Chimaera (71 page)

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.’

T
iaan 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.’