Alchymist (47 page)

'Further
up, near the northern rim,' Xabbier pointed. 'Keep well away from there, and
should we win—'

'Don't
worry. I'll be out of here so fast that you'll see nothing but smoke.'

'Better
keep away from the command tents, too. They're below your father's tent.'

'I
forgot to mention,' said Nish, 'that Troist is coming around to hold the mouth
of the valley open.'

'Who
the hell is Troist?' Xabbier moved his sword in and out of its sheath.

'General
Troist. He's come down from Almadin with an army of thirteen thousand soldiers and
nine hundred clankers.'

Xabbier
threw his arms around Nish and crushed him to his chest. 'Thirteen thousand,
you say?'

'Yes,'
said Nish. 'I served under him earlier in the year. He's a good man and a fine
leader, though he's not fought a battle like this one.'

'None
of us have, Cryl-Nish. How did he come to be nearby?' 'Flydd and I brought him
here.'

'The
scrutator is with him? Even better news. We must talk more of this later.'
Xabbier called his messengers, a pair of tall soldiers who looked like twins.
'Run to the command tents. General Troist of Almadin is coming to our relief
with thirteen thousand, and nine hundred clankers. He'll try to hold the valley
neck. How long will they be, Cryl-Nish?'

'They
were going to do a forced march from their camp, south of here. They left an
hour ago, maybe more. How long would that take?'

'The
country's rough that way,' said Xabbier. 'They'll be lucky to reach the neck of
Gumby Marth before noon. I hope we can hold on that long.'

The
messengers ran off, separately. Xabbier, one eye to the sky, marshalled the
hundred and twenty soldiers under his command into a ring around the fires. All
across the battlefield, other shadows were doing the same.

'It's
a tactic we devised for night fighting,' Troist explained. The enemy see better
in the dark than we do, but they don't like bright light. This way we have a
tiny advantage.’

But
we also have our backs to the fire, Nish thought, and they're much bigger than
us. If we're forced to retreat, there's nowhere to go.

The
last rays of the moon failed. The wheeling lyrinx dis-appeared against the
black sky. 'That's what they're waiting for,' muttered Xabbier. 'It won't be
long now.'

'Jal-Nish
will have his commanders spread out through the |camp, of course,' said Nish,
'so the enemy can't attack them all at the same time.'

Xabbier
frowned. That's normal practice these days, but Scrutator Jal-Nish has gone
back to the old way — a central command area, heavily defended by troops and
clankers. He doesn't like to delegate.'

'But
surely . . .' Nish began. 'What use are such defences when the enemy can just
drop out of the darkness on top of them? The officers will be slaughtered in
the first attack.'

'The
generals tried to tell him that, but he insisted his secret plan would overcome
the enemy, and deprive them of their best and strongest.'

'Father
loves to be mysterious,' said Nish. 'He has to prove that he's cleverer than
everyone else. What can his plan be?'

I
don't know, Cryl-Nish, but I pray it's a good one.'

Something
to do with the tears, no doubt. Jal-Nish must be planning a great display of
the Secret Art, to win the battle and prove himself to the scrutators at the
same time. Nish's father was a competent mancer rather than a brilliant one
but, with the tears enhancing his alchymy, who knew what he might be capable
of?

It
was another step in his campaign to gain admittance to the Council of
Scrutators. Once there, he'd try to oust Ghorr and impose his twisted will on
the world.

'They're
coming!' someone bellowed.

 Nish
scrambled up onto the shooter's platform of the nearest clanker, trying to get
a picture of what was happening.

There
were lyrinx everywhere, falling from the sky so thickly that they could not be
counted. They seemed to come out of nowhere, and thousands more were swarming
down the escarpments.

And,
Nish saw, they fell most thickly further up the valley, above the officers'
tents. It was the tactic they'd used in the battle for Nilkerrand, wiping out
the commanding officers in a few minutes, then routing the leaderless army.
Troist had gained his command that way.

There's
too many, Nish thought despairingly. Unless Jal-Nish used his magic
immediately, this was going to be a massacre. Another wedge of lyrinx were
falling further down the valley, to bottle them in. They would try to drive
them into the fires. Any who escaped would be forced into the streams or up
against the escarpments. When Troist finally arrived, he would enter a valley
of the dead, and the enemy would finish the story with him. Better that he
hadn't brought Troist here at all, than bring him into this.

'Don't
lose hope, Cryl-Nish,' said Xabbier as if reading his thoughts. 'We're a tough
force—'

Suddenly
the lyrinx were everywhere, landing in the darkness all around them, bounding
down the lower slopes of the escarpments and running up the valley from the
west.

Nish
drew his sword, shrugged the armour into place and prepared to fight and die.
The beasts roared their drawn-out battle howls, each with a vibrating whip
crack at the end, then charged.

There
came a shriek from further up the slope. Nish's hair bristled, for no human
throat could have made that sound, nor lyrinx either. The enemy froze where
they stood, then every head turned towards the source, as if on wires.

Nish
stood up on his toes on the platform, but was not high enough to see. The sound
went on and on. It was coming from the direction of the command tents, and his
father's tent, where the lyrinx clustered as thickly as bats in a fruit tree.

A
violet light appeared in the centre of the command area and began to swell like
a balloon. The lyrinx surrounding it rose in the air and hovered, as if resting
on the surface of a transparent dome. The violet surface developed spines like
those of a sea urchin, and they slowly extended out and up, pushed by a
metallic silver sphere whose surface roiled like the surface of the tears.

Nish
felt the heat-cold again, and again that charging up of his unknown inner
senses. Here and there, a violet spine touched one of the hovering lyrinx,
which fell from the sky in flames. They did not seem able to move out of the
way.

So
Jal-Nish did have a secret weapon — his Art was bolstered with the tears. Nish
prayed he would succeed; and prayed he would fail, too. His father was an evil
man and the more power he gained, the worse he would become. But if he failed,
it must be the end for everyone here.

It
didn't look as though he was going to fail. More lyrinx fell, impaled on the
thousands of violet spines that now bristled upwards and outwards like spikes
on a helmet. The enemy seemed to be drawn to the spines like moths to a
lantern.

That
drawn-out, inhuman shriek came again. The roiling dome swelled prodigiously and
more spines formed, until they might have numbered as many as all the lyrinx on
the battlefield.

'I
don't know how he's doing it,' said Xabbier, 'but he's luring them in.'

'He's
going to beat them.' Nish said to the shooter, a rangy, balding redhead who was
standing up behind his javelard, gaping.

All
at once the shriek was cut off. The dome set and the violet needles froze. A
great black Iyrinx spiralled down into the firelight above the command tents
and hovered there, its head thrust down, wings beating slowly.

'What's
going on?' Xabbier called from below. 'I'm not sure,' Nish yelled back. 'Got a
spyglass?' Xabbier snapped an order and shortly a stubby brass ocular was
passed up. Climbing to the top of the javelard frame, Nish focussed the glass.

'It's
an enormous, black, golden-crested lyrinx, hovering above the dome just out of
javelard range. It must be a mancer of surpassing power — I can feel it drawing
down the field from here.'

'What's
it up to? Quick, Nish! These lyrinx aren't going to stay quiet for long.'

'It's
fighting against Jal-Nish's Art. It seems to be holding him for the moment. It
must be incredibly powerful — I've never heard of a lyrinx that could fly and
do great magic at the same time.'

The
struggle went on. No one said a word. The dome swelled, contracted then swelled
again. The violet rays pushed up thickly towards the mancer-lyrinx, almost
touching him. Nish held his breath. So very close — there could only be a span
between life and death for the mighty creature.

He
felt a psychic sucking as the field was drawn down. Then the mancer skin-spoke,
his whole body inverting in an instant from coal-black to brilliant white, and
back to black. Triumph, or despair? Nish couldn't tell. The violet spines crept
up again until they almost reached his armoured chest. Father's going to do it,
Nish thought. He'll defeat the crea-ture and the battle will be over before
it's begun. The thought did not fill him with joy. After such a victory
Jal-Nish would be unstoppable. It could change the world, if the tears really
were that powerful.

Once
more the mancer-lyrinx flashed black-white-black, This time the spikes were
pushed down a fraction. Nish felt weary from watching the struggle.

Again
he experienced that psychic sucking, as if the field had been drawn swirling
through a plughole. Nish's skin prickled. Suddenly Jal-Nish's roiling dome
shrank, shrank again, and the violet spines thinned almost to nothing. The
golden-crested lyrinx drifted down, and through the spyglass Nish could see its
hands making patterns in the air. The dome was crushed down, down towards the
tears from which it came.

'The
lyrinx appears to have your father's measure after all,' Xabbier said quietly.
He had climbed up unnoticed and now stood beside the red-haired shooter.

'I'm
afraid so—'

The
atmosphere seemed to charge up. Discharges wavered in the air from every metal
object and the violet spikes shot up as if it had all been a ruse. One almost
skewered the mancer-lyrinx, who twisted out of its way, moving his hands
furiously in denial. Black-white, black-white, black-white,, black\

With
a tearing shriek, the dome split along its circumference. The air thrummed and
a white disc of light roared up vertically, bright as the sun, sharp as a
razor.

The
great lyrinx somersaulted in the air, avoiding the scything blade. Some were
not so lucky. Nish saw a hovering lyrinx cut clean in two, the parts continuing
to float for a few seconds before falling out of the sky. Other lyrinx lost
wings, limbs, heads.

The
golden-crested lyrinx raised its arms, then plunged them down, pointing
directly at the centre of the dome. The thrumming grew louder, more urgent,
before cracking as the white disc shattered and vanished like smoke.

Nish
felt another drain on the field and now, under the mancer-lyrinx's overwhelming
power, the dome was crushed down and down, until it was no bigger than a wagon,
a barrel, a melon. He lost sight of it. No — it swelled momentarily and again
that bladed disc of white light roared out, but this time it was forced
horizontally, low to the ground. Though it had no effect on the hovering
lyrinx, it made a deadly scythe through the tents, the generals and their elite
guard, extended out a hundred and fifty spans, faded then vanished.

The
roiling dome imploded in a crash of thunder that reverberated off the cliff
walls. Nish had to block his ears. It, was over and Jal-Nish had lost
ruinously. Smoke belched into the sky. Whatever happened next, as hundreds of
lyrinx fell on the survivors at the command tents, Nish did not see 'It's the
end!' he said softly to Xabbier. 'No one could sur-ve such an onslaught, not
even with the tears.' 'Then let's make a good account of ourselves before we
die,' said Xabbier.

Nish
had no time to dwell on his father's fate, for at that instant the lyrinx
charged. As he drew his sword, the inner sight that had been with him ever
since he'd touched the tears, and had allowed him to see the stone-formed
lyrinx, faded away. He was glad to see it go. It had felt wrong — like wearing
another man's underwear.

Someone
screamed, the sound drawn into a viscous gurgling as the soldier's throat was
torn out. The man two to the right of Nish went flying backwards into the fire.
A lyrinx lunged at Xabbier — a small, wingless one, it must have climbed down
the escarpment. Xabbier's sword flashed in and out, drawing purple blood at its
chin. It reared backwards then sprang, arms whirling like flails. Xabbier avoided
those blows but the backhander came out of nowhere, slamming into the side of
his head and knocking him to one knee.

Nish
lunged. His sword went into one of the plates of the creature's side but did no
damage. He wrenched it out and cut at the beast's upper arm. The blade skated
off the armour. It ignored him, slashing at the lieutenant's head. Xabbier
managed to get the flat of his sword up but the blow tore the blade out of his
hand and sent it flying into the fire.