‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she said between her teeth. ‘You’ve got to steel yourself, Nish. This is just like any other battle. It’s cruel, but the injured have to be left behind. If we stop to help them we’ll all die, in vain.’
Her words roused memories he wasn’t strong enough to face. Nish had left Gumby Marth a hero, though that had been diminished by the hundreds of soldiers he’d had to abandon because they’d been too badly injured to walk. He could still see the agony on their faces, but what he most remembered was their bewilderment – that their sacrifices had been repaid so cruelly.
‘Nish?’ she shook him.
‘What if it were me?’
She looked away. ‘It isn’t.’
‘All right!’ he said furiously. ‘But we can’t just leave her lying on the floor.’
Irisis hesitated, then nodded. ‘I’ll find a hide for her.’
Nish turned back. Inouye opened those tragic eyes and reached up to him with one hand. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said in a cracked voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, picking her up.
‘Don’t let me die,’ she whimpered. ‘My children –’
‘You’re not going to die, Inouye.’
‘In here, Nish.’ Irisis was pointing to the top shelf of an open cabinet. ‘It’s the best we can do.’
Nish carried Inouye across. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me.’ She was shuddering with terror.
He tried to ignore it, sliding her onto the shelf and pushing her to the back. She reached out to him but Nish ducked out of the way. He couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘We’ll be back soon.’ They probably wouldn’t be back at all.
Inouye began to wail in a low scratchy tone.
‘Bloody little fool!’ hissed Irisis. ‘Do you want to attract them to you? Lie still and shut up and you may yet survive.’
Inouye kept on wailing until Irisis whacked her. The noise stopped immediately.
‘Come on,’ Irisis muttered, red in the face.
They hurried towards the entrance, keeping low. ‘Did you have to hit her so hard?’ said Nish. ‘The poor little …’
‘You can shut up as well, Cryl-Nish Hlar, unless you want the other hand,’ Irisis said savagely.
It heartened him to discover that she wasn’t as unfeeling as she made out. They slipped out through the mage-locked door, which plucked at them like a thousand rubber fishhooks. Irisis stopped on the landing, one hand to her ear.
‘Can you hear anything?’
‘Only people groaning in the yard, poor devils,’ said Nish.
‘No, the reinforcements are on their way. Let’s get out of their path.’
They moved off the stairs into a narrow space, a sliver of green-tiled floor between two moss-covered outer walls. ‘How are we supposed to find Muss?’ said Nish.
‘I imagine he’ll find us. I didn’t believe his story for an instant. He left Flydd months ago because he was no longer useful. Then, when Flydd turned up here and the scrutators’ downfall looked likely, Muss changed sides again. He does it as easily as he changes his shape. He led us in because he wanted something that he couldn’t get himself. The amplimet, presumably.’
‘Why would he want it?’ said Nish. ‘He’s not –’
‘For decades he concealed that he was a powerful adept,’ she said in a low voice. ‘What else is he? No one knows. Muss will be close by, waiting to see who gets the upper hand and working out how he can use them to his advantage.’ She lowered her voice. ‘He’ll tell us where to find Tiaan. The stalemate won’t suit him any more than it does us. But the instant he tells us, we grab him.’
Grabbing a morphmancer didn’t seem like a very good idea to Nish. ‘What then?’
‘We bind his hands and stop his mouth so he can’t morph into another shape, and take him with us. I want the wretch where I can see him for the rest of our time here.’
‘He could be rather a handful.’
‘Then club him over the head! Whoever isn’t with us is against us, Nish.’
They were nearing the warding chamber when Nish heard the sound of massed footsteps, below and to their left. ‘That must be Fusshte’s reinforcements.’
Irisis pulled him into a rubble-choked cavern where two walls had fallen against each other to form a space shaped like a tent. While they waited, Nish couldn’t help wondering how solid the structure was.
A squad came tramping along the gritty corridor, ten men led by a stocky captain, followed a minute later by a second squad and then a third. The captain