‘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