The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (18 page)

‘It could be him …’ began another elder, who was
white-haired, black-gummed and toothless.

‘If it was,’ said the headman, ‘the wisp-watcher would have
recognised him and the God-Emperor would have appeared in a clap of thunder to
save his Son. Since he has not, it’s proof that this wretch is an impostor.’

‘He couldn’t get here that quickly!’ cried Nish. ‘Please –’

‘He – must – die,’ slurred the dying crone.

‘Kill him, kill him, kill him,’ chanted the squat woman, and
the rest of the villagers took up the chant.

The headman nodded. ‘The impostor must be slain in the
prescribed way, else the God-Emperor will believe we condone blasphemy.’ After
studying the staring circle, he raised his voice. ‘Put out his eyes with the
red-hot irons. Sear the marks of the traitor into his face and body. Treat the
witch-slut the same way, then weigh them down with stones and cast them into
the river.’

Nish tried to tear himself free but he was too well bound.
He let out a muffled groan. More muddy dribble ran into his eyes.

Something touched him on the shin. Maelys had stretched out
her fingers. ‘Courage, Nish. Our doom is set, but at least we can try to face
our deaths with dignity.’

‘Only a fool who’s never felt pain could say such a stupid
thing,’ he snarled.

‘How do you know what I’ve suffered?’ she said quietly.

‘Before they’ve finished with us we’ll be screaming in such
agony that we’d betray our own mothers to stop it.’

Maelys looked down at him with such reproach that he
regretted his words at once. She could imagine their final agonies as well as
he could, and she was facing them far more nobly. How had Father turned him into
such a coward?

Out of the corner of his eye Nish saw a man approaching with
a long, glowing poker, white-hot from the bonfire. Nish shuddered, but managed
to steel himself. Face your end with dignity.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, Maelys.’

‘So am I,’ she said. ‘I’ve been such a fool, Nish.’

The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes to block out
what was coming was the flappeter shooting across the sky, the firelight
burnishing the undersides of its whirling feather-rotors and picking reflections
from its compound eyes. He thought he made out a faint, distant cry of triumph.
It would soon be free at last.

ELEVEN

There had been plenty of time for Maelys to regret her
stupidity. She had hung on the hoop for the longest hours of her life, with the
whole village staring at her, watching the crones mixing red ochreous mud in a
cauldron, adding various witchy powders, fluids and pastes, and chanting a
dirge as they stirred the mess. Once they were satisfied with their concoction
every villager took a hand in pelting her with the stinging muck until she was
coated with it.

They slowly rotated the hoop on the whipping post so the
bonfire would dry the mud into an even coating. She couldn’t imagine why that
mattered, and whether the ritual had some sorcerous intent prescribed by the
God-Emperor for blasphemers or was just a local superstition. However, once the
mud baked on they didn’t bother to repair the places where pieces flaked off.
Evidently it had completed its part in the ritual.

But no regret was so bitter as when Nish appeared between
the houses. Turn back, she prayed, at the same time hoping that he could pull
off a miraculous rescue, like the hero he’d once been. But he neither turned
back nor noticed the shadow creeping up behind him, and before she could work
the dried mud from her lips to cry out a warning, he’d been disarmed and taken.

Even then it didn’t occur to Maelys that Nish would be in
danger. She assumed that, once he told the villagers who he was, they would bow
down before him and he would come to his senses and take on the mantle of the
Deliverer.

Only after Nish was condemned did Maelys realise just how
catastrophically she’d blundered. She’d undone all the good she’d done in
helping Nish to escape. No, she’d made things immeasurably worse.

While Nish had been in prison, the world could hope that one
day he would fulfil his promise. Now hope was going to die in this
insignificant village and the God-Emperor himself could not prevent it. Even if
Nish had been recognised in the images sent by the wisp-watcher, it would take
many hours for Jal-Nish’s nearest lieutenant to get here, and since
wisp-watchers weren’t able to receive messages, he couldn’t order the headman
to stop the executions. By the time he arrived it would be too late for
anything but to wreak terrible vengeance on the poor, foolish people of Byre.

And her actions, her choices and her failures would be
responsible for their deaths, and for robbing Santhenar of hope. To say nothing
of seeing the man she’d admired above all others tortured to death before her
eyes. It was the worst moment of her life.

Maelys watched them approach with the pokers, already
regretting her reproachful words. She hadn’t suffered much, as it happened
– at least, not physical pain – so who was she to criticise Nish?

Below her, he was tugging against his bonds, though they
didn’t budge. His face had gone purple from hanging upside down and he’d torn
the skin around his wrists and ankles. Threads of blood trickled up his legs
and his bulging eyes were fixed on the pokers that would put out the lights
forever.

Maelys couldn’t bear to watch, but she couldn’t close her
eyes to his fate either. She tried to think of something to say. She had to
support him but could find no words that would help. ‘Nish –’ she began.

There came a shrill cry from above her, something shot
across the village square, and her hair was buffeted by a blast from
Rurr-shyve’s feather-rotors. The villagers cried out in fear and backed away,
save for the two with the pokers. They stood their ground, staring up at the
dark sky as they tried to work out what this sign meant.

Maelys’s hope faded as quickly as it had appeared. Rurr-shyve
must have come for the amulet, possession of which would give it its freedom,
and since she was about to die it no longer had to serve her. Indeed, it was
free to kill her once it snatched the amulet and, after all she’d done to it,
Rurr-shyve probably would.

A great cry went up. ‘It’s the God-Emperor’s flappeter,’
wailed the crones. ‘The prisoners were telling the truth. Set them free.
Hurry!’

Someone moaned, and the sound spread though the throng,
swelling like a low note on an organ. People began to run back and forth.

‘Quiet!’ roared the headman, crouching by the fire, head in
hands.

‘They’re doomed and he knows it,’ Nish said quietly. ‘The
village was about to commit an unforgivable crime against the Son of the
God-Emperor, and the wisp-watcher saw it all. There’s nothing they can do.’

‘Then we’re saved,’ Maelys said, sagging with relief.

The headman sprang up. ‘Tear down the wisp-watcher! Bring
down the flappeter as well. Gather your livestock and all the food you can
carry then burn the houses. We must flee for our lives, into the wilderness.’

‘What about the prisoners?’ quavered a young man, all
bravado gone. ‘Maybe if we set them free the God–’

‘Do you think he’ll show us mercy
now
? There
is
no mercy in
the God-Emperor, only revenge for those who’ve harmed him in the smallest
measure. Wait till the wisp-watcher is down, then kill them.’

The poker-wielders thrust their implements back into the
bonfire. Ropes were looped around the pole on which the wisp-watcher was
mounted. It began to buzz furiously; bluish auras crackled across the bowl
below its iris, drifting around it before fizzing out. A band of youths heaved
on the ropes, some shouting in exhilarated defiance, but most silent, wide-eyed
and shaking.

Earth cracked and crumpled at the base of the pole;
lightning crackled from the tip of the iris. The youths moaned and allowed the
ropes to go slack, but the dwarfish crone hobbled forwards and beat them about
the shoulders until they heaved again.

More earth moved and, with a furious crackle, the
wisp-watcher crashed to the ground, the rim of its bowl carving a crescent into
the dry soil. The youths let out a ragged cheer, followed by a full-throated
cry of defiance. The tiny crone pointed to the river. Two youths ran forward
and tried to lift the wisp-watcher. One seized it by the rim of the bowl, the
other by the dirt-encrusted base of the pole.

‘Don’t touch it!’ screeched the crone.

It was too late. The youth who’d touched the base threw up
his arms, arched backwards until his groping hands caught hold of his heels and
locked as rigid as a wheel. Formed into a circle of flesh and bone, he began to
roll down the slope towards the river, his head flopping and bouncing at every
obstacle. Another youth tried to stop him but as soon as he touched the first
he too whipped backwards into a living, helpless circle and began to roll away.

A third youth cried out and ran to help, but others
restrained him and everyone watched in silence as the two young men rolled into
the river. As they touched the water they both let out eerie, identical wails
and began to thrash their arms. They floated for a while, churning in circles,
then began to drift away with the current. The wailing from one youth was cut
off by a bubbling noise as his head went under. The other sank without a sound,
and there was silence apart from the cracking of the bonfire and a dull fizzing
coming from the wisp-watcher.

The youth who had touched the rim was stuck fast, his eyes
white holes in his head. He screamed, arched his back and managed to tear one
hand free, but held it up to his eyes and screamed again. The tips of his
fingers were glowing, there were luminous bands across his fingers where he’d
been held fast, and the skin and flesh appeared to be peeling back to reveal
the bones inside.

He tore the other hand free. The skeletal fingers were
bending into curls like twigs in a fire. He held out his hands to his friends,
pleading for help, but no one dared go near.

Someone shouted and pointed towards the river. The youth
turned that way, his knees wobbling and twisting sideways, but after a couple
of steps he turned around again and lurched back towards the wisp-watcher,
holding his bloody arms out beseechingly. The bones in the palms of his hands
were showing now, and his shrieks grew so loud and agonised that Maelys’s scalp
crawled.

All the villagers were staring at the youth. A pretty,
beardless lad had even taken a few steps in advance of the crowd, but stopped,
afraid to approach. The glow from the downed wisp-watcher brightened; its iris
was twisted and fluttering like a candle flame.

The youth let out a cry that might have been mistaken for
ecstasy and began to trot towards it, though as soon as he touched the iris he
screamed and turned away with the bones of his forearms emerging from the
dangling flesh. He’d only gone a few steps before he turned back, holding out
his arms again, and so the macabre dance continued, forwards and back, forwards
and back.

A great shudder took him. He managed to tear free and threw
himself to the ground, clawing at the dirt in an effort to drag himself to the
water, but his finger bones broke off. He rolled over and began to hump himself
backwards towards the iris like a caterpillar crawling across a leaf.

His feet passed into the circle and burst into flame. He
tried to resist the pull but his muscles kept propelling him back. He tilted
upright like a pole pulled to the vertical, half man and half animated
skeleton, stood in the circle for a moment then slowly shortened as his flesh
sloughed off and the unsupported bones collapsed. His disembodied skull
remained for a while, mouth gaping, but no lungs remained to give it breath.
Then, in a sudden flash, it crumbled into separate bones.

‘To the river with it, quick,’ hissed the crone.

The staring crowd caught its collective breath, then the
youths took hold of the ropes again, very gingerly, and dragged the
wisp-watcher down the slope, leaving a smoking, stinking trail behind it. Each
time it passed over a living plant the leaves burst into brief fire.

The remaining villagers followed, keeping well out of the
way. The youths hauled the watcher to the water and, under the direction of the
headman, levered it in with sticks. It hit the water and sank like a rock,
though from her perch Maelys could see a glow on the surface of the water. The
water bubbled; a dark stain spread outwards and the currents could not shift
it.

Someone let out a hollow victory cry but no one else joined
in. The villagers drew back, alarmed that the wisp-watcher lay there, a blight
upon their village and a grim reminder of their unforgivable crime.

The headman pointed up to the bonfire; the villagers headed
towards Maelys and Nish, speaking in low, fluttering voices. A group to her
left, mostly youths and young men but with a few girls among them, were urging
each other on, clutching sticks and rocks. They wanted revenge but dared not
look directly at Nish, perhaps afraid he shared the powers of his father.

Another group of youths on the right appeared to be urging
caution, while a spokesman for the villagers shouted, ‘Leave them! We must fly
before it’s too late.’

‘Stop!’ The tiny crone extended a trembling finger at the
whipping post. ‘They brought this curse upon our village. Though they’ve cost
us everything, we’re not creeping away from Byre on our bellies. The
God-Emperor has abandoned us and now we’re doomed. Doomed! Yet we were proud
once, and we’ll abandon Byre in pride, not cowardice.’ Her eyes flicked
nervously towards the bubbling water as if she expected Jal-Nish to rise up out
of it. ‘Kill the witch-slut!’

‘What about the Son of the God-Emperor?’ the headman said in
a voice barely audible above the crackling of the fire.