The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3)

by Ian Irvine

  The gruvellor howled again, closer, and another answered it in a lower register. Were they calling each other to attack Malien, or to creep down the ledge?

  The fire died down to a few dull coals and would soon go out, since there was no more wood. Maelys kept an anxious watch along the ledge to left and right, not that she would be able to see an approaching predator now.

  She unsheathed her knife and held it up. The luminous juice gave out a steady yellow glow, enough to have read a book by, but, thinking that it was more likely to attract the predators than deter them, she put it away and continued her lonely vigil.

  In the morning they would only have one chance to find the true fire, for if it failed there would be no time to try again. Had they come here for nothing? She felt sure they had. And what would happen when they went back empty-handed?

  The night sounds continued for hours, before dying away. Did it signify that the gruvellor were gone, or were they creeping closer? Or eating Malien? Every second seemed to take an eternity and Maelys desperately wanted to wake Yggur and Tulitine, but restrained herself. They needed the rest more than she needed company.

  When the stars told her it was midnight she went across to wake Yggur, but Tulitine said, ‘Leave him, I’ll take the watch. He needs his sleep if he’s to get us home.’

  Maelys clutched her blankets and furs around her like a defensive wall and prepared to wait out the night, but soon fell asleep and did not wake until Malien returned at sunrise, her cheeks flushed from the cold air. She looked serene.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘All night I have been communing with the land of my ancestors. If only my bones could rest here after I die, I could pass away in peace.’

  Maelys shivered at the morbid thought. She wouldn’t want her bones to lie in such a gloomy and forlorn place. ‘Did you see any predators?’

  ‘A number, including a hunting pack of gruvellor. They were following your scent, so I had to lead them away.’

  ‘How did you manage that? Weren’t you terrified?’

  ‘There was a tense moment or two,’ said Malien drily. ‘But this is my world, and I knew it would be worse for you.’

  After breakfast they trudged up onto the plateau to make a final attempt to find the pure fire. The small sun had risen some time ago but it was only a hand’s breadth up on its low arc across the sky, and its light was dim.

  They took hold of the caduceus while Yggur concentrated on finding a new source of chthonic fire.

  ‘That’s odd,’ he said after several minutes had passed and nothing had happened. ‘It isn’t even attempting to make a portal. Am I too weak, do you think?’

  ‘Who can fathom the workings of such an enigmatic device?’ said Malien. ‘Or the one who left it for us. Try again.’

  After three attempts, Yggur’s knees were trembling and there were globules of sweat on his forehead, but the caduceus hadn’t budged. He slumped to the black, ropy rock, wiping his brow.

  Despite his previous illness, it had never occurred to Maelys that Yggur could fail; he had been too great and powerful a figure for too long, and in the past he had overcome every obstacle. Now, contemplating the thought of remaining on this alien world until she died, or was eaten, she felt her pulse race and her jaw clench. To never see Santhenar again, or her family, to fail and allow Stilkeen to destroy the world – it could not be borne. There had to be a way out of here, but it was beyond her understanding.

  She sprang up and began to walk in circles around the others, so fast that she was panting.

  ‘What’s happened to your sheath?’ Tulitine said sharply.

  Maelys looked down at it. The leather had gone black and crumbly at the bottom. She drew her knife.

  ‘That’s odd,’ she said, studying the glowing marks on its tip. ‘Didn’t you say that the luminous juice only lasted a few hours?’

  ‘I did,’ said Malien.

  ‘I collected this yesterday and it’s as bright as it was then.’ A shiver made its way across the backs of Maelys’s hands. ‘Though it’s not yellow any more; it’s pure white; and flickering like …’

  Everyone rose, and Tulitine was reaching out with a fingertip when Yggur cried, ‘Don’t touch it! Pure chthonic fire could eat through human flesh as easily as it’s consumed the leather.’

  Tulitine took the knife, held it up, and the faintest flame flickered on the tip. ‘It’s white fire, all right, but is this enough?’

  ‘It might be corrupted already,’ said Yggur. ‘Better collect it afresh.’

  Maelys collected all the glowing juice she could get from the toadstool, directly into Yggur’s third and last dimensionless box, then wiped her knife carefully on the ground and threw away the crumbling sheath. They sat down to wait and, after a couple of hours, the yellow luminescence disappeared and the pure white fire it had been masking flickered to life. Yggur folded over the dimensionless box.

  ‘Is that why the caduceus wouldn’t take us anywhere?’ said Maelys. ‘Because the white fire was right here?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘We were also going to look for a weapon against Stilkeen. If we went back to those abandoned buildings we saw earlier, or to an Aachim city, do you think we might find some Aachim device we could use to attack Stilkeen?’

  ‘We can’t delay any longer,’ said Malien. ‘Today is the last day.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can get to Morrelune,’ said Yggur.

  ‘Where the jackals will be gathering,’ said Tulitine, ‘to rob anyone who approaches with the true fire.’

  ‘We’d better take precautions,’ said Yggur. ‘Maelys, you know Morrelune. Think of a safe place for us to appear.’

  ‘I don’t know the area well,’ said Maelys. ‘I’ve only seen it once.’

  ‘Do your best. What’s our destination?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘A gully in the range above the palace, not far off the path up to Nifferlin, my home – before Jal-Nish ordered it torn down.’ Maelys bit her lip, understanding how Malien had felt last night, and must be feeling now. ‘I led Nish that way after we got him out of Mazurhize.’

  ‘Take my hand. Concentrate on where you’re taking us, and keep it carefully in mind until we arrive, or we never will. Everyone else, blank your minds, just in case.’

  Maelys closed her eyes and held her breath. Now their survival, and the hope of the world, did depend on her and how well she could imagine their destination. She prayed that she was up to it.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  It was late on the eleventh day since Stilkeen’s proclamation and Nish, hobbling onto the quay at the little fishing port of Tungst, was worn thin from throwing up.

  Yulla’s ship had carried a mere hundred of her troops, the only ones to escape the ambush and, with no option but to continue, Nish and his militia had gone aboard. As M’lainte turned the air-sled north towards Roros, the ship’s captain had fled south for Fadd as fast as his craft could go, looking over his shoulder all the way.

  On the fifth day a trio of Vomix’s fast cutters had appeared far astern and steadily ran them down. Yulla’s captain had put on all the sail his creaking craft could carry in the stormy weather but the cutters had continued to gain by the hour, and on the following morning they were almost within bowshot.

  The strengthening storm had become a gale and it had raged for almost a week. Nish had been thankful at first, since it was near impossible for the enemy to find them in such conditions, but as the weather worsened Yulla’s round-bottomed tub had rolled her guts out.

  The soldiers and Nish’s militia had thrown up in the cramped holds until the bilges were awash and the ship reeked of vomit from the bowsprit to the anchor lockers. They could not go up on deck – the one soldier foolish enough to try had been swept over the side and never seen again. Of the militia, only Clech the fisherman had been spared seasickness, but Aimee had made up for it, heaving so violently that she had cracked one of her healing ribs, for which he mocked her gently but mercilessly. />
  Finally, this afternoon, racing with the wind on bare masts, the battered craft had ridden out the storm, but Nish hadn’t dared sail into Fadd. It had been close to midnight when the captain had docked at Tungst, two leagues north, where he had scraped the soldiers and militia onto the dock like muck from the bottom of a shoe.

  ‘I’ll never take on such filthy landlubbers again,’ he muttered, while the holds were hosed down and the polluted bilges pumped out into the harbour.

  Nish thanked him and looked around the deserted quay, which was dimly illuminated by a single lantern hanging from a post a pebble-cast away. He made out the lights of a tavern further around the small bay, but that was all. The fishing village was hidden in a sheltered fold in the hills, the captain had told him, though at this time of night not a single light glimmered there.

  At the other end of the quay a wisp-watcher hung from its pole, smashed. Even this close to the heart of the empire, rebellion was everywhere now that the God-Emperor had disappeared.

  The hills, Nish knew, ran up to a steep coastal range, at the top of which Morrelune lay on a long, narrow plain skirting a higher chain of mountains. The palace was two hard days’ climb from here and he wasn’t looking forward to the journey, assuming they could get away undiscovered.

  Clech was pacing back and forth along the shore, limping just a little. With the aid of the healing spells his broken bones had knitted quickly, though he was not yet back to full strength.

  The soldiers and the militia were huddled at the end of the dock, wanting nothing more than to lie down on ground that was not rocking and sleep a full circuit of the clock. No one yearned for it more than Nish, but he had to know what was going on.

  ‘Flangers?’ he said quietly.

  Flangers looked as ill as any of them, but he rose at once. ‘Surr?’

  ‘Lead everyone out into the countryside, bed them down in the first patch of cover you come to, and don’t let anyone out of your sight. I’m going to the tavern; I’ll be back in an hour or two.’

  ‘You’ll have to go in disguise,’ said Persia, Nish’s silent shadow, who had only left his side on board ship when one of them had been throwing up.

  She was always polite, and never failed to do her duty, but they had not regained the friendship that had begun when she was making him up as a silver miner. Nish felt sure that he had mortally offended her by suggesting that Yulla might have betrayed them. It seemed an enormous over-reaction to what had been an imprudent, yet wholly reasonable, inference on his part, but it did not seem as though Persia was ever going to forgive him.

  He should have known better, but it was too late now. Sighing for what might have been, he concentrated on what she had said.

  ‘A disguise? Is that really necessary at this hour?’ He was so unkempt, bearded and haggard that no one would have recognised him from the portrait made by his father ten years ago.

  ‘We can’t take any chances. It won’t take long.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ she said shortly, studying his made-up face in the dim light. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I’m going alone,’ said Nish. ‘As Yulla’s bodyguard, your face is too well known.’

  ‘I’ll disguise myself.’

  ‘There isn’t time, and you’ll be a liability – especially if Vomix has spies here.’

  She shivered. ‘Yes, of course.’

  It was well after midnight when he limped into the water-side tavern, desperate for news. Nish gagged as he entered, for the place reeked of bad food, sour ale and other unpleasant things, and had his stomach not been emptied out long ago, he would have disgraced himself in front of everyone. That would certainly attract unwelcome attention, he thought wryly, noting that the drinkers were eyeing him. He looked as disreputable as any of them; his clothes were filthy and his coat still smelt faintly of the vomit that had permeated the whole ship.

  After buying a large drink he had no intention of touching, he sat in a corner with his hat shading his eyes until the attention of the customers returned to more interesting matters.

  Despite the hour, the tavern was packed. Everyone was talking about the great armies racing each other up the God-Emperor’s Highway from Fadd to Morrelune, and what they would do once they got there. Nish made a mental note of the names of their leaders, though only the last meant anything to him.

  ‘My money is on Seneschal Vomix,’ said a squat, bald sailor with skin like a crumpled leather handbag. ‘He’s the meanest bastard in the world.’ He glanced hastily over his shoulder as he spoke. ‘This Stilkeen beast won’t know what hit it.’

  ‘He’s a right one, Vomix,’ said an equally leathery old woman who was smoking tea leaves in a clay pipe. She tamped them down with a tarry finger and drew an appreciative lungful.

  ‘Vomix can’t get there in time,’ said the bartender, picking his nose and wiping it on the apron he was drying tankards with. ‘Hackel’s army will be halfway to Morrelune by now.’

  ‘Vomix’s advance guard landed at Fadd this morning,’ said the bald sailor, ‘and he’s already got the support of the army there. He was Seneschal in Fadd for years, remember? He’ll be God-Emperor within the week.’

  ‘And make our lives a misery again,’ said the old woman. ‘But the Deliverer is coming to save us,’ she muttered, emitting clouds of blue tea smoke. ‘He gave his word, ten years ago.’

  Nish stiffened, then tried to relax. She wasn’t looking at him, and there was no reason why anyone should associate him with the Deliverer. He looked like a drunken bum, and stank like one, too.

  ‘The Deliverer can’t beat Vomix without an army,’ said the bartender, shooting an anxious glance towards the far corner, where a thin man sat hunched over his drink as if it was the only thing in the world to him, though he hadn’t touched it since Nish had entered. Spy, or scrier, Nish knew, looking away and drawing back into the shadows. Realising that his own untouched drink was a giveaway, he took a mouthful of the sour, unpleasant brew, swallowed, and almost brought it up again.

  ‘Nish had a mighty victory on the Range of Ruin,’ said the old woman. ‘He’ll come.’

  ‘I heard that Vomix killed him up north,’ said the bald sailor.

  ‘Gruin Plebb said Nish was strung up in the torture chambers, begging for his life,’ said a plump, red-faced young man.

  ‘Gruin Plebb is a famous liar,’ said the old woman, ‘and so deep in Vomix’s pocket he’d need a ladder to get out. I don’t believe his lies for a second. And even if Nish is a prisoner, he’ll soon get free.’

  ‘No one escapes from Vomix,’ said the bartender, speaking as if by rote.

  ‘Nish got away from Mazurhize,’ said the old woman. ‘He’ll come to our rescue, mark my words.’

  This pronouncement was so comprehensively laughed down that Nish suspected the opposition was organised. Vomix could not allow him to develop a personal following; his spies and followers would ensure any such buds were trimmed early.

  No one was betting on Stilkeen to emerge the victor, he noted. It was universally mocked as a crude but savage beast, though to his own ears the drink-fuelled revelry had an end-of-the-world hysteria about it.

  He heard no word of Flydd, which suggested that he had failed in his quest. If he had returned, Nish felt sure Flydd would have made himself known, so as to give hope to his allies. Unless he was really after the tears, or had plans to steal the throne for himself …

  No! Nish had been friends with Flydd for many years, and he’d always been solid and reliable. Besides, Nish knew that one of the God-Emperor’s most important weapons was undermining the opposition by sowing suspicion and dissension, and he wasn’t having it. Self-doubt had crippled him in the months following his escape from prison and it had taken all his will to overcome it. He wasn’t going down that path again, either.

  He had learned enough. He took another pull at the vile drink, grimaced and quietly went out. Though he was desperate for sleep he had to get his army goin
g at once. The wisp-watcher might have been destroyed, but the eyes of the enemy were everywhere.

  An hour later he was leading his sick and unhappy troops across the fields towards a minor path that ran into the hills. As they moved up a small wooded slope he caught sight of Yulla’s ship, weighing anchor.

  ‘Good riddance,’ he muttered. ‘From now on, wherever I’ve got to go, I’m going on my own flat feet.’

  He had put Flangers in command of Yulla’s soldiers and told him to allow them no respite, knowing that Vomix’s spies were bound to hear about the little army by morning, and in the light of day they would soon discover which path it had taken. It was a race to get to Morrelune first; every moment counted now.

  ‘You can’t drive them any harder, Nish,’ said Flangers that evening, when they had been going with barely a rest for sixteen hours. ‘My men are on the brink of mutiny and your militia aren’t much better.’

  Nish rubbed his burning thigh. The healers had worked miracles on his wounds during the long voyage but the brutal march felt as though it had torn the muscle deep down. He had driven himself this far through sheer, grinding determination though it would not carry him much further.

  ‘I know, Lieutenant, but what else can I do? We’re all that stands between Stilkeen, the void, and the end of human life on Santhenar. If Vomix catches us, he’ll cut us all down, and a lot more will be lost than our brief lives.’

  ‘Then we’d better leave the path and make it harder for them to find us, but we still have to rest.’

  ‘If we leave the path, we’ll get lost,’ said Nish.

  ‘As long as we put our backs to the sea and keep climbing we can’t go too far astray,’ said Persia. ‘And when we top this range, we’ll see the long plain of Morrelune; we can hardly miss it.’

  They trudged across broken country for another exhausting hour and, several ridges away, out of sight from the path, camped for the night. Nish slept restlessly, knowing that the opposition was too vast and too powerful. He’d had one miracle victory already in this campaign; he could not hope to repeat it in open battle.