around the point of this ridge and back about a quarter of a league,’ said Tiaan. ‘Ready?’
‘Yes,’ said Irisis. Her left arm was upstretched, holding the hood, which was jerking up and down in the wind, threatening to tear the ropes away.
‘What about Nish?’
He was lying prone on the rear platform in his rope harness, under a curved sheet of metal taken from the other side of the thapter. Tiaan hoped the enemy wouldn’t realise he was there until he got up and hurled in the barrel of spores. If they did shoot at him, the black metal ought to protect him from a crossbow bolt, even one from a powerful lyrinx bow.
Irisis looked around the side of the hood. ‘He’s ready.’
As Tiaan reached the end of the rocky point she flung the thapter around in a tight turn, bouncing on the eddying updraughts. Irisis made a muffled sound in her throat as the hood was flung upwards and one foot lifted off the floor. She hauled the hood down again.
Something banged at the back. ‘Is he still there?’ Tiaan said.
‘Yes. Threw him around a bit, though.’
‘The main entrances to the city are just around the curve of the cliff to the right. See the caves?’
‘I see them. And that must be the air opening above them, where all the lyrinx are.’
A globe-shaped mass of flying lyrinx were circling around a smaller opening, the second of five in a row, some twenty spans above and a hundred to the right of the main entrances. In front, three jagged rock pinnacles rose up hundreds of spans from an outlier of yellow sandstone. Between cliff and pinnacles the cleft was only ten spans at its widest point, and half that at its narrowest, through which the thapter would have to negotiate at speed. There were lyrinx on the tops of the pinnacles, too, though from here Tiaan couldn’t tell what weapons they might have.
‘I don’t see any bellows,’ said Tiaan.
‘It could be inside the air vent,’ Irisis replied.
‘There’s something wrong.’ Tiaan pushed the levers forward and the thapter rocketed along the cliff face.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
The sphere of lyrinx turned in their direction. ‘They’ve seen us.’
‘Ask Nish if he’s ready,’ Tiaan said, clenching her jaw so tightly that the muscles cramped.
‘I already did.’
‘Ask him again!’ she snapped.
Irisis called out. Tiaan couldn’t hear any answer but Irisis said, ‘He’s ready.’
‘Fifty seconds,’ said Tiaan.
Irisis relayed it to Nish.
An updraught sent them flying towards the yellow cliff, so close that Tiaan was sure they would hit. She corrected, the thapter sheered along the cliff and through a veil of water trickling from above, shaving off ferns growing in crevices on the wet surface.
‘That was close,’ said Irisis, seemingly unperturbed.
Tiaan’s knees had gone weak. ‘Thirty seconds.’ You trust me more than I trust myself, she thought.
She lined up with the cleft between the cliff and the pinnacles. At this speed there was no room for error or, hopefully, for a successful counterattack. Two lyrinx on the pinnacles had rocks above their heads, the third a javelard. The sphere of lyrinx in the air were armed with crossbows or other weapons.
‘Ten seconds.’ Irisis relayed it to Nish at the same moment, then counted them down.
‘Five, four, three, two –’
‘No!’ Tiaan screamed, pulling the thapter up so hard that her stomach churned. ‘No, Nish, don’t throw the spores.’
She flicked a glance at the openings as she passed. With an almighty crash, a boulder struck the left flank of the machine, which lurched sideways towards the cliff. There was a lyrinx right in front of her, aiming a crossbow. No time to turn or climb; the thapter ploughed straight into the creature as it fired. Purple blood streaked the screen but Tiaan had no idea where the bolt had gone. A clatter-clatter at the back told her that the machine had been hit several times. She prayed that they hadn’t got Nish.
She shot through the circle of lyrinx, up and over the cliff, streaking away, wavering because her hand was shaking so much.
‘Report!’ she said roughly.
‘I’m all right,’ said Irisis. ‘And I think Nish is, though his hood was hit by crossbow bolts a couple of times.’
‘Did he throw out the dust?’
‘No. What was the matter?’
‘I knew something was wrong,’ said Tiaan. ‘It was a decoy. They were waiting outside a shaft they’d already closed off.’
‘It’s going to be mighty hard to make a second attempt,’ said Irisis.
FIFTY-FIVE
They set down in the mountains a few leagues away to