“Clay!” Kriz called, her voice almost immediately drowned out by a loud roar, too vast and deep to be a drake’s cry. He swung himself back inside, finding Kriz staring at the shaft which now seemed to be wreathed in dust from summit to base.
“It’s happening,” she shouted above the roar, which he realised was the sound of the shaft breaking apart. “We need to close the hatches!”
He nodded, setting the bomb-thrower down and moving to the rear of the gondola. “Leave it, cuz,” he told a sweat-covered Loriabeth, teeth gritted as she unleashed another salvo at the encroaching drakes. She was so intent on her work he was obliged to clamp a hand on her shoulder and drag her back from the hatch. “Looks like we’re about to get out of here,” he explained in response to her aggrieved glare before turning to Sigoral. “Lieutenant, time for a cease-fire.”
Sigoral glanced over his shoulder, nodding as he lowered his carbine. The Red must have used the momentary distraction to latch onto the underside of the gondola, rearing up to thrust its head through the hatch just as Sigoral turned to face it. Clay dove forward as the beast’s jaw gaped wide. He caught the Corvantine about the waist, pulling him aside as flames cooked the air. Sigoral let out a scream as Clay bore him to the deck, high and childlike in the agony it conveyed, and mercifully swallowed by the rapid thud of Loriabeth’s repeating rifle. Clay looked up in time to see the headless Red tumbling free of the gondola before Kriz closed the hatches.
A fiery ache in Clay’s foot drew his gaze to the patch of flame eating at his boot and he spent several frantic seconds stamping it out. Looking up he saw Loriabeth clutching a writhing Sigoral, smoke rising from the ruined flesh around his right eye. Clay fumbled for his canteen of Green and held it to Sigoral’s mouth, forcing the liquid past his clenched teeth as he continued to struggle. He gradually calmed as the Green found its way down his throat, banishing much of his pain, a calm that was short-lived as Clay tipped the last of the canteen’s contents over his burns. Skaggerhill had once opined that Green could take the infection from burns but had only a marginal effect on the scars. Loriabeth held Sigoral tight as he thrashed, a torrent of what Clay assumed to be profanity issuing from his mouth in harsh Varsal.
“No way to talk in front of a lady, Lieutenant,” Loriabeth told him, continuing to hold on until the Corvantine’s shudders subsided.
Clay looked around, hearing a thunderous pounding assail the gondola’s hull. The drake were swarming the aerostat, Red after Red crowding the windows, clawing and biting to get at the meat inside.
Clay dragged his gaze away and helped Loriabeth get Sigoral into one of the seats, his cousin strapping him in before turning her attention to his wound. “Can you open it?” she asked, peering at the mottled flesh around his eye. Sigoral grunted and choked down on a scream as he forced his eyelids apart.
“Is . . . it there?” he rasped. “Can’t see . . . through it.”
“Looks whole,” Loriabeth said, sounding more confident than she looked. “Probably be fine in time. Just the glare of the flames.”
Clay left her to tend him and moved to the front of the gondola. “He’ll live,” he told Kriz.
She didn’t seem to hear, her gaze fixed on the shaft. The drakes hadn’t yet reached the front of the gondola and they had a clear view of the great structure’s final moments. The gondola appeared to be completely sealed so Clay watched the spectacle unfold in eerie silence. The whole structure gave a final shudder as a thick rain of shattered stone fell from above. Incredibly, it stayed upright for several seconds, swaying back and forth until another tremor sent it toppling over like the trunk of a giant, limbless tree, trailing dust as it fell. Clay moved closer to the window, watching the shaft slam down onto the mountains below, shattering along its length all the way to the shimmering flatness of the lake where it birthed two huge waves. Clay moved closer to the glass for a better look, fascinated by the sight of the waves sweeping across the distant shore, then reared back as a Red butted its head against the window.
The beast hissed at him, wings thumping in excitement as two of its companions landed close by.
“Don’t suppose this thing’s fire-proof?” Clay asked Kriz. She seemed oblivious to the drakes, staring upwards at the dark void left by the fallen shaft.
“Actually, it’s flame-resistant,” she replied softly. “But I don’t think that will be an issue.”
There was no warning of what happened next, no gradually increasing trickle, just a sudden vast torrent of water descending out of the sky in a white blur. A blast of displaced air hit the aerostat as the torrent struck the ground, clearing the drakes from the windows as they took flight in alarm.
Clay stepped close to the glass once more, watching the deluge swamp the mountains below before flooding the foot-hills and the forests where the strange monkeys made their home. Soon it had all vanished, the mountains, the lake with its matrix of roads, the desert and the forest all submerged in a matter of minutes by an ever-rising tide.
“This is the way out?” Clay asked Kriz, hearing the half-hysterical humour in his voice, which felt at odds with the sudden calm he felt. It all seemed like some huge joke now; her promises of escape, their pointless trek through this place of wonder and terror. A prolonged piece of theatre so they could watch it drown, and them along with it.
Kriz turned to him with a weak, apologetic shrug. “I never said it would be easy.”
CHAPTER 49
Lizanne
The Blood Cadre agent descended through the smoke, blazing away with a revolver in his left hand. Lizanne had time to notice that his right arm was missing, presumably lost in the bombardment, before lashing out with Black to sweep him out of the sky. He landed amidst a ruined gun-position a short way off, struggled to his feet then fell dead as Kraz put three bullets into his chest.
“Loses an arm and keeps on fighting,” he said in reluctant admiration.
“They know what fate awaits them,” Jelna replied, voice rich in righteous fury. It was clear to Lizanne she had been looking forward to this day for a very long time. “Even a cornered rat will fight.”
They had charged through the ruined wall at blurring speed, wreaking havoc on the scratch force of Imperial soldiery hastily assembled to cover the breach. The lingering pall of dust and drifting gunsmoke soon made the whole enterprise an exercise in confusion and unseen threats. One of their number had already fallen to a stray bullet and another had been cut down by a wounded Blood Cadre agent. Despite being pinned by a fallen chunk of masonry the fellow managed to cast forth a torrent of Red-born fire. Kraz set the agent’s head alight with his own Red and they left him to burn.
Ten minutes of confused fighting brought them to the Blue Maze where they found numerous Household troops fleeing across the ornamental bridges, whilst others flailed in the canal waters having been thrust aside by the crush.
“If I were given to believing in the old gods,” Jelna said, depressing the first three buttons on her Spider, “I think I’d be offering thanks just now.”
She sprinted forward and leapt, ascending in a high arc over a series of bridges, casting a wave of Red and Black down at each one in turn. Kraz leapt to join in, moving deeper into the maze, flames and human wreckage rising in his wake. Men burned and were blasted away, bodies tumbling into the canals, which soon began to run red. Seeing Hyran start forward, grimly determined to take part in the unfolding massacre, Lizanne reached out to restrain him.