Xiao Yu tugged frantically on the ropes as the roof rushed up towards them, while Lin Mae grabbed a couple of long lances attached to the inside wall of the gondola and yanked them free. As Li Qing slashed at some of the ropes secured to counter weights on the outside of the gondola in the hope of reducing the speed of their descent, Lin Mae extended the lances over the side with the intention of using them to slow their fall or perhaps even push them higher.
Thanks to their combined efforts, they managed to slow and steady the balloon, at least a little. As it passed over the roof, however, so close that the black powder weapons that were dangling below the craft scraped and bumped over the roof’s surface, a Tao Tei, having scaled the wall to the edge of the roof, suddenly appeared in front of them and leaped.
Caught off guard, Xiao Yu recoiled, letting go of the ropes that controlled the steering mechanism, and the gondola dipped to the side. As it did so, Lin Mae, struggling desperately to retain her balance, thrust one of her lances forward in an attempt to deflect the leaping Tao Tei.
She managed it, the lance piercing the side of the creature’s head, and causing it to flip and writhe in the air. It missed the tipping gondola by inches, hit the edge of the roof, then flipped over and plummeted to the ground below.
The danger was not over yet, though. Not only was the gondola still tipping, causing all three of its occupants to lose their footing as they scrabbled frantically for the dangling ropes that would steady them, but now more Tao Tei, alerted to the presence of the sinking balloons, were swarming up the walls and scrambling on to the variously leveled roofs of the Palace.
Fighting to hold on and to get back to her feet, Lin Mae glimpsed two of the creatures loping along the edge of a roof above them. Before she could draw breath to shout a warning, the creatures leaped, talons extended, like cats attempting to pluck a bird from the air.
Shoving herself upright in the tipping gondola through sheer force of will as Xiao Yu tumbled past her, Lin Mae again raised one of her lances and rammed it forward. More by luck than judgment it struck one of the leaping Tao Tei squarely in the chest and deflected it past the gondola, its teeth still gnashing and its claws flailing at the air. The second Tao Tei also missed the gondola, but became briefly entangled in the ropes beneath it, causing the craft to veer even more wildly out of control. The Tao Tei squirmed violently, causing the gondola to rock from side to side, and then, still squirming, it clawed its way free of the ropes, only to plummet past the edge of the roof and down to the ground below.
The balloon, though, was failing badly now, starting to deflate. Glancing up from the rocking gondola, Lin Mae saw that not only was the heat in the unattended brazier now dwindling, which meant there was not enough hot air to keep it afloat, but at some point in the past few minutes the balloon itself must have got caught on a passing spire, or perhaps even been slashed by a Tao Tei’s talon, and had sprung a leak.
For now the gondola was still directly above the roof of the Northern Gate—a drop of ten or twelve feet—but as the balloon slumped, its weight and the pull of the wind dragging at it, it would likely be plucked sideways, whereupon it would either ignite or crash down to the ground below, which was teeming with Tao Tei.
Their only choice, therefore, was to jump from the gondola on to the roof and hope for the best. Already she could see more Tao Tei rapidly scaling the walls towards them, but it was still the more favorable of two very bad options.
“Grab whatever weapons you can, and jump!” she screamed, then led by example, launching herself from the gondola, one of her two long lances still clutched in her hand. She saw the roof rushing at her, hit it and rolled, distributing her weight and dispelling her momentum. She looked up just in time to see Xiao Yu falling towards the roof. Her lieutenant, though, looked as if she had not so much jumped from the gondola as tumbled out of it. She hit the roof hard, a flailing mass of arms and legs, the jolt sending her own lance flying out of her hand. As Xiao Yu turned painfully on to her front and pushed herself up on her hands and knees, groggily looking around for her weapon, a Tao Tei dragged itself up over the edge of the rooftop behind her. Before Lin Mae had time to scream a warning, the creature lunged forward, jaws open and swallowed Xiao Yu whole!
Lin Mae froze in horror, but she had no time to mourn. She heard Li Qing’s frantic warning, “Behind you!” and the next moment she was wheeling round, instinctively swinging the blunt end of her lance into the gaping maw of a Tao Tei that was rushing up behind her. The creature tumbled away, knocked off balance, but sprang instantly back to its feet. Sensing movement on her other side, Lin Mae turned to see Li Qing using her lance as a vault, jamming it into the crevice between two tiles, then rising in a graceful arc up and over Lin Mae’s head. As the Tao Tei leaped forward to attack again, Li Qing hurled the spear she was holding in her free hand with all her might. The spear went straight through the creature’s eye and into its brain.
Letting go of the lance, Li Qing completed her arc, which took her over the now-collapsing body of the Tao Tei. She rolled and jumped to her feet, but before Lin Mae had time to thank her for saving her life, two more Tao Tei loomed up over the edge of the roof, one of them snatching Li Qing with its black talons and stuffing her into its mouth.
Of her three-strong crew that had risked so much to get here, Lin Mae was now the only one left. She had known and trained with Xiao Yu and Li Qing for almost all her life; she had regarded them as friends. But now, within a matter of seconds, they were both gone.
The two Tai Tei to her right, one of them with Li Qing’s blood still dripping from its jaws, moved towards her. To her left a third Tao Tei scrambled up on to the other side of the roof. Adopting a fighting stance, lance held out before her, Lin Mae backed up to give herself room to maneuver. As the three Tao Tei closed in, she readied herself for her final battle.
22
“Lin Mae! Above you!”
William saw her whirl round, then look up, her eyes widening in surprise as the gondola rushed towards her. The three Tao Tei, who had now been joined by a fourth and a fifth, were closing in on her, blood and drool trickling from their jaws, their small eyes glinting.
Knowing he had only a few seconds, he leaned as far as he could out of the gondola, his arm stretching out.
“Hand!” he yelled, but even as he gave the instruction he knew the gondola was still too high, a good six or eight feet above her, and she would never make it.
She was sprinting towards him now, though, the five Tao Tei springing forward, close on her heels. He saw her jam her lance into a divot between two of the tiles that covered the roof and launch herself toward the gondola.
She kicked her legs, as though pedaling the air, to gain as much height as possible. At the same time she stretched upwards, gritting her teeth in her attempt to make her arm, her hand, her fingers as long as she could.
William concentrated on that slender hand. Right at that moment it was, for him, the only thing that existed in the world. He stretched out his own arm and hand just that little bit further. The slim white hand came within reach…
He lunged and grabbed it! Grabbed it and held on tightly. As he yanked backwards, pulling Lin Mae up towards him, she brought up her legs and tucked her knees into her chest, the jaws of a leaping Tao Tei snapping shut on empty air just a couple of inches below her.
“Hold fast!” he shouted as she dangled below him, like a hunk of meat above a pool of hungry piranhas. Then he heard a cry of dismay from Wang and turned his head to see that the balloon was heading directly towards another roof, one that was a good twelve or fifteen feet higher than the roof they were currently flying over.