Ian Irvine - Chimaera

Nish slipped his bolt into the slot and back-pedalled, winding his cranks. Ragge spun on one foot, looking from him to Irisis. Nish’s crank was half wound, enough to fire though not to do much damage.

Irisis reached the fallen crossbow and snatched at it, but could not pick it up cleanly. She was just raising it when the other guard threw himself at her and tore it out of her hands.

Irisis went down hard. The guard stood up and aimed the crossbow at her face. Nish froze. His weapon was fully wound now but he couldn’t decide what to do. If he shot at Ragge, the other man would surely kill Irisis. But if he fired at Irisis’s attacker and didn’t kill him instantly he and Irisis would both die, for Ragge would gut him before he could reload.

Nish swung the bow from Ragge to Irisis’s attacker.

The man deliberately gave his crank another wind. ‘Put it down,’ he grated, ‘or I’ll shoot her in the face.’

Disfigurement was the thing Irisis feared most. She’d always been vain about her looks. Ragge wore a loutish grin and Nish knew he had no choice. He’d sooner lose his own life than see Irisis suffer so.

He fired without warning, not for her attacker but for the man’s crossbow. It was not an impossible shot for an accomplished archer, as he was, but it was a difficult one, the soldier being a good ten spans away. If he missed, or the soldier managed to fire first, at least Nish wouldn’t have long to regret his folly and Irisis’s ruin.

The bolt struck the soldier’s right hand, then the lock of the crossbow, knocking the bow sideways. The soldier shrieked, jerked it back towards Irisis’s face and squeezed the lock.

At least he tried to, but nothing happened. He looked down stupidly to discover that the bolt had taken off his fingers. That was all Nish had time for. Ragge, taking in the situation at a glance, lunged at Nish with the knife. Nish hurled the useless crossbow at the soldier’s head but he ducked out of the way.

Nish went backwards, fumbling for his small, blunt knife. Ragge laughed when he drew it and slashed the air in front of Nish’s face. Nish went the other way, straight into a left hook that lifted his feet off the canvas. As he hit the deck, Nish realised that he hadn’t even seen it coming.

He landed on his back and the knife went flying. Nish’s head was ringing. He looked up dazedly as Ragge put a large foot squarely in the middle of his chest and reached lower down with the knife.

‘Trophy time, traitor.’

Without further word, or even a change in expression, he fell forward on his face, the huge knife puncturing the canvas beside Nish’s arm. The thick legs knocked the wind out of him.

Nish rolled over and dragged himself out. The bolt had struck Ragge in the back of the neck, severing the spine and killing him instantly. Irisis was on her feet ten spans away, holding the other crossbow in her bound hands. The soldier who’d attacked her was backing away, staring at the bloody stubs of his fingers. She brandished the bow at him and he stumbled off into the mist.

Irisis came across, holding out her hands, and he cut her bonds with the big knife. She set down the crossbow, and Nish saw that the lock lever was bent to the left. It was a wonder she’d been able to fire it at all. Irisis embraced him.

‘You look grotesque. What on earth have you been up to?’

Nish rubbed his sweaty, sooty, flaking cheeks. ‘It’d take too long to tell.’

‘That was a brave thing you did, Nish.’

‘It might have failed. I could easily have missed and then you –’

A shadow crossed her beautiful face. ‘But you didn’t. You trusted your judgment and your skill and they didn’t let you down. Come on, your cables can’t have much left in them. Whose mad idea was it to set fire to them?’

‘Mine. I …’ He hesitated, not knowing how she would react. ‘I thought it better to kill the lot of you than leave you to Ghorr’s brutal mercies.’

‘Quite right. I would have done the same for you.’

‘How did you get out?’ he said as they hurried across to the pen.

‘I stood on Yggur’s clasped hands and he catapulted me over the wall, as if he had the strength of ten men.’

‘Really?’ said Nish. The bound and mostly gagged prisoners were trying to crawl out of the pen. He hacked through the barbed ropes.

Inouye, the little pilot, was on her knees on the deck. He tore off the gag, cut her hands free and she fell on her face. He left her there, for there wasn’t time to look after her.

‘Where’s Flydd?’ Nish was terrified that he’d find him a bloody, flayed corpse, and he wouldn’t be able to deal with it. He couldn’t see him anywhere.

‘He’s over at the flensing trough.’ Irisis jerked her thumb into the throng. ‘But first we take care of the able-bodied.’

She was right. The strongest and the most powerful must be freed first. And the most powerful were Yggur, Malien and the strange mathemancer, Gilhaelith. Nish couldn’t see Malien and didn’t know what to make of tall, woolly-headed Gilhaelith. He found Yggur on the other side of the pen, struggling furiously with his bonds, and surrounded by a halo of uncanny mist that made him difficult to pick out in the hazy gloom. The gag had been pulled down to reveal a corner of his mouth, and that had been enough for him to use his Art.

Nish came up behind and caught his bound wrists, intending to free him. Yggur whirled and Nish gasped ‘Friend!’ as the knee went for his throat, a blow that could well have killed him.

Yggur pulled the blow, which merely thumped Nish hard in the shoulder. Nish ducked behind him and hacked through the wrist ropes, taking off a good bit of skin in the process. Yggur didn’t flinch. Nish slid the knife under the gag, cutting the cloth.

Yggur staggered. He’d been beaten, evidently, and was not at his best, but he flashed Nish a savage grin. ‘Let’s get to them. Free Fyn-Mah and Flydd, if he’s still alive, then the others. But not Gilhaelith. He’s more trouble than he’s worth.’

‘But surely any help is better than none?’ Nish glanced at the tall mancer, whose look of black rage boded ill once Gilhaelith was free.

‘If it hadn’t been for him we wouldn’t be here now,’ Yggur said.

Nish didn’t understand, but there was no time to ask what Yggur meant. ‘What about Malien and Tiaan?’

‘Ghorr has already sent them up to the air-dreadnoughts.’ Yggur was shaking his hands to restore the circulation. Now he raised his fists high, as if calling power to himself, then snapped them down. Mist condensed in a series of crescent-shaped clouds around the pen and Yggur spun it into a smoky brown doughnut around them.

‘There’s not much time,’ said Nish, cutting the bonds of the prisoners one by one. They had formed a line in front of him, and another before Irisis. Yggur’s retainers were nothing if not disciplined. ‘The cables must burn through any time now and, once they go, this side of the amphitheatre will collapse.’

‘I don’t think it’ll collapse from the loss of four cables,’ said Yggur. ‘It should just sag. But once the scrutators have saved their necks, and those retainers they can’t do without, they’ll cut the deck free from above, no matter how many of their loyal servants remain on it.’

Once all the prisoners other than Gilhaelith had been released, which took only a minute or two, Nish handed his crossbow and bolts to one of Yggur’s surviving soldiers and went looking for Irisis.

‘Where’s Flydd?’ he said to Yggur as their paths crossed.

‘He was at the flensing trough.’ Yggur grimaced as he pointed into the mist.

‘I’ll go after him. Have you got a plan?’

‘Fight for our bloody lives!’