The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (55 page)

‘Oh, Maelys?’ said Thommel.

‘Yes?’

‘If we do find Nish, please don’t say anything.’

‘About what?’

‘About my meeting him in the war.’

‘Why not? That’s why you came all this way,
isn’t it
?’

‘Yes, but it’s between me and him, and if he’s going to
refuse me – well, just don’t mention it.’

 
THIRTY-NINE

Nish and Zham trekked north then west, following a
zigzagging path during which Zham had to use every ounce of his bushcraft to
throw their pursuers off the track, though Nish couldn’t be sure they had.
Monkshart would never give him up; he’d exert all his powers to find Nish, and
sooner or later he must. Jal-Nish would be equally unrelenting, and how could
the Deliverer hide when the whole world was looking for him?

Unfortunately Zham didn’t know of any plateau resembling the
one Nish was searching for, and Nish was reluctant to tell him the details in
case he was captured and the truth tortured out of him. He couldn’t send Zham
into the towns to ask, for the giant was too easily recognisable.

Nish had to go alone, in disguise, though through judicious
questioning in a number of inns he learned that plateau formations like the one
he was searching for could be found at just one place in Crandor – deep
in the rainforest fifty or sixty leagues west of Guffeons, not far from the
steep rise of the legendary and ill-omened
Wahn
Barre
, the Crow Mountains.

Once they reached the sparsely populated rainforest Nish
breathed a little easier, for the chance of accidental discovery was slight
here. Conditions were more comfortable, too; it wasn’t nearly as hot, though it
was stiflingly humid. They were drenched in sweat night and day.

Only one event of note occurred on the journey, and it
happened on their third day in the rainforest, late in the afternoon, as they
were trekking across a winding valley where the spaces between the tall trees
were dotted with head-high patches of aromatic mintbush and thickets of small,
red-leaved lotion trees which Zham said were poisonous to humans, though the
white gum seeping from their trunks helped wounds to heal more quickly.

He had been stalking a small twist-horn deer through the
forest for an hour and had shot it, but it had not yet fallen.

Zham was approaching the thicket where it had taken cover,
bow in hand. ‘Quiet now, surr, and be careful. Even a small deer can be
dangerous –’

He broke off. Nish heard a thin bleat, a furious scrabbling,
a grunt, then a thud and more scrabbling.

‘Stay back!’ Zham hissed, sweeping Nish behind him with one
arm. ‘No, climb a tree.’

‘What is it?’ Nish whispered, staying where he was but
readying his own sword. He’d defeated lyrinx in hand-to-hand combat; he wasn’t
going to run away from a wounded deer.

Zham loosened his sword in its scabbard and drew a different
arrow. It was short but heavy, with a broad steel head sharp enough to shave
with. He fitted it to his compact bow, which could have been carved from the
rib of a mammoth, and drew back the twisted cord until his arm quivered under
the strain.

Nish felt a twinge of unease. In Zham’s hands, that bow
could send an arrow in one side of a buffalo and out the other. Perhaps he
should have climbed a tree after all. He scanned the area behind him, though
none of the nearby trees were climbable.

Something crashed through the head-high band of mintbushes
to his left. ‘Tusker!’ Zham roared. ‘Look out!’

He’d whirled and fired before Nish sighted the beast. It
burst out of the deep shade, coming low and fast. All he saw was a blurred
shadow with red eyes and two pairs of yellow tusks – one pair upcurved,
the other pair arcing to the sides – and a foam-covered snout.

The arrow disappeared into its chest and went straight
through, for Nish saw bark fly off a buttressed tree root further on, but the
tusker kept coming, its hairy trotters making little sound on the soft earth.
It was no more than twenty paces away when it swerved towards Nish with an
ear-piercing squeal.

Zham had already drawn a second arrow and was nocking it
when another tusker shot out of the undergrowth where the rustling had been
coming from. It was much bigger than the first; as long as Zham was tall, and
the upcurving tusks were almost the length of his bow. There was blood on its
snout. Zham turned to face it, putting himself between it and Nish.

Nish couldn’t allow him to fight both of them, alone. He
heaved out his sword and waited for the smaller tusker to come to him. It was
slowing now. Blood ran down its chest from the arrow wound; red foam erupted
from its mouth and nostrils with each breath. He didn’t understand how it could
keep going after that heavy arrow had carved right through it.

The tusker shot around in a curve then leapt forwards, right
at him. Nish dragged his sword blade through the air, trying to get it into
position and knowing that he was too slow. He caught a foot on something and
overbalanced, flailing at the air and realising in the last terrible second
that the tusker was going to impale him through the groin or the belly.

He couldn’t do anything in time. He was bracing himself for
the impact when Zham’s sword flashed between Nish and the flying tusker,
carving both its right tusks off mid-way and slicing the end off its snout. The
bloody tusker slammed into Nish’s hip so hard that he was sent flying five or
six paces through the air.

He landed heavily on his back and shoulder and the sword
jarred out of his hand. The tusker skidded around in a circle and came at him
again.

There wasn’t time to get up. Nish scrambled for his sword
and held it out in front of him, though on his knees he was no higher than it
was and at a terrible disadvantage, for he wouldn’t be able to move quickly.

He tried to brace himself, to aim the sword for its open
mouth, but his numb elbow wouldn’t hold the point straight. It carved a bloody
streak down the hairy flank of the tusker as it hit him again, though
fortunately with its severed tusks – it hadn’t yet understood that they
were gone. They slammed into his shoulder, knocked him flying and this time the
sword skidded out of reach.

Nish looked for help, but Zham was busy with the second
tusker. He’d put two arrows in it but it hadn’t fallen either. It was circling
Zham, who bore a bloody streak on the left thigh.

Nish was dragging himself after his sword when the tusker
attacked a third time. It was moving slowly now, wobbling on its feet, with
clots of bloody foam oozing from its open mouth. Blood was streaming from its
side and dripping from its backside, but it was still deadly.

He was exhausted and felt as though he’d been beaten with
hammers. Those days in bed, recovering from the arrow wound, had robbed him of
his hard-won strength. He lunged for the sword and forced himself to his feet.
It took an effort to hold the blade up this time. Nish felt as weak as a child.

The tusker darted forwards. He swung the sword at it and it
propped on its front feet, coughing up clots and regarding him malevolently
with its red eyes.

Zham was still busy with the big tusker. It was a matter of
endurance now. Nish had to hold out longer than the beast, for if he fell it
would savage him with its remaining tusks and teeth until it took its last
breath. It came on slowly, stopped, then darted at him. Nish strained his
shoulders getting the sword in position, but this time the wobbling point slid
into the neat slit below its throat where Zham’s arrow had entered.

He forced the sword in, but still the tusker kept coming,
its trotters tearing at the earth as it strained to get at him, all the way
until it was stopped by the hilt. Nish’s feet slipped, he was forced backwards,
then suddenly the light went out of its eyes and it toppled sideways. It was
dead.

Nish pulled his blade free with an effort, wiped it on the
tusker’s flank and turned around. Zham bore another streak on his thigh. His
tusker was on the ground too, though still kicking. Zham was bent over,
panting, and his face was grey.

Then, as Nish wavered towards him, Zham lay down his sword
and bowed to his fallen foe. ‘You fought nobly for your young, proud beast, and
I salute you.’

The tusker’s back trotters tore at the earth but it was
unable to rise. Zham took his sword, touched the beast on each shoulder and
then on the top of the head, then killed it with a single clean thrust between
the ribs into its heart.

Zham turned, saw Nish hobbling towards him, and smiled. ‘For
a minute there I thought I’d let you down, Deliverer.’

‘Call me Nish,’ Nish said. ‘From now on you are my brother,
and I know you’ll never let me down.’

The big man stood up straight, shocked, and a single tear
made its way down his broad cheek. ‘Surr,’ he said, bowing until his head
touched the ground, ‘You do me an honour no man can deserve. I cannot –’

Nish raised him up again and embraced him. ‘Are you denying
the Deliverer?’

‘No – of course not, Del –
Nish
.’ He pulled away, scrubbed at his eyes with his free arm, and
looked Nish over carefully. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Bruised but unharmed. That was the act of a noble man,
Zham.’ Nish meant it. Zham might be an uneducated peasant but he possessed more
nobility than most of the nobles Nish had met.

‘How could I not salute such a stubborn foe?’

‘You did not salute the nylatl when you put it down.’

‘That was no natural creature … Nish. It was an evil thing
created by an evil mind.’ He turned away, limping badly, hesitated, then came
back. ‘Surr, Nish,’ he said diffidently, ‘could you look at my wounds for me?’

The two gashes in his right thigh needed cleaning, for
tuskers used their tusks for rooting around in the earth and tearing apart live
and dead prey. After he’d washed them carefully, Nish cut a curve through the
papery bark of the lotion tree, gathered the thick exudate on his knife blade,
spread it over the wounds and bound them up.

‘We’ll eat well tonight.’ He was salivating at the thought
of a thick slice of roasted tusker and nicely crisped crackling.

They did better than that, for Zham found the twist-horn
deer in the shrubbery. It had been easy prey for the tuskers, though they’d not
had time to despoil the body, so they dined on baked venison as well. It was
the finest meal Nish had eaten since going to prison.

Nish sighed and glanced across the fire towards Zham,
who was carving strips of venison off a shoulder bone, spearing them with the
point of his knife and transferring them to his mouth in an unending procession
that had been going on for twenty minutes. The wounds troubled him when he
moved, though his broad face was unlined and his thoughts seemed focussed on no
more than his dinner. Zham didn’t talk much, but he didn’t seem to have a worry
in the world and Nish envied him that inner peace.

For himself, the Defiance’s victory over his father’s army
had rejuvenated him, and this escape allowed him to feel that he’d taken
control of his destiny at last, yet it gave him little joy. Why was that? It
took him some time to work it out.

He was feeling increasingly guilty about his moral cowardice
at Tifferfyte: both his failure to stand up to Monkshart and Phrune over
Maelys, and his complicity in allowing the villagers to sacrifice themselves on
his behalf. He needed to talk to someone about it and perhaps Zham, after their
shared experiences today, might be able to help.

‘Do you think I did wrong, Zham?’

‘Surr?’ Zham paused, a slice of venison halfway to his mouth,
looking puzzled. As well he might, for Nish had not previously spoken of his
troubles.

‘When we fled Tifferfyte, we … we couldn’t take the
villagers with us. They remained behind, fighting to the last man and woman so
we could get away.’

‘I heard the story from Jil,’ said Zham. ‘They were
believers. They made that sacrifice willingly, as would I.’ He resumed eating,
though not with the same gusto as previously.

‘But I went along with the plan; I hardly protested at all.
What’s worse, I came to believe that it was right, and that I deserved their
sacrifice, because as the Deliverer my life was worth more than theirs. I
– I can’t come to terms with that, Zham. Was that the first step on the
downward path? Am I –?’

Zham shifted on his log, looked down at the shoulder bone,
began to carve another slice from it, then abruptly tossed it into the fire and
stood up. ‘I know you’ll always do the right thing, surr. I’m going to turn in
now. Good night.’

The following morning Nish tried again, but again Zham avoided
the issue, and Nish’s eyes. ‘I’m sure you’ll never let us down, surr,’ he said
as he rose and heaved the pack on his back. ‘We know we can rely on the
Deliverer.’

Yet Nish had been a leader of men and knew how to get the
best out of them, and deal with their weaknesses too, so he didn’t try again.
Zham was also a believer, a simple soul, and perhaps he didn’t want that belief
challenged in any way.

Nish wondered if he had weakened Zham’s faith in him.

He was also increasingly troubled by the future he’d seen in
the Pit. Nish was coming to question it more every day. Had he, by fleeing so
precipitously, done exactly what his father wanted him to? Could the vision
he’d seen in the Pit be yet another way of manipulating him, or a malicious
joke by his father?

No, that’s how Jal-Nish wanted him to think. He wanted Nish
to doubt everything he heard, and everyone he met; to cut him off from the
world in a prison of his own making.

And the Deliverer’s rebellion could fail simply by taking
too long to get going, which might also be part of his father’s plan. If he
were
close to finding the three things
he needed to become invincible and immortal, and to achieve complete mastery of
the tears, including the ability to close off their powers to anyone else, everything
that delayed the rebellion worked in the God-Emperor’s favour.