Vengeance

But the blade dipped of its own accord and struck much lower. The wrythen lit up from the top of its head to the stumps of its shins and a thin scream issued from its gaping mouth, as if the blade had carved real flesh and smashed live bone. The sword’s tip had passed through its leg at the point of one spectral stump and wisps of its ethereal substance were separating from the wound, dripping silently onto the rubble.

In the eerie light, Tobry’s mouth was opening and closing, his eyes fluttering. An incoherent moan issued from low down in his throat, n-n-n-n. What had it done to him?

Rix drew back and was preparing to strike again when the wrythen withdrew half a yard. Its eyes were huge and staring, its plasm quivering. Could it be afraid of him? Then it spoke in a rusty creak, as though it had not used its true voice for centuries.

‘That — sword. Where …?’

It wasn’t Rix the wrythen feared — it was the sword. But why? Heroes must fight to preserve the race. A notorious quote, Tobry had said. Rix wished he had paid attention to his history tutors, and that he had allowed Tobry to test the blade.

Or did the wrythen fear the enchantment against magery? Rix swiped at it.

The wrythen pointed a finger at his chest. ‘Heart — sunder!’

The pain in his heart was like the flesh being torn in two. A molten ache seared up into his head, accompanied by a sick dizziness that drained the strength from him, and his sword arm went so weak that the sword fell to the rubble. The pain in his heart grew; it was going to burst inside his chest; he was about to die.

A hard hand clenched around his calf, fell away, clenched again. ‘Heart-heal,’ croaked Tobry, ‘heart-heal, heart-heal!’ and the bursting pain and icy sickness eased.

‘Heart — sunder!’ repeated the wrythen. This time the finger wavered.

Rix’s heart gave another throb, though the edge of the pain was dull, bearable now. He picked up the sword, feeling so drained that he needed both hands to lift it, and shoved it at the wrythen’s middle. Its plasm recoiled from the blade in all directions, leaving a hole where its belly had been.

‘Upstart, who — are — you?’ it said hoarsely.

He should have kept his mouth shut, used the advantage the sword had given him and hacked the spectre to pieces, but Rix had always been better at fighting than thinking and the insult rankled. He was proud of his House and his ancestors who, in little more than a hundred years, had built Ricinus from nothing to the greatest fortune in the land. Let no man call him upstart. Let no stinking wrythen think that House Ricinus was afraid to speak its name.

‘I am Rix,’ he said. ‘Only child of the noble House Ricinus.’

All motion ceased. The wisps, clumps of nebulosity and enigmatic darknesses of which the wrythen was made hung in the air in a watchful stillness. An alarming stillness. What was it doing? Why wasn’t it speaking?

Rixium Ricinus!

The words weren’t spoken this time, the voice was in his mind again. Why the switch?

‘Do you know me?’ said Rix.

Again that elongated pause. Rix gained the impression that the wrythen was wrestling with a dilemma.

I have not seen you since you were a boy.

The marrow-freezing cold crept upwards and he began to fear that giving the wrythen his name had been a fatal mistake, but he kept his voice steady. ‘I’ve never seen you before.’

No, you haven’t.

Yet the way the wrythen spoke was troublingly familiar.

‘The — sword — is — yours?’ it said aloud.

Rix’s unease swelled. ‘Handed down since forgotten times. In ages past, this sword was the making of our House.’

‘Traitor’s blade,’ cried the wrythen. ‘Liar’s blade. Oathbreaker’s blade.’ ‘It’s a noble weapon,’ Rix cried. ‘I’ve — ’

‘You belong to me. Put down the sword and come.’

‘I … don’t … belong …’ Rix said thickly.

He was bending to lay his sword on the floor when he realised what was happening. How could it have commanded him so easily? How could he have obeyed? He tried to say, ‘Be damned,’ but all that emerged was a grunt.

Rix gathered every ounce of will and managed to say, ‘No,’ though it did not convince him.

‘Yesssss,’ said the wrythen.

Without appearing to move, it had halved the distance between them. Its right hand shot towards Rix’s eyes, shimmying through the air the way it had gone for Tobry. It was trying to get inside Rix’s head, and instinct rose up to defend what his will could not.

He reacted instantly, with the shattering violence and precision that made him such a ferocious warrior. Ducking the hand, he swung his sword out then brought it straight up so it passed up through the wrythen from crotch to chest.

This time he was too quick for it. The enchanted blade parted something too soft to be living flesh yet more solid than any shade, then began to shake so violently that Rix could barely hold it. Tobry jerked as if struck by lightning, let out a thin cry and steam gushed from his mouth, nose and eyes.

The wrythen’s plasm closed around the blade but instantly recoiled, hissing like hot metal quenched in ice. Frost ran along the blade and Rix smiled grimly. The enchantment had done some good after all — no ordinary sword could have touched such a creature.

Both hands shot for Rix’s eyes this time. He jerked the sword out, shook a crust of black ice off it, drew back and swung hard for the region of its heart. The blade went straight through the wrythen, bisecting it, and its halves fluttered in the air for several seconds before it reformed. He swung higher, carving through something more solid, ssssss. A hot shock ran up his arm, his hand went numb and again the sword slipped from his fingers. This time Tobry was directly beneath it.

Rix barely caught the hilt in time, took it in both hands and slashed across the wrythen’s neck, then back. The numbing shocks were not so bad now; he was able to hang onto the blade as the wrythen’s fading segments hissed down the slope of the tunnel, stopped twenty yards away and slowly began to creep together. Had he hurt it? He thought so, for it seemed weaker and was taking much longer to reform than before. But had he done it any serious damage? Unlikely.

‘House — Ricinus,’ it ground out, as though committing the name to memory.

As clearly as if rays of were-light had painted the scene on the wall of the cavern, Rix saw the ice leviathan of his nightmares rolling over the palace walls, crushing them to dust and his people to paste. The cold crept to his throat. What if it wasn’t a nightmare, but a premonition, like past scenes he had painted from his imagination that had come true? Why, why had he come up here? The wrythen had nearly taken control of him, and it gave the impression that it already owned him.

Taking Tobry under the arms, Rix dragged him away, keeping well clear of the fallen caitsthe, though he felt sure it was dead. Further down the tunnel, the segments of the wrythen merged, though it did not come after him. How long until it would? As he heaved Tobry onto his shoulder, his right ankle, which he had managed to ignore during the battle, flared with pain.

He staggered to the entrance, losing sight of the wrythen when he turned the corner, and carried Tobry out past the basin with its perilous water, through the illusion into a leaden gloom, and onto the rubble slope.

‘How the hell are we going to get home?’ he said quietly.

The wind had dropped and snow was falling so thickly that he could barely make out the vine thicket. Leather and Beetle would be in the boulder-strewn clearing on the other side, assuming they had not run off. Or been eaten.

‘How are you feeling?’ said Rix.

No reply. The top of Tobry’s head was bloody, presumably from being struck by a rock, and yellow, oozing blisters were clustered around his eyes, nose and mouth where the wrythen had tried to enter. He had been out for a long time. Too long. After such a blow, sometimes people faded away and not even the healers knew why.