Gyrull strained so hard that her chest plates burst away, but she took another step, and another. She was almost to the racks now.
Gilhaelith attempted a different working. Gyrull dismissed it with a flash of skin colours on what outer skin she had left. Forcing herself against the torture, she threw herself at the racks and caught the end of the crate.
Nish was still paralysed as Gyrull took the crate in both hands and tried to lift it off. Nish was struck with admiration, that she could overcome such agony to regain, against such odds, the most precious things in the world to her people. He felt sure she would, for the other lyrinx were only minutes away.
Gyrull hefted the crate onto her bloody shoulder and staggered back with it. Gilhaelith abandoned his Arts, which were clearly inferior to hers, leapt down through the hatch and reappeared with a crossbow. He slid in a bolt, clumsily wound the cranks and pointed it at Gyrull’s back. The bow wobbled in his hands, but not even a novice could miss her from here.
He fired. She jerked, turned halfway around and the crate slid from her hands, raising clouds of dust when it hit the ground. Gyrull’s claws scraped at the wound, fell to her sides and she thudded to the ground beside the crate. Though she struggled until the soil around her was purple with blood, she could not force herself to her feet again.
The paralysis vanished. Nish ran to help recover the first crate and tie it down, while the paired soldiers went for the second and third. The downed lyrinx were on their feet, wobbly but recovering rapidly. He felt for his sword.
Once more Gilhaelith roared into the farspeaker. The lyrinx collapsed again, though this time they were up rather more quickly. Each time the device was used, it seemed to affect them less.
He roared again. They checked, their mouths open in pain but they remained on their feet. Gyrull was still struggling, though weakly. She urged the lyrinx on in her own tongue, reinforcing her exhortations with fiery skin-speech on her rags of outer skin.
The second pair of soldiers were struggling to lift the last crate. They carried it a few steps, let it down hard then hefted it again. Flangers hobbled across to help them while his mate stood by with the rack ropes.
The two lyrinx struggled towards them as if walking through thigh-deep honey, but suddenly broke free and went for the last crate. The other fliers were closing rapidly and once they arrived all would be lost. Nish threw himself between the lyrinx and the crate, swinging his sword around his head, hoping to make enough of a diversion for Flangers to heave the crate onto the racks.
The two lyrinx stopped, cast a couple of blows in his direction, which he ducked, then went around him on either side. Nish whirled, attacking the one on his right from behind, though his blow did not penetrate its armour.
‘Get aboard!’ shouted Gilhaelith. ‘We’ve got what we came for.’
The lyrinx were now between the thapter and Nish, running for the racks. Two soldiers took on the creature to Nish’s left. One soldier went down from a backhanded blow to the side of the head but the second fought on.
Flangers and the fourth soldier were already climbing the ladder; the thapter began to move, stirring up clouds of red dust. The lyrinx on Nish’s right sprang and landed on the racks, frantically slashing at the ropes with its claws and teeth, and tearing one of the metal covers of the thapter half off. Flangers armed a crossbow and jumped awkwardly onto the rear platform, landing just a span from the creature. His weak leg shook and he nearly went over the side, but the lyrinx didn’t look around. It kept clawing at the ropes. Flangers shot it and it fell off just as the first flight of lyrinx came hurtling through the drifting dust. The second flight was close behind.
Kimli spun the thapter to approach Nish from the other side. Gilhaelith was shouting at her. The second soldier had fallen.
‘Get aboard!’ she screeched.
Lyrinx flew at the thapter from all directions, teeth bared and eyes wild.
‘Go!’ Gilhaelith roared. ‘Leave him.’
Kimli nudged the machine across towards Nish, who took a running leap and managed to catch hold of the racks with one hand. The thapter jerked into the air, he lost his grip and fell hard.
‘Get going!’ Gilhaelith must have grabbed the pilot’s hand and pulled up on the controller, for the thapter took off vertically through the lyrinx. It stopped in mid-air about twenty spans up and hovered while they desperately beat their way to it.
Gilhaelith climbed onto the rear platform and shouted down to Gyrull. ‘Mindspeak this message to your people, Matriarch! Withdraw your armies from east and west or I’ll burn your relics to ash and scatter them from one side of the Dry Sea to the other.’
‘What would you have us do?’ she croaked, barely able to raise her head.
The thapter lifted another ten spans to remain out of reach of the despairing lyrinx.
Gilhaelith raised his voice. ‘Assemble your armies on the cliffs near Ashmode, at the edge of the Dry Sea north-west of here, and bring the power patterner with you. In exchange, I will return your precious relics.’
‘We will not give up the flisnadr,’ said the matriarch.
‘I know your deepest secrets,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘You’ll abandon everything else to recover the relics.’
‘You know nothing about us, Tetrarch.’
Nish couldn’t see how she found the strength to speak. And then a dozen lyrinx, diving out of the dazzle of the sun, plunged head-down straight for the thapter.
‘On the contrary,’ began Gilhaelith. ‘No! Kimli –’
She’d already acted. The thapter shot sideways, flinging Gilhaelith to his knees. ‘Bring the power patterner or lose everything,’ he shouted. The thapter shot away, soon to disappear into the northern sky.
The lyrinx in the air formed a circle and let out a series of shrill, wailing cries, echoed by the creatures on the ground. What would they do now? They’d been driven from their homes and lost the relics that mattered most to them, so what did they have to lose? Had he helped to precipitate Armageddon?
The lyrinx on the ground turned to attend to him, and Nish discovered that he was alone – the other soldier no longer had a head. He put up his hands, but the closest lyrinx seemed in no mood to accept his surrender, while another score of lyrinx were even now surrounding him. They landed heavily, puffing up more red dust. Nish had never seen such violent and threatening skin colours.
The nearest lyrinx caught Nish around the chest in a crushing grip. Its claws dug into his ribs, the enormous mouth opened and green saliva sprayed his cheeks. It was going to bite his head off. He closed his eyes.
‘Thlamp!’ said a female voice. ‘Inixxi rurr!’
The lyrinx dropped him on the ground and put its foot on him. Nish opened his eyes. The lyrinx that had spoken was unlike any of the others. It was slender, relatively speaking, with enormous pale wings that lacked pigmentation. Its skin was likewise uncoloured apart from the faintest tinge of green on its crest, indicating a mature female. Most unusual of all was the absence of armoured skin that protected the other lyrinx. Her soft outer skin, though coated with wax, was practically transparent. He could see her breasts through it.
‘I am Liett, daughter of Wise Mother Gyrull, who is now dying in agony because of you,’ the female said in the common tongue. ‘You are my prisoner and I’m going to see the colour of your blood.’
Liett’s wings caught the sunlight with a shimmering, pearly opalescence. Had he seen her before? Yes, he had. His eyes widened.
‘Do I know you, human?’ said Liett.
‘You slashed my balloon near Tirthrax, the winter before last. I was lucky to survive.’
‘Had I done the job properly,’ she said savagely, ‘we would not be here now. What is your name?’