Fortunately the weather showed no sign of abating its autumnal fury. Storms alternately lashed them with sleet, freezing rain, wet snow and frigid mist. For once Nish was grateful for it. He was lying awake on his pallet the following morning, listening to the wind rattle the roof slates as he waited for the gong to get up, when the whole wall shook. A second later there came a dull boom.
Earth tremblers were not uncommon here, and sometimes dangerous. Nish flew out of bed, scrambled into his boots and tore open the door. ‘What was that?’ he yelled to the guard standing outside.
‘I don’t –’
Another great smashing thud shook the manufactory. ‘That’s not an earth trembler,’ Nish shouted. ‘Something’s attacking the front gate. Quickly, man, to your post!’
The guard, well drilled as was everyone in the manufactory, ran for the gate. Nish, whose station was up on the wall, took a shortcut through the women’s dormitory, where scantily clad women (and occasional lovers) were falling over each other in their urgency to get dressed. The scene was much the same in the men’s sleeping hall.
‘Sleepers, wake!’ he roared. ‘The enemy is at the gates. Quick, quick!’
He continued up the other end, banging a stick on the doors of the workers important enough to have their own rooms. It amused him to see the condition of those who stumbled out, including his father.
Naked, still dazed from sleep, Jal-Nish was in no way the commanding figure he cut in his clothes. His belly quivered, and his lip. He kicked the door closed, though not before Nish saw Wickie, the young clerk from the bursar’s office, standing mouth agape.
Nish was shocked, to say nothing of disgusted. His own father! But there was no time for that now. Throwing the door open again he shouted, ‘The gates are attacked, perquisitor!’ deliberately using the title rather than his father’s name. A spasm warped Jal-Nish’s face, then Nish ran on.
Fyn-Mah hurried by, shepherding a gaggle of little children to safety. For the first time, her reserve had broken – she looked to be in pain.
A fascinating character study, had Nish the time to dwell on it, the way people dealt with the shock. Overseer Gi-Had looked as if he’d had to force courage on himself, yet he came running. There was no sign of Foreman Gryste at all, and two artificers, big men well known for their pride and their boasting, had to be shamed from their rooms.
Not so Irisis. Her door flew open as he reached it. She had a long knife in her hand, almost the length of a short sword, but wore only a pair of knee-length trousers. ‘The enemy, you say?’
‘At the gates.’
‘Where’s my blasted shirt?’ She looked around for it, then spat, ‘Ah, damn it,’ and ran out, her magnificent breasts bare.
Nish followed, suspecting she had done it deliberately. With her hair streaming out, and her scarred back, she looked just like the paintings of Myssu, a great revolutionary hero of old.
They ran up the steps onto the wall. Hastily lit torches guttered in the wind. It was still dark outside. The light showed only mist and shadows.
The wall shook again, then a missile smashed one side of the great gate. Nish looked down to see a boulder, hurled by some mighty catapult, crack the steps before rolling onto the road.
‘What is it?’ he shouted to the nearest guard. Before the fellow could answer a smaller missile struck him in the chest, carrying him backwards over the edge to his death.
Irisis came sprinting along the wall, hair flying. ‘It’s lyrinx!’ she screamed, ducked past him and raced to the watch-tower above the left gate, snatching a torch on the way. Several rocks followed her path though none went near. Flying up the steps, she hurled the torch high and straight, through the opening of the watchlight.
Tar-soaked straw, placed there for the purpose, burst into flames, illuminating the area between the gate and the forest, though leaving the defenders on the wall in shadow. Nish knocked down the other torch and ran up to the watch-tower, where Irisis was sighting a crossbow toward the forest. She fired. There came a single, truncated cry.
Another boulder hurtled out of the darkness, tearing the broken gate off its hinges. Instantly it was charged by three lyrinx and a violent skirmish took place on the steps.
Irisis stood barefoot in a drift of snow, calmly reloading the crossbow. She seemed oblivious to the cold, though her skin was purple. ‘Damn you!’ she screamed. The crossbow had jammed.
Nish quickly freed it, his artificer’s skills proving some use after all, and handed it back.
Irisis leaned over the wall, sighted straight down, held the position and fired. A pulpy thud made her grunt with satisfaction. ‘Got you!’ She ducked out of the line of fire, looking around for more bolts.
Nish was struck by the change in her. He had never seen Irisis look so alive. He glanced over the side. Her target lay still, a bloody smear on the top of its crested skull. How could she be a traitor? It made no sense.
The other two lyrinx were at the gate. Nish ran to a rock pile, grabbed one as big as he could lift, sighted and dropped it. It missed, shattering on the steps. He hurled another, which struck an attacker on its plated shoulder. The lyrinx lurched around, shaking an arm which looked to be dislocated, then crashed through the gate into the manufactory. Screams and roars marked its passage.
Nish aimed another missile, but as he let it fall the second lyrinx hurled something up at him with a whip-like underarm flick. There came a blinding pain in the throat; the blow punched him onto his back. He cracked his head on the rock pile and sank into a daze where all he could feel was the agony in his neck, a creeping cold and the blood running out of him.
Shortly he was picked up and carried down. Irisis was one of the bearers, her breasts swaying above his face. Whoever had his feet was lost in fog that rose with every step.
He came to on a table in the refectory with a dozen people staring at him. One was his father, and his face bore a look of terror such as Nish had not seen before. Maybe Jal-Nish cared about him after all.
Beside him loomed the healer Tul-Kin, and Nish was not pleased to see him. Up close, the man’s nose and cheeks were a mass of broken veins, while his breath reeked of the homemade rhubarb brandy that the miners distilled in the village. The manufactory was dry – only weak beer allowed – but the healer was permitted brandy for use in his surgery. An unfortunate exception.
‘Come on, man!’ cried Jal-Nish. ‘Get the dart out and sew him up before he bleeds to death.’
Tul-Kin wrung his plump hands. ‘I dursn’t. It’s lying between the arteries and bladed on three edges. One slip and he’s dead.’
‘Drunken fool,’ roared Jal-Nish. ‘Where the devil is Gi-Had?’
‘Gone after the enemy, surr,’ Nish heard someone say. ‘One of the beasts has got into the offices.’ Nish felt dizzy, though his mind was clear. He was going to die because the healer lacked the courage to try to save him.
‘Is this wretch the only healer you have?’ the perquisitor persisted.
‘There’s old Ruzia, surr,’ said the unknown voice, ‘but she’s blind and has the shakes something severe. We also had Mul-Lym the apothek. He was a good hand with the bone saw, in emergencies, but …’
‘But the damn fool is dead,’ Jal-Nish grated. ‘Killed himself, if someone else didn’t do it for him.’ He scowled down at his son. ‘Could be a poetic kind of justice, I suppose.’
Nish could see the irony too, but he did not appreciate it.
A slap, a curse and Irisis’s voice raged, ‘Keep your hands to yourself or I’ll spill your brains on the floor. Get out of my way.’ The crowd parted before her. She had put on an undershirt, a clinging article that distracted the eye.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ screamed Jal-Nish.
‘Saving your worthless son’s life,’ she replied softly. ‘Or if not, putting him out of his suffering.’ She had a piece of copper tubing in one hand, a small artisan’s hammer in the other.