As he leapt forwards to strike a killing blow, his foot came down on a greasy platter someone had dropped on the cobblestones, and he slipped and nearly fell. Instantly Grandys was on him and Rix only kept Maloch out of his heart by the most desperate of efforts.
He was losing strength, losing heart. He could not win. Then he caught the look in Glynnie’s eyes and remembered how utter her faith in him had been, when he had promised to go with her after the war and find out what had happened to Benn. He could not let her down.
When fighting Grandys, the only defence was attack. Rix began another brilliant onslaught and knew it was his last, for his strength was failing and his vision beginning to blur. Twice he got his sword to Grandys’ chest, and once to his throat, drawing blood there, but could not penetrate the man’s defences. It was time for the last throw.
He slipped his dead hand into a sheath he’d stitched into an inner pocket. He’d previously practised clamping onto the dagger with his dead hand, then throwing the weapon using his arm rather than his hand. It was a desperate ploy and if he missed, as he probably would, Grandys would tear his throat out.
But the knife wasn’t there.
Grandys guffawed, exposing the huge gap where Rix had knocked out his front teeth, and fished the knife out of his own pocket. “Looking for something?”
Rix attacked desperately but the best of his strength was gone. He knew he was beaten; Glynnie was lost.
“Had you watched ever since I renewed the command spell, boy,” sneered Grandys, “the moment you started practising knife throwing with your dead hand, I knew what you were up to. I was going to bait my trap with the Pale slave but your maidservant is even better. And now she gets to watch you die — proof that I’m the better man for her.”
“Rix, behind you,” cried Glynnie.
Too late. The sword was struck from his hand and he was caught from behind in a wrestler’s grip he could not break.
“Bring him here,” said Grandys, dropping Maloch on a bench.
His right eye was turning purple through the cracked opal armour; it was so swollen that he could only see out through a slit. He tore a flagon from a soldier’s hand and drained it, spilling wine down his front like purple blood then, staggering drunkenly, headed down the slope to a water cistern on the left side of the open gates of Bastion Cowly. Grandys never shut the gates of his fortresses, for he had no fear of any man.
“You know what to do,” said Grandys, jerking a thumb at the cistern.
Lengths of broken timber were scattered all around, from the breaking of the gates. They would have made useful weapons if Rix had been able to reach one, but he was securely held.
The wrestler lifted Rix upright. Grandys gave him a blow in the mouth that loosened his front teeth, another to the chest that almost stopped his heart and a third to the groin that made him shriek. A second man seized his feet and they heaved him over the low side of the cistern. He crashed through a thin sheet of ice into the freezing water.
“Gather — gather round, one and all,” Grandys said, now slurring his words. He was drunker than Rix had ever seen him, but still strong, still dangerous. “Ounce of gold to the man who can guess… who can guess how many seconds Ricinus… survive. Bring the maid. Might make her more friendly.”
CHAPTER 96
The rebellion was going to end in a massacre. Tali had to come up with a new plan, fast.
“Holm?” she yelled. “Radl?”
They did not answer, and she had no idea where to look for them.
“Balun?”
He was gone too.
She had to know how the battle was going and where the fighting was. Tali got out the mage glass, held it over the map, put her eye to the lens and twisted the ring to focus it. The map went out of focus and an image grew in its place, as though she were looking down from the ceiling at the empty assembly area outside the subsistery. The floor was littered with dead and dying but the battle had moved on.
She moved the mage glass back and forth. The view was slightly blurred now and she could not make it any clearer, but in a broad grey tunnel several hundred yards away she made out a band of about forty Cythonians, fighting a couple of hundred Pale. And the Cythonians had the advantage.
They were forcing the Pale backwards, using their superior height and weight. The Pale could not use their far greater numbers because the passage was only wide enough for a dozen people to fight side by side. Even if they had outnumbered the enemy ten to one it would not have availed them.
She checked a nearby passage, then another. The story was the same everywhere — the Pale were either in fighting retreat, or bloody rout. Nowhere could she see them winning.
Where was Radl? Given the reckless way she fought, she was probably dead by now. Where were Tobry and Holm? She could not pick them out anywhere. What if they were dead as well, and she were all alone, leading a battle that was already lost?
Another band of Pale ran her way. Many had bloody wounds, and most had lost their weapons. “Don’t give up!” Tali yelled. “We’ve got heatstone and the enemy are afraid of it. We can still win.”
They took no notice.
“Holm, Holm?” she yelled.
“Here!” He forced his way through the Pale, who were milling about aimlessly. Holm was thickly coated in dust, even his eyelashes.
“I brought the roof down,” she said, “but they’ll come at us from another direction. Our only hope is to go down.”
“Where to?”
“The next level — the chymical level.”
“What’s it like?” said Holm.
“No idea; no Pale has ever been allowed in. But it’ll give us other options. And other weapons too.”
“How do we get down?”
“This way.” She pointed down past the entrance to the toadstool grottoes, where she had laboured for many years with Mia. It felt like a lifetime ago. “Not far. They started cutting a drift down before I escaped. I imagine it was finished a long time ago, but it’ll be blocked off.”
“What do you want from me?” said Holm.
“Bring a dozen helpers — people with initiative, if you can find any — and heatstone, as much as they can carry. If you see Radl, tell her to come here.”
He nodded and ran off.
Shortly Radl appeared with a dozen Pale behind her. Tali’s heart skipped a beat. “Are they… all that’s left?”
Radl’s full lip curled. “Do you truly think so little of your people? They’ve fought bravely, and we’ve won a skirmish or two.”
“It’s not enough and we both know it.”
“What do you want?”
“Teach them how to use heatstone properly. They’re letting the enemy get too close. They’ve got to use it from a distance, and if they can hurl it in a volley, all the better. But not at the enemy — if it hits them it won’t go off. It needs to land at their feet.”
“I’ll get onto it,” said Radl. “What’s your new plan?” She wasn’t so arrogant now that her own plan had failed so badly.
“Holm is going to break a way down to the chymical level. He needs sl — ” Tali had almost said slaves. “He needs people with initiative, and heatstone, plenty of it. Can you — ?”
“Damn right,” said Radl, raising a bloody sword. She wore an enemy’s belt over her loincloth, with a dozen red chuck-lashes dangling from it. She gestured to her followers. “Come on!”
“Then round everyone up and bring them here,” Tali yelled after her.
She picked up a small crate of heatstone pieces in her good hand, using her gift to try and block the pain that speared through her head. She was heading past the toadstool grottoes when she caught a whiff of its heavy, cloying smell, a mixture of earthy, fishy, fetid and foul odours. Dozens of kinds of edible toadstools were cultured there, plus some of the dangerous ones.