by Ian Irvine
‘They’re calling the enemy against us,’ came Ghorr’s outraged voice. ‘Kill them! Kill them all. A thousand gold tells for the heads of each of the chief villains, including Crafter Irisis and Artificer Cryl-Nish. A hundred tells for each of the others, dead or alive.’
Nish squinted into the mist. Oh for a crossbow and a glimpse of his enemy. He would have sent a bolt through the chief scrutator with no more thought than stepping on a cockroach.
Dead or alive. He stopped, one foot in the air, then cast a look over his shoulder. A thousand tells was a colossal fortune, more than an officer could earn in ten lifetimes. And all anyone had to do to earn it was kill him.
‘There must be a hundred soldiers out there,’ he said to Yggur.
‘I dare say,’ said Yggur, ‘though most are keeping order among the witnesses or protecting their masters while they scramble to safety. Go across to the edge of the mist, Nish, and – wait!’
Nothing happened for a tense moment; then a soldier, in the uniform of Ghorr’s personal guard, put head and right shoulder through the mist, sighted on the nearest person, Yggur’s elderly cook, and fired. The bolt took her in the ribs beside the heart and she dropped without a sound. The soldier ducked back into the mist before anyone could return fire.
Yggur let out a roar of fury and, thrusting out his fist, he spun in an arc, flailing shards of ice into the mist.
Nish heard a grunt of pain and the thump of a body hitting the canvas. Yggur ran into the mist and came back, dragging the offending soldier by the throat. In a colossal feat of rage, Yggur lifted the man high with one hand.
‘Is this the quality of the chief scrutator’s guard, that you only dare make war on unarmed old women? No wonder the Council is losing the war.’
‘Condemned – criminal,’ gasped the soldier. ‘Price – on head – hundred tells.’
‘You won’t be collecting it, my friend.’ Yggur spun the soldier in the air, caught him as he turned upside down and drove him, head-first, straight through the canvas deck to the hips, where he wedged, caught by his belt, his thick legs kicking.
Avoiding the thrashing boots, Yggur stripped the soldier of knife, sword and bolt bag, and tossed them to two of his men. He kicked the fallen crossbow to another.
Two more soldiers hurtled out of the mist, but at that moment, with an enormous twang, one of the vertical cables snapped. The amphitheatre shook as if it had been hit by an earthquake and a hip-high wave passed across the canvas, tossing everyone off their feet. Before the soldiers could get up, the prisoners had swarmed over them. Red pooled on the canvas.
A smaller wave reflected back from the other side. Nish glanced up at the tethered air-dreadnoughts, which were just outlines in the mist. The one whose cable had snapped shot upwards and disappeared. Ghorr roared imprecations at the sky. Nish could not make out the words but Ghorr’s tone conveyed his alarm. The air-dreadnoughts had been moored so close together that uncontrolled flight was a danger to them all.
‘Any minute now they’ll rush us,’ said Yggur. ‘Nish, take your knife and cut out the canvas on three sides of a long rectangle, like this, but leave a strip at each corner.’ He made a shape in the air. ‘Round there and there.’ He gestured to his left. ‘Flangers, take one of the swords and do the same to the right, around to there. And remember where you’ve cut. Don’t fall through on the way back.’
‘What about behind us?’ said Flangers.
‘We’ll keep watch. Though, with the fires over there, I doubt they’ll attack that way.’
‘I’m sure they want us to think that,’ Flangers muttered.
Nish cut the canvas where Yggur had indicated, so the deck looked more or less whole. The cuts looked obvious to him, but might well trap a soldier charging through the mist, intent on gold and glory.
In the meantime, Yggur set out his other guards on either side of the holes, with barbed lengths of rope stretched on the deck between them. He had dispersed the remaining prisoners behind the pen and wherever else they could find any cover. And then they waited.
‘What if we were to try and climb down one of the cables?’ said Nish, acutely aware that time was running out.
‘We’d fall,’ said Yggur. ‘Climbing down ropes is harder than it looks.’
Nish unfastened the naphtha flask and handed it to Yggur. ‘You may be able to do something with this.’ He had no patience for waiting. Judging by those earlier screams, Flydd could be dying now, or dead.
Nish slid into the swirling mist, keeping low and moving slowly. He wondered where Ullii had got to. Well, she could take care of herself. A pity he hadn’t got a better glimpse of the amphitheatre before Yggur brought the mist down – Nish wasn’t sure he was going the right way. A big man-shape loomed up to one side and Nish flattened himself to the deck. It was another of Ghorr’s guard, sword held out in front of him. The soldier didn’t look Nish’s way and disappeared again.
A sudden whiff of smoke caught in the back of his throat. Surely the remaining cables, tough and tightly woven though they were, must go soon. He moved on, looking around fearfully, only to crash his knee into an elongated object like a metal bathtub with a wide platform around the edges – the flensing trough. The mist was now so thick that he couldn’t see all of the trough at once, though he could see blood spattered on the bottom and stains running down to the plughole.
Behind him there were roars and the clash of sword on sword. The soldiers had attacked. Should he run back? No point – he was unarmed. If Yggur couldn’t stave off the attack, there was nothing Nish could do.
He heard a cry, trailing off. Someone had broken through one of the canvas flaps. Nish rubbed his throbbing kneecap as he edged around the bathtub.
He scanned the deck. He could hear fighting not far away, but couldn’t see a soul. He turned the other way and his eye fell on someone huddled under the flensing trough, wrapped in a bloodstained cloth. The face was so wracked that for a moment Nish didn’t recognise it. And when he did, Nish wished he hadn’t.
‘Xervish!’ he whispered.
The dark eyes turned slowly to him, though there was no recognition in them. ‘I am unmanned,’ he said and closed his eyes again.
Nish put his hands under Flydd’s arms and hauled him out. Flydd couldn’t stand up so Nish hefted the scrutator in his arms. He didn’t weigh much at all. He headed back to where he thought the punishment pen must be, but hadn’t gone far before he was thrown off his feet by another deck-shaking twang. The second cable had gone. If the fire was steadily eating its way around the edges of the canvas, it couldn’t be long before the whole structure collapsed.
The deck wasn’t nearly as taut as before; Nish now found himself walking down a perceptible slope. He carried Flydd back towards the pen, but as he loomed up out of the wreathing smoke, someone leapt for him.
‘Xervish?’ It was the small figure of Perquisitor Fyn-Mah, who looked almost as haggard as Flydd. ‘Is he all right?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Nish. ‘Would you look after him?’
Fyn-Mah took Flydd from Nish’s arms. There were tears in her eyes. ‘No man should have to suffer so, no matter what the crime. What has happened to our humanity?’
‘The scrutators devoured it to keep themselves in power,’ said Nish, and walked away before he wept with her.
TEN
Nish crept back through the brown miasma, moving carefully. He encountered several bodies – two soldiers and one of the prisoners – and then the barbed rope. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he yelled, keeping well down. ‘It’s me, Nish.’
Irisis was out in front of a small band of prisoners, swinging a length of barbed rope. Several more prisoners were armed but there were no attackers to be seen.
‘We’ve got to find a way down, and quick,’ said Nish, running towards them.
‘What if we made canvas slings and used them to slide down a cable?’ said Irisis.
‘Too dangerous,’ said Yggur.
Another cable went with a
whip crack; a sinuous heave of the canvas threw bodies in the air and everyone off their feet. He felt as if the deck had smacked him under the chin. Screams from the far side of the amphitheatre trailed away to nothing.
‘They shouldn’t have been so close to the edge,’ said Yggur, shaking his head as the deck stilled; then it sagged beneath them to form a broad valley a couple of spans deep at the bottom. There were shouts of ‘Look out!’ from above, followed by the sound of breaking timbers. Two air-dreadnoughts had collided.
‘What if we cut a couple more cables?’ said Nish. ‘The deck might sag enough for us to slide down it onto the roof.’
‘It’d throw us off.’
‘We could cut holes through the canvas and tie onto the stay ropes. When the deck drops low enough we slide to safety.’
‘If we tie on, we’ll be helpless when they attack.’
‘If the deck’s that steep they won’t be able to come after us,’ Nish retorted. ‘Anyway, they’ll be too busy trying to save themselves.’
‘It doesn’t pay to underestimate the scrutators!’ snapped Yggur. ‘Nonetheless, it’s the best plan we have. Nish, take one of the soldiers’ swords and hack the cable away over to your right, past the last burning one. Flangers, do the same on the other side. If the deck still stays up, sever the one after that, but be quick about it. If the air-dreadnoughts cut us loose first, we’re dead.’
‘Surely they won’t do that while they still have hundreds of soldiers and servants down here.’
‘And still you underestimate Ghorr,’ growled Yggur. ‘Once the Council have been winched to safety, they’ll happily abandon everyone else before they risk their own lives. Tie on securely – and watch for backlash when the cables go.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Irisis, turning to walk with Nish. She slipped her left hand into his, swinging the barbed rope in her right.
They crept through the uncanny mist, which was thicker than ever near the deck, though it did not extend far up. Nish caught occasional glimpses of the air-dreadnoughts through it. The soldiers and crew were hanging over the sides, calling down, and men stood at windlasses to wind the scrutators and important witnesses up, though no one had yet been raised more than a few spans. ‘They seem to be having trouble with the winches,’ said Nish. ‘Is that also Yggur’s doing?’
‘I expect so. He’s an extraordinary man, Nish.’
‘It makes all the difference having you with me,’ Nish said. ‘I don’t feel frightened any more.’
‘Nor should you, with me looking after you.’ She grinned.
‘I didn’t mean it that way.’
‘Anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Nish. I know you’re going to survive the war.’
‘We’re both going to survive it, Irisis, and live to a grand old age, and be greatly honoured.’
‘I may well be honoured but I won’t be around to see it.’
Irisis was prone to making gloomy statements like that. She had a strong belief in her own mortality, and since Nish didn’t know what to say, he just squeezed her hand.
They were close to the edge now. ‘Careful here,’ she went on. ‘If that last cable burns through you’ll be over the side before you can pick your nose.’
‘I don’t pick –’ he began.
She gave a snort of laughter. ‘Oh, Nish, you’re so predictable.’
‘Did you predict I’d climb the ropes and set fire to the amphitheatre, just to save your wicked and worthless life?’ he said, nettled.
‘I knew you’d do something. I just didn’t see how it could work.’
‘It hasn’t yet,’ he reminded her.
‘It’s infinitely better than it was twenty minutes ago. I’ll happily die with you beside me.’
‘You might have put that better.’
Nish felt with his boot for one of the stay cables, cut a strip out of the canvas and used it to tie on. Irisis did the same.
‘Better hurry,’ she said, glancing up. ‘Once that lot reach the air-dreadnoughts they’ll cut us loose and go.’
He followed her gaze. Three nets and a basket jammed with people were being hauled up, jerk by jerk. Many other ropes dangled down through the mist. It was well into the afternoon now; surely no more than two hours to sunset. Ghorr must be getting worried.
Though there was just the gentlest of breezes here, higher up the wind was whistling through the rigging of the air-dreadnoughts, shaking them from side to side. Every jerk pulled on the cables, which groaned as they stretched and contracted. Somewhere, not far off, a man was moaning, the same shivery sound over and over.
Nish caught a sudden whiff of blood. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He put his sword to the cable and began to saw back and forth.
The blade was sharp, but the tough fibres parted reluctantly. ‘It’s as if some other force is holding them against me,’ said Nish.
‘What twaddle,’ Irisis said good-naturedly. ‘You’re just making excuses. Give me a go.’
She took the blade and drew it back and forth a couple of times. One or two strands severed but the rest held. ‘Maybe you’re right; the air does have the tang of scrutator magic. Perhaps they’ve cast a glamour to strengthen the cables.’ She handed the sword back. ‘Go harder.’
He hacked away. A strand parted with a ping, curling out of the weave and running up the cable for half a span.
‘Pull me up, damn you!’ Ghorr’s cry came echoing down in a sudden silence.
‘His struggle with Fusshte goes on,’ said Nish. ‘Without it, I wouldn’t have had a chance.’
‘I suspect Yggur had a hand in that too,’ said Irisis.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He couldn’t do anything, bound and gagged as he was. But once we realised you were free I managed to rub the gag down from the corner of Yggur’s mouth with my shoulder, when the guards weren’t looking. He used his Art to strengthen the mist and create illusions that heightened Ghorr and Fusshte’s distrust of each other. It wasn’t much but it made a difference.’
Nish paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, and as he did, something moved in the mist to his left, further around the circumference of the deck.
‘What was that?’ he said out of the corner of his mouth.
Irisis glanced casually to her right, fingering the coil of barbed rope, her only weapon. ‘I can’t see anything. Keep going. You’ve hardly made an impression at all.’
‘I’m doing my best,’ he grunted.
‘Put the sword down and step away from the cable.’
The voice, which was vaguely familiar, came out of the mist. Nish was trying to work out who it could be when a very short man appeared, a handsome dwarf with a leonine mane of dark hair. His short cloak dragged on the deck and he walked with the lurching gait of a drunken sailor, for his left leg was supported by metal calipers. The dwarf’s hand was held out before him, the fist partly concealing a small brass object.
‘Scrutator Klarm,’ said Nish, giving a last hack before allowing the sword to fall to his side.
‘I have a knoblaggie in my hand,’ said Klarm. ‘I’d prefer not to waste it, but I will if you force me to. You’d never cut it anyway. Come with me, please. You too, Irisis Stirm,’ he said as she backed into the mist. ‘If you run, I’ll make Nish suffer for it.’
‘Run anyway,’ said Nish, casting a frantic glance at her. Irisis stayed put, as he’d known she would.
‘You know what they’ll do to us, Scrutator Klarm,’ said Nish. The dwarf scrutator was reputed to be a fair man.
‘The law is the law and you are traitors,’ said Klarm, ‘tried and convicted under the code of the scrutators. We can’t afford to be merciful, no matter how much we might wish it. And I do – you’re a brave man, Nish; a legend in the making. As for you, Irisis Stirm –’ he bowed in her direction and Klarm had such presence that it didn’t seem a ridiculous gesture ‘– I acknowledge both your courage and your loyalty. And I’ve always admired Xervish, but division at such a tim
e must be fatal.’
‘Flydd cleaved to his oath even after the Council had cast him out and condemned him to slavery,’ said Nish. ‘Do you know what finally caused him to rebel?’
‘There’s no time – very well, be quick.’
‘It happened at Snizort, after my colossal stupidity put Tiaan into the hands of Vithis the Aachim. Ghorr demanded that my father prove his worthiness to be a scrutator by passing sentence on me for my folly. Or, as Ghorr saw it, my treachery. And father did. Jal-Nish condemned me to a brutal, shameful death, not to mention the knowledge that I would be expunged from our family Histories. Scrutator Ghorr was so pleased that he made my father a full scrutator on the spot.’
Nish met the dwarf’s eyes and went on. ‘When Flydd heard what he had done – and I remember his very words, for I’ve never seen him so shocked and disillusioned – Flydd said, For the chief of scrutators to encourage such a deed, to demand it as proof of worth to become scrutator, shows that the Council is corrupt to the core. At that very moment, Flydd repudiated his oath and swore that Ghorr had to be brought down, and the Council with him. And that he, Xervish Flydd, would devote the rest of his life to doing so. It was a moment I will never forget.’
It shook Klarm too. Nish saw it in his face. ‘Surely you knew that, surr?’ he went on.
‘I wasn’t there,’ said Klarm. ‘I knew only what I was told. I’m not a member of the Council, and the Council does not publicise its doings.’
‘But you do believe me?’
Klarm let out an age-weary sigh. ‘I can read men, Cryl-Nish. I know truth when I hear it. Nonetheless, this is the only council we have and the world can’t survive without it. Put down your blade, untether yourselves and come with me.’
Nish could no longer see the knoblaggie concealed in Klarm’s hand, and didn’t want to find out what it could do to them. Klarm might well be an honest man but he was as hard as any of the scrutators, and they didn’t bluff.