Vengeance

CHAPTER 42

Tinyhead let out another of those shivery groans. ‘Master? I can’t turn on my own people. Not again.’

His master, if he had heard, gave no answer.

‘Put the slave down, Sconts, and get out of the way,’ said a voice from the darkness. A deep voice, confident in its authority.

Tinyhead tightened his grip around Tali’s chest. The white-coated tongue licked his ruined lips as he looked for a way of escape, but the lights blocked three sides now and distantly, on the fourth, Tali saw more glowstone lanterns. Orlyk was coming.

Tinyhead’s eyes fixed on a gap in the lights ahead. His muscles tensed and his bulging head swung from side to side as he assessed his chances. Tali’s right ear was squashed against his chest and she could hear the breath crackling in his lungs. Was he going to run?

‘She has to die,’ said the deep voice, and an annular blade shone as it was raised above the speaker’s head — a Living Blade. ‘Here and now.’

‘Wil saved her,’ moaned Wil. ‘She Wil’s now.’

‘She may not die at your hands,’ said Tinyhead, and bolted towards the gap.

Down a gentle slope he pounded, through a patch of shadow and straight into a concealed pit of mud, the reason for the gap. But there was no crust here and he let out a gasp as his feet sank deep. For a second she thought he was going to be trapped the way Orlyk’s troops had been, but his feet found the base of the shallow pit, his thighs bunched and drove him through the hot, knee-deep mud.

Steam gushed up from each footfall and pungent gases stung Tali’s nostrils, but Tinyhead was an automaton no wound or pain could stop. He reached solid ground, his mud-coated feet slipping and skidding as he climbed a gentle slope, and drove for the gap between the guards. He almost made it.

The man to the left hurled his sword, hilt forwards, its flat end striking Tinyhead above the ear. He let out an explosive grunt, dropped Tali and began to stagger around blindly. The blow had driven him back into the zombie state he’d been in after the hole had burnt through his head.

Tali landed on her shoulder, the impact numbing her whole arm, and was struggling to her feet when the guard dived on her, flattening her on the yellow ground. He put his knees in the middle of her back and held her down with all his weight. Two more guards stood to either side, their blades out-thrust, and the others ran in and held Tinyhead at bay. It was over.

He shook his head, then reeled off into the darkness, wailing, ‘Master, I failed you.’

The man giving the orders said, ‘Take a firm grip on the slave. Should she escape again, our families will suffer the fate set down for her.’

The guard took his weight off Tali, keeping hold of her arms. The captain was a strong, handsome fellow with a clear brown eye and a confident manner. Then he turned, and the other side of his face was a ruin of raised white scars and deep pock marks. The survivors of that explosion on the lower levels of Cython a few years ago had looked like this.

‘Raise her and hold her,’ he said.

He examined Tali’s face and slave mark, nodded and issued orders in a low voice. Ten guards formed a line to block Tinyhead in case he attacked from the darkness.

A thin, owl-eyed woman was studying the bobbing lanterns through a pair of night glasses. ‘Captain, it’s Orlyk’s squad. They’ll want to take her back to Cython.’

‘Orlyk has allowed the Pale to escape twice,’ said the captain. ‘We have our orders and we’re not giving her up.’

‘Said you wouldn’t hurt her,’ cried Wil the Sump, waving his skinny arms.

‘Nor will I,’ said the captain, rubbing his cheek with a callused thumb. ‘She won’t even feel it as I take her head off.’

This was it. She was going to die. Even if Rix and Tobry were to ride up with an army of a thousand, the captain would behead her before they could get close.

Tali shook off the despair. Never give up. Think, think!

Wil tried to pull the captain away from Tali. ‘But she the one.’

‘And the one has to die, Wil. The Living Blade gives a merciful death. It’s more than she deserves, considering her crimes.’

Could she work on Wil the way she had swayed Tinyhead? It was the faintest hope, because any of the guards would be his match in strength, and they were all around, all armed, all watchful.

Whatever Wil had seen in her, it mattered deeply to him. Could she manipulate him to create a chance of escape? How far would he go to protect her?

‘You’re right, Wil,’ said Tali. ‘I am the one and you’ve got to help me.’

‘See!’ cried Wil, and stretched out his thin arms imploringly. His gruesomely enlarged nostril was dripping blood, his hands and wrists were so scarred and cracked that fluid was weeping through the skin, and there was an odd, oval bulge across his belly. ‘Mustn’t touch her. You’ll ruin the ending.’

As he surged forwards, Tali caught the oily, oppressively sweet odour of alkoyl. Where did a nobody like Wil get such precious stuff? Could he be the thief that the master chymister had mentioned — the one whose clumsy theft had caused the explosion on the lower levels and burnt through that young woman’s leg?

‘Don’t be silly, Wil.’ The captain held him off with one hand, gently and respectfully. Wil might be mad, but when he went into shillilar the matriarchs listened. ‘The matriarchs have decreed that the one has to die, to protect our future.’

Tears began to drip from Wil’s empty eye sockets. ‘Must not interfere with shillilar. She vital to Cython’s story.’

‘The matriarchs look after the future, Wil. You clean out sumps.’

‘Tali special,’ wailed Wil.

‘The matriarchs have given their orders,’ said the captain, ‘and they will be carried out.’

Wil stiffened, then went rigid save for his fingers, which hooked into talons and raked at the air. ‘ Wil sees her,’ he uttered in an ecstatic voice. ‘She whispers to Khirrik-ai. She — ’

The captain jerked his head at the nearest guard, who took Wil around the chest with one brawny arm and stopped his mouth with the other hand.

The captain shook his head. ‘Sorry, Wil. The matriarchs said you might pretend to have a shillilar.’

‘Not pretend, not pretend.’

‘Take him away, Borst,’ the captain said to a stocky fellow with a shock of sulphur-yellow hair. ‘Treat him kindly; don’t let him see.’

Wil was led away, struggling feebly.

‘Wil, help me,’ whispered Tali.

But they did not allow him to look back and, though she knew Tinyhead still lurked in the darkness beyond the lantern light, neither could he break through the captain’s cordon. Tali had nothing left. She hoped she could face her end the way a lady of House vi Torgrist should, with dignity.

Two guards stood her on her feet, holding her so tightly that she could not move. Both men were leaning backwards, making room for the captain’s swing. Tali pictured the Living Blade taking Mia’s head off her slender neck. She had sworn a blood oath to Mia, and she had failed, failed at everything.

The captain studied Tali and his eyes softened. ‘So brave, so clever. What I have to do is indeed a waste.’

‘Then don’t do it,’ Tali burst out. ‘Take me back. I promise — ’

‘My orders are to bring your head home to Cython, as proof that the one is dead and the shillilar has been averted.’

As he raised his Living Blade, red highlights chased themselves around the annulus and the blade began to keen. He did not bow to her, though, nor reach out to take her hand. The captain was not planning to honour the doomed one — not after she had killed her overseer.

He drew the blade back. Then a girl screamed, ‘No!’ and yellow rocks were falling all around them. One bounced off the left-hand guard’s chin, rocking him backwards like a punch in the face, and another struck the captain in his right eye.

‘Come on, Tali!’ shrieked Rannilt from the darkness.

Before Tali could run, the second guard locked his arms around her and held her.

‘Get after the child,’ said the captain, rubbing his streaming eye.

Two men advanced into the darkness.

‘Run, Rannilt,’ yelled Tali.

‘Hold her while I do the business,’ said the captain. The guards held Tali upright and again leaned away.

‘Master, help me!’ howled Tinyhead.

‘Him too,’ snapped the captain. ‘Cut the traitor down.’

More guards ran into the dark. The captain wiped his eye and hefted the Living Blade.

Wil let out a shriek and burst free of the man holding him. ‘She the one. Kill the one and Cython burns.’