‘Sorry, kid,’ said Tobry. A low, fizzing sound, a narrow streak of emerald light, and the boy crumpled.
‘I didn’t know you could do that with magery,’ said Rix.
Tobry tied the lad up. ‘It only works on the unformed minds of children and innocents,’ he said with more than a hint of bitterness.
Rix, shaken by the boy’s accusation, did not reply. Was he doing the right thing or making an inevitable disaster worse? But how could Tali take on Lyf? It was impossible.
Shortly they emerged through a cobwebby illusion concealing an exit screened by boulders and scrub, partway down a warty hill. It was not long until dawn and the moon was an eerie red through gauzy clouds and heavy smoke.
‘Where are we?’ said Rix, leading the largest horse, a rangy, red-eyed grey, up the hill.
The Vomits were smoking balefully to his left, and every so often the ground gave a faint quiver. Ahead, a couple of miles away, the orange glow of Caulderon’s burning shanty towns was clearly visible. Thousands of yellow flares illuminated the dark mass of Cython’s armies ringing the walls.
Tobry cursed under his breath. ‘How many are there?’
‘We’ve got eighteen thousand troops in Caulderon, counting the injured. The enemy must be three times that number by now.’
‘And nothing we can do save go on,’ said Tobry. ‘We’re a little south of Nollyrigg. If we strike towards the Brown Vomit, we should reach the Caulderon Road in half an hour. Though I’m not keen on risking the road — ’
‘Or Rannilt,’ said Rix.
‘You’re not leavin’ me behind again,’ said Rannilt.
‘No, we can’t do without you,’ said Tobry.
He shook Rix’s hand, then Rannilt’s tiny paw, gravely.
‘The enemy seem to be massing for an all-out attack,’ said Rix, wondering if there would be anything left to come back to. ‘The boy was right. People will say I’ve run like a coward.’
‘People say all manner of things,’ said Tobry.
‘Tali is hours ahead. She could be captured by now.’ Or dead.
‘She saved you,’ said Rannilt. ‘Now you’ve got to save her.’
‘I should be defending my family and my house, not riding into a certain trap.’
‘Tali comes first.’
Rix could not bear to argue. The conflict was already unendurable. As they reached the road and headed south, all three Vomits were smoking. He spurred his horse and they raced towards the mountains in the blood-red moonlight. The world was eerily quiet. The towns they passed were dark, every window shuttered, the people cowering inside. Or horribly dead of plague or pox.
Several hours passed. Dawn broke under a heavy, yellow-brown overcast sky, not much brighter than twilight. Closer to the Vomits, the ground shook constantly and they had to slow because cracks had opened across the road, some wide enough to trap a horse’s leg.
‘Do you think all three Vomits are going to erupt?’ said Rix, reining in.
‘I hope not,’ Tobry said direly. ‘According to Cythonian legend, that presages — ’
‘Let me guess,’ said Rix. ‘Apocalypse? Armageddon?’
‘What’s Armageddon?’ piped Rannilt.
‘The end of the world, child. Ruin in fire, then ice.’
Tobry, who was holding her as if she were his own precious child, seemed to be in physical pain. Not a trace remained of the reckless hedonist Rix had known all his life.
As they approached the mountain climb, ruddy glows lit the sky. Sudden hot winds rushed down the Vomits, which now lay ahead to the right, and billowed across the Seethings to the road, only to be driven back by icy gales from the mountains on their left. One minute Rix was sweltering in his heavy gear, the next, freezing despite it. Tobry’s sweaty face had a demonic aspect in the baleful light. It certainly looked like the end of the world.
The wire-handled sword rattled. As Rix steadied it, he saw the opalised figure again, contorted in agony. He had only ever seen it on the way to the caverns — the caverns the sword had led him to last time. What was it up to? He had never discovered where the sword came from and that now felt like a fatal error.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Tobe,’ Rix said quietly. The foreboding was so thick that he could have painted it.
‘What’s that?’
Rannilt turned to stare at Rix, but even with her all-seeing eyes on him he could not hold back.
‘That we’ll be too late to save Tali; that Lyf will win and bring Hightspall to ruin. That we won’t all come back alive.’
‘ I haven’t given up,’ said Rannilt coldly. ‘Tali will beat the nasty old wrythen-king, I know it.’
‘It might be an idea to get a move on,’ said Tobry.
‘I’m not going quietly!’ Rix drew the enchanted sword that he had once feared, and now was his mainstay against the foe at journey’s end. Raising it high, he roared, ‘Ride, ride, or the whole world is dead!’
Hours later they stopped at the lookout where they had rested briefly on the way to Precipitous Crag, over a week ago. Smoke and fumes hid both the Vomits and Caulderon now, though the sky was clear to the south and the red moon rode high, reflecting off a white ocean for as far as they could see.
‘The sea ice clamps around the coast of Hightspall like a fist,’ said Tobry. ‘The end can’t be far away.’
The nightmare almost choked Rix. ‘How can it be the end? Why are we being punished? What have we done wrong?’
No one had an answer.
They navigated the narrow valley in the brooding darkness under the blood-bark trees, the hooves making little sound in deep snow, then left the horses next to the boulder-studded strip of open land where the caitsthe had attacked.
Tobry wiped icy sweat from his forehead. His terror of shifters could not be contained. And perhaps he’s still blaming himself for letting me down last time, Rix thought, which was absurd. Tobry never gave less than his all.
As they were crawling through the vine thicket, Rannilt let out a little, hoarse cry. ‘I can smell blood.’
They scrambled out into the open, next to the looming bulk of the Crag. It was frigid here. Tobry’s lips moved in what looked suspiciously like a prayer, surely the first that had ever crossed his disbelieving lips.
Let it not be Tali’s.
CHAPTER 79
The horses wore goggles, and so did Tali’s guards, lighting their way with black-light lanterns that reeked of magery. They did not speak all the way, and neither would they answer Tali’s questions, but she could smell the fear on them. They wanted to go to Precipitous Crag no more than she did.
What if Cython was planning genocide? There might be nothing to come back to — no Tobry, no Rix, no Rannilt, nor the chancellor himself who, despite his failings, was the main hope of Hightspall.
But if she did love her country, if she could give Hightspall a chance, she had to try. How could she take Lyf on, though? Tali did not know where to begin.
She reminded herself of her other victories against impossible odds, but her disquiet only strengthened. Rix and Tobry were powerful and experienced, yet they had nearly died here. How could she survive when she had no idea how to combat her enemy? The heatstone gave her no confidence — she might break it and nothing happen.
When they dismounted below the cave entrance in the early hours after midnight, mounting terror turned her bowels liquid. Even had her magery been in full flower she would not have been ready to take on Lyf.
‘What am I supposed to do?’ she whispered.
There was no way of knowing what defences he had inside, or what forces he commanded here at the centre of his power, though she knew he had shifters penned below. Even had she been armed she could not have fought such creatures.
‘Why ask us?’ said the taller guard, a muscular blonde with shoulders like a blacksmith. She handed Tali a small pack containing food, drink and the heatstone. ‘You’re the one.’