The Iron Ghost (63 page)

‘Do you think anyone in there is still alive?’

‘We won’t know until we take a look, will we? And we can’t do that until my Destroyer is ready. I’m going to head back up.’ She nodded to the far side of the werken’s chest, where its blunt head emerged from its sloping shoulders like a giant gravestone. ‘It’s not long now, Nuava. Not long until we take it into battle and we have vengeance for your brother. For Barlow. For all of them.’

She turned to go and her foot slipped a little on the smooth rock, almost casting her to the floor. She caught herself, but the effort forced a shout of pain from her throat. In an instant Nuava was on her feet and at her aunt’s side, but the older woman pushed her away. The last of the colour had drained from her face and for a frightening moment Nuava thought she was going to pass out.

‘Aunt, you are badly hurt.’ Nuava swallowed a hard lump in her throat; they had had this conversation before. ‘If we do not get you help soon, you will not live to steer the Destroyer.’

‘I should be dead already.’ Tamlyn gasped down a mouthful of air. ‘By rights I should be dead in the trees somewhere. But I didn’t die there, Nuava, and I will not die before I tear Joah’s head from his stinking neck.’ The force of her anger seemed to give her some strength back. ‘Even if I have to smash this werken to pieces on his monster’s hideous hide.’

With that her aunt began to hobble rapidly away. Nuava picked up her chisel once more, watching her go.

Hours later, as the weak light of late afternoon darkened to a solid grey, Nuava half slid, half stumbled down the makeshift wooden ladder they’d rigged to the side of the Destroyer. The whole thing was covered in a complicated latticework of wooden scaffolding, and looking at it made Nuava wonder how long her aunt had been working on this secret project. How many men and women had known about this and kept their mouths shut? It was a demonstration of the respect commanded by the Mistress Crafter; respect that edged into awe. Nuava tugged her fingers through her dirty hair, frowning. The same awe and respect that had allowed her aunt to make several unwise decisions on behalf of the people of Skaldshollow. With a shiver she remembered the slim shape of the Prophet, always hidden behind the gauze of her bed curtains, and then later, the smiling, handsome face of Joah Demonsworn as he tore her brother’s heart from his chest.

She half fell from the last step, her fingers numb from carving stone. There was a small fire down by the werken’s head, so she walked towards it. They had managed to scavenge some food on their journey here – several handfuls of small hard berries, a few thick root vegetables Nuava had dug up, remembering them from a botany book she had once studied, and one surprised snow grouse, which Nuava suspected had already been injured. Her stomach was growling painfully.

‘Tamlyn? Are you there?’ The shadows were starting to grow long and the temperature was dropping fast. ‘I need a break.’

Her aunt lurched out from behind the curve of the Destroyer’s head. There was colour on her cheeks again, and a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. Nuava’s stomach turned over at the sight of it.

‘Aunt, you are feverish. Quickly, come over to the fire and rest, I’ll find us some more food—’

‘That’s Mistress Crafter to you!’ snapped Tamlyn, stumbling towards her. She was covered from head to foot in a layer of stone dust, and both her hands were red with blisters from the hammer and chisel. ‘Have you forgotten who I am? It is time, child, to wake this bastard up. I have the stone, the last piece – the last piece of Heart-Stone.’ She sucked in a ragged breath, reeling on her feet. ‘Our last chance to avenge Skaldshollow. It is time to wake the last werken.’

Nuava felt her throat go dry. Her aunt was delirious with pain and rage, and in no fit state to take control of any werken, let alone one the size of the Destroyer. And underneath that she found herself thinking of Mendrick, how it – he – had stepped in front of the ice-spear for her, and been shattered into pieces for his efforts.

‘Tamlyn,’ she took a slow, deep breath, readying herself. ‘Mistress Crafter. I think the Narhl were right.’

For a second Tamlyn just stood there looking at her as if she hadn’t understood a single word.

‘What?’

‘About the werkens. Aunt, you must listen to me, please. I know that to us they have always been instruments and tools, but I saw – I’ve seen enough to know that there is something in the flesh of the mountain that is alive, and we are using it against its will.’

Tamlyn shook her head. ‘Nuava, I don’t have time for your childish nonsense. I should have known better than to trust you with this.’

‘Tamlyn, I have seen a werken move without a command from its rider.’ She could hear the desperation in her own voice. ‘All I’m saying is, I’m not sure what we’re doing, what we’ve
been
doing, is right.’

‘You are a coward,’ spat Tamlyn. ‘Worry not, frightened child. You do not have to steer the Destroyer. As if I would trust that job to you anyway. Save your whining and your excuses for when we’ve taken the city back, and then I will have time to consider the depth of my disappointment in you.’

‘You’re not listening to me!’ Nuava held up her hands, feeling a wave of despair wash over her. Maybe she was wrong, and perhaps they would both be dead shortly anyway, but she needed to say it. ‘All I’m saying is that we have to consider that they were right all along, and what that means for us—’

There was a sudden flash of light next to their open fire, briefly blinding Nuava. She cried out, her hand groping for the chisel wedged into her belt, and then a stern voice was speaking.

‘Is your werken ready?’

It was the other mage, Lord Frith, wearing a loose shirt and a light cloak. Impossibly he looked as though he had caught the sun on the tops of his cheekbones, his warm brown skin a darker shade than when she’d last seen him, contrasting starkly with his bone-white hair. He was glaring at them both with an expression of extreme impatience.

‘You!’ Tamlyn staggered backwards. ‘What are you doing here? Where did you come from?’

The young lord shook his head brusquely. ‘I don’t have time for these questions. Is your werken ready? When can it be ready?’

‘You are a mage,’ said Tamlyn slowly. The feverish light was back in her eyes and she was swaying on her feet. ‘Like him. I should have killed you rather than let you in our gates.’

Frith scowled. ‘It was you who made a deal with the demon, Crafter Nox. Your mistake has cost us a great deal.’ He paused, the muscles in his jaw clenching briefly as he held something back. ‘Indeed, if I did not need the werken you have been constructing, you would already be dead.’ He turned to Nuava. ‘Is it ready?’

‘What’s happened?’ She didn’t like the bleak look on his face. In the short time she’d known him he had never been a friendly man, but now there was a chilly blankness behind his eyes that frightened her badly. ‘I mean, besides the obvious.’

Frith looked at her without speaking for a moment, his features carefully composed.

‘What’s happened is I have constructed a weapon that could destroy Joah Demonsworn permanently, and I need you and Crafter Nox to take this monstrosity’, he gestured to the body of the prone werken that towered off to the right of them, ‘down to the city walls, and I need you to use it to crush the Rivener. Can you do this?’

‘My aunt was badly injured, I don’t know if she’s strong enough.’

‘Can you do this? For your brother? For Wydrin?’

Nuava caught her breath. ‘Yes. Yes, we can do it.’

Wydrin ran, trying to move as quickly and as silently as possible, whilst keeping Ip’s slim form ahead of her. The girl was leading them through a labyrinth of back alleys, taking sudden turns and skittering down darkened paths that looked like dead ends until they skirted past piles of barrels and boxes. Her gut instinct was telling her that they were foolish to trust the child, but if nothing else they knew for certain that the demon no longer inhabited her; the demon was in a dozen bodies now, and searching for them even as they ran.

‘The girl smells like the demon,’ said Xinian in a low voice. The warrior mage was keeping pace with Wydrin easily enough. ‘It is the same smell you carry, only stronger.’

‘Yes, well, thanks for that,’ muttered Wydrin. They turned another corner and suddenly they were out in a wide street. Ip immediately pressed herself to the wall, and the two older women followed suit. The cobbles were deserted, and half covered in a fine covering of snow. With no Skalds left to sweep it away or turn it to slush with their boots, it would gradually cover the entire city. Lost, like Temerayne was lost.

‘We are nearly there,’ said Ip, her voice quiet. ‘The trench lies to the north of the city, and it points towards the Bone Pit gate. In the trench, we will be out of sight. They kept werkens down there, where the Narhl couldn’t see them.’

‘The gate will be shut, I expect,’ said Wydrin. ‘That’s how my luck has gone lately. We’ll deal with that when we get there. How do you know so much about this place, anyway? I thought when you were the Prophet you were mainly hidden up in the Tower of Waking.’

Ip glared up at her. Her expression was not that of a centuries-old demon, but she did look like a child who had done a lot of growing up recently.

‘When Joah vanished on us – when he vanished on Bezcavar, I mean, I had a lot of time to get to know this place. I know all its nooks and crannies now.’

After a moment, they carried on, shuffling swiftly across the street and back into the alleyways that Ip apparently knew so well. Their ability to move quickly and with accuracy was all that had saved them so far – Bezcavar’s presence had given the husks a burst of lethal energy.

Eventually the regular buildings died out, and they moved into an open area that was clearly some sort of staging platform for the werkens. Wydrin could see several great warehouses with wide open doors, and she knew that inside them would be workbenches covered in tools that would by now be gathering dust.

‘Here, down here, quickly,’ said Ip, already moving towards a raised platform in the middle of the work area. At first it looked like little more than a long stone wall, slightly taller than a tall man, but when Wydrin got closer, she saw that it was the edge of an enormous trench cut directly into the rocky ground. The raised platform was the first of a set of wide steps that led down into it. ‘Quickly,’ said Ip again, ‘before Bezcavar catches up.’

‘You don’t have to tell me twice.’

They hurried down the steps, dark stone walls rising to either side of them, the sky becoming a long strip of baleful red above their heads. There were a few alchemical lights burning in alcoves set along the walls, and in what little light they provided Wydrin could see the hulking shapes of werkens, standing utterly still in the dark. The green lights that had burnt so fiercely in Mendrick’s wolf-shaped head were absent from these stony giants.

‘Why are they not glowing?’ asked Wydrin. Within the trench her voice echoed strangely, so she lowered it to a whisper. ‘The light of the Edeian . . .?’

‘Their riders are all dead,’ said Ip shortly.

The three of them walked slowly, cautious of what might be waiting for them in the dark. Wydrin glanced up at the turbulent sky and realised she had no idea what time of day it was – the eerie red light distorted everything, although her stomach was insisting it was well past any meal time imaginable.

‘I have a question,’ said Xinian. She was bringing up the rear of their party, her stolen sword hanging loosely in her hand. They passed another inert werken, and Wydrin glanced up at it, trying to make out the features on its roughly chiselled face. It was too dark.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Up until quite recently this child was inhabited by the demon.’

‘Up until it decided to dump her for someone with a better sense of style,’ said Wydrin. Ip shot a poisonous look at the pair of them over her shoulder.

‘And presumably this demon inhabited the child at the time when she was learning her way around these streets.’

Wydrin winced. ‘Yes.’

‘Then forgive me, for I am just a centuries-old mage and clearly not as wise as a tavern brawler and a child.’ In the dark Xinian’s bald head shone with reflected pinkish light. ‘But would that not mean that whatever the child knows, the demon would also know?’

At that moment, there was a flat patter of awkward footsteps. Wydrin looked over her shoulder to see around twenty figures shuffling and stumbling down the steps towards them, their emaciated forms bleeding into the shadows.

‘You!’ Wydrin unsheathed Frostling in an instant and brandished it at Ip’s throat. ‘I told you if you betrayed us I would cut out your lungs. Didn’t I tell you that?’

‘I didn’t know!’ Underneath the dirt Ip’s face was very pale. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘Shit.’ Wydrin turned back the way they had been heading, only to see similar stumbling shapes moving hurriedly towards them out of the dark. Already they were close enough for her to see the bloody stare of their eyes. To either side of them the walls of the trench rose, smooth and unclimbable.

‘Shit.’ She pulled Glassheart from its scabbard. ‘So now we’re going to have to carve our way through, ladies. Head for the northern side and don’t stop for nothing.’

‘I can see you down there.’ The voice came from several ragged throats at once, the note of glee quite clear. ‘And is that Ip I see with you? I did wonder where you’d gone, child.’

Ip pitched to one side, grasping her head and grimacing.

‘What is it?’ Wydrin grabbed her by one stick-thin arm. ‘What’s it doing?’

‘It’s trying to get back inside my head. Not forcing, exactly, but I invited it in once and it knows all my secrets.’

‘Come on,’ Wydrin yanked her forward, already starting to run. ‘Keep that bastard out of your head and I’ll buy you a pony.’

They charged into the thick of the Rivened, Wydrin going first, her dagger and sword a silvery blur. The husks fell back, wounds opening like flowers on their rotten flesh, but the more she pushed forward the more bodies surged in to fill the gap. They grasped for her, purple fingers yanking at her leathers and scratching at her flesh. She felt one grab hold of a fistful of her hair, twisting it so that her head was suddenly a beacon of pain. She screamed and thrust her sword into the creature’s throat with so much force that the blow severed the neck, and the husk’s head fell to one side, hanging by a ropey piece of flesh. There was very little blood – most of that had long since turned thick and black – but the smell was atrocious, a thick scent that crawled at the back of Wydrin’s throat. Quickly, too quickly, they were surrounded. She felt Xinian at her back, could hear the heavy chop of blade against flesh as she took down every husk foolish enough to get close to her. Ip was crouched down by Wydrin’s legs, stabbing wildly with a small knife she’d produced from some hidden pocket.