by Ian Irvine
But the bonds of comradeship were too strong. Flangers had stood beside him many times during the war, and Flydd could do no less than back him now, even at the cost of his own life. Which proves I’m no longer a scrutator, he thought wryly. Few scrutators had ever risked their lives when there were others to die for them. Just me and Klarm, but he couldn’t think about that. Klarm’s betrayal was still too painful.
Flydd leapt forwards, as he had not been able to do for many years, and took pleasure in his renewed body, so much stronger and faster than the old one. I’ve finally fitted into it, he exulted. And won’t it be ironic if I only have minutes to live?
A Whelm leapt at him, hacking with his jag-blade. Shorter and stockier than most, and less awkward, he was on Flydd before he could get the ice sword into position. Flydd swept it up as the Whelm slashed, but the ice sword, struck side on, shattered.
Cursing, Flydd scrambled backwards, looking frantically for the leftover pile of spears, but it was well out of reach. The Whelm lunged and Flydd threw the sword hilt at his face. It cracked into his forehead; the Whelm slipped on broken ice and Flydd kicked him in the belly.
He went down. Flydd fell on him as the Whelm’s head struck the floor, trying to wrench the jag-blade out of his hands. It wouldn’t come – the Whelm’s grip was unbreakable.
Flydd heaved him bodily off the floor, but the Whelm would not let go. He was kicking at him, going for the belly with those sharp-nailed toes. Flydd, painfully aware that his back was undefended, put his boot heel on the Whelm’s throat and pressed down until his windpipe gave.
Even in death the Whelm clung to his sword. Flydd prised the flat fingers off, hefted the sword, which was extremely heavy, then swung around. There were dozens of Whelm in the room, and more scrambling through the hole all the time. He had to block it and there was only one way to do that, whatever Yggur said.
Unstoppering the flask of chthonic fire, he passed it around the edges of the opening. White fire licked up and tongued down, forming a tracery across the hole. The Whelm hesitated on the other side, afraid to risk the uncanny fire.
Flangers had formed his spearmen into a square, its concave front bristling with spears, and the formation was difficult to attack, for the Whelm could not get close without running onto the points. However they had learned that a swift sideways hack would often snap the brittle spears, and were slowly advancing in a wedge.
Three or four Whelm lay dead on the floor, and another was twitching feebly, but at least a dozen of the prisoners had fallen and a large group had thrown down their spears and were backing into a corner with their hands up. Flydd had to do something or their terror would infect the rest and the cause would be lost.
‘Colm!’ he hissed. ‘You’re good with a sword, aren’t you?’
‘Relatively speaking. I was never a master.’
‘I was taught by a master, but my renewed sword arm lacks the skill of the old one. We’ve got to counterattack and we need a third, one we can rely on.’ Yggur had been a skilled swordsman but could barely stand up for aftersickness, while Flangers had his square to look after.
‘I’ll do it!’ Chissmoul thrust out her spear as if taking down a Whelm twice her size.
‘You!’ Flydd couldn’t hide his astonishment, for she was no bigger than Maelys.
‘I was a good thapter pilot,’ she said defensively.
He laughed. ‘The best I ever saw, and the most reckless.’
She smiled faintly. ‘All skills suited to a warrior. And Flangers taught me well, on the way here. I can’t live without him, surr. If he dies, and I know he will, I must also die.’
It made her one of them. ‘Get yourself a proper weapon and come with me. Take my left flank, one pace back.’
Chissmoul twisted the jag-blade out of the hands of a dying Whelm and took up position. Flydd knew he could rely on her. Colm was on his right, and he was skilled with a blade, but Flydd wasn’t so sure about him. Colm had always been an unknown, a loner, and after Ketila’s death Flydd had never been confident that Colm would not turn on him at the worst possible moment. And if he discovers I’ve taken the mimemule, Flydd thought, a trifle guiltily, I’m a dead man.
‘We’ve got to attack the Whelm on their right flank,’ he said, ‘or they’ll tear right through the square. Defend me – that’s all I ask. Ready?’
The Whelm wedge was driving at the concave front of the prisoners’ square, making a coordinated attack on their brittle spears. Within seconds the ice spears of the front row had been shattered and they were defenceless, buckling and about to break.
‘Hold, hold!’ roared Flangers from the other side. ‘Second row, push through and attack.’
The prisoners could not cope and Flydd did not blame them. ‘Stand firm!’ he yelled. ‘Just a few seconds more.’
The front row, faced with an unwavering line of jagged Whelm blades, threw down their shattered spears and, desperate to get away, tried to force their way back through the lines. The second and third lines of spearmen were torn open; spears pointed at the floor, the roof, anywhere save at the attacking Whelm, who fell upon the backs of the front line and cut them down in a few bloody seconds.
Flydd cursed bitterly. ‘The fools! Why couldn’t they have stood fast?’
The Whelm plunged deep into the prisoners’ formation, cutting swiftly and ruthlessly as though the mayhem helped to ease their own pain. The next line of prisoners turned to flee, but only presented their undefended backs to the enemy.
‘Come on,’ Flydd hissed, ‘or the lot of them will be dead. Useless fools!’
They simply weren’t trained for battle. Flydd lunged after the Whelm, picked out the leader and thrust the jag-sword at his back.
The blade felt unbalanced in his hands; it did not want to go where he swung it. It angled into the Whelm’s back, low down, but twisted sideways. It made a nasty gash but the Whelm turned and came at Flydd, swinging his jag-sword in arcs like a farmer using a scythe.
Flydd just managed to get his sword to the other’s blade as it hacked towards his belly. The weapons met with a mighty clang and a flurry of sparks. The Whelm jerked backwards and Flydd’s blade, caught on one of the jags, went with it.
Taken by surprise, he was dragged to the Whelm, skidding on his knees. With a cunning flick-twist, his opponent freed his own blade and hacked at Flydd’s head.
He ducked just in time. The blade cut through his hair; one jag caught in a knot and jerked his head sideways so hard that his neck bones went crack. Flydd tore free at the expense of a clump of hair and a piece of scalp, and drove his sword at the Whelm’s unprotected groin.
The Whelm sprang backwards with such haste that Flydd knew he’d found a weakness.
‘Cur that you are,’ grated the Whelm, ‘surely even your kind know the rules of combat?’
So the groin was off-limits to the Whelm. It was good to know. ‘I only follow one rule,’ Flydd panted. ‘The winners make the rules, and the losers die.’ He hacked left, then right, trying to draw the Whelm away. The fellow seemed to be weakening; blood was running down his right leg from the back wound.
Flydd stabbed at the groin again. This time the Whelm did not withdraw fast enough and the jag near the tip of the blade caught in his loincloth. Flydd pulled back and tore the rag away. The Whelm reeled, instinctively tried to cover himself, and it was an easy matter to skewer him through the chest.
To his left, Chissmoul was labouring with the heavy blade, which was far too long for her, only just managing to parry her opponent’s blows. On the right, Colm was using his ice sword like a rapier, lunging forwards and pricking his opponent with the tip, then whipping it back to protect the brittle blade.
The Whelm were not master swordsmen; they lacked both dexterity and practice. However they were strong, Flydd thought gloomily, as well as tireless and determined to prevail for their master.
Chissmoul slipped on the bloody floor and fell to her knees, gasping. Two Whelm came at her, one from ea
ch side, and Flydd couldn’t get to either of them in time. The taller of the Whelm dragged Chissmoul upright by the hair, baring her neck for the other, who swung back his jag-blade to hack her head from her shoulders.
Flydd cried out and made a frantic effort to get to her, but knew he was going to fail. Chissmoul’s eyes were staring; not at her attacker, but over his shoulder, meeting her death bravely. She closed her eyes.
The ice spear came out of nowhere, hurled with such force that it tore through the back of the shorter Whelm’s neck, out his throat and struck the taller Whelm in the right shoulder. Blood sprayed in his face, momentarily blinding him, then Chissmoul reached up and, in a wrestling manoeuvre Flydd had never seen before, used the taller Whelm’s height to throw him over her head into the other Whelm as he collapsed.
Flydd cut the taller Whelm down, absently, then turned around. The room was a slaughterhouse awash with blood, but the last of the Whelm had fallen. So had a couple of dozen of the prisoners, and the rest had jammed themselves into a corner, eyeing the Whelm beyond the fire-webbed hole, who were trying to use a blanket to put out the white fire blocking the hole.
‘That was a mighty throw for a dying man,’ Flydd said to Flangers, who had come from the other side of the room carrying a broken ice sword in one hand and three spears in the other. There was a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before, and his formerly grey cheeks had a healthy glow. ‘How did you know Chissmoul was in danger? Surely you can’t keep the whole battlefield in your mind at once?’
‘Every man, and every weapon,’ said Flangers. ‘When I was a sergeant, I had to – how else could I look after my men and defeat the enemy?’
‘It’s a skill few other sergeants have had.’
‘It won’t be enough next time. They’ll break through there and there, and there.’
He pointed and Flydd made out shapes through the ice, hammering furiously. ‘We can’t defend this chamber, can we?’
Flangers shook his head. ‘Not a hope. The prisoners are a rabble.’
‘They were taken because of their book learning,’ said Yggur, leaning on a broken spear. ‘I doubt there’s an experienced fighter among them.’
‘And if we force them to fight,’ said Flangers, ‘they’ll die. You can’t make a warrior out of a clerk in less than a month – if at all.’
‘Up there.’ Yggur nodded towards the top of the stairs.
They clattered up the broad, curving stairs, which were walled off at the top with solid, spans-thick ice. ‘When the Numinator built this,’ said Flydd, ‘she was making sure no one could ever get through. You’ll have to unmake the blocks, Yggur, since I’m not allowed to use chthonic fire.’
‘Sarcasm was never your strong suit, Flydd.’ Yggur put his hands on the wall, but hastily peeled them off. The ice was so cold that skin stuck to it. ‘I don’t believe I can.’
‘Why not?’ Flydd said peevishly.
‘The bracelets take power from me as quickly as I can draw it, to maintain the tower.’
‘I gave you some power back.’
‘But the tower is under threat from chthonic fire now, and it’s taking more. I feel drained all the time, like a well pumped dry. Removing that block of ice, and making the ice weapons, took my last reserves.’
‘You’d better join the clerks in the corner, if that’s the best you can do,’ Flydd said, turning away. ‘There’s no choice, then. I’ll have to use the fire.’
He boiled ice with it until the chamber was full of mist, to conceal what he was up to, and set to work. The ice was so thick here that he had to use half of the white fire remaining in the flask, then they huddled at the top of the stairs, feeling the vibrations from the Whelm hammering at the walls and waiting for the fire to do its work.
‘It’s taking an awfully long time,’ Flydd muttered. He wanted to pace, to relieve his anxiety, but there was no room.
Screams echoed up from below and the surface of the fog, which hung thickly in the lowest third of the chamber, began to churn.
‘They’re through!’ said Yggur. ‘Better move fast, Flydd.’
‘Doing all I can,’ Flydd grunted. He was using his Art to drive the flame through ice set as hard as metal, but it was slow, draining work.
‘We’ve got to hold the Whelm off,’ said Flangers to Colm and Chissmoul.
Before they could move, the prisoners stampeded up the stairs. Flangers roared at them to let him through, and brandished his sword in their faces, but could not move them. The prisoners below were pushing ever up, forcing all before them.
More kept moving up, until Flydd was squeezed against the fiery ice so tightly that he could scarcely draw breath. Behind him, prisoners were gasping, screaming, collapsing; the smaller and weaker among them would be crushed, but there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Flangers wriggled along the wall and shouted in Flydd’s ear. ‘What if we jump over the side, surr? We might be able to get them down again.’
‘It’s four spans, soldier. You’ll break both legs when you hit the floor and the Whelm will finish you off. Clear a space for me. I can’t work.’
Flangers shouted orders, but the crush grew ever tighter. Below, men and women were screaming; and then came the terrible sound of jag-blades tearing through unprotected flesh.
‘It was a sorry day when you came here, Flydd,’ said Yggur, supporting himself against the wall, head and shoulders above the crowd. ‘The Whelm are terrified of any threat to their master, and this rebellion is the greatest threat they’ve ever faced. Do something quick, else they’ll butcher all of the prisoners.’
Flydd felt sick. They hadn’t asked for this, and there was little they could do to protect themselves. He clutched the green-ice flask in his right hand, feeling its chill eating into him, and tried to remember the way he’d drawn upon chthonic fire next to the obelisk on Mistmurk Mountain to open the first portal. Could he find that kind of power again and force it to work for him?
He thought himself into the heart of the flame, attempting to recover the mental state that had given him power previously, but instead the outer wall of the chamber appeared to thin and what he saw was not Noom’s bleak landscape of rock and ice beyond the moat, but a roiling nothingness with mists and whirlpools of light scattered across it, separated from him by a transparent membrane. Could he be seeing into the void? It seemed impossible, but what other explanation was there?
Then he saw the woman in red again. Her ghostly form drifted towards him until she came up against the barrier that separated them. Her hands scratched at it, as if she were trying to get through, just as she had on his way to the Nightland. Flydd couldn’t see her face, just the curves of cheek and jaw.
Someone screamed and pointed, and the crowd surged away from the spectral figure. Flydd clung desperately to the fire-eaten ice, afraid he’d be carried off the side of the stair. Behind him there were more screams and a series of unpleasant thuds as people fell to the floor below.
He shook his head, concentrated on driving the chthonic fire deeper into the ice, and the woman in red faded away.
‘Every single thing you do makes it worse, Flydd,’ said Yggur, forcing his way through the crowd, which parted before him like soil carved by a plough. ‘Who was that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Flydd said uneasily, ‘though it’s not the first time I’ve seen her. I first saw her during renewal, though I dare say that was a trauma-induced hallucination.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. You know of the great mancer, Mendark, I assume?’
‘Of course. He was one of the greatest in all the Histories.’
‘He took renewal as many as twelve times, by some accounts; far more than any other mancer ever managed. He didn’t believe that renewal hallucinations were hallucinations at all – he said they were aspects of reality.’
Flydd froze, searching the elusive memories of his own renewal for something disturbing. ‘That can’t be so,’ he said slowly.
‘Why
not?’
‘Because I hallucinated that she was a part of me – and not just mentally.’
FORTY
‘If there’s an ell of flat land in Gendrigore, I’m yet to see it,’ Nish grumbled as they scrambled up a steep and extremely wet slope through dense forest. ‘How far is it to The Spine?’
They hadn’t made up any time, and he was painfully aware that his father’s mighty army would be climbing the range by now. If they reached Blisterbone first, as was increasingly likely, there would be nothing to stop them. Imagining what it would be like to defend against a vastly superior enemy with the advantage of height, he shuddered. It would be a massacre, and an entirely pointless one. They simply had to get to the top of The Spine first.
‘We’ll reach the foothills tomorrow mornin’,’ said Curr, their guide.
A dirty, wiry little man, bald of head, leathery of skin and blank of expression, he was constantly chewing string-tied wads of leaf which stained his lips, teeth, chin and fingers blue. Curr had turned up not long after Ekko, and announced that he’d been across The Spine a dozen times and had been sent to be their guide.
‘Foothills!’ cried Nish. ‘I’ve seen mountains smaller than the hill we’re climbing now, and it doesn’t even have a name.’
‘Very rugged country, The Spine,’ said Curr. The string of his latest wad hung from his lower lip, and beads of blue saliva dribbled down his chin with every word. His shirt and thick orange chest hair were stained with it. ‘Kept us safe for more’n a thousand years, it has.’ And it’ll turn back the God-Emperor’s army too, you young whippersnapper, he seemed to be saying.
Nish averted his eyes. ‘And the other two provincial militias will rendezvous with us at Wily’s Clearing before the climb?’