The Hanging Mountains (56 page)

‘Give me your free hand,’ Kail said, making sure he was securely anchored before reaching out, ignoring the sharp tearing in his chest. ‘I’ll pull you up.’

Marmion swung his right arm up and over the edge of the gondola. Only then did Kail realise the stupidity of his request: Marmion had no free hand to reach up with. The only hand he had was busy holding on.

That changed everything. He needed to stretch much further in order to catch Marmion’s arm above the elbow. Anything lower than that and Marmion could literally slip through his fingers. But his reach wasn’t great enough. He needed to be much closer, and there wasn’t time to move.

It looked to him as though Marmion hadn’t considered that problem either. He had still not come to terms with his missing hand. In his mind it was still there. Even as their arms swung towards each other, it was clear that Kail would fall short by centimetres.

Yet, as he took what grip he could on Marmion’s forearm, a hand gripped
his
forearm in return — a hand where no hand existed. Fingers clutched him, squeezing so tightly they hurt. Cold raced up the bone of his right arm and set the wound in his chest aflame.

His eyes revealed the lie of it, but his body reacted instinctively. He leaned back, shifting his weight to pull Marmion aboard. To his amazement, his grip remained firm, and so did the phantom fingers clutching his arm.

He held on until Marmion was secured and then let go as fast as he could. He gasped with pain and felt his vision grey. The gondola rocked beneath them and fire crackled nearby. He fought a wave of dizziness.

Marmion was trying to tell him something, but the words didn’t reach him. The ghost hand had somehow woken the wound in his chest, and he could think no further than that.

Griel hollered and Kail wrenched his eyes open. The balloon had made it to the treetops but fire was closing fast. The air was thick with smoke and particles of ash, and from nearby came the sound of flames roaring and trees exploding. People were already climbing out, clutching branches and shimmying down them to the solid ground below. Kail forced himself to move when his turn came, keeping his eyes firmly on the bark and leaves before his eyes, not even looking for Marmion.

Griel dropped down last, all arms and toothy grimace, having set the engines on full and letting the balloon roar up into the sky — a distraction for Skender and Chu, should they need it. Kelloman was racing around, drawing some sort of charm in the earth and chanting loudly. To ward off the fire, Kail eventually worked out. His head was ringing loudly and he thought he might throw up.

‘It’s here somewhere,’ he heard Marmion saying. ‘Find it, quickly!’

Kail slumped forward onto his knees. Rosevear caught him barely in time. In the intense heat, the young warden’s curling hair was shrivelling. ‘Are you okay? We need to stand in the charm or it won’t protect us.’

Kail pushed him away. ‘The Swarm — got to —’

‘Don’t worry. Mage Kelloman is going to keep the fire back. Highson will make sure we have air to breathe. Just you worry about moving.’

‘Got to —’ He couldn’t get the words out right. Only as Marmion hurried back into his line of sight leading Heuve and Lidia Delfine, who between them carried the splintered box, was he able to finish the sentence.

‘Got to
him.’

He pointed at Marmion, but it was already too late. The lid of the box was open and Marmion was bending over it. A ghastly silver light rippled across the warden’s face as he reached inside and drew out the imprisoned wraith.

Flames crowded around Kelloman’s charm, creating a roaring hurricane of wind that pushed the branches back in a circle overhead. Marmion stood, holding the rough-forged iron weapon upright above him, as one would a sword. Ash and sparks swirled in a furious stream, louder than the hissing of the wraith. Kail wasn’t the only one pointing at Marmion by then, at the strange, tortured look on his face and the hand-that-wasn’t holding the wraith high. Lidia Delfine was shouting and Heuve lunged forward only to be knocked aside by a mighty whiplash of wind. A funnel of mist spiralled down from the sky, and the roots of the forest writhed at Marmion’s feet. In that funnel the Swarm danced — unholy, seductive, and fatal.

A bright, blue-white spark snapped from the stump of Marmion’s severed arm to the wraith’s iron prison, a palm’s-length away. The crack was loud enough to penetrate Kail’s stunned state, driving him to his feet. Another spark flashed, then a third, each louder and brighter than the other.

When the fourth came, it lit Marmion up like a sun and drove a wedge between sky and Earth so violently that Kail, just for an instant, felt nothing at all.

* * * *

Skender twisted his head from side to side, unable to believe they had shaken their pursuers so easily. Not all five of them at once. There
had
to be one left, trailing them in a blind spot, waiting to pounce with claws and teeth as sharp as needles when he and Chu least expected it. But there wasn’t. Something had lured them away.

The wing ascended sharply, catching a thermal that lifted its nose almost vertically. Skender saw the stricken balloon careering across the sky. Two Panic combat blimps — sleek, manoeuvrable things that looked like pictures of sharks he had seen once — circled nearby, late but welcome arrivals. Some sort of hurricane seemed to be brewing below them all, whipping up the treetops and stirring the fire into a frenzy. Vast sheets of flame rose up high in the air.

And there, at last — all five of the Swarm, drawn down in a funnel of cloud to meet that rising vortex. Their smaller prey had been completely forgotten in favour of something inside that funnel. Black clouds spread in their wake. Fire and ice. Mist and smoke. The sky clenched like a white-knuckled fist.

Skender gripped the harness. He had never seen clouds behave like that before.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we should get out of here — fast.’

‘Finally we agree on something,’ she said, swinging the wing bodily upwards.

Skender looked behind as they ascended. At the centre of the vortex, at the point towards which the Swarm were determinedly closing, a bright point of light flared once, and then again. The third time, it was bright enough to leave a purple spot on his retina.

He turned to say something to Chu. The fourth flash cast shadows all across the sky. He had just enough time to feel surprised at its intensity when the sound hit and shook them like a storm-addled leaf.

* * * *

Shilly backed into a corner with the others as the sound of the man’kin grew louder. Over sirens and horns, ringing bells and human cries, she could definitely hear heavy footfalls advancing on the citadel. Nothing stood in the man’kin’s way. Nothing turned them back. Anyone who tried was pushed aside or physically crushed. Reports of casualties and great swathes of damage preceded the creatures in their thunderous ascent. The whites around Jao’s eyes flashed at her as a mass of frightened human flesh crushed them together. Ash fell from the sky like rain. Banner moaned with fear. Shilly didn’t understand, and that made her angry as well as frightened. What did the man’kin
want?
Why this tide of destruction if all they needed was sanctuary from the fire? Why fight when the man’kin of Laure hadn’t?

She pushed against the people pressing around her, forcing her way forwards to the front of the crowd. Warden Banner called her name, but Shilly only slowed long enough to give the warden Minister Sousoura’s knife. Someone had to make a stand, and it might as well be her. She would make the man’kin listen — she who had spoken to the Angel and lived. She would make them listen if it killed her.

She broke free and limped to the centre of the torn and tattered lawn. The crashing and smashing reached a crescendo. Before she could have any second thoughts, the southern wall of the citadel collapsed in a heap, torn down by mighty stone hands. Delicate mosaics went flying in thousands of multicoloured pieces. The belltower dropped with a roar, its giant bell tolling one final time as it fell.

Grey granite shapes burst through the rubble, shrugging it aside as though it was straw. With massive jerking movements they looked at the frightened crowd, then at her, and kept walking.

Two of them, fierce creatures with bat-ears and claws and teeth as long as her hands, thudded to confront her with feet that left deep indentations in the ash-covered grass. Part of her wanted to giggle, despite their ferocious appearance.
Only
two. Judging by the sound they had made, and the reports from below, they should have been hundreds.

She opened her mouth to say something — anything that would make them stop.

A flicker of light registered somewhere at the edge of her vision, and then a clap of thunder so loud it hurt her ears.

And the man’kin did indeed stop right before her, just for a moment.

* * * *

Lightning.

Kail came back to himself in time to hear the rumbling, rolling echoes of thunder returning from the mountainsides. A jagged violet line stretched vertically down his vision. The air stank of the Change.

Marmion had fallen in a heap at the centre of Kelloman’s charm with the lump of crude iron, now glowing red, beside him. Darkness had fallen with him, and a strange kind of silence that spoke of too much noise rather than too little. Kail’s senses were overwhelmed. He was having trouble enough standing, let alone keeping up with events.

Kelloman’s charm continued to keep the flames at bay, although they danced like fiery dust devils desperate to get in. Kail blinked, registering a change in the wind. The vortex that had gripped them was easing, breaking up into erratic gusts. He looked up, expecting to see the Swarm upon them, with ghastly arms outstretched and mouths open wide, but all he saw were dark clouds looming.

Thunderheads.

What had happened to the Swarm? The last time he had looked, there had been five of them converging on Marmion and the imprisoned wraith. Now they were gone.

Lightning flashed again, but more distantly, and the boom of thunder was less overpowering.

Something new dropped out of the sky, descending in a heavy, shimmering sheet. Kail opened his mouth, feeling hot moisture over his lips and face. His hearing returned, bringing him a loud, vibrant hiss and the sound of relieved cries from his companions.

Rain.

At last he understood. The wraiths were gone, blasted by lightning. The rain would bring the fires into check, perhaps even extinguish them completely. Human and Panic helped each other up and checked each other’s injuries. Perhaps, he dared think, all would be well.

Marmion lay unmoving in the mud. Kail went to him, rolled him over. Water splashed the warden’s face, and his eyelids fluttered.

‘What happened?’ he croaked, barely audible over the noise.

‘Fires make their own weather,’ Kail said. ‘With a little help.’

‘It worked?’

‘Looks that way. I honestly thought you were giving them what they wanted. The Swarm, I mean. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ Marmion struggled to sit, using his one flesh-and-blood hand to grip Kail’s shoulder. The mud beneath his feet was a slippery mixture of ash and dirt, but the air smelled clean and cool. ‘It’s not over yet. That was only six of them. There are still three left.’

‘Three we can handle now we know how to.’

‘
We
can, yes. But it’s not just about us.’

Realisation hit him. ‘The Homunculus. Sal!’

Marmion gripped his arm. ‘Talk to Griel. See if one of his combat drones can get to Geraint’s Bluff at speed.’

‘You want to help them?’

‘I want to give the twins a chance to prove themselves. We owe them that much.’

Kail stood, seeking Griel through the intensifying downpour.

* * * *

On the ruined hillside known as Geraint’s Bluff, a wolf’s ululating howl broke the silence. Until recently, Sal had been sitting on a rock waiting for Shilly while the twins prowled restlessly, arguing silently between themselves. His head came up at the sound and he searched the misty forest around him for the source of the call. The sound had a lonely quality to it, as though its owner had come a long way and still had some distance to go.

‘Did you hear that?’ asked the twins, staring at him with four wide-set eyes.

‘Of course I heard it.’

‘You really did?’

Sal couldn’t fathom the incredulity in their combined voice. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

They didn’t answer immediately. Picking their way across the tumbled slope, sending smaller rocks rattling downwards in miniature avalanches, their Homunculus body looked as alien as ever.

When it was standing as close to him as he would let it come, the twins said, ‘That’s Upuaut.’

‘The golem thing?’ Sal had listened for most of the night and the morning to the twins’ account of their strange adventures with Kail. ‘What’s it doing here?’

‘It’s come to kill us, I guess,’ said the twin called Seth, and Sal could not disagree.

Less than an hour earlier, an echo of distant events had come to him — fire and fright and teeth like broken glass — and he had wondered what was happening with his friends, and with Shilly in particular, elsewhere in the forest.