Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (49 page)

‘If you’re going to do it, then do it!’ she screamed.

‘Oh, I’ll do it, but not on your timetable.’

He raised the sword. Would he cut this time? Irisis did not think so, but neither was he predictable. He might just take a finger, or her nose. What if he did that, then let her live? She was too vain to endure such an existence. She tried to pull away but the soldiers held her firmly.

‘Please,’ she said in a throaty whisper. ‘I’ll do anything you want.’ She would have. Dignity meant nothing before the threat of mutilation. She heaved her bosom toward the nearest soldier.

Jal-Nish snorted. ‘You’ll make no ground there, crafter. They have eyes only for each other.’

Irisis stared at the pair, horrified. ‘But … that’s a capital crime! How can –?’ She recalled that Jal-Nish had a taste for his own sex.

‘They’ve done their duty and fathered soldiers. What they do in their own time is none of my affair.’ Jal-Nish pressed the sword point against her shoulder. It went through her coat and shirt, to break the skin. ‘Just there, I think.’

He whipped the sword up, but as he was about to bring it down someone bellowed from the top of the manufactory wall.

‘Lower your sword, Jal-Nish, or I’ll put a bolt right through your good eye.’ It was the scrutator’s voice.

‘Shoot and be damned!’ Jal-Nish brought down the sword.

As Flydd spoke, the soldiers had spun around. Irisis jerked free and dived at Jal-Nish’s legs. The sword came down so hard that it struck the ground behind her.

Jal-Nish raised the weapon to plunge it through her back, but with a tinny clang his head was jerked sideways. He clawed at the mask. The crossbow bolt, fired with only half-power, had slammed into the platinum cheekpiece, gone two-thirds of the way through, then stuck. Bilious yellow foam oozed from beneath the mask. A clot quivered on his collar, speckled with bright blood.

‘Kill her!’ he gasped. ‘Kill the scrutator too.’

Irisis had her knife out, not that it would be any use against swordsmen. Ducking behind Jal-Nish, she whipped his single arm up behind his back as hard as she could. Putting the blade to his throat she yelled, ‘Tell them to stand back or I’ll take your head right off.’

‘Think you that I care?’ he raged. ‘Kill her, even if you have to kill me first.’

The soldiers came at her from either side. Jal-Nish was a hindrance now so she put her foot in the middle of his back and sent him flying. Going into a crouch, she swayed from side to side, trying to keep both swordsmen in view at once.

They laughed. She had no chance. The first lunged. She backpedalled but the lunge kept going until the soldier ploughed face-first into the ground. A small bright spot marked the middle of his back. The second sword hacked at her but missed – the soldier’s head snapped back as a bolt took him in the temple. She scanned the wall. The scrutator had three others with him. Two were soldiers, armed with crossbows.

They hurled a rope over the side and climbed down, hand over hand. The third man followed, his mancer’s robes billowing. Flydd came last, sliding the lower section and hitting the ground hard. She ran to help him up.

The scrutator examined his blistered hands, then gasped, ‘Quick, onto the cistern, then up inside the aqueduct.’

The soldiers were near the top of the outside ladder when Jal-Nish sat up, took a small golden horn from his pocket, fitted the mouthpiece through the hole in his mask and blew hard. It gave forth a low, sobbing moan. The adjacent cistern boomed like an enormous drum and a series of misty concentric hoops formed around it, like rings around a planet.

The scrutator, who was lowest, clutched at his heart and fell. The soldiers clapped their hands over their ears. The mancer went rigid, blood burst from mouth and nose and he slid corpselike off the ladder. Irisis felt a scream building up in her throat but could not let it out. The air seemed to have thickened in her lungs.

She thumped her breastbone against the side of the ladder. The choking sensation eased enough for her to take a breath. ‘Go up!’ she shouted at the soldiers. ‘Get your weapons out and cover me. Take my pack!’

The lower soldier handed it up. Scrambling down, she ran to the scrutator. He was still breathing. The mancer was dead.

The soldier, who had come down after her, took the scrutator’s leather satchel. Jal-Nish was staggering towards her, swinging a sword. The blast, or spell, whatever it was, must have affected him too.

‘You can’t get away!’ he slurred. ‘I’ll have a hundred soldiers here in a minute.’

Irisis heaved the scrutator onto her shoulder. He weighed no more than a bag of bones. She clutched the ladder and began to go up, but knew she was too slow. Jal-Nish would have a free blow at her back and legs.

She dropped to the ground, pulled the knife from her belt and feinted at Jal-Nish. He hacked back, the sword going so close to her arm that it shaved hairs. He was grunting and hawking as if there was something caught in his throat. Come closer, Jal-Nish, and it’ll be my boot. Irisis backpedalled, the scrutator’s arms and legs swinging wildly. Her knees felt like rubber. Should she drop Flydd? In his state it might kill him, but so might Jal-Nish’s sword.

‘Shoot!’ she screeched at the soldiers, who had reached the top of the cistern. They did not shoot; she must be in the way.

A wild swing took Jal-Nish’s sword past her. The knife was around the wrong way so, holding the hilt, she crashed her fist into his temple. Jal-Nish went down, the mask slipped and she caught sight of the horror beneath. She wanted to be sick.

Staggering to the ladder, she stepped over the body of the scrutator’s unknown mancer and began to climb. Irisis felt drunk; she could not think straight. Halfway up she stopped and was clinging desperately to the rungs, wondering what to do, when one of the soldiers plucked Flydd from her grasp.

‘They’re coming,’ he said.

Irisis could see only Jal-Nish, who was beginning to stir. The soldier helped her up the ladder.

‘What’s the matter?’ She supported herself on the stone edge that curved around the top of the cistern.

The soldier pointed. More troops were boiling out the front gate of the manufactory.

‘Where to?’ gasped Irisis.

‘This way. I’m Jym. Other bloke’s Yorme.’ Carrying the scrutator, Jym trotted around the top of the cistern, which was not much wider than the length of his two feet, towards the end of the aqueduct.

Irisis followed. It was a long reach to a ladder which ran up the discharge flume. Yorme had already disappeared. Jym was struggling to heave himself and his pack up, as well as Flydd’s inert body. Irisis gave him a push and he caught the bottom rung of the ladder.

‘Pass down your bow,’ she said.

After a silence, it appeared. The soldier grunted his way up. Irisis fitted the bolt, wound back the crank and took aim where the lower ladder came up onto the cistern.

Nothing happened for such a long time that she regretted waiting. She could have been halfway up the flume by now. Then, from the corner of her eye, a head appeared over the edge of the cistern. Someone had climbed the side. Irisis was about to shoot when another head topped the ladder. She had just one bolt.

The man on the ladder appeared first. She pointed the weapon at him and fired. He was moving fast and the bolt caught him high in the chest, just below the collarbone. Arms flailing, he went sideways into the water with an enormous splash.

The other man kept coming. Irisis climbed the ladder, awkwardly holding the crossbow. The soldier, moving like lightning, reached the bottom of the ladder before she was at the top. Springing high, he caught the third rung and raced up as if trained as an acrobat. She kicked at his face but he swayed out of the way, grabbed her boot and heaved. Irisis nearly fell. She kicked again, catching him in the mouth. He went down four rungs before he managed to stop.

At the top, rough stone bordered the water channel. It sloped up steeply here. The man was after her again. She was too exhausted to get away. All she had was a knife and a crossbow without any bolts. The man had a sword, against which a knife was useless. The crossbow was no help without bolts but she did not want to abandon it.

Irisis backed up, keeping him in sight, and slipped the knife into the bolt slot of the crossbow, just to see if it would fit. It did, more or less. The soldier was watching her, coming warily now. He laughed aloud at the makeshift weapon, which was as likely to jam and hurl shards of metal back in her face.

Irisis fitted the wire over the hilt. It would probably slip off as she fired. She sighted on the centre of the soldier’s body.

‘Go back or I’ll fire,’ she said, and to Irisis’s disgust there was a quaver in her voice.

‘Go on!’ he smirked.

She did. The knife shot out, too fast to see, to embed itself to the hilt in the man’s chest. He lost his footing, fell into the flume and slid down, thump-thumping all the way.

Irisis fled, up and up. Before she reached the top the first soldiers appeared below. One went to his knees, aimed at her and fired. It was a steep uphill shot, difficult to calculate, and Irisis was not surprised that it fell short, ricocheting into the channel. The next was closer but by then Irisis had gained the top. Another soldier moved into firing position as she ducked out of sight.

Jym was waiting with the other crossbow and a bag of bolts. She fitted one into her weapon, cranked it and they set off, running together up the now gentle slope. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘You need a break.’

Some break! She pounded up the rough path. Yorme was a long way ahead, lumping the scrutator and his own pack. Irisis was still far from catching him when a shout echoed behind her.

Jym had gone down on one knee, aiming at the throng which had burst up over the rise. They were a couple of hundred paces behind him. He fired at the group and was lucky enough to see one fall.

Irisis now saw the weak point of the plan. If he waited to reload, they would have crossed half the distance and he would still have only one shot, while there were at least a dozen of them. The range was long but with so many firing, one would get them. A lucky shot could even bring
her
down.

She jumped into the dry channel, scrambled up the other side where she had a clear view, took aim and fired. So many soldiers were clustered together that she was bound to strike one. Irisis was dismayed to discover that she had not. They did check, however, enough for Jym to run for his life.

Several bolts came screaming after him, striking sparks out of the sides of the aqueduct, but none hit and she had time to get off another shot before he reached her. This one was better aimed. The man in the lead went down as if he had been struck with a boulder.

That stopped them. Irisis and Jym ran on, on opposite sides of the channel. They were out of range of all but an accidental hit.

‘How far is it?’ she shouted.

‘Best part of a league.’

Irisis forced herself to keep moving, though she could not keep up. By the time she reached the top of the slope, the enemy were back in range. She stopped to catch her breath and a bolt passed between her knees. That gave her just enough impetus to claw her way onto a gentler slope.

Not far on, she encountered the others. Flydd was on his feet now, a trickle of red running from his left nostril. He managed a smile, a horrible, death’s-head affair.

Hers was no better. ‘How are you, Xervish?’ she gasped.

‘I can walk,’ he said wanly.

‘Walking is no bloody good at all! Can you run as though all the hounds of hell were after you? They’re gaining fast.’

‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘but I may be able to do something better.’

‘I look forward to seeing it.’

‘You won’t. Go on and don’t look back.’

‘I — But, surr!’

‘Do it!’ His voice was harsh with strain. ‘
Now
!’

She stumbled after the others, but after a few minutes Irisis stopped. The soldiers must be coming up the rise. What could the silly old fool do in his condition?

Flydd was standing like a spread-legged skeleton, holding his arms out and up so he had the form of an ‘X’. He looked as if he was trying to summon a bolt from the heavens.

The soldiers topped the rise. Two went to their knees, pointing weapons at him. The bolts would tear him apart. Why didn’t he do something? Or was he sacrificing himself so that they could get away?

A ball of mist emerged between him and the soldiers. If he was attempting some kind of illusion, it was too late. They would just fire straight through it. She took a couple of steps toward him. The mist grew. The soldiers fired.

Two red streaks appeared inside the mist, swelled, coalesced, and white fire burst out in all directions, so bright that it burned her eyes. She blinked and rubbed her eyes but could see nothing at all. Reeling backwards, she fell into the channel, which fortunately held only a trickle of water.

Irisis came to her knees. I can’t see, she thought, panicking.
I’m blind!
She blundered into one side of the channel, then the other. It was as if she had lost all her other faculties as well.

‘You bloody fool!’ panted the scrutator, pulling her to her feet. ‘As if I don’t have enough to do. Stand up!’

‘I can’t,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t see.’

He struck her across the face. ‘You imbecile, Irisis. I told you not to look back. Take my hand.’

She clutched it as if she was never going to let go.

‘Take it, I said, don’t crush it.’

He dragged her along the aqueduct. It was surprising how hard it was to walk when she could not see. Irisis kept stumbling, and once her balance went she did not know how to right herself.

‘What did you do, Xervish?’

‘Scrutator magic,’ he said with a hoarse chuckle. ‘I’m forbidden to speak of it. Keep moving.’

‘I don’t see what there’s to laugh about. I’ve lost my sight.’

‘Serves you right for being such a stickybeak!’

‘You might be a little bit sympathetic,’ she said forlornly.

‘I’ve got troubles of my own and your stupidity has just doubled them.’

She closed up. This was the old, hard side of the scrutator. She’d forgotten that as their relationship developed.