Chimaera (66 page)

‘They’re heading north, towards Lybing,’ said Chissmoul.

‘How many?’

‘More than two thousand. Surr.’

‘Follow them, but keep out of catapult range,’ said Troist, tapping the farspeaker to indicate that he’d finished. ‘What do we do now?’ he cried. ‘Do we let them slaughter our scattered forces, man by man, then fall on defenceless Lybing while we sit here watching for phantoms?’

‘Lybing is a walled city defended by an army of ten thousand,’ Flydd said.

‘If the enemy send just half of their fifty-seven thousand against Lybing, they’ll take it before we can get there.’

‘Tiaan?’ called the scrutator after changing the setting of the farspeaker. ‘It’s Flydd. What’s happening?’

‘The depression in the field is still moving towards Ossury.’

Flydd paced back and forth, his lips moving. He cast a glance at the general, who was staring at the wall. Flydd sat down with head in hands. Nish was glad the decision wasn’t his to make.

‘My men are dying, Scrutator,’ said Troist. ‘If you’re wrong, the three rivers of Lybing will flow red for a week. You’re gambling everything on Tiaan and, to be frank, her history doesn’t inspire confidence. Wasn’t she out of her mind in Nennifer?’

He pressed his knuckles into his stomach, his face grey with pain. Nish passed over the flask containing Troist’s latest remedy, a noxious yellow potion. Troist swigged half a flask, though it seemed no more efficacious than the green sludge he’d resorted to previously.

Flydd bit his lip. ‘Tiaan has never let me down. Besides, Malien is with her. We hold firm for another hour.’

The farspeaker emitted a farting burp. ‘Xervish Flydd,’ said a deadly voice whose tones came through quite unchanged. ‘Grand Commander Orgestre here. This is madness. Will you twiddle your thumbs until the enemy have destroyed us all?’

‘It’s a feint,’ said Flydd desperately. ‘As soon as we turn south they’ll be onto us.’

‘You’ve lost your mind. You are dismissed from command of our forces.’

‘I don’t hold command, and if the governor and the generals no longer have confidence in me they can say so.’

‘General Troist,’ said Orgestre, shrilly. ‘I order you to take Flydd into custody and render him up to me. You are to come south at once and defend Lybing.’

‘You don’t have the power to give orders to me, Orgestre,’ said Troist, who had gone the colour of his elixir. ‘My army is not from Borgistry.’

‘Then who
do
you obey, surr?’ Orgestre ground out. ‘Think carefully before you answer. You know the penalty for treason.’

Troist took a long time to answer. ‘I do know the penalty, surr, and I take my orders from Xervish Flydd, the head of the Council of Scrutators. He has asked me to wait another hour, and wait I will.’

‘You will regret this, General Troist.’

‘We may all regret it, surr, though not for very long.’

‘I hope I can repay your trust,’ said Flydd after Orgestre had gone.

Troist sank the rest of the potion and continued to knuckle his rebellious belly. The hour passed with agonising slowness. More reports came in, of isolated squads slaughtered to the last man.

Nish turned the hourglass, setting it down with a clatter.

Flydd’s eyes flicked to the glass. ‘I’ll contact Tiaan again.’

‘And if there is no concrete news?’ said Troist.

‘I fear we must turn back to Lybing. Tiaan?’ he called.

‘Still the same,’ Tiaan’s voice came clearly over the whine of the thapter.

‘Can I speak to Malien?’

‘Yes, Xervish?’ said Malien.

‘The enemy are attacking all around the borders. We’ve lost thousands of men already and if they’re really heading for Lybing …’

‘Are you asking me to back up Tiaan’s report?’

‘If she’s wrong, Lybing will be destroyed and the west will fall. I need confirmation.’

‘I’m not able to see the effect that Tiaan has reported,’ said Malien, ‘but I have no reason to doubt her.’

‘In any respect?’ A river of sweat ran down Flydd’s cheek.

‘If you’re questioning her sanity, have the goodness to speak plainly.’

‘The world is at stake here, Malien.’

‘Then you have quite a decision to make,’ she said coldly. The farspeaker cut off.

Flydd wiped his face with a rag that was already drenched with sweat. ‘What am I to do, Nish? How am I to decide?’

‘I don’t know, surr.’

‘The effect Tiaan’s seeing must be a decoy – a spread-out group of lyrinx carrying node-drainers. They’ve lured us here so they can destroy the rest of Borgistry unhindered. That has to be it. I can’t delay any longer. Order the turnabout, General.’

Troist sprang to the farspeaker and changed the setting. ‘Captains, this is General Troist. Turn back to Lybing immediately. Follow Plan Three.’

The orders had just been repeated when the farspeaker squealed.

‘This is Tiaan. I can see the enemy, surr.
Surr
?’

Flydd jumped out of his seat. ‘Where are they?’

‘They’re coming out of the forest in their thousands, from the point where the Great North Road meets the forest, then west for a couple of leagues. There’s thousands of them.’

After a long pause, Malien added, ‘I’d say tens of thousands.’

‘Thank you! Thank you, Tiaan and Malien. Stay on watch.’ There were tears in Flydd’s eyes. He embraced Troist and then Nish. ‘To war!’

‘To war,’ said Troist, then snatched the farspeaker globe.

‘Captains. General Troist again. Ignore the last order. The enemy are coming from the forest north of Ossury, from the Great North Road west for several leagues. This is the main attack. Put Plan Six into action.’ He broke off and ran to the door. ‘Guards, the war begins. Ready the command-centre defences.’ He came inside and buckled on his armour, made from boiled leather, and his steel helmet.

‘I think I’ll go up in one of the thapters,’ said Flydd. ‘Even in this weather we might see something useful. Will you join me?’

‘My place is here, with my men. I’ll send up my best tactician, Orbes, and he can report back.’

‘Very good.’ Flydd called down the nearest thapter. ‘Nish?’

‘I’m with Troist, at least until the battle is over,’ said Nish, shrugging his armour over his shoulders.

T
he sun came out and the clouds blew away, but it was going to be a desperate day.

‘They’re not fighting as hard as in other battles I’ve seen,’ said Nish around midday. The command circle had been set up on a bald hill overlooking the battlefield. He was standing at the edge, within the ring of guards, acting as an observer.

‘They do seem a little wasted after their hibernation.’ Troist had just come from the command tent to join him.

‘I wonder why they’re fighting now?’

‘After Klarm discovered their whereabouts and we sent the army to Strebbit, I suppose they had no choice.’

‘Then why didn’t they attack there? They had the numbers.’

‘They were just out of hibernation and needed the past week to recuperate.’

‘Why not take a fortnight and recuperate fully?’

‘How the blazes would I know, Nish?’ snapped Troist. ‘They may have been afraid to wait, in case we discovered them. It’s not easy to hide that many lyrinx and they wouldn’t want to be forced into battle at a ground of our choosing, as they have been here.’

‘I suppose not.’ Nish scanned the battlefield. ‘Our light-blasting weapons don’t seem to be having much effect.’

‘There are few miracle weapons in war. They’ve worked about as well as I’d expected. They are making a difference.’

‘Not much.’

‘A lot of small advantages make a big one. We’re fighting the lyrinx on our terms. Good visibility, open land and bright sunshine. We can use our new tactics to best effect.’

The soldiers were fighting in tight formations, making it difficult for the lyrinx to get through their walls of spears and shields. And when the lyrinx attacked in groups, as they had to, they were vulnerable to the clankers, which could fire their catapults and javelards from the side or the rear, over the heads of the soldiers. The thapters were also taking a toll, maintaining a height from which they could fire at the enemy but above the altitude where the enemy’s catapults could reach them.

‘I do believe we’re gaining a little,’ said Troist in the early afternoon, watching the battle through a spyglass and relaying orders over his farspeaker. ‘They don’t seem to be fighting quite as ferociously as I remember.’

‘I was thinking the same. We’ve taken heavy casualties though,’ said Nish, gingerly feeling a shoulder wound. A small band of lyrinx had broken through the lines just before noon and gone straight for the lookout. It had been a brief but vicious struggle. He hadn’t killed the lyrinx that had attacked him, but fortunately one of Troist’s guards had.

His shoulder was throbbing. It was not a bad wound, as battle wounds go, just three long claw marks. Nothing like the blow that had practically taken his father’s shoulder off a year and a half ago. Another ell, though, and Nish would have been in the same situation.

Troist was going through the latest tally sheets. ‘We’ve lost nine thousand men, and as many injured. They’ve about twelve thousand dead, so it’s evened the odds a trifle, but they still have the advantage if they dare to press it. Pray that they break soon, Nish. They can take these casualties better than we can.’

He called Flydd on the farspeaker. ‘Scrutator, we can’t manage much more of this.’

‘I agree,’ said Flydd. ‘It’s time for a different approach. A strike at their morale.’

Shortly, five thapters appeared in the west, flying in a line, low and slow. As they passed over the enemy formations a soldier on the shooter’s platform of each machine emptied a bag of what looked like brown flour over the side. Dust clouds slowly sifted down onto the lyrinx. At the edge of the battlefield the thapters wheeled and came back on a different track, flying just above catapult height. They kept this up until they’d covered the bulk of the enemy troops and all the bags of dust were gone.

At the end of that line, four thapters turned away and resumed the bloody work with their javelards. The fifth went back and forth across the battlefield again, a second man standing on the rear platform, though he didn’t appear to be doing anything.

Nish raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that all about?’

‘Something Yggur came up with,’ said Troist. ‘Did you hear about those lyrinx at Snizort that caught a dreadful skin inflammation?’

‘I did. The creatures had to be put out of their misery.’

‘Klarm discovered where they’d been buried, and Tiaan thaptered there and recovered one of the corpses.’

‘So that’s what she was doing,’ said Nish.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘She showed up at Snizort when we were trying to make thapters from the wrecked constructs. Tiaan didn’t say what she was doing there, and I was so pleased to see her I didn’t think to ask.’

‘The disease was some kind of fungus. Yggur grew it on offal, harvested bags of spores, and that’s what we’ve just dumped all over the enemy.’

‘A fungus could take weeks to infect them,’ said Nish. ‘It’s not going to make any difference today.’

‘What does it look like that second man is doing?’ smiled Troist.

‘It’s a bit hard to tell from here.’

‘Take a closer look.’

Nish focussed his spyglass. ‘It looks like he’s holding a flagon to his mouth. No, it’s a speaking trumpet. He’s giving them a message. He’s got only one hand. Is it Merryl?’

‘It is. He’s telling them, in their own tongue, what the dust is and what it will do to them.’

‘To break their morale.’

‘Hopefully,’ said Troist.

‘I wonder what they’ll do in retaliation?’

Another hour went by. Whatever the effect of the dust, the enemy continued to fight, though it did improve morale in the defenders. The advantage turned their way, then back to the enemy after a furious counterattack.

Nish was working his spyglass back and forth, counting casualties, when something small and dark streaked across the bloody ground and hurled itself into a formation of soldiers. There were screams, the formation collapsed in the middle and broke up. It reformed quickly, though with three fewer members than before.

‘What was
that
?’ said Nish.

‘I don’t know,’ said the scribe who was tallying Nish’s figures and sending them with a runner to the command table.

A second creature lunged into a formation and broke it as well. By the time it had reformed the little beasts were everywhere. One raced up the hill towards them, as if directed to the command post. Nish dropped the spyglass and reached for his crossbow but the creature disappeared.

‘What was that?’ said Troist, hurrying down from the chart table.

‘I don’t know,’ said Nish, ‘though I’ve got a nasty suspicion …’ There had been something about the way it had scuttled, low to the ground. The hairs rose on the back of his neck.
Flesh-formed
. Was it another nylatl, or something even worse?

Fortunately he’d prepared a remedy in case of this eventuality. Reaching into his pack, Nish withdrew a small metal phial with a tight stopper that had been wired on for safety. Carefully taking the stopper out, he touched it to the tip of the crossbow bolt, stoppered the phial even more carefully, twisted the wire over it and packed it away.