The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (19 page)

‘The God-Emperor will crush us like roaches, but we’ll make
him pay. Kill the Son! Kill them both!’

After a long hesitation, the crowd roared, ‘Kill them!’ The
poker-wielders withdrew their instruments. The ends of the pokers were
white-hot for a couple of hand spans. The two men headed for the whipping post,
heads bowed, afraid to look into the eyes of the God-Emperor’s son.

The shorter of the two, a stocky bald fellow with a
squinting left eye, stood by the post, breathing heavily as he tried to find
the courage for this monstrous sacrilege. The other man, stringy and as
leathery as Rurr-shyve’s saddlebags, waved the poker half-heartedly towards
Nish, but his arm jerked it back. Maelys felt the heat of it on her ankle. Nish
flinched and screwed his eyes shut.

‘Put out their eyes!’ shrieked the crone.

As they started forwards, Rurr-shyve dropped out of the sky
between the villagers and the bonfire with a trumpeting shriek, hovered and
swung its long body in a circle around its rotor stalk. Its scaly tail slammed
into the crowd, battering adults and children out of the way. Villagers
screamed and ran in all directions.

The two men stared at the huge beast, a creature out of
their nightmares, and the pokers drooped in their hands. The headman climbed to
his feet, wiped blood off his face and shouted, ‘Kill them! Guards, hack the
beast to pieces.’

The villagers were not armed but a group of men and youths
ran for the houses. The crowd began to hurl clods of earth and small pebbles
which bounced harmlessly off the creature’s hide. The stringy man gathered his
resolve and thrust his cherry-red poker at Nish’s right eye. Nish jerked his
head out of the way, desperately.

‘Hold him,’ the fellow said hoarsely, with a fearful glance
over his shoulder at the flappeter. It was rising again, its feather-rotors
kicking up clouds of dust as it moved.

The man with the squint took Nish’s head in his shaking
hands and held him, but before the stringy fellow could do the gruesome
business Rurr-shyve’s serrated beak tore his hand and forearm off. With a toss
of its head, hand and poker went spinning through the air.

The squint-eyed man thrust his poker at Rurr-shyve’s neck
and the red-hot metal hissed as it burned through the scaly carapace. Smoke
puffed up. The flappeter swung its head sideways into the man’s midriff and
Maelys heard ribs break as he was hurled across the dirt towards the bonfire.
He crawled away, moaning.

The villagers were heaving up stones from outside the door
of the largest house. The men and youths were creeping back, brandishing
mattocks, scythes and picks. Not even Rurr-shyve could fight them all at once,
though it didn’t need to. All it wanted was the amulet, and Maelys dead.

It lifted and came at her, its paired legs extended as if
trying to snatch the amulet. Maelys flinched but Rurr-shyve caught hold of the
ropes binding the hoop to the post with its foot hooks and rose sharply. The
hoop creaked and cracked but the post held.

A broken chunk of paving stone came whirring through the
air, just missing her hip. The crowd tore up another slab and began attacking
it with a hammer, breaking it into useable pieces.

Rurr-shyve heaved again. The ropes groaned; the hoop cracked
and rotated on the whipping post, tilting Maelys to the left. The armed men
were moving in a spreading line towards them, trembling and trying to urge each
other on. Despite everything, Maelys pitied them, for their peaceful village
life was over and it was unlikely any of them would escape Jal-Nish’s
vengeance.

Rurr-shyve spun in a circle, still gripping the ropes. A
flying rock struck it hard on the upright discs of its tail, knocking it
sideways. It recovered, heaved again and with a shudder the whipping post tore
out of the ground. Rurr-shyve lurched upwards, labouring under the weight as
stones whistled underneath its trunk. One of the bindings of the willow hoop
pulled apart and Maelys’s foot ropes slipped free, leaving her swinging
agonisingly from her wrists, with every lurch tearing more skin away.

The burly leader of the attackers raced towards them,
swinging his scythe in wicked slashes. Her bare feet were dangling from the
lower curve of the hoop, which was opening wider all the time. If the scythe
didn’t get her, the next lurch was likely to drop her right into the middle of
the attackers.

A lump of rock struck Nish in the belly. He convulsed but
was held fast by his bonds. Maelys slipped further; the scythe whistled by so
close that it could have cut her toe-nails. Rurr-shyve, struggling to lift the
heavy post, wasn’t climbing quickly enough.

One of the youths, bolder than the others, came racing
across, sprang and caught hold of the base of the whipping post. His weight
almost dragged Rurr-shyve out of the air. The feather-rotors went flutter-thump
as they tried to hold it up; the willow hoop groaned and its two halves opened
wider, lifting her above the post and out to the side. Maelys could feel the
hoop separating; she was going to fall.

The youth pulled himself up the post, clinging with hands
and knees. He reached the top and attempted to drag her down, but the rope
binding the remains of the hoop to the post slipped free and he fell with it.
Rurr-shyve lurched upwards, carrying the hoop by the bindings, and Nish. The
half Maelys was tied to separated. Her wrists slid free and she fell into the
crowd.

The villagers swarmed at her, and she knew they would tear
her apart. Rurr-shyve might be bound to save Nish, but it would welcome her
death. She was staggering to her feet in a hopeless attempt to defend herself
when Rurr-shyve dropped sharply, Nish held between its pairs of legs, and spun
in a circle on its feather-rotor stalk. Its whirling tail sent people flying,
then it caught Maelys by her rags and heaved her up. Another foot hook snapped
around her upper thigh and it lifted her sharply, swaying through the air.

A hail of rocks and clods of earth arced up at her. A hoe
just missed her dangling foot, a lump of wood caught her painfully on the knee,
then the flappeter whirred up out of the light of the bonfire and the missiles
fell away. It was completely dark here, for the moon had crept into thick cloud
moving in from the west.

A minute or two away from the village, Rurr-shyve dipped
down again, dragging them through the cold river until all the mud was gone and
they were gasping for breath, before turning in the direction of the pinnacles.
Maelys heard its gurgle of amusement.

‘Why did you save me?’ she panted, ‘when you could have
taken the amulet and gone free?’

I’m compelled to look
after the Son. I can’t go free.

‘But you didn’t have to save me.’

It’s easier with a
rider. The God-Emperor made us that way. Besides, I’m partial to human flesh.
I’m saving you up.

Maelys didn’t think Rurr-shyve was joking.

Nish didn’t say a word all the way back, or even after the
flappeter had set them down by the embers of the camp fire. She hung in the
creature’s hooks for a while, scrunched up and trying to cover herself. He
wasn’t looking at her, though. Nish was staring into the dark, his jaw knotting
and unknotting, in the grip of some powerful emotion.

As soon as he turned away she scurried into the shadows,
retrieved her pack and dressed in her spare clothing, thinking that they’d be
fleeing any minute. However, Rurr-shyve settled, devoured a spiny bush then
tucked its head under its neck and its eyes dulled. It didn’t move, even when
Nish fastened the tethers.

‘Hadn’t we better go?’ she said tentatively.

‘Once it’s rested,’ he said tersely.

She dropped her head, though after all she’d put him
through, he had a right to be angry. ‘Yes, of course.’

She covertly watched him dress his thin body, overcome by
her emotions. Nish had risked his life for her, a little nobody. He was staring
at her now, his eyes smouldering in the firelight. What was he thinking?

Maelys went across, forced a smile and sank to her knees in
front of him. ‘Nish, thank you so much –’

‘What did you think you were doing back there?’ he burst
out, spit flying onto her shirt in his fury.

‘I – I – had to get food …’ She dared not admit
what she’d really been up to.

He leaned forwards, red-faced. ‘You lying little toad! You
went down to try and start a rebellion in my name,
without saying a word to me
. How could you think that would work?
You’re the stupidest little fool I’ve ever met, and that’s saying a great
deal.’

‘But you must –’ she began.

‘No!’ he said savagely. ‘No, no, no! Did you really think
they’d rally to me just because you told them my name?’

‘Yes,’ she squeaked. ‘Because ten years ago you promised to
come back and overthrow your father. The whole world is waiting for you to make
good your promise.’

‘Is it? How do you know? And even if it is,
what about me
? What if I’d changed my
mind, or discovered it was impossible? How dare you try to manipulate me?
You’re as bad as my father.’

It was as if he’d struck her. Maelys felt the blood draining
away from her face. She swayed on her knees then tried to scramble away, but he
caught her arm and went on.

‘And even if I were disposed to start a rebellion, which I’m
not, I certainly wouldn’t begin it here. What can a couple of hundred peasants
do in the middle of nowhere? When Father catches them, and he must, he’ll
destroy them to the last woman and the last child. And it will be your fault.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. She couldn’t face him; couldn’t
bear to think about what she’d done. How could her good intentions have gone so
wrong? ‘I thought –’

‘You didn’t think. You’re a stupid, naïve little child. And
worst of all, you’ve undone all the good you did in helping me to escape.’

‘What?’ She couldn’t think straight; didn’t have a clue what
he was talking about.

‘The wisp-watcher!’ he hissed. ‘It saw me and Rurr-shyve.
Now Father knows exactly where I am and he’ll already be after me.’ He dropped
his head into his hands. ‘I’d sooner have stayed in prison, with no hope, than
to be given hope then robbed of it so brutally. I wish I’d never heard your
name.’

TWELVE

Nish scowled at Maelys’s stricken face, then stalked
off into the darkness, shaking. How could she have thought that the villagers
would believe her sorry tale, or follow the Deliverer anyway? They had little
to gain from doing so, everything to lose, and now they’d lost it. Within a
week the survivors would be screaming in his father’s torture chambers.

What did Maelys want from him anyway? Nish knew she was
after something, for he’d spent years among the most cunning manipulators in
the world and could tell when he was being used. No girl’s clumsy deceptions
and awkward half-truths could deceive him; he’d seen through Maelys’s story
days ago. If she didn’t want something from him, the absurd aunts who’d sent
her did.

Not so absurd, come to think of it. Fyllis
had
got him out, relatively unharmed.
And Maelys
had
overcome every
obstacle, including ones Nish couldn’t have defeated. It was all the more
incomprehensible that such a resourceful and level-headed girl (thinking of her
as a girl made things so much easier) should have acted so rashly. What was she
really after?

Yet … when he thought about it, Maelys was so quiet and shy
that it was inconceivable she could be working on her own behalf. She must be
acting out of duty to her clan. Her ancient clan had nothing left to lose but
their lives, and such proud folk might account their lives of little worth when
reduced to such a mean existence. But they had everything to gain if Nish did
overthrow his father.

It all became clear. The aunts were prepared to risk
everything on this reckless gamble, knowing that if they lost they’d suffer the
cruellest fate the God-Emperor could contrive for them.

Ah, but if they won … Just for a moment, Nish allowed
himself the glorious dream – that he might take his father’s place and
dispense justice tempered by mercy with an even hand, revered by all his
subjects as he worked to change Santhenar to a better, fairer place.

And he
would
reward Maelys’s clan beyond their imagination, for Nish never forgot his
friends. He followed that delicious dream as he stumbled through the dark,
until he put his foot down and there was nothing underneath it.

His heart lurched and he threw himself backwards, just in
time. When he’d recovered, Nish felt around in front of him, thinking that he’d
come to the edge of a cliff, but it was just a ledge about a span high.

Still, he might have broken an ankle. He sat on the edge and
hard reality pushed his daydreams away. Well he might admire the aunts’ gamble,
but there was no place in his mind for dreams and no room in his heart for
hope. He’d cut himself off from its miseries and hope’s treacherous cousin,
expectation. He would look for nothing more than the life of an ordinary man,
would expect nothing save to live from one day to the next. If he expected
nothing, he wouldn’t be let down again.

His thoughts returned to Maelys, and how he’d struck out at
her. To his shame, Nish discovered that he’d enjoyed taking out his bitterness
on her; hurting her had helped to ease his pain. He saw the stricken look in
her eyes and felt sick. Prison had changed, no,
lessened
him. He’d spent so long immersed in his own troubles that
he’d lost all feeling for others.

Maelys, at least, had acted selflessly, out of duty to her
family. Yes, she had tried to manipulate him, in her awkward, girlish way, and
it had turned out disastrously for the villagers, yet their elders had made the
choice to blind and kill him, when they could have held him for the
God-Emperor’s minions. They’d brought it on themselves.