The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (58 page)

‘I think I’ll leave you to him,’ said Thommel. ‘I’m going
for a walk.’

‘Oh!’ said Maelys, already missing the camaraderie of their
journey together, though she could understand why he might want to get away for
a while.

Thommel headed in the other direction and soon blurred into
the fog. Maelys hunched down in a vain attempt to keep out of the wind and
waited for Zham to come back. He was so pleasant and uncomplicated; so much
easier than Nish.

Shortly he appeared, swinging four wooden staves in one
gigantic hand, and whistling. Laying them on the ground, he squatted beside
Maelys. She marvelled at his size – he was the biggest man she’d ever
seen.

‘Last night didn’t go the way you were hoping,’ he rumbled.

‘You can’t imagine how much I was looking forward to seeing
Nish, and it went all wrong. Stupid man! What’s the matter with him?’

‘He’s afraid.’

‘Of me?’

‘Of who’s trying to kill him. Of what he’ll find up here. Or
if he’ll find nothing but ghosts …’

He gazed into the drifting fog, which did have a spectral
look about it. Maelys sighed. ‘I’m so tired.’ Without thinking, she settled her
head against his upper arm. He didn’t move away, or closer. He just allowed her
to rest. Of all the men she’d ever met, she knew she was perfectly safe with
Zham.

After a few minutes he said, ‘We’d better go and find him.’

She sat up, rubbing her cold arms. ‘Nish went that away,’
she pointed right, ‘and Thommel’s over there, so we can’t go after them both.’

‘I’m not concerned for Thommel. He’s been here before.’

She got up, wearily. ‘What – here on this peak?’

‘Yup.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He knew the way up too well.’ He handed her the smallest
staff and led the way, probing the ground ahead as he followed the faint marks
left in the moss by Nish’s boots. ‘He knows a lot more than he’s telling, does
Thommel. Look out!’

Maelys, intent on where she was putting each foot, did not
realise the danger off to her right, even when Zham reached back, caught her by
the armpit and shoulder and lifted her, legs kicking, right over his head. As
he dropped her on solid ground in front of him, something went
snap
! Before she could steady herself,
he’d whirled and his long sword was snaking out towards the bizarre creature
that had nearly taken her.

Creature or plant? It was like a gigantic green mantrap
sprouting from the bog, so broad that she could have lain inside. The edges of
its upper and lower jaws, now closed, were covered in overlapping yellow teeth
– no, flexible spines – and through the gape she saw a scarlet,
ovoid interior coated with glistening mucilage. Yellow vapour seeped from pores
on top of the upper jaw. The air took on a disgusting, sulphurous reek that
stung her eyes. It smelled as though something had rotted away to hair and
bones.

‘What is it?’ she quavered, scanning the fog in case there
were more of them, and spotting another one not ten paces away. She wondered
how far it could reach out on its rubbery stalk.

‘It’s a stink-snapper, a plant that eats animals. It feeds
on fish, frogs, birds, insects, and even people if it can catch them. You often
see little stink-snappers,’ he opened his fingers to form a circle the size of
a saucer, ‘around the edges of the upland swamps. I’ve never seen one as big as
that, though. Have you got a knife?’

She offered him the little blunt blade Phrune had given her.
He tested it, snorted and drew a knife, large enough to butcher a boar and
wickedly sharp, from a sheath inside his long boot. ‘They lurk just under the
water, and all you can see is the tips of the yellow spines. When they sense
your footsteps, they shoot up and snap. Hold the knife ready and if one gets
you, hack your way out, damn quick, and jump in the water! Once that goo starts
to work on you, it’s too late.’

‘Thanks, Zham.’ She stowed her old knife in her pack, held
out his blade in her right hand and began to prod the ground with the stick.

Shortly they encountered Nish, shivering as he tried to peer
through the swirling fog, and together they began to criss-cross this lobe of
the plateau. The plateau was less than a league across, but their progress was
so slow that by sunset they hadn’t covered a fifth of it.

Nish wouldn’t stop even then; he just kept squelching back
and forth. Maelys felt for him.

Thommel came tramping back. ‘Did you find anything?’ Nish
asked hopefully.

‘I wasn’t looking! However I did catch our dinner.’ Thommel
held up what appeared to be an enormous black slug, the size of his thigh.

‘I’m not eating that,’ Maelys said, revolted. It brought
back memories of the slurchie. Her empty stomach rumbled. ‘Er, what is it?’

‘All the more for me.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a giant swamp
creeper and they’re the best eating you’ll find up here. Very healthy too. Good
for the organs.’

‘It looks like an organ from something I wouldn’t want to go
near,’ said Nish.

Thommel glanced at Zham. Zham smacked his lips. ‘I haven’t
tasted one in years. Let’s find a camp site.’

‘There’s no firewood up here,’ said Thommel. ‘We’ll have to
go back down the cleft.’

It was really cold now. ‘What about the other clefts?’ asked
Maelys, for they weren’t far from the north-western one and the light was
fading.

‘You’d have to be a mountain climber to get down any of
them. Or up.’

They tramped across to the south-eastern cleft, Maelys
keeping a careful eye out for stink-snappers. Once or twice she caught a
sulphurous whiff and thought one must have been lurking nearby, though she
could not see any yellow spines. She clutched her knife more tightly and
followed closely on Zham’s heels.

They reached the cleft in near darkness and felt their way
down the steep pinch to the copse of twisted, aged trees. Between it and the
right-hand cliff Zham found a patch of mossy, sloping ground, partially
sheltered from the howling updraught. He dragged out dead branches. All the
wood was wet but he also carried tinder in his pocket and soon had a cheerful
fire going.

‘Hurrah!’ Thommel said, holding his hands out to the little
blaze. ‘And we don’t have to worry about being seen. There’s not an eye on
Santhenar that could pierce this fog.’

‘Not even the eye in the tears?’ Nish said, shivering
fitfully. However he collected fallen wood and fed it to the flames until they
blazed as high as his shoulders. They gathered around, rubbing their frozen
hands.

Thommel got busy skinning and gutting the giant swamp
creeper, and ended up with a heavy length of dark brown meat the size of a
buffalo fillet. He sliced it lengthways so it would cook more quickly, wrapped
it in a cocoon of algae strands, covered that in moss and, once the flames had
died down, placed the package in a hole excavated in the coals.

By the time it had cooked Maelys was so hungry, and the
roasting smells arising from it were so delicious, that she quite forgot its
origins and what it reminded her of. It was a rich, dense meat with a fine
texture like liver, though much tastier, and by the time her belly was full
she’d put aside the fight of the previous night, and the exhausting day.
Thommel was laughing at something Zham had said, and Nish was bright-eyed
again. It made her feel good to see him cheerful for once.

‘Tomorrow we’ll find it,’ he said softly. ‘Tomorrow pays for
everything, Maelys.’

He was up at first light and didn’t wait for breakfast.
While Maelys was still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes Nish was scrambling up
the crevice, the ferocious wind at his back, to disappear into the churning
fog. She followed hastily with Zham. ‘Coming, Thommel?’

Thommel opened one eye, closed it again and pulled his cloak
around him more tightly. ‘I’ll see you later, Maelys.’

‘Thanks for your help!’ snapped Nish.

Thommel sat up. ‘Your quest is not mine, Deliverer,’ he said
mildly. ‘Would you go out of your way to aid me if I asked it of you?’

Nish hesitated fractionally too long before he said, ‘Yes,
of course I would.’

Thommel gave him an ironic smile, lay down and closed his
eyes again. Nish turned away, looking as though he’d just been shown up.

The fog, oddly, was thinner at the top today and she could
see at least thirty paces, though the plateau was a dismal prospect – a
series of bogs and ponds, oozes releasing greenish mists, and patches of bare
black rock interspersed with circular clusters of brilliantly green moss mounds
as much as five or six spans across and waist high to Maelys. At the limit of
her vision a stink-snapper, even larger than yesterday’s attacker, was sinking
into the mire with a small wriggling creature protruding from its jaws.

Nish was following one of the wavering brown streaks,
probing ahead with his staff. Zham took up position to Nish’s right, and Maelys
went beyond him. With the big knife in her right hand and her probing staff in
her left, she began the search. Thommel appeared around nine in the morning but
didn’t join them. He went softly through the mires, head down, hunting with a
rude spear made from a knife bound to a short stave.

The fog closed in again, reducing visibility to the length
of Maelys’s staff. Now every step posed a risk, for she could barely see the
ground she was standing on and never knew if the next step would take her into
a pool, a mire or the maw of a stink-snapper.

The breeze became a hissing wind which churned the fog but
did not blow it away. She was freezing in her damp clothes. This was madness.
Whatever Nish was looking for, it could be just paces away and they’d never
find it.

‘Nish?’ she called. Her voice was whipped away by the wind.
‘Zham?’

Neither of them answered. With Zham’s long legs he could
have been at the other side of the plateau by now. Maelys pulled her thin coat
around her and stared vainly into the fog. Was that a movement off to her
right? ‘Zham?’ No answer. She heard a splash not far away but had no idea which
direction it had come from. ‘Thommel? Nish?’

She headed on a few steps. Or was she going back? Everywhere
looked the same. Her legs still ached from yesterday’s climb and her right
thigh was particularly painful. It felt as if she’d strained a muscle. Maelys
wanted to lie down and sleep for another ten hours but she couldn’t rest here.

She kept on, just walking wherever the brown streaks took
her, looking over her shoulder every few steps, for she couldn’t escape the
feeling that there was someone, or something, behind her. She kept seeing
human-sized shapes in the fog but nothing answered her repeated calls.

She must have been walking for hours. She should have
reached the other side of the plateau ages ago, even at this slow pace. Or had
she been walking in circles all the time? It didn’t seem possible that she
could be lost – the wretched plateau wasn’t a tenth the size of the
clan’s estate at Nifferlin, and she’d known every part of that.

Something loomed up ahead, taller and broader than a man,
though she couldn’t make out any definite shape.

‘Hello?’ she said, trying not to sound afraid.

No reply. The fog swirled and she lost sight of the object.
She reached out with her staff but couldn’t feel anything. She took a step
forwards. Her legs were shaking. The ground squelched and subsided underfoot.
She leapt backwards, saw the dark shape again momentarily, then lost it.

Maelys stood still, heart pounding. She couldn’t even see
the ground now, but she knew something big was in front of her, for she could
hear the way the wind shrilled around it. She became aware of how cold she was.
Her toes were freezing and her nose felt as if icicles were growing inside it.
She could hardly draw breath.

She probed the ground to left and right, found a solid patch
and stepped that way. The shrilling faded. She strained her eyes, as if she
could penetrate the fog through will alone, but saw nothing. She couldn’t find
a path to the object either – there was no solid ground that way, just
brown-scummed pools and sludgy mires.

‘Maelys?’

‘Zham!’ she cried. ‘Where are you?’

‘Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.’

He kept calling, and she kept answering, and shortly his
tree trunk figure loomed up out of the fog.

‘Where did you get to?’ he said cheerfully, though she could
tell he’d been anxious. He put a steadying arm around her and her fears felt
silly.

‘Walking in circles, I think.’

‘Come on. Nish is this way.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

‘Have you found anything?’

‘Not a sausage.’ He chuckled. ‘But you have, Maelys?’

‘I was sure I saw something, much taller than you, a few
minutes ago. It was over there but I couldn’t get to it …’

He reached out with his staff, which was far longer than
hers, probing forwards and around. ‘Stay here.’

He disappeared into the fog, swinging the staff in front of
him. Shortly she heard a splash, a curse. Had he fallen in; had a stink-snapper
caught him? Or something worse? ‘Zham?’

Zham appeared suddenly from her left, dripping. ‘Cursed
place.’

‘Did you find anything?’

‘Nope. Come on.’

Maelys followed him to Nish, who was just five minutes away.
Whatever the object had been, she was sure she hadn’t imagined it. Nish looked
up hopefully as they approached. ‘Did you find anything?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Zham, ‘though Maelys thinks she saw
something –’

‘What?’ cried Nish so eagerly that she felt for him.

Maelys told him what she’d seen and heard. It sounded flimsy
but his face lit up. ‘Can you find the place again?’

‘I dare say Zham can.’

It didn’t turn out to be that easy; even Zham became
confused as he tried to retrace his steps to the point where he’d found Maelys.

‘Shh!’ she said. ‘Can you hear that?’