She plodded on down the blue tunnel, the emanations from the unseen heatstone mine hurting more with every step. She had to keep ahead of Lyf, though she felt sure he was driving her, herding her.
I can heal him… It was Lyf, speaking into her mind.
He was either trying to tempt her, or rattle her so she gave herself away, and she wasn’t having it. She could play that game too. It’s the catalyz you’re looking for, isn’t it?
Lyf did not reply, and she sensed that he was thinking fast. If she knew its name, did she also know its purpose — the deadly secret that only one person in the world was allowed to know?
And I know what it is, said Tali. The platina circlet.
She sensed rage — or was it fear? She could not tell. She tried to check on Tobry but using the mage glass hurt her now and she could not get it to focus. All she could see was a surge of bodies — one mass dark, the other pale — and a blurred mass of running people flecked with red.
She had to keep ahead of Lyf long enough to find a way to beat him. But the longer she took, the stronger the heatstone would make him, and the more of her people would be killed. They needed her desperately but there was no way to get back to them.
Tali rounded a corner. The passage opened out and was joined by another, a broad down-sloping ramp that she had never seen before, curving down to her left. She was hesitating at the intersection when she saw someone moving up, stumbling and lurching wildly from side to side as though drunk. But not mildly drunk — intoxicated to the point that he could barely stand up.
“War!” Wil wailed, blood and mucus dribbling from his alkoyl-eaten nose. “War in beautiful Cython. Not the right ending,” he screamed, waving a fuming platina flask in the air.
Who’s there? said Lyf sharply.
It’s Mad Wil, said Tali. Your man. And he’s carrying a flask of alkoyl. I seem to remember that alkoyl hurts you, Lyf.
Ah, but Wil does what I tell him to, and he wants to glide his fingers around your pretty white throat and choke the life out of you. He wants that, desperately, Tali. Should I let him?
CHAPTER 98
Grandys’ troops gathered around, swilling from their flagons and calling out bets on how many seconds Rix could survive in the icy cistern. Few wagers were over a hundred seconds. His cretinous thugs can’t count any higher, Rix thought sourly.
The cold was seeping into his muscles by the time he saw Glynnie’s white, desperate face appear at the far side. She was held by the same two fellows who had thrown Rix in. Were they going to cast her in as well?
He floundered through sharp pieces of ice like broken glass, reached the side and tried to pull himself out, but the inner wall of the cistern was covered in slime and he could not get a grip. He pushed upwards and caught the rim. Grandys, swaying drunkenly, put his hand in the middle of Rix’s forehead and shoved him back in.
Rix trod water, the cold leaching his strength. A hand reached out to him. He made a grab for it. It was slim and pale, a woman’s cold hand. He looked up. Lirriam! She met his eyes, smiled, then shook him free and thrust him under. Everyone roared with drunken laughter.
Rix knew he was beaten. He had failed Glynnie, and failed Hightspall too. But he fought the despair. He was never giving in.
The cold was making his bones ache, slowing his movements and undermining his will to keep going. How long could he last? Another few minutes in the icy water would finish him, though he suspected he would be hauled out before the end and subjected to a worse fate. Drowning was too good for a traitor, would-be deserter, oath-breaker and attempted murderer.
He was splashing feebly when he realised that the atmosphere around the cistern had changed. The troops closest to the gates were lurching around, calling out drunken warnings.
Rix caught the rim and, after several attempts, managed to pull himself up until he could see over. A flight of arrows came whistling through the open gates and two soldiers slumped over the side of the cistern. One had a red-and-yellow feathered arrow right through his neck, the other was dead with three similar arrows in a tight group in the middle of his back. Several more men were hit and fell the other way.
His teeth chattered. What was going on? He was so cold that it was hard to think. The arrows bore the colours of Bastion Cowly. Someone must have got away during the attack and called back the men who had marched out that morning. Or perhaps they had seen the bonfire and knew what it meant. Grandys’ drunken debauches after taking a castle were legendary.
A second flight of arrows tore into Grandys’ troops, cutting down another seven, then a third flight. Grandys staggered around, an arrow deep in his right shoulder where the opal armour had cracked.
He reached back and after several attempts snapped off the shaft. “Attack, attack!” he bellowed.
But at the sight of their leader’s blood, and a quarter of their friends fallen to an enemy shooting from the darkness, a drunken panic set in and his troops fell over themselves to get away. Lirriam and the other three Heroes had disappeared.
The cold was unbearable now. Rix tried to pull himself out but his arms lacked the strength to heave his weight up the slime-covered side of the cistern.
Grandys fumbled for his sword but his sheath was empty. “Maloch?” he said thickly, looking around. “Maloch?”
He’d dropped the sword on a bench up near the bonfire, earlier, but perhaps was too drunk to remember. He caught sight of Rix, clinging to the edge, grinned and clenched an opal-crusted fist. As he was lurching towards Rix with murder in his eye, little Glynnie appeared to his left, swinging a six-foot baulk of timber.
“Try me, you stinking mongrel!”
Grandys turned and reached out, swaying, but too late. The baulk of timber, swung with all her strength, slammed into his face, breaking the opal armour off his nose and driving him backwards. He staggered around, then crashed against the side of the cistern next to Rix, blood pouring from his smashed nose.
“Rix is mine,” Glynnie said with deadly menace, and whacked Grandys again, splitting his left ear. “Touch him again and you die.”
Grandys’ eyes almost popped with astonishment and fury. He bellowed and tried to heave himself upright to go for her, and he was such a strong brawler that he could end her life with a single blow. Rix swung his right arm around Grandys’ throat and pulled it tight, trying to choke the life out of him, but did not have the strength.
Glynnie reversed the length of timber and jammed the broken end into Grandys’ belly. Brittle opal cracked and a grunt was forced out of him, though he did not seem badly harmed. She struck him between the legs. He let out a strangled roar, prised Rix’s arm from around his throat and swayed on his feet. Glynnie thumped Grandys over the back of the head, driving him to his knees.
“After them,” a man bellowed from outside the gateway. “Cut the gutless dogs down. Avenge our dead and restore the honour of Bastion Cowly.”
“Get out of sight!” hissed Rix, terrified that Glynnie would be shot by mistake.
CHAPTER 99
“All Wil’s fault, Lord King,” said Wil as he reached the top, slobbering and gasping. He wiped his nose on his arm, which was crusted with dried blood and muck to the elbow. “Wil changed the ending. Wil got to atone.”
Tali looked over her shoulder. Lyf was only twenty yards away.
“How could you change the story, worm?” Lyf said coldly.
“Tried to fix Engine but everything went wrong.”