The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (56 page)

He sighed and rubbed the itchy scar below his right
collarbone where the nylatl had stuck him. Even after all this time the spine
wound still troubled him occasionally – a deep, hot ache that spread all
the way to the shoulder and temporarily robbed him of strength in that arm. It
seemed to be getting worse.

‘Well,’ said Zham as they slogged to the top of the
ridge, then walked out onto a platform of rock that formed a natural lookout among
the trees, ‘we’re here –’ He broke off. ‘That’s a bit of a bugger.’

‘What?’ Nish said wearily.

He settled on a stone, not too close to the edge, which
dropped away sharply into a broad valley covered in forest. They’d been
trudging through rainforest for a fortnight and it extended in every direction
as if to the ends of the world, save to the west where the distant
Wahn Barre
reared high, jagged and
snow-capped even in these northern latitudes.

But much closer, standing up out of the rainforest like
soot-blackened chimney pipes so high that the tops of most of them were
shrouded in cloud, were dozens of tall, cliff-bounded plateaux. Some were half
as broad as they were tall; others mere needle-like spires. Some were grouped
in clusters while others stood alone, but at least half of them, if viewed from
the right angle, could have been the slender, sky-piercing peak he’d seen in
that fog-shrouded vision in the Pit of Possibilities.

Nish stared at the vista in dismay. ‘How am I supposed to
tell the right one?’ He tried to recall the details of his vision, but they
wouldn’t come.

‘The plateau country covers a big area,’ said Zham. ‘Got to
be six leagues by four. It’ll take ages to check them all.’

Nish didn’t answer. A green fly buzzed around his head and
he waved it away irritably. ‘Well, failing any other way of identifying the
right one, that’s just what we’ll have to do.’

Five days later they were still searching. Nish had
crossed seven peaks off his sketch map but there were another ten to go, and
the only way to tell was by slogging to the base of each peak and looking up.
From that vantage point he could tell instantly that it wasn’t the peak he’d
seen in the Pit of Possibilities. He’d tried to use clearsight, though without
success. It had seldom been available to him since he’d come out of the maze.
Nish wondered if he’d damaged it through overuse there.

‘This is going to take weeks,’ he muttered.

It was late afternoon, it had been raining all day and they
were fifty spans up a cleft in the latest pinnacle, where they could see over
the rainforest to the next group of peaks. An overhang sheltered them from the
rain that fell constantly around the plateaux, even from clear skies, though
they were soaked through anyway. Their clothes hadn’t been dry in a fortnight
and everything smelled mouldy, including his skin, which was peppered with
mosquito bites.

This peak, like the others, rose sheer for at least a
thousand spans of wet, treacherous, unclimbable cliff. The only way up any of
the pinnacles, as far as Nish could tell, would be via the precipitous clefts
that scored their sides, and even the best of these would be a dangerous climb.
Incessant wind shook the writhen trees growing from crevices near the top,
gales that could tear an unwary climber off.

Zham was nibbling at a vegetable he’d found on the way. It
resembled a doughnut-shaped ear of corn though the individual kernels were like
separate bright red teeth. ‘Don’t have weeks.’

‘What …?’ Nish looked in the direction Zham was staring. A flappeter
was hovering over the lookout where they’d stood five days ago, while another
was following a track horribly like the path they’d taken to the first
pinnacle. His father had found them.

‘It looks as though they’re tracking us. Well,
you
, I suppose.’

Nish gave Zham a keen glance. ‘It does, though I don’t see
how they could.’

Zham shrugged. He wasn’t one to waste time on fruitless
speculation. ‘Do you want to go to the next peak?’

‘Might as well.’ So much for fortune turning my way, Nish
thought. ‘Can we reach it before dark?’ He couldn’t see the sun through a thick
overcast, but night fell with unfamiliar suddenness in these latitudes.

‘No. Better camp here.’

‘Can we risk a fire?’

Zham frowned. ‘Perhaps a small one, deep in that cleft where
it won’t be seen. But just long enough to cook dinner.’

Unfortunately all the wood was saturated and so rotten that
their fingers went right through it, though in the search they discovered a
space deep in the cleft where they could sleep in reasonable comfort.

‘I’m going to turn in,’ said Zham, as he did every night
immediately after dinner, as if to forestall uncomfortable discussions or
disturbing revelations.

Nish grunted. Zham was a superlative guard and an excellent
bushman, but poor company. He was happy to sit in silence for hours. He drifted
through life, doing what he was ordered, and didn’t seem to want anything more.

Nish pulled his coat around him and leaned against the moist
rock, gazing across the forest. What made the plateau he’d seen in the Pit so
unique? He couldn’t recall, though he still remembered his euphoria when he’d
had the vision. It had felt so right for him; so lucky, but now he was going to
lose the chance for it, as he’d lost everything else to his all-dominating
father. It couldn’t be borne. He couldn’t give in to him.

He sat brooding as darkness fell and the cluster of
pinnacles he’d been staring at faded into the black of the night. Nish had lost
track of how long he’d been there – it could have been hours – when
he became aware of a tiny spark of light in the darkness.

He blinked, then rubbed his eyes, but the spark was still
there. And oddly, it seemed to be coming from one peak in the cluster of
pinnacles he’d been staring at earlier. He couldn’t tell which one.

‘Zham?’ he said softly.

The big man rolled over in his bedroll, then rose and in one
swift movement was beside him. ‘What is it?’

‘Can you see a light out there?’

‘Yup! Coming from one of the pinnacles.’ Zham scratched his
straw-like hair – Nish could hear his fingernails rasping through it
– ‘The middle one of that cluster of three we saw earlier, to the left of
the main group.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘I can still see the pinnacles in my mind, as clear as a
picture.’ Zham counted under his breath. ‘Yup, I’m sure.’

Doubtless that was why he was such a good bushman. Nish
couldn’t have told which pinnacle the light came from. ‘And it’s at least as
high as we are, or we’d never see it for the forest.’

‘Higher, I’d say.’

‘Is it a camp fire?’

‘Could be.’

‘Do you think it could be a sign?’

Zham shrugged audibly.

‘It’s got to be,’ Nish said to himself. ‘This land is
practically uninhabited, and no ordinary person would waste their energy
climbing these peaks. So whoever it is, they’ve come here for the same reason
we have – to find what’s at the top, and they know which pinnacle it is.
They’re trying to get there first.’

‘Or it’s an ambush.’

‘It could be, but I’ve got to take the risk, Zham. Can you
find the way there in the darkness?’

‘Yup.’

‘How long do you think it’ll take?’

‘Couple of hours.’

A surge of fury went through Nish at the thought that
someone was trying to take what was rightfully his, but he controlled it. The
light could also be meant to lure him in. ‘Let’s get going. And when we’re
near, keep your eyes open for a trap.’

They reached the pinnacle without incident, and the
moment he touched the rock and stared up at the peak’s outline against the
night sky, Nish knew it was the one. A wave of relief swept through him. The
vision in the Pit had been right after all. At least, so far.

‘This is it, Zham,’ he said quietly. ‘Can we climb it?’.

Zham rubbed his bristly chin. ‘We’ll have to be mighty
careful. They’re bound to have guards.’

He moved along until he came to a deep cleft in the rock,
like a ravine cutting into the pinnacle. He felt his way inside and at the
inner end began to climb. Nish followed him, moving slowly on the wet rock,
testing each hand- and foothold before he put his weight on it.

‘Careful now,’ Zham whispered as they edged up a crevice.
The mossy stone was hard to get a good grip on. ‘I can smell smoke.’

Nish could too. ‘Any guards?’

Zham didn’t answer, but loosened his sword in its sheath.
Nish did the same. He didn’t understand how Zham could see to put his feet
down, but the big man must have been as clear-sighted as an owl, for he hadn’t
once slipped or stumbled.

‘It’s up beyond this rock,’ said Zham. ‘I don’t think there
can be many of them. Stay back. Leave the fighting to me.’

Nish was happy to, though he couldn’t imagine how one would
engage in a sword fight in such a dark, cramped space. Zham crept around the
outcrop, drew his monstrous sword, sprang, then let out a cry of astonishment.
‘Lady Healer!’

Nish scrambled up after him. The cleft was broader here, the
width of a small room, though bounded on either side by sheer rock. The coals
of the camp fire revealed two people lying on a banana-shaped patch of sloping
ground between the boulders, wrapped in cloaks. The smaller one shot up,
brushing the mass of black hair out of her eyes with an achingly familiar
movement.

‘Maelys!’ Nish choked. ‘I – they told me you were
dead.’

‘Monkshart and Phrune tried their hardest.’ She scrambled to
her feet, her face alight and eyes glowing. He’d never seen her look so lovely.

Zham stirred the fire with his boot and the man beside
Maelys sat up, rubbing his eyes.

‘I’m Nish,’ Nish said, rather abruptly, extending his hand.
‘Who are you?’

‘You may call me Thommel,’ the fellow said, and stood up.

Tall, lean and hollow-cheeked, he reminded Nish vaguely of
someone, though he could not think who. Thommel did not put out his hand and
Nish took an immediate dislike to him. Thommel and Maelys exchanged glances as
if they were the closest of friends, or even better than friends. She nodded as
if agreeing to something previously discussed, which annoyed Nish too.

‘This is Zham,’ Nish said. ‘Zham, Maelys who helped to
rescue me from Mazurhize and saved my life.’ Zham was still staring at her with
his mouth open. ‘Do you know each other?’ Nish was feeling more bewildered by
the second.

‘Surr,’ said Zham, gazing at Maelys with sheep-like
adoration, ‘this is the Lady Healer who cut the arrow out of you after the
battle, and tended you afterwards. Don’t you remember?’

‘I saw you in my fever,’ said Nish, ‘but when I woke,
Monkshart told me it was a hallucination. Why didn’t you come back?’

‘Tulitine said I was a threat to Monkshart’s plans and he
must never learn I was among the Defiance. He was always trying to keep us
apart,
if you recall
.’

‘But … how did you get into the camp? Phrune said you were
killed in Tifferfyte.’

As she sketched out what had happened since he’d carried her
to her room in Tifferfyte, Nish just kept shaking his head. Maelys started
forwards, as if to embrace him, then faltered.

‘What are you
doing
here?’ said Nish.

‘When I heard that you’d fled, I had to come after you,’ she
said softly. ‘And Thommel … he knew where this pinnacle was. He’d been here
before.’

‘You told my most secret business to a stranger!’ He felt a
sudden rush of anger, magnified by the way Thommel was looking at Maelys. What
was their relationship, anyway? Their sleeping arrangements looked rather snug.
He tried to tell himself that it was none of his business, that he didn’t care
about her that way and never would, but found it oddly hard to take.

‘How else could I find Thuntunnimoe? I was afraid for you,
Nish. The whole world was hunting you and I was your only friend.’

‘You and Thommel? How cosy. It’s a wonder you had the time.’
He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice, though he regretted it
instantly.

It wiped the joy off her face. ‘And I wonder why I’ve come
all this way for an embittered whiner who can’t think about anyone but
himself.’ She took a deep breath, then added coldly, recklessly, ‘Thommel is a
decent, honourable man! He’s ten times the man you are, and I know I can trust
him with my life. While you – after all we’d been through together, you
walked away and left me to die. What a fool I was to believe the lying promises
of the Deliverer.’

She was right, though it felt as though he’d been smacked in
the face with a shovel. ‘I – I – Monkshart said you were dead.
Phrune said he’d seen you surrounded by the soldiers, and they were
slaughtering everyone …’ He sounded so weak. So craven.

‘You knew Monkshart was a murdering swine, and Phrune a
despicable liar, and yet you believed them?’

‘I –’ She looked so disappointed that Nish couldn’t go
on. Couldn’t even try to justify himself, or explain that the soldiers had been
coming down the path, that Monkshart and Phrune had stopped him from running up
after her. That would sound like an excuse. He couldn’t excuse himself, so why
would she?

‘Phrune drugged me,’ said Maelys, ‘and carried me up to the
village to die. I woke up just as the attack began, and I could smell his reek
on me. He was getting ready to skin me alive, and drool over every minute of my
agony.’

‘Skin you? What are you talking about?’

‘You don’t even know!’ she cried. ‘That’s the hold Phrune
has over his master, you fool. Phrune knows how to make the body-gloves that
ease Monkshart’s torment, and he makes them from human skin, taken from living
people – young people with flawless skin. That’s why Phrune said “What a
waste” when Monkshart threw the messenger boy into the crater. He’d wasted a beautiful
skin. Phrune stalked the villagers of Tifferfyte at night and they couldn’t
escape; there was no way for them to get through Monkshart’s halo of
protection.’