Rebellion ttr-2

by Ian Irvine

  “Chancellor’s a bad man,” said Rannilt. “I don’t wanna go with him.”

  Tali looked across at the chancellor, who was pacing across the temple and back. “Me either, but Rix and Tobry are gone. At least, while we’re with him, the safe conduct holds.”

  “He wants your blood.”

  “Not any more. He has no shifters left to heal.”

  “The pearl then. He still wants it.”

  “I know, but I can’t do anything about that right now.”

  Shortly the tubby little chief magian puffed up. “Lord Chancellor?”

  “Form an umbrella of magery over Tali, immediately. Pull it down so tight that not a glimmer of aura can get in or out. She can’t be found or located, or you lose your head.”

  The chief magian jumped. “Immediately, Lord Chancellor. But… may I ask why?”

  “You may not!” The chancellor relented, pulled the chief magian close. “Tali bears the master pearl.”

  The chief magian’s round head shot around. “How do you know?”

  “Because Lizue attacked her in Rutherin to get it.”

  “Then Lyf knows…”

  “And he won’t rest until it’s his. Need I say that if he gets Tali’s pearl, it’s all over for Hightspall. And,” the chancellor continued with a nasty grin, “you know how the enemy hate magery and magians. You’ll be number one on their disembowelling list.”

  “I’ll get the umbrella started right away.”

  The chief magian fetched a silver elbrot, a larger and far more ornate one than the wooden elbrot Tali had seen Tobry use. He walked around her, chanting and moving it in snail-trail patterns.

  The bones of her skull creaked and a soothing numbness spread through her. Tali could not see the umbrella aura, but she could feel it closing around her and Rannilt. She let out a little sigh. Not safe from Lyf, but safer.

  “Is that it?” said the chancellor.

  The chief magian’s nostrils pinched in, as if his art had been insulted. “’Tis but the first stage of five. Each succeeding stage of the spell is more difficult and painful than the one before, and requires study and practice. Once the fifth stage is in place, in a few days’ time, you may send Tali wherever you wish, confident that Lyf’s magery will never find her.”

  “What about Grandys’ magery?”

  The chief magian paled. “You need Tali hidden from him as well?”

  “More than the other, and more urgently. If Grandys realises she’s got the master pearl, he’ll be back here in an instant. He’ll certainly wonder, once he has time from other pressing duties, how an unworthy slave was able to break his command. And he’s a far more vengeful man than I am. Get it done.”

  The chancellor gave orders for camp to be struck, then stood looking down at Tali. “Every one of my troops is watching you, so don’t try another escape. Right now, you’re my best hope of survival — and I’m yours.”

  “Until you gouge the master pearl out of my head.”

  “Did I say I was going to take it?”

  She snorted.

  “Are you ready to travel?” he added.

  “Where are you taking me? Not back to Rutherin, I hope. I had an experience in your care that wasn’t much to my liking.”

  “Speaking of Rutherin, where’s your treacherous friend Holm, formerly known as Kroni?”

  “No idea,” Tali lied. “Haven’t seen him all day.”

  He walked away, calling his retinue together.

  “I saw a grey-haired old man lurkin’ down by the water,” said Rannilt. “Was that him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why is he hidin’?”

  “He helped me escape from Rutherin, so it wouldn’t be a good idea for the chancellor to set eyes on him. Especially in his present mood. Shh!”

  The chancellor’s retinue, half of them guards, had assembled in the middle of the temple.

  “Rixium Ricinus is condemned as a traitor and is to be killed on sight,” the chancellor announced. “The reward for his head is half a pound of gold.” He waved a small leather bag above his head to reinforce the message. “The shifter called Tobry Lagger, and the so-called clock attendant, Holm, alias Kroni, who betrayed me by helping Tali to escape my prison, are also condemned. One eleventh of a pound of gold for each of them — dead or alive. Get moving!”

  After days of cold, arduous travel under the fifth stage of the sorcerous shield that blurred everything around Tali, the shield was lowered a fraction. The thirty-foot wall loomed before her, the battered gate, the copper-clad domes.

  “Why have you brought me to Garramide?” said Tali.

  “For much the same reasons that Rix came here,” said the chancellor. “It’s inaccessible but not remote, readily defended with a sufficiently powerful force, and well resourced save for the treasury, which I can supply. And, you may recall, I have a great love of beautiful things. Rutherin was a cultural desert. Garramide contains treasures you have never seen, collected by the great dame herself. I want to see them.”

  One of them turned out to be a seeing stone with which he sent messages to his army in Rutherin, to other allies across the land, and to those he would have as allies.

  On the way he had swallowed his bile and sent three envoys to Grandys. The chancellor stalked the halls, waiting wild-eyed for Grandys’ reply.

  CHAPTER 74

  “Swire,” said Grandys, reining in at the top of the hill and looking down at the town nestled in a loop of the river. Swire was small, two thousand inhabitants at the most, though it looked prosperous. The castle, on a flat hill beside it, guarded the way in by both road and river. “In two hours both the town and the castle will be ours.”

  “How, when you only have one soldier?” said Rix.

  Lirriam gave a throaty laugh. “Shall I show the boy how we take what we want?”

  Grandys scowled, then said, “The ride of glory. Go ahead and announce us, Ricinus. Make them sit up and take notice.”

  Rix nodded stiffly. He had no idea how to announce the return of the Five Heroes, but one did not say no to Grandys. To him, all things were possible and he did not tolerate failure.

  As Rix rode down the winding track, Lirriam’s laughter followed him.

  “The boy,” he fumed. “After all I’ve done, she calls me the boy.”

  But then, since he was obeying their every command, perhaps to them he was a child.

  He reached the town. The gates stood open, it being daytime and the truce still in force. Rix rode in. It must have been market day for the streets were crowded. He looked back and saw a dust cloud a mile up the road — the Heroes coming at full gallop. He had only two minutes.

  How was he to announce the ride of glory? Well, he made an imposing figure on the great horse, and Swire was a simple country town, so perhaps the simplest way was best. He clamped onto his shield with his dead hand, raised it above his head and struck it hard with his sword, again and again, until every eye in the square was on him. A hushed silence fell.

  “Axil Grandys has been reborn!” said Rix. “The Five Heroes return. Hightspall is saved.”

  Everyone stared at him as though he was mad. No one spoke for a few seconds, then everyone at once.

  Rix stood up in his stirrups, pointed towards the racing dust cloud and said, “They come.”

  And come they did, pounding towards the gate, their swords held high.

  “Make way!” Rix shouted, afraid that they would ride down anyone in their way. “Make way for Axil Grandys. Make way for the Five Heroes.”

  The crowd parted, barely in time. Grandys flashed through the gate, a majestic sight with his great sword and opal-armoured skin glistening, and then the others. No one could have doubted what they were seeing: the Five Heroes had truly returned. They skidded to a stop, their horses’ shoes striking sparks from the cobbles, then walked with majestic slowness to the centre of the square. What was Grandys going to do? What would he say?

  The Five Heroes formed their hor
ses into a circle, facing out. Grandys flicked his fingers at Rix, as if to say, Get out of our way, boy. Rix moved into the background, awed by the display, yet fuming at their contemptuous treatment.

  Grandys stared down everyone who met his eyes, but did not speak.

  “Hightspall is saved,” cried a brown-haired, pigtailed girl at the front of the crowd. She was no older than ten. “Hail Axil Grandys.”

  “Hail Axil Grandys,” the crowd echoed. “Hail the Five Heroes, hail, hail!”

  The Heroes formed a procession, Grandys leading. They rode slowly down the main street to the far gate, turned and rode back, still silent.

  I’ll say one thing for the swine, Rix thought. He knows how to make an entrance.

  At the square again, Grandys rose in his stirrups and searched the crowd, looking for one particular face.

  “You, girl,” he said. “You who first hailed me. Come forward.”

  The little girl did so, stumbling on the rough stones. She made him a rude curtsy. “Y-yes, Lord Grandys?”

  “Who’s the lord of yonder Castle Swire?”

  “It’s Lord Bondy, Lord Grandys.”

  “Is Bondy a good man, child? Does he treat his people well?”

  The girl gulped, looked around her, then said, “Not very well.”

  “Is that so,” said Grandys. “Then I’ll have to chastise him, won’t I?”

  “Yes, you will, Lord Grandys.”

  “Come up here, child. Show me the way.”

  Someone cried out, her mother perhaps, then fell silent. The girl walked slowly towards the enormous horse and its imperious rider.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Grandys. “I would never hurt a child.”

  He heaved her up and seated her in front of him. “Hold on to the saddle horn.”

  She did so, biting her lip.

  “You are my first, my chosen people,” he said to the assembled townsfolk of Swire. “Follow me to the castle.”

  He turned to the town gates, never doubting that they would follow, walking his horse so the people could keep up with him. The other Heroes fell in beside him, buxom Lirriam and golem-like Syrten on the left, cadaverous Rufuss and slender, grave Yulia to the right.

  Rix’s heart was pounding and a sick dread washed back and forth through his belly. One part of him could admire Grandys, his confidence and his swagger. Another part knew him for an arrogant brute who served no one’s purposes but his own.

  More worryingly, Rix saw echoes of Grandys’ character in his own mother, and even himself. Was this his true inheritance? No, he thought, he’s not my ancestor. I won’t have it.

  The Five Heroes rode through the gates of Castle Swire, followed by Rix and the entire population of Swire. All were agog to see how Grandys planned to chastise their lord. Rix was not. Sickness was churning in his gut.

  Grandys dismounted, leaving the girl on the horse. He strode up the steps of the castle, pounded on the great iron-reinforced door with the butt of his sword and took several steps to the left.

  “Lord Bondy, come forth.”

  Shortly the door opened and a short, plump man came out onto the terrace.

  “What the devil do you mean, hammering on my door like that?” he said furiously. He turned and saw the enormous figure standing there, armoured in black opal. Then the other four Heroes, and the townsfolk still flooding through the gates. Bondy blanched and made a dart for the door. Grandys blocked his path.

  “Are you Bondy?”

  “Yes,” whispered the plump man.

  “The child on my horse said you don’t treat your people well.”

  Bondy looked from Grandys to the girl in the saddle, and back again. He frowned. “I’m a good overlord. Are you playing some kind of joke, sir?”

  “I never joke, Bondy. I could have your head for that.”

  Bondy relaxed.

  Grandys added, “In fact, I will.”

  “Lord?” said Bondy.

  Maloch flashed out, faster than Rix’s eye could follow, then returned to its sheath. Rix blinked. What had just happened?

  Bondy’s eyes rolled up, then Grandys reached out and lifted the man’s neatly severed head from his neck. He strode down the steps and handed the dripping extremity to the girl.

  “You won’t have any more trouble with him, child.”

  Grandys raised his voice. “Castle Swire is mine. Turn its inhabitants into the street. Bid the servants here, either to swear to me — or die like their master.”

  The girl dropped Bondy’s gory head and screamed.

  Irritably, Grandys gestured to her mother to take her away, then reached out to the townsfolk.

  “I am raising an army, and I’m going to take back our land. Who will join me?”

  He said it with such self-confidence that no one could doubt him. Rix felt it too, despite himself: the pride that he had played a small part in an event of momentous importance, and the feeling — no, the unshakeable belief — that if he followed Grandys, together they would cast out the enemy and take Hightspall back.

  It was clear that everyone else felt the same. Within an hour Grandys had signed up six hundred men. Messengers were sent to all the surrounding towns, villages and manors, bidding their youths to hasten to Swire, to Axil Grandys’ service.

  In four days, he was training an army of thousands and planning his first attack, a demonstration of his power that no one could deny.

  “Get your troops ready, Captain Rixium,” he said to Rix that morning. “Tonight we march on Castle Rebroff.”

  “But… that’s the enemy’s most powerful fortress outside Caulderon,” said Rix.

  “And led by Lyf’s greatest and most experienced general, Rochlis. That’s why I’ve chosen it.”

  “How are you going to attack it with a few thousand untrained troops?” said Rix.

  “I’m not merely going to attack Rebroff. I’m going to take it. We’ll feast like carrion crows in Castle Rebroff’s Great Hall, this time tomorrow night.”

  It was impossible to doubt him. Was Grandys the leader Hightspall needed to hold back the Cythonian hordes, even defeat them? Despite his hatred of the man, Rix was beginning to think so.

  He was also thinking that he could learn much about the art of leadership from Grandys — assuming he survived long enough.

  CHAPTER 75

  “The — the envoys have returned, Chancellor,” stammered his aide, from the door.

  Tali and the chancellor were in the great dame’s chambers, which he had appropriated, by a blazing fire.

  “Then send them in. What did Grandys say?”

  “Th-there’s a m-message,” said the aide. His arms hung low, his feet dragged.

  “What is it, damn you?”

  The aide opened a brown sack and dumped the contents on the chancellor’s gleaming table. “This.”

  The severed heads of the chancellor’s three envoys rolled halfway across and stopped, their clouded eyes staring at him.

  Tali recoiled. The chancellor let out a strangled gasp.

  “What’s Grandys saying?” said Tali, turning so she would not have to look at the heads, which had been severed a good few days ago and were past their best.

  “I should have thought that was obvious.”

  “Not to me.”

  “It means that he, unlike every other foe I’ve ever dealt with, is utterly unpredictable. How can I fight such a man? I’ve no idea what he’ll do next.”

  “I don’t know.” And Rix was in the hands of this monster, unable to help himself.

  The chancellor’s sardonic eye turned to her, as if he had read her thought. “How could Rixium have gone off with the man? How could he be so weak-willed?” He spat into the fire.

  In the shadows behind him, Tali saw Glynnie stiffen. The chancellor had taken her on because she was the perfect maidservant, but if he could have seen the look in her eyes now he might have thought otherwise. Was she grieving for Rix, Tali wondered, or burning for him?

  He
cleared his throat, pointedly. Rix’s betrayal was a theme the chancellor kept returning to, like a dog to a bone he’d gnawed all the meat off but could not let go.

  “Grandys ensorcelled him,” said Tali, wishing the chancellor would have the severed heads removed. “You know that.”

  “But for Grandys to do it so easily, surely Rix must have wanted it, subconsciously?”

  “What if the enchantment on Maloch wasn’t protecting Rix for himself,” said Tali, “but because of the connection to Grandys?”

  The chancellor started, and so did Glynnie, though she recovered quickly and stepped further back into the shadows.

  “How do you mean?” said the chancellor.

  “Did Maloch deliberately lead Rix to Precipitous Crag so he could attack the wrythen, terrorise Lyf with the reappearance of the sword that had cut his feet off, and weaken him from fear? Did Maloch direct Rix to Garramide so he’d paint the mural of the opalised man from images Maloch had previously shown him? A mural that would call Rix to recover Grandys’ petrified body from the Abysm.”

  “Are you suggesting all this was foreordained?” said the chancellor.

  “Not foreordained. But I do think there’s a malign purpose at work, and it comes from the enchantment on the sword.”

  “Which makes this just the latest step in a two-thousand-year-old battle.”

  “Lady Ricinus gave Maloch to Rix and told him to wear it, but he disliked the sword on sight,” said Tali. “Perhaps he sensed the magery in it. And the moment he strapped it on, he must have come under its influence. What if his great-aunt didn’t sent it to Rix as an innocent gift, but in the hope that it would influence him to bring Grandys back?”

  In the shadows, Glynnie drew in a long, hissing breath. The chancellor’s dark brows knitted.

  “If you’re right, the sword was never protecting Rix for himself, but only for what he could do for its master.”

  “How are you going to save him?” Glynnie’s face was twisted in anguish.

  “Save Rixium?” barked the chancellor. “I’ve already condemned the swine twice. I hope Grandys puts him down like the Herovian dog he is.”