There had been no dust flying past them in the suction from the bellows, so he hadn’t got the spores away. They’d failed and she couldn’t see the barrel. It was time to go.
Tiaan jerked the thapter backwards. ‘Hang on, Irisis!’
Irisis was inside the coaming, tearing at the crushed hood, trying to lift it, but couldn’t budge the spears. You’ll never get him out, Tiaan thought. Anyway, he’s better off there, if he is alive.
The thapter went backwards as Irisis came to her knees and she nearly fell off. She hung on, dragged the barrel out from under the hood and punched the top in with her fist. She hurled it over the side just as Tiaan accelerated backwards and shot out of the vent, the rush of wind buffeting three lyrinx out of the way as if they’d been hit with the end of a piston.
The barrel struck the rocky rim of the vent, letting loose a cloud of spores, but fell outside. Tiaan didn’t see what happened after that, for Irisis lost her footing as the thapter accelerated. She slid head-first down towards Tiaan’s flapping hood and managed to wrap her arms around it.
‘Hold tight!’ Tiaan screamed, spinning the thapter in a semicircle. Irisis’s legs were thrown over the side and Tiaan could see the strain on her face as she struggled to hang on.
There was nothing Tiaan could do except tilt the thapter the other way and pray, for lyrinx were coming from every direction. The gap between the pinnacles came into view and she went for it.
Clang, clang, smash. The binnacle that had been broken the previous day now shattered, sending glass, crystal and what she thought were drops of quicksilver flying in all directions. Fragments of glass stung her face and she closed her eyes, involuntarily.
For a second Tiaan lost sight of the gap and had to keep going from her mental image, praying that it would take her through. The gap wasn’t wide and she felt a horrible moment of panic that Irisis’s dangling legs would be torn off between the thapter and the stone.
She opened her eyes and Irisis was clinging grimly, desperately, to the flapping hood. The thapter was moving too quickly for the lyrinx to catch it, though it was still within range of their weapons. Tiaan didn’t dare weave around in case she threw Irisis off.
There were more crashes, thuds and spangs as the thapter was hit by everything the enemy could fire at it. At least one bolt ricocheted off the hood that partly protected her now.
It wasn’t protecting Irisis. What if the lyrinx targeted her? She had to do something. Tiaan put the nose down so sharply that Irisis’s legs went up in the air, and directed the thapter towards the canopy of the forest out of which the pinnacles rose.
‘How are you doing?’ Tiaan yelled.
‘I can’t hold on much longer,’ Irisis said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve got no strength in my injured wrist.’
Her arms were wrapped around the hood, and she had managed to twist her bloody wrist through the rope that was barely holding the hood on, but her fingers were slipping as the hood flapped up and down.
What if it tore away? It looked as if it might. Tiaan reached up on tiptoe and took hold of her friend’s wrist, the uninjured one. It was more reassurance than security, but Irisis managed a smile.
‘Just a few seconds more,’ Tiaan said. ‘We’re nearly down. Just hang on a few seconds more.’
The crowns of tall trees loomed up. Tiaan slowed, directed the thapter towards a gap and risked a glance over her shoulder. A host of lyrinx were heading after her like a swarm of wasps, and she could see dozens more threading their way down the steep slope below the cliff. She’d have to be quick.
The hood pulled free of the fastenings Nish had fixed to the rim of the hatch. The wind threw it backwards, and Irisis with it, until it was brought up by the ropes. Tiaan lost her grip on Irisis’s wrist. Irisis slammed into the rise leading up to the rear platform, was held there momentarily by the wind, then began to slip inexorably down the side.
It was still a long way to the ground. Tiaan couldn’t reach back to Irisis now; couldn’t do anything but head for the steeply sloping forest floor and hope she got there before Irisis fell.
She didn’t quite make it. The thapter was still five or six spans up when Irisis’s fingers were pulled free and she went over the side.
FIFTY-SIX
Tiaan threw the thapter at the ground, which sloped steeply here. The base of the machine hit wet, clayey soil and kept sliding, and she had to spin it around to avoid trees and rocks. She slowed, stopping against the base of a giant tree whose trunk was wider than the thapter was long.
She couldn’t see Irisis anywhere. A fall from that height onto solid ground could well have killed her, but the slope was so steep here, and the ground so slippery, that it would have helped to break her fall.
The sky had clouded right over now and grown ominously black. Lightning flashed, thunder roared and it began to rain. A spatter of hail struck the thapter.
‘Irisis?’ she yelled.
No reply. Tiaan could hear the lyrinx crashing down the slope above her. They’d be here within minutes. The fliers would be even quicker.
Her orders had been made more explicit after she’d nearly lost the thapter in the burning silk warehouse. Tiaan was not to risk the thapter, or herself, more than was necessary to complete the job. And once the mission had succeeded, or failed in this case, she must not risk the thapter to save any life but her own.
Her duty was absolutely clear. If she couldn’t find Irisis in the next minute she had to abandon her to whatever fate the lyrinx had in store for such a continued thorn in their side. And there still hadn’t been time to check on Nish. Tears pricked at her eyes and she dashed them away furiously. There wasn’t time for that either.
‘Irisis?’ she shouted.
Tiaan calculated where Irisis should have fallen and circled up and across the slope, looking for a body. She didn’t find one though she did discover a long yellow streak where Irisis had hit the slope, tearing though the thin grass and exposing the clay underneath.
Tiaan followed it down. Irisis must have slid a long way, and fast enough to smash bones or skull if she hit an obstacle. The minute was up. She hesitated, then decided to give Irisis another thirty seconds. The enemy couldn’t be that close yet, surely?
She headed directly down and saw a pair of clay-covered feet sticking up in the air some twenty spans below. Irisis had skidded all that way, then fallen over a couple of embankments before embedding herself in a wiry bush.
‘Are you all right?’ Tiaan called, settling the thapter against a tree trunk to prevent it from sliding. She was afraid to get out in case it slipped.
The feet moved. Irisis began to pull herself out of the bush. ‘Just wonderful,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Apart from ten thousand bruises, a badly wrenched ankle and a hole in my wrist I could thread a needle through.’
‘Can you hop?’ said Tiaan. ‘They’re after us.’
‘I heard them.’ Irisis stood up, holding her left foot up. ‘What’s that?’
It was a crashing and a rumbling that was growing ever louder. Tiaan spun around, staring up the hill. ‘It sounds like a landslide.’
‘It’s not,’ said Irisis. ‘They’re rolling boulders –’
The ground shook and a rock half the size of the thapter came thundering though the trees, bouncing ten spans high. Passing to Tiaan’s right, it struck the trunk of a big tree, smashing it into jagged splinters as long as Tiaan was tall. Leaves and wood rained down, fortunately below them, then the upper part of the tree toppled and fell down the slope. The boulder, hardly slowed by the impact, kept going and they heard more ground-shaking crashes before it disappeared beyond their ken.
‘Go!’ cried Irisis. ‘You know your orders. Don’t risk the thapter. You can’t get me in by yourself.’