Vengeance

CHAPTER 78

‘Rannilt, can you tell how many guards there are?’

She sniffed the air. ‘At least one, in with the horses.’

‘Wait here.’

‘Don’t hurt him.’

Rix slipped into the stables, a cross-shaped space excavated out of yellow limestone. The left-hand end of the cross was stacked with dark cubes of silage which gave off a rich, malty odour. The floor of the central area was worn in an exercise circle. A rock salt lick was set in a metal frame near the far wall, while the right-hand end contained a series of stone-walled stalls, reeking of manure and urine, each with a horse inside.

Further down, he made out a trundling squeal, a stable boy barrowing manure away. Rix waited in shadow until he returned, a stocky, brown-haired lad of twelve, then rose like a golem into the lantern light and took him by the arm.

‘Don’t make a sound.’

The boy jumped, groped for a knife on his belt, then stopped, smiling tentatively. Two of his front teeth were missing. ‘Lord Rixium?’

‘You know me?’ Rix was constantly surprised at the number of people who recognised his face.

‘Everyone’s talkin’ ’bout how you beat the enemy out in the Seethin’s,’ said the lad, breathily. His eyes were shining. ‘You’re the hero of Caulderon.’

Rix raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, we’ve come for the horses.’ He studied the stalls. ‘And we’ll need a change of mounts, so four of your best.’

‘I haven’t been told about this,’ said the boy.

‘It came up rather suddenly.’

‘They’re the chancellor’s horses.’

‘And he’s sent me, so go and rouse them out.’

The boy was starting to sweat, but he stood his ground. ‘Sorry, Lord, I can’t let them go without a docket.’

There wasn’t time for debate. Rix drew his sword, its curved blade glittering in the lantern light. ‘This is my authorisation, lad.’

The boy took a deep breath, as if to yell for help. Rix twitched the sword. The shining light vanished from the boy’s eyes. His face flushed and he looked bitterly disillusioned.

‘You’re no hero,’ he said crushingly, jerking free and scrambling away. ‘You’re runnin’ like a stinkin’ coward, and I’ll die before I let you have them.’

Rix started after the lad, the sword dangling uselessly. He could never use it on a child. The boy bolted, roaring, ‘Thieves! Traitors! Help!’

‘Sorry, kid,’ said Tobry. A low, fizzing sound, a narrow streak of emerald light, and the boy crumpled.

‘I didn’t know you could do that with magery,’ said Rix.

Tobry tied the lad up. ‘It only works on the unformed minds of children and innocents,’ he said with more than a hint of bitterness.

Rix, shaken by the boy’s accusation, did not reply. Was he doing the right thing or making an inevitable disaster worse? But how could Tali take on Lyf? It was impossible.

Shortly they emerged through a cobwebby illusion concealing an exit screened by boulders and scrub, partway down a warty hill. It was not long until dawn and the moon was an eerie red through gauzy clouds and heavy smoke.

‘Where are we?’ said Rix, leading the largest horse, a rangy, red-eyed grey, up the hill.

The Vomits were smoking balefully to his left, and every so often the ground gave a faint quiver. Ahead, a couple of miles away, the orange glow of Caulderon’s burning shanty towns was clearly visible. Thousands of yellow flares illuminated the dark mass of Cython’s armies ringing the walls.

Tobry cursed under his breath. ‘How many are there?’

‘We’ve got eighteen thousand troops in Caulderon, counting the injured. The enemy must be three times that number by now.’

‘And nothing we can do save go on,’ said Tobry. ‘We’re a little south of Nollyrigg. If we strike towards the Brown Vomit, we should reach the Caulderon Road in half an hour. Though I’m not keen on risking the road — ’

‘Or Rannilt,’ said Rix.

‘You’re not leavin’ me behind again,’ said Rannilt.

‘No, we can’t do without you,’ said Tobry.

He shook Rix’s hand, then Rannilt’s tiny paw, gravely.

‘The enemy seem to be massing for an all-out attack,’ said Rix, wondering if there would be anything left to come back to. ‘The boy was right. People will say I’ve run like a coward.’

‘People say all manner of things,’ said Tobry.

‘Tali is hours ahead. She could be captured by now.’ Or dead.

‘She saved you,’ said Rannilt. ‘Now you’ve got to save her.’

‘I should be defending my family and my house, not riding into a certain trap.’

‘Tali comes first.’

Rix could not bear to argue. The conflict was already unendurable. As they reached the road and headed south, all three Vomits were smoking. He spurred his horse and they raced towards the mountains in the blood-red moonlight. The world was eerily quiet. The towns they passed were dark, every window shuttered, the people cowering inside. Or horribly dead of plague or pox.

Several hours passed. Dawn broke under a heavy, yellow-brown overcast sky, not much brighter than twilight. Closer to the Vomits, the ground shook constantly and they had to slow because cracks had opened across the road, some wide enough to trap a horse’s leg.

‘Do you think all three Vomits are going to erupt?’ said Rix, reining in.

‘I hope not,’ Tobry said direly. ‘According to Cythonian legend, that presages — ’

‘Let me guess,’ said Rix. ‘Apocalypse? Armageddon?’

‘What’s Armageddon?’ piped Rannilt.

‘The end of the world, child. Ruin in fire, then ice.’

Tobry, who was holding her as if she were his own precious child, seemed to be in physical pain. Not a trace remained of the reckless hedonist Rix had known all his life.

As they approached the mountain climb, ruddy glows lit the sky. Sudden hot winds rushed down the Vomits, which now lay ahead to the right, and billowed across the Seethings to the road, only to be driven back by icy gales from the mountains on their left. One minute Rix was sweltering in his heavy gear, the next, freezing despite it. Tobry’s sweaty face had a demonic aspect in the baleful light. It certainly looked like the end of the world.

The wire-handled sword rattled. As Rix steadied it, he saw the opalised figure again, contorted in agony. He had only ever seen it on the way to the caverns — the caverns the sword had led him to last time. What was it up to? He had never discovered where the sword came from and that now felt like a fatal error.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Tobe,’ Rix said quietly. The foreboding was so thick that he could have painted it.

‘What’s that?’

Rannilt turned to stare at Rix, but even with her all-seeing eyes on him he could not hold back.

‘That we’ll be too late to save Tali; that Lyf will win and bring Hightspall to ruin. That we won’t all come back alive.’

‘ I haven’t given up,’ said Rannilt coldly. ‘Tali will beat the nasty old wrythen-king, I know it.’

‘It might be an idea to get a move on,’ said Tobry.

‘I’m not going quietly!’ Rix drew the enchanted sword that he had once feared, and now was his mainstay against the foe at journey’s end. Raising it high, he roared, ‘Ride, ride, or the whole world is dead!’

Hours later they stopped at the lookout where they had rested briefly on the way to Precipitous Crag, over a week ago. Smoke and fumes hid both the Vomits and Caulderon now, though the sky was clear to the south and the red moon rode high, reflecting off a white ocean for as far as they could see.

‘The sea ice clamps around the coast of Hightspall like a fist,’ said Tobry. ‘The end can’t be far away.’

The nightmare almost choked Rix. ‘How can it be the end? Why are we being punished? What have we done wrong?’

No one had an answer.

They navigated the narrow valley in the brooding darkness under the blood-bark trees, the hooves making little sound in deep snow, then left the horses next to the boulder-studded strip of open land where the caitsthe had attacked.

Tobry wiped icy sweat from his forehead. His terror of shifters could not be contained. And perhaps he’s still blaming himself for letting me down last time, Rix thought, which was absurd. Tobry never gave less than his all.

As they were crawling through the vine thicket, Rannilt let out a little, hoarse cry. ‘I can smell blood.’

They scrambled out into the open, next to the looming bulk of the Crag. It was frigid here. Tobry’s lips moved in what looked suspiciously like a prayer, surely the first that had ever crossed his disbelieving lips.

Let it not be Tali’s.