The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2)

by Ian Irvine

  ‘Why not?’

  She pointed north along the cliff line. A head ducked back out of view. More soldiers were coming along the crest of the ridge, straight for them.

  Ketila climbed faster, with Colm at her heels, but they were rapidly widening the gap to Flydd, the only one who could save them. Maelys clawed her way up the crevasse, breaking her fingernails and tearing skin off her palms. The flappeter was coming again, its bowman leaning over the side and pointing a club-headed arrow at Flydd.

  Ketila had squeezed her thin body further into the cleft and was looking down, her face quite blank, save when she looked at her brother.

  Maelys reached Flydd, who was labouring badly.

  ‘How long will it take to make the portal, Xervish?’

  It had taken ages to use the virtual construct in the Nightland and she couldn’t imagine it would be any quicker here. And at the top of the crag they would be completely exposed. There didn’t seem to be any way out this time.

  Flydd shook his head; he didn’t have the breath to answer.

  The troops were swarming along the ridge and up the cliffs; the huge flappeter rotored in for another attack. Even if they reached the top of the crag, if the portal took more than a minute to make, it would be too late.

  Ketila was only a few spans from the crest, hurling rocks at the flappeter’s eyes, and at the two archers on its back. They hadn’t fired at her yet, for the flappeter was bouncing wildly in the wind, but if they got a clear shot she would die.

  It sideslipped away, but in the same breath Rurr-shyve came at them out of nowhere with a new rider and two archers. Maelys cursed her folly in throwing away the amulet. If she’d kept it, she might have had a hope of influencing Rurr-shyve: either turning it away, or into the path of the male.

  Colm was clinging to the side of the cleft, hanging on against the blast of Rurr-shyve’s feather-rotors. She couldn’t come closer without her feather-rotors hitting the rock; it was the only thing saving him.

  Maelys climbed above Flydd and reached down her hand. His grip was weak now; he seemed to be fading, yet there were still three spans to go. A white flash caught her eye, far away to the left, the sun reflecting off an approaching air-floater, and it was like being punched in the stomach. Every time they had a minor victory, Jal-Nish and his troops regrouped and fought back stronger than before. They had destroyed an army at Mistmurk Mountain but he simply raised another one. He could rouse the whole world against them.

  Flydd settled on a little platform beside her. His face was pallid and sweaty, his cheeks slack, and he had a tremor in his right arm.

  ‘How are you doing?’ she said quietly, concerned for him despite what he’d done in the cave.

  ‘I’ve had better days.’

  ‘Can you make it to the top?’

  ‘Haiiii!’ shrilled Ketila, and began hurling rocks furiously.

  She must have had plenty of practice during her lonely years in the valley, for she was a very good shot. A fist-sized rock smacked into the giant flappeter’s watermelon-sized right eye, caving it in. It lurched away, trumpeting in pain, with its leather-clad rider pressing his hands over his own right eye and screaming in sympathetic agony.

  The link between flappeter and rider must have failed momentarily, for it sideslipped directly for Rurr-shyve. She shot down into the valley, wailing shrilly. Having mated with the giant male, she was bonded to it as well.

  In quick succession, Ketila hurled rocks at the two archers on the male flappeter as they struggled to get a clear shot. The leading archer was struck so hard on the hand that it tore the bow from his fingers. He swayed wildly in the saddle and managed to catch his bow by the string, but before he could recover, Ketila, her face twisted in a snarl, hit him in the back of the head with another rock. He slid out of the saddle, swung upside down from one foot by the stirrup, then fell.

  But Rurr-shyve came zooming up from the other side, appearing out of nowhere, and the rear archer fired at her. The arrow skimmed her neck, caught in her knotted hair and slammed her backwards into the crevice so hard that her teeth snapped together. Ketila’s eyes rolled up in her head and she toppled forwards.

  THIRTY

  At the moment the red fog disappeared from above the whirlpool and revealed that Vivimord was gone, Nish knew in his heart that he had made the wrong choice and that Gendrigore’s peaceful existence would soon be over. He went heavily back to the tents and sorted through Vivimord’s gear. There wasn’t much – just clothes, which he burned, since not even the meanest peasant of Gendrigore would have worn them – some potions and ointments which he threw out, a book written in a script he could not decipher, which he put away for later, and a sabre with a basketwork handle, which he kept, because metal weapons were hard to come by in Gendrigore, and of poor quality.

  The sabre was beautifully made, of the same black metal as Vivimord’s wavy blade, and Nish knew he would soon have need of it. It was a trifle long for him, but he would have to get used to that, for no smith in Gendrigore had the skill to cut down such a blade without ruining it.

  The Maelstrom of Justice and Retribution did not reform, and the townsfolk expressed some unease about it in the inn that evening, though after a vigorous and well-lubricated debate they gave the next whirlpool the same name and got on with their affairs.

  In the morning, the sea leviathan that had attacked Vivimord was discovered, floating upside down and blackly bloated, at the point where the former whirlpool had been. This was seen as a bad omen, but by the following afternoon a hundred sharks and ten thousand eels had reduced it to a skeleton which sank out of sight and, to Gendrigore, the matter was finally closed.

  ‘We’re not afraid of the God-Emperor,’ said Barquine, the mayor, several nights later. He and Nish had taken to sitting on the deck of the open-air inn with their feet on the rail, watching the mist roll in over the forest, as it did every afternoon that it wasn’t actually raining. Such afternoons were rare at any time, for it was always raining in Gendrigore.

  Nish took a hearty pull at his beer. Though it had come up from cellars excavated ten spans into the rock below the inn, it was tepid. It was good beer, though, strong and dark with a powerful flavour of roasted malt and a bitter aftertaste from some local herb used in place of hops, which were unobtainable here.

  ‘I swear this is the finest beer I’ve tasted in more than ten years.’ He raised his glass to Barquine.

  ‘Considering that you spent most of that time in your father’s dungeon, and the rest on the run, that isn’t much of a compliment,’ said the mayor. ‘But I’ll take it as given, and so will my brew-girl, when I tell her.’

  ‘Brew-girl?’ frowned Nish. ‘Brewing beer is a man’s job in Gendrigore, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not since Alli took over, and if she hears you say so there’ll be a warty toad in the bottom of your next mug. I taught her everything I know about brewing, and she surpassed me within the year.’

  ‘She can brew my beer until the polar ice melts and floods the whole world,’ said Nish with a sweeping gesture that slopped beer down the mayor’s shirt. He hastily returned his tankard to the rail.

  Barquine casually wiped his shirt, as though it was an everyday occurrence. ‘You’re a travelled man, Nish,’ he said, chewing on a sprig of lime leaves to cover the smell of his drink before he went home. ‘Are there really polar lands where nothing lives and nothing grows, and even the sea is covered in ice?’

  ‘So I’m told. I haven’t been that far south, myself, but my old friend Xervish Flydd, once a scrutator, flew over such lands in a thapter, a flying machine, during the war. And I once crossed high over the Great Mountains, the highest peaks in the world, where there was nothing but snow and rivers of ice as deep as the sea cliffs of Gendrigore are tall.’

  ‘That would be a marvel indeed. I’ve seen snow once or twice; it falls every winter at the top of The Spine that keeps the marauders of Lauralin out of our land, though it seldom lasts long.’

&nb
sp; ‘Mayor …’ began Nish after he’d finished his beer and, for once, had not started on another. Today it was doing nothing to ease his troubles, for he knew the time had come to act.

  ‘Barquine, please,’ he said.

  ‘Barquine, I’m worried about my father. You don’t know what he’s like.’

  ‘I’ve a fair idea, Nish, for we hear the tales, even here. There’s no need to worry about us. Many tyrants and scoundrels have tried to conquer our land, and all armies, save three, foundered on the way up over The Spine, the only way into Gendrigore. The path is so high and rugged that no army can climb it and still fight when it gets to Blisterbone Pass. Of those three who reached Blisterbone, two armies did not survive the descent.’

  ‘Isn’t there a second pass? I’m sure I heard someone talking about it.’

  ‘There’s Liver-Leech Pass, but it’s even higher and more dangerous. If an army can’t cross the lower pass they won’t attempt the higher one. And even if some survivors do cross Blisterbone, and climb all the way down the path on our side, they’ll be starving and riddled with fevers that hardly touch us. Your father is a mighty foe, I grant you, but The Spine will break him too.’

  Barquine had been saying much the same for days, and Nish did not think he would ever face up to the peril. No one in Gendrigore was concerned about the God-Emperor, and there was no one he could talk to about his fears, for Tulitine had gone into the forest with her lusty farmhand after Vivimord’s death, and had not returned.

  Nish had also tried to convince the townsfolk to get ready for war, and they had listened politely, since he was the son of the God-Emperor and a former hero, but when he called them to arms they went home to their beds and thought no more about the matter. The God-Emperor lived half a world away and it was impossible to imagine him interfering in their humble lives. Nish trekked to the nearby towns and villages, and received the same response everywhere.

  What more could he do? How could he help a land which would not help itself? Yet he had to do something; he could not stand by.

  He offered the young people military training, thinking that they would flock to him for the chance to learn about the martial arts, for when Nish had been young, a hero of the wars would have attracted thousands of youths.

  But they did not care to learn the art of war in Gendrigore. A few dozen young men and women appeared that first evening, though they were more interested in seeing him in action than in learning themselves, and after a couple of hours, most had drifted off, never to return. Those who did stay followed his orders, more or less, but they chafed under his discipline and saw little sense in the sword, spear and shield exercises he made them repeat a thousand times until they had them right.

  Nish was walking back to his tent in the moonlight after another fruitless training session when Tulitine appeared from the forest, not far from where Tildy had been killed. He turned to meet her, but she bypassed the town, walking so quickly that he had to trot; he caught her at last after she crossed the sloping green on the way to the path which led down to the sea cliffs.

  It was another sweltering night, and he was dripping with sweat. She must have heard him running after her, but did not turn around. Could she be entirely without fear? ‘Tulitine?’

  ‘Yes, Nish?’ she said, maintaining an unbroken stride.

  He felt like a child running after an indifferent adult. Falling in beside her, he wiped his sweaty face. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Surely you weren’t worried about me?’

  ‘A little. And … I missed you.’

  ‘Really?’ she said with a hint of amusement. ‘Are you lonely in Gendrigore? I’ve always found the people of this land to be excellent company – especially the ones who creep into your tent in the middle of the night.’

  He ignored that. ‘Have you been here before?’

  ‘I’ve been everywhere before.’

  He would ask her about that sometime. ‘They are good company. I particularly like the mayor …’

  ‘And sporting in bed with the young women,’ she said teasingly.

  ‘Them too,’ he muttered. Since Vivimord’s death he had seldom spent the night alone, but it was embarrassing having an old woman refer to such matters. Even more embarrassing that she so openly enjoyed the favours of men a third her age, but he did not want to dwell on that. ‘It’s just – they don’t take things seriously.’

  She stopped momentarily as they passed into the strip of forest between the town green and the sea cliffs, sniffing the air, before striding on. The humidity was even more oppressive here, and the mosquitoes unrelenting. He waved his arms back and forth but it made no difference. The moment he stopped, they settled in speckled swarms on his face and hands and the back of his neck.

  ‘They are serious about everything that matters,’ she corrected. ‘Their fishing; their farming and herding and gathering; their families, their town and their country.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I’ve tried to warn them about Father, but they won’t listen.’

  ‘Why should they?’

  ‘Because he could destroy this place with a wave of his hand.’

  ‘But they know otherwise. In its entire history, Gendrigore has never been successfully attacked.’

  ‘The past is an uncertain guide to the future, Tulitine.’

  ‘Indeed, but the Range of Ruin – the only part of The Spine that can be crossed – has no paths, and even if you get to Blisterbone Pass, the way down runs along cliffs so steep that a mountain goat would have trouble negotiating them. The rain up there is torrential, the jungle so thick a walker must hack her way through it, and infested with every kind of biting, stinging, creeping and crawling creature imaginable. The ground-clinging mists mean that you cannot tell whether your next step will go down on crumbling rock or over the edge of a precipice, and the fevers can turn your lungs to mud or your bowels to water within a day.’

  ‘If anyone can find a way, Father will. He’ll happily lose two armies if it ensures the third gets through.’

  They walked out of the strip of forest into the band of small trees paralleling the cliffs. The timber tripods of the cliff fishers stood up like black tent frames in the moonlight.

  Tulitine went to the edge and sat on the bare stone with her legs dangling over. Nish sat a little further back, enjoying the cool breeze on his face and the relative absence of mosquitoes and gnats. No wonder she spent so much time here. The booming of the waves against the lower cliffs had a metronomic regularity that he always found soothing.

  Down to his left, a trio of dolphins burst through the swell, one after another, standing on their tails and waving their heads in the air, and Nish could sense their delight in their sport. The first dolphin shot into the newly named Maelstrom of Justice and Retribution, rode the currents around for several revolutions and then leapt out the other side, chittering to its fellows.

  Nish laughed for the sheer pleasure of seeing their joy. Tulitine was leaning forwards, chin resting on her knee, listening to their calls. They circled the whirlpool a few more times, then dived under the swell together. After they had gone, and Nish was gazing idly at the moonlight reflecting off the foam, he saw a light below him, moving in the wind. He felt the sweat break out on him anew – surely it couldn’t be Vivimord, back from the dead?

  ‘Tulitine,’ he whispered. ‘A light.’

  She chuckled, then lay down on her back on the warm rock, looking up at the stars. ‘It’s the fisherwomen.’

  ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘A good fisher fishes when the fish are feeding. It’s a lovely night for it. If you look closely you can see a school swimming just below the surface.’

  Nish couldn’t see any fish, but streaks of silver shimmered up and down as the wet lines moved through the waves. Some minutes later he noticed a larger flash as a fat tunny was hauled up hand over hand, flapping on the end of the line. ‘She’s got one.’

  The old woman didn’t answer. He could he
ar her steady breathing, though he didn’t think she had gone to sleep. ‘Tulitine?’

  ‘Yes?’ she said quietly.

  ‘When we were talking earlier, I got the impression that you were advancing Barquine’s arguments rather than your own.’

  ‘I might have been.’

  ‘And I’m wondering if you’re not a little worried, too.’

  ‘Not for myself.’

  Getting anything out of her was like pulling teeth, but Nish persisted. ‘Yet you’re afraid for Gendrigore. You don’t believe it’s as safe as they think.’

  ‘As you said, the past is not an infallible guide to the future.’

  ‘So you believe that Father can conquer Gendrigore.’

  Tulitine sighed. ‘This is not a wealthy land – or rather, the wealth of Gendrigore lies in its forests and the creatures that inhabit them, but there is no way to tap that wealth from outside. Gendrigore is not rich in jewels or ores, rare spices or costly fabrics. It’s rugged and rocky; its patches of fertile farmland are small, steep and difficult to farm. It has little that can be traded outside its boundaries, and so there is no pressing reason to plunder, or invade.’

  ‘Are you saying that previous attackers weren’t serious?’

  ‘Must I spell everything out for you? I’d have thought, as the son of the God-Emperor, that you would understand.’

  ‘You must!’ Nish snapped, nettled. He didn’t like being compared to his father in any way, nor did he appreciate the implication that, as the son of such a monster, he should also be a master of the cunning arts.

  ‘Gendrigore’s previous attackers were small armies driven solely by greed, and any prisoners they took would have told them how poor this country was. After discovering that they had little to gain here compared to what they had already lost, they did not persist.’

  ‘Father isn’t driven by greed,’ said Nish. ‘Gendrigore has nothing he wants, apart from me. But if he’s learned of Vivimord’s death, he will punish Gendrigore for the insult done to the man who saved his life. He cannot do otherwise, and once he begins the attack he dare not fail, for that would show weakness. He was defeated on Mistmurk Mountain; if it happens again it could encourage rebellions all over the place and fatally undermine him, so Father will crush Gendrigore out of existence to teach the rest of the world a lesson.’