Best Laid Plans (48 page)

Barek dismounted and embraced him. ‘You came for us,’ he said. ‘I always knew you would.’

Shader shook his head, feeling so inadequate. ‘A right mess I made of it, though,’ he said through the tears. ‘Barek, it’s good to see you. Good to see you all.’

‘Any news of Gaston?’ Barek asked. ‘Things weren’t good between us last time we met.’

Shader pulled back from the embrace and sheathed his swords. Without meeting Barek’s eyes he said, ‘Gaston’s dead.’

Barek dropped his head.

‘But he put us all to shame, Barek, at the last. He died saving the priests from Hagalle’s assassins.’

‘Really?’ Barek said. ‘He redeemed himself?’

Shader wanted to believe that; hoped it were true. But that was for Rhiannon to judge. If not her, then Ain.

‘The Ipsissimus is here,’ Shader said, avoiding answering. ‘The Templum Fleet is at Dalantle.’

‘I heard,’ Barek said. ‘But Hagalle plans to attack them.’

Shader nodded. He crouched down to feel for a pulse in Harding’s neck. He’d lost a lot of blood, but his heart still beat, albeit faintly.

‘The Emperor’s an idiot,’ Shader said. ‘Scared of his own shadow. He should be going after Cadman, who still has two pieces of the statue. The others are in the hands of Sektis Gandaw. Ain only knows what will happen if he gets hold of Cadman’s.’

‘This all sounds so unreal,’ Barek said. ‘Like one of Elias’s stories. Sektis Gandaw’s a myth, like Otto Blightey. I still find it hard to accept this is happening.’

‘Me too,’ Shader said. ‘Me too.’

‘What should we do? There are so few of us left.’ Barek rubbed his horse behind the ear and then climbed back into the saddle. ‘Nevertheless, we are battle-hardened and yours to command, if that’s what you wish.’

‘You have any spare horses?’ Shader asked.

‘Here,’ Dave the Slave said, leading the horse Shader had ridden from Dalantle. ‘Go, Keeper of the Sword. Lead this holy Order. Ride to the aid of Nous’s Vicar on Earth and bring death to the infidel, Hagalle.’

‘Thought I told you to leave me alone,’ Shader said. ‘And besides, what do you think fourteen knights could achieve against the thousands Hagalle commands? Why don’t you do something useful? Take this man to the templum; see if Mater Ioana can do anything for him; or try Dr Stoofley, if he’s still there.’

Shader was surprised that Dave did as he asked. The hunchback stooped and lifted Harding as if he weighed no more than a baby. Without a word, he trudged into the night and faded from view.

‘There has to be another way,’ Shader said to Barek. ‘We have to make Hagalle see reason.’

He mounted his horse and led the White Order northwards through Sarum’s night-darkened streets. Reasoning with a madman was a task that didn’t inspire much hope. Maybe the Ipsissimus would have more luck, if he could get close enough to parley. Failing that, the best they could do was pray and hope for some kind of miracle.

R
hiannon dropped down the last five feet of the ladder and twisted her ankle.

‘Shit,’ she cried. ‘Shog, shit and fuck.’

The room she’d entered was a bedchamber—presumably Cadman’s.

The gargoyle-thing was curled up on the edge of the bed, breathing heavily. It appeared to be asleep. She glanced up at the trapdoor. There was no sign of pursuit, but it wouldn’t be long till they noticed she’d gone. No time to hang about.

She tested her ankle and winced at the pain. She could walk if she didn’t put too much weight on it. She took a step towards the gargoyle, intending to throttle it in its sleep, but then took hold of herself. Stupid to take risks now. She just had to get out of there.

The gargoyle snored and Rhiannon held her breath. Once its breathing resumed its steady rhythm, she hobbled through the open door and limped downstairs.

The lower levels were unguarded, but the front door was secured from the inside. She drew back the heavy bolts one at a time, holding her breath whenever they squeaked. Taking hold of the handle, she cast a look over her shoulder to make sure she still wasn’t being followed, and then pulled.

She slid through the merest of cracks and immediately saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Black shapes to either side of the door began to lumber towards her. Doing her best to ignore the pain in her ankle, she half ran, half hopped for the trees. More shapes emerged from the darkness to shamble in pursuit, but within a few strides, her ankle eased and she was able to plant her weight on it. She tore into the undergrowth, veering to the left as a horde of groaning figures rose from a cluster of mounds.

‘Ain,’ she whispered to herself, half in prayer, half in shock. ‘More shogging zombies.’

She sprinted away from the main mass of undead, arms pumping furiously, breath coming in ragged gasps. The darks shapes from the tower still followed, spreading out like a dragnet. Ducking beneath overhanging branches, Rhiannon found herself on a woodland trail and picked up her speed. Something grabbed at her robe—it may have been a branch, but she didn’t stop to find out—and then she slipped and tumbled down a bank. She hit the bottom with a thud that jarred her neck and sent a thumping pain through her skull. She crawled another pace before pulling herself up using a drooping branch.

Black figures lumbered through the darkness behind her, merging with the forest so that it seemed the trees themselves were moving, reaching out, coming for her. She pushed away from the branch and took a couple of steps, but then a hooded figure emerged from behind a eucalypt in front of her. A dozen or more black-cloaked figures slunk out to either side.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she found herself shouting in her panic.

The lead figure threw back its hood to reveal a sharp face dominated by a well-oiled moustache. The flesh was pale, the eyes, red. Strips of meat clung to its teeth.

The others revealed their faces, each with the pallor of the grave and starting to putrefy.

Rhiannon whirled, looking for an opening, but the horde from the tower was closing in around her. She grabbed a branch and snapped it free from its trunk. It lacked weight, but she’d take whatever she could find. Crouching, she held the branch in both hands and dared the cloaked zombies to advance.

They drew daggers and came at her—lightly, on the balls of their feet, not at all like the shambling things behind. As they drew closer, Rhiannon saw that they all had grisly wounds—raked faces, gouged chests, ripped out throats.

Cracking twigs and rustling leaves startled her. She spun, still looking for some opening to slip through, but the noose had closed and there was nowhere to run. A hundred pairs of hands reached towards her. She swooned and retched at the stench of decay, dropping the branch and falling to her knees. Cold fingers touched her—

Lightning flashed, its flicker making the movements of the dead appear stilted. A sizzling crack followed, and a thunderous blast rolled through the woods. Flesh charred, smoke plumed skywards, and bodies fell. Another explosion sent rotting carcasses hurtling into trees and a passage opened through the horde. The cloaked zombies still came on, but the air in front of them swirled green like a vast shield of light. As they struck it, the corpses disappeared, as if they’d walked into the mouth of a cave.

Two figures ran through the corridor between the undead, one cloaked in feathers, the other much smaller and half naked. Recognition hit Rhiannon, and she knew she must have been dreaming; knew she must have been dead.

***

‘Boy has heard it.’—A man’s voice, thick and awkward, as if the words
were alien. ‘All of web shudders in warning. Sahul’s children cry out.’

‘The ants.’—A boy’s voice, shrill and excited. ‘They tell me everything.’

Rhiannon moaned and turned, trying to snuggle down away from the noise. The bed was too hard. Her arm felt numb beneath her. Something coarse ground into her face, and her lips were dry and dusty. She rolled onto her back and red heat seared through her eyelids. She covered her face with her hands, blinking rapidly.

‘How many?’—Another man’s voice, smoother, more refined, yet the accent wasn’t Sahulian.

‘As many as stars.’—The first man again. She knew that voice. Huntsman. And the child—Ain, it had to be Sammy.

‘Gently, my dear,’ the other man said. ‘Huntsman, a drink. I would do it myself, but in the spirit I lack the digits.’

Rhiannon let her hands drop and risked looking into the blaze. She blinked again and realized she was facing the sun. She turned away and was startled to full alertness when she saw a rough pillar of rock—limestone—jutting towards the azure sky like a fossilised finger. She shook her head and focused. Not just one rock—hundreds of them. Pocked and twisted monoliths surrounded her like a petrified forest, or a city sprouting from the earth.

Huntsman crouched into her field of vision, a tight grin exposing the black stubs of his teeth. Sunlight glinted from the crystals beaded through his hair. He put something pulpy to her lips and she sucked automatically, drawing sweet moisture into her mouth and gulping it down.

‘Cactus,’ Huntsman said. ‘Keep you alive.’

‘Sammy?’ Rhiannon pushed Huntsman’s hand away. ‘Is he with you?’

‘Here,’ the boy said.

He sounded so old.

Rhiannon rolled to her knees and Sammy came to stand before her. He looked taller somehow, but she knew that was impossible. Then she realized it was due to his bearing. He stood straight and proud, like Huntsman. His fair hair was besmirched and twisted into stubby dreadlocks that reminded her of the trunks of grass trees. His cheeks were browned from exposure and daubed with ochre. He was naked apart from a soiled binding around his loins that may have been animal skin or some kind of treated leaf. Like Huntsman, he was barefoot, and his eyes—Sammy’s sparkling playful eyes—were piercing pinpricks in the grime, distantly focused and utterly serious.

‘What have you done?’ she shrieked at Huntsman, surging to her feet and lunging for his face.

The old Dreamer swayed out of her reach. Before she could renew her assault, a white radiance stepped between them.

‘He has preserved your brother, by all accounts.’

The other man. His voice was strangely distant, dreamlike.

Rhiannon stepped back. ‘Oh my shogging—What are you?’

He was robed in white and wearing a biretta. His face seemed unnaturally young, although the eyes were those of an old man. Rhiannon could see right through him as if he were a ghost.

He frowned at her, ran his eyes up and down her filthy white robe. ‘Hardly the sort of language one would expect from a Nousian. Particularly a postulant.’

Rhiannon’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh my—’ She bowed her head and wasn’t sure whether or not to genuflect. ‘Oh, oh, oh.’ What was she supposed to say? How should she address him? ‘You’re…you’re…’

‘I am the servant of the servants of Nous, my dear, and you have been through a terrible ordeal.’

‘Ipsissimus,’ Rhiannon gasped. ‘The Ipsissimus? Here?’

‘Not exactly here,’ the Ipsissimus indicated his see-through form, ‘but I am in Sahul. These are perilous times, my dear. I’m only sorry that you have been caught up in them.’

Warm fingers curled around her hand. Sammy pressed in close, his dirty body complementing the stains on her robe. He looked so alien, so utterly unlike the little boy she knew and loved. Yet, when he pressed his head into her side, Rhiannon clutched it to her, ruffling his matted hair with her free hand.

‘My friend,’ Huntsman said to the Ipsissimus. ‘This army of corpses, it marches now towards Homestead.’

‘Why would it do that?’ the Ipsissimus asked. ‘Thought there was nothing there besides desert and the mountain itself?’

Huntsman’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Gods of Dreaming.’

‘Even so—’ the Ipsissimus started, but Huntsman cut him off.

‘Cadman must think they know where rest of statue is.’

‘Do they?’

‘No.’

‘Then we should stay out of it,’ the Ipsissimus said. ‘We can’t risk the Monas.’

‘But we must go to them.’ Huntsman looked like he would have shaken the Ipsissimus if he had anything to grab onto. ‘He will kill them before he believes they do not know.’