of the horrors he might see, to say nothing of the righteous wrath of the healers. Cryl-Nish Hlar, artificer, who had faced down the mighty, who had defied the greatest figures on Santhenar including the late and unlamented Ghorr, was afraid of these diminutive healers. He had no place here and no right, and he knew it.
The chief healer turned, regarding him with hard black eyes that saw all men as brutes. Her dark hair was pulled back so tightly that her brow and cheeks were shiny taut. Evee was younger than he, and only chin-high to Nish, who was a small man, but she had such presence that he stepped backwards.
‘I’m sorry. I – I was worried, you see. He – he’s an old friend and …’
‘Had you any part in this?’ she said, snapping back the sheet.
Nish didn’t look but still the red registered. Flydd was a ruddy brown colour between the lower belly, where the flaying had begun, and mid-thigh.
‘I – I wasn’t there,’ he stammered. ‘I couldn’t sleep, you see, and I went for a walk. I was in the tower when the air-dreadnoughts descended on us …’ Nish realised that he was babbling.
‘Boys’ games,’ she said scornfully, drawing herself up to her insignificant height. Evee, who was little, plain, stringy and completely covered in freckles, dominated him in every respect. ‘Men destroy and women are left to put it all together again.’
It isn’t like that, he wanted to shout, our whole world is at stake here, but there was no point in saying it; his pride didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that Xervish Flydd should survive and be made whole again so that he could lead them against Nennifer. No one else would do.
‘I’m sure you’ll do everything you can for him,’ he said quietly, and went outside.
On their return, Yggur had assembled the soldiers, artisans and crew left behind when the scrutators had fled. There were nearly three hundred of them: about a hundred and fifty soldiers and almost as many artificers, artisans, prentices, deck hands, junior cooks and other workers both skilled and unskilled. He had offered each a choice: to enter his service at Fiz Gorgo, or money and free passage aboard the next trading vessels going to Lauralin. Most had opted to return to their homelands and families, though some fifty soldiers and forty workers had accepted his offer of service. Yggur questioned each of them, rejecting several, who were also given passage east, then took the oaths of the remainder. They, plus carpenters and masons hired from Old Hripton, were immediately put to work repairing Fiz Gorgo and strengthening its defences.
Nish had a more important obligation to attend to. It had taken him a day to find a place to bury Ullii, on a little rise covered in trees overlooking the bay, and another day to dig a deep enough grave through the heavy clayey soil. It was painful work with his gashed arm but he wouldn’t allow anyone to help. He had to set Ullii to rest by himself. He’d spent most of the third day gathering stones for a cairn and hauling them to the gravesite, for there were none nearby, then sitting by the mound afterwards in silent contemplation of what they’d had and all they had lost.
At the end of that day, Yggur called the company together after dinner. Malien was talking as Nish entered, late. Instead of eating he’d walked to Old Hripton and back to clear his head for the urgent work to come. It hadn’t worked – he couldn’t concentrate – he just kept reliving that desperate day in the tower and up on the amphitheatre, and the way it had ended.
Ullii was dead and he couldn’t come to terms with it. He kept seeing her as she’d been the first time they’d met, crouched in the corner of that dark room in the manufactory, rocking on her bare feet. And all the times afterwards: hiding in her basket in the balloon as they’d set off to try and track Tiaan down; climbing the slopes of Mount Tirthrax; making love in the balloon after they’d fought off the nylatl. Escaping Snizort with Flydd, many months later, when she’d been so angry with him about the baby and Nish hadn’t even known she was pregnant. And then the ultimate horror: Myllii with his arms around Ullii as if trying to carry her away, and Nish trying to stop him, and the knife sliding into