The Iron Ghost (64 page)

‘Stay next to me,’ spat Wydrin, ‘and we’ll keep moving forward if we can.’

One of the Rivened reached for Ip and grabbed hold of her arms, its mouth twisted into an approximation of a grin. Wydrin brought her sword down, Glassheart’s blue glass stone catching the red light and turning it purple, but although she cut clean through the husk’s arm, another came out of the press and grabbed Ip by her frantically kicking leg. Suddenly the girl was being dragged rapidly into the press of rotten bodies.

‘No!’ Wydrin made to go after her only to be pushed roughly back by three or four of the Rivened. She saw Ip turn back to her briefly, the dirty moon of her face slack with terror before disappearing into the swarm of demon-possessed corpses. ‘No, wait!’

But she was gone. Wydrin cast about desperately and saw Xinian nearly on her knees, the warrior mage’s face creased into an expression of disgust as the grasping limbs carried her down. Above her loomed one of the inert werkens, a huge dark figure roughly in the shape of a giant bear standing on its back legs. Seeing it reminded her of the Blackwood bears they had faced in Frith’s forest, and all at once she was furious.

You!
She called out inside her own head, as she had once commanded Mendrick. She felt desperately for that connection, for any connection.
Listen to me! I need your help!
One of the husks flung its arms around her waist, leaning all its weight on her, and another was grabbing her hair again, pulling her head back to expose her neck. Wydrin kept her eyes on the werken.

I know you can hear me! One of you, any of you, listen to me!

There was nothing. The dark figure remained dark, and behind her Wydrin could hear Xinian making strangled choking noises.

I know you can hear me! Wake up!

There was a flicker inside her mind, a brief crackle of green light, and suddenly the huge werken opposite them lit up with a lightning strike of emerald energy. Its eyes bled into life, green moons in a savage face.

Wydrin Threefellows
. It was Mendrick’s voice, cold and serene inside her own head.
You will not let me sleep, it seems.

‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ Wydrin was staggering under the weight of three of the Rivened now. She threw an elbow into the face of the nearest one and felt a small blossom of satisfaction as the delicate bones in its nose shattered. ‘I thought you were gone!’

I am everything. I am the mountain. I cannot just leave.

One by one, every werken in the trench began to flicker into life, eldritch-green light painting the slick walls. Inside her head, Wydrin felt the dizzying sense of being in several places at once wash over her.

‘Right, then,’ she said, ‘I think it’s time to demonstrate some brute force.’

It was easier than it had ever been, and when the werkens started to move she was no longer sure if it was her controlling them, or Mendrick himself. The giant bear-shaped werken came first, falling down onto its front legs and immediately crushing the bodies beneath it. Some of them fell back, and Wydrin could hear a mutter of surprise move through the crowd.

‘Oh yes, here we go, Bezcavar, you bastard.’ Wydrin shook off the nearest husks and ran for the side of the werken. There were deep steps carved into its side, and she scrambled halfway up before turning and shouting down to Xinian. ‘Get up here, Lady Battleborn!’

Xinian’s arm thrust out of the press of corpses, and Wydrin reached down and dragged her up. The warrior mage looked bemused, but she climbed into the seat next to Wydrin, pausing only to kick a husk in the face as it tried to crawl up after them.

‘What is this thing?’ she said, looking down the trench as five other werkens began to move of their own accord. Werkens shaped like great bulls, cats and wolves, their eyes an unshifting green glow, stomped through the press of the Rivened, crushing them to a bloody pulp.

‘This is my friend, the mountain.’ Wydrin gestured round at the werkens and the walls, and then shrugged. ‘It will take some explaining.’

‘You will not escape.’ The voices floated up towards them from the crowd, a hundred pairs of blood-filled eyes, a hundred identical smiles. ‘I have so many bodies now and you have just that one, all delicate and filled with things that can be broken.’

‘Bezcavar, have you ever dropped something heavy on your foot? A brick perhaps?’ Wydrin settled in the seat, reaching out for the connection in her head, following that bright web of green light. She could feel the weight of the stone at her disposal, solid and riddled with Edeian. ‘Let me show you what that feels like.’ The werken leapt forward at her urging, crushing five or six of the flailing Rivened under its wide stone paws. ‘Multiplied several hundred times or so.’

A flicker of unease moved across the rotten faces.

‘No, wait—’

The mage corrupted the flesh of the mountain. My flesh
. It was Mendrick’s voice in her head.
I will not let that stand.

As one, all six werkens turned and charged, thundering up the centre of the trench. All around them the possessed husks were trampled or thrown back until the werkens were lined up behind them, waiting further instruction. Wydrin grinned, and saw Xinian give her an uncertain look.

‘I think we just found our way out of the gate.’

‘And you have made the adjustments I requested?’

Nuava nodded. To Frith’s eyes, she looked a good decade older than when they’d first met; the skin around her eyes was bruised and her dark curly hair was tied back half-heartedly with a piece of twine.

‘Tamlyn and I have the saddle, in the alcove in the front of its head. If Joah sees anyone when the Destroyer comes, it will be us.’

She paused, and for a moment they both stood and simply looked at it. The Destroyer drew the eye, that much was for certain.

It crouched now, kneeling in the quarry with its head bowed, like a penitent man at prayer. It was humanoid in shape, certainly the most human werken Frith had seen, with broad craggy shoulders and a head that still had moss on it – if they’d had more time, Nuava had explained, they would have carved all the excess away, but, as it was, the werken would have to remain unfinished, its surfaces pitted and jagged with raw rock. It looked to Frith as though a part of the mountain had torn itself free and was now sitting patiently in the forest. While it was kneeling, the top of its head came above the treeline. Beyond it, the sky was a pale, blameless blue that was almost white.

‘I don’t understand, though,’ said Nuava. She was absently wiping her blistered hands on a cloth, still staring at the Destroyer. ‘Why don’t you use your magic to get to Joah, like you did before?’

Frith shook his head.

‘I cannot use the Edenier too close to him now. He will simply sense it, as O’rin did, and any chance of using my weapon in time will be lost. I must catch a ride on this beast, and get as close as I can first.’

‘Is it time yet?’ Tamlyn Nox appeared from around the Destroyer’s jutting knee. She was limping heavily, but her eyes were bright. They had already split the last remaining piece of Heart-Stone between her and the Destroyer; she carried it sunk into the palm of her left hand. Nuava had dug out the stone that was already there with the point of her knife, belonging as it now did to a long-since destroyed werken – and the giant beast had its piece secured between the round holes that were its eyes. The Edeian glowed there now, a soft green light under the bright sky.

‘Aunt, you should be resting. We agreed that you would get some sleep before we went back to Skaldshollow.’

Tamlyn Nox scowled at her niece. ‘Sleep? What is the point of sleep? I shall be dead soon anyway.’ She turned her attention back to Frith. ‘What say you, Lord Frith?’ She couldn’t quite keep the scorn from her voice. ‘Is it time for my Destroyer to kill that faithless demon-worshipper or not?’

Frith looked up at the sky, seeking out the sun. It was a tiny pale disc, frail and impossibly distant. He thought of Sebastian and Prince Dallen, and the small disparate force that would now be massing at the southern gate. He did not know what they would meet on the walls of Skaldshollow, but he suspected many of the Narhl soldiers and the brood sisters themselves would not live to see the rising of another bloodless sun.

‘Let us go,’ he said, nodding to the Nox women. ‘Get it ready.’

Tamlyn Nox grinned, although there was no humour in it.

‘Good. I will show the world what a real crafter is capable of.’

She turned and hobbled away, heading for the frail wooden ladder that snaked its way up the side of the werken’s body. Frith would never have believed her capable of climbing it, if he hadn’t seen her do it several times already. Nuava lingered a moment longer.

‘You have changed,’ she said eventually. ‘Since you’ve come back, you have been different somehow. I don’t think I ever liked you, but now . . .’ She frowned at him. ‘Now I feel that we should fear you.’

Frith looked at her for a moment. ‘Perhaps you should. Go and get the werken ready. I don’t know how long Sebastian’s forces will last out there alone.’

She glared at him, opened her mouth as if to say something further, and then turned away. Running to the rickety ladder she began to climb, hand over hand, with no apparent fear of the drop below her.

Frith watched her all the way to the top, and then circled around to watch the Destroyer from the front, marvelling at the craggy expanse of its chest, still hung here and there with moss and vines. The intricate carvings that were the Edeian crafter’s mark were all over it, clustered particularly at its joints, at the places where stone met stone. In the early morning light it made the werken look like a heavily tattooed man, kneeling after a night of too much to drink.

Tamlyn and Nuava seated themselves in the alcove where the werken’s head met its shoulders and tied themselves in with leather straps; a tumble from the Destroyer would be particularly disastrous. There was a moment of silence – Frith could see Tamlyn and Nuava conferring with each other about something, although he couldn’t hear the words – and then the Destroyer lumbered into life, green eyes flaring like marsh mist.

Frith stumbled backwards, not quite able to keep a small cry of alarm from escaping his lips. The werken stood slowly, rising from its knees in one movement. Trickles and plumes of stone dust erupted around its lower half as those joints were called into action, and Frith heard the distinct rumble of stone against stone. All around them, the trees exploded with birds suddenly frantic to get away from this unexpected giant. The sky turned briefly black with hurried wings, and when it cleared, the werken was standing, its head bathed in brilliant cold sunshine, its lower half shrouded in the dappled shadow of the forest.

‘By all the gods,’ murmured Frith.

After a moment, the Destroyer leaned forward and extended one great arm down towards Frith. Its hands weren’t really hands at all – again, Nuava said, they did not have time – but rather huge slabs of shovel-shaped granite. With some trepidation, Frith picked up the sack that lay at his feet and climbed up onto the offered hand, and then crouched uncertainly as the werken brought him up and round, next to the wooden platform built around the Destroyer’s waist, some fifty feet off the ground. Frith stepped off hurriedly, before making his way around to the creature’s back, where there were more leather straps waiting for him. Here he would not be in plain sight. The sack containing the Edenier trap he secured just below his feet, taking care to check the straps twice. If the device rolled away from him and over the side, then all would be lost.

‘Are you ready?’ Nuava’s voice floated down from somewhere above him. She sounded both excited and frightened.

‘I am,’ Frith called back. ‘Let us take our vengeance to the Rivener.’

There was a deeper rumble of stone against stone, and the forest around Frith lurched from one side, and then to the other. He dug his fingers into the straps and braced his feet against the platform as the Destroyer took its first steps.

The great southern wall of Skaldshollow lay before them, shattered into pieces. Sebastian could see long gouge marks in the stone that was still intact: the mark of the Rivener as it had invaded the city. There were inert werkens dotted around everywhere – some in pieces, some simply half covered in snow, their riders long since dead – and they had found many frozen bodies on their approach to the wall. Even the Narhl soldiers, who had been making many contemptuous comments about the Skalds since their arrival, said nothing at the sight of those bodies. Many had been crushed, their blood a bright pink stain on the snow, while many others looked like they had been burnt to death by Joah’s attacks. These last the Narhl did their best to ignore completely, given their near superstitious dread of fire.

‘Are your people ready?’

Dallen looked up at the sound of his voice. They stood beyond a row of broken rocks that looked like they had been torn from the wall itself; the Narhl soldiers standing together in a loose mass, talking and joking with each other, and the brood sisters, unconsciously standing in neat rows, their swords held by their sides.

‘They are not my people any longer, Sebastian, but yes, this is what they look like when they are about to go into battle.’ Many of the soldiers were passing around horns of strong drink – Sebastian could smell it on the still air. At the back of their company were five wyverns with riders, padding carefully across the snow. On the ground they moved tentatively, like a cat walking across wet ground. ‘They will fight ferociously, I can promise you that. How they will fight alongside their new allies, I could not tell you.’

‘Hmm.’ Sebastian tugged at his beard. ‘I think they share a certain love of the fight. As long as they don’t start fighting each other, we should be fine.’

‘Do you have any idea what we will find in there?’

Sebastian looked back to the broken wall. He could see no movement, no sign of any guards left. The eerie red light still hung over the city, poisoning the sky like an infected wound.