The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (11 page)

There were other surges, though none as powerful, and after
the third they no longer reached the trees. Nish pushed deeper into the forest,
calling the survivors to him, and led them on until they were well beyond sight
of the clearing. He stopped beneath a gigantic strangler fig whose host tree
had completely rotted away, leaving a hollow inside the fig’s ropy trunk.

‘To me!’ Nish panted. ‘Gather everyone in.’

They pressed up to him. He scrambled onto a knotted root and
had just begun a count of the survivors when he heard the air-sled shrieking
across the forest lower down. ‘Quiet! It’s Klarm. Don’t move.’

They waited, silent and still, while the air-sled circled
the clearing several times.

‘He’s got an army on the other side of the mountain,’ Nish
reminded them, ‘and he’ll call them in as soon as he’s finished here, so we’ve
got to stay hidden until he’s gone. Let him think we’ve all drowned. Now stand
still while I take the muster.’

People were still straggling in. Flangers appeared, along
with Chissmoul and her friend Allioun, one of the few freed captives from the
Tower of a Thousand Steps who had not accepted Klarm’s offer of sanctuary. She
was thin and nervous, with large blue eyes and the pallor of the long-term prisoner.
Nish had looked like that for months after his own escape from Mazurhize.

‘Klarm has flown downstream,’ said Flangers. ‘He’ll be
checking in case we got through the gorge before the flood.’

‘Then he’ll be a while,’ said Flydd, emerging from behind
the fig tree.

He did not look much better than he had previously, but at
least he was still alive. And so were Hoshi and the gigantic fisherman, Clech.
Unfortunately Yggur was not with him, and Nish could not see Tulitine either.

He finished the count, and the muster was better than he had
feared – a hundred and sixty-two survivors, counting himself. At least
twenty had been lost in the forest, and rather more had been swept away by the
flood. He ached for every lost man and woman; and yet, had he arrived a minute
later it would have been far worse.

‘Where’s Yggur and Tulitine?’ said Nish, frowning.

‘Gone back to the other clearing,’ said Clech, shifting his
weight from one foot to the other.

‘What for?’

‘Er … Yggur said something to Lady Tulitine about taking
another look at the caduceus; said it was calling to them.’

‘
Calling?
And you
let them go?’ Nish cried. Just when he’d thought that things were under
control!

‘I said it was a bad idea but Yggur told me to mind my own
damn business. Sorry, Nish.’

‘It’s not your bloody fault. What’s the matter with Yggur?
He couldn’t walk an hour ago.’

‘He got better, then he was whispering to Tulitine for a
while.’

‘Damn fools! I suppose the flood got them.’

‘They had enough time to get there –’ said Clech.

‘Well, I didn’t see them,’ said Nish.

‘Where have you been, anyway?’ said Flydd.

‘Klarm caught me and took me back to the air-sled. Maelys
rescued me – I’ll never know how she outwitted him – and we started
down here. She couldn’t keep up and I ran ahead …’

‘After she’d just done her all for you?’ said Flydd.

‘If I hadn’t, you’d all be dead!’ The criticism was a bit
rich, coming from Flydd, after all the times he’d lectured Nish about acting
for the greater good. Even so, Nish bitterly regretted leaving her. ‘I –
I didn’t know the dam was going to collapse.’

‘She might have survived.’

‘It’s possible,’ said Nish, though after witnessing that
flood he had little hope.

‘Or Klarm might have captured her,’ said Flydd.

Yes, of course that’s what happened, Nish thought, faint
with relief. ‘Did anyone get a close look at the air-sled?’

‘I did,’ said Flangers, ‘though my eyes aren’t as good as
they used to be –’

‘Chissmoul has pilot’s eyes,’ said Flydd, for she had been a
thapter pilot in the war, the best and most daring of them all. ‘What did you
see, girl?’

Chissmoul was at least as old as Nish, and therefore no
girl, but she said without rancour, ‘There was no one on the air-sled except
Klarm.’ She let out a heavy sigh, presumably for the miracle of flight that she
would never experience again.

‘I’m going back to look for her,’ said Nish, rubbing his
eyes. ‘And Yggur and Tulitine. Wait here –’

‘You’re not doing anything of the sort,’ said Flydd. ‘Now
we’re finally back together, we’re staying together. We’ll have something to
eat then follow the forest around to the upper clearing and stay under cover
while you check it. And then we’ve got to work out what the hell we can do.’

Klarm passed over the upper clearing from a great height and
turned away towards the white-thorn peak. They waited for half an hour, in case
he came sneaking back, then Nish and Flydd went down. It was early afternoon.

The flood had only covered the lowest third of this
clearing, and most of the bodies remained where they had been cut down. The winged
shaft of the caduceus was gone, and Nish assumed that Klarm had taken it,
though the two iron serpents that had entwined it lay on the baked earth. There
was no sign of Yggur, Tulitine or Maelys, and the rain, which was still
falling, had washed out all tracks.

Nish was cursing himself for leaving her behind when he
remembered their disturbing foreseeings at the Pit of Possibilities, months
ago. Maelys had not appeared in any of the possible futures, and at the time
she’d been afraid that it meant she was going to die. Had her life been snuffed
out, like Gi’s, in an instant, or had she suffered a lingering death? Or could
she still be alive? He could not find any reason to think so, but he had to
cling to hope.

Leaving Flydd studying the iron serpents, Nish plodded down
towards the river through a sea of mud and debris. The river path had
disappeared and the forest near the bank was gone apart from the shattered
stumps of the largest trees. Numb with grief, he trudged back.

‘What a stinking, lousy day,’ he said. ‘This has been one of
the worst I can ever remember.’ But not the worst. The worst day of all time
was forever fixed in his memory and no other tragedy, no matter how awful,
could erase it.

‘It’s not over yet,’ said Flydd, holding the iron serpent
with the forked tongue that had seemed to stare at him earlier. The older man
had some colour back in his cheeks at last.

‘What are you doing with that?’ said Nish. Flydd’s choice of
that serpent felt a trifle ominous, given Nish’s worries about him.

‘There’s power in it, and I’m sure it wasn’t left here by
accident.’

‘No, Stilkeen left it to trap us,’ said Nish.

‘Perhaps, but Klarm isn’t having it, nor the other one. Take
it.’

‘What?’ said Nish.

‘Take the serpent with the bared fangs.’

‘Why? Even if it does have power, I can’t use it.’

‘We can’t leave it here for some scoundrel to find. Besides,
our situation can’t get much worse, can it?’

‘I suppose not,’ Nish said grudgingly.

‘In that case, it might get better. Take it.’

Nish gingerly touched the iron serpent, which was like a
sinuous staff. He was afraid that it would come to life and sink those fangs
into him, but nothing happened save that he sensed a surging heat within it.

‘I felt sure it would be hot, but it’s only blood warm.’

‘It’s hot inside. And there may be a time when you need that
heat,’ said Flydd.

‘Not being a mancer, I’ll never know how to liberate it.’

‘You don’t necessarily have to be a mancer to use an
enchanted object. Some devices can be used by anyone, when the time is right.’

Not by me, Nish thought, but he hefted the serpent staff,
which was his own height and rather heavy. It was one more thing to carry, and
he was already worn out and feeling more hopeless every minute. Had they
survived only to be trapped up here and starve? He followed Flydd back to the
forest and the waiting militia.

‘Where do we go from here?’ said Flydd.

‘With no food and the really wet season on the way there’s
only one thing we can do,’ said Nish bitterly. ‘Rot standing up, then die in
this festering hell-hole.’

‘I didn’t go through the agony of renewal only to give up,’
Flydd said coldly. ‘Come with me, Nish. Flangers, you too.’

They followed Flydd and, when they were well away from the
militia, he pulled Nish close and snarled, ‘What the blazes were you thinking,
talking defeat in front of your troops? Their morale is already shaky and it
won’t take much to shatter it. They look up to you, Nish, even though you led
them into this nightmare. I’d go so far as to say that they
love
you,’ Flydd’s lips quirked at this
astonishing thought, ‘and you can’t let them down.’

‘Sorry,’ Nish muttered, ashamed of his minor breakdown. ‘But
it’s at least a week’s march down to the lowlands of Gendrigore and we’ll never
get there without food, even if the wet holds off.’

‘There’s always hope, while there’s life and breath. The
flood has given us a chance I never dared hope for, but only you can weld your
militia into a fighting force to take advantage of it – to take one more
step, then another, all the way to the God-Emperor’s palace at Morrelune.’

Nish let out a mocking laugh. ‘Haven’t you forgotten one
teensy little obstacle – Klarm’s colossal army, just over the range?’

‘I’ve forgotten nothing, and neither should you. The little
country you came up here to protect is still in peril, for Klarm will follow
his orders to the letter. And the father you swore to tear down could reappear
at any moment. Nothing has changed, Nish, so pull your finger out and get on
with it.’

Flangers had stopped a pebble’s toss away and was looking
everywhere but at them. Flydd beckoned him forwards. ‘Sergeant, Nish is
planning to take Blisterbone Pass and turn the enemy back, and he would value
your thoughts.’

If Flangers was surprised at this statement, his lean face
did not show it – but then, he’d known Flydd a long time. ‘I was a common
soldier, surr, not an officer …’

‘You were a most
uncommon
soldier, and you’ve studied the art of war from the front line. You know
fighting from the mud up.’

‘I do that,’ said Flangers, brightening, and for the first
time Nish saw the handsome Flangers of old inside the gaunt and prematurely
aged face. ‘We have to take a pass, you say?’

‘Blisterbone Pass, it’s called, around the corner from the
white-thorn peak, there.’ Nish nodded in the direction of the mountain, which
could not be seen for the trees. ‘Though … the Histories of Gendrigore say the
pass has never been taken when defended. Unfortunately I haven’t seen its
approaches, and neither have any of my troops. All I know about it is a mud map
the guide, Curr, showed me.’

‘The guide who betrayed you?’ said Flydd.

‘Yes, so his map may not have been reliable.’

‘No one has seen the pass?’ mused Flydd. ‘That’s bad.’

‘Except for Boobelar,’ Nish recalled, ‘but he’s gone.’

‘Who’s Boobelar?’ said Flangers.

Nish clenched his teeth at the memories. ‘The captain of the
little troop sent by Rigore province. He’s an addled drunk who’s out of his
head most of the time, and he only came for the loot he could get on the
battlefield. He hates me like poison.’

Boobelar had surprised Nish while he was bathing under a
waterfall, knocked him face-down over a boulder and whaled his bare arse with
the flat of his sword until Nish could barely walk. He still had the bruises,
and he would never forget the humiliation.

‘Later I beat him in a fight and had him tied up, but his
men freed him and decamped in the middle of the night with most of our food.
They’ll be halfway back to the lowlands by now.’

‘He’s no help to us, then,’ Flydd said. ‘Show us Curr’s mud
map.’

The soil was just rotted leaves here, so Nish cut down a
greenly luminous toadstool and carved its stem into the shape of the range and
Blisterbone Pass, as he remembered it. ‘The white-thorn peak is here, and the
pass here, but that’s all he showed of it. I’m told the approaches on either
side of the pass are steep and dangerous; it’s difficult to cross even when
undefended. Most of the armies that have tried to invade Gendrigore have failed
trying to cross the Range of Ruin.’

‘And Blisterbone is the only pass?’ said Flangers, squatting
down to study the toadstool map.

‘There’s a higher and even more dangerous crossing called
Liver-Leech Pass, but it hasn’t been used in hundreds of years. That’s where we
were headed.’ Nish carved it as well.

‘Why?’ said Flangers.

‘Curr said he’d seen an advance guard of the enemy at
Blisterbone, so we couldn’t attack head-on. Our only hope was to try and take
the pass from the other side of the range, after crossing via Liver-Leech.
That’s why he led us into this valley. Though now I’ve seen the landscape, how
could
Curr have seen the enemy at
Blisterbone?’

‘Clearly he was lying. And he betrayed you, so everything he
said about Liver-Leech Pass may also be a lie,’ said Flydd. ‘We can’t risk it.
We’ll have to attack up Blisterbone.’

‘Any idea how many men Klarm has there?’ said Flangers.

‘No, though Tulitine said a few hundred men could hold the
pass against an army, so even a handful could hold it against us.’

‘Assuming they’re expecting an attack,’ said Flydd. ‘But why
would they? Klarm thinks we’re dead.’

‘He may think that, but he’s a careful man, and since he
hasn’t seen our bodies he’ll be wary.’

‘Then our attack on the pass must come as a total surprise.’

‘Are you talking about a night attack?’ cried Nish. ‘Up over
the most dangerous country there is? You’re out of your mind.’

Heads snapped up among the squatting militia. ‘Keep your
voice down,’ growled Flydd. ‘It’s the only possibility. But first you’ve got to
re-arm and resupply your troops, and there’s only one way that can be done.’