Yorme answered this time. ‘He’s still on his feet but he seems to be having some kind of a fit. His eyes are bulging out of his head.’
With a fluttering sound, something passed in front of the sun. ‘Is that the air-floater?’
‘It’s above us, high up.’
‘Are the clankers firing?’ Her greatest fear was of the air-floater being hit and exploding directly above them.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Jym laughed. ‘Because the javelards aren’t designed to shoot up at such an angle.’
Relief washed over her. ‘Then they can’t do anything?’
After a pause, he said, ‘The shooters are pulling the pins out of the mechanisms. Looks like they’re going to point them by hand.’
‘That can’t be very accurate,’ said Irisis.
‘It’s a big target,’ said Jym.
‘See if you can shoot them.’
The weapon twanged. ‘Not even close. It’s too far for a crossbow.’
‘So they can’t shoot the balloon with their bows?’
‘Not unless they come closer.’
‘Soldiers are nearly within range,’ Yorme called.
‘Have another shot at them.’
The weapons fired and Irisis made out a scream. ‘That wasn’t the mancer, I suppose?’
‘She’s well back.’
‘I’ve got to help the scrutator, any way I can,’ Irisis said.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Jym.
‘I have no idea.’
She sensed out the field again and, searching through it, picked out two distortions, one so close that it had to be Flydd, the other a little further away.
She pushed that folded-over package of the field in Flydd’s direction but he did not seem to be able to use it. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed. ‘Xervish?’
‘I don’t think he can hear anything, Irisis.’
The enemy mancer was using another part of the field. Irisis searched frantically for a way to attack her, but it had to be a hidden way. She could not withstand a mancer’s attack for a single minute. What if she changed the field so as to starve the mancer of the power she needed? The woman was drawing fiendish quantities as she hurled everything into her attack on Flydd.
Irisis created a map of the local field in her mind, coloured in the shades of the spectrum, the higher energies being associated with indigo and violet. Now to identify exactly where the other mancer was drawing power from. Ah, there: a little hidden sump that glowed deep violet, tending towards black.
Another mancer, or even an artisan, might have drawn on that source so as to deprive her enemy of power. Irisis lacked that ability but she had become skilled at shaping the field in order that others could better use it.
She subtly thinned the field around the sump, but the mancer simply changed the way she was drawing from it and took more power, endeavouring to immobilise the scrutator. Hopeless to think that Irisis, a mere crafter, could outwit a mancer whose whole life had been spent in mastering the Secret Art.
What if she were to nudge that folded package of energy towards the sump? From outside it just appeared as a dark blob. Inside, the lines of force were so concentrated that a normal mind might not be able to withstand it. Of course, mancers did not have ordinary minds. And that could do the scrutator more harm than it did the mancer, Flydd being so weak.
‘What’s happening now?’ she cried.
‘The soldiers have stopped,’ came Jym’s steady voice. ‘The air-floater is trying to settle down but the wind keeps pushing it up the valley. Two clankers are getting ready to fire. Yorme, I can see the perquisitor! Jal-Nish is standing up on the shooter’s platform.’
‘He wants to see us taken. Or dead.’ She had to act now. If it killed the scrutator that would be a merciful release, compared to what Jal-Nish had waiting.
Irisis found her little folded packet, disguised it in a billow of the field and nudged that toward the violet sump, which was now pulsing black and white as the mancer sucked more and more power from it.
Irisis was nearly there when the sump glowed a violent purple. Had she been discovered? No, there it went again, black, white, black. She gave her packet one last nudge. It drifted over the edge, hung on the lip and then slid into the sump. Irisis wrenched herself out of the field, just in case.
Nothing happened, though Irisis could feel the tension. The scrutator began to moan in his throat, a hideous shrill wailing that was like barbs being thrust through her tongue. Irisis moaned too – her trick must have backfired on Flydd. His sounds rose in pitch until they were like spines through her eardrums. Something awful was going to happen. She reached out for him.
Thud-splat! Flydd screamed and fell on his back, thrashing. She could hear his boots scraping against the stone. Then there was silence but for the whistling of the wind and the whirr of the air-floater’s rotor.
‘What’s happened?’ she shouted. ‘Jym?’
‘Something seems to have burst down among the soldiers. They’re all running around. It’s all red, and red stuff is flying all through the air. It’s … Oh, that’s –’ Irisis could hear him retching.
‘A horrible way to die,’ groaned the scrutator. ‘But better her than me.’ He took Irisis’s hand. ‘I’ll thank you properly one day.’
‘One night would be better,’ she said automatically, not understanding what she’d done.
‘Floater’s down!’ shouted Yorme. ‘Jym, grab the tethers. Get up the ladder, surr, quick as you can.’
‘You first, Irisis,’ said the scrutator. ‘We’re safe for a minute. They can only see the top of the floater here, in the viaduct.’
‘But when we take off –’
‘Yes, that’s the dangerous bit. Come on.’
She went up, hand over hand, which in her blindness Irisis found decidedly unpleasant. The rope ladder swayed alarmingly and her weight pushed the section she was standing on under the keel of the air-floater, so she felt she was trying to climb around a corner. Irisis had no idea where she was in relation to anything. What if she was hanging over the ravine? Her sweaty hands slipped on the ropes. She gasped.
‘Get a move on!’ shouted the scrutator. ‘It’s not a party.’
Strong hands caught her under the arms and lifted her over the side. ‘Over there,’ said a deep male voice.
‘I can’t see!’
Someone took her hand and led her out of the way, sitting her on a canvas seat. Someone else thumped beside her. ‘That’s the lot,’ the deep voice shouted. ‘Take it up.’
‘No!’ yelled the scrutator. ‘Get it moving inside the aqueduct, then up as fast as you can possibly go. That’ll give them less time to aim.’
‘The soldiers are still alive,’ said the deep voice. ‘They’re almost within range.’
‘All right! Just go!’
‘All hands to the ballast, then hang on. Bowmen, ready your crossbows. Pilot Hila, don’t let them get a second shot at us.’
The air-floater lurched. ‘Ready? Ballast overboard.’
It lurched again, then shot up. Irisis clutched onto the arm next to her in naked terror. The scrutator’s hand held hers until the sensation died away. The crossbows twanged. The rotor spun up to a whine.
‘Firing, surr. They’re going to go close. Turn it!’
The machine turned, too slowly for her liking.
‘Look out!’ the deep voice cried.
Wood smashed and splinters went everywhere; some landed in her hair. ‘What’s happened?’ she screamed. ‘We’re crashing, aren’t we?’
‘That was close,’ said the scrutator calmly. ‘Fortunately the javelard hit one of the timbers of the cabin, not the balloon. It went in one side and out the other. No harm done. No one hurt.’
‘Firing again,’ said the deep voice. ‘Too low. We’ve done, it, surr. They’ll not touch us now.’
‘Very good,’ said Flydd. ‘Steer a course north, if you please, but take it slowly. I don’t dare arrive in daylight.’