The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (31 page)

‘They held it,’ said Flydd.

‘It isn’t possible.’

‘They held it,’ Flydd repeated, and now his voice boomed out
in triumph across the vast square. ‘With courage and guile, and sheer bloody
determination to save their country, whatever it took, Nish’s Gendrigoreans
held off Jal-Nish’s army again and again. They fought their enemy to a
standstill and, at midday today, when the remnants of the God-Emperor’s once
proud army finally retreated from the pass, only a broken and beaten hundred
survived.’

‘No!’ cried the governor. ‘This cannot be!’

The Imperial seneschal swayed on his feet. The commander of
the garrison drew his brightly uniformed officers into a huddle. Several people
screamed, a hundred wailed, and then, as the catastrophe sank in, a dreadful
lamentation ebbed and flowed across the square.

‘It was the greatest defeat in the history of the God-Emperor,’
Flydd went on inexorably when the clamour had died down. ‘Of ten thousand men,
only one hundred survived, plus the dwarf, Klarm. While of the militia –’

He gestured behind him and Nish waved his troops to their
feet. Chissmoul tilted the air-sled and slowly circled the square so everyone
could see the heroes. ‘Here they are. Forty-two, counting the injured,’ Flydd
concluded. ‘People of Taranta, you stand in the presence of giants.’

‘Where are our hundred?’ said the beribboned commander of
the garrison. ‘We cannot take your word for this.’

The seneschal caught his arm and whispered in his ear. The
commander nodded. Another runner was sent.

Before he had disappeared, however, the short, red-robed
chief scrier came striding across the square, two attendants before him
knocking everyone out of his path with their knobble sticks, two behind hauling
a head-high device on a wheeled cart. It looked like a combination of a
loop-listener and a snoop-sniffer, and Nish felt a worm of ice crawl up his
backbone. What had the scrier discovered?

‘Your hundred are marching down the track from Blisterbone,’
said Flydd hastily. ‘They are the bravest of men and I salute them,’ he snapped
upright, performing the action, ‘but the
really
wet
season is about to break and without aid they cannot survive.’

‘Why does this matter?’ hissed Nish. ‘Get on with it.’

‘It matters,’ Flydd replied quietly, ‘because they
corroborate our story. They have to be heard.’

‘We cannot lose an entire army to so few,’ said the
commander, who was white-faced and haggard. Under the God-Emperor’s reign, he
would bear part of the responsibility for the shattering defeat. ‘We would
become a laughing stock. There would be uprisings; civil war.’

‘I could not countenance that either,’ said Flydd. ‘You must
find a way to rescue them.’

The scrier slithered in behind the seneschal and began
whispering to him.

‘How can that be done?’ said the commander.

‘Nothing can save them while they remain in the treacherous
high peaks of the Range of Ruin. No flying craft, save an air-sled, could
negotiate the furious updraughts there. But should the survivors reach the
lower parts of the range, you could ferry them out on an air-dreadnought.’

‘There are no air-dreadnoughts,’ said the commander, ‘but we
might muster an obsolete air-floater or two.’

‘Then do so without delay,’ Flydd said with lowered voice.
‘Morale must be maintained at all costs.’

‘And General Klarm?’ said the governor. ‘What of our mighty
dwarf?’

‘He lives,’ said Flydd.

‘After such a defeat he should have been the first to fall
on his sword,’ grated the commander.

‘And I’m sure he would have,’ Flydd said smoothly, ‘save
that he has a greater responsibility, one I’m sure you have not forgotten. In
the God-Emperor’s absence General Klarm wields the Profane Tears and is
responsible for the maintenance of the realm. And though I am now and ever will
be Klarm’s most bitter enemy, I will not demean him in your eyes, for he has an
even more vital task to perform.’

‘Indeed?’ said the commander coldly.

‘Klarm has gone into the deadly shadow realm, all alone, in
a desperate attempt to uncover the one weakness that will enable us to drive
Stilkeen off –
or bring it down
.’

The commander blanched. ‘I cannot ask about that place; I
must take you at your word. Are you done?’

‘Not quite.’ Flydd gestured behind him to Nish, to come
forwards.

Nish did so, waiting out of sight from below. He could see
why Flydd had left him until last, but Nish had an uncomfortable feeling his
appearance was going to come too late.

‘With Jal-Nish gone, perhaps never to return,’ said Flydd,
‘and his anointed deputy lost in the shadow realm, Santhenar is leaderless for
the first time in a thousand years.’

‘There are many men capable of stepping into the breach,’
said the commander. ‘I, myself –’

Flydd let out a scornful bray of laughter and the commander
broke off. ‘Quite so. But there are others.’

Nish noticed that the chief scrier had moved behind the
seneschal and was focussing his device on the air-sled again. The seneschal sat
bolt upright, staring at Flydd, and the governor was at his side, though Nish
felt that they were no longer listening. Flydd had tried to do too much, too
soon, to an audience full of closed minds.

‘I don’t like the look of that scrier,’ Flangers said from
behind Nish. ‘Chissmoul –’

‘Don’t teach me my job,’ she hissed. The tension was
affecting them all.

‘None among you have the legitimacy or moral authority to
take command,’ said Flydd. ‘If you tried, there would be civil war. The empire
would be defenceless and Stilkeen would destroy our beautiful Santhenar …’

‘But?’ said the commander.

‘One man can save us,’ Flydd boomed, and everyone in the
vast square snapped to attention. ‘The genius who led his tiny, untrained
militia to a shattering victory over the greatest army on Santhenar. The man
who swore to bring down the God-Emperor ten years ago and usher in a more
peaceful world. The soldier who, despite a decade in the grimmest pit of
Mazurhize Prison, refused to go back on his solemn oath.

‘People of Taranta,’ Flydd said, ignoring the dignitaries to
sweep his gaze back and forth across the ordinary folk of the city, ‘you know
who I am talking about – Jal-Nish’s only surviving son, Nish. Nish was a
hero of the lyrinx wars and an architect of the peace that ended them. Nish is
the one man on Santhenar who can step into his father’s boots and lead us
through this terrible peril – and here he is.’

Nish came to the prow beside Flydd, rehearsing what he was
going to say.

‘Damned if I’ll take this!’ cried the seneschal, pushing
himself to his feet. A big, burly man with a sagging belly and a jutting,
pugnacious jaw, he was seething. ‘My scriers can sort truth from falsehood in
an instant, and they have read Flydd’s words – if that man
is
Xervish Flydd, which I doubt.’

He flung out his right arm. ‘That villain has stolen the
God-Emperor’s air-sled, and now he’s trying to steal an empire, and I won’t
allow it. Flydd is a condemned rebel; his speech was a dunghill of deceit.
There is no Stilkeen! There is no such thing as chthonic fire! Our glorious
army has not been defeated – and never will be.’

He gestured behind him and, on cue, his followers cheered.

‘We will
never
be
defeated,’ he repeated, more loudly. Now cheerleaders throughout the crowd
began to cheer, and it spread in waves across the square until everyone was
brandishing their fists and praising the God-Emperor’s eternal reign.

Though not all with equal enthusiasm, Nish noted. Many
people were mouthing the words and waving their fists, while their faces remained
carefully expressionless. It gave him a little hope.

‘Bring them down!’ snapped the seneschal.

Squads of soldiers appeared at the corners of the square
and, on the top of the building opposite the largest mansion, soldiers
scrambled onto a huge pair of javelards – devices like giant crossbows
that fired spears large enough to take down charging elephants.

 
TWENTY-TWO

‘Chissmoul?’ Flydd rapped, but the air-sled was already
moving.

‘Hang on tight, everyone!’ Nish said, springing backwards to
grasp the pennant pole.

With a bound, Flydd was beside him, taking hold of his
staff. The air-sled shot up so quickly that Nish’s battle-weary legs could not
support him, and he landed bruisingly hard on his knees on the metal deck.

A heavy spear whistled through the space they had just left,
travelling so quickly that it outran the metallic twang of the javelard’s steel
cable. It soared across the square and smashed into the portico of the mansion,
sending out clouds of dust and a scything spray of rubble.

‘Get out of here, Pilot!’ said Flydd.

A pair of spears bracketed the air-sled to left and right.

‘They’re damn fine shooters,’ said Nish, who had fired many
a javelard in the war and knew how difficult it was to bring them to bear on a
rapidly moving target.

He glanced over his shoulder. Flangers was clinging to the
back of Chissmoul’s seat, the militia hanging onto their safety ropes. There
was nothing anyone could do; their survival was up to Chissmoul now.

Her eyes were alive with the fierce and terrible joy that he
had last seen when she had been a thapter pilot during the war, the best of
them all. If anyone could save them, she could.

The air-sled zigzagged left, shot up, then dropped sharply
at the prow before banking and curving away in the direction of the Sea of
Perion. A javelard spear came out of nowhere to clang off the iron top of the
pennant pole in a shower of sparks, and Nish jumped. That had been too close.

‘How can any shooter be that quick and accurate?’ said
Flydd.

‘I don’t know,’ Nish muttered. ‘I was accounted a good
shooter in my day, but I couldn’t have done what they’re doing.’

‘Where did that last spear come from?’ Chissmoul cried,
side-slipping to the left.

‘The alley running down to the sea cliffs,’ said Flangers,
who possessed the rare gift of being able to take in the action on a whole
battlefield within seconds.

‘I need a spotter,’ she said. ‘Tell me where they are and
when they’re firing. I can’t fly and locate their attacks at the same time.’

‘Get out of the square,’ said Flydd. ‘They’re bringing up
reinforcements.’

‘I’m trying, but they’ve got too many javelards as it is
–’ Chissmoul broke off, working her fingers furiously inside the
controller. The air-sled dropped sharply then went into a whirling pancake
turn.

Nish tasted field rations in the back of his throat, while
three militiamen lost their footing and were flung halfway over the side by the
force of the turn. They cried out involuntarily as their fingers were torn from
the safety ropes, and were only saved when the air-sled shot the other way,
slamming them into their fellows, then streaked off. He heard retching.

‘Tie onto the ropes,’ he yelled.

‘We can’t take much more of this,’ said Flydd. ‘They’re too
good, and if we can’t get out of the square soon, we never will.’

As the air-sled zoomed back the other way, a flight of three
spears whistled over their heads.

‘How can their shooters be so uncannily accurate?’ Flangers
said.

‘You’re right. It
is
uncanny,’ said Nish.

He squinted at the nearest javelard. Could that be a little
wisp-watcher mounted on the side? Yes, it was, and it was operated by a scrier;
Nish could see his black robes flapping in the wind.

The other javelards also had wisp-watchers and scriers, and
why should he be surprised? His father had ever been one for new devices of war
or mancery, all inventive, some extraordinary, and many bizarre. Most had
failed to perform in battle, for one reason or another, but occasionally
Jal-Nish had won an unexpected victory with a weapon no one had seen before.

‘The scriers are using their wisp-watchers to tell the
javelard operators where to shoot, but even so, they’re too accurate –
it’s as if they know which way Chissmoul will go the instant she changes
direction.’

‘It does seem like that,’ said Flydd, clinging to the pole
as she hurled the craft backwards.

‘How
could
they
know?’ mused Nish. ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘I have no idea.’

They were penned in the square, unable to fly away or climb
out of range. More spears arrowed in at them and Chissmoul was flinging the
air-sled about ever more wildly in her desperate attempts to avoid being hit.

As the craft banked side-on, Nish’s gaze swept across the
square, which was emptying rapidly. Crowds of people were bolting down every
street and alley, while the dignitaries had already taken refuge in the
crumbling mansions or were huddling behind overturned tables.

The buildings surrounding the square had been hit by dozens
of heavy spears, and a line of debris through the centre of the market stalls
showed where a ricocheting spear, two spans long, the weight of a small
flagpole and spinning like a top, had shattered the booths and flung their
occupants out in bloody ruin.

More dead lay in random heaps across the paved square,
victims of other stray spears, while a mound at the entrance to an alley was
evidence of a stampede gone wrong, the smallest and weakest trampled to death
in the rush to escape.

‘The seneschal doesn’t care how many innocent people die,’
said Nish, ‘as long as he brings us down.’

‘That’s the kind of world your father has created.’

‘And the scrutators trained him,’ Nish snapped.

‘They trained me too,’ said Flydd mildly. ‘Good can come out
of ill, and the reverse.’

Nish did not reply, for he still maintained some small
reservations about Flydd’s own character.