‘What, again? Why wasn’t I told? I suppose he’s ransacking the cellars of ruined Garching this time, the sot.’
‘Klarm has work to do, as do we all,’ Flydd said pointedly. ‘Shall we get on? Now winter has ended hostilities, we must urgently plan our spring offensive. Time is running away on us.’
‘Since the lyrinx don’t like to fight in winter,’ said Irisis, ‘surely it’d be a good time to retake the lands we’ve lost?’ It was a question she’d often wondered about.
‘It’s too wet and cold,’ said Flydd. ‘Our clankers and supply wagons would bog, and soldiers don’t fight well with wet feet and empty bellies. And, while the enemy prefer not to fight at this time of year, they’ll aggressively defend what they have.’
‘I thought they hibernated in winter?’
‘Only for a month, and not all at the same time, except where they feel very secure.’
‘Oh!’
‘Is there anywhere else we can look for aid?’ said Irisis. ‘What’s Vithis up to?’
It was a much debated question. The behaviour of the invading Aachim seemed to be inexplicable. Why had they suddenly retreated north and walled themselves in?
‘There’s been no news since he went to the Hornrace,’ said Yggur, ‘though rumours persist that he’s raising a fortress there. But after the craven way he held back his forces at Snizort, I’d be wary of relying on him.’
‘What about the Aachim of Stassor?’ said Flydd.
Yggur glanced at Malien, who said, ‘I know what their reply would be. They don’t involve themselves in the affairs of old humans.’
‘They may find it in their interests to do so this time,’ said Flydd.
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ said Yggur dismissively.
‘Is there any hope for us, surr?’ said Irisis. ‘Give us the truth.’
‘The enemy don’t yet have our numbers but they surpass us in strength,’ said Flydd, ‘and in toughness and mobility. They have the advantage of flight, those who are winged and can use the Art, and lyrinx need less supplies, since they can live off our fallen.’
‘It’d be more profitable to consider their weaknesses,’ said Yggur.
‘The enemy seem to rely on strength more than intelligence,’ said Irisis, ‘but I’m not sure they’re very adaptable.’
‘They adapt well enough when they have the time,’ said Flangers from his litter by the fire. ‘But not in the heat of battle. When hard pressed, they fall back on their same old tactics, where we would work out new ones.’
‘Then whenever we’re fighting them, we must shape the battle plan to make them uncomfortable,’ said Nish.
‘They suffered from the heat in Kalissin,’ said Tiaan in a hesitant voice. Irisis looked around and found her sitting in the shadows of the far corner, as if she were hiding. ‘They prefer cool weather, though they don’t like bitter cold any more than we do. And another thing …’
‘Yes, Tiaan?’ said Yggur.
‘It seemed to me that they weren’t quite at home in their bodies.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘It was the way they kept working their limbs, shrugging their shoulders and plucking at their outer skin,’ said Tiaan. ‘They seemed uncomfortable a lot of the time.’
‘That’s hardly surprising,’ said Flydd, ‘considering how greatly they flesh-formed their unborn young, to survive in the void. For every strength that served them well there, they must have a weakness we can exploit here.’
‘How do they feel in themselves?’ said Fyn-Mah, who was sitting close to Flydd, as always since his return. ‘Are they happy with what they’ve become?’
‘Not all of them,’ said Tiaan. ‘Many are born malformed. Some never develop wings and others lack pigment or the armoured outer skin.’
‘Do they treat these ones badly?’ asked Flydd.
‘Not as badly as humans would,’ said Tiaan, ‘though they are regarded as inferior. They’re rarely permitted to breed.’
‘Anything else?’ said Yggur.
‘Snizort had some other significance for the lyrinx,’ said Nish, ‘and it was more important than fighting us. They delayed the battle so they could complete it.’
‘Why hasn’t anybody mentioned this before?’ said Yggur sharply.
Nish shrugged. ‘They made a tunnel into the Great Seep and took a lot of relics out of it. Gilhaelith helped them to find the relics, I’m told.’
‘A tunnel into liquid tar?’
‘They froze the tar first,’ said Tiaan. ‘We saw the entrance as we escaped from Snizort.’
‘And I’ve thought of something else,’ said Nish. ‘Tiaan was with a man called Merryl, a freed slave who’d been held by the lyrinx for many years and spoke their tongue. If anyone knows the enemy’s secrets, it would be him.’
‘What happened to this fellow, Tiaan?’ said Yggur.
‘I haven’t seen him since we escaped.’
‘Chances are that he was put to work, hauling clankers,’ said Flydd. ‘If he survived that, he could be anywhere.’
‘I’ll tell my spies to keep watch for him,’ said Yggur, ‘though I doubt he’ll be found. Pity. Are we finished?’
‘Gilhaelith once mentioned that a lyrinx had developed a dreadful inflammation between its skin layers,’ said Flydd. ‘It clawed its armoured skin off and they had to put it to death. They buried the body and left hastily, as if afraid of infection.’
‘When was this?’ said Yggur, his mouth tightening at mention of the geomancer.
‘He came to visit me at the healers, before Fiz Gorgo was attacked.’
‘How curious,’ said Yggur. ‘Tell me, did he say why the enemy were tunnelling into the Great Seep?’
‘No.’
‘What did they find?’
‘The remains of an ancient village – wooden walls, floors, furniture, and a lot of bodies preserved by the tar. Also some large crystals of brimstone in boxes. They called one “The Brimstone”.’
‘The Brimstone?’ said Yggur. ‘What did they say about it?’
‘Gilhaelith didn’t know.’
‘Or wouldn’t tell you,’ Yggur said darkly.
Not even in that slave-driven time in the manufactory a year ago, after their return from the fatal trek across the ice plateau, had Nish laboured as hard as he did now. The expedition to Snizort required three more air-floaters, which had to be built from scratch in a month. He’d given a list of essential items to Klarm, thinking that they’d be obtainable in Borgistry, only to be told that the old Council had stripped Borgistry clean to make its sixteen air-dreadnoughts. He’d already searched the sites where air-dreadnoughts had crashed and burned but the intense fires had consumed everything, and no one knew what had happened to the other four Fusshte had fled with.
Nish worked in a cramped stone shed in a southern corner of the yard. Being built against the outer wall, it never saw the winter sun. His sole source of warmth was an open brazier fed with chips and wood shavings, when he had the time to gather them. He started work at five in the morning, seldom finished before midnight, and was often so tired that he slept on the floor.
He didn’t see Irisis from one day to the next for she was just as frantic, directing Tiaan and four other artisans in the making of all sorts of devices they’d need before the spring offensive. They’d recovered air-floater controllers, floater-gas generators and all manner of other bits and pieces from Nennifer, but still the work was endless. Nish missed her.
Yggur had sent Fyn-Mah off in the air-floater with Klarm to conscript artificers, smiths, carpenters and all the other workers needed, but she hadn’t yet come back. Some might be found at Old Hripton but others would have to come from Borgistry.
And making air-floaters was the easiest of his jobs, for at least Nish knew what to do and he had the original air-floater to use as a template. He also had to find skilled artificers to carry out whatever repairs would be needed to get the abandoned constructs running. Among the survivors of the amphitheatre’s collapse were a number of artificers who had experience with clankers, but constructs were very different. Nish would have to conduct most of their training without a thapter to work on, as it was about to leave on Flydd’s embassy to the east coast. Nish had the construct mechanism recovered from Snizort some months ago, but for the rest he had to make do with wooden models and drawings, which he knew were not good enough.