The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (12 page)

And killed my rider!
Rurr-shyve hissed.
You broke the bond
between us: you hurt me cruelly as you severed his contract. And without his
aura, your contract is null.

‘What are you going to do with me?’ she whispered,
understanding nothing save the dreadful peril she was in. The balance of power
between them had shifted again and she couldn’t see how to get it back.

I don’t know, little
Maelys
. It cocked its head as it hovered, slyly observing her.
I can’t say how long it will take
.

‘What … do you mean?’ She sounded like a mewling kitten. She
had to take control and she had to do it now.

To learn all I need to
know about you – all you’re good for …

It was playing with her mind and she had to stop it. She
pressed the knife down again, hard enough to hurt. ‘But you did take the
contract on, Rurr-shyve, and you can’t repudiate it now that a bond has formed
between us.’

Rurr-shyve spun in a tight circle, so fast that she felt
dizzy.
How little you know about
contracts – or flappeters
.

This time she jammed the knife right in, and gritted, ‘Turn
around. Head west until we’re out of sight, then north for Hulipont. Any
diversion, any tricks and I’ll sever you.’

It was probably too late, but there was still a chance that
poor Cathim had held out, or had died before revealing the destination. If she
could reach Hulipont quickly there was still a tiny hope for Nish, and her
family.

Rurr-shyve said no more, but Maelys could feel the
creature’s rage in every thump of the rotors. Its breathing had taken on a
raspier squelch, its underside gave off visible pulses of the stinkbug stench
which had burned her nose earlier, and its tail kept curling out as if to sweep
her off. It hated its creator, but it hated her even more, and if it ever got
the chance it would make her pay.

However, Rurr-shyve did what she’d demanded. It turned,
steepened the angle of its feather-rotors and climbed away from Morrelune, west
up the slope of the mountain. Once the lights of the palace disappeared,
Rurr-shyve turned north.

She experimented with the wisp-controller. Raising or
lowering her palm compelled the flappeter to climb or descend, while right or
left motions directed it to starboard or port. It didn’t want to obey, and she
could sense its resistance all the time, but for the moment it seemed to have
no choice.

Flying the flappeter proved to be exhausting, both
physically and mentally. Even when she wasn’t actively directing Rurr-shyve,
Maelys could feel the mental strain of the bond between them, and she had to
concentrate every minute.

She was quite desperately tired now, for it could not be
long until dawn, and every bone and muscle ached. Even so, she could not relax
in case she went to sleep. Her bitten finger was swollen like a sausage and her
myriad bruises throbbed. She had splinted her broken finger as best she could,
using strips of leather and a piece of bamboo, but it hurt all the time.

Nish was sleeping again. She extracted a couple of biscuits
from her pack by feel and nibbled at them as they flew north. She’d been too
busy to notice the cold since the flap-peter appeared, but now it struck her to
the bone, and the higher Rurr-shyve climbed the worse it became. If she’d been
riding a horse it would have helped to keep her warm, but this creature was as
cold as a corpse.

Maelys pulled her coat around herself, envying Nish the
fur-lined leathers and his being able to sleep. Remembering the mittens, she
pulled them on, which helped, and drew the collar up around the back of her
neck.

Her eyes slipped closed; her head drooped. She raised it
drowsily, realised that she’d almost fallen asleep and shook herself. If she so
much as dozed the flappeter would turn back. Her lids drooped again. She was so
tired that not even the cold could keep her awake. She pinched her arm, twisted
and looked around.

And jumped, for a pair of bulbous green eyes were shining
behind her. She blinked, rubbed her eyes and looked again. Nothing. She was
imagining things. Nonetheless, she turned Rurr-shyve sharply, just in case.

Nish let out a wail and began to struggle against the cords
holding him in his saddle. As Maelys turned to see what the matter was, with a
thapper-thapper-thap
another flappeter
shot past, so close that she felt the icy blast from its feather-rotors. It had
come out of nowhere and disappeared the same way.

Leaning forwards, Maelys tapped her knife on the
protuberance, then thrust the amulet through the wisps and said, ‘Fly,
Rurr-shyve. Fly for your very life.’

She felt a tingle of alien laughter and Rurr-shyve sent,
My life isn’t in danger, little Maelys
,
but it put its head down and the feather-rotors spun a little faster.

Dread made pinpricks across the backs of her hands. How did
it know her name? Because Nish had said it earlier. And Maelys had also
mentioned Fyllis. The two names would be enough to identify her family, so she
couldn’t let Rurr-shyve go at Hulipont. Would she have to kill it too? How
quickly her sheltered life had changed.

‘Perhaps not your life,’ she lied to the beast, ‘but your
consciousness is at risk.’ She raised the knife.

Rurr-shyve blasted a pungently green, eye-stinging mist at
her. She covered her eyes until it had dispersed, then looked back nervously.
It didn’t seem possible that they could have lost the other flappeter so
easily, though she could see no sign of it. She checked the angle of the moon
through the filmy cloud. They were still heading north, at least.

Rurr-shyve broke into clear air and suddenly there were
flappeters all around. She could see their big green eyes shining wherever she
turned, four or five sets of them, and there was no way this injured beast
could outrun them. ‘Go down!’ she yelled over the icy wind, expecting
Rurr-shyve to refuse.

Down? Away from
Hulipont?

She hesitated, but only for a second. If she headed directly
for it they might guess the destination. ‘Yes, away. Go low; see if you can
find some fog.’

Rurr-shyve went into a vertical dive, dropping so fast that
the wind tried to tug her out of the saddle and she had to whip a bight of her
safety line around the saddle horn. Not far above the mountainside they plunged
into mist, where Rurr-shyve levelled out and streaked away west. She wondered
how it could fly safely in such conditions. Did it have additional senses, like
a bat? Could other flappeters track it the same way?

She didn’t see the pursuit again, and after half an hour of
winding flight the mist disappeared and the sky began to grow light ahead of
them. Rurr-shyve continued but, as dawn broke, four flappeters spiralled down
out of the sky, their riders pointing crossbows at her.

Again Maelys froze; she just wasn’t used to thinking on her
feet. The mist had gone and the sky was free of cloud. There were mountains all
around, their upper slopes bare rock and patches of ice and snow which offered
no concealment. The flappeter gave a coughing grunt which appeared to indicate
amusement.

‘Forest,’ said Nish.

‘What?’

‘Tell it to head for the forest.’

She looked where he was pointing, down into a deep valley
winding between two towering peaks. The valley bottom still lay in darkness but
a smudge on the lower slopes must be forest, stretching further than she could
see.

‘Go down to the forest, Rurr-shyve,’ said Maelys.

It kept on until she tapped the flat of the knife on its
scaly hide, then peeled off and dived, sending a spasm of sympathetic pain
though her elbow at the strain on its injured rotor blade.

‘Where does that valley lead?’ she asked over her shoulder.

‘I don’t know,’ said Nish. ‘This isn’t my country. But
flappeters don’t like flying through forest.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too easy to get hurt – or killed.’

‘I wouldn’t think your father would care about that.’ The
instant Maelys spoke, she wished she hadn’t mentioned Jal-Nish.

After an uncomfortable pause, Nish said, ‘He’d order his
riders into any danger and they’d have to obey. But flappeters aren’t so easily
swayed. How can Father reward them; or punish them, for that matter? He needs
them too much. They’re difficult to create, he’s only got a few and they’re
sensitive to each other’s pain.’

‘How do you know?’

‘In the lowest level of Mazurhize there was nothing for my
guards to do, and they talked about every topic that wasn’t forbidden. Father
liked people talking about flappeters – his most difficult and fearsome
creation.’

Nish was right about their sensitivity. Maelys could feel the
pain of Rurr-shyve’s damaged rotor blade all the time now, and its brittle loss
at Hinneltyne’s death still nagged at her.

The light was growing stronger now, extending down into the
great valley and touching the canopy of the looming forest. Spindly, windblown
trees were scattered across the upper slopes, but further down they became
giants. She saw no sign of habitation: no clearing, track or dwelling.

Rurr-shyve was straining, tiring. Its triple hearts were
going thump-thump-thump, its feather-rotors creaking and, worryingly, a hot
inflammation was growing at the site of the dislocation, which was stretching
and contracting with every whirl of the rotor. The splint was working loose and
sooner or later must give.

The sudden dive had taken their pursuit by surprise,
allowing Rurr-shyve to gain ground, but the other flappeters were rapidly
catching up. The leading beast was not far behind and its rider, a small, wiry
man with a leathery countenance, was leaning sideways, half out of his saddle,
pointing a crossbow around the feather-rotor stalk at her. The bow wavered back
and forth but, with an irritated gesture, he thrust his hand through the
loop-listener and urged his beast on.

‘He’s afraid he’ll miss and hit Rurr-shyve,’ said Nish. ‘Or
me.’

‘But he’s happy to kill
me
,’
Maelys said dully.

‘If that’s what his master has ordered. Father rewards those
who serve him well, but any failure, any mistake, any unfortunate accident
incurs his wrath.’

The other three flappeters were spreading out to come at her
from all sides. ‘I’m doomed, then.’

‘I see it as a weakness,’ said Nish. ‘His servants live in
terror of making a mistake but, for most of them, that fear outweighs the hope
of reward. It doesn’t encourage them to show initiative. They follow orders and,
when something goes wrong, the most cunning blame someone else.’

The wiry rider leaned out on the other side, the crossbow
wobbling back and forth as he tried to find his target, but again he put it
away.

‘I don’t suppose there’s a crossbow in the saddlebags?’ said
Nish.

‘I wouldn’t know how to shoot one anyway. I’ve never
–’ She bit her lip. ‘I’d never harmed a living person, before today.’

‘I was good with a crossbow, once. Have a look.’

You’re closer, and you’re doing nothing! She bit down on the
flash of irritation and felt backwards in the bags, not daring to take her eyes
off Rurr-shyve. She encountered clothing, food packages, a hatchet and rope
and, finally, tucked into a side pouch that she’d missed earlier, the wire and
stock of a crossbow plus a lumpy bag of quarrels. She handed them to him.

Nish steadied the bow on his knee and began to turn the
crank. He gave it three turns, jerked it a bit further, then stopped, looking
up at her with such chagrin that she felt for him. He was too weak; there
wasn’t enough tension in the wire to send a quarrel from one end of the
flappeter to the other.

‘Look where you’re going!’ he snapped.

She turned hastily but there was no obstacle ahead of them,
and if there had been, Rurr-shyve would have avoided it without any action on
her part. Three of the flappeters were close behind but slightly above, and
couldn’t fire for fear of hitting the feather-rotors. The fourth beast had gone
out to her left, diving until it came level. Its rider was the wiry man who’d been
aiming at her before, and she saw his savage grin, for she’d done exactly as
he’d expected. He fired at her face.

Rurr-shyve jinked left again, the quarrel whirred past her
left ear and the rider cursed. She jerked her hand to the right and Rurr-shyve
shot directly into the path of the fourth flap-peter, which darted upwards to
avoid her, forcing the others to swerve wildly. Maelys dropped her wrist;
Rurr-shyve put its long neck down and laboured for the trees.

She took it low and fast down the steep slope, which was
dotted with trees between a series of great out-thrusting buttresses of stone.
Unfortunately, the concealing forest was too far away. Three flappeters were
still following and she wasn’t going to make it.

‘Give me the bow, quick!’ she hissed.

He handed it forward, somewhat reluctantly. ‘Have you ever
used one, lad?’

‘Of course not!’ She held it as she’d seen him do and wound
the crank. She managed two full turns then, forcing hard, another half turn,
and a quarter, until the wire creaked. Maelys passed it back. ‘Will that do?’

‘How did you do that?’ he muttered.

She’d shown him up and he didn’t like it. ‘Is it enough?’

‘It’s good. Nearly as good as I –’

‘Can you – can you hit one of the riders?’ More
killing.

‘I could have, once.’

A mad plan came to her. ‘See that great rock stack down
there?’ It was the size of a small castle, with half a dozen jagged pinnacles
on top, but she’d seen a narrow cleft between the uphill side and the mountain
slope. ‘I’m going to fly in low on the uphill side, dart through the cleft and,
once we’re hidden from view, turn suddenly and come at them over the top.’

‘What if the cleft doesn’t go all the way?’ he said faintly.