The Wind Singer (27 page)

And still the Zars marched singing onwards. Behind them they left a grisly litter of corpses, above them the great eagles still swooped and struck, but the column swung gaily along, unbroken, the only sign of their losses the blood that spattered their billowing white cloaks.

Meanwhile, below the children, their pursuers surrounded the base of the tree. Laughing like young people at play, they threw off their caps and their cloaks and began to climb.

They were astonishingly agile, and seemed able to cling to the side of the broad trunk itself. Soon the leader, a sunny-faced boy who could not have been older than thirteen, had reached the higher branches, and was gazing up to where the children were perched.

‘Hallo!’ he called up to them in a friendly voice. ‘I’m coming to kill you!’

And as he began the next stage of his climb, he hummed the tune of the marching song under his breath.

‘Kill, kill, kill, kill! Kill, kill, kill!’

Behind him came a lovely ash-blonde girl, catching him up fast.

‘Leave one for me!’ she called to her comrade. ‘You know how I love killing!’

The children shuffled further out along their branch. That way, the Zars would have to come after them one at a time. Kestrel looked down. Too far to jump. Bowman looked up, knowing there was now only the one way of escape. He called, a long wordless cry, and they heard him, and came beating fast across the sky towards them, the great eagles.

The leading Zar was just one layer of branches below them now, and as they watched, he came climbing up to support himself on their branch.

‘Doesn’t take long, does it?’ he said, smiling. And drew his long sword.

‘Leave one for me!’ called the girl below. ‘I want the girl.’

‘I want the girl for myself,’ said the young Zar, stepping out on to their branch. ‘I’ve never killed a girl.’

A flash of darkness, a shuddering blow, and he was seized by the talons of a diving eagle, and ripped into the air. Before the children could quite absorb what had happened, there were three eagles hovering above them, and they knew what they had to do. Bowman raised his hands high.

‘Hands up!’

Mumpo copied Bowman’s gesture. An eagle dropped down, gently clasped his wrists in its great claws, and carried him up and away. Bowman followed. Kestrel hesitated, staring at the girl Zar coming along the branch towards her, her sword snicking the air. She raised her arms too, seeing the eagle approaching. The sword flashed, forcing the eagle to swerve, just as Kestrel sprang off the branch into nothingness. Her arms outreached, she fell, and the eagle fell with her, its wings hissing. Then she felt its sudden rushing closeness, and the swooping claws closed about her wrists, and she was falling no more.

The great wings beat strongly, carrying them over the marching ranks of Zars, and on down the Great Way. The wind on her face, the wide wings above shielding her from the sun, Kestrel allowed herself to feel hope. She looked back and down. The Zars seemed small and far away now; though the end of the marching column was still not in sight. Then she became aware that her eagle was straining to maintain its height. Ahead she could see Bowman’s eagle was already flying more slowly, and losing altitude. Big though the eagles were, the children were too heavy for them to carry far. What now? If they were put down, the Zars would overtake them soon enough.

She looked back to see how much of a lead they had, and there behind her, keeping pace with them, were three more eagles. As she watched, she saw them separate and glide silently into position.

It happened so quickly she had no time to be afraid. One moment she became aware that an eagle was passing beneath her. The next moment she felt the talons holding her wrists open wide, and she was dropping like a stone. And barely a moment later, the eagle below had banked, turned on its back, and its talons had locked on to her wrists. The great wings beat once, and she was in flight again, sailing up over the trees.

Twisting about, she was able to watch the entire manoeuvre take place with Mumpo. He lost control when he was let go, and thrashed his arms in the air, but the eagle waiting for him was still able to catch his wrists and swing him the right way round.

Bowman was already on to his second eagle, streaming through the air on her left. She turned and looked back, and there in the far distance she could see the column of the Zars, marching steadily down the Great Way, harried by the few eagles now left to fight the lost battle. Turning again, she saw ahead the jagged rift called Crack-in-the-land, and the high arches of the ruined bridge that was its only crossing. There were no more eagles to carry them when these three tired, and Aramanth was still far away. She knew they had only the one chance.

‘Bo!’ she called out. ‘We have to smash the bridge!’

Bowman too had been looking ahead, and he understood all that his sister was thinking. He tugged on his eagle’s legs, and the great bird, glad to rest, circled down to the ground.

They landed on the south side of the ravine, near the high pillars which marked the start of the bridge. Once they were safely on the ground, the eagles took off again, to return to the battle; as if it was understood that all must die before it was over.

Bowman started gathering up stones at a frantic pace.

‘We have to make an avalanche,’ he said. ‘We have to bring down the bridge.’

He rolled stones down the slope, following them to the very edge of the gorge to watch where they fell. When at last one of the stones rattled against the base of the most fragile supporting column far below, he marked the spot.

‘Mumpo, give me your sword!’ he cried.

Mumpo drew his sword from its scabbard, and Bowman drove it firmly into the ground.

‘All the stones we can find, here!’ he said; and started to form a pile of stones against the blade.

Mumpo meanwhile was unbuckling his sword-belt, and unbuttoning his gold buttons and peeling off his white jacket. Off came the high black boots and the white riding britches with the gold braid down the outside seam. Underneath were his old faded orange clothes. When all of the uniform of the Zars was off, he pulled the boots back on, because he had left his own shoes behind. Then he took the little pile of white bloodstained clothes, and threw them into the ravine.

‘That’s over now,’ he said.

Then all three of them worked as fast as they could, building their mound of stones. They laboured on as the light faded in the sky, until the pile was higher than their own heads. And all the time, the marching Zars were getting nearer. Every now and again, some of the stones broke free from the pile, and skittered down the slope into the gorge. Each time Bowman ran ahead to follow the stones’ fall. Each time he came back saying,

‘More! We need more!’

The sun turned red and began to set. Across the great ravine the vanguard of the Zars was near enough now for them to make out the baton-twirling band leader, high-stepping at the front. There was no way of knowing whether they had gathered enough stones to do what they wanted, but Bowman knew that now they had run out of time.

‘Let’s do it!’

All three of them positioned themselves against the high mound of stones, and braced themselves. The sounds of the band came floating through the sunset air towards them, and with it that ceaseless beat of marching feet.

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!

‘Now!’ said Bowman, and he pulled away the sword, and they all pushed. A part of the pile slithered and went crashing down into the ravine.

‘Push! Harder! We have to get it all moving at once!’

They pushed again, straining with all their might, and suddenly the pile gave way. With a slow rumble, it started to slide. The thousands of stones they had gathered poured down the slope, gathering speed, throwing up a cloud of dust and other fragments, until they leaped out into the emptiness of Crack-in-the-land. Down fell the spill of rubble, down and down in a ribbon of smoky debris, as the children watched and listened, holding their breath. The shadows in the gorge were too deep now to see where their avalanche fell, but after a longer time than they had thought possible, at last they heard it: the fusillade of cracks and rattles as the stones struck – what? The supporting columns? The sides of the gorge? Then there followed the sound of more falling fragments, but they had no way of knowing whether this was the avalanche they had triggered from above, or the breaking masonry of the tall slender arches. They watched the upper sections of the bridge, that same narrow parapet on which they had fought the old children, but nothing was moving. And on the far side of the gorge, the Zars were in view now, their white-and-gold uniforms glowing red in the low rays of the setting sun.

‘It didn’t work.’

This was Kestrel, gazing at the bridge.

‘We must go,’ she said. ‘We have to keep ahead of them.’

‘No,’ said Bowman, his voice steady and low. ‘They’ll overtake us long before we get to Aramanth.’

‘What else can we do?’

‘You go on, with Mumpo. I’ll stay here. Only one of them can cross the bridge at a time. I can hold them.’

Now the Zars had reached the edge of Crack-in-the-land. The band leader was marching on the spot, the golden baton still rising and falling; and behind her the band was formed up, still playing. Then even as Kestrel was finding words to tell her brother there had to be another way, the band leader caught her baton, pointed it forward, and stepped up smartly on to the parapet of the bridge. Behind her, while the band played along the lip of the gorge, came the Zars, in single file.

Bowman stooped and picked up the sword.

‘No!’ cried Kestrel.

He turned and gave her a curious smile, and spoke in a voice she had never heard him use before: quiet, but very strong.

‘Go on to Aramanth. There’s no other way.’

‘I can’t leave you.’

‘I’ve felt the power of the Morah. Don’t you see?’

He turned and ran towards the bridge. The band leader was already halfway across, high-stepping as calmly as if she was still on the Great Way itself, and behind her came the long line of smiling Zars. Bowman raised the sword high as he ran, and he shouted, a wordless howl of fury, unaware that as he cried out, the tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Kestrel started to run after him, calling with all her might.

‘Don’t go! Don’t go without me!’

Only Mumpo stayed staring at the slope, and so it was he who saw the first signs of what was about to happen.

‘The bridge!’ he called out. ‘It’s moving!’

Bowman had just reached the start of the stone parapet, when the central arch gave a slow ripple, like a tree in a strong wind, and there came the sound of cracking masonry. Then, still slowly, the thin line that joined one side of the ravine to the other snapped like an over-stretched string, and the wall and the parapet shivered and started to fall. It fell first from the children’s end, unravelling faster and faster towards the middle, where the Zars were high-stepping across. Then the parapet on which they marched was curling down and away, and the band leader was falling, and the line of Zars was falling, out of the region of sunset light and into the well of darkness. They neither cried out nor made a sound. And behind them as they fell, their comrades marched on, to fall in their turn.

Bowman had come to a stop, staring in shock at the sight. Kestrel now joined him, and put her arms round him. Hugging each other, they watched as the Zars marched on, now in their column formation, eight abreast, over the edge of the gorge, to plunge to their doom. Line after line, to the beat of the band, over they went.

‘We stopped them, Bo. We’re safe.’

Bowman stared at the fallen bridge.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not safe. But we’ve got time now.’

‘How can they cross Crack-in-the-land, with the bridge gone?’

‘Nothing can stop the Zars,’ said Bowman.

Mumpo came to join them, awed by the sight of the Zars marching so blithely to their deaths.

‘Don’t they mind dying?’ he said.

‘Don’t you remember how it felt, Mumpo?’ said Bowman. ‘So long as one Zar lives, they all live. They live through each other. They don’t care how many die, because there’s always more.’

‘How many more?’

‘There’s no end to them.’

This was the horror the Old Queen had seen. The Zars could be slain, they could be defeated, but they could never be stopped. There were always more.

‘That’s why we have to get to Aramanth before them,’ said Bowman.

He turned as if to set off then and there; but his last charge, in which he had expected to die, had drained him of all his remaining strength; and after taking a few steps, he folded slowly to the ground. Kestrel dropped to his side, alarmed.

‘I can’t go on,’ he said. ‘I have to sleep.’

So Kestrel and Mumpo curled up on either side of him, where he had fallen, and the three of them slept in each other’s arms.

22

The Hath family broken

O
n the day before the High Examination, Principal Pillish assembled all the candidates on his Residential Study Course to give them his customary day-before talk. He was proud of this talk, which he had given many times, and knew by heart. He believed it steadied the nerves of the candidates in a specially valuable way. It was true that year after year every member of his little group, without exception, went on to fail the High Examination. But who was to say they would not have failed even more dismally, but for his day-before talk?

The truth was, Principal Pillish had a secret dream. He was an unmarried man, devoted to a job that offered little in the way of rewards. His secret dream was that one year one of his failing group of candidates would surprise himself, and all Aramanth, by winning top marks in the High Examination. In his secret dream, this happy candidate would then come to him, Principal Pillish, with his wife and children accompanying him, and weeping tears of joy would thank him for transforming his life. Then the candidate’s wife would bow humbly before him and kiss his hand, and the candidate’s children would step forward to present him, shyly, with a little posy of flowers they had picked themselves, and the candidate would make a clumsy but heartfelt speech, in which he would say that he owed it all to those few shining words in that precious day-before talk. After that, felt Principal Pillish with a sigh, he could retire happy, knowing his labours had not been in vain.