having come this far, Tiaan did not want to give up until she knew that they were dead. ‘Is either of you game to go down through the hole?’
‘I will,’ said the shorter of the two. ‘Nish is a good man. I know he’d do the same for me.’ He looked Tiaan in the eye and his were moist, though perhaps it was the smoke. ‘You should hear the stories about him.’
Again it made her stop and think. In the past, she’d deliberately absented herself whenever people had talked about Nish’s deeds, not wanting to hear anything that would change her ill opinion of him.
The soldier tied the rope, threw it over, wrapped rags around his hands and slid down. As he reached the floor below, the building shuddered. The floor timbers squealed, and a crack zigzagged its way up the stone wall beside the thapter.
Tiaan felt cold inside. The building was going to collapse. She scrambled back into the thapter.
‘Where are you going,’ cried the soldier holding the rope.
She could see the whites of his eyes. He thought she was going to abandon them. ‘I’ve got to be ready. Can you see them?’
He put his head down the hole. ‘Not a thing.’
‘Give your friend a shout. We can’t wait any longer.’
‘Hoy, Plymes. Come on! The bloody building’s gonna fall down.’
He listened at the hole. ‘I can hear him! He’s coming up.’
‘Is there anyone with him?’
‘Can’t see. I don’t think so. Yes! Yes there is. There’s Vim and Slann.’
‘What about Nish, and the other soldier?’
‘Can’t see them.’
Again the building shuddered and the wall beside Tiaan seemed to move fractionally outward. This was madness. She lifted the thapter off the floor, one eye on the hole that she’d have to rise through, if she could find it in the thickening smoke, the other on the rope.
Again that white-eyed look from the soldier – and then he screamed, ‘They’re coming! Don’t go, they’re coming.’
Not nearly fast enough. She rotated the machine in the air, watching the cracks enlarging in the wall, the quivering of the floor above. If either collapsed on them, not even a thapter could get out. She’d been unforgivably stupid. She should never have come down.
Heads appeared through the hole: Vim and Slann, another soldier, then Nish. They scrambled through.
‘Get in,’ she screeched, waving her arms at them. ‘I’ve already disobeyed my orders. I can’t wait any longer.’
Vim and Slann took over the rope. The others climbed onto the racks. ‘In,’ she screamed. ‘If you’re not inside when we go up, you’ll be scraped off like muck from a boot.’
They fell through the hatch, crowding the cockpit, gasping for breath. Nish came last and his eyes silently thanked her, but she had no time for that.
‘Go below! You’re in the way.’ Tiaan revolved the thapter around the holes. ‘What’s the matter?’ she yelled to Slann.
‘Plymes has fallen off the rope. I’m going down.’
‘I can’t wait, Slann.’
He went anyway but stopped, just below the hole. Tiaan could still see his bald head. There came a tremendous roar as though something had collapsed below him, flames shot up through the hole and the floor buckled. Again the wall seemed to move outwards. Slann’s clothes caught fire, then the rope. He stared up at them, his face riven with agony as he tried to climb the burning rope. As it flamed up over his hands, he had to let go.
‘Vim! Come on!’
Vim was staring at the hole. He shook his head and leapt for the side of the thapter, catching hold of the racks. Tiaan, looking up, saw the floor above them move.
‘Hang on,’ she yelled. ‘The upper floor’s going to come down.’
She spun the thapter around and headed up towards the hole, which was moving. That meant the whole floor was slipping. There was no time to pull the hatch down. She manoeuvred through the belching smoke. The floor below suddenly collapsed and flames swirled towards them and over Vim, now clinging desperately to the racks.
She zigzagged the thapter up through the hole as the upper floor fell. Something struck the side of the thapter, making it lurch sharply. The smoke was even thicker on the next level and Tiaan hit the wall without realising it. Where was the ceiling hole? She had to go back and forth three times before she found it. Her lungs were burning. She shot up though it, up again and out through the roof to safety.
Hovering above the roof, she looked for a place to