by Ian Irvine
‘What’s the plan?’ said Irisis.
‘We board the air-dreadnought from the bow and take it while they’re distracted down at the stern. Flangers, what’s the matter?’
‘He’s got at least ten soldiers against our five,’ said Flangers. ‘Plus a mancer or two. Not to mention the other air-dreadnoughts.’
‘Then we’ll just have to fight all the harder,’ said Yggur. ‘The other machines won’t trouble us. They won’t dare come close enough to board, in case the airbags tangle.’
‘They’re close enough to fire their javelards.’
Yggur waved his hand and the mist obscured everything. ‘Take us down, Inouye. Once Ghorr blasts that cable he’ll be off and this little craft won’t catch him. If we lose the thapter we’ve lost our only chance.’
TWELVE
‘Drop us down to the bow, Inouye,’ said Yggur. ‘Can you do that in the mist, or should I –?’
‘I can do it,’ she said.
‘Klarm and I will attack from behind,’ Yggur went on, ‘and then we rush them. Soldiers, follow me. Flangers, stay back with your crossbow and keep watch. Irisis, get into the cabin and free Malien and Tiaan. Once we’ve secured the air-dreadnought, escort them down into the thapter. Nish, go down the ropes, cut through the canvas and open the hatch of the thapter. Don’t fall off.’
‘Very funny,’ said Nish, who was beginning to sweat. The odds were too great, the plan foolhardy in the extreme. It relied too much on Yggur, who was already exhausted, while Klarm, despite what he’d done earlier, was an unknown quantity. When confronted by Ghorr, might Klarm decide that his oath to the scrutators still bound him? A turncoat might turn again.
‘What if Malien and Tiaan aren’t here?’ said Irisis. ‘We won’t have anyone to fly the thapter.’
‘I’m sure Ghorr would have kept them close by.’
The air-floater dropped so suddenly that Nish’s stomach was left behind. He clutched the rail with one hand and eased his short sword in its sheath. His palms were damp. All that had been saved with such agony could be lost even more quickly. How could Inouye tell where to go anyway? He couldn’t see a thing.
She brought her craft out of the mist and up against the bow with the barest bump. Yggur clambered through the rope rails, limping more than before. Klarm put his hand on one of the stanchions and leapt the ropes, landing lightly on the deck.
‘Let me go first,’ whispered Klarm. ‘He may wonder how I got here, but he won’t think of me as an enemy. It’ll get me a span or two closer. Stay back, around the curve of the deck out of sight. When you hear me use my Art, rush them down the other side.’
Yggur frowned, as if he too had his doubts, then nodded. ‘Go.’
Klarm headed down the port side, moving sure-footedly on the lurching deck despite his caliper. Yggur remained where he was, gnawing at his lower lip, before waving an arm at his soldiers. They followed him, hugging the curved canvas wall of the main cabin.
Irisis caught Nish’s eye and mouthed, ‘Good luck!’
He nodded stiffly. She put her head around the corner to look down the starboard deck. ‘It’s clear, Flangers.’ Weapons at the ready, they went forward into the mist, which had begun to thin just when they didn’t want it to.
Nish turned to his own task. The thapter hung in its nets some five or six spans below the central keel of the air-dreadnought. He could just make it out. It was a long way to go down a rope, though not far enough below the keel for the air-floater to approach it directly. He fingered the coil of rope over his shoulder. He’d already lashed it into a harness at his waist, so it was just a matter of tying it to the side rail and going down.
Once he had done that, Nish checked his knots carefully, slipped through and hung on with hands and feet while he judged his approach. It wasn’t going to be easy; the thapter wasn’t directly below him, but in under the vessel by several spans. He’d have to lower himself a bit further than that, then swing in, catch hold of the net ropes and go down them.
Suddenly the mist parted, the sun shone through and a torrent of white light was followed by the ear-piercing screech of metal being torn. Ghorr must have blasted the winch apart. The deck was thrust upwards so hard that Nish lost his grip and fell. High above, he could hear the airbags thrashing as the big craft was torn free from the cable. The ragged cable end, attached to the torn remnants of the winch drum, lashed past below him.
Reaching the limit of the rope, Nish was brought up with a jerk that made him bite his tongue. The harness pulled so tight that it felt like a noose cutting him in half, and he could only draw in half a breath.
The freed air-dreadnought began to drift over the walls of Fiz Gorgo towards the swamp forest. Nish was trying to loosen his harness when a thudding boom made him look up. Someone was blown over the side, trailing blood and smoke. It was one of Yggur’s soldiers, the stocky man called Bowyer. Wide eyes met Nish’s momentarily as he fell.
Swords clashed on the deck; there were grunts and cries of pain. Nish put it out of mind and began to swing his legs. He’d need quite an arc to reach the top of the thapter from here.
He swung back and forth, slowly building up momentum, until the air-dreadnought lurched sideways, sending him headlong towards the top of the thapter, which was exposed where the tarpaulins had been folded back to allow entry. He threw out a hand and managed to catch hold of the hatch handle but was moving too fast to hang on. He kept going, now spinning on the end of the rope, swung around the other side and collided with a black, crunchy object suspended from another rope.
The ropes tangled and began to orbit around each other. Nish and the black object spun in together and he came face to face with a charred corpse, fumes still rising from its empty eye-sockets. With a strangled gasp, Nish tried to push it out of the way. Ribs cracked and the mouth fell open, revealing startlingly white teeth surrounded by charcoaled lips.
Close to panic, Nish fought down his terror. It was just a dead man in a hanging chair, the mancer who’d lost that airborne duel earlier. All he had to do was spin the body the other way, the ropes would untangle and he’d swing back towards the thapter.
Nish was about to do so when something made him glance up. Ghorr was standing at the rail, watching him.
Nish should have gone for the thapter but his presence of mind had deserted him. He hung there, staring at his enemy.
Ghorr drew a knife and with a single slash cut through Nish’s rope.
Irisis waited until Klarm had passed round the curve of the cabin, then slid along the starboard wall, pressing hard against it. Flangers followed, his crossbow at the ready. Reaching the forward door, a lath frame covered in canvas on leather hinges, she pulled gently on the latch. The door opened inwards and she slipped into a gloomy, cramped room about four spans by three. It was the crew’s cabin, their gear and sleeping hammocks neatly stowed, canvas trestles strapped against the walls. There was no one inside.
‘Must be the next one,’ she said, easing out again.
The next room turned out to be the galley and larder; the one after that, the officers’ quarters. ‘There isn’t an upper floor, is there?’ she said over her shoulder to Flangers.
‘I wouldn’t think so.’
She edged round the curve. Ahead, some ten spans away, just visible through the rapidly thinning mist, stood a group of uniformed soldiers in the colours of Ghorr’s personal guard. They had their backs to her, watching something being done at the stern.
‘Then it’ll have to be this door. It’s the last.’
She pulled on the latch but it did not move. ‘It’s held fast, though I can’t see a lock.’
‘Must be Ghorr’s quarters,’ said Flangers. ‘Cut the hinges.’
She slit the bottom hinge with her knife and pulled the door out enough to slip through. Flangers followed.
‘Guard the –’ she began, but Flangers had already taken up position.
This chamber was as large as the first, though darker, and only ser
ved two or three people. Broad hammocks were still slung in position. The floor was covered in silk carpets, and the walls in tapestries and hangings. She turned her head this way and that, trying to pierce the darkness, and suddenly the faintest pattern of the field appeared in her inner eye.
Her eyes pricked with tears. Her artisan’s pliance, which enabled her to see the field, had been taken from Irisis soon after she’d been captured. She hadn’t seen the field since, and for her to visualise it at all now, her pliance had to be almost to hand.
Irisis closed her eyes momentarily, the better to see.
Something rustled in the darkness. ‘Tiaan?’ she whispered, opening her eyes.
‘Mmpfh!’
As her eyes adjusted, Irisis made out a bowed figure tied to a strap attached to the wall. It wasn’t Tiaan but a much older woman with grey in her hair.
‘Malien!’ Irisis ran to her, cut the gag off and freed her wrists and ankles. ‘How are you?’
‘Parched. It’s been a long day,’ Malien said in a dry croak. She shook her numb hands. White marks were scored into her wrists.
Irisis lifted a wine skin from a hook, jerked out the stopper and passed it across. Malien couldn’t hold the wine skin, so Irisis supported it while the older woman took a couple of hefty swigs. ‘That’ll do. We’re going to need our wits –’
A blast followed by the shriek of tearing metal jerked the floor so hard that Malien’s knees buckled. Irisis was thrown against the lath-and-canvas wall. The flimsy structure of the air-dreadnought creaked and groaned. The craft jerked twice more, not so hard this time.
‘Yggur laid a spell of durability on the mooring cable,’ said Irisis, hanging onto a swaying tapestry. ‘Ghorr must have blasted the winch apart.’
‘And your plan?’ said Malien, on her knees and unable to rise.
What am I going to do with her, Irisis thought. ‘Nish is opening the hatch of the thapter, which is hanging below us. Yggur and Klarm – he’s on our side now, at least I hope he is – were going to take on Ghorr and his mancer.’
‘Just Nish?’ said Malien. ‘Does he realise there are guards inside?’
A deadly chill spread through Irisis’s innards. ‘This attack was planned in some haste.’
‘I can well imagine,’ said Malien dryly. ‘We’d better get after him.’
‘My artisan’s pliance is here somewhere. I sensed it as I came in.’
Malien turned her head back and forth, three times, then pointed. ‘Try that cupboard.’
It was locked so Irisis levered the lacquered wood apart with her blade. A number of objects fell out, gems and jewellery. She felt among them and as soon as her fingers touched her pliance the field condensed around her. Again that prickling of tears in her eyes – an artisan who’d lost her pliance could go mad with longing for it. Irisis wasn’t emotional, as artisans went, but as she put the chain over her head she felt the tension smooth away.
Swords clashed; men grunted and groaned outside the door on the far side of the room. A bloody blade speared through the canvas wall and was withdrawn again. A man screamed in agony.
Malien cast a glance that way, before turning back to Irisis. ‘I assume you plan to escape in the thapter?’
‘That’s right.’ Irisis had her own sword out and her head cocked, listening to the swordplay and footwork outside. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘Ghorr has my controller crystal. I can’t operate the thapter without it.’
Irisis cursed under her breath. ‘Any idea where he might keep it?’
Malien closed her eyes and put her hands over them. This time she didn’t turn her head. After some seconds she said, ‘Is there a metal box under that cupboard?’
Irisis tilted it and looked beneath. The brass box was locked and chained to the floor, though it was just an ordinary lock and she was expert at picking them. She had it open in a moment and held out the blue-green crystal. ‘This it?’
Malien nodded and tried to stand up but her legs still wouldn’t support her. She grabbed for the cupboard, her wrist gave and she collapsed again.
‘Do you know where Tiaan is?’ said Irisis. ‘Or the amplimet?’
‘They were taken to one of the other air-dreadnoughts. I don’t know which one.’
Outside, the sounds of battle grew louder. Something burst with a loud pop and, momentarily, a brilliant green light illuminated the weave of the canvas. Objects fizzed in all directions, leaving fuming trails that Irisis could see in her mind’s eye. The canvas walls flapped in and out like the skin of a drum. Someone cried out; it sounded alarmingly like Yggur. If he had fallen …
The port door burst open and a pair of soldiers pushed in. Irisis struck at the first, whose eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the gloom. Her sword point crunched into his wrist bones, the weapon fell from his useless hand and he stumbled backwards. Tearing down one of the silk carpets one-handed, Irisis tossed it over the head of the second soldier.
As it obscured his vision she leapt for the starboard door, but before she got there it was forced open. Flangers kicked the door shut but a long sword came through it, touching the fabric of his trousers. With one hand he wrenched the door sideways, trapping the sword for a moment, while with the other he thrust through the gap.
The point of the long sword flipped up, as if its owner had dropped it. Flangers wrenched the door off its remaining hinge, hurled it at the soldier outside and sprang at him, sword flailing.
The first soldier stumbled and was shouldered out of the way by a giant of a man carrying a long sword in one hand and a curved scimitar in the other. He feinted at Flangers with the scimitar, then pinked him in the shoulder with the point of the sword, though Flangers had leapt backwards so quickly that the blow did little damage. He turned towards the far door but more soldiers appeared behind the first. They were trapped.
Irisis tried to come to Flangers’s aid but there wasn’t room to get past him. Leather squeaked and she looked over her shoulder. Another soldier was pushing through the far door. He flexed his arms and came at them. Now soldiers advanced from both sides, slowly driving them into a corner. There was nowhere to go. Irisis glanced at Malien, who was still flexing her numb hands, but she shook her head as if to say, ‘I can’t do anything yet’.
Irisis moved in beside Flangers and prepared to die. ‘I had a feeling it was going to end this way,’ she murmured.
‘I’m sorry, Irisis – you deserve better. But for myself, I’ll be glad to go.’
Flangers had never got over the time when, fleeing from Snizort in the stolen air-floater, Fyn-Mah had ordered him to attack Klarm’s machine. Its gasbag had exploded, killing everyone except Klarm, and maiming him. Flangers still regarded that as a treasonous act for which, honourable soldier that he was, he could only atone with his life.
‘Hold!’ The order came over-loud, as if the man who gave it was no longer sure of his authority. The voice was hoarse, cracked but still recognisable – Ghorr.
He pushed through the doorway and the soldiers gave way. Ghorr’s costly garments were torn and spotted with burn marks, his left arm hung limply and his shoulder and side were stained with brown blood. His hair was greasy, face soot-stained, eyes red, and his formerly dark complexion had gone the green colour of bile. Clots of yellow material in his beard could have come from mouth or nose.
‘Cut their hamstrings so they can’t move,’ said Ghorr. ‘Then bind them and bring them to the bow. This is going to end right now.’
THIRTEEN
‘Well, well, well,’ came a throaty, amused voice from the doorway. ‘What have we here?’
Ghorr turned. It was Scrutator Klarm, limping so ostentatiously that he had to lift his calipered leg with both hands. He looked up at the chief scrutator, who stood more than twice his height, grinning broadly. ‘How did you catch these wretches? I saw them escape the collapse.’
Irisis looked from Ghorr to Klarm. Had he been pretending all along, so as to bring them here and ingratiate himse
lf with the chief scrutator? If not, and he was still on their side, his acting was worthy of the Master Chroniclers’ Medal.
‘They’d have to be mighty clever to escape my vengeance,’ said Ghorr. ‘Where did you spring from? I thought you were dead.’
‘No man climbs ropes as well as I do,’ Klarm lied in turn. ‘I trust you’re going to dispatch them right away?’
‘The instant all the air-dreadnoughts are free, I’ll order my shooting squad onto the front deck. Once they’ve taken a dozen bolts each, I’ll personally sever their heads from their bodies and toss them into the bogs of Orist like the vermin they are. Take care of these two, would you, Klarm? I must attend to Yggur.’
‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ Klarm said with a savage grin, but Ghorr was already on the way out.
The troops advanced on Irisis and Flangers. Irisis was readying herself to attack the leading soldier, the giant, when Klarm spoke.
‘What are you doing, fellow?’ said Klarm.
‘Chief Scrutator ordered us to hamstring them, Scrutator Klarm, surr,’ replied the giant, reaching for Irisis. ‘So they can’t escape.’
‘Not in here, you damn fool,’ said Klarm. ‘The blood will ruin the carpets. I’ll take care of them. They can’t escape.’ Sounds of fighting came from outside and above. ‘Go! The chief scrutator needs you.’
They went at a run, though not without a backward glance. Irisis eyed Klarm warily. Was he for them or against them? ‘What’s going on?’
‘The battle went against us,’ said Klarm. ‘Ghorr had three mancers and they proved too strong for Yggur –’
‘I thought you were supposed to be helping him?’
‘A change of plan,’ Klarm said blandly. ‘He kept me back, just in case, and it was lucky he did. My skills wouldn’t have shifted the balance.’
‘Is Yggur –’
‘His men only took out five of the guard before they were cut down. He felled two of the mancers and injured the third, but Ghorr forced him up into the rigging.’
