THIRTY-SEVEN

They returned to Fiz Gorgo twelve days after the beginning of winter, having been away for a little over three weeks, and for once it wasn’t raining.

Fyn-Mah came running out before the thapter had set down. Irisis, who was sitting on the rear platform, smiled to see the perquisitor. Normally so austere and controlled, that small, dark-haired figure was staring up at them, fists clenched at her sides. Fyn-Mah didn’t seem to take a breath until Flydd’s head appeared, whereupon she bolted to the ladder. At the bottom she hesitated, no doubt remembering the hideous scene at their departure. She looked up at Flydd, and he down at her, and then she smiled and went up to him in a rush. Shortly afterwards they went inside, ignoring everyone else.

Fiz Gorgo was in very good order. Fyn-Mah had the walls manned day and night and the damage repaired, apart from the upper sections of the blasted towers. The larders were provisioned for the winter and squads of soldiers were carrying out drills on the other side of the yard.

Four days after their return, Yggur called everyone together to discuss new intelligence about the war. Irisis sat up the front, next to Nish. Yggur scanned all the faces, frowned and said to Flydd, ‘Where’s Klarm?’

‘He’s gone out in the air-floater.’

‘What, again? Why wasn’t I told? I suppose he’s ransacking the cellars of ruined Garching this time, the sot.’

‘Klarm has work to do, as do we all,’ Flydd said pointedly. ‘Shall we get on? Now winter has ended hostilities, we must urgently plan our spring offensive. Time is running away on us.’

‘Since the lyrinx don’t like to fight in winter,’ said Irisis, ‘surely it’d be a good time to retake the lands we’ve lost?’ It was a question she’d often wondered about.

‘It’s too wet and cold,’ said Flydd. ‘Our clankers and supply wagons would bog, and soldiers don’t fight well with wet feet and empty bellies. And, while the enemy prefer not to fight at this time of year, they’ll aggressively defend what they have.’

‘I thought they hibernated in winter?’

‘Only for a month, and not all at the same time, except where they feel very secure.’

‘Oh!’

‘Is there anywhere else we can look for aid?’ said Irisis. ‘What’s Vithis up to?’

It was a much debated question. The behaviour of the invading Aachim seemed to be inexplicable. Why had they suddenly retreated north and walled themselves in?

‘There’s been no news since he went to the Hornrace,’ said Yggur, ‘though rumours persist that he’s raising a fortress there. But after the craven way he held back his forces at Snizort, I’d be wary of relying on him.’

‘What about the Aachim of Stassor?’ said Flydd.

Yggur glanced at Malien, who said, ‘I know what their reply would be. They don’t involve themselves in the affairs of old humans.’

‘They may find it in their interests to do so this time,’ said Flydd.

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ said Yggur dismissively.

‘Is there any hope for us, surr?’ said Irisis. ‘Give us the truth.’

‘The enemy don’t yet have our numbers but they surpass us in strength,’ said Flydd, ‘and in toughness and mobility. They have the advantage of flight, those who are winged and can use the Art, and lyrinx need less supplies, since they can live off our fallen.’

‘It’d be more profitable to consider their weaknesses,’ said Yggur.

‘The enemy seem to rely on strength more than intelligence,’ said Irisis, ‘but I’m not sure they’re very adaptable.’

‘They adapt well enough when they have the time,’ said Flangers from his litter by the fire. ‘But not in the heat of battle. When hard pressed, they fall back on their same old tactics, where we would work out new ones.’

‘Then whenever we’re fighting them, we must shape the battle plan to make them uncomfortable,’ said Nish.

‘They suffered from the heat in Kalissin,’ said Tiaan in a hesitant voice. Irisis looked around and found her sitting in the shadows of the far corner, as if she were hiding. ‘They prefer cool weather, though they don’t like bitter cold any more than we do. And another thing …’

‘Yes, Tiaan?’ said Yggur.

‘It seemed to me that they weren’t quite at home in their bodies.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It was the way they kept working their limbs, shrugging their shoulders and plucking at their outer skin,’ said Tiaan. ‘They seemed uncomfortable a lot of the time.’

‘That’s hardly surprising,’ said Flydd, ‘considering how greatly they flesh-formed their unborn young, to survive in the void. For every strength that served them well there, they must have a weakness we can exploit here.’

‘How do they feel in themselves?’ said Fyn-Mah, who was sitting close to Flydd, as always since his return. ‘Are they happy with what they’ve become?’

‘Not all of them,’ said Tiaan. ‘Many are born malformed. Some never develop wings and others lack pigment or the armoured outer skin.’

‘Do they treat these ones badly?’ asked Flydd.

‘Not as badly as humans would,’ said Tiaan, ‘though they are regarded as inferior. They’re rarely permitted to breed.’

‘Anything else?’ said Yggur.

‘Snizort had some other significance for the lyrinx,’ said Nish, ‘and it was more important than fighting us. They delayed the battle so they could complete it.’

‘Why hasn’t anybody mentioned this before?’ said Yggur sharply.

Nish shrugged. ‘They made a tunnel into the Great Seep and took a lot of relics out of it. Gilhaelith helped them to find the relics, I’m told.’

‘A tunnel into liquid tar?’

‘They froze the tar first,’ said Tiaan. ‘We saw the entrance as we escaped from Snizort.’

‘And I’ve thought of something else,’ said Nish. ‘Tiaan was with a man called Merryl, a freed slave who’d been held by the lyrinx for many years and spoke their tongue. If anyone knows the enemy’s secrets, it would be him.’

‘What happened to this fellow, Tiaan?’ said Yggur.

‘I haven’t seen him since we escaped.’

‘Chances are that he was put to work, hauling clankers,’ said Flydd. ‘If he survived that, he could be anywhere.’

‘I’ll tell my spies to keep watch for him,’ said Yggur, ‘though I doubt he’ll be found. Pity. Are we finished?’

‘Gilhaelith once mentioned that a lyrinx had developed a dreadful inflammation between its skin layers,’ said Flydd. ‘It clawed its armoured skin off and they had to put it to death. They buried the body and left hastily, as if afraid of infection.’

‘When was this?’ said Yggur, his mouth tightening at mention of the geomancer.

‘He came to visit me at the healers, before Fiz Gorgo was attacked.’

‘How curious,’ said Yggur. ‘Tell me, did he say why the enemy were tunnelling into the Great Seep?’

‘No.’

‘What did they find?’

‘The remains of an ancient village – wooden walls, floors, furniture, and a lot of bodies preserved by the tar. Also some large crystals of brimstone in boxes. They called one “The Brimstone”.’

‘The Brimstone?’ said Yggur. ‘What did they say about it?’

‘Gilhaelith didn’t know.’

‘Or wouldn’t tell you,’ Yggur said darkly.

Not even in that slave-driven time in the manufactory a year ago, after their return from the fatal trek across the ice plateau, had Nish laboured as hard as he did now. The expedition to Snizort required three more air-floaters, which had to be built from scratch in a month. He’d given a list of essential items to Klarm, thinking that they’d be obtainable in Borgistry, only to be told that the old Council had stripped Borgistry clean to make its sixteen air-dreadnoughts. He’d already searched the sites where air-dreadnoughts had crashed and burned but the intense fires had consumed everything, and no one knew what had happened to the other four Fusshte had fled with.

Nish worked in a cramped stone shed in a southern corner of the yard. Being built against the outer wall, it never saw the winter sun. His sole source of warmth was an open brazier fed with chips and wood shavings, when he had the time to gather them. He started work at five in the morning, seldom finished before midnight, and was often so tired that he slept on the floor.

He didn’t see Irisis from one day to the next for she was just as frantic, directing Tiaan and four other artisans in the making of all sorts of devices they’d need before the spring offensive. They’d recovered air-floater controllers, floater-gas generators and all manner of other bits and pieces from Nennifer, but still the work was endless. Nish missed her.

Yggur had sent Fyn-Mah off in the air-floater with Klarm to conscript artificers, smiths, carpenters and all the other workers needed, but she hadn’t yet come back. Some might be found at Old Hripton but others would have to come from Borgistry.

And making air-floaters was the easiest of his jobs, for at least Nish knew what to do and he had the original air-floater to use as a template. He also had to find skilled artificers to carry out whatever repairs would be needed to get the abandoned constructs running. Among the survivors of the amphitheatre’s collapse were a number of artificers who had experience with clankers, but constructs were very different. Nish would have to conduct most of their training without a thapter to work on, as it was about to leave on Flydd’s embassy to the east coast. Nish had the construct mechanism recovered from Snizort some months ago, but for the rest he had to make do with wooden models and drawings, which he knew were not good enough.

But his most challenging job was finding and training pilots to fly thapters from Snizort to Fiz Gorgo. If his other tasks were difficult, this one looked impossible. Few people had the talent to draw power with a controller, and most became air-floater pilots or clanker operators. Once trained for a particular machine it was difficult for an operator to adapt to another; the emotional bond usually got in the way.

Nish discovered that two air-dreadnought reserve pilots had survived the collapse of the amphitheatre. Unfortunately one had gone insane when her craft had exploded. The other, distraught at being separated from her machine, had stepped off the outer wall of Fiz Gorgo while he’d been away on the trip to Nennifer. After much searching, Nish despaired of finding a single pilot.

‘It’s hopeless,’ he said to Flydd after days of frustration and failure. ‘We’ll never be ready for spring, surr. I’m letting everyone down.’

‘Just take it one step at a time, Nish. Don’t think about winning the war, or even being ready for the spring offensive. Just concentrate on getting the next task done. And then the one after that.’

The following day there was a knock at the door of his shed. Nish fed the last of his wood chips into the brazier, held his blue fingers over it for a moment and went to see who was there.

It was Yggur’s newly appointed seneschal, Berty, a small, round, bustling man, not much short of eighty, with wings of frothy white hair on either side of a pink, bald skull. He was accompanied by a pair of downcast, bedraggled and red-eyed men, one big, pockmarked and hairy, the other small and completely bald.

‘Cook found them in an inn at Old Hripton,’ piped Berty. ‘They lost their machines in the battle at Snizort, then became separated from the army. They were pressed into service as sailors, deserted and worked their way from port to port around Meldorin. Gorm and Zyphus are their names.’ He nodded and hurried out.

‘Operators,’ Nish said hungrily, ignoring his misgivings. Since they’d lost their machines so long ago, retraining might be possible. ‘Let’s see what we can do for each other.’

When he took them to see the controllers Irisis’s team were working on, Gorm and Zyphus broke down and wept, and Nish had to leave them for an hour. When he returned, the hairy operator, Gorm, the ugliest, roughest fellow Nish had set eyes on in a long time, threw his arms around Nish and kissed him on the cheek.

‘You might change your tune when you see what you’ll be operating,’ Nish said. He led them to the side yard where the thapter stood, ready to depart.

The operators’ eyes stuck out like toadstools. ‘Not sure I could operate one of them alien craft,’ said Gorm. The small bald man, Zyphus, looked equally askance. ‘Used to clankers, we are.’

Nish cursed under his breath. Operators couldn’t be forced. They had to be cajoled, and if there was no bond with the machine they would not be successful. ‘We don’t have any clankers. What about piloting an air-floater?’ He needed three more air-floater pilots, plus reserves.

‘Don’t know,’ said Gorm, rasping at the wiry bristles on his chin.

‘It’s an air-floater or nothing,’ said Nish.

‘Used to watch them soaring above us at Snizort,’ said Zyphus. His skin broke out in goosepimples. ‘Always fancied one of those. Come on, Gorm, you’ll love it.’

‘Expect I won’t,’ said Gorm, ‘but it’ll be better than nothing.’

That was Nish’s feeling too, so he took them on and Irisis began to tailor two of the Nennifer controllers to them. That afternoon, Nish was sitting head in hands at his bench, despairing of ever finding anyone to become thapter operators, when there came a tentative knock at the shed door.

‘Enter,’ he said. Again the knock. ‘Come in,’ he roared, and a small, sweetly pretty girl who looked about thirteen put her head and shoulder through the crack.

Her straw-coloured hair was done in dozens of small plaits, her cheeks were red from the wind and her frosty grey eyes had a liquid shine. Unusual eyes around here; where had he seen their like before?

‘Please, surr,’ she said in a whispery little voice, ‘Lord Yggur sent us.’

‘Did he?’ said Nish. ‘What for?’

‘Operators, surr.’

Nish almost laughed aloud, but restrained himself. Yggur was not known to be a joker. ‘Really? Come inside. Put this on your head and tell me what you see.’ He held out a contraption of wires and crystals, like a jewelled skullcap, that Irisis had made up for him. With such a device, even a no-talent like Nish could identify people who might become operators.

She pressed it onto her head and immediately cried out, her eyes as wide as her charming bow-shaped mouth. ‘Oh, surr, it’s like all the rainbows in the world, spinning round and round. Surr, you must see.’ She held out the device to him.

‘I don’t have the talent,’ he said gruffly. ‘All right, that’s enough.’

Her lower lip wobbled. ‘Am I no good, surr? I thought you would at least …’

‘You’ll do,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Kattiloe, surr.’ She made a clumsy but fetching attempt at a curtsy.

Nish smiled behind his hand. ‘And where do you come from, Kattiloe?’

‘Old Hripton, surr.’

‘I’m sure we’ll make an operator of you. Now, all I need is another twenty-nine.’

‘My big sister Kimli is outside, surr.’

‘Is she?’ Sometimes the talent ran in families. ‘Send her in.’

In she came. Kimli was minutely taller and nearly as pretty as Kattiloe, though her hair was an ashy brown. Her eyes were also that familiar frosty grey, and she too had the talent, though not as strongly as her sister. ‘Two!’ said Nish. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any more sisters?’

‘There’s seven of us,’ said Kattiloe, curtsying again. ‘Not counting the twins, of course, but they’re only fourteen.’

‘How old are you, Kattiloe?’

‘Twenty, surr.’

‘Are you really?’ Nish felt middle-aged, though he wasn’t much older. ‘Well, tell them to come and see me.’

They all possessed the talent of seeing the field, and most had it strongly. Chissmoul, a black-eyed, sturdy young woman of twenty-three, was so shy that it took hours to coax her into taking the test, though she turned out to have the strongest aptitude of all. Nish took on the lot, even the twins, who might have been fourteen but looked about ten. He suppressed his anxiety about using such young girls. Boys that age were dying in battle all the time.

‘Any brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins?’ he said hopefully.

The sisters turned out to be equipped with relatives of all sizes, shapes and ages. Most had those penetrating grey eyes. Yggur’s eyes! The old hypocrite.

Nish recruited thirty-seven of them, mostly young women and girls, before he’d exhausted the family tree, and then consulted the expert, Irisis. The majority had the talent so strongly that they probably would make operators, so he abandoned the search for more. Now all he had to do was work out how to train them. It wasn’t going to be easy – Nish knew no more about using a controller than he did about childbirth. But it must be done so, with the aid of his two trained operators, and Tiaan and Irisis, he would get it done.

Only after their flight controllers were tuned to them, and the operators had completed the lengthy process of familiarising themselves with them, could the real training begin. But of course they did not have flight controllers for thapters yet, and Malien’s machine was soon to take Flydd on his embassy to the east coast. Nish planned for his prentices to begin practising with Yggur’s little beetle flier, all too conscious of its inadequacies. Would he have the courage to get into a thapter flown by someone who had only practised with a toy?

The evening before Malien and Flydd were due to leave, Inouye’s air-floater touched down in the yard and Klarm scrambled out. Nish looked out the door of his shed and saw Flydd waiting on the steps outside the front door. The two scrutators held a hurried conference in the middle of the yard, Klarm handed Flydd a sealed packet which he slipped inside his cloak, they shook hands and Klarm scuttled back to the air-floater. It lifted at once and rotored off in the direction of Old Hripton.

The front door opened and Yggur came out. ‘Was that our peripatetic head of intelligence, favouring us with another of his flying visits?’

‘It was Klarm,’ said Flydd, turning to pass him by.

Yggur caught him by the arm. Nish stopped in the shadows, hoping to hear some news. Yggur and Flydd had been even more tight-mouthed than usual, lately.

‘What news from Borgistry?’ said Yggur.

‘I haven’t read his dispatches yet.’ Flydd was trying to pull free.

Yggur did not let go. ‘So Klarm has actually done some work this time?’

‘He’s been frantic, though I don’t propose to discuss it on the front porch.’

‘As far as I can see, all he’s done is spend my gold as though it flows down the river like water, drink himself witless night after night, and cavort with women half his age and twice his size, though why any woman would want –’

‘Klarm is the closest friend I have left,’ Flydd said coolly, breaking away and heading up the steps, ‘so be careful what you say about him. Spying on the enemy takes rivers of gold. Besides, most of the coin he spends came from the treasury at Nennifer.’

Yggur spun around. ‘I wasn’t aware that it had been found!’

‘It must have slipped my mind,’ Flydd said smoothly.

‘There’s still the matter of his general debauchery. I don’t see why we should fund –’

‘Klarm is a man of lusty appetites,’ sighed Flydd. ‘I was that way myself before the knife –’ He gave another sigh. ‘In his case, take away the appetites and you destroy the man. He’s doing good work, the very best, and that makes up for the other.’

‘Then why am I being kept in the dark?’

‘You’re not,’ Flydd said. ‘Come inside and we’ll go over his dispatches.’

‘All of them,’ said Yggur, ‘or just the ones he’s prepared for my consumption?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Flydd. ‘We’re all in this together.’

‘Are we?’ Yggur turned to the door. ‘How does he do it, anyway?’

‘Do what?’ said Flydd.

‘How does a sawn-off runt like Klarm attract women the way he does? I wasn’t an unattractive man in my prime, but they didn’t care for me.’

‘Most of Nish’s prentices have your eyes, you old dog.’

Yggur looked abashed. ‘A brief liaison two generations ago. She didn’t care for me either.’

‘What do you expect?’ said Flydd. ‘You keep people at a distance and give nothing of yourself.’

‘I gave once,’ Yggur murmured, ‘and look what came of it.’

‘They don’t see Klarm as a threat. He charms them and makes them laugh. And, er …’ Flydd gave a delicate cough.

‘What other amazing talent does the man have?’

‘It’s said that he’s not a dwarf in all departments. Quite the contrary, in fact.’

Yggur made a disgusted sound deep in his throat. ‘Don’t tell me any more!’