They arrived in position just as a slate-grey dawn broke. The wind was shrieking but they found a relatively protected north face. Rustina paced back and forth, scanning the cliffs for a suitable place to climb.
'Here, I think!' She placed her gloved hand on the layered rock.
A flurry of snow whirled up the gully like a miniature tornado. Irisis watched the white flakes spin. Obsessed with the crystal now, she dreamed about it every night, and in her waking moments fantasised that it would give her back her talent.
The rest of the squad were carrying enormous packs, which they placed at the base of the cliff. Rustina motioned them away. 'No, over there! Move it well back! If we're discovered they could wipe us out with a few boulders.'
Soon they were ready. Irisis turned her back to the wind and watched. The first two climbers received their final instructions. Both were like Rustina: tall, lean and long-limbed. They wore clawed, retractable spikes strapped to wrists and boot toes. Each carried an ice axe spiked on one end, and a small pack. A length of rope connected them.
Rustina clapped each on the shoulder and up they went, climbing with surprising swiftness, using crevices Irisis could not see. They looked like four-armed spiders creeping across the stone. Soon they disappeared into the blasting snow.
Jal-Nish stood with his arms folded. Arple was some distance away, as rigid as if on parade. Blown snow had caked in his furrowed upper lip. More than ever it seemed like a second mouth. Rustina strode back and forth, red hair flying, thin lips tight. The minutes ticked into an hour. They heard no sound, not that anything could be heard over the wind. The sergeant muttered to herself. Jal-Nish began pacing nervously, casting anxious glances up. Arple still had not moved.
With a squeal of metal on stone something bounced off the rock above him. Landing with another scrape, it pushed off and came down another couple of spans. It was one of the climbers, bounding on a rope. His feet struck the ground.
'All's well so far,' he said, beaming. 'No sign of them. We've set up, up top.'
Jal-Nish came running across. 'And the weather?'
'Wonderful!' The climber gave a fierce grin. His gums were stained bright yellow from chewing nigah leaf, which dulled the senses to cold. Rustina had issued rations of it to her troop, though she did not take any for herself. 'It's blowing a gale, surr. Visibility no more than twenty steps.'
'You saw no tracks, no path?'
'No, surr!' By way of emphasis he spat a yellow gob on the snow.
'And the clankers?'
The climber scratched his head and spoke briefly to Rustina. She nodded.
'I believe it's possible, surr.' They went into a huddle. Irisis did not hear the rest. Soon after they broke up.
'Get your troops up, sergeant,' Jal-Nish said. 'Quick as you can! Put the defences in place and set up the lifts. Arple, send for the camp and the clankers. We're going to take them up.'
Arple looked dubious but rapped out his orders and a soldier skied off to the camp. Rustina's troops brought the strapped bundles of rods out from under an overhang. They had been bound to the top of the fourth clanker. Irisis had often wondered what they were for. They also carried bags with pulleys, clamps, coils of rope and other equipment. Rustina went back and forth, carrying loads the equal of the strongest soldiers. She drove herself the hardest of all. Finally, the rest of her squad donned their packs and went up the cliff, using the rope.
Irisis sat on a rock. The troops were well drilled and there was nothing she could do to help. How were they going to get the clankers up there? It seemed like madness, in this gale, especially after the fiasco that had killed Dhirr.
Soon the rope jerked. Rustina signalled back and the troops tied on the bags and bundles of equipment, which were lifted with no more than an occasional clink of metal against the yellow cliff. The rope came back down. The remaining soldiers were hauled up, Rustina last of all.
Jal-Nish stood back, looking anxiously around. They were particularly vulnerable now, if the weather cleared or a scouting party ran into them down here, with Arple the only trained soldier to protect them. Even the eleven above would have trouble with a pair of lyrinx. If there were more, they would be annihilated.
A couple of hours went by before the soldier returned, skis whispering on the snow. The others followed. They gathered around in their ranks, were briefed and hauled up in a rope chair.
Arple went with them to inspect the defences. Shortly the first of the clankers came clunking along, followed by the others. Heavier ropes were taken up, then Artificer Tuniz, anxiously showing her pointed teeth.
Nish wandered across. 'What's going on?'
'Most of the troops are atop,' Irisis said. 'They're setting up a structure to lift the clankers.'
'They're mad!'
'Well, you'd know, being an artificer.'
'Tuniz is a better one, fortunately.'
Tuniz reappeared, lowered in the chair, and began issuing orders. The first clanker was moved into position and tied fore and aft. She signalled with the original rope.
The haul ropes went taut and without any apparent effort the clanker lifted off the snow and began to rise upwards, to disappear in the thickening snow.
'How?' began Nish.
'I've no idea.'
It turned out to be brilliantly simple. The rope at the top passed over a series of pulleys held up by a frame made from the rods, and down over another frame and pulley. The other end of the rope was tied to a boulder which acted as a counterweight. Another structure of ropes and pulleys enabled soldiers to brake the boulder's descent.
The boulder struck the ground. Tuniz waited for the signal that the clanker was on solid earth, checked and had it confirmed, then untied the rope. The end went up, the other ropes came down and were tied around the second clanker, which was lifted with another boulder. And so it went on.
'There you are,' crowed Jal-Nish as the last clanker, with Ullii still inside, rose smoothly into the air. 'It's all gone perfectly. That's what happens when you do things yourself.'
Irisis held her breath and stepped well back. If anything would call the wrath of fortune down on them it was statements like that. However, the signal soon came that everything was all right.
'Perfect,' said Jal-Nish. It was only mid-afternoon. 'We'll camp up top, send out our scouts and prepare to move in the night. As soon as we find them, we'll strike with everything we've got. I want to see waterfalls of lyrinx blood. No one will get away this time.'
'What about Tiaan?' said Irisis.
'I'm working on a plan,' he said smugly, wanting them to ask so he could have the pleasure of refusing to answer.
Irisis said nothing, nor did Nish. They went up in the chair. The wind was blowing off the plateau, reducing visibility to a few paces. They ate their fill of cold food and tried to sleep. Irisis was woken in the night by a hard hand on her shoulder, a soldier she did not recognise. 'We've found them. We're going in twenty minutes, artisan.'
Irisis had slept in her clothes, so it only took a minute to pull on her icy boots and she was ready. She chewed on a strip of smoked fish. The others were gathered in a space between large boulders, where they dared a little light.
'They're here,' said Arple, drawing a chart in the snow with the tip of his knife. 'A collection of linked snilau.'
'What's a snilau?' Irisis asked.
'An ice house – igloo! There aren't many; the scouts guess at around ten lyrinx.'
'Still a formidable force, even with our clankers,' said Rustina, gnawing on a raw potato.
'But some may be children. We'll attack at dawn, bombarding the snilau with rocks from our catapults. With luck we may kill half of them in their sleep.'
'And maybe Tiaan too,' said Nish.
'I've a plan for her,' Jal-Nish said. 'Move out!'
The soldiers went ahead on skis. The passengers withdrew into the clankers, which moved off slowly, to make as little noise as possible. That was not such a risk, with the wind positively howling in their faces, but a lyrinx patrol could be anywhere.