Ian Irvine - Alchymist

'The tears are gone,' he said over his shoulder.

They were the last thing on Nish's mind, for he was quite preoccupied with his memories. He poured a double handful of gold into the chest. 'Where?'

'I can't tell, nor who took them, though my guess would be that lyrinx with the golden crest. If so, they're safely across the sea by now, where even the scrutators can't get them. Hello — what's this?'

He picked up the bloodstained platinum mask. 'I'll take this with me.' He looked around. 'You mentioned your father's boot and foot.'

Nish felt ill just thinking about it. 'It was just over there, beyond the tent poles. I should bury it.'

'It's not here now. The scavengers—' Flydd looked around. 'Hoy!'

A hyena-like creature had the booted foot in its mouth and was slinking up the hill, ears lowered. Flydd bent, picked up a stone and threw it, awkwardly but accurately, at the creeping beast, striking it in the ribs. The hyena let out a howl and dropped the foot. Flydd ran after it but before he got there the hyena took it up by the shank. It tossed its head and the boot went flying off.

Flydd reached for another stone but the scavenger was off, creeping into the bushes below the escarpment, and they saw no more of it. The scrutator retrieved the boot, inspected it carefully and let it drop.

'It's his, all right. The man is dead, the tears gone beyond our reach, and perhaps it's better that way. It's hard to imagine the lyrinx doing any greater harm with them than the scrutators would have.'

'They matter, then?'

'Oh, they matter. Why don't you sit down in the shade you look exhausted. I just want to check again, to make sure.'

Flydd collected a handful of splinters from the tears' box and began to pace up and down, tossing them in the air one by one. 'Hello?' he said sharply.

Nish looked up, too tired to be curious. 'What's the matter?'

'Eiryn Muss has been here.'

'Does that matter?'

The other day I sent him posthaste to Gnulp, and this isn't on the way. Why did he come here?'

Nish didn't have the energy. He found a tree that fitted the shape of his back, leaned against it and closed his eyes …

Flydd said little on the way back, and Nish kept his silence, there was too much to think about, not least his own future. The moment when Jal-Nish had forced Nish's hands down into the tears had been a life-changing experience. Until then he had been a prisoner of events, and preoccupied with himself. But on touching the tears he'd had an insight into what the world would be like under Jal-Nish, and it was not pretty. Now. Nish realised, he must begin to shape events to his own ends, ends that were against everything the scrutators represented. In that he stood alongside Flydd.

How was he to do it? For all his heroism on the battlefield, Nish could not see himself as a soldier. Even were he to rise high, he would spend his life prosecuting the war. But this war he knew already, would not be won on the field of battle. Xervish?' he said tentatively. 'What?' Flydd replied absently. 'What is it, Nish?' Nish looked down at his boots, not knowing how to put it. 'I know I've been a damn fool more often than not. I've done enough stupid things to condemn me for a lifetime, and made some disastrous blunders . . ?

Indeed you have,' said Flydd. There was a gleam in his eye and a hint of a smile on his whiskery lips. 'I can't think when I last met such a callow, feckless fool as you. I'm sure I never have.'

'But . . , even so, I think I've displayed a few positive qualities as well—'

'I dare say,' the scrutator said carelessly, 'though it doesn't do to dwell overmuch on such things, lest you be thought big-headed.'

'What I meant was—'

'If you want something, lad, then spit it out. Name the reward you require and it shall be yours. Is it coin, or high honour, or a brace of comely—?'

'I want to serve you, surr,' Nish burst out.

'I don't need a manservant. I may be decrepit but I'm still capable of wiping—'

'You know what I mean, Xervish.'

'I have no idea what you're on about. Speak plainly, Nish, or not at all.'

Nish's mouth snapped closed. Was Flydd just being perverse, or was he trying to tell Nish something? To have confidence in himself? He pulled his horse away, cantered around in a circle and pulled up beside him again. Taking a deep breath, he said, 'I want to help you, surr. To bring down the Council of Scrutators and create a new order that truly serves the people of Santhenar. And then, to defeat the enemy.'

Flydd pulled up his nag. The sun shone on his cheek, outlining every gouge and scar, every hump and hollow from the scrutators' torment. 'Anything else you want to achieve this afternoon?'

'That's all, surr.'

Flydd considered him for a long time. 'You realise that what you have just uttered is treason of the direst complexion. Should the Council take you, and surely they will, they'll make you suffer far longer, and more horribly, than ever they made me.'

Nish knew it, and dreaded it. And, to be realistic, they probably would take him. They had the resources of a world to fight their enemies. All Nish had was his wits. 'If we lack the courage to oppose tyranny, surr, we don't deserve freedom.'

The scrutator regarded him, head to one side. 'Well spoken, lad. Had you made this offer at any time before your deeds of yesterday, I would have refused you. Willingness is not enough. But you've gone through the furnace and come out again, reforged. We'll oppose these vicious tyrants and overthrow them or, more likely, die in the attempt.'

He held out his hand. Nish took it. Flydd groped for the silver flask in his saddlebags and tossed it to Nish. Popping the cap, Nish raised the flask high. 'To victory!' he said, over-dramatically. He took a healthy swig and almost fell off his horse.

Flydd snatched the flask, which was spilling its precious contents everywhere. 'And to the scrutators' chief torturer -may we spend little time in her company.' Draining the flask, he kicked his horse into a gallop.

That was not the end of the fighting, though it was not on the same scale as before. The lyrinx attacked every night, shooting from a distance with captured javelards and catapults. The troops became used to building defensive camps, with their clankers on the outside and rows of bonfires all around. It kept them alive, but they took losses, and every day their supplies dwindled.

'We can't last much longer' said Troist, on the third night after the battle. Travel had been painfully slow, for the field was still depleted and they had not reached a better one. They were camped just half a day's march from Gnulp Landing, once a rich fishing and trading city, but these days an outpost brutally exposed to enemy raids.

'How many are we now?' asked Nish. More soldiers had joined them on the way, survivors from the other side of the river, who had lost everything.

Twelve thousand of my army,' said Troist, 'plus another eleven thousand of Jal-Nish's, though many are injured. I dare say more stragglers will come in. Were we able to go back we might find most of them. And we have the best part of two thousand clankers, though some are in poor condition. A sizeable force, though considering …' He looked away into the night.

Considering Jal-Nish started with forty thousand soldiers, Nish thought. And only weeks before that, when the battle for Snizort began, sixty thousand. A disaster indeed, no matter how much damage had been done to the enemy.

'But we've only a week's supplies,' said the scrutator, 'and even that will require a good bit of eking.'

'What are your orders, surr?' said Troist. 'If you require us to stand and fight, we'll do it, though in the end we must all die.'

'The loss of one army is going to be disastrous for morale' said Flydd. "To lose two would be catastrophic. We must survive to fight again, and show our people that we can still win.'