Chapter fifty-three

Inside the Great Wall

 

They bound and gagged the prisoner before he had time to say anything and then returned him to his deckchair – Kath thought that he might as well be comfortable. After that, however, they sat in front of the taint wondering how to proceed: it was too large to attack, particularly without Hardacre’s magic or Rem’s healing powers. They were at a loss.

‘Do you think they can get back in?’ asked Kath, looking worriedly at the eastern gate.

‘I assume so’ said Viola, ‘I wonder how many of them there are out there?’

‘Do you want me to go and look?’ asked Potentilla

‘No, lieutenant, I really don’t’ responded Viola, giving her a sharp look.

‘We can’t sit here for very long, then, can we?’ said Kath, ‘aren’t we better off retreating and getting help?’

Viola didn’t immediately answer. She got up and walked a little closer to the taint, although still keeping very clear of the membrane surface. She jumped about from foot to foot, as if she really wanted to do something but hadn’t decided at all what could be done.

‘Give it up, Vee’ said Kath, shaking her head.

‘I know’ said Viola, ‘I know…’

One by one they plodded their way back to the entrance hole.

 

They climbed wearily back into the little control room, slid the panel back and then, one after the other, they clambered up into the long metal tunnel. They struggled back in almost complete silence, with Viola leading the way this time. Kath, struggling along in the middle, felt dreadful; her main thought was that she might be allowed to go home. 

‘We need one of those spheres’ murmured Potentilla, who seemed to have been deep in thought.

‘What spheres?’ asked Viola, preoccupied by the thought of explaining her failure to the Emperor.

‘One of those green ones – like the one that sucked me in’

Kath snorted. ‘Shall we walk five days north, put one on a lead and bring it back here?’

For once Potentilla realised that she was being got at.

‘Just saying’ she muttered, without rancour.

‘Yes, I guess that if we had one’ mused Viola, ‘we could just suck the taint into the extra-dimensional space and forget about it’

‘Yes, and next time we do this, we must remember to bring one with us…’ said Kath, trying to end the conversation. The inanity of their remarks buzzed around in her head, however.

They squirmed on for another few minutes and then Kath stopped suddenly. Potentilla, who was at the back, was forced to stop too, and it was several seconds before Viola realised what had happened.

‘Are you two alright?’ she shouted down the tunnel.

‘I’m fine’ said Potentilla, ‘the human stopped without telling us why’

‘Sorry’ said Kath, ‘I just had a thought…’

Viola shuffled backwards towards them.

‘Can’t it wait until we’re outside?’

‘Possibly not’ Kath said, a slight quaver of excitement in her voice, ‘it might just be worth a go…’

‘What are you talking about, Kath?’ asked Viola, finding it hard not to be irritated. Kath stared ahead into the darkness trying to guess where Viola was.

‘The spheres – you remember that I said that they were some sort of defence mechanism?’

‘Yes, but how will that help us here? Anything that has gone wrong will surely have already triggered anything that might be triggered’

‘Possibly’ said Kath, ‘but the taint seems to have turned off one side of the wall, and as far as we know the other side is working fine’

‘So?’ said Viola, ‘how does that help us?’

‘I think we have another job for our Lieutenant’ said Kath

‘What?’ asked Viola, totally lost.

Kath grinned. ‘I think it’s time we ask her to try to break something’

 

They all turned around once more and made their way as rapidly as they could back to the entrance to the control room. Potentilla climbed back down into the little room and then unsheathed her sword. She looked up at Kath with a puzzled expression. Kath and Potentilla were still standing in the tunnel, looking down through the hatch.   

‘What is it that you want me to do, Kath?’ she asked.

‘Wait’ whispered Kath, ‘just for a second’

Kath fiddled in her coat and pulled out the rod.

‘This is mad’ moaned Viola from behind her in the tube, ‘it just risks making the wall even harder to get through’

Kath turned and frowned at Viola.

‘The whole wall won’t fail because we smash a few pipes – anyway the idea is that we try to break something, without actually breaking anything. I think that an attack on the Wall triggers a defence reaction, and that’s what we’re going to test’

‘And you’re using Tillie for that…?’ asked Viola, with a grim smile.

Kath ignored her. She was going to try this – there were no other plans.

‘So’ said Kath, continuing her instructions to Potentilla, ‘when I say, hit the pipes moderately hard’    

Potentilla said, ‘yes ma’am’ and then smiled at her mistake.

‘Yes, Kath…’ she corrected herself. Kath frowned and began the countdown. She pushed the rod into the open hatch so that there was a clear line of sight to the pipes.

‘Ready… three…two…one… Ophia, Quiena!’

Potentilla, who was only able to use extreme force, hit the pipes as hard as she could. Three of the twisted metal tubes shattered immediately and a green steam poured out of them. At exactly the same time a guardian sphere appeared, as close to Potentilla as was physically possible without touching her. Potentilla dropped to the ground and at that moment the green tendrils from Kath’s rod enveloped the sphere.

‘That was close’ said Potentilla, looking back admiringly at the human.

Viola let out a big sigh of relief. She peered through the hatch at the sphere in wonder.

‘Turn it off then, Vee!’ barked Kath, who was struggling to control the sphere in the small space.

Viola dropped down into the little room, hurriedly raised her hands, palms outwards, to nose height, crossed them at the wrists and then turned them inwards so that the palms now pointed in towards her face. As before, the sphere stopped rotating and turned white.  All that they could hear was the hiss of green steam. It was heating the crawl space but seemed to have no other effect.  Kath shut down the rod and the green threads disappeared.

Viola got Potentilla to open the panel, the one that led into the main gate area, a crack again; it was still quiet and empty.  Despite this, Viola hesitated. Kath climbed down to join the other two in the control room.

‘Come on Vee’ she said, ‘we have to give this a go…’

‘I think this is amazingly foolhardy – but you’re right – we can’t stop now’ admitted Viola, ‘so, let’s go and do it’

Potentilla climbed back into the wide gate space again and kept a watch on the eastern door. No-one had come through yet but you never knew.  Kath followed her with the rod.

‘How are we going to get it to the taint?’ asked Viola, ‘it will never fit through this gap’

‘One way to find out’

Kath raised her rod and murmured the trigger words. The green threads, now limited by the narrow entrance to the control room, licked the sides of the hole and then found their way into the room and over the sphere. Kath walked backwards with the rod held high and the inert orb nudged forward against the hole. She yanked the rod backwards and, much to their surprise, the sphere flattened and then popped through the entrance, like a water balloon pulled through a letter box.

‘There’s your answer’

Viola looked half-disappointed and half-pleased. Kath felt her heart beating unbearably fast, and her hands were so slippery with sweat that she feared that she would drop the rod at a vital moment. 

‘We need someone to trigger the taint’ said Kath

‘Now?’ asked Potentilla striding forwards.

‘I should do it’ said Viola, ‘I should take the responsibility’

‘No, ma’am’ said Potentilla, ‘you have to start the sphere up again’

There was silence as they considered what they planned to do. If anything went wrong then they would all be doomed; scalded alive in the cursed blood.

Kath swallowed – she was suddenly very cold. She manoeuvred the sphere so that it was just a few yards from the middle of the taint, while Potentilla slipped an arrow out of her quiver and notched her bow. She was standing next to both the sphere and the taint at point blank range.

‘Reactivate it, Vee’ said Kath.

Viola stood in front of the sphere and reversed her earlier gestures. The sphere began to spin again, a green charge filling up its centre. Viola took several steps back.

‘Lieutenant’ she ordered, ‘fire and then retreat as quickly as possible... and go back as far as you can’

‘Yes, Ma’am’ she said, clearly not convinced by the second part of her instructions.

‘After that’ said Viola, quietly, ‘it will be down to Kath’

They looked at each other, waiting for a sign from one of them that Potentilla should begin. After an agonising wait Kath nodded. The western elf fired a single shot through the red membrane.

The membrane unravelled with a high pitch pop. A low roar filled the air, as if in the middle of a hurricane, but there was no wind. A creature of blood and sinew was forming in the centre of the western gate; innumerable segments of a vast worm-like creature were coming together incredibly rapidly, and on every segment there grew a pair of jointed legs. The thing was as long as the gate and about a third as thick, and as it began to flex and squirm its body surface began to spray blood into the air, turning it into a Crimson mist. Viola and Potentilla dropped to the floor with their hands covering their eyes. They felt their bodies beginning to burn, as if they had been standing in front of a great spitting pan of boiling oil.

Kath swung the rod around as hard as she could so that the sphere hit the taint full on. There was a loud scream that filled the entire space. The head end of the taint bent round to bite the sphere and the green light in it began to fade. For a moment Kath thought that the sphere would go out and the taint would escape, but then she noticed that the middle section of the monster was disappearing inside the sphere, segment by segment. Kath lifted her free hand to protect herself from the corrosive spray that threatened to engulf her. She felt an almost unbearable urge to run, but somehow she resisted it.

The worm-taint began to slide into the sphere, slowly to start with and then increasingly rapidly. The blood rain began to slow and the writhing ceased. The taint fell completely into the sphere with a strange strangled gurgle. Immediately after, Quiena’s music began to throb through the gate again.

Kath stood up, her left hand stinging terribly – she didn’t dare look at it. Viola and Potentilla rose groggily, their uniforms were slashed, as if someone had wielded a knife on them. They looked dazed but triumphant.

Viola stood in front of the western gate and raised her hands.

She turned to the others. ‘Shall we?’ she asked, and her companions murmured their agreement.  So then she spoke the words of opening, the metal barrier disappeared, and the wide gate was open again. The Emperor’s way was now clear for him to march on into the east and resume his rule.