‘They’re only firing intermittently now. I’d say they’ve had enough.’
‘There were sixteen and we’ve killed eleven, at least, but don’t think this is the end of it. They’ll be back.’
‘They’re deadly accurate with those catapults,’ said Irisis. ‘Do you think the attack on me was deliberate?’
The scrutator was aiming through an arrow slit with a borrowed crossbow. He fired. ‘I do. They’ve kidnapped artisans before. It went straight for you and would not let go even when that risked its own life. They don’t usually go for suicide missions so they must have wanted you badly.’
‘Or wanted me dead. Thank you, Xervish.’
‘We also want you badly,’ he said dismissively.
Shortly afterwards the attack ended, the surviving lyrinx fading into the forest. By daybreak there was no sign of them. Flydd called a meeting in the refectory to review the damage.
‘The gates and front doors will have to be completely rebuilt,’ said the chief mason. ‘We’ll make a temporary wall out front, not that it’ll do much good. If they attack tonight with as much force, I don’t see how we can survive.’
‘I’m sure they will attack tonight,’ said Flydd. ‘They’d be fools not to.’
There was worse news and it was not long in coming. Chief Miner Cloor, a little nuggetty fellow whose pores were so impregnated by mine dust that it looked as if he was covered in blackheads, stumped in.
‘The lyrinx have taken the mine, surr.’
‘How many?’ asked Flydd. He did not look surprised, though his scrawny shoulders drooped even further.
Irisis felt for him. Since he’d arrived there had been one disaster after another. He would be blamed for them all.
‘Can’t tell, surr. We saw five or six behind the grid. That could be all …’
‘Or there could be another hundred down there,’ said the scrutator bleakly. ‘Evacuate the miners’ village, chief miner. We can’t defend it as well.’
Cloor nodded and stumped out again.
After the night’s exertions, few people were able to work. In the case of Irisis’s artisans, it hardly mattered, since they already had a large store of controllers assembled, awaiting hedrons to complete them. That was looking increasingly unlikely now.
Irisis snatched a few hours sleep then returned to the refectory, where she found the scrutator sitting at a table in the far corner with the chief miner, Overseer Tuniz and Captain Gir-Dan. Maps of the various levels of the mine were spread out in front of them.
‘They must have come in through the lower tunnels,’ said the captain. ‘The enemy had captured the mine before the outside guards knew a thing.’
‘Unless they had skived off from their duty,’ the scrutator said darkly.
‘Let’s have no talk of neglect of duty, if you please, surr,’ said Cloor. He was as irascible as Flydd, with little respect for any authority save his own.
Flydd gave him a black stare. The chief miner glared back. Neither broke. ‘Enough,’ Flydd said finally. ‘The fault does not matter. What can we do about it?’
‘I’ve talked with my surveyors. We’re sure they’re getting in this way.’ Cloor’s battered fingernail indicated a long tunnel down on the ninth level. ‘If we could drop the roof here, we’d have them trapped and it would just be a matter of winkling them out.’
‘Deadly winkling,’ said the captain. ‘A dozen lyrinx would be a match for fifty of my men, down there in the dark.’
‘I’d starve them out,’ snapped Cloor. ‘Not even lyrinx can go a month without food.’
‘I can’t wait a month for crystal. How long would it take to bring down the roof?’ asked the scrutator.
‘We could do it in a few hours in this section.’ Cloor’s finger marked an ‘X’ on the map. ‘And it’s relatively close to the workings. Of course, we’d need a strong guard.’
‘At least forty men,’ said the captain.
‘If I send that many down,’ the scrutator mused, ‘and they attack here, as they are bound to do … We might well lose the manufactory.’
‘Without the mine there’s not much point to the manufactory,’ said Irisis.
The scrutator dismissed that with an irritable sweep of the hand. ‘The mine is just a hole in the ground, but to replace this manufactory would take five thousand people working for four years.’
‘What do you want us to do?’
‘Get some rest. We’ll be on the wall again tonight, I’ll be bound.’ Flydd rose. ‘What do they want?’ he muttered on the way out. ‘Do they aim to deny us the crystal, or is there something more sinister at work?’
That night, on the gong of midnight, the lyrinx attacked again. Irisis had just dozed off when a catapult ball, fired up at a steep angle, came smashing through the roof a few doors away, demolishing the room of one of the recently arrived artisans. The silence was followed by her screams, then shouts as the manufactory scrambled out of bed.
Irisis was the first to get there. The artisan lay in the splinters of her bed, unharmed but screaming her lungs out. More balls began to fall, so swiftly that the catapults must have been firing many at a time. Though only the size of melons, they wrought terrible damage. Not all the sleepers were as lucky as the first.
Irisis dressed and put on the metal hat she wore down the mine. It would not save her from these missiles, but might protect her from the slates that were falling all around.
There was a lull of a minute or so. She ran into the scrutator in the corridor. ‘What are we to do?’ she shouted.
‘It’s not this I’m so worried about,’ he said, ‘though it’s doing damage enough.’
She looked up through one of the holes in the roof. ‘What are you worried about?’
‘Fire –’ As he spoke, a flaming ball descended from the sky, hit the roof and slid in through a hole to land in one of the ruined rooms. Flames leapt up. Irisis grabbed a fire bucket and emptied the sand on it.
‘What is it?’ the scrutator yelled.
‘Rock dipped in tar.’
Soon blazing missiles were falling all around. Irisis and fifty other people were kept busy putting out the fires. They still had many to go, and the fire team were attaching their canvas hoses to the hand pumps when the barrage stopped. At once the attack on the walls and front gate resumed.
‘I don’t think we’re going to survive this time,’ said the scrutator as their paths crossed again. ‘Better pack up your gear.’
She stopped, staring at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re leaving.’
‘How?’
‘I try to plan for all contingencies. The air-floater is standing by, up in the mountains. I’ve signalled it to come.’
‘It’ll be a sitting target, floating over the manufactory.’
‘It will drop down behind the ridge. We’ll sneak up inside the aqueduct where the enemy can’t see us.’
‘The air-floater won’t carry a thousand people.’
‘Not even twenty. The rest must stay behind.’
‘To die!’
‘More likely they’ll be left alone once we’re gone.’
‘I’ve worked with these people for most of my life,’ she said. ‘I’m not leaving them.’
‘I’m ordering you to. Anyway, we’ll be in more danger than they are.’
Alhough Irisis was quite selfish, she could not bear the thought of running away. ‘I’ve got work to do!’ she snapped and went back up. The fires were under control now and Irisis preferred the danger of the wall; at least she could see what was coming.
They were losing. The lyrinx had an uncanny sense of where to aim and their catapults picked off the guards one by one. Half were dead now, and most of the survivors carried injuries. Their replacements were just ordinary workers who did little damage to the enemy and were slain in droves. The dead still lay where they had fallen hours ago, for no one could be spared to carry them away. Irisis had known them all for years.
She checked the sky. Dawn was not far away but there was no sign of the air-floater and the scrutator had sent no message. Finally she dragged her exhausted body down for a drink and a bite to eat, a few minutes’ relief from the hell that was the wall.