‘Then only a miracle can save us now. Tell Yggur he’d better get ready to run.’
Irisis loped across to him. Yggur was sitting at the master farspeaker, his big hands stretched over it. ‘We’ve only got fifteen minutes, surr.’
‘I’ll be here until the end.’
Irisis ran back. Already she could hear the shouts of battle, the squeal of racing clankers, the cries of the dying.
‘What’s that?’ said Irisis, cocking her head.
‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘It sounds like a thapter.’
Flydd’s face didn’t change. He’d been disappointed too many times. ‘Whose?’
Irisis ran outside. ‘I think it’s Tiaan and Malien,’ she yelled.
‘Signal them, quick! And tell Yggur to get his team ready, just in case I can pull something out of a very empty bag.’
‘He’s ready.’
The thapter was drifting around in circles, looking for the command tent. They wouldn’t find it – it had been packed and loaded into a clanker long ago. All the tents were down and a line of clankers were moving out into the Dry Sea – the suicide path, as Flydd called it.
Irisis ran out into the open space, waving her arms frantically, but the thapter continued north. She stood looking after it, praying that it would come back on another sweep. The anguished cries and savage roars grew louder. There was no time to waste. Irisis ran back towards the shelter; and then she heard the thapter again.
She waved furiously and to her joy it dropped sharply, turned in her direction and came to rest just outside the shelter. Tiaan’s face appeared over the side.
‘Tiaan!’ Irisis screamed. ‘Flydd needs your map. Desperately.’ She pointed to Flydd’s shelter.
Tiaan seemed to hesitate for a second, then she scrambled over the side, roll of linen in hand, and ran in. Irisis wrapped the map around the barrel of the field controller, over the top of the old map.
‘I’ve never been more glad to see anyone in my life,’ said Flydd. ‘Can you operate this, Tiaan?’
‘Of course,’ she said, putting on the gloves and helmet. ‘I did the first trials, remember? Though I wouldn’t be as good as a trained –’
‘No time for that. He pointed with his cane to a node out in the Dry Sea, and muttered, ‘Ifis 312, Nihim 99, Husp 3, Gyr 64.’
Tiaan flexed her fingers. She seemed to be taking a long time to follow him. It would not be easy to make the mental switch from flying the thapter.
Flydd glanced at Operator Daesmie, who shook her head. He pointed and rapped another series. Tiaan followed more quickly. Again the interrogative glance; again the little shake of the head.
A pair of soldiers appeared at the entrance. ‘The enemy are coming on quickly, surr,’ the first yelled. ‘You must go now.’
‘We’ll just be one minute.’
Irisis could now see the army retreating towards them, only a few hundred paces away. They were still fighting, but once they broke, the enemy could cross the distance in well under a minute.
Flydd was now calling his series without a pause, his pointer flicking from one part of the map to the other so fast that Irisis could barely follow it. Sweat rolled down his bare chest. Even Tiaan was perspiring.
Irisis ran to the farspeaker operator and put an encouraging hand on her arm. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Nothing yet,’ Daesmie said, one eye on her globe and the other to the right, where the enemy were advancing. Though terrified, she held to her duty.
Irisis could feel the strain building. Her head was pounding like a racing clanker, there was a roaring in her ears and she could taste blood in her mouth. Were they all about to suffer Klarm’s fate, just from being near the field controller? She squeezed her pliance in one fist and the fields flamed around her as allies and enemies drew on them for every ounce of power they could take.
The map was spinning now, the cane flicking back and forth, Flydd choking out the numbers, scarlet-faced. He looked about to have a seizure. He stood up on his toes, roared out a set and Tiaan’s fingers danced.
And then Irisis felt something break with a wrench that set the fields bouncing.
‘Yes!’ roared Flydd, brandishing his fist at the purple sky. ‘Yggur, get ready to use the mind-shocker. It’ll work this time.’
‘It’d better,’ grunted Yggur. ‘Team, now!’
‘Have you broken the power patterner?’ said Irisis to Flydd.
‘No,’ he said grimly, ‘but I have broken Anabyng’s attack.’