The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (35 page)

Flydd, facing the other way, was also calling out
directions, and Nish marvelled that Chissmoul could follow them both at the
same time. Even with her eyes blocked, she always knew which direction the
air-sled was heading, and never hesitated.

The javelards were firing as fast and furiously as before,
but suddenly their spears and chain-shot were no longer coming close.

‘It’s working,’ Nish said dully, hanging onto the back of
the seat with both hands, for he was so drained from using the staff that he
could barely stand up. ‘Gatherer has lost the link.’

‘I’m all right now,’ Chissmoul said. ‘It’s coming back.’

Flangers took his hands away and she opened one eye, winced,
and then the other. After checking that the missiles were missing by wide
margins, she wiped her brow on her sleeve and began to climb out of range, up
into the night sky where they could no longer be seen. Shortly she headed away,
across the city and out over the Sea of Perion.

No one spoke for ten or fifteen minutes; everyone save the
pilot lay on the deck, exhausted. Nish stared up at the sky, thinking about the
encounter. We couldn’t even sway the leaders of one provincial city, he
thought. How can we hope to seize the empire? It’s hopeless, even more hopeless
than the battle for the pass. At least there I knew how to fight my enemy. I
have no idea how to deal with these people.

But he had fought his crippling self-doubt before, and knew
how to recognise it now. Nish had vowed never to give in to it again, and he
would not. He was going to fight on; he would find a way to combat these foes
and until then, for the sake of morale, he had to appear calm and in control.

He lay there for a good while, slowly coming to terms with
these fears, and when he felt that he had overcome them for the moment, and the
lights of Taranta had disappeared, he took a number of deep breaths and sat up.

‘I have to say, Xervish,’ he said mildly, ‘that wasn’t one
of your greatest speeches.’

‘Should have known better than to try it here,’ Flydd said
ruefully. ‘I’m sure it would have worked a treat in Roros, or wicked old Thurkad
that is no more, but what can you expect from these inbred, back-country
rubes?’

‘Not everyone was against you,’ said Flangers. ‘I saw some
groups looking very attentive.’

‘But the seneschal has sowed doubt in everyone’s minds,
which is a pity. Wherever we go, the God-Emperor’s loyal servants will have
heard their lies, and they’ll be expecting us.’

‘Now they know the God-Emperor is missing,’ said Flangers,
‘they might swing their allegiance to Nish.’

‘A few might, but could he trust them? It would be different
if we could prove that Jal-Nish was dead, but a man who turns his coat when his
master needs him most is likely to do it again. We don’t want such a man, or
such an army, at our backs.’

‘How long will it take to reach Roros?’ said Flangers. ‘The
militia are tired and hungry and desperate for sleep, and their bladders must
be bursting – I know mine is.’

‘Days,’ said Chissmoul, who had flown all over Lauralin
during the war. ‘It’s two hundred leagues away. I can’t go much further today,
surr; I get aftersickness too, you know.’

‘I know. We’ll fly over the range and hide for the night,’
said Flydd, ‘but first I’ve a mind to show Taranta the sting in our tail, if
you can manage it.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Nish.

‘We have to. They nearly destroyed us, but we can’t allow
them to think we’ve fled in panic. We’ve got to strike back and leave with our
heads high.’

‘How?’ said Nish, uneasy at the thought of returning to a
place they had been lucky to escape from.

‘You’ll see,’ said Flydd mysteriously. ‘They go to bed early
here. Chissmoul, head back towards Taranta, high and slow, so we make no
sound.’

She did so, which took the best part of half an hour.

‘Now,’ he added, ‘circle over the peasant quarter. Stay
high.’

It was nearly nine in the evening and the square where they
had been attacked now lay in darkness. The night was cloudy, the city dark and
still.

Flydd was looking towards the main city square, half a
league away. ‘The governor’s palace and the seneschal’s mansion are still lit,’
he said thoughtfully.

‘They’ve got a lot to talk about,’ said Nish.

‘Go down slow and quiet, Chissmoul, and make for the alley
where they had the stampede.’

‘You’re not going to do something terrible with those
bodies, I hope?’ Nish said suspiciously. The old Flydd would never have
demeaned the dead, but Nish could not always predict how the renewed man would
react.

‘Certainly not!’ said Flydd in high dudgeon. ‘What do you
take me for? I’ve something far better in mind.’

Nish was scarcely relieved. What was the old scoundrel up
to?

‘Careful now,’ Flydd whispered, as Chissmoul crept the
air-sled down. ‘There’s bound to be a few sentries about. Go low over the
rooftops; I wouldn’t want any wisp-watchers to pick us up. Head along the alley
to the building there, with the flat roof. See it?’

‘Isn’t that where one of the javelards was sited?’ said
Flangers.

‘It is,’ said Flydd.

‘The one that fired the chain-shot and exploding tar balls?’

‘Precisely,’ said Flydd. ‘We’re going to teach the seneschal
a lesson. Quiet now.’

The air-sled nosed silently across the tightly packed
rooftops until, ahead, Nish made out the top of the javelard, still pointed
towards the square. ‘It’ll be guarded,’ he whispered.

‘Of course,’ said Flydd. ‘The God-Emperor won’t let any
rebels arm themselves at his expense. I need a few volunteers.’

Every able-bodied man and woman put up their hands.

‘I’ll take Flangers, and you and you,’ said Flydd, going
down the back and selecting militiamen in the near-darkness. ‘Chissmoul, set
down on this roof.’

She did so, and momentarily the roof timbers groaned under
the weight of the air-sled. ‘What about me?’ said Nish.

‘I thought you were worn out?’ said Flydd.

‘I am, but if there’s a chance to tweak the enemy’s nose,
I’m taking it.’

‘Thought you might,’ Flydd said complacently.

How easily Flydd had manipulated him. Having checked his
sabre, Nish followed across one flat roof, then another. The javelard loomed
ahead and he made out a shadow pacing back and forth. A single guard was rarely
effective; there were bound to be two, or even more.

‘No need to kill the guards, unless they’re trying to kill
you,’ said Flydd. ‘Knock them out and tie them.’

They were climbing across onto the roof, trying to make no
noise, when there came a low, harsh cry. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Scrier!’ hissed Flydd. ‘Cut him down before he gives the
alarm.’

The scrier turned and ran, his gown billowing, towards a
wisp-watcher mounted on the side of the javelard. If he reached it, every
scrier in Taranta would soon know.

Nish sprinted after him. He could have tracked the scrier in
the dark by the sulphurous pungency of his breath, a side-effect of the herbs
they chewed to enhance their vision, but he was too far ahead. Nish sent his
sabre spinning through the air. The flat side of the blade struck the scrier in
the back and drove him to his knees, but he rose and scrambled up towards his
wisp-watcher.

Nish launched himself through the air and tried to drag the
scrier off the javelard. He wriggled free, jumped into his seat, touched
something in the darkness and a little speck-speaker slowly came to light. He
was leaning towards it when Nish threw himself at the scrier’s back, driving
him against the wooden frame. Ribs cracked but he twisted like a snake in
Nish’s arms, bringing a knee up for the groin.

Nish blocked it with his own knee but the blow to his
kneecap was so excruciating that he dropped his guard. The scrier’s left hand
flashed into his coat, emerging with a knife whose blade might have been made
from ice, save that it shone with the same bile-green light as the rat-neck
noose of a loop-listener.

The knife flashed for his throat, but stopped with the point
pricking through the skin under Nish’s chin. ‘The son of the God-Emperor!’ the
scrier said hoarsely, then grinned in triumph. ‘You’re mine, and all the reward
–
ump
!’

Nish had kneed him in the groin and, when the scrier doubled
over, brought a fist up from ankle level in an upper-cut that slammed him into
the side of the javelard. The knife went flying, the scrier’s head struck a
beam, and he collapsed.

All was quiet now save for Nish’s heavy breathing.
‘Xervish?’ he said softly.

‘We’ve finished them. You?’

‘The same; I don’t think he got a warning off, though he did
recognise me. Let’s get what we came for and go.’

Flydd made a double hooting sound; the air-sled appeared and
hovered beside the javelard. They loaded on one round of the double chain-shot
plus a number of the large spherical objects that Nish deduced were the
exploding tar balls.

‘What are you going to do with them?’ whispered Chissmoul.

‘Let me guess,’ said Nish. ‘He’s planning to attack the
governor’s palace.’

‘I would, were he the man who really gave the orders in
Taranta,’ said Flydd. ‘We’re after the seneschal’s mansion.’

‘Better pray that my scrier didn’t get a warning off, or our
welcome might be warmer than you expect.’

‘If you’d done your job properly we wouldn’t have a
problem,’ Flydd said equably. ‘Shut up and give me a hand with these.’

They laid the heavy, clanking chains out across the deck,
then tied two of the exploding tar balls to each end and the last two to the
bar in the middle. ‘How do you set them off?’ said Nish.

‘Fuses. I’ve got them in my pocket. I won’t put them in
until the last minute, because the least spark can set them off – and
then we’ll all be sent to oblivion, coated in burning tar.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Nish. ‘Are you sure this is worth it? The
seneschal’s guards will be on alert.’

‘He called us liars. If we run now, it will be seen as proof
that we are.’

‘The commander will soon discover that Taranta’s army has
been destroyed and we were telling the truth.’

‘Seneschals are professional manipulators, Nish.’

‘Like scrutators?’ said Nish, smiling.

Flydd ignored that. ‘He’ll give a dozen plausible reasons
why the army was lost – fever, flood, avalanche – and none will
have anything to do with us. Besides, if we don’t strike back it will prove
that we’re gutless, and no one would trust cowards with the leadership of the
empire and the defence of the realm. We made – I made – a bad
start, and we’ve got no choice but to put it right.’

‘What can this little attack do?’

‘It’s symbolic. It’s a public act of defiance. The seneschal
might cover up the annihilation of an army in the wilderness, but he can’t
conceal our attack in a public square in front of thousands of witnesses, many
of them rich and powerful people. If we succeed, everyone will know we thumbed
our nose at the God-Emperor’s seneschal and got away with it, and that’s worth
as much as the defeat of an army. More!’

‘All right,’ said Nish, ‘though I don’t see how we are going
to get away with it.’

‘We can’t fly around the mansion without being seen,’ Flydd
mused. ‘We’ll have to con the area on foot first, and find out the best way to
attack.’

‘No!’ said Nish.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Flydd said coldly.

‘I said no. If we get into trouble, there’ll be no way of
getting out of it.’

Flydd’s eyes glittered and his jaw was tight. He did not
like being challenged, but Nish wasn’t going to give in, and finally Flydd
turned away. ‘Flangers, what do you say?’

‘Nish is right; getting off the air-sled is too risky. If
we’re caught, we lose everything. What if we fly in at top speed, chuck our tar
balls through the nearest windows, then scarper?’

‘Chissmoul?’ said Flydd. ‘Have you got the strength for it?’

She was slumped on her chair, head on her arms. ‘As long as
it doesn’t take too long, but it’s not going to work.’

‘Why not?’

‘You won’t be able to throw those heavy chains as far as I
can spit.’

Flydd cursed. Evidently he hadn’t thought of that
practicality, and neither had Nish.

‘It’s a stupid idea,’ came Aimee’s high little voice from
the rear. ‘We should be doing something really outrageous – surr,’ she
added unconvincingly.

‘I’m happy to listen to any
sensible
suggestion you’ve got to make,’ Flydd said with an
underlying air of menace.

‘Mount the javelard on the air-sled, then stand off the
front of the mansion, out in the square where everyone can see, and fire your
black balls and chain through the front door.’

Flydd stalked down the rear and Nish was afraid that he was
going to explode. Clech was looking anxious, until Flydd shook Aimee’s little
hand.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he hooted. ‘How better to humiliate the
seneschal than by attacking his mansion with his own weaponry?’

‘The javelard is too big and heavy,’ said Chissmoul. ‘The
air-sled will never lift it.’

‘Load it on,’ said Flydd. ‘There’s only one way to find
out.’

It required the strength of every able-bodied man and woman
straining at the ropes to raise the javelard and inch it onto the air-sled, and
they would never have managed it had it not been for Nish’s long-neglected
skills as a prentice artificer. It took ages, and they had to stop every time
Aimee, the lookout, alerted them that a patrol was moving along the street
below them.

‘This is taking too long,’ said Nish, sweating in the hot
night. ‘What time do they change the guards?’

‘How would I know?’ said Flydd. He thought for a moment.
‘Every eight hours, as a rule, so probably at midnight.’

‘It can’t be far off midnight now.’