Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (21 page)

It dimly occurred to him that he should be stopping to rest; they were both soaked to the skin, and he was ravenous. He’d let Prancer forage grass on the banks, but he was frightened the horse might eat something he shouldn’t. The hills on either side of the river were thick with stunted trees and undergrowth, but he caught sight of a stand of willows on a flat patch of ground on a bend and gratefully stumbled towards it. The sky grew lighter, revealing mist patches clinging to the slopes higher up. That distant sound like rolling thunder rose louder as the wind shifted.

‘Come on, lad, let’s rest here,’ he said, and Prancer whinnied moodily. There was a large pile of dung drying there, obviously from something equally big, and it was making the horse distinctly nervy, so Alaron buried it. Once he’d rubbed Prancer down, he finished the remains of his hardtack, softening it with river water. The day looked set for more rain, but for now the only sounds were birdsong, the wind in the leaves and the distant roar of what he finally realised must be the sea.

The sea
… He’d never seen it for real before, only illustrations in textbooks, pictures of massive cliffs and crashing waves hundreds of feet high.
Will the coast road – if there truly is one – take me right to the edge?
He hoped so. His father had spoken of the sea – and of course, crossing the great Bridge – and he’d always wanted to see it for himself.

He finished his desultory meal, and settled himself to try and sleep. He felt bone-weary, not just from the travelling, but from the loss of Jeris Muhren and the horror of what he’d seen at the Rimoni camp. Ferdi’s face kept haunting him, his casual, brutal slaying replaying over and over in his head. His killer had been utterly indifferent, as if she were just brushing off an insect.

There has to be a Hel. There has to be a place for such people.

He went to close his eyes when from above a shrill cry like a giant eagle filled the gully. A great black shape swooped down and flew along the river, only yards above the water. It was like a featherless bird with a wingspan of thirty feet at least, the musculature and veins clearly visible as it soared past him, close enough that its passing stirred the leaves. Its body was hues of grey and cream, and a long serpentine neck was topped by a bulbous head. A word dropped into his mind from his father’s tales of the Revolt: this was a venator, a winged reptile bred for hunting. There was a rider on its back, mounted just behind the neck on a complicated-looking saddle, with straps binding the rider to his seat.
A male Inquisitor
, he thought, peering at the young, sour-looking rider with his fur-lined cloak streaming out behind him.

Alaron felt Prancer take fright and reached out delicately with his gnosis to quell the horse’s fear. It was a delicate balance to strike, needing to be strong enough to override Prancer’s fear and yet delicate enough that the sudden flaring of gnosis would not draw the Inquisitor’s attention …

But he failed. Erring on the side of caution, he didn’t do enough and Prancer reared, dragging at his picket. The rider heard the noise and he jerked on his reins, pulling the venator’s head around so he could scan the ground – and saw Alaron.

He ran to Prancer, sending calm, making the horse wait for him as he wrenched the picket cord free and hurled himself into the saddle. From the corner of his eye he saw the venator bank and soar, already more than a hundred yards away. The dim light glinted on the Inquisitor’s helmet and the tip of his lance.

He had no great plan in mind; he just faced his frightened horse downstream and jammed his heels into his flanks. Prancer whinnied and burst into a gallop. For now there was only flight.

The Inquisitor was on him in a few seconds. His venator shrilled, making Prancer veer wildly through the shingle, slewing left, then right, trying to keep his balance. The rider’s lance was clamped into a holder that formed part of the saddle, which left the rider’s hands
free to deal with the reins and keep the beast under control. One gauntleted hand lifted and sent a vivid blue mage-bolt searing at him. He barely managed to get his shields up in time, and he clearly caught the Inquisitor’s smug smile.

the Inquisitor broadcast.

Damn!
Alaron fired a bolt back, aiming for the venator’s head, but the rider’s own shields easily encompassed his massive steed and the bolt sizzled into nothing. He wrenched Prancer to one side as the venator swerved towards him and massive claws tried to snatch him from the saddle, then he fired a mage-bolt at the creature’s pallid belly, putting in enough energy that it shrieked and veered away. He heard the Inquisitor curse as he fought for control.

Then Prancer thundered into the river and all Alaron’s concentration had to go into holding on as water fountained about them. The venator swooped again, the Inquisitor gestured and a wall of shingle and earth erupted at the horse’s feet. Alaron retaliated instantly, thanking Kore that Earth-gnosis was something he was proficient in, and succeeded in quelling the effect enough that they galloped through without falling – but the venator was on them again, the backdraft from its huge wings battering them as a lance stabbed downwards. Alaron snatched out his sword and hacked at the shaft while Prancer weaved away from the raking claws. He blazed gnosis-fire at the venator again, but he was so off-balance that he missed entirely. Then overhanging trees near the bank forced the venator away and he took the opportunity to desperately suck in air.

How far away is this bastard’s support?
he wondered.
How much time do I have?

Abruptly the Inquisitor changed tactics and urged his winged steed ahead. As massive wing-sweeps sent it climbing, Alaron felt him calling again, and this time he sensed distant replies. He hauled on Prancer’s head, trying to slow him, seeking more control and less blind haste, and as he did, he heard the rolling thunder of the sea somewhere ahead. All about him, the hills were closing in, and there were no paths into the thicket. There was nowhere to go but onwards.

Do I leave Prancer and take to my chances in the forest?
But that seemed
futile, unless he could somehow kill the venator or its rider and get away from this place.

Yeah, quarter-blood against Inquisitor
, he thought sardonically.
How’s that going to work out?

The Inquisitor was well ahead of him now, and turning to come back. He’d hauled his venator almost upright and it was hovering in place as if to say,
You can’t go this way
. Beyond the fearsome beast and its rider the landscape seemed to be opening out, as if lowlands lay beyond. The thunder of the waves was even louder.

Well, if that’s where he
doesn’t
want me to go …

Alaron stroked Prancer’s flanks as he strengthened his controls, binding the horse to trust beyond reason. The horse was trembling and sweating, terrified and near-exhausted. This chase could not go on much longer. Something had to give.

All or nothing.
He dug in his heels to Prancer’s flanks, urging him forward, his sword held aloft. In response, the venator flapped its wings and the Inquisitor lowered his lance.

Here goes
…

He kicked Prancer into a canter, sending loose shingle in all directions as he bounced forward, readying his gnosis for whatever opportunity came his way.

Take the Inquisitor down – or the venator … Live through this …

Eighty yards, seventy, sixty, fifty … Prancer kicked into a gallop, then the Inquisitor commanded the venator to lower its head and they careered together at an insane velocity. The lance-tip blossomed fire and bolt after bolt of blue flame began to sear towards them. Most flew wide, but some hammered his shields, blurring his vision as they closed. The speed of impact was going to make his shields almost useless. He heard himself bellow in defiance as they drove into each other.

The moment was on him almost before he realised. He repelled another mage-bolt, then he saw a glowing lance-tip and a beaked maw coming straight at him. He blazed energy at the rider and wrenched Prancer’s reins sideways.

He didn’t attack but threw himself flat on Prancer’s back as they
pounded
under
the venator’s path, as he sent coruscating light into the flight-path of his foe. The massive creature careened past; the lance-tip ripped the air inches from his shoulder and a venator claw buffeted his shoulder, but they passed unscathed.

he sent to Prancer as the Inquisitor bellowed in frustration and sent his winged beast soaring skywards. Then the land vanished from beneath his feet and he understood why the Inquisitor had been trying to block his path.

He and Prancer had just run off the edge of the world.

The reason he’d thought the land was opening out was because he’d reached the cliffs, and there’d been no warning roar of waves because it was low tide. The river ended in a waterfall that plummeted fully six hundred feet, straight down to a huge expanse of bare rock strewn with tide pools. Far, far in the distance he glimpsed a line of spray and a distant blue-grey-green expanse, then his attention was wholly given over to the fact that he was plummeting to certain death.

He summoned Air-gnosis, one of his weakest affinities, let go of Prancer with a despairing cry and managed to halve his falling speed as the horse plummeted onwards and hammered into the sea-smoothed rocks with a sickening crunch. The body bounced once, and Alaron threw all he had left into avoiding the same fate, desperately trying to at least soften the impact. The wall of rock flew at him, but with one last almighty surge of power he landed no harder than if he’d fallen from a tree. His knees cracked against the stone, but his splayed hands caught his upper body and then he rolled to absorb the rest of his fall. He came up battered but breathing and looked around at the bleak, featureless cliffs that spread north and south. The shelf he was standing on was completely bare. Water had carved channels and worn the rock smooth by the tides, and he started to remember geography lessons where he’d studied such places. Tidelands could be a few hundred yards wide to a dozen or more miles, and they were usually only bare for about four hours a day … and the incoming waves could cover them in minutes.

There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. He’d landed near a narrow channel that wound from the waterfall above towards the
ocean miles to the east, but it was only a few feet deep. He’d dropped his sword as he fell and couldn’t see it anywhere.
Brilliant
…

Fatalism filled him. There was no way a lowly quarter-blood like him could get out of this. He tried to summon mental images of the people he loved: his parents, Cym, Ramon … Anise –
thank Kore I didn’t tell her to wait
– and that was about it, really. Not so many to farewell.

The venator topped the cliffs and spiralled towards him. He watched it land heavily above Prancer’s body. Its beak dipped and ripped, tearing still-warm flesh from the corpse. The Inquisitor unstrapped his harness, left his lance in its cup and slid to ground. ‘Alaron Mercer, I presume,’ he said ironically. He looked like he might be in his mid-twenties – a half-blood, Alaron guessed, on the basis that he’d not already been overwhelmed. He’d not last much longer though. He had nothing left now, not even a weapon.

He backed away, and the Inquisitor followed him at a leisurely pace. ‘The Crozier wants a word with you,’ he said conversationally, drawing his sword.

‘Malevorn,’ Alaron croaked.

The Inquisitor grinned evilly. ‘Andevarion said he knew you. We have a wager going over who will find you. I thought I’d lucked out when I got sent east, but it appears fortune is on my side.’

Alaron stumbled backwards through the small stream and fell onto his backside on the far side. The Inquisitor gracefully leapt the stream and landed above Alaron with his feet planted wide and his sword pointed at his chest.

‘Kore’s blood, you’ve been a nuisance,’ the Inquisitor said, ‘but I’ve got you now.’ Mage-fire blossomed from his left hand and blasted into Alaron’s midriff. His shields failed and his wet clothing sizzled as the energy jolted through him. He curled up, stricken, trying to breathe. The Inquisitor put the sword-point to his throat. Alaron looked along the straight steel blade and wished only to die.

‘I, Acolyte Seldon of the Eighteenth Fist, arrest you in the name of the Inquisition.’

*

Seldon’s call resounded through the aether and Malevorn rolled his eyes as he followed the call back to the east.
Damn.
Muttered curses echoed dimly through the aether as the Fist’s mental links conveyed the mix of relief at the finding of their quarry and annoyance at losing the wager.

The torture and lingering death of Mercellus di Regia, the Rimoni caravan-master whose people they’d butchered, had confirmed that Alaron Mercer had been with Jeris Muhren when he arrived at the camp. A search of the wreckage had revealed no sign of the Scytale – of course, Malevorn officially didn’t know what they were seeking, so he kept his mouth shut. But Commandant Vordan had been visibly frustrated as he’d ordered the venator riders to fan out, hunting his former classmate.

It still seemed ridiculous that Alaron Mercer could be involved: obstinate, stupid merchant-spawn that he was. But it appeared he really was. Malevorn reported what he knew of him before the Fist fanned out to seek their quarry, then he’d been sent south, to a pass that led into Rimoni. He’d thought it a reasonable chance, but it looked like Seldon had won the bet.

He swung his venator northeast, using Air-gnosis to help it gain altitude. The mental voices of the others – nine voices now, no longer eleven – came from all points. Jeris Muhren had fought like a beast, killing Brother Alain on the ground and then Brother Jonas in the air. He’d fought well, for a half-blood.

Until I spitted him
. Malevorn smirked inwardly. That had gained him praise from Adamus Crozier – but not Commandant Vordan, who’d wanted Muhren alive.
How was I to know he knew the Soul’s End spell?