by Ian Irvine
Irisis was frantically busy, digging with teams of labourers into the workshops and storerooms to recover air-floater controllers, floater-gas generators and all manner of other crystals, devices and tools that would be needed for the fight-back.
About a week after Fusshte fled, they’d done all they could do. Flydd climbed onto a platform built from firewood to address the multitude in the rear yard.
‘The air-dreadnought is expected back from Fadd at any time,’ he told the four thousand survivors, who were still camped around their meagre fires. They’d recovered plenty of firewood but it would have to last for months. ‘It will begin ferrying you to Fadd, the closest place we can send you, but it’s going to take a long time. Even if we can pack one hundred into the air-dreadnought, it’ll take forty trips to carry everyone to safety, and the evacuation won’t be completed until next summer. In the meantime you must organise yourselves for survival, for we have to get on with the war.
‘There’s enough water in the cisterns, but you’ll have to dig out the storerooms to feed yourselves until supplies can be ferried back.’ Flydd looked up, searching for the source of a faint whirring. ‘That’ll be the air-dreadnought now.’
He stepped down. The refugees were already streaming out towards the broken parade ground on the other side of Nennifer. Flydd headed around the left-hand side, which was longer but would be quicker.
‘Laden with fresh fruit and vegetables, I hope,’ Nish said quietly to Irisis. They had been managing on hard tack for so long that eating dinner was like gnawing on a saddle.
‘They need it worse than we do,’ said Flydd. ‘You’ll have to wait till we get home.’
‘It’s funny to think of Fiz Gorgo as home,’ said Irisis. ‘Though I suppose it is.’
As they reached the front of Nennifer, the air-dreadnought, which had been slowly descending on its path to the parade ground, used the wind to turn sharply.
‘That was an odd manoeuvre,’ said Nish. ‘The pilot must be exhausted …’
Fire arced across the sky and disappeared over the lip of the Desolation Sink. No one reacted for a moment, then Flangers shouted, ‘That was a fire spear from a javelard. We’re being attacked!’
Three air-dreadnoughts broke out of the cloud where they’d been lurking. The one that had been landing was so close that Irisis could see the pilot’s terrified face. It turned away but half a dozen fiery spears struck its airbags and all five exploded in a stupendous conflagration. The boom echoed back and forth.
For a moment she thought the occupants might have a chance, the craft being so low, but it fell like a stone onto the fractured edge of the parade ground, broke in two and both pieces dropped into the Desolation Sink.
‘Like shooting a bird in a cage,’ gasped Klarm, who had pounded around the other side of the ruined fortress.
They stood together, wondering what was going to happen now. The three air-dreadnoughts put their noses down and raced for the rear of Nennifer. ‘It’s Fusshte!’ said Irisis. ‘He’s come for the thapter.’
‘If the refugees switch allegiance again, we’re done for,’ cried Flydd. ‘Why, why wasn’t I ready for this?’ He set off in his awkward stagger that covered the ground deceptively quickly.
‘You weren’t to know that Fusshte would come back,’ said Irisis, running beside him.
‘There was a skeet missing from its cage the other day,’ panted Klarm, who was having trouble keeping up.
‘And you didn’t think to mention it?’ cried Flydd.
‘I thought someone had eaten it.’
‘A spy must have been keeping Fusshte informed,’ said Flydd. ‘Once he realised I wasn’t going to use the amplimet he got his courage back. I should have cut him down like the vermin he is.’
He turned as he ran and Irisis saw a fury in his eyes that was close to insanity.
‘Where’s Malien?’ panted Yggur, limping up to join them.
‘I haven’t seen her all morning,’ Irisis called over her shoulder.
Flydd swore a ghastly oath. ‘We’re going to lose the thapter.’
They turned the rear corner of Nennifer and the first air-dreadnought was just a hundred spans from the ground. Its sides were lined with soldiers, all with crossbows at their shoulders. Javelard operators at front and rear were sliding spears into position.
‘Keep to the shadows,’ said Flydd. ‘They’ll be watching for us.’
‘They’ll be hard pressed to pick us out of four thousand people,’ said Nish.
‘Care to bet your life on it?’ Yggur grated. ‘Fusshte won’t take chances this time. Their orders will be to shoot us on sight.’
‘Can’t you spin an illusion around us?’ said Irisis.
‘Not on the run, out of nothing. I haven’t got the tiniest crystal on me.’
The thapter had been left about three hundred spans away, in an alley between piled rows of timber recovered from the wreckage for firewood. It was covered by a tarpaulin and, since there were canvas shelters all over the place, Irisis hoped that it wouldn’t attract the attackers’ immediate attention.
She edged through the heaps of rubble at the back of Nennifer. The air-dreadnought was hovering, its rotors roaring to keep it in place against the strong wind. A man at the bow – Fusshte himself, the stinking cur – had a speaking trumpet up to his mouth. Oh for a crossbow, Irisis thought, but hers was inside the thapter.
‘Where is the traitor Flydd and his treacherous companions?’ Fusshte shouted. ‘Where is the flying construct? Point them out and you’ll be well rewarded.’
‘We’re finished,’ said Nish.
‘Keep moving,’ hissed Flydd. ‘They don’t know where we are.’
They crept on. The low sun cast deep shadows behind the standing remnants of Nennifer and they took advantage of the cover to get closer.
‘Speak!’ roared Fusshte, ‘or I’ll shoot you down like the treasonous dogs you are.’
Evidently no one had betrayed them, for Fusshte turned to his archers, pointing down inside the walls of the air-dreadnought yard. Judging by the collective roar, they’d fired into the crowd. Fusshte’s signalmen exchanged signals with the other two air-dreadnoughts, hovering above, and they separated. One headed around the far side of Nennifer, the other over the rubble in their general direction. Someone had given away the location of the thapter.
‘See how easy it is to do your duty,’ Fusshte said.
‘Run!’ gasped Flydd.
Irisis put on a final burst, her long legs carrying her ahead. There wasn’t far to go – just down to the far corner of the rubble wall and around to the left, into the firewood alley, then along it for fifty or sixty spans.
Her breasts were thumping up and down painfully. Had she been expecting action she would have bound them. She looked back for Nish, who was labouring along, red in the face, about thirty spans behind.
Irisis didn’t wait, for the nearest air-dreadnought had suddenly altered course, the long airbags wobbling in their rigging as it tried to turn at right-angles. They had been spotted. The soldiers were lined up on the sides, crossbows at the ready. They weren’t within range but the javelards probably were.
Thud-crash. A spear buried itself in the timber just behind her. She raced on, weaving from side to side, risking a quick glance over her shoulder. Javelards weren’t accurate at that distance, but once within crossbow range the craft would turn side-on to fire a fusillade at them. They had a minute to get to safety.
Irisis turned the corner into the firewood alley and stopped in dismay. The canvas cover lay on the ground but the thapter was gone.
THIRTY-FIVE
‘It’s not there,’ Irisis was saying as Nish rounded the corner.
‘Malien must have seen them coming,’ panted Yggur, who had turned grey, ‘and gone looking for us in the thapter.’
‘We’ll be dead before she finds us,’ said Nish.
Irisis was running back along the jumbled windrow of timber, trying to see over it, but
it was too high.
‘Keep going, to the other end of the alley,’ gasped Flydd. ‘She can’t be far away.’
Nish set off again, with Irisis, but the brief respite had sapped his stamina. He hadn’t run in a long time and every step felt leaden now. The middle of his back itched as if a javelard was lined up on it.
The leading air-dreadnought had completed its turn and was approaching rapidly. The one that had fired into the crowd was coming their way too. There was nowhere to hide.
‘Malien!’ Irisis screamed, though even if Malien were nearby, she wouldn’t hear over the whine of the thapter. She stopped halfway up the alley where a gap in the heaped timber allowed access into the adjoining alley.
‘No point running any more,’ Irisis gasped.
Nish edged into the gap, which provided some shelter from the attack, and watched the two craft moving in. ‘Malien wouldn’t go looking for us,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t know where to look.’
‘She wouldn’t stay and risk losing the thapter,’ said Yggur.
‘I never thought she’d abandon us,’ said Irisis.
‘She hasn’t,’ said Nish more confidently than he felt. ‘And she wouldn’t leave Tiaan either, after all the time they’ve spent together. That’s probably where she’s gone, to get Tiaan.’
‘She’d better make it snappy,’ said Flydd.
The first air-dreadnought was now inching into a turn against the strong wind, getting ready to fire a crossbow broadside that would cut them to pieces.
‘Can’t you blast them out of the sky?’ cried Nish. ‘Yggur? Flydd? Klarm?’
‘If we had that kind of power we would have used it at Fiz Gorgo,’ said Yggur. ‘There’s nothing we can do to air-dreadnoughts from this distance.’
‘Through here into the next alley,’ said Nish, pointing with his splinted arm. ‘It’ll buy us a minute.’
They scurried through the gap into the next alley. ‘Spread out and keep low,’ said Nish, ‘and press right up against the timber. They’re having trouble staying steady in the wind. Make their shots as difficult as you can.’
‘What’s that?’ hissed Irisis, cupping her ear.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Nish. With the whistling wind, the clatter of rotors and the cries of refugees, it was a wonder that anyone could.
‘It’s the thapter coming back,’ said Irisis.
‘Which way?’ snapped Flydd.
‘I can’t tell,’ Irisis wailed.
‘They’ll cut us down before we can get to it,’ said Flydd.
Without a word, Flangers leapt to his feet and scrambled up the timber pile.
‘What does the bloody fool think he’s doing?’ said Flydd. ‘They’ll shoot him –’
It was the atonement Flangers had been searching for ever since he’d shot down Klarm’s air-floater at Snizort. ‘No, Flangers,’ Irisis screamed. ‘Get down!’
‘I see it,’ Flangers shouted. ‘Three alleys across. Malien!’ He roared out her name, leaping in the air and waving his arms. ‘She’s –’
The impact of several crossbow bolts threw him onto his back. Irisis cried out and covered her face. Nish pulled her in under the tangle of timber. The others had taken what shelter they could. Bolts thudded into the firewood all around them and whined off the paving stones. A javelard spear smashed into a beam above his head, snapping it in half.
‘That’s the broadside,’ said Nish, looking up. ‘We’ve got about thirty seconds until they reload. Come on – through to the next alley.’
They ran through the gap, emerging just as the thapter appeared at the other end. The mechanism shrilled as it shot towards them, stopped, and the hatch sprang open. They scrambled up the ladder.
Nish was coming up, one-handed, when he realised that Irisis wasn’t behind him. Had she been shot as well? He leapt down, looking around frantically. She was staggering down off the pile with a limp and bloody Flangers over her shoulder.
‘You imbecile!’ Nish wept. ‘He’s dead. Leave him.’ Both air-dreadnoughts were turning into position, carefully maintaining a safe distance from each other in the wind, which was pushing them to the east. He threw himself up the ladder. ‘Malien? Have you a crossbow?’
She handed it out to him, carefully, for it was already loaded and cocked. Irisis wouldn’t make it before the archers were ready to fire. Nish hooked a leg inside the hatch to brace himself, steadied the bow with his splinted arm and aimed, trying to do deliberately what he’d once done by accident.
He fired at the left-hand rotor of the upwind air-dreadnought. It was more than a span across and at this distance he could hardly miss, though that wasn’t what bothered him. His worry was that the bolt would pass straight between the blades of the rapidly spinning rotor and out the other side.
Fortunately it did not. It struck one of the wooden blades, which shattered, and the unbalanced rotor immediately tore itself to pieces. With the other rotor going full bore the air-dreadnought slewed around, caught the wind and drifted towards the downwind machine. Its pilot turned as hard as she could, the outer airbags touched but unfortunately did not tangle, and it raced out of the way, downwind.
The damaged craft was full-on now, and the soldiers might have fired their broadside, had they not fled from the near collision. By the time their officers had cursed them back to the rails the craft had been carried out of range.
Nish climbed down, keeping a wary eye on the third air-dreadnought, now racing their way. He assisted Irisis up the ladder as best he could and Yggur helped her to carry Flangers below. Nish clambered in last.
Malien lifted the thapter off and curved away from their pursuer, raising an eyebrow at Flydd. ‘To Fiz Gorgo?’
‘Not while Fusshte is alive,’ he said grimly.
‘I don’t see what we can do about him.’
‘Just circle round while I think. Make the thapter go erratically, as if there’s something wrong with it. Nish, get ready with the crossbow.’
Malien shrugged and did as Flydd had asked. The damaged air-dreadnought rotored away, then dropped grapnels onto the far wall of the yard, holding the machine in place while the crew tried to make running repairs. The other two air-dreadnoughts were circling, keeping their distance for the moment, watching the thapter.
‘Which one is Fusshte’s?’ said Flydd, holding himself rigidly upright. His eyes glittered and a muscle was twitching at the corner of his mouth.
‘The one on the left,’ Nish said carefully, realising that Flydd was so angry he was barely in control. He wound the crossbow awkwardly.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I can see him standing at the bow.’
‘Would you go closer, Malien?’ said Flydd.
‘The thapter isn’t invulnerable,’ she said. ‘A heavy javelard spear, fired from close range, could smash right through the mechanisms.’
‘I know!’ he snapped, ‘but we’ve got to finish the old Council, utterly and forever. Go closer.’
She circled around Fusshte’s air-dreadnought. He stood boldly at the rail, watching them with a contemptuous sneer. Fusshte knew Malien wouldn’t dare come close enough to shoot him and, armed only with a crossbow, they couldn’t do appreciable damage even if they fired into an airbag. The huge floater-gas generators would make up any loss from a tiny hole in the fabric of one of its five airbags.
Malien circled again. Fusshte gave orders to his signaller, who began to wave a series of flags. The two air-dreadnoughts turned in the thapter’s direction, approaching from either side. The javelard operators readied their weapons; the archers raised their bows. The third machine had rigged a canvas rudder behind its remaining rotor, and now it cast off its grapnels and came at them from a third quarter.
Malien began to turn away.
‘Stay!’ snapped Flydd.
‘They’ll shoot us down,’ said Malien, giving him an imperious Aachim stare.
‘Stay, damn you,’ said Flydd.
She ignored him. ‘When I’m in
command I take orders from no man.’
Flydd jerked his hand out of the pocket of his cloak, thrust it in Malien’s face, and snapped. A glass phial burst in his hand with a white spray of light and an acrid stench that burned Nish’s nose for a moment.
When his eyes had recovered, Malien was sagging at the controller, barely able to stand, and the thapter was zigzagging across the sky.
‘Surr!’ Nish cried in horror. ‘What are you –?
Flydd thrust him out of the way and slammed his hand down on Malien’s right hand before it slipped off the controller. He jerked it over so hard that the thapter turned on its side.
Malien slammed into the wall, eyes closed. She reached up blindly with her free hand, caught the rail and tried to pull herself up. ‘Nish, stop him before he kills us all.’
What was he supposed to do? Nish wasn’t going to attack the scrutator. He uncocked the crossbow and dropped it behind him so there could be no misunderstanding, then stepped towards Flydd, uncertainly. ‘Surr,’ he said.
‘Get out of the way, Nish,’ snarled Flydd. ‘I should have done this the first time and no one is going to stop me.’ The thapter’s mechanism spun up to a roar and it shot forwards.
‘Nish!’ Malien said frantically. ‘Stop him. He’s gone mad.’
Nish reached for Flydd, but Flydd kicked sideways, striking him in the knee. Nish went down, but managed to catch Flydd’s foot and tried to pull him down as well.
Flydd fought him off. His teeth were bared in a savage grimace; he was like a man possessed. He kneed Nish out of the way, pinned Malien’s other hand, turned the thapter and roared straight at Fusshte’s air-dreadnought.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Nish, sure that Flydd had gone out of his mind.
Flydd didn’t answer. There came a clamour of voices from the lower hatch and Irisis came running up the ladder, but Nish couldn’t tear himself away from the sight in front of him. They were approaching the stern of the air-dreadnought at frightening speed. Flydd was flying directly at Scrutator Fusshte and he wasn’t going to stop.
