‘Master Ryll, Master Ryll?’ said the girl.
‘Yes?’ Ryll said sharply, for he’d made no progress in months and was keenly aware of his failure. Had the flisnadr been ready at the end of winter they would never have been forced into the recent battle in Borgistry. And when they had done battle, with the flisnadr they would have had a glorious and overwhelming victory, not this humiliating defeat that had sapped the morale of everyone in the great underground city.
‘Matriarch bids you come to the nylatl breeding chambers.’
‘I’ll be there directly,’ he said, rubbing his aching back. He’d been on his feet for two days, without sleep or any kind of progress to give him the least encouragement that he was on the right track.
The girl wrung her hands. Soft hands, he noticed, and she’d applied some kind of pearly lacquer to her nails, which had been trimmed down to uselessness. Her armour had hardly grown at all, though her chest had.
‘Er, Master Ryll,’ she said diffidently, ‘Matriarch said to bring you without delay.’
He sighed, exposing hundreds of teeth. ‘Very well, Oonyl. Take me there.’
She turned away, walking several steps ahead, and he followed. Ryll extended his finger claws, which he kept sharp enough to tear through leather. They were yellowed, not very clean, and there was old blood under one of them. He studied the girl from behind. She was smaller than most, and slighter, and her wings were just nubs that would never develop. But then, once the war was over, what need would there be for fearsome clawed and armoured creatures like him? Perhaps she was the future and his time was passing as well. Assuming there was a future. Suddenly, after years of successes, he had begun to doubt.
Up on the seventh level, he followed Oonyl into the breeding chamber and was immediately struck by a strong, festering odour. Ryll sniffed the air and detected the tang of blood and rotting flesh. The nylatl always smelled that way, but this time it was worse. Diseased. He spied the matriarch over next to the cages on the far side of the chamber, talking to Anabyng, Liett and several other important lyrinx.
‘Ryll!’ said Gyrull peremptorily. She beckoned.
Ryll hurried over and eased between the matriarch and Liett to see what the matter was. ‘Not another failure?’ he said. ‘The nylatl went so well in the battle.’
‘They’re dying!’ Liett said accusingly, as if it were his fault, though Ryll had nothing to do with nylatl these days.
Though Ryll loved Liett dearly, sometimes he wanted to throttle her. She could be brilliant, even inspiring at times, but so often spoiled it by saying the first thing that came into her head.
‘It’s a flesh-eating infection,’ said Gyrull, moving aside. ‘The keepers have tried all the potions they know but none have made any difference.’
Ryll studied the savage, spiny creature, which lay on its side, whining and licking at itself. The muscles of its back legs were a putrid eruption of rotting flesh. ‘Put it to death, then carry it outside and burn it,’ he said. ‘Are there any others?’
‘Hundreds,’ said Anabyng. ‘Near a third of the breeding stock, and more are looking sickly.’
‘They’ll all have to be put down,’ said Ryll. ‘It’s impossible to control an infection in such a confined space. Take the healthy ones up into Alcifer and keep them out in the open air, in their cages. They may live. Incinerate all the dead and infected ones, then seal this floor and burn brimstone inside until the whole chamber is filled with its fumes. Wash the ceiling, walls and floor afterwards. That may be enough to kill the infection.’
‘If we put down the sickly ones,’ said Gyrull, ‘we won’t have enough breeding stock for the next battle.’
‘If you don’t put them down,’ said Ryll, ‘we may lose the lot. The nylatl all spring from one ancestor, so an illness that kills one will probably kill all of them.’
Gyrull and Anabyng conferred for a moment, then the matriarch said, ‘Let it be done. Come, Ryll, Liett; we must talk.’
They left the others and went up to the matriarch’s chamber, a large round room, sparsely furnished with a broad low bed, a shelf containing a number of books, a table and stool, and several charts on the wall made from human leather. Gyrull closed the door. They sat on the mats and she took a leather flask from a peg on the wall, pouring a milky liquor into small bone cups.
They raised the cups as high as their extended arms could reach, then lowered them and downed the liquor in a single swallow. It carved an acrid track down Ryll’s throat and the rising fumes burned the passages of his nose like hot mustard.
‘What are we to do?’ said Gyrull. ‘This reversal in Borgistry – no, this defeat – has shaken me.’
‘The old humans are deadly cunning,’ said Anabyng. ‘I don’t like to say it, but they’re cleverer than we are.’
‘Never say cleverer,’ said the matriarch. ‘Yet they adapt their plans more quickly than we do. In battle we’re stuck in our old, tested ways, while they change their tactics constantly. For the first time since becoming matriarch, I don’t know what to do.’
‘Attack them with everything we have,’ growled Liett. ‘They’re weaker than they seem.’
‘And so are we, daughter. I dare not risk it. What if that’s been their plan all spring, to entice us into all-out war on their terms?’
‘They don’t have the numbers. We’ll overpower them through sheer force of arms.’
‘They don’t need the numbers when they can track us from above with their flying machines. And when they can talk to each other and coordinate their forces with these devilish farspeakers, far better than we can with our halting mindspeech. Two brilliant discoveries in less than a year, Anabyng. What will they come up with next?’
No one spoke.
‘And then there’s Vithis’s army down at the Hornrace,’ said Anabyng. ‘His massive beam spears across the heavens every night. I don’t know what kind of a weapon they’re developing there, but I know one thing. If they can perfect it, and mount it on their constructs, they could wipe out our entire army before we get within catapult distance. I was with foolhardy Tyss when he flew into the beam, to see what it was made of. It crisped him like a moth in a candle flame.’
‘And there’s no doubt they’d side with the old humans, if pressed,’ said Ryll.
‘None whatsoever. Have you mastered the principle of their farspeakers yet, Anabyng?’ the matriarch said.
‘I’ve cut apart the globe we captured, though I still don’t understand how it works, or how to reproduce it.’
‘And we’ve no further progress on the flisnadr,’ said Gyrull.
‘None worth talking about.’ Ryll lowered his head, ashamed of his failure, so costly to the hopes of his people. ‘Though I wonder …’
‘Yes?’ said Gyrull.
‘Gilhaelith understands the geomantic globe far better than we do. Can we use him to help ourselves?’
‘Gilhaelith is a lying, treacherous villain and I fear the consequences if he puts his hands to his device. To say nothing of what he may learn about the flisnadr itself.’
‘I know,’ said Ryll. ‘But on my own I can do no more. I think it’s worth the risk. If we guard him suitably. Say …’ He lowered his head at his temerity, but pressed on. ‘Say if he were guarded by Great Anabyng, surely he could do no harm.’
The matriarch and Anabyng exchanged glances.
‘It would be worth the risk, since we’ve come this far,’ said Anabyng. ‘Though …’
‘And as soon as the flisnadr is complete, grown to maturity and tested,’ Ryll said hastily, ‘we put Gilhaelith to death.’
‘Very well,’ said Gyrull. ‘Let it be done.’ She bowed her head, deep in thought. ‘How could it have come to this?’ she mused. ‘At the end of autumn we were close to victory. Four months and one battle later, and I’m thinking of defeat.’