Alchymist

The lieutenant passed Nish a short, dark sword. 'This has a virtue set on the blade and may even penetrate the'armour of a lyrinx, if you strike a lucky blow.'

Nish buckled it on. 'I'm not much of a hand with a sword, Xabbier, but I can shoot a crossbow well enough.'

'I've none in my squad, unfortunately. Ready?'

Nish took a hefty swig from the skin of beer. It no longer tasted sour; it was just what the situation required. He downed half and held it out to Xabbier.

The lieutenant shook his head, then said, 'Why not? It'll probably be my last.' He squeezed a stream into his mouth, grimacing at the taste. 'Ugh! I hope that's not my last memory of beer. Bring it. Fighting lyrinx is thirsty work.' He looked up at the sky. 'How many are they?'

'Ten thousand, at least,' Nish replied. The wheeling creatures now darkened the sky. 'Maybe twenty or thirty, counting the ones climbing down the cliffs.'

'So many? Why didn't they attack head-on?'

'Perhaps they're afraid Jal-Nish has a secret weapon. Or they've some weakness we don't know about.'

'I hope so. Come this way.'

xabbier's position was high enough for the fires to outline the shape of the surrounding valley and reflect off the screams. The camp lay at the upper part of the valley, which was a tilted bowl about a league across, mostly pasture land with patches of trees here and there. A pair of streams divided the width of the valley into thirds, though the camp lay in the southern third. Each stream was ten or fifteen paces across and, though not deep, was fast enough to cause trouble for a man weighed down with armour and weapons. The jagged escarpments to east, south and north formed the steep sides of the bowl, the tilted western side the valley entrance. The rocky neck midway down the valley could not be seen in the dark. They might escape that way if the enemy failed to defend it, though that seemed unlikely.

The lieutenant led Nish to the troop he commanded, called out his name and gave final orders. The soldiers assumed defensive positions behind their clankers.

'Who the blazes picked this place?' said Nish. 'If the lyrirrx come up the valley, as surely they must, we'll be trapped.'

'Your father chose it,' said Xabbier, 'against the advice of his generals.' 'Why?'

'He failed to communicate his strategy to his officers.' 'Where's my father's tent?' Nish had no idea where Xabbier had taken him on his previous visit.

'Further up, near the northern rim,' Xabbier pointed. 'Keep well away from there, and should we win—'

'Don't worry. I'll be out of here so fast that you'll see nothing but smoke.'

'Better keep away from the command tents, too. They're below your father's tent.'

'I forgot to mention,' said Nish, 'that Troist is coming around to hold the mouth of the valley open.'

'Who the hell is Troist?' Xabbier moved his sword in and out of its sheath.

'General Troist. He's come down from Almadin with an army of thirteen thousand soldiers and nine hundred clankers.'

Xabbier threw his arms around Nish and crushed him to his chest. 'Thirteen thousand, you say?'

'Yes,' said Nish. 'I served under him earlier in the year. He's a good man and a fine leader, though he's not fought a battle like this one.'

'None of us have, Cryl-Nish. How did he come to be nearby?' 'Flydd and I brought him here.'

'The scrutator is with him? Even better news. We must talk more of this later.' Xabbier called his messengers, a pair of tall soldiers who looked like twins. 'Run to the command tents. General Troist of Almadin is coming to our relief with thirteen thousand, and nine hundred clankers. He'll try to hold the valley neck. How long will they be, Cryl-Nish?'

'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.