Prophecy's Ruin (Broken Well Trilogy) (31 page)

The crackling of power grew louder . . .

Corlas raised the bow . . .

Muscles bulged on Battu’s arms . . .

The bolt flew from the crossbow, its metal tip glinting blue as energy blotted out the sky . . .

Above the hill, the energy sizzled away into nothing as Battu dispelled it, only a few thin strands hitting the earth and sending up tiny spurts of dust . . .

The crossbow bolt smacked deeply into the Shadowdreamer’s side.

Battu screamed and toppled backwards, his arms still raised to the sky. He twisted a hand to point at Corlas as he fell, but nothing came out of it. All his power had been spent. He disappeared from view down the other side of the rise.

With a pained grunt, Corlas got to his knees and then, somehow, to his feet. With legs caked in sweaty grime, he took one more step up the rise before giddiness overcame him. All the pains of his body became real and he gasped. His legs buckled and he went sliding back down the rise, dust and pebbles bouncing before him. When he came to a stop at the bottom, against the body of the large Arabodedas, he was unconscious.

Of the battle he remembered nothing more.

He awoke sometime later to a darkening sky. Nearby were the sounds of footsteps and men talking.

‘Well, find him!’ said a voice. ‘He must be here somewhere!’

‘Troop leader!’ called another, closer by. ‘He’s here!’

A silhouette loomed into Corlas’s view. It was the tall troop leader, Murcoh. As Murcoh kneeled by Corlas’s side, pain overtook him again and he faded mercifully into blackness.

•

Corlas set his mug on the table. ‘And that was that,’ he said. ‘The day was won. Those of us left alive returned to the fort. It was badly damaged but it was ours. When I awoke there, I learned the wounded Shadowdreamer had ordered a retreat, spilling acid vats behind him to cover his escape. He left his war machines behind too, which were taken into the fort. They are still there now, in case he ever returns for them.

‘The Shadowdreamer did not die from his hurt, but then again neither did I. Maybe both our gods were looking out for us that day.

‘I heard that Brindle’s miners matched the soldiers for ferocity – and also that their dark clothes and pale skin from days spent under the earth made them easy to mistake for Arabodedas. Perhaps that is why so many of them survived.

‘The gerent and his guards were killed in the vortex blasts on the fort. I was sorry to learn he had died . . . but I will always be glad that we rode out of the trap and took the fight into our own hands.’

He flexed his hands as he stared at them, callused and coarse from the years they had seen.

‘So you see, Bel . . . this blood frenzy you experienced is no stranger to our bloodline. I know how disturbing it can be to realise that you lost control. Even to realise that you
enjoyed
losing it, and enjoyed the death you carved out around you. But it has purpose: to protect us, and make our enemies quake. As long as you do not seek to feed it unnecessarily, it is not an evil thing. It allows us to do what is necessary . . . to survive and to
win
.’

He sighed. ‘I took some time after that battle, just as you now seek to. In fact, I deserted my post. So I understand your desire to return to the keepers.’

Corlas felt suddenly tired, and realised his mouth was dry from an unaccustomed amount of talking. He raised his mug and downed his remaining ale. Bel sat silent, reflective, deep in thought – and, Corlas was pleased to note, calm.

Corlas rose. ‘It’s late. Time to retire, I think.’

‘Yes, Father,’ said Bel, and stood.

Twenty-six / The Mocking Bird

Twenty-six

The Mocking Bird

The Mocking Bird

Borgordusmae reflected the first rays of the morning sun, the Auriel sparkling beneath Naphur’s hair. He’d come to sit and think alone on his seat of power.

Footsteps sounded on the sunken stairway that led up to the court. Baygis emerged to walk up the red carpet, his white-gold robe billowing around his feet. A year before his fortieth birthday, Baygis still looked youthful: the same slender build, the same twinkling eyes, the same mischievous face. He stopped before the towering chair and bowed lower than was necessary, as he always did. Naphur was too distracted to be amused.

‘Long night, Father?’ Baygis asked, arching an eyebrow.

‘Long rule,’ said Naphur, gazing off at the spreading light on the horizon. ‘You know, Baygis, you were once so keen to sit where I sit.’

‘I was younger,’ said Baygis. ‘The “trappings of power” did not seem such a literal definition. Anyway, I enjoyed making you watch your back.’

The Throne grunted. ‘And you like your freedom too, don’t you? Gallivanting about with your entourage of clever friends.’ The Throne smiled then, at something remembered. ‘I want to see the desert again, you know. Race some dune claws with the Saurians.’ He broke his northwards gaze. ‘Don’t foul your leggings, son. There are too many things that need doing for me to retire anytime soon. But in a few years, Baygis . . . in a few years, I might give up the Auriel. I deserve some time to myself while I can still appreciate it.’

‘What?’ said Baygis. ‘While you can still appreciate it? You’re an ox, Father, who’ll live another forty years at least, and I really will have to kill you if I ever want to warm my arse on Borgordusmae.’

The Throne smiled. ‘Baygis, I’m being serious. When the time comes . . .’

‘When the time comes,’ said Baygis, ‘then of course I’ll take the seat. I don’t know how you got it into your head that I didn’t still want it. Of course I do. All that
power,
and the
women,
women who love
power
. . .’ Baygis grinned.

Though Naphur knew he was being wound up, he couldn’t help but react. ‘Baygis! Being Throne is a difficult and serious task!’ he snapped.

‘I know,’ said Baygis. ‘Don’t worry. I serve you well enough, surely, to inspire some modicum of faith?’

‘And anyway,’ said Naphur, ‘I’m sure you already have more than your fair share of women. Many the poor servant girl, unmercifully seduced by his lordship on his travels. Oh yes – I know about you.’

‘Servant girls?’ said Baygis with distaste. ‘Only if whichever Trusted I was visiting didn’t have any virtuous daughters. Or happened to be the wrong species. The wasp Trusted’s daughters, for example, are out of the question on a purely anatomical basis –’

‘Baygis!’ said Naphur, exasperated.

‘I’m only joking, Father. Of course it’s just servant girls. Well, maybe some minor ladies, but never – ’

‘Baygis!’

‘Sorry.’

‘Harrumph!’ said Naphur. ‘You do realise you are long overdue to be married!’

This time it was Baygis’s expression that turned sour.

‘Do you ever plan to produce any heirs?’ asked Naphur.

‘I’m sure I already have one or two I don’t know about.’

The Throne went red.

‘Like to change the subject, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ said the Throne through clenched teeth.

‘Very well. I got the morning missive saying you wished to see me. I assume it wasn’t just to cover this old ground?’

‘No,’ said the Throne. ‘There’s a weaver out there, hanging around the wards.’

‘A weaver? What do you want me to do?’

‘I won’t have the Shadowdreamer’s eyes on my capital. Send yourself or your mages, I don’t care which – just deal with it.’

‘Very well, my Throne. Though I think I shall go myself.’

‘There, at least, is a similarity between us,’ said Naphur, causing Baygis to raise an eyebrow. ‘Our love of the hunt,’ he clarified.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Baygis. ‘So it is.’ He smiled at his father and left.

Naphur’s eyes went north again and he thought about his brief youth, of battles and racing and travel, of the days before unending rule and responsibility. Baygis could take over once he’d sorted out this business with Bel. But how long would that take?

A while yet, perhaps
, he thought.

•

Baygis hadn’t hunted for some time and now he felt the thrill of it again. He’d been following a slight flicker of shadow
presence
, far off and possibly imagined, for many hours over hills and fields. The creature was fast when it moved, but then it would stay in the same place for a while, allowing Baygis to draw nearer. Finally, about a league past the ward stones, he’d crested a hill, seen a small wood and sensed that the creature was somewhere inside.

As an ambassador, Baygis had become highly adroit at going unnoticed. It often aided his purposes to overhear private conversations, or mingle easily in kitchens and barracks, the mixing pots of common gossip. As he covered the open ground towards the wood, he concentrated on making himself too inconsequential to notice, until not even the ants in the grass felt the vibrations of his steps. If the weaver happened to be watching from the branches, Baygis was confident it would not see him.

As he stepped into the wood, he relaxed a little, his physical presence being easier to hide amongst cover. He moved between trees like a floating ghost, questing out thinly with his senses, trying to detect the creature without it detecting him in return. Animals moved under bushes or along logs, oblivious to his presence. He paused in the shade of a big birch. He was close to the creature now, he was sure of it. There was a gap in his magical perception, something of the shadow that he knew was there but could not make out, a blotchy silhouette. Easing slowly around a tree, he examined the branches above. Perched on the branch of a clawberry tree, pecking at the corpse of a finch, was the weaver.

Its head snapped up, a strip of flesh dangling from its beak. Even as Baygis realised it had seen him, the bird was away, a bright flash through the trees. Baygis broke into a run, moving unnaturally fast.

Idiot mage,
came the weaver’s voice in his mind.
I am of the shadow, yet you stand in shadows to elude me?

Baygis could sense the bird getting away and he burned magic for fleetness, tearing recklessly through the trees, so quickly that his feet hardly touched the ground.

The bird’s voice came again.
Don’t they teach you anything these days?

They teach us not to prattle when we need to flee,
returned Baygis.

Stretching out his hands as he ran, he conjured a sphere of light. ‘Seek,’ he told it, and it shot off into the canopy. Ahead of him the bird chirped in panic as the sphere caught up and suffused it, making it convulse and hurtle to the ground. It struggled to right itself, powerless against the gold bonds of energy that now pinned down its wings. As Baygis reached it, the effort of his run caught up with him. He sank to his knees before the prostrate weaver.

‘What is your name?’ he said between heavy breaths.

The weaver’s blood-drop eyes swivelled to the mage who towered over him. ‘Die screaming, Varenkai.’

Baygis waggled his fingers. Inside the bird’s body tiny lines of fire ignited in pathways. It screamed, a sound like a kettle boiling. Baygis dropped his hand and the pain ceased. The weaver’s yellow chest rose and fell with uneven gasps.

‘What is your name?’ said Baygis.

‘Iassia,’ said the bird.

‘I’ll have your true name as well. And it will depend entirely on you how long you must remain in pain before you speak it. If you answer my questions, release will come swiftly.’

Iassia’s tiny head fell back against the grass. ‘Release?’ he said contemptuously. ‘You think that is what such a death would bring me?’ He twittered bitterly. ‘It does not, I assure you. You’ll never have my true name.’

‘Are you sure?’

Baygis’s fingers curled and the fiery pain spread again in myriad tiny threads that crisscrossed every part of Iassia’s body. The mage waited patiently as the weaver writhed. His scream became soundless, his beak frozen open, his eyes bulging wide. Eventually Baygis dropped his hand.

‘Your name,’ he said.

Iassia didn’t respond. His eyes closed and his wings went limp.

‘I know you hear me, bird.’

Iassia opened an eye. His voice, when it came, was scratchy, ruined by the scream. ‘You are a fool, mage. I will endure you forever before I speak my true name. Go ahead and convert all your power into pain. Once you are empty, let the other mages of the Halls work in shifts, burning me through day and night. I will still outlive you and all your kin. I can wait until Kainordas falls to time itself, and when the stones of the Open Castle lie in ruins grown thick with moss,
I
 will emerge and fly away, and still you won’t have heard my name.’

‘There are other ways to find it, as well you know,’ countered Baygis calmly. ‘Perhaps I should try one of your own tricks.’

‘What?’ said the bird, but it was too late.

Baygis drove a mental spike into Iassia, entering his mind with stunning force. He knew he could not match the weaver in a prolonged test of psychic strength, but the suddenness and violence of his attack was enough to wedge himself inside. He felt Iassia’s blocks go up, and raised his fingers above the bird once more, distracting it with physical pain. The blocks faltered and Baygis broke them down, swinging a hammer in Iassia’s head, not concerned with the destruction he caused. Iassia screamed mentally as well as physically, and Baygis seized what he’d come for.

‘Found it,’ he said.

‘No,’ whispered the bird in true terror.

‘Iashymaya Siashymor. A pretty name for such an ugly soul.’

‘You have no right!’

‘Wish to be sent back to Arkus, little one?’

‘No! Please!’

‘Perhaps you’ll answer my questions now.’

‘You’ll kill me either way.’

‘So you still want pain until the moss grows thick on the castle ruins?’

‘No. No. Though, fortunately for me, I don’t think I have to be that patient.’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Baygis.

The bird raised his head. ‘Behind you.’

Baygis heard the
whiz
a moment before the arrow’s impact knocked him from his knees. Reflexively he rolled and sent a stream of liquid fire back towards the source of the attack. There was a short shriek as the fire hit someone, followed by a sizzling that was even louder. Baygis stumbled to his feet, throwing up guards against further attacks. He glanced to where the bird had lain and cursed to find his net had failed and it was gone. Sending out his senses with none of his former subtlety, he was just in time to feel Iassia flitting out of range of any useful spellcasting. Sharp pain killed his concentration and his hand went to his shoulder. He winced as his fingers closed about the shaft sticking out his back. Best to return to the Halls and let someone else remove it – healing was not one of his strengths.

He cursed again.

Trying to ignore the pain, he went to the body of his assailant. Smoke belched from the charred corpse and the smell of roasted flesh filled the air. It had been a Black Goblin, its lips melted away to reveal a permanent snarl. One of Battu’s rogue archers? There’d been no sign of them for years. Perhaps the bird had managed to call it, but it had to have been very close.

One of its eyes rolled in the socket.

Baygis tensed, ready to attack – but there was no way the goblin could still be alive. He watched in disgust as an insect-like leg pushed from under the goblin’s eyelid, hooking barbs onto the remains of the cheek. The leg tensed and the eyeball rose in the socket, other legs coming free beneath it, and clear wet wings. It was a bug-eye, Baygis realised, a creature that linked the sight of its host to the Shadowdreamer. Pulling a dagger from his belt, he stabbed the thing back down into the eye socket. Its legs whipped about frantically, lacerating the grilled flesh of the goblin’s face.

Had the Shadowdreamer been watching?

He sighed at the failure of his mission, and turned to make his way painfully home.

•

Battu’s eye refocused, joining his other in true sight. His link to the bug-eye had been severed.

The archer hadn’t killed Naphur’s boy, which would have been a pleasant bonus. At least the bird had escaped. Part of Battu considered Iassia’s ordeal just punishment for not discovering sooner that Bel had been in the open. As it was, the assassins he’d sent into the area were too late – Bel had disappeared back through the wards by the time they’d arrived. He’d left the goblins there in case Bel became exposed again, but now the Throne would know there were Fenvarrow operatives close to the wards. They would have to withdraw.

Battu sank back in Refectu, the vision from other bug-eyes flicking through his gaze.

•

Quickly and painfully Iassia flew, shaken and angry and scared to his bones. No mortal before Baygis had ever learned his true name – the fate all weavers feared the most. He shuddered at the thought of what Arkus might have in store for any weavers who were returned to him.

He would bring destruction to these people, he swore it to himself. He would make them pay for what they’d done, for making him feel this way!

Fluid rose in his throat and he set down clumsily on a branch. The face of Baygis rose in his mind and he shivered and quaked and twittered in terror.