The Sea of Thurkad could not be more than a league away – ten or fifteen minutes' travel at this speed. But a lot could happen in ten minutes. She kept on, trying to master herself. She was still trying to control her twitching arm when the construct shot out of forest into scrub somewhat higher than her head. The bushes had small leaves tipped with sharp points or hard grey needles. She roared along a bare strip of sand that ran up the side of an elongated ridge. As she rose over the top, Tiaan saw a series of parallel ridges, forming waving lines from south to north – sand dunes – and caught a whiff of the salt sea.
She could not see it from the top of the dune. The scrub cut off her view in every direction, and her passage too, unless she forced a way though it, which must make such a racket that the Aachim would hear her from half a league distant. Tiaan went back to the edge of the forest, turned north, then changed her mind and headed south.
The forest thinned in this direction. She climbed another long, shallow dune and from the top saw across the band of scrub land to the sea, and Meldorin beyond that. There were no constructs in sight. Tiaan allowed herself to hope. Temporary refuge was only five minutes away, if she could find a clear passage there.
And then she saw one – a series of scalloped blow-outs along the dunes, where the wind had torn away the scrub to reveal bare yellow sand which ran almost all the way to the water. A barrier of scrub blocked the last few hundred paces. She would have to crash through, trusting to speed and surprise to reach the coast before the Aachim could cut her off, and pray it did no fatal damage to the machine.
Taking a deep breath, she checked in all directions. Nothing. Tiaan moved on, steadily but slowly, so as to keep the whine of the construct as low as possible. She took advantage of every scrap of concealment, always travelling below the ridge of the dune and, where possible, on the shadowed side.
Before the scrub barrier she stopped, rinsed her dry mouth with what remained in her flask, wiped sweaty palms down her legs and cut off the flow of power. Silence fell, broken only by the creaking of metal as it came to rest, a gentle sighing of the breeze in the scrub and, more distantly, one bird chirruping to another. This was it. She gauged the density of the scrub The trunks were thinner than her wrist, but wiry. They could still do damage. Tiaan accelerated to a moderate pace, about the speed of a trotting horse. Too slow and resistance would bring her to a dead stop, too fast and she would not be able to avoid a large obstacle, like a trunk big enough to smash in the front of the construct.
The construct hit the wall of scrub, tearing through the bushes and sending a rain of branches and leaves into her face. She flipped the hatch down and continued. The racket was unbelievable; like being under a metal dome in a hail-storm. She could see nothing out the front but a hurricane of leaves and swirling bark. The construct struck something hard, evidently the trunk of a small tree. She heard the snap, then it went sliding by. Surely there could not be far to go now.
The machine burst through and there was nothing in front of her but bare sand, a dune that rose steadily, obscuring her view of the sea. Tiaan popped the hatch, wiped leaves out of the binnacle and dried her sweaty hands. So close. She looked around carefully. Still nothing. She eased the construct ahead, still at trotting pace, in case there was a cliff beyond the crest. Topping the dune, she saw a long gentle slope running down to a rocky shore. The wind blew strongly here and the sea was flecked with whitecaps. To her right the shore ran straight for half a league, just sand and dark patches of jumbled rock. To her left a black headland loomed, too steep and rocky for the construct to climb. She saw no sign of the enemy. It scarcely seemed possible, but Tiaan did not question her good fortune.
She kept going at a steady pace towards the shore. Scanning the rock masses for the safest passage to the water, she saw nothing odd about the curved black rocks to her left, nor those on her right. She saw nothing amiss until a net rose up from the sand and the construct drove straight into it.
It gave before her then began to pull taut. The webs of another net whipped against the back and over the top, enclosing the construct. Tiaan panicked, but instinct moved the controls. The construct lurched forwards but the ropes snapped tight, slowing her machine until it was barely moving. Now it was not moving at all. Now they began to pull it backwards.
Tiaan shot a glance over her shoulder. The huge nets were attached to three constructs on her left, two on her right. She could draw more power than they could, but not five times as much. Poured directly into this machine, it would either destroy it, or her. She took as much as she dared. Her backwards progress halted. She inched forward a few spans, stalled, and was dragged back. Now the net began to tighten as they reeled it in from the ends. As soon as she was immobilised, they would swarm all over her.
What if she turned and went for the join of the net? Unfortunately, its two leaves overlapped above her. Whichever way she went, it would hold her. And it was too strong to break; thus far she had not torn a single strand.
There was one last hope, though she had only seconds to do it. With the helm, and the skills the Aachim had taught her, she could draw power more precisely than ever before. If she could locate the spot from which the other machines were drawing power, she might be able to snatch that power from under their noses. It would only stop them for a few seconds, but it might just be enough. The problem was, how to tell which machine was drawing power from which part of the field.
Maybe it didn't matter. She could distinguish these five from the many distant constructs. Tiaan identified all the sources and locked onto the first, the second, then each of the others She did not draw power yet, but allowed the Aachim to pull her backwards. Let them think she was weakening. This must be hurting them, too.
Tiaan sensed an irregularity in one of the power draws. The field there was fluttering. She pounced, taking all the power she could. The tension on the right-hand side of the rope eased and her construct jerked forward. Sensing another flutter, she drew power from there as well. Another jerk, and there came a rending noise behind her and the net gave. It was now tangled around one of the three constructs. Back to her right it was still fixed, though one construct had lost power and was being dragged sideways. The other could not hold her by itself. Tiaan was now approaching the water. A long way to her right, hordes of machines were racing along the water's edge, flinging clouds of sand and mist into the air. She took power jerkily, trying to break free of the other two constructs. One rolled onto its side, jammed against a rock ledge and the ropes broke. The other was still attached and, no matter how she tried, Tiaan could not get rid of it. If she didn't, they would have her. She could now see hundreds of constructs. They were coming from her left as well, through the scrub near the black headland.
Her only chance was straight ahead. Tiaan gave it everything she had. Her construct leapt across the sand and onto the water, dragging the other machine. It struck a boulder in the surf, was hurled high and came crashing down, nose first, to plunge beneath the water. The sea hissed like a kettle, boiled over and, as the cold water came in contact with the hot innards of the construct, it exploded in all directions. Pieces of flaming construct hurtled skywards and, to her horror, several bodies. The net came away. Her construct soared like a skipping stone, came down hard and bounced, spinning sideways. Tiaan hung on grimly as the whirling force tried to throw her out. The machine hit the water on its base and skipped again.
Constructs were converging on her from all directions. Hundreds more – how had she not seen them? – had formed into a curving barrier further across the sea. There was just one small gap, to the south. She darted through and raced south down the Sea of Thurkad.