Our cities are lost and, with winter coming, we’ve nowhere to go. We can’t allow humanity to defeat us. No lyrinx could submit to the enslavement and degradation it visits on its unhuman enemies. We will die before we become caged beasts for their amusement. Liett was right. Now is the time for every one of us – woman, man and child – to go to war. We will have victory or annihilation! And you must lead us, Ryll.
‘Matriarch,’ he cried. ‘What’s going on? Where are you?’
Gilhaelith pulled the roof in on me. I’m trapped with two companions, and the relics. We’re unharmed, and we have food and water, but it will take weeks to dig ourselves out, and nearly as long for anyone to tunnel in to us. The war cannot wait else the advantage of the flisnadr will be lost. You must take charge of it and go over the sea at once. Safeguard it at all costs, for it’s the key to victory. Take it to our secret lair in the caves of Llurr, do the final tests and master it. Liett and the advance guard will carry you, and when the tests are done, get ready for the final battle.
‘Matriarch, why me?’
It was as if she’d heard him. I’ve prepared you well, Ryll. This is the first battle of the new lyrinx, and we need new leadership. If anyone can do it, you can. You will be well supported by Liett, and Great Anabyng, when he has time from his special duties, and all the others.
Leave a detachment of volunteers here, to dig us out. When we get out – if we get out – and have taken the relics to safety, we will join you for the final battle. But if the disease claims us, someone else must retrieve and guard the relics. Should that happen, Anabyng has my orders for the succession.
Go at once, Ryll. There is much to be done. Farewell. I’ve already spoken to the other matriarchs and they’re agreed that this is our only course.
‘What about the children?’ said Ryll. ‘Surely you cannot think to take them to war?’
We have no home now, nowhere to shelter our young ones, and I will not leave them behind to the cruellest of all fates – enslavement and degradation by the old humans. Far kinder that they live or die with us. We’ll shelter them to the end, but if the end comes, we will die together.
‘Yes,’ said Ryll. ‘Better that we all die than exist only as their beasts or slaves.’
And so the entirety of our kind will go to war. That is the Matriarchal Edict and everyone will follow it – to victory or annihilation.
‘Victory or annihilation,’ he said with furious resolve, and turned to get ready for war.
FIFTY-EIGHT
They returned to Fiz Gorgo only to discover that Yggur, Flydd and the others had just gone to Lybing. Tiaan didn’t follow immediately, for Irisis’s leg was infected and needed a healer’s attention. By the time they reached Lybing a week later, the news from the east coast was immeasurably worse. Attacking the underground cities had proven the most disastrous blunder of the war. The dispossessed lyrinx had gone to war and fought with unparalleled ferocity, annihilating the human army at Gosport. Less than fifteen thousand of its fifty thousand had survived, and none of them uninjured. The armies at Guffeons and Maksmord had capitulated after similarly bitter fighting that had reduced them to half their number in little more than a day.
Smaller armies, protecting human settlements all the way up and down the east coast, had suffered similar fates. Many towns had been overwhelmed, their people killed or forced to flee into the countryside where they would be easy targets. The walls of the principal cities, greatly reinforced over the past six months, now sheltered huge numbers of refugees but would soon be besieged. Of all the nations of the east only populous Crandor had managed to stay the lyrinx tide. Its armies had fought the attacking hordes to a standstill but Governor Zaeff held little hope. Roros and the other cities of Crandor would soon be islands in a sea of the enemy. With no possibility of outside aid, in the end even proud Roros, the greatest city in the world since Thurkad had been overrun, must fall.
The west had seen little action thus far, but regular flights over Almadin showed that the lyrinx hordes had crossed the Sea of Thurkad and were advancing ever closer. Battle was only days away, but this battle could not be won. The enemy were simply too many.
Tiaan’s thapter landed on the lawn of the White Palace after dark and they went straight to conclave. It was an open meeting and the extravagantly over-decorated audience chamber was packed with people, standing in little groups waiting for the proceedings to begin. Few were talking. Everyone seemed too stunned.
Irisis had never seen such luxury as was displayed in the hall, though she paid little attention to it. It seemed like a sad folly that would soon be gone. She threaded her way through the groups, looking for Flydd. He was not up on the dais with Governor Nisbeth and the other dignitaries.
Painfully standing on tiptoe, she saw Yggur over in the far corner and headed for him. Flydd was standing beside him, talking to Klarm. They made the oddest of trios: tall, broad-shouldered Yggur, his ageless features as though frozen in ice; withered, scrawny little Flydd who barely came up to his chin; and handsome, unflappable Klarm, not even chest-high to the scrutator.
Flydd didn’t look as though he’d eaten since they’d left Fiz Gorgo weeks ago. Bone and gristle were all there was left of him. He nodded as Irisis approached, with Nish and Tiaan close behind, but kept speaking.
‘I promised our people in the east that if we all worked together we had a chance,’ Flydd said bitterly. ‘Then I took this ruinous gamble, and lost.’
‘Not you alone,’ said Klarm, twisting strands of his beard together. ‘Our Council voted on the attack, as did the eastern governors, and to take the blame on yourself devalues everyone else.’
‘I did my best to talk you into it,’ said Flydd.
‘You’re an overly proud man, Flydd, for such a meagre one,’ Yggur said waspishly. ‘You know we didn’t have a choice. We had to destroy the threat of the uggnatl and I believe we’ve done that.’
‘We can’t resist this tide,’ said Flydd in anguish. ‘All my life I’ve fought to save humanity. Now I’ve brought about its destruction.’
Irisis stopped a few steps away. She’d rarely seen Flydd in such a state. Nish and Tiaan pulled up behind her.
‘Better we left the east to their own devices,’ said Flydd, ‘than raise hopes so savagely dashed. Not only is the east defeated, it feels betrayed.’
‘It’s not defeated until Crandor falls,’ said Klarm, ‘and that may take longer and cost more than the enemy are prepared to pay. There’s steel in the hearts of the dark folk from Roros, and their fingers wield a blade cunningly.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Flydd more steadily, ‘but it would take whole forests of steel to make up for the new –’
‘Not here!’ hissed Yggur, looking over his shoulder.
‘What is it?’ Irisis asked, lowering her voice. ‘Have the enemy succeeded in making more node-drainers?’
‘Later,’ said Flydd.
Why was he holding back? What had the lyrinx come up with now?
‘Have you asked the Stassor Aachim for help?’ Irisis asked.
‘We gave them farspeakers but they’re not answering,’ said Malien. ‘How can my people have come to such a state?’
‘They’ve been heading that way for a long time,’ said Yggur. ‘Withdrawing further and further from the world.’
‘Then why take all the thapters from Snizort,’ said Irisis, ‘if they didn’t intend to use them?’
‘So no one could attack Stassor with them,’ said Malien.
‘What about Vithis and his great beam weapon?’ Nish said. ‘We could beg him for aid.’