Vengeance

As he surged forwards, Tali caught the oily, oppressively sweet odour of alkoyl. Where did a nobody like Wil get such precious stuff? Could he be the thief that the master chymister had mentioned — the one whose clumsy theft had caused the explosion on the lower levels and burnt through that young woman’s leg?

‘Don’t be silly, Wil.’ The captain held him off with one hand, gently and respectfully. Wil might be mad, but when he went into shillilar the matriarchs listened. ‘The matriarchs have decreed that the one has to die, to protect our future.’

Tears began to drip from Wil’s empty eye sockets. ‘Must not interfere with shillilar. She vital to Cython’s story.’

‘The matriarchs look after the future, Wil. You clean out sumps.’

‘Tali special,’ wailed Wil.

‘The matriarchs have given their orders,’ said the captain, ‘and they will be carried out.’

Wil stiffened, then went rigid save for his fingers, which hooked into talons and raked at the air. ‘ Wil sees her,’ he uttered in an ecstatic voice. ‘She whispers to Khirrik-ai. She — ’

The captain jerked his head at the nearest guard, who took Wil around the chest with one brawny arm and stopped his mouth with the other hand.

The captain shook his head. ‘Sorry, Wil. The matriarchs said you might pretend to have a shillilar.’

‘Not pretend, not pretend.’

‘Take him away, Borst,’ the captain said to a stocky fellow with a shock of sulphur-yellow hair. ‘Treat him kindly; don’t let him see.’

Wil was led away, struggling feebly.

‘Wil, help me,’ whispered Tali.

But they did not allow him to look back and, though she knew Tinyhead still lurked in the darkness beyond the lantern light, neither could he break through the captain’s cordon. Tali had nothing left. She hoped she could face her end the way a lady of House vi Torgrist should, with dignity.

Two guards stood her on her feet, holding her so tightly that she could not move. Both men were leaning backwards, making room for the captain’s swing. Tali pictured the Living Blade taking Mia’s head off her slender neck. She had sworn a blood oath to Mia, and she had failed, failed at everything.

The captain studied Tali and his eyes softened. ‘So brave, so clever. What I have to do is indeed a waste.’

‘Then don’t do it,’ Tali burst out. ‘Take me back. I promise — ’

‘My orders are to bring your head home to Cython, as proof that the one is dead and the shillilar has been averted.’

As he raised his Living Blade, red highlights chased themselves around the annulus and the blade began to keen. He did not bow to her, though, nor reach out to take her hand. The captain was not planning to honour the doomed one — not after she had killed her overseer.

He drew the blade back. Then a girl screamed, ‘No!’ and yellow rocks were falling all around them. One bounced off the left-hand guard’s chin, rocking him backwards like a punch in the face, and another struck the captain in his right eye.

‘Come on, Tali!’ shrieked Rannilt from the darkness.

Before Tali could run, the second guard locked his arms around her and held her.

‘Get after the child,’ said the captain, rubbing his streaming eye.

Two men advanced into the darkness.

‘Run, Rannilt,’ yelled Tali.

‘Hold her while I do the business,’ said the captain. The guards held Tali upright and again leaned away.

‘Master, help me!’ howled Tinyhead.

‘Him too,’ snapped the captain. ‘Cut the traitor down.’

More guards ran into the dark. The captain wiped his eye and hefted the Living Blade.

Wil let out a shriek and burst free of the man holding him. ‘She the one. Kill the one and Cython burns.’

CHAPTER 43

Wil had alkoyl, Tali was sure of it. And alkoyl ignited combustible materials at a touch. But the Living Blade was swinging back. There wasn’t time to think things through — only to pray that it would work.

‘Wil!’ she yelled. ‘Run your alkoyl across the ground.’

‘What’s she talking about?’ said the captain. ‘What’s Wil got? Check him, Borst.’

The yellow-haired guard made a lunge for Wil, who twisted the cap off a platina tube and scuttled away, dribbling green alkoyl across the sulphur ground from one mud pit to the other.

The ground seethed up knee-high in yellow foam, caught fire and the sulphur burnt with a towering red flame and dense clouds of white smoke. A breeze drifted it into the faces of the guards, who began to reel about, gasping and choking.

Tali brought her elbow up into the throat of the man holding her, doubling him over, then ducked under the Living Blade and drove her head into the captain’s belly. He went over backwards, dropping the blade, which sang as it cut into the sulphurous ground.

She dived on it and tried to wrench it free, but the Living Blade sent such a shock through her fingers that she could not hold it.

Whoomph! Alkoyl must have eaten through the upper layer of sulphur and melted that which lay below, for a yellow geyser erupted upwards from the centre of the flame, a fountain of molten sulphur burning bright as the sun and blasting up for fifty feet. Fire crept in a blocking line from pond to pond and Tali saw her chance … though if it went wrong she would be cooked.

She hobbled towards the lowest part of the line of fire, praying that she could get there before it erupted. Then she ran, held her breath and dived through the belching smoke, and made it. Wisps of white smoke clung to her face and hair, stinging her eyes, nose and mouth, and when she took her first breath it carved a searing track down to her lungs. Coughing out stinging saliva, she darted away.

‘After her,’ gasped the captain. ‘For your families’ lives.’

The guards hesitated on the other side of the line of fire, afraid to follow. A beaky-nosed fellow gathered his courage and ran, but as he soared above the fire it erupted in a molten sulphur geyser which lifted him high and tumbled him about, blazing like a moth in a flame. He was dead before he thudded to the ground and the other guards drew back. The fire was now yards high and extended from one mud pool to the next, blocking the track and cutting them off from Tali.

Wil was standing by himself, his arms stretched out towards her and his mouth working, though she could not make out what he was saying over the roaring of the fires. And Orlyk’s squad was not far away.

As she turned to go, Wil came flying out of the flames, his mouth gaping and his remaining hair shrivelled, to land sprawling on the crusted ground. He had skinned both knees and blood was running down his shins, but he did not appear to have noticed.

He swivelled his head from side to side as if using some otherworldly sense, then his empty eye sockets fixed on her. The brilliant light threw his face into high contrast. His cheeks and chin were dotted with faded scars, his single nostril was bleeding again and clusters of brown nodules were growing in his eye sockets.

‘Take Wil with you,’ he said, craning his head and upper body forwards, raptly. ‘Wil special.’

‘I don’t think — ’

‘Wil saved you twice now.’

‘Twice?’ said Tali. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘All put to death in your place. You owe Wil.’

His words chilled her. The first time she met him he had mentioned people being put to death, but what did in her place mean?