Under Fragile Stone (4 page)

Nayalla was hidden in the corner of the yard, her shape melding with a pile of gravel. Her eyes carefully shielded, she watched the skacks being led out and cursed under her breath. The plan had been to wait until the early hours of the morning, when the guards would be less alert and slow to react, then to strike. They had thought causing damage to the truck itself would be the main problem; the
generator
was a massive, cylindrical device mounted in a steel frame, there was very little about it that would burn, so slinging burning missiles at it had been ruled out. Braskhiam technology was second to none, and they built things to last. Instead, it had been decided that those in the compound would create a diversion, while the main attack would start from above, from the top of the mountain itself. But they had not counted on skacks. She breathed out through her teeth and resigned herself to wait; they would have to deal with the animals when the time came. In the meantime, she stayed perfectly still, watching the Noranian defences unfold.

The signal to begin was the appearance of the harvest star, the brightest star in the east. No sooner had it lifted itself over the horizon, then a fire broke out in the guards’
quarters
. Men and women came running out, struggling into their armour, some trying to fight the flames, others casting around for an enemy to fight. Another fire flared up in the 
offices, and by this time some of the miners were up and out. They immediately began filling buckets of water and started a chain up the stairs to the burning room. The soldiers were slower to tackle their fire, being more intent on finding the arsonists. Cotch-Baumen arose from his bed in the mine-master’s quarters to find the mining camp in
complete
confusion. With no time to see to his uniform, he shoved his feet into his slippers and pulled on his dressing gown before marching out, bitterly cursing the Myunans for forcing him to appear before the soldiers in such a state of undress.

‘Whipholder Mellev!’ he roared.

‘Yes, sir, Provinchus!’ The burly commanding officer ran up.

‘Get your troops in order. Stop wasting time looking for the Myunans. Ensure the safety of the eshtran and the
generator
truck, and assign a detail to deal with the fire in the guards’ quarters! The remaining troops will secure the
palisade
. Have them stick a spear into anything moving that isn’t Noranian. If we can’t stop them getting in, we’ll bloody well stop them getting out.’

‘Yes, sir!’

Even as the officer answered, he noticed fire start to climb several sections of the palisade. The Myunans were
attacking
from the outside as well. Suddenly hot flames burst from the door of the minemaster’s quarters.

‘Not my clothes!’ Cotch-Baumen shrieked.

Miners rushed to fight the blaze, but it was already raging out of control. The Myunans were determined to burn every building in the compound to the ground.

The soldiers in the watchtower at the gate kept their heads, loading their crossbows and seeking out their first 
targets. But with their attention drawn into the camp by the fires, they failed to see the Parsinor at the foot of the tower. The desert-dweller was up the ladder and among them before they knew it, swinging sword and battleaxe and
bellowing
his tribal battle cry as he waded into them. All around the perimeter of the mining camp, soldiers found themselves fighting shadows – camouflaged Myunans attacking from the dark, their faces sculpted into fearsome battle-masks.

In the midst of the chaos, no one in the compound heard the rush of air over wide wings, and only the skacks looked up in time to see three figures dropping towards the top of the generator truck. Mirkrin, Westram and Ceeanna had shaped their arms, chests and backs into wings and their feet into powerful claws. Westram carried a large bottle of the volcan acid that Mirkrin used in his toolsmithing. He dropped onto the top of the machine and slunched into his normal form as the other two swung away to distract the skacks.

Westram threw the raging animals a wary glance, trying to block out their constant screeches as he strode forward to find the controls for the machine at the end of the truck. Pulling a sturdy brace from his tool roll, he leaned down and prised off the cover panel to expose the bare mechanical workings underneath. A skack leapt at him, causing him to jerk back, but Ceeanna dived in and kicked it in the head, knocking it away. Westram plunged the brace into the
workings
, breaking up what he could. Then he uncorked the bottle and poured acid over the whole mess, watching it
dissolve
into metal sludge.

Ceeanna and Mirkrin were struggling to keep the skacks back. Their chains were long enough to allow them to reach the top of the machine and it would only be a matter of time 
before one of them managed it. A crossbow bolt struck the metal near Westram’s shoulder and he rolled away in alarm, spilling some of the acid on his hand. He cried out and wiped the burning hand on his tool roll. Another of the arrows buzzed past his face. He turned to see a soldier about sixty paces away, her foot holding down the nose of the crossbow as she pulled back the cord to reload it. Ceeanna wheeled around and swept down towards her.

‘Ceeanna, no!’ Mirkrin called after her, jinking to one side to draw off the snapping jaws of a skack.

The soldier saw the ageing Myunan coming and smoothly finished loading her crossbow. Then she raised it and fired the bolt straight into Ceeanna’s chest. The Myunan’s momentum carried her on towards the soldier and she crashed to the ground, her limp body sliding up against the woman’s feet. Two of the skacks raced forward to try and seize the easy meat, but their chains pulled them up short.

The soldier reloaded and took aim at Mirkrin. But before she could take her shot, a nightmarish winged creature
suddenly
crashed down on her, throwing her backwards and seizing her crossbow with four writhing tentacles. It was a jankbat, another native of Guthoque, and it had a triangular brand on its bony, spine-laden face. It pulled the weapon apart and swept on to attack other soldiers who tried to take aim at the saboteurs.

Mirkrin wanted desperately to go to Ceeanna’s aid, but he was now on his own against the skacks. Turning his back on his friend, he flew circles above the animals, dodging left and right, infuriating them, his shoulders aching, his back and chest ready to cramp.

Westram was satisfied with his damage of the controls, but 
there was still the generator’s engine. He could see the fuel tank down on the side of the vehicle. If he could reach the cap … He pulled a tinderbox from his pack. He heard the metal slap of a chain and turned to see a skack advancing along the top of the truck towards him. He hurled the last of the acid at it, and then threw the bottle, making it stumble backwards off the roof. Another vaulted up to take its place. With Ceeanna gone, Mirkrin was losing ground to the beasts. He swooped in and delivered a kick to the skack’s ribs. It staggered sideways and, finding nothing on the smooth metal to grip, slipped down the curved side of the generator to the ground below.

Westram turned his attention back to the fuel cap of the engine. He could just reach it. His fingertips touched the knurled disc. A serrated claw slammed into his forearm and dragged it downwards. He slipped off the top of the
generator
and into the clutches of a snarling skack. Mirkrin caught his foot and hauled upwards, but the skack had the better grip and was not about to let go. Westram screamed and thrashed wildly as the animal’s jaws bit into his shoulder and held on. With his teeth clenched and every muscle straining to its limits, Mirkrin heaved his friend upwards.

Another skack leapt at them and got a grip on the first one’s leg, and Mirkrin was lost. The weight dragged them all to the ground and he kicked desperately at the animals that came at him. Two more skacks piled on top of Westram, tearing in with claws and teeth and his screams rose to a piercing pitch and then went quiet. Mirkrin could not get to his feet while he was kicking out at his attackers and so was unable to fly. He dragged himself backwards to get out of reach of the animals’ chains, but his wings made him slow 
and clumsy. A skack was making straight for him, but was suddenly shoved aside by another winged Myunan. Nayalla banked around and grabbed Mirkrin’s shoulders, driving down hard with her wings to get enough lift to pull him from the ground. More soldiers were becoming aware of the fight over the generator and crossbow bolts started shooting past them.

The jankbat dived down at the soldiers, scratching and clawing at their faces with tentacles lined with claws. Other Myunans joined in the fray, attacking the soldiers in a range of winged shapes. Nayalla hauled her husband upwards into the dark sky, sweeping out over the trees to lose their
silhouette
against the hills so that they could no longer be seen. She released her grip and followed him as he glided wearily to the ground. They watched from the hillside as the tattooed jankbat made a pass over the remains of Westram’s corpse, and then flew down and seized Ceeanna’s body, picking it from the ground and carrying it out over the palisade.

Whistles sounded: the signal for the Myunans to fall back. All over the compound, flickers of movement could be seen as some of the camouflaged figures slipped over the palisades or through the burnt gaps; others scaled the steep face of the mountainside and the rest took to the sky. The Noranians turned their defences outwards, rushing to shore up the holes in the fence and make ready the perimeter in case another attack should come at them from out in the darkness.

3
E
LECTRICAL
E
XORCISM

Once the skacks had been safely reined in, Harsq surveyed the damage to his machine, shining a lantern over the ruined control mechanisms.

‘Well?’ Cotch-Baumen demanded impatiently. ‘Can you fix it?’

The eshtran’s brow furrowed and he grimaced.

‘I could patch together some of it, Brask willing. I have a few of the parts. But I need copper wire, a forge and
something
with which to make moulds, and a drill with a bit that can bore through steel.’

The Provinchus looked to the minemaster, who nodded.

‘Yessir, we have it all but the copper. There’s not much of that hereabouts.’

‘How about gold?’ Harsq asked. ‘That’d be even better.’

‘The frame of my mirror was gold.’ Cotch-Baumen snapped his fingers at the minemaster. ‘It is ruined, useless to me now. You may melt down the remains and make the wire.’

‘Then I can fix it,’ the eshtran said.

‘Have it functioning by this evening,’ the Provinchus insisted, and then raised his gaze to the whipholder, who stood to attention nearby. ‘Are the fences fixed?’

‘Just about, sir,’ the officer replied. ‘We’re making the last repairs now.’ 

‘When they are, release the skacks outside the compound. They have a taste for Myunan meat now. Let’s see if they can find some more. The curs will have left spies to see whether or not they have succeeded. It is imperative that they do not make another attempt to impede us before the ceremony. Leave the skacks outside until the exorcism is complete.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘At dawn, I want you to take the skack-keepers with two of their animals, along with some troops, and find the Myunan village. We shall return their compliment by
burning
it to the ground.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cotch-Baumen looked distastefully at his dressing gown, now blackened and grubby. With his wardrobe burned, he would be reduced to wearing one of the whipholder’s
ill-fitting
uniforms. It was unpardonable.

‘And Whipholder?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Ensure the rabble burn with it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Taya and Lorkrin were perfectly still up in the boughs of a tree that overlooked the yard. They had moved closer during the night to get a better view of the attack and were only a stone’s throw from a section of fence that had been set on fire. Now soldiers were moving around the gap with lanterns, replacing or reinforcing the burnt pales. The two
children
could not leave their hiding place for fear of being seen by them. Dawn was approaching and with no tools to
disguise
themselves, they would only be able to rely on their 
colour camouflage in the light of day, an unsettling situation for a hunted Myunan.

‘How long does it take to fix a jaggin’ fence?’ Lorkrin muttered.

‘They’re almost finished. Can you see what they’re doing over at that truck?’

‘They’re all standing around talking. One of them looks like he’s havin’ a go at fixing it.’

‘That can’t be good.’

‘No.’

They had seen Ceeanna and Westram die, and the shock of it was still sinking in. Part of each of them still believed they would be back in class that afternoon, learning texturing from Ceeanna, or birdcalls from Westram. It didn’t seem real that they were gone.

Neither of the youngsters knew why the truck was so important, but if the damage Westram had done could be fixed, then the tribe needed to know. And Lorkrin and Taya would tell them, as soon as they could get out of their tree.

‘Did you see that jankbat?’ Taya whispered.

‘Yeah, it was Uncle Emos, wasn’t it? And I’m sure that was Draegar beating up the guards in the tower.’

‘What’re they doing here?’

‘Same thing everyone else is, I suppose.’

Just as the soldiers were finishing, another came jogging up and said something to the men on the outside of the fence. The group hurriedly packed up their tools and made their way back to the gate. Lorkrin heaved a sigh of relief and began to climb down, but Taya stopped him. She could see the gateway from her vantage point and she saw the skacks’ van reverse up and 
manoeuvre the rear door into the gap between the two sturdy wooden gates. Six of the eight skacks were pushed out by their handlers, each one sniffing the terrain and then bounding off into the trees in a different direction.

Then the gates were closed and barred.

‘Aw, bowels!’ said Lorkrin. ‘There’s no way I’m getting down now.’

‘How do they get the things to come back?’ Taya thought aloud. ‘It’s not like they can be
trained
, is it? Are they just going to let them loose for good?’

‘Hajam weed,’ Lorkrin told her. ‘They put it in their food. The skacks get addicted to it. If they don’t come back, they get sick.’

Taya stared dejectedly at how her smooth skin stood out against the rough texture of the bark. For a Myunan, being unable to fit into their environment wasn’t just a survival issue; poor camouflage was considered uncouth and ugly.

‘I wonder how long it takes them to get sick?’ she muttered.

‘We may have to find out.’

One by one, the Myunans appeared in the weak light of dawn. The sheltered clearing had been the agreed meeting place for everyone to gather after the attack on the mining camp. Some were injured, most blackened with soot and smoke. Not everyone had heard about Westram and Ceeanna, and as word spread, the mourning began.

Nayalla and Mirkrin heard that three others had also been killed, cut down as they started the fires at the palisade. Everyone was exhausted and Mirkrin, in particular, was
devastated
by what had happened. He kept playing the events 
of the night back in his head to see if there could have been some way he could have prevented the deaths of his friends. If only he had been quicker to pick up Westram, or stopped Ceeanna flying straight at that soldier … there must have been something that he could have done. Nayalla leaned her head against his shoulder. She had tried to comfort him, but words could only sound hollow at a time like this.

Once everyone had been accounted for, they set out to catch up with the rest of their tribe, which was already making for the mountain refuge of Garrain. The Noranians would be out for blood, and the children and the elderly had to be taken to safety. They had left lookouts to watch the compound in case the generator was repaired, but they could not continue the fight for their mountain until the weakest in their tribe were out of reach of their enemies. It would be a long time before this land saw peace again.

It was mid-morning by the time they had found the tribe, the horses and carts loaded with the dismantled lodges and the villagers’ other belongings. One of the elders, Tennu, saw Mirkrin and Nayalla coming and hurried over.

‘Taya and Lorkrin are missing,’ she told them, her face drawn with worry. ‘Some of the other children said they heard about the ambush and followed you. I’m so sorry. We only noticed when we started to pack up, we … we should have been watching them more closely. We’ve sent out some people to look for them.’

Nayalla put a hand to her mouth and turned to look back along the trail. Mirkrin just closed his eyes and had to sit down.

‘The Noranians have let the skacks out,’ Nayalla said almost to herself. ‘There will be soldiers out hunting us now too. How are we going to find them in time?’ 

‘They have no tools,’ Mirkrin rasped.

Tennu was taken aback.

‘Why not?’

‘We took their tools off them,’ Nayalla told her, her voice cracking as she spoke, ‘as punishment for going into the mines. And we thought it would make them stay put.’

‘We have to go back and find them.’ Mirkrin got to his feet. ‘Nayalla and I will go alone. You take the others on to the hills. We’ll see you back at the meeting point when the tribe is safe.’

‘Bring them home safe.’ Tennu hugged them both. ‘We’ll be praying for you.’

The two parents took some things from their cart and packed them into bags that they slung onto their backs, and then they headed off back towards the soldiers, the skacks and their sacred mountain.

The skack had found a scent. It snuffled around the dead leaves and undergrowth, trying to find out which way the prey had gone. It was definitely prey. There were only two kinds of animals in the world according to the skack’s mind: prey and not prey. It had tasted some of this kind of prey already this morning and the taste had been strange, not like normal meat. But meat all the same. The meat from earlier had thrown
something
in the skack’s face, something that burned but wasn’t hot and now it could not smell very well and its face itched and stung. Not being able to track the new prey was starting to aggravate it. It felt around with its sound, but could sense only trees. There was little prey in the ground and the bushes around it, but it was not hungry enough to bother with that yet. It wanted the bigger, strange new meat. 

Lorkrin barely dared breathe. The skack was right below them, sniffing the ground and rubbing its face with its arms as if it had an itchy nose that wouldn’t go away. The creature lifted its head and screeched into the forest. Taya hung onto the trunk behind her brother, pressing herself into it as tightly as she could. Their camouflage colours were useless against the skack – it did not see anything; it felt out things with its shrill cries. It aimed a string of high-pitched clicks up into the trees and then froze. It made the noise again, and this time Lorkrin was certain he felt the pulses of sound hit him. The skack edged towards the tree, sniffing. It was
raising
its claws to start climbing when something distracted it. It turned its head to the side and then ducked suddenly into some bushes and went quiet.

A stooping figure came into view among the trees. It was a lean Myunan with grey hair and a triangular tattoo on his face – their Uncle Emos. He had found their trail and was tracking them. Lorkrin and Taya nearly called out, but then realised the skack could scale their tree in moments if it heard them. They stayed silent, not knowing what to do. If they shouted out, the beast would get them. If they didn’t warn their uncle, their trail would lead him right up to where the predator was hiding. Then Lorkrin had an idea. He
concentrated
for a moment and turned bright red from head to foot. Taya smiled and changed to a brilliant orange hue.

The bright colours caught Emos’s eye and he spotted them up in their hiding place, but he stayed where he was,
reading
the sign for danger. He reached behind him and drew out a knife, searching warily for the threat. Putting a hand to 
his mouth, he gave a sound like a birdcall, as if warning someone nearby. Taya willed a rough spearhead to appear on her back in yellow, its point aiming in the direction of the skack. Emos’s eyes found the bush, but dropped away and he straightened up and strode off in another direction.

More prey. The skack stayed crouching in the bush, unable to decide whether to follow this one, which moved like it was hunting and might put up a fight, or see what was in the tree. It slunk out of the bush and crept after the moving prey. It felt ahead with its sound, using its highest pitch so the prey could not hear. Hunting pitch.

The prey had got further away, but the skack was not
worried
. It could feel the meat clearly in the trees ahead. It crawled faster, keeping low to the ground as it closed on its victim. Its face itched worse than ever, but it ignored the irritation. It was about to make a kill – the only thing that mattered was the prey. It got close enough to make the final sprint, squatting in readiness to dash the last few paces for the kill …

Emos was amazed at how little sound the skack made behind him. If the children had not warned him, it could have caught him off guard. It was close now. He knew its sound vibrations would be measuring the distance to him. It was now or never. He stopped and turned around, knife out before him, feet planted in a fighting stance.

Just as the skack was about to pounce, it stopped, spinning instead to avoid a battleaxe that flew at it from behind. The axe caught it in the shoulder rather than the back, but still sent 
it sprawling. Draegar launched himself out of his hiding place behind a rotten, fallen tree, falling on the creature before it could get up. He swung his short sword at the animal’s neck, but the skack deflected it with one of its long claws. Emos wrenched the axe from its shoulder and as it turned to lash out at him, Draegar lopped its head off with a backhand swing of his blade. The lifeless body slumped to the ground.

‘Damn it all, they’re quick!’ the Parsinor breathed.

‘There’s more of them around and they’ll smell the blood,’ Emos said, wiping off the axe. ‘Taya and Lorkrin are back there. Let’s get them and leave before we run into any more of these things.’

Paternasse stood with the other miners behind the cordon of soldiers, watching as Kalayal Harsq and his fawning, sycophantic disciples set up his machine. The circle of Noranian troops kept everyone back from the Braskhiam truck and its feverish group of priests. Up in the
watchtower
, the Provinchus and some of his officers sat drinking wine and watching through spyglasses as if this were some kind of theatre. There was something unholy about all this, the old man thought to himself. He had been a miner all his life, like his father before him, like all the men in their family, and it had given him a healthy respect for the land they worked under. This mountain had proved to be the hardest, most unforgiving mound of rock it had ever been his misfortune to dig into, and it had beaten them down … but that was mining. Some places gave up their loads easily; others held onto them like grim death. It was just the way of things, that was all. But what this Braskhiam was 
doing now, this disturbed Paternasse more than he liked.