Chimaera (63 page)

L
ybing, from the air, was a fairytale city built at the confluence of three rivers. The old, walled town spread across five hills that surrounded the confluence like the points of a squashed star. Water formed the heart and arteries of the city, and its citizens had built no less than nineteen bridges, each beautiful, each different, across the rivers. Nish had counted them as the air-floater flew in.

The city now extended well outside the walls, for Borgistry was packed with refugees from the west, while a couple of leagues upstream, thousands of tents marked the camp of Borgistry’s largest army.

That was all Nish saw of the place, for the thapter was directed to land on the lawn of the White Palace, a rambling, grotesquely ornate building of indeterminate age or, rather, many ages. It spread across a trio of mounds between the upstream arms of the two largest rivers, and was built of white marble.

Nish had just climbed out onto a springy, daisy-starred lawn when he was called into the palace. He had expected to be part of a vast conclave, but Nish found himself in a grand reception room fitted for the deliberations of emperors that was practically empty. Up the far end, by a roaring fire spitting sparks over the screen onto the tiled floor, stood an oval table and eleven chairs, all but one occupied.

‘Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar,’ called the man in livery at the door.

Someone at the table was talking, and no one looked up as Nish made the long walk, his heels clicking on the tiles. He stood at the end, uncertainly.

‘Sit down!’ snapped Flydd.

Nish took the empty chair at the near point of the oval and looked down the table, which was piled with maps and papers. A farspeaker globe, its base encrusted with gems by a master jeweller of Lybing, sat in pride of place in the centre. He recognised a number of people there, including Flydd and, down at the far end, General Troist, who looked nearly as weary as Nish felt.

Nodding to Troist, Nish scanned the other side of the table. An elderly woman and man, both richly dressed, sat next to Troist. To their left was another general, a vast, choleric man bursting out of his uniform, his chest festooned with rows of shining medals. Beside him was a woman in black who might have been a merchant, then a tall, dark woman with frizzy hair and filed teeth – Overseer Tuniz from the manufactory. What was she doing here?

There were three more, two middle-aged men and a woman whose face Nish couldn’t see as it was concealed by a dark veil. He picked up the papers in front of him.

The elderly woman extended a hand towards Nish. ‘Good day to you, Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar. I am Nisbeth, Governor of Lybing and all Borgistry. This is my husband, Argent of Borg. Next to him are General Orgestre, Grand Commander of the Army of Greater Borgistry, and Merchant Meylea Thrant. Overseer Tuniz you would know, of course, and General Troist and Scrutator Flydd. Beside Tuniz are Mancers Rodrig and Crissinton Tybe, and lastly, Mira Seliant, who has come from Morgadis.’

Nish dropped the papers, which scattered across the table. As he tried to gather them up the woman in the veil turned her face to him. It was Mira. He felt a flush moving up his cheeks. She looked at him without expression, then turned away.

Nish had an urge to run from the room, as he had fled Morgadis that night nearly a year ago. What must she think of him? What would she say? It was as if all he’d made of himself over the past months was as naught.

‘Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

Nish realised that Nisbeth had spoken to him and he hadn’t answered. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.’

‘Your report, Nish!’ snapped Flydd.

‘Ah … ah … yes, my report. I –’

‘Stop babbling, man, and get on with it. The enemy draws nigh.’

‘We brought four thapters,’ said Nish. Tiaan and Malien had the fifth and the other was about to go to Roros, to Governor Zaeff. ‘And four air-floaters –’

He broke off, unsettled by the piercing stare of General Orgestre, who was regarding him as if he were the most lowly of worms. Orgestre’s thin lips were pressed into a pale line that stood out against his red, broken-veined cheeks, and his bloodhound jowls wobbled as he turned his head.

Nish continued through his list of equipment, mostly weapons of war. What must Mira be thinking? Having lost her man and all three sons, she hated war and despised those who waged it.

‘Very good,’ said Flydd, turning away. ‘Overseer Tuniz?’

‘My manufactory has completed its commission on schedule and to Xervish Flydd’s satisfaction. I’ve brought ten more master farspeakers and another hundred of the slave variety. There were some problems with the earlier ones but they’ve been sorted out by Crafter Irisis Stirm, who will remain in the east to make sure we don’t have any more problems. We’ve also brought two hundred light blasters.’

Tuniz bared her filed teeth but Nish knew it to be a sign of good cheer. She had done all that had been asked of her and was going home to her little children as soon as the next thapter went to Crandor. Nish didn’t feel as cheery. He missed Irisis and had hoped she would be coming back soon, though considering the state of the war perhaps it was better that she wasn’t.

‘What are light blasters?’ asked Nisbeth.

‘A battlefield weapon. I have one here.’ Tuniz reached into a leather bag and held up a pod-shaped object, the length of her hand, made of opaque yellow glass. She threw it at the wall and it burst with a brilliant flash of light that hurt Nish’s eyes. ‘It’s enough to daze the enemy for a minute or two. Their eyes are more sensitive than ours; that’s why they avoid fighting in the middle of the day.’

‘Very clever,’ said Nisbeth, frowning at the blackened hole it had made through her intricate plasterwork, ‘though you might have warned us.’

‘The enemy will get no warning, Governor,’ said Tuniz. ‘These won’t win the war but they’ll give us a tiny advantage.’

‘I doubt it,’ grated Orgestre. ‘We need clankers and stout men with long swords, not artificer’s toys.’ His eyes seemed to be accusing Nish of reckless frivolity, though it had nothing to do with him.

Flydd cleared his throat and the others at the table gave their reports. Counting Troist’s forces, now making a forced march back from Strebbit, Borgistry would have an army of sixty thousand men and eight thousand clankers. They could rely on support from Tacnah, the land north-east beyond the lakes, though its eight thousand troops would take a fortnight to get here. Clan Elienor had promised one thousand, and they were already on their way, though they probably wouldn’t arrive in time either. Borgistry’s allies in Oolo had promised another fifteen thousand but they were a month’s march away. The lands further south and west might be able to provide ten thousand raw troops who would have to be trained and equipped, though they would not arrive until early summer.

‘We’ll be at war within days,’ said Flydd. ‘Therefore, we can rely on nothing but our sixty thousand.’

‘It’s a mighty army,’ said Nisbeth. ‘What are the enemy numbers?’

‘Estimates vary considerably. The lyrinx travel individually or in small groups, and mainly at night. Even in the daytime it’s difficult to count them.’

‘We know that,’ snapped Orgestre. ‘Give us your numbers.’

‘General Troist?’ said Flydd. ‘You’ve just rotored in from Strebbit. What’s your estimate.’

‘At the end of autumn I had their numbers at twenty-eight thousand between here and the Sea of Thurkad, counting those that had gone into hiding after Snizort. There could be more to our north. As to how many might have come across the sea, I cannot guess.’

‘So many,’ said Nisbeth, ‘after all their losses last year?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘General Orgestre?’

‘My spies tell me thirty-two thousand,’ said Orgestre, ‘plus a few thousand that we guess will fly from Meldorin. A mighty force, but we’re fighting for our homes and families and we have the numbers to defeat them. What about you, Flydd? Let’s pray that your estimate falls in the middle.’

‘It doesn’t,’ said Flydd. ‘According to Klarm, who’s counted them and was hoping to be here to present the details himself, the enemy numbers
at least
fifty-seven thousand.’

Nisbeth clutched at her heart, but after a minute the colour returned to her face. She took a sip of water, gripping the arms of her chair to stay upright.

‘Go on,’ Nisbeth quavered. ‘If you’ve more bad news we might as well hear it right away.’

‘That’s it,’ said Flydd. ‘Each lyrinx is the match of two of our soldiers, so we’re effectively outnumbered two to one. Surrounded as Borgistry is by forest, I don’t see how we can defend its borders.’

S
omeone drew a deep, shuddering breath. Nish thought it had been Mira, though she was sitting back and he couldn’t see her. General Orgestre’s mouth opened and closed. For the first time in his life, it appeared, the hard-faced man was directly threatened, and he was terrified. He began buffing his golden medals, as if to find comfort there.

‘Then Borgistry will fall,’ said Nisbeth. ‘We must evacuate to our refuges.’

‘Where we’ll either starve in the drylands, freeze in the mountains or be eaten alive by midges in the stinking bogs of Mirrilladell,’ said Meylea Thrant, the merchant. ‘Had I known I was throwing my money away, I would have paid my military levies rather less cheerfully.’

‘You never handed over a copper grint without shedding a tear,’ General Orgestre said, now desperately polishing his chest ornaments.

‘I’d gladly pay it to an officer who’d earned his commission, rather than bought it,’ said Thrant.

Dead silence. Orgestre swelled up like a red-faced toad. His mouth opened but nothing came out.

‘That’s not helpful,’ said Nisbeth, who was deathly pale. Her husband was supporting her. ‘General Troist, may we hear your view?’

Troist, a neat man, apart from his mass of tangled, sandy curls, stood up. ‘As far as I know, no human army has ever beaten the enemy when the numbers were equal; nor should we expect to. Yet,’ he looked down one side of the table and up the other, ‘the situation is different now.’

‘Go on, General,’ said Nisbeth. ‘Do
you
have a plan to defend us?’

‘I’m beginning to formulate one. Flydd and Yggur have given us new hope. Farspeakers are going to revolutionise warfare, though we’re still working out how to make the best use of them. And with our thapters, essentially invulnerable to lyrinx attack, we can see the whole of a battlefield – indeed the whole of Borgistry – at once.’

‘They’ll attack in bad weather when you can’t see further than you can throw a spear,’ said Orgestre.

‘Then we’ll know when to expect them,’ said Troist.

‘But not
where
. Not
how many
,’ said Orgestre with relentless despair. ‘And both thapters and farspeakers are vulnerable to node-drainers. Only a fool would rely on such untested Arts at a time like this.’

‘We’re overusing the fields,’ said Mancer Crissinton Tybe, who had the narrowest, most angular face Nish had ever seen on a man, and a mouth that gashed it in two as if the back of his head were hinged. ‘It’s as simple as that. We’re abusing the natural forces, and so are the enemy, and there’s got to be a reckoning.’

‘I’m not sure I understand you, Mancer Tybe,’ said Flydd.

‘What he means,’ said Mancer Rodrig, a small, deliberate man, ‘is that one day the fields will let us down when we most need them.’ His skin was starkly white but there were such dark rings around his eyes that he appeared to be wearing goggles. ‘We must wean ourselves off the fields before it’s too late. We’ve seen it in the stars.’

‘
The stars!
’ said Flydd, unable to contain his derision. ‘Unfortunately, my dear mancers, this war is being fought on solid ground and to give up the fields is to give up existence. While the enemy uses power we have to match it.’

‘Even to the ruin of the world,’ Crissinton Tybe intoned.

‘If the numbers are correct, we’ve lost the battle and the war,’ said Orgestre. His red face was now blotched with ugly purple stains like birthmarks.

‘It would almost be worth it,’ came a low voice from behind the veil, ‘to rid the world of the bloodless warmongers who send our young to die but never hazard their own lives. Have you ever seen
active
service, Orgestre?’ Nish had never heard such hatred as there was in Mira’s voice.

‘Mira, please,’ said Nisbeth. ‘Would you go on, General Troist?’

‘We have thapters, against which the enemy haven’t yet found a defence. We have farspeakers – which aren’t perfect, I agree – yet in this battle, in the limited compass of Borgistry, they’re worth twenty thousand troops. If the enemy break though in some unexpected place, our captains will know in time to send reinforcements, or withdraw.’

‘They have the numbers to overwhelm us,’ said Orgestre. ‘and they too can communicate over a distance.’

‘Their mindspeaking is of the most primitive sort,’ said Flydd. ‘Only those most powerful in the Art can use it. There’s still hope, since the lyrinx are just out of hibernation. They’ll be lethargic and wouldn’t normally do battle for another week. And they’ll be wasted and hungry when they get here.’