The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (14 page)

‘I still don’t understand how the bastard got away,’ Nish
muttered when they headed on. That disaster, and the loss of three more men,
had cast a pall over the rest of the trek.

‘He must have stolen a knife in the dark,’ said Clech, ‘cut
his rope then dropped onto the narrow ledge and pulled the others over. Then
got out of sight damn quick.’

‘How could he steal a knife? His hands were tied behind his
back.’

‘I have no idea,’ said Flydd.

‘If he knew where to throw himself over safely,’ said Nish,
‘he must know the country really well. Where do you think he’s gone?’

‘Down to betray us to Klarm’s army,’ Flydd said quietly, so
no one else would hear. ‘And he’ll know the quickest way to find it.’

‘We’d better go,’ said Nish. ‘And pray Klarm is a long way
away.’

He pressed on in the starlight, moving as fast as he could
without being reckless, but it was never fast enough. What if the army was just
down beyond the ridge? If Boobelar reached it before they attacked the pass,
Klarm could fly the air-sled up to Blisterbone with reinforcements and warn the
defenders, and their faint hope of taking the pass would be lost.

Four hours later, after an exhausting forced march without a
break, they staggered off the final ledge onto the crest of another precipitous
ridge and followed it down until it curved back towards the white-thorn
mountain, where Nish saw the main path, which ran all the way to Taranta, curving
around below them. They’d done it.

He pulled off the fading luminous strips and collapsed in a
heap. He was looking up at Blisterbone Pass from the other side of the Range of
Ruin. Now for the difficult part, he thought.

‘I smell smoke,’ Clech whispered. ‘The guards at the pass
must have a fire, the swine.’

‘Swine,’ Nish echoed dully, for the chill had begun to seep
through his damp clothes as soon as he stopped moving. He was utterly exhausted
after the all-night trek; they all were. He wanted nothing more than to lie
down by a fire, wrap himself in blankets, drink half a skin of wine and drift
off to sleep for a week, but he could not afford to rest either body or mind;
not here. If he lost the edge, he’d never get it back.

He checked down the mountain, but saw no sign of camp fires
nor moving lights, though that did not mean Klarm’s army was far away. And if
Boobelar had reached them already he would be leading them up the track,
burning for revenge. Nish shivered and rubbed his cold hands.

‘Stay low,’ he said quietly to the militia. ‘We’re not far
below the pass. Don’t talk. Have something to eat and take a few minutes’ rest,
and then we attack.’

The timing, partly by accident, was right, for the moon was
about to set and once it did there would be ten minutes of darkness before the
first light of dawn. It was the best time to attack, for the sentries would be
weary from their chilly night vigil. Nonetheless, Nish’s stomach spasmed at the
thought of what he was about to attempt. If Boobelar had already found Klarm’s
army, and he had warned the guards at the pass of the imminent attack, it would
be a quick and bloody form of suicide.

His head was throbbing again. He adjusted the staff on his
back, now grateful for its warmth, crawled to the edge of the ridge and looked
across and up. The rocky mountainside was extremely steep, and mostly bare of
cover. The setting moon showed parts of the track, which ran up a shallow
gully, little more than a notch in the flank of the mountain, to the pass.

The only concealment was low-growing ferns and a few
windswept bushes, though most had been tramped flat by Klarm’s advance guard.
At least, he prayed that it was the advance guard. If the whole army had gone
by while they were climbing Liver-Leech, they had made the nightmare climb for
nothing.

‘I – I could creep up and scout the defences for you,’
said a small voice to his left.

‘Is that you, Huwld?’ said Nish.

‘Yes. Can I go? I’ve got to –’

‘Don’t be silly, lad,’ said Nish, as kindly as he could.
‘Run back now, this is soldiers’ business.’

With a muffled choke, Huwld crept away. What was the matter
with the lad? And what would happen to him if everyone was killed?

Flydd slid in beside Nish to the left; Flangers settled on
the right, stifling a groan. Chissmoul was further around the curving ridge top,
looking downslope, though the lower parts of the mountain were wreathed in mist
and there was little to see.

‘How are your bones holding out, Sergeant?’ said Nish in a
low voice.

‘I can feel every one of them,’ said Flangers. ‘It’s been
quite a walk.’

Nish was amazed that he had come this far, for Flangers had
lost a lot of weight while he was the Numinator’s prisoner and had not looked
well when he’d come through the portal. But he was a professional soldier, knew
nothing else, and the more that was asked of him the more he seemed to grow.

‘It won’t be easy to attack,’ said Flydd.

A mighty understatement. In the moonlight, Blisterbone Pass
formed a perfect natural fortress, with the precipice-bounded flanks of the
white-thorn peak looming over it to the right and its lower but bulkier twin
guarding the left, equally unclimbable. High above the track an ice-covered
horn of rock protruded from the side of the white-thorn peak like the gigantic,
beaky nose of an ever-watchful guardian.

The track up the rocky gully was such a steep climb that at
several points they would have to go down on hands and knees, and the last
hundred paces had no cover whatsoever. Could they do it in ten minutes, in
darkness? They would have to.

The pass itself was a mere slot between buttresses of rock
that appeared to be at least a span and a half high, and too steep to climb.
The enemy could shoot from their tops but would be almost impossible to pick
off from below, and once the fighting started Nish’s archers could not fire at
all for fear of hitting their own people.

‘I don’t see any lights,’ said Flangers. ‘Nor any firelight,
either.’

‘Doesn’t mean they aren’t keeping watch,’ said Nish, taking
out a packet of rations and breaking off a chunk of purloined journey-bread, a
dense cake-like substance made from flour, eggs, pounded nuts and dried fruit.
It was dry and almost as hard as wood, but tasty and warming; just the thing to
line the stomach of a hungry soldier before battle. ‘They’re disciplined
soldiers; if they do have a fire it’ll be small and well back, so it doesn’t
destroy their night sight.’

He squinted up at the pass, willing his clearsight to see
through solid rock, but it had deserted him yet again. ‘We’ve got to know how
many guards there are. It’ll be a tough battle if the garrison is twenty men;
if it’s two hundred, we’ve got no chance.’

‘There’s no way of finding out,’ said Flydd, clutching his
iron serpent like a wizard’s staff, ‘and dawn isn’t far off. We’d better move.’

A sudden wind rustled the shrubs further down. Nish shivered
and pulled his thin coat more tightly around him.

‘Surr?’ Chissmoul hissed.

‘Yes?’ Nish said distractedly.

‘I can see lights, far below.’

He crept across to her vantage point. The wind was breaking
up the mist and he made out three tiny points of light, widely separated; now
seven lights; now dozens; hundreds. A chill that no warmth could disperse
spread over his back. ‘It’s Klarm’s army. Have they been there all the time?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ said Flydd. ‘So if Boobelar hasn’t reached
their camp already, it won’t take him long.’

‘If he’d reached them already, we would have heard Klarm
coming on the air-sled.’

‘Not if he took a roundabout route. Alternatively, he could
have flown up to the pass before we got here. And even if he isn’t there yet,
he soon will be. The army is surely less than two hours away. What do you know
about their path, Nish?’

‘I was told it’s as hard a climb as the way we came from
Gendrigore.’ The wind died and the mist swept back, obscuring all lights save
the initial three. ‘Chissmoul, are those lights moving?’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘They’re coming this way.’

‘And even if Klarm doesn’t know yet,’ said Flydd, ‘once
either the garrison above or the army below gets wind of us, they’ll signal to
their comrades and we’ll be trapped – between an impregnable fortress and
an army so vast it’ll annihilate us.’

Nish considered that prospect in silence. The moon went down
and darkness settled over the mountains; the first light of dawn was but ten
minutes away. ‘We’re going up. Pass the word. We must have absolute silence.’

The message was relayed back. Nish stuffed the rest of his journey-bread
into his pack, for his mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow. ‘Clech?’ he said
to the huge fisherman. ‘I’d like to have you with me.’

‘It will be an honour, Nish.’

‘I don’t want you risking yourself –’ began Flydd.

‘My militia don’t have the experience,’ said Nish. ‘I’ve got
to lead them. And of all the sergeants I’ve ever met, I’d choose you to be my
right hand, Flangers.’

‘I’ll be there. It’ll be just like old times,’ said
Flangers.

‘And you, Chissmoul, to my left,’ Nish added, sensing that
she was about to ask it. She could not bear to be parted from Flangers, though
Nish suspected that this was going to be their final hour. ‘More than anything
I need a good pair of eyes and an unflinching heart.’

‘I’m with you, Nish, to the bitter end.’

‘Thank you.’ They roped together for the climb, not because
it was particularly dangerous, but to be sure they kept close together in the
dark. ‘Check your weapons and follow me.’

 
TEN

It would be the bitter end for him, too, most probably,
but Nish wasn’t going to think about that. He slipped the sabre up and down in
its sheath to be sure it would come free when he needed it, tested the knife on
his other hip and adjusted the serpent staff on his back.

When everyone was roped up and ready, he went hand over hand
down the broken ridge rock and onto the track. The chill breeze drifted up past
him, carrying that faint tang of wood smoke, though the lights could no longer
be seen.

Nish didn’t try to suppress his anxiety. It was right to be
afraid before battle, and there was much to fear: ignominious defeat, or the
price of victory if they should achieve it, and most of all, the loss of so
many more friends …

He cancelled all such dismal thoughts and concentrated on
what he could see of the track, now no more than a glimmer of reflected
starlight here and there. The pass was about four hundred paces up.

He began to feel his way up the track, step by step, and
knew that he was taking much too long. At this rate dawn would expose them
halfway, and even in this forsaken place there was no chance of the guards
being asleep at their posts. In the Imperial army, the punishment for
neglecting one’s duty was dire.

He stopped for a second and Clech ran into him, then caught
his shoulder, steadying him. ‘I can’t see a thing,’ Nish whispered. ‘We’re too
slow.’

‘Let me go first,’ said Chissmoul and, without waiting for
permission, she untied her rope and scrambled up past him. ‘I can see a bit;
enough.’

They retied themselves and she went ahead, though Nish did
not like it. It was his responsibility to lead and, during the war, it had been
second nature for him to be alert to all manner of dangers, expected and
unexpected. Chissmoul was as solid as Flangers, in her own way, but he felt the
loss of control keenly.

She was quick, though. The rope was tugging at his chest and
he stepped forwards, trying to guess where she had put her feet on the broken
rock, but before he found a secure foothold the rope had tightened again and
was pulling him off-balance.

‘You’re too fast for me,’ he said quietly.

‘Go any slower and dawn will beat us.’ Chissmoul was off
again.

His heart was pounding and his palms felt sticky. He wiped
them on his pants, stumbled when the rope jerked again and would have brought
her down with him had Clech not held him up again.

Nish did not think that the scuffling sound could have been
heard, for they were still three hundred paces below the pass, but sounds
carried a long way across a bare mountainside. And if the enemy had scriers or
wisp-watchers they would be walking into a trap.

Within minutes they had halved the distance without
incident, though Nish was developing a cramp in his right calf and the bruised
and blistered soles of his feet were throbbing.

‘Stop! Cramp,’ he whispered.

Chissmoul stopped and Nish was stretching his calf muscle
when, from below, metal clacked on stone. He froze, for the sound had been loud
enough to carry all the way up.

‘Down!’ he hissed, and lay prone on the wet rock. ‘Don’t
move.’ The order was relayed back in whispers and he heard the faintest scrape
of leather scabbards on stone as everyone lay prone.

There was no sound from above, but without warning the beam
of a storm lantern stabbed down the slope from the slot, then began to sweep
across the path from side to side.

‘Don’t look directly at the lantern, surr,’ said Chissmoul.
‘It’ll reflect off your eyes.’

Nish watched it from the corner of an eye, sweating. Had
they been fifty paces further up, they would have been seen at once; even at
this distance a keen-eyed sentry might spot them. The beam passed back and
forth, moved down, then back and forth again. The guards were taking no
chances.

‘They’ll come down to make sure,’ he muttered.

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Clech said. ‘The night is full of odd
sounds when you’re on guard duty.’

Nish eyed the defences, which he could see clearly now in
the light from the lantern. The entry to the pass was a slot-like gash through
sheer rock, barely wide enough for three men to fight abreast. Attacking the
defenders in the slot, up such a steep slope, would put his militia at a
massive disadvantage, while the enemy could fire down at them from the rock
buttresses on either side. No wonder the pass was considered impregnable.