Flydd, teeth bared in a maniacal rictus, turned the thapter directly towards the cabin. More bolts hit its front and a javelard spear screamed off the rim of the open top hatch. There wasn’t time to reach up and pull it over. Flydd didn’t even flinch.
Nish did, as Flydd drove the thapter straight into the air-dreadnought, amidships, smashing its flimsy timbers. A length of canvas wrapped itself around the front of the thapter, cracking in the wind as it shot out the other side. Nish couldn’t see anything out the front. Neither could Flydd, though it didn’t seem to bother him.
Nish climbed up onto the side and looked back. The air-dreadnought had broken in half, its two hull sections swinging wildly from the tangled rigging of the five airbags and spilling the remaining crew down into the walled yard.
Flydd shook the thapter from side to side until the canvas tore away, then turned again. ‘Where is he?’ he grated. ‘Did you see him fall?’
‘No,’ Nish said quietly, not wanting to assist Flydd in this madness. Malien’s eyes were open but she wasn’t resisting him either. Irisis stood at the back of the cockpit, saying nothing at all.
Flydd tore through the wrecked craft again and again, after each impact standing off and searching the floating remains for his enemy.
‘He’s dead,’ said Nish. ‘He must have fallen long ago. You can stop now, surr.’
‘If he was I’d know it,’ said Flydd. ‘He’s still – ahhhhh!’ he sighed.
Nish saw it too. The air-dreadnought had been reduced to a tangle of rigging, two deflated air-bags and one that was still full of floater-gas. It was drifting across the yard towards the rear of Nennifer, with a dark-clad, meagre man clinging desperately to the ropes below the airbag.
Flydd brought the thapter up beside the rigging, matched its motion and stood on tiptoe to look over the side. Fusshte, battered and bleeding from mouth and nose, stared defiantly back at him. His feet rested in a tangle of loops and knots. One arm was twisted through the rigging, the other hand resting on a rope.
‘Surrender?’ said Flydd.
‘To be tried by you?’ spat Fusshte. ‘I’ll die first.’
‘Either way,’ said Flydd. The madness had passed, leaving him worn out and wasted.
‘But surr …’ said Nish, troubled in spite of his loathing for Fusshte.
‘He has to die,’ said Flydd. ‘While any of the old Council remain alive, the foolish and greedy will rally to them, and we’ll be fighting them instead of the enemy. Let’s put an end to it.’
Fusshte looked as though he was going to beg for his life, but steeled himself and nodded. ‘Would you grant me a dead-man’s boon?’
‘You mocked my agony as my manhood was cut away. I’ll grant you nothing but a quick end.’
Fusshte’s grotesque face crumbled. ‘Aaah!’ he wailed. ‘It’s not for me. It’s for my crippled mother …’ He reached out one hand in entreaty. ‘Once I’m dead, she’ll starve.’
‘Begging doesn’t become you, Fusshte,’ said Flydd.
‘Surr,’ said Nish, thinking of his own mother, whom he hadn’t seen in years. ‘Surely you can –’
‘What do you want, Fusshte?’ Flydd snapped.
Fusshte reached into his coat and held up a small object, like a jewelled bird’s egg. ‘It’s all I have now. Would you sell it and give her the coin?’
Flydd nodded stiffly and held out his hand. Fusshte sent the egg spinning across. Nish caught it and was about to hand it to Flydd when Irisis sprang up and batted it over the side.
‘What did you do that for?’ cried Nish.
As he finished speaking the egg burst asunder, peppering the base of the thapter with glassy shards that would have torn straight through their living flesh.
Without a word, Flydd spun the thapter around, curved away then drove it straight at the centre of the full airbag. Fusshte was begging, pleading, weeping, but nothing could save him this time.
Irisis pulled Nish down into the corner, pressed his face against her chest and bent her own head over his. There was an enormous bang and a flare of blue flame. He felt his hair crisping, his ears and the back of his neck burning. Irisis pulled him harder against her and then they were through it and out the other side. He smelt burnt hair, opened his eyes and Flydd was standing up at the controller, as bald as an egg. Every hair had been burnt from his head.
He turned and even his continuous eyebrow was gone. ‘It’s done.’ He released the controller to Malien and slumped to the floor. ‘It’s done at last.’
Nish looked over the side and saw Fusshte’s remains hit the ground. There was no movement but the people on the ground swarmed over the corpse and didn’t let up until there was nothing left of it. The other two air-dreadnoughts were hovering now, and the soldiers had their hands up. Nish signalled them to go down.
‘How did you know, Irisis?’ he said.
‘I didn’t. I just knew that Fusshte could never be trusted.’ She helped Flydd up. ‘You’d better say something to the crowd before we go.’
Blisters were rising on his cheeks and the top of his head, but the haggardness had gone from his face. Flydd had been relieved of his greatest burden. Still on his knees he turned to Malien, bowing so low that his forehead touched the floor.
‘I apologise most abjectly,’ he said. ‘I lost control.’
‘Never ask anything of me again,’ she said, so cold that Nish couldn’t look at her, ‘for I will not grant it. I’ve suffered enough from men like you for more than one lifetime.’
She set the thapter down next to the dirigible, which was packed with all sorts of gear recovered from Nennifer. Inouye went aboard and made it ready for flight. Nish fastened its tether, then Malien took the thapter over the yard and Flydd stood up on the rear platform. The people were spread around the walls of the enormous yard, apart from the few on their knees beside the bodies of those slain in Fusshte’s initial attack.
‘The old Council has finally been extinguished,’ he said, not loudly but in a carrying voice. ‘And the new one must fly to fight the enemy. These two air-dreadnoughts are yours – use them to ferry everyone to safety, then prepare to fight with us again, until Santhenar is free.’
He raised one fist. Every individual in the crowd raised their own with a great roar of acclamation.
‘Take us home,’ said Flydd and, with a nod to Malien, went below.
THIRTY-SIX
Flangers was still clinging to life, though only because of Healer Evee’s Arts, when Nish and Irisis came down the ladder.
‘How is he?’ Nish said.
‘He may live,’ said Yggur, ‘though with two bolts through the ribs and one that’s smashed his thighbone, I doubt if he’ll walk again, much less fight.’
‘You stupid, brave fool,’ Irisis said several hours later as Flangers came round after the bolts had been removed and the bone set.
‘I had to atone for my crime,’ said Flangers. ‘You knew that.’
‘And have you finished atoning?’ she said gently. ‘Or can we expect more such follies next time?’
‘I laid down my life, and it wasn’t taken. Only a fool would do it twice.’ He closed his eyes and slept.
‘You can’t talk!’ Nish accused her. ‘Going after him was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘The line has to be drawn, Nish,’ said Irisis. ‘In this bloody war I’ve done a hundred things I’ve regretted, and I expect I’ll do more before the war takes me. But I won’t turn my back on my friends ever again. That’s all there is to it.’
She must have been thinking of Inouye. ‘Flangers should have been dead, with three bolts in him.’
‘But he wasn’t.’ Irisis leaned against him and closed her eyes.
Nish was exhausted but his mind was too busy for sleep. He looked around. Tiaan was sitting in the corner, staring fixedly at him. She looked angry, lost and desolate in equal parts. Did she hold him to blame? Perhaps she did – he’d robbed her of the amplimet she’d striven so desperately to regain.