Vengeance

CHAPTER 52

‘They’re only minutes away,’ called Tali from her vantage point up a tall tree.

‘Come down, Tali,’ said Rix.

‘Can’t go back in the water,’ said Tobry. ‘Another ride like that one will finish me.’

‘Besides,’ Rix added, ‘we’d end up in Lake Fumerous and the last waterfall has a thousand-foot drop. We’ll swim the pool and head overland.’

Rix towed Tali across but she saw no animal power in him now, just a bone-creaking weariness. Tobry was even slower. The hundred and fifty yards across the pool took him minutes and with every laboured stroke she was afraid he would fail and sink. She looked upstream, expecting to see grey heads beside the waterfall. Tobry reached the shore and Rix dragged him out.

‘How do we get back to Rannilt?’ said Rix. ‘You know this country better than I do.’

‘Map’s lost.’ Tobry checked the angle of the sun and pointed to the right. ‘This way. I think.’

Rix squeezed Tali’s shoulder, the way an old friend might have done. ‘You did well.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tali, disconcerted by the change in him. But then, they had been through a year’s worth of adventures today. ‘Are you sure Rannilt’s all right?’

Rix and Tobry exchanged glances. For a few seconds, Tobry’s eyes went black.

‘We’ve led the enemy away from her …’ said Rix.

‘What is it?’ said Tali.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ Rix said slowly. ‘But … Rannilt kept talking about something that comes out of the dark. Shadow and shape, shiftin’, always shiftin’, she said. But kids are afraid of the dark. It’s probably nothing.’

Frosty fingers scraped down Tali’s back. ‘She told me about it, too.’

‘Do you think it’s real?’ Tobry’s voice crackled like ice.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘And it’s hunting her?’

Tali’s chest was tight. She pushed the words out. ‘ Me! It’s using her to get to me.’

There was a long silence. ‘We’d better split up,’ said Rix. ‘Tobe, take Tali and head for Caulderon. I’ll go after Rannilt.’

‘If you think I’m running away — ’ began Tali.

‘I’m with Rix on this,’ said Tobry. ‘If you’re right, it wants you to come after Rannilt. It’s luring you in.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ snapped Tali, for she was desperately afraid. ‘She saved my life and I’m going after her. I’m not debating the matter.’

‘This way,’ said Tobry, turning left.

Away from the incised channel of the river, the barren plain was unnaturally warm and dotted with sinkholes and fuming pits. The soil was a rusty orange, scattered with round black pebbles the size of marbles that rolled beneath them and hurt Tali’s feet through Mijl’s thin sandals. In the distance, the Brown Vomit fumed and roared. Red lava was trickling over the rim, though it quickly congealed.

‘Eruption’s getting worse,’ said Tobry laconically.

‘Does lava ever flow this far?’ said Tali.

‘It’s too sticky. The Vomits tend to blow up.’

‘H-how often?’

‘Might not happen for a thousand years. But when it does, it’ll empty the lake and wash Caulderon clean away.’

Tali wished she had not asked. ‘How far is it to Rannilt?’

‘Three miles in a direct line,’ said Tobry. ‘But it’ll take hours on our winding route.’

In hours the enemy could catch them. In hours the shifting thing could kill Rannilt and eat her.

‘How did you escape Cython, where no other Pale ever has?’ asked Rix, sometime later.

She explained about the sunstone knocking all the enemy out.

‘Yet you escaped?’

‘It didn’t affect me — apart from a terrible headache.’ Or had it? The power that had killed Banj had appeared soon afterwards.

‘I wonder why not?’ mused Tobry.

She did not answer, for a chilling possibility had occurred to her. How come Rix, the one person she could identify from the murder scene, had appeared at the shaft within hours of her escape? It could be a coincidence, though it seemed a little too neat.

If he knew the killers, had he been blackmailed into protecting them? But in that case, why had he rescued her, and why was he doing his best to make up for his earlier insult? She couldn’t make sense of it.

She had to confront him, tell him she knew he was the boy from the cellar, and demand answers … though, after he had risked his life for her, to do so now felt more than a little ungrateful. It must be soon, though, and in the meantime she would try the subtle approach.

‘Why was Tinyhead hunting you before you escaped?’ said Tobry.

‘He’s why I escaped.’ She turned to Rix, watching his face. ‘He betrayed my mother to her killers and now he’s after me.’

‘Then he’s a traitor to his own country,’ said Rix.

‘He serves a higher master.’ She told them how Tinyhead’s master had burnt through his head to prevent him revealing the name. ‘For a few seconds, I could see his eyes looking out of Tinyhead’s eyes, staring at me.’

Rix jumped, and he and Tobry exchanged glances. ‘I don’t like this at all,’ Tobry said in a low voice. ‘When we get home, Rix, we’ve got to talk.’

‘He wants me desperately and I’ve no idea why,’ said Tali, moving closer to Rix and watching his face. ‘Wants to kill me the way that woman killed my mother.’

‘What woman?’ said Rix. His voice rose. ‘Were you there when she died?’

‘I saw her killed,’ said Tali, staring at his eyes. She saw no flicker of guilt, shame or even recognition. ‘The killers were masked, but they were definitely from Hightspall.’

‘Hightspallers in Cython?’ said Rix to Tobry.

‘I don’t know that we were in Cython. Tinyhead led us a long way underground.’

‘Doing secret deals with the enemy is treachery, even without conspiring to murder Pale. Treachery of the worst kind, a capital offence. What scum would sink so low?’

She wanted to scream, then what were you doing there?

‘They’re behind us,’ said Tobry. ‘Nine of them.’

‘Can we shake them off?’ said Tali. Rannilt was lost in a deadly land and Tali had to get to her before the thing in the dark did.

‘Not a hope,’ said Tobry. A cluster of cone-shaped peaks broke the horizon a mile and a half away. ‘If we can reach those hills we might hold them off … for a while. Run!’

She set off, and every stride was like having the soles of her feet beaten. Rix passed her, jogging, his wet boots squeaking with every stride. Tobry laboured along beside her.

‘Are you better?’ she said.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve had a day like this.’

‘Did you get the scars on your chest in battle?’

Tobry shook his head. ‘There hasn’t been war in many lifetimes …’ He did not speak for a while. ‘I didn’t get those scars respectably.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Tali.

‘A woman’s husband challenged me to a duel of honour. His honour, not mine, if you take my meaning.’

More than a little shocked, she mulled it over as she ran. Such things were unheard of in Cython. When the men came back for their monthly visits, many were too exhausted to service their own wives. An especially vigorous man could be called upon to honour the wife of an incapable friend, but that was by mutual consent. Clearly, things were different in Hightspall.

She looked sideways at Tobry. He was half a head shorter than Rix, wiry rather than muscular and no one would have called him handsome, yet in Cython he would have been a rare prize. Moreover, she felt safe with him, as she had never felt safe since her mother was murdered.

‘I think you are honourable,’ she said.

‘How little you know me. My noble house has fallen, not unrelated to a terrible choice I had to make as a lad. Now I’m forced to rely on the kindness of my friends. I believe in nothing save the here and now, and I think the whole universe is a joke. So there.’

‘You’re brave and kind,’ she panted. ‘You gave me the last coins you had. You risked your life for me.’

‘They’re gaining fast,’ said Tobry.

They had crossed half the distance now. Even if they made it to the peaks, three could not fight nine when Rix was the only one armed.

The peaks were shaped like cones and only a few hundred feet high. Tali could see four of them and thought there might be others beyond.

‘Those mountains are oddly neat,’ she said.

‘Cinder cones,’ said Tobry. ‘Baby volcanoes.’

‘Do you think there could be caves there? Or anywhere we can hide?’

‘No. They’re just steep piles of broken rock, and dry as bones.’

Rix reached the face of the nearest cinder cone, climbed twenty feet then turned to look out over the plain. Tali scrambled up to him, wincing. It was hard climbing, the surface being loose rock which slipped underfoot.

‘How are you doing?’ Rix said pointedly.

She wasn’t giving anything away. ‘In Cython we learn — ’

‘To endure pain. I’m getting sick of hearing that.’

‘Sorry. My feet hurt like blazes. Everything hurts.’ It was a big admission, for her.

He put an arm around her. ‘We’ll stand together and make them pay.’

No, she thought, we won’t.