'We'll do our best, surr, though we won't be in prime condition when we get there.'
'Just as long as we do get there. And we'll have to send someone to warn Jal-Nish. Someone he'll believe.'
Nish's skin crawled, but he knew duty when it faced him. 'I – I'd better go, surr.'
'I need you here,' said Flydd.
'Do you think I want to go? It's a tricky passage through the pinnacles in the dark, and the path down the escarpment is not easily found. We can't risk the messenger getting lost. The enemy could be breaking out already.'
'If they are, you're dead, Nish.'
'And so is everyone else.'
'I won't risk it,' said Flydd. 'Jal-Nish could be calling you back.'
'I don't think so. When he did it before, it made my skin tingle.'
'He's cunning, Nish. He might change the compulsion each time. And once he sees you again, you'll be powerless to escape him.'
'Then you'll have to free me, surr.'
'I still don't like it.'
'I've got to warn them, surr I – I've a lot to atone for.'
Flydd stared at Nish for a second, then nodded. 'Yes, go!' He gave him his hand. 'I hope we meet again.'
'So do I,' said Troist. 'I really do. Take this.' He handed Nish a piece of rolled flatbread stuffed with spiced ground meat, and a skin of sour beer, the weak kind soldiers were given on I the march when the water was not fit to drink. 'Ill send someone with you to the edge of the watch.'
'I'd appreciate that, surr.' Nish munched on the roll. 'My backside isn't feeling so hot.'
He felt better with food in his belly. The beer did not improve matters, however, so after a couple of swigs he slung it over his shoulder for later. The guard, a small man whose brreath whistled in his nose, said no word ail the way through the forest and into the pinnacles beyond. At their furthest edge he left Nish silently.
Nish stayed where he was for a moment, still thinking about his father and the spell. What if Jal-Nish caught him and Flydd could not set him free? His father would bind him with the spell and Nish would be forced to serve him, committing all kinds of atrocities, to the end of his days. He might even become corrupt and grow to enjoy that servitude, even to take pleasure in the suffering he inflicted. Better that he hurl him-self over the precipice and leave Jal-Nish, and his army, to their fate.
But that wasn't an option either. He'd taken this task upon himself and could not set it aside. Nish took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and moved on.
He made it through the next patch of forest and into the main series of pinnacles without incident, but had not gone a dozen steps before he realised that something was different.
He hesitated, then kept going. He had to act normally, in case the enemy could tell he was there.
What had changed, though? He hadn't yet lost the sight. He couuld still see the robust, odd-shaped skeletons, the bodies bent in strange shapes to accommodate themselves to the form of the rock. Occasionally he saw a heart pulse, or a claw. It was hard not to look over his shoulder. It was very hard not to run, to pant, to gasp. He was less than halfway through the maze, which was now more difficult to negotiate, the moon being low. Shadows covered all but the tops of the pinnacles.
What was different? He strained his ears, as if to detect the racing heartbeats as the lyrinx prepared to break out. There was no sound. Not a sigh of wind in the trees; not a rustle in the grass; not the scuttle of animal feet on the rocks.
No sound at all. Wild creatures could tell the danger better than he could. He walked a little faster. Then, as he squeezed between two knife-edged blades of stone, Nish heard it.
Crack-crack-crack. That was not rock contracting in the night. It was rock being shattered from the inside as a stone-formed beast came back to life and prepared to break out.
Twenty-nine
Nish gasped. His head whipped from side to side. He saw nothing, but from ahead, came that crack-crack again. In his mind's eye, enhanced by the tears, rock cracked off the monstrous armoured bodies; leathery wings slowly unfurled into the night. The lyrinx were coming.
He began to run, but had not reached the end of the corridor of limestone pinnacles when something pushed up in front of him like a statue rising from the sea. Chunks of stone fell like hail. Great thewed arms rose slowly into position; wings twice the height of Nish snapped taut. The head creaked around.
It was moving sluggishly, as if the stone-forming spell was not completely undone. Nish did the only thing he could think of. He dived between its spread legs, hit the ground hard and scrabbled out of the way.
The creature gave a drawn-out roar, tried to turn in that narrow space, and stuck. Nish came to his feet, looking back to gauge his peril. The lyrinx was caught at the hips. Kaising one mighty fist – slow, slow – it smote the pinnacle to its left. The limestone snapped off halfway. Nish fled.
The crashing continued behind him, which at least told Him where his enemy was. It was more unnerving when it stopped, for then there was only the pounding of his feet and ibe thumping in his chest. Until the footsteps began.
The lyrinx was after him. In the open it could run much faster than he could but, within this maze of pointed rocks and bladed pinnacles, Nish might just have the advantage. He could hear it crashing against the stone, snapping off the fragile tips. Its armour gave it an advantage there.
He turned left, found he was in a dead end and had to backtrack. Panic began to seize him. This wasn't the way he'd come earlier, and the low moon only illuminated the tips of the pinnacles. If he wasn't out of here before it set, he'd never find the way.
Nish went right but that led to another dead end. Letting out an inarticulate cry, he retraced his steps, then edged down a corridor of stone so narrow that he had to turn sideways to negotiate it. With luck it would hold the enemy back.
It did not. Fully flesh again, his hunter rose up on its wings and flapped across the spires directly towards him. Where could he go? A long straight lane, too wide to hide in, ran ahead and behind. Nish stumbled down it, gasping for breath. Spotting a crevice between a pair of low spires, he thrust himself into it.
The lyrinx turned this way and that, trying to see where he had gone. It climbed, flapping noisily, then used the Art to hover for a few seconds. Its head turned as it picked up the sound of his breathing. The creature glided towards him then dropped, attempting to trap him in his hiding place, to crush him. Nish threw himself deeper into the crack. The lyrinx came down hard into the darkness. Rock cracked all around Nish and he was sure he was going to die.
The lyrinx gave a muffled Ugh! and began to flail at the rock, hurling shards in all directions. Wetness flicked against Nish's cheek. The claws of one thrashing foot gouged scars across the soft limestone. He protected his eyes with his hands. The great feet gained a purchase and the thighs flexed, hurling the beast back into the air.
For a second it was outlined against the moon, then it plummeted into the next row of pinnacles, smashing them to fragments as its frantic wings beat back and forth. A spike of stone hung from the low part of its belly where it had impaled itself. The blade had gone in between the cracks in its armour.
Nish couldn't tell if it was badly wounded, and didn't wait to find out. He bolted along the corridor in front of him until he could no longer hear it. Then – crack, crack – ahead of him, and now to even' side, more lyrinx were freeing themselves. Had some master mancer among them decreed that it was time for the ambush, or were they coming to get him? He staggered on. There was not for to go now – he was almost through. Ahead, a last row of pinnacles guarded the rim of the escarpment like a row of sentries.
They were cracking open as he went by them, the lyrinx moving sluggishly as they strained against the fading spell. One threw out a claw and almost hooked it through his collar. A great fist, still partly stone-formed and as hard as rock, caught Nish in the chest, knocking him off his feet. He struck the ground on his back, the breath knocked out of him, and waited for his doom.