Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (82 page)

‘Precisely what do you offer in return?’ said Flydd.

‘Our aid in your coming battle at Snizort. Plus Treacherous Tiaan, and Cryl-Nish Hlar the Rogue.’

‘And that is all? I am hard pressed to see any difference between you and the lyrinx, save that they are honest foes.’

The Aachim stiffened as if they had been given a mortal insult. ‘You challenge our honesty?’ cried Vithis. ‘Damn you. The offer is withdrawn. You will regret this insult, scrutator.’

For a moment Flydd did not know what to say, but he was not going to back down. ‘You did not deal honestly with Tiaan,’ he said mildly. ‘Why should you treat us any differently?’

‘You will regret impugning our good name, scrutator.’

‘I’ll make sure you regret it more. You are a
little
force in an unknown land and your supplies are running low. Every man is your enemy; every woman; every child. Even if we took five casualties for every one of yours, you would suffer the greater injury.’

‘You reveal yourself,’ said Vithis furiously, and now Tirior and Luxor were solidly behind him. ‘Your real plan is to eradicate the Aachim and no threat could spur us to greater efforts. We will fight bitterly for our survival, scrutator!’

‘I merely point out what is obvious. May I have Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

‘You may not. Begone, Scrutator Flydd, or you will see what our little force can do.’

I
risis was an early riser, normally up long before the scrutator. On going out Fyn-Mah’s front door at sunrise a few days later, she was surprised to see Flydd in his chair, staring at a message sheet.

‘You look horrible,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Should have stayed in bed.’

‘I haven’t been to bed yet.’ He did not look up.

‘Something else the matter?’

‘Ha!’ he said savagely.

‘What is it?’ He was like a barnacle in the mornings.

‘Eiryn Muss can’t find any way into Snizort. Therefore, I can’t carry out my orders – to destroy this strange node-drainer.’

‘What about a massed attack?’

‘As soon as we begin, they would simply drain the field, stopping the clankers dead. I don’t dare.’

‘Well, Muss is the best spy there is. He may still find a way.’

‘Not in time. Their great project is nearly complete; he knows that much. And the lyrinx are preparing for battle. We must attack now or lose what little advantage we have.’

‘But without clankers …’

‘We’re doomed. So I have only one option left.’

‘Oh no.’

‘I’m afraid so. The node-drainer won’t affect constructs since they don’t rely on the weak field. I must go back to Vithis on my belly, agree to his demands and beg him for assistance. What price will he put on aid now? I can’t bear to think. The scrutators will crucify me after this.’

‘And yet you must pay the price,’ she said, ‘for even a small part of our world is better than none.’

‘I must.’ He had never looked more haggard or careworn. ‘There’s only one consolation and I’m sure you saw it too. The Aachim are like warring tribes, forced to unite though they hate each other. We may be able to make use of that, in time.’

‘If we get the time.’

Unfortunately the Aachim proved united and inflexible. Flydd had grovelled, a hideous sight; the Aachim had accepted his concessions.

Another four days had gone by before the preparations were complete. Now the battle was about to begin. Irisis was with Flydd at a command post on one of the flat-topped hills overlooking the battleground.

She surveyed the scene through the scrutator’s spyglass. Snizort lay on a broad rise with lower, gently undulating land all around, grassland but with patches of scrubby forest, small, mostly boulder-topped hills and isolated clusters of sandstone boulders. The forest near the eastern wall had recently been cleared, the fallen trees forming barriers that clankers would find it difficult to cross. Inside the walls lay the Great Seep, a vast and bottomless mire of liquid tar surrounded by steaming, crystal-crusted vents and a number of pits, some large and deep, from which solidified tar had been mined for thousands of years. Smaller tar bogs and seeps littered the ground inside and outside the walls.

In ancient times, overflowing tar from the seeps had oozed down the low-lying areas, creating a series of black rivers that circled away from Snizort for as much as a league. These had long since dried out, and parts had also been mined, though much remained. Other, smaller seeps and bogs occurred here and there.

The Aachim had planned to attack the western and southern sides of Snizort with their constructs, while the human armies and their clankers struck at the eastern and northern walls, bombarding the land inside with flaming missiles in an attempt to set fire to the tar pits and even the Great Seep. It had not worked out that way. The lyrinx had come over the walls to fight the battle outside, preventing the clankers from getting close enough to fire over the walls.

‘This is better than I’d hoped,’ said General Tham on the first morning of the battle. ‘They’re fighting us on our ground in broad daylight and massed formations. We’ll slaughter them.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ growled Flydd. ‘They’re working to a plan and so far it’s going well.’

The struggle began slowly, with catapult barrages from either side, causing little damage, and skirmishes where small groups of soldiers attacked patrols of lyrinx. The lyrinx generally got the best of these encounters. In the afternoon the allies intensified their attacks, using flying wedges of clankers and constructs, though to Irisis the Aachim seemed to be holding back.

‘There’s a fire in the eastern battlefield,’ she called. Irisis was one of many scribes writing orders for the messengers running in and out. ‘And spreading fast.’

The scrutator ran his spyglass across the scene. Flames and black smoke were belching up along a line the best part of a league long. Other lines erupted as he watched.

‘They’ve fired the ancient tar runs. Must have used spirits of tar to make it go up so quickly. I knew it could not be so easy.’

‘The smoke will disadvantage them too.’

‘Not so much as us, since it’s blowing our way. And it buys them time. We can’t cross the fires, even in clankers. They’re like extra walls that will burn for days and then leave the ground impassable. They’re breaking up our battle formations.’

‘Can we put the fires out and break through?’

He shook his head. ‘Even if we could spare the water, it won’t put out a tar fire. The only way is to smother it with earth and pack it down hard. If you can find a way to do that in the middle of a battle …’

‘Surely the constructs could cross the fires?’

‘They probably could, but do you imagine Vithis will risk his people if we can’t join them?’

The struggle continued. Irisis could only imagine the hell the battlefield must be. The black, stinking smoke, now rising along half a dozen curving lines, provided perfect cover and allowed the lyrinx to fight the way they preferred – from ambush. Being able to hold their breath for five minutes or more, they could take better advantage of it. The human casualties were mounting.

Late in the afternoon, Tham ordered three gigantic catapults to be wheeled up. Teams of brawny men loaded each with a boulder the size of a donkey, then turned capstans as big as cartwheels until the entire structure creaked with tension. The catapult master signalled to the command post. General Tham conferred with Flydd, who nodded. They signalled back.

The first catapult fired. The rock went only a hundred paces to slam into the side of a clanker and knock it onto its roof. The mechanical legs went back and forth in the air. Flydd cursed.

The catapult master ordered the second firer to take up the tension. The capstan was wound another turn but before the catapult could be fired the ropes snapped, scything through the soldiers like a sickle through wheat stalks.

‘Order the last catapult to release the tension,’ snapped Flydd. ‘I thought you’d tested them,’ he roared at General Tham.

Too late. The catapult had already fired, its gigantic ball soaring through the air right over the wall of Snizort, to slam into the ground inside. A few seconds later the ground shook, and sometime after that a ragged cheer was heard from the field.

‘That’s better,’ said Flydd, ‘but pull them right back for the night.’

As expected, the lyrinx attacked fiercely in the night, though the armies had also made use of fire. The bonfires surrounding their positions made it easy to pick out the enemy. The attack petered out some hours later and the rest of the night was quiet, though few people were able to sleep.

‘It’s almost as if they’re playing for time,’ said Flydd the next morning. ‘They’re not fighting hard at all, just keeping us away from the walls. I wonder what they’re up to?’

It could not be called a battle yet. Periodically the ground shook from the impact of the giant missiles. The catapults could no longer get close enough to the walls to aim accurately, yet two lucky shots had broken through. Moreover, the field was constantly fluctuating, one minute allowing the clankers to move at near top speed, the next reducing them to a crawl.

‘Is this their doing?’ said Flydd, ‘or are so many machines taking too much from the field.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Irisis said. It was another worry.

On the third day of the siege the catapults began to use tar-coated missiles, hoping to set fire to the tar mires and pits inside the walls. It was hard to tell if they had succeeded, for there was smoke everywhere, but from the air Flydd’s spotters had seen smoke issuing from one of the smaller pits. Flydd was busy in his tent and would not allow anyone in, though Irisis heard cursing from time to time.

Late in the afternoon of the fourth day, Irisis focussed on a convoy of clankers creeping along between the lines of blazing tar. A formation of soldiers, at least a thousand strong, marched behind.

‘We’re getting through!’ she exulted.

The convoy approached an area of bare earth between the lines. The single file of clankers spread out, accelerating toward the waiting lyrinx.

‘Now we’ll see some action.’ General Tham had come up behind them. Flydd was watching from his tent.

The racing clankers had gone out six abreast, firing their javelards in salvo. The lyrinx did not move. The pair of clankers in the middle stopped suddenly, front down as if they had run into a bog. The flanking ones now did the same. The clankers behind swung right and left to avoid them.

‘What is it?’ cried Tham. ‘Spyglass, adjutant!’

He ran out with it. Tham snapped it open.

‘Save yourself the trouble, Tham,’ said Flydd wearily. ‘It’s a hidden tar bog covered up with earth. The clankers will never get out. The enemy will fire it, next.’

They watched the clankers’ hopeless struggle to extricate themselves. The operators soon gave up, abandoning their machines and climbing back over them in desperate attempts to reach secure ground. Some made it. Many went into sticky tar and became as mired as their machines.

Behind them the rest of the force churned the dry soil to powder as they battled to escape the trap. The lyrinx rained missiles on them with catapults. Less than half the force escaped back into the smoke-wreathed lines.

Tham stalked away, grim-faced. Soon a messenger came running. ‘Field’s dropped suddenly, surr.’ He passed Flydd a sealed packet. ‘And there’s this from Eiryn Muss.’

‘I can see that,’ Flydd said gloomily. ‘They’ve divided and demoralised us, made us fear the solid ground beneath our feet. What now? All-out attack, or more of the same?’

‘Depends what they want,’ said Irisis, handing around mugs of black, sweet tea.

Flydd read the message, then drank the hot tea in a single gulp. ‘According to Muss, they are determined to complete their secret project and then annihilate this army so they can move on all the eastern lands.’ Flydd thrust the message into a nearby brazier. ‘It’s no good. They’re taking too much from the field. Our clankers can barely go half-pace.’

‘Even so, with the support of the Aachim …’

He spat on the ground. ‘Vithis is only making a token effort, though his constructs have all the power they need. And I suspect …’

‘What?’

‘Once we look like losing he’ll make a strategic withdrawal, unscathed, and still demand his share of the bargain. By then we really will be powerless to stop him. I’ve got to act now.’

‘How?’

‘It’s all or nothing.’

‘So you’re saying –’

‘We’re going in to block the node-drainer. Tonight.’

‘I thought you said there was no way to get in, secretly?’

‘Muss has found one.’ His meagre lips were compressed to purple. ‘Through the front door, you might say. It requires a particular kind of scrutator magic.’

‘I’m delighted to hear of it.’

‘You shouldn’t be.’

‘Why not?’

‘I haven’t discovered any way of getting back out.’

‘What did you mean,
we
? You can’t be spared, Xervish.’

‘The Council ordered me to. Besides, no one else could get you in there. We’re going as soon as it’s dark.’

He scribbled a new set of orders and sent them off.