Again that white-eyed look from the soldier – and then he screamed, ‘They’re coming! Don’t go, they’re coming.’
Not nearly fast enough. She rotated the machine in the air, watching the cracks enlarging in the wall, the quivering of the floor above. If either collapsed on them, not even a thapter could get out. She’d been unforgivably stupid. She should never have come down.
Heads appeared through the hole: Vim and Slann, another soldier, then Nish. They scrambled through.
‘Get in,’ she screeched, waving her arms at them. ‘I’ve already disobeyed my orders. I can’t wait any longer.’
Vim and Slann took over the rope. The others climbed onto the racks. ‘In,’ she screamed. ‘If you’re not inside when we go up, you’ll be scraped off like muck from a boot.’
They fell through the hatch, crowding the cockpit, gasping for breath. Nish came last and his eyes silently thanked her, but she had no time for that.
‘Go below! You’re in the way.’ Tiaan revolved the thapter around the holes. ‘What’s the matter?’ she yelled to Slann.
‘Plymes has fallen off the rope. I’m going down.’
‘I can’t wait, Slann.’
He went anyway but stopped, just below the hole. Tiaan could still see his bald head. There came a tremendous roar as though something had collapsed below him, flames shot up through the hole and the floor buckled. Again the wall seemed to move outwards. Slann’s clothes caught fire, then the rope. He stared up at them, his face riven with agony as he tried to climb the burning rope. As it flamed up over his hands, he had to let go.
‘Vim! Come on!’
Vim was staring at the hole. He shook his head and leapt for the side of the thapter, catching hold of the racks. Tiaan, looking up, saw the floor above them move.
‘Hang on,’ she yelled. ‘The upper floor’s going to come down.’
She spun the thapter around and headed up towards the hole, which was moving. That meant the whole floor was slipping. There was no time to pull the hatch down. She manoeuvred through the belching smoke. The floor below suddenly collapsed and flames swirled towards them and over Vim, now clinging desperately to the racks.
She zigzagged the thapter up through the hole as the upper floor fell. Something struck the side of the thapter, making it lurch sharply. The smoke was even thicker on the next level and Tiaan hit the wall without realising it. Where was the ceiling hole? She had to go back and forth three times before she found it. Her lungs were burning. She shot up though it, up again and out through the roof to safety.
Hovering above the roof, she looked for a place to set down so Vim could come inside. The adjacent roof had a low pitch. She drifted across to it, settled down and put her head through the hatch.
The whole area was illuminated by the flames, which had ignited the timber wall of the neighbouring building. The racks were empty.
‘Vim?’ she yelled.
‘Where is he?’ said a soldier beside her.
‘He must have fallen off when we struck the wall,’ said Tiaan.
They looked back at the roof. Flames were coming up though the hole.
‘He’s dead,’ said Nish beside her. ‘They’re all dead. Let’s go home.’
He looked ghastly – soot-streaked, eyes running, a tremble in one arm. ‘I led them to their deaths,’ he said. ‘It’s not right that I got out and they didn’t. I failed them.’
For the first time, Tiaan saw the man inside Nish and pitied him. She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We all did our best, Nish. There’s no more that anyone could have done.’
He nodded his thanks. ‘You risked your life for us. You shouldn’t have come down.’
‘I know. I disobeyed my orders and could have lost the thapter. I’ll be in trouble when I get back.’
‘I dare say. Why did you do it?’
‘I brought you here. I couldn’t leave you behind, no matter who you are or what you might have done.’
FORTY-FOUR
Things were never the same between Tiaan and Nish after that. Saving his life had transformed the way she felt toward him. On the long trip back to Fiz Gorgo, battling fierce headwinds all the way, Tiaan mulled over every aspect of their relationship, to see if she might not have been as wrong about him as he had been about her.
There was no chance to speak to Nish in private, then or later. When they finally landed in the yard, in the early morning more than a day later, the entire population of the fortress was waiting for them.
‘What’s the matter?’ she called as she climbed down the side.
The smile faded from Malien’s face. ‘What have you done to my thapter?’
‘We had a … few problems.’ Tiaan put her feet on the ground, which seemed to be heaving, and had to clutch at the racks to avoid falling on her face.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ve not slept in forty-eight hours.’
‘You failed then,’ said Yggur, eyeing the empty racks.
‘Four of the soldiers were lost, and Phar got away at the beginning.’
‘I was talking about the silk.’
‘It’s inside. Five bolts. Not as much as Nish wanted, but it was all we could get.’
The others came out, still filthy, ragged and smoke-stained, but proudly bearing the precious rolls of cloth between them.
‘You’ve done well,’ said Yggur. ‘I didn’t think you would return at all, least of all actually bring back any cloth.’
‘Then why did you send us?’ said Nish.
‘I didn’t send you. This was your mission, Nish.’
‘But you permitted it, even at the risk of the thapter.’
‘If we dare not take risks we’ll never win this war.’
‘Nor if we take foolish ones,’ said Flydd, but he was smiling too.
‘You took the best team in the world,’ said Yggur. ‘If you couldn’t succeed, no one could have. Come inside. Breakfast is ready.’
Tiaan was seated next to Irisis at breakfast. The crafter seemed unusually friendly, or perhaps Tiaan could now allow her to be.
‘Is there no challenge you cannot rise to?’ said Irisis, open in her admiration.
Tiaan didn’t know how to answer. ‘I just did my best. I couldn’t leave them to die.’
‘Not even Nish?’ Irisis said, but Tiaan knew she was joking. ‘Thank you for saving his life, Tiaan. He’s my dearest friend and everything to me.’
‘I’ve been wondering about him all the way back from Thurkad. Wondering if I might not have been wrong about him. In some things.’
‘Perhaps you were, in some things,’ Irisis said. ‘We did you wrong, Tiaan, back at the manufactory, and I’m very sorry. It was my failing, more than his. I was a nasty, inadequate woman and I used him against you.’
‘You, inadequate?’
‘Another time,’ said Irisis. ‘But since we hunted you across the mountains and lost you to the lyrinx, and Nish’s father was so terribly injured …’
‘I remember that day all too well,’ said Tiaan.
‘Ever since, Nish has been a changed man. He grew up that day.’
‘I’ll never forget the way he treated me in Tirthrax,’ said Tiaan with a flash of fire.
‘But there was a good reason for it. Flydd sent Nish after you and, when he reached Tirthrax, he saw you bringing the Aachim through the gate. He truly believed that you’d betrayed our world.’
‘He was cruel …’ Tiaan trailed off, replaying the scene in her mind.
‘If you knew how he has suffered this past year, Tiaan, and all the great things he’s done, you would think differently of him. I know you would. But I’ll say no more than that. Talk to him, if you care to, and he can plead for himself.’
Flydd fell in beside Nish as they went inside. ‘Remember your despair after we came back from Nennifer and you couldn’t get anything done?’
‘I remember,’ said Nish.
‘Look how far you’ve come since. And keep it in mind, Nish, whenever you wilt under the burden of all we have to do – as I do. We just go one step at a time, and no matter how low we’re brought, we never, ever give up.’ He squeezed Nish’s shoulder and passed inside.