They rested for the morning and continued after lunch. There was an hour of daylight left by the time Nish, who was scouting ahead, reached the first of the trees. He rode back to confer with Yara about their route.
‘I wouldn’t call this forest,’ said Nish, eyeing the scattered copses.
‘There’s woodcutting here on the edge,’ said Yara. ‘You’ll see trees enough before we get to where we’re going. Shouldn’t you be up ahead, scouting out our path?’
That was unfair. ‘Which way?’ he snapped.
‘Don’t speak to me like that, soldier.’
A bitter retort was on Nish’s lips when he heard a familiar, disturbing whine.
‘What’s that?’ cried Yara, jerking her sword from its scabbard.
A construct emerged from the trees to the front of them. Another appeared behind.
‘If you’ve betrayed us, Nish, you’re dead!’
THIRTY-FIVE
The soldiers held her arms. Irisis looked around frantically but the blank walls of manufactory and cistern offered no escape. Jal-Nish was going to mutilate her.
He slashed down. Irisis flinched; she could not help herself. The sword stopped, resting on her outstretched arm.
‘It’s not that easy, Irisis.’ Jal-Nish uttered a liquid chuckle, like vomit splashing in a bucket. ‘You haven’t suffered enough.’
‘If you’re going to do it, then do it!’ she screamed.
‘Oh, I’ll do it, but not on your timetable.’
He raised the sword. Would he cut this time? Irisis did not think so, but neither was he predictable. He might just take a finger, or her nose. What if he did that, then let her live? She was too vain to endure such an existence. She tried to pull away but the soldiers held her firmly.
‘Please,’ she said in a throaty whisper. ‘I’ll do anything you want.’ She would have. Dignity meant nothing before the threat of mutilation. She heaved her bosom toward the nearest soldier.
Jal-Nish snorted. ‘You’ll make no ground there, crafter. They have eyes only for each other.’
Irisis stared at the pair, horrified. ‘But … that’s a capital crime! How can –?’ She recalled that Jal-Nish had a taste for his own sex.
‘They’ve done their duty and fathered soldiers. What they do in their own time is none of my affair.’ Jal-Nish pressed the sword point against her shoulder. It went through her coat and shirt, to break the skin. ‘Just there, I think.’
He whipped the sword up, but as he was about to bring it down someone bellowed from the top of the manufactory wall.
‘Lower your sword, Jal-Nish, or I’ll put a bolt right through your good eye.’ It was the scrutator’s voice.
‘Shoot and be damned!’ Jal-Nish brought down the sword.
As Flydd spoke, the soldiers had spun around. Irisis jerked free and dived at Jal-Nish’s legs. The sword came down so hard that it struck the ground behind her.
Jal-Nish raised the weapon to plunge it through her back, but with a tinny clang his head was jerked sideways. He clawed at the mask. The crossbow bolt, fired with only half-power, had slammed into the platinum cheekpiece, gone two-thirds of the way through, then stuck. Bilious yellow foam oozed from beneath the mask. A clot quivered on his collar, speckled with bright blood.
‘Kill her!’ he gasped. ‘Kill the scrutator too.’
Irisis had her knife out, not that it would be any use against swordsmen. Ducking behind Jal-Nish, she whipped his single arm up behind his back as hard as she could. Putting the blade to his throat she yelled, ‘Tell them to stand back or I’ll take your head right off.’
‘Think you that I care?’ he raged. ‘Kill her, even if you have to kill me first.’
The soldiers came at her from either side. Jal-Nish was a hindrance now so she put her foot in the middle of his back and sent him flying. Going into a crouch, she swayed from side to side, trying to keep both swordsmen in view at once.
They laughed. She had no chance. The first lunged. She backpedalled but the lunge kept going until the soldier ploughed face-first into the ground. A small bright spot marked the middle of his back. The second sword hacked at her but missed – the soldier’s head snapped back as a bolt took him in the temple. She scanned the wall. The scrutator had three others with him. Two were soldiers, armed with crossbows.
They hurled a rope over the side and climbed down, hand over hand. The third man followed, his mancer’s robes billowing. Flydd came last, sliding the lower section and hitting the ground hard. She ran to help him up.
The scrutator examined his blistered hands, then gasped, ‘Quick, onto the cistern, then up inside the aqueduct.’
The soldiers were near the top of the outside ladder when Jal-Nish sat up, took a small golden horn from his pocket, fitted the mouthpiece through the hole in his mask and blew hard. It gave forth a low, sobbing moan. The adjacent cistern boomed like an enormous drum and a series of misty concentric hoops formed around it, like rings around a planet.
The scrutator, who was lowest, clutched at his heart and fell. The soldiers clapped their hands over their ears. The mancer went rigid, blood burst from mouth and nose and he slid corpselike off the ladder. Irisis felt a scream building up in her throat but could not let it out. The air seemed to have thickened in her lungs.
She thumped her breastbone against the side of the ladder. The choking sensation eased enough for her to take a breath. ‘Go up!’ she shouted at the soldiers. ‘Get your weapons out and cover me. Take my pack!’
The lower soldier handed it up. Scrambling down, she ran to the scrutator. He was still breathing. The mancer was dead.
The soldier, who had come down after her, took the scrutator’s leather satchel. Jal-Nish was staggering towards her, swinging a sword. The blast, or spell, whatever it was, must have affected him too.
‘You can’t get away!’ he slurred. ‘I’ll have a hundred soldiers here in a minute.’
Irisis heaved the scrutator onto her shoulder. He weighed no more than a bag of bones. She clutched the ladder and began to go up, but knew she was too slow. Jal-Nish would have a free blow at her back and legs.
She dropped to the ground, pulled the knife from her belt and feinted at Jal-Nish. He hacked back, the sword going so close to her arm that it shaved hairs. He was grunting and hawking as if there was something caught in his throat. Come closer, Jal-Nish, and it’ll be my boot. Irisis backpedalled, the scrutator’s arms and legs swinging wildly. Her knees felt like rubber. Should she drop Flydd? In his state it might kill him, but so might Jal-Nish’s sword.
‘Shoot!’ she screeched at the soldiers, who had reached the top of the cistern. They did not shoot; she must be in the way.
A wild swing took Jal-Nish’s sword past her. The knife was around the wrong way so, holding the hilt, she crashed her fist into his temple. Jal-Nish went down, the mask slipped and she caught sight of the horror beneath. She wanted to be sick.
Staggering to the ladder, she stepped over the body of the scrutator’s unknown mancer and began to climb. Irisis felt drunk; she could not think straight. Halfway up she stopped and was clinging desperately to the rungs, wondering what to do, when one of the soldiers plucked Flydd from her grasp.
‘They’re coming,’ he said.
Irisis could see only Jal-Nish, who was beginning to stir. The soldier helped her up the ladder.
‘What’s the matter?’ She supported herself on the stone edge that curved around the top of the cistern.
The soldier pointed. More troops were boiling out the front gate of the manufactory.
‘Where to?’ gasped Irisis.
‘This way. I’m Jym. Other bloke’s Yorme.’ Carrying the scrutator, Jym trotted around the top of the cistern, which was not much wider than the length of his two feet, towards the end of the aqueduct.
Irisis followed. It was a long reach to a ladder which ran up the discharge flume. Yorme had already disappeared. Jym was struggling to heave himself and his pack up, as well as Flydd’s inert body. Irisis gave him a push and he caught the bottom rung of the ladder.