‘No! Just keep going. I’ve got to think.’
‘Perhaps if you were to think aloud …’
‘Sorry, Malien. The fields down there are all wrong. The nodes are strong ones but their fields are just points.’
‘Meaning that something has almost drained them dry?’
‘Exactly,’ said Tiaan. ‘But why would the enemy put node-drainers in the middle of trackless forest. We’d never fight in such a place. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘How many fields have shrunk?’
‘All of them, over an area of forest ten leagues square.’
‘All of them?’ Malien stared at her. ‘It would take an army of lyrinx flying over the forest to drain that much from the field.’
‘And there aren’t any fliers in sight.’
‘An army moving through the forest then?’
‘They don’t use the field when they’re marching. Unless …’
‘Unless they’re travelling under a vast concealment,’ said Malien, ‘even greater than the one that stone-formed thirty thousand of them into the pinnacles above Gumby Marth. And it would have to be much greater to conceal an army on the march. We’d better get back. Whatever Flydd’s expecting, I’m sure it’s not an attack from the north, between Booreah Ngurle and the Peaks of Borg.’
‘They must have done a forced march all the way from Strebbit, to have got here so quickly.’ Tiaan measured distances on the map. ‘They’re only twenty-five leagues from Borgistry and lyrinx march faster than soldiers. They could do it in a couple of days, even through the forest.’
‘Try the farspeaker again.’
Tiaan did so, but heard nothing except a shrill whistling. ‘What are we going to do?’
Malien jerked the thapter around in mid-air. ‘We’re going to Lybing.’
They arrived over the city at the darkest hour of the night. ‘Do you know where to go?’ said Tiaan as they approached.
‘I haven’t been to Lybing in a couple of hundred years.’
‘I’ve never been here.’
‘There’s the Great North Road,’ said Malien. ‘I’ll set down at the northern gate.’
The terrified guards did not know whether to fire their crossbows or run screaming as the thapter whined into the pool of light outside the gates.
‘Hoy!’ roared Malien. ‘The enemy is nigh. Where can we find the governor?’
The guards each pointed in a different direction.
‘General Troist?’ said Malien. ‘Scrutator Xervish Flydd? Lord Yggur?’
‘The White Palace,’ gasped the guard. ‘Where the three waters join. If you run that way –’
‘Run,’ said Malien. ‘At my age?’
The thapter screamed and shot off, directly over the gates. They landed hard on the manicured lawn outside the front door of the White Palace, skidding on the dewy surface and carving out a streak of crumpled turf three or four spans long. Tiaan gathered her maps and threw herself over the side, Malien following just a little less hastily.
Tiaan pounded on the bronze-studded doors with her free hand. A sleepy guard opened the left-hand one.
‘Where is Scrutator Flydd? Or Lord Yggur?’ Malien rapped out.
‘Inside,’ said the guard, ‘but they’ll be sleeping now.’
‘I am Malien!’ she said briskly. ‘Matah of the Aachim. My name is written in the Great Tales.’
He took a step backwards, calling out to his fellows.
‘The enemy is almost upon us,’ said Malien. ‘Let us in at once.’
No one else could have done it, but such was her authority that the guard did allow them through. ‘Take the stairs straight ahead. Turn left down the corridor. The scrutator’s door is at the end.’
‘Thank you,’ said Malien.
Tiaan ran. Her back was troubling her and her legs felt weak, but she soon outdistanced Malien. After scooting up the stairs, she turned left and ran along the hall. Which room? She couldn’t remember what the guard had said. At the end, or near the end?
She pounded on the first door she came to, and then on several others. ‘Scrutator, Scrutator! Wake, wake! The enemy is nigh.’
There were cries of panic, shouting and an occasional scream, as if people thought the lyrinx were inside the palace. Shortly Xervish Flydd appeared at the end door, pulling a robe around his gristly frame.
‘Scrutator, surr?’ said Tiaan.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ he snapped.
‘Delayed,’ she lied. ‘We know where the enemy are, surr. They’re coming under a concealment of surpassing power, down through the forest on the north-eastern side of Booreah Ngurle.’ She partly unrolled her main map. ‘Here, surr. Their fliers could attack as early as tomorrow, and the whole army could enter northern Borgistry within two days.’
‘Attacking from the north,’ he breathed. ‘I never would have expected that. How can you be sure?’
Malien came hobbling up. ‘There’s so many of them that they’ve drained all the fields in a huge area, about ten leagues square, down to pinpricks.’
‘How do you know they haven’t put in node-drainers, to fool us?’ said Flydd.
‘Why would we check the fields in such a remote place?’
‘Come down to the war room. We’ll take a look at the big maps. I hope you’re right, Tiaan. If I direct our forces north, and they strike somewhere else …’
Two days after leaving Lybing, Nish was working in the command tent at Clew’s Top when Troist’s farspeaker gave forth a hollow tapping, like the flicking of a fingernail against a blown egg. He looked up. Troist was not there.
Nish did not know how to use a farspeaker, or even if he was capable of doing so. Putting his head through the flaps of the tent he bawled, ‘General Troist?’
A soldier standing a few paces away grinned and said, ‘He’s gone to the privy. He’ll be a while. The general suffers from a flux –’
‘Thank you, soldier!’
Nish ran to the farspeaker, which was still tapping, though more loudly. If it was already set, maybe all he had to do was talk. He tapped back. The farspeaker gave out a squelching noise, then a voice rumbled forth. It did not come from the farspeaker, rather from the air above it, and had an echoing, unearthly quality that made it hard to identify.
‘Troist? Is that you?’
‘Scrutator? It’s Nish. Troist is out at the bogs.’
‘Run and get him. We’ve found the enemy and they’re only days away.’
A spasm twisted Nish’s entrails. The moment had finally come. ‘Where?’ he cried.
‘From the north, east of Booreah Ngurle, if Tiaan is right.’
‘I’ll get Troist right away, surr.’
Nish ran down to the privies and yelled through the wall. ‘General Troist. Flydd is on the farspeaker. It’s urgent.’ He didn’t want to say more, since there could be a dozen men in the privies at any time and morale could easily be damaged.
‘I’m coming.’ Troist appeared after a short delay, holding his stomach.
Over the farspeaker, Flydd repeated what he had told Nish.
‘What are your orders, surr?’ said Troist. ‘What if Tiaan is wrong?’
‘Then we’re in as much trouble as if she’s right and we do nothing. Bring your army north to Ossury. How soon can you be there?’
‘My main force has only just got here from Strebbit, in their clankers,’ said Troist without consulting the map. ‘I’ll bring them north without delay, leaving the rest here. I can’t leave this place undefended. On good roads, going night and day, we should be able to reach Ossury in two and a half days, as long as we don’t have too many breakdowns. And as long as the fields last. There have been a few failures around here lately. How about there?’
‘The same,’ said Flydd. ‘We haven’t lost a node yet but the fields grow more unreliable by the day. Take the usual precautions and spread your clankers out. We can’t afford another loss like Hannigor. Goodbye.’
‘No surr,’ said Troist. ‘We cannot.’
‘What was Hannigor?’ said Nish.
‘It’s a village down south, between Saludith and Thuxgate. Fifty-four clankers were travelling close together at full speed, coming to the aid of a smaller force that had been ambushed by the enemy last autumn. They must have taken more from the field than could be borne. A sphere of light formed around them, collapsed, and they vanished. Even the ground they were travelling over was gone, annihilated down to bare rock.’