Vengeance ttr-1

by Ian Irvine

  The girl had been nattering about her accomplishments for ages. ‘I’m sure you’re really good.’

  ‘I know how to massage achin’ muscles,’ Rannilt said shrilly. ‘I’m really quiet, too. You hardly know I’m there.’

  A pointed suggestion was on the tip of Tali’s tongue when she realised what was behind it. She stopped abruptly.

  ‘Is somethin’ the matter?’ Rannilt cried, and began to bite a bloody knuckle.

  ‘Rannilt, I can’t be your mother. But I’m not going to turn you away either.’

  ‘You’re not?’ cried the girl, throwing her arms around Tali and bursting into tears.

  ‘Of course not. We’re going to stay together. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’

  ‘And I’m goin’ to look after you.’

  Rannilt looked up, eyes shining and nostrils running rivers. She burrowed her face into Tali’s chest, inadvertently wiping her nose on the silk gown, then went skipping off.

  Tali looked down at the claggy smears and sighed. How was she supposed to look after the child when she didn’t know how to look after herself? She looked up and the sky overturned. She wrenched on the hat brim.

  ‘I wish the sun would go down.’ Sunset had better take the phobia with it.

  ‘I don’t.’ Rannilt shuddered.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Things live in the dark. Things come out of the dark.’

  ‘Nonsense, child. That’s just an irrational — ’ Tali broke off. They weren’t so different — they just feared different things. ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘I can feel somethin’ bad. Really bad, waitin’ for the dark.’

  It didn’t help Tali’s own frame of mind. ‘I’m sure we’ll find Tobry and Rix before then.’

  Several weary minutes passed. ‘Why do you keep doin’ that?’ said Rannilt.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tracin’ your slave mark.’

  Tali had not realised that she was doing it. ‘When I’ve got a problem, sometimes it seems to help …’ Should she tell Rannilt? It would be wrong to shield her. ‘I keep hearing an angry note in my head and I’m worried the enemy are using it to track me. I don’t think they’re far behind.’

  She glanced over her shoulder. If the Cythonians were closing in, they were concealed by the mirages that shimmered and danced in every direction.

  ‘Why don’t you block it?’ said Rannilt. ‘That’s how I hide from the mean girls.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I make their eyesight go foggy so they can’t see me.’

  ‘And that works?’

  ‘Sometimes. But it’d be different for you.’ Rannilt took Tali’s arm, staring at the slave mark, then traced the central part with a dirty finger. ‘Why don’t you close it?’

  ‘Close what?’ Tali said irritably, for her feet and back and head hurt and she was very afraid.

  ‘This, in the centre.’ Rannilt was looking anxious again. ‘See this bit here, it’s like an open shell, and if you close it the note can’t get out. Then they won’t be able to find you …’ She bit her lip.

  Tali realised that she was frowning. It sounded like nonsense. She inspected the central part of her slave mark and supposed that the pair of touching semicircles there did resemble a shell open at its hinge.

  ‘How am I supposed to close it?’ She felt obtuse.

  ‘In yer mind. It helps if you close yer eyes.’

  Tali did so and tried to visualise her slave mark. Though she could have drawn it from memory, creating a visible image in her inner eye proved more difficult than she had imagined. Ah, there it was.

  As she focused on the shell, she heard the angry note again. ‘Can you see anyone coming, Rannilt?’

  ‘No. Take hold of the shell,’ Rannilt said, sounding deliberately calm. ‘Push it closed.’

  As Tali mentally grasped the two sides of the shell the angry note cut off, to be replaced by a higher one, faint and rarefied as though it came from far away. As though, she thought, her angry note was a call, and this note was an answer. She pushed on the two sides of the shell, forced them shut and the distant note was gone, and so were the swirling patterns and the coloured lights. Her head spun; she staggered and grabbed blindly at the girl.

  ‘Tali?’ Rannilt cried.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve been wading through fog for days and suddenly I’m free. Thank you.’

  The relief was so great that Tali felt weak in the knees. She had not felt her normal self since the night she had come of age, when she had woken feeling as though a stone heart was grinding against her skull.

  They trudged on and the sun went down. Tali looked up at the sky and it did not rock.

  ‘It’s waitin’ in the dark,’ whispered Rannilt. ‘Waitin’, waitin’.’

  Instinctively, Tali checked behind her. ‘Now you’ve got me worried.’

  The light faded and the temperature dropped sharply. She pulled her robes around her and was gazing at the dark sky and the jewel-like points of stars, the first she had ever seen, when Rannilt stopped, moaning deep in her throat. Tali caught her thin wrist, afraid the girl was lapsing back into the enraptured state where her magery had burst out in those golden rays.

  But Rannilt’s eyes were fixed on a hollow fifty yards ahead, from which at least a dozen of the enemy were rising, including a stumbling giant with a little head. Somehow, incredibly, despite the hole through his head, Tinyhead had led them to her.

  ‘Run!’ Tali said softly. ‘Run, Rannilt, and don’t look back.’

  ‘I’m not leavin’ you.’ Rannilt’s teeth were chattering.

  ‘Find Rix and Tobry. Get help, go!’

  Rannilt bolted. Tali broke into the fastest hobble she could manage, but she had not gone ten yards when a whirling missile went zivva-zivva-zivva past her left ear, struck a small salt mound not far ahead and went off, flinging scorching white crystals everywhere.

  Salt shards stung her cheeks. A spinning chunk the size of a fist struck her in the belly hard enough to double her over, then the dust was stinging her eyes and they were watering so badly that she could not see. Tali choked on air laden with salt dust, so much salt in her nose and mouth and throat that she began to retch and could not stop.

  She was lurching around, knowing she was lost, when a chuck-lash wrapped around her bottom and went off in a series of cracks that drove her to her knees. The pain was excruciating. As she was clawing at the crusted ground, a heavy boot drove into her side, knocking her down.

  ‘Got you,’ said Orlyk, tight with glee, and kept kicking.

  CHAPTER 39

  ‘You’re a piece of work, you really are,’ said Tobry when he finally caught up to Rix, miles from the oasis.

  Dark was settling shroud-like over the Seethings, though the way ahead was lit by wisps of marsh light and uncanny yellow glows from several of the lifeless pools.

  Leather’s flanks were crusted with dried foam. Rix had dismounted and was leading her along a burnt-black isthmus meandering between a series of steaming ponds. The ground here was so hard that the horses’ hooves clicked with each step. The air had an alkaline tang and left a slippery, soapy taste in the mouth.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ The anger had passed and he felt a sick emptiness now. He had behaved shamefully, but … how dare a Pale speak to him that way?

  ‘I do. Tali said — ’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it.’ Rix glared at his friend. ‘You fancy her. That’s why you’re taking her side.’

  Tobry tried to smile but it wasn’t convincing. ‘You know me — I never get attached. And Tali said something rather interesting — ’

  ‘Whatever she said, I don’t believe it.’

  Tobry’s jaw was clenched and so was his fist. ‘She said that the Pale spring from noble children, a hundred and forty-four of them, given by Hightspall as hostages to Cython a thousand years ago. And never ransomed.’

  Rix kicked a stone into the pool to his right. It sank below the surface wi
th a viscous gloop, as though it had plopped into a vat of glycerine. ‘You must like the wench. I’ve never seen you get so worked up about anything.’

  Tobry ground his teeth and continued. ‘She said the Pale are enslaved, and beaten for the smallest infringement. She said her best friend was beheaded yesterday because she used magery to save herself from a flogging.’

  ‘She’s lying,’ Rix said half-heartedly, for he knew how hard it was to lie to Tobry. He could read people the way anyone else might read a map. Rix stared ahead, refusing to meet his friend’s eyes.

  ‘Tali said magery is forbidden in Cython.’

  ‘We know that.’

  ‘Will you listen!’ roared Tobry. ‘They kill every slave who shows a gift for it — even children. They were going to kill that little urchin hiding behind the tussocks — ’

  Rix swung around. ‘WHAT?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘They kill children, because they have the gift?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  Rix did not want to believe it, yet Tobry could sniff out a half-truth a mile away. ‘Can the Pale really spring from child hostages?’

  ‘Never ransomed, Tali said. Hightspall’s noblest children, abandoned to the enemy. She was furious about it.’

  ‘Why haven’t we heard about it before? Everyone knows the Pale are traitors. All the history books say so.’

  ‘How would you know?’ said Tobry. ‘You’ve never read a schoolbook in your life.’

  Rix scowled. ‘Who has time for that rubbish?’

  ‘You saw the bruises on Tali, and the little girl was covered in them. Does that sound like they serve willingly?’

  ‘All right, I believe you,’ Rix snarled. If Tali was telling the truth, it made his behaviour even more inexcusable. ‘How did they escape from Cython?’

  ‘A question the chancellor will certainly be asking, once he hears.’ Tobry came up close. ‘Listen! Tali said they’re going to war in ten days.’

  At last! Rix thought. ‘Then we’d better ride home like a hurricane.’ He took hold of the saddle horn.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’ Rix snapped. If there was to be a war, his life would mean something at last.

  ‘The Caulderon road can’t be far ahead. We can send warnings with the first riders we meet — they’ll be a lot faster than our worn-out horses. Then we’re going back.’

  Rix prepared to swing into the saddle. ‘There isn’t time.’

  Tobry’s fingers dug into Rix’s shoulder, holding him back. ‘You’ve acted dishonourably to a woman and abandoned a child in danger. You can’t run away.’

  ‘I’m not running away,’ said Rix, all the more irritated with Tobry for pointing out the uncomfortable truth. Rix had offered Tali help, then insulted her and fled. His cheeks burnt. ‘All right! But if they’re not at the oasis, I’m not searching the Seethings for them. My house is in danger. My country.’

  They had just reached the Caulderon road, a broad, well-built thoroughfare paved with slabs of white sandstone, when a crimson fireball erupted many miles to their right, bursting and billowing upwards in silence.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ said Rix. ‘Was it an eruption?’ Though it wasn’t in the right place. The Vomits were west of here, not east.

  Small white flashes twinkled around the base of the fireball, and shortly flames lit up the rising cloud. Uncanny flames, not orange or red, but a lurid, unnatural crimson.

  ‘I’ve never seen any fire like that before,’ Tobry said slowly.

  The ground quivered and thunder rumbled, though not normal thunder. It had a brittle, crackling quality.

  ‘New volcanoes sometimes appear from nowhere.’

  ‘It’s not a volcano.’ Tobry consulted his map by a glimmer of mage light. ‘Close to Gullihoe, I’d say.’

  ‘Then what is it?’ The answer was obvious but Rix did not want to jinx them by putting it into words. He looked up and down the road but saw no lights, no travellers. ‘We’d better find out.’

  As they rode across undulating country, the dry grass swishing around the horses’ fetlocks, more fireballs appeared behind them. Two were towards the south coast of the lake on the far side of the Seethings, three others in the direction of Caulderon. Rix wheeled Leather about and drew his sword.

  ‘It’s war! Come on.’

  Tobry caught the reins. ‘They’ll be long gone by the time we can reach Caulderon.’

  ‘What if they’re not? What if they’re in the city?’ Was this what his nightmares meant? Were they blasting the palace walls right now, butchering his helpless people and murdering children they suspected of having the gift?

  ‘Caulderon isn’t that unprepared. We can’t do anything for them, but we may be able to help Gullihoe.’

  Rix strained forwards. ‘I’ve got to fight.’

  ‘We could learn vital intelligence in Gullihoe.’ Rix did not reply. ‘Besides,’ Tobry added, ‘the enemy might still be there. You could put that sword to good use.’

  It was well after ten o’clock when they crested a gravel-topped hill and looked down on the smoke-wreathed ruins of the stone town. The central arch of the thousand-year-old bridge across the river had fallen. The granaries, warehouses and barges along the shore were ablaze, and hundreds of cottages, and the mayoral mansion lay in ruins.

  ‘What can have done this?’ said Rix. He sniffed the smoky air. ‘That’s not blasting powder.’

  ‘Something far stronger,’ Tobry said quietly. ‘I don’t like this, Rix.’

  They rode down, keeping to the shadows, though it soon became evident that the attackers had gone. Dead lay everywhere in the main street, women, children and men, yet few bore any sign of injury.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Rix, more unnerved than he would have been by a battlefield full of dead. ‘How can the enemy kill without leaving a trace?’

  He crouched beside an elegantly dressed old woman who lay in the middle of the street as if she had fallen asleep. A red wig lay beside her; her own hair was white, wispy and scant. The only sign of trauma was a dribble of blood from her ears. The child beside her had a bloody nose and red eyes, but no bruises or evident wounds.

  ‘I’m not seeing any enemy dead,’ said Tobry, who was walking down the middle of the street, sword in hand. ‘Nor any spears, arrows or other abandoned weapons. Nothing to indicate a fight.’

  Rix checked another group of bodies: a stout woman with grey hair, dressed like a nurse, and two little boys in nightgowns, all dead without a mark on them. Rix felt a sharp pain in the centre of his chest, as though they had been his own sons.

  Tobry emerged from the doorway of a substantial home. ‘There’s been no looting either.’

  ‘What kind of enemy doesn’t loot afterwards?’

  A long pause, then Tobry said, ‘One that values nothing of ours. Or expects to soon have it all.’

  ‘I don’t like that kind of talk.’

  Someone groaned, not far away. He swung down and made his way towards a half-naked figure convulsing in the shadow cast by a broken wall, a short, balding man with skinny little legs and a massive belly.

  ‘Stop!’ Tobry said urgently.

  Rix froze, blade out, eyes searching the shadows. Tobry conjured a tiny light from his fingertips and came up beside him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Rix.

  The light touched on the man’s bare back and side, where the skin was embedded with dozens of small spines like red pins.

  ‘Looks like he’s backed into a needlebush,’ Rix added.

  The man made a clotted sound in his throat. His watering eyes were blank — he did not appear to have seen them. Rix was bending over when Tobry drove a shoulder into him, knocking him out of the way.

  ‘Don’t touch anything!’

  Rix took another look at the man, whose skin was red and raised around each of the spines. Purple nodules were swelling visibly as though a handful of bean seeds were embedded under the skin
. He felt his hackles rising.

  ‘Those aren’t needlebush spines,’ said Tobry.

  ‘What are they?’

  The man kicked with a bare foot, rolled onto his back, screamed and wrenched himself onto his side again, thrashing and keening. His nails tore at one of the nodules, which burst, discharging red-black pus with a foul smell. Rix leapt backwards.

  Tobry passed his elbrot over the man and subvocalised several words. A blurred shadow appeared around him, kicking and squirming, then came into focus. It lurched up from the ground, reeled about and staggered backwards down the street. His shirt rose from the ground, fitted itself to him. He began to scratch and claw at himself as the sky rained millions of tiny streaks. Rix made out a thin squeal, the lost echo of the man’s first cry, perhaps, and the shadow faded into the night.

  Tobry crouched and sniffed. ‘A new kind of pox, not one I’ve seen before, and it came from that rain of needles fired into Gullihoe by the enemy. Back away, Rix. You can’t do anything for him.’

  Rix’s stomach heaved at the sight and the smell. ‘There’s no hope?’

  ‘He’s going to die most unpleasantly.’

  ‘I’ll put him out of his misery, then.’

  ‘At the cost of your own life?’

  ‘Tobe?’ said Rix.

  ‘The pestilence may be contagious.’

  ‘What pox is it?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘But … this is against all the rules of war. What scum would do this?’

  ‘The Five Heroes did it to the enemy two thousand years ago. I dare say that’s where they got the idea.’

  Rix felt blood bloom in his cheeks. ‘This isn’t the time to undermine morale.’

  ‘It’s in the Axilead. Axil Grandys boasted that he collected plague corpses and catapulted them over the enemy’s walls.’

  Rix put his hands over his ears. ‘Don’t tell me any more. Leave me some illusions.’

  As they moved on, the man began to thrash and squeal. Rix quickened his pace, but down the street they saw more infected people, many more.

  ‘None of the dead are armed,’ said Rix. ‘They were taken by surprise. I can’t believe that the enemy would attack without declaring war.’