Songs of the Earth (65 page)

A sharp pain in his arm, then another, and he opened his eyes to see a triangular mouth lined with sharp teeth about to take a bite out of his face. Steel flashed and the imp fell away, its talons leaving bloody rents in his sleeve.

Tanith had his sword in her hands and an expression of fierce concentration.
Too close for a fireball, sorry
.

The demons closed in again. As if drawn by his gift, dozens of them fluttered and scrambled along the walkway. Tanith could shield or fight, but not do both, and Gair didn’t have enough control over the Song to help her. Like the angel he had seen once before, she raised the sword and blue flame wreathed the blade. Demon blood crisped and flaked off. Then the swarm was upon them.

Dimly, Gair felt exhausted Masters disengage from the shield. Lightning stalked across the yard. Fat raindrops burst on the stone around him with the sound of tiny thunderclaps, but where they struck his skin he barely felt them. Tanith had done her best, but already blood was streaming down her arm, and soon she wouldn’t be able to lift the sword.

The shriek of a raptor pierced his skull, and red-gold feathers swept across his field of vision. The fire-eagle laid about with beak and talons, scattering pieces of imps everywhere. She was bright as the sun before him, magnificent and deadly. Yellow ichor spattered the stone walk, and yet each imp she tore apart was replaced. Some were in flight, dodging her powerful wings to dart in to scratch and bite. There was more red than gold in her plumage now, and panic rose inside Gair. He couldn’t help her like this. Desperately he called upon the Song for more than he had ever dared to hold.

Wild-water music scoured through his consciousness and he held on by only his fingertips. It seared like flame, shimmered like the breath of winter. Every fibre of his body was bloated with it. This was that day on the road against Goran’s Knights, magnified a thousandfold. But now he knew what to do.

Blue-white lightning arced from demon to demon and shattered skulls as if they were eggshells. Rain fell in silver sheets from the tormented sky, plastered his clothes to his skin and flashed into steam where it met the lightning.

But still more demons swarmed around Aysha, and golden feathers flew as black claws tore. Again and again she lunged with her beak, ripping, gouging, but too many imps clung to her and she staggered in flight with the weight of them on her back. There was a spray of blood, and her wings lost the wind. She screamed, just once, and brilliant colours brushed across his thoughts—

—and were gone.

Gair answered with a scream of his own, wordless, furious, despairing. The shield over Chapterhouse shuddered with his pain and flew into shards.

He didn’t see where she fell. He couldn’t see anything at all but vengeance, and as the storm broke he reached out for every last twist of wrongness he could feel. With the Song raging inside him demons were crushed by invisible hands and broken like twigs. Malformed bodies littered the walkways around Chapterhouse and strewed the fields outside.

Some scrambled for the safety of the luridly lit clouds, where the Gateway into their own world wavered on the brink of closing. None of them reached it in time.

In the harbour black ships crowded on sail and forged through the burning wreckage of the sandboats for the open sea. Gair reached for them too, but it was too far, and he was near the limits of his endurance. The most he could do was set fire to the stern flags and let the flames harry them north.

Too much
. Finally, he slumped against the wall, spent. His hands were clenched so tightly on the stone coping that he couldn’t feel his fingertips, though the fingers themselves screamed with cramp. Helping hands turned him around, but he had only one purpose now, and he stumbled away from them.

Gair found Aysha propped against the stairs from the parapet. Tanith was there; she had spread her Healer’s mantle out like a blanket, so that he would not see.
Too late
. There was too much blood on the stone for him to be anything other than too late.

He knelt beside Aysha. Already her cinnamon skin was grey with her ghost. She breathed fast and shallow, eyes blue-black as bruises. Any tears were lost in the rain on her face.

‘I’m here,
carianh
,’ he said. With a thought he spun a small shield to keep the rain off. He maintained his hold on the Song, to keep the nightmares at bay. ‘What were you doing, charging in like that? You could have got yourself killed.’

‘Had to do something, Leahn,’ she whispered. ‘The adepts were overrun.’

‘And there I was thinking you came to save me.’ Gair struggled to force breath past the crushing pain in his chest.

‘Wouldn’t waste my strength. You can take care of yourself.’ She tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. ‘Goddess, that hurts!’

Her hand seized his sleeve. Fingers knotted in the fabric, white as bones.

‘Just rest a minute. Tanith’s here to look after you.’

‘There’s nothing she can do for me now, you know that.’

‘Nonsense, you’ll be fine.’ The inanities kept coming; he couldn’t seem to stop them.

She shook her head, telling him no. ‘Always loved you, Leahn. Never thought I’d be the first to go.’

‘You’re not going anywhere – I won’t let you.’ He dared a glance at Tanith. The helpless look she returned nearly broke him. ‘Just rest,
carianh
.’

‘Is Chapterhouse safe?’

‘I think so.’

‘Good.’ Another spasm of pain made her sob. ‘Gair? Will you hold me? I’m cold.’

Thunder shook the sky. The storm swept over Chapterhouse in waves, but under the shield there was stillness. Carefully Gair slid
his arm around Aysha’s shoulders and cradled her head against his neck.

‘Better,’ she sighed.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, glad she couldn’t see his face. In a few seconds her breaths were shallower, her head drooping. Gently he lifted her chin and kissed her mouth, so that the last thing she felt would be something other than pain.

‘Gair?’

He opened his eyes. Masen’s face swam into focus.

‘It’s over, Gair.’

‘I know,’ he rasped, ‘I just need to rest for a while.’

Masen gave him a look that said he understood, then strode away. Though the storm had eased to a grumble, it was still raining. Water streamed over the walls, sluicing away the blood and char, washing Chapterhouse clean. Green mantles were busy in the yard where too many small bodies lay broken.

Gair wanted to close his eyes again, but Tanith had spoken and he had to focus on her face. Tears and shadows haunted her gaze. She was apologising, kneeling in a puddle, her dress stained with blood and muck. Her hands implored him to understand that it had happened too fast and she had reached Aysha too late.

‘You did what you could, Tanith,’ he told her gently. ‘Go and help the others.’

A tear spilled over her lashes and cut a trail through the grime on her face. ‘If I’d been quicker I could have saved her. There were just too many of them and they were—’

‘I know.’ He didn’t want to hear it said.

‘Please forgive me.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ He managed a smile for her, Goddess knew how, with the knowledge of what lay under the green mantle. Aysha’s head rested on his neck like the weight of the world. ‘Go on. Have Saaron take a look at your arm, then help the others.’

‘What about the shield?’

Inside his head there was only quiet, and a sense of something held back. He could not detect what it was. He touched the Song, but grief threaded it with a lament. ‘I seem to have put it back.’

She looked shocked. ‘That’s impossible!’

Gair felt her gather the Song as she reached out to him, but he leaned away. ‘Go to Saaron, Tanith. Please. You’re bleeding. This will keep for a while.’

She let her hand fall and got slowly to her feet. Dripping corkscrews of red hair framed her face. The stricken look in her eyes was more than he could bear. It was a relief when she turned away.

When she’d gone, Gair closed the shield around him and locked out sound. The storm became a murmur. People passed silently, floating through the silvery veils of rain. Safe inside, he cradled Aysha against him and closed her beautiful eyes.

It took the better part of four days to make everything ready. The infirmary overflowed, and the chapel vaults were turned into a mortuary for the bodies. Men came up from Pencruik with axes and saws to cut timber for the burning. Some brought their wives to help in the infirmary, older women for the most part, for whom the washing and wrapping of the dead held no fears.

On the rise that overlooked the harbour the sheep-cropped turf was turned back in a huge circle and wagons rumbled back and forth, feeding the growing pyres. Even from up on the fifth-floor balcony Gair could smell the new wood. Overlaying the scent of
pitch pine and sap was the sharp-sweet spiced oil that would mask the smell of burning flesh.

It would be a fine day. Winter still had the islands in its grip, but that grip was less sure in the sunshine, and the pastures sparkled as if sown with diamonds. Soon new grass would push through the yellowed thatch of the old; the buds on the trees had already begun to swell. Such an irony, then, that Chapterhouse should be giving up its dead when all around it new life emerged.

Gair looked down at the glass in his hand. A glorious example of Isles glasscraft, the base and stem were deepest purple that shaded through amethyst to silver at the rim. Less than an inch of brandy remained in the goblet, but it overflowed with memories: walking through the market in Pensaeca Port to buy her Eventide gift, with Aysha riding on his shoulder as a goshawk and hooting with amusement only he could hear when the merchant boxing his purchase enquired diffidently if that magnificent bird might be for sale. Mulling wine as winter winds moaned in the chimney. Mending the glass she’d smashed in a fit of temper when they’d fought over something foolish, then marvelling how she could always pick out that one from the set, even though they all looked the same. She’d said she could feel his weaving of the Song. It had become her favourite. It was the one in his hand now.

He drained the glass, the heavy spirit trickling down to heat his stomach. That was the last of it; the decanter was empty, for all the good it had done. He wished he could have swallowed the recollections with that final mouthful, but they were still there, and they peopled the void inside him with ghosts.

When Gair turned to come back inside he saw Alderan at the door, one hand on the latch. He hadn’t wanted to be disturbed, but it had had to happen eventually – and today, if no other day. At least he’d had a chance to wash and shave. He set the glass down on the desk.

Alderan’s expression did not flicker as he took in Gair’s
appearance, and noted the fine blue wool that hung from shoulders to heels.

‘It looks well on you, lad,’ he said at last.

‘I thought she might appreciate it.’

‘I’m sure she would.’

Gair straightened the edges of the fabric over his chest, though they didn’t need it. The cut was perfect.

‘Did you know?’

‘I did. You hadn’t earned it when she gave it to you, though we could all see your potential. You have a remarkable gift. Now it’s yours by right.’

Gair dipped his head, just once. He wasn’t wearing the mantle for himself.