Ian Irvine - Chimaera

Nish pushed too hard and the knife slipped from his fingers and skidded across the floor. He looked up at the soldier in desperation. He didn’t bother to go after the blade – Larg could cut his throat before he reached it and, with bound hands, he couldn’t possibly attack an able-bodied soldier armed with a knife.

Larg smiled evilly, sprang onto the floor and kept going down. What was the matter with him? A thread of blood began to ooze from the side of the soldier’s neck, where a tiny knife had been embedded to the hilt.

Nish went to the ladder. Malien stood at the top, the gag around her throat, swaying.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘How did you do that?’

‘I used the control levers to tear off the gag, then employed my Art to loosen my bonds. Take his knife and come up.’

Nish did so. She freed his wrists and he carefully fastened the lower hatch. Cracking the upper hatch, he peered out through the gap.

‘I can’t see anyone on the air-dreadnought.’

‘That’s bad. They must all be dead.’

Nish blanched.

‘Or round the other side,’ she added hastily.

He opened the hatch a fraction more. ‘No, I can see Irisis, at the controller. It looks as though she’s trying to pilot the air-dreadnought. Trying to turn it.’

‘Find out why,’ said Malien, polishing a blue-green striated crystal on her sleeve and inserting it into its socket. ‘She was supposed to follow me.’ Gripping the controller levers with both hands, she strained until her face went red. Nothing happened.

Nish climbed up through the hatch and let out a yelp. ‘Malien, we’re heading directly for another air-dreadnought. Its rope is tangled in the trees.’

‘The thapter doesn’t want to go,’ she said calmly.

‘Do you think it could be because I put the mechanism into test mode?’ said Nish.

‘You did what?’

He explained. ‘It was all I could think of to distract the soldiers.’

‘Run down and stop it, quick as you can!’

He hurtled down the ladder and leapt the body at the bottom, not even thinking about the second soldier.

Nish lifted the cover, reached in through the fumes and shut off the thyrimode and the gyrolapp. The shrilling groans stopped at once. He was rubbing his stinging eyes when Aln fell on him, beating him about the head and shoulders with his fists.

Had the soldier been armed, Nish would have died. He went down but managed to roll out of the way. The soldier lurched after him on his battered knee, his face contorted in agony. Nish couldn’t feel sorry for him – Aln had been happy to joke about Nish’s fate. He kicked out, caught the soldier in the side of the knee and he collapsed next to the dead man, crying in pain. Nish scrambled to his feet.

‘It’s done, Malien!’

‘I heard. Come up, quickly!’

He pulled himself up the ladder and fastened the hatch again. The mechanism groaned then roared to life.

‘Put your head out of the hatch,’ Malien snapped, taking a firm grip on the levers. ‘Get ready to cut the ropes holding us in the nets. But not till I say so .’

Larg’s keen blade in hand, Nish cracked the hatch open and looked forward. The other air-dreadnought loomed up, directly ahead.

‘We’re getting very close,’ he cried.

‘I know. Ready?’

He caught hold of one of the main ropes. ‘Yes. Go, quickly!’

Malien jerked the levers. The thapter didn’t move. She began muttering to herself.

‘What’s the matter?’ Nish said, watching the air-dreadnought come ever closer. He could hardly bear to look.

‘Ghorr must have locked the controls. Now, how would he have done that?’

‘They use scrutator magic, a special form of the Art …’ he began.

Malien knew that, of course. She had closed her eyes and was passing her hands across the controls, moving them in circular sweeping motions. Shaking her head, she began checking the glass plates, on which patterns moved in coloured lines and swirls.

Cocking her head to one side, she said ‘Ah!’ Her long Aachim fingers danced on the glass, then she jerked out an agate knob, banged in several others with a sweep of her hand and spun an insignificant thumb wheel below the binnacle.

‘We’re going to hit!’ Nish cried. ‘Do I cut?’

She didn’t answer. Malien was too engrossed. Her other hand caressed the knob that made the thapter fly but she still didn’t move it.

The two air-dreadnoughts merged with stately inevitability. The leading airbags touched, flattened against each other and slid past with silky hisses. The port and starboard airbags of Ghorr’s craft struck their counterparts full on, pushed by, and their support cables tangled. The cables thrummed as they snapped taut, stopping the airbags within a few spans. The suspended vessel of Ghorr’s air-dreadnought kept moving, curving in an arc towards the side of the other machine.

‘Malien, can’t you do anything?’

People on the other craft were screaming and running from the point of impact, though the pilot stood at her controls, her face frozen into a mask of horror. Her precious air-dreadnought, the mainstay of her existence, was going to be destroyed.

Malien’s eyes remained closed though her fingers were still dancing. Now her eyes snapped open. ‘I have it,’ she said softly. ‘Cut the ropes.’

She pulled up on the flight knob and the thapter jerked. Nish had just put his knife to the first rope when the bow of Ghorr’s air-dreadnought drove right through the side of the other vessel amidships, snapping its keel and breaking it in two. One of the rope slings broke above his head and before he could cut the other the thapter rolled in the remaining net until it was tilted on its side.

It began to slide down.

After a desperate couple of minutes during which the two air-dreadnoughts came ever closer, Irisis was forced to abandon the controller, which was too different from the kind she’d spent her life crafting. She had no doubt that, given time, she could make it work, but time had run out.

With only twenty or thirty seconds to impact, she ran along the port deck, looking down at the thapter. It still hung in the nets but she was relieved to hear the sound of its flight mechanism, and to see Nish reaching out of the top hatch. He had a knife in his hand and looked set to cut the ropes. They’d done it.

He had his back to her. Irisis didn’t call out, not wanting to distract him in those last vital seconds. She took a firm hold of the ropes and held her breath – why didn’t they go? What was the matter? She braced herself for the impact, which was not as bad as she’d expected – at least, not to Ghorr’s craft. The other vessel was smashed in two, hurling its crew everywhere.

Irisis hung onto the side ropes while Ghorr’s craft came to a shuddering halt, the airbags lashing about wildly. She expected them to tear open, or even one to explode in a cataclysm that would spread to all the airbags and send the flaming wreckage into the swamp forest. It didn’t happen. The airbags held and so did the ropes. The cable of the wrecked vessel, still tangled in one of the swamp forest trees, anchored them in place.

The thapter was gone, though Irisis didn’t remember hearing the song of its mechanism. Had Malien got it moving in time, or had it fallen into the mist-wreathed swamp? Irisis couldn’t tell.

Malien and Nish were beyond her helping, one way or the other, which reduced her options to one. She headed back the way she had come, looking up for Flangers, Klarm or Yggur. It occurred to her that they might all be dead and she’d be more usefully employed saving her own life. Irisis didn’t give that any further consideration, for it wasn’t in her nature, though she didn’t see what she could do where the mighty had failed.