Nish raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that all about?’
‘Something Yggur came up with,’ said Troist. ‘Did you hear about those lyrinx at Snizort that caught a dreadful skin inflammation?’
‘I did. The creatures had to be put out of their misery.’
‘Klarm discovered where they’d been buried, and Tiaan thaptered there and recovered one of the corpses.’
‘So that’s what she was doing,’ said Nish.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘She showed up at Snizort when we were trying to make thapters from the wrecked constructs. Tiaan didn’t say what she was doing there, and I was so pleased to see her I didn’t think to ask.’
‘The disease was some kind of fungus. Yggur grew it on offal, harvested bags of spores, and that’s what we’ve just dumped all over the enemy.’
‘A fungus could take weeks to infect them,’ said Nish. ‘It’s not going to make any difference today.’
‘What does it look like that second man is doing?’ smiled Troist.
‘It’s a bit hard to tell from here.’
‘Take a closer look.’
Nish focussed his spyglass. ‘It looks like he’s holding a flagon to his mouth. No, it’s a speaking trumpet. He’s giving them a message. He’s got only one hand. Is it Merryl?’
‘It is. He’s telling them, in their own tongue, what the dust is and what it will do to them.’
‘To break their morale.’
‘Hopefully,’ said Troist.
‘I wonder what they’ll do in retaliation?’
Another hour went by. Whatever the effect of the dust, the enemy continued to fight, though it did improve morale in the defenders. The advantage turned their way, then back to the enemy after a furious counterattack.
Nish was working his spyglass back and forth, counting casualties, when something small and dark streaked across the bloody ground and hurled itself into a formation of soldiers. There were screams, the formation collapsed in the middle and broke up. It reformed quickly, though with three fewer members than before.
‘What was that?’ said Nish.
‘I don’t know,’ said the scribe who was tallying Nish’s figures and sending them with a runner to the command table.
A second creature lunged into a formation and broke it as well. By the time it had reformed the little beasts were everywhere. One raced up the hill towards them, as if directed to the command post. Nish dropped the spyglass and reached for his crossbow but the creature disappeared.
‘What was that?’ said Troist, hurrying down from the chart table.
‘I don’t know,’ said Nish, ‘though I’ve got a nasty suspicion …’ There had been something about the way it had scuttled, low to the ground. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. Flesh-formed. Was it another nylatl, or something even worse?
Fortunately he’d prepared a remedy in case of this eventuality. Reaching into his pack, Nish withdrew a small metal phial with a tight stopper that had been wired on for safety. Carefully taking the stopper out, he touched it to the tip of the crossbow bolt, stoppered the phial even more carefully, twisted the wire over it and packed it away.
‘I don’t much go for poison,’ said Troist. ‘It’s a dirty way of fighting.’
‘Don’t see what the difference is,’ said Nish. ‘War’s a dirty business. This stuff is an easier death than the fungus, by all accounts. Besides, if those little creatures are what I think they are, we’ll need every advantage we can get.’
Troist turned away to the farspeaker and began calling urgently. Nish crouched low, the crossbow cocked. Where had it gone? The creatures could camouflage themselves almost as well as a lyrinx.
It shot out of the low grass, a spiny, toothy creature the size of a dog. Scooting across the bare earth of the path, claws scrabbling and raising puffs of dirt, it leapt at Troist.
‘Surr, look out!’ cried Nish.
The general turned and the nylatl, or a near cousin, struck him in the chest, knocked him down and lunged for his throat. Troist desperately tried to fend it off with the farspeaker globe but it was knocked out of his hands and rolled away. The claws tore his chest and arm, and Nish could not shoot for fear of hitting him. Soldiers were running from everywhere but they wouldn’t get to the general in time.
Nish dropped the crossbow, which fortunately did not go off, sprang and grabbed the nylatl by its tail. Its spines went through his palm and the venom burned. Nish bit down on the pain, heaved with all his strength and tore the creature off. It tried to go for him but he swung it around his head and hurled it at a rock three or four spans away.
It rolled into a ball in mid-air and the spines took the impact, bending then springing erect. The creature twisted to land on its feet and streaked for the general again. Nish grabbed the crossbow and, as the nylatl sprang, put the bolt in through its open mouth.
The bolt must have torn all the way through it. The nylatl screamed, turned over in the air and landed hard on its back with its legs spread. It kicked twice then went still, though its eyes remained open and its flanks heaved for a minute or two.
‘Don’t go near it!’ cried Nish as a bloody Troist wavered towards the beast. Troist froze.
Nish wrenched the sword out of the general’s hand and came up behind the creature. It rolled over and raised its bloody maw to snap at him. Its back legs scrabbled on the ground. With a savage blow that buried the blade a hand-span into the turf, he cut it in half lengthways.
‘Now it’s dead,’ he said after a careful look. ‘They’re flesh-formed creatures, surr. The spines drip poison and they can even spit venom at your eyes, if they get close enough.’
‘You’ve fought one before?’
‘I have, and it was one of the defining moments of my life. Aah!’ Nish wrung his hands, which were already swollen and burning. The pain grew until they felt as if they’d been skinned and dipped in vinegar. He wiped them on the grass, which did no good at all.
‘I owe you my life,’ said Troist, signalling behind him. A healer was already running towards them.
While she was attending to Troist, Nish took up the spyglass again to scan the battlefield. He could barely hold it. ‘I’d say they had about a hundred of these creatures, surr. Aah, Aah!’ The spyglass fell from his hands and he couldn’t pick it up again. ‘They’ve savaged hundreds of our troops. And hundreds more have been killed after their formations collapsed and the lyrinx attacked. If they’d had a thousand nylatl, it might have won them the day.’
‘It might anyway, the way things are going.’ Troist sat down suddenly.
‘How are you, surr?’ said Nish, wincing as a second healer began to bathe the poison off his fingers.
‘I feel … a little faint.’ Troist lay back and closed his eyes.
‘Is he bad?’ Nish asked the healer.
She pulled back Troist’s shirt. ‘He’s been clawed about the chest, but he’ll recover. Unless the poison takes hold or infection sets in.’
‘It knew how to pick its target, surr,’ Nish said to the general. ‘It went straight for you.’
Troist didn’t answer. ‘Bring the farspeaker, quick,’ he said in a faint voice. ‘And get me Flydd.’
An attendant ran up with it.
Flydd answered immediately. He knew about the nylatl attacks. ‘It’s not looking good, Troist. I think we’d better go with the dust again, just to reinforce the idea.’
‘I think so,’ said Troist, and closed his eyes.
The five thapters repeated the operation, exactly as before, except that this time one flew a little too low. Four javelard spears caromed off the sides and a fifth went just over the head of the pilot, who was flying with the hatch open. The sixth and seventh spears converged on the soldier hurling the dust from the rear platform, sending him spinning into space, dead before he hit the ground.
The battle swirled back and forth. The thapters finished their work and the four swept around and back, firing their javelards furiously. The fifth flew across as before, Merryl repeating his message with the speaking trumpet.