Vengeance

CHAPTER 46

‘Does she mean a shifter?’ Rix mouthed.

‘I hope not,’ Tobry mimed back. ‘Rannilt, it won’t come in daylight, and we need someone really brave to watch the horses. It’s a vital job. Can you do it?’

Rannilt studied the huge beasts, chewing on her bottom lip. She nodded jerkily. ‘What if — what if you don’t come back?’

‘Can you ride?’ said Rix.

‘Of course she can’t ride,’ said Tobry. ‘There aren’t any horses in Cython.’

He scribbled on a scrap of paper, then laid a hand on his horse’s muzzle, speaking in a low voice. The horse stamped its front feet, one after the other.

‘My horse is called Beetle,’ he said as he shortened the stirrups. ‘If we’re not back by nightfall, Beetle will take you to Caulderon, to a friend of ours, a kind old lady called Luzia. She’ll look after you. Give her this note; don’t lose it.’ He handed the scrap of paper to her. ‘You can ride there in a few hours.’ He gave Rix an anxious glance.

The chances of a despised Pale child making it, through war and the Seethings, was remote. Though not as remote as their attack succeeding.

‘Beetle,’ said Rannilt. ‘That’s a nice name.’

‘He’s very gentle,’ said Tobry. Beetle folded his right ear over. ‘Look, he likes you. But don’t try to ride Leather. She has a very bad temper.’

‘Like Rix,’ said Rannilt, then covered her mouth and turned scarlet.

Tobry snorted. By the words of a child I stand revealed, thought Rix.

Tobry put various items in a small pack and tossed it over a shoulder. They shook her grubby hand, then Rix followed Tobry around the curve to the other side of the knob. When he looked back, Rannilt was a tiny, fragile figure, staring after them.

‘I hate this,’ said Tobry. ‘Leaving her all alone is wrong.’

Rix clasped his shoulder. ‘We’ll make it quick.’

As the light grew they had a good view over the broken landscape to their left — a myriad of lifeless salt lakes and brilliantly blue, boiling pools, each surrounded by a concentric banding of red, orange and yellow crystals.

‘Looks like the Gods vomited the place up,’ said Rix, who had not previously seen the Seethings from on high. ‘Why did the enemy delve Cython here? There are caves aplenty in the mountains.’

‘There’s rich ore under the Seethings. They already had mines here when our First Fleets came.’

‘Plus the heatstones they sell us for such usurious prices.’

‘Oh, how House Ricinus would suffer,’ said Tobry, the sarcasm floating light as cobweb, ‘if it didn’t hold a third of the heatstone monopoly.’

‘It’s no good to us now we’re at war.’

‘There’s the path.’ Tobry pointed. ‘They’d better be on it.’

A narrow isthmus meandered between two large, ragged lakes, a faint path running along it then skirting the shore of the larger lake not far below them. Half a mile on, the lake’s outflow passed down a sinuous channel and over a series of cascades into a third, smaller lake, and that into another, and another. Finally, several miles away, the outlet river tumbled over a precipice into Lake Fumerous, which extended north for twenty miles.

‘Unless I’m mistaken,’ Tobry went on, ‘the rock rats should appear from behind that little ridge and pass along the shore below us. And since they’re not in sight and I had no sleep last night, I’m trying for a nap.’

‘How can you sleep?’

‘How can I help Tali if I can’t think straight?’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Rix. The steep slope was littered with broken red rock. ‘There’s nowhere we can wait in ambush; no cover at all.’

‘We’ll have to attack from here.’

‘We’re two hundred yards away. It’s impossible.’

‘I’m too tired to think. Ask me when I wake.’

Tobry pillowed his cheek on his folded arms. Rix longed for a quick nap to freshen his own muddy head, but dared not close his eyes. He pressed himself into a fold in the rock and stared down at the track. How to pull off an ambush from so far away? With his mighty wyverin-rib bow, stronger than any bow made from wood, he could shoot an arrow right over the path into the lake, though not with any accuracy.

He strung the bow, nocked an arrow and drew the string back a few times, aiming at a spot where the track passed this side of a cluster of boulders near the water. He would be lucky to hit a man at such extreme range. Tobry might; he was a better shot, but he was not strong enough to fully draw Rix’s bow.

Tobry grunted in his sleep and kicked both feet. His eyes began to flick back and forth beneath his closed lids in an unpleasantly familiar way, and he began to moan incoherently, n-n-n-n, n-n-n-n.

Rix’s throat went dry. Everyone had nightmares, but why was this one so familiar, so hackle-rearing? He could not remember, could not penetrate the mental fog of exhaustion.

Then suddenly he knew. Tobry had looked like this when the wrythen had been trying to possess him in the caverns. Was it making another attempt? But the mountains were a day’s ride from here; how could it reach Tobry from so far away? And what if it succeeded?

‘Tobe?’ Rix nudged him with the toe of a boot.

Like a cat, Tobry went from sleep to full wakefulness in a second, and sat up. ‘Are they coming?’

‘Not yet. You were having a bad dream, making a racket.’

‘Was I? Don’t remember a thing.’

He did not look troubled, which was comforting. After Rix had one of his doom-laden nightmares he could feel the shudders running through him for hours afterwards. This was just a bad dream, nothing to worry about …

He rubbed his face with his hands. Nothing could have induced him to doze now. What if the wrythen’s power strengthened further? What if it could reach Tobry when he was awake?

Cold sweat trickled down Rix’s sides. If he could not rely on his best friend, if he had to watch his back whenever he was with Tobry, he was bound to fail.

‘Tobe, do you reckon you could shoot a man on the path, from here?’

‘Not with my bow.’

‘What about mine?’

‘It takes a gorilla to pull your bow.’

‘Thanks.’ Rix pulled the arrow back a couple of times, straining until his biceps creaked and showing off a little. Right now, his physical strength was the one thing he could rely on. ‘What if I pull it and you aim?’

Tobry snorted. ‘That’d be like two men wheeling a wheelbarrow.’ He sighted along the arrow. ‘Maybe. Bugger of a shot, downhill.’

‘If we can kill their leader without warning, we’ll have a minute to disable the others before they kill Tali.’

Something flashed in Tobry’s eyes. Pain? Regret? ‘It’s possible. Just.’

‘It’d better be. Can you kill Orlyk from here if I draw my bow?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you hit her?’

‘I expect so.’

‘Not good enough.’ Rix released the tension on the string. ‘If you can’t be sure of bringing her down, we might as well go home.’

‘I can hit her, just can’t be sure of killing her. A flesh wound won’t stop her from shouting an order to kill Tali. Wait a minute …’ He felt in his pack.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Still got that club-headed arrow?’ said Tobry.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t have the range of the others.’

‘What if you took the head off and put this in its place?’

Tobry handed him the little conical phial of hallucinogenic water he’d collected from the entrance to the wrythen’s caverns.

Rix weighed it in his hand. ‘Stopper’s nicely pointed. But there’s not much water in it …’

‘There’s more than you got on your hand the other day.’

‘True. And it disabled me instantly.’

‘So it should work … as long as I hit her.’

‘Make sure you do.’

Tobry took off the club-head, bound the phial in its place and fixed it with arrowhead gum. His hand had a slight tremor; it took him three attempts to get it right. He checked the balance, adjusted the position of the phial, checked everything again and put the arrow in the sun so the gum would set.

Rix had to forcibly unclench his jaw. It was a lunatic plan that could get Tali killed. The minutes passed.

‘You’re worried about Rannilt, aren’t you?’

Tobry did not answer.

‘I hate waiting,’ said Rix. ‘What if you miss? What if one of the guards cuts Tali’s throat before we can stop him?’

‘It’ll be a better fate than awaits her in Cython.’

Rix had seen throats cut before. That was how thieves in Palace Ricinus were dealt with, and Lady Ricinus required the household to bear witness. His artist’s eye could see bright pearls of blood all over Tali’s luminously pale skin …

‘You’d better not miss.’

‘Shut up, they’re coming,’ said Tobry.

Orlyk, a heavyset, squat woman, was limping along the track towards the nearer end of the isthmus. Behind her came a small sinewy woman wearing a large pack, then a tall male guard, then Tali, her hands bound in front of her, followed by the big man Rannilt called Tinyhead, and another guard.

Tobry cursed. ‘There’s five. Rannilt only said four.’

‘They’re too close together,’ Rix said hoarsely, ‘and Tali’s hands are tied. Even if you take the leader down, any of the others can kill her in seconds. I don’t like the look of that small woman, either.’

‘What don’t you like about her?’

‘Just an instinct.’

‘She doesn’t seem to be armed.’

‘Even more worrying. Get ready, but we don’t shoot until they’re well clear of those boulders or they’ll run for cover.’

Rix laid the phial arrow to hand, plus four ordinary arrows. In practice he could shoot ten arrows a minute, even with the heavy draw of this bow, but with the extreme range, and the awkwardness of him drawing and Tobry aiming, they would be lucky to get three arrows off in that time. And there were five targets.

After firing the arrows they had two hundred yards to run. On level ground he could do that in twenty-five seconds but it would take more than a minute down this rubbly slope. Tali could be dead by then. And what if the wrythen had got to Tobry, and was planning to take command of him at the critical moment? Rix shot a quick glance his way, afraid of what he might see in his friend’s bruised eyes.

‘Something the matter?’ said Tobry.

‘Nah!’

Then it got worse.

‘More of them.’ Tobry was staring to the east. ‘Coming the other way. Hope Rannilt has sense enough to keep out of sight.’

‘It must be the second squad. The ones who were going to kill Tali straight away.’

‘They’re between us and the horses,’ said Rix. ‘Even if we can rescue Tali, how do we get back to Rannilt?’