by Ian Irvine
Liett flitted through the opening then came racing back, shooting over Nish’s head to attack the atatusk from above, going for the eyes and nose. It was a perilous manoeuvre, since they could leap many spans, and Liett, being delicately boned and unarmoured, was far more vulnerable than the other lyrinx, but it had worked so far. Her claws were stained with green blood and she had blinded and torn the noses of two atatusk, enabling the other lyrinx to finish them off.
Nish took down the last two atatusk of the troop with spears, but it only gained a minute, for another small troop of the creatures was not far behind. This battle was like the fight at the pass all over again, only this time there were an infinite number of the enemy.
There had to be a better, cleverer way to attack them. Frantically scanning his surroundings, Nish noticed the thick ice accumulating around the opening. Chthonic fire would feed and grow on ice; could he fuel the fire enough to burn through the track with it? It was worth trying.
Lifting off the leather catapult bucket, he bounced to the opening and hacked off a bucketful of ice. He could barely have lifted it outside, but in the void he could carry the bucket one-handed.
He heaved the bag up, fitted it over the hooks of the javelard, wound the crank and looked for a target. Five atatusk from the next troop had run ahead and were heading for two lyrinx, but Nish had a clear shot this time. He poured a few drops of pink fire onto the ice and stirred it with his sword until the ice began to burn. Aiming at the track in front of the atatusk, he fired.
The ice chunks shattered and pink fire went everywhere, spreading along the track for spans and flaming up around the atatusk’s feet. It did not affect the track but the atatusk leapt out of the way, emitting screeching cries and beating at the flames that speckled their feet.
It kept them back for another minute or two, giving Nish time to gather another bucket of ice. By the time he’d run back with it, they were clearing the path with sweeps of their long arms and he knew the ploy would not work a second time, but he had thought of another way to attack them.
Tying a length of rope to the shafts of two spears, he coiled it neatly in the middle so it would not tangle and fitted both spears into the firing groove, their heads slightly diverging.
Aiming at the band of atatusk, he fired and the spears shot out, one angling to the left of the atatusk, the other to their right. The rope pulled taut between the spears, struck the leading two atatusk at neck height, and the momentum of the heavy spears slammed them backwards into the ones behind, knocking them off their feet.
Three of the creatures got up, looking shaky, but the other two lay still, as if their necks were broken. It had gained the defenders another minute, but they were few now. Beyl and four more of the militia were still fighting, though the other seven were dead. Five lyrinx had fallen while another lay on the track, kicking feebly.
‘Clech?’ Nish yelled. ‘We can’t hold them much longer.’
‘On the last rope,’ said Clech.
The three surviving atatusk had waited for the rest of their troop and now formed a phalanx, armed with large rectangular shields and long five-pointed spears, that would be almost impossible for the lyrinx to stop.
Nish roped up another pair of spears and fired again, but the front line of the phalanx raised their shields together and the spears glanced off, deflecting the rope over their heads. Only three javelard spears remained and he could not afford to waste them.
‘We’re ready!’ Clech yelled.
Aimee was coming down the last rope. Clech had hold of the other four and was heaving mightily, trying to raise the platform into place, but his feet kept slipping on the soft track.
‘I need the flask,’ called Aimee.
Nish poured a few drops of pink fire into the catapult bucket in case he got the chance to fling more ice, then leapt down and bounded towards the opening, for he’d found that to be quicker than running here.
Clech threw his weight against the ropes but it had little effect. ‘I’m too light this far in,’ he rumbled. ‘Never thought I’d say that.’
‘You’ll be heavier closer to the opening,’ said Nish as he took hold of the ropes behind Clech.
‘The angle is too steep there; the ropes won’t pull through the holes.’
Nish passed the flask to Aimee, who darted out to smear fire around the edges of the platform.
‘Don’t forget to leave a gap for us to get out,’ he yelled.
She whirled and gave him the look, hands on hips, then tossed her head and went to work. Clech chuckled.
Even with the two of them heaving, they could not raise the platform, and Nish could feel the heavy breath of failure on the back of his neck. ‘Ryll?’ he yelled. ‘Can you give us a hand?’
‘When we go through the little hole,’ said Clech casually, ‘what happens?’
‘We hang onto the rope until Tiaan comes to pick us up.’
‘What if she doesn’t?’
‘We fall to our deaths, eventually.’
‘Good-oh,’ said Clech. ‘Just so’s I know. I’d better make some footholds, then, otherwise you landlubbers will fall off real quick.’ He began to tie loops in the rope on the lower left-hand side of the opening.
Ryll and another lyrinx came running and took hold of the ropes. Their toe claws gave them a much sounder grip yet, even with all their strength, the platform rose slowly.
‘We need another two on the ropes,’ said Ryll, panting.
‘That would leave us almost undefended,’ said Nish.
‘If we don’t get it closed, we’ve lost.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Nish bounded back to the javelard.
The other paths were extending from all directions, steadily converging on the opening, and each carried troop after troop of atatusk, determined to take Santhenar. At their current rate of progress they would arrive well before the opening was sealed.
FORTY-SEVEN
The atatusk were now close enough that Nish could fire over the top of their shield wall, and with his last spears he took down three of the enemy, but it made no difference. What else could he do? He couldn’t take on the phalanx with a sword.
The surviving guards had come to the same conclusion, evidently, for they were retreating to the entrance and heaving on the ropes.
Aimee was clinging to the barrier twenty spans up, applying smears of pink fire to the two edges as the platform was pulled into position, and cutting the dangling ropes. While Nish watched, the curved rent through the wall began to smooth out and fade like a healing cut. If a breach is made, the barrier yearns to repair itself, Lilis had said.
The lyrinx ran back to the defence, wrenching used javelard spears out of dead atatusk and gathering up their five-pointed spears. As Aimee scrambled down, the flask swinging by its thong, the phalanx broke into a run. Despite the atatusk’s short legs and huge bodies, in the void they could move rapidly.
Why had he delayed? Nish fired the burning ice in the catapult bucket, but it was turned harmlessly aside on their shields.
‘Get moving!’ he bellowed, running back. ‘Through the opening and onto the rope.’
The phalanxes on the other paths were also running now, racing the leading troop to victory. The five lyrinx on the path made a wall with their bodies, with Ryll in the centre, and Liett swooped down at the leading phalanx, trying to hold them back. An atatusk in the middle pointed a white mace at her, she wobbled in the air and shot off.
‘Come away,’ Ryll said hoarsely. ‘You know their mancers can bring us down in flight.’
Liett ignored him, as Nish had known she would, for she was the best flier among the lyrinx and, despite her lack of armour, she never held back. She attacked again, striking recklessly between the spears at the red-eyed atatusk with the mace.
The air around it shimmered; her wings missed a beat, she fell sideways and three points of a spear plunged into her thigh. The atatusk converged on her but she broke free and flapped away, trailing blood.<
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Ryll was staring at her, his chest rising and falling. ‘Liett!’ he said in an anguished voice.
Nish’s Gendrigorean troops were at the opening but it was a slow squeeze through, and they had to be careful moving onto the rope. We’ll never make it, Nish thought. The atatusk were too close, and coming too quickly. And after they’ve killed us they’ll tear the barrier open again. We’ve failed.
Liett must have thought so too, for she whirled in the air, cried, ‘Fly, Ryll!’ and headed for the face of the phalanx.
Red jags burst from her fingertips, for she was an accomplished mancer, and several shields burst apart. Momentarily the spears pointed in all directions; she swooped on one of the atatusk, caught its head in her toe claws and, though it must have been twice her weight, dragged it upwards. It struck at her but she retracted her claws and dropped it onto the front of the phalanx, which collapsed.
‘Go through, Nish!’ cried Aimee.
Only Aimee and Clech remained, and the lyrinx, but Nish hesitated, watching the phalanx.
‘I’m leading this force,’ he said. ‘I’m not leaving anyone behind.’
The phalanx swiftly reformed and, as Liett flapped away, clearly exhausted, the red-eyed atatusk pointed its mace at her. Her wings collapsed; she fell onto the track ten spans in front of them, hit hard and struggled to get up.
‘Liett!’ Ryll roared, and ran towards her, swinging the heavy javelard spear in both hands.
‘Haaiii!’ barked the red-eyed atatusk, and they all surged forwards.
‘We can’t hold it open,’ someone shouted through the hole, which was narrowing of its own accord.
‘You’ll have to,’ snapped Nish, as the lyrinx and atatusk clashed furiously. Ryll was standing over Liett, whose purple blood had puddled on the track. Green atatusk blood began to mix with it.
‘Go, Aimee,’ said Nish, and raised his useless sword.
‘Hey, what about that pink crystal Yulla gave you?’ said Aimee.
He’d forgotten all about it. He dredged it out of his pocket, half embedded in the screwed-up dimensionless box. ‘I’m not sure how –’
Aimee shook her head at his stupidity, then poured the last of the pink fire over the realgar crystal. Fire spilled down towards his hand; Nish hastily tossed the crystal, now trailing white smoke, over the heads of the lyrinx, at the closest atatusk. It bounced off one of its tusks and landed behind Ryll and Liett.
The atatusk doubled over, coughing white smoke out of its mouth and nostrils, then took a tentative step forwards, but fire enveloped the crystal and white fumes belched up from it to hang in the air above the track, then slowly spread across it, enveloping Liett, and Ryll up to his knees. The other atatusk checked, but came on more slowly.
Ryll bent and lifted Liett, though before he could get back to safety with her, the leading atatusk thrust and caught her in the belly with the points of the spear. She convulsed and went limp.
Nish froze. ‘Liett?’ he said softly. Was she dead?
Ryll laid her down then, moving faster than the eye could see, tore the spear from the atatusk’s grip and drove it through its open mouth and out the back of its head. He wrenched it out, leapt at the enemy like a berserker and, swinging the spear back and forwards like a club, knocked down the creatures behind it, then hurled it at the next row.
Turning his back contemptuously, he lifted Liett and walked into the white fumes with her, one hand pressed against the spear wounds in her belly. As he emerged, the lyrinx separated to let them through, then bowed as they passed, for Liett was a great favourite as well as their brave and noble Matriarch. Her hand moved, her eyes fluttered; she was alive, but grievously injured.
Nish glanced over his shoulder. Aimee was standing by with the flask, for she would have to go through last and seal the hole. Or would she? Clech was struggling to hold the gap open – the breach, yearning to repair itself, was pulling closed and sealing.
‘Lyrinx, come through!’ Nish shouted.
Before they could follow Ryll to the hole, the phalanx pushed into the cloud to attack. Nish held his breath; would the fumes do their job?
The leading atatusk broke through the clinging white fumes. The crystal had failed. But then an unseen atatusk let out a deep, shivering squeal and suddenly the rest were choking and dropping their weapons and shields as they scrambled backwards to safety.
A wisp of white fume coiled Nish’s way and he caught an overpowering smell of garlic, followed by an acrid pungency that stung his nose and eyes.
‘Keep away from the smoke!’ a lyrinx shouted.
Nish ran back to Ryll. Liett’s soft skin had gone transparent, her bent wings had lost all colour and blood was still running from her leg and belly. Ryll had his hand on her belly and was speaking words of mancery, presumably a wound-sealing spell, but it did not seem to be working. She was pale as snow and her lips were blue.
Nish went with them to the barrier. It was taking all Clech’s strength to hold the opening, and he was straining upwards with all the power of his legs to stop it from sealing itself.
‘Go through, Aimee!’ he choked. ‘I can’t hold it.’
‘Not without you,’ she said, unmoving.
There was no way out for him, or the lyrinx, for as soon as he let go, the gap would snap closed. Now, beyond the fumes, the atatusk from the rear of the phalanx were tramping over their fallen fellows, advancing with spears held low and sweeping them from side to side across the track. Once they knocked the crystal into the void the poisonous fumes would thin and there would be nothing to stop them. And the atatusk on the other paths were only a minute away.
‘Go!’ cried Clech to Aimee. ‘You too, Nish.’
Tears flashed in her eyes and she headed towards the opening. Ryll followed, bearing Liett, but there was no way he could squeeze through the hole before it closed.
The smoking crystal was knocked over the side and the atatusk moved gingerly into the fumes, holding their breath. Their spear tips appeared through the fumes. It was all over.
Only then did Nish think of the black glove and know that it was time for the most desperate of measures. He shook it out of the dimensionless box, carefully slid the fingers of his left hand inside, then took up his sword with the right.
‘Pull the hole open as far as you can,’ he said. ‘I’ll hold them off.’
It was, undoubtedly, the most reckless of the many reckless things he had ever done, but Nish felt no fear this time. The enemy had to be held back and he was the only one who could do it – if it could be done at all.
As two lyrinx took hold of the hole and heaved it open a little further, Nish headed for the phalanx, gloved fist clenched at his side and sword up. An atatusk leapt for him, swinging a club. He parried it with his sword then thought, here goes.
Springing forwards, he swung, opening his hand so the dimensionless glove’s surface was flat. He couldn’t reach as high as the atatusk’s head; instead he slapped it open-handed in the groin.
The very dimensions gave forth a shrill wailing as they collapsed on contact. The atatusk screamed, dropped the club and tried to clutch at its concealed organs, but they were drawn out of its body into the surface of the dimensionless glove, progressively flattening into a gory sheet, a skein of dripping threads, then disappearing completely.
Then the creature’s groin followed, and the belly and thighs were pulled after. As its chest was drawn down the atatusk let out a despairing bark and tried to pull itself out, but nothing could prevail over the dimensionless glove. Within seconds the atatusk had been sucked inside it and disassembled as though it had never existed.
The glove swung from Nish’s hand, hot and heavy now, and he could feel it yearning towards his thigh as though the urge to consume him was irresistible. He hastily jerked it away and pointed it towards the remaining atatusk, who had frozen, staring at it.
They were brave creatures and did not fear death, but the uncanny dissolution of their comrade had unnerved them. T
he other phalanxes had kept coming, though. They were too far away to have seen.
A second atatusk stepped forwards, a giant at least two and-a-half spans tall, hefting a double-edged war axe. He was watching Nish carefully, sniffing the air all the while. Suddenly he swung, so fast that Nish could barely see the axe head. Unable to raise the sword in time, he flung his gloved hand into the path of the blade.
It struck the glove with a shocking impact, and Nish expected it to shear right through his hand, but with a shrill shriek the axe’s dimensions were stripped from it and it vanished. The giant, who had not let go in time, was drawn in after it.
The glove was far heavier now, and so hot that it was glowing, though Nish’s hand was barely warm. All the atatusk stood frozen, staring at it.
From the corner of his eye he saw a lyrinx run to the javelard, smash one of its timber uprights with his fist and bound back to the opening with it. He jammed the jagged end into the floor and forced the smooth end into the gap. The top of the gap snapped down, but the prop held and the remaining lyrinx began to squeeze through.
The other paths were almost close enough to join with the main track, and a troop of atatusk stood at the front of each path, making ready to leap the gap and seize the prize and the glory for themselves.
‘Together!’ said the leading atatusk on the track, and the front rank of its troop went for Nish.
Nish hurled the dimensionless glove at the leader’s smooth grey belly and ran without waiting to see what happened. Slap! The dimensionless glove wailed again as it did its work and grew brighter; Nish could feel its smouldering heat behind him.
‘Well done, everyone,’ he gasped, and scrambled through the opening onto the rope, taking a firm grip of a loop.
Clech was hanging from another loop on the other side of the rope, waiting anxiously. The last lyrinx followed, and everyone moved down the loops, one after another. Only Aimee was outside now.
The five paths joined into one broad track; fifty atatusk ran at them. Aimee scrambled through, one-handed, holding the unstoppered flask ready to seal the gap, but slipped and nearly fell.