The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (64 page)

It turned around, flutter-flapped inland, flying low where
the wind was weakest, then hovered out over the mire. The rear rider slipped
over the side, dropped to ground and headed into the swamp.

‘What’s he doing?’ said Nish.

‘Heading for the broken obelisk,’ Flydd said harshly.

‘But he can’t do anything there … can he?’

‘I don’t – I
hope
not.’

The flappeter turned in a sweeping circle and began to fly
around the edge of the plateau, safely inland from the rim. ‘He’s searching,’
said Zham. ‘He knows we’re here.’

‘He knows all right!’ Flydd scowled at Nish, who looked
away.

The flappeter was surrounded by a thin yellow nimbus, and
Nish could see its open maw and hear its fearful squeals. It was terrified but
couldn’t break the power controlling it.

The remaining rider now wore a long, funnel-shaped helmet.
No, it must have been an Art-enhanced speaking tube, for his voice boomed out
and the words were clear, as was the glutinous hiss of his voice.

‘Come out, wherever you are! Surrender yourselves to the
mercy of the God-Emperor and it will go well with you.’

Behind Nish, Maelys gasped, ‘No, it can’t be. He’s dead.’

It was Seneschal Vomix. The flappeter was thrown upwards and
sideways so violently that a gap opened up between Vomix and the saddle. He let
out a cry and snatched desperately at the straps with his one hand. The
speaking funnel went flying as the flappeter jerked the other way, turned
upside down and its feather-rotors missed a couple of beats, but it righted
itself and began to climb away, Vomix clinging on with one hand and his legs.

‘Should I shoot him?’ said Nish, who had his bow in his
hands.

‘Not unless you know you can kill him,’ said Flydd,
‘otherwise he’ll know where to look for us.’

Nish put an arrow to the string, drew it back and aimed at the
wildly bobbing figure. But he lowered the bow. Once he would have been sure he
could do it, though it was a difficult shot in the moonlight and he was out of
practice. ‘Zham’s a better shot than I am.’

‘I wouldn’t risk it either,’ said Zham. ‘But I don’t think
we’ll need to …’

‘Go back!’ Nish heard Vomix roar, but the beast ignored him.

It was buffeted this way and that across the sky, flung
upside down again then plunged sideways over the edge of the plateau,
feather-rotors beating furiously to avoid the cliff. It spiralled down, out of
control, before slamming hard into the top of a rock stack hundreds of spans
below them. The rider fell off and lay beside the flappeter, which kicked
feebly then went still.

‘Is he alive?’ said Maelys.

‘I think so,’ said Zham. ‘But the flappeter isn’t.’

‘He’s hunting me. And he won’t give up until he gets me.’

‘He hasn’t come all this way just for you,’ said Nish.

‘Vomix must be in disgrace,’ mused Flydd. ‘He’s desperate to
make up for his previous blunders and recover his position, else he would never
have risked his precious skin. He’ll have to climb all the way up from that
rock stack now, and he won’t be quick. It would take immense power to seize
control of a flappeter from so far away, and aftersickness must be crippling
him. He’ll never force another flappeter down. He won’t have the strength.

‘What difference does it make
to us
?’ said Thommel, giving Nish another black look. ‘Nish led the
enemy here, yet he’s the only one who’s going to survive.’

‘We can’t be taken,’ said Flydd. ‘That would give Jal-Nish
the victory he so desperately craves. Come inside. We’ve got to make plans.’
They went in to the fire and he continued, ‘Since we have no hope of escape, I
propose we make a pact – to fight to the death, but if we’re going to be
captured, we jump. That’s my plan, anyway, but I have nothing to lose. What say
you?’

‘I’ll not give the God-Emperor the satisfaction of
tormenting me,’ Thommel said bleakly. ‘But first, Nish, you’ll hear what I have
to say!’

Nish blinked. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘The fact that you don’t remember makes it even worse. But
then, after breaking your solemn undertaking to the world, any word you’d given
to a child would be meaningless.’

‘If you’ve got a grievance, man, spit the damn thing out!’
snapped Flydd.

‘My clan was robbed of their heritage by the enemy when I
was little,’ said Thommel. ‘Even my parents gave up and walked away, for they
didn’t have the courage to fight and die for what was theirs.’

‘If they had, you wouldn’t have lived to be here now,’ said
Flydd, pulling the bung of a flask with a satisfying pop.

‘In the circumstances that’s no consolation,’ Thommel said
dryly. ‘And since the war ended, the brutal favourites of the God-Emperor have
been given my heritage. All my life I’ve slaved to gather enough coin to fight
them for what was mine, yet every time I’ve been knocked down again. And all my
troubles began with him.’ He prodded Nish in the chest.

‘
With me?
’ said
Nish.

‘A few years before the war ended, you fell from the
collapsed bag of an air-floater into a teeming work camp near Nilkerrand, on
the other side of Lauralin. It was a brutal place. You would have been slain
within minutes had not a boy looked after you, and his family taken you in at
the risk of their own lives. And in return, you promised the boy that one day
you would help him regain his heritage.’

‘You’re Colm!’ Nish cried, memories of that terrible time
flooding back. ‘The first time I met you I thought you looked familiar.’

‘Day after day, month after month, I waited for you. I kept
hearing great tales about your heroic deeds and your valour. People queued up
to say what a noble and honourable man you were. I believed in you. I
hero-worshipped you, and I knew you’d come back one day to honour your word.
But you never did.’

‘I’m very sorry, but there was a war on,’ said Nish, feeling
hot in the face. ‘And the moment it ended, I was sent to prison.’

‘I know and I understand,’ said Colm, and it was as if the
apology, or the confrontation, had lifted the weight from his shoulders. ‘I
know everything about you, Nish. But that’s not the real reason, is it?’

Nish didn’t know what to say. He wanted to make an excuse
but Maelys was looking at him and only the naked truth would do. ‘No,’ he said
finally. ‘No it’s not. The truth is, I’d forgotten the boy and the promise. I
– I’m really sorry, Colm.’

Colm acknowledged it with the faintest of smiles, though
Nish didn’t think the obligation had been wiped away. ‘The boy couldn’t
understand, for it was his dream and his faith that were broken. But I’m a
grown man. I know you couldn’t come back, Nish, and there was nothing you could
have done if you had, not while the enemy occupied the lands of my heritage.’

‘Then why put me through all this?’

‘For the boy. The dreamer. He had to hear you say it.’

‘I do keep my promises, Colm. I –’

‘In the circumstances,’ Colm said soberly, ‘I won’t hold you
to it, though if we should survive …’ He offered Nish his hand and Nish took
it.

Now he turned to Maelys, who was staring at him as if she
knew just what he was going to say. Colm’s smile faded. He reached out to her.
‘I’m really sorry, Maelys. The past few weeks with you, they’ve been the best I
can remember. You’re a true friend and I even dared to think – well, never
mind. There’s no future for us, and no way out. When it comes to the end, and
if we are going to be taken, I – I – I’m jumping with Flydd.’

He lowered his head. He was shaking. Maelys moved in beside
him and took his arm but it didn’t seem to help.

‘I’ll follow the Deliverer wherever he leads,’ said Zham
after a long pause, though his fists were knotted at his sides and he was very
rigid.

Nish felt for him; for all of them. ‘I’ve sent men into
battle, knowing they were going to die, but I can’t order any man to take his
own life. Zham, at the end it’s every man for himself and you must do what’s
best for you, not me. My folly brought Father here, after all.’

‘I’ll go with you all the way, surr,’ Zham said gruffly.

Everyone was looking at Nish expectantly. Jumping with Flydd
was the one blow he could strike at the God-Emperor, though surely it would be
a futile one. Would it weaken his father’s grip on the world, or make it
harsher?

As he stood there, he could almost feel Jal-Nish trying to
influence him, using Gatherer to wake the long-buried compulsion he’d put on
Nish many years ago.

Come to me, Cryl-Nish,
and all will be forgiven. I swore never to bend, but things have changed and I
must bend with them. Do you think I achieved all this for myself? I did it for
you
, Son. You’re all I have left, so come, bend
the knee and I’ll raise you up to sit at my right hand. You’ll have everything
you could ever want. Even the deepest desire of your heart can be yours, if you
will come.

How he wanted to. Nish didn’t want to die either, and what
if his father could give him the deepest desire of his heart? What if Jal-Nish
could replace that loss which still burned Nish every day? He wanted it so
desperately.

Nish looked up. Everyone was staring at him. He’d let them
down, unwittingly betrayed them, and he had to make up for it.

‘I’m with you, Xervish,’ Nish said, without knowing if he
was. Could he really take the ultimate step and plunge over the cliff when his
deepest desire was on offer? Or would he see his friends die one after another,
then betray their memory?

FORTY-FOUR

They were all looking at Maelys now and she didn’t know
what to say. Their situation was hopeless, and falling into Vomix’s hands was
unthinkable, but Flydd’s path wasn’t one she could follow. She’d considered
that way out months ago, and rejected it.

‘I can’t do it,’ she said quietly. ‘Not even if the
alternative is to be taken, tortured or even …’ She shivered, closed her eyes.
Her eyelids fluttered. ‘No! Life is precious and it’s wrong to take your own
–’

Nish began to say something but Flydd held up a hand. ‘Say
no more. I admire you all the more for staying true to your conscience,
whatever it costs you. None of us will seek to persuade you otherwise, though
you’ve made a harder decision than we have. We’ve a few hours to prepare
ourselves; at most, until dawn, and I suggest we each do so according to our
inclination. I plan to walk the rim of the plateau, alone, as I do every night,
then get splendidly, roaringly drunk.’

He nodded to them, checked that the protective amber-wood
was still in his pocket, and went out.

Maelys made sure she had hers as well. Colm was trying to
catch her eye and she wanted to go to his calm, reliable solidity, but if these
were to be her last hours of freedom there were things she needed to settle
with Nish first. ‘Later, Colm,’ she said softly.

Nish touched her on the shoulder. ‘Would you walk with me
for a bit?’

Her gut tightened at the thought of what she must say to him
but it had to be done. She offered him her arm as if they were the best of
friends and nothing bad had ever happened between them.

Flydd was visible in the moonlight, shuffling along the rim
of the plateau to their left, so they turned the other way. The cross-wind was
even stronger now. Maelys, who was on the right, kept well clear of the edge.

‘Nish, I’m sorry I was so angry on the way up,’ she began.
‘I should have tried harder –’

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he said. ‘In my last hours, I’ve
got bigger problems to worry about than a trifling misunderstanding.’

Maelys bit her lip. It wasn’t trifling to her and she had to
get it out. And once she did, she needed Nish to acknowledge her apology and
offer one in return, though she didn’t think he was going to. Why were his
problems always more important than hers? Because he was the son of the most
powerful man in the world, and her clan had been reduced to beggary. No, Clan
Nifferlin were proud, whatever their state, and she didn’t have to take it.
What had she ever seen in him?

‘What problems?’ she said, then realised that he’d been
waiting for her to ask. Stupid, stupid man.

‘Ones that I can’t even talk to Flydd about, or it’ll
destroy all the faith he’s ever had in me.’

But it doesn’t matter about my faith in you, because you
don’t care a fig for me, despite all I’ve done for you. Why am I putting myself
through this? But because she still felt for him, and in a few hours it would
all be over, Maelys said, ‘What is it, Nish?’

He let go of her arm and went to the brink, staring down.
She edged after him, afraid that a sudden gust would hurl them over. Far below,
the camp fires of Jal-Nish’s mighty army twinkled around the base of the cliffs
like an arc of fireflies. Were they already on the way up, or would Jal-Nish
wait until the last possible moment, to draw out the tension until everyone
snapped?

‘Father is getting to me,’ said Nish. ‘He’s found a way into
my mind.’

That was one problem she hadn’t anticipated. ‘What,
now
?’

‘A while ago, just before we made our choices. He was only
there for a minute or two, and I know it hurt him to stay that long, but he’ll
be back.’

As she turned to face him, the wind stripped away her last
vestiges of warmth. She hugged her thin coat around her, though it made no
difference. ‘What does he want?’

‘What Father has always wanted. For me to acknowledge him as
my liege and swear to serve him.’

‘And the price?’

‘He’ll give me everything I’ve ever dreamed of –
power, wealth, authority …’

Nish flushed. He’d left something out – the most
important something. ‘I meant the price you have to pay,’ said Maelys.

He turned away, cold sweat glistening on his brow. ‘Becoming
like him.’