is the flying construct? Point them out and you’ll be well rewarded.’
‘We’re finished,’ said Nish.
‘Keep moving,’ hissed Flydd. ‘They don’t know where we are.’
They crept on. The low sun cast deep shadows behind the standing remnants of Nennifer and they took advantage of the cover to get closer.
‘Speak!’ roared Fusshte, ‘or I’ll shoot you down like the treasonous dogs you are.’
Evidently no one had betrayed them, for Fusshte turned to his archers, pointing down inside the walls of the air-dreadnought yard. Judging by the collective roar, they’d fired into the crowd. Fusshte’s signalmen exchanged signals with the other two air-dreadnoughts, hovering above, and they separated. One headed around the far side of Nennifer, the other over the rubble in their general direction. Someone had given away the location of the thapter.
‘See how easy it is to do your duty,’ Fusshte said.
‘Run!’ gasped Flydd.
Irisis put on a final burst, her long legs carrying her ahead. There wasn’t far to go – just down to the far corner of the rubble wall and around to the left, into the firewood alley, then along it for fifty or sixty spans.
Her breasts were thumping up and down painfully. Had she been expecting action she would have bound them. She looked back for Nish, who was labouring along, red in the face, about thirty spans behind.
Irisis didn’t wait, for the nearest air-dreadnought had suddenly altered course, the long airbags wobbling in their rigging as it tried to turn at right-angles. They had been spotted. The soldiers were lined up on the sides, crossbows at the ready. They weren’t within range but the javelards probably were.
Thud-crash. A spear buried itself in the timber just behind her. She raced on, weaving from side to side, risking a quick glance over her shoulder. Javelards weren’t accurate at that distance, but once within crossbow range the craft would turn side-on to fire a fusillade at them. They had a minute to get to safety.
Irisis turned the corner into the firewood alley and stopped in dismay. The canvas cover lay on the ground but the thapter was gone.
THIRTY-FIVE
‘It’s not there,’ Irisis was saying as Nish rounded the corner.
‘Malien must have seen them coming,’ panted Yggur, who had turned grey, ‘and gone looking for us in the thapter.’
‘We’ll be dead before she finds us,’ said Nish.
Irisis was running back along the jumbled windrow of timber, trying to see over it, but it was too high.
‘Keep going, to the other end of the alley,’ gasped Flydd. ‘She can’t be far away.’
Nish set off again, with Irisis, but the brief respite had sapped his stamina. He hadn’t run in a long time and every step felt leaden now. The middle of his back itched as if a javelard was lined up on it.
The leading air-dreadnought had completed its turn and was approaching rapidly. The one that had fired into the crowd was coming their way too. There was nowhere to hide.
‘Malien!’ Irisis screamed, though even if Malien were nearby, she wouldn’t hear over the whine of the thapter. She stopped halfway up the alley where a gap in the heaped timber allowed access into the adjoining alley.
‘No point running any more,’ Irisis gasped.
Nish edged into the gap, which provided some shelter from the attack, and watched the two craft moving in. ‘Malien wouldn’t go looking for us,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t know where to look.’
‘She wouldn’t stay and risk losing the thapter,’ said Yggur.
‘I never thought she’d abandon us,’ said Irisis.
‘She hasn’t,’ said Nish more confidently than he felt. ‘And she wouldn’t leave Tiaan either, after all the time they’ve spent together. That’s probably where she’s gone, to get Tiaan.’
‘She’d better make it snappy,’ said Flydd.
The first air-dreadnought was now inching into a turn against the strong wind, getting ready to fire a crossbow broadside that would cut them to pieces.
‘Can’t you blast them out of the sky?’ cried Nish. ‘Yggur? Flydd? Klarm?’
‘If we had that kind of power we would have used it at Fiz Gorgo,’ said Yggur. ‘There’s nothing we can do to air-dreadnoughts from this distance.’
‘Through here into the next alley,’ said Nish, pointing with his splinted arm. ‘It’ll buy us a minute.’
They scurried through the gap into the next alley. ‘Spread out and keep low,’ said Nish, ‘and press right up against the timber. They’re having trouble staying steady in the wind. Make their shots as difficult as you can.’
‘What’s that?’ hissed Irisis, cupping her ear.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Nish. With the whistling wind, the clatter of rotors