Chimaera

FORTY-FIVE

Nish breathed a sigh as the last air-floater lifted. They were finally on their way to Snizort. Though the expedition was well behind schedule, no one could have done it more quickly, and what they’d achieved was nothing short of miraculous. All the pilots had flown Malien’s thapter, though few more than twice. That was his biggest worry, apart from the state of the abandoned constructs. He was afraid they would be too damaged to repair.

They arrived over the battlefield just before dawn. Everything had been rehearsed. The four air-floaters would fly low across the site as soon as it was light, while Nish and the other artificers identified those constructs in the best condition. The pilots and artificers would go to work and three air-floaters would wait on the ground. The fourth would take a wandering path over the battlefield, to raise the alarm if the enemy appeared. Snizort seemed to be abandoned but Nish wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks. There were too many necessary ones.

‘How long have we been working towards this day?’ he said, leaning on the rope rail of Inouye’s air-floater. The east was growing light, though there were still some minutes until sunrise.

‘It’s two months since we got back from Nennifer,’ said Irisis.

‘I never thought we’d get this far.’

‘Nor did I. But then, I try not to expect anything. Saves disappointment.’

‘How many constructs were abandoned here, do you recall?’

‘Tiaan said about five hundred.’

‘And how many of those could have been repaired,’ Nish wondered, ‘if the node hadn’t been destroyed?’

‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’

‘Imagine if we could bring a hundred thapters back,’ he said dreamily.

‘That would certainly be a marvel,’ she said dryly, ‘since you’ve only managed to train thirty pilots.’

He came back to reality. ‘True; but just imagine the look on Yggur’s face.’

‘If we manage to recover three he’ll be over the moon.’

The sun slid over the horizon like a jelly across a greased tray. The battlefield consisted of a series of hummocks, their tips just touched by light, surrounded by seas of shadow. ‘Not much snow left,’ said Nish.

‘It’s been windy in these parts.’ Klarm came up beside them and rested his forearms on the lower rail. He had a small bound volume in one hand.

‘Have you been here recently?’ Nish said carefully. Klarm did not talk about his spying missions.

‘Not in more than a month.’

‘But we wouldn’t expect to run into the enemy?’ They’d been over this before but Nish felt in need of reassurance.

‘Lyrinx could be anywhere,’ grunted Klarm, ‘though they haven’t reoccupied Snizort. The area is a wasteland, the tar’s still burning underground and the native people fled long ago. There’s been no sign of the scavengers here either.’

The light was advancing swiftly now and Nish began to distinguish the bones of the wrecked machines. Most were clankers, but scattered among them, particularly on the western side of the battlefield, he made out the distinctive smooth curves of constructs.

‘Over there,’ Klarm called to Inouye. ‘Some ten constructs were abandoned close together, formed into a group.’

The air-floater drifted westward. ‘I don’t see them,’ said the pilot. It was the first time she’d spoken in ages. Inouye went about her work in silent, tragic despair, and it wrenched Nish’s heart. Separation from her children and her man was eating her alive.

‘Just to the left of that little hill,’ said Klarm.

Inouye took them over the hill, then circled around it.

‘You must be mistaken,’ said Irisis. ‘I can only see three.’

‘I kept careful records,’ said Klarm, consulting his book, ‘because the constructs weren’t badly damaged.’

‘Well, there’s only three now. Maybe Vithis came back and dragged them away. Could you go a little lower, Inouye?’

The air-floater came down to within ten spans of the ground. ‘I can’t see any tracks,’ said Nish.

‘The surface snow has been blown away.’

‘Constructs are very heavy. If they’d been hauled off, you’d expect to see drag marks.’

Inouye hovered over the site. ‘They have been taken,’ said Irisis. ‘Look, you can see depressions where they were lying.’

‘They must have flown –’ Nish began furiously. ‘Oh no!’ He clutched at her arm as a chill ran down his spine. ‘They’ve flown. Vithis converted them to thapters and flew them away.’

‘Or hovered them.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Klarm. ‘The only thapter my spies have sighted near the Hornrace was Malien’s.’

‘What if Malien’s people have been here?’ said Irisis slowly. ‘They already know how to build thapters, so it’d be no trouble to fix these ones. In fact, that’s probably what’s happened.’

‘How many have gone?’ Nish choked. ‘Please, let it only be these seven.’

They rotored back and forth across the battlefield. ‘There’s another depression,’ said Klarm, pointing. ‘It contained four constructs a month ago.’

‘And two more have gone from the south of it,’ Irisis called.

As they went back and forth, and the count rose, Nish fell deeper into depression. ‘How many is it now?’ he asked drearily as they completed the last run.

‘Thirty-one,’ said Irisis.

Despair. ‘I’ll bet they’ve taken every construct that could possibly be repaired.’

They spent all day trudging through the remnants of rust-coloured snow, checking the constructs one by one. There was not a single usable machine among them. The controllers had been broken with a hammer.

Nish studied the innards of the last machine, grim-faced. ‘There’s no chance that our pilots could fly it with one of your controllers?’

Irisis shook her head. ‘Ours are just designed to fit into theirs. If we’d had to make new controllers from scratch, we’d still be working on the first one.’

‘What am I going to say to Yggur and Flydd?’

Night fell. Nish set up camp and sent an air-floater home with the bad news. He was too depressed to eat and the trainee pilots, highly strung as were all operators, had taken it hard. Many were in tears, including one of the best, pretty little Kattiloe with the dozens of blonde plaits. Sturdy, dark-eyed Chissmoul, too shy to speak about her distress, had simply walked off into the night. The artificers and their prentices were of a more phlegmatic disposition. Glad of the opportunity to employ their talents on real machines, they were pulling one of the constructs apart in the firelight.

Nish felt like screaming at them, but resisted. Let them have their moment. Let them hone their useless skills.

‘We might as well go home.’ Funny how he could think of forbidding Fiz Gorgo as home.

‘The air-floater pilots need their rest,’ said Irisis. ‘They flew all night, Nish.’

‘In the morning then. At first light.’

Irisis prodded the fire. ‘I’ve been thinking. This might not be an absolute disaster yet.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Remember the first time we came here, when we ran into the scavengers? I took away a complete controller and used it to design all my flight assemblies. I’m sure I brought the controller with me, so at least we can bring one thapter home. Kimli can fly it.’

‘One lousy thapter,’ said Nish in melancholy tones.

‘Oh, come on. It’s twice what we have now.’

After his glorious daydreams about bringing back fleets of fliers, it took an effort for Nish to see that even one thapter was infinitely better than none. None meant that the past months had been wasted. With none, the war could not be won. With one, added to the one they already had, it was still possible to hope.

They worked all night fitting the controller into the least damaged of the machines close by. It took a team of artificers and artisans, for whoever had smashed the controller had done other damage and they had to take parts from a second construct to fix it. The work was not yet completed when the sun came up. As it lifted above the horizon they heard an approaching, unmistakable whine.

‘It’s a thapter!’ Nish cried. ‘The Aachim have come back. Are you nearly finished?’

‘Not nearly enough,’ came Irisis’s muffled voice from inside.

‘Get your weapons!’ Nish raced for the air-floater, where he’d left his gear. A short sword banged against his hip but he’d be at a disadvantage against a tall Aachim. He reached over the side for his crossbow and pouch of bolts.

The thapter shot out of the north, flying low, banked and circled around them. The soldiers raised their crossbows. ‘Do we shoot?’ called their sergeant.

‘No!’ hissed Klarm. ‘Find out if they’re hostile, first.’

‘Not until I say so,’ Nish yelled.

The thapter banked again. ‘Don’t shoot!’ roared Irisis from on top of her construct. ‘That’s Tiaan.’

Nish shaded his eyes and squinted. ‘How can you tell?’

‘It’s all scratched and battered about the base.’ Irisis waved furiously, pointing to the ground.

The thapter jagged sideways, dropped sharply and came sweeping in to settle on the ground just a few spans away, the blast from underneath whirling dust and crunchy fragments of snow up in their faces.

‘How can Tiaan fly, here? We’ve got the only power storage devices.’

‘With the amplimet she can draw on a distant field,’ Irisis reminded him.

Of course. That’s how she had got them out of the burning underground labyrinth. ‘What are you doing here?’ Nish called.

Tiaan climbed out, followed by Merryl, a hobbling Flangers and another soldier. ‘We had to do a little job nearby,’ said Tiaan. ‘So we thought we’d see how you were going.’

‘Terribly,’ said Nish, rubbing red eyes. He explained.

‘Have you had breakfast?’ Tiaan said abruptly.

‘We haven’t had time,’ he snapped.

‘Neither have I, but I’d appreciate something hot if you can manage it.’

She turned away to the campfire, where a large pot of chard was simmering. Pilot Kattiloe, who had been eyeing Tiaan’s machine enviously since its arrival, offered her a mug of the red brew. Tiaan wrapped her hands around it and stood with her back to the fire, looking down at the dirt. Taking what looked to be half a dried quince from her pocket, she nibbled at one edge. Pilot Chissmoul appeared silently from behind a mound. She kept apart from everyone, but pressed her cheek against the side of the thapter and closed her eyes. Flangers limped over and stood leaning against the thapter. He said something to her. Chissmoul didn’t answer, but she didn’t go away either.

‘Let’s get something to eat,’ said Irisis. ‘I’m sure we’ll feel better for it.’

Nish suppressed his irritation and shortly, warming his hands on a bowl of stew, did feel as though he could cope with the world after all.

‘There’s no possibility of repairing any of the smashed controllers, I suppose?’ Tiaan said.

‘Not with what we have here.’

‘What about assembling new ones from the undamaged parts?’

‘The Aachim did a pretty thorough job of breaking them …’ Irisis said; a spot of colour appeared high on each cheek. She seemed to be going through some internal struggle. ‘But maybe we could check them again, if you’ve got the time. Together.’ It came out in a rush.

Tiaan seemed to be having trouble breathing. ‘We could.’ She put out her hand.

Irisis clasped it, then looked up at the sky. ‘Shall we get started?’

A crushed skull protruded from the frozen mud where the construct had lain. The size and shape told them that it was Aachim – one of the few bodies not recovered and buried before Vithis left Snizort. The eye-sockets stared mournfully at them.

‘I don’t like this place,’ Irisis said.

Tiaan shivered. ‘Neither do I.’

Though Tiaan and Nish were friends now, Tiaan still felt uncomfortable with Irisis. They had disliked each other since they’d been small children and it would take a lot to come to terms with their history.

‘None of these controllers can be repaired,’ said Irisis that afternoon, as they finished surveying the last of the constructs in the third area. The short day was nearly over, the sun declining swiftly.

‘Where to next?’ Tiaan looked around.

‘The last area is a good league further west.’

‘We’d better take the thapter.’

Irisis had been making a map as she went along and marking the location of each construct so she wouldn’t miss any. ‘That last one was 429.’

‘How many more are there?’ said Tiaan.

‘Thirty-six. It’ll be after dark by the time we finish.’

They whined slowly along, hovering, not flying. Ahead, in a depression, three or four clankers lay in a tangled mess. They’d hit so hard that they were welded together by the impact.

‘I wonder how that happened?’ said Tiaan.

‘When the node exploded,’ said Irisis, ‘it sent out wild surges of power that tore the legs off a good many clankers. They were the lucky ones; the ones that weren’t so well built. The ones that didn’t break were uncontrollable, and a lot of constructs were wrecked the same way. We landed in the middle of the battlefield just after it happened, Flydd and I. And Ullii. It was horrible. You haven’t known real fear until you’ve stood in the middle of a battlefield with uncontrollable clankers and constructs rampaging at you.’

‘I’ve known fear,’ said Tiaan with an involuntary look over her shoulder.

She curved around to get a better look. ‘No one could have survived that impact. Hey! What’s that underneath? It looks like –’

‘A construct.’

Tiaan set the machine down and they scrambled out. From this angle, though no other, one curved flank was visible beneath the mess. ‘It is a construct, badly damaged. I wonder if I can squeeze through that gap?’

‘Might be better to drag the clankers off first,’ said Irisis.

‘That could do more damage. I’ll risk it.’

Tiaan squeezed in then stuck her head out. ‘Could you grab a lantern from the thapter, please?’

Irisis came back with it and pushed in after the smaller woman. ‘If the Aachim have missed something, I want to see it too.’

The top of the construct was badly damaged but the hatch had been sheared right off, leaving an opening framed by jagged metal. Tiaan wriggled inside. Bones were visible down below, though there was no smell. Scavenging beasts had done their job. Irisis pushed in beside her.

‘The controller’s still here. What do you think?’ said Tiaan.

‘It looks intact.’ Irisis couldn’t keep the elation out of her voice.

‘Let’s get it out.’

By the time they’d finished it was dark. Outside, Tiaan spread the mechanism on her coat while they inspected it with the lantern. ‘I think it’s good,’ said Tiaan.

‘So do I.’ Irisis threw her arms about the smaller woman, and after the briefest hesitation Tiaan hugged her back. She felt as though she might have made another friend.

Tiaan set her thapter down beside the other. ‘How’s your thapter going?’ Irisis called to Nish. He looked worn out.

‘We’ve put the controller in, and it works, though not very well. I’m worried we won’t get it home. Our pilots aren’t experienced enough to be flying good thapters, much less faulty ones. They won’t know what to do if something goes wrong. Still, things are looking better than they were this morning. How did you get on?’

‘Pretty well, considering. Look at this.’ Irisis took the controller out of her bag. ‘Isn’t it the most beautiful sight you ever saw?’

It was worth all the labour for the look on Nish’s face.

After dinner they put it into another construct, slipped in the flight assembly tailored to Kattiloe, and one of Yggur’s power-storing devices, and the thapter worked straight away. Kattiloe danced a little jig on top of the machine. Chissmoul whirled and ran into the darkness again but this time Flangers followed.

Tiaan and Irisis continued their survey at first light, and among the last of the constructs found two controllers that were not as badly damaged, as if the wrecking work had been abandoned in haste.

‘The crystal in this controller looks all right,’ said Tiaan. ‘It’s chipped, but should still work. Do you think, if we put it in the second controller, it might just be good enough?’

It was, and Chissmoul wept for joy.

‘Three!’ said Nish, who had perked up considerably overnight. ‘Plus your thapter, Tiaan. If only it were five.’

‘You’re getting ideas above your station,’ said Irisis, grinning like a loon. ‘Shall we go home?’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Tiaan. ‘I think I know where we might find another controller. Or even two.’

‘We’ve been through them all now,’ said Irisis. ‘Twice.’

‘As I escaped from Vithis there were several, er, accidents involving constructs.’

‘Accidents?’ said Irisis.

‘I’d prefer not to talk about it,’ Tiaan went on. ‘People died because of what I did. The constructs were wrecked but it’s possible the controllers were left behind. Do you want to come, Nish? It’ll take a fair while.’

‘Let’s get these ones organised first.’

Yggur’s devices were inserted in the other two machines and they were hovered north to the nearest field. Nish then took the devices back, just for luck. He left the three lucky pilots, Kattiloe, Chissmoul and Kimli, practising hovering and low flying under Klarm’s watchful eye, gave orders for everyone to be ready to depart as soon as they returned, and climbed into the thapter after Irisis.

‘Can either of you swim?’ Tiaan said.

‘Not very well,’ said Nish.

‘Like an eel,’ said Irisis. ‘We used to go to the seaside in summer, when I was little.’

‘I’m not much good,’ said Tiaan. She put her head out the hatch. ‘Hoy. Are any of you good swimmers?’

‘I am,’ said Flangers.

‘Do you think your leg’s up to it?’ said Irisis.

‘It works better in the water than on land.’

‘Come on then.’

He limped across and climbed in. Tiaan went south, following the path she’d taken when towing the constructs to the node. At the place where she’d crippled Minis during the accident with the towing cable, Tiaan began to circle.

‘A few constructs were damaged here, though not badly. They may have taken them away.’

‘Looks like it,’ said Irisis, scanning the area with the spyglass.

They found nothing. Nish looked crestfallen.

‘Never mind,’ said Tiaan. ‘I didn’t really expect to find anything here.’

She continued south into Gnulp Forest, on the winding route she’d taken last summer. It wasn’t hard to remember. At the top of a steep hill she stopped and closed her eyes, imagining every detail of that desperate flight, and remembering her state of mind – thinking that she’d killed Minis and blaming herself for it.

‘I was here,’ she said. ‘They came at me up the hill, dozens of constructs led by Vithis. I’ll never know how I escaped.’

‘Nor I,’ said Nish, ‘had I not seen you in action.’

The undergrowth was still battered down in a line along the path of her flight, though autumn growth had begun to cover it up. ‘That’s where I hit a tree.’ She was pointing to a gouge out of the bark, a couple of spans in height. ‘And there’s where Vithis crashed. I was hoping his machine might have been abandoned, but they’ve taken it. On to the next.’

Nish said nothing but his shoulders were beginning to sag again.

Tiaan flew west to the Sea of Thurkad and turned left, following the shoreline south. Some half an hour later she slowed.

‘Somewhere around here they tried to catch me in a net held by five constructs. I know there’s a construct underwater, not far from shore, though I think it’ll be in pieces.’

Gentle waves broke over black rocks and dark sand. Gulls shied away as they approached. It took a long time to find the place, for the shore looked much the same for a league or two. Tiaan had to go inland, locate the trail she’d smashed through the scrub and follow it to the beach.

She stopped at the shoreline. ‘It was just out there. The construct went underwater and blew apart.’ More deaths on her conscience. There had to be a better way of solving people’s problems.

‘Could be hard to find the pieces,’ said Irisis.

‘Go up a fraction,’ Flangers said. ‘The sun’s fairly high. We may able to see through the water.’ He climbed up to the back platform.

The sun wasn’t high enough for them to see much, though occasionally Nish caught glimpses of the bottom, between dark rocks.

‘There it is,’ Flangers called. ‘At least, part of it.’

Tiaan hovered. ‘Looks like it’s in two pieces,’ said Nish.

‘There’s the top section,’ said Irisis. ‘Now for the chilly part.’

Tiaan hovered over the water while Irisis demonstrated to Flangers, with the thapter’s controller, what they were looking for and how to remove it.

‘Is that clear?’ she said. ‘We don’t want to break the controller getting it out.’

Flangers nodded. They stripped off and jumped into the water. Irisis ducked under but soon came up again.

‘What’s it like?’ Nish called.

‘Bloody freezing!’ Her teeth chattered.

‘I meant the construct.’

‘Thanks for your concern, Nish. It’s down two and a half spans, which is fortunate – that’s about as far as I can dive. Couldn’t see if the controller was still there. Ready, Flangers?’

He raised a thumb and went down, legs rising out of the water. Irisis slid straight under.

Nish counted the seconds aloud. At thirty-eight Irisis reappeared. Flangers did not.

‘It’s there,’ she said, ‘and looks to be in one piece, but I can’t hold my breath long enough to get it out.’

Tiaan wasn’t surprised. Removing the controller was a complicated process and she knew she couldn’t have done it underwater.

On one hundred and five, Flangers reappeared. ‘Cold!’ He took three deep breaths and went down again.

‘S’pose I’d better help him,’ said Irisis, pretending nonchalance, and submerged.

After eight dives, Flangers surfaced and trod water. ‘I’ll have to get out. I’m frozen to the core.’

They let down a rope and hauled him up. His skin was blue. ‘Coming, Irisis?’ Nish called.

‘I’ll keep going as long as I can.’

She went under. This time Nish had counted down two minutes and few seconds more, and was about to dive in after her, fully clothed, when Irisis surfaced, blowing like a walrus.

‘Have a rest, Irisis,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’ve got hot soup here.’

‘I’ll have it afterwards. Once I get out I’m not going back in, even for a whole bag of controllers!’

After Flangers had been given a brisk towelling and drunk a mug of hot soup, he felt able to go down again.

‘I feel the cold more than I used to,’ he said, noticing Tiaan’s gaze on his scars. His right thigh was smaller than the left and the right leg noticeably shorter.

‘It’s coming,’ said Irisis as he dived in. ‘Won’t be long now.’

They went down together. The seconds passed. A minute; a minute and a half; two minutes.

‘Do you think I’d better –?’ Nish began.

The surface erupted, Irisis marginally before the soldier, and her arm was held high with something dangling from it.

‘We’ve got it!’ she roared. ‘Now get me out of here.’

Back at the battlefield they quickly fitted everything in place in the soundest construct they could find and the machine whined into life.

‘Four thapters!’ said Irisis, who was still blue and shivering two hours after coming out of the water. ‘And that’s all you’re going to get, Nish, so don’t get that mournful look in your eyes again.’

‘I won’t! I’m happy now.’

‘Actually there was one more,’ Tiaan said. ‘The one I escaped in. I just managed to get it to Tirthrax, though I suppose the Aachim have taken it long since.’

‘No doubt,’ said Irisis, whose teeth were still chattering. ‘I want to go home.’

‘I’m beginning to think you’ve left the whole of Lauralin littered with wrecked machines, Tiaan,’ said Nish.

Tiaan started, then gave an abashed grin. ‘I had forgotten about the one I brought here from Booreah Ngurle – the original thapter Malien and I made. I hid it among the rocks on a hilltop over that way.’ She pointed east. ‘I wonder if it’s still there?’

‘How could you have forgotten that?’ said Nish.

‘I took out the parts that allowed it to fly. It was just another construct then. The original machine might still be there,’ Tiaan ruminated. ‘It was well hidden among rocks and scrub, on a barren hill. There’s no reason why anyone would climb up it. And with one of your assemblies, Irisis, it could be made to fly. Let’s go and see.’

They took the best of the remaining pilots with them, just in case. The construct turned out to be exactly where Tiaan had left it, covered in dust and a layer of leaves, untouched. An hour later they were flying it back.

‘That’s five,’ said Nish. ‘I’m the happiest man in the world. Let’s go home.’

FORTY-SIX

After the air-floater returned with the initial bad news, Yggur and Flydd had been in despair, which redoubled when Tiaan failed to return from her own mission. They held an anxious meeting, and another the following day when there was still no sign of anyone. They were sitting gloomily by the fire when Fyn-Mah came running with the news that a thapter had been sighted, flying slowly and erratically.

Yggur ran all the way along the long hall to the front doors and threw them open. Flydd came scuttling after him. As they went down onto the steps, a thapter wobbled in, to thump onto the paving stones.

‘That’s definitely Tiaan’s,’ said Yggur. ‘What’s the matter with her?’

The hatch was pushed open and Kattiloe’s head appeared, beaming to split her face in two. ‘I did it!’ she cried, capering about dangerously on top of the machine.

‘Report, if you please,’ said Yggur sternly, though it was undermined by the delight he couldn’t suppress.

Before she could jump down they heard the scream of a second thapter travelling at high speed. It shot across the yard and, with reckless insouciance, carved an ascending spiral around one of the horned towers, a descending spiral around the next, then hurtled towards the front door. Yggur and Flydd ducked as it banked sharply just over their heads, spun in a circle and dropped neatly to the paving stones beside the first, so lightly that it would not have crushed a feather.

‘Who the devil is that?’ cried Yggur.

Two guards staggered down the ladder, ashen-faced and holding their bellies. Then Chissmoul, so quiet and shy that few people had ever heard her speak, sprang up onto the open hatch, laughing like a drain. Catching sight of the astonished mancers she broke off at once, though she didn’t look repentant.

Soon two more thapters were scattered across the yard, these rather untidily. The fourth, flown by Kimli, had almost taken off Yggur’s first-floor balcony as it came in. Yggur was grinning broadly now, though he could not relax yet. Finally, a few minutes later, a fifth thapter appeared, shepherding the sixth –Tiaan’s battered machine – though it was evident that she wasn’t flying it. They landed in the middle and Tiaan waved. She had elected to fly the faulty one.

‘The air-floaters are on their way,’ said Nish, springing out after her and grinning as if he’d just won the war by himself. ‘I’m sorry that we only managed five thapters, surr, but we did it without the loss of a single man or woman.’

Yggur was so overcome that he embraced Nish, and then the lot of them, even Chissmoul. There was something suspiciously like moisture in the corner of one eye, though he pretended it was a piece of grit. ‘After the bad news, I would have been happy to see a single thapter,’ he said. ‘This is more than I could have hoped for.’

Tiaan came up beside him. ‘How about you, dear Tiaan?’ Yggur said quietly. ‘Did you get what you went for?’

‘It’s down below, in the lead casket.’

‘Splendid. Leave it there; we’ll retrieve it after dark. And then, I think, the first banquet Fiz Gorgo has seen in a thousand years.’

Nish was hovering, just down the hall. ‘Could I ask a favour?’ he said.

‘Just name it,’ smiled Yggur.

‘It’s Pilot Inouye. She hasn’t seen her little children in a year, and she’s in despair. Could we send her home now? We don’t need her air-floater any more.’

‘Of course,’ said Yggur. ‘She’s served us faithfully and well, and we can do no less for her.’

It was worth all the pain and trouble of the past months to see the look on Inouye’s face when Nish gave her the news.

The next few weeks passed swiftly. Tiaan was away with Malien for most of the time, completing her node survey of Meldorin and subsequently the part of Lauralin lying between the Sea of Thurkad, the Karama Malama and the Great Chain of Lakes.

Flydd raced east in Kattiloe’s thapter, taking two of her sister pilots as well, so as to fly day and night. He’d gone to the manufactory to collect the ten farspeaking globes and hundred slave units ordered from Tuniz, and to order many more. He planned to take half to allies in the east, then bring the remaining sets home for the imminent spring offensive. He returned a fortnight later to be confronted with another problem. The farspeakers did not send as far as Golias’s globe, and were much less reliable. After conferring with Yggur and Irisis, he sent her back to the manufactory to sort out the problem.

And in practice, even Golias’s globe proved not to be quite the panacea Flydd had expected. There were limits to how far a message could be sent, though they varied all the time. One day the governor might be contacted in Lybing, the next Flydd could have trouble speaking to someone as close as Old Hripton. And messages could rarely be directly to farspeakers as far away as Tiksi or Roros. To speak to people at such a distance the message might have to be relayed several times, but often it did not get through at all.

On the first day of spring, Yggur began to mutter about Klarm’s absence. They were waiting for him to return with the latest intelligence so that the offensive could be planned. He was well overdue and they were beginning to fear that he’d been taken by the lyrinx, which would have been a disaster. Klarm knew too much and, tough though he was, the enemy had ways of extracting the truth from anyone.

He arrived with a bang at lunchtime the following day, the air-floater coming in so quickly that it scraped varnish off its keel going over the wall, before skidding across the paving stones between the sheds and piles of timber.

Nish looked up from the thapter mechanism his artificers were repairing, said, ‘Keep at it, you’re doing well,’ and wiped his greasy hands.

Klarm was over the side before it stopped, taking the steps three at a time and crashing through the front door. Nish followed.

‘I’ve got it!’ Klarm shouted up the hall.

‘Got what?’ said Yggur, emerging from his office polishing Golias’s globe with a scrap of airbag silk.

‘I’ve discovered where the lyrinx from Snizort and Gumby Marth have been hiding all this time. The ones who didn’t fly back to Meldorin.’

‘Come in here and tell me about it.’ Yggur took the little man by the arm and began to steer him into his workroom. ‘And you can start by telling us where the blazes you’ve been. You should have been back weeks ago.’

‘Not in there. We’d all like to hear the news,’ said Flydd, hurrying up the hall with his hands still dripping from the washtub. ‘Nish, would you call everyone together?’

Nish collected Flangers, Fyn-Mah and Merryl. Tiaan and Malien were away, mapping, and Irisis was still in the east. They assembled in the dining hall, neutral territory as it were, and Klarm began.

‘We’ve always wondered where the bulk of the lyrinx army went after the battles of Snizort and Gumby Marth. Most of the fliers returned to Oellyll but the others disappeared, as did the armies that had been terrorising Taltid and Almadin since the spring. They simply vanished at the beginning of winter. It was thought that they’d taken ship back to Meldorin, though we could find little evidence for it. I now know that they did not.’

‘Where did they go?’ said Flydd.

‘Underground,’ said Klarm. ‘They made their winding way by night, in small groups so as not to attract attention, to the sea caves of Rencid. They went into the caves but they didn’t come out again.’

‘Sounds a bit far-fetched to me,’ said Flydd. ‘They’d have to cross running water just to enter the sea caves, and a lot more inside.’

‘That’s why we didn’t look more closely,’ said Klarm. ‘We knew it was against their nature, but there’s no doubt about it. The leaders must have fed their people an elixir to overcome their terror of water.’

‘I’d be more convinced if you could tell me where they went,’ Yggur said dubiously.

‘I know exactly where they went. At some stage, perhaps decades ago, they found or made an underground connection between the sea caves and the deep caverns that honeycomb central Rencid, a good hundred leagues away.’

‘They couldn’t have made a connection all that way,’ said Flydd. ‘It would be the work of a thousand years.’

Klarm shrugged. ‘It’s mostly limestone country and no one knows how far the caverns run. They’ve never been explored. But that doesn’t matter – the lyrinx now lie hidden in their tens of thousands, deep underground, within a stone’s throw of Worm Wood.’

‘How can you know?’ said Yggur. ‘How do you know they went through the sea caves, for that matter?’

‘My spies have been scouring the area between Nilkerrand and Snizort ever since we came back from Nennifer,’ said Klarm. ‘Talking to the hunters and scavengers, and the nomads who used to wander those plains. It’s surprising how many people still live in those lands. Most useful were the scavengers who roam the west coast of Lauralin. A rat doesn’t scurry from one side of a ribcage to the other without them knowing about it.

‘My spies have talked to thousands of people over the past months, and very expensive it was. I felt positively profligate.’ Klarm’s eyes flashed at Yggur. ‘And when I wasn’t wenching and boozing like the dissipated sot you think me to be, I put together a picture from all those tiny fragments of information, and it told me where to search.

‘We identified the right sea cave a month and a half ago, and I checked out the signs for myself. There was nothing at the entrance; the enemy had wiped it clean of tracks, but there were plenty inside. They’d gone in and there were no tracks coming out again. Where had they gone and how would I find them? Even ten thousand lyrinx, hibernating deep underground, would produce no sign that could be detected from above.’

‘So how did you find them?’ said Flydd, signing to an orderly. The fellow went out silently.

‘The only way I could. I followed their tracks.’

‘What, underground?’ cried Flydd. ‘You bloody fool, what if you’d been caught?’

The little man bowed in his direction. ‘It had to be done, Xervish, and I couldn’t send anyone else to do such a dangerous job. Besides, no one was more suited to it than myself, my father being a caver. I was born underground.’

‘And had they caught you, you would have died underground,’ said Yggur, ‘though not before telling them every secret we have.’

‘I carried a poison pill set in wax inside a hollow tooth,’ said Klarm. ‘If taken, I would have bitten it in half.’

The orderly reappeared with a flagon of black beer and a large tankard, which he placed in front of Klarm before withdrawing. Klarm nodded his thanks and filled the tankard. ‘It’s surprisingly thirsty work, following a lyrinx army underground.’ He downed half the tankard in one swallow.

‘And frightening too, I dare say.’

‘Aye.’ Klarm took another pull at the tankard. ‘It was that. In truth, I had little expectation that I’d come out alive. There’s bad air in places, and fast streams, and it wasn’t unguarded either. That was the hardest part of all. I couldn’t kill the guards, nor harm them in any way, or they would have known someone was spying on them. All I could use was my natural cunning and the odd small illusion.

‘But illusions work better underground, and the enemy were more frightened than I was, despite their elixir. They had to cross many subterranean streams and their terror gave me heart. But, terrified or not, they’d gone on, and so must I. That’s why I was so late back. I followed them the whole winding way, at least a hundred and twenty leagues underground, through one system of caverns after another. Many a marvel I saw that no man has seen before, and in the end I found them, hibernating in groups of thousands, unguarded apart from sentries at entrance and exit.

‘There were more lyrinx than I could count – thirty thousand at the very least, and there could be other groups I didn’t find. They’re hiding three hundred spans underground not far from the abandoned town of Strebbit. They’ll be coming out of hibernation any time now. They’re less than a night’s march from Worm Wood, the perfect cloak for their movements, and they’ll be ready to attack within weeks. Once they reach the forest they can go anywhere, unseen.’

Flydd swore. ‘I’d assumed they would come from the coast, and that we’d hear of their march a good week in advance.’

‘What do we do now?’ said Yggur.

‘We must attack them the moment they come out,’ said Klarm.

‘How do we know where they’re going to come out?’ said Flydd. ‘If my memory serves me, those caves have dozens of outlets.’

‘But the cavern they’re hibernating in has only one dry exit,’ said Klarm. ‘All the connecting caverns are partly flooded. Their elixir allowed them to endure the terror of the water, but I’m betting they’ll avoid it on the way out. All elixirs take their toll and they won’t want to be suffering from it on their way to war.’

Klarm’s voice went hoarse. He drained his beer, licked the foam from the rim of the tankard, and filled it again.

‘The dry passage opens out into a natural bowl.’ He shaped it in the air with his hands. ‘If we can get our forces into position in time, we can ambush them as they come out, still sluggish from hibernation.’

‘And if they retreat?’ said Flydd, smiling as if he already knew the answer.

‘We drive them into the underground streams and cut them down in their panic.’

‘Have you been in contact with General Troist?’ asked Yggur.

‘I have, and he gave me heart. His troops are well armed, well trained, and he has supplies stockpiled. Moreover, he has a keen eye for the weaknesses of the enemy and how best to attack them.’

Yggur looked questioningly at Flydd. Flydd nodded.

‘If they take Borgistry,’ said Yggur, ‘western Lauralin must fall and then sooner or later the whole continent will be lost. But while Borgistry survives, the enemy can’t control the west. We’ll do it.’

‘How soon can we be ready to strike?’ said Flydd. He went over to study the map that covered half of one wall. Yggur joined him, measuring distances with a length of string. ‘Troist could be there in nine days.’

‘Two weeks for us,’ said Nish. ‘All the thapters need work, and three of the air-floaters. They can’t go to war the way they are.’

‘Two weeks!’ Flydd cried. ‘What if the enemy come out sooner? Why do they hibernate anyway? Merryl?’

‘In order to survive in the void,’ said Merryl, ‘they flesh-formed their unborn to the limit. They made themselves the most formidable fighters ever seen, but it came at a cost. They have to hibernate for at least a month every year to repair the damage the past year has caused.’

‘So it’s a necessity, not just a custom,’ mused Flydd. ‘Good – all the less likely that they’ll cut it short. Even so, we’ve got to be ready sooner.’

‘Well, Nish?’ said Yggur.

‘If all our work goes perfectly,’ Nish said, ‘and we get just the right weather when we’re flying, we might be ready to attack in ten or eleven days. But things never go perfectly, so I can’t possibly promise less than twelve.’

‘Perfect!’ Flydd conferred with Klarm and Yggur. ‘A strike in ten days will catch them still lethargic from hibernation.’

‘But I just said –’ Nish began desperately. Allowing three days for the slow air-floaters to fly there, it meant he only had seven days rather than the nine or ten he needed.

‘The attack is set for ten days. Be ready!’

The first thapter flight left eight days later, and Yggur wasn’t pleased at the delay. It carried Klarm, an advance guard and a number of devices that had been made in the eastern manufactories. The destination was an isolated valley north-east of Strebbit, where everyone would rendezvous with Troist’s army, then march down to encircle the bowl-shaped depression in which the cave mouth lay.

Now it was the following day, and Nish hadn’t slept for two nights. One of the thapters was still being repaired after crashing into a small tree in darkness, and the floater-gas generator on Gorm’s air-floater had failed and had to be completely taken apart, though even then no one could work out what was wrong with it. Yggur came down to Nish’s shed every hour, demanding to know when they would be ready, which only made matters worse.

‘I knew this would happen,’ Nish raged when Yggur turned up for the fifth time that morning. ‘I told you it couldn’t be done.’

‘I don’t like excuses,’ said Yggur frostily.

There were plenty when your work wasn’t done on time! Nish thought, though he was wise enough not to say it. ‘It’s not an excuse. It’s reality. Things go wrong and you have to allow time for it. I’m not a magician –’

‘When will the last machines be ready?’ Yggur snapped.

‘Tomorrow morning, at the earliest.’

Yggur scowled. ‘That’s not good enough.’

Nish had had enough. He threw his tools on the ground. ‘If you can do better, you’re welcome to try.’

To his surprise, Yggur merely said, ‘Get it done,’ and disappeared again. Then he ducked his head around the door. ‘Where’s Tiaan?’

‘She’s still not back from her node survey with Malien.’

‘But they knew we needed Malien’s thapter for the offensive. We’ve been planning it for months.’

‘It wasn’t supposed to be for a couple of weeks yet.’

‘Does she have a farspeaker with her?’

‘Yes. Flydd tried to call her again last night. He couldn’t make contact.’

‘Better try again.’

As if Nish didn’t have enough to do. He ran his fingers through his tangled hair. He hadn’t eaten since this time yesterday, nor bathed in a week. Slamming the door of his shed, he headed across the yard. Piles of supplies were stacked wherever space could be found. Dozens of lean-to sheds had been constructed against the walls. Two more thapters were being loaded. Three air-floaters, being much slower, were long gone. People were running everywhere.

Weaving through the yard, Nish was stopped a dozen times by people who needed to be told what to do. He finally climbed the steps with a sigh of relief, but as he went through the doors someone called his name from the other end of the hall. Not recognising the fellow, Nish turned left into a cross-passage that was mercifully empty, then left again to the circular stair that ran up to one of the repaired horned towers.

He was panting by the time he reached the top, a round chamber of naked stone with arrow slits, through which the drizzle-laden wind whistled. Nish pulled his coat around him. The spring weather was the same as winter’s, only wetter.

He peered through a slit that was out of the direct path of the wind. The rain came in waves. Nish shook his head, which felt as though it was full of spiderweb. The farspeaker operator’s bench was between two embrasures, fenced off with flapping walls of canvas that broke the worst of the wind. Merryl was sitting there.

‘Oh,’ said Nish. ‘I was looking for … whatever his name was.’

‘I’ve taken over for the day. Do you want to send a message?’

‘I didn’t know you had the talent.’

‘Neither did I,’ said Merryl cheerfully, ‘though farspeaking doesn’t take much. You could probably do it yourself.’

‘I doubt it. Anyhow, I don’t have time to learn.’

‘My father was a bit of a sensitive, so Yggur had me tested and found I could use the globe, and here I am. The only tricky part is changing the settings.’

‘I was trying to contact Tiaan,’ said Nish. ‘She’s supposed to have been back days ago. We need her thapter; and her field maps.’

‘I tried earlier, but no luck. I’ll change to her settings and have another go.’

Merryl consulted a sheet covered in cryptic symbols. He selected one, took Golias’s globe in his hand, steadied it against the table with his stump, pressed and twisted. The inner globes spun, the light flashing off them in dozens of colours. Merryl squeezed and the layers locked.

He held the globe up, inspecting it minutely. ‘No, that’s not right. Sorry, Nish. It’s a bit tricky.’

‘Take your time,’ said Nish, sitting down in the other chair. ‘I’m glad of the break. I can’t remember when I last had a full night’s sleep.’ He leaned back against the cold wall and closed his eyes, listening to the globes spinning, again and again.

‘That’s better,’ said Merryl. ‘Hello, Tiaan, this is Merryl, calling for Nish. Are you there?’

He repeated his call over and over, until Nish, lulled by the softness of his voice, drifted into sleep.

‘Hoy, Merryl?’ It was Yggur, calling from the stairs. ‘You haven’t seen Nish, have you?’

Nish’s feet struck the floor. ‘He’s here with me,’ Merryl called back after a decent pause. ‘We’re trying to contact Tiaan.’

Yggur entered the room. ‘I assume you’ve had no luck. Nish, half the yard is looking for you and it seems none of them can wait.’

Nish levered himself up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

‘No luck at all with Tiaan,’ said Merryl. ‘Nor anyone else.’

‘I spoke to Klarm earlier, in Strebbit,’ said Yggur.

‘But Klarm has a master farspeaker,’ said Merryl. ‘Tiaan only carries a slave. Master to master goes a lot further.’

‘Keep trying; we need her thapter. And give Klarm another call; find out if he’s rendezvoused with Troist yet.’ Yggur went down the stairs again.

Nish was halfway down too when Merryl called him back. ‘It’s Klarm,’ he said in a dead voice when Nish entered the chamber.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Lyrinx were seen moving north last night, in large numbers, so Klarm rotored straight down to the ambush site.’ Merryl stopped for a deep breath.

Nish knew what he was going to say. ‘The enemy aren’t there any more.’

‘There were plenty of signs of them in the hibernation cavern,’ said Merryl, ‘but it was empty apart from bones. They’ve gone and he doesn’t know where.’

Bootsteps came back up. It was Yggur, with Flydd. ‘From the way Merryl called you back, Nish, I figured it was important,’ said Yggur. ‘Did I hear you say the enemy have fled, Merryl?’

‘Not fled,’ said Merryl. ‘Marched to war. They’ve outflanked Troist’s army and Klarm reckons they’ll be attacking Borgistry within a week. He’s trying to get a better estimate of their numbers.’

‘So what do we do?’ Nish was so tired that he couldn’t think straight.

‘We’ll have to go to Lybing and put our backs to the wall with everyone else,’ said Flydd. ‘Borgistry can’t be allowed to fall. And that’s my big worry.’

‘Why?’ said Nish.

‘It’s too rich, complacent and soft. Borgistry hasn’t been threatened before. It has a big army but not many of its troops have seen combat, and its generals are fat and complacent. We’re going to have to take over.’

‘How will the governor of Borgistry react when you do?’ Nish wondered. ‘I heard the Council was unpopular there.’

‘The old Council was,’ said Flydd, ‘but we’re held in high regard, and we have Klarm to thank for that. He was like a will-o’-the-wisp, fleeting back and forth across Borgistry in the first month of winter, spreading his propaganda about the old Council and bolstering ours. There’s not a soul in Borgistry who hasn’t heard about Fusshte’s dirty little secrets.’

‘I haven’t heard anything about them,’ said Nish.

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘I don’t suppose I do.’

‘But do you know the single thing that has legitimised our Council?’ said Flydd, smiling grimly.

‘Thapters,’ said Nish. ‘Or farspeakers.’

‘It was that grisly relic Klarm picked up in the swamp.’

‘What relic?’ said Yggur.

‘Remember how Ghorr was blown out of his skin in the airbag explosion, and we found it hanging in a tree? Klarm had Ghorr’s skin tanned and inflated to make a full-sized balloon of the former chief scrutator.’

‘How revolting,’ said Yggur. ‘Is there no depth to which the little man won’t sink?’

‘Klarm knows how to move the common people,’ said Flydd. ‘He carried Ghorr’s blow-up under his arm to every gathering, setting it up beside him like a saggy, disgusting naked puppet. When the people saw what kind of a man Ghorr had been, or rather how little a man he was, they rallied to us because we’d brought the brute down. There’s nothing quite like ridicule.’

‘I’m prepared to admit that I was wrong about Klarm,’ said Yggur, ‘though he wenches and drinks far more than is proper.’

‘If the tales of this war are ever written, which seems increasingly unlikely, there’ll be a Great Tale in Klarm’s exploits and escapades over the past three months. He’s the bravest man I’ve ever met.’

‘That he is,’ said Yggur. ‘But a libertine nonetheless.’

FORTY-SEVEN

Lybing, from the air, was a fairytale city built at the confluence of three rivers. The old, walled town spread across five hills that surrounded the confluence like the points of a squashed star. Water formed the heart and arteries of the city, and its citizens had built no less than nineteen bridges, each beautiful, each different, across the rivers. Nish had counted them as the air-floater flew in.

The city now extended well outside the walls, for Borgistry was packed with refugees from the west, while a couple of leagues upstream, thousands of tents marked the camp of Borgistry’s largest army.

That was all Nish saw of the place, for the thapter was directed to land on the lawn of the White Palace, a rambling, grotesquely ornate building of indeterminate age or, rather, many ages. It spread across a trio of mounds between the upstream arms of the two largest rivers, and was built of white marble.

Nish had just climbed out onto a springy, daisy-starred lawn when he was called into the palace. He had expected to be part of a vast conclave, but Nish found himself in a grand reception room fitted for the deliberations of emperors that was practically empty. Up the far end, by a roaring fire spitting sparks over the screen onto the tiled floor, stood an oval table and eleven chairs, all but one occupied.

‘Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar,’ called the man in livery at the door.

Someone at the table was talking, and no one looked up as Nish made the long walk, his heels clicking on the tiles. He stood at the end, uncertainly.

‘Sit down!’ snapped Flydd.

Nish took the empty chair at the near point of the oval and looked down the table, which was piled with maps and papers. A farspeaker globe, its base encrusted with gems by a master jeweller of Lybing, sat in pride of place in the centre. He recognised a number of people there, including Flydd and, down at the far end, General Troist, who looked nearly as weary as Nish felt.

Nodding to Troist, Nish scanned the other side of the table. An elderly woman and man, both richly dressed, sat next to Troist. To their left was another general, a vast, choleric man bursting out of his uniform, his chest festooned with rows of shining medals. Beside him was a woman in black who might have been a merchant, then a tall, dark woman with frizzy hair and filed teeth – Overseer Tuniz from the manufactory. What was she doing here?

There were three more, two middle-aged men and a woman whose face Nish couldn’t see as it was concealed by a dark veil. He picked up the papers in front of him.

The elderly woman extended a hand towards Nish. ‘Good day to you, Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar. I am Nisbeth, Governor of Lybing and all Borgistry. This is my husband, Argent of Borg. Next to him are General Orgestre, Grand Commander of the Army of Greater Borgistry, and Merchant Meylea Thrant. Overseer Tuniz you would know, of course, and General Troist and Scrutator Flydd. Beside Tuniz are Mancers Rodrig and Crissinton Tybe, and lastly, Mira Seliant, who has come from Morgadis.’

Nish dropped the papers, which scattered across the table. As he tried to gather them up the woman in the veil turned her face to him. It was Mira. He felt a flush moving up his cheeks. She looked at him without expression, then turned away.

Nish had an urge to run from the room, as he had fled Morgadis that night nearly a year ago. What must she think of him? What would she say? It was as if all he’d made of himself over the past months was as naught.

‘Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

Nish realised that Nisbeth had spoken to him and he hadn’t answered. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.’

‘Your report, Nish!’ snapped Flydd.

‘Ah … ah … yes, my report. I –’

‘Stop babbling, man, and get on with it. The enemy draws nigh.’

‘We brought four thapters,’ said Nish. Tiaan and Malien had the fifth and the other was about to go to Roros, to Governor Zaeff. ‘And four air-floaters –’

He broke off, unsettled by the piercing stare of General Orgestre, who was regarding him as if he were the most lowly of worms. Orgestre’s thin lips were pressed into a pale line that stood out against his red, broken-veined cheeks, and his bloodhound jowls wobbled as he turned his head.

Nish continued through his list of equipment, mostly weapons of war. What must Mira be thinking? Having lost her man and all three sons, she hated war and despised those who waged it.

‘Very good,’ said Flydd, turning away. ‘Overseer Tuniz?’

‘My manufactory has completed its commission on schedule and to Xervish Flydd’s satisfaction. I’ve brought ten more master farspeakers and another hundred of the slave variety. There were some problems with the earlier ones but they’ve been sorted out by Crafter Irisis Stirm, who will remain in the east to make sure we don’t have any more problems. We’ve also brought two hundred light blasters.’

Tuniz bared her filed teeth but Nish knew it to be a sign of good cheer. She had done all that had been asked of her and was going home to her little children as soon as the next thapter went to Crandor. Nish didn’t feel as cheery. He missed Irisis and had hoped she would be coming back soon, though considering the state of the war perhaps it was better that she wasn’t.

‘What are light blasters?’ asked Nisbeth.

‘A battlefield weapon. I have one here.’ Tuniz reached into a leather bag and held up a pod-shaped object, the length of her hand, made of opaque yellow glass. She threw it at the wall and it burst with a brilliant flash of light that hurt Nish’s eyes. ‘It’s enough to daze the enemy for a minute or two. Their eyes are more sensitive than ours; that’s why they avoid fighting in the middle of the day.’

‘Very clever,’ said Nisbeth, frowning at the blackened hole it had made through her intricate plasterwork, ‘though you might have warned us.’

‘The enemy will get no warning, Governor,’ said Tuniz. ‘These won’t win the war but they’ll give us a tiny advantage.’

‘I doubt it,’ grated Orgestre. ‘We need clankers and stout men with long swords, not artificer’s toys.’ His eyes seemed to be accusing Nish of reckless frivolity, though it had nothing to do with him.

Flydd cleared his throat and the others at the table gave their reports. Counting Troist’s forces, now making a forced march back from Strebbit, Borgistry would have an army of sixty thousand men and eight thousand clankers. They could rely on support from Tacnah, the land north-east beyond the lakes, though its eight thousand troops would take a fortnight to get here. Clan Elienor had promised one thousand, and they were already on their way, though they probably wouldn’t arrive in time either. Borgistry’s allies in Oolo had promised another fifteen thousand but they were a month’s march away. The lands further south and west might be able to provide ten thousand raw troops who would have to be trained and equipped, though they would not arrive until early summer.

‘We’ll be at war within days,’ said Flydd. ‘Therefore, we can rely on nothing but our sixty thousand.’

‘It’s a mighty army,’ said Nisbeth. ‘What are the enemy numbers?’

‘Estimates vary considerably. The lyrinx travel individually or in small groups, and mainly at night. Even in the daytime it’s difficult to count them.’

‘We know that,’ snapped Orgestre. ‘Give us your numbers.’

‘General Troist?’ said Flydd. ‘You’ve just rotored in from Strebbit. What’s your estimate.’

‘At the end of autumn I had their numbers at twenty-eight thousand between here and the Sea of Thurkad, counting those that had gone into hiding after Snizort. There could be more to our north. As to how many might have come across the sea, I cannot guess.’

‘So many,’ said Nisbeth, ‘after all their losses last year?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘General Orgestre?’

‘My spies tell me thirty-two thousand,’ said Orgestre, ‘plus a few thousand that we guess will fly from Meldorin. A mighty force, but we’re fighting for our homes and families and we have the numbers to defeat them. What about you, Flydd? Let’s pray that your estimate falls in the middle.’

‘It doesn’t,’ said Flydd. ‘According to Klarm, who’s counted them and was hoping to be here to present the details himself, the enemy numbers at least fifty-seven thousand.’

Nisbeth clutched at her heart, but after a minute the colour returned to her face. She took a sip of water, gripping the arms of her chair to stay upright.

‘Go on,’ Nisbeth quavered. ‘If you’ve more bad news we might as well hear it right away.’

‘That’s it,’ said Flydd. ‘Each lyrinx is the match of two of our soldiers, so we’re effectively outnumbered two to one. Surrounded as Borgistry is by forest, I don’t see how we can defend its borders.’

FORTY-EIGHT

Someone drew a deep, shuddering breath. Nish thought it had been Mira, though she was sitting back and he couldn’t see her. General Orgestre’s mouth opened and closed. For the first time in his life, it appeared, the hard-faced man was directly threatened, and he was terrified. He began buffing his golden medals, as if to find comfort there.

‘Then Borgistry will fall,’ said Nisbeth. ‘We must evacuate to our refuges.’

‘Where we’ll either starve in the drylands, freeze in the mountains or be eaten alive by midges in the stinking bogs of Mirrilladell,’ said Meylea Thrant, the merchant. ‘Had I known I was throwing my money away, I would have paid my military levies rather less cheerfully.’

‘You never handed over a copper grint without shedding a tear,’ General Orgestre said, now desperately polishing his chest ornaments.

‘I’d gladly pay it to an officer who’d earned his commission, rather than bought it,’ said Thrant.

Dead silence. Orgestre swelled up like a red-faced toad. His mouth opened but nothing came out.

‘That’s not helpful,’ said Nisbeth, who was deathly pale. Her husband was supporting her. ‘General Troist, may we hear your view?’

Troist, a neat man, apart from his mass of tangled, sandy curls, stood up. ‘As far as I know, no human army has ever beaten the enemy when the numbers were equal; nor should we expect to. Yet,’ he looked down one side of the table and up the other, ‘the situation is different now.’

‘Go on, General,’ said Nisbeth. ‘Do you have a plan to defend us?’

‘I’m beginning to formulate one. Flydd and Yggur have given us new hope. Farspeakers are going to revolutionise warfare, though we’re still working out how to make the best use of them. And with our thapters, essentially invulnerable to lyrinx attack, we can see the whole of a battlefield – indeed the whole of Borgistry – at once.’

‘They’ll attack in bad weather when you can’t see further than you can throw a spear,’ said Orgestre.

‘Then we’ll know when to expect them,’ said Troist.

‘But not where. Not how many,’ said Orgestre with relentless despair. ‘And both thapters and farspeakers are vulnerable to node-drainers. Only a fool would rely on such untested Arts at a time like this.’

‘We’re overusing the fields,’ said Mancer Crissinton Tybe, who had the narrowest, most angular face Nish had ever seen on a man, and a mouth that gashed it in two as if the back of his head were hinged. ‘It’s as simple as that. We’re abusing the natural forces, and so are the enemy, and there’s got to be a reckoning.’

‘I’m not sure I understand you, Mancer Tybe,’ said Flydd.

‘What he means,’ said Mancer Rodrig, a small, deliberate man, ‘is that one day the fields will let us down when we most need them.’ His skin was starkly white but there were such dark rings around his eyes that he appeared to be wearing goggles. ‘We must wean ourselves off the fields before it’s too late. We’ve seen it in the stars.’

‘The stars!’ said Flydd, unable to contain his derision. ‘Unfortunately, my dear mancers, this war is being fought on solid ground and to give up the fields is to give up existence. While the enemy uses power we have to match it.’

‘Even to the ruin of the world,’ Crissinton Tybe intoned.

‘If the numbers are correct, we’ve lost the battle and the war,’ said Orgestre. His red face was now blotched with ugly purple stains like birthmarks.

‘It would almost be worth it,’ came a low voice from behind the veil, ‘to rid the world of the bloodless warmongers who send our young to die but never hazard their own lives. Have you ever seen active service, Orgestre?’ Nish had never heard such hatred as there was in Mira’s voice.

‘Mira, please,’ said Nisbeth. ‘Would you go on, General Troist?’

‘We have thapters, against which the enemy haven’t yet found a defence. We have farspeakers – which aren’t perfect, I agree – yet in this battle, in the limited compass of Borgistry, they’re worth twenty thousand troops. If the enemy break though in some unexpected place, our captains will know in time to send reinforcements, or withdraw.’

‘They have the numbers to overwhelm us,’ said Orgestre. ‘and they too can communicate over a distance.’

‘Their mindspeaking is of the most primitive sort,’ said Flydd. ‘Only those most powerful in the Art can use it. There’s still hope, since the lyrinx are just out of hibernation. They’ll be lethargic and wouldn’t normally do battle for another week. And they’ll be wasted and hungry when they get here.’

‘They’ll fight all the more fiercely for it,’ said Orgestre. ‘We must withdraw.’

‘They won’t fight as well, or for as long. We must force them into battle before they’re ready, and seize the advantage.’

‘You’ve got to find them first,’ said Orgestre. ‘How are you going to do that?’

‘We’re training animals to sniff them out,’ said Flydd, reluctantly.

‘What kind of animals?’

‘Pigs, as it happens. They can pick lyrinx even further away than dogs, and –’

‘Sniffer pigs! That’s one for the Histories. They’ll still be laughing about it in a thousand years.’

‘Enough, gentlemen,’ said Nisbeth. ‘We’ve got to decide on a plan.’

‘Get rid of this fool before he leads us all to destruction. As Grand Commander –’

‘No, General,’ said Nisbeth. ‘I bow to the Council and Scrutator Flydd’s leadership. Xervish?’

Flydd set his jaw. ‘We fight for Borgistry and the whole world,’ he said flatly. ‘We can do nothing less.’

Nish was out the door the moment the Council finished. He was running away, for he could not bear to see the contempt in Mira’s eyes. He fully expected guards to come for him, and all day he had an itch in the middle of his back, as if a target had been painted there. He desperately needed to talk to someone about it, but Irisis was the only person with whom he could share such a delicate matter and he had no idea when she was going to return.

That afternoon he was summoned to Troist’s rooms. Nish went expecting the worst.

‘Come in,’ Troist said. He was a reserved man and Nish couldn’t read his expression. ‘I didn’t get the chance to congratulate you earlier, so let me do it now. You’ve done great deeds since I last saw you at Gnulp Landing. I wouldn’t have thought any man could have accomplished so much. And now this new miracle: air-floaters built, thapters recovered from Snizort, pilots found and trained, and all unexpected but most timely. There’s no man under my command who could have done it, Cryl-Nish.’

‘It was … everyone worked very hard, surr.’

‘And no one harder or more intelligently than you.’ He gave Nish his hand, and Nish shook it in rather a daze. ‘You’ve given us a chance that even I – and my wife Yara calls me an incurable optimist – never dreamed of having.’

‘Thank you, surr.’ Nish swallowed, still thinking about Mira. For all his bravery on the battlefield, he would never find the courage to face one small woman. ‘I was wondering if I might come with you, surr, when you go to war? I might be more useful at the front than sitting here.’

Troist gave him a keen glance. ‘I’ve need of an aide who can get things done. If Scrutator Flydd has no objection, I’d be delighted to have you. I’ll be leaving in the morning.’

Scrutator Flydd had many objections, which he put strenuously, but Nish would not back down.

‘You’re a curious chap, Nish,’ said Flydd. ‘I recall a time, not so long ago, when you pleaded with me to keep you away from the front-lines. Now you’re begging to go there.’ He surveyed Nish just as keenly as Troist had. ‘Are you sure you’re not running away from something?’

Nish tried to pass it off. ‘Well, I’m a different man now.’

‘You’re a man, not a boy pretending to be one. That’s the difference. Oh, go on then. I dare say Troist needs you more than I do.’

Troist and his retinue of officers were heading for Clew’s Top, east of The Elbow in southern Borgistry, where a small force of his army was stationed, to await the main army now racing back from Strebbit. Nish rode with them in a cramped, bone-jarring clanker. It seemed such an old-fashioned conveyance now, so noisy that he couldn’t think straight, and joltingly uncomfortable.

‘Did you happen to see Mira yesterday?’ Troist said that afternoon.

‘I didn’t get the chance,’ Nish lied.

‘She was looking for you. And so were Yara and my twins.’

‘I was working on the supply records until late.’ Hiding, as it happened.

‘I dare say she’ll find you when we get back.’

If we get back. The lyrinx generally attacked the command centre from the air at night, with massive force, at the beginning of a battle. Just so had Troist gained his command after all the more senior officers were slain.

FORTY-NINE

Tiaan had spent weeks in the thapter, alone but for Malien, who flew it while Tiaan monitored the fields and refined her maps. She had now surveyed the whole of western Lauralin save for the northern sector of the Great Chain of Lakes, which roughly marked the boundary between the lyrinx-occupied lands to the west, Borgistry in the centre and impoverished Tacnah to the north.

Tiaan was now completing her lakes survey, after which they were to go to Borgistry to help with the coming war. They’d heard from Yggur the previous day, though perturbations in the ethyr had prevented them from replying with their slave farspeaker.

The Great Chain of Lakes lay in rugged, rifted and sunken lands bounded by great fault escarpments on either side, dotted with fuming volcanoes and boggy geyser country. Complex lines of nodes ran along the rift valley and the area had proven troublesome to map, but now, almost a week later than Tiaan had expected, the first rough chart was finished.

Malien was flying across Warde Yallock, the longest and deepest of all the lakes, and the cradle of civilisation on Santhenar. ‘Let’s set down there, by the water. I’m so weary of flying.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Tiaan. ‘You’ve been doing it for months with hardly a break.’

Malien headed towards an open area on the western side of the lake, landing at the top of a long green slope that ran to the water’s edge. Patches of forest spread over the hills behind them like dark green eiderdowns. Beyond the lake, twinned volcanoes smoked. They strolled out to the edge and Tiaan bathed while Malien kept watch. The water was surprisingly warm for the season. Afterwards Tiaan dried her hair in the sun and Malien swam out until she was just a dot in the distance.

They had lunch in mid-afternoon, in the shade of the thapter. They could see all the way across the lake, where the setting sun illuminated tall cliffs of red stone.

‘It’s peaceful here,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’m so sick of the war.’

‘You’ve never known anything else.’

‘It must seem like the blink of an eye to you.’

Malien laughed aloud. ‘Not even in my advanced years could I consider one hundred and fifty years to be the blink of an eye. But it has been a bad time, the worst I can remember, though my people have scarcely been involved in the war. We leave the lyrinx alone and they don’t trouble us.’

‘What was it like, in olden times? Was it as good as the tales say?’

‘No, nor as bad, in my lifetime, anyway. There was peace, of a sort, before the Forbidding was broken and everything changed. Oh, there were always little wars going on somewhere, but few people were affected by them. Most lived their lives without ever seeing an army, save during a ceremonial march. But the big difference was the freedom.’

‘How do you mean?’ Tiaan had never known freedom before leaving the manufactory, and could not imagine it. The Council organised every aspect of people’s brief lives from the moment they were born until their untimely deaths.

‘Well, people were free to move to another place or another country, if they wished to. They might not have been welcomed, but there was no law to stop them. They could do whatever kind of work they could make a living at. There were no examinations and no Council of Scrutators telling everyone what to do.’

‘And no breeding factories,’ said Tiaan.

‘Certainly not! Women could choose to have children, or not. It wasn’t a crime to prevent conception then.’

That reminded Tiaan of a puzzle she’d often thought about. ‘When I was held in the breeding factory, I saw something that I’ve wondered about ever since.’

‘What was it?’ Malien lay on the grass and closed her eyes. ‘Can you keep an eye out, in case I doze off?’

Tiaan climbed onto the shooter’s platform and scanned the country. There was no living creature in sight. She sat beside Malien again.

‘I don’t know who my father is and Marnie wouldn’t tell me. But one time in the Matron’s office I happened to see a book – the bloodline register for the breeding factory at Tiksi.’

‘Bloodline register?’

‘Yes. It was like a human stud book.’

‘You old humans are obsessed about your family Histories. The breeding factory would have to have records of the parents.’

‘But it was what was in the records,’ said Tiaan. ‘The talents of the parents …’

Malien yawned. ‘You should ask Flydd about that. I’ve never understood why old humans do the things they do. I suppose we’d better find a place to hide for the night. I’m too tired to fly all the way to Borgistry.’

In the morning they flew due south over the unending expanse of northern Worm Wood, and in the early afternoon Tiaan saw a cluster of volcanoes in the distance.

‘There’s a place I’ve not properly surveyed,’ she said. ‘Booreah Ngurle, the Burning Mountain.’ It stood at least a thousand spans higher than the other volcanoes in the cluster and was belching dark grey clouds of ash.

‘We might as well have a quick look at it on the way to Lybing.’

Before they reached the lowest of the peaks, as they were flying across dense forest, Tiaan looked up from her map. ‘That’s funny!’

‘What?’

‘There’s a strong node here but the field is really tenuous.’ She peered over the side but saw only the same untracked forest they had been crossing for hours. It was getting dark.

‘Fields fluctuate,’ said Malien.

‘Not as much as this.’

‘We can go back and forth if you want to take a closer look.’

‘No.’ Tiaan felt uneasy without knowing why. ‘We’re supposed to be heading for Borgistry.’

‘There’s time. Yggur said they wouldn’t be fighting for a few days yet.’

‘In that case, go on to Booreah Ngurle. It has a double node that I’m interested in.’

Malien flew around the peak, then back and forth across it, to either side of the ash clouds.

‘All finished, Tiaan?’

‘Um, can we go back to that weak field now? I want to take another look.’

They flew north on the same track as they had taken south. Two small chains of hills ran to their left. The area that interested Tiaan lay a little to the east of them. ‘Now turn around and go back.’

‘Again?’ said Malien when they had returned to their starting point.

‘No! Just keep going. I’ve got to think.’

‘Perhaps if you were to think aloud …’

‘Sorry, Malien. The fields down there are all wrong. The nodes are strong ones but their fields are just points.’

‘Meaning that something has almost drained them dry?’

‘Exactly,’ said Tiaan. ‘But why would the enemy put node-drainers in the middle of trackless forest. We’d never fight in such a place. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘How many fields have shrunk?’

‘All of them, over an area of forest ten leagues square.’

‘All of them?’ Malien stared at her. ‘It would take an army of lyrinx flying over the forest to drain that much from the field.’

‘And there aren’t any fliers in sight.’

‘An army moving through the forest then?’

‘They don’t use the field when they’re marching. Unless …’

‘Unless they’re travelling under a vast concealment,’ said Malien, ‘even greater than the one that stone-formed thirty thousand of them into the pinnacles above Gumby Marth. And it would have to be much greater to conceal an army on the march. We’d better get back. Whatever Flydd’s expecting, I’m sure it’s not an attack from the north, between Booreah Ngurle and the Peaks of Borg.’

‘They must have done a forced march all the way from Strebbit, to have got here so quickly.’ Tiaan measured distances on the map. ‘They’re only twenty-five leagues from Borgistry and lyrinx march faster than soldiers. They could do it in a couple of days, even through the forest.’

‘Try the farspeaker again.’

Tiaan did so, but heard nothing except a shrill whistling. ‘What are we going to do?’

Malien jerked the thapter around in mid-air. ‘We’re going to Lybing.’

They arrived over the city at the darkest hour of the night. ‘Do you know where to go?’ said Tiaan as they approached.

‘I haven’t been to Lybing in a couple of hundred years.’

‘I’ve never been here.’

‘There’s the Great North Road,’ said Malien. ‘I’ll set down at the northern gate.’

The terrified guards did not know whether to fire their crossbows or run screaming as the thapter whined into the pool of light outside the gates.

‘Hoy!’ roared Malien. ‘The enemy is nigh. Where can we find the governor?’

The guards each pointed in a different direction.

‘General Troist?’ said Malien. ‘Scrutator Xervish Flydd? Lord Yggur?’

‘The White Palace,’ gasped the guard. ‘Where the three waters join. If you run that way –’

‘Run,’ said Malien. ‘At my age?’

The thapter screamed and shot off, directly over the gates. They landed hard on the manicured lawn outside the front door of the White Palace, skidding on the dewy surface and carving out a streak of crumpled turf three or four spans long. Tiaan gathered her maps and threw herself over the side, Malien following just a little less hastily.

Tiaan pounded on the bronze-studded doors with her free hand. A sleepy guard opened the left-hand one.

‘Where is Scrutator Flydd? Or Lord Yggur?’ Malien rapped out.

‘Inside,’ said the guard, ‘but they’ll be sleeping now.’

‘I am Malien!’ she said briskly. ‘Matah of the Aachim. My name is written in the Great Tales.’

He took a step backwards, calling out to his fellows.

‘The enemy is almost upon us,’ said Malien. ‘Let us in at once.’

No one else could have done it, but such was her authority that the guard did allow them through. ‘Take the stairs straight ahead. Turn left down the corridor. The scrutator’s door is at the end.’

‘Thank you,’ said Malien.

Tiaan ran. Her back was troubling her and her legs felt weak, but she soon outdistanced Malien. After scooting up the stairs, she turned left and ran along the hall. Which room? She couldn’t remember what the guard had said. At the end, or near the end?

She pounded on the first door she came to, and then on several others. ‘Scrutator, Scrutator! Wake, wake! The enemy is nigh.’

There were cries of panic, shouting and an occasional scream, as if people thought the lyrinx were inside the palace. Shortly Xervish Flydd appeared at the end door, pulling a robe around his gristly frame.

‘Scrutator, surr?’ said Tiaan.

‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ he snapped.

‘Delayed,’ she lied. ‘We know where the enemy are, surr. They’re coming under a concealment of surpassing power, down through the forest on the north-eastern side of Booreah Ngurle.’ She partly unrolled her main map. ‘Here, surr. Their fliers could attack as early as tomorrow, and the whole army could enter northern Borgistry within two days.’

‘Attacking from the north,’ he breathed. ‘I never would have expected that. How can you be sure?’

Malien came hobbling up. ‘There’s so many of them that they’ve drained all the fields in a huge area, about ten leagues square, down to pinpricks.’

‘How do you know they haven’t put in node-drainers, to fool us?’ said Flydd.

‘Why would we check the fields in such a remote place?’

‘Come down to the war room. We’ll take a look at the big maps. I hope you’re right, Tiaan. If I direct our forces north, and they strike somewhere else …’

Two days after leaving Lybing, Nish was working in the command tent at Clew’s Top when Troist’s farspeaker gave forth a hollow tapping, like the flicking of a fingernail against a blown egg. He looked up. Troist was not there.

Nish did not know how to use a farspeaker, or even if he was capable of doing so. Putting his head through the flaps of the tent he bawled, ‘General Troist?’

A soldier standing a few paces away grinned and said, ‘He’s gone to the privy. He’ll be a while. The general suffers from a flux –’

‘Thank you, soldier!’

Nish ran to the farspeaker, which was still tapping, though more loudly. If it was already set, maybe all he had to do was talk. He tapped back. The farspeaker gave out a squelching noise, then a voice rumbled forth. It did not come from the farspeaker, rather from the air above it, and had an echoing, unearthly quality that made it hard to identify.

‘Troist? Is that you?’

‘Scrutator? It’s Nish. Troist is out at the bogs.’

‘Run and get him. We’ve found the enemy and they’re only days away.’

A spasm twisted Nish’s entrails. The moment had finally come. ‘Where?’ he cried.

‘From the north, east of Booreah Ngurle, if Tiaan is right.’

‘I’ll get Troist right away, surr.’

Nish ran down to the privies and yelled through the wall. ‘General Troist. Flydd is on the farspeaker. It’s urgent.’ He didn’t want to say more, since there could be a dozen men in the privies at any time and morale could easily be damaged.

‘I’m coming.’ Troist appeared after a short delay, holding his stomach.

Over the farspeaker, Flydd repeated what he had told Nish.

‘What are your orders, surr?’ said Troist. ‘What if Tiaan is wrong?’

‘Then we’re in as much trouble as if she’s right and we do nothing. Bring your army north to Ossury. How soon can you be there?’

‘My main force has only just got here from Strebbit, in their clankers,’ said Troist without consulting the map. ‘I’ll bring them north without delay, leaving the rest here. I can’t leave this place undefended. On good roads, going night and day, we should be able to reach Ossury in two and a half days, as long as we don’t have too many breakdowns. And as long as the fields last. There have been a few failures around here lately. How about there?’

‘The same,’ said Flydd. ‘We haven’t lost a node yet but the fields grow more unreliable by the day. Take the usual precautions and spread your clankers out. We can’t afford another loss like Hannigor. Goodbye.’

‘No surr,’ said Troist. ‘We cannot.’

‘What was Hannigor?’ said Nish.

‘It’s a village down south, between Saludith and Thuxgate. Fifty-four clankers were travelling close together at full speed, coming to the aid of a smaller force that had been ambushed by the enemy last autumn. They must have taken more from the field than could be borne. A sphere of light formed around them, collapsed, and they vanished. Even the ground they were travelling over was gone, annihilated down to bare rock.’

‘I heard a similar tale back at the manufactory. Do you think we’re in danger now, just travelling in a convoy of clankers?’

‘I don’t know, lad,’ said Troist. ‘Fields have never been perfectly reliable, but lately it’s become worse. Some mancers think we’re drawing on them beyond their capacity, but what can we do? Without the Art we would already have lost the war.’

‘And yet, each time we make a new advance, they counter it with one of their own that also uses power. What will it be next?’

‘I don’t dare think.’

Within two hours camp had been broken and they were heading north up the Great North Road as fast as the clankers would go. Every machine was packed with food and supplies, and most towed sleds or carts, piled high. More soldiers sat on the shooter’s platforms or clung to the sides. Troist had left behind two thousand soldiers and a token force of eighty clankers to help protect them. The goodbyes were sombre. Whether the enemy appeared in the north or the south, everyone knew that they were unlikely to see their friends again.

They were plagued by breakdowns and field failures on the way north, and by the end of the second day of travel were half a day behind schedule. They bypassed Lybing on the west and continued. Troist was in and out of the jolting clanker, either urging his operators and artificers on, or darting behind a bush or hedge to relieve himself. He drank flagons of a thick green liquid with an offensive odour, trying to quell his troublesome innards, but to little effect. The race had taken three and a half days, and morning had broken, before they came in sight of the towers of Ossury, the northernmost town in Borgistry.

‘I don’t see any sign of fighting,’ said Nish to Troist as they climbed out the rear hatch of the clanker and stretched their cramped muscles.

‘I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.’

An air-floater hung in the sky above the town. As they turned off the road towards a river, to make camp, a thapter screamed overhead. Judging by the exuberant swoops and rolls, Chissmoul was at the controller. Nish smiled, imagining the joy of his shy protégée.

‘How far away were the enemy when Tiaan sighted them?’ Nish asked.

‘The scrutator didn’t say.’

‘We’ll soon know. That looks like him now.’

A small man came cantering through the gates on a tall white horse. It seemed incongruous, after months of travel by air. They went to meet him.

‘Good day, Scrutator Flydd,’ said Troist. ‘What can you tell us?’

‘We believe they’re quite near,’ said Flydd, without so much as a greeting or a glance at Nish. ‘The depressed fields were no more than a day’s march away last night.’

‘What about now?’ said Troist.

‘I don’t know. I’m keeping Tiaan away, in case we alert them and they attack somewhere else.’

‘So we don’t know if they’re coming this way or not?’

‘Sadly no.’

‘Any news from the pig sentries?’ Nish said. ‘Not a sausage, I suppose.’

‘Very funny!’ Flydd said coldly. ‘We’ll just have to pray that Tiaan is right.’

‘If she’s not …’ Troist began.

‘We’ve been through that already,’ Flydd snapped.

They spent a long and anxious night, during which a hundred messengers must have come in and out of the command tent. No one knew what was going on. Nish retired at midnight but his tent was next to the command tent and he couldn’t sleep. Every minute he expected to hear the cry, ‘To battle!’

When a call finally came, it was something of an anticlimax. Nish stamped his feet into his boots and ran next door. ‘What is it? Are we under attack?’

Troist looked like death and Flydd was not much better. ‘Unfortunately not,’ said Flydd. ‘The enemy has attacked from the east, fifteen leagues south of here, and are driving directly for Lybing.’

‘The east?’ said Nish. ‘How did they get there?’

Flydd just shrugged.

‘How many of them?’

‘We won’t know until dawn. Hopefully it’s just a feint by an isolated band of fliers.’

The farspeaker belched like a cow and a deep voice exploded from it. ‘We’re under attack, surr!’

Flydd rapped on the globe. ‘Identify yourself, you fool. How the bloody hell am I supposed to know who you are?’

‘Sorry, surr,’ came back after a considerable pause. ‘It’s Captain Maks, of Troist’s detachment at Clew’s Top.’

‘The south as well!’ Troist knuckled his bristly cheeks. ‘I knew it was the wrong –’

‘You forget yourself, General,’ hissed Flydd, turning away from the farspeaker. ‘Morale, dammit.’

Turning back, he tapped the globe. ‘Captain Maks, this is Scrutator Xervish Flydd here. How many of the enemy are there?’

Again that over-long pause. ‘Ethyr must be very slow tonight,’ Flydd muttered.

‘Or the fields overly drained,’ fretted Nish.

The farspeaker belched again. ‘Maks, surr. Can’t tell their numbers. Seems like a good few.’

‘What the hell does that mean? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?’

‘Hundreds at least, surr.’

Flydd conferred with Troist, who tapped on the globe. ‘It’s Troist, Maks. Don’t engage the enemy. Take to the constructs, all that can fit inside, and retreat slowly north towards Lybing, protecting the infantry.’

‘Don’t engage … retreat … Lybing,’ Maks repeated, and faded out.

‘Troist, call for a general report,’ said Flydd.

Troist contacted the detachments of Borgistry’s other forces, one by one. Another squad, this one on the western side, also reported being under attack. ‘What are the enemy up to? Are they going to attack along a hundred and fifty leagues of border, or is this just a distraction until the main force is in position?’

‘It’s going to be a long time till dawn,’ said Flydd.

‘Why don’t you see if you can contact Tiaan, Scrutator?’ said Nish.

‘Good idea.’ Flydd ordered her to fly north, keeping so high that the sound of the thapter could not be heard. ‘And don’t fly over them. As soon as you detect them, turn back.’

An anxious half-hour went by, during which a stream of couriers ran in and out. Flydd was constantly interrupted by representatives of the villages surrounding Ossury, terrified that the enemy was about to fall on them. Finally he ordered the guard to keep them away. Troist pored over his maps, his back bent.

Tiaan eventually reported back. ‘The depression in the fields is still moving south, in the direction of Ossury.’ Her voice was clear, though there was a bell-like ringing of the ethyr in the background.

‘If it’s a feint, it’s a magnificently coordinated one,’ said Flydd. ‘How can they do that over such distances?’ No one answered. ‘We’d better get the other thapters armed and in the air,’ he went on.

‘Everything’s ready,’ said Troist. ‘We just don’t know where to send them.’

By mid-morning it had begun to rain, and it became heavier as the day wore on. They still had no idea what was happening. The attacking lyrinx could have numbered hundreds, or thousands. More conflicts broke out until the borders of Borgistry were ringed by skirmishes.

Finally, around the middle of the day, came the news they had been dreading.

‘General!’ Even through the rumble of the farspeaker they could hear the terror. ‘It’s Captain Maks. We’re still well south of Lybing. There are enemy everywhere.’

‘Are you using the light blasters?’

‘Yes, but we don’t have enough to make a difference. There’s thousands of the enemy, surr! They’re coming –’

The farspeaker cut off and they could not raise him again.

‘Doesn’t mean they’re lost,’ said Troist eventually, but there was a blank look in his eye that Nish had not seen since they’d first met, just after the ruinous defeat at Nilkerrand.

Flydd seized the globe. ‘Thapters, report! Who’s the nearest to Clew’s Top?’

A full minute passed before a youthful voice said, ‘It’s Chissmoul, surr.’

‘Who’s Chissmoul, Nish?’ Flydd said out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Chissmoul is the one who doesn’t have Yggur’s eyes. The rather … exuberant flier.’

‘Oh, that one. Downright reckless, I would have said. What’s she doing down there?’

‘Patrolling.’

Flydd turned back to the globe. ‘Chissmoul, go down carefully to where the soldiers are. Tell me what you see.’

They heard nothing for a good half-hour, then Chissmoul called back. She wasn’t exuberant now. Her voice quavered. ‘I’ve found them, surr. I have them with me.’

‘What the blazes are you talking about, Pilot?’ said Flydd.

‘The survivors. I have both of them.’

‘Both? There were two thousand soldiers and eighty clankers.’

There was a long silence.

‘Chissmoul?’

‘None of the clankers are moving, surr. All the soldiers are dead and the enemy has gone.’

Troist turned to Flydd, but Flydd couldn’t meet his eyes.

‘Gone where?’ said Nish, leaning towards the farspeaker globe.

‘They’re heading north, towards Lybing,’ said Chissmoul.

‘How many?’

‘More than two thousand. Surr.’

‘Follow them, but keep out of catapult range,’ said Troist, tapping the farspeaker to indicate that he’d finished. ‘What do we do now?’ he cried. ‘Do we let them slaughter our scattered forces, man by man, then fall on defenceless Lybing while we sit here watching for phantoms?’

‘Lybing is a walled city defended by an army of ten thousand,’ Flydd said.

‘If the enemy send just half of their fifty-seven thousand against Lybing, they’ll take it before we can get there.’

‘Tiaan?’ called the scrutator after changing the setting of the farspeaker. ‘It’s Flydd. What’s happening?’

‘The depression in the field is still moving towards Ossury.’

Flydd paced back and forth, his lips moving. He cast a glance at the general, who was staring at the wall. Flydd sat down with head in hands. Nish was glad the decision wasn’t his to make.

‘My men are dying, Scrutator,’ said Troist. ‘If you’re wrong, the three rivers of Lybing will flow red for a week. You’re gambling everything on Tiaan and, to be frank, her history doesn’t inspire confidence. Wasn’t she out of her mind in Nennifer?’

He pressed his knuckles into his stomach, his face grey with pain. Nish passed over the flask containing Troist’s latest remedy, a noxious yellow potion. Troist swigged half a flask, though it seemed no more efficacious than the green sludge he’d resorted to previously.

Flydd bit his lip. ‘Tiaan has never let me down. Besides, Malien is with her. We hold firm for another hour.’

The farspeaker emitted a farting burp. ‘Xervish Flydd,’ said a deadly voice whose tones came through quite unchanged. ‘Grand Commander Orgestre here. This is madness. Will you twiddle your thumbs until the enemy have destroyed us all?’

‘It’s a feint,’ said Flydd desperately. ‘As soon as we turn south they’ll be onto us.’

‘You’ve lost your mind. You are dismissed from command of our forces.’

‘I don’t hold command, and if the governor and the generals no longer have confidence in me they can say so.’

‘General Troist,’ said Orgestre, shrilly. ‘I order you to take Flydd into custody and render him up to me. You are to come south at once and defend Lybing.’

‘You don’t have the power to give orders to me, Orgestre,’ said Troist, who had gone the colour of his elixir. ‘My army is not from Borgistry.’

‘Then who do you obey, surr?’ Orgestre ground out. ‘Think carefully before you answer. You know the penalty for treason.’

Troist took a long time to answer. ‘I do know the penalty, surr, and I take my orders from Xervish Flydd, the head of the Council of Scrutators. He has asked me to wait another hour, and wait I will.’

‘You will regret this, General Troist.’

‘We may all regret it, surr, though not for very long.’

‘I hope I can repay your trust,’ said Flydd after Orgestre had gone.

Troist sank the rest of the potion and continued to knuckle his rebellious belly. The hour passed with agonising slowness. More reports came in, of isolated squads slaughtered to the last man.

Nish turned the hourglass, setting it down with a clatter.

Flydd’s eyes flicked to the glass. ‘I’ll contact Tiaan again.’

‘And if there is no concrete news?’ said Troist.

‘I fear we must turn back to Lybing. Tiaan?’ he called.

‘Still the same,’ Tiaan’s voice came clearly over the whine of the thapter.

‘Can I speak to Malien?’

‘Yes, Xervish?’ said Malien.

‘The enemy are attacking all around the borders. We’ve lost thousands of men already and if they’re really heading for Lybing …’

‘Are you asking me to back up Tiaan’s report?’

‘If she’s wrong, Lybing will be destroyed and the west will fall. I need confirmation.’

‘I’m not able to see the effect that Tiaan has reported,’ said Malien, ‘but I have no reason to doubt her.’

‘In any respect?’ A river of sweat ran down Flydd’s cheek.

‘If you’re questioning her sanity, have the goodness to speak plainly.’

‘The world is at stake here, Malien.’

‘Then you have quite a decision to make,’ she said coldly. The farspeaker cut off.

Flydd wiped his face with a rag that was already drenched with sweat. ‘What am I to do, Nish? How am I to decide?’

‘I don’t know, surr.’

‘The effect Tiaan’s seeing must be a decoy – a spread-out group of lyrinx carrying node-drainers. They’ve lured us here so they can destroy the rest of Borgistry unhindered. That has to be it. I can’t delay any longer. Order the turnabout, General.’

Troist sprang to the farspeaker and changed the setting. ‘Captains, this is General Troist. Turn back to Lybing immediately. Follow Plan Three.’

The orders had just been repeated when the farspeaker squealed.

‘This is Tiaan. I can see the enemy, surr. Surr?’

Flydd jumped out of his seat. ‘Where are they?’

‘They’re coming out of the forest in their thousands, from the point where the Great North Road meets the forest, then west for a couple of leagues. There’s thousands of them.’

After a long pause, Malien added, ‘I’d say tens of thousands.’

‘Thank you! Thank you, Tiaan and Malien. Stay on watch.’ There were tears in Flydd’s eyes. He embraced Troist and then Nish. ‘To war!’

‘To war,’ said Troist, then snatched the farspeaker globe.

‘Captains. General Troist again. Ignore the last order. The enemy are coming from the forest north of Ossury, from the Great North Road west for several leagues. This is the main attack. Put Plan Six into action.’ He broke off and ran to the door. ‘Guards, the war begins. Ready the command-centre defences.’ He came inside and buckled on his armour, made from boiled leather, and his steel helmet.

‘I think I’ll go up in one of the thapters,’ said Flydd. ‘Even in this weather we might see something useful. Will you join me?’

‘My place is here, with my men. I’ll send up my best tactician, Orbes, and he can report back.’

‘Very good.’ Flydd called down the nearest thapter. ‘Nish?’

‘I’m with Troist, at least until the battle is over,’ said Nish, shrugging his armour over his shoulders.

FIFTY

The sun came out and the clouds blew away, but it was going to be a desperate day.

‘They’re not fighting as hard as in other battles I’ve seen,’ said Nish around midday. The command circle had been set up on a bald hill overlooking the battlefield. He was standing at the edge, within the ring of guards, acting as an observer.

‘They do seem a little wasted after their hibernation.’ Troist had just come from the command tent to join him.

‘I wonder why they’re fighting now?’

‘After Klarm discovered their whereabouts and we sent the army to Strebbit, I suppose they had no choice.’

‘Then why didn’t they attack there? They had the numbers.’

‘They were just out of hibernation and needed the past week to recuperate.’

‘Why not take a fortnight and recuperate fully?’

‘How the blazes would I know, Nish?’ snapped Troist. ‘They may have been afraid to wait, in case we discovered them. It’s not easy to hide that many lyrinx and they wouldn’t want to be forced into battle at a ground of our choosing, as they have been here.’

‘I suppose not.’ Nish scanned the battlefield. ‘Our light-blasting weapons don’t seem to be having much effect.’

‘There are few miracle weapons in war. They’ve worked about as well as I’d expected. They are making a difference.’

‘Not much.’

‘A lot of small advantages make a big one. We’re fighting the lyrinx on our terms. Good visibility, open land and bright sunshine. We can use our new tactics to best effect.’

The soldiers were fighting in tight formations, making it difficult for the lyrinx to get through their walls of spears and shields. And when the lyrinx attacked in groups, as they had to, they were vulnerable to the clankers, which could fire their catapults and javelards from the side or the rear, over the heads of the soldiers. The thapters were also taking a toll, maintaining a height from which they could fire at the enemy but above the altitude where the enemy’s catapults could reach them.

‘I do believe we’re gaining a little,’ said Troist in the early afternoon, watching the battle through a spyglass and relaying orders over his farspeaker. ‘They don’t seem to be fighting quite as ferociously as I remember.’

‘I was thinking the same. We’ve taken heavy casualties though,’ said Nish, gingerly feeling a shoulder wound. A small band of lyrinx had broken through the lines just before noon and gone straight for the lookout. It had been a brief but vicious struggle. He hadn’t killed the lyrinx that had attacked him, but fortunately one of Troist’s guards had.

His shoulder was throbbing. It was not a bad wound, as battle wounds go, just three long claw marks. Nothing like the blow that had practically taken his father’s shoulder off a year and a half ago. Another ell, though, and Nish would have been in the same situation.

Troist was going through the latest tally sheets. ‘We’ve lost nine thousand men, and as many injured. They’ve about twelve thousand dead, so it’s evened the odds a trifle, but they still have the advantage if they dare to press it. Pray that they break soon, Nish. They can take these casualties better than we can.’

He called Flydd on the farspeaker. ‘Scrutator, we can’t manage much more of this.’

‘I agree,’ said Flydd. ‘It’s time for a different approach. A strike at their morale.’

Shortly, five thapters appeared in the west, flying in a line, low and slow. As they passed over the enemy formations a soldier on the shooter’s platform of each machine emptied a bag of what looked like brown flour over the side. Dust clouds slowly sifted down onto the lyrinx. At the edge of the battlefield the thapters wheeled and came back on a different track, flying just above catapult height. They kept this up until they’d covered the bulk of the enemy troops and all the bags of dust were gone.

At the end of that line, four thapters turned away and resumed the bloody work with their javelards. The fifth went back and forth across the battlefield again, a second man standing on the rear platform, though he didn’t appear to be doing anything.

Nish raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that all about?’

‘Something Yggur came up with,’ said Troist. ‘Did you hear about those lyrinx at Snizort that caught a dreadful skin inflammation?’

‘I did. The creatures had to be put out of their misery.’

‘Klarm discovered where they’d been buried, and Tiaan thaptered there and recovered one of the corpses.’

‘So that’s what she was doing,’ said Nish.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘She showed up at Snizort when we were trying to make thapters from the wrecked constructs. Tiaan didn’t say what she was doing there, and I was so pleased to see her I didn’t think to ask.’

‘The disease was some kind of fungus. Yggur grew it on offal, harvested bags of spores, and that’s what we’ve just dumped all over the enemy.’

‘A fungus could take weeks to infect them,’ said Nish. ‘It’s not going to make any difference today.’

‘What does it look like that second man is doing?’ smiled Troist.

‘It’s a bit hard to tell from here.’

‘Take a closer look.’

Nish focussed his spyglass. ‘It looks like he’s holding a flagon to his mouth. No, it’s a speaking trumpet. He’s giving them a message. He’s got only one hand. Is it Merryl?’

‘It is. He’s telling them, in their own tongue, what the dust is and what it will do to them.’

‘To break their morale.’

‘Hopefully,’ said Troist.

‘I wonder what they’ll do in retaliation?’

Another hour went by. Whatever the effect of the dust, the enemy continued to fight, though it did improve morale in the defenders. The advantage turned their way, then back to the enemy after a furious counterattack.

Nish was working his spyglass back and forth, counting casualties, when something small and dark streaked across the bloody ground and hurled itself into a formation of soldiers. There were screams, the formation collapsed in the middle and broke up. It reformed quickly, though with three fewer members than before.

‘What was that?’ said Nish.

‘I don’t know,’ said the scribe who was tallying Nish’s figures and sending them with a runner to the command table.

A second creature lunged into a formation and broke it as well. By the time it had reformed the little beasts were everywhere. One raced up the hill towards them, as if directed to the command post. Nish dropped the spyglass and reached for his crossbow but the creature disappeared.

‘What was that?’ said Troist, hurrying down from the chart table.

‘I don’t know,’ said Nish, ‘though I’ve got a nasty suspicion …’ There had been something about the way it had scuttled, low to the ground. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. Flesh-formed. Was it another nylatl, or something even worse?

Fortunately he’d prepared a remedy in case of this eventuality. Reaching into his pack, Nish withdrew a small metal phial with a tight stopper that had been wired on for safety. Carefully taking the stopper out, he touched it to the tip of the crossbow bolt, stoppered the phial even more carefully, twisted the wire over it and packed it away.

‘I don’t much go for poison,’ said Troist. ‘It’s a dirty way of fighting.’

‘Don’t see what the difference is,’ said Nish. ‘War’s a dirty business. This stuff is an easier death than the fungus, by all accounts. Besides, if those little creatures are what I think they are, we’ll need every advantage we can get.’

Troist turned away to the farspeaker and began calling urgently. Nish crouched low, the crossbow cocked. Where had it gone? The creatures could camouflage themselves almost as well as a lyrinx.

It shot out of the low grass, a spiny, toothy creature the size of a dog. Scooting across the bare earth of the path, claws scrabbling and raising puffs of dirt, it leapt at Troist.

‘Surr, look out!’ cried Nish.

The general turned and the nylatl, or a near cousin, struck him in the chest, knocked him down and lunged for his throat. Troist desperately tried to fend it off with the farspeaker globe but it was knocked out of his hands and rolled away. The claws tore his chest and arm, and Nish could not shoot for fear of hitting him. Soldiers were running from everywhere but they wouldn’t get to the general in time.

Nish dropped the crossbow, which fortunately did not go off, sprang and grabbed the nylatl by its tail. Its spines went through his palm and the venom burned. Nish bit down on the pain, heaved with all his strength and tore the creature off. It tried to go for him but he swung it around his head and hurled it at a rock three or four spans away.

It rolled into a ball in mid-air and the spines took the impact, bending then springing erect. The creature twisted to land on its feet and streaked for the general again. Nish grabbed the crossbow and, as the nylatl sprang, put the bolt in through its open mouth.

The bolt must have torn all the way through it. The nylatl screamed, turned over in the air and landed hard on its back with its legs spread. It kicked twice then went still, though its eyes remained open and its flanks heaved for a minute or two.

‘Don’t go near it!’ cried Nish as a bloody Troist wavered towards the beast. Troist froze.

Nish wrenched the sword out of the general’s hand and came up behind the creature. It rolled over and raised its bloody maw to snap at him. Its back legs scrabbled on the ground. With a savage blow that buried the blade a hand-span into the turf, he cut it in half lengthways.

‘Now it’s dead,’ he said after a careful look. ‘They’re flesh-formed creatures, surr. The spines drip poison and they can even spit venom at your eyes, if they get close enough.’

‘You’ve fought one before?’

‘I have, and it was one of the defining moments of my life. Aah!’ Nish wrung his hands, which were already swollen and burning. The pain grew until they felt as if they’d been skinned and dipped in vinegar. He wiped them on the grass, which did no good at all.

‘I owe you my life,’ said Troist, signalling behind him. A healer was already running towards them.

While she was attending to Troist, Nish took up the spyglass again to scan the battlefield. He could barely hold it. ‘I’d say they had about a hundred of these creatures, surr. Aah, Aah!’ The spyglass fell from his hands and he couldn’t pick it up again. ‘They’ve savaged hundreds of our troops. And hundreds more have been killed after their formations collapsed and the lyrinx attacked. If they’d had a thousand nylatl, it might have won them the day.’

‘It might anyway, the way things are going.’ Troist sat down suddenly.

‘How are you, surr?’ said Nish, wincing as a second healer began to bathe the poison off his fingers.

‘I feel … a little faint.’ Troist lay back and closed his eyes.

‘Is he bad?’ Nish asked the healer.

She pulled back Troist’s shirt. ‘He’s been clawed about the chest, but he’ll recover. Unless the poison takes hold or infection sets in.’

‘It knew how to pick its target, surr,’ Nish said to the general. ‘It went straight for you.’

Troist didn’t answer. ‘Bring the farspeaker, quick,’ he said in a faint voice. ‘And get me Flydd.’

An attendant ran up with it.

Flydd answered immediately. He knew about the nylatl attacks. ‘It’s not looking good, Troist. I think we’d better go with the dust again, just to reinforce the idea.’

‘I think so,’ said Troist, and closed his eyes.

The five thapters repeated the operation, exactly as before, except that this time one flew a little too low. Four javelard spears caromed off the sides and a fifth went just over the head of the pilot, who was flying with the hatch open. The sixth and seventh spears converged on the soldier hurling the dust from the rear platform, sending him spinning into space, dead before he hit the ground.

The battle swirled back and forth. The thapters finished their work and the four swept around and back, firing their javelards furiously. The fifth flew across as before, Merryl repeating his message with the speaking trumpet.

Nish looked down at his casualty sheets, adding up the dismal numbers. It was clumsy work with his bandaged hands, but when he finally looked up there was hardly a lyrinx to be seen.

‘Where have they gone?’ he said. When the nylatl had been released there had been more than twenty thousand of the enemy. ‘Troist? Troist?’ It must be another trick.

Nish swept the spyglass across the battlefield. The remaining lyrinx changed colour before his eyes until they blended with the grass. They’d had enough.

‘It’s over, surr!’ he roared. ‘The battle’s over. They’re running away.’

The healer helped Troist to sit up, and he took the spyglass in shaking hands. ‘A strategic withdrawal, I would say. There they go, back into the forest. We haven’t exactly beaten them, but we’ve severely damaged their morale. It’s the first time we’ve overcome a superior force on the battlefield. We’ve shown that it can be done.’

‘And we have Klarm to thank for it,’ said Nish. ‘Had he not forced them to battle we’d never have done it. And Yggur’s fungus spores have won the day.’

Troist chuckled. ‘Indeed, the fungus.’

‘I could use a laugh, if there’s some secret I’m not aware of.’

‘Yggur was only able to collect a cupful of spores. The rest was just flour stained with tea.’ Troist roared with laughter.

The victory turned out to be far greater than they’d first thought. On the east coast, from Tiksi north all the way to Crandor, every lyrinx force in the field withdrew on the same day, as if the reversal had shaken confidence in their tactics.

‘Their mindspeech must be better than we’d imagined, to call all the way to the east,’ said Flydd four days after the battle. They were back in the White Palace in Lybing, reviewing the struggle to see what could be learned. ‘I’d like to know more about it.’

‘I don’t know how you’re going to find out,’ said Yggur.

‘Did anyone notice any difference in the lyrinx this time?’

‘They didn’t seem to fight with as much conviction as before,’ said Nish. ‘I’d put that down to the after-effects of hibernation but … I’m no longer sure.’

‘You’re not the first to note it,’ said Flydd. ‘And I thought so too.’

‘And this time they didn’t feed on our dead,’ said Flangers. ‘Not a single body was despoiled, though there were plenty they could have fed on during respites.’

‘Now that is odd,’ said Flydd. ‘Something’s changed. I wonder what it could be?’

‘Judging by the personal hygiene of most of our troops –’ Nish began, grinning.

‘This is serious, Nish. Find out why they’ve changed and we may have the key to the war.’

‘I hope so,’ said Troist weakly. His wounds had become infected and he’d been brought to the meeting on a stretcher. ‘We may have won the day, but the cost was unsustainable.’

The smile left Nish’s face as he looked down at the final list. ‘Thirteen thousand dead, another five thousand seriously injured. Many of those will die and half the remainder will never fight again. We’ve lost almost a third of our forces in Borgistry.’

‘But saved two-thirds,’ said the scrutator, ‘while the boost to morale, all over Lauralin, is worth another army the same size. And there’s one other thing: Klarm’s spies report a number of lyrinx dead in Worm Wood, infected by the fungus.’

‘How many?’ said Yggur. ‘I hadn’t really expected there’d be any, spreading it out in the open like that.’

‘Three or four, and I dare say there are more we haven’t found. It’s not the numbers, it’s fear of the disease that’s done the damage. But the most interesting thing of all is their reaction to the defeat. To have withdrawn from all the other conflicts, we must have profoundly shocked them. For the very first time, they’re afraid of us.’

‘Our new tactics unsettled them,’ said Nish.

‘They’re conservative fighters. They prefer to use their own well-tried methods,’ said Troist, trying to sit up and grimacing at the pain in his clawed chest. His healer put two pillows under his back. ‘If they’re overturned, the lyrinx normally take a while to formulate new ones. It’s the first time we’ve taken the advantage, and we must capitalise on it. We must formulate new tactics for each battle, so as to unsettle them again and again.’

‘Dare we take the battle to the enemy and attack them in their cities?’ said Yggur.

‘We dare not,’ said Flydd. ‘We’d need at least a four-to-one advantage for that, and we’d have to be prepared to sacrifice most of our troops. It’s not worth it.’

‘How many cities do they have?’ said Nish. ‘And where are they?’

‘They have six main cities that we know of,’ said Klarm. ‘All underground, plus a number of smaller ones. They’re not comfortable living permanently in small groups, and never breed in such places, though they can live almost anywhere for a time, for some particular purpose.’

‘Such as the group living in the spire at Kalissin,’ said Flydd with a glance at Tiaan, who was sitting quietly up the back as usual. ‘Is that not so, Tiaan?’

‘It is,’ she said.

‘Seldom do they build structures above ground,’ Klarm went on, ‘and then only small and temporary. But underground they construct massive complexes of tunnels and chambers. Their warren of Oellyll, beneath Alcifer, is vast. They have two main cities in the west – one at Alcifer and another in caves in the escarpment west of Thurkad. From those they control the whole of Meldorin and reach out to threaten us here.’

Yggur cleared his throat.

‘Almost the whole,’ Klarm amended. ‘Alcifer is thought to hold seventy thousand. The city west of Thurkad, at least as many.’

‘What about those in the east?’ said Yggur.

‘We don’t know their precise locations because we’ve never been able to get near them. That may change once our thapters are free to search from the air. One city lies in the mountains west of Roros, in Crandor. Another two are somewhere in the wildness of the Wahn Barre, or Crow Mountains, one west of Guffeons and the other west of Gosport. The sixth, and I believe the last, is somewhere in the coastal range south-east of Stassor. As many as forty thousand lyrinx are thought to live in each of those four places.’

‘Why don’t we know exactly where they are?’ said Yggur. ‘I find that hard to comprehend.’

‘They cleared the land of settlers from the very beginning,’ said Flydd. ‘And guarded the borders before they went underground. The cities are all in rugged country, heavily forested. Even with all the Council’s efforts, which have been considerable, we’ve not been able to get a spy into any of those places.’

‘What can’t be seen from outside may be perfectly clear from above,’ said Yggur. ‘So many lyrinx, coming and going, will have beaten paths which must converge on their cities. Finding them must be one of our priorities.’

‘It must,’ said Flydd. ‘And that’s all, Klarm?’

‘As far as we know.’

‘What are their total numbers?’

‘Counting those away from their cities at any time, and those we know of in small settlements, around three hundred and fifty thousand.’

‘I had not thought quite so many,’ said Troist.

‘That includes infants and children, pregnant females, and old ones. The number of adults capable of fighting would be a little over half that number. Two hundred thousand at the very most, though they couldn’t put all of them in the field at any one time.’

‘So the army we’ve just defeated was a quarter of their fighting force, and perhaps half of the troops they have in the west.’

‘I should say so,’ said Klarm.

‘Maybe we despaired when we should not have,’ said Flydd. ‘The enemy know we have six thapters and many farspeakers. After this defeat, they may be afraid that the war is turning our way. And if we were to ally with Malien’s people, and Vithis with his ten thousand constructs, unlikely as that seems to us –’

‘With all the advances we’ve made over the winter, they’re vulnerable in ways they could not have imagined last autumn,’ said Klarm. ‘Back then they were definitely winning the war. But by the dawn of spring their spies and informers would have told them about our thapters and farspeakers. They must have been really worried, to risk so much on the premature strike against Borgistry.’

‘Let’s not get carried away by one inconclusive victory,’ said Yggur. ‘They too have made brilliant advances in the past few years. They’ll come back from this reversal with new tactics and new weapons, and they could snatch back our gains just as easily as we won them.’

FIFTY-ONE

Gilhaelith paced his cell, a watermelon-shaped chamber excavated out of the shale underneath Alcifer. He’d been back for months, he’d finally been able to test the geomantic globe, had made the last changes and thought it perfect. He’d begun the dangerous experiment of scrying out and dissociating the fragments of phantom crystal from his brain, but to his dismay it hadn’t worked. He soon discovered why. Gyrull had deceived him last autumn, fed him some false details about nodes. The globe was wrong in several small but important aspects that made it useless to his purpose, while not affecting hers. He was trying to uncover the errors when Gyrull and Anabyng seized him and cast him into this cell deep within Oellyll. The only way out was through a long, narrow and winding crawl passage, like the stalk of a watermelon, but the entrance was closed off with crisscrossing bars socketed deep into the rock.

And here he had remained, cut off from his Art and feeling his intellect fading every day. He’d pleaded with Gyrull to be allowed to fix the globe and repair himself but, afraid of what he might do with the globe, she would not even allow him to see it. Gilhaelith was in despair.

Occasionally one or other of the phantom fragments would grow hot, or sing a fractured note that seemed to echo back and forth inside his skull. It was a resonance induced by the globe, which meant that the lyrinx were using it to try and solve the problem of their flisnadr, or power patterner. Gilhaelith knew about that. He knew what the power patterner was intended to do, the problems they’d had making it and, he believed, the reason why they’d failed.

The knowledge did him no good, for Gyrull did not trust him. She made no response to his frequent pleas to the guards and eventually replaced them with two ever-watchful zygnadr sentinels: strange, twisted objects like a ball wrenched into a spiral. Their surfaces bore traces of a crab-like shell and segmented legs, reminiscent of the fossils found everywhere in Oellyll, including the walls of his prison.

The weeks went by but no one came near Gilhaelith except a human slave, the lowest of the low, who once a day slid food and water beneath the bottom bar, and took away the wooden pan containing his waste. The man did not speak Gilhaelith’s language, or indeed any of the many languages Gilhaelith knew.

Helpless, Gilhaelith paced his reeking, claustrophobic cell and brooded, and his resentment festered.

A half-grown female lyrinx came running into the main chamber of the eleventh level, where Ryll was working with the patterners. These were large pumpkin-shaped devices, chin-high to a lyrinx, whose gelatinous outsides also bore fossil-like traces, though in this case they were plant fossils: leaves, cones and bark. There were twelve patterners, and inside each was a human female with only her head exposed. Writhing vines or tubes, not unlike the fissured stems of pumpkins, ran from each of the patterners to a barrel-shaped object made of yellow glass, within which a tapered object roughly the size and shape of a bucket was suspended in aqua jelly. The object’s exterior was leathery and covered in nodules the size of peas. Waves of colour passed constantly across it, like a lyrinx’s skin-speech, though the colours never settled. The sides bore a number of irregularly spaced slits that a small human child might have inserted a hand into. It was the growing flisnadr. At least it had been growing – it had stopped a long time ago, well before maturity, and no one could work out why.

‘Master Ryll, Master Ryll?’ said the girl.

‘Yes?’ Ryll said sharply, for he’d made no progress in months and was keenly aware of his failure. Had the flisnadr been ready at the end of winter they would never have been forced into the recent battle in Borgistry. And when they had done battle, with the flisnadr they would have had a glorious and overwhelming victory, not this humiliating defeat that had sapped the morale of everyone in the great underground city.

‘Matriarch bids you come to the nylatl breeding chambers.’

‘I’ll be there directly,’ he said, rubbing his aching back. He’d been on his feet for two days, without sleep or any kind of progress to give him the least encouragement that he was on the right track.

The girl wrung her hands. Soft hands, he noticed, and she’d applied some kind of pearly lacquer to her nails, which had been trimmed down to uselessness. Her armour had hardly grown at all, though her chest had.

‘Er, Master Ryll,’ she said diffidently, ‘Matriarch said to bring you without delay.’

He sighed, exposing hundreds of teeth. ‘Very well, Oonyl. Take me there.’

She turned away, walking several steps ahead, and he followed. Ryll extended his finger claws, which he kept sharp enough to tear through leather. They were yellowed, not very clean, and there was old blood under one of them. He studied the girl from behind. She was smaller than most, and slighter, and her wings were just nubs that would never develop. But then, once the war was over, what need would there be for fearsome clawed and armoured creatures like him? Perhaps she was the future and his time was passing as well. Assuming there was a future. Suddenly, after years of successes, he had begun to doubt.

Up on the seventh level, he followed Oonyl into the breeding chamber and was immediately struck by a strong, festering odour. Ryll sniffed the air and detected the tang of blood and rotting flesh. The nylatl always smelled that way, but this time it was worse. Diseased. He spied the matriarch over next to the cages on the far side of the chamber, talking to Anabyng, Liett and several other important lyrinx.

‘Ryll!’ said Gyrull peremptorily. She beckoned.

Ryll hurried over and eased between the matriarch and Liett to see what the matter was. ‘Not another failure?’ he said. ‘The nylatl went so well in the battle.’

‘They’re dying!’ Liett said accusingly, as if it were his fault, though Ryll had nothing to do with nylatl these days.

Though Ryll loved Liett dearly, sometimes he wanted to throttle her. She could be brilliant, even inspiring at times, but so often spoiled it by saying the first thing that came into her head.

‘It’s a flesh-eating infection,’ said Gyrull, moving aside. ‘The keepers have tried all the potions they know but none have made any difference.’

Ryll studied the savage, spiny creature, which lay on its side, whining and licking at itself. The muscles of its back legs were a putrid eruption of rotting flesh. ‘Put it to death, then carry it outside and burn it,’ he said. ‘Are there any others?’

‘Hundreds,’ said Anabyng. ‘Near a third of the breeding stock, and more are looking sickly.’

‘They’ll all have to be put down,’ said Ryll. ‘It’s impossible to control an infection in such a confined space. Take the healthy ones up into Alcifer and keep them out in the open air, in their cages. They may live. Incinerate all the dead and infected ones, then seal this floor and burn brimstone inside until the whole chamber is filled with its fumes. Wash the ceiling, walls and floor afterwards. That may be enough to kill the infection.’

‘If we put down the sickly ones,’ said Gyrull, ‘we won’t have enough breeding stock for the next battle.’

‘If you don’t put them down,’ said Ryll, ‘we may lose the lot. The nylatl all spring from one ancestor, so an illness that kills one will probably kill all of them.’

Gyrull and Anabyng conferred for a moment, then the matriarch said, ‘Let it be done. Come, Ryll, Liett; we must talk.’

They left the others and went up to the matriarch’s chamber, a large round room, sparsely furnished with a broad low bed, a shelf containing a number of books, a table and stool, and several charts on the wall made from human leather. Gyrull closed the door. They sat on the mats and she took a leather flask from a peg on the wall, pouring a milky liquor into small bone cups.

They raised the cups as high as their extended arms could reach, then lowered them and downed the liquor in a single swallow. It carved an acrid track down Ryll’s throat and the rising fumes burned the passages of his nose like hot mustard.

‘What are we to do?’ said Gyrull. ‘This reversal in Borgistry – no, this defeat – has shaken me.’

‘The old humans are deadly cunning,’ said Anabyng. ‘I don’t like to say it, but they’re cleverer than we are.’

‘Never say cleverer,’ said the matriarch. ‘Yet they adapt their plans more quickly than we do. In battle we’re stuck in our old, tested ways, while they change their tactics constantly. For the first time since becoming matriarch, I don’t know what to do.’

‘Attack them with everything we have,’ growled Liett. ‘They’re weaker than they seem.’

‘And so are we, daughter. I dare not risk it. What if that’s been their plan all spring, to entice us into all-out war on their terms?’

‘They don’t have the numbers. We’ll overpower them through sheer force of arms.’

‘They don’t need the numbers when they can track us from above with their flying machines. And when they can talk to each other and coordinate their forces with these devilish farspeakers, far better than we can with our halting mindspeech. Two brilliant discoveries in less than a year, Anabyng. What will they come up with next?’

No one spoke.

‘And then there’s Vithis’s army down at the Hornrace,’ said Anabyng. ‘His massive beam spears across the heavens every night. I don’t know what kind of a weapon they’re developing there, but I know one thing. If they can perfect it, and mount it on their constructs, they could wipe out our entire army before we get within catapult distance. I was with foolhardy Tyss when he flew into the beam, to see what it was made of. It crisped him like a moth in a candle flame.’

‘And there’s no doubt they’d side with the old humans, if pressed,’ said Ryll.

‘None whatsoever. Have you mastered the principle of their farspeakers yet, Anabyng?’ the matriarch said.

‘I’ve cut apart the globe we captured, though I still don’t understand how it works, or how to reproduce it.’

‘And we’ve no further progress on the flisnadr,’ said Gyrull.

‘None worth talking about.’ Ryll lowered his head, ashamed of his failure, so costly to the hopes of his people. ‘Though I wonder …’

‘Yes?’ said Gyrull.

‘Gilhaelith understands the geomantic globe far better than we do. Can we use him to help ourselves?’

‘Gilhaelith is a lying, treacherous villain and I fear the consequences if he puts his hands to his device. To say nothing of what he may learn about the flisnadr itself.’

‘I know,’ said Ryll. ‘But on my own I can do no more. I think it’s worth the risk. If we guard him suitably. Say …’ He lowered his head at his temerity, but pressed on. ‘Say if he were guarded by Great Anabyng, surely he could do no harm.’

The matriarch and Anabyng exchanged glances.

‘It would be worth the risk, since we’ve come this far,’ said Anabyng. ‘Though …’

‘And as soon as the flisnadr is complete, grown to maturity and tested,’ Ryll said hastily, ‘we put Gilhaelith to death.’

‘Very well,’ said Gyrull. ‘Let it be done.’ She bowed her head, deep in thought. ‘How could it have come to this?’ she mused. ‘At the end of autumn we were close to victory. Four months and one battle later, and I’m thinking of defeat.’

‘Never think of defeat,’ cried Liett, flashing out her iridescent wings so they touched the ceiling. ‘We came to Santhenar for a great and noble purpose, remember?’

‘I have not lost sight of it, daughter,’ said the matriarch.

‘Everyone has lost sight of it,’ Liett said savagely. ‘Oellyll is rife with despair. But I say, never! We cannot go back to the void. We came here to grow and discover ourselves, and I cleave to that purpose. But if it should prove to be beyond us, if defeat should become inevitable, let us not go tamely to our deaths. Let us not suffer the ultimate indignity – to be caged and paraded like circus animals for the amusement of these human savages. We are warriors from a line of warriors, and in the ultimate extreme, let us die like warriors.’

‘It hasn’t come to that,’ said the matriarch uneasily. ‘I too cleave to our dream: a new future on this beautiful world. A future where we don’t have to fight to survive, where we can grow beyond our warrior past, as we’ve already begun to grow.’

‘As do I,’ said Liett, springing to her feet. ‘But should that prove impossible, should all hope fail, let’s make a last, desperate plan,’ she said in ringing tones. ‘Let the entire lyrinx nation, women, men and even children, come out of our cities and fight to the death, holding nothing back. Let there be nothing in between.’ She thrust her fist as high as it would reach. ‘Let us have victory, or annihilation!’

Ryll felt the blood rush to his face, and the matriarch and Anabyng were equally fired. He had never loved Liett more than at that moment, nor been more inspired.

‘Yes,’ said the matriarch, filling their bone cups. ‘That is the only way, should we be put to it.’ She stood up and they all raised their cups high.

‘Victory or annihilation.’

FIFTY-TWO

The bolder of the refugees began to reoccupy the borderlands of Almadin and Nihilnor, putting in what crops they could. They had no choice: Borgistry was rich but it could not feed them all.

Spring passed into summer, and summer into autumn. The crops planted in the borderlands began to ripen. It had been a good season, and the settlers hoped that they might, after all, harvest enough to get them through the winter.

There had been no more battles like the one for Borgistry. The lyrinx had gone back to the guerrilla tactics they’d perfected in ages past, melting away at the first signs of resistance. But they did considerable damage and everyone knew that the terror campaign had a darker purpose – to keep humanity from taking back more of the lands they’d lost during the war. To keep them afraid until the lyrinx trained a new generation to replace those that had been lost, and perfected whatever new weapons they were working on in Alcifer.

As soon as that was done, the savagery would be unleashed.

The company had returned to Fiz Gorgo in mid-spring, where Yggur and Flydd began working on a secret project, aided by Flydd and, at times, Malien and Tiaan. Nish didn’t know what it was – no one would say a word about it.

Irisis was still in the east, now overseer of her former manufactory in place of Tuniz, who had gone home at last. Nish missed Irisis terribly. He’d tried speaking to her over Golias’s globe once or twice, relayed via several farspeakers on the way. Each time he spoke it took minutes for Irisis to reply, and her voice was so distorted by crackling sounds, whistles and gurgles that it was unrecognisable. Finally he gave up and wrote to her instead, sending his letter with the next thapter to go east. He received a brief, scribbled and unsatisfying reply when it returned. Irisis was not one for writing letters.

Nish had spent the past months making more air-floaters, now that the new season’s silk was becoming available, and training more air-floater pilots and artificers.

Tiaan spent her time refining her maps of nodes and fields, sometimes with Malien, more often with one or other of the thapter pilots. Each time she returned, Tiaan went directly to Yggur’s workroom, briefing him and Flydd on her latest discoveries and how they fitted into her overall picture of the fields and the nodes. By the end of summer she had surveyed all the known world save the Dry Sea, the reefs and islands of the equatorial north, and the frigid lands south of the Kara Agel, or Frozen Sea.

Flydd had made good his promise to Governor Zaeff of Roros, in Crandor, sending her a thapter and two pilots, as well as an artisan in case anything went wrong with the controller, and three artificers to keep the machine in good order. Tuniz, who came from Crandor, had been made overseer of the most troubled manufactory there and was busy restoring it to order, aided by Mechanician M’lainte, the genius who had built the very first air-floater. Flydd had also provided the Stassor Aachim with farspeakers, though they’d not offered any support in return. His embassies to Vithis at the Hornrace had been turned back at the borders.

Then in early autumn, after six months of running and hiding, an overwhelming force of lyrinx ambushed a column patrolling the Westway near Gospett, destroying thirty clankers and two hundred soldiers in twenty minutes of bloodshed. It was on again. ‘We’ve lost another node,’ said Klarm, who’d just been flown back from inspecting the scene of the massacre.

He was having dinner in a secluded corner of the refectory with Yggur, Flydd, Malien, Nish and Irisis, who had finally been recalled from the east after more than half a year, to Nish’s joy.

‘Whereabouts?’ said Malien sharply.

‘South-west of Gospett, in Gnulp Forest. Tiaan took me by it on the way back, and the node had disappeared.’

‘Exploded, like the Snizort one?’ asked Flydd.

‘No. It had just faded away. That’s three in that area now.’

‘Do you think it’s got anything to do with the massacre?’

‘No,’ said Klarm.

‘Is it some new kind of node-drainer?’

‘We couldn’t find any sign of one.’

‘Then why is it happening?’ Yggur said in frustration.

‘Everything is connected to everything else,’ said Malien cryptically.

The table fell silent. Yggur took a small goblet of wine, as was his wont. Flydd half-filled a large goblet, as was his. Klarm filled his goblet to the brim but did not drink at once. Malien, unusually, had nothing at all.

‘That’s it!’ cried Yggur, springing to his imposing height and spilling wine across the table.

People on the far side of the room looked up. Flydd mopped the droplets with a grubby sleeve. ‘I presume it’s no secret, since you see fit to tell everyone in Fiz Gorgo about it.’

‘Everything is connected to everything else,’ said Yggur. ‘If you draw on a node too heavily, it affects its neighbours.’

‘It doesn’t explain how the node near Gospett failed. No one’s drawing power down there.’

‘Nodes need not be linked to their neighbours. Maybe they can be linked to distant ones.’

‘There are thousands of nodes, Yggur,’ said Flydd. ‘If they can be linked to any others, anywhere, we could never hope to work out the connections.’

‘But we can observe them. At least, Tiaan can.’

Tiaan spent a week going through her records before talking to Yggur and Flydd. ‘I’ve found something strange,’ she said. ‘When Vithis draws heavily on the massive node at the Hornrace, a field near Morgadis dies down, as does another on the southern end of Lake Parnggi, and a third at Hardlar, on the coast of the Karama Malama. They must be linked in some way. And these nodes between Gnulp Landing and Gospett have completely failed.’

‘Will they regenerate?’ asked Yggur.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Anything else?’

‘A group of four nodes in the Tacnah Marches, here, seem to be affected by power you’re drawing in Fiz Gorgo.’

‘Is that so?’ said Yggur. ‘What about the lyrinx?’

‘Doubtless they’re affecting other nodes,’ said Tiaan, ‘but I don’t know enough to tell. Wait! I remember a node way down south that was fluctuating wildly.’

‘Where was that?’ said Flydd, who had a large leather satchel slung about his neck and was fiddling with the fastenings.

‘Near the Island of Noom, in the Kara Agel, in late spring. I could take another look at it, if you like,’ said Tiaan.

‘There isn’t time to go so far,’ said Flydd. ‘Klarm tells me that the enemy have made a great breakthrough.’

‘When did this intelligence come in?’ said Yggur. ‘And how does he know?’

‘He reported just a few minutes ago. I don’t know how he’s done it but Klarm even has spies within their cities. He believes they’re planning a massive strike in early spring, to overwhelm all our defences.’

‘What kind of breakthrough?’ said Yggur.

‘Klarm didn’t know, but they’ve made great strides in flesh-forming lately,’ said Flydd. ‘The nylatl they let loose last spring were just a trial, since perfected.’

‘Where did you hear that?’ said Yggur.

Opening the satchel, Flydd slid something onto the table. Tiaan screamed and leapt halfway across the room.

‘It’s dead!’ said Flydd. ‘Klarm sent it back from the city west of Thurkad.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, feeling shaky. ‘I still have nightmares about the nylatl.’ Tiaan peered at it from a distance. Nothing could have induced her to go up close. ‘It looks … different.’

‘They call it an uggnatl, I believe. The skull is flatter, the armour thinner, while the legs aren’t armoured at all. It’s leaner, longer, and much faster.’

‘It looks like a spiny, short-tailed rat,’ said Tiaan. ‘A rat the size of a small dog.’ The teeth were large, sharp and angled back. ‘Once it gets hold of you, it won’t let go. You’d have to cut it off.’

‘The nylatl were designed to take a lot of punishment, but it made them slower and less agile,’ said Flydd. ‘These little beasts have been formed for one purpose only: to inflict as much damage as they can. The venom is stronger and they’re as agile as a rabbit.’

‘Easy to kill,’ said Yggur.

‘But hard to hit,’ Flydd retorted. ‘Ten thousand of them would turn any battlefield into a slaughterhouse, and they’ll have a lot more than that by spring. Klarm believes they’re breeding them in all six cities.’

‘What can we do about them?’ said Yggur.

‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

‘We don’t have any choice. We’ll have to attack first,’ said Flydd that night, when they were all gathered in Yggur’s workroom. ‘Soon; well before winter.’

‘How ready are your forces, Troist?’ called Yggur.

‘Borgistry’s army, and my own, have replaced most of our casualties. We number fifty-six thousand, more or less.’ Troist’s voice came from the farspeaker globe on the centre of the long table. ‘Plus a thousand from Clan Elienor, and the levees and volunteers from north, south and east. We didn’t get all we were promised but they’ve sent another twenty thousand. Though few have combat experience.’

‘That’s considerably less than the enemy can field in the west,’ muttered Flydd, ‘if they send all their fighters out at once. And they’re not wasted from hibernation now. They’re well-fed and fit.’

‘How do we stand on the east coast?’ asked Yggur.

‘They’re as prepared as they can be,’ said Troist. ‘Between them they can field one hundred and twenty thousand troops, and twenty-five thousand clankers. Formidable forces, but they’re a continent away and have their own enemies to fight.’

‘Roros has the thapter I sent to Crandor,’ said Flydd, ‘and the eastern manufactories have built dozens of air-floaters. And they have many farspeakers now, though the enemy numbers are vast.’

‘Wasn’t your overseer working on making more thapters?’ said Yggur.

‘Tuniz has had a manufactory given to her for that purpose,’ Flydd said. ‘But even with Mechanician M’lainte’s help, it’ll be at least six months before they can produce the first thapter. There’s too much to learn.’

‘What do you think about attacking their cities, Troist?’ said Yggur.

‘To attack a well-defended city we’d need at least a four-to-one advantage,’ said Troist. ‘Even if we could gather together all our armies in Lauralin we wouldn’t have enough men to attack Oellyll, and even if we won we’d lose most of them. And that’s not even considering these uggnatl creatures, against which we have no defence.’

‘They’re what I’m really worried about,’ said Flydd. ‘We can’t allow the enemy another six months to breed them. We simply have to act before winter …’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ said Yggur. ‘If we implement the plan, there’ll be no going back.’

Nish looked from one to the other. ‘I hadn’t realised it had come to this.’

‘It’s come,’ said Flydd. ‘What if they were to release uggnatl into our cities? Can you imagine the horror if they were let loose among our children, our unarmed mothers?’ Flydd didn’t go on. He didn’t need to.

‘Then we’ll have to go with the plan,’ said Yggur.

‘What plan?’ said Nish and Irisis together.

‘An aerial strike, simultaneously, on each of their cities.’

‘With what?’ said Irisis, puzzled.

Flydd took a deep breath, let it out, then motioned to Yggur.

‘We plan to drop a barrel of fungus spores down the airshafts of each of their underground cities,’ said Yggur.

‘Is that all? It wasn’t all that successful when we used it last spring,’ said Nish. ‘Except on their morale.’

‘That was out on an open battlefield,’ said Yggur. ‘Underground, the conditions are perfect for the fungus to grow and with luck we’ll infect most of them – enough to destroy the lyrinx threat and force them to capitulate.’

‘Is there any danger to us?’ said Nish.

‘We’ve been working with it since mid-winter and it hasn’t infected anyone yet.’

‘I don’t think it’s right to use that kind of a weapon,’ said Malien.

‘Nor I,’ said Tiaan uncomfortably. And after they capitulate, then what? Are you going to kill all the survivors?’

Flydd and Yggur exchanged glances. ‘They’ll have to go into camps,’ said Flydd at last.

‘Prisons?’ said Tiaan.

‘Well, yes.’

‘For how long?’

‘Forever. Either that or …’

‘So you’re planning to pen them up, and then wipe them out?’ said Tiaan, her fists clenched on the table.

‘We’re not planning anything that far ahead,’ said Flydd. ‘Look, Tiaan and Malien, what else are we to do with the lyrinx? Uggnatl aren’t just another battlefield weapon – they’re living, breeding creatures born for one purpose only – to slaughter. They can wipe us out, and if we give the enemy time to breed up their numbers, they will wipe us out. Once they’re released, the lyrinx won’t have to fight. These uggnatl will hide and breed until they sweep like a plague across the land, consuming everything in their path.’

‘It’s not right,’ Tiaan repeated.

‘It’s not right to use uggnatl against mothers and children either, but the enemy will. We’ve got no choice, Tiaan. We’ve got to attack their cities first. Now, before the creatures can be bred in numbers. What do you say?’

‘I’ve fought nylatl twice,’ said Nish. ‘The first time was the most terrifying of my life. If these uggnatl are faster and more agile, I couldn’t possibly beat one. Who could?’ He shuddered at the thought.

‘Well, Tiaan?’ said Flydd. ‘You assisted in the making of the first nylatl.’

Shadows crossed her face. ‘I saw what it did to three defenceless women. I – I can imagine the horror of an uggnatl in my mother’s nursery. If there’s no other choice, I suppose we must attack their cities.’

‘There’s no other choice,’ said Flydd. ‘Believe me, we’ve tried to think of one.’

‘Let it be done,’ said Yggur, and one by one everyone agreed.

FIFTY-THREE

Rather to Tiaan’s surprise, Irisis and Nish had asked if they could accompany her to Alcifer, where she was to drop a barrel of spores into one of the air vents. Flydd had allowed it and, to her own surprise, Tiaan had agreed. Though they were friends now, she preferred her own company. But then, she had to take someone.

‘What do you think of the morality of this attack?’ she said once the three of them were settled on their course from Fiz Gorgo to Alcifer.

‘I can’t say it bothers me,’ said Irisis. ‘How can it be worse than what the enemy has done to us, and hope to do with these uggnatl?’

Not long after dawn, Tiaan settled on a misty mountaintop a few leagues away from Alcifer, where they could hide unseen. The thapter sank a little way into powdery autumn snow, whirling it up all around. The snow hissed as it turned to steam, which burst out on all sides before drifting away on the keen southerly.

‘How long do we have?’ said Irisis, yawning.

‘About five hours,’ said Tiaan. ‘I left early, just to be sure. All six cities have to be attacked at the same moment, otherwise the lyrinx would send out a mindspeech alert.’

Nish and Irisis dozed for most of that time. Tiaan was tired but too tense to sleep, and it was too cold at this altitude to make walking pleasant. She closed the upper hatch, sat on the warm floor above the mechanism and studied the plans of Alcifer, working out how she was going to carry out the attack. It was not going to be easy.

They could only attack in daylight, of course. Tiaan’s attack was timed for noon, as was the attack on the city west of Thurkad. There was a three- or four-hour time difference between here and the lyrinx cities on the east coast.

‘It won’t be long now,’ she said later, as they descended towards the sea, north of Alcifer. ‘Alcifer is down to our right.’

‘And well protected,’ said Irisis, shading her eyes. ‘I can see lyrinx in the air from here. Look.’ She counted them. ‘At least fifteen.’

The farspeaker belched. ‘Where are you, Tiaan?’ The voice was unidentifiable.

‘Who’s asking?’ she snapped, bending over the slave farspeaker attached to the binnacle.

‘Xervish Flydd!’

The way he said his name identified him, though passage through successive fields had dragged his tones out to something between a bark and a croak.

‘We’re approaching Alcifer now, surr. Just ten minutes away. There are a lot of lyrinx in the air.’

‘Also west of Thurkad. Perhaps they know we’re up to something.’

‘Or they are,’ said Irisis.

‘Call when you’ve done it.’ The farspeaker squelched and Flydd was gone.

The magnificent ruined city spread out before them, just like the map impressed in Tiaan’s mind. ‘I’ll circle a few times, as we do whenever we’re spying on them. We’ll locate the air shafts, then I’ll hurtle down and hope to dump the spores into one on the first attempt. We can’t afford to have them guess our intentions. If we have to make a second attempt there’ll be fliers everywhere and it’ll be ten times as difficult.’

‘And deadly,’ said Irisis.

‘Where are the air shafts?’ asked Nish as Tiaan began to circle. He was looking down as if he expected to see them boring through the hillside.

‘We know of three, though they’re not easy to see. Two are concealed within partly ruined buildings in the centre of Alcifer. The third is at the base of a cliff, under the trees over there somewhere.’ Tiaan pointed to her left, where a series of grey cliffs fell into the forest that had grown over the rim of the city. ‘There may be others.’

‘What do they look like?’

‘They’re shafts bored through rock, about a span across. One has a giant bellows outside, to pump in fresh air. It would be the best place to dump the spores but it’s the hardest to get to, so I won’t risk it.’

As they curved around the edge of the city, the wheeling lyrinx began to climb towards them. ‘Which shaft are you going for?’ asked Irisis.

‘The two within Alcifer will be easiest to find. I’m going for the one beneath the dome – see the sun shining on it? The dome is open underneath, so I’ll go down to the left, come in between the columns and see if I can get close enough.’

‘I thought we’d just fly over and drop it in,’ said Nish.

‘I may not be able to get that close. One of you will probably have to jump out and heave it in. Keep an eye on the fliers. And you might want to get your crossbows ready.’

The lyrinx closed the gap.

‘Ready?’ said Tiaan.

‘We’re ready,’ said Irisis.

‘Hang on!’ Tiaan turned sharply left and dived steeply.

Nish let out a muffled cry as the thapter hurtled towards the dome. The lyrinx folded their wings, diving after them.

Tiaan felt the Secret Art fizzing in her brain. ‘They know we’re up to something,’ she shouted over the shrieking of the mechanism and the roaring of the wind. ‘They’ll be everywhere in a minute.’

‘How are you going to get to it?’ said Irisis.

Tiaan pointed to the right as she curved around the dome and its many extravagantly carved columns. ‘In there.’

The dome was about two hundred spans across and supported on many slender columns. She couldn’t see far inside, though the tiled floor was scattered with rubble and rectangular piles of stone blocks.

Tiaan turned sharply, slowed and darted in between the columns. It was much darker inside and her eyes were slow to adjust. She clipped a cairn of blocks, sending loose stone tumbling across the floor, jolting the thapter sideways.

‘Can you see the shaft?’ she yelled. ‘Irisis?’

Irisis was standing up on the side. ‘No, I can’t. Are you sure this is the place?’

‘I’m sure it’s the one Klarm told me about.’ Tiaan turned in a figure-eight inside the dome. ‘But I’m beginning to think he got it wrong, or his spy did.’ She turned again, her stomach already knotted up. The lyrinx would be here in seconds. ‘He said the air shaft was in the middle but we’ve been across twice and there’s nothing here. We’ll have to go to the next.’

She shot out the other side, but as they passed between the columns Irisis cried, ‘It’s just there.’

Tiaan saw it out of the corner of her eye as well, though too late to stop. The vent was right on the edge, hidden between two walls of stone. The thapter shot into the sunlight and there were lyrinx everywhere. Several landed just outside; others flew in under the dome, and dozens more were approaching. What to do?

‘I don’t dare go back,’ she said. ‘They’d be onto us before we could get the barrel to the opening. We’ll have to try the one with the bellows.’

She shot across the abandoned city, carving a curved trail to the other side, hoping thereby to confuse the enemy about her destination. There were flying lyrinx everywhere now, hundreds of them, and more appearing all the time.

She turned down a broad boulevard where ruined, half-ruined and intact buildings towered on either side, screamed left into a smaller road and turned right into an alley. From there she flew up, soaring over the thoroughfare ahead, turned left again and headed towards a pentagonal pavilion with steepled roofs, set on a stone platform reached by broad steps on all five sides.

‘How do you do it?’ Irisis said.

‘What?’

‘Know exactly where you are, despite all the twists and turns. It’s as if you have the whole map in your head.’

‘I do,’ said Tiaan. ‘The second air shaft is in the building with the steeples. We’ve got to do it this time or they’ll close off all the shafts.’ The sky was dark with lyrinx now.

She roared straight up over the steps, across the forecourt and inside.

‘To the right!’ Irisis yelled in her ear. ‘I can see the bellows.’

Tiaan turned sharply, swept around in a circle and came to a stop directly before the enormous bellows, which consisted of a concertina-like timber and canvas structure, three times the size of the thapter, that was squeezing and expanding, powered by a series of phynadrs. The multiple intakes opened and closed as the bellows worked, directing a roaring blast into a long canvas funnel that ran down into the vent. ‘Nish,’ said Tiaan, ’see where it sucks the air in? I can’t take the thapter in under there – you’ll have to carry the barrel. Hurry!’

He threw himself over the side of the thapter, not bothering with the ladder. Irisis lowered the barrel. Nish heaved it onto his shoulder and ran, staggering under its weight. Irisis fitted a bolt to her crossbow.

Tiaan darted a look over her shoulder. The first lyrinx was already sweeping in. She edged the thapter closer to the bellows.

Irisis fired, so close that the snap of the bow hurt Tiaan’s ear.

‘I hope you got him,’ Tiaan said irritably. Even at close range it wasn’t easy to kill a lyrinx with a crossbow.

‘I got him.’ Irisis was already reloading.

‘Get a move on, Nish!’ Tiaan screamed over the hiss and whoosh of the bellows. ‘They’re here.’

He had reached one of the intakes but was struggling to get the lid off the barrel. The suction of the bellows was so strong that with every blast it pulled him across the floor.

‘I can’t get the lid off,’ he yelled. ‘It’s too tight.’

‘Hold it out to the side,’ said Irisis.

He did so. Irisis took careful aim, fired and the bolt stove the lid in with a puff of spores that was whipped into the bellows intake.

Nish slipped, caught hold of the side then tossed the barrel into the intake. The movement sent him off-balance and he began to slide towards the aperture. Tiaan squeezed her controller so hard that it hurt. The suction was going to pull him in too, and she was surprised at how much she cared.

Irisis cursed, leapt over the side in a single fluid movement and ran. Tiaan edged the thapter a fraction closer. Another lyrinx flew in, followed by a third and then two more.

The bellows sucked so hard that Nish’s legs went from under him. He landed on his side and was jerked towards the intake, fingernails scratching against the glassy floor. Before he could get to his feet the bellows sucked again, pulling him halfway in. He threw his arms out, managing to jam himself in the opening. The bellows sucked and Nish’s arms shuddered with the effort of holding himself in place. The next pump would suck him through and send him plummeting fifty or a hundred spans down the shaft.

Without even thinking, Tiaan spun the thapter, jerked it forward and thumped the front into the tapering canvas funnel of the bellows, pushing it almost flat. With a gruesome farting noise air rushed back the other way, ejecting Nish straight at Irisis. They both went down, Nish landing on his forehead.

Tiaan looked over her shoulder. The lyrinx were approaching rapidly, two in the air, two on the floor. Was there time to pick up Nish and Irisis? She didn’t think so.

Whirling the thapter on its axis, Tiaan scooted straight at the lyrinx in the air. As soon as she did, she knew it was a mistake. This pair were moving slowly, while the ones on the floor were racing towards Irisis and Nish.

Thinking swiftly, she shot by so close that the thapter’s wake collapsed their wings and the lyrinx fell out of the air. Tiaan spun the other way, knowing she wasn’t going to make it. The running pair of lyrinx were practically on Irisis, who was in the lead, waving her sword. Nish was staggering, clearly dazed, and appeared to have dropped his weapon.

The farspeaker blurted. ‘Tiaan? Where are you?’

She thumped it with her fist, screaming, ‘Not now!’

The running pair of lyrinx checked and one turned its head towards her, its mouth wide open as if in pain. The other threw its hands over its ears. The ones that had fallen thrashed their wings. Tiaan slid the nose of the thapter in between them and Irisis, tilting it as far as she could to the left. Irisis took Nish under the arms and boosted him up the side, where he clung to the ladder as if he could go no further.

The four lyrinx were recovering. Letting go of the controller, Tiaan pulled herself up onto the hatch, caught Nish’s hand and he managed to drag himself the rest of the way. He fell over the lip and lay on the floor, making a low noise in his throat. She sprang down and caught the controller.

Irisis came scrambling in and dropped to the floor beside him. ‘You can go now,’ she said unnecessarily.

‘I’m going!’ said Tiaan.

One of the lyrinx sprang but she jerked the machine backwards and the creature landed short, on the smoothly tapering front of the thapter. Its claws scratched furiously but there was nothing to grip and with a shriek of claw against metal it slid off.

Which way now? One of the fallen lyrinx was back in the air, another limping across the floor, favouring one leg. Where was the fourth?’

‘Hurry!’ screamed Irisis, ‘before they have the pavilion surrounded. They’re coming from everywhere.’

Lyrinx were dropping from the sky all along two sides – three. Tiaan turned for the fourth but it was already blocked. There was one small gap on the fifth side. She headed for it.

Something thumped at the rear and the thapter lurched sideways. ‘What’s that?’ Tiaan cried, though she knew full well.

‘The fourth lyrinx,’ said Irisis. ‘It’s on the shooter’s platform. See if you can throw it off.’

‘Shut the hatch!’

‘I can’t. It’s got one foot on the far rim.’

Tiaan hurled the thapter from side to side so rapidly that Nish slid down through the lower hatch. He cried out, just once. ‘Any good?’ said Tiaan.

‘No.’ Irisis was loading the crossbow again.

Tiaan pushed the controller forward and streaked towards the remaining exit. The back of the thapter kept wobbling as if the heavy creature was throwing its weight from side to side. It was going to spring through the top hatch, right onto them.

‘Shoot it, Irisis,’ Tiaan screamed. She couldn’t help herself.

Outside, lyrinx were falling from the sky in their hundreds. Tiaan raced for that small remaining gap, holding her breath. A lyrinx crashed into the side of the thapter, shaking it, but could not get a grip, and suddenly they were out into the open.

The crossbow sang but Irisis cursed. ‘Got it in the shoulder, not the throat. Where the hell are my extra bolts?’ Not finding them, she cast the bow on the floor and went for her sword. ‘Nish, get up here!’

Nish, blood running down his forehead and into one eye, began to pull himself up the ladder, crossbow in hand. He tried to aim it but the bow was wavering all over the place.

‘Careful!’ said Irisis. ‘You’ll shoot one of us.’

Nish gritted his teeth, let go of the ladder and tried to aim the bow two-handed. He closed the eye that was wet with blood.

‘Look out! It’s –’

The rear of the machine jerked as the lyrinx sprang. Nish’s crossbow went off at the same time. Tiaan jerked the controller sideways, knowing she’d moved too late. She tried to get out of the way but there was nowhere to go. The lyrinx came crashing through the hatch, smashing the binnacle and the screen in front of it, and knocking the farspeaker to the floor. One huge arm and shoulder slammed Tiaan against the side wall and she lost hold of the controller arm.

A thud signalled that Nish had fallen down again. The creature’s great legs thrashed, slamming Irisis against the rear of the compartment. She cried out.

Something hot and wet spurted against Tiaan’s back and the creature’s weight pinned her against the smashed binnacle and the mass of knobs and wheels. It gave a feeble roar. Reflected in the broken glass, its mouth was open, the grey teeth menacing, but its eyes were staring. Purple blood flooded from the bolt wound in its neck, drenching her.

‘Tiaan,’ cried Irisis. ‘Take the controller.’

Tiaan couldn’t turn her head far enough to see out. They could have been heading for the sky or towards the ground. She couldn’t budge. All she could see was the floor and part of the side wall.

‘We’re heading straight for a building!’ Irisis screamed.

Tiaan tried to reach the controller but her arm was pinned. The lyrinx was ten times her weight. She tried to push it off but it didn’t move an ell.

‘I can’t move,’ she gasped.

‘Nish!’ Irisis yelled.

No answer, apart from groaning. Irisis forced herself along the side, put her shoulder under the creature and shoved. ‘Any better?’

‘No,’ said Tiaan, panicking.

‘Reach out. The controller’s just here.’

‘I can’t turn my head that far.’

‘But you know where it is, Tiaan.’

Irisis heaved the lyrinx and pulled Tiaan’s hand. It slipped free and Irisis slammed it onto the knob of the controller. ‘There.’

‘Where am I supposed to go?’ Tiaan gasped. ‘I can’t see out.’

‘Left and up.’

Tiaan tried to move her hand but could not. Irisis put her hand on top, jerking Tiaan’s the required way. The thapter banked right and the weight on Tiaan eased enough for her to lift her head. Stone columns flashed by.

‘Ten more seconds and we would have piled straight into that,’ said Irisis, directing Tiaan’s hand in uneven motions. Something rolled across the floor and down the hatch.

‘How are we going to get the lyrinx out?’ Tiaan whispered. She felt as if the life had been crushed out of her. ‘I can hardly breathe.’

‘I don’t know. Nish?’ A weak groan from below. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Bloody farspeaker landed on my head.’

‘Just when we needed you, too,’ said Irisis unsympathetically. ‘Grab hold of something and hang on.’

The lower hatch clanged – Irisis must have kicked it shut. She began fumbling around below Tiaan.

‘What are you doing?’ said Tiaan.

‘Strapping you in. You’ll have to turn the thapter upside down.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever done that.’

‘Then learn fast. Look out – there’s bloody enemy everywhere and we can’t stop to hurl this fellow out. Wiggle the controller.’

A crashing thump at the rear made the whole thapter shudder.

‘What was that?’ said Tiaan weakly. She didn’t think she could take much more.

‘They’re dropping rocks. You’ll have to bank to the right until the thapter’s on its side. That should drop the weight off you. Then take the controller and turn us upside down. I’ll make sure the corpse doesn’t catch on anything. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?’

If Irisis meant to be reassuring, she wasn’t. Tiaan had no idea what would happen if she turned the thapter upside down. Would the controls work the other way?

Something smashed into the front, knocking the craft sideways. ‘That was close,’ Tiaan said to herself.

‘Ready, Tiaan?’

‘Yes,’ she gasped.

Irisis pushed her arm to the right as far as it would go. It wasn’t far enough.

‘It’s times like this,’ said Irisis, ‘that I wish controllers could be used by more than one person.’

‘I can see the virtue in it,’ said Tiaan dryly.

‘Is the weight easing at all?’

‘A little.’

Irisis put her shoulder under the dead creature and heaved. It moved fractionally. ‘See if you can squeeze out.’

‘Not yet.’

Irisis managed to push Tiaan’s arm across a bit further, then jerked it back sharply. Another building flashed by.

‘Oops!’ Irisis said. ‘Wasn’t looking.’ She pushed it over again, the thapter banked and the lyrinx slid against the right-hand side of the compartment, dragging Tiaan with it. Irisis pushed Tiaan’s arm a fraction more. The weight eased.

Tiaan wriggled free. ‘I feel as though I’ve been crushed flat.’

A blow struck the thapter, forcing it downwards. Clinging to the controller arm, Tiaan pulled it over as far as it would go. They plunged down and to the right. She had to do it now.

‘Hang on,’ she gasped. ‘I’m going to flip.’

The thapter banked even more and the ground appeared, upside down and very near. Irisis shoved and grunted and the dead lyrinx slid out, dragging her with it – a claw had caught in her pants leg. She clung desperately to the straps. The claw tore her trousers down to the knee and came free; the lyrinx fell out of sight.

Tiaan flipped the thapter back to level and was gasping so hard that she had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, thousands of enemy were converging on the thapter.

‘Oh, it hurts,’ whispered Irisis, sliding down onto the floor.

Her leg was drenched in blood. Red blood, not purple. It was typical of Irisis to say nothing about her own injury. ‘What happened?’ said Tiaan.

‘Dying spasms,’ Irisis whispered. ‘Its back claws raked up and down my leg.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘It hurts like hell. I think I’ll have a little rest.’ She pillowed her head on her hands and closed her eyes.

She’s bleeding to death like the lyrinx did, Tiaan thought. And I can’t do anything about it.

As she traced a zigzagging path across the sky between the enemy, Tiaan tapped on the lower hatch with her toe. ‘Nish!’

After a long while the hatch lifted. ‘Yes?’ His voice was as pale as Irisis’s face.

‘See to Irisis’s leg. She’s bleeding badly.’ Pushing the controller forward as hard as it would go, she streaked for the safety of the clouds.

Nish came up and began to tear cloth into strips.

‘Tiaan,’ squelched the farspeaker. ‘Tiaan?’

Flydd again. ‘We’re alive and we got the job done,’ she said. ‘We’re coming home.’

‘We lost the other thapter west of Thurkad,’ said Flydd sombrely.

‘What happened?’

‘A flying lyrinx shot Pilot Mittiloe with an aerial crossbow as they were coming in for the attack; can you believe it? The others got a message off before the thapter crashed. They didn’t get near the air shaft.’

Mittiloe had been Kattiloe’s little sister, one of the fourteen-year-old twins. She’d been so proud of her machine. The other pilots would be devastated, as was Nish. He was weeping in dry spasms.

‘What?’ said Tiaan, realising that Flydd was still speaking. ‘I didn’t catch that.’

‘I said, have you still got the spare barrel of spores?’

Tiaan was tempted to say no. How could he ask more of them? ‘It’s down below.’

‘Good. Go to Thurkad and do the job there.’

‘Can we come home then?’ she said with a hint of sarcasm.

‘Of course not. You’ll have to keep watch, at least a week, and tell us what the effects are. If any.’

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘I’m not confident that it’s going to work,’ said Flydd.

‘Oh. How did the other attacks go?’

‘Against the cities in the east? Well enough – they all got their spores in. So if you can do the same …’

‘We’ll do our best,’ she said and thumped the farspeaker to end the conversation. ‘Whatever we do, it’s never good enough. How’s Irisis?’

‘She’ll live,’ said Nish, who looked ghastly. He had two cuts across his forehead, still ebbing blood, one eye had a crusted red ring around it, and more blood was smeared across his cheek and the back of his hand.

‘And how are you?’

‘My head’s still ringing but I’m all right. Is any of that blood yours?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Ugh! It reeks.’

FIFTY-FOUR

Tiaan flew north at full speed until the lyrinx turned back, then kept going. The mountains curved away to the west, rising ever higher. Some hours later she passed over an enormous river that flowed to the sea, far to the right, debouching through a delta five or six leagues across, with many mouths. A broad road ran slightly east of north, and beyond sight in either direction. The land between the sweep of the mountains and the sea consisted of fertile plains cut by large rivers, though the country was already being reclaimed by forest. Abandoned cities and towns studded the plain. Tiaan counted the remains of a hundred villages below her, but there was no sign of human life.

‘This is Iagador,’ she said without consulting her map. ‘That great river is the Garrflood and the city covering the island between its branches would be Sith. The hilly country ahead to the left, bordering the mountains, is Bannador.’

‘Where’s Thurkad?’ asked Nish, who hadn’t been this way before. On the silk-stealing mission to Thurkad they’d travelled up and back on the western side of the mountains.

‘About sixty leagues up the coast, before the mountains curve back towards the sea. The lyrinx city is almost due west of Thurkad. Hours yet.’

‘Are we going straight there?’

‘We can’t get there before dark. Besides, none of us are up to it today. We’ll have to work out a plan to attack the place tomorrow. I’m going to set down at Sith.’

Shortly the thapter settled on one of the many jetties that ringed that once great trading city. ‘I don’t think there’ll be any enemy here,’ Tiaan said. ‘I’ve flown over Sith quite a few times and never seen them. Still, from here we’ll get a good view if they are coming.’

Nish roused Irisis, who was lying on the floor, and they carried her down onto the wooden deck. There they laid her in the shade of a ramshackle building, once a customs booth, stripped her off and bathed and rebandaged her wounds. Five deep claw marks ran down her thigh, one extending to her shin. She’d lost a lot of blood.

‘They’ll scar,’ said Tiaan. ‘We can’t do anything about that.’

‘I’ve so many scars now that a few more won’t make any difference,’ Irisis said wanly. She tried to perk up. ‘And mostly because of you, Tiaan.’

‘Me?’

Irisis rolled over and pulled her shirt up. Her creamy back was crisscrossed with scars, once purple but now faded to pale red and blue.

Tiaan put her hand over her open mouth. ‘You were whipped?’

‘Overseer Gi-Had did it, on the orders of Nish’s father. He flogged us naked, out in the snow, in front of everyone.’ Irisis managed to grin, though Tiaan couldn’t understand why. ‘Show Tiaan your scars, Nish.’

‘I’d rather not,’ said Nish. He looked deeply ashamed.

‘Because of me?’ said Tiaan.

‘Because of the way we undermined you. And for what Jal-Nish thought we’d done, though it was actually due to Eiryn Muss’s treachery.’

‘I’m sorry you were whipped,’ said Tiaan. ‘I hated you both but I wouldn’t have had you suffer that.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ lied Irisis, deliberately offhand. ‘I can hardly remember it.’

‘I remember every stroke,’ said Nish. ‘Not to mention the humiliation of being punished in front of the entire manufactory. It scarred me deeper than the whip.’

‘We earned it,’ said Irisis. ‘It’s not important.’

Nish’s face told a different story, but thankfully it wasn’t directed at Tiaan.

It was a sweltering autumn afternoon and so humid above the water that it was hard to breathe. Nish lay in the shade beside Irisis and went to sleep. Irisis closed her eyes but every so often gave a convulsive shudder of pain. Tiaan didn’t have anything she could give her for it, and she couldn’t bear to watch.

She wandered to the far side of the wharf, out of sight, and climbed down a decaying wooden ladder to the water. It was deliciously cool and inviting so she took off her boots and went in wearing her clothes. The river was low at this time of year and she could see pebbles on the bottom a couple of spans below. She scrubbed the lyrinx blood from her clothes, wishing she could wash the experience away as easily.

‘How are we going to attack the next shaft?’ said Irisis the following day, long before they were in sight of the northern city. ‘They’ll be waiting for us, and if they get the chance they’ll close it off or form a living wall over it.’

‘I was wondering about that,’ said Tiaan, who was already feeling anxious. ‘I think we’d better go in as fast as the thapter can fly, and hope to reach it before they can react.’

‘After their success in killing the pilot of the other thapter they’ll be waiting for us. Can you fly in with the hatch closed?’

‘Not in such a tight space, I’ve got to be able to see all around.’

‘How can we drop the spores and protect you at the same time?’ said Nish.

‘I’ll just have to take the risk. You two will be in more danger than I am.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Nish. ‘If they kill one of us, the others can still go ahead. If they kill you they kill us all – and deprive humanity of another priceless thapter.’

‘What’s the site like?’ said Irisis. ‘Have you seen it before?’

Tiaan recalled the maps to mind before answering. ‘The entry tunnels run horizontally off a series of sandstone cliffs. The air vents lie above the tunnels, disguised as caves, and they won’t be easy to get to. They’re sheltered behind a series of pinnacles rising up in front of the cliffs.’

‘How are we going to reach them?’

Tiaan had to think about that too, for she still hadn’t worked out the best means of attack. ‘I think – I think the best approach would be to fly along the face of the cliff at high speed, really close to the rock so we’ll be hard to detect from on high, and come hurtling around the end of the ridge just south of the city. We’ll appear without warning, hopefully, heading directly for the openings. That’ll give them the minimum time to react.’

‘Won’t it be dangerous, flying so close to the cliff?’ said Nish.

‘Very, but I don’t see any other choice.’

‘What if I took one of the curved side panels off and fixed it halfway over the hatch?’ said Nish.

‘What good would that do?’

‘If I angled it up from the back, it’d protect you from crossbow shots from behind and above, and even a bit from the sides, but you could still see. Except directly behind, of course.’

‘You’d have to fix it pretty solidly or the wind would tear it off,’ Tiaan said dubiously.

‘I’ll see what tools are below,’ said Nish. ‘Why don’t you set down?’

Tiaan settled under the trees and Nish went to work. It didn’t take long to remove a piece of metal from the side, shaped like a shield bent into a shallow curve along its long axis. However, it proved impossible to fix tightly in place, and eventually he had to tie it down.

‘Better than nothing, I suppose,’ Nish said gloomily as he surveyed his work.

‘If it stays there,’ said Tiaan. ‘When we’re going quickly the wind might tear it away.’

‘We won’t be any worse off,’ said Nish.

‘We will if the wind drives it into the person who’s dumping the spores from the rear platform,’ said Irisis. ‘That’ll be –’

‘Me, of course,’ Nish said hastily.

‘It’ll be me!’ Irisis said. ‘You hit your head, twice.’

‘And you pumped a couple of flagons of blood out of your leg.’

‘It was no more than an eggcup and I’m going up the back.’

‘You’re not!’

Nish and Irisis were glaring at each other.

‘I can’t believe you’re fighting over who’s most likely to be killed,’ said Tiaan. ‘You’re like a pair of children.’

‘We are not!’ they said together, and burst out laughing.

Tiaan found them incomprehensible. How could anyone joke at a time like this? ‘It’s my thapter and I say who does what. Nish, you’ll dump the spores from the back, and you’ll also be under a metal hood. Irisis, you’ve lost too much blood. You might faint at the critical time.’

‘I’ve never fainted in my life!’ Irisis exclaimed.

‘Anyway, I need you in with me. You’ll probably have to hang onto the hood to stop it flying off, and you can do that easier than Nish could, since you’re taller. No, don’t argue. It’s settled.’

Tiaan’s palm was sweating on the controller. The thapter was hurtling along just a span away from the cliff, and maintaining that distance was much harder than she’d imagined. She hadn’t flown along here before and had no mental picture to rely on. The cliff looked smooth from a distance but, close up, ledges, rock outliers, pinnacles and angled trees appeared out of nowhere. She had to react by instinct to avoid them – there simply wasn’t time to think about it. Moreover, it was another sweltering day and the updraughts and eddies along the cliff could hurl the machine in any direction. Thunderheads were already forming in a line along the escarpment.

‘It’s just around the point of this ridge and back about a quarter of a league,’ said Tiaan. ‘Ready?’

‘Yes,’ said Irisis. Her left arm was upstretched, holding the hood, which was jerking up and down in the wind, threatening to tear the ropes away.

‘What about Nish?’

He was lying prone on the rear platform in his rope harness, under a curved sheet of metal taken from the other side of the thapter. Tiaan hoped the enemy wouldn’t realise he was there until he got up and hurled in the barrel of spores. If they did shoot at him, the black metal ought to protect him from a crossbow bolt, even one from a powerful lyrinx bow.

Irisis looked around the side of the hood. ‘He’s ready.’

As Tiaan reached the end of the rocky point she flung the thapter around in a tight turn, bouncing on the eddying updraughts. Irisis made a muffled sound in her throat as the hood was flung upwards and one foot lifted off the floor. She hauled the hood down again.

Something banged at the back. ‘Is he still there?’ Tiaan said.

‘Yes. Threw him around a bit, though.’

‘The main entrances to the city are just around the curve of the cliff to the right. See the caves?’

‘I see them. And that must be the air opening above them, where all the lyrinx are.’

A globe-shaped mass of flying lyrinx were circling around a smaller opening, the second of five in a row, some twenty spans above and a hundred to the right of the main entrances. In front, three jagged rock pinnacles rose up hundreds of spans from an outlier of yellow sandstone. Between cliff and pinnacles the cleft was only ten spans at its widest point, and half that at its narrowest, through which the thapter would have to negotiate at speed. There were lyrinx on the tops of the pinnacles, too, though from here Tiaan couldn’t tell what weapons they might have.

‘I don’t see any bellows,’ said Tiaan.

‘It could be inside the air vent,’ Irisis replied.

‘There’s something wrong.’ Tiaan pushed the levers forward and the thapter rocketed along the cliff face.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

The sphere of lyrinx turned in their direction. ‘They’ve seen us.’

‘Ask Nish if he’s ready,’ Tiaan said, clenching her jaw so tightly that the muscles cramped.

‘I already did.’

‘Ask him again!’ she snapped.

Irisis called out. Tiaan couldn’t hear any answer but Irisis said, ‘He’s ready.’

‘Fifty seconds,’ said Tiaan.

Irisis relayed it to Nish.

An updraught sent them flying towards the yellow cliff, so close that Tiaan was sure they would hit. She corrected, the thapter sheered along the cliff and through a veil of water trickling from above, shaving off ferns growing in crevices on the wet surface.

‘That was close,’ said Irisis, seemingly unperturbed.

Tiaan’s knees had gone weak. ‘Thirty seconds.’ You trust me more than I trust myself, she thought.

She lined up with the cleft between the cliff and the pinnacles. At this speed there was no room for error or, hopefully, for a successful counterattack. Two lyrinx on the pinnacles had rocks above their heads, the third a javelard. The sphere of lyrinx in the air were armed with crossbows or other weapons.

‘Ten seconds.’ Irisis relayed it to Nish at the same moment, then counted them down.

‘Five, four, three, two –’

‘No!’ Tiaan screamed, pulling the thapter up so hard that her stomach churned. ‘No, Nish, don’t throw the spores.’

She flicked a glance at the openings as she passed. With an almighty crash, a boulder struck the left flank of the machine, which lurched sideways towards the cliff. There was a lyrinx right in front of her, aiming a crossbow. No time to turn or climb; the thapter ploughed straight into the creature as it fired. Purple blood streaked the screen but Tiaan had no idea where the bolt had gone. A clatter-clatter at the back told her that the machine had been hit several times. She prayed that they hadn’t got Nish.

She shot through the circle of lyrinx, up and over the cliff, streaking away, wavering because her hand was shaking so much.

‘Report!’ she said roughly.

‘I’m all right,’ said Irisis. ‘And I think Nish is, though his hood was hit by crossbow bolts a couple of times.’

‘Did he throw out the dust?’

‘No. What was the matter?’

‘I knew something was wrong,’ said Tiaan. ‘It was a decoy. They were waiting outside a shaft they’d already closed off.’

‘It’s going to be mighty hard to make a second attempt,’ said Irisis.

FIFTY-FIVE

They set down in the mountains a few leagues away to discuss tactics. Nish was unharmed, though a crossbow bolt had dented the metal above the back of his head.

‘If your head had been touching the metal it probably would have killed you,’ said Irisis, hugging Nish. The dent was half the depth of her thumb.

‘If Tiaan hadn’t insisted on the hood you’d be scraping my brains off the platform now,’ said Nish. ‘So which opening was it?’

‘The fourth – I could see all the way in. The others were blocked off.’

‘Do you think it’s possible to make a second attempt?’

‘Let’s think it through. We’ll give it a while. They’ve probably closed that opening off as well, in case we come straight back, but they can’t close all the openings off for long. If the others have been closed since the attack yesterday the air will be getting bad by now.’

They had something to eat and drink, washed their sweaty faces and hands, and sat down to plan.

‘There’s just one chance left,’ said Tiaan, looking up at the sky. The thunderheads were joining up to form a continuous mass of storms, just east of the escarpment, with lightning flickering inside them. ‘We drop out of one of those clouds and fly at the cliff head-on, then swerve between the pinnacles, straight into the air vent and chuck out the spores.’

‘It’d better be big enough,’ said Nish.

‘It should be, and a little to spare, but there won’t be any room for error.’

‘Or another rock that knocks us out of line,’ said Irisis. ‘Anything short of dead centre and the thapter will be wrecked.’

‘And we’ll be killed,’ said Nish.

‘And then what?’ said Irisis to Tiaan.

‘Straight out again, backwards, and try to get away.’

‘Be surprised if we can.’

‘We don’t have to have another go,’ said Irisis. ‘Flydd doesn’t expect us to commit suicide. More importantly, he won’t want to lose another thapter.’

‘I think we can do it,’ said Tiaan.

Nish and Irisis looked at one another. ‘If you think so, that’s good enough for me,’ said Irisis.

‘And me.’

Tiaan went south and lifted up into the clouds, flying in and out of their black and chilly tops so she could see where she was going. She looked at Irisis, who nodded. ‘Nish’s ready too.’

Tiaan gulped. ‘If the air currents don’t move us too far out of line we’ll burst out of the cloud about five hundred spans above the opening and the same distance from the cliff. I’ll line up and head for it as fast as I can possibly go, slowing only as we approach the pinnacles. They won’t have much time to get ready for us, but it’ll be enough. They’ll hit us with everything they’ve got. I’ll try to dart through between the pinnacles but, the more I think about it …’

‘Then don’t think about it,’ said Irisis. ‘It’s too late for that. Just do it and if we don’t make it, well, I’m glad we’re friends now.’ Impulsively, she reached forward and hugged the smaller woman.

Tears came to Tiaan’s eyes and she hugged Irisis back, one-handed.

She turned away, wiping her eyes. Lightning flashed to the right, rather close. Tiaan wondered what would happen if the thapter was struck. Don’t think, she told herself. Just go. She headed down at a steep angle, ridding her mind of the negative thoughts and just flooding it with her mental picture of the cliffs, the pinnacles and the approach she had to take to slip between them into the air vent. She allowed her hands to do the flying.

A spatter of hail rattled on the hood and the skin of the thapter. A chunk slid down the back of her neck, startling her at first, though the cold was not unpleasant. The clouds billowed around her. Can’t be far to go now, she thought, and then the thapter exploded out of the cloud and the pinnacles were below and ahead, lined up perfectly.

She streaked for the opening and made it halfway there before the lyrinx reacted. They must have been expecting her to approach along the cliff, as before. The pinnacles loomed up and Tiaan could feel the tension coming from Irisis. Tiaan felt no anxiety now, nothing but a gritty determination to get the job done and survive it if she could.

The lyrinx were spreading out, fanwise, as they realised that their formation was wrongly oriented. So was the hood, Tiaan noticed belatedly. It gave no protection at all, head-on.

She plummeted towards the pinnacles, slowing so she could dart between them. The lyrinx were lining up their weapons. She swerved left, then right.

‘Keep your head down, Irisis!’

Irisis ducked just in time as bolts spanged off the sloping hood. She made a muffled noise in her throat and let go of the hood, pulling her hand down to reveal the blood welling from her wrist. The bolt had gone straight between the arm bones, leaving a hole that she could have slipped her little finger through.

The hood slammed up and tore half-off, flapping back and forth against the hatch cover. Tiaan almost allowed herself to be distracted, almost hit the pinnacle. She slipped between it in a positive cannonade of bolts and flashed towards the vent.

The lyrinx were pulling a cover across it, a frame covered in fabric painted to match the colour and texture of the rock. They weren’t quite in time. Tiaan struck it head-on and fortunately the frame was timber, not metal. It smashed, the fabric tore on the sides of the thapter and they were in.

‘Nish,’ she shouted over the scream of the mechanism. ‘Do it now. Irisis, what’s going on?’

Irisis pulled herself up on the side and blood dripped on Tiaan’s cheek.

‘He’s down! Ah, Nish, Nish!’ Irisis scrambled up onto the back platform, heedless of her bloody wrist.

Tiaan clambered up as far as she could go while still holding the controller. The rear hood looked crushed against the platform, as if a boulder had been dropped on it, though Tiaan could have sworn she hadn’t heard any impact, and two javelard spears had gone through it as well, pinning it to the platform. She couldn’t see Nish, who was below the coaming around the platform.

There had been no dust flying past them in the suction from the bellows, so he hadn’t got the spores away. They’d failed and she couldn’t see the barrel. It was time to go.

Tiaan jerked the thapter backwards. ‘Hang on, Irisis!’

Irisis was inside the coaming, tearing at the crushed hood, trying to lift it, but couldn’t budge the spears. You’ll never get him out, Tiaan thought. Anyway, he’s better off there, if he is alive.

The thapter went backwards as Irisis came to her knees and she nearly fell off. She hung on, dragged the barrel out from under the hood and punched the top in with her fist. She hurled it over the side just as Tiaan accelerated backwards and shot out of the vent, the rush of wind buffeting three lyrinx out of the way as if they’d been hit with the end of a piston.

The barrel struck the rocky rim of the vent, letting loose a cloud of spores, but fell outside. Tiaan didn’t see what happened after that, for Irisis lost her footing as the thapter accelerated. She slid head-first down towards Tiaan’s flapping hood and managed to wrap her arms around it.

‘Hold tight!’ Tiaan screamed, spinning the thapter in a semicircle. Irisis’s legs were thrown over the side and Tiaan could see the strain on her face as she struggled to hang on.

There was nothing Tiaan could do except tilt the thapter the other way and pray, for lyrinx were coming from every direction. The gap between the pinnacles came into view and she went for it.

Clang, clang, smash. The binnacle that had been broken the previous day now shattered, sending glass, crystal and what she thought were drops of quicksilver flying in all directions. Fragments of glass stung her face and she closed her eyes, involuntarily.

For a second Tiaan lost sight of the gap and had to keep going from her mental image, praying that it would take her through. The gap wasn’t wide and she felt a horrible moment of panic that Irisis’s dangling legs would be torn off between the thapter and the stone.

She opened her eyes and Irisis was clinging grimly, desperately, to the flapping hood. The thapter was moving too quickly for the lyrinx to catch it, though it was still within range of their weapons. Tiaan didn’t dare weave around in case she threw Irisis off.

There were more crashes, thuds and spangs as the thapter was hit by everything the enemy could fire at it. At least one bolt ricocheted off the hood that partly protected her now.

It wasn’t protecting Irisis. What if the lyrinx targeted her? She had to do something. Tiaan put the nose down so sharply that Irisis’s legs went up in the air, and directed the thapter towards the canopy of the forest out of which the pinnacles rose.

‘How are you doing?’ Tiaan yelled.

‘I can’t hold on much longer,’ Irisis said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve got no strength in my injured wrist.’

Her arms were wrapped around the hood, and she had managed to twist her bloody wrist through the rope that was barely holding the hood on, but her fingers were slipping as the hood flapped up and down.

What if it tore away? It looked as if it might. Tiaan reached up on tiptoe and took hold of her friend’s wrist, the uninjured one. It was more reassurance than security, but Irisis managed a smile.

‘Just a few seconds more,’ Tiaan said. ‘We’re nearly down. Just hang on a few seconds more.’

The crowns of tall trees loomed up. Tiaan slowed, directed the thapter towards a gap and risked a glance over her shoulder. A host of lyrinx were heading after her like a swarm of wasps, and she could see dozens more threading their way down the steep slope below the cliff. She’d have to be quick.

The hood pulled free of the fastenings Nish had fixed to the rim of the hatch. The wind threw it backwards, and Irisis with it, until it was brought up by the ropes. Tiaan lost her grip on Irisis’s wrist. Irisis slammed into the rise leading up to the rear platform, was held there momentarily by the wind, then began to slip inexorably down the side.

It was still a long way to the ground. Tiaan couldn’t reach back to Irisis now; couldn’t do anything but head for the steeply sloping forest floor and hope she got there before Irisis fell.

She didn’t quite make it. The thapter was still five or six spans up when Irisis’s fingers were pulled free and she went over the side.

FIFTY-SIX

Tiaan threw the thapter at the ground, which sloped steeply here. The base of the machine hit wet, clayey soil and kept sliding, and she had to spin it around to avoid trees and rocks. She slowed, stopping against the base of a giant tree whose trunk was wider than the thapter was long.

She couldn’t see Irisis anywhere. A fall from that height onto solid ground could well have killed her, but the slope was so steep here, and the ground so slippery, that it would have helped to break her fall.

The sky had clouded right over now and grown ominously black. Lightning flashed, thunder roared and it began to rain. A spatter of hail struck the thapter.

‘Irisis?’ she yelled.

No reply. Tiaan could hear the lyrinx crashing down the slope above her. They’d be here within minutes. The fliers would be even quicker.

Her orders had been made more explicit after she’d nearly lost the thapter in the burning silk warehouse. Tiaan was not to risk the thapter, or herself, more than was necessary to complete the job. And once the mission had succeeded, or failed in this case, she must not risk the thapter to save any life but her own.

Her duty was absolutely clear. If she couldn’t find Irisis in the next minute she had to abandon her to whatever fate the lyrinx had in store for such a continued thorn in their side. And there still hadn’t been time to check on Nish. Tears pricked at her eyes and she dashed them away furiously. There wasn’t time for that either.

‘Irisis?’ she shouted.

Tiaan calculated where Irisis should have fallen and circled up and across the slope, looking for a body. She didn’t find one though she did discover a long yellow streak where Irisis had hit the slope, tearing though the thin grass and exposing the clay underneath.

Tiaan followed it down. Irisis must have slid a long way, and fast enough to smash bones or skull if she hit an obstacle. The minute was up. She hesitated, then decided to give Irisis another thirty seconds. The enemy couldn’t be that close yet, surely?

She headed directly down and saw a pair of clay-covered feet sticking up in the air some twenty spans below. Irisis had skidded all that way, then fallen over a couple of embankments before embedding herself in a wiry bush.

‘Are you all right?’ Tiaan called, settling the thapter against a tree trunk to prevent it from sliding. She was afraid to get out in case it slipped.

The feet moved. Irisis began to pull herself out of the bush. ‘Just wonderful,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Apart from ten thousand bruises, a badly wrenched ankle and a hole in my wrist I could thread a needle through.’

‘Can you hop?’ said Tiaan. ‘They’re after us.’

‘I heard them.’ Irisis stood up, holding her left foot up. ‘What’s that?’

It was a crashing and a rumbling that was growing ever louder. Tiaan spun around, staring up the hill. ‘It sounds like a landslide.’

‘It’s not,’ said Irisis. ‘They’re rolling boulders –’

The ground shook and a rock half the size of the thapter came thundering though the trees, bouncing ten spans high. Passing to Tiaan’s right, it struck the trunk of a big tree, smashing it into jagged splinters as long as Tiaan was tall. Leaves and wood rained down, fortunately below them, then the upper part of the tree toppled and fell down the slope. The boulder, hardly slowed by the impact, kept going and they heard more ground-shaking crashes before it disappeared beyond their ken.

‘Go!’ cried Irisis. ‘You know your orders. Don’t risk the thapter. You can’t get me in by yourself.’

Tiaan hesitated. She was obedient by nature. But then again … She leapt over the side, slid down the greasy slope and gave Irisis her shoulder. The rain grew heavier, running into her eyes until she could barely see. It had been warm at first but the drops now felt like melted ice.

‘Hop as if the fate of the world depended on it,’ she said, terrified that the thapter would slide away and be lost.

Irisis did so, ignoring the pain, and they slipped and staggered up towards the thapter. Another boulder came crashing down, smaller than the first and not bouncing as high, but all the more dangerous because of that. It followed the path of the other and disappeared.

They reached the side just as there came a rumble of thunder, though there was no lightning. The ground shook. Another crash and it shook again; the thapter moved.

‘That’s one hell of a boulder this time,’ said Irisis, putting her good foot onto the ladder. ‘Sounds like half a pinnacle.’

Tiaan felt a spasm of fear. Thump. She boosted Irisis up and pulled herself up the ladder after her. Thankfully Irisis had the presence of mind not to hesitate at the top. She simply went through the hatch head-first, heedless of her injuries.

Thump-thump. The ground shook so hard that the thapter began to slide.

Tiaan fell in on top of Irisis, who let out a groan as Tiaan landed on her wrenched ankle. Tiaan pulled herself up using the controller.

Thump thump, thump thump. Thump-thump.

She jerked up on the flight knob and the thapter lifted, with agonising slowness. One span, two, three. And then she saw it coming and could not contain herself.

The lyrinx had toppled half of one of the pinnacles, which had broken into two gigantic boulders, bigger than houses, plus a host of smaller, thapter-sized ones. They were thundering down the mountainside, spreading into a fan of devastation hundreds of spans across, smashing trees and rocks to fragments as they came. The thapter was right in their path and from a standing start she couldn’t see how she could get high enough to escape.

Thump. Thump-thump.

Tiaan wiped her eyes with her free hand and tried to see where she could go. The two huge boulders were bouncing twenty or thirty spans high, the smaller ones five or ten. She couldn’t rise above them in time.

The only chance was to fly up the slope, between the biggest boulders, until she gained enough speed to sweep upwards. Tiaan turned that way, knowing that neither the height nor direction of the bounces was predictable. Just as dangerously, the air between the fan of boulders was full of fragments of rock and pieces of shattered wood, a hailstorm of it.

She had to fly on instinct, as she had before. Tiaan went left so as to put herself between the two big boulders, which were roaring towards her. She rose to avoid a pair of trees and corrected again as the right-hand boulder bounced in towards its twin. The next bounce took it out again and for an instant her hand froze on the controller, seeing that it was heading directly for her.

An instinctive wiggle took the thapter sideways; the boulder whistled past, its windstorm buffeting the machine wildly, and smashed off the top half of the tree just below her. She took the machine up and curved away as the smaller boulders, carrying a landslide of rocks, clay and wood with them, rumbled underneath.

The flying lyrinx, who had been hanging back to see the result of their handiwork, now turned towards her in an angry swarm, but it was too late. Tiaan peeled away and fled into the now freezing rain as fast as the battered machine could go.

Ten or fifteen leagues away, out of sight of pursuit, Tiaan set down on the first hill that had a clear view in all directions. She was still shaking.

‘What about Nish?’ she said softly. ‘How did he look?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Irisis, who had overcome her injuries enough to pull herself up onto the side. ‘But he hasn’t moved.’ There was such a stricken look in her eyes that Tiaan had to turn away. She didn’t feel very good either.

‘I’ll go and see. Keep watch.’

‘I’m coming too,’ said Irisis. ‘I’m so afraid. I – I love him, Tiaan. I swore I’d never submit to such a folly. Not me; I was too strong for it. But I do love the little squirt, with every cell of my body, and now I’m terrified that I’ve lost him.’

‘Did … does he know?’

‘Of course not,’ said Irisis. ‘He’s the thickest man on Santhenar. He understands nothing.’

Tiaan smiled at that. Nish understood a great deal. ‘Then perhaps you should spell it out for him.’

‘And perhaps you should mind your own business,’ said Irisis. ‘If you could give me a hand.’

Tiaan wasn’t offended, though once she would have been. She was beginning to understand people too.

She helped Irisis up onto the back platform. The hood was flattened around Nish’s body and head, squashing him face down against the deck, leaving only the top of his head exposed. The hood was deeply dented in four places from crossbow bolts. Moreover, two javelard spears had pinned it in place, one angling in towards his left side, the other between his knees. If either had gone through him he could have bled to death.

Irisis slid a hand under the hood onto Nish’s cheek. ‘He’s icy cold. He’s dead!’

Tiaan eased her out of the way. ‘Of course he’s cold. He’s soaking wet and we’ve been flying fast. It’s lucky he hasn’t got frostbite. Nish?’

He didn’t answer, so she felt his cheek. He was so cold that it was hard to believe that he could be alive. She forced her hand through the narrow space and down to his neck, which proved just as chilly. Tiaan wriggled her fingers underneath his shirt, where his skin was protected from the wind. She found a trace of warmth there. Was that a pulse? She couldn’t be sure.

‘I think he’s alive, Irisis. Talk to him; hold him. I’ll get something to prise the hood off.’

When she returned with a bar, Irisis was crouched down, her hand on Nish’s cheek, her forehead touching the top of his head. Her eyes were screwed shut.

Tiaan began to lever from the side. It was hard work. The black Aachan metal, although thin, was intensely strong and inflexible. It proved impossible to bend out of the way. In the end Tiaan had to whack the spears one way and then the other with the bar until they came free, knowing that if either had gone into Nish she would be greatly aggravating the wound.

The second spear came out. Tiaan tossed it over the side and lifted the sheet of metal, which sprang back to its original shape. Nish gave a groan and turned his head. His nose was running with a mixture of blood and mucus and his lower face was wet with half-frozen saliva.

‘You took your bloody time,’ he said through bruised and swollen lips.

‘Are you all right?’ Irisis said, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘You look disgusting.’

‘Thanks.’

‘If you were all right, why the hell didn’t you say so! I thought you were dead.’

‘I couldn’t move a fingertip. Couldn’t open my mouth, or close it. Do you think you could wipe my nose?’

‘The things I do for your dignity.’ Irisis took off her shirt and began to clean him up with it.

Tiaan walked away across the wet tussock grass and left them to their cheerful bickering.

Once Irisis’s twisted ankle had been immobilised by strapping it to shaped pieces of wood, her wrist bandaged and Nish’s bodylength bruises marvelled over, Tiaan said, ‘What now?’

‘Flydd wants us to check on the cities again, to see what’s happened,’ Nish reminded her. ‘If we go back to Alcifer in three or four days, we should be able to see if the spores have had any effect. In the meantime, let’s find somewhere to hide. With no lyrinx.’

‘Somewhere tranquil,’ said Irisis. ‘With decent food.’

‘And wine,’ said Nish.

‘Neither will be easy to come by,’ said Tiaan, ‘in a land that’s been empty of humans for years. I’ll see what I can find.’

They flew south-west, skirting along the foothills of the mountains. Below, they saw many manors and fastnesses, once sited to protect the fertile valleys from mountain marauders, but now abandoned and some already falling into ruin.

‘What about that one?’ said Irisis.

It was a small manor set on the edge of a grassy upland plateau. A stream meandered across the sward, passed by the rear of the manor then curled around like a sickle before tinkling over a waterfall, five or six spans high, in a crystalline shower. The grass was green, fragrant herbs grew on the edge of the plateau and in the distance a forest barred the way to the higher mountains. Stock grazed on the grass: cattle with long, twisting horns and sheep whose fine crinkly wool was a purple black. Goats stood sentinel on rock stacks here and there. The Sea of Thurkad was just visible in the east. They hid the thapter in a stone barn, pushed the doors closed and hobbled off to look for something better than the hard tack they had in the thapter.

‘I wonder who lived here, and what happened to them?’ said Tiaan. The place had a melancholy air. ‘Whoever they were, they lost everything, and probably their lives as well.’

‘A story that’s been repeated a hundred thousand times across Santhenar since the lyrinx came,’ said Nish, supporting Irisis with his shoulder.

The front door was closed but not locked. They went inside. The owners had either been killed or had fled carrying only what would fit on their backs, for the manor was full of precious things. Silverware, cloisonné lamps of the most exquisite workmanship, silken tapestries and other fineries remained in place as though the house was still occupied, though there was a film of dust over everything.

‘How long ago would this place have been abandoned?’ Tiaan wondered.

‘It must have been one of the last, since it’s not been looted,’ said Irisis, hopping across to a leather chair and sitting down. ‘No more than three years, I’d say. I’m going to stay right here. You can wait on me for a change, Nish.’

‘There could still be food in the pantries, and drink in the cellars,’ said Nish. ‘Beer wouldn’t be much good after three years, but wine should have lasted, and cheese.’

‘You keep talking about food,’ smiled Irisis.

‘I haven’t had anything decent to eat since you went east at the end of the winter. Cooking is a lost art at Fiz Gorgo.’

‘Yggur’s food is a little stodgy, I’ll agree, but it’s a damn sight better than I’ve been eating in the eastern manufactories.’

Nish and Tiaan found a larder with a vermin-proof door, and there was food in it: hanging hams, cheeses, pickled onions and other preserved vegetables and fruits. He found wine in a cellar too: an immensely strong red wine, as well as small barrels of fruit liqueurs. Nish lugged one of each up and outside, while Tiaan carried out the most comfortable chairs. Irisis was carving herself a crutch from a forked stick.

They had a picnic on the terrace, overlooking the lands of Iagador, while the sun went down behind them. It hadn’t stormed here and they lingered outside in the balmy evening.

Tiaan toyed with a mug of wine, then put it aside. It was too strong, and wine did uncomfortable things to her head. She lay back and studied the stars.

Nish and Irisis had gone inside, Irisis hopping on her crutch. Tiaan knew what they were up to. Good luck to them; they might as well enjoy what little time they had left.

She was thirsty but felt too lethargic to go all the way to the well for water. Irisis had decanted part of the liqueur barrel into a jug so Tiaan took a sip. It was thick and sweet, more to her taste. She had another, then lay back in her armchair again, pulled her coat about her and watched the stars wheel across the sky.

She woke as a crescent moon rose over the distant sea. All was quiet inside the manor and her bare hands were cold. Somewhere behind her, an owl hooted. Moonbeams lit up the mist above the falls like a fairy veil drifting in the wind. Dew glittered on the grass. It was so peaceful; so beautiful. It must often have been like this, before the war began.

She felt a tear in the corner of her eye. This place would always be as lovely, but there would be no one to appreciate it. These attacks were a folly, and suddenly she felt sure that they were going to lose the war.

Tiaan had an urge to call Flydd and tell him so. She considered it, but the drink had left her lethargic. It was easier to snuggle up in the chair and close her eyes again.

Despite having unlocked Golias’s globe all those months ago, she still didn’t understand how a message could travel from one field to another. Even less, how it could loop and whorl its way across lands a dozen nodes apart one day, yet on the next, not even reach someone in a nearby town.

Nothing was as simple as it seemed. Tiaan wondered if the erratic performance of farspeakers could have anything to do with the interlinking, or failing, of the nodes. Could she put farspeaker globes at each end to study how the signals changed as power was drawn from the nodes?

What if? There were too many questions and never enough answers, while each answer raised new questions. In a lifetime she wouldn’t be able to answer a fraction of them.

The moon travelled higher; the illuminated veils of mist danced over the waterfall like the restless spirits of those who once lived here. She wished she knew who they’d been, and what had happened to them. Did they still pine for this place and long to come home once the war was over? Or were they dead and eaten by the enemy long ago?

The morbid thoughts disturbed her. As a distraction, Tiaan went over the events of the past few days, still marvelling how they’d survived the attack at Alcifer. Had it not been for the lyrinx suddenly checking as they raced for Irisis and Nish at the bellows … Now, why had they done that?

For a few seconds, they’d all acted as though they’d been in pain. Could it have something to do with the way she’d been operating the thapter? She’d often flown it near lyrinx and never seen such a reaction before.

Tiaan replayed the scene, back and forth. It had happened just as she had screamed into the farspeaker at Flydd. Could that have hurt them? She’d not encountered anything like it. Or had she?

Nearly two years ago, when Besant had carried her off to Kalissin, Tiaan had felt a strange sensation whenever Besant drew powerfully on the Secret Art. It had been like sherbet dissolving and fizzing behind her temples, and Tiaan had experienced it a number of times.

Poor Ullii had felt it much more strongly: Tiaan could still recall her anguished screams as Besant took off. It was equally possible that lyrinx could be affected when humans used the Art in certain ways.

Had anyone else noticed? She went inside, intending to ask Irisis and Nish. The lamp had burned low in the front room but its dying flickers showed them lying together on a rug on the floor, fast asleep. Tiaan looked down at Nish’s scarred back, which he had been so anxious to conceal. It was worse than Irisis’s. How it must have hurt. Pulling a fold of the rug over them, she blew out the lamp.

She went into the barn and sat in the thapter, in the dark. It was the closest thing she had to home and a place of her own, though it still stank of lyrinx blood. Tiaan wanted to talk to Flydd or Yggur about her observations, but her slave farspeaker could only call when Flydd’s master globe had been set to speak to her.

Setting up the farspeaker, she leaned back in her seat. What would Flydd and Yggur do if the lyrinx did come out of their underground cities? It now struck Tiaan as an absurd plan – surely the enemy would fight twice as hard if they had no home to return to. Using the spores now seemed reckless and she wished she hadn’t been talked into it, though, if she hadn’t, one of the other pilots would have done it.

She felt so isolated and alone that it was easy to imagine the world had already ended, for humanity. What if the only humans left alive were herself and the snoring pair inside?

In need of comfort, Tiaan took the amplimet out of its socket under the smashed binnacle. Flydd had given it back to her for the duration of this mission, after which it was to return to the platinum box. Tiaan didn’t mind – since Nennifer she’d been purged of that tormenting withdrawal. Nonetheless, the amplimet was a comfort and reminded her of her first real friend, old Joeyn.

A tiny spark drifted slowly down the centre of the crystal. It was dull, which meant that there wasn’t a strong node nearby. Tiaan knew that already – the fields were always in her inner eye now. She cupped the amplimet in her cold hands and warmth spread through her, out of all proportion to its size.

She focussed on her slave farspeaker, wondering yet again about the force that made such things work. Bringing up her mental image of Golias’s globe, Tiaan revolved its inner spheres as if tuning it to speak with her farspeaker. The spheres turned as if coated in oil. Golias’s globe had been so well made that the best artisans had not been able to equal it, and it still worked better than any of the copies. Messages went further and were just that little bit clearer.

The farspeaker burped, startling her. An uncanny coincidence, that the scrutator should call her just as she was thinking about him. She imagined him sitting at the long table, papers and maps all around. She waited for him to speak but he did not.

‘Hello?’ she said after a decent interval. ‘This is Tiaan.’

‘Tiaan?’ Flydd cried in astonishment. ‘What …?’

‘What do you want, Scrutator?’

‘I didn’t call you. My globe was set to speak to someone else.’

‘But, that’s impossible.’

‘It’s supposed to be. What have you done, Tiaan?’

She didn’t know. ‘I was just sitting in the thapter with the amplimet in my hands, wondering what was happening back east. Thinking about your globe, and the settings needed for you to contact me, I just moved the spheres in my mind.’

‘You did more than that. You actually changed the settings of my globe.’

‘But …’ said Tiaan.

‘I saw them move.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Why did she always feel the need to apologise? ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said delightedly. ‘It’s an important discovery. Where are you?’

‘Somewhere in the hills of Bannador. We’re resting on the way south to Alcifer.’

‘Good for you. I presume you got the job done at Thurkad?’

‘Not entirely.’ She explained what had happened. ‘Some of the spores could have been sucked inside but the barrel fell out. There was nothing we could do about it.’

‘You did better than I dared hope, and survived. And who knows, fear of the fungus may do our work for us.’

‘Why didn’t you call before?’

‘I tried,’ said Flydd. ‘But two more nodes have gone down and we’re having a lot of trouble with our farspeakers.’

She was about to say, ‘I have a theory about that,’ but decided not to. It was probably nothing. She still hadn’t thought it through properly. ‘Scrutator?’

‘What is it, Tiaan?’

‘Something unusual happened during the attack on Alcifer. If you recall, I shouted at you on the farspeaker.’

Flydd chuckled. ‘It’s not often I’m shouted at. Most people are too afraid.’

‘The lyrinx attacked Nish and Irisis as they tried to throw the spores in, and I couldn’t get to them in time. But as I screamed at you, the enemy reacted as if in pain, and one lyrinx put its hands over its ears. Have you ever seen that kind of thing before?’

‘Can’t say that I have, though I’ve never been close to the enemy when using it. You’ve given me an idea. I’ll order some trials with lyrinx prisoners.’

After he had gone she lay back in the seat, utterly exhausted, and slept. Two days later they were high over Alcifer, above the height that any lyrinx could reach, watching and waiting. There was a little more activity on the ground and in the air than usual, but no sign of an army in readiness for battle. The scrutator called twice a day but there was nothing to report, apart from the odd flaring and fading of the exotic node-within-a-node at Alcifer, and a corresponding fading and flaring in the node associated with the nearby volcano. They had to be linked in some way. Tiaan made a note to mention it the next time he called. She hadn’t attempted to contact him again, so she did not know if she could reproduce what she had done before.

Time went by. It was now a week since they’d dropped the fungus spores, without any discernible effect, and it was the same at the other cities. Every time Tiaan spoke to Flydd he sounded more depressed.

‘What a waste of time this has been!’ Irisis said irritably.

Nish was peering over the side with a spyglass. ‘Hello, I think they’re coming out. Yes they are. I can see hundreds of lyrinx, assembling in the great square not far from the white building with the glass dome.’

‘Hundreds won’t bother us,’ said Irisis, reaching out for the spyglass.

‘Wait a second,’ said Nish, leaning away. ‘Go a bit lower, Tiaan.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m not sure, yet.’

Tiaan began to spiral down. Normally the wheeling fliers would have turned towards her but they continued their patterns as if they were flying along wires.

‘They’re carrying something out,’ said Nish.

Irisis took the spyglass from him and peered over the other side. ‘Looks like dead lyrinx, to me. A bit closer, please, Tiaan.’

Tiaan went down another turn, anxiously watching the fliers, who were not far away. ‘They’re carrying bodies down to that embankment,’ cried Irisis, ‘and throwing them over.’

Tiaan felt cold inside. They’d brought plague upon the lyrinx and they were dying in agony. It wasn’t right.

Irisis counted some sixty bodies being dumped. Not long after that, more lyrinx appeared, carrying barrels which they also emptied over the embankment.

‘Can you see what that is?’ said Nish.

Irisis adjusted the spyglass. ‘The bodies of small creatures. About cat-sized. Hundreds of them.’

‘Could they be uggnatl?’ said Tiaan.

‘I think they are,’ said Irisis. ‘Yes, definitely.’

Many more barrels were brought out, then the pile began to smoke, the fliers turned towards them and Tiaan headed away. They had just flown across the glass dome when the sound of the mechanism vanished. She took power from another node and climbed a little higher.

‘What was that?’ said Nish.

‘I don’t know, but it was a lot stronger than when they tried to take my power a year ago.’

It happened again, though this time Tiaan was waiting for it and switched nodes instantly. ‘I don’t think they like us here,’ she said, turning away.

A few seconds later, power was snatched from her again. Then again, and each time it was quicker than before.

‘Fly!’ yelled Irisis.

Tiaan tried to, but all at once time seemed to freeze. Nish, his mouth open, went as still as a statue. Tiaan’s hand appeared to solidify in mid-air and the thapter itself to stop, though it did not fall. She tried to reach for the flight knob but her hand would not move. What’s … happening? Her thoughts were so sluggish that she had to force herself to create each word.

After an agonised aeon, time reverted to its normal beat and she streaked away to safety, without having the faintest idea what had been done to them.

Flydd was revoltingly pleased to hear about the dead, and the uggnatl, and told them that similar plagues had been reported from two of the lyrinx’s eastern cities, though the number of lyrinx dead was relatively small so far. He was not so pleased to hear about the strange attack on the thapter, though he couldn’t make anything of it either.

The next day Tiaan kept at a safe distance, observing with the spyglass. The thapter was not attacked again, but a thousand dead were carried out of the city. The day after that Oellyll erupted, lyrinx boiling from it like ants from a broken anthill. They disappeared into the forest too quickly to count, though Nish did his best to estimate the numbers.

‘Around twenty thousand,’ he said when dusk cut off the scene.

Irisis laid down her tally sheet. ‘I make it more like twenty-five.’

‘Then we’ll take the difference. Twenty-two and a half.’

They were back on station at dawn, and found the enemy fleeing Oellyll as fast as ever. By the end of the day Nish and Irisis had estimated another twenty-two thousand. That night was clear with a good moon and they saw that the evacuation continued all night, though it wasn’t bright enough to count them. Finally, around lunchtime of the following day, it slowed to a trickle and the circling lyrinx, without so much as a glance at the thapter, flew east across the sea.

‘Fifty-five thousand,’ Tiaan said when Flydd called not long after. ‘And that’s just the ones we saw in the daytime. There would have been roughly as many again at night.’

‘So a hundred thousand; maybe a hundred and ten,’ said Tiaan. ‘That’s far more than Flydd expected.’

The scrutator could hardly speak when she told him the number. ‘And how many dead?’ he said after a long, long pause.

‘A couple of thousand, in total,’ she said soberly.

‘Is that all?’ he whispered. ‘It’s not near enough. If that’s repeated at the other cities, we’re staring at a catastrophe.’

‘What do you want us to do?’ said Tiaan through her farspeaker.

‘When you’re sure it’s safe, take a look at the bodies, if they’re not all burnt. Then you’d better go north and see if the same is happening there.’

That afternoon she landed by one of the main entrances to Oellyll. The bodies lay in great piles, adults as well as infants whose armour had barely formed. The outer skin was red and blistered, the fingers and toes hooked as though the creatures had died in agony. The threat of the uggnatl had meant there was no choice, but Tiaan felt sick. We did this, she thought. I did it, and for what? There’s got to be a better way – a way we can all live together, without slaughtering each other and resorting to ever-increasing barbarities like this.

By the time they reached the lyrinx city west of Thurkad the following day, the smoking bodies were piled as high as houses between the cliff and the pinnacles. They saw no lyrinx about, which surely meant that this city had also been abandoned.

Tiaan landed the thapter so that Irisis and Nish could inspect the bodies, then took them up to one of the entrances, as they wanted to check inside. She did not. She sat at the very brink, looking down at the fuming corpses. Many of them were children and infants. Very many. How could peace ever be made between humans and lyrinx, after this?

But there had to be a way. Tiaan could not bear to think of the war going on in ever-increasing violence and depravity until the world had been utterly laid waste. One side would be annihilated and the other ruined by the legacy of its own viciousness and moral corruption, as it tried to justify more and worse depravities in the cause of victory. How could humanity – should it prove the victor – ever recover from such bloody Histories? It would taint every child born in this world, for as long as the Histories endured.

I can’t be a party to it any longer, she thought. I must find a solution, whatever it costs me.

Nish and Irisis came out, pale and silent. They did not speak about what they’d found inside, though Tiaan could only assume it had been more dead, twisted in their last agonies. Neither did she mention to them her resolve – let Flydd get word of it and she’d be deprived of thapter and amplimet, and probably locked up for the duration. Her quest would have to be silent and secret. She could not afford to trust even her new-found friends.

‘We’d better report to Flydd,’ said Irisis.

‘You do it,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

Irisis nodded. ‘I think I know how you feel.’

I doubt that you do, thought Tiaan, handing her the slave farspeaker. ‘Let’s go; I can’t bear the smell any longer.’

‘We can’t tell how many there were,’ Irisis said over the farspeaker once they were almost to Thurkad. It had taken ages to contact Flydd. ‘Though …’ She squinted into the distance.

‘What is it?’ said Flydd, his voice echoing.

‘I can see clouds of lyrinx in the distance, flying over the sea towards Meldorin. There must be ten thousand fliers; or more.’

‘And I dare say there’s more that you can’t see,’ he said heavily.

‘I dare say. And the harbour of Thurkad is full of boats, thousands of them. The enemy must have had them stored under cover. Some are already moving out. They’ll all be across the sea in a few days.’

‘I suppose we could pray for a storm.’

‘I’ve never seen the sea calmer,’ said Irisis. ‘What’s happening on the east coast?’

‘The same,’ said Flydd. ‘Our estimates were low at each city. Their numbers are at least a third higher than we’d thought.’

‘A third!’ cried Nish, staring into the farspeaker. ‘But that means …’

‘I’d hoped we’d infect most of them, and wipe them out as a threat, but a few thousand dead is nothing.’

Tiaan was even more shocked than when she’d looked at the twisted corpses. ‘It seemed a lot to me,’ she said quietly.

‘Tiaan, each of our armies is outnumbered by an enemy that doesn’t need to outnumber us, and they’ve nowhere to go. They’ll all go to war against us. We gambled and we’ve lost.’

‘Can’t you use the spores again?’ said Nish.

‘They’re all gone.’

‘What do you want us to do?’ said Irisis.

‘Do whatever you want,’ Flydd said despairingly. ‘You have my permission to save yourselves any way you can.’

‘What would be the point?’ said Nish. He looked questioningly as Tiaan, who was staring straight ahead, her jaw clenched, and gave no response. Irisis nodded. ‘We’re coming home to fight,’ Nish added.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Gilhaelith had been working with Ryll for months before, in late summer, they made the breakthrough. The lyrinx watched him so carefully, and constrained his every movement so tightly, that he could not have lifted a finger without being noticed. On the first few occasions he was watched over by Great Anabyng himself, whom Gilhaelith knew to be a mancer of surpassing power. Gilhaelith was meekness personified, doing nothing without asking permission first. He would be patient. The lyrinx couldn’t afford to waste Anabyng’s talents on guard duties for long.

Sure enough, after several sessions Anabyng came no more, being replaced by a pair of lesser but still powerful mancers who never took their eyes off him. Gilhaelith kept up the pretence of total acquiescence. In fact they constrained him so tightly, out of fear, that he was almost useless to Ryll. Gilhaelith was happy to go along with that. Sooner or later they would have to give him more freedom, and he would use it to get what he wanted. In the meantime he kept his head down and let his resentment burn. He, a master geomancer, had been reduced to begging for the right to use his geomantic globe, just to save his life. Gyrull had not deigned to reply to his pleas, which made him bitter indeed. Once he got hold of the globe, she would pay. He’d rehearsed his plan so many times that even his reluctant, damaged brain had it down perfectly.

Eventually they had given him a little freedom – enough for Ryll to discover what he needed to complete the flisnadr, yet not enough for Gilhaelith to take control of his globe. And the instant Ryll had it, the guards had taken Gilhaelith straight back to his watermelon-shaped stone cell and locked him in.

This time Gilhaelith knew he was doomed. The damage caused by the phantom crystals was close to irreparable now, and in a month or two it would be. A few months after that, if he was still alive, he would be little better than a vegetable. And he probably would live that long. They would keep him alive until the flisnadr had been tested and was ready for use, just in case. But as soon as it was ready, he would go to the slaughtering pens. Apart from any other considerations, he knew too much about the power patterner to be allowed to live.

Liett hurtled into the patterning chamber, skidding halfway across the stone floor before she could stop herself. Her claws screeched on the shale, gouging pale marks across it. ‘Ryll!’ she screamed.

He set down the bucket of gruel with which he was feeding the human females sealed in the linked patterners, but didn’t turn to her at once. Ryll was used to Liett’s histrionics, and he was deep in thought. The flisnadr was the size of a beer barrel now, almost fully grown, and he’d already carried out most of the tests. The results were encouraging, though he wanted to keep testing for a month or two, just to be sure that he had mastery of it well before it was needed. ‘What is it?’ he said absently, watching the flickering chameleon colours on its skin.

‘We’ve been attacked,’ she cried.

‘Attacked?’ Ryll spun around. ‘How?’

‘One of the enemy thapters flew right to the main air shaft, the one with the bellows, and hurled in a barrel of the skin-rotting spores.’

Ryll’s skin turned a dull, creeping yellow, fading to grey, and he felt an involuntary urge to scratch himself. He resisted. ‘When?’

‘Just ten minutes ago. Mother ordered the bellows shut down and the shaft sealed but … it may be too late. The spores could have blown anywhere by now. What are we going to do?’

‘We don’t panic,’ said Ryll, heading for the door at a run. ‘First, we burn brimstone in the sealed shaft.’

‘Will that work with spores?’ Liett was trotting beside him.

‘I don’t know. It saved a few of our uggnatl, but that was a different kind of infection. We seal all the floors the shaft blows air to, wash everything down into the gutters, and burn the washings outside. Did we get the thapter?’

‘Almost, but the black-haired pilot got away in the end.’

His heart sank even further. ‘Tiaan was the pilot?’

‘Yes.’

For once Liett refrained from making the obvious accusation. Tiaan had thwarted them a number of times now, and all because he, Ryll, had allowed her to escape from Kalissin a year and a half ago. Shame made his stomach throb, for all that he’d followed his honourable instincts, and few could fault that. His mind was already projecting the worst possibilities from this attack, and they were very bad.

On the upper level they ran into a group of desperate lyrinx, milling back and forth, barely able to contain their terror. Recalling the fate of those infected by the spores in Borgistry, he could hardly blame them.

‘Where’s Matriarch Gyrull?’ said Ryll.

A squat female, whose dark-green crest looked as though it had been chewed by a dog, pointed down the corridor. ‘She’s receiving. She can’t be disturbed.’

‘What about Great Anabyng?’

‘Outside, strengthening the defences.’

‘It’s too late for that,’ said Ryll. ‘They won’t come back.’

‘If they’re trying to frighten us,’ Liett said savagely, ‘they –’

‘They’re not trying to frighten us, Liett. They’re trying to wipe us out.’ Ryll headed up the corridor searching for Gyrull, and found her in a small room, crouched in the corner with her hands over her ears, her brow ridges knitted in concentration. She would be mindspeaking to the other matriarchs.

He waited silently, and after several minutes she dropped her hands and looked up.

‘What did they say when you told them, Wise Mother?’ said Ryll.

‘All our cities have been attacked in the same way, at the same time. All the attacks succeeded save the one at Thurkad, where the pilot of the thapter was shot and those inside it were killed.’

The ice in his stomach developed needles that pricked right through him. ‘Is this the time, Wise Mother?’

‘For victory or annihilation? I don’t know, Ryll. The spores may do nothing. We won’t know for some days, but we’d better be ready.’

‘Are you going to release the uggnatl?’

‘Maybe in the east, where we have enough to make a difference. Not here. How is your work going?’

‘The flisnadr has passed all but the final tests. I could use it now if I had to. Within weeks I’ll have mastered it.’

Matriarch Gyrull smiled. ‘Well done, Ryll. It’s been a mighty labour, and few among us thought it could ever succeed. Even I had my doubts, but you’ve done everything I asked of you, and more. We may save something out of our ruin after all. It – it’ll be the last thing I do for my people.’

‘But, Matriarch!’ he cried, aghast. ‘No – we need you.’

‘Don’t be troubled,’ she said. ‘I’m not dead yet. But my time as matriarch has been a long one, and I’ll be glad enough to hand on the flask and the cup to a younger leader. One who’s fit to lead us into our new future – if there is one for us.’

‘Have you chosen the new matriarch?’

‘Not yet, though I’m close to it.’

‘May I ask if … Liett?’ Ryll didn’t know whether to hope she was chosen or rejected. Either way Liett would be insufferable. And yet, Ryll felt she would make a good leader in time. Unfortunately, time was no longer on their side.

‘You may not.’ She smiled. ‘It may be Liett, or another. I’ll be watching to see how the favoured ones acquit themselves over our coming trials.’

Some days after the attack, six lyrinx guards came for Gilhaelith. This is it, he thought, they’re taking me to the slaughtering pens. He tried to summon up some vestige of his earlier rage but, after the months of solitary confinement, he felt too apathetic. Could that be due to the brain damage? His every sense, his every emotion, felt damped down these days, and perhaps it was for the best. At least it would put an end to his troubles.

The guards said nothing, just stolidly led him up the ramps towards Alcifer. Other lyrinx ran past all the time, close to panic. Gilhaelith smiled grimly. It was clear that the city had been attacked and the lyrinx did not know what to do. It no longer concerned him. At least he was going to die out in the fresh air, not in a claustrophobic, reeking chamber down in the pit.

But they did not take him to the slaughtering pens. The guards kept going up the road towards the central point of Alcifer, the five-armed white palace with the glistening shell roofs, at the intersection of the seven boulevards. Just there, beneath the glass-domed roof, he had completed the geomantic globe last autumn. So they weren’t going to kill him after all – at least, not just yet. They still wanted something from him.

Gilhaelith was led inside and, to his unparalleled joy, the globe stood on the stone bench where he’d last used it, under its dust cloth. Ryll was waiting beside it, along with one of the lyrinx mancers who’d kept watch over Gilhaelith previously. He felt another tickle of hope. Perhaps in the present crisis they couldn’t spare the second mancer. The fellow’s skin was flashing and flickering in all the colours of the spectrum, such was his agitation. Ryll maintained a studied calm, though he kept scratching his claws across the bench.

‘I’ve brought you here for the final tests on the flisnadr,’ Ryll said, indicating a barrel-shaped object covered with a canvas. ‘Let’s begin.’

‘I need answers before I’ll agree to help you,’ said Gilhaelith, who was beginning to see the faintest possibility of escape.

Ryll extended his claws towards Gilhaelith’s face. Gilhaelith didn’t flinch. ‘If you could do without me you would have killed me long ago. What’s going on?’

Ryll didn’t even think before answering, which meant that things were desperate and the need for the flisnadr urgent. ‘The humans have attacked Oellyll with the spores of a fungus that causes us to shed our outer skin and tear ourselves to shreds in agony.’ He explained the circumstances of the attack.

Gilhaelith recalled the infected lyrinx that had been put out of its misery as they’d fled from Snizort last summer, and saw the implications at once. Had humanity got the idea from him? He vaguely remembered talking to someone about the incident, at Fiz Gorgo, he thought. ‘Are you abandoning Oellyll?’

‘No decision has been taken,’ said Ryll. ‘Shall we begin?’

He had told Gilhaelith all he needed to know. Oellyll surely would be abandoned, either because lyrinx were being infected with the fungus, or for fear that they would be. This was the crisis – the moment upon which the fate of both lyrinx and humanity hinged. He had to take advantage of the first chance he got, for the instant he gave Ryll what he wanted, Ryll would put him to death.

That knowledge quite concentrated the mind, and Gilhaelith rehearsed once again the attack he’d been planning for months now. He was ready; all he needed was the opportunity.

Ryll went to the flisnadr, though he left the canvas over it so Gilhaelith couldn’t see how it was used. They worked for a night and a day, then slept for a few hours. Gilhaelith was bound hand and foot and watched over by four lyrinx guards, then untied and they worked on. Ryll was methodical and took no chances. Neither did he allow Gilhaelith any.

On the afternoon of the following day, Gilhaelith heard the whine of a thapter not far above. ‘What’s that?’ he said, hoping to distract Ryll.

Ryll cocked his head. ‘Thapter. Go and see,’ he said to one of the guards, and the lyrinx ran off.

‘Perhaps they’re going to attack with more spores,’ Gilhaelith said.

‘They’ll get a surprise if they try,’ said Ryll, pretending indifference, though his skin colours told otherwise.

They continued, Gilhaelith sliding the brass pointers on their circumferential rings as he tuned the geomantic globe to the field, while Ryll worked under the canvas. Gilhaelith couldn’t see what he was doing, though he could feel the effects on the field, which kept drawing down then flaring up. So the flisnadr is working, Gilhaelith thought. And if Ryll can control this dark and dangerous field, formed around the perilous Alcifer node-within-a-node, he can control just about any field in the world. He can take all the power from it, to deprive the enemy, or give it all to his own kind. He can do anything he wants with it. How can humanity counter that?

Surprisingly, Gilhaelith cared. The knowledge that he truly was doomed had come like a blinding revelation. His own selfish interests, which had sustained him all his life, would never be satisfied, but somehow that did not matter any more. What did matter was the fate of humanity, and he might hold the key to saving them. It seemed it was time to throw in his lot with his own kind after all.

The lyrinx came running back. ‘It’s the same thapter that attacked the air shaft last week,’ he said. ‘It’s not attacking, though; just circling.’

Tiaan’s thapter, Gilhaelith thought. This is my chance. If I can just get free and signal her, she can take me away from here. He suppressed the thought that, after his previous behaviour, she might refuse.

He glanced up at Ryll, gauging whether it was the right moment, only to realise that Ryll had seen an entirely different possibility. With the flisnadr he could withdraw all the power from the thapter, no matter what node Tiaan tried to use. He could cause it to crash or bring it to ground just where he wanted it.

Ryll hurled the canvas out of the way and his big hands danced over the recesses and protrusions of the warty, chameleon-skinned flisnadr. He thrust his arms into two of the slits, up to the elbows, and the note of the thapter dropped sharply. Gilhaelith knew his opportunity had come.

He wasn’t going to be rash about it, though. One word from Ryll, even a gesture, and the mancer or the guards would slay him out of hand. Gilhaelith continued moving the pointers exactly as before, and kept the geomantic globe turning gently underneath them on its cushion of freezing mist.

The pattern of the fields – for the node-within-a-node produced two fields here – came into view, slightly blurred in his enfeebled mind. He had to focus the fields, and then, right here in this most perfectly designed place in all the world, wake the sleeping construct that was Alcifer itself. If he could correctly align the geomantic globe to do that, he would have power to blast his enemies into oblivion, drag the thapter to himself and make good his escape in it.

The thapter’s mechanism screamed, died away and screamed again as Tiaan tried desperately to escape. She was jumping from one field to another, trying to preserve her power, as Ryll took command of the fields. Her strategy had worked when she’d escaped from Alcifer the first time, almost a year ago, but it could not work now. Tiaan could not hope to defeat the power patterner in the hands of the lyrinx who had designed it.

Hurry! Gilhaelith told himself. If Ryll takes the thapter, or crashes it, all is lost. Gilhaelith ignored his own imperative. He must stay calm and, above all, be controlled. His mind was far less than it had been but his unquenchable will was as strong as ever. He could still do it. Focus. Focus the field!

Its grainy strands sharpened but then dissolved into a blur again. He could feel control slipping. With a supreme effort of will, Gilhaelith wrenched it back in place. The field came perfectly into focus and, the instant it did, he reached down to Alcifer’s core that had lain sleeping for over a thousand years, waiting for a master who would never return.

Gilhaelith reached out and down, deeper and deeper, and suddenly there it was. It faded; then, without any warning, the faint nodes beneath the glass surface of the geomantic globe lit up.

Gilhaelith drew a deep breath and willed himself to calm as Ryll spun around, staring at the globe.

‘What have you done?’ Gilhaelith cried, to forestall Ryll and make him wonder if he had done it himself, with the power patterner.

Ryll gave him a suspicious glance, withdrew one arm from the flisnadr and beckoned the watching lyrinx mancer over. The male came at a run, close enough to see into the bowl, then froze. The nodes were glowing more brightly than before, each according to its true nature. Now a slender thread of orange light began to extend from Alcifer’s node-within-a-node to another node, a quarter of the way across the globe.

‘Ah,’ breathed Gilhaelith. Tiaan had previously told him that nodes could be linked. He’d thought a lot about that but had never been able to work out how. At last he began to understand. The thread had now touched the second node, and other threads began to extend out from it towards yet more distant nodes. If he could duplicate in the world what he’d done on the globe, could the power of all the nodes become available to him? His mind reeled with the possibilities – survival, even reversal of the brain damage after all? He didn’t know – it was too much for anyone to take in.

‘Step away from the globe,’ snapped Ryll. ‘Then don’t move.’

Gilhaelith wasn’t quite ready, but it had to be now. He could feel power flowing into the globe and he drew on it to strike his enemies down.

Something low down in the bowels of Alcifer throbbed; he heard a low grinding note. To his geomantic ear it sounded like basalt grating across obsidian. The nodes grew brighter, the threads of light raced between them and suddenly Gilhaelith woke to something that had happened to him a long time ago.

He began to feel the tiny, invisible thread that the amplimet had drawn to the back of his skull when he’d been working for the lyrinx in the tar tunnel in Snizort. He’d forgotten it during the escape, but now he could feel it tugging at him. Abruptly it also seemed to light up, a fiery pulse ran up it into the ethyr and then he felt – oh, horrible, horrible! He actually felt it – the sleeping amplimet in Tiaan’s thapter was driven over the threshold to the second stage of awakening.

‘No!’ he cried aloud. ‘Not that!’ and hurled every iota of power he could at the thread to sever it. He succeeded, but then the strangest thing happened.

All the lights went out, though it was daylight. The world and even the lyrinx faded to frozen translucency, and Gilhaelith shifted. Everything went dull and dim except the geomantic globe; the roused core of Alcifer, which now glowed a baleful red; and somewhere above, frozen in flight, a tiny winking gleam that was the woken amplimet.

He moved a hand. It appeared real, solid, though when he dropped it on the stone table it sank partway into it before enough resistance built up to stop it. Gilhaelith had been shifted outside the dimensions of the world. Or almost out.

Free, he exulted. I’m free.

First of all, he would make his escape from this accursed place. No, before anything, he must exact retribution on Gyrull, for holding him against his will and for refusing him what was rightfully his. Gilhaelith looked around and then down, tracing through the layers of Oellyll as if it were a translucent cake. The matriarch wouldn’t be hard to find, even among so many lyrinx, for few held such power as she did. She would stand out among the lesser lyrinx like a ruby in a tray of grey glass.

Ah, there she was, deep down, in a secluded little chamber, frozen in the act of bending over what appeared to be a coffin. Gilhaelith looked more closely. It was one of the relics she’d retrieved from Snizort, and they were more valuable than the whole city of Snizort had been. Behind her, two other lyrinx, no more than grey shadows, had coffins on their shoulders. They were moving the relics. They must be evacuating Snizort.

Time to be going. Gilhaelith reached out and exerted his new-found power. It was easy here, outside the real world. With no more effort than the wiggling of a fingertip, he pulled down the roof of the tunnel in front of Gyrull, then collapsed it for a few hundred spans, to make sure she would never get out. You did everything for those relics, he thought, including kidnapping and enslaving me. Now you’ll have what remains of your life to regret it.

The floor shook beneath him, reminding Gilhaelith that he knew little about the power he was using, or what the consequences would be. A sharp pang struck him in the heart, and by the time he’d recovered from it, he was back in his body in the glass-domed chamber. All remained as it had been, except that Ryll was now moving in extreme slow-motion. Whatever power had shifted Gilhaelith outside of normal space and time was lapsing. Time and reality would soon resume.

Gilhaelith raised his hand and drew power to blast Ryll and the flisnadr to pulp, but that pain stabbed him in the chest again. He must have taken too much already. Revenge would have to wait. He picked up the globe and staggered with it out to the main door of the palace, then outside. By the time he reached the intersection of the boulevards, the world was almost as solid as it had ever been.

He looked up, thinking that he could at least use power to pull the thapter down to him, but whatever he’d woken in Alcifer’s core slipped beyond his reach. One minute the thapter was frozen in the air above him, the next it had streaked away and vanished. Perhaps he’d taken the globe too far from the centre, but there was no time to think it through. He couldn’t go back; the lyrinx would kill him on sight. Hefting the globe in his arms, Gilhaelith ran for the port, praying that there would be some kind of boat available when he got there. If he made it across the sea, Flydd would be most interested to hear about the power patterner. It gave him something to bargain with.

Ryll.

Ryll was frantically searching for Gilhaelith, who had inexplicably vanished from the glass-domed chamber. Now he stopped abruptly, for it had sounded like the matriarch speaking inside his head. Ryll had little talent for mindspeech – few but the strongest lyrinx did – but he had occasionally picked up fragments of the mindspeech of others, and knew what it was like. This was far stronger, for it came from the greatest mindspeaker of all.

Ryll, I know you can’t answer me. Don’t worry – I can tell you’re hearing what I have to say. Alas, Gilhaelith is free and is now on his way across the sea to rejoin humankind. His knowledge of our flisnadr will strengthen them immeasurably, if we allow them time to understand it. The moment has come that we have long been dreading, but at least we’re prepared for it, and we have the flisnadr at last. Humanity is strong; maybe stronger than we are. Only time and courage will tell.

Our cities are lost and, with winter coming, we’ve nowhere to go. We can’t allow humanity to defeat us. No lyrinx could submit to the enslavement and degradation it visits on its unhuman enemies. We will die before we become caged beasts for their amusement. Liett was right. Now is the time for every one of us – woman, man and child – to go to war. We will have victory or annihilation! And you must lead us, Ryll.

‘Matriarch,’ he cried. ‘What’s going on? Where are you?’

Gilhaelith pulled the roof in on me. I’m trapped with two companions, and the relics. We’re unharmed, and we have food and water, but it will take weeks to dig ourselves out, and nearly as long for anyone to tunnel in to us. The war cannot wait else the advantage of the flisnadr will be lost. You must take charge of it and go over the sea at once. Safeguard it at all costs, for it’s the key to victory. Take it to our secret lair in the caves of Llurr, do the final tests and master it. Liett and the advance guard will carry you, and when the tests are done, get ready for the final battle.

‘Matriarch, why me?’

It was as if she’d heard him. I’ve prepared you well, Ryll. This is the first battle of the new lyrinx, and we need new leadership. If anyone can do it, you can. You will be well supported by Liett, and Great Anabyng, when he has time from his special duties, and all the others.

Leave a detachment of volunteers here, to dig us out. When we get out – if we get out – and have taken the relics to safety, we will join you for the final battle. But if the disease claims us, someone else must retrieve and guard the relics. Should that happen, Anabyng has my orders for the succession.

Go at once, Ryll. There is much to be done. Farewell. I’ve already spoken to the other matriarchs and they’re agreed that this is our only course.

‘What about the children?’ said Ryll. ‘Surely you cannot think to take them to war?’

We have no home now, nowhere to shelter our young ones, and I will not leave them behind to the cruellest of all fates – enslavement and degradation by the old humans. Far kinder that they live or die with us. We’ll shelter them to the end, but if the end comes, we will die together.

‘Yes,’ said Ryll. ‘Better that we all die than exist only as their beasts or slaves.’

And so the entirety of our kind will go to war. That is the Matriarchal Edict and everyone will follow it – to victory or annihilation.

‘Victory or annihilation,’ he said with furious resolve, and turned to get ready for war.

FIFTY-EIGHT

They returned to Fiz Gorgo only to discover that Yggur, Flydd and the others had just gone to Lybing. Tiaan didn’t follow immediately, for Irisis’s leg was infected and needed a healer’s attention. By the time they reached Lybing a week later, the news from the east coast was immeasurably worse. Attacking the underground cities had proven the most disastrous blunder of the war. The dispossessed lyrinx had gone to war and fought with unparalleled ferocity, annihilating the human army at Gosport. Less than fifteen thousand of its fifty thousand had survived, and none of them uninjured. The armies at Guffeons and Maksmord had capitulated after similarly bitter fighting that had reduced them to half their number in little more than a day.

Smaller armies, protecting human settlements all the way up and down the east coast, had suffered similar fates. Many towns had been overwhelmed, their people killed or forced to flee into the countryside where they would be easy targets. The walls of the principal cities, greatly reinforced over the past six months, now sheltered huge numbers of refugees but would soon be besieged. Of all the nations of the east only populous Crandor had managed to stay the lyrinx tide. Its armies had fought the attacking hordes to a standstill but Governor Zaeff held little hope. Roros and the other cities of Crandor would soon be islands in a sea of the enemy. With no possibility of outside aid, in the end even proud Roros, the greatest city in the world since Thurkad had been overrun, must fall.

The west had seen little action thus far, but regular flights over Almadin showed that the lyrinx hordes had crossed the Sea of Thurkad and were advancing ever closer. Battle was only days away, but this battle could not be won. The enemy were simply too many.

Tiaan’s thapter landed on the lawn of the White Palace after dark and they went straight to conclave. It was an open meeting and the extravagantly over-decorated audience chamber was packed with people, standing in little groups waiting for the proceedings to begin. Few were talking. Everyone seemed too stunned.

Irisis had never seen such luxury as was displayed in the hall, though she paid little attention to it. It seemed like a sad folly that would soon be gone. She threaded her way through the groups, looking for Flydd. He was not up on the dais with Governor Nisbeth and the other dignitaries.

Painfully standing on tiptoe, she saw Yggur over in the far corner and headed for him. Flydd was standing beside him, talking to Klarm. They made the oddest of trios: tall, broad-shouldered Yggur, his ageless features as though frozen in ice; withered, scrawny little Flydd who barely came up to his chin; and handsome, unflappable Klarm, not even chest-high to the scrutator.

Flydd didn’t look as though he’d eaten since they’d left Fiz Gorgo weeks ago. Bone and gristle were all there was left of him. He nodded as Irisis approached, with Nish and Tiaan close behind, but kept speaking.

‘I promised our people in the east that if we all worked together we had a chance,’ Flydd said bitterly. ‘Then I took this ruinous gamble, and lost.’

‘Not you alone,’ said Klarm, twisting strands of his beard together. ‘Our Council voted on the attack, as did the eastern governors, and to take the blame on yourself devalues everyone else.’

‘I did my best to talk you into it,’ said Flydd.

‘You’re an overly proud man, Flydd, for such a meagre one,’ Yggur said waspishly. ‘You know we didn’t have a choice. We had to destroy the threat of the uggnatl and I believe we’ve done that.’

‘We can’t resist this tide,’ said Flydd in anguish. ‘All my life I’ve fought to save humanity. Now I’ve brought about its destruction.’

Irisis stopped a few steps away. She’d rarely seen Flydd in such a state. Nish and Tiaan pulled up behind her.

‘Better we left the east to their own devices,’ said Flydd, ‘than raise hopes so savagely dashed. Not only is the east defeated, it feels betrayed.’

‘It’s not defeated until Crandor falls,’ said Klarm, ‘and that may take longer and cost more than the enemy are prepared to pay. There’s steel in the hearts of the dark folk from Roros, and their fingers wield a blade cunningly.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Flydd more steadily, ‘but it would take whole forests of steel to make up for the new –’

‘Not here!’ hissed Yggur, looking over his shoulder.

‘What is it?’ Irisis asked, lowering her voice. ‘Have the enemy succeeded in making more node-drainers?’

‘Later,’ said Flydd.

Why was he holding back? What had the lyrinx come up with now?

‘Have you asked the Stassor Aachim for help?’ Irisis asked.

‘We gave them farspeakers but they’re not answering,’ said Malien. ‘How can my people have come to such a state?’

‘They’ve been heading that way for a long time,’ said Yggur. ‘Withdrawing further and further from the world.’

‘Then why take all the thapters from Snizort,’ said Irisis, ‘if they didn’t intend to use them?’

‘So no one could attack Stassor with them,’ said Malien.

‘What about Vithis and his great beam weapon?’ Nish said. ‘We could beg him for aid.’

‘We’ve already begged,’ said Klarm. ‘Our embassy was fired on at the border.’

Yggur, who was looking up at the dais, said, ‘We’re called.’ He turned to the three travellers and put out his hand. ‘Let’s not have this crisis overshadow your truly mammoth deeds. Well done, Tiaan, Nish and Irisis.’

‘Too well done,’ said Irisis. ‘It would have been better if we’d died in the first attempt.’ She fell in beside Nish, who was more silent than usual. They headed up to take their places. The silent crowd were already sitting down.

Tiaan did not follow them. ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ she said to Irisis. ‘I don’t think I can bear to hear what they’re going to say.’

‘We can’t do anything to help the east,’ said General Troist after the situation had been summed up to the silent gathering. ‘Let’s concentrate on what we can do for ourselves.’

‘Not much,’ said Yggur. ‘The enemy’s numbers are far greater than we had estimated, and in the east they’ve used their flesh-formed creatures to devastating effect. They released thousands of uggnatl, and other creatures like it, onto the battlefields. They had a lot more of them than we’d thought.’ Yggur signed to an aide standing to the side, who held up the stuffed body of Flydd’s uggnatl. Irisis could smell it from where she sat, a breath-catching odour of decay. ‘The little beasts are so fast and agile that they’re difficult to hit. They brought down our soldiers by attacking their legs, and once on the ground they had no chance.’

‘We still have no defence against them,’ Troist said heavily. ‘Apart from leather leg armour, yet another burden for our overburdened troops.’

‘Leg armour was tried in the east,’ said the scrutator. ‘The uggnatl simply went for the groin, the one thing most men fear more than death. So would I have, in my day.’

That drew a smile or two around the room, for Flydd was such an ugly, withered old coot that no one could imagine him at the business of procreation. Those who knew what had happened to him at the hands of Ghorr’s torturers did not smile, however.

‘What about mail or plate armour?’ called a uniformed officer from the front row.

‘It’s too heavy,’ said Troist. ‘It slows our soldiers too much against the lyrinx. Thankfully the ones bred in Oellyll succumbed to the fungus, so we won’t be facing them.’

‘My council has long feared it would come to this,’ said Governor Nisbeth, after a quiet word to her councillors. ‘We made a plan for the end last spring. Now we must put it into effect. We won’t send your brave men to certain death, General Troist. Our soldiers have been dying for more than a hundred years, and it has availed us naught. Our beautiful land must be abandoned, since it is undefendable. We will evacuate Borgistry to the last peasant and go east into the Borgis Woods. There are vast cave systems in the Peaks of Borg, as well as along Lake Parnggi and in the southern arm of the Great Mountains, beyond the lake. It’s rugged, inhospitable country, but we know it well. Let the enemy pursue us there if they dare. In the caves, we’ll maintain what’s left of our civilisation for as long as we can endure.’

‘Nobly spoken,’ Flydd declared. ‘Where’s Grand Commander Orgestre?’

‘Packing his bags and slipping out the window,’ someone in the crowd said in a low voice. No one laughed.

Flydd scowled. ‘What of your army, Troist?’

‘We’ll form a rearguard to shield the escape, then make our way east by paths suitable for clankers.’ He paused. ‘What a sorry day this is.’

There was another silence. No one wanted to break it.

A very tall man at the back of the room stood up and threw off his hood, and a mass of woolly hair sprang out in all directions. There was a stir around him. It was Gilhaelith. He began to walk up to the front, and such was his presence that no one said a word. He reached the foot of the dais and stopped.

‘How the devil did you get in here?’ said Yggur, rising to his feet. ‘Guards –’

‘Sit down, Yggur,’ Flydd said wearily. ‘Gilhaelith is the one man who might tell us something we don’t know about our enemy.’

‘He betrayed Fiz Gorgo,’ Yggur said savagely, ‘and I won’t have a bar of him.’

‘You imprisoned me for no other reason than that you disliked me,’ said Gilhaelith, almost serenely. Not a trace of his previous bitterness was evident.

‘I imprisoned you for dealing with the enemy.’

‘And I merely did my best to escape.’

‘Which showed Ghorr the way. Without him –’

‘Enough!’ grated Klarm, and they both fell silent. ‘You came to our Council for a reason, Gilhaelith. What is it? Have you anything to offer humanity in its final hours, or are you here as an emissary for your lyrinx masters?’

‘I barely escaped from Alcifer with my life,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘They planned to eat me once they’d finished with me.’

‘How did you escape?’ said Flydd, with an edge to his voice.

‘Your attack with the spores threw them into confusion. I acted with dispatch and was lucky enough to spot an air-floater, which brought me here.’

‘Hmn,’ Flydd said, as if sifting his words for any grains of truth. ‘What do you have to offer us in this emergency?’

‘Information.’

‘In exchange for what?’

‘A place on the Council.’

‘Not in my lifetime,’ said Yggur.

‘You declined to be on it,’ Flydd snapped. ‘You have no say.’ He looked up at Gilhaelith. ‘First you’ll have to convince us to trust you and, considering your history …’

‘Very well,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’ll give you this freely, as a token of my good faith. The relics the lyrinx took from the tar pits of Snizort are most precious to them.’

‘We already knew that, but go on,’ said Flydd.

‘They stole me away from Nyriandiol to locate the relics. Indeed, the only reason they built their city underground at Snizort, decades ago, was to find them, and they prolonged the battle for Snizort for a day, at the cost of thousands of lyrinx lives, just so they could get them safely to Alcifer.’

‘Why do they value these relics? What can they possibly mean to the lyrinx?’

‘I don’t know, but the matriarch personally took charge of them when Alcifer was being evacuated. If you can seize the relics, the enemy would bargain with you to get them back.’

‘Where are they now?’ said Flydd.

‘She was trapped with them when part of the underground city collapsed.’

‘And yet the other lyrinx left Oellyll?’ Flydd said doubtfully.

‘The infection was spreading and they dared not stay. But the relics are safe and Gyrull is still alive. It will just take some digging to get them out.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about it.’

‘Yes,’ said Gilhaelith without elaboration.

‘It’s valuable information,’ said Flydd, ‘though I’m not about to risk an army digging under Alcifer. As soon as the lyrinx discovered we were there, they’d wipe us out. Do you have any information that can help us stave off the enemy? Considering your record, Gilhaelith, nothing else will do.’

Gilhaelith opened his mouth, but closed it again as if he’d thought better of it.

‘Come on, man!’ said Flydd. ‘I know you assisted them to develop a more powerful device than their node-drainers.’

After a long, reluctant hesitation, Gilhaelith said in a low voice, ‘I was forced to it, and this is for the ears of your Council only. They’ve grown a new device which they call a flisnadr, a power patterner. A device for controlling the flow of power from a field, rather than just shutting it off.’

‘Have they now?’ said Flydd. ‘I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. We must talk more about this privately, Gilhaelith.’ He put out his hand. ‘Welcome aboard.’

The evacuation of Borgistry began at once, the people melting into the uncanny Borgis Woods. General Orgestre’s army, the smaller, had gone with them, while Troist’s force remained behind to guard the rear, in case the enemy came on more swiftly than expected. The Council and the governor were relocating to Hysse, a fertile valley surrounded by almost unclimbable ridges, between Parnggi and the Ramparts of Tacnah. Irisis was to go with them, along with Tiaan. Nish was to remain as Troist’s adjutant for the time being, though he regretted it now. There was no saying he’d ever see any of his friends again.

Three days later, Tiaan, Nish and Irisis were standing by Malien’s thapter while the last of the refugees assembled. Nish didn’t know what to say to his friends. He’d rehearsed his farewells a dozen times but couldn’t find any words that fitted such a desperate occasion. Irisis wasn’t saying anything either, and Tiaan just bore the faraway look she’d had since seeing the piles of lyrinx dead.

Nish, recognising several familiar faces in the crowd, waved. It was Troist’s tall horsy wife Yara and the twins, Meriwen and Liliwen, who would be fourteen now. He’d last seen them a year and a half ago at Morgadis. What must they be thinking after being forced to abandon all they’d held dear?

‘How long have we got?’ said Nish, wondering if there was time to say hello and farewell. The Council’s thapter stood inside a ring of clankers, the army camp was packed up, the latrines filled in and everyone was waiting for the order to depart.

No one answered, so Nish went across, a little tentatively. The twins sang out and ran to meet him. Yara didn’t run, but her face lit up at seeing Nish. He shook her hand and embraced the twins, sturdy girls who took after their handsome father. Their wavy hair, the colour of copper wire, hung in plaits halfway down their backs. They were almost identical, though Liliwen had thicker, darker eyebrows.

‘We’re very cross with you,’ said Meriwen. ‘You were supposed to come and see us in Lybing last spring, before the battle.’

‘Extremely cross,’ said Liliwen. ‘We cooked dinner and everything.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nish. ‘I was called away. You know what it’s –’

‘We think you ran away from Aunty Mira,’ said Meriwen, frowning at him.

‘Because you were too scared,’ said Liliwen.

‘Like you did last time,’ added Meriwen. ‘With your pants –’

‘Girls!’ cried Yara, scandalised. ‘How dare you speak to Cryl-Nish like that. He’s a great hero and he saved your lives. Twice!’

‘It’s a funny kind of hero that runs away from little Aunty Mira,’ sniffed Meriwen, then giggled.

‘With his pants down around his –’ chortled Liliwen.

‘Right!’ said Yara. ‘I’m going to wash both your mouths out, and don’t think you’re too old to get a good whack on the bare backside, either.’

They sobered up instantly. ‘Sorry, Mother,’ they chorused. ‘But please, please let us stay. After all, Nish did save our lives, twice, and we might never see him again.’

‘Don’t flutter your eyelashes at me, young ladies,’ said Yara. ‘Wherever did you learn such tricks? Your father will be horrified when I tell him. Now come away. Mira has something to say to Nish.’

And before Nish could turn and run, Mira stepped out of the crowd, right beside him.

‘M-Mira!’ he stammered. ‘I – I –’

She took his hand. ‘Nish, why didn’t you come to see me?’

‘I was too scared; too mortified …’

‘But why? You did nothing wrong. We were just two lonely, unhappy people, taking comfort where we could, until I had too much to drink and my nightmares overturned everything.’

‘But … the guards …’

‘It was all a terrible misunderstanding. I’d called them back and explained before you even reached the river.’

‘They weren’t hunting me at all?’ said Nish.

‘Of course not. I was terrified you’d drown. They were trying to bring you back, as an honoured guest who’d saved my nieces from degradation and murder.’

‘And all this time, I’ve been living in fear of you,’ said Nish. ‘And not just from that night. Whenever I did the … business of war, I imagined how disgusted you’d be.’

She sighed and took his hand. ‘You met me at my lowest point, Nish. War is a horror, but do you think I don’t honour my man, and my sons, for the way they fought and died? Of course I do. I hated the old warmongering Council with all my heart, but I respect the brave men and women who fight and die for us. And I honour you, too.’ She kissed him on the forehead. ‘Go now, they’re calling for you. And go with good heart. We’ll all be thinking of you.’

Nish turned away, turned back and waved, then strode to the thapter feeling better than he had in a long time.

Klarm, who had just returned from a surveillance flight in one of the thapters, came waddling up. ‘The enemy are two days away to the west, streaming through the forest. And another lyrinx army, almost as large, draws near to The Elbow from the south, heading up the Westway.’

‘Then we’d better get moving,’ said Troist. After making sure the refugees were well away, he was planning to retreat up the Great North Road through Worm Wood, then east, since the Borgis Woods were too rugged for his clankers. ‘If they send a sizeable force across Worm Wood by Booreah Ngurle, as they did last spring, we’ll be cut off.’

Nish embraced Tiaan, then Irisis, who thumped him on the shoulder and turned away abruptly. She practically ran to the thapter and got in without looking back. Tiaan didn’t even say goodbye – she seemed in another world altogether.

It wasn’t until the thapter had lifted off that Nish realised what he wanted to say to them, but by then it was too late.

FIFTY-NINE

Hysse was a small, pretty but incredibly overcrowded town at the top of a green valley surrounded by knife-edged ridges. All of its homes and buildings were built from silver weathered timber, with steep, pointed shingle roofs and green painted doors and window sashes. There were flower gardens everywhere, though many had been trampled by the deluge of refugees from Borgistry.

Tiaan set the thapter down in the market square, opened the hatch and was assailed by the overpowering perfume of night hyssamin, for which the town had been named. She was breathing deep when Flydd came running up, with Yggur not far behind. The sun was just rising.

‘Don’t get out, Tiaan,’ panted Flydd. ‘We’re going north right away.’

‘Where?’ said Tiaan, who had one leg over the side. She rubbed her eyes. They’d stopped in the middle of the night for a few hours’ sleep but she was still tired.

‘I’ll tell you after we’ve gone. I’ve had an idea.’

She couldn’t resist saying, ‘I hope it’s better than the last one.’

A pair of soldiers laboured up, carrying something heavy in a small wooden crate. A second pair followed with a larger crate, while a third were directed to another thapter, standing across the square next to a stall proclaiming the merits of yellow quinces, hard green pears and other mid-autumn fruit. Tiaan’s mouth watered, but none of the stalls were open yet.

‘Come on, Fyn-Mah!’ Flydd roared over the side. ‘Yggur, Irisis, go with Chissmoul in her thapter.’

‘Where?’ said Irisis, getting out gingerly. Her ankle and leg still troubled her.

‘East. I’ll call you on the farspeaker. Just go.’

Yggur and Irisis clambered into Chissmoul’s thapter, which shot into the air as if booted by a giant, to disappear eastward towards the Great Mountains.

‘That pilot has a distinctly reckless streak,’ Flydd observed. ‘Malien, would you take the controller, please? I need Tiaan to do something on the way.’

‘But …’ said Tiaan.

‘Come on!’ snapped Flydd. ‘We don’t have any time to waste.’

‘Where to?’ said Malien, as Fyn-Mah climbed in, carrying a heavy bag, and went below.

‘We need to find a powerful node that isn’t being used by anyone. Tiaan, where’s the nearest one that fits?’

Tiaan thought for a moment. ‘At the southern end of Warde Yallock.’

‘Perfect,’ said Flydd.

‘What is your idea?’ Tiaan asked when they were among scattered fluffy clouds.

‘Actually, it was yours,’ said Flydd. ‘I’m going to test your idea about speaking back and forth between connected nodes. Before we get to Warde Yallock I want you to try something. First, to make a map in your head of all the nodes in this area, plus all those you know to be connected in some way.’

‘I’ve been doing that for ages.’

‘I thought you might be. Do you know of any nodes connected to the one we’re heading for?’

She closed her eyes, mentally rotating her network of node symbols, field colours and interconnecting lines. It took some minutes before she was sure. ‘There should be one at the foot of the Ramparts of Tacnah.’

‘Where abouts?’

Tiaan showed Flydd on the map.

‘That’s eighty leagues from where we’re headed. Isn’t there anything nearer?’

‘Probably, but without studying every node I wouldn’t know.’

Flydd set up Golias’s globe and called Irisis. ‘Tell Chissmoul to fly to the Ramparts of Tacnah.’ He gave instructions. ‘Call on your farspeaker when you’re in place.’

Malien veered to the left to pass over a mass of lyrinx, assembled near a lake beyond the forest. Flydd counted the enemy numbers, then called Troist and gave their position.

Once they were in place at the southern end of Warde Yallock, late that afternoon, Flydd dragged the crate into the shelter of a tilted plate of rock, one of a group of ancient standing stones dating from the dawn of civilisation on Santhenar, and prised the smaller crate open. Tiaan yawned as she looked inside. It contained a complex device made of green crystals linked into an open sphere with thick wafers of beaten platinum, silver, gold and copper foil.

‘It’s my version of the node-drainer that we encountered in Snizort,’ said Flydd. ‘Yggur and I have been working on it, on and off, for months. Irisis and Yggur have another. They’ll call when they’re ready.’

He lay down under the tree, tipped his hat over his eyes to keep out the sinking sun, and began to snore.

‘You might have told me what I’m supposed to do,’ muttered Tiaan.

‘He likes to be mysterious,’ said Fyn-Mah. ‘Get some rest. You look exhausted.’

‘I haven’t slept well since we attacked Oellyll, but I won’t be able to sleep until I know what I’m meant to do.’

‘As I understand it, you’re to send messages, using Golias’s globe, to Irisis. She’ll send back while we watch how weak or strong the messages are, how much delayed, and so forth. Afterwards we’ll set the node-drainer to draw power from this node and send again. We’ll take ever more power, and do it over and over, while Irisis and Yggur will be doing the same at the linked node.’

‘To what purpose?’ said Tiaan.

‘We hope to discover how the fields, or the nodes, are linked. If we can solve that problem it might just give us a chance.’

Flydd woke Tiaan in the middle of the night and she sat with Golias’s globe on a flat rock, waiting, listening and sending, until dawn. The globe squelched periodically, conveying reports of lyrinx sightings all over the place, attacks in various spots, and details of the movements of the refugees and their escorts. Troist’s army had taken heavy casualties before beating off their ambushers, and the report was gruesomely graphic. Tiaan’s resolve to find a peaceful solution grew stronger.

They began again a few hours after dawn, though she could sense Flydd’s frustration now. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Her head was aching from overuse of the amplimet and she was well aware of that danger.

‘I’ll have to stop,’ she said not long before sunset. ‘My head is killing me.’

‘If we can do just one more test,’ said Flydd, ‘it will complete this set and we’ll be finished for the day. Can you manage it?’

‘I suppose so,’ Tiaan sighed, knowing that Flydd would keep pushing until he got what he wanted.

‘Do you want me to increase the draining?’ asked Fyn-Mah, who was wearing an operator’s wire-and-crystal cap, with her hands inside Flydd’s node-drainer.

‘Leave it as it is,’ said Flydd. ‘We’ll send the message on another farspeaker setting.’

He told Tiaan what it was and she relayed that to Irisis.

‘Ready, Tiaan?’ said Flydd.

‘As long as it doesn’t take too long,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t feel very well.’

‘Why don’t I send the message?’ said Flydd. ‘Can you set the globe for me first? You’re a lot quicker at it than I am.’

‘All right.’ Tiaan slipped the amplimet down her front. It felt hot. She put her hands around the smooth surface of the farspeaker and mentally spun the globes to visualise what to do with her hands. Her head felt fuzzy and she couldn’t recall the setting she was supposed to use.

She did it again but a different setting flashed into her mind, one far removed from any she’d ever used before. She turned to Flydd but he’d gone across to Fyn-Mah and had his arms deep in the node-drainer.

She tried to concentrate but could only see the new setting, not the one Flydd had given her. But then, what did it matter as long as Irisis’s farspeaker was set the same? She didn’t relay the new setting to Irisis – it was easier to change Irisis’s farspeaker the way she’d reset Flydd’s from Bannador a while ago.

Then, without thinking that Golias’s globe was self-powered, Tiaan drew power through the amplimet, spun the spheres and stopped them one by one until they lined up correctly. As the innermost sphere slowed and stopped, the amplimet flared. Its light shone through her blouse and the crystal grew so bright that it burned her and she had to jerk it out.

The node-drainer let out a loud crackling squeal.

‘What’s that?’ cried Flydd, whipping his hands out as if they were on fire. ‘What’s happening?’

He ran to Tiaan, shielding his eyes. ‘Tiaan?’

She blinked, shook her head then closed her fist around the amplimet. She cut off power and the sound from the node-drainer stopped abruptly.

‘What are you doing?’ Irisis roared from the farspeaker.

Flydd went still, turned to Malien, eyes wide, then back to the farspeaker. ‘What just happened, Irisis?’

‘The node flared out of control. The field was twenty times as strong as before. I could see it with my eyes open.’

‘But that’s not possible,’ said Flydd. ‘It was stronger here too.’

‘What did you do?’ Tiaan heard Yggur say, hoarsely. He sounded uneasy.

‘Tiaan did something with Golias’s globe, and the amplimet.’ Flydd turned to her. ‘What did you do, Tiaan?’

She explained as best she could. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘I think,’ said Yggur over the farspeaker, ‘you’ve stumbled on a way to control the nodes themselves.’ The unease was gone; he let out an uncharacteristic whoop. ‘It’s a secret no mancer ever expected to find. Do you see the implications, Flydd?’

‘I’m beginning to see the perils,’ said Malien.

‘If we can control the nodes,’ said Flydd, ‘we can snatch power from the lyrinx while maintaining it for ourselves, despite their power patterner. We’d have as much power as we wanted, and they’d have none. Then we’d take the battle to them.’

‘As long as they don’t get it first,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’ve seen a pair of nodes acting that way before, now that I think of it. It was in Alcifer, not long before Oellyll was abandoned.’

‘So the enemy may also be closing in on the secret,’ said Yggur. ‘And it may not be such a large step for them, since they’ve had node-drainers for years.’

Flydd scowled. ‘Just when I thought we’d made a breakthrough.’

‘We may have, but it’s a race,’ said Yggur. ‘To the winner, ultimate power. To the losers, oblivion.’

That’s all you mancers ever think of, Tiaan thought despairingly. She wanted to run away with the secret and deny it to all of them. But of course she could not – that would be playing into the hands of the enemy. Surely there had to be another way.

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Flydd. ‘How are you feeling, Tiaan?’

‘A little better.’ She wasn’t, but she might as well get it over with.

‘Are you up to showing us exactly what you did?’

‘I think so.’

Tiaan did it a second time. The node-drainer and the amplimet reacted exactly as before, and the effects were felt, as before, at Irisis’s end.

‘What else do we need, to control nodes?’ said Yggur through the farspeaker, once all was quiet again.

‘Two things,’ said Flydd. ‘Firstly, a completed map of the fields, including the Dry Sea, which Tiaan hasn’t even looked at. Tiaan, I think you and Malien had better get that done right away.’

‘I’d prefer to be asked,’ Malien said frostily. ‘I’m an ally, not a lackey, as I believe I’ve pointed out to you before.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Flydd. ‘I forgot myself. Malien –’

‘Certainly I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Tiaan, what about you?’

Tiaan had to be asked twice, for her mind had wandered a long way as she worked through the possibilities of this unexpected discovery. ‘Yes,’ she said absently. ‘I’d be glad to survey the Dry Sea.’

‘Irisis, Yggur,’ Flydd called on the farspeaker. ‘Pack up and meet us at the southern end of Warde Yallock.’ He gave directions. ‘Tiaan, go to bed before you collapse. We’ll talk in the morning.’

‘What’s the second thing we need?’ said Yggur.

‘A field controller. It’s a device I’ve been thinking about ever since Klarm and I went through the Council’s secret workrooms in Nennifer. Ghorr’s best mancers and artisans began working on a field controller as soon as they finished making the node-breaker we took to Snizort. They built a rude prototype, though they could never get it to work. Klarm brought it back in the dirigible and I’ve also fiddled with it over the summer. It’s in the other crate.’

‘But you couldn’t get it to work either,’ said Yggur.

‘No, but Gilhaelith, unwittingly, gave me some fresh ideas when he was telling me about the power patterner. Tiaan’s discovery might be the missing piece of the puzzle. As soon as you get here, we’ll go over everything. Are you there, Irisis?’

‘Where else would I be?’ she said.

‘I want you and Tiaan to pull apart the failed field controller and work out how to rebuild it to make use of Tiaan’s discovery. Just throw it together anyhow, for the time being. Tiaan can help with the initial tests, then be on her way to the Dry Sea.’

‘And me?’ said Irisis.

‘If the tests work, I’ll give you as many artisans as you need. You’ve got to produce a reliable field controller and you haven’t got long. It’ll be the challenge of your life.’

‘It’s for all our lives,’ said Yggur.

SIXTY

Nish watched his friends fly away, unable to speak.

Once the last refugees reported that they’d met Orgestre’s army and no longer needed Troist’s protection, his infantry and its escort of clankers set off up the Great North Road, which here ran north-west. Worm Wood was about twenty leagues away, the edge of the forest curving east until it ran into the northern extremity of the Borgis Woods, a forest just as dark and tangled, and with a more dubious reputation, than Worm Wood itself. The road ran through the forest for twenty leagues, then beside it and the lands between the Great Chain of Lakes, before finally passing into the flat drylands to the north. In all, the army had to cross more than forty leagues of rugged country, ripe for ambushing, before they reached the relative security of the plains of Tacnah. Nish knew they would be lucky to get that far.

‘Nish,’ said Gilhaelith as they camped on the fringe of the forest, ‘you’re a resourceful fellow. Come with me.’

Nish wondered why Gilhaelith had remained behind with the rearguard instead of flying to safety with the Council. Was it because Yggur was so hostile to him? Whatever the reason, Troist wasn’t bothered about it. He’d invited Gilhaelith to travel with him in his twelve-legged command clanker, often consulting him about the lyrinx’s mancery and how they might use it to hinder the army’s progress.

Nish followed the woolly-headed mancer down through the rows of tents and clankers to a larger tent, guarded by two soldiers, set in an isolated spot under the trees. They went inside. It was dark apart from a glowing globe with a bowl of smoked glass over the top, reducing the light to a glimmer. A folding table had been set up in the middle. Merryl sat on one side, a writing tablet before him, a pen in his hand. A young, dark-haired woman on the other side of the table had her hands around a master farspeaker whose interior globes were spinning. Her head was bent so far that Nish couldn’t see her face, only a long, pointed nose.

Nish turned to Gilhaelith but he put a finger across his lips. ‘Later.’

Nothing happened for some minutes, when there came a whisper from the farspeaker. The dark young woman froze the globes. Again the whisper. Merryl wrote something on his pad. They waited. Eventually, another whisper. Another wait, interminable this time.

‘All right,’ said Gilhaelith after more than an hour had passed. ‘Take a break.’

They went outside. ‘You’re spying on the lyrinx,’ said Nish.

Gilhaelith raised an interrogative eyebrow.

‘Merryl’s the only one who speaks their language,’ he added.

‘Very good, artificer.’

Nish had an uncomfortable feeling that the mancer was laughing at him. He’d never worked Gilhaelith out; he did not fit any of the kinds of people Nish had met before.

‘Daesmie,’ Gilhaelith indicated the young woman through the tent flap, ‘has a talent akin to Tiaan’s, though undeveloped by comparison. She was only discovered recently – one of many projects the Council has going behind the scenes, Flydd tells me. Daesmie is able to sense lyrinx mindspeech and tune the master farspeaker to pull it out of the ethyr. There’s one problem, of course.’

‘There are half a million lyrinx,’ said Nish, ‘and they’d be using mindspeech all the time. How can you pick out what’s important in all that racket?’

‘On the contrary, few lyrinx have the talent and it’s exhausting to use. They employ it on the battlefield, or to signal danger or cry for help, so everything they say is of interest to us. And only the most powerful lyrinx can call for long distances, so if the lesser ones are mindspeaking further away, we don’t hear it.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘They seldom identify themselves or where they are. It limits the usefulness of spying on them.’

‘Have you learned anything interesting yet?’

‘Indeed. Twice we’ve had warning of attacks before they occurred. Only a minute or two, but it makes a difference. The attack this morning would have cut the army in half if I hadn’t alerted Troist to it.’

Nish had wondered why Troist seemed so happy with Gilhaelith. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘Read everything Merryl and the other listeners write down.’

‘What others?’

‘There are five tents down here, all listening on different globe settings. Merryl has taught the listeners the most common words of the lyrinx language, and each listener is recording pages of messages every hour. I don’t have the time to read it all, so you can do it for me.’

‘I’m Troist’s adjutant, surr, and I’ve a lot to do.’

‘And he’s made you over to me for the time being.’

‘Really?’ said Nish, unconvinced.

‘Go and ask him,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘The work I’m doing is vital to the survival of this army.’

‘All right,’ said Nish. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Excellent. If you see something strange, or something you don’t understand, call me.’

Gilhaelith hurried away. ‘But what are you looking for?’ Nish called.

‘Something they don’t want us to know,’ Gilhaelith said over his shoulder.

The next day was tedious and long. Nish sat in the tent, listening to the whispers in the background, which meant nothing to him, and reading though the pages as Merryl handed them to him. They were just a series of words, with annotations by Merryl, that did not make much sense.

Great Lake (scratchy voice)

Dawn! Dawn! (hoarse voice)

Too late.

Humans.

Fly west to the … (unintelligible.? Burning Mountain)

(long pause)

Fire? (hoarse voice)

(short pause)

Node failing. Node failing. Node fai – (powerful voice. female.? a matriarch)

What node? (scratchy voice)

Where are you? (hoarse voice)

(burst of unintelligible chatter, many voices at once, then a long pause)

Dawn? (hoarse voice)

Dawn! (scratchy voice)

Nish puzzled over the exchange. Were they planning an attack in the morning, as the army passed by a smaller lake between the two largest of the Great Chain of Lakes? Did it involve fire, or was that a completely separate remark? He scribbled two notes and sent them with the waiting runner to Troist and Gilhaelith. Let them agonise over it.

His pages were piling up. He wondered about the other cry – about the node failing – but not for long. Node failures were increasingly common these days. He made a note on his summary sheet and got on with his work.

Rubbing sore eyes, Nish shuffled his papers and stacked them in the pile. He’d been reading for eighteen hours without a break and every time he shifted his head vertigo made him feel as though he was falling off his seat. It had been hard enough in the tent, for one recorder’s writing could have been made by a spider crawling out of an inkwell, and another’s was so tiny Nish had to squint to read it. In a jouncing, rattling clanker on a winding mountain road it was almost impossible. He prayed that the column would stop soon. He was desperate for sleep but would be lucky to get an hour. Even here, the pages were coming in faster than he could read them.

He had dozed off, in spite of the vibration, when the clanker stopped suddenly. There were shouts and screams outside, while a red glow lit up the sky ahead. The operator thrust up the top hatch, shouting to the shooter.

‘What is it, shooter? Are we under attack?’

The shooter did not answer at once. The threaded rods of his javelard whirred and the mechanism creaked as he turned it this way and that.

‘There’s a big fire up ahead,’ he said.

Nish reached for the rear hatch but Merryl put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Remember what Gilhaelith said. We’re to keep away from the fighting unless our lives are directly threatened.’

‘I can’t hide while soldiers are dying.’

‘Their job is to fight, and if necessary to die. Ours is to do this work which may save many lives.’

Nish slid back into his seat. ‘What’s going on?’ he said softly, with a glance at the farspeaker operator. Daesmie was asleep, her head pillowed on her small hands. She looked like a child. ‘What’s Gilhaelith really looking for?’

‘I don’t know.’

A roar echoed down the road from up ahead and flames billowed into the sky. The clanker’s shooter cried out in terror. Nish felt the wash of heat through the front porthole, until the operator lurched his clanker forward, sideways and around. The clanker ahead of them was covered in what looked like burning pitch. Nish could hear the agonised screams of those trapped inside.

‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘We’ve got to get them out.’

The clanker kept going. ‘I have my orders, surr,’ said the operator.

Nish wrestled with the handle of the rear hatch but Merryl caught him by the arm. ‘There’s nothing you can do, Nish. Their rear hatch is covered in burning pitch; you’d never get it open.’

The sounds, and the smell, lingered long in Nish’s nostrils. It reminded him of that awful night in the slave team at Snizort, when he’d salivated over the smell of the burning dead.

‘That was a timely warning,’ Gilhaelith said later that night, when the army had found a safe camp. ‘Troist asked me to personally thank each of you. It saved countless lives.’

Nish nodded absently, his mind still on the horrors of the attack, which had gone on for an hour before the enemy had silently withdrawn. ‘Did we lose many?’

‘Hundreds,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘But it could easily have been thousands. Now, back to work.’

Two days later, in the sunken lands between the two great lakes, Nish was again in Merryl’s tent, completing his summary of the day’s listening, when he heard a shouted message. It had an urgency he’d not heard from the lyrinx before.

Thyllix musrr. Ing! Ing!

Merryl sat up, cocking his ear at the farspeaker. His hand was scribbling furiously.

Nish knew the word ‘Ing’. It was a cry for help. ‘What –?’ he began, but broke off. He could not afford to distract Merryl.

Thyllix musrr. Ing! Ing!

Nish moved around behind Merryl so he could read the words over his shoulder.

Skin bursting. Help! Help! (powerful voice, female.? a matriarch)

Dark-haired, demure little Daesmie swore an oath so vile that not even Nish would have used it in public, and spun the globes. ‘Lost it,’ she said.

Nish resisted the urge to yell at her to get it back. She was doing her best. Anything that troubled a lyrinx matriarch was of interest to them. There were only six as far as he knew; one for each of their cities.

‘Skin bursting?’ he said. ‘Does that mean the spore disease?’

‘I’d say so,’ said Merryl. ‘There have been cries about it before. But this is different. If it’s affected a matriarch …’ He trailed off, deep in thought.

The globes froze in place. ‘I think I have it,’ said Daesmie.

Help. Save the Sacred Ones. This… Matriarch Gyrull.

‘Get Gilhaelith,’ snapped Merryl.

Nish did not move.

Where? (female, whispery voice)

Where? (female, raspy voice)

Where? (male, deep, rolls his r’s)

‘Now, Nish!’

Nish hesitated, wanting to know what they were going to say next. He ran out and around each of the other listeners. Gilhaelith was not with them. As Nish turned back, intending to look for him at the command tent, he ran past Merryl’s tent and now heard Gilhaelith’s voice inside.

The mancer was positively glowing. ‘This is it. Gather your gear,’ he said to Merryl and Daesmie. ‘Bring all the record sheets. Meet me by the thapter in five minutes. You too, Nish.’ He disappeared.

Nish looked down at the sheet. Nothing further had been written on it. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

‘I can’t tell you, Nish.’ Merryl stuffed the papers in his pack and hurried out.

Daesmie was doing the same with the globe and the rest of her apparatus. Nish put the paper down, hoisted his pack and headed for Kimli’s thapter, which stood behind the command tent. It had come in only an hour ago, after studying the enemy’s movements from the air.

When he arrived, the others were already inside. He passed up his pack and was just climbing over the side when Troist came running around the tent. He had Nish’s sheet in his hand.

‘Hey? What are you doing?’ Troist cried.

‘Go, Kimli,’ Gilhaelith hissed, heaving Nish in.

She hesitated. ‘But he’s the general, surr.’

‘And I’m your superior and a mancer of dreadful power. Do as I say!’

‘Guards!’ roared Troist.

‘Now!’ Gilhaelith screamed in her face.

Kimli’s arm jerked on the flight knob and the thapter leapt in the air. The guards came running, arming their crossbows, but by the time they took aim it was too late. The thapter was out of range.

‘Go north until we’re out of sight,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘then sweep around to the west.’

‘Where are we going?’ she quavered.

‘First to Nyriandiol, my former fortress atop Booreah Ngurle, if anything remains of it. And then, we shall see. Go swiftly.’

Four soldiers were sitting down below. Flangers was one of them. Nish sat beside him. ‘What’s going on?’

‘No idea,’ said Flangers. ‘I’m just doing what I’m told.’

He looked unhappy but did not seem inclined to talk so Nish sat in a corner, closed his tired eyes and tried to work out what the geomancer was up to, and what he, Nish, should do about it. Clearly, Gilhaelith was following his own private agenda. Equally clearly, he was on to something important and, even if Troist wasn’t aware of it, it might have been sanctioned by Flydd or Yggur. Well, probably not Yggur. Nish decided to keep his eyes and ears open and follow Gilhaelith’s orders, for the time being …

He woke as they set down on the mountaintop. Outside, he looked around curiously. Booreah Ngurle was often mentioned in the Histories. It had been an important site two thousand years ago, though Nish could not remember why.

It was mid-morning. The mountain’s crest was wreathed in steam and fumes which had a yellow cast and a sulphurous stench. Gilhaelith had made a fortune mining condensed sulphur from the floor of the crater.

Nish looked over the side. Not even the foolhardiest miner would have gone down there now. The crater lake was boiling, while up the other end red lava forced itself from a vent, surrounded by roiling black smoke and punctuated by small explosions that filled the air with wheeling, red-hot lumps of rock. The ground shook and grey ash filtered from the sky. His shoulders were already coated with it.

‘This is the end for the mountain,’ said Gilhaelith, leaning on a stone wall to look over the edge. ‘It won’t be long now.’

‘Then hadn’t we better do what you came for and get away?’ said Nish.

‘Humour me, Nish. I lived here a hundred and fifty years, all that time wondering when Booreah Ngurle would finally blow itself apart. The mountain is like an old friend to me, and I have to say goodbye.’

‘Why are we here?’

Gilhaelith roused. ‘Ah, yes. Because I left something here which will help us to find the matriarch, and more importantly, what she has with her. Kimli, Nish, come with me. The rest of you, stay with the thapter. We won’t be long. Keep a sharp lookout.’

He laid his hands on the broken front doors, which had been rudely but strongly reinforced with iron bands, and they unlocked. Gritty hinges squealed when he pulled the door open. Nish followed him and Kimli fell in beside Nish. No doubt Gilhaelith wanted her along so she couldn’t be forced to fly the thapter away.

They headed down a long hall thick with dust and ash which long ago had been scalloped into ripples by the wind. There were no tracks apart from one set of boot marks going in and another back out, and the occasional trail made by a lizard’s tail. The boot marks were Gilhaelith’s. So he’d been back here after escaping from Alcifer.

‘The earth has been my science and my Art, for all my adult life,’ said Gilhaelith, his long strides puffing up ash at toe and heel. ‘If I am to leave here forever, there’s one small thing I have to take with me.’

They went down several floors. Nish was amazed at the wealth of the place, and the austere beauty. Both his father and mother had been wealthy but they’d possessed nothing like Nyriandiol. Even more amazing, it had not been looted. Perhaps Gilhaelith’s reputation was too uncanny.

Gilhaelith opened a door into a dark room, touched a quartz sphere above the door and soft light spread out. The room was empty except for a sphere, about half a span across, turning slowly in a metal bowl on a round wooden base set with brass graduated rings and pointers that could be slid around them.

‘This,’ said the mancer.

‘Not so small,’ said Nish. It appeared to be a model of Santhenar. The side facing them showed Lauralin and the ocean to the east, and part of another land, beyond the equator to the north. He walked around it, studying the islands and continents. ‘I’ve often wondered what was beyond those seas.’

‘So did I, Nish,’ said the mancer. ‘All my life I’ve wondered, and now I know.’

‘It must have taken you a long time,’ said Nish.

‘Half a lifetime. I completed it only recently, in Alcifer, with the aid of the lyrinx. They’d flown the entire world in their early days here, mapping it on charts made from tanned human skin.’

‘How did you get away?’

‘The globe can be used for more than I told them. At an early stage I tapped into their sentinels and discovered what they had planned for me – among other things.

‘I’d given up hope of escape when fate took a hand. You, Tiaan and Irisis attacked Alcifer with the fungus spores. A clever idea – I never would have thought of it, but nothing could have been more cunningly designed to panic them. On the night of your attack, their watch relaxed, I used the globe to conceal myself from their sentinels and walked out of Alcifer to the port. I’d left a boat there when I came from Fiz Gorgo, and I sailed it across the sea. Once in Taltid I signalled a passing air-floater and convinced them to bring me and the globe here. I left it here for safekeeping and they flew me down to Lybing in time for the conclave.’

The holes in his story gaped as wide as the front door, but Nish didn’t question Gilhaelith further. He took a closer look at the globe.

It was exquisite. The surface appeared to be a kind of glass, and although the mountains were raised in relief, they were below the surface, which was smooth and so cold that when Nish touched it with a finger, his skin stuck to the glass and had to be eased off.

‘Don’t touch,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘There could be … unexpected consequences.’ He drew on a pair of silken gloves and traced a fingertip across the surface, which had hardly any dust on it. ‘It’s my life’s work.’

‘Surely not?’ said Nish. A skilled artisan, such as Irisis, could have made it in a few months.

‘It’s more than it seems,’ Gilhaelith said mildly. ‘This is not just a globe, Nish. It’s a geomancer’s model of the world, meaning that each part of the model corresponds to a part of the world. Had I power enough, I could change the world, within limits, by changing the model.’

‘Is that why you want it?’ asked the pilot in a meek little voice.

‘No, Kimli. I’ve never sought to change the world, merely to understand it. But I have a different purpose today. That call Daesmie picked up was from Matriarch Gyrull, one of the six matriarchs, and pre-eminent among them on the rare occasions when a supreme leader is required, as at the moment. She must have escaped from the collapsed tunnels in Oellyll, but the infection has taken hold. She’ll soon be incapacitated, if she’s not already.’

‘That must be the bitterest of blows to them,’ said Nish.

‘Not in the sense that we value a leader. The moment Gyrull became matriarch, she would have begun training successors. It’s what she’s bearing that’s important.’

‘What are the Sacred Ones?’ said Nish. ‘Her children?’

‘The cultural relics of the lyrinx.’

‘I didn’t know they had any culture.’

‘They gave up their ancient culture in their struggle to exist in the void. That’s why the relics found in the Great Seep are so important. They’ll do anything to protect them. The matriarch must have been ferrying the relics to a safe place, far away, but was struck down by the disease. Perhaps her escort is similarly afflicted; they’re calling for help and we have the chance I never imagined would come.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know.’ He held up his hand as Nish began to speak. ‘But my geomantic globe may tell me.’

‘How?’

‘If you keep quiet, you’ll find out. Stay here.’

He was only gone a few minutes, returning carrying a small timber box which he set on the table. Inside were many lemon-yellow crystals, pyramidal on each end.

‘Brimstone, or sulphur,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Don’t touch them.’

‘Why not?’

Irritated, Gilhaelith picked out the smallest and placed it in the palm of Nish’s hand. It lay there for a few seconds; then, with a crackling sound, shattered to pieces. ‘That’s why. Just the warmth of a human hand can fracture them. But if one is careful …’

With gloved fingers he stroked another crystal, faster and faster, then held it out between forefinger and thumb. He passed it back and forth over the surface of the globe, without ever touching it, sweeping a series of closely spaced lines from the Sea of Thurkad to the curve of the Great Mountains. Gilhaelith began in the south, at the shores of the Karama Malama, and continued north, every so often stopping to rub the crystal vigorously.

Nish didn’t question him. Gilhaelith’s attention was focussed on the surface of the globe. Nish did the same. Finally, as the lines swept across the drylands of the Tacnah Marches, between the City of the Bargemen and the Ramparts of Tacnah, a tiny lemon-yellow light winked through the surface.

Gilhaelith thrust the box of brimstone crystals in his pocket and gave him a triumphant look. ‘That’s where they are.’

‘How do you know. What was all that about?’

‘Like calls to like, Nish. Among the relics is a large crystal, and some smaller ones. The larger one is known as The Brimstone. My crystal called and The Brimstone answered.’ Gilhaelith gathered the geomantic globe up. ‘Bring that crate over, would you?’

Nish lugged the box across. Gilhaelith nestled the globe inside, carefully protected in folds of indigo velvet, packed the turned base, put down the top, took one of the rope handles and signed to Nish to take the other. They carried the crate out to the thapter.

‘I know one should never become sentimental about material things,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘but I spent the most contented years of my life here. If you would give me a moment. Please wait in the flier.’

Nish and Kimli handed the crate up into the thapter. Gilhaelith stood on the stone wall, staring into the crater. Fumes were now belching out of it; an explosion sent boulders arcing through the air.

Gilhaelith watched them rise and fall. One landed on the crater’s rim just a few hundred paces away. Another crashed through an outside walkway of Nyriandiol, tearing most of it away and sending it plunging into the bubbling lake.

He took something out of his pocket. It looked to be a smooth round rock with a hollow in the centre, though it was shiny, as if it had been polished. Gilhaelith weighed it in his hand, tossed it up and caught it, then drew back his arm and hurled it high, out towards the centre of the crater. As it fell he spoke five lines in a language Nish had never heard.

The stone disappeared into the roiling clouds. Nish realised that he was holding his breath. The ground shook, shook again and with a roar that hurt his eardrums the centre of the crater erupted upwards with colossal force, a cataclysm of steam, pulverised rock and red-hot particles of lava.

Nish bolted to the thapter. Gilhaelith followed with calm and measured steps. As he climbed inside, the debris was boiling towards them.

‘To the Marches of Tacnah,’ he said. ‘And be quick about it.’