Irisis ducked just in time as bolts spanged off the sloping hood. She made a muffled noise in her throat and let go of the hood, pulling her hand down to reveal the blood welling from her wrist. The bolt had gone straight between the arm bones, leaving a hole that she could have slipped her little finger through.
The hood slammed up and tore half-off, flapping back and forth against the hatch cover. Tiaan almost allowed herself to be distracted, almost hit the pinnacle. She slipped between it in a positive cannonade of bolts and flashed towards the vent.
The lyrinx were pulling a cover across it, a frame covered in fabric painted to match the colour and texture of the rock. They weren’t quite in time. Tiaan struck it head-on and fortunately the frame was timber, not metal. It smashed, the fabric tore on the sides of the thapter and they were in.
‘Nish,’ she shouted over the scream of the mechanism. ‘Do it now. Irisis, what’s going on?’
Irisis pulled herself up on the side and blood dripped on Tiaan’s cheek.
‘He’s down! Ah, Nish, Nish!’ Irisis scrambled up onto the back platform, heedless of her bloody wrist.
Tiaan clambered up as far as she could go while still holding the controller. The rear hood looked crushed against the platform, as if a boulder had been dropped on it, though Tiaan could have sworn she hadn’t heard any impact, and two javelard spears had gone through it as well, pinning it to the platform. She couldn’t see Nish, who was below the coaming around the platform.
There had been no dust flying past them in the suction from the bellows, so he hadn’t got the spores away. They’d failed and she couldn’t see the barrel. It was time to go.
Tiaan jerked the thapter backwards. ‘Hang on, Irisis!’
Irisis was inside the coaming, tearing at the crushed hood, trying to lift it, but couldn’t budge the spears. You’ll never get him out, Tiaan thought. Anyway, he’s better off there, if he is alive.
The thapter went backwards as Irisis came to her knees and she nearly fell off. She hung on, dragged the barrel out from under the hood and punched the top in with her fist. She hurled it over the side just as Tiaan accelerated backwards and shot out of the vent, the rush of wind buffeting three lyrinx out of the way as if they’d been hit with the end of a piston.
The barrel struck the rocky rim of the vent, letting loose a cloud of spores, but fell outside. Tiaan didn’t see what happened after that, for Irisis lost her footing as the thapter accelerated. She slid head-first down towards Tiaan’s flapping hood and managed to wrap her arms around it.
‘Hold tight!’ Tiaan screamed, spinning the thapter in a semicircle. Irisis’s legs were thrown over the side and Tiaan could see the strain on her face as she struggled to hang on.
There was nothing Tiaan could do except tilt the thapter the other way and pray, for lyrinx were coming from every direction. The gap between the pinnacles came into view and she went for it.
Clang, clang, smash. The binnacle that had been broken the previous day now shattered, sending glass, crystal and what she thought were drops of quicksilver flying in all directions. Fragments of glass stung her face and she closed her eyes, involuntarily.
For a second Tiaan lost sight of the gap and had to keep going from her mental image, praying that it would take her through. The gap wasn’t wide and she felt a horrible moment of panic that Irisis’s dangling legs would be torn off between the thapter and the stone.
She opened her eyes and Irisis was clinging grimly, desperately, to the flapping hood. The thapter was moving too quickly for the lyrinx to catch it, though it was still within range of their weapons. Tiaan didn’t dare weave around in case she threw Irisis off.
There were more crashes, thuds and spangs as the thapter was hit by everything the enemy could fire at it. At least one bolt ricocheted off the hood that partly protected her now.
It wasn’t protecting Irisis. What if the lyrinx targeted her? She had to do something. Tiaan put the nose down so sharply that Irisis’s legs went up in the air, and directed the thapter towards the canopy of the forest out of which the pinnacles rose.