The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (56 page)

So they would have to fight, and win, within days of
reaching Blisterbone.

Or fight and die, in which case the lack of supplies would
not matter.

It began to rain in earnest in the night, and it grew
ever heavier until he could not sleep for the drumming on the canvas of his
tent. Just what we need on the first day of the climb, he thought, though he
had been expecting it. Gendrigore was a wet place and this was the wet season,
and nowhere was wetter than The Spine that cut it off from the world. He
couldn’t imagine what it would be like in the really wet season.

‘Nish? Are you awake?’

It was Tulitine, outside the flap of the tent.

‘Can’t sleep in this,’ he muttered.

‘Just as well. There’s a lot to talk about.’

‘Come in.’

He sat up and lit his lantern. Tulitine came in, water
running off her oilskins to join the streams of water winding their way across
the sloping floor of the tent.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

‘Here and there, listening to the wind in the trees and the
croaking of the frogs.’

‘Why does everyone in Gendrigore talk in riddles?’ he
muttered.

‘Those who demand plain speaking aren’t always equipped to
deal with what they hear.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘The truth isn’t always obvious, even if the facts are
clear. Sometimes truth is a riddle nested inside a paradox, and until you can
puzzle out that paradox and solve the riddle you won’t know which way to act.’

‘Are you saying that I shouldn’t try to defend Gendrigore?’

‘It may be right for Gendrigore, but wrong for you –
or the other way around. It may be right for you both, but wrong for
Santhenar.’

‘What’s Santhenar got to do with it?’

‘I don’t know … but some of the forces determined to
overthrow the God-Emperor may be worse than he is.’

‘Do you mean the Numinator?’ Nish often wondered about Flydd
and Colm, and Maelys. Had they found the Numinator by now? If they could enlist
the Numinator’s aid it might turn the tide their way, assuming they were still
alive, of course.

‘The riddles written in the wind are more enigmatic than
usual.’

Nish sat, head bowed, as the rain pounded down. He had never
felt less certain of his path and her words had not helped. ‘Tulitine, I don’t
know what to do. Rigore has only sent eighty men, most of them drunks and
troublemakers only here for the looting, and I don’t think Gendri is sending
anyone. Is there any point in going on with so few?’

She didn’t reply, and he added, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve
heard any whispers about Flydd, Maelys and Colm? I really need help. I’m lost.’

She sighed. ‘None at all. All right, Nish, here’s the
plainest speaking you’ll ever hear from me. The enemy is making better progress
than anyone expected and you can’t wait for the supply wagons. You must leave
at first light and make a forced march all the hours of the day, and tomorrow
and the day after. You’ve got to reach the top of Blisterbone Pass before
Jal-Nish’s army does. If they get across before you do, Gendrigore is lost and
so are you,
and Santhenar may be doomed
.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve read the omens, but I know no more. Good luck.’ She
offered him her thin hand.

‘You’re not coming?’ he said, dismayed. Though his troops
were only ten or fifteen years younger than him, they felt like a different generation.
They hadn’t grown up in a war where every waking thought was directed to the
struggle for survival against a superior enemy. None of them knew anything
about the real world beyond Gendrigore’s borders, and he could not turn to them
for advice.

She didn’t say anything.

‘Of course you’re not,’ he said. ‘How could I have imagined
otherwise? This is a road for the young and reckless.’

‘And I’m too old. I couldn’t climb The Spine with a heavy
pack, and there would be nothing for me to do there anyway.’

‘Do you mean …?’

‘You know I do. For anyone badly injured up on The Spine, it
will be a death sentence. Up there, bad wounds can turn septic in a day, and
anyone who can’t walk must be left behind. You can’t carry the injured in that
kind of country, Nish.’

His lantern went out, though Tulitine had not gone near it,
and with a rustle of wet oilskins she was gone.

We can’t wait for the supply wagons, he thought, and they
can’t go any further, so what are we to do without them? I’ll leave a man
behind to tell the wagons to wait, if they arrive, until the force from Gendri
gets here. If they come.

Who said things could not get any worse?

PART THREE

THE RANGE OF RUIN

FORTY-ONE

They set off at first light, Curr leading, Nish
following as close behind as he could bear the stench, scrambling on blistered
hands and bloody knees up a ridge through rain-forest festooned with vines. The
bedraggled army followed, grumbling at the early start. There was no track to
follow, just an unmarked slope that went up and up forever.

The heavy rain intensified; it was now a downpour so fierce
that Nish could barely see and couldn’t hear. The whole mountainside was
running with water and the ground a sponge into which his boots sank so deeply
that mud flowed over their tops. Every step took an effort, especially for him.
The Gendrigoreans were used to such conditions; he could never be.

He soon realised how skin-deep his fitness was, for the
first hour was more exhausting than his climb to the top of Mistmurk Mountain,
about a month ago; the next hour loomed like an even higher peak. He staggered
on, head down, drenched to the skin and feeling faint from the dreadful,
stifling humidity. Got to keep going, he kept telling himself. If he showed any
weakness, his sad little army would turn back. He had to be as hard as iron and
as tough as the best of them. They would expect no less of the son of the
God-Emperor. The only way to lead men was from the front.

Three days went by and it was raining just as hard. It had
not let up for a minute and Nish felt as though his continually wet feet were
rotting. He wasn’t game to take his stinking socks off in case the skin came
with them.

‘This must be how the world ends,’ he said to Hoshi, who had
come back from the leaders. Despite all Nish’s efforts, a third of his men had
passed him today. He stepped carefully onto what looked like solid ground and
sank thigh-deep into clinging mud.

Hoshi heaved him out, as he had done a dozen times already.
He was still smiling, though not as broadly, nor as often. Even the hardiest of
the Gendrigoreans were struggling in the impossible conditions.

‘Not much further to go today, according to Curr,’ said
Hoshi. ‘We’ll camp on the top of the ridge. A great overhang of rock there will
shelter us all, and we might even get a fire going. Can you make it that far,
Nish?’

‘I’ll make it, however far it is,’ Nish gasped, praying it
was only another hundred paces. His iron determination had not yet failed him,
but determination was not enough when the soles of your feet were covered in
burst, weeping blisters and your muscles kept locking up with cramp.

He staggered up and ever up, reaching the campsite less than
an hour later. It was on a saddle-shaped ridge top with steep slopes to either
side, the sodden ground covered in shattered trees and broken rock. Further
along, the ridge reared up in an axe-shaped precipice of seamed brown stone
whose top was concealed by the low-hanging clouds.

‘I thought there was shelter?’ said Nish. ‘An overhang or
something.’

‘Musta fell down,’ said Curr. ‘Rock in The Spine is rotten
– too much rain. Whole mountain fell down once – shook the ground
all the way to Rigore.’

The precipice looming above them looked none too secure
either, but Nish was too exhausted to care. ‘We’ll camp here. At least there’s
plenty of firewood.’

‘If you can get it to burn you’re a better man than I am,’
said Curr, spitting a blue deluge onto a nearby log.

Nish wasn’t going to fall into that trap. ‘I’ll leave that
to those who know how.’ He raised his voice. ‘Let’s get the targets strung up
while the tents are being pitched.’

There was a collective groan from those nearby, though they
complied readily enough. There had been no time for target practice since
they’d begun the climb and, as each passing day brought them closer to the
enemy, few now doubted that they were going to see action.

Nish pitched his tent on the smoothest patch of ground he
could find, made his way around the precipice to one of the less public
waterfalls cascading down the side of the ridge and stood under it, fully
dressed, until the worst of the mud was washed out of his hair and clothes.
Everything he owned was saturated; for the past three nights he had slept in
his muddy gear and woke feeling like a pig in a wallow, though at least the mud
had kept the insects away.

He stripped off, dropped his clothes onto a rock and
scrubbed himself clean, then washed his slimy socks and mud-caked boots. As
he’d suspected, the skin was peeling off his waterlogged feet in sheets.

‘Bad idea, bathin’ up here. Never know what might come after
you when you’re all pink and naked.’

Nish spun around. Boobelar was standing between the rocks
twenty paces away, wine skin in hand, all his cracked teeth showing.

‘As long as it’s not the enemy,’ Nish said, pretending a
calm he could not feel.

‘You don’t know who your enemy is up here.’

‘I’ve got a pretty fair idea.’ Nish’s chances weren’t good.
There was no one in sight and he’d left Vivimord’s sabre back in his tent; if
he took this brute on bare-handed there was only one possible outcome.

Boobelar moved towards him, hand on the hilt of his blade,
drawing the moment out. Nish eyed the shattered rocks littering the ground.
Some had sharp edges; if he was lucky he might get in a telling blow.

Boobelar grinned and took another couple of steps. Nish felt
like a fool; he should never have let his guard down; should never have come
around here all alone. Even if Boobelar didn’t intend to kill him, he certainly
planned to inflict such punishment that Nish would be forever damaged in the
militia’s eyes. Since they had little innate respect for authority, his
position as captain did not elevate him, and once they lost respect for Nish
the man he would never be able to lead them.

He went backwards until he was under the edge of the
waterfall. His clothes were just to the left but he could not afford to go for
them – half dressed he would be even more helpless. Nor could he shout
for help – no cry would be heard over the waterfalls – and if he
ran he’d shred his feet on the rocks and Boobelar would take him from behind.

His only hope was to attack Boobelar bare-handed, and beat
him, but that wasn’t going to happen, unless … could he use his clearsight to
tell what Boobelar was going to do next? It was such an unreliable gift that
Nish seldom tried to use it any more, but it had been enhanced a trifle that
day he’d put his hand into Reaper in the cavern on the edge of Mistmurk
Mountain …

He picked up a fist-sized piece of rock shaped like a hand
axe and stepped forwards onto a relatively smooth patch of ground between the
rocks, the best arena he could find. Boobelar drew his sword and came on.

Knowing his cause was hopeless, Nish sought deep and
despairingly for his clearsight, and for once, found it. What did Boobelar have
in mind? How would he strike, and which way? Nish tried to see into his mind,
but nothing came.

The soldier was not a subtle man, but he was a cunning one.
Would he feint, or pretend to slip and lure Nish forwards? He gave the
clearsight all he had, suddenly saw himself through Boobelar’s red and yellow
eyes, and recoiled, for he’d seen right into the festering mess that was
Boobelar’s drink-addled mind.

‘Ugh!’ he gasped, cutting off the clearsight, so sickened
that the stone slipped from his hand.

Before he’d recovered, Boobelar, leering like a maniac, was
upon him, and Nish felt sure he was going to die. Boobelar knocked him
backwards with a fist like a small club, right through the waterfall, and Nish
slammed into the rock face. Water thundered on his head, temporarily blinding
him, the dropped sword clanged on stone, then he was caught in a headlock,
dragged forwards and thrown belly down over the curve of a boulder. His chin
hit the lower side and his head spun.

Nish was scratching at the rock, dazedly trying to get up,
when he heard Boobelar coming up behind him, roaring with laughter. What was he
going to do? Surely he wasn’t planning –

Whack!
The blow
drove him so hard against the rock that he felt its little projections breaking
the skin across his belly, groin and thighs. His whole backside was shrieking.
Boobelar had struck him with the flat of the sword and all the strength of his
arm behind it.

‘Deliver yourself from this, Deliverer!’ The soldier’s wild
laughter rang in his ears.

Nish tried to get up.
Whack,
whack!

He felt as though the flesh of his backside was splattering
off and his bones were being crushed by the assault. Did Boobelar intend to
beat him to death with the sword? It wouldn’t take long at this rate, and Nish
couldn’t do a thing about it.

‘Hoy, what the blazes is going on?’

It was Gi’s voice, though she couldn’t help him. Gentle Gi
wouldn’t last a second against Boobelar. ‘Keep away,’ Nish gasped.

‘Get away from him!’ Gi shouted. ‘Come on, lads!’

Boobelar gave Nish a final shattering whack and disappeared
over the steep edge of the ridge. Unable to move, Nish lay over the rock,
arse-up, letting the mortifying tears fall where they may. This was the end of
his command and his quest. There could be no coming back from such a
humiliation.