Ian Irvine - Alchymist

What was different? He strained his ears, as if to detect the racing heartbeats as the lyrinx prepared to break out. There was no sound. Not a sigh of wind in the trees; not a rustle in the grass; not the scuttle of animal feet on the rocks.

No sound at all. Wild creatures could tell the danger better than he could. He walked a little faster. Then, as he squeezed between two knife-edged blades of stone, Nish heard it.

Crack-crack-crack. That was not rock contracting in the night. It was rock being shattered from the inside as a stone-formed beast came back to life and prepared to break out.

Nish gasped. His head whipped from side to side. He saw nothing, but from ahead, came that crack-crack again. In his mind's eye, enhanced by the tears, rock cracked off the monstrous armoured bodies; leathery wings slowly unfurled into the night. The lyrinx were coming.

He began to run, but had not reached the end of the corridor of limestone pinnacles when something pushed up in front of him like a statue rising from the sea. Chunks of stone fell like hail. Great thewed arms rose slowly into position; wings twice the height of Nish snapped taut. The head creaked around.

It was moving sluggishly, as if the stone-forming spell was not completely undone. Nish did the only thing he could think of. He dived between its spread legs, hit the ground hard and scrabbled out of the way.

The creature gave a drawn-out roar, tried to turn in that narrow space, and stuck. Nish came to his feet, looking back to gauge his peril. The lyrinx was caught at the hips. Kaising one mighty fist — slow, slow — it smote the pinnacle to its left. The limestone snapped off halfway. Nish fled.

The crashing continued behind him, which at least told Him where his enemy was. It was more unnerving when it stopped, for then there was only the pounding of his feet and ibe thumping in his chest. Until the footsteps began.

The lyrinx was after him. In the open it could run much faster than he could but, within this maze of pointed rocks and bladed pinnacles, Nish might just have the advantage. He could hear it crashing against the stone, snapping off the fragile tips. Its armour gave it an advantage there.

He turned left, found he was in a dead end and had to backtrack. Panic began to seize him. This wasn't the way he'd come earlier, and the low moon only illuminated the tips of the pinnacles. If he wasn't out of here before it set, he'd never find the way.

Nish went right but that led to another dead end. Letting out an inarticulate cry, he retraced his steps, then edged down a corridor of stone so narrow that he had to turn sideways to negotiate it. With luck it would hold the enemy back.

It did not. Fully flesh again, his hunter rose up on its wings and flapped across the spires directly towards him. Where could he go? A long straight lane, too wide to hide in, ran ahead and behind. Nish stumbled down it, gasping for breath. Spotting a crevice between a pair of low spires, he thrust himself into it.

The lyrinx turned this way and that, trying to see where he had gone. It climbed, flapping noisily, then used the Art to hover for a few seconds. Its head turned as it picked up the sound of his breathing. The creature glided towards him then dropped, attempting to trap him in his hiding place, to crush him. Nish threw himself deeper into the crack. The lyrinx came down hard into the darkness. Rock cracked all around Nish and he was sure he was going to die.

The lyrinx gave a muffled Ugh! and began to flail at the rock, hurling shards in all directions. Wetness flicked against Nish's cheek. The claws of one thrashing foot gouged scars across the soft limestone. He protected his eyes with his hands. The great feet gained a purchase and the thighs flexed, hurling the beast back into the air.

For a second it was outlined against the moon, then it plummeted into the next row of pinnacles, smashing them to fragments as its frantic wings beat back and forth. A spike of stone hung from the low part of its belly where it had impaled itself. The blade had gone in between the cracks in its armour.

Nish couldn't tell if it was badly wounded, and didn't wait to find out. He bolted along the corridor in front of him until he could no longer hear it. Then — crack, crack — ahead of him, and now to even' side, more lyrinx were freeing themselves. Had some master mancer among them decreed that it was time for the ambush, or were they coming to get him? He staggered on. There was not for to go now — he was almost through. Ahead, a last row of pinnacles guarded the rim of the escarpment like a row of sentries.

They were cracking open as he went by them, the lyrinx moving sluggishly as they strained against the fading spell. One threw out a claw and almost hooked it through his collar. A great fist, still partly stone-formed and as hard as rock, caught Nish in the chest, knocking him off his feet. He struck the ground on his back, the breath knocked out of him, and waited for his doom.

The lyrinx was slow to move. The blow must have been accidental. He did not give it the chance for another, but scuttled by it on hands and knees, came to his feet and ran.

Nish sprinted across the platform of white limestone and reached the cliff edge. Where was the precipitous way down? He ran back and forth. The cracking grew louder. Ah, there! As he gained the path, Nish looked back.

The moon, just tipping the western horizon, shone across the field of stone, illuminating a hundred thousand spikes, spires, pinnacles and blades of limestone. It was beautiful, for the tips and edges were as translucent as milk. In many of them he could see the bones of the stone-formed creatures.

A single clap of thunder reverberated across the valley, and before his eyes the spires began to burst open in waves that spread from one end of the pinnacle field to the other. Lyrinx thrust their heads high, moving as sluggishly as chickens just hatched from eggs. The moonlight caught their eyes, dozens of them, hundreds, thousands upon thousands, and still they emerged, stone into flesh.

The first lyrinx lifted, flapping ponderously, evidently still weighed down by the spell. Nish felt an internal sucking, which his charged senses knew was due to the creatures draw-on the field to keep them aloft. Within a minute, dozens were lurching into the sky.

'Soldiers, wake! Nish roared, bolting down the perilous goat track, screaming so loudly that it tore at the flesh of his throat. He gave no further thought to Jal-Nish. 'Wake, wake!

Ambush! The enemy are upon us. The lyrinx are coming down from the heights. Soldiers, wake. Xabbier, Xabbier!'

Nish never knew how he got down, and later, looking at the cliff in daylight, could not believe that he had. The previous time it had taken nearly an hour; this journey he completed in a scant ten minutes, leaping off boulders, skidding down loose gravel in miniature landslides, scarcely looking where he put his feet, giving his fate up to instinct. And, perhaps because his senses had been so enhanced by the tears, he had made it unscathed, apart from a badly wrenched knee where a stone rolled underfoot when he was nearly down.

He was still roaring hysterically when he reached the bottom. The camp was alive, the highly disciplined soldiers running to their formations, the watch-fires stirred to blazing brilliance. The great war machine had been alerted just in time and was grinding into battle position.

'Soldiers! Wake!' Nish kept shouting long after there was any necessity for it. 'Xabbier! Lieutenant Xabbier!'

A soldier caught him by the arm. 'Come this way please, surr.'

He ran, pulling Nish after him. Nish's mind was ablaze with that image of the enemy streaming into the sky. He could still see the skeletons through their flesh.