‘Just circle round while I think. Make the thapter go erratically, as if there’s something wrong with it. Nish, get ready with the crossbow.’
Malien shrugged and did as Flydd had asked. The damaged air-dreadnought rotored away, then dropped grapnels onto the far wall of the yard, holding the machine in place while the crew tried to make running repairs. The other two air-dreadnoughts were circling, keeping their distance for the moment, watching the thapter.
‘Which one is Fusshte’s?’ said Flydd, holding himself rigidly upright. His eyes glittered and a muscle was twitching at the corner of his mouth.
‘The one on the left,’ Nish said carefully, realising that Flydd was so angry he was barely in control. He wound the crossbow awkwardly.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I can see him standing at the bow.’
‘Would you go closer, Malien?’ said Flydd.
‘The thapter isn’t invulnerable,’ she said. ‘A heavy javelard spear, fired from close range, could smash right through the mechanisms.’
‘I know!’ he snapped, ‘but we’ve got to finish the old Council, utterly and forever. Go closer.’
She circled around Fusshte’s air-dreadnought. He stood boldly at the rail, watching them with a contemptuous sneer. Fusshte knew Malien wouldn’t dare come close enough to shoot him and, armed only with a crossbow, they couldn’t do appreciable damage even if they fired into an airbag. The huge floater-gas generators would make up any loss from a tiny hole in the fabric of one of its five airbags.
Malien circled again. Fusshte gave orders to his signaller, who began to wave a series of flags. The two air-dreadnoughts turned in the thapter’s direction, approaching from either side. The javelard operators readied their weapons; the archers raised their bows. The third machine had rigged a canvas rudder behind its remaining rotor, and now it cast off its grapnels and came at them from a third quarter.
Malien began to turn away.
‘Stay!’ snapped Flydd.
‘They’ll shoot us down,’ said Malien, giving him an imperious Aachim stare.
‘Stay, damn you,’ said Flydd.
She ignored him. ‘When I’m in command I take orders from no man.’
Flydd jerked his hand out of the pocket of his cloak, thrust it in Malien’s face, and snapped. A glass phial burst in his hand with a white spray of light and an acrid stench that burned Nish’s nose for a moment.
When his eyes had recovered, Malien was sagging at the controller, barely able to stand, and the thapter was zigzagging across the sky.
‘Surr!’ Nish cried in horror. ‘What are you –?
Flydd thrust him out of the way and slammed his hand down on Malien’s right hand before it slipped off the controller. He jerked it over so hard that the thapter turned on its side.
Malien slammed into the wall, eyes closed. She reached up blindly with her free hand, caught the rail and tried to pull herself up. ‘Nish, stop him before he kills us all.’
What was he supposed to do? Nish wasn’t going to attack the scrutator. He uncocked the crossbow and dropped it behind him so there could be no misunderstanding, then stepped towards Flydd, uncertainly. ‘Surr,’ he said.
‘Get out of the way, Nish,’ snarled Flydd. ‘I should have done this the first time and no one is going to stop me.’ The thapter’s mechanism spun up to a roar and it shot forwards.
‘Nish!’ Malien said frantically. ‘Stop him. He’s gone mad.’
Nish reached for Flydd, but Flydd kicked sideways, striking him in the knee. Nish went down, but managed to catch Flydd’s foot and tried to pull him down as well.
Flydd fought him off. His teeth were bared in a savage grimace; he was like a man possessed. He kneed Nish out of the way, pinned Malien’s other hand, turned the thapter and roared straight at Fusshte’s air-dreadnought.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Nish, sure that Flydd had gone out of his mind.
Flydd didn’t answer. There came a clamour of voices from the lower hatch and Irisis came running up the ladder, but Nish couldn’t tear himself away from the sight in front of him. They were approaching the stern of the air-dreadnought at frightening speed. Flydd was flying directly at Scrutator Fusshte and he wasn’t going to stop.
Fusshte realised it and a spasm of terror crossed his face. For Nish it was almost worth it, to see Fusshte turn and run, then understand that there was nowhere to run.
One or two bolts struck the thapter though most of the archers couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting the huge rotors. The thapter hurtled towards the air-dreadnought. Fusshte glanced over his shoulder; Nish saw the whites of his eyes and, caught up in the madness of the moment, felt a surge of savage glee. The thapter wiggled at the last second and shot past the rotors, its slipstream making them flutter. Flydd twitched his hand and the machine struck the side of the air-dreadnought, knocking it sideways in a hail of shattered timbers and shredded ropes and canvas. The archers were thrown off their feet; three went over the side.
Flydd moved the controller again and the thapter smashed into the bow of the air-dreadnought, tearing part of it off and sending more of Fusshte’s troops plunging to their deaths. The thapter turned so sharply that Nish was crushed against the side. He got to his feet in time to see Fusshte dive into the central cabin.
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.’