The Heretic Land (44 page)

The air smelled differently in here, as if the outside was somewhere else.

Juda could not tell when he had left the confines of the Engine. The compressed snow was thick, and by the time he saw a circle of starry night sky, he was almost exhausted.

He pulled himself up out of the hole and rolled into soft snow. Gasping for breath. Tired, hungry, thirsty. And between each blink he saw the man on the hillside of his dreams, watching and urging him on.

It’s been snowing for ever
, Juda thought. He stood in the deep snow and looked around. The landscape had changed, subsumed beneath a blanket of white. And yet the sky was clear now. Stars winked at him as if sharing a secret.

The Engine no longer mattered. The man on the hill beckoned, and Juda knew he had to follow.

He closed his eyes and shivered from the cold. His wound throbbed, and the faces of Bon and Leki touched his memory. But they were soon washed away.

The other man turned and started walking, and Juda followed.

They
halted as daylight faded, the shires gasping blood and foam and sweating through their hides, hooves splintered and bleeding, eyes wide. Bon wanted to leave the shires and start running, because the idea of remaining motionless for any length of time – standing still, while somewhere to the south of them madmen sought to raise a monster – made him want to vomit. Venden’s words, Aeon’s message, demanded movement.

‘We have the world in our hands,’ he said, catching snowflakes in his palms. The snow had lessened, and the flakes were smaller now, icier. The landscape barely whispered.

‘And that’s why we have to rest,’ Leki said. She had led their way through that long day, running ahead without looking back to see whether Bon still followed. But now she was urging restraint. Bon trusted her now more than he ever had before, and he understood that she had somehow, at some point, taken charge.

But he could not stay still.

‘We can run ten miles through the night,’ he said. ‘We might
meet someone then. A Spike soldier, or one of your Arcanum. Then we can show them, and and tell them.’ He shook his head, trying to clear his vision of the terrible things his mind presented to him – memories of his own, replayed visions, fears for the future. ‘We can’t just camp!’

‘When’s the last time you ate?’ Leki asked.

‘I …’ Bon could not remember. At the thought of food his stomach echoed hollow.

‘The shires will drop dead if we drive them any further. They’re almost dead now. Give them until after midnight to eat, drink and recover. We’ll do the same. And then we’ll cover four times ten miles by dawn.’

Bon considered what she said and knew it was the truth. But while Leki built a fire and led the shires to a bush bearing heavy, rotten-smelling fruit, he walked in circles. To come to a complete standstill would feel like giving in. And he brushed the outside of his pocket, wondering at the promise of what it contained.

He wore a path in the snow around the camp as Leki made a quick, tasty soup.

‘Food,’ she said. Bon went to her and scooped some soup into his bowl. He ate it standing up, not walking but eager to move.

‘You’ll have to rest,’ she said.

‘I don’t think I can when—’

‘Fuck!’ Leki slapped at her forearm, scraping a crushed insect away. ‘
Fuck!
Oh, Bon.’ She stared at her arm, then looked up at him with pleading eyes.

‘What?’ He dropped his bowl and knelt beside her, and in the failing light he could already see the angry red lump forming where something had bitten or stung her.

‘Ving wasp,’ Leki said. ‘This is really going to hurt. But …
ving wasp.’ She grabbed a burning brand from the fire and pressed it to the sting.

Bon was ready for her when she screamed. He gathered her in his arms and held her tight while she kicked and thrashed. He could hear her teeth grinding in agony, and her skin felt hot beneath his hands. Her body was tight and muscled. All this time, and this was the most intimate he had ever been with her.

He pressed his face against her neck, kissed her, and just for a moment her writhing lessened. He held his breath, and thought she held hers. Then the pain washed in again and, as the sun set, Bon comforted Leki through her agony.

Not long after, with the fire burned down, Leki shrugged him off and struggled to her feet.

‘You should rest,’ Bon said.

‘No. We have to go on. Push the shires as far as we can; then, when they drop, we run.’ She glanced at him and smiled. ‘You get to keep moving, Bon.’

‘The thing that stung you?’

‘Spike weapon. There’s a fight going on somewhere close by. And if they’re deploying the wasps, it’s more than just a skirmish.’

He could see that her arm was swollen, gathered to her chest in a sling he had made from a torn blanket. The strain on her face betrayed the pain that still burned. But she had scorched much of the venom from the site of the sting before it had a chance to surge through her veins.

‘Do you think Aeon sent the Skythians against them?’ Bon asked.

‘That’s what I’m guessing.’

‘I wouldn’t blame it. Making sure. If we don’t convince them
to halt the Engines, then maybe the Skythians can beat them and—’

‘They won’t,’ Leki said. ‘If anything, the fight will convince the generals to employ the Engines sooner.’

A sense of doom settled over Bon as he helped Leki onto her shire. The creature snorted and stomped its foot softly, as if signalling its weakness. Leki leaned forward and vomited a thin fluid onto the ground. Morning seemed a long way off.

They left their fire still simmering in the camp; moving off was like leaving safety behind.

As a site for an ambush, the old bridge had been well chosen. But in not destroying the entire Blade in the first attack, the Skythians had also given Sol’s soldiers a perfect place to defend.

After the sun fell, the battle became a different beast. The soldiers had been defending the bridge well against the swarming Skythians, taking advantage of the structure’s narrowness and the fact that only so many could attack at any one time. Enemy dead lay piled across both sloping approaches, and at the bridge’s central span the Spike soldiers had created a tight, solid defence. One sparkhawk had swooped down into the enemy to the south and not risen again, but the other creature rose, circled and dropped many times, each fall ending with a sickening impact.

The Blade had lost twelve soldiers. Most of the dead had been dragged away and dismembered or flung into the river by the enemy. There were many injured, though all but three of these still fought hard. Those three were dying, lying on their backs listening to the sounds of battle around them. Bleeding onto the bridge. Wishing, by every god of the Fade, that they could somehow join in.

There were perhaps five hundred Skythians now, gathered on
both sides of the river and launching sorties against the bridge’s defenders. Sol knew that there was no aim to this attack other than to kill them all, slaughter the invaders of their land and throw their tattered corpses into the rushing waters. Along with the simplicity of their intent came a haphazard fighting strategy. These were not soldiers, and they bore their weapons clumsily. There were spears and swords and a few hunting bows that continued to cause problems for Sol’s Blade, no matter how many times the remaining sparkhawk was sent after them. The creature could smash skulls and destroy people, but could not target a weapon.

But although the Skythians were not a proper fighting force, their rage went some way to making up for that.

The darkness brought fire. The enemy lit several huge blazes on both sides of the river to illuminate the battlefield. There was a break in attacks while the Skythians regrouped, and Sol ordered injured enemies to be thrown into the river. As they were hauled to the parapet and dropped, some of them shouted in a language none of the Spike understood, but from the tone Sol took it to be defiant rather than pleading. He could see those on the banks betraying their anger at this display, and that was what he wanted. Angry fighters made mistakes.

Spike riflemen took advantage of the lull in fighting to snipe at the enemy. The night was punctuated with the cough of steam valves venting, and though the distance was at the extreme of the rifles’ effective range, shadows fell. The Skythians countered by floating blazing rafts from upriver, the fires licking up at the holes in the bridge as they drifted underneath. But they were an ineffective mode of assault, and Sol’s soldiers merely took comfort from the heat.

The enemy cooked and ate, the smells drifting across the river.

‘My
stomach says to rush them,’ Tamma said. The arrow had been ripped from her neck and the open wound dressed, and Sol had seen her fighting with the best of them. The loss of her lyon had enraged her, and if she fell she would go down hard.

‘That’s what they want,’ Gallan said.

‘Perhaps it’s not a bad idea,’ Sol said. ‘I’m tired of fighting standing still.’ He looked along the bridge, past the piles of dead Skythians which had formed a useful defensive line. Hundreds of them stood around the huge fires eating and drinking. Stooped people, malformed shadows dancing with flickering flames, the dark landscape was inhabited by wraiths.

As they observed the enemy, so Sol watched his Blade. He knew them all so well that he found it easy to assess their condition, both mental and physical. He saw wounds and blood, bindings and clasped weapons, determined stares and eager stances. Their readiness for the fight thrummed in the air. And as the Skythians taunted them with food and warmth, Sol considered their options.

‘Gallan,’ he said quietly. They moved to the bridge parapet, hands on swords in case anyone climbed up from below. ‘We could be here for days at this rate.’

‘We’re holding them off.’

‘We’ve lost twelve, and three more dying,’ Sol said. ‘It’s attrition. One of us can fight ten of them, but they’ll wear us down. We’ll grow tired. Hunger is already upon us. And the cold is debilitating.’

‘We’re already overdue back at the beach,’ Gallan said. He had a cut across his face, slashing both cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Sol wondered whether he even knew.

‘It’ll be dawn before Cove sends anyone, and then it’ll only be a scouting party. Ten Spike at best. And it could be they’re
already under attack, in which case no one will come.’

‘How can we have got them so wrong?’ Gallan said. ‘They were supposed to be little more than animals.’

‘Like our lyons, or sparkhawks, or rawpanzies?’ Sol asked.

Gallan shrugged. ‘They’re our weapons, not our soldiers.’

‘But effective nonetheless.’ The men stood silently, looking back and forth to either side of the river. There seemed to be something of a carnival atmosphere growing amongst the Skythians. They ate, sang and danced. Couples rutted close to the fires. Sol was sure he could see piles of weapons where they had been dropped.

‘It’s not about us,’ Gallan said. ‘It’s about establishing the Engines.’ There was a hitch in his voice, awe and fear of the unknown. ‘And if and when we don’t return, they’ll simply move the others as far apart as they can and initiate them. Whether or not Aeon is caught within the triangle …’ Gallan shrugged. ‘That’s Arcanum territory. Not our concern.’

‘Our concern is to defeat our enemy, and return to the beach with news of what has happened,’ Sol said. ‘Staying here fighting them off won’t achieve either of those ends.’

Gallan nodded, smiling slightly. ‘Then we storm the south end.’

‘Soon, while they’re still eating and fucking. The handlers will direct the remaining sparkhawk to attack the northern shore, make them believe the breakout will be on that side. And the three mortally wounded, if they can stand and walk for a while, will also assault the north. It’ll be brief enough distraction, but it might cause some confusion, at least. And in that confusion, we drive south. Spear handlers first, then swordsmen. Archers hold back and cover the run, then they can join us.’

Gallan
nodded grimly. ‘It will work,’ he said. ‘But my one fear is—’

‘Pursuit,’ Sol said.

‘Pursuit. This is their land, and they know it well.’

‘And that’s why we cannot let them pursue us,’ Sol said.

‘We kill them all?’

‘We kill them all,’ Sol confirmed. ‘South side first, then those from the north as they cross the bridge. Surprise is our first weapon. And we’re Spike.’ He gripped Gallan’s shoulder. ‘Spike!’

‘I’ll pass the word.’ Gallan turned to leave, then glanced back. ‘Sol. I’m sorry. I know you were hoping to find Leki out here.’

‘She could be anywhere,’ Sol said.

Gallan went to spread word of the impending attack. Sol watched as his Blade prepared, quietly checking their weapons, priming pistols, and collecting arrows and throwing stars from the dead. In the darkest midst of any fight, he would always be struck by an intense love for his troops, its impact almost shattering with its depth and intensity. That moment came now, and his heart swelled with pride.

The three mortally wounded soldiers were helped up, holding in their guts, hands clasped to spurting arteries, and they took up arms and readied themselves for their final fight. Sol watched them, ignoring the impulse to look away. They took strength from his respect.

These are my soldiers
, he thought,
and this is my Blade.
He knew that stories would be sung about today.

It took moments to prepare, and as soon as Gallan gave Sol a nod, Sol whistled his order. He knew that the results of any battle could swing on the sharpest decisions, and this was a move that hung on surprise.

The sparkhawk handler uttered a series of short, sharp clicks,
and north of the bridge a shadow plummeted through the darkness. Sol heard the crushing impact of claws into skull, and between the big fires sparks flew as the creature cracked the head of another victim. The bird rose and dived again quickly, and an immediate ripple of panic spread through the Skythians on that side of the river.

Sol looked south and saw the enemy still dancing and singing, eating and rutting. The river was wide, and they had not yet noticed.