‘Oops!’ Irisis said. ‘Wasn’t looking.’ She pushed it over again, the thapter banked and the lyrinx slid against the right-hand side of the compartment, dragging Tiaan with it. Irisis pushed Tiaan’s arm a fraction more. The weight eased.
Tiaan wriggled free. ‘I feel as though I’ve been crushed flat.’
A blow struck the thapter, forcing it downwards. Clinging to the controller arm, Tiaan pulled it over as far as it would go. They plunged down and to the right. She had to do it now.
‘Hang on,’ she gasped. ‘I’m going to flip.’
The thapter banked even more and the ground appeared, upside down and very near. Irisis shoved and grunted and the dead lyrinx slid out, dragging her with it – a claw had caught in her pants leg. She clung desperately to the straps. The claw tore her trousers down to the knee and came free; the lyrinx fell out of sight.
Tiaan flipped the thapter back to level and was gasping so hard that she had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, thousands of enemy were converging on the thapter.
‘Oh, it hurts,’ whispered Irisis, sliding down onto the floor.
Her leg was drenched in blood. Red blood, not purple. It was typical of Irisis to say nothing about her own injury. ‘What happened?’ said Tiaan.
‘Dying spasms,’ Irisis whispered. ‘Its back claws raked up and down my leg.’
‘Is it bad?’
‘It hurts like hell. I think I’ll have a little rest.’ She pillowed her head on her hands and closed her eyes.
She’s bleeding to death like the lyrinx did, Tiaan thought. And I can’t do anything about it.
As she traced a zigzagging path across the sky between the enemy, Tiaan tapped on the lower hatch with her toe. ‘Nish!’
After a long while the hatch lifted. ‘Yes?’ His voice was as pale as Irisis’s face.
‘See to Irisis’s leg. She’s bleeding badly.’ Pushing the controller forward as hard as it would go, she streaked for the safety of the clouds.
Nish came up and began to tear cloth into strips.
‘Tiaan,’ squelched the farspeaker. ‘Tiaan?’
Flydd again. ‘We’re alive and we got the job done,’ she said. ‘We’re coming home.’
‘We lost the other thapter west of Thurkad,’ said Flydd sombrely.
‘What happened?’
‘A flying lyrinx shot Pilot Mittiloe with an aerial crossbow as they were coming in for the attack; can you believe it? The others got a message off before the thapter crashed. They didn’t get near the air shaft.’
Mittiloe had been Kattiloe’s little sister, one of the fourteen-year-old twins. She’d been so proud of her machine. The other pilots would be devastated, as was Nish. He was weeping in dry spasms.
‘What?’ said Tiaan, realising that Flydd was still speaking. ‘I didn’t catch that.’
‘I said, have you still got the spare barrel of spores?’
Tiaan was tempted to say no. How could he ask more of them? ‘It’s down below.’
‘Good. Go to Thurkad and do the job there.’
‘Can we come home then?’ she said with a hint of sarcasm.
‘Of course not. You’ll have to keep watch, at least a week, and tell us what the effects are. If any.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘I’m not confident that it’s going to work,’ said Flydd.
‘Oh. How did the other attacks go?’
‘Against the cities in the east? Well enough – they all got their spores in. So if you can do the same …’
‘We’ll do our best,’ she said and thumped the farspeaker to end the conversation. ‘Whatever we do, it’s never good enough. How’s Irisis?’
‘She’ll live,’ said Nish, who looked ghastly. He had two cuts across his forehead, still ebbing blood, one eye had a crusted red ring around it, and more blood was smeared across his cheek and the back of his hand.
‘And how are you?’
‘My head’s still ringing but I’m all right. Is any of that blood yours?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Ugh! It reeks.’
FIFTY-FOUR
Tiaan flew north at full speed until the lyrinx turned back, then kept going. The mountains curved away to the west, rising ever higher. Some hours later she passed over an enormous river that flowed to the sea, far to the right, debouching through a delta five or six leagues across, with many mouths. A broad road ran slightly east of north, and beyond sight in either direction. The land between the sweep of the mountains and the sea consisted of fertile plains cut by large rivers, though the country was already being reclaimed by forest. Abandoned cities and towns studded the plain. Tiaan counted the remains of a hundred villages below her, but there was no sign of human life.
‘This is Iagador,’ she said without consulting her map. ‘That great river is the Garrflood and the city covering the island between its branches would be Sith. The hilly country ahead to the left, bordering the mountains, is Bannador.’
‘Where’s Thurkad?’ asked Nish, who hadn’t been this way before. On the silk-stealing mission to Thurkad they’d travelled up and back on the western side of the mountains.
‘About sixty leagues up the coast, before the mountains curve back towards the sea. The lyrinx city is almost due west of Thurkad. Hours yet.’
‘Are we going straight there?’
‘We can’t get there before dark. Besides, none of us are up to it today. We’ll have to work out a plan to attack the place tomorrow. I’m going to set down at Sith.’
Shortly the thapter settled on one of the many jetties that ringed that once great trading city. ‘I don’t think there’ll be any enemy here,’ Tiaan said. ‘I’ve flown over Sith quite a few times and never seen them. Still, from here we’ll get a good view if they are coming.’
Nish roused Irisis, who was lying on the floor, and they carried her down onto the wooden deck. There they laid her in the shade of a ramshackle building, once a customs booth, stripped her off and bathed and rebandaged her wounds. Five deep claw marks ran down her thigh, one extending to her shin. She’d lost a lot of blood.
‘They’ll scar,’ said Tiaan. ‘We can’t do anything about that.’
‘I’ve so many scars now that a few more won’t make any difference,’ Irisis said wanly. She tried to perk up. ‘And mostly because of you, Tiaan.’
‘Me?’
Irisis rolled over and pulled her shirt up. Her creamy back was crisscrossed with scars, once purple but now faded to pale red and blue.
Tiaan put her hand over her open mouth. ‘You were whipped?’
‘Overseer Gi-Had did it, on the orders of Nish’s father. He flogged us naked, out in the snow, in front of everyone.’ Irisis managed to grin, though Tiaan couldn’t understand why. ‘Show Tiaan your scars, Nish.’
‘I’d rather not,’ said Nish. He looked deeply ashamed.
‘Because of me?’ said Tiaan.
‘Because of the way we undermined you. And for what Jal-Nish thought we’d done, though it was actually due to Eiryn Muss’s treachery.’
‘I’m sorry you were whipped,’ said Tiaan. ‘I hated you both but I wouldn’t have had you suffer that.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ lied Irisis, deliberately offhand. ‘I can hardly remember it.’
‘I remember every stroke,’ said Nish. ‘Not to mention the humiliation of being punished in front of the entire manufactory. It scarred me deeper than the whip.’
‘We earned it,’ said Irisis. ‘It’s not important.’
Nish’s face told a different story, but thankfully it wasn’t directed at Tiaan.
It was a sweltering autumn afternoon and so humid above the water that it was hard to breathe. Nish lay in the shade beside Irisis and went to sleep. Irisis closed her eyes but every so often gave a convulsive shudder of pain. Tiaan didn’t have anything she could give her for it, and she couldn’t bear to watch.
She wandered to the far side of the wharf, out of sight, and climbed down a decaying wooden ladder to the water. It was deliciously cool and inviting so she took off her boots and went in wearing her clothes. The river was low at this time of year and she could see pebbles on the bottom a couple of spans below. She scrubbed the lyrinx blood from her clothes, wishing she could wash the experience away as easily.