‘Raise her and hold her,’ he said.
He examined Tali’s face and slave mark, nodded and issued orders in a low voice. Ten guards formed a line to block Tinyhead in case he attacked from the darkness.
A thin, owl-eyed woman was studying the bobbing lanterns through a pair of night glasses. ‘Captain, it’s Orlyk’s squad. They’ll want to take her back to Cython.’
‘Orlyk has allowed the Pale to escape twice,’ said the captain. ‘We have our orders and we’re not giving her up.’
‘Said you wouldn’t hurt her,’ cried Wil the Sump, waving his skinny arms.
‘Nor will I,’ said the captain, rubbing his cheek with a callused thumb. ‘She won’t even feel it as I take her head off.’
This was it. She was going to die. Even if Rix and Tobry were to ride up with an army of a thousand, the captain would behead her before they could get close.
Tali shook off the despair. Never give up. Think, think!
Wil tried to pull the captain away from Tali. ‘But she the one.’
‘And the one has to die, Wil. The Living Blade gives a merciful death. It’s more than she deserves, considering her crimes.’
Could she work on Wil the way she had swayed Tinyhead? It was the faintest hope, because any of the guards would be his match in strength, and they were all around, all armed, all watchful.
Whatever Wil had seen in her, it mattered deeply to him. Could she manipulate him to create a chance of escape? How far would he go to protect her?
‘You’re right, Wil,’ said Tali. ‘I am the one and you’ve got to help me.’
‘See!’ cried Wil, and stretched out his thin arms imploringly. His gruesomely enlarged nostril was dripping blood, his hands and wrists were so scarred and cracked that fluid was weeping through the skin, and there was an odd, oval bulge across his belly. ‘Mustn’t touch her. You’ll ruin the ending.’
As he surged forwards, Tali caught the oily, oppressively sweet odour of alkoyl. Where did a nobody like Wil get such precious stuff? Could he be the thief that the master chymister had mentioned — the one whose clumsy theft had caused the explosion on the lower levels and burnt through that young woman’s leg?
‘Don’t be silly, Wil.’ The captain held him off with one hand, gently and respectfully. Wil might be mad, but when he went into shillilar the matriarchs listened. ‘The matriarchs have decreed that the one has to die, to protect our future.’
Tears began to drip from Wil’s empty eye sockets. ‘Must not interfere with shillilar. She vital to Cython’s story.’
‘The matriarchs look after the future, Wil. You clean out sumps.’
‘Tali special,’ wailed Wil.
‘The matriarchs have given their orders,’ said the captain, ‘and they will be carried out.’
Wil stiffened, then went rigid save for his fingers, which hooked into talons and raked at the air. ‘ Wil sees her,’ he uttered in an ecstatic voice. ‘She whispers to Khirrik-ai. She — ’
The captain jerked his head at the nearest guard, who took Wil around the chest with one brawny arm and stopped his mouth with the other hand.
The captain shook his head. ‘Sorry, Wil. The matriarchs said you might pretend to have a shillilar.’
‘Not pretend, not pretend.’
‘Take him away, Borst,’ the captain said to a stocky fellow with a shock of sulphur-yellow hair. ‘Treat him kindly; don’t let him see.’
Wil was led away, struggling feebly.
‘Wil, help me,’ whispered Tali.
But they did not allow him to look back and, though she knew Tinyhead still lurked in the darkness beyond the lantern light, neither could he break through the captain’s cordon. Tali had nothing left. She hoped she could face her end the way a lady of House vi Torgrist should, with dignity.
Two guards stood her on her feet, holding her so tightly that she could not move. Both men were leaning backwards, making room for the captain’s swing. Tali pictured the Living Blade taking Mia’s head off her slender neck. She had sworn a blood oath to Mia, and she had failed, failed at everything.
The captain studied Tali and his eyes softened. ‘So brave, so clever. What I have to do is indeed a waste.’
‘Then don’t do it,’ Tali burst out. ‘Take me back. I promise — ’
‘My orders are to bring your head home to Cython, as proof that the one is dead and the shillilar has been averted.’
As he raised his Living Blade, red highlights chased themselves around the annulus and the blade began to keen. He did not bow to her, though, nor reach out to take her hand. The captain was not planning to honour the doomed one — not after she had killed her overseer.
He drew the blade back. Then a girl screamed, ‘No!’ and yellow rocks were falling all around them. One bounced off the left-hand guard’s chin, rocking him backwards like a punch in the face, and another struck the captain in his right eye.
‘Come on, Tali!’ shrieked Rannilt from the darkness.
Before Tali could run, the second guard locked his arms around her and held her.
‘Get after the child,’ said the captain, rubbing his streaming eye.
Two men advanced into the darkness.
‘Run, Rannilt,’ yelled Tali.
‘Hold her while I do the business,’ said the captain. The guards held Tali upright and again leaned away.
‘Master, help me!’ howled Tinyhead.
‘Him too,’ snapped the captain. ‘Cut the traitor down.’
More guards ran into the dark. The captain wiped his eye and hefted the Living Blade.
Wil let out a shriek and burst free of the man holding him. ‘She the one. Kill the one and Cython burns.’
CHAPTER 43
Wil had alkoyl, Tali was sure of it. And alkoyl ignited combustible materials at a touch. But the Living Blade was swinging back. There wasn’t time to think things through — only to pray that it would work.
‘Wil!’ she yelled. ‘Run your alkoyl across the ground.’
‘What’s she talking about?’ said the captain. ‘What’s Wil got? Check him, Borst.’
The yellow-haired guard made a lunge for Wil, who twisted the cap off a platina tube and scuttled away, dribbling green alkoyl across the sulphur ground from one mud pit to the other.
The ground seethed up knee-high in yellow foam, caught fire and the sulphur burnt with a towering red flame and dense clouds of white smoke. A breeze drifted it into the faces of the guards, who began to reel about, gasping and choking.
Tali brought her elbow up into the throat of the man holding her, doubling him over, then ducked under the Living Blade and drove her head into the captain’s belly. He went over backwards, dropping the blade, which sang as it cut into the sulphurous ground.
She dived on it and tried to wrench it free, but the Living Blade sent such a shock through her fingers that she could not hold it.
Whoomph! Alkoyl must have eaten through the upper layer of sulphur and melted that which lay below, for a yellow geyser erupted upwards from the centre of the flame, a fountain of molten sulphur burning bright as the sun and blasting up for fifty feet. Fire crept in a blocking line from pond to pond and Tali saw her chance … though if it went wrong she would be cooked.
She hobbled towards the lowest part of the line of fire, praying that she could get there before it erupted. Then she ran, held her breath and dived through the belching smoke, and made it. Wisps of white smoke clung to her face and hair, stinging her eyes, nose and mouth, and when she took her first breath it carved a searing track down to her lungs. Coughing out stinging saliva, she darted away.