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.
He had avoided her since, thinking that his presence could only make things worse. Tiaan had been in good hands. Malien had taken charge of her, bathing and delousing her and spending long days and nights talking to her, working to bring her out of her withdrawal psychosis. It seemed to have worked. Tiaan had been almost her normal reserved self by the time the air-dreadnought returned from Fadd. Nish had seen her laughing and joking with Malien, and once even with Yggur, though whenever Tiaan’s eye fell on Irisis or Nish he knew that she’d forgotten nothing and forgiven even less.
Nish looked away with a mental shrug. What did it matter? They didn’t need to work together.
Malien was so angry that she kept flying all night, only setting down at dawn for a brief rest stop before heading on. Her fury began to wear off during the day and at sunset she set the thapter down on a slaty hilltop in an unknown land. Flangers was out of danger and sleeping, so they left him inside with Evee and Inouye.
‘Let’s talk about the war,’ said Flydd at the campfire that night.
‘I’ve been putting together a plan,’ said Yggur.
‘So have I,’ said Flydd. ‘But let’s hear yours first.’
Nish was a little surprised at Yggur’s forthrightness. When they’d first come to Fiz Gorgo, about six months ago, he’d professed little interest in the war. But of course, the Histories told that Yggur had been a great warlord once.
‘Humanity is still strong, but its people, manufactories and armies are scattered across thousands of leagues and can’t easily be coordinated. But if they could be, we’d be a formidable force and many of the lyrinx’s advantages would evaporate.’
‘Intelligence and communication are the keys to victory,’ said Flydd. ‘To win we have to beat the enemy at both.’
‘The lyrinx avoid war during the winter mating season, and immediately after it,’ said Klarm. ‘So we have till early spring to prepare ourselves for the final phase of the war – just over three months.’
‘And in that time,’ said Yggur, ‘we must do a number of things. First, we must draw together all our allies, near and far.’
‘It would take a month to contact them all by skeet,’ said Klarm, ‘assuming we had enough skeets. And another month before the replies all came in.’
‘With the thapter we can visit them all in weeks …’ said Flydd. He gave Malien an abashed glance, which she did not acknowledge.
‘But the next time you want to consult them it’ll take just as long,’ Yggur said reasonably.
‘And the time after,’ Klarm chimed in. ‘You can’t be tied up as a messenger boy, Flydd. And if something goes wrong with the thapter, or we lose it, or it’s needed elsewhere –’