Vengeance

CHAPTER 49

Orlyk fell with an arrow in her chest, then Mijl was struck, and a third arrow whistled between Tali and Tinyhead. Before she could move, the tall guard spun her around and jerked her head back to expose her throat. Her hands were still bound and she could not help herself.

Whack! The guard’s knife spun past her ear — Tinyhead had kicked it out of his hand. Another kick to the groin dropped the man. Tinyhead grabbed Tali, raced for the boulders, dropped her on her feet, one giant paw crushing her shoulder, and peered around the side.

Tali doubled over, shuddering. It had been so close. But she had to get free. She rasped at her bonds with the brass pin that had pinned her father’s letter in place. She had been working on the ropes for an hour; and now the last strands tore through. She could not see the attackers through the claggy smoke. What if they thought she was Cythonian and shot her too?

A big man came charging towards her, running so fast down the rubbly slope that he was likely to break his neck. Tali caught her breath; it was Rix, carrying a bow, and behind him was Tobry, sword in hand. She had been wrong about them. They were risking their lives for her.

Mijl rose from the smoke, swinging the glass tube towards Tali. Mijl’s middle and thighs were blood-drenched and a broken arrow protruded from her belly muscles, yet her hand was steady. Tinyhead had not noticed and his grip prevented Tali from ducking out of sight.

Mijl took aim. Tali was staring at the round opening in the end of the tube, unable to move, when the pothecky let out a pained grunt. Another arrow had gone through her upper arm, pinning it to the side of her chest. She tried to raise the tube, then it wavered and she fell down through the smoke.

Tinyhead caught Tali up but this time she was ready. She slashed him across the forehead with the brass pin, beads of blood bursting from the deep scratch, then back across the nose and cheek. He was so shocked that he dropped her. She bounced on her bruised bottom, scrambled up and, as he lunged, she thrust out the pin to hold him off.

Tinyhead flicked blood out of his eyes and reached for her. With Nurse Bet’s lessons guiding her hand, Tali slashed and the pin tore through his fingertips. He took a backwards step, raising his arms skywards and silently beseeching his master. She pushed forwards. A chymical dart whirred past her cheek and struck him in the left shoulder. He plucked it out, stared at the fluid dripping from its hollow tip for several seconds, then crumbled.

Tali backed away, turned and cried out. Rix was flying through the air, straight towards one of the guard’s spears — he was going to impale himself through the chest. But then, with a mid-air dexterity beyond her imagination, he hacked the spear shaft in two and killed the man with a kick to the jaw.

‘Tali, behind you!’

The warning came almost too late. Only instinct got her out of the way and she felt the wind of the tall guard’s sword blow, the tug as it sliced through her baggy robes. She scrambled away, snatching a handful of dirt and tossing it at his eyes. He kept coming, slashing across and back, aiming to kill.

With a sickening crunch, a sword came out through the left wall of his chest and he died on his feet. It had gone right through him. She was staring at the impaled corpse when Orlyk sat up, struck a triangle, ting, and the ankle bracelet went from cold to burning in a few seconds. Smoke rose from Tali’s ankle as the skin blistered. The pain was hideous but there was no way to get the bracelet off — the squat Cythonian was advancing with her throat-cutting knife.

Tali tried to heave Rix’s sword out of the man’s back, but it was jammed through the ribs. She grabbed a stone and hurled it at Orlyk. It missed, and so did the next; throwing stones was not an art Tali had ever practised. Orlyk was almost on her when her third stone struck the arrow wound in the squat woman’s upper chest. She dropped like a boulder, convulsing again, and the bracelet began to cool.

The smoke billowed high, drifted low. All was a chaos of screams and shouts, blows and counter-blows. Tali kept turning and turning, squinting through the eye-stinging smoke, never sure which direction the next attack was coming from but always knowing that the enemy was determined to cut her throat.

She could not have said whom she fought or what was the result, but suddenly everyone was down save the pothecky, who had dropped Rix and Tobry with chymical darts and was thumbing another into her tube. Tobry lay thirty yards away up the slope, unmoving. Steam gushed from Rix’s mouth and he was making inarticulate grunts. His red face looked as though it was about to burst.

The pothecky turned on Tali, who took careful aim with a jagged chunk of red stone, and flung it. This time it went true, thudding into the pothecky’s forehead. Her arms flailed, she fell to her knees on rock and Tali heard an unpleasant crack, as if a kneecap had broken.

She was drenched in sweat, staggering from exhaustion, and every movement aggravated her blistered ankle, but Tinyhead was lurking somewhere, and Mijl and Orlyk were still alive.

The sensible thing was to kill them while they were helpless but that was too cold-blooded for Tali. She limped to Rix and put a hand on his face. He was almost too hot to touch — he seemed to be burning from the inside. The lake was only ten yards away yet it might as well have been a mile — she could never drag his dead weight that far. She would have to try and heal him.

Even the most minor healing was draining, but it was going to take far more than that to save him and she had little strength left. Tali pressed hard on his cheeks with her healing hands, summoning every iota of her little gift to draw the heat out of him. Her hands went as hot as his face, yet he seemed to be getting worse.

He clawed weakly at his chest and she saw the dart embedded there, the bubble of fluid under the skin. Taking hold of the feathered tail, she eased the dart out, then opened his shirt. She shot a glance around her, saw no Tinyhead lurking, no Orlyk or Mijl. Tali pressed her fingers in under the bubble so as to drive out the remaining poison, then carefully wiped it off his skin, stroking outwards so none would be drawn into the puncture.

She laid hands on his chest again. He was even hotter now and his heart was going like a galloping horse; it was a wonder it had not burst. Tali murmured the strongest healing charms she knew, trying to draw the heat into her hot hands. They became scaldingly hot, red and painful, and after a minute she felt the heartbeat slow its frantic pace.

The smoke was settling, forming an opaque, knee-deep layer she could not see through. Mijl and Orlyk might be creeping up on her or they might be dead. She could not tell.

‘Tobe?’ Rix groaned, eyelids fluttering. ‘Tobe, that you? Thought you — dead.’ He tried to sit up.

She could not think about that. ‘It’s me, Tali. Stay down.’

‘Help Tobe. He’s … the better man.’

Noble, perhaps, but stupid. ‘Shut up and let me do my job.’

Tobry was on his hands and knees, attempting to crawl, though he only managed a yard before flopping like a dying man. Was he dying? Tali had seen so many dead — in her brief life she had lost everyone she cared about. It was a struggle to help Rix, whose heart raced every time she lifted her hands. How could Tobry survive the same poison without healing aid?

Ting! White smoke belched up from the bracelet again, burning her scorched ankle. She shook her foot, trying to ease the pain, and caught the stench of burning skin — Orlyk must have roused. Yes, she was lurching towards Tali, knife out, and the look on her face was murderous.

‘I am so going to enjoy cutting your throat,’ said Orlyk.

Without thinking, Tali picked up the chymical dart she had taken from Rix’s chest and tossed it into Orlyk’s open mouth.

Her crimson-faced, steam-gushing death was not pretty, but it was mercifully brief.

‘Better now,’ whispered Rix. ‘Help Tobe.’

Dare she? If she left Rix now, both he and Tobry could die. Where was Tobry? He must have crawled off and there was no time to look for him. The chymical smoke was thinning, blowing away, and the pothecky was on her feet, blood running from cheek, shoulder, belly and knee. Mijl must have been in agony but she was determined to do her duty. She lurched around towards Tali, each step a struggle, and there was no one to stop her.

She raised the tube and, after three fumbling attempts, inserted a killing dart. Tali scrambled backwards, looking for a fallen weapon. There was nothing within reach.

‘Aah!’ gasped Rix. ‘Heart burning, burning.’

He pressed his hands over his chest, tried to get up and succeeded in raising his head, but it fell back on the path, thud.

Tali found a pebble. It was too small to do any damage unless it struck Mijl in the eye. It would have to. She hurled it and missed by feet.

The pothecky raised her tube and tried to hold it steady but swayed and slammed down onto her cracked kneecap. She screamed and something fell onto the ground and smashed — a glass eye. Mijl turned her empty socket and good eye on Tali, then raised the tube again. It was wobbling a little, though at this range she could not miss.

Tali wondered if she could dive and outrun the dart. Surely not. Mijl’s cheeks puffed out to blow, but as she did, and Tali ducked, a staggering, scarlet-faced Tobry came at Mijl from behind and with a ferocious slash lifted her domed head four feet off her hunched shoulders.

Rix was on his feet. ‘Burning, burning.’

He swayed, jammed the point of his sword into the ground to hold himself up and almost took a big toe off. Tali pressed her hands against his chest, muttered her healing charm and forced until her fingers burned and her knees wobbled. Slowly the crimson receded from his face.

‘Water,’ whispered Rix.

Tali and Tobry dragged him to the edge of the lake and rolled him in. Tali stepped into the water, quenching the ankle bracelet in a hissing cloud of steam, and it cracked and came to pieces. Her ankle was redraw, blistered in a circle and, now that she had nothing to distract her, excruciatingly painful.

Tobry drank half a gallon, Rix even more, and after several minutes he sat up.

‘Where — Orlyk?’ he rasped. ‘Watch out for her.’

‘Dead,’ said Tali. ‘They’re all dead, save for Tinyhead, and he’s gone.’ But how far?

‘Thank you.’ Rix tried to struggle upright.

‘Lie down. You’re not well.’

‘No time,’ said Rix. ‘The other squad’s coming. Tali, Tali, got to say it.’

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she muttered.

‘Yes, I do.’ He extended his hand. ‘Sorry about yesterday. I’m a fool. Everyone will tell you that.’

‘He’s not lying,’ said Tobry, managing a grin. ‘You’ll look hard to find a bigger idiot in all Hightspall. I’m thinking about writing a book about him.’

‘Don’t go on, Tobe,’ said Rix.

‘But his heart’s in the right place.’

‘It is now,’ said Rix, pressing his free hand against his chest.

As Tali stared at him, the heat swept back into his face. Was he thinking that she was going to spurn his apology? ‘Yesterday you threw up at the sight of my slave mark.’

He bent his head to her. ‘I was taught that the Pale willingly served the enemy. I’m not proud of myself.’

‘We’re enslaved! We’ve always been enslaved.’

‘I understand that now.’

She could see what an effort he was making. And, having saved each other’s lives, there would forever be a bond between them. It was no small thing.

‘I’ve made plenty of mistakes,’ said Tali, ‘and not all could be remedied with a handshake.’ His huge, tanned hand engulfed her small, pale one. ‘Shall we call truce?’

‘Truce.’ He turned to Tobry. ‘I thought you were dead. How did you survive?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Tobry, in a voice as dry as a crackling blaze. ‘After the dart hit me, my heart was on fire. I was burning up; knew I was going to die. Nothing I could do. Tried to heal myself but didn’t know how. Then I … I lost a minute or two. When I roused, the hot pain was being pushed back down … and out.’

‘Pushed back down?’ said Rix incredulously.

‘I can’t explain it. Must have a strong constitution, I guess.’

Tali looked from one to the other. Rix was studying Tobry side-on as if he did not believe what he was hearing. No, as if he thought his closest friend was lying.