Shit! Oh shit! He turned in a turbid cloud of silt and swam back as fast as he could The explosions knocked him backwards and he covered his ears as he tumbled downriver. These were different, no flash of a white-hot fireball but more traditional explosions, like the bombs that had levelled Dresden or blew up the bridge on the River Kwai. Steven felt like his head had caved in; he was sure his sinuses had filled with blood, which might even be spilling from his ears.
Finally he was able to grab a submerged tree trunk to stop his downstream fall and, pulling and kicking as hard as he could, he started back against the current, watching for any sign of the old man, blood, torn cloth, or even body parts, through the almost impenetrable cloud of mud stirred up by Gilmour’s attempts to free himself.
By the time he reached the moraine, the water had cleared again to its crystalline clarity. And Steven’s worst fears were realised: the cave at the base of the rock formation had collapsed.
The storm blew in diagonally through the forests of southern Falkan, a howling, ceaseless roar that rolled and bounced off the slopes of the Blackstone Mountains. Lieutenant Blackford did a quick mental calculation and shook his head. It’s not enough. He entered the barracks and made for Captain Hershaw, who was sitting behind Lieutenant Kranst’s old desk, worrying over a goblet of tecan.
‘Six days?’ Hershaw asked.
Blackford nodded.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Could we be invaded from the south?’
‘Over the Blackstones, in the dead of winter? Sure, Lieutenant, that happens here all the time.’ Captain Hershaw frowned. ‘She’s lost her mind.’
‘I’ve got to go and tell her we won’t be ready.’
‘Don’t do that.’ Hershaw stood, looking alarmed. ‘She’ll kill you too.’
‘I have to,’ the lieutenant said. ‘We’ll lose men, unnecessarily, if we attempt this before spring.’
Hershaw said, ‘Good luck, then.’
‘You want to come with me?’
‘Rutters, no!’ He grimaced. ‘I don’t think you should go anywhere near her, either. Wait for Pace; he’ll clear this up.’
Lieutenant Blackford folded a sheaf of parchment under his arm and started up the stairs to Major Tavon’s private office. ‘Major?’ he called, approaching from the outer hall.
‘Yes, Lieutenant?’ Tavon smiled, but it was a glassy, distant look, devoid of any real emotion. Something about her had gone tragically awry in the past three days, and Blackford hoped her illness – that’s what it had to be, some kind of crippling mental illness – had not done any irretrievable damage; maybe an Orindale healer might be able to cure their battalion commander. He and Captain Hershaw had already dispatched a rider to the capital to bring Colonel Pace and a team of healers as quickly as possible. Three officers and two soldiers were already dead, their bodies reduced to ash, and Blackford trembled every time he was forced to enter this room – but he was the only one man enough to actually do it. Everyone else, including Hershaw and Denne, who ought to be reporting to her, were unwilling even to come up the stairs.
‘We don’t have enough supplies – horses, food, blankets or wagons – to make a six-day forced march.’ He froze, waiting for the major’s wrath to explode. Sweat trickled under his collar.
‘Get more.’ Tavon perused a map she had spread across her desk.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Blackford turned to leave, then said, ‘Uh, Major?’
Tavon looked up. ‘What is it, Lieutenant?’
‘I’m not certain where we’ll find supplies enough for the entire battalion for that length of time.’
‘Then we will make the journey in fewer days. We’ll run the men day and night.’
‘Yes, ma’am, but-’
‘Lieutenant,’ Tavon cut him off. ‘I am not stupid.’
‘No, ma’am. Of course not, ma’am.’ Blackford kept his eyes on his boots.
‘I know that you have been keeping this battalion running smoothly and well-supplied for the past thirty-five Twinmoons.’
Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.’ His hands shook, and he clasped them together behind his back.
‘So I am not going to kill you, Lieutenant,’ Major Tavon clarified, as if it had been obvious all along. ‘Naked and drunk you’re still worth more to me than any dozen of these rutters.’
Lieutenant Blackford had no idea what a dozen might be; he promised himself he would ask Hershaw when he escaped the office. ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he muttered. He could think of nothing else to say.
‘So I want you to figure this out, Lieutenant. You have until the dinner aven tonight. We’ll march south after everyone has eaten.’ Tavon returned to her map.
‘That’s just it, ma’am,’ Blackford said. ‘There isn’t enough food. We have daily shipments from Orindale, but we have never had the entire battalion stationed in Wellham Ridge at the same time, so we haven’t ever stockpiled that much food, that many blankets, tent shelters, boots, uniforms, any of it.’
Major Tavon glared at him. ‘Mark me, Lieutenant Blackford. I don’t give a pinch of pigeon shit if half the men expire from hunger, cold or even herpes between here and Meyers’ Vale. It is your job to locate supplies and resources for this battalion. You have done an admirable job of it in the past, and that is why you are still standing here breathing. Take what you require from Wellham Ridge itself. Break into civilian homes, requisition their blankets, food, carts, horses, even trainers, if that’s what you need, but have this battalion ready to move by the dinner aven!’
Blackford trembled as he saluted and agreed, ‘Yes, ma’am. We’ll be ready.’ He backed towards the door, then turned smartly on his heel and hurried out. On the landing, he paused to look out the window. The storm was gaining strength.
THE MORAINE
The magic hadn’t left him; it was there waiting for him when Steven called it back to his fingertips. He stood on the riverbed, ignoring the possibility that he might once again become ensnared by the subterranean spell; somehow he knew that it wouldn’t reach out for him now; the moraine had caved in on itself and so there was no need for the web to gather up passers-by. The spell table and Gilmour were all but lost.
Steven was warm and he was still breathing, despite having been submerged for over half an hour. Get the spells going and they will go on for ever, like the Twinmoons, or the fountains at Sandcliff. Nerak had certainly put these spells in motion, and they had gone on for Twinmoons – but he and Gilmour had beaten one of them. He didn’t know if they had succeeded in unravelling the magic, but nothing was reaching out to drag him into the moraine, so he was content to believe that it could be done: the magic could be turned, diverted like a stream, or even dismantled.
He was seething now, but he waited just long enough for his anger to take a more definite shape. Once he could envisage his rage focused to a point, he ascended the mound of rocks, boulders and fallen trees. With the magic rumbling beneath his skin, he began to dig.
It might have taken nature a hundred thousand Twinmoons to gather such a heap, or maybe Nerak piled them there over the course of a few days, but Steven needed only a minute or two to cast half of them across the riverbed, finding unexpected reserves of energy and strength. As angry as he was at Nerak – and the riverbed – he hardly noticed that he was chucking eight- and nine-hundred-pound boulders downstream as easily as pebbles. Those too heavy to move, rocks as large as a car, he shattered into manageable sections. He dug, pulled, heaved, tossed and dragged the moraine into pieces until the once-majestic, beautifully flawed piece of sculpture had all but vanished.
When the silty bed beneath the moraine came into view, Steven paused long enough to locate the stone that had fallen over the swirling membranous spell. Gilmour would be down there, beneath that rock, if not already inside the putrid gullet. He shifted the stone, then hesitated as a pang of doubt hit him. It was the same fear that had trapped him on his porch as he sat all night long trying to summon the courage to follow Mark into Eldarn. Reaching into the mud now might mean losing his arm, losing his mind, maybe – who knew what lurked beneath?