There wasn’t time to reach up and pull it over. Flydd didn’t even flinch.
Nish did, as Flydd drove the thapter straight into the air-dreadnought, amidships, smashing its flimsy timbers. A length of canvas wrapped itself around the front of the thapter, cracking in the wind as it shot out the other side. Nish couldn’t see anything out the front. Neither could Flydd, though it didn’t seem to bother him.
Nish climbed up onto the side and looked back. The air-dreadnought had broken in half, its two hull sections swinging wildly from the tangled rigging of the five airbags and spilling the remaining crew down into the walled yard.
Flydd shook the thapter from side to side until the canvas tore away, then turned again. ‘Where is he?’ he grated. ‘Did you see him fall?’
‘No,’ Nish said quietly, not wanting to assist Flydd in this madness. Malien’s eyes were open but she wasn’t resisting him either. Irisis stood at the back of the cockpit, saying nothing at all.
Flydd tore through the wrecked craft again and again, after each impact standing off and searching the floating remains for his enemy.
‘He’s dead,’ said Nish. ‘He must have fallen long ago. You can stop now, surr.’
‘If he was I’d know it,’ said Flydd. ‘He’s still – ahhhhh!’ he sighed.
Nish saw it too. The air-dreadnought had been reduced to a tangle of rigging, two deflated air-bags and one that was still full of floater-gas. It was drifting across the yard towards the rear of Nennifer, with a dark-clad, meagre man clinging desperately to the ropes below the airbag.
Flydd brought the thapter up beside the rigging, matched its motion and stood on tiptoe to look over the side. Fusshte, battered and bleeding from mouth and nose, stared defiantly back at him. His feet rested in a tangle of loops and knots. One arm was twisted through the rigging, the other hand resting on a rope.
‘Surrender?’ said Flydd.
‘To be tried by you?’ spat Fusshte. ‘I’ll die first.’
‘Either way,’ said Flydd. The madness had passed, leaving him worn out and wasted.
‘But surr …’ said Nish, troubled in spite of his loathing for Fusshte.
‘He has to die,’ said Flydd. ‘While any of the old Council remain alive, the foolish and greedy will rally to them, and we’ll be fighting them instead of the enemy. Let’s put an end to it.’
Fusshte looked as though he was going to beg for his life, but steeled himself and nodded. ‘Would you grant me a dead-man’s boon?’
‘You mocked my agony as my manhood was cut away. I’ll grant you nothing but a quick end.’
Fusshte’s grotesque face crumbled. ‘Aaah!’ he wailed. ‘It’s not for me. It’s for my crippled mother …’ He reached out one hand in entreaty. ‘Once I’m dead, she’ll starve.’
‘Begging doesn’t become you, Fusshte,’ said Flydd.
‘Surr,’ said Nish, thinking of his own mother, whom he hadn’t seen in years. ‘Surely you can –’
‘What do you want, Fusshte?’ Flydd snapped.
Fusshte reached into his coat and held up a small object, like a jewelled bird’s egg. ‘It’s all I have now. Would you sell it and give her the coin?’
Flydd nodded stiffly and held out his hand. Fusshte sent the egg spinning across. Nish caught it and was about to hand it to Flydd when Irisis sprang up and batted it over the side.
‘What did you do that for?’ cried Nish.
As he finished speaking the egg burst asunder, peppering the base of the thapter with glassy shards that would have torn straight through their living flesh.
Without a word, Flydd spun the thapter around, curved away then drove it straight at the centre of the full airbag. Fusshte was begging, pleading, weeping, but nothing could save him this time.
Irisis pulled Nish down into the corner, pressed his face against her chest and bent her own head over his. There was an enormous bang and a flare of blue flame. He felt his hair crisping, his ears and the back of his neck burning. Irisis pulled him harder against her and then they were through it and out the other side. He smelt burnt hair, opened his eyes and Flydd was standing up at the controller, as bald as an egg. Every hair had been burnt from his head.
He turned and even his continuous eyebrow was gone. ‘It’s done.’ He released the controller to Malien and slumped to the floor. ‘It’s done at last.’
Nish looked over the side and saw Fusshte’s remains hit the ground. There was no movement but the people on the ground swarmed over