The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (70 page)

To perform such a feat after calling down the flappeter
would have taken more power than most mancers could summon. But the illusion
had been failing under the strain, and that’s why the nimbus had been
flickering, almost revealing Monkshart’s true form. Aftersickness must have
been hurting him cruelly and only a man of iron will could have endured it for
so long.

Monkshart swayed on his feet, wiped a streak of the
sloughing skin off his right cheek with the back of a raw hand, shuddered, then
directed such a look of rage at Nish that he reeled.

The officers suddenly woke up to what had happened. ‘It’s
Monkshart!’ one shouted. ‘Take him in the name of Jal-Nish, the God-Emperor.’

The Imperial Militia went for Monkshart but the green nimbus
expanded until it was spans wide all around, and they bounced harmlessly off
it. Monkshart appeared to summon the last of his strength, expanded the nimbus
even further, then stumbled downslope and hurled himself into the steep part of
the gully. The flickering, fading nimbus bounced once, twice, slowed then
drifted down like a balloon, carrying him out of sight.

Nish didn’t see how the zealot would be able to summon the
strength to do anything further. However, Jal-Nish was surely keeping watch
from on high and would move to the next phase of the attack as soon as he could
come close enough to swing it into action. Nish scanned the sky but couldn’t
see anything save the luminal. He turned away. Zham was throwing the last of
the barrels over.

‘Save one,’ Nish yelled, ‘just in case.’ But it was too
late. The last barrel was gone.

Suddenly the wind reversed direction and a churning fog
swept in, reducing the brilliant glare of the luminal to an eerie glow that
appeared to come from every direction at once.

Nish stood on the edge for a moment, wondering how much time
they’d gained and remembering the look on Monkshart’s face. He, Nish, had made
a life-long enemy, though that wasn’t what bothered him most. Monkshart had
driven himself too hard. The rages were getting worse, and lasting longer. What
would happen if they drove such a powerful, charismatic man over the edge into
insanity?

Zham tapped his shoulder. ‘We’d better get to the hut. Mr
Xervish might be done by now.’

How touching his faith was. Nish didn’t have much left but
he followed the giant. By the time he reached the hut he could only see the
outline of the luminal, though he couldn’t tell whether it had faded or the fog
had thickened. However, the God-Emperor might be able to see via other Arts and
Nish didn’t want to give away the location of the hut, which hopefully was
still shielded by the red amber-wood.

Inside it was nearly as dark, and more gloomy. The lantern
was guttering, the fire just a few glowing coals which picked out the renewed
Flydd lying on his back on the floor, his chest rising and falling minutely.
The last of the old skin was shredding off his face, hands and legs.

Beneath it Nish saw a muscular man of middle height and
uncertain age – fifty at the most – with wavy, iron grey hair
receding at the temples. His olive skin was baby-smooth, apart from several
faint small scars in roughly the same places as Flydd’s most prominent scars
had been. In other respects he resembled Flydd not at all. His eyes were
staring straight up, though Nish could not make out their colour.

‘Xervish?’ said Nish.

The full lips parted and the barest wisp of voice issued
forth, a whispery croak, though deeper than Flydd’s voice. ‘More time.’

Nish glanced at Zham, who was hanging back, then Maelys,
crouched by the fire. Her skin had a greenish tinge, there were beads of sweat
on her brow and upper lip, and if she hadn’t supported herself on her arms she
would have fallen over.

Outside, the luminal brightened momentarily; Nish heard a
distant grumble of thunder.

‘Deliverer?’ said Zham, head cocked as if trying to
distinguish a different sound over the howling wind.

Another grumble of thunder came, closer this time, though
surely that wasn’t what was bothering him. No, it was a faint
blatt-blatt
. Nish looked out.

The fog had thinned again. The luminal had faded to an
eclipsed globe but now a storm cloud was forming above the plateau, a gigantic
thunderhead condensing out of the empty air. Was his father using weather
mancery to create a downpour that would wash away the gunk from the barrels and
allow his ground troops to storm the plateau? Doubtless it would wash some of
his soldiers away as well, though that wouldn’t bother Jal-Nish.

Where was he? He had to be near, surely? Nish strained his
eyes upwards, and when the lightning flashed he caught a faint, crystalline
ripple, like light reflecting off cut glass as it moved, but the thunderhead
grew until it covered the centre of the sky and he didn’t see another flash.

Jal-Nish was there, though; Nish knew it. His father was
waiting like a gigantic, deformed spider for the moment when his prey was
helpless.

The drizzle had stopped and it was now warmer than at any
time since they’d reached the plateau. Nish began to sweat in his coat, though,
oddly, his exposed skin had a dry, itchy feel and he could feel his hair rising
up from the top of his head. Lightning flashed out over the mire, illuminating
Zham, whose short hair was also streaming upwards, and in the darkness between
flashes tiny sparks were discharging from the tips.

‘I don’t like it, surr,’ said Zham, rubbing his left hand
through his hair and creating a flurry of sparks. ‘There’s something not right
about this storm.’

‘Nor I, Zham. It’s unnatural.’

‘Is it the God-Emperor’s doing?’

‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

A quadruple flash of lightning curving down over each of the
clefts was accompanied by ear-shattering thunder, then gusting waves of heat.
Nish’s cheeks grew hot. Sweat trails were trickling down his chest and back,
and the itching was almost unbearable. He pressed his palms to his ears but
couldn’t stop them ringing.

‘I wish it would storm proper,’ muttered Zham. ‘I can’t bear
the waiting.’

It had only been a few minutes but Nish couldn’t stand it
either. ‘That’s what Father wants,’ he said in a leathery croak. ‘To provoke
us.’

‘I wish it would rain.’

‘So do I.’

‘Maybe he’s enjoying tormenting us,’ said Zham.

‘That goes without saying.’

A flash of lightning struck the swamp not far away, hurling
mud and burning plant fragments in all directions. A speck of scalding mud
struck Nish on the cheekbone. He smacked it off, rubbing furiously at the burn.
Steam rose from the swamp.

Now more lightning struck, and more, viciously and
violently, dozens of strokes at once until they lit up the plateau more
brightly than the luminal had done. Nish was so dazzled that he could barely
see; his ears ached as if they’d been pummelled by flailing fists.

Zham jerked him back into the doorway. ‘This isn’t right,
surr. He’s out of control.’

Nish felt it too. It was the wildest storm he’d ever seen; a
rage against them. The thunderhead had gone a boiling black and now covered the
sky, save only for a paler rim around the horizon. The air was warmer and
stickier than ever, though not a drop of rain had fallen. Nish longed for
cooling rain yet exulted that it wasn’t happening. It was as if Mistmurk
Mountain were defying his father, and Jal-Nish couldn’t bear it.

The display continued, growing ever more furious and the
lightning strikes more menacing, until the plateau was thick with wavering
steam trails from boiling bogs and blasted pools. Then the lightning stopped
abruptly, as if Jal-Nish had tired of the game – or formed a better plan.

The air was steamy now, whirling about in wild, choking
eddies, but Nish lost sight of them as the night went black. The luminal was a
bare outline and the sinking moon could not penetrate the cloud. Dawn must be
close, though there was not a trace of light in the eastern sky.

‘What now?’ muttered Zham, creeping out a few steps.
‘There’s that noise again …’

Blatt-blatt,
blatt-blatt.

It was the faintest red flash, dim lantern light reflecting
from a pair of globular eyes, that warned Nish. He threw himself sideways just
in time, the beast’s claws skimming through his short hair, and landed hard on
hip and shoulder. He was rolling over, trying to free his sword, when Zham
gasped.

Nish kicked the door wide, for the light. Something huge,
bat-like and bloated had hold of Zham by the back of the neck and one shoulder.
Great wings were beating furiously; the creature’s already distended belly now
inflated to several times its former size, lifting Zham’s feet off the ground.
The canine, sharp-toothed muzzle was arching over his head, down towards his
eyes.

Zham tried to hold it off with his forearms but his
struggles became increasingly feeble, as if it had injected a fast-acting
venom. Another of the creatures darted at Nish,
blatt-blatt, blatt-blatt
. He came up off the ground in a rush,
swinging his sword wildly, and a lucky stroke hacked through its left wing. It
rolled over and spun head-first into the ground. Nish went for the other one.
He couldn’t reach its wings but the bloated belly hanging above Zham’s head
made a tempting target and he thrust the sword at it.

It went straight through thin, leathery skin, air hissed out
and a spark from Zham’s hair ignited it in a roiling blast of orange fire that
blew the creature to squealing pieces. Zham fell to the ground, hair smoking,
and didn’t move. Nish felt the hairs on his sword arm shrivelling from the
blast, and his cheeks stinging.

Something scratched at his heels and he swung the sword
around blindly, momentarily dazzled. The other bladder-bat had dragged itself
across the ground towards him, inflating its body until it began to lift, and
its remaining wing had touched him. His sword carved through its belly and it
went limp, though this time the gas didn’t ignite.

The luminal began to glow again and he made out dozens of
bladder-bats, whirling down from an aperture in the centre of the storm cloud.
He couldn’t fight them all, alone. He began to back towards the door but trod
on Zham, who was sitting up, wiping at the claw marks in his neck and shoulder,
then a puncture on his forearm, with a chunk of moss. His hair was frizzled,
his cheeks blistered from the explosion and his eyes were streaming.

‘It numbed me for a minute. I could hardly move. You saved
my life, surr.’

‘They’re coming,’ said Nish. ‘Dozens of them.’

He put up his sword. Bladder-bat fluids ran down the blade
onto his fingers, which began to go numb. Nish tore up a clump of moss and
scrubbed the sword clean, then prepared to fight for his life.

But these bladder-bats were in trouble. Though their
abdomens were deflated, they were having trouble descending through the wild,
corkscrewing winds near the edge of the plateau. The leading one folded its
wings and plummeted down at him, but before it reached halfway a gust sent it
spinning, whipped its span-long wings out to their fullest extent then tore
them off.

A second bladder-bat had gone out wide, away from the edge
of the plateau, and now came gliding in towards the hut, though as soon as it
struck the updraught near the cliffs its wings collapsed as if their bones had
shattered. It inflated its abdomen furiously but could not generate lift in
time and slammed into the ridgepole of the hut with such force that it broke
its neck.

It slid down the roof towards Nish, who batted it out of the
way with his sword. It was surprisingly light for such a large creature. It
must have had hollow bones.

He dispatched the last of that flight with a weary flick,
but seconds later another flight of five raced in wingtip to wingtip. Nish and
Zham put their backs to the wall and wove a barrier of steel between themselves
and the bladder-bats, working desperately to keep them out.

They weren’t going for Nish, but making coordinated strikes
at Zham, trying to lure him away from the wall so they could attack on all
sides. Zham was still sluggish from the venom and Nish was weakening rapidly as
he struggled to defend a man twice his size. He’d forgotten how exhausting a
few minutes of battle could be. He could barely hold his sword up.

Bladder-bats now littered the ground around them, many dead,
others trying to drag their way across the ground to attack, though on the
ground they were helpless creatures, easily put down.

Another group of three hurtled in low over the centre of the
plateau where the updraughts were less fierce, and began to beat across the
mires at reed height. Nish was despairing of being able to deal with three at
once when the water swirled,
snap, snap
.
The maw of a stink-snapper closed and began to withdraw back into the mire. The
remaining bladder-bats scattered and Nish didn’t see what became of them.

But the attack was far from over. As a blush of pink spread
across the eastern horizon, he heard the distinctive
thup-thup
of a flappeter’s feather-rotors. Shortly a flight of ten
appeared, circling the plateau, their riders urging them in.

The flappeters turned towards the rim with evident
reluctance, fighting the vicious updraughts with their feather-rotors twisting
and buckling, sending the beasts plunging towards the cliffs before they
recovered and darted out to safer air.

‘Ten flappeters,’ said Zham, dazedly. ‘We can’t fight ten of
them.’

‘That’s almost all Father’s got left, I’d say, and he’ll
risk them reluctantly. But risk them he will if there’s no alternative. He was
never loath to break a precious thing in pursuit of something he wanted more.’

‘I think we should move away from the hut,’ said Zham. ‘Just
in case they see us and it gives Flydd’s location away.’

There was a good chance that Jal-Nish already knew, for the
bladder-bats had come straight for them, though if they weren’t magical
creatures they might have seen him and Zham without being able to communicate
it to the God-Emperor.