitor’s name.
Half the monks had lined up in the middle of the lawn; the rest moved to block the entrance to the temple. More riders raced through, until they must have numbered fifty. Vomix wheeled to come alongside a monk who was holding up his skirts as he ran, and plunged his spike into the man’s back so hard that it came out his chest. The monk’s hands opened, he tripped on his skirt and fell flat on his face. The spike slid free and Vomix held it up, dripping red.
The old monk who had been at the flame earlier tottered out, brandishing a walking cane. ‘This monastery and temple are forbidden to all but the monks of the Celestial Flame,’ he said in a reedy voice. ‘You pollute our retreat with your vile swords and wicked ways. Begone!’
The seneschal trotted across to the monk, lifted him by the bunched robes and said, ‘Where is the white chthonic fire?’
‘There is no such fire here, and never has been. We are worshippers of the Celestial Flame, which has … had never gone out since we built our temple three thousand years ago.’
‘Liar!’ said Vomix, swatting him across the face with the side of his bloody spike.
‘Our flame is not white,’ said the monk feebly, ‘and it has never been called chthonic. Indeed, it is the very opposite, for within it we read the movements of the heavenly bodies, and from them tell the future.’
‘I’ll bet you didn’t predict this future,’ leered Vomix.
‘As it happens,’ the old monk said with dignity, ‘your coming was foretold two thousand years ago. Had we known when you were to appear, we would have been prepared.’
‘We’re going to take this place apart, and then you, until we find it.’
The monk did not shrink away. ‘You are not the first to threaten us, but our founder’s foretelling states that the Monastery of the Celestial Flame will survive until the end of the Third Empire and that –’
‘The empire is finished, you old fool,’ sneered Vomix. ‘Did you not see Stilkeen’s proclamation on the wisp-watcher yesterday?’
‘There are no wisp-watchers here,’ said the old monk, looking uncertain now.
‘And that is a capital offence!’
‘We have an exemption signed by the God-Emperor –’
‘Who has been deposed by Stilkeen, a shapeshifting being from the void. The empire is at an end.’ Vomix tossed the old monk to the ground. ‘Take him inside and roast him over his precious Celestial Flame until he reveals the location of the white fire. Then roast him some more.’
‘You know what to do,’ he said to the twenty riders on his left, and they began the killing. Vomix glanced up at the top of the dome, smiled a savage smile and said to the thirty riders to his right, ‘The air-sled is almost empty; we have Nish and his militia trapped inside the temple. Once he is dead, the first man to reach Morrelune will take the throne – as long as he has the pure fire.
‘Kill them, monks and militia all!’ he roared. ‘Let not a single witness live. If Nish has the white fire, bring it to me. If he does not, we’re going to take the temple and monastery apart, stone by stone, until we find it.’
Nish slipped inside. Could he make Vomix believe that he did have the true fire? The dead abbot lay to his left; through the columns he saw the cast-out youth running for the far side of the monastery, his hands still bound. He wouldn’t last long.
He ran in, through the triangle of columns and down the benches to the square hole. The youth’s white robes lay on the stone beside it.
‘Nish?’ called Beyl from halfway up the ramp.
‘Go up. I won’t be a minute.’
The riders were outside, revelling in the slaying, and fear tightened Nish’s chest. He was not afraid of dying, but he was terrified of Vomix, a depraved brute who loved to torment and brutalise.
When he’d served Jal-Nish, Vomix had dared not harm his son. But now, with the God-Emperor gone and Klarm missing, there was no law save the might of men like the seneschal and, after being humiliated by Maelys and Nish, Vomix would feast on vengeance.
Was there a way to fool the brute? Nish picked up the fallen censer and emptied the smouldering incense down the hole. Bundling up the chain, he coiled it inside the lower half of the censer, twisted the top half on and tore the back out of the youth’s white robes. He wrapped the censer in the cloth, tied a knot so it could not fall out and slu
ng it over his shoulder.
A thin haze of smoke issued from the square hole, scented with incense. The Celestial Flame might have been defiled, but it had not been entirely extinguished. He checked again; still blue, and no use to him.
Nish crept up the benches to the top of the triangle and peered over. There was no one in sight though he could hear the clack of shod hooves on the smooth paving stones. They must have finished the last of the monks and were riding into the temple.
The narrow ramp up into the dome was about fifty paces away. Nish was about to run for it when Vomix rode through the columns and saw him. He bolted, the bundled censer bouncing on his back, knowing he’d left it too late; the warhorse would cover the distance to the ramp in a few strides.
Vomix stared at the bundle over Nish’s shoulder, cried, ‘He’s got the white fire! He’s mine!’ and spurred his warhorse, but as it sprang forwards, its rear hooves slipped on the polished stone and it went down.
With a furious oath, Vomix leapt off and pounded after Nish. For such a big man he was very fast. Nish made the ramp with just paces to spare and leapt up it.
Vomix swung the scimitar at his back, trying to cut the bundle free, and barely missed. Nish scrambled up another few paces, but slipped and landed hard on hands and knees. Vomix came after him, lunged, and the three-bladed spike passed between Nish’s arm and his ribs.
He kicked backwards, driving his heel into Vomix’s knee, then went on hands and knees up the ramp to the first landing, where he turned and swung the serpent staff at Vomix’s head. The seneschal’s eyes widened.
‘Where did you get that?’ said Vomix. ‘You’re no mage.’
‘It’s part of Stilkeen’s caduceus, and it has powers you’ll never dream of.’
‘Not in your hands,’ snarled Vomix.
‘How do you think my little militia beat ten thousand of Father’s finest?’ Nish sneered.
Vomix hesitated, then lunged again, but Nish was ready and thumped him in the side of the head, slamming him into the temple wall. Vomix arrested his fall by dragging the tip of the scimitar down the stone in a shower of sparks and lunged again, this time stabbing with the spike.