by Ian Irvine
‘What’s happening?’ Irisis yelled.
‘They drove us right through the manufactory, but we ambushed them near the furnaces, firing red-hot bolts. They didn’t like that at all. We killed five and injured the others, and they fled out the back door.’
‘Red-hot bolts,’ said Irisis. ‘Whose idea was that?’
‘One of the artificers. He’s dead, now. It turned the battle though; changed minor wounds into disabling ones.’
Irisis, imagining the agony of such a wound, felt ill.
‘We’ve suffered terrible casualties,’ he went on. ‘At least sixty dead and as many wounded. We can’t take much more, Irisis.’
‘They’re only firing intermittently now. I’d say they’ve had enough.’
‘There were sixteen and we’ve killed eleven, at least, but don’t think this is the end of it. They’ll be back.’
‘They’re deadly accurate with those catapults,’ said Irisis. ‘Do you think the attack on me was deliberate?’
The scrutator was aiming through an arrow slit with a borrowed crossbow. He fired. ‘I do. They’ve kidnapped artisans before. It went straight for you and would not let go even when that risked its own life. They don’t usually go for suicide missions so they must have wanted you badly.’
‘Or wanted me dead. Thank you, Xervish.’
‘We also want you badly,’ he said dismissively.
Shortly afterwards the attack ended, the surviving lyrinx fading into the forest. By daybreak there was no sign of them. Flydd called a meeting in the refectory to review the damage.
‘The gates and front doors will have to be completely rebuilt,’ said the chief mason. ‘We’ll make a temporary wall out front, not that it’ll do much good. If they attack tonight with as much force, I don’t see how we can survive.’
‘I’m sure they will attack tonight,’ said Flydd. ‘They’d be fools not to.’
There was worse news and it was not long in coming. Chief Miner Cloor, a little nuggetty fellow whose pores were so impregnated by mine dust that it looked as if he was covered in blackheads, stumped in.
‘The lyrinx have taken the mine, surr.’
‘How many?’ asked Flydd. He did not look surprised, though his scrawny shoulders drooped even further.
Irisis felt for him. Since he’d arrived there had been one disaster after another. He would be blamed for them all.
‘Can’t tell, surr. We saw five or six behind the grid. That could be all …’
‘Or there could be another hundred down there,’ said the scrutator bleakly. ‘Evacuate the miners’ village, chief miner. We can’t defend it as well.’
Cloor nodded and stumped out again.
After the night’s exertions, few people were able to work. In the case of Irisis’s artisans, it hardly mattered, since they already had a large store of controllers assembled, awaiting hedrons to complete them. That was looking increasingly unlikely now.
Irisis snatched a few hours sleep then returned to the refectory, where she found the scrutator sitting at a table in the far corner with the chief miner, Overseer Tuniz and Captain Gir-Dan. Maps of the various levels of the mine were spread out in front of them.
‘They must have come in through the lower tunnels,’ said the captain. ‘The enemy had captured the mine before the outside guards knew a thing.’
‘Unless they had skived off from their duty,’ the scrutator said darkly.
‘Let’s have no talk of neglect of duty, if you please, surr,’ said Cloor. He was as irascible as Flydd, with little respect for any authority save his own.
Flydd gave him a black stare. The chief miner glared back. Neither broke. ‘Enough,’ Flydd said finally. ‘The fault does not matter. What can we do about it?’
‘I’ve talked with my surveyors. We’re sure they’re getting in this way.’ Cloor’s battered fingernail indicated a long tunnel down on the ninth level. ‘If we could drop the roof here, we’d have them trapped and it would just be a matter of winkling them out.’
‘Deadly winkling,’ said the captain. ‘A dozen lyrinx would be a match for fifty of my men, down there in the dark.’
‘I’d starve them out,’ snapped Cloor. ‘Not even lyrinx can go a month without food.’
‘I can’t wait a month for crystal. How long would it take to bring down the roof?’ asked the scrutator.
‘We could do it in a few hours in this section.’ Cloor’s finger marked an ‘X’ on the map. ‘And it’s relatively close to the workings. Of course, we’d need a strong guard.’
‘At least forty men,’ said the captain.
‘If I send that many down,’ the scrutator mused, ‘and they attack here, as they are bound to do … We might well lose the manufactory.’
‘Without the mine there’s not much point to the manufactory,’ said Irisis.
The scrutator dismissed that with an irritable sweep of the hand. ‘The mine is just a hole in the ground, but to replace this manufactory would take five thousand people working for four years.’
‘What do you want us to do?’
‘Get some rest. We’ll be on the wall again tonight, I’ll be bound.’ Flydd rose. ‘What do they want?’ he muttered on the way out. ‘Do they aim to deny us the crystal, or is there something more sinister at work?’
That night, on the gong of midnight, the lyrinx attacked again. Irisis had just dozed off when a catapult ball, fired up at a steep angle, came smashing through the roof a few doors away, demolishing the room of one of the recently arrived artisans. The silence was followed by her screams, then shouts as the manufactory scrambled out of bed.
Irisis was the first to get there. The artisan lay in the splinters of her bed, unharmed but screaming her lungs out. More balls began to fall, so swiftly that the catapults must have been firing many at a time. Though only the size of melons, they wrought terrible damage. Not all the sleepers were as lucky as the first.
Irisis dressed and put on the metal hat she wore down the mine. It would not save her from these missiles, but might protect her from the slates that were falling all around.
There was a lull of a minute or so. She ran into the scrutator in the corridor. ‘What are we to do?’ she shouted.
‘It’s not this I’m so worried about,’ he said, ‘though it’s doing damage enough.’
She looked up through one of the holes in the roof. ‘What are you worried about?’
‘Fire –’ As he spoke, a flaming ball descended from the sky, hit the roof and slid in through a hole to land in one of the ruined rooms. Flames leapt up. Irisis grabbed a fire bucket and emptied the sand on it.
‘What is it?’ the scrutator yelled.
‘Rock dipped in tar.’
Soon blazing missiles were falling all around. Irisis and fifty other people were kept busy putting out the fires. They still had many to go, and the fire team were attaching their canvas hoses to the hand pumps when the barrage stopped. At once the attack on the walls and front gate resumed.
‘I don’t think we’re going to survive this time,’ said the scrutator as their paths crossed again. ‘Better pack up your gear.’
She stopped, staring at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re leaving.’
‘How?’
‘I try to plan for all contingencies. The air-floater is standing by, up in the mountains. I’ve signalled it to come.’
‘It’ll be a sitting target, floating over the manufactory.’
‘It will drop down behind the ridge. We’ll sneak up inside the aqueduct where the enemy can’t see us.’
‘The air-floater won’t carry a thousand people.’
‘Not even twenty. The rest must stay behind.’
‘To die!’
‘More likely they’ll be left alone once we’re gone.’
‘I’ve worked with these people for most of my life,’ she said. ‘I’m not leaving them.’
‘I’m ordering you to. Anyway, we’ll be in more danger than they are.’
Alhough Irisis was quite selfish, she could not bear the thought of running away. ‘I’ve got work to do!’ she snapped and went back up. The fires were under control now and Irisis preferred the danger of the wall; at least she could see what was coming.
They were losing. The lyrinx had an uncanny sense of where to aim and their catapults picked off the guards one by one. Half were dead now, and most of the survivors carried injuries. Their replacements were just ordinary workers who did little damage to the enemy and were slain in droves. The dead still lay where they had fallen hours ago, for no one could be spared to carry them away. Irisis had known them all for years.
She checked the sky. Dawn was not far away but there was no sign of the air-floater and the scrutator had sent no message. Finally she dragged her exhausted body down for a drink and a bite to eat, a few minutes’ relief from the hell that was the wall.
The scrutator was in his room, writing furiously. ‘What’s happened to your air-floater?’ she said sarcastically. ‘Another failure?’
Irisis regretted this the moment the words left her lips, but Flydd did not react. He looked numb.
‘There’s been nothing since I signalled. The lyrinx must have caught them.’
‘Then we’re finished,’ she said.
‘It seems so. I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, well. I’ve been here before. And survived too.’
‘I doubt you will this time,’ he muttered.
‘It was borrowed time anyway.’
There was a great roar outside. ‘See what that is, will you?’ he said, without looking up.
Irisis ran to the front gate, where she encountered Tuniz. The overseer had blood all down her front, though it was not her own. ‘How are we doing?’ Irisis gasped.
‘We beat them back but I don’t think we can do it again.’
Irisis peered through the broken gate. ‘It’s not long until dawn.’
‘That won’t stop them this time. They’re too close to victory.’
Irisis ran back to report. ‘The gate still holds,’ she said to the scrutator, ‘though it can’t last long.’
‘We’ll be overrun by sunrise.’ He carried a stack of papers to the furnace and heaved them in. They burst into flame and were sucked up the chimney.
Light began to spread through the manufactory. Irisis was on her way to the wall to make a last stand when a massed cheer sounded. She ran up the steps three at a time. A panting scrutator appeared beside her.
Over the ridge to the west, between the mountains, appeared a flotilla of clankers. These were bigger than the ones the manufactory made. The great, ten-legged monstrosities had a pair of javelards at the front as well as the catapult at the rear.
‘Twenty-seven clankers,’ said Irisis. ‘That’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.’
All along the wall the soldiers were laughing, cheering and embracing one another. The workers of the manufactory began streaming up the steps to rejoice in the sight. Already the lyrinx were pulling back, melting into the forest and disappearing. It was over.
She looked across at the scrutator. His face was twisted into the most bitter anguish Irisis had ever seen on a man.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, laying her hand on his arm. He did not respond. ‘Xervish?’
He turned that gaunt face, pared of all superfluous flesh, to her. ‘Do you see the ensign on the leading clanker?’
‘Yes, of course. What of it?’
‘That is the flag of my most bitter enemy; and yours, Irisis. It belongs to the man who will not rest until he destroys us both. Perquisitor Jal-Nish Hlar!’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Irisis tried to breathe and found that she could not. The air felt as thick as the gruel they served in the refectory. She could not get it down. ‘What will he do to us?’ she gasped.
‘He’ll watch, and wait, and bide his time. He likes to drag these things out, the better to torment his enemies. We should go down. At least, I must. Stay back – better that he does not see you straight away.’
Flydd trudged down the steps, back bowed, and her heart went out to him. The scrutator was as tough as boiled leather. A hard man but, underneath, a decent and honourable one. He had done his best. It had not been enough.
Gathering her crossbow and a pocketful of quarrels, Irisis headed for the rear of the manufactory. Most of the workers remained atop, to cheer the clankers in. She went out of the rear door and down to the ravine over which the wastes were dumped into the river. It was a horrible, reeking place suited for nothing except despair. She wandered along the cliff. Irisis had not been this way since her failed suicide attempt, when all that had saved her had been Nish going over the edge and ending up in Eiryn Muss’s air-moss farm.
She could hardly remember that self now, so long ago did it seem. What had happened to Muss? He had not been a halfwit at all, but the scrutator’s prober, or spy. Muss had disappeared just as his secret was revealed.
Irisis missed Nish. Could he still be alive? It seemed unlikely, but Nish was resourceful. If anyone could survive it would be him. She paced along the escarpment. The smooth rocks were coated in brilliantly green spring moss, so soft she felt like taking off her boots and walking barefoot across it. Why not? Enjoy life’s small pleasures while you may.
It was peaceful here. The damage to the manufactory could scarcely be seen. It looked an architectural abomination, but not the scene of a bloody and murderous battle.
Irisis sat by the drop-off. The lichens made a patchwork of colours – green and grey, brown and yellow, and even red. They gave her an idea for a brooch. She began to plan it in her head, knowing she would never make it now.
It was funny the way life could turn out. Who could have imagined this just a few short months ago? She tossed a pebble in her hand, reached out to throw it over the edge, but drew back. Nish had done that, and look at the consequences. She saw them cascading on into the future for as long as time existed. The thought paralysed her, for a few seconds, then Irisis smiled, and shrugged, and dropped her pebble on the ground. She could not live her life that way. Dusting her hands, she headed back.
She reached the gravelled expanse out the front at the same time as the leading clanker. It clattered to a halt. The shooter leapt down and stood by the rear hatch with his hand gripping the lever, but did not open it. The rest of the clankers rattled in, almost filling the yard. All but the first disgorged armed, hard-bitten veterans, ten from each. They stood by their machines, at attention.
Xervish Flydd emerged from the shattered front gate, a small, withered man, standing alone. The rising sun caught the angles and planes of his face. He looked almost as ruined as the front of the manufactory.
The shooter of the leading clanker flung the hatch upwards. A figure emerged, straining to make it look easy, but unable to conceal the pain. His feet crunched on the gravel, he swayed, then snapped upright.
The perquisitor had once been a roly-poly little fellow but the plumpness had been etched away, revealing a stocky frame hard with muscle. His right arm had been cut off at the shoulder, which made him look lopsided. Irisis, who had done it to save his life, would remember his screams for all her remaining hours.
Jal-Nish’s face had been torn apart in the attack and he had lost an eye. Irisis could not forget the torn ball of jelly dangling from its empty socket. The wounds had not healed in the weeks-long journey back to the manufactory.
The damaged parts of his face were now covered by a burnished platinum mask that hid the lost eye, the hideous red crater that had once been his nose and the warped and twisted mouth and cheek. It curved across below the other ear, where a thin band of the same silvery metal swept around the back of his round head to join up on the other side. Another band ran across his forehead and around, making an open helmet. A mouth opening, like a downwards-curving crescent moon, revealed nothing. He might have drunk through it using a straw, Irisis thought, though surely he would have to take off the mask to
eat.
Irisis moved closer, walking on the paved path that ran along the side of the manufactory. She had to see the confrontation between the two, which would reveal her own fate. She was only a dozen steps away when the perquisitor’s head whipped around. The single eye fixed on her. Irisis froze. The face showed no expression at all, but she sensed such feelings of rage and loathing that she could scarcely breathe.
He did not move for a handful of heartbeats, then turned away in a manner that dismissed her as worthless, and crunched across the gravel to the scrutator. She held her breath.
‘Perquisitor Hlar!’ The scrutator inclined his head. ‘Never have we seen a more welcome sight.’ He held out his hand.
Jal-Nish hesitated for a second, then took it. ‘Scrutator!’ His voice had once been rich and warm; now it was slurred as if he had been drinking. His ruined mouth could barely shape the words. He bowed and Irisis held her breath in case the mask came off. It did not. ‘We would appear to be just in time.’
‘The enemy have been unrelenting, Jal-Nish. They know the worth of this place, and its people.’
‘Things have not gone well since you moved your station here,’ said the perquisitor.
The words held a threat and Irisis was not the only one to notice it.
‘I inherited a difficult situation.’
‘That was some time back. I’d have expected that you would have sorted it out long ago.’
That was no way for a perquisitor to speak to his superior. Jal-Nish was hiding something.
‘How goes the war, down on the coast?’ the scrutator enquired.
If he was hoping to discomfort his enemy, it misfired.
‘Badly, though we would do better if we had the clankers that sit here, rusting and controllerless.’
‘Aren’t you in charge of the node failures?’ asked Flydd. ‘What progress has been made there?’
‘None so far,’ Jal-Nish said grudgingly. ‘I have put a new team on it, though, and I expect results very soon.’
‘What team?’
‘It is led by Mancer Flammas.’