by C F Welburn
Utterly spent, he surrendered. The challenge was lost.
But then the stink of the creature’s breath engulfed him, the stench of rot and of Freya’s blood, and something snapped inside him. With a growl he called on all resources, releasing his fury as a burst dam gushes water. Somehow, the strength-band amplified the boots, or maybe vice versa. Either way, he found himself breathlessly ascending, the startled beast above him. They hit the ceiling with a crunch and returned to earth with a jar to shake the teeth from one’s head. He was dying, air wheezing from his punctured body. He turned as the huge beast stretched, towering over him, roaring. But there was something odd about its chest. Something blue. Balagir’s gaze swam over the huge icicle that had snapped off from the ceiling. It melted away, revealing a gaping hole through its core. Within, where its heart should have been, burned the final flame. The creature gurgled, tottered, and fell across Balagir’s broken legs. Then the world turned black.
He did not know how long he had lain there, but when he came to, a puddle of blood had frozen about him. The beast still lay lifelessly across his legs. He groaned. Was this a hero’s way to die? Bleeding out or freezing to death? Better that the yetir had finished him. He wanted simply to close his eyes and let the numbness seep through him, but the piper’s tune would not let him be. He remembered what he had come for, could almost taste the smoke.
With a grimace, he wormed free of the creature’s weight to claw up the dead mountain and reach inside, grasping the blue heart. With his last shred of strength, he crawled to the sconce and thrust forth the blue flame. The ice on the central prism melted, and the portal called to him. A distant firelight glimmered, like a friend beckoning him to awake from a nightmare. He dragged himself forward, sank down, clenched his jaw, and crawled some more. When he was close enough to feel the fire’s warmth, he almost smiled.
Black and red; all gone was the blue—melted, simmered, smouldered. Somewhere music played, hands clapped.
“You’ve done it again,” a voice—female—faded in and out like lapping waves. “I don’t know how, but…”
Someone hugged him, making him wince, though his wounds appeared healed. He hauled himself up, examining his crushed chest gingerly, still recalling the inability to breathe. Faces swam in the flickering light: Freya, an unfamiliar expression on her lips that might have been called a smile on any other face; a once-again-whole Kiela; and a significantly less disfigured Ginike.
“We… won?” he croaked, looking around. All the others were still present—the redhead, the white woman, the jaegir, the idris—though none looked pleased, and some looked positively haunted.
“We did,” Kiela said, smiling. “Now, pay the piper. You’ve earned it.”
Nodding vacantly, he rubbed his face and stumbled over to the fire.
The piper acknowledged him with a flurry of the flute but remained otherwise expressionless. He absently wondered if he recognised him from the northern challenge—the odd ashen with the kalaqai—or whether he was just another moth come to fizzle in the flame. Inconsequential… Then the thought was lost, burnt like words from parchment as red tongues licked higher than the stars.
XX
DESCENT
When Balagir emerged from the trance, he felt revived; moreover, he felt powerful. There was a satisfying strength in his arm, a quickness to his eye, a sharpness in his mind. And it did not stop at the corporeal. He sensed his equipment would function better. The strength-band had a strange vibrancy about it, and his boots absorbed his weight as though the soles were coiled springs. Perhaps now the star-wand would create flame as it had for Gorj. His shadow-cloak, despite its dangers, begged to be tested, and the mask of premonition, useful as ever, promised more. As for Era, she hovered at his shoulder and, if she could be labelled with any emotion, seemed appeased.
She was not the only one who waited. The same ashen who had undertaken the challenge remained at the hub, a mixture of emotions on their faces: from the reluctantly impressed Freya, the fondness of Kiela, the manic leer of Ginike, and an array of frustration, blame, and unease across the others. He did not consider for a moment they had stayed to congratulate him; they were still penned in by the largatyn brought to their doorstep. Recalling this, Balagir felt somewhat sheepish. Defeating them and denying them their smoke was one thing; they were the rules by which they had played. Delaying their journeys, threatening their lives; well, that was just salt ground into wounds.
The large red-haired man was the first to speak.
“Thought you northerners were all wet behind the ears,” he said and, surprisingly, extended his hand. “Roje.” Balagir accepted, fearing some trickery, but the gesture was genuine. “This here’s Unvil,” he said, introducing the less amiable jaegir. “This ludicrous fellow is Dane.” He pointed at the green jaunty-hatted man, who frowned but did not challenge the adjective. “And this is Raurin. Don’t let the habit and tri-too deceive you, I’ve met holier men in brothels.” Raurin bowed but remained as tight-lipped as a clam.
“I’m—”
“Balagir. Yes, we’ve had time for introductions. You were out for some time. Didn’t think you were getting out from beneath that yetir.” Balagir offered a wan smile but shot a glance at his companions, irked they had offered up his name so freely.
“And the others?”
“Ask them yourself, they’re not with me—though we do find ourselves somewhat together in our current predicament.” Balagir ignored the jibe and turned.
“Fegg,” the stocky hammer-wielding ‘gnilo announced with a dialogue as stunted as his frame. Both idris stood as one and bowed in their customary way.
“Raf Nauger,” said the belligerent one.
“Raf Isil,” said his scholarly counterpart. They both had the hairless oval craniums of their kind, skin tinged with jaundice, though Raf Nauger bore considerably more scars, and Raf Isil’s small eyes and pursed lips compounded his bookishness. They sat down simultaneously.
The scrawny woman clearly did not hold with such curtesy and remained seated.
“Saz,” she said before spitting the dark pulp of whatever she had been chewing onto the floor.
Next it was the yellow-robed man who spoke, in a voice more female than his balding, plump appearance suggested.
“Kamfa,” he said, tilting his head. “Stirling work with the yetir, if I may say so.”
Next the gillard spoke, his voice distorted through the apparatus clamped about his jaw.
“Pfff-Ygril-pfff—” he said, respiring as much as annunciating. Balagir was glad he was not a conversationalist if all his dialogue were punctuated with as many hisses and whirrs as a solitary word apparently was.
Next the blue-eyed woman met his gaze, sending a chill down his spine.
“Inverna,” she said, her voice like a cold wind. Her company may have been refreshing in a scorching desert, but he had had enough of the cold to withstand her gaze for long. He noted wary glances were exchanged as she was addressed. It seemed he was not alone in being unnerved by her blue eyes, and although the others had spent more time in her company, she was clearly reclusive.
“And I’m Rothma, last, but far from least,” growled the white-crested black-eye. The thick rings in his lips and eyebrows had pulled his face down into a permanent frown.
Balagir nodded distantly. He was better with faces than names, and already half of them had escaped him.
Niceties over, it was Unvil who got proceedings underway.
“Enough! You’ve proved your capability, now put it to use. Draw these largatyn away so we may be about our business.”
“Aye,” said Rothma. “Let’s cut our way out.”
“Not so simple,” Roje remarked. “We’re hemmed in on all sides, and they’ve had ample time to prepare barricades.”
Balagir shrugged, as though it were nothing to do with him. “The largatyn were arresting ashen, stopping us from reaching the challenge. We had no choice.”
“Arresting ashen?” Raf
Isil scratched his smooth head.
“What’s ashen affairs to them?” snapped Unvil, face sharp with suspicion.
“A question we’ve been asking ourselves,” Freya said, momentarily shifting the attention.
“And a curious one,” Roje agreed, “though redundant if we cannot escape.”
“Aye,” growled Unvil. “I’d think clearer without half of Iylleth breathing down my neck.”
“I’d feel easier if Zyrath weren’t there,” Ginike said.
“Zyrath?” Roje’s eyes widened. “My, you must have really upset them.”
“Right.” Balagir nodded, sensing now that Roje was the one to whom the group looked, a naturally authoritative figure; it was a relief to relinquish the reins. “So, we’re all heading south?” A series of nods and grunts confirmed his assumption. “Then we must strike together.”
“This is no longer a challenge,” Raf Nauger said stonily. “If one of us makes it through, we don’t all succeed.”
“He’s right,” Raf Isil agreed rationally. “Death means death here.”
“I say charge ‘em,” snarled Rothma, setting his piercings to tremble. “Filthy lizards.”
“I’m with you on that,” Fegg said, thumping his fist against the flat of his hammer. Dane, who had so far contributed nothing, twiddled his moustache and looked uncertain. Balagir had the feeling he was the Ginike of their group, though still retaining his pompous airs.
As for his own party, they were relatively subdued. Freya wore her arrogance and disdain as normal, Kiela looked from one face to the next, no doubt rueing her decision to leave the Harlequin’s Cap, and Ginike chewed his lip, which did nothing to confirm that intellect existed within.
Saz simply spat once more onto the growing pile of purple sludge at her feet.
“How long have we been here?” Balagir queried at last. Between the challenge and the trance, it could have been anything from six hours to six days. Roje shrugged.
“Impossible to rightly know.”
“The fire has a way of distorting time,” mused Raf Isil. “Just as it distorts the fabric of space.” He looked at the confused faces, if not with condescension, then with pity. “We’re in the same place as the largatyn, are we not? Also, we are all here simultaneously. And yet we are not. A veil lies between us, boundaries of converging dimensions.”
“Enough of your theories, idris, we’re wasting time,” Unvil snapped. Raf Nauger bristled at the derogatory tone, but was stilled by Raf Isil’s slender-fingered yellow hand on his arm. Balagir cleared his throat to dispel the tension.
“My point is, how alert will they be? If they’ve been waiting a few days, they may have grown lax. I find it difficult to believe the entire largatyn army still surrounds us—not when they can’t be certain we have not already escaped through the fire.”
“A token guard?” Roje asked with a raised brow.
Balagir shrugged. “All they’d need are enough to surround the fire and block the trail, with some runners ready to alert more troops. With each hour or day that has passed, they’ll have grown less certain, less alert.”
“Hm,” Roje deliberated. “All of this depends on how much they want to catch you.”
“We may have stepped on some toes in our efforts to escape, but I doubt it’s anything they can’t come to forgive.” He ignored the eyes of his companions as he made light of affairs.
“So, we are what? Twelve ashen against, let’s assume, fifty largatyn. That could be an even fight. We also have the element of surprise. We must head for that bluff there yonder; there’s a trail that leads south. It’s narrow enough that a strong rear guard should be able to fend them off.”
“I’ll go at the back,” jingled Rothma with all the zeal Balagir had come to expect of a black-eye.
“And I,” declared Fegg. “My hammer will sweep ‘em from the cliff like a broom shifts cobwebs!”
“It’s been long since my spurs tasted largatyn blood,” said Saz with such intensity he questioned what substance it was exactly she chewed.
“We can’t all go at the back,” said Roje. “I was to suggest the ones who’d caused this problem. Also, they who are now more rested in light of the challenge.” Balagir glanced at his companions. Ginike’s lip quivered from more than damaged nerves.
“I’ll join the rear guard, but leave the others out of this.”
Freya surprised him, stepping forward.
“I too will hold them off.” Balagir suppressed a smile, but she would not meet his eye.
“So be it. Balagir and Freya will join Fegg, Rothma, and Saz. The rest of us need to keep moving. I’ll form the vanguard with Unvil and Raf Nauger; the rest stay alert in the middle.”
“Let’s do this,” Unvil snarled. “Cut a path as through nettles.”
“If anyone gets separated, they will be on their own,” Roje warned.
“Aye. I’ll not die on this wretched backbone for any of you,” Unvil said, as if his solidarity were in any doubt. He seemed to look directly at Ginike and Dane when he said this, though the scholarly Raf Isil and Kamfa did not entirely escape his scrutiny. One by one, the ashen nodded their consent. “Very well,” Roje said, approaching the fire. “We leave at first light.”
Now the plan would have been sound and all, had Balagir been telling the whole story. But they had fled with the death of a deity on their hands, the defiling of the sacred, and the removing of a farseeing eye from the dead Gazer’s face—an act which at once blasphemous, held other connotations for the lizard lord, who realised the eye’s true potential. In reality, it was probable they were still there in force, Zyrath amongst them, hungrier for revenge than a black-eye was smoke. He did not speak his fears of course, but instead consulted the mask. It failed him. He took it off, buffed it on his sleeve, and tried again, to no avail. It seemed it could not show him a future that existed in another dimension. He stored it in his pouch, letting Era run over his knuckles like a legless rodent as he awaited the breaking skies.
Finally, the hour came.
“Ready?” Roje’s deep voice boomed. Some agreed with a wildness in their eyes, some nodded resolutely, and others stared at their feet. None knew what to expect.
Raf Isil held something the size of an apple in his hand.
“This will help clear a path,” he explained in his silky voice. “Though it will require one to step briefly from the circle.”
“What devilry is this?” Rothma spat, as though he had found a serpent in his bed.
“You rely on weapons, I have my own means.”
“Hand it over,” Balagir offered, sensing that in doing so, some of the blame laid at his door may be forgiven.
“A man willing to accept his responsibilities,” commented the idris with a thin smile. “Seems we had a worthy winner after all.”
“What am I to do?”
“Simply throw it to the ground and step back swiftly, lest you be caught in the blast.”
“Blast? This is magic?”
“Nothing so exotic; simply a concoction of powder and oils. A ciel-smite, for want of a name.”
“I don’t care if it’s called a nymph’s nipple,” growled the ‘gnilo. “Let’s get on with this.”
Surprisingly, it was Unvil who delayed, raising one of his black claws.
“Aren’t ciel-smites much smaller.”
The idris grimaced. “This should make an impression. Just be sure to be back within the circle before it detonates.”
“Sound counsel,” Balagir murmured, taking the thing as gingerly as one would a scorp by the tail. It was heavier than its size warranted, dense as star matter, and its soapstone consistency left a chalky residue on his hands. A fragment crumbled off at his touch, which he rolled in his fingers and placed carefully in his pouch.
“Draw your weapons,” Roje commanded. “When I give the order, we charge.” He gave Balagir the nod and, with a deep breath, he stepped out.
It was as he had feared; their transgressions had not been
forgiven, and the entire clifftop writhed with largatyn. He emerged as if from thin air, startling those in the vicinity. A cry rose up, hissing like heavy rain across the siege lines. He saw a huge head rear up towards the back of the eastern ranks, and for a brief instant, locked eyes with Zyrath. It was snowing here, as though the piper’s realm were a snow dome in reverse. Then, before being seized, he cast the ciel-smite and stepped back into the circle. Even as he did so, a wave of heat and dust knocked him back, tangled him amongst the feet of the ashen.
“It worked,” he said, needlessly.
“How many are there?” Unvil barked.
“Enough,” he groaned, clambering to his feet.
“So be it,” Roje said. Then: “Charge!”
When Balagir emerged, he could not comprehend the devastation. Where a moment before they had been surrounded on all sides, the southern cliff was now black and smouldering. There were blackened limbs scattered haphazardly; as many more crawled blindly away. Even those not directly affected stumbled, deafened and stunned. To the southwest, part of the cliff crumbled away, and a menacing rumble reverberated through Iylleth’s enshrouded heights.
There was no time for awe; even now, the largatyn who had escaped the destruction were charging, screaming, weapons raised in unstoppable rage. Balagir ran, leaping a pile of smoking flesh, slipping on greasy innards. A charred head rolled alongside him as they reached the narrow path. A noise at their backs grew tremendous, as if they had angered the mountain itself.
He fell into his role with Fegg and Rothma, Freya just ahead and the others pulling away. Fegg swung his great hammer in a low arc, taking the legs out from beneath three largatyn at once and sending them rasping over the cliff. Rothma, greed greater than prudence, jabbed over the ‘gnilo’s head, putting blade through throats and eyes wherever he could. His black eyes shone; he grinned like a wild man. They backed away, hacking, slashing, an ever-increasing gap forming between them and the vanguard.