Alchymist

'They were going to do a forced march from their camp, south of here. They left an hour ago, maybe more. How long would that take?'

'The country's rough that way,' said Xabbier. 'They'll be lucky to reach the neck of Gumby Marth before noon. I hope we can hold on that long.'

The messengers ran off, separately. Xabbier, one eye to the sky, marshalled the hundred and twenty soldiers under his command into a ring around the fires. All across the battlefield, other shadows were doing the same.

'It's a tactic we devised for night fighting,' Troist explained. The enemy see better in the dark than we do, but they don't like bright light. This way we have a tiny advantage.'

But we also have our backs to the fire, Nish thought, and they're much bigger than us. If we're forced to retreat, there's nowhere to go.

The last rays of the moon failed. The wheeling lyrinx dis-appeared against the black sky. 'That's what they're waiting for,' muttered Xabbier. 'It won't be long now.'

'Jal-Nish will have his commanders spread out through the |camp, of course,' said Nish, 'so the enemy can't attack them all at the same time.'

Xabbier frowned. That's normal practice these days, but Scrutator Jal-Nish has gone back to the old way – a central command area, heavily defended by troops and clankers. He doesn't like to delegate.'

'But surely…' Nish began. 'What use are such defences when the enemy can just drop out of the darkness on top of them? The officers will be slaughtered in the first attack.'

'The generals tried to tell him that, but he insisted his secret plan would overcome the enemy, and deprive them of their best and strongest.'

'Father loves to be mysterious,' said Nish. 'He has to prove that he's cleverer than everyone else. What can his plan be?'

I don't know, Cryl-Nish, but I pray it's a good one.'

Something to do with the tears, no doubt. Jal-Nish must be planning a great display of the Secret Art, to win the battle and prove himself to the scrutators at the same time. Nish's father was a competent mancer rather than a brilliant one but, with the tears enhancing his alchymy, who knew what he might be capable of?

It was another step in his campaign to gain admittance to the Council of Scrutators. Once there, he'd try to oust Ghorr and impose his twisted will on the world.

Thirty

'They're coming!' someone bellowed.

Nish scrambled up onto the shooter's platform of the nearest clanker, trying to get a picture of what was happening.

There were lyrinx everywhere, falling from the sky so thickly that they could not be counted. They seemed to come out of nowhere, and thousands more were swarming down the escarpments.

And, Nish saw, they fell most thickly further up the valley, above the officers' tents. It was the tactic they'd used in the battle for Nilkerrand, wiping out the commanding officers in a few minutes, then routing the leaderless army. Troist had gained his command that way.

There's too many, Nish thought despairingly. Unless Jal-Nish used his magic immediately, this was going to be a massacre. Another wedge of lyrinx were falling further down the valley, to bottle them in. They would try to drive them into the fires. Any who escaped would be forced into the streams or up against the escarpments. When Troist finally arrived, he would enter a valley of the dead, and the enemy would finish the story with him. Better that he hadn't brought Troist here at all, than bring him into this.

'Don't lose hope, Cryl-Nish,' said Xabbier as if reading his thoughts. 'We're a tough force-'

Suddenly the lyrinx were everywhere, landing in the darkness all around them, bounding down the lower slopes of the escarpments and running up the valley from the west.

Nish drew his sword, shrugged the armour into place and prepared to fight and die. The beasts roared their drawn-out battle howls, each with a vibrating whip crack at the end, then charged.

There came a shriek from further up the slope. Nish's hair bristled, for no human throat could have made that sound, nor lyrinx either. The enemy froze where they stood, then every head turned towards the source, as if on wires.

Nish stood up on his toes on the platform, but was not high enough to see. The sound went on and on. It was coming from the direction of the command tents, and his father's tent, where the lyrinx clustered as thickly as bats in a fruit tree.

A violet light appeared in the centre of the command area and began to swell like a balloon. The lyrinx surrounding it rose in the air and hovered, as if resting on the surface of a transparent dome. The violet surface developed spines like those of a sea urchin, and they slowly extended out and up, pushed by a metallic silver sphere whose surface roiled like the surface of the tears.

Nish felt the heat-cold again, and again that charging up of his unknown inner senses. Here and there, a violet spine touched one of the hovering lyrinx, which fell from the sky in flames. They did not seem able to move out of the way.

So Jal-Nish did have a secret weapon – his Art was bolstered with the tears. Nish prayed he would succeed; and prayed he would fail, too. His father was an evil man and the more power he gained, the worse he would become. But if he failed, it must be the end for everyone here.

It didn't look as though he was going to fail. More lyrinx fell, impaled on the thousands of violet spines that now bristled upwards and outwards like spikes on a helmet. The enemy seemed to be drawn to the spines like moths to a lantern.

That drawn-out, inhuman shriek came again. The roiling dome swelled prodigiously and more spines formed, until they might have numbered as many as all the lyrinx on the battlefield.

'I don't know how he's doing it,' said Xabbier, 'but he's luring them in.'

'He's going to beat them.' Nish said to the shooter, a rangy, balding redhead who was standing up behind his javelard, gaping.

All at once the shriek was cut off. The dome set and the violet needles froze. A great black Iyrinx spiralled down into the firelight above the command tents and hovered there, its head thrust down, wings beating slowly.

'What's going on?' Xabbier called from below. 'I'm not sure,' Nish yelled back. 'Got a spyglass?' Xabbier snapped an order and shortly a stubby brass ocular was passed up. Climbing to the top of the javelard frame, Nish focussed the glass.

'It's an enormous, black, golden-crested lyrinx, hovering above the dome just out of javelard range. It must be a mancer of surpassing power – I can feel it drawing down the field from here.'

'What's it up to? Quick, Nish! These lyrinx aren't going to stay quiet for long.'

'It's fighting against Jal-Nish's Art. It seems to be holding him for the moment. It must be incredibly powerful – I've never heard of a lyrinx that could fly and do great magic at the same time.'

The struggle went on. No one said a word. The dome swelled, contracted then swelled again. The violet rays pushed up thickly towards the mancer-lyrinx, almost touching him. Nish held his breath. So very close – there could only be a span between life and death for the mighty creature.

He felt a psychic sucking as the field was drawn down. Then the mancer skin-spoke, his whole body inverting in an instant from coal-black to brilliant white, and back to black. Triumph, or despair? Nish couldn't tell. The violet spines crept up again until they almost reached his armoured chest. Father's going to do it, Nish thought. He'll defeat the crea-ture and the battle will be over before it's begun. The thought did not fill him with joy. After such a victory Jal-Nish would be unstoppable. It could change the world, if the tears really were that powerful.

Once more the mancer-lyrinx flashed black-white-black, This time the spikes were pushed down a fraction. Nish felt weary from watching the struggle.

Again he experienced that psychic sucking, as if the field had been drawn swirling through a plughole. Nish's skin prickled. Suddenly Jal-Nish's roiling dome shrank, shrank again, and the violet spines thinned almost to nothing. The golden-crested lyrinx drifted down, and through the spyglass Nish could see its hands making patterns in the air. The dome was crushed down, down towards the tears from which it came.