At the thought, he felt another burning spasm and a return of the compulsion. Nish's skin tingled. It was hard to fight it on his own, and when he had, he had to rest for a moment.
Flat on his back on a broken shelf of limestone, Nish rubbed his eyes. They were still watering; the moon still seemed unusually bright. It was midnight. He covered his eyes, which felt better until that unnerving feeling of being watched recurred. Nish peered through his fingers. Though the pinnacle in front of him lay in shadow, he could see every surface detail. More than that, he could see inside it. And it seemed to have bones.
Nish blinked but the bone shapes were still there. They weren't human bones, nor the skeleton of any wild animal he knew they were too massive, and the wrong shape. Rising into the upper arch of the pinnacle he could just make out robust, hollow wing bones, yet the cranium was colossal, with hundreds of large teeth, and the jaw gaped open.
I'm hallucinating, Nish thought as he slid off the shelf. It must be the touch of the tears. He shook his head and kept moving, looking steadfastly ahead. As he edged around a corner into another corridor, his eye fell on the limestone face to his left, where he saw the same kind of bones. There could be no doubt – it was the skeleton of a lyrinx.
Could this place be an ancient lyrinx graveyard, all limed over? But how could it have turned to rock so quickly? Then, and the realisation felt like a fist inside his chest, Nish saw a grey shadow within the skeleton contract and expand, contract and expand. It was the great heart of the beast. No skeleton this – there was a live creature inside!
Tearing his gaze away, Nish began to walk faster. Now he saw bones everywhere, twisted up in strange positions inside the pinnacles, and there could be only one explanation – the enemy had stone-formed themselves. There were thousands of them, probably tens of thousands, if even a quarter of the pinnacles contained the beasts, and they could be across the valley on the far escarpment as well.
Could it be another vision arising from the touch of the tears? He did not think so, for everything else was diamond clear. He inspected the pinnacle on his right. The claws of its stone-formed occupant were extended towards him, and they seemed to twitch.
He wanted to scream and run. Closing his eyes, Nish concentrated on showing no reaction. Could it know he'd seen it And if it did, how quickly could it react? The lyrinx might take hours to break out of its lithic state. Alternatively, it might come out in an instant.
No terror Nish had previously felt was the equal of this. He was alone in the midst of a mighty enemy force, an ambush and his arrogant father had walked right into it. If so many lyrinx fell on Jal-Nish s army in the night without warning, as surely they planned to, they would annihilate it.
What colossal magic it must have taken to stone-form tens of thousands of lyrinx so effectively. Nish could not imagine such power. His gaze wandered to the top of the spire of stone. It wore, where the grey rock was outlined against the sky, a faint yellow nimbus. The other pinnacles looked the same.
Nish hurried on. His mouth was dry; his fingers, hanging at his sides, were locked into claws. He dared not look back, for fear that some great beast would shatter its stone refuge and come lunging out of the darkness. He could practically feel its breath on the nape of his neck.
Should he go on to Flydd and Troist, or carry the warning back to Xabbier? Never had he held such responsibility. If he chose wrongly, thousands would die.
Somewhere behind him, a piece of rock snapped. Nish let out a muffled cry, thinking they were coming after him. He closed his eyes and hastened into the next tunnel of darkness, which was worse. Even with his eyes closed, he could see lyrinx skeletons everywhere. They had the faintest luminosity and were blurred, as if shivering.
Or were they preparing to break out, en masse, and attack his father's army in darkness? The box valley would become a slaughterhouse whose streams would carry more blood than water.
Jal-Nish's army was alert, the watch-fires bright, so the enemy could not take them by complete surprise. But there were too many lyrinx for the army to fight alone. They would have no chance unless he warned Troist, and he had to do it light away. Troist's army would have to do a forced march through the night, cloaked, to reach the neck of the valley in time. He could only hope that the enemy would take ages to break free from their stone-formed state and assemble into battle formation. It took all Nish's courage to keep walking and look neither right nor left. The cracking sound was not repeated. It might have been the stone contracting in the cool of night. He con-centrated on taking one step after another, doing nothing suspicious. How good were lyrinx senses in this stone frozen state? Could they sense what was going on outside, or were their brains as petrified as their bodies?
Ahead, the open ground was brilliantly lit by the moon. He could not move across unseen if there were winged sentries on high, and dared not take the time to go around. Should he run, or creep like a spy?
The lyrinx had poorer eyesight than humans in daylight, but better at night. Nish walked out into the brightness, trudging like a lookout at the end of a long patrol, and his weariness was not feigned. Above, he thought he heard the whisper of air across leathery wings. He stopped, mid-stride, looked around and kept going. That was hard. A diving lyrinx would kill him before he realised it was there.
Again that whisper. He kept going, gaining the shelter of the next pinnacle without further incident. This one was just rock; no inner bones. Stepping into the shadow, he looked up. Was that something in the tree; a shadow of wings? No, just a shape made by the branches. The sound must have been an owl.
There was nothing to be seen, no matter how carefully he looked, but something was different. Though Nish had no talent for the Art, he could feel a subtle strain and a distortion of the darkness, which he imagined was a drain in the ethyr.
There was still quite a way to go. Ahead lay the open area, sparsely studded with rock pinnacles. Beyond that was a strip of forest, the cleared expanse with the first set of pinnacles, and, further on, the other wood beyond which Troist's army lay hidden under its cloaking spell. He prayed that it still held.
Each step seemed to take an hour, but he made it across into the forest, and through it to the next pinnacle field. As he stepped into the rustling grass on the other side, something sharp jabbed him in the back.
'Don't move, spy, or you're dead.'
Nish went very still. 'I'm not a spy.' he said in a low voice. 'I'm Cryl-Nish Hlar and I've been on a secret mission for the scrutator.'
The spear point went through his clothes, breaking the skin above his right buttock. 'Is that so?' the soldier hissed. 'Then explain why Scrutator Flydd has got the whole camp looking for you.'
'I.., don't know.' For once Nish could not think of a single excuse. I think you'd better take me to him, soldier.'
'I'm going to. If you try to escape, my friend, you'll get this right up your liver.'
By the time they found Flydd, who was with General Troist, Nish had half a dozen throbbing gouges in his back, low down, and one in each buttock. He made a mental note to return the favour, if he ever got the opportunity.
'Where the bloody hell did you get to?' the scrutator said furiously as Nish was prodded into the clanker.
'I found him sneaking through the forest, surr,' said the soldier, giving Nish another jab in the bum for good measure. 'He's been spying-'
'I have vital news, surr,' Nish interrupted. 'It can't wait for anything.'
'Thank you, soldier,' Flydd interrupted. 'That will be all.'
Nish waited until the man had gone, then moved gingerly into the centre of the clanker.