The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (37 page)

Bel put a hand between her legs and heaved her effortlessly
onto the roof. She sprawled on the splintered shingles with her feet in the
guttering, getting her breath back as Bel turned to go down for Flydd. Could
she possibly be on
their
side? Maelys
looked up at the flappeter and knew otherwise. She’d put them right into the
enemy’s hands.

The flappeter was a huge, elongated shadow hovering above
the ridgepole. The gutter was half-full of shingles and she could just make out
a hole smashed through the roof. She couldn’t see the rider, which was a mercy
– he must have gone down the hole. She flattened herself on the roof, for
the flappeter was more dangerous than any rider.

Little Maelys! What a
pleasure it is to see you again.

Maelys nearly fell backwards off the roof. ‘R-Rurr-shyve? I
thought you were dead?’ Months ago she had killed Rurr-shyve’s rider and
managed to gain a tenuous control over the flappeter, but subsequently it had
fallen into a river near Tifferfyte and she’d believed it had drowned.

It takes an awful lot
to kill a flappeter. The Imperial Militia lifted me from the river with an
air-floater and sent me back to the flesh-formers of Farentyl, to be restored.
Improved
. You can’t touch me this time.

It rotated on the ridgepole, its hooked feet clasping and
unclasping, sending more heavy shingles sliding down the roof at her.
Rurr-shyve was a good five spans long, half of which was the heavy tail which
it could swing hard enough to smash down small trees. It could hover on its
feather-rotors or walk awkwardly on its pairs of thin legs, and its long head
had two pairs of horns.

It emitted a honking hoot, no doubt calling the soldiers.
Maelys scrambled backwards along the wooden gutter, not game to take her eyes
off the beast. There was no hope of escape now.

Flydd was heaved over the edge onto the roof a few spans
away. Rurr-shyve made a purring sound in its throat and darted its long neck at
him. He yelped.

Two soldiers ran out the front door of the inn and looked
up. Maelys, peering over the guttering, could see them clearly, for someone had
thrown bales of straw into the street and set them alight, sending a blaze
spans high into the air. More soldiers were running up the stairs.

‘Xervish, you’ve got to do something,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t have strength to take on – flappeter.’ His
voice was slurred; he was still ensorcelled.

She shook him but it made no difference, and now it sounded
as though the soldiers were scrambling back up through the roof; they couldn’t
be allowed to get through. Maelys scrabbled up towards the hole on hands and
knees. Rurr-shyve’s long neck swung towards her but it couldn’t reach without
lifting in the air. Its feather-rotors began to beat more rapidly.

The movement sent shingles sliding down at her, and they
were heavy enough to break her fingers. She stopped one with the heel of her
hand and tossed it up through the hole in the roof. There came a satisfying cry
of pain, so she hurled more shingles, as fast as she could catch them. After
the fourth a man cried, ‘Aaargh!’ and she heard him go crashing down.

A second soldier cursed but Maelys didn’t think he’d fallen,
and Rurr-shyve was coming for her.

‘Xervish, help!’

Bel was crouched further along the gutter; Maelys couldn’t
see what she was doing but she’d made no move to stop Maelys throwing her
shingles, so why had Bel brought them up here? Because there was no end to
Jal-Nish’s convoluted and malicious cunning.

Flydd stood up, thrusting his hands at Rurr-shyve, but gave
a grunting cough, fell on his face and began to slide towards the edge. She
went backwards on her belly, and hit the wooden gutter hard. It held; she
wedged her feet in and broke his fall; threw her arm across his back to steady
him, but felt sticky wetness there. He’d been shot, probably with a cross-bow
bolt. It did not feel like a grievous wound, though he was losing a lot of
blood.

A soldier’s head popped up through the hole, holding a
blazing torch. ‘I see them,’ he roared. ‘We’ve got them.’

A second man followed, clad in leathers – Rurr-shyve’s
rider. Firelight glinted off the control amulet mounted on a chain that ran
across his forehead. Rurr-shyve hovered at the edge of the roof, preventing her
from climbing down, and with Flydd incapacitated there was no hope anyway. It
was taking all her strength to hold him.

Bel suddenly stood up, thrust her arms high and cried three
words in an unfamiliar tongue. A sudden breeze plastered the gown against her
opulent figure. A gasp escaped her; her left knee wobbled; her arms shook as if
she were holding up a huge weight but she forced them higher, grinding out more
words.

With a shrill cry, Rurr-shyve sideslipped away, but Bel
slammed into the roof, face first. She began to slide down but hooked her fingers
over the edge of a shingle and held on. Maelys stared at her. That Bel had just
used all the power at her command was evident, but if she were one of
Jal-Nish’s mancers, why go to all this trouble?

A pair of closely-spaced carmine sparks shot across the sky,
accompanied by an unnervingly shrill and ululating whistle that came ever
closer. It passed high overhead, and vanished.

BOOM-BOOM.

The sound, deeper than thunder, shook the roof, dislodging
more shingles. One thumped Flydd in the back and he moaned. The whistle rose in
pitch, coming from the other direction; the pair of sparks curved around
towards them.

Abruptly the whistle was replaced by a sobbing moan; a
yearning cry; then a trumpeting roar as something monstrous raced their way.

‘No!’ Bel said faintly, struggling to her feet. ‘I didn’t
call a
male
.’

‘What …?’ said Flydd.

‘I can’t control a male; I’ll try to seize the other.’

‘Can’t do it,’ said Flydd. ‘Not without amulet.’

‘On your bellies!’ hissed Bel, flattening herself on the
roof.

Maelys pushed Flydd’s face against the roof as a second
flappeter, twice the size of Rurr-shyve, thundered above them. Bel cried three
more foreign words – evidently orders. The larger flappeter skidded in a
tight circle, hovered and rotated its long head to stare at her. There were
tinges of red in its globular compound eyes, though that might have been
reflections of the burning straw. Its neck extended towards Bel; its maw opened
and, with a steamy hiss, a yellow cloud boiled towards her.

She sprang sideways right over Maelys’s head, landing with a
thump that shook the rafters. Bel had avoided the cloud but a yellow tendril
wisped out and touched Flydd on the left hand. He yelped and his hand jerked
convulsively; the skin was already swelling. Maelys wiped his hand with her
sleeve and felt the vapours stinging her forearm.

Bel, weak-kneed and wobbly, repeated her orders, harshly.
The flappeter stared at her, eye to eye, and made as if to breathe at her
again. She drew herself up, pointing directly at it, and the male shuddered,
lowered its head submissively, rotated in the air and squirted something rank
along the ridgepole.

Extending several pairs of legs, it hooked into the nearest
soldier’s chest and lifted him, squealing and spurting blood, high into the
air. It turned towards Rurr-shyve’s rider, who frantically pressed his hand
against the now-wriggling amulet on his forehead, shouting, ‘Rurr-shyve,
Rurr-shyve!’

A hook-ended leg scraped down the rider’s forehead, snapping
the chain. With a cry of pain he dived for the amulet, which was sliding down
the roof, but missed. Another pair of legs caught him by the shoulder and
belly, dragging him up besides the soldier, then they were sent flying over the
edge and fell to the road in front of the tavern.

Rurr-shyve shrilled in sympathetic pain. The amulet slid
into the gutter beside Maelys. She reached for it but drew back as its eight
metal legs snapped out and the curled leaves of its segmented body opened to
display its mechanical innards. But it was the key to Rurr-shyve, and the only
way out of here. It began to scuttle along the gutter, trying to get to
Rurr-shyve. If it did the flappeter would be free, and uncontrollable.

Could she control Rurr-shyve again? She had to try. Maelys
snatched the amulet off the side of the gutter and closed her fist around it.
It struggled furiously, the tiny metal claws tearing at her until she slid her
fingers between several of its legs and squeezed hard, whereupon it went still.

Bel, now ashen in the light of the blazing straw, spoke
another phrase. The male flappeter let out that trumpeting roar again, flew
down to the road and, to Maelys’s horror, began to eat the head of Rurr-shyve’s
rider. Rurr-shyve bellowed in agony and shot across the ridgepole, only to stop
suddenly and settle there. It began to sniff the ridgepole.

‘What’s that about?’ said Maelys.

No one replied.

The amulet began to struggle again. Maelys pressed it
against her chest, between her breasts where Rurr-shyve’s original amulet had
once hung. The amulet went still, then slowly folded its legs.

Rurr-shyve turned slowly, staring at her.
So, little Maelys thinks she can best me
again? She’d better be stronger this time
.

‘I will be,’ said Maelys savagely.

Rurr-shyve was still sniffing; suddenly its tail shot up.

‘Now!’ whispered Bel.

‘What?’ said Maelys.

‘Get on its back.’

‘What about Xervish?’

‘Just go!’

Maelys didn’t hesitate, for more soldiers were gathering
outside, and maybe Bel was on their side after all. With hindsight, how could
the woman in red have been one of Jal-Nish’s mancers? If she had been, why
would she have helped them to escape the plateau?

Maelys crawled up the slope, put one foot into the left
stirrup and pulled herself into Rurr-shyve’s front saddle. Bel staggered across
the steeply sloping roof, picked Flydd up and heaved him up onto the rear
saddle. Rurr-shyve lurched sideways and Flydd nearly fell off. Maelys reached
back to steady him. Bel slid a pale, plump leg over Rurr-shyve and slid in
behind Flydd.

Maelys expected the flappeter to throw them off, for such
creatures bitterly resented being ridden, even by their bonded rider, but the
sniffing beast ignored them. Below, the male had eaten the head and chest of
the rider and was crunching into the fallen soldier. The other soldiers had
retreated, evidently afraid to attack one of the God-Emperor’s precious
flappeters, and a robed scrier was calling into a loop listener. The male
looked up, saw Rurr-shyve with tail upraised, and lifted into the air.
Rurr-shyve lowered its tail and fled.

The male emitted another urgent, yearning cry, raised its
own tail and rotored after them, and only then did Maelys realise, with a
thrill of horror, what was going on. Rurr-shyve must be a female.

‘We’ve got to get off! Right now!’

A soft hand slapped over her mouth. ‘Don’t move, don’t
speak!’ Bel whispered over the
thup-thupping
of the feather-rotors. ‘Interfere with the mating dance and we all die.’

‘Why did you call a flappeter?’ hissed Maelys, turning
around. ‘Couldn’t you think of a better –’

‘Best beast I could reach –’ Bel sagged sideways.

Not you too! Maelys couldn’t do anything for her; Rurr-shyve
was rolling from side to side in the air and swinging her tail up and down; an
invitation?

‘To conjure such a beast from – so far – almost
beyond my capacity.’

‘
Who are you?
’
Maelys hissed, but could barely hear herself over the trumpeting of the male.
It must have been three times the weight of Rurr-shyve and, whether it mated
with her in the air or on the ground, they could not survive it.

Bel said exhaustedly, ‘Fading fast. Look after Xervish.’

She slumped against Flydd’s back, breathing noisily, but
forced herself upright again and appeared to be pressing her right hand to the
wound on his back. Maelys felt heat wash through her and sensed something stir
in Flydd, as if he was finally being released from her bewitchment.

‘Direction?’ slurred Bel.

Flydd managed to raise his head. ‘West-north-west, about
four leagues; a deep, narrow valley surrounded by knife-sharp ridges. Entrance
a slot between buttresses of rock. But there are many valleys; without Colm …’

‘Amulet!’

Maelys handed it to her and, with limp gestures, Bel
directed Rurr-shyve in that direction, flying just above the treetops. The
flappeter resisted, turning her head to left and right, whilst raising and
lowering her tail invitingly. It had gone bright yellow, and the horns on her
head were glowing; the pair thrusting out sideways were a pale orange and the
pair projecting forwards the dull red of warm coals. Sticky saliva dribbled
from her mouth and was blown back along her flanks; acrid puffs of a stinkbug
stench from her breathing tubes burned Maelys’s nose.

The male let out another bellow. It was not far behind; the
brilliant yellow of Rurr-shyve’s tail reflected off its largest pair of eyes,
while both its pairs of horns were a fiery red. Its dark body could barely be
seen but the erect tail, which terminated in a fan of oval discs almost as
extravagant as the tail of a peacock, shimmered with waves of colour.

Rurr-shyve slowed and turned its long neck to look back; the
male dived towards a little clearing in the forest, then came zooming up right
in front of Rurr-shyve, whose feather-rotors reversed and beat frantically as
it came to a stop in mid-air. The male hovered, waving its iridescent tail
suggestively. Rurr-shyve went forwards a few spans, then backwards, then
forwards again, but as the male darted towards her she slipped to the side and
raced away, her own tail flat. The male, its flanks coated in windblown trails,
turned to follow, and so the pursuit went on.

Bel seemed very weak now. She was clinging to her saddle
horn with one hand while she tried to direct the flappeter west-north-west with
the other. She managed to drive it in that direction for a league or two before
Rurr-shyve, whose cries were becoming ever louder and her tail-raisings more
lasciviously inviting, suddenly dived towards a treetop.