‘Surr,’ he said quietly. ‘May I assist you into the thapter?’
Flydd looked right through him. ‘Did I ask for help, Artificer?’ he ground out. Shaking off Evee’s arm, and then Fyn-Mah’s, he lurched unaided across the black paving stones in an appalling travesty of a careless stride. Every movement of every muscle showed the pain he was enduring, though his face was like stone.
Fyn-Mah cried, ‘Xervish –’ but broke off and put her hands over her face.
Evee let out an almost inaudible cry and ran after him, but he slashed at her with one hand and she fell back, biting her knuckles. She directed a furious glance at Nish. ‘Are you the biggest fool that ever was?’
Nish was beginning to think he was. Flydd had now reached the thapter but he didn’t stop there; he forced himself up the rungs of the ladder. The pride of the man was awesome, though Nish had to avert his eyes as Flydd struggled all the way up. It took him three attempts to get his leg over the side into the hatch, and heaving the second leg in wrenched a cry of anguish out of him, swiftly cut off. Nish thought he saw blood running down Flydd’s ankle, then he disappeared inside as if he’d fallen through the lower hatch.
After a brief hesitation Evee ran after him. The others followed, except for Fyn-Mah. Normally so cool and reserved, she was grinding her knuckles into her eyes. She turned away and walked back inside Fiz Gorgo, closing the door like a silent accusation.
‘That went well,’ observed Irisis as Nish came up to the side of the thapter.
Nish wanted to weep. ‘I was trying to help him.’
She relented and put her arm around his shoulders. ‘You know what a proud man he is, Nish. And you saw what Ghorr did to him. How do you think Flydd must feel, knowing that his friends are talking about his deepest torment and shame?’
‘If it were me, I’d want the support of my friends.’
‘Not if you’d been a scrutator. It’s a solitary profession and you have to hide your feelings. And especially your weaknesses.’
He said no more. They took their places in the thapter. Pilot Inouye stood at the controller of her dirigible, cast off the ballast and the little craft rose gently in the air. Yggur hadn’t wanted anyone inside in case something went wrong, but Inouye was happier that way and it eased the cramped conditions a trifle.
Nish stood with Irisis and Malien in the upper compartment of the thapter, looking out as they lifted off into the scudding cloud. Yggur was on the shooter’s platform at the rear, legs spread, cloak flapping behind him, appearing to relish the icy wind in his face.
Nish didn’t relish anything about the coming journey, though at least the war had gone quiet and there shouldn’t be too many disasters before the spring. The lyrinx didn’t fight in winter unless they had to.
He had enough to worry about. Evee had said that Flydd had been repaired, whatever that meant, though clearly he was far from recovered, and must be more hindrance than help on such a dangerous mission.
Nish had also begun to fret about Gilhaelith, the only outsider who knew of the planned attack. Since he’d made a fortune trading with the enemy, Gilhaelith was unlikely to have qualms about betraying them to the Council and, given the way Yggur had treated him from the moment they’d met, Nish wasn’t sure he’d blame him. Nish had doubts about the dwarf as well. Klarm had broken his oath to the Council, so why wouldn’t he break it again? The reward for betraying them would be unimaginable.
‘I overheard the healers talking about Flydd last night,’ Irisis said an hour or two later.
They were now sitting on the top of the thapter with their legs dangling down into the upper compartment. Irisis was swinging her long legs, quite at home there. Nish held on grimly, afraid that a sudden lurch could send them over the side. The thapter was dipping in and out of layers of cloud like wet, clinging fluff, and it was unusually bumpy.
‘Oh?’ Nish said sharply. He let go with one hand to wipe the cold condensation off his brow, then slapped his hand down again as the machine jolted in an updraught.
‘They don’t know what to make of him. He won’t talk. He won’t even look at them. They’re … they’re afraid for his sanity.’
‘Marvellous!’ said Nish. ‘And Flydd didn’t tell Yggur the details of the attack. It’s all in his head … Or was.’
‘He had hours of discussions with Malien and Yggur just before Ghorr attacked Fiz Gorgo,’ Irisis said.
‘But they only went through generalities, never the plan in detail. They agreed not to until we were on the way, just to be safe.’
‘Well, I just thought you should know.’
‘I’m glad you told me,’ said Nish. ‘It drives all the other worries right out of my head.’
TWENTY
‘So what’s Nennifer like, anyway?’ Nish asked Irisis.
It was late on their third day of travel and the thapter had just settled, as it must each night, onto the most isolated and desolate peak they could find. Only Malien could pilot the craft and she was still so weak that each day’s flying required long hours of recuperation.
She had taken all possible precautions to avoid being seen, flying in cloud wherever possible, and keeping clear of towns and densely inhabited areas, though there was always a chance that someone had spotted them. And if they had been seen, the Council’s unparalleled network of spies and informers would soon hear of it. Even now a skeet or a courier air-floater could be racing towards Nennifer with the news that the thapter had been seen in the sky over the Peaks of Borg.
‘You can’t imagine it,’ Irisis replied, climbing down the side of the thapter onto moss-covered rock. The night’s camp was halfway up an isolated ridge in the middle of the Ramparts of Tacnah, a series of rearing slopes of tilted greywacke, layered against the western edge of the Great Mountains like a leaning stack of cards. The high parts of the Ramparts caught moist breezes from the west and were, consequently, wet and cloud-covered for most of the year. A fine place for hiding, though dank, mosquito-ridden and inhospitable. ‘Nennifer is as hostile a place as anywhere on Santhenar, except the middle of the Dry Sea. It never rains there.’
Flangers and the other soldiers were already fanning out up and down the slope, making sure that there was no habitation nearby, though none had been seen before they settled. Nish watched them go, then moved into a cleft where a boulder bigger than the thapter had split in two. It was marginally sheltered from the wind. ‘Never rains? How can that be?’
A frog croaked from the dark recesses beneath the boulder. Another answered it from not far away. Irisis looked down and smiled.
‘Nennifer lies hidden in an angle between the Great Mountains and the range running down the east coast of Lauralin.’ She squatted down and drew on the mossy rock with a fingertip. ‘There are higher mountains all around and they catch all the moisture. I can’t think why the Council made their home there, save that it’s so isolated that no land attack could possibly succeed. Even in mid-summer there can be frosts, but at this time of year it’s hellish cold.’
‘Where do they get their food from?’
‘It used to be brought in, at fabulous expense, on great supply caravans that could only move for eight months of the year, though most now comes in on air-floaters. And their indentured peasants grow what crops they may in the valley bottoms, where there’s soil and water – turnips and other charming delicacies. Do you want to share a tent tonight?’