‘Speak!’ roared Fusshte, ‘or I’ll shoot you down like the treasonous dogs you are.’
Evidently no one had betrayed them, for Fusshte turned to his archers, pointing down inside the walls of the air-dreadnought yard. Judging by the collective roar, they’d fired into the crowd. Fusshte’s signalmen exchanged signals with the other two air-dreadnoughts, hovering above, and they separated. One headed around the far side of Nennifer, the other over the rubble in their general direction. Someone had given away the location of the thapter.
‘See how easy it is to do your duty,’ Fusshte said.
‘Run!’ gasped Flydd.
Irisis put on a final burst, her long legs carrying her ahead. There wasn’t far to go – just down to the far corner of the rubble wall and around to the left, into the firewood alley, then along it for fifty or sixty spans.
Her breasts were thumping up and down painfully. Had she been expecting action she would have bound them. She looked back for Nish, who was labouring along, red in the face, about thirty spans behind.
Irisis didn’t wait, for the nearest air-dreadnought had suddenly altered course, the long airbags wobbling in their rigging as it tried to turn at right-angles. They had been spotted. The soldiers were lined up on the sides, crossbows at the ready. They weren’t within range but the javelards probably were.
Thud-crash. A spear buried itself in the timber just behind her. She raced on, weaving from side to side, risking a quick glance over her shoulder. Javelards weren’t accurate at that distance, but once within crossbow range the craft would turn side-on to fire a fusillade at them. They had a minute to get to safety.
Irisis turned the corner into the firewood alley and stopped in dismay. The canvas cover lay on the ground but the thapter was gone.
THIRTY-FIVE
‘It’s not there,’ Irisis was saying as Nish rounded the corner.
‘Malien must have seen them coming,’ panted Yggur, who had turned grey, ‘and gone looking for us in the thapter.’
‘We’ll be dead before she finds us,’ said Nish.
Irisis was running back along the jumbled windrow of timber, trying to see over it, but it was too high.
‘Keep going, to the other end of the alley,’ gasped Flydd. ‘She can’t be far away.’
Nish set off again, with Irisis, but the brief respite had sapped his stamina. He hadn’t run in a long time and every step felt leaden now. The middle of his back itched as if a javelard was lined up on it.
The leading air-dreadnought had completed its turn and was approaching rapidly. The one that had fired into the crowd was coming their way too. There was nowhere to hide.
‘Malien!’ Irisis screamed, though even if Malien were nearby, she wouldn’t hear over the whine of the thapter. She stopped halfway up the alley where a gap in the heaped timber allowed access into the adjoining alley.
‘No point running any more,’ Irisis gasped.
Nish edged into the gap, which provided some shelter from the attack, and watched the two craft moving in. ‘Malien wouldn’t go looking for us,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t know where to look.’
‘She wouldn’t stay and risk losing the thapter,’ said Yggur.
‘I never thought she’d abandon us,’ said Irisis.
‘She hasn’t,’ said Nish more confidently than he felt. ‘And she wouldn’t leave Tiaan either, after all the time they’ve spent together. That’s probably where she’s gone, to get Tiaan.’
‘She’d better make it snappy,’ said Flydd.
The first air-dreadnought was now inching into a turn against the strong wind, getting ready to fire a crossbow broadside that would cut them to pieces.
‘Can’t you blast them out of the sky?’ cried Nish. ‘Yggur? Flydd? Klarm?’
‘If we had that kind of power we would have used it at Fiz Gorgo,’ said Yggur. ‘There’s nothing we can do to air-dreadnoughts from this distance.’
‘Through here into the next alley,’ said Nish, pointing with his splinted arm. ‘It’ll buy us a minute.’
They scurried through the gap into the next alley. ‘Spread out and keep low,’ said Nish, ‘and press right up against the timber. They’re having trouble staying steady in the wind. Make their shots as difficult as you can.’
‘What’s that?’ hissed Irisis, cupping her ear.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Nish. With the whistling wind, the clatter of rotors and the cries of refugees, it was a wonder that anyone could.
‘It’s the thapter coming back,’ said Irisis.
‘Which way?’ snapped Flydd.
‘I can’t tell,’ Irisis wailed.
‘They’ll cut us down before we can get to it,’ said Flydd.
Without a word, Flangers leapt to his feet and scrambled up the timber pile.
‘What does the bloody fool think he’s doing?’ said Flydd. ‘They’ll shoot him –’
It was the atonement Flangers had been searching for ever since he’d shot down Klarm’s air-floater at Snizort. ‘No, Flangers,’ Irisis screamed. ‘Get down!’
‘I see it,’ Flangers shouted. ‘Three alleys across. Malien!’ He roared out her name, leaping in the air and waving his arms. ‘She’s –’
The impact of several crossbow bolts threw him onto his back. Irisis cried out and covered her face. Nish pulled her in under the tangle of timber. The others had taken what shelter they could. Bolts thudded into the firewood all around them and whined off the paving stones. A javelard spear smashed into a beam above his head, snapping it in half.
‘That’s the broadside,’ said Nish, looking up. ‘We’ve got about thirty seconds until they reload. Come on – through to the next alley.’
They ran through the gap, emerging just as the thapter appeared at the other end. The mechanism shrilled as it shot towards them, stopped, and the hatch sprang open. They scrambled up the ladder.
Nish was coming up, one-handed, when he realised that Irisis wasn’t behind him. Had she been shot as well? He leapt down, looking around frantically. She was staggering down off the pile with a limp and bloody Flangers over her shoulder.
‘You imbecile!’ Nish wept. ‘He’s dead. Leave him.’ Both air-dreadnoughts were turning into position, carefully maintaining a safe distance from each other in the wind, which was pushing them to the east. He threw himself up the ladder. ‘Malien? Have you a crossbow?’
She handed it out to him, carefully, for it was already loaded and cocked. Irisis wouldn’t make it before the archers were ready to fire. Nish hooked a leg inside the hatch to brace himself, steadied the bow with his splinted arm and aimed, trying to do deliberately what he’d once done by accident.
He fired at the left-hand rotor of the upwind air-dreadnought. It was more than a span across and at this distance he could hardly miss, though that wasn’t what bothered him. His worry was that the bolt would pass straight between the blades of the rapidly spinning rotor and out the other side.
Fortunately it did not. It struck one of the wooden blades, which shattered, and the unbalanced rotor immediately tore itself to pieces. With the other rotor going full bore the air-dreadnought slewed around, caught the wind and drifted towards the downwind machine. Its pilot turned as hard as she could, the outer airbags touched but unfortunately did not tangle, and it raced out of the way, downwind.
The damaged craft was full-on now, and the soldiers might have fired their broadside, had they not fled from the near collision. By the time their officers had cursed them back to the rails the craft had been carried out of range.
Nish climbed down, keeping a wary eye on the third air-dreadnought, now racing their way. He assisted Irisis up the ladder as best he could and Yggur helped her to carry Flangers below. Nish clambered in last.
Malien lifted the thapter off and curved away from their pursuer, raising an eyebrow at Flydd. ‘To Fiz Gorgo?’
‘Not while Fusshte is alive,’ he said grimly.
‘I don’t see what we can do about him.’