The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (17 page)

‘It might worry the ones behind them.’

‘Klarm will drive them up, no matter how scared they are. We
need a better plan, Nish, a shocking, outrageous one. Your hundred and fifty
simply can’t hold off eight or nine thousand in hand-to-hand fighting.’

‘I’m finding your pessimism a trifle irksome, Flydd,’ said
Nish.

‘As I keep telling you, we can’t win by defending this
place, no matter how stoically. Our only hope is to do something wild and
unpredictable.’

‘Like what?’

‘Attacking Klarm. I’m going after the air-sled.’

‘What?’ cried Nish. ‘It’ll be too well guarded. How would
you find it, anyhow?’

‘I’ve a feeling my serpent staff might help …’

‘How?’

‘I think it can find the tears,’ said Flydd.

That unnerving gleam was back in his eye. What was he really
up to? Had the tears been his goal all along? And if he got them, what would he
do? Nish wasn’t sure whether to hope for his success, or his failure.

‘I can’t get the tears, if that’s what you’re thinking,’
Flydd said hastily. ‘They’re almost certainly set to attack anyone who tries to
take them from their rightful owner. But I might be able to control the
air-sled, if I had a good pilot …’

‘Chissmoul? She’ll never leave Flangers.’

‘I think she will, for the right price. Once you’ve
experienced the wonder of flight, it’s not easy to give it up.’

Flydd and Chissmoul had only been gone an hour,
temporarily and to Nish’s mind poorly
cloaked
via a ‘trifling mancery’ Flydd had worked with the mimemule, when dawn broke,
another blue rocket burst high above them and the attack began – from
both sides at once.

‘So that’s why Klarm delayed so long,’ Nish said to Flangers
as they ran down to the eastern pass, below which the main force was
concentrated. ‘He must have sent some of his troops around the mountain and
over Liver-Leech, guided by Boobelar, and had to wait until they were in
position.’

Flangers did not answer, for a company of the enemy’s biggest
and strongest troops had stormed up the track and reached the wall with only
four casualties to arrow fire. Half of the troops began to form living ladders
in an attempt to boost men onto the recently constructed walls on top of the
buttresses. The rest attacked the guards at the slot, which was now blocked
with a head-high barrier of broken slate.

The defenders fired through arrow slots in the barricades
and hurled rocks down from the heights, and finally the two surviving soldiers
broke and retreated, leaving their backs exposed. Neither survived.

But Klarm sent another attack, and another after that, each
time using as many men as could fit on the steep and narrow track, and as soon
as each attack was beaten off he ordered another squad up. After several hours,
the gully track was littered with so many dead that the attackers could
partially shelter behind them. Only the final fifty paces, so steep that the
fallen kept rolling away, remained clear.

Everyone took their turn in the slot, hacking down from the
barrier at the soldiers trying to climb it, while the archers up top fired
until their fingers were raw. The lancers thrust the living ladders away at
spear point and the swordsmen fought until they could no longer raise their
blades, when they were replaced by fresh militiamen. Huwld was up on top of one
of the dry-stone walls, throwing rocks, along with Aimee and another small
woman, plus a militiaman who had been stabbed in the thigh and could not stand
up.

By mid-morning at least a thousand of the enemy had fallen,
many to Gens the gnomish shoemaker’s consummate knife work, in partnership with
Stibble the blacksmith’s skull-crushing hammer, but Nish knew it had made no
difference.

He took his turn at the eastern entrance, and then the western.
They were holding the enemy off, at little cost to themselves so far, but the
militia were so few that any cost was prohibitive. He kept scanning the sky,
expecting Klarm to attack from the air-sled or send a flight of flappeters
after them.

Flappeters bothered him most of all, for the huge,
flesh-formed beasts could land on top of the defenders and smash down half a
dozen of them with one sweep of their tails, or tear the dry-stone walls apart,
and either form of attack would mean the end. Flydd had been right but, try as
Nish might, he could think of no clever plan to turn the tables on his enemy.

He kept praying that Flydd would turn up on the air-sled,
but there had been neither sight nor sound of it. Flydd and Chissmoul’s
suicidal plan must have failed.

On the eastern side, where Klarm had troops to burn,
the attacks continued until the track was so slippery with blood that the enemy
had to spread dry fern fronds on it before they could move. Nish’s casualties
were mounting too, and he could not afford any of them.

‘All quiet at the western entrance,’ said Clech, coming up
to the top of the pass to report in the afternoon. ‘We haven’t been attacked in
three hours.’

‘Why do you think that is?’ said Nish, though he had a fair
idea.

‘I don’t think they got many men over Liver-Leech Pass. That
trek was hard enough for us, and we walk the mountains all the time. But
flatlanders! I’ll bet half of them fell over the side.’ Clech hawked and spat
on the rocks to the side of the path, then headed down to his post.

‘So they’re saving their strength for the final attack,’
Nish mused, ‘and it can’t be far off. How many of us left, Lieutenant?’

Flangers was being rested from his duties at the eastern
defences. ‘Just under half – we have seventy-one still on their feet.
We’ve lost at least fifty, killed, and the rest are too badly injured to fight.
When I know all is lost I’ll put them out of their misery – I’ll not have
Klarm taking them back for trial and torture. They’re heroes, every one, and
they deserve heroes’ deaths.’

‘My Gendrigoreans are as brave as any I’ve fought beside,’
Nish said quietly, ‘and I’ll see them honoured. Can we last until sunset?’

‘I don’t know. Do we need to?’ Flangers had the look of a
man expecting a miracle from Nish, but it wasn’t going to happen this time.

‘I was hoping Flydd could pull something off, as he’s done
so often before, but … it doesn’t look as though he and Chissmoul are coming
back.’

‘I always thought it was a suicide mission, yet how could I
ask her to stay behind when she could fly again? I – I –’
Flangers’s lower lip trembled; he stiffened it. ‘I couldn’t hold her back, just
for me.’

‘And yet,’ said Nish, regretting having been so negative,
‘if anyone can succeed at such an outrageous attack, it’s Xervish. I’m not
giving up hope,’ he lied, for Flangers’s sake. For himself, Nish had given up
hours ago. How could Flydd hope to steal the air-sled in the light of day, in
the midst of that enormous army?

‘Ah, Chissmoul,’ said Flangers, bowing his head. ‘This is
the first time we’ve been parted since the fatal feast.’

‘Fatal feast?’ said Nish, who was still thinking about
Flydd.

‘Ten years ago, at the end of the war, when Jal-Nish turned
up so unexpectedly.’

When he had ordered Irisis slain. With an effort, Nish shook
off his gloom. ‘I’m sure they’re alive. Take heart, Flangers; we’ll win through
yet.’

‘You’re right,’ said Flangers, brightening, ‘Flydd is
probably waiting for darkness.’

‘Then we’ve got to hold out until he comes. I have a plan.’

‘I knew you’d come up with something, surr,’ said Flangers.
‘What is it?’

His faith in Nish was touching; also burdensome. ‘I’m going
to climb up to that great nose of rock and see if I can knock some of the ice
down on the enemy.’

Flangers’s eyes lifted. ‘How would you do that, surr?’

‘I’ve a mind to use my serpent staff.’

Nish didn’t want to say too much about that, because he
wasn’t sure it would work. Indeed, he didn’t know why he thought it might, save
that the staff felt right in his hand and, previously, Flydd had hinted that
Nish might be able to use it, when the time came. Sometimes he felt as though
the staff was
waiting
for him to use
it, and that was worrying. Why had Stilkeen left it there? And if it was a
trap, what would happen if he did use it?

‘Still warm, is it?’

‘Warm as ever.’

‘It might make a difference,’ Flangers said doubtfully.

‘It’s not much of a plan but it’s the only one I’ve come up
with. The ice is directly above the track, and if I can knock enough off it
might kill fifty of the scum – even a hundred.’

‘It won’t stop them, though.’

‘No,’ said Nish, ‘but if it delays them for an hour or two,
it’ll gain us the time we need.’ Assuming Flydd was coming.

Flangers, a good soldier to the last, said, ‘How long do you
need?’

Nish studied the ice-covered overhang. Climbing up there
would take more than an hour, and even if he succeeded in dislodging some ice
onto the enemy, it would take another hour to return. There was just enough
time to do it before dark, as long as nothing went wrong.

‘Three hours. If we haven’t succeeded by then, we never
will. I’ll take Clech – he’s a good climber.’

‘Then go. We’ll give you three hours, whatever it takes.’

 
THIRTEEN

Clech studied the route up to the nose-shaped ridge,
rubbing his bristly jaw, which was covered in black stubble like fine wire. He
turned in a circle to check the sky – what could be seen of it between
the towering peaks. Nish felt his stomach churn, for the clouds were growing
blacker by the minute and the light was fading. It could rain at any moment
and, whether it fell as water, sleet or snow, it would make the climb
immeasurably more difficult.

‘We can’t do it by ourselves,’ said Clech.

‘You sure?’

‘I’m a good climber, but not that good – spent too
much time fishing. Besides, I’m too heavy to lead, and if I slip we both die.
We need a mountaineer.’

Nish frowned. ‘One man less at the defences could mean the
difference between …’

‘A quick defeat and a slow defeat?’ said Clech, grinning.

Nish marvelled at the Gendrigoreans’ capacity to laugh in
the most desperate situations. ‘Precisely. Who would you suggest?’

‘Aimee,’ said Clech after a long pause. ‘She – she was
born near the Range of Ruin, and she’s the best climber I know.’ He sounded
wistful.

‘But she’s not much bigger than my thumb!’ That was a gross
exaggeration, but Aimee, who had gone down on the rope after Boobelar escaped,
barely came up to Nish’s shoulder and was as gracile as a reed.

‘People are always putting her down because she’s so little,
Nish,’ Clech said with a hint of reproach. ‘It’s tough for her, and she tries
so hard. You’ve seen her climb. Aimee’s light and strong, like a gecko. She can
go places that lumps like me and you would never dare.’ He was glowing as he
enumerated her qualities. ‘She’s clever, too. And she doesn’t have the reach to
fight at the slot, so the defences aren’t losing anything if she comes with
us.’

‘All right, if you can convince her. This is a volunteer
mission, remember?’

‘She’ll volunteer,’ said Clech. ‘The thing is …’

‘Yes?’

‘Aimee feels a bit useless. She can’t take her place in the
front line and she’s too small to be a good archer – she can’t pull a
full-sized bow.’

‘And she sure can’t cook.’ Their cook had been killed down
in the clearing and Nish remembered Aimee’s solitary turn on cooking duty with
horror. He would not have thought it possible for anyone to make their dreadful
food worse, but she had done it. ‘All right, go and get her.’

Clech came back with Aimee beside him, taking three skipping
strides to his one. She wore her dark hair in a single plait over her left
shoulder and her round brown eyes were fixed on Nish with all the seriousness
of a child. Indeed, she looked about twelve, and Nish, who was in his
mid-thirties, suddenly felt Flydd’s age.

‘How old are you, Aimee?’

‘Twenty-four.’ Her voice was high, childlike, and defensive;
little wonder, being a mature woman yet always being looked upon as a girl.
‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Save us,’ said Clech, looking down at her fondly.

‘Don’t mock me,’ she snapped. ‘I thought you, of all people
–’ She broke off, looking confused, though not as confused as Clech.

‘I would never mock
you
,’
he said.

Nish realised that he had often seen them together. Did they
fancy each other? They would make an odd couple, though not the oddest Nish had
ever seen. ‘Come over here.’ He led her to the other side of the pass, where
there was a better view of the mountain towering above them. ‘How do you rate
our chances, Aimee?’

‘We’re all going to die,’ she said without expression.

‘I agree,
unless
we can come up with a clever new way to attack the enemy. We’ve killed well
over a thousand of them today, and General Klarm must have lost at least as
many again on the way here, to fevers, falls, tropical ulcers, dysentery and
the like, but that still leaves thousands of men.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘See the great overhang up there, shaped like a nose?’

It projected from the mountainside for over a hundred spans,
before ending in an uptilted knob where the greatest depth of ice had
accumulated, many spans deep.

She looked up and sniggered. ‘The Emperor’s Warty Pizzle, we
call it.’ Aimee faltered, as if remembering that Nish was the son of the
God-Emperor and, despite everything that had been done to him, might take
offence at insults to his father.

He restrained a smile. ‘And the huge mound of ice? If we can
knock a bit of it off, down on the enemy –’

‘You’ll never do it,’ said Aimee. ‘The ice will be welded
tight to the rock. It would take an earthquake to shake it loose.’