by Ian Irvine
Orlyk was turning away when the phial smashed against her upper chest and the shaft of the arrow buried itself deep. She fell, alternately hurling her arms out and snapping them tight around her. The sinewy woman with the glass tube was snatching at something on her belt when the second arrow speared through her belly muscles from side to side. Her face twisted, but she hurled the object high and barbed sparks exploded upwards from it like a skyrocket — a call for help.
She was crumbling now, holding her belly, though she managed to skid an apple-sized object across the ground and thick, opaque smoke belched out. The third arrow skimmed Tinyhead’s forehead and Rix cursed. It would have killed anyone with a normal-sized head.
The rear guard was turning to run for the boulders when the fourth arrow skewered him in the buttocks, doubling him over like a rooster with a single tail feather and driving him to all-fours.
‘This isn’t good,’ said Tobry, leaping up in a scatter of gravel.
Only three hits, none of the five killed, and the two on the ground could not be seen through the low-hanging smoke.
‘Where’s Tali?’ Rix had lost sight of her. He ran.
The uninjured guard yanked the man with the tail arrow to his feet, shouting and waving a long knife. The injured man drew a curved knife and began to creep about, looking for Tali.
‘Tinyhead’s dragged her behind the boulders,’ choked Tobry, who was yards ahead. ‘Come on.’
Rix’s inner calm had vanished. Tinyhead could be knifing her right now. Compounding his problems, the troop at the other end of the isthmus was running. They had seen the signal. He lengthened his stride to pass Tobry and thundered down the rubble slope, bow in hand. Firing on the run from this distance would mean wasting his last arrow, but as soon as he was within range he would take Tinyhead down. Rix prayed that the man had not slain Tali already.
A gust cleared the smoke at the front of the line. Orlyk was still convulsing on the ground, almost tying her stocky body into knots. How long would she be disabled? It would depend how much hallucinogenic water had touched her, and she might recover suddenly. Rix prayed that the water had been carried deep into her bloodstream.
‘Can you see Tali?’ panted Tobry, now five yards behind.
Rix did not answer. He lacked the breath.
‘Watch out for woman — glass tube,’ yelled Tobry. ‘Think she’s a pothecky.’
Chills spiralled down Rix’s back. ‘A what?’
He could not make out Tobry’s reply. Rix sprang over a corrugated outcrop of orange rock. While in the air he saw Tinyhead struggling with Tali near the boulders, then the flash of sunlight, as if off a knife.
Rix could not shoot — he was as likely to hit her. The sinewy pothecky was standing now, heaving out the arrow. She was one tough woman. Blood was pouring from both sides of her belly and the pain must be extreme, but she thumbed something into the end of the glass tube and swung it around towards Tali. Rix knew it was intended to kill. He aimed his last arrow and fired on the run, but could his arrow reach his target before the pothecky blew her deadly dart?
The arrow thumped into her upper arm. She swayed, almost dropped the tube but caught it again and began to raise it. Could nothing take her down? She lowered it, looking around in puzzlement, then slumped to the ground.
Tali was out of sight behind the boulders. Rix leapt another rock and saw Tinyhead stagger out from the other side of the boulders, blood running from his nose and right cheek. He reached out towards the distant mountains, as if in supplication, then swung back towards Tali’s hiding place.
Rix could not stop him; he had no arrows left. He dropped the useless bow, wrenched out his sword and ran harder. Tali appeared from behind the boulders.
‘Take the guards,’ Rix yelled back to Tobry. ‘I’ll deal with Tinyhead.’
But he had vanished in dense smoke, and so had Tali. Rix pounded down to the track, skidding on gravel, bounding over rocks, his blood roaring in his ears and his teeth bared. With his speed and bulk he must be a frightening sight. He hoped so.
The uninjured guard was almost as tall, though slightly built, and armed with a short spear with a jagged tip. He braced himself and thrust it out towards Rix. It would be difficult to avoid but Rix did not falter. He hurtled towards the fellow and, as he moved the tip of the spear to track Rix, Rix sprang and swung hard.
The spear point was only inches from his belly when his blade sheared through the shaft and sent the severed half spinning. Something thumped against his chest. Rix doubled up his legs and kicked out, taking the guard under the chin and driving his head back so hard that his neck snapped. He tumbled backwards and did not move again.
Rix landed awkwardly and felt a sharp pain in his chest. The spear point was embedded there, half an inch deep. He twisted it out and swept his gaze around the battlefield. Orlyk was still down. The pothecky was swaying on her knees, trying to pull out the arrow in her shoulder.
Tali was backing this way around the boulders, retreating from Tinyhead. The last guard crept towards her, the feathered arrow in his buttocks wagging like a puppy’s tail. He raised his sword for a blow that would take Tali’s head off, and she did not know he was there.
‘Tali, behind you!’
Rix sent the half spear spinning at the man. The shaft cracked into the back of his head, though not hard enough to do any damage. Rix ran.
Tali turned late, saw the looming guard and let out a little cry. He took a swipe at her pale stomach, which showed though her torn garments. She gave a convulsive backwards heave and he missed by layers of skin. She threw something at his eyes, a handful of dust or grit, but the pitiful weapon had no effect.
The guard went for her again and Tali, trying to scramble away, stumbled. Rix could not reach her in time; he was still twenty yards away.
‘Hoy, you!’ he trumpeted, hoping to startle the man into turning, which would gain him a few seconds.
The guard was well trained. He half-turned, then swung back to kill Tali. Rix’s remaining option was pure recklessness but he did not hesitate. Relying on the lightning judgement of hand and eye, he swung his sword sideways and let it fly, willing it to go true. He had never thrown a sword before, for that was suicide on the battlefield. And the guard was very close to her.
Thunk! The blade went through the man’s backbone above the embedded arrow, and came out his chest. His legs collapsed and he fell at Tali’s feet.
Tali was staring at the corpse when Orlyk sat upright, blood pouring from the chest wound. She was swaying, white-faced and clearly not fully recovered from the hallucinogenic water, but she raised a small brass triangle in one hand and a knife in the other.
Rix tried to change direction but skidded on the gravel, aggravating the sore ankle he had twisted in the caverns. He snatched at the knife on his belt, knowing he could not draw and throw it in time.
Orlyk struck the triangle with her knife, ting, and Tali cried out as smoke wisped up from a bulbous ankle bracelet the enemy must have put on after they caught her. She bent, clawing at it in a panic, but could not get it off. Orlyk lurched towards her, blood running down her chest and her legs and arms moving in shuddering arcs, but every step was firmer than the one before. She was recovering far more quickly than Rix had.
The pothecky was still on her knees. She had broken off the arrow in her shoulder and now swung the glass tube in Tobry’s direction. It had to be some deadly chymical weapon, one neither of them could combat, and for the first time in a fight Rix didn’t know what to do — whether to try and save Tali, or his best friend.
He could not do both, and if he didn’t act fast they were both going to die. He flung his knife at the pothecky but she calmly wove aside. The glass tube was aimed at Tobry again, the pothecky put her lips to the end, and pfft!
Tobry bellowed and fell, creating a miniature landslide. From the corner of an eye Rix saw him carried down with it. A deeper pain sheared through him and for a second he lost concentration. No — betw
een Tobry and Tali there was no choice at all.
Rix was turning to run back when the glass tube fixed on his own chest. He felt no impact, though when he looked down a tiny, hollow-tipped dart was embedded beside his breastbone. In an instant his heart caught alight. He tried to knock the dart out but the blow squirted more of its chymical contents into him, belling out the skin all around.
His heartbeat accelerated to a gallop, spreading fiery pain in all directions. He could feel it rising up the arteries in his throat, burning like boiling acid, and when the blood reached his brain it was going to stew inside his skull.
He reached for the dart. At least, he tried to, but his arm did not move.
‘Tobe?’ he gasped, and was horrified to see steam gush from his own mouth. ‘Tobe?’
It felt as though he was boiling from the inside out. Rix managed to lurch around. Tobry lay on the rubble slope twenty yards away, unmoving. Dead?
As Rix soon would be. And, oddly, all he could think was how furious Lady Ricinus would be, and how badly he had let her down. He had failed his house, neglected to provide it with an heir, and when his father died House Ricinus would be no more.
He felt himself falling sideways and could do nothing about it. He hit the ground but felt no pain. His field of view tilted until the pothecky appeared to be standing out from the vertical face of a cliff. She advanced towards Rix, the broken arrow still quivering in her shoulder, thumbing another dart into the tube and aiming it at his right eye.
CHAPTER 49
Orlyk fell with an arrow in her chest, then Mijl was struck, and a third arrow whistled between Tali and Tinyhead. Before she could move, the tall guard spun her around and jerked her head back to expose her throat. Her hands were still bound and she could not help herself.
Whack! The guard’s knife spun past her ear — Tinyhead had kicked it out of his hand. Another kick to the groin dropped the man. Tinyhead grabbed Tali, raced for the boulders, dropped her on her feet, one giant paw crushing her shoulder, and peered around the side.
Tali doubled over, shuddering. It had been so close. But she had to get free. She rasped at her bonds with the brass pin that had pinned her father’s letter in place. She had been working on the ropes for an hour; and now the last strands tore through. She could not see the attackers through the claggy smoke. What if they thought she was Cythonian and shot her too?
A big man came charging towards her, running so fast down the rubbly slope that he was likely to break his neck. Tali caught her breath; it was Rix, carrying a bow, and behind him was Tobry, sword in hand. She had been wrong about them. They were risking their lives for her.
Mijl rose from the smoke, swinging the glass tube towards Tali. Mijl’s middle and thighs were blood-drenched and a broken arrow protruded from her belly muscles, yet her hand was steady. Tinyhead had not noticed and his grip prevented Tali from ducking out of sight.
Mijl took aim. Tali was staring at the round opening in the end of the tube, unable to move, when the pothecky let out a pained grunt. Another arrow had gone through her upper arm, pinning it to the side of her chest. She tried to raise the tube, then it wavered and she fell down through the smoke.
Tinyhead caught Tali up but this time she was ready. She slashed him across the forehead with the brass pin, beads of blood bursting from the deep scratch, then back across the nose and cheek. He was so shocked that he dropped her. She bounced on her bruised bottom, scrambled up and, as he lunged, she thrust out the pin to hold him off.
Tinyhead flicked blood out of his eyes and reached for her. With Nurse Bet’s lessons guiding her hand, Tali slashed and the pin tore through his fingertips. He took a backwards step, raising his arms skywards and silently beseeching his master. She pushed forwards. A chymical dart whirred past her cheek and struck him in the left shoulder. He plucked it out, stared at the fluid dripping from its hollow tip for several seconds, then crumbled.
Tali backed away, turned and cried out. Rix was flying through the air, straight towards one of the guard’s spears — he was going to impale himself through the chest. But then, with a mid-air dexterity beyond her imagination, he hacked the spear shaft in two and killed the man with a kick to the jaw.
‘Tali, behind you!’
The warning came almost too late. Only instinct got her out of the way and she felt the wind of the tall guard’s sword blow, the tug as it sliced through her baggy robes. She scrambled away, snatching a handful of dirt and tossing it at his eyes. He kept coming, slashing across and back, aiming to kill.
With a sickening crunch, a sword came out through the left wall of his chest and he died on his feet. It had gone right through him. She was staring at the impaled corpse when Orlyk sat up, struck a triangle, ting, and the ankle bracelet went from cold to burning in a few seconds. Smoke rose from Tali’s ankle as the skin blistered. The pain was hideous but there was no way to get the bracelet off — the squat Cythonian was advancing with her throat-cutting knife.
Tali tried to heave Rix’s sword out of the man’s back, but it was jammed through the ribs. She grabbed a stone and hurled it at Orlyk. It missed, and so did the next; throwing stones was not an art Tali had ever practised. Orlyk was almost on her when her third stone struck the arrow wound in the squat woman’s upper chest. She dropped like a boulder, convulsing again, and the bracelet began to cool.
The smoke billowed high, drifted low. All was a chaos of screams and shouts, blows and counter-blows. Tali kept turning and turning, squinting through the eye-stinging smoke, never sure which direction the next attack was coming from but always knowing that the enemy was determined to cut her throat.
She could not have said whom she fought or what was the result, but suddenly everyone was down save the pothecky, who had dropped Rix and Tobry with chymical darts and was thumbing another into her tube. Tobry lay thirty yards away up the slope, unmoving. Steam gushed from Rix’s mouth and he was making inarticulate grunts. His red face looked as though it was about to burst.
The pothecky turned on Tali, who took careful aim with a jagged chunk of red stone, and flung it. This time it went true, thudding into the pothecky’s forehead. Her arms flailed, she fell to her knees on rock and Tali heard an unpleasant crack, as if a kneecap had broken.
She was drenched in sweat, staggering from exhaustion, and every movement aggravated her blistered ankle, but Tinyhead was lurking somewhere, and Mijl and Orlyk were still alive.
The sensible thing was to kill them while they were helpless but that was too cold-blooded for Tali. She limped to Rix and put a hand on his face. He was almost too hot to touch — he seemed to be burning from the inside. The lake was only ten yards away yet it might as well have been a mile — she could never drag his dead weight that far. She would have to try and heal him.
Even the most minor healing was draining, but it was going to take far more than that to save him and she had little strength left. Tali pressed hard on his cheeks with her healing hands, summoning every iota of her little gift to draw the heat out of him. Her hands went as hot as his face, yet he seemed to be getting worse.
He clawed weakly at his chest and she saw the dart embedded there, the bubble of fluid under the skin. Taking hold of the feathered tail, she eased the dart out, then opened his shirt. She shot a glance around her, saw no Tinyhead lurking, no Orlyk or Mijl. Tali pressed her fingers in under the bubble so as to drive out the remaining poison, then carefully wiped it off his skin, stroking outwards so none would be drawn into the puncture.
She laid hands on his chest again. He was even hotter now and his heart was going like a galloping horse; it was a wonder it had not burst. Tali murmured the strongest healing charms she knew, trying to draw the heat into her hot hands. They became scaldingly hot, red and painful, and after a minute she felt the heartbeat slow its frantic pace.
The smoke was settling, forming an opaque, knee-deep layer she could not see through. Mijl and Orlyk might be creeping up on her or they might be dead. She could not tell.
> ‘Tobe?’ Rix groaned, eyelids fluttering. ‘Tobe, that you? Thought you — dead.’ He tried to sit up.
She could not think about that. ‘It’s me, Tali. Stay down.’
‘Help Tobe. He’s … the better man.’
Noble, perhaps, but stupid. ‘Shut up and let me do my job.’
Tobry was on his hands and knees, attempting to crawl, though he only managed a yard before flopping like a dying man. Was he dying? Tali had seen so many dead — in her brief life she had lost everyone she cared about. It was a struggle to help Rix, whose heart raced every time she lifted her hands. How could Tobry survive the same poison without healing aid?
Ting! White smoke belched up from the bracelet again, burning her scorched ankle. She shook her foot, trying to ease the pain, and caught the stench of burning skin — Orlyk must have roused. Yes, she was lurching towards Tali, knife out, and the look on her face was murderous.
‘I am so going to enjoy cutting your throat,’ said Orlyk.
Without thinking, Tali picked up the chymical dart she had taken from Rix’s chest and tossed it into Orlyk’s open mouth.
Her crimson-faced, steam-gushing death was not pretty, but it was mercifully brief.
‘Better now,’ whispered Rix. ‘Help Tobe.’
Dare she? If she left Rix now, both he and Tobry could die. Where was Tobry? He must have crawled off and there was no time to look for him. The chymical smoke was thinning, blowing away, and the pothecky was on her feet, blood running from cheek, shoulder, belly and knee. Mijl must have been in agony but she was determined to do her duty. She lurched around towards Tali, each step a struggle, and there was no one to stop her.
She raised the tube and, after three fumbling attempts, inserted a killing dart. Tali scrambled backwards, looking for a fallen weapon. There was nothing within reach.
‘Aah!’ gasped Rix. ‘Heart burning, burning.’
He pressed his hands over his chest, tried to get up and succeeded in raising his head, but it fell back on the path, thud.