The three men peered over.
The lake"s surface churned. For a moment none of them could make out what was happening. Axis looked briefly at the Lealfast to see if they"d reacted, but they were continuing their encircling march.
He looked below again, then reflexively reeled back from the railing as one of the Dark Spire"s roots reared high into the sky, paused, then slammed into the wall of Elcho Falling about a quarter of the way up, burying its tip into the heart of one of the bloodied web of cracks.
As it pulled back, so a large piece of masonry materialised out of the water wall and fell into the water.
"There"s another!" Inardle cried, pointing, and then suddenly, appallingly, hundreds of the roots were rearing out of the water, seeking cracks within the walls of Elcho Falling, burying themselves inside and tearing out large chunks of masonry.
"This is going to tear apart in an hour!" Inardle said, and Axis whipped about to Isaiah. "f.u.c.k waiting for the eagle," he said. "We"ve got to go as soon as we can!"
"Are your men ready?" Isaiah said.
"They"ll be ready within a heartbeat," Axis said. "All they have to do is to pick up their weapons. They"re already a.s.sembled."
Isaiah looked at Maximilian, who gave a nod. "Go," he said. "Elcho Falling is not going to withstand this onslaught."
Axis and Isaiah turned as one, striding toward the door leading to the command chamber.
But in the instant before they reached it, Inardle cried out again, more urgently this time.
"No! No! Wait!"
They halted, turning to stare at her.
Inardle was back at the balcony railing, but this time she was staring wildly out at the countryside beyond the Lealfast circles.
"The Skraelings are here," she said. "I can"t see them but I can feel them. I --"
"Look!" Maximilian said, pointing toward the hill on which Eleanon stood.
Eleanon, who had to this point kept perfect time with his hands, now faltered, looking about as if confused.
Then, in the next heartbeat, millions upon millions of Skraelings materialised out of nowhere, filling the landscape as far as the eye could see.
Chapter 18.
Elcho Falling.
One moment Eleanon was standing clapping rhythmically, grinning as he watched the roots of the Dark Spire begin to tear apart Elcho Falling, the next moment he was being jostled by scores of Skraelings, packed tightly together. It took Eleanon several heartbeats to overcome the sense of disorientation and shock, then another several to free his wings from the packed bodies and manage to lift into the air.
What was happening? What were all these . . . millions . . . of Skraelings doing here?
Eleanon could not believe it. Where had they come from? How had they materialised right within the midst of the Lealfast circles without anyone realising?
And what were they doing? Why did they look so different? Were they here as friend, or as foe?
Eleanon"s mind buzzed with unanswerable questions and a growing sense of perplexity mixed with anger. He rose a further ten paces into the air.
He could see that the majority of Lealfast had managed to get airborne, although Eleanon wouldn"t have been surprised if a few had managed to get themselves crushed underneath the sheer weight and volume of Skraeling feet. Stars, they were everywhere! Everywhere! Encircling the entire lake, packed tightly together, all facing toward the lake, forty, fifty, sixty deep.
Eleanon hovered, trying to recover his wits, trying not to allow his temper to scream forth and precipitate him into some unhappy action.
"What is happening?"
It was Falayal, hovering nearby.
"How the f.u.c.k am I supposed to know?" Eleanon said, then realised it was the wrong thing to say as he watched Falayal"s face close over.
"I am about to find out," he amended, then flew away, searching among the Skraelings for some kind of leader.
"G.o.ds," Maximilian muttered, hands on balcony railing, staring out at the scene.
"Maxel?" It was Ishbel, hurrying onto the balcony.
"Skraelings . . . " Maximilian said, extending a hand. "Everywhere."
"What are they going to do?" Ishbel said.
"Change back to River Angels," Isaiah said, "but whether or not that will help us, I do not know."
"They say they will not harm us," Inardle said, and everyone turned about to face her.
"You are speaking with them?" Maximilian asked.
"With Ozll, who speaks for all the Skraelings," Inardle said. She had a distracted look on her face, as if she found it difficult carrying on two conversations at once.
Axis opened his mouth to say something, but Maximilian waved him to silence. Wait, he mouthed.
"Ozll says they will not become who they once were," Inardle said. "He means, that while they will change back to River Angels, they will not be the River Angels of old. They will defend themselves, but they will never seek to harm or to murder without provocation. Ozll says they have sworn themselves to peace."
Inardle blinked, as if Ozll had stopped speaking and she now found the time to concentrate entirely on the conversation with those standing about her. "They will do nothing to aid us, I am afraid. They just want to change, to slip into the water and let death do to them what it wants, but after that . . . nothing. They will simply exist within the water. Whether Elcho Falling remains or falls, it is of no matter to them."
"Do they not know what Elcho Falling will become under Eleanon"s guiding hand?" Ishbel cried. "Do they not understand that --"
"They understand," Inardle said. "They just do not care. It is not their fight. It is not their matter. But they wish us well and they wish us happiness."
Axis turned away, muttering a curse. "We should never have trusted them, or thought them allies. I am not surprised that they should now seek to murder us through their inaction. Stars! They could slaughter the Lealfast within moments . . . could have done if they had acted immediately when they materialised. Why couldn"t they have --"
"Axis," Maximilian murmured.
Inardle gave a little tilt of her shoulders. "I am sorry, Axis. If it wasn"t for me . . . if I hadn"t murdered . . . They were so distraught by what I had done in my River Angel form they swore a vow of peacefulness. They will not attack for any reason, save if they are attacked themselves. They will self-defend, but never do harm for others, however glorious the cause."
"They swore that vow just to see us dead," Axis hissed.
"You! Youf Eleanon drifted lower to the ground, toward a Skraeling who seemed to have a slight aura of command.
At least, there was the tiniest of s.p.a.ces about him and those Skraelings closest seemed to defer to him.
Eleanon landed. "Your name?"
"Ozll," said the Skraeling. "h.e.l.lo, Eleanon."
Eleanon was in no mood for the niceties of polite social interaction.
"Are you here to fight for the Lord of Elcho Falling?" he said, using his elbows to shove aside any Skraeling who pressed too close.
"No," Ozll said.
"To fight for me?"
"No."
"Then what are you doing? The One is gone. There is no need to trail about looking for him. There"s no reason for you to be here. Go. Go!"
"We won"t take long," Ozll said. "Then we"ll be out of your way."
Eleanon felt like striking out in his frustration. "You won"t take long to do what?"
"Drown ourselves," Ozll said.
Then, before Eleanon could make any response other than an incredulous look, Ozll gave the most heart-rending moan that carried over the entire ma.s.s of Skraelings about Elcho Falling"s lake.
Eleanon looked around, then at Ozll. "Drown yourselves? You want to drown yourselves? Then go right ahead. Would you like me to push you? Eh? Just do it, Ozll, and get the f.u.c.k out of my way!"
The world, he decided, had gone completely to madness.
They saw Eleanon lift away just after Ozll had moaned, and then, as Eleanon rose higher, the entire ma.s.s of Skraelings echoed Ozll"s moan. It reverberated through Elcho Falling, causing more than a few pieces of masonry to fall into the lake, and making Inardle groan in sympathy.
"G.o.ds, G.o.ds," she muttered, sinking into a squatting position on the floor of the balcony, her hands over her ears. "They are so sad!"
Everyone else only had eyes for the Skraelings. Immediately after that collective moan, the ma.s.s of Skraelings surged toward the water. As soon as the first of them entered the water, they began to scream, and then every single Skraeling was screaming, and all on the balcony and in the air and within Elcho Falling groaned and turned away from the horror.
"They are so scared!" Inardle said. "So terrified . . . can"t you feel it? Can"t you?"
Axis had reeled back against the outer wall of Elcho Falling. He had his hands against his ears and his face was contorted by the agony and fear he felt rising in great waves from the ma.s.s suicide below him. The Skraelings might have been terrified, but they were scrabbling over their comrades in order to reach water, wave after wave of them, rushing into death as fast as they could.
The lake began to seethe and bubble with their dying.
Eleanon hovered above the tangled, writhing ma.s.s of dying creatures, unable to believe what he was witnessing.
What had got into them?
And in the end, who cared? They"d all be dead soon enough and, apart from the stink of their decomposing bodies, they"d be no trouble to anyone ever again.
Eleanon could certainly do without them. They"d never been anything but a trouble.
He waved to Falayal. "Start to rea.s.semble our fellows. This shouldn"t take long, and then we can get back to the matter at hand."
Bodies of Skraelings sank deep into the lake. They wanted to float, but there was such a dense ma.s.s of dead and dying bodies above them that they were forced toward the bottom of the lake.
On the sh.o.r.es, the final few, desperate Skraelings had managed to trample over the corpses of their comrades and throw themselves into the lake.
Water began to fill their lungs.
Memories resurfaced. Memories of the water, and how it felt to be one with the water. How it had felt to dance through sun-dappled and storm-darkened rivers, and how it had felt to have the life-force of the water run through their entire beings.
How it felt to have the power of water in their hands and hearts and minds.
How it felt to sing with the water and to manipulate that song.
As they sank through death the Skraelings remembered, and as they remembered, so their corpses twitched and breathed in deeply of their element.
As they remembered, so they changed, The watchers from Elcho Falling saw it first, but Eleanon was not far behind. One moment there was nothing but deep-packed Skraeling corpses extending far into and under the lake.
The next . . . the next there were rivers of light running through the water as one by one the Skraeling corpses metamorphosed.
Eleanon had alighted on the (now gratefully uncrowded) sh.o.r.es of the lake and stood, looking on with a frown.
What was happening now?
He took a step forward, then another, then more, until he was but three or four paces from the edge of the water.
The water was seething, but Eleanon could not quite make out what it was. It looked almost as if . . . as if .
Then, in one heart-stopping, shocking moment, a column of water reared up from the lake a pace or so away. It had eyes and features, although none of the features were clearly distinguishable, but Eleanon recognised it instantly.
It was what Inardle had turned herself into when she"d attacked Eleanon and his small group.
And Eleanon realised, as more and more columns reared up before plunging back under the surface of the water, that all the Skraelings had transformed themselves into these terrifying creatures, and that there were millions upon millions of these things in the water, and they would undoubtedly attack him as Inardle had once attacked.
With stunning, deadly force.
Ozll, or whatever he was now, had tricked him. He had only claimed to be peaceable so that Eleanon would grant the Skraelings free access to the lake.
No, they would attack, and they would do it within moments.
Eleanon panicked.
The One, watching, almost panicked himself. He realised what Eleanon was about to do, and knew that it would be the death of him if he were caught.