Vengeance

CHAPTER 104

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ said Tobry.

‘Me too.’ Since it was the end, Rix would take a savage joy in fighting and dying beside his friend.

‘Where do you think the shifters are?’

‘Not far away.’

Rix went down the passage for fifty paces, holding up Tobry’s lantern. The girl and the boy followed him, holding hands. Rocks rattled in the distance and he heard a frenzy of barking and growling.

‘They’re coming,’ whispered Glynnie.

Benn cried out, stumbled and fell. Glynnie picked him up, pushed him behind her and drew a small knife. A useless weapon against jackal shifters, Rix knew. If they got that close, they would have her, and the boy too.

‘Run back and see if you can get into the cellar,’ said Rix.

‘Lord?’ said Glynnie, terrified but reluctant to leave him.

‘That’s an order.’

Glynnie and Benn ran. Rix backed after them, watching the tunnel. He would see the eyes first, the lantern light reflected there. Water had puddled on the floor here, seeping from crystal-encrusted fissures in the roof. As he splashed through, the first of the jackal shifters came creeping along the wall of the passage, eyeing him sidelong to minimise the reflections. They were more cunning than normal jackals.

‘We can’t get through, Lord,’ called Glynnie. Her voice had a squeak. ‘It’s all right, Benn,’ she whispered, hugging the wild-eyed boy. ‘Lord Rixium and Lord Tobry will look after us.’

She didn’t believe it and neither did Rix. This was a battle no two men could win. Tobry joined him, trembling. His mortal fear was of being bitten by a shifter and suffering the fate of his grandfather — whatever that had been.

The shifters went back on their haunches, pink tongues lolling. There were eleven of them and, if they all attacked at once, some would break through. They were cowardly creatures, like real jackals, yet quite as relentless. They would try to avoid the men with the sharp swords and get through to the easy meat, the girl and the boy.

Rix sprang and lunged, and his enormous reach was six inches more than the leading hound had expected. He skewered it through the chest, shook it off the blade and, with the toe of his boot, heaved it at the others. They did not retreat.

‘One down.’

Three sprang at once, before he had his sword back in position. Rix batted the first away with the side of the blade, breaking bones. The second went for his calf. He kicked it in the snout but it snapped and fastened onto the toe of his boot. If those powerful jaws tore through, if its teeth drew blood … He swung the sword, cutting it in two, though he had to lever the teeth out with the point of the blade.

Tobry had dispatched his beast and kicked it forwards. The other seven sat on their haunches, saliva dripping. Something was caught between the crooked teeth of the beast on the left — the last joint of a slender finger, complete with red-painted nail. A lady’s finger. The beasts had fed recently but their hunger had not been slaked.

Then, through the doorway came a long, shivery scream.

‘Deroe must be going for Tali’s pearl,’ cried Tobry.

‘See if you can get through. I’ll hold them off.’

Tobry lurched off and attacked the barrier again. Rix dared not look back — if he turned away, even for a moment, the jackals would tear him down. Besides, he could imagine the cellar scene all too well. He had imagined it — he’d painted it, and now it was coming true just as he’d dreaded it would. He had divined her fate with the cellar scene that he could not stop painting but had failed to control.

The floor shook and there came a low rumble, like distant thunder, though it could not be thunder down here. He pressed forwards, using his blade like a surgeon, and coldly killed another two. The other jackals let out a synchronised howl and backed away. Rix wiped his brow.

‘No luck,’ said Tobry, appearing beside him.

‘But we’ve taught them a lesson,’ said Rix.

‘No, when they retreat, it’s bad.’

A huge, cat-like shape was approaching, its slitted eyes green-gold in the reflected lantern light. A familiar shape: leonine, red and black, paws the size of dinner plates. The jackals slunk aside, their coarse fur rasping against the walls.

The caitsthe stopped twenty feet off and crouched, swishing its red tail. I can’t do this again, Rix thought. The first time I beat one was sheer dumb luck, and killing it in the caverns was more of the same — it could as easily have finished me. It beggars belief that I can do it a third time.

‘Rix,’ said Tobry, staggering and nearly falling, ‘one of us has to sacrifice himself, and it’d better be me.’

‘Like hell. We’ll get through this.’

‘Will you listen?’ Tobry croaked. ‘Even if we beat the caitsthe, those jackals are only the advance guard. There’ll be a whole pack up the passage. And did you hear that rumble?’

‘Just a tower falling,’ said Rix.

‘No, it’s the enemy, clearing rubble out of the secret tunnel to Cython, and they’ll soon be here in force. Go! If you can cut through into the cellar and kick Deroe in the guts, you might get everyone away up the corkscrew stairs before Lyf breaks through.’

‘Be damned. We’ll cut the caitsthe down, seal the cellar door and both go.’

‘Look out!’ cried Benn.

Rix had not seen it spring. It was soaring towards him, twenty feet in a single leap, and he only just got his sword up in time to stab at its heart. Its claws batted the blade aside and it tumbled the other way. Tobry, swinging wildly, trimmed fur off its left shoulder and Rix pinked it in the chest, though not deeply enough to do real damage.

Again it slashed at the flat of the blade, nearly tearing it out of his hand and throwing him off-balance. It swiped at his unprotected throat but Tobry’s savage thrust tore through its gullet and out the side of its neck. The caitsthe shot backwards, blood spurting from both wounds, then began to shift to the more powerful and deadly human-form.

‘Now!’ Rix and Tobry yelled together.

Rix’s blade went through its neck, aimed for the spine, and severed it. Not even that could kill a caitsthe, but until it finished shifting and the damage was repaired it would be paralysed from the neck down.

He threw it onto its back, exposing the belly. With one slash, Tobry unseamed it from the up-arching breastbone to the furry groin.

‘Hold its head back, Rix. It can still bite.’

Rix thrust his sword in between its teeth. Tobry put a boot into its belly, heaved its steaming intestines out of the way and made a series of hacks, then thrust. When he raised his sword, it was skewered through the caitsthe’s twin livers.

‘Oh, well done,’ said Rix, though he caught his breath at Tobry’s recklessness. If a spot of caitsthe blood fell onto his raw chest, he could end up one of them.

Tobry seemed to have drawn strength from the victory, for he was steady on his feet now. He flung the livers down ten yards away and fumbled a paper packet from a pouch on his belt. Tearing open the packet, he sprinkled grey powdered lead over the black livers, which began to squirm.

‘Oil, quick!’

Rix snatched the lantern from Benn and poured half of the oil onto the livers. Tobry lit it and backed away hastily as it caught fire and white fumes belched up.

‘Cover your noses,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Lead fumes are deadly.’ He rinsed his bloody sword under one of the springs issuing from the wall. ‘What are you waiting for? Use your enchanted blade and cut the blasted door open.’

Rix hacked across and back. This time, Deroe’s spell twanged apart.

‘Benn, Glynnie, go through.’ He looked back. ‘Tobe?’

Tobry had a rag over his nose and was alternately looking from the fuming livers to the caitsthe writhing on the stone. It had been caught halfway between beast and man but would never complete the transformation now.

‘I’ve got to make sure the livers are destroyed. If they aren’t, it might restore itself.’

‘It won’t come back from that,’ said Rix. The livers were a charred mess covered in shiny, molten lead. ‘Come on.’

An air current drifted the poisonous fumes towards the jackals. They retreated, coughing and howling. This is our chance, thought Rix. If we can seal the door against them …

Tobry staggered and had to prop himself up on his sword. ‘Go! I’ll be along in a minute — ’

A furious baying and howling began further up the passage, then a pack of jackals came rolling around the corner — ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred of them. They hurtled up and stopped just beyond the low-hanging fumes.

Rix’s knees trembled. It was over. As jackal-men they would soon open the door and pull everyone down.

‘This is where it ends, Rix,’ said Tobry, panting. ‘Go through to Tali.’

‘You can’t fight that many jackals.’

‘Not as a man. But as a caitsthe I might.’

Rix goggled. ‘That … that’s always been your greatest fear.’

‘It still is. But if I don’t, we’re all going to die, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘A while back, you felt so dishonoured that you were going to ride out to die.’

‘And you chained me up,’ Rix said mildly. The fury was long gone.

‘That was wrong, but I don’t regret it — we needed you. Listen, Rix. I too was put to a terrible choice, many years ago, and I’ve got to atone for what I did.’

‘I can stop you,’ said Rix.

‘I know you can, but what would be the point? If I can hold the jackals back for five minutes, it’ll give you and Tali a good chance. Besides, even being a caitsthe is a kind of life …’

Rix shuddered. He wanted to say, ‘Let me do it,’ but couldn’t. He would sooner die than turn shifter. ‘You’re a better man than I am, Tobe. But then, you always were.’

A small piece of liver lay near Tobry’s right boot, perhaps left for such an emergency. Before Rix could stop him, Tobry bent, put it in his mouth and swallowed.

Rix wanted to scream and punch the stone with his fists, but that would have been a poor way to honour his friend’s sacrifice. He saluted Tobry, then sprang through the door and slammed it behind him.

The shrieks as Tobry transformed for the first agonising time were like a red-hot poker thrust through Rix’s belly.