The bones of her skull creaked and a soothing numbness spread through her. Tali could not see the umbrella aura, but she could feel it closing around her and Rannilt. She let out a little sigh. Not safe from Lyf, but safer.
“Is that it?” said the chancellor.
The chief magian’s nostrils pinched in, as if his art had been insulted. “’Tis but the first stage of five. Each succeeding stage of the spell is more difficult and painful than the one before, and requires study and practice. Once the fifth stage is in place, in a few days’ time, you may send Tali wherever you wish, confident that Lyf’s magery will never find her.”
“What about Grandys’ magery?”
The chief magian paled. “You need Tali hidden from him as well?”
“More than the other, and more urgently. If Grandys realises she’s got the master pearl, he’ll be back here in an instant. He’ll certainly wonder, once he has time from other pressing duties, how an unworthy slave was able to break his command. And he’s a far more vengeful man than I am. Get it done.”
The chancellor gave orders for camp to be struck, then stood looking down at Tali. “Every one of my troops is watching you, so don’t try another escape. Right now, you’re my best hope of survival — and I’m yours.”
“Until you gouge the master pearl out of my head.”
“Did I say I was going to take it?”
She snorted.
“Are you ready to travel?” he added.
“Where are you taking me? Not back to Rutherin, I hope. I had an experience in your care that wasn’t much to my liking.”
“Speaking of Rutherin, where’s your treacherous friend Holm, formerly known as Kroni?”
“No idea,” Tali lied. “Haven’t seen him all day.”
He walked away, calling his retinue together.
“I saw a grey-haired old man lurkin’ down by the water,” said Rannilt. “Was that him?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he hidin’?”
“He helped me escape from Rutherin, so it wouldn’t be a good idea for the chancellor to set eyes on him. Especially in his present mood. Shh!”
The chancellor’s retinue, half of them guards, had assembled in the middle of the temple.
“Rixium Ricinus is condemned as a traitor and is to be killed on sight,” the chancellor announced. “The reward for his head is half a pound of gold.” He waved a small leather bag above his head to reinforce the message. “The shifter called Tobry Lagger, and the so-called clock attendant, Holm, alias Kroni, who betrayed me by helping Tali to escape my prison, are also condemned. One eleventh of a pound of gold for each of them — dead or alive. Get moving!”
After days of cold, arduous travel under the fifth stage of the sorcerous shield that blurred everything around Tali, the shield was lowered a fraction. The thirty-foot wall loomed before her, the battered gate, the copper-clad domes.
“Why have you brought me to Garramide?” said Tali.
“For much the same reasons that Rix came here,” said the chancellor. “It’s inaccessible but not remote, readily defended with a sufficiently powerful force, and well resourced save for the treasury, which I can supply. And, you may recall, I have a great love of beautiful things. Rutherin was a cultural desert. Garramide contains treasures you have never seen, collected by the great dame herself. I want to see them.”
One of them turned out to be a seeing stone with which he sent messages to his army in Rutherin, to other allies across the land, and to those he would have as allies.
On the way he had swallowed his bile and sent three envoys to Grandys. The chancellor stalked the halls, waiting wild-eyed for Grandys’ reply.
CHAPTER 74
“Swire,” said Grandys, reining in at the top of the hill and looking down at the town nestled in a loop of the river. Swire was small, two thousand inhabitants at the most, though it looked prosperous. The castle, on a flat hill beside it, guarded the way in by both road and river. “In two hours both the town and the castle will be ours.”
“How, when you only have one soldier?” said Rix.
Lirriam gave a throaty laugh. “Shall I show the boy how we take what we want?”
Grandys scowled, then said, “The ride of glory. Go ahead and announce us, Ricinus. Make them sit up and take notice.”
Rix nodded stiffly. He had no idea how to announce the return of the Five Heroes, but one did not say no to Grandys. To him, all things were possible and he did not tolerate failure.
As Rix rode down the winding track, Lirriam’s laughter followed him.
“The boy,” he fumed. “After all I’ve done, she calls me the boy.”
But then, since he was obeying their every command, perhaps to them he was a child.
He reached the town. The gates stood open, it being daytime and the truce still in force. Rix rode in. It must have been market day for the streets were crowded. He looked back and saw a dust cloud a mile up the road — the Heroes coming at full gallop. He had only two minutes.
How was he to announce the ride of glory? Well, he made an imposing figure on the great horse, and Swire was a simple country town, so perhaps the simplest way was best. He clamped onto his shield with his dead hand, raised it above his head and struck it hard with his sword, again and again, until every eye in the square was on him. A hushed silence fell.
“Axil Grandys has been reborn!” said Rix. “The Five Heroes return. Hightspall is saved.”
Everyone stared at him as though he was mad. No one spoke for a few seconds, then everyone at once.
Rix stood up in his stirrups, pointed towards the racing dust cloud and said, “They come.”
And come they did, pounding towards the gate, their swords held high.
“Make way!” Rix shouted, afraid that they would ride down anyone in their way. “Make way for Axil Grandys. Make way for the Five Heroes.”
The crowd parted, barely in time. Grandys flashed through the gate, a majestic sight with his great sword and opal-armoured skin glistening, and then the others. No one could have doubted what they were seeing: the Five Heroes had truly returned. They skidded to a stop, their horses’ shoes striking sparks from the cobbles, then walked with majestic slowness to the centre of the square. What was Grandys going to do? What would he say?
The Five Heroes formed their horses into a circle, facing out. Grandys flicked his fingers at Rix, as if to say, Get out of our way, boy. Rix moved into the background, awed by the display, yet fuming at their contemptuous treatment.
Grandys stared down everyone who met his eyes, but did not speak.
“Hightspall is saved,” cried a brown-haired, pigtailed girl at the front of the crowd. She was no older than ten. “Hail Axil Grandys.”
“Hail Axil Grandys,” the crowd echoed. “Hail the Five Heroes, hail, hail!”
The Heroes formed a procession, Grandys leading. They rode slowly down the main street to the far gate, turned and rode back, still silent.
I’ll say one thing for the swine, Rix thought. He knows how to make an entrance.
At the square again, Grandys rose in his stirrups and searched the crowd, looking for one particular face.
“You, girl,” he said. “You who first hailed me. Come forward.”
The little girl did so, stumbling on the rough stones. She made him a rude curtsy. “Y-yes, Lord Grandys?”
“Who’s the lord of yonder Castle Swire?”
“It’s Lord Bondy, Lord Grandys.”
“Is Bondy a good man, child? Does he treat his people well?”
The girl gulped, looked around her, then said, “Not very well.”
“Is that so,” said Grandys. “Then I’ll have to chastise him, won’t I?”
“Yes, you will, Lord Grandys.”
“Come up here, child. Show me the way.”
Someone cried out, her mother perhaps, then fell silent. The girl walked slowly towards the enormous horse and its imperious rider.