Tobry stared at him. ‘For once, I believe you’re right. And jackal shifters first appeared a hundred years ago, which means Cython has been planning war for a long time.’
‘I don’t know what to make of the wrythen, though.’
‘The enemy is forbidden to do magery, so it’s doing magery for them. And if they do attack, we’ll lose.’
Rix jerked on the reins, restraining an urge to knock Tobry off his horse. ‘That’s traitor’s talk.’
‘Is Hightspall ready to fight?’
‘Our armies could march within a week … or two. Well, a month, anyway.’
‘A month! Wars have been lost in days — ugh!’ Tobry hunched over, pressing his palms against his blistered eyes.
‘Are you all right?’ Had the wrythen left something inside him?
‘I’ve felt worse.’
‘I wish you’d heal your eyes. They look horrible.’
‘I thought you were against magery,’ said Tobry.
‘I’ll make an exception in this case.’
Tobry put his hands over his eyes and subvocalised a healing charm.
Rix studied his eyes. ‘Didn’t do any good.’
‘It takes time to work.’
At this lower altitude, the track was fringed with aromatic shrubs. A fleeting ray of sunlight penetrated the clouds before they closed again and the chill wind picked up. The slopes to either side were clad in Haunted Rosewood forest, the small-leaved trees so dense that it was black inside. It had no better reputation than the valley they were running from.
It was late afternoon after a night without sleep, and Tobry was swaying in the saddle. They would have to camp soon, though Rix wanted nothing more than to get out of the mountains as quickly as possible. Even the deadly Seethings would be better than this. At least, camped by a geyser or boiling mud lake, it would be warm. He thought longingly of freshly poached trout.
‘Our generals’ tactics come from the first war,’ Tobry said, as though an hour’s silence had not passed. ‘They’re way out of date.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘The next war won’t be fought that way.’
‘If our tactics worked then,’ said Rix, ‘why wouldn’t they work now?’
‘The enemies have long memories. And they could strike anywhere, through tunnels built in secret hundreds of years ago.’
‘We’ll tunnel down to them.’
‘Whenever we’ve tried, they’ve collapsed our tunnels and killed our best miners.’
‘Then we’ll attack their entrances.’
‘Every way into Cython is a maze. We’d need ten times their number to break in, and even then we’d lose most of our men.’
‘You’re starting to piss me off, Tobe,’ Rix snarled.
He whirled and galloped down the path, hacking at the shrubbery with his sword. Hightspall was going to win. They had to. He wiped his blade and, feeling a trifle foolish, rode back.
And had another flash of the ice leviathan grinding over the walls of his beautiful palace — surely a metaphor for what was coming. He could not shake off the dread that it was somehow his fault, that his house was going to fall because of something he had done, or had refused to do.
With the cold eye of reality, he assessed the defences of Palace Ricinus. Its grounds were vast, the surrounding walls so extensive that it would take an army to defend them. Yet the palace was a fortress compared to Caulderon, which had outgrown its city walls centuries ago and now lay open to attack on all sides.
Tobry was right. The defences of Hightspall were poorly maintained, its armies ill-equipped, while not a single soldier had been blooded in war. It would take weeks to mobilise the armies and if the enemy attacked without warning … Rix tried not to think about the worst. Defeat meant annihilation. Defeat could not be countenanced.
‘We’ve got to find out what they’re up to,’ he said.
‘I can’t go back to the caverns.’ Dread showed in Tobry’s blistered eyes.
‘The way through the Seethings takes us close to the Rat Hole, doesn’t it? If the enemy are gathering to attack, we might see signs there.’
‘It’s hours out of our way. We’ve got to warn the chancellor and hours could be vital.’
‘Not as vital as knowing what the enemy is up to.’
‘No, Rix. We could go all that way and see nothing, and our news is urgent.’
Rix wasn’t listening. The diversion would put off his interrogation by Lady Ricinus for another half a day, which could only be a good thing. ‘I need to do this. We’ll take a look, then ride home as though our backsides are on fire.’
‘One misstep in the Seethings and they will be,’ muttered Tobry.
Rix heaved a great sigh. War would change everything, but as the son of a nobleman he had spent half his life perfecting the warrior’s arts. Hightspall’s armies might not be ready, but he was. He already had the chancellor’s favour, and he would be most grateful for advance warning about war. If Rix could add useful intelligence about the enemy’s movements at the Rat Hole, the chancellor might even give him command of a company.
And that would free him from Lady Ricinus’s thrall. She would not dare to stand against the absolute ruler of Hightspall.
Yes, war was just what he needed.
CHAPTER 29
‘Hat,’ gasped Tali.
Sweat was flooding down her chest and back. Tinyhead crammed the orange hat onto her head and dragged her away from the shaft. The hat came down to her eyebrows and, as the broad brim blocked out the sky, the tingling in her fingers eased and her thundering heart slowed. She tilted her head back, experimentally. The sky wobbled.
It must be a panic attack. Tali had seen other slaves have them, in dire situations, though it seemed unfair that she should be brought low by sight of the world she so yearned for. She looked down and the phobia eased.
This was her opportunity to uncover her mother’s killers, and her family’s enemy if Tinyhead knew it. She had to outwit him and that would not be easy. Having had no sleep last night, it was a struggle to think at all.
He hauled her through the maze of defensive walls into a bowl-shaped valley a few hundred yards across, and the world outside, the real world she had never seen before, overwhelmed her senses. A hundred unfamiliar scents flooded her nose. Her ears rang with trills and whistles, chirps and a dozen other bird calls. Soft grasses caressed her toes.
She looked up, too suddenly. Sky and ground seesawed, the tightness in her chest and the tingling in her fingers roared back, panic overwhelmed her and she froze. Tinyhead yanked on the strap, the hat slipped down over her eyes and she stumbled on.
Once she felt better Tali checked around her, careful to manage her field of view, and everywhere she looked was a wonder of wildflowers, birds and trees. Brown rocks, humped like flocked sheep, outcropped around the valley’s steep rim. To her left, a series of rusty iron racks held the sunstones the Pale had carried up earlier. Tinyhead stopped beside the racks, gnawing on a thumb. What was he worried about?
Again the images coruscated in her inner eye: white needles shearing Banj’s head from his body, and blood everywhere, spraying on the wall and flooding down the steps. Blood on her too — the front of her robes was soaked with it.
She had slain a Cythonian who had always treated her well. Killed him savagely, whether she had meant to or not, and it did not help that Banj would have executed her. Tali could not get past the ruinous violence she had done to him. She shivered and closed her eyes but the images would not go away.
Tinyhead crushed her wrist bones. She winced but refused to cry out. Forget Banj — she had to focus. How could she get the killers’ names out of Tinyhead?
A hollow thud echoed up the shaft. Sweeping Tali into his arms, he ran across closely cropped grass to a boulder cluster shaped like a handful of sticky peas and thrust her behind them. He crouched and peered around the left-hand side of the boulders, his jaw clenched.