The Fatal Gate

by Ian Irvine

  He could not see the shadowy Crimson Gate and thought no more about it. Sulien was ahead of him, though he had no idea how she had got there. He was incapable of thought. His entire being was reduced to the dying woman in his arms and a loss that would be unendurable, that would break him. Sulien was standing with her hands up around her mouth, and Llian realised that the whole camp had gone silent.

  “Tallia!” Sulien shrieked, her high voice echoing across and back between the walls of the camp. “Mummy’s dying.”

  Llian saw Merdrun running along the northern wall in their direction. He headed down. Sulien repeated her cry three more times, then came after him.

  “What did you do to the triplets?” he said.

  “When I got there, I tried to sever the bond that binds them together and makes them magiz, but it didn’t work … so I did the opposite. I flooded them with each other’s feelings, and because they’re all so different and horrible, they couldn’t cope.”

  “And when I chopped up the blood torus?”

  “It did sever the bond, and that was even worse. It drove them mad … or madder.” She looked at Karan’s blanched face. “Is Mummy going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know.” Llian stopped to adjust her position in his arms, then awkwardly hugged Sulien to him. “I think—we’d better prepare for the worst.”

  “I’m never giving up on Mummy,” said Sulien. She shouted, “Tallia!” again and again.

  There was no fighting against the western wall now. Battle had resumed on the eastern side with renewed fury; how long until the last of the allied troops, and Wilm’s Gwinians, were dead? It was hopeless. It had always been hopeless.

  As they reached the floor of the camp, Tallia came running, her eyes shining with some emotion Llian could not begin to imagine. He felt only despair. He stood there numbly, holding Karan in his arms, while Sulien told Tallia what had happened.

  Tallia put her hands on Karan’s swollen belly and worked a lengthy healing charm. When Tallia finished she crouched head-down, gasping. Then she checked Karan’s pulse and eyes, and felt her forehead, frowning.

  “Mummy’s going to be all right, isn’t she?” said Sulien.

  “She needs a far better healer than I am,” Tallia said grimly. She rubbed her forehead, smearing it with Karan’s blood. “Take her down there.” She pointed to a pair of walled cisterns. “An injured man, Zanser, is hidden between those two cisterns. He’s a master healer from Crandor, and they’re the best in the world. If anyone can save her …”

  “You’ve got to come too,” said Sulien. “Mummy needs you.”

  “I have to make sure of the triplets.”

  Llian carried Karan down to the cisterns at the upper side of the smoking storerooms and cookhouse. Sulien went with him, then ran ahead into the dark gap between the cisterns.

  “Careful,” said Llian, nearly choking with despair. “There could be Merdrun anywhere round here.”

  “Master Zanser?” she called. “Master Zanser?”

  Llian did not hear any reply, but Sulien darted forward. “It’s Mummy,” she said. “The evil triplets stabbed her in the stomach and she’s dying. Can you help her?” She raced out. “Daddy, in here!”

  He carried Karan in. Zanser was just a shadow among shadows.

  “Lay her down here,” he said in a lilting Crandorian accent. “Injured leg. I can’t get up.” Llian did so.

  “I can make light with my fingers,” said Sulien.

  “Can you really? A very small light would be welcome,” said Zanser. “Block the gap,” he said to Llian. “No one else must see the light.”

  Sulien conjured a warm yellowish glow from a fingertip and held it over Karan’s face. Zanser checked her pupils and her pulse, then said, “Lower down.”

  In the light from Sulien’s fingertip he probed Karan’s swollen belly, identified the small slit the knife had made, then felt all around her middle. “With a wound there she should be dead,” he said, “but she clings to life. It’s almost inexplicable.”

  “Mummy’s a triune,” said Sulien. “And so am I. We have Aachim blood, and a little Faellem blood too.”

  “A triune!” Zanser whistled between his teeth. “That might explain it. The internal organs of the other human species are arranged differently. And their constitutions are stronger.”

  He put both hands on Karan’s belly and closed his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” said Sulien curiously.

  “Sensing out the damage so I can work out how best to heal it. It’s a delicate business that can easily go wrong.”

  “But Mummy will be all right, won’t she?”

  “I hope so. But sometimes—if too much blood has been lost … Put out the light and hush now. I’ve got to concentrate.”

  It did not feel secure here, with the battle less than a mile away. The Merdrun would never give up; they could be hunting Sulien even now. Llian walked twenty yards to a small rise. Nothing felt real; nothing made sense any more.

  Up at the cave, thick white smoke had reduced the metal-fuelled fire to a dull bluish glow. Could the triplets be dead? He dared not think so.

  Crack-crack-crash! The glow went out. Chills spiralled down his back. What if they had recovered and were on their way down?

  There came another great roar from the battlefield, as if from hundreds of throats, then the fighting stopped. The Merdrun must have finished the job, and he saw that the reserves on the north-eastern hill were gone. Were they after Sulien too?

  He ran into the gap between the cisterns. “Is Karan …?”

  “No better,” said Zanser. “But no worse.”

  “The battle’s over, and I think we’ve lost. Sulien, can you …?”

  “I linked to Malien,” said Sulien. “She’s trying to reopen the gate.”

  “At the same place?” said Llian.

  “It’s easier there.”

  He had little hope that they could reach the gate before the enemy found them, but he had to go on. “We’d better get down there. Will Karan be all right if I carry her?”

  “I hope so,” said Zanser sombrely.

  Llian lifted Karan in his arms. She moaned and her hand rose and caught his shirtfront, but fell back. She did not have the strength to hold it.

  Zanser forced himself to his feet, shuddering with the pain.

  “You can lean on me,” said Sulien.

  He put a hand on her small shoulder and took a hobbling step. Llian headed south, bypassing the officers’ and acolytes’ tents. Before they had gone far, Tallia came running.

  “Couldn’t get inside the cave,” she panted. “Full of poisonous fumes. But I brought the roof down. If the triplets were still inside, they’re dead.”

  “If,” said Llian.

  68

  YOU INSOLENT LITTLE PUP!

  The great red-tinged shadow gate loomed over the camp, a threat Wilm could do nothing about, though neither could he dismiss it from mind. All he could do was fight on. He hacked his opponent down and staggered forward, gasping. He was desperately sick of the killing and the dying.

  The ground was clear for twenty yards ahead so he stopped to survey the battlefield. It must have been four in the morning. Most of the wall bonfires had burned out and it was impossible to know the true state of the battle, though he thought the enemy had lost seven hundred dead or badly wounded. The allied casualties were more than twice that number, including almost all their officers, and at least half of the four thousand Gwinians were dead. An unknown number had fled and he could not blame them.

  Given that the enemy had vast reserves there was no hope of victory, but no point in surrendering either—the Merdrun either tortured their prisoners to death or killed them out of hand. Before he died, Wilm hope to take down the master, the superhuman and invincible Gergrig. But not by himself; he wasn’t that much of a fool.

  Wilm had discussed his plan with his three most experienced fighters, men who had fought in battles far from Gwine. They wer
e ready to go for Gergrig as soon as Wilm gave the signal, along with another nine Gwinians who would surround Gergrig and prevent any other Merdrun coming to his aid.

  And there he was, only forty yards away, his domed, shaven head reflecting the light from a dying bonfire on the eastern wall. His right arm, his killing arm, was red all the way to the shoulder. He ran after a staggering Gwinian and slew him with a thrust to the back, then cut down a second man with a sideways slash. He was a tireless killing machine, dealing death as if it was the only pleasure in his life. He had to be stopped.

  “Are we ready?” said Wilm, raising the black sword.

  “Sooner die on my feet than chained to one of that bastard’s flogging racks,” said Yuun, a slim Gwinian who looked no older than Wilm but was almost as good with a sword.

  “Then we rush him,” said Wilm. “Now!”

  He ran, and the twelve went with him, angling across the slope of the hill to cut Gergrig off in a small depression around a cluster of boulders where, with a lot of luck, they might be able to finish him off before anyone realised he was under attack.

  Wilm’s long legs took him out ahead of the others—or perhaps they, having seen the fate of many of their fellow Gwinians, hung back. In any event he reached Gergrig a good ten yards ahead of his companions. He hurled himself at the Merdrun, who was staring up at the northern hill, where bright white light glowed in a cave.

  Gergrig whirled and produced a flurry of blows, cutting Wilm shallowly across the chest and then piercing him under the left arm. Wilm threw himself back, each breath tearing at his throat, and his legs suddenly feeling weak. The legs are always the first to go.

  Panic almost overwhelmed him, for the three-second exchange had shown him that he was utterly outmatched; only the enchantments of the black sword had kept him alive. Gergrig wasn’t just brilliant, he was superlative, head and shoulders above every other Merdrun Wilm had seen on the battlefield this night.

  But there was more to it. The other Merdrun were slower than Wilm had expected, given what he’d heard of their prowess on Cinnabar. There they had seemed superhuman; here they fought like experienced but normal fighters.

  Not Gergrig though. He was a big man, but so light on his feet that at times he appeared to be floating, and so quick that he could parry any stroke, no matter how unexpected. He was being protected by mancery, and he was being strengthened by it too. The triplets’ mancery, surely.

  He had not come after Wilm; he was standing with his sword raised, alternately watching the slowly advancing Gwinians, the steadily brightening shadow of the Crimson Gate, and the glowing cave on the hill.

  Wilm groped in a pocket for Aviel’s scent potion, desperately needing the strength and self-confidence it could give him, but pricked his fingers on shards of glass. Sometime during the dozens of battles he’d fought tonight the phial had been broken and the contents were gone. He sniffed his fingers but smelled only blood and mud, an unhappy omen.

  But he had to fight and he had to win. “Come on!” he roared.

  The other Gwinians charged with him but Gergrig sprang away and set his back against the tallest boulder, which was higher than his head and slightly concave. No one could get behind him, or come at him from the sides without interfering with Wilm’s blows.

  He went at Gergrig again, and again failed to land a single blow, though with his third thrust Wilm’s sword tip almost touched Gergrig’s windpipe. Gergrig struck back, a thrust that passed through Wilm’s guard and snapped a rib halfway down his left side. The pain was awful but he had to ignore it. He attacked again and again, and his seventh stroke cut Gergrig across the back of his right hand. It was no more than a scratch, yet Gergrig looked down at it in astonishment.

  “You touched me,” he breathed. “You actually touched me.”

  Again he glanced at the shadow gate, and then at the northern hill. Something had definitely changed: he seemed less in control than before.

  Wilm struck again and cut an inch-long slice from the side of Gergrig’s right ear.

  He slapped a hand to his ear, stared at the blood and then at Wilm, and his eyes narrowed. “You don’t have the skill to touch me. It’s the damnable sword!”

  “You don’t have the skill either, old man,” Wilm sneered. “The moment the triplets stop channelling power to you, you die!”

  “Not at your hands, you insolent little pup!”

  Gergrig lunged, faster than before, and Wilm would have been impaled had the black sword not jerked back, the hilt slamming into his chest so hard that he was hurled six feet backwards into the mud.

  Gergrig started to advance from his niche, but the twelve Gwinians stood resolute, their weapons out, while Wilm climbed to his feet, his chest aching. Gergrig smiled grimly. “One at a time then.”

  He now fought harder and faster than ever. Wilm’s broken rib and gashed side were so painful that it was a struggle to fight on, and his knees were shaking. He had not had a decent meal since the gate brought him to Gwine five weeks ago and he was rapidly burning what little energy he had left. He could not win.

  Gergrig struck a series of blows which the sword just managed to parry. He wasn’t attacking Wilm any more; he was targeting the black blade. He struck a mighty blow, and the black sword flew from Wilm’s sweaty hand and landed in the mud a couple of yards away.

  He staggered and fell to one knee, unable to get up. Gergrig raised his sword for a blow that would take Wilm’s head off. But then he gasped as if he’d been kicked in the belly and froze in mid-stroke, shooting a desperate glance towards the northern hill.

  White smoke was belching from the glowing cave. Then, with a colossal, rolling BOOM, the outline of the Crimson Gate vanished. Something had gone wrong for Gergrig and Wilm knew this was his last chance.

  He dived for his sword, rolled over and came up with it in his hand, barely avoiding a blow that buried the blade of Gergrig’s weapon a foot in the soft ground. Gergrig wrenched it out, but before he could strike again Wilm’s upthrust struck his breastbone and went in for a good half-inch. Gergrig reeled back to his niche, shocked and shaken—an inch to either side and he would have been dead.

  He attacked again, but now he was no longer superhuman; he was just a normal Merdrun warrior, experienced and quick, but desperately tired after hours of fighting. He could be beaten.

  “Merdrun!” Gergrig bellowed. “To me, to me!”

  But he had moved out of the shelter of the boulder, and Wilm’s companions rushed him from all sides. Gergrig cut one down, then another, then a third, but Yuun drove his blade three inches into Gergrig’s upper thigh just below the hip bone. The blow roused Gergrig to greater fury and he killed two more Gwinians with blows that hinted at his earlier mastery. But only hinted.

  Another Gwinian had taken his boots off and was climbing the boulder. He reached the top and launched himself at Gergrig, landing with all his weight on his head and shoulders and driving him into the ground. Gergrig shook off the Gwinian and slew him with a slash to the neck, but as Gergrig rose, Wilm and the other Gwinians all attacked at once.

  “Merdrun!” Gergrig roared, desperately this time. “To me!”

  Crack-crack-crash! The roof of the glowing cave had fallen in. Gergrig reeled as if he’d been stabbed in the back.

  Fighting despairingly now, he killed another Gwinian then put his sword through the muscle of Wilm’s left upper arm. Wilm had to finish it before the Merdrun came to his rescue. He thrust again, and this time the black sword slipped between two ribs into the outer side of his right lung.

  Gergrig looked stunned, disbelieving. Had he believed he could never be defeated?

  Holding Wilm at bay with his sword, he put his free hand inside his shirt, jerked out a small red cube that might have been cut from the Crimson Gate, and pressed it to the glyph on his forehead. A wisp of smoke rose from it and Gergrig raised the cube to the sky, crying, “Merdrax! Merdrax?”

  Gergrig cocked his head as if listening, nodded then rapp
ed out orders in a harsh language Wilm did not know. Was he calling for help? Three Merdrun were racing across. Wilm had to finish him.

  He ran in and swung hard at Gergrig’s neck. Gergrig parried the blow absently, still giving orders. Wilm struck again and again, moving a little further to the right each time, but Gergrig parried every blow. He seemed desperate to convey his message, whatever it was.

  While he was distracted Yuun moved in from the left, spat on Gergrig’s boots and contemptuously glided the blade of his sword across Gergrig’s throat. It was not a deep wound but deep enough. Blood sprayed out.

  Gergrig tried to finish his message but could not. He turned to Yuun, his wide eyes conveying some private horror, then slowly crumpled. He hit the ground, one foot kicking and the breath bubbling in his severed windpipe, then his head flopped into the mud.

  “He’s dead,” said Wilm, then raised the black sword as high as he could and let out a ringing cry that no one could have failed to hear: “GERGRIG IS DEAD!”

  The three Merdrun turned and ran, but the Gwinians went after them and cut them down, and several others they came to.

  Silence fell. Absolute silence.

  Wilm looked around. Something had definitely changed: the mental pressure he had been under ever since the battle began had gone. The reserves on the wall had gone too. Were they coming down to attack? Despite the hot night and his exertions, he shivered.

  “We’ve beaten the bastards!” someone shouted in a Thurkad accent from further across the battlefield. “We’ve won!”

  Silence again.

  “We’ve won, you morons!” the same voice bellowed. “Let’s hear you say it.”

  “We’ve won!” roared a hundred throats, then more and more. “We’ve won, we’ve won, we’ve won!”

  “We can’t have won,” said Wilm. “They’ve got thousands of reserves.”

  “They’re running like the cowardly dogs they are,” said someone behind him.

  “Whatever the Merdrun are, they’re not cowards.”