Vengeance

‘The choice?’ he said dazedly.

‘The portrait,’ she said between her teeth. ‘I will come each evening to inspect your progress and, if necessary, give you instruction in the art of portraiture.’

You arrogant bitch! As far as Rix knew, his mother had never taken up a paintbrush in anger and, for all her carefully schooled conversation about the masters, he doubted that she knew as much about art as a common flea. The paintings in House Ricinus were chosen by an expert.

‘That will not be necessary,’ he said, bowing. ‘And don’t bother to send any bed mates to my tower. I’ve taken a vow of celibacy until the war is over.’

‘You won’t last a week.’

Rix bowed, insultingly low. ‘Mother, Father.’

CHAPTER 58

It rose up behind the child, a vast, looming shape with the heavy shadows surrounding it wavering, shifting and drifting so that, despite the light streaming from Rannilt’s fingers, it could never be seen clearly. Now it had the shape of a heavily muscled man with a frilled head, now it was more like a bear with clusters of whips instead of arms — or were they tentacles? Tali could not tell; it was transforming all the time, each morph more grim and ghastly than the one before.

It raised its head, tossed something into the air — a gobbet of horse haunch — caught it and swallowed with sucking noises and belches that glowed a sickly green and poisoned the air around it. And it seemed to smile, as if it delighted in death and ruin.

As the air thickened and congealed around it, Tali’s long bones ached and she tasted foulness in the back of her throat. She closed her eyes for a second but its shifting mental forms were more terrible yet. It was reaching out, trying to get its psychic hooks into her and tear her down to its level.

‘Why are you standin’ there!’ Rannilt screamed. ‘Run!’

But Tali saw instantly what the child could not, that Rannilt was a lure of no further use, a life to be savaged and trampled on the way to the real quarry. And not only because Rannilt was in the way. It was how the shifter had been created — as a weapon of terror, a destroyer.

Tobry choked and clutched at his blistered face with his free hand. His cheeks were the colour of an infected wound. He covered his eyes, as if he could not bear to look, and she thought he was going to break and run. But then, with a pitiful moan he shuffled forwards, Rix’s sword upraised. Tobry knew he had met his nemesis but it was not in him to turn away.

If she were to rescue Rannilt, Tali had to be mobile. She could not have summoned healing magery in her own defence but the peril of an innocent child brought it forth. Clapping a hand to her thigh, she twisted the healing charm to numb her pain.

The relief was so instant that she lost her balance and nearly fell. Tali snatched the titane sword from Tobry’s hand and ran, stiff-legged, for the golden glow. If the shifter was a creature of magery, the sword might help her to fight it. Her thigh felt peculiar and she was probably doing further damage but she put everything out of her mind save Rannilt.

The shifter took a swirling leap forward, the shadows writhing about it, arcing high and looming all around as if to cup the golden light in the petals of a savage flower. Another couple of leaps and it would be onto the child. Its right arm shifted to a cluster of metal-tipped flails, to barbed tentacles, to multiple arms terminating in hooked blades.

It was huge. One blow could shatter every fragile bone in Rannilt’s body, and Tali’s too if she went within range. But there was no other way.

She lurched forwards, swinging the surprisingly light sword while she sized the creature up for a killing blow. How, though? Since she did not understand what kind of creature it was inside, how could she tell where to strike? There was no time to reason it out; all she could do was hit hard and try to hurt it as much as she could.

It sprang again, shifter-shadows swirling about it like black flames, the heat of it blasting gusts of baked carrion at her. Tali gagged, choked down vomit and went at it, springing up to meet it as it leapt towards Rannilt to smash her out of the way.

As she closed in she saw a ragged mouth, eyes as black as the abandoned sinter pits of Cython and, above them, the deep indentation of a large hoof print, as if it had been kicked there. Such a blow would have killed any normal creature and might have dazed the shifter, perhaps weakening it. She took some comfort from that.

It struck at Rannilt from the left, a killing blow, but Tali was expecting it. She slashed safely above the child’s head and across, and felt a surge of strength flow through her from the weapon. It made a buzzing sound, an arm or flail or tentacle went flying, and momentarily the shifter drew back, shrinking a little as if gathering its remaining members to it.

‘Run to Tobry, Rannilt!’ Tali roared, and sprang high.

Rannilt scurried between her legs. Tali hacked across and back, this time only severing shadows. A tentacular arm shot out past her, lengthening as it went.

‘Look out!’

She flicked a glance over her shoulder. Tobry had ducked the blow but his horse fell to the ground, its skull crushed. The shifter’s arm retracted for another blow. It could shatter him as easily.

But not her. It wanted her alive and that was her only advantage. Tali lunged and plunged the sword deep into the centre of the creature, twisting it where the heart and lungs of any normal beast would be.

Bone crunched, she felt tissue part beneath the point and almost-black blood gushed forth, but the creature did not flinch. The sword was stuck; she could not pull it free. Tali was backpedalling when an impossibly long arm curled around from the left, three bundles of flails snapped from the right and they all wrapped around her. The sword was ejected from the shifter like a bolt from a crossbow, whizzing past her ear. Its enchantments had done no good here.

The flail-arms tightened around her, binding her arms to her side. She had done just what it wanted her to do.

‘Cel-lar,’ said the shifter. ‘Take to mur-der cel-lar.’

It picked Tali up like an empty bag, tossed her over its shoulder and started down the hill, moving across the uneven ground as though supported on a raft of air. Its touch was hideous; she was sinking into it as though its skin was decayed, though there was hardness beneath, sometimes scaly, sometimes a claggy slime. She kicked feebly and dug deep, but could not summon any magery in her own defence.

Tobry was stumbling after them with Rix’s sword but the shifter was moving faster than he could. Tali could not see Rannilt anywhere. Had she been caught by one of those flails as she had run for safety?

‘Let her go, you stinking beast!’ shrilled Rannilt from the dark, ahead. ‘Or else.’

The shifter kept moving as if to roll directly over her, but as it reached the point from which she had spoken a ball of golden light flared so brilliantly that, for a second or two, it would have eclipsed the midday sun. A pure and perfect light that bathed Tali in a healing balm.

Though to the shifter it must have felt like venom, for it reared, shielding the region of its eyes and screeching like a sheet of metal being torn. Tali kicked but could not break free.

‘ Put her down!’ shrieked Rannilt, dancing up and down.

The light grew until the fluttering shadows surrounding the shifter were blown away, revealing a lanky creature within, bone and sinew that was almost fleshless, though no less menacing.

The glow ascended as though Rannilt had raised the globe over her head, then shot towards the horseshoe indentation on the shifter’s forehead, whoomph-whoomph, and struck. And stuck there.

The creature howled and flung up skeletal arms as the light brightened. It touched Tali like a bath of tingling bubbles, then she went tumbling down, down, to smack hard into the ground. Her healing charm snapped and the pain came shrieking back.

The shifter was swaying on its bony feet, evidently trying to transform, for parts of its body kept extending