Ian Irvine - Chimaera

Nish slashed his blade across the cable, again and again. A few more strands gave but that was all. The fibres were so resistant they must have been ensorcelled.

‘And risk taking half the baskets with them?’ said Irisis.

‘If the amphitheatre collapses while the air-dreadnoughts are still cabled to it, there’ll be a conflagration not seen since the enemy burnt the naphtha stores of Runcimad,’ said Klarm.

‘You’d better run, Scrutator Klarm,’ said Irisis. ‘If you’re going …’

Klarm turned to her, his handsome face troubled. ‘You cannot imagine how hard it was for one like me to rise to scrutator. When you’re only the height of a child, your peers cannot take you seriously. I strove harder than anyone to become scrutator, and now I wonder why. Flydd was right. The Council is corrupt; I can serve it no longer.’

‘What will you do?’ panted Nish, hacking furiously but fruitlessly.

‘I don’t know. Give me that.’

Nish handed him the sword at once. Despite his words, Klarm did have a natural authority that was hard to resist.

‘The cables were strengthened with scrutator magic at the beginning,’ said Klarm. ‘That’s why they resisted the fire for so long. Check your straps.’

They did so. He drew the blade back over his shoulder, sighted on Nish’s meagre gash and swung the blade with all his strength, muttering words under his breath as he did.

The blade went a third of the way into the cable. He wrenched it out and swung it again. It passed the halfway point this time, the cut strands unravelling and spiralling up the cable for at least a span, and with a groan the remaining strands stretched and snapped.

The cable lashed up; the deck whipped away from beneath their feet. Nish was thrown down, crashing hard into Irisis. Klarm went up in the air and Nish thought he was going to go over the side, for the scrutator wasn’t tethered.

Klarm fell near the edge. Nish caught him by the hand and the dwarf’s grip crushed his fingers. The deck snapped back, the precipice beneath them reverting to a gentle slope.

‘One more cable should do it,’ said Klarm. ‘Run! They’re getting ready to cut us free.’

The slack on the baskets and nets was slowly being taken up, for the weight of people in them was immense, but the air-dreadnoughts weren’t planning to wait for them to be lifted all the way. Already burly men stood by the cable capstans, each with a great two-bladed axe over his shoulder, just waiting for the word.

Most of the mancers, officers of the guard, and the most important artisans and artificers had been saved. Many more were now being lifted to their craft. Almost two hundred witnesses remained on the deck, however, and for them there was no way of escape. The nets and baskets would not be lowered again. The air-dreadnoughts had to be cut free before the amphitheatre collapsed, and those remaining would be sacrificed to save the rest.

Flame licked spans up another cable – Yggur must have used the last of the naphtha on it. Half a dozen witnesses attempted to climb the life ropes, but all fell to their deaths as the ropes were plucked like gigantic strings, or were cut loose by those on the air-dreadnoughts. A gaggle of witnesses, knowing they were going to die, ran back and forth, screaming or wailing. The remainder simply stood where they were, staring up, out or down.

‘Kill the prisoners!’ Ghorr yelled as he was lifted into his air-dreadnought, but the last soldiers on the deck, knowing they had been abandoned, were concerned only for their own survival.

Nish and Irisis raced to the next cable, Klarm close behind. They fastened their safety ropes. Klarm buried the blade deep into the cable.

‘Again,’ cried Irisis. ‘They’re cutting.’

Klarm laid a hand on the cable, spoke words of scrutator magic to unbind the spell and gave the cable three mighty blows. It was now under such tension that the blade made little impression. He hacked again then tossed the blade to Nish.

‘Have a go. I’m spent.’

Someone was shouting at them. It sounded like Yggur but Nish, chopping furiously, had neither the time nor breath to work out what he was saying.

Hack, hack, hack. ‘It’s nearly through!’ Nish said.

‘If this works,’ said Irisis, ‘the deck will fold in that way.’ She pointed. ‘We won’t have much time.’

Nish hacked again. The cable seemed as tough as ever.

‘Come on, come on !’ said Irisis.

Nish gave up his chopping, which didn’t seem to be doing much good, and sawed the blade back and forth, the fibres pinging apart as he worked.

‘It’s going,’ said Irisis. ‘Get ready!’

Nish gave a final hack and the cable tore apart. The deck pulled inwards, Irisis yelled, ‘Jump!’ but the deck went from under Nish, who found himself flying over the edge on the end of his safety line.

He was hurtling through the air on the wrong side of the deck. Up above, the soldiers were chopping furiously, coordinating their strokes so as to sever each of the cables at the same time. Nish jerked to a stop in mid-air, then tried to pull himself up the swinging strip of canvas, but it was hard to hold on. He would never get there before they cut loose the amphitheatre.

Klarm came over the side, hanging onto the rim of the canvas with one immensely strong hand. Reaching down with the other he gathered in Nish’s safety line, jerked it up, up, up until Nish was within reach, then dragged him over the edge.

‘Go!’ he grunted as he slashed Nish’s tether.

Nish threw himself into the U-shaped canvas valley that now ran down towards the slab-covered roofs of Fiz Gorgo. He couldn’t tell if Klarm had followed, though Nish did see the soldiers hack through the last supporting cables, one, two, three, four, five, and then six. Only two to go.

And as he gathered speed and the cables fell towards him, Nish saw something else. A tarpaulin covering a net hanging below the keel of Ghorr’s air-dreadnought had slipped, exposing a curve of dark metal. It was the thapter.

Ghorr had it and Tiaan, as well as Malien and, presumably, the amplimet.

He’d won after all.

The lucky ones who had made it to the hanging chairs, baskets and nets were being drawn up towards the air-dreadnoughts, swinging back and forth, crashing into one another and, where they could, fending each other off to avoid their ropes tangling. They were not always successful. A pair of nets became hopelessly tangled and, despite the screams of the occupants, the smaller was cut loose. It had to be, for the nets were attached to different air-dreadnoughts and threatened them both. Incredibly, the small net did not pull free but hung upside down from the larger net as the air-dreadnought rose to safety.

Terror made the occupants of the chairs and baskets irrational. A brief duel flared between a mancer and a lesser scrutator, sending bolts of fire across the sky and ending with the mancer blackening in his chair. The scrutator, alive but lacking clothes or hair, was jerked up to safety.

Irisis jumped the instant the cable went, expecting Nish to do the same. She fell into the canvas valley and felt it deepening under her. Across the valley the other prisoners were also jumping. Yggur was standing by Gilhaelith, as if uncertain what to do about him, then with a swift movement he slashed the mathemancer’s bonds. Gilhaelith jumped. Irisis wondered why Yggur had such a set against the geomancer. For a moment it had looked as though Yggur would leave Gilhaelith to his fate.

Her feet caught in a fold in the canvas and Irisis went tumbling head over heels down the deepening valley, now sliding on her chest, now her left side, friction burning through her clothes. She felt the skin go from her hip and tried to throw herself the other way. She was moving too fast. The deck seemed to be falling as quickly as she was, and she was going to hit the roof hard.