by Ian Irvine
‘Too busy looking after yourself?’ said Yggur. ‘Having a holiday at our expense?’
The old rivalry between them was as strong as ever, only this time Yggur was at the disadvantage and he did not like it.
‘I wouldn’t call it a holiday, exactly.’ Flydd directed a sympathetic glance at Yggur though, judging by his scowl, he did not appreciate that either. ‘I figured I could leave the fire to you. After all, you had a head start.’
‘How did you know we were still alive?’ said Yggur.
‘Several times, when I was using the staff, I picked up fleeting images of far-off places, such as the Tower of a Thousand Steps and Mistmurk Mountain.’
‘Where have you been, anyhow?’
‘When I left Roros I made a portal to Blemph, in Faranda, and consulted the greatest Aachim mancers there. They concluded that the serpent staves were linked to the caduceus, and to each other, which should have been obvious, had I thought about it. I then knew you three were alive, and from your destinations you must have been searching for chthonic fire, which freed me to do other things.’
‘We tried to go to Blemph from Stassor,’ said Maelys, staring at his scarred, familiar face. She’d only known it for a day, yet it seemed more right than the renewed Flydd she’d known for months. He was his old, irascible but kindly self again; the mean streak was no longer evident. ‘But the caduceus wouldn’t take us there.’
‘If I was there at the time, it could not open another portal to the same place.’
‘About that …’ began Nish.
‘What?’ said Flydd.
‘How come you didn’t make a portal at the Range of Ruin, or afterwards? You could have saved –’
‘Don’t you trust me, Nish?’ Flydd said mildly.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then you shouldn’t need to ask. You know that making portals is the greatest and most difficult Art of all.’
‘What sort of an answer is that?’
‘They’re moving,’ called Clech from the lookout.
Maelys, Nish, Flydd and Yggur went to the top of the next ridge, and the others followed. Morrelune was below them and to the right, looking much as it had months ago, for in the brilliant sunlight the fire palace Stilkeen had made of it could not be seen clearly.
Maelys squinted at the paved roof of Mazurhize, between the four wisp-watchers, wondering if her family could still be alive, but the blank stones told her nothing.
‘Here they come,’ said Persia.
On the seaward side of Mazurhize, a large army was moving up the ridge onto the plain and assembling in front of Morrelune. ‘Who is it?’ said Flydd.
Persia focussed her brass fieldscope. ‘It’s flying Vomix’s standard.’
‘His personal standard?’ said Flydd. ‘Or his banner as the God-Emperor’s seneschal for Roros?’
‘His personal standard – a spiked fist on a sea of red.’
Persia passed back the fieldscope and Flydd checked the edges of the plain. Maelys waited impatiently, and finally he said, ‘The other forces are also coming out. It’s going to be a battle of five armies.’
‘Plus our mighty force,’ said Nish ironically. ‘Don’t forget us, Flydd.’
Flydd pushed the brass tubes together and handed the fieldscope back to Persia. ‘We’d better join them.’
‘They’ll cut us down!’
‘The son of the God-Emperor has to be there,’ said Flydd, who seemed unfazed by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. ‘This is your hour, Nish. It’s time to stake your claim.’
‘I’ve told you a hundred times, I will not become my father.’
‘There’s no need to get excited. You promised to overthrow him ten years ago, you’ve repeated that promise over and again, and you can’t retreat now. What kind of message would that send your long-suffering people – that the thugs of the empire had the courage to face Stilkeen for what they could get out of it, but you were too afraid to defend those who put their faith in you?’
Maelys felt for Nish; Flydd had deftly manipulated him into doing what he wanted. And yet, ever since she had helped Nish escape from Mazurhize they had been fighting to reach this point, so why was he hanging back? It wasn’t fear of dying, she knew – at least, not for himself.
Nish met her eyes. ‘If you get a chance, run for it,’ he said quietly. ‘We’re doomed, but –’
‘What do you take me for?’ she hissed. ‘I’ll be standing beside you until the end, whatever it may be … and we’re going to win!’
The ever-present worries about her family rose again but, Maelys realised, Mazurhize was probably the safest place for them right now.
Feeling a little stronger for Maelys’s faith in him, Nish collected his pack and made sure his weapons were in good order. The women and men of his militia shook his hand as he went down the line, and Yulla’s troops, mostly veterans of the lyrinx war who were older than he was, clapped him on the back. He swallowed hard and did his best to look confident of victory, though he did not think he was fooling anyone.
As they prepared to march out, Persia fell in behind him, hand on the hilt of her rapier. He looked around, her dark eyes met his, and he had to make amends before it was too late.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said.
‘Why, Nish?’ she said politely.
‘For the things I said in Roros, and the way I treated you. I know it was unforgivable –’
She gave him one of those warm, lovely, yet slightly sad smiles; he hadn’t seen one in ages. ‘I forgave you long ago.’
‘But –’
‘Sometimes you have an awkward way with words, Nish, but your deeds are clear as crystal.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Even after I’d helped Yulla to manipulate you, you risked your life for me at the monastery, and that was too much.’
‘Too much?’
‘It raised you too far above me. The gap was unbreachable.’
Nish didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. ‘But … you’ve been so cool to me. I was sure you were still furious.’
‘I had to stay cool. I – I cared – care too much for you, and it’s now clear that it can never be.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘Perhaps it’s just as well.’
He could see the ache in her eyes now. For him? ‘What will you do afterwards …?’
‘If we survive?’
‘Yes.’
‘My seven-year indenture to Yulla ends here, one way or the other, and if I survive, I must make my own way in the world.’ She glanced down, gnawing her lip. ‘I’m really afraid of that. Yulla has looked after me ever since I … came to her, but who will take care of me once I leave? The world can be a cruel place when you’re by yourself.’
It was a side of the strong, competent Persia that he had not seen before, an unexpected fragility, and again he wondered what had happened to her when she was young. ‘If I survive, you must come –’
‘That is kind of you, but no.’
‘Well, thank you for being my bodyguard,’ he said after a pause, ‘though I don’t think your skills can save me this time.’
The sadness was back in her eyes. ‘No, I don’t think they can. We’d better go down.’
At the head of the troop, Clech was fiddling with a long lance. He raised it high and a yellow banner fluttered from its end, with a single silver star in the middle.
‘Sewed it myself,’ grinned Clech. ‘What’s an army without a standard to fight under?’
‘Thank you,’ said Nish. ‘Lead on.’
Clech, who was hardly limping at all now, led the tiny force down the ridge, onto the plain and along it towards Morrelune, heading for a large space between Vomix’s huge army and the sizeable one of the mercenary adventurer, Hackel. Two smaller armies stood further away, one led by Seneschal Lidgeon from Fadd, and another that no one could identify, while the fifth force, the Imperial Guard of some eight hundred m
en commanded by General Nosby, stood closest to Morrelune.
‘This is suicide, Flydd,’ said Nish.
‘Keep going,’ said Flydd, unperturbed. ‘I’ll think you’ll find Vomix is more worried than you are.’
‘He couldn’t be!’
From this close, even in bright sunlight, Morrelune’s nine levels, its broad encircling steps and towering columns, and the heaven-piercing spire on top, were wreathed in Stilkeen’s orange and yellow fire. One edge of the Sacred Lake could just be seen behind it, and the mountains beyond that.
As his little force wheeled and moved between the mighty ones, there came a chorus of catcalls and jeers from Vomix’s army.
‘Ignore them,’ Nish said over his shoulder. ‘They don’t know what we know.’
Thankfully, no one asked him to explain, since there was nothing behind his brave words.
Vomix trotted his horse to the fore, glaring at Nish across a hundred spans of paved plain, and then at Maelys, to his left. Nish felt a tremble beginning in his right knee, and had to clench his injured thigh until it burned, to stiffen his leg.
‘I’ll have you, when I’m done with him,’ said Vomix to Maelys, and his grotesquely scarred face broke into a sickening leer. ‘And you,’ he said to Persia.
Maelys choked down on her instinctive cry, swayed, but managed to stand firm. Nish was glad she had; if she had broken, he did not think he could have defied the brute. Persia stiffened but said nothing.
Vomix raised the arm tipped with the triangular spike, which was stained with old brown blood – monks’ blood, presumably. A trumpet blasted; his army performed a right turn, all six thousand men at once, and the front three rows lowered their lances. The army moved slowly forwards, and the front line began curving around from either end to encircle Nish’s force.
They’ll cut us down, he thought, then seize the fire and offer it to Stilkeen. We’ve lost before we begin.
‘Hold your nerve,’ Flydd said quietly.
‘If you’ve got any kind of a plan, now would be a good time to reveal it,’ said Yggur.
‘I was waiting to see what Stilkeen would do,’ said Flydd, ‘but all right.’
He moved back into the open space behind Nish’s troops, lifted his serpent staff above his head, then slammed it down so hard that it cracked a paving stone.
‘Flydd,’ Nish gasped. ‘What are you doing?’
It was a direct challenge, not just to Vomix and the other generals, but to Stilkeen itself, and he turned towards the fire palace, expecting the being to fly forth in world-shattering wrath.
It did not. However, with a rumble and a roar, with flashes of lightning at the points of the compass and a rolling heave of the ground beneath them, an enormous portal formed behind Flydd, a shimmering circle a good ten spans in diameter. It was mist-grey in the centre but crackling with static electricity around its periphery.
Vomix’s horse reared up onto its back legs, pawing at the air and whinnying shrilly, and he struggled to control it. His army stopped abruptly, staring at the uncanny sight in wonder and unease. The empire had been taught that all mancery was controlled by the God-Emperor or his appointed servants, yet Flydd had just worked the mightiest Art of all – portal making. What would he do next?
‘Cut them down, you swine!’ Vomix roared.
The front line of his army did not move.
‘What’s Flydd up to?’ said Yggur.
‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Nish.
And then, from within the portal, he heard the rhythmic tread of a host of marching soldiers, and shortly a ten-wide rank of tall, dark-haired men came forth. They had faint crests over the tops of their heads and exceptionally long fingers that wrapped all the way around the hilts of their swords. Their leader was young and burly, dark of skin and eye, and carried a blade that must have been a span long.
‘When the empire is held in thrall by scoundrels,’ said Flydd in an amplified voice that echoed back from the surrounding ranges, ‘one must look outside for aid. And so I have.’
‘Why, you old villain,’ cried Nish. ‘Why didn’t you tell us what you’d been up to?’
‘There wouldn’t have been any surprise,’ said Tulitine. ‘Nor any theatre – and at moments like these, theatre matters more than might.’
Flydd boomed. ‘One thousand Aachim from Faranda, led by Lord Garthor.’
‘Take Nish!’ Vomix bellowed.
Flydd saluted him ironically. ‘Your army is too gutless.’
And so they proved to be, for Vomix’s army still hesitated and the opportunity to crush Nish’s force was lost. Half of the thousand Aachim had come forth already, formidable fighting men in armour that would repel most sword blows, and even longbow arrows.
When the last had emerged, the portal sphinctered shut, reopened and more Aachim marched out in a swirl of fog, led by a compact man with flame-red hair.
‘The Aachim of Clan Elienor, numbering four hundred, from Shazmak,’ Flydd announced gleefully. ‘Under the command of Yrael.’
Malien let out a glad cry, for Clan Elienor was her clan. As she ran to Yrael, the sun caught her age-faded hair and, momentarily, it flamed the same colour as his.
‘Karan’s hair was just that colour,’ said Yggur in a husky voice. ‘It so reminds me of her …’
‘Elienor are a brave and noble clan,’ said Nish, ‘And I remember Yrael well. With his people at my side, I can hope again.’
Vomix met Flydd’s eyes across a hundred spans of paving. Flydd sketched him an exaggerated bow, withdrew the serpent staff from the cracked paving and deliberately turned his back.
‘Take him down!’ cried Vomix to his archers, enraged by the implication that he posed no threat at all.
Before they could do so, the Aachim formed into their deadly flying wedge formation, pointed directly at Vomix’s position, and he stuttered, ‘H-hold your fire!’
Every eye in every army was now on Flydd as he sauntered to his right and created a second portal, as large as the first but egg-shaped and green. Who would come forth this time?
The marching footsteps were heavier, slower, and less rhythmical, but nothing could be seen within, for this portal was full of billowing steam which gushed out like a geyser. As it parted, Nish caught a glimpse of a beautiful, forested world, and when he smelled its sweet, spicy air, his heart leapt.
‘Five hundred lyrinx, from the world of Tallallame,’ Flydd announced.
Hundreds of soldiers cried out; the entire mass of Vomix’s army swayed backwards; further off, the smaller army that no one could identify turned and began to creep away.
‘Boo!’ roared Flydd, his voice echoing off the mountains, and the retreating army bolted.
‘Hold firm!’ bellowed Vomix. ‘Any man who moves will be shot.’
‘Violence is the only hold you have over them,’ said Flydd. ‘It won’t be enough this time, Seneschal.’
‘And you would begin the lyrinx war all over again,’ cried Vomix. ‘Truly, the God-Emperor was right to condemn you as a traitor.’
‘Jal-Nish only did one thing in the war,’ Flydd said coldly. ‘He ran like the cur he is, abandoning his loyal army to annihilation.’ He turned away. ‘Come forth, people of Tallallame, in friendship!’
And out they came, a seven-wide rank of huge winged humanoids as tall as bears, with red or green crests running across the top of their enormous heads and chameleon colours shimmering across their armoured outer skin. Their mouths were great with teeth, their hands were clawed, and their folded wings were leathery.
‘Stand firm!’ Vomix ordered his quailing men. ‘Five hundred lyrinx are nothing to us.’
‘They’ll tear Santhenar apart,’ cried a soldier at the front.
‘It took us a hundred and fifty years to beat them last time,’ said another.
‘Lyrinx!’ It roared through the ranks of troops like a tidal wave. ‘They eat their victims. Run!’
‘Stand your ground!’ bellowed Vomix.
> It was no use. Panic had set in and, though most of his soldiers did hold their positions, many hundreds broke, fled across the plain and disappeared into the scrub. None of Nish’s troops moved, and he was tempted to give Vomix a derisory finger, but restrained himself.
Once all the lyrinx had marched out, they took position beside the Aachim. At their head was a wingless male, smaller than most, and Nish felt his spirits lift at the sight of him, and his consort who prowled back and forth beside him. Though she had glorious, shimmering wings, she lacked the thick, armoured outer skin of the other lyrinx – hers was fine and transparent, revealing the almost human underlying skin. The male’s eyes, and hers, searched the plain, he saw Nish and they hurried across.
‘Well met, old friend,’ said the male, extending a monstrous hand, the claws politely retracted.
‘Ryll,’ said Nish, so moved that he felt tears sting his eyes, for they had been enemies all through the lyrinx war, only to become friends by the manner of its ending. He shook Ryll’s hand gingerly for, even when the lyrinx held back, his grip was crushingly strong.
‘And Liett! I never expected to see either of you again, but thank you, thank you.’ Nish shook hands with Liett, then, without thinking, embraced her.
The lyrinx army let out a rumbling growl, all as one, at his boldness, and Nish stepped back hastily. What had he been thinking?
Liett cuffed him across the chest, knocking him off his feet, but picked him up at once and dusted him down, grinning so broadly that she could have swallowed his head.
‘It is very good to see you,’ she said, then lowered her voice. ‘Don’t ever do that again, for Ryll is a jealous husband and I cannot answer for his fury, should he see an old human fondling me in such an intimate manner. Aren’t you, Ryll?’
‘Beg pardon?’ said Ryll, pretending not to hear.
‘A jealous husband,’ roared Liett, flashing out her beautiful wings in a fierce display.
‘Oh, insanely jealous,’ grinned Ryll, shaking Nish’s hand again with both of his own. ‘When we’ve cleaned up this rabble, what say you and I slip away for a jar or two?’