The Lord of Lies: Strange Threads: Book 2 (31 page)

Forger nodded, as if convinced.

Mergan stalked back and forth, considering things from every angle.

‘More rocks!’ he ordered. ‘Up there!’

There were ledges in the mountainside above the winding path through the Pass, reached by steep and narrow ways, upon which his children were busy stockpiling rocks and whatever other projectiles they could find. Once upon a time there had been battlements up there, but these had since crumbled, and a few remnants of walls comprised the best remaining cover. That said, from those heights, simply crouching down was enough to remove one from sight.

Those Unwoven who knew how to use bows – not enough of them for Mergan’s liking – would be strategically situated among the rock hurlers. He had ordered them to teach others the skill as well, although ‘teaching’ was a rather alien concept, and he doubted many of the archers-in-training would prove effective in whatever time they had left. Still, they might surprise him.

‘There is not space
for all up there,’ said Scarbrow. ‘Where shall the bulk of our people wait?’

‘Just inside the Dale,’ said Mergan, ‘ready for any who make it through the gauntlet. Be clear that they are not to disperse, back to raising cattle and making swords, or whatever they normally like to do. They are to remain in position.’

Scarbrow nodded. ‘And I will protect you.’

His sword would not be much good up where Mergan planned to be, on the highest reachable ledge, where the sweeping view gave him plenty of scope for magic.

‘No, I want you with our people inside the Dale. Make sure they stay where I have said. And get her down.’ He gestured at a pregnant Unwoven on a ledge who had apparently gone into labour.

‘You,’ called Scarbrow, ‘get down from there.’

‘Why?’ she answered, water dripping around her ankles.

‘You cannot fight while giving birth!’ shouted Mergan.

‘Why not?’

She set her jaw stubbornly and slammed her spear end to the ground, causing dust to fall.

‘You disobey the Lord Regret?’ called Scarbrow.

‘Oh, leave her,’ said Mergan, with a dismissive wave. ‘Let her hurl her newborn at them when they come for all I care.’

‘When will they come?’

‘Do you remember that helpful concept I recently taught you called “scouting”?’

Mergan did love his people, but it constantly surprised him how useless they could be.

As the army slowed
to a stop, Yalenna considered the daunting Pass. Even from this distance, in the light of the setting sun, she could see grey shapes moving about the upper reaches, many well above arrowshot from the ground.

‘My lady,’ said Jandryn, ‘it is a death trap.’

She grunted in agreement. There was good reason why no one had ever been able to scour the Unwoven out of their Dale.

‘If we try to venture through,’ said Jandryn, ‘they will rain the mountains down upon us. Would that the Spell deliver some fortunate quake to shake them loose, like that which opened the pit beneath them.’

Ah yes
, thought Yalenna,
that convenient pit.

Loppolo sidled up, flanked by officers.

‘Priestess,’ he said stiffly, ‘I have been talking with my commanders and we cannot see a way into the Dale that does not result in ruin.’

‘Have a little faith,’ she replied, ‘in the powerful threaders you have with you.’

‘You have a plan?’

She glanced around for Rostigan. There he was, talking with Forger, gesturing at the Pass.

‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Let us make camp. We will attack tomorrow morning.’

‘But Priestess –’

She shot him
a look to quiet his objections, and he glanced sideways at his officers.

‘We shall speak further tonight then,’ he said, ‘about how to address the problem. In the meantime, I will take your … advice.’

‘Very well.’ She turned away, heading towards the other Wardens, and Jandryn moved to join her. ‘Not now, Jandryn,’ she told him. He frowned, but she had no time for his insecurities just then.

As she arrived, Forger grinned at her. ‘My goodness, Yalenna! You look more radiant every day. Could it be that your young gentleman has warmed your once-cold heart?’

‘My heart was never cold.’

‘Ah. Only towards me then.’

‘Hanry, please … we must work together.’

‘Is that not what I’ve been doing?’ Forger looked exaggeratedly abashed. ‘I was merely trying to make conversation in the form of polite interest and enquiry.’

Yalenna found him infuriating, his affectations of normality doing nothing to endear him to her. She had no trouble remembering how far he was beyond redemption, and did not like him knowing about Jandryn. She could not, however, afford to treat him with open disdain.

‘I am sorry,’ she said, making a show of smoothing her hair. ‘I am a little on edge, is all. It is quite a task ahead of us, gentlemen.’

‘And the subject of our current discussion,’ said Forger. ‘I have been telling Rostigan my idea.’

‘And what is that?’

‘To wipe the mountains
off the map!’ Forger smacked his fist into his palm. ‘Can you imagine it? Take the very Peaks from under them and oh, how they would fall. Can you see them falling, Yalenna – little grey bodies, tumbling to the ground? Even such hard heads as theirs would crack and break.’

‘What I see,’ said Yalenna, ‘is the world cracking and breaking before we have a chance to fix it. We cannot
steal
a whole mountain range! Who knows how such a monumental act would affect things? How it would speed the Spell’s degradation?’

‘Ah,’ said Forger sadly, ‘a shame.’

‘We do not have to go that far,’ said Rostigan.

Yalenna glanced at him hesitantly. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Stealer need not take a whole mountain,’ he said, ‘to make those upon it fall.’

It was a new day.

A pair of soldiers stood side by side,
flexing their sword arms. They had been farmhands until not long ago, from a little village way down south, and wore a mishmash of armour assigned and earned.

‘They can’t expect us to march into the Pass,’ said Artanon. ‘The Unwoven will crush us before we’re halfway through.’

‘They won’t make us to do anything of the sort,’ Cedris replied. ‘Threaders are going to pave the way.’

‘Yes, so the king says, but he doesn’t say how. And the veterans say lords think nothing of sending soldiers to their doom.’

Cedris chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t believe everything you hear from those crusty old dogs. See, look at that.’ He gestured to the front where the Priestess cantered up to join Loppolo. She nodded to him, then turned towards the mountains.

‘Everyone, make ready!’ came an officer’s command.

‘I told you,’ said Artanon. ‘They’re going to get us killed.’ ‘Watch the Priestess,’ Cedris said. ‘She’s up to something, mark my words.’

Yalenna raised her hands towards the Pass, her face a mask of grim concentration.

Forger nudged
Rostigan. ‘It’s time. Yalenna is putting on her show.’

Rostigan, to whom no one else was paying attention, nodded and began to speak.

Cornerstones and keystones keep the Roshous high, Perfectly in balance from the deep earth to the sky. A thousand tiny structures holding everything in place, Carrying the Peaks and propping up rock face. Holding back collapse from the floor of Tranquil Dale, Holding up the Pass, and the Unwoven pale.

Soldiers glanced around, startled by the sudden ghostly stream of overlapping words.

Rostigan ignored them, watching the mountains.

Mergan was situated up on his ledge with an excellent view of the enemy, wondering what they planned to do. He hoped – oh, how he hoped – that they would risk the Pass, giving his people a chance to pay them back for the indignity of the pit.
He did not think it likely, however. Any half-decent commander would know that funnelling his army through such a hostile narrow space was tantamount to suicide. Nevertheless, they had come here, so surely they intended to take some kind of action. Unless they merely meant to ensure that the Unwoven were once again locked away inside the Dale.

A series of cracking, grinding, groaning noises sounded through the mountains. The ground under Mergan’s feet shook, and dust started to come loose.

What now
, he thought, and then everything fell apart.

The ledge beneath him gave way suddenly, jolting his stomach into his throat. It hit some protrusion a few paces beneath, breaking into pieces, and he was flung against the mountainside. His nails raked down a newly exposed rock face until he found a jutting upon which to seize, holding on tight as stone rained around him.

No, no, no!

Other ledges were coming loose, and across the way a boulder smashed a vertical path down the mountain. Below Mergan, Unwoven were bouncing off each other as they fell, and against the sides of the Pass. As debris cascaded, bodies disappeared into a cloud of rising dust.

A greater rumbling sounded, and he twisted as he hung to look into the Dale. With a horrified, sickening despair, he saw motion on the mountains all around – peaks were crumbling, outcroppings collapsing, everywhere rock and dirt was sliding
down slopes, quickly gathering mass and momentum. Widespread bellows of anger fast became muffled by a roaring Dale-wide avalanche.

How did they do this?
he wondered.
Nobody has this scope of power.

From above came the clatter of more objects, and he looked up in time for a hurtling stone to hit him square in the forehead. He was punched soundly from the rock face, his limp fingers trailing as he plummeted, unconscious.