When the Heavens Fall (54 page)

The priestess had lured a number of Shroud's minions to this part of the forest, hoping they might slay some of Mayot's undead before themselves being destroyed. A group of lizard-skinned disciples had even come as far as this ghastly hanging gallery. But no farther. Romany's magic, after all, worked through deception, manipulation, misdirection, and no illusion, however masterly, could disguise the hellishness of this place. Trying to goad Shroud's minions into continuing on was like trying to make them walk into fire. And yet, the fact they had come this far meant Shroud would now know the seriousness of the Kinevar gods' plight, and hence the scale of the danger he himself was facing. If the Lord of the Dead had not taken Mayot seriously up until this point he would have to do so now.

The time was fast approaching when Romany would have to retire from the game, but there was still much to do before that happened. One newcomer to the forest in particular would require her most assiduous attention, for the scoundrel's coming here presented an opportunity to right past wrongs she could not pass up. She had already devised the rudiments of a scheme to snare her victim, but the devil, as ever, was in the detail. In order to finalize her plan she needed to know how much longer the Kinevar gods could resist the forces attacking them, and hence how much time she still had to work with before she bid this miserable forest good-bye.

Infuriatingly, though, she could get no closer to the heart of the distant struggle. Twice now she had paced the perimeter of the battlefield—an area covering several square leagues—searching for a navigable route through to the Kinevar sacred glades. No matter which approach she took, however, she was met by a maelstrom of warring sorceries that consumed the strands of her web as quickly as she could weave them. She stamped a foot.
This is intolerable!
There had to be a way of scouting the forest ahead.

A flap of wings sounded above as a huge shape swooped low over the treetops. Instinctively Romany ducked, but it was just another nameless monstrosity resurrected and enslaved by the Book. She shuddered at the touch of its shadow.

Then she noticed the thing was heading in the direction of the battle.

The priestess smiled.
Spider's grace, I'm good.
Extending her senses, she spun a strand of magic round the creature's tail and watched as it was drawn up and over the forest. Then she flashed along it.

Perching on the tip of the beast's tail, she paused to inspect her unwitting mount. Its back was a rippling mass of interlocking gray scales, and its flanks were scarred by sorcery. Plumes of black feathers sprouted from its neck, obscuring Romany's view of its head. A fact for which she was grateful.

The flaw in her plan became apparent when the creature flicked its tail. The motion sent her twisting this way and that, battling to keep her seat. As stomach-churning experiences went, it eclipsed even her ill-fated sea voyage along the coast from Mercerie to Koronos, when the waves of the Sabian Sea had battered her ship to within an inch of Romany's life.

Now she came to think of it, she wasn't overly fond of heights either.

Steeling herself, she risked a glance at the forest below and found herself looking down on a seemingly endless vista of smoke and flames. Through the smoldering canopy she saw snatches of a vast shadowy throng of undead. Half a league ahead was a flash of green—a cluster of trees where the fires had not yet taken hold. In the ash-filled skies above it, undead stormwraiths circled like redbeaks over a corpse. Of the Kinevar gods and their surviving followers, however, Romany could make out nothing.

A burst of earth-magic shattered the air ahead, and her mount pitched to one side before righting itself. Clearly someone had taken objection to the creature's presence, and if the priestess was honest, she couldn't blame them. With a mighty beat of its wings the beast climbed higher. Fighting down nausea, Romany looked back and was relieved to see that the magical thread she had woven about the creature's tail remained intact. Next time, though, she might not be so lucky. If the strand was broken—

A shaft of lightning flashed up from the smoke below, punching a hole through the right wing of the priestess's mount. With a shriek, it started to lose height, spiraling down toward the forest. The treetops came rushing up to meet it.

Romany was already fleeing back to the ground along her thread of sorcery, the strand unraveling even as she raced along it.

When she reached the safety of the hanging gallery of undead she whispered a heartfelt oath never to surrender the safety of land again. Her heart was pounding so quickly she could no longer distinguish individual beats. An ignominious retreat, perhaps, but she had more immediate concerns at hand than a bruised ego. For not only was she no nearer to discovering how far the Kinevar gods were from capitulating, she
still
had no idea how to get close enough to the action to find out.

Romany sniffed and smoothed her gown. No need to panic, the setback was only a temporary one. A solution would come to her in time.

It always did.

*   *   *

Ebon's horse pranced nervously, its hooves sending up puffs of leaf fragments. The distant clang of weapons echoed through the forest—a handful of combatants at most, judging by the number of strikes. The battle was otherwise being fought in silence, which had to mean the undead were hosting the gathering. But then who were they entertaining?

To Ebon's left, the consel and his sorceress were in hushed conversation. Garat signaled to one of his troops, and the soldier swung down from his saddle. He unslung a shortbow and set off at a scamper toward the sounds of fighting.

Ebon steered his horse forward. “Consel, we should keep moving.”

Garat did not look round. “Are you not curious to know what is happening? It is safe to assume, I think, that the undead are not fighting each other.”

“It is also safe to assume the Vamilians are not going to break off their attack to answer our questions. We should leave now before we are drawn into the conflict.”

“What, and leave their victims in the lurch? Before now, you've always seemed so anxious to make new friends.”

“I'm learning my lesson on that score.”

Garat chuckled.

Corporal Ellea came riding up from the opposite direction to that which the consel's scout had taken. Her face was caked in sweat and dirt. “Stiffs, your Majesty,” she said. “Scores of them, all around us.”

Ebon faced Garat. “It appears the net is tightening.”

“But on us or on the mysterious combatants ahead, I wonder?”

“Does it matter? If the Vamilians catch us here they are unlikely to spare us just because we are not their intended target.” Ebon caught Ellea's eye. “Corporal, where are the lines of undead thinnest?”

She pointed west.

Garat smiled. “Excellent! That will take us close to this confrontation. Now, if my scout would just … Ah! Such commendable timing.”

The man had stumbled into view ahead, pushing his way through a thicket fifty paces away. Another of the Sartorian soldiers rode to meet him, leading his horse by the reins. The scout stepped into his saddle, then rode up to report. “Two score of the stiffs, sir,” he said to Garat. “Vamilians mostly, but I saw a Kinevar—”

“Who are they fighting?” the consel cut in.

“Couldn't see. Too many of them—the stiffs, I mean. Moving this way, though.”

Garat's expression went cold. “You were spotted?”

“By the Vamilians? Not a chance. Bastards were too busy getting chopped up.”

A moment of silence greeted his words.

Garat gathered his reins and nodded at Ambolina. “Sorceress, get your pets moving. Tarda Sulin, have your soldiers take up flanking positions…”

Ebon was no longer listening. In front and to his right he could now see flickers of movement between the trees—white-robed figures mostly, but with a splash of black among them. Unstrapping the shield from his back, he settled it on his left arm before drawing his saber. “Galea,” he whispered. “Are you with me?”

There was no response. Evidently the goddess had no intention of intervening in the struggle to come.

The consel's demons had moved off, Garat and Ambolina immediately behind, the Sartorian soldiers fanning out to either side. Ebon kicked his horse forward and took up a position behind the consel, Vale and Mottle beside him. The company skirted a thick wall of brambles. Then the demons veered west, and broke into a run.

The ground trembled in their wake.

Heartbeats later Ebon drew abreast of the unknown combatants. A hooded figure—a man, judging by his height—was visible between the trees, black robes billowing as he twisted and turned in the midst of a crowd of undead. The stranger wielded an oversized, golden-bladed sickle in each hand, and Ebon watched as a long, graceful swing cut a Vamilian warrior in half, the sickle passing through armor, flesh and bone without apparent resistance. The wielder was already spinning away, swaying to evade a disemboweling spear thrust. A reverse slash from one of the sickles tore open the throat of another enemy.

Ebon looked round to locate the stranger's companions, but he could see only Vamilians. Were the sickle-wielder's friends hidden by the trees, perhaps? Had they fallen already? Surely the man could not have survived on his own for this long.

It was only then that Ebon registered the motionless bodies of the Vamilians piled round the stranger. His eyes widened.
Motionless? Watcher's tears, can it be?

His mare took him past and out of sight.

He spurred his mount up an incline after the Sartorians. Above the drumming of hooves came the crackle of sorcery ahead and to his left. Vamilians carrying swords and crude spears of sharpened wood materialized between the trees in front.
Barely a score of them.

This should be simple enough.

The consel's demons charged into the undead. A cut from one of the monstrous axes carved through the skull of an enemy warrior in a spray of bone fragments. In the creatures' wake a Vamilian woman missing both arms struggled to her knees, only to be caught by a flying hoof. Then Ebon was among the foe. He used his shield to turn aside a thrown spear before parrying a sword thrust with his own blade. No need to strike back, his horse was already taking him out of range. He ducked beneath a branch that would have swept him from his saddle and stayed low for a score of heartbeats in case one of the undead should aim a spear at his back.

As quickly as that he was clear.

The company rode for half a league, the consel finally signaling a halt at the edge of a deep depression scarring the land from northeast to southwest. Ebon resheathed his saber and looked round. The party had emerged unscathed from the clash, although one of the Sartorian soldiers was cradling his left arm. And Bettle was missing, Ebon noticed suddenly. Glancing back in the direction of the fighting, he saw a red-cloaked rider weaving between the trees. The Pantheon Guardsman cantered up.

“No sign of pursuit,” he said. “Stiffs are all converging on that sickle-wielder.”

Garat scratched his chin. “It would appear we are not worthy of the Vamilians' attention.”

Meaning all of us here are minor players on this stage, even Ambolina and her demons.
“Consel, did you see as I did? The undead lying motionless round the stranger?”

It was Mottle who answered. “The puppets' strings have been cut, my boy, the frayed threads left—”

“How?” Ebon interrupted. “How were they cut?”

“A necromancer of singular skill, perhaps?”

“Then why was he fighting sickle to sword?” The king spun to face Garat. “We should go back. The stranger may have information of use to us.”

“Who was it who said, ‘The net is tightening,' your Majesty? The sickle-wielder will be dead by now.”

“And if he isn't?”

“Then it will still be too late to pull him out. How many would we lose carving a way through the undead?”

Ebon studied him for a moment. “Your demons—”

“Are mine to command,” Garat cut in. “Sacrifice your own soldiers, if you must. It is what you are best at, after all.”

Ebon's face twisted, but he said nothing. A few moments ago the consel had been curious to find out who the stranger was, yet now his interest was gone? The very fact an idea was Ebon's, it seemed, was enough to turn Garat against it. In future he would need to use a subtler means of persuasion if he was to influence the consel's decisions.

Garat had moved away and was speaking to Ambolina, their horses drawn up at the edge of the depression. The floor of the valley was hidden by brambles and gnarled branches, though Ebon could see a glitter of light on water below and to his right. In the distance, beyond the opposite side of the depression, came the sound of something smashing its way through the forest, snapping tree trunks as it went. The noises were moving away from them.

Ebon tried to listen in to Garat's conversation with Ambolina, but they were speaking in Sartorian, and he could make out only the occasional word. When they fell silent, he said, “Next move, Consel?”

Garat was a long time in answering. “This valley runs south and west. The undergrowth should hide us for a while.”

“It will also lose us the speed of our horses if we are discovered.”

“I don't recall asking for your opinion, your Majesty.”

“Consel,” Ambolina began.

“Nor yours either, sorceress,” Garat said.

“Earth-magic is strong in this place,” the woman went on. “Much may be concealed beneath…”

But Garat had already wheeled his horse away. He shouted orders to his soldiers, pausing to bark a curse at one of the demons when it did not move from his path.

Ebon found himself alone with the sorceress. Ambolina paid him no attention. The sound of crashing trees had faded, yet she remained staring out west over the depression. Her hands were folded in her lap, her forefingers tapping against each other. A flicker of apprehension crossed her face, the slightest tightening round her eyes.