Alchymist (3 page)

The
group of lyrinx carrying the baggage rose into the air together then spread
apart, holding low to the ground until they crossed the southern wall, where
there was little fighting. There they climbed rapidly, disappearing into the
smoky haze that hung over the fortress.

'They're
mighty mancers' said Flydd, 'to fly under these conditions. Whatever they're
carrying, it's more important than winning the battle.'

There
was no way to bring them down; the lyrinx were out of range of the catapults
and javelards, and the fleet of air-floaters did not seem to have noticed. The
flying lyrinx reappeared out of the haze, flew into a pall drifting from the
molten remains of the node, and vanished.

The
scrutator shook his head. 'I think we're going to regret that.'

Inside
Snizort, the remaining lyrinx began to swarm over the western and southern
walls. Fighting their way through the few human defenders nearby, they headed
south-west down the tar-crusted valley. One by one the detachments outside the
walls turned to follow them. Those lyrinx not yet called to the orderly retreat
fought on.

The
air-floaters turned together, drifting closer so as to direct the beam at a
skirmish on the northern wall. The lyrinx must have been waiting for that, for
three catapults fired at once and their balls of stone went through the mirror
sail, tearing gashes which spread until the fabric hung down in tatters. It was
released, the shreds winking in the air like tinsel. Each machine produced many
smaller mirrors, the size of large shields, which the soldiers aimed
individually. The effect was not as dramatic, but the lyrinx still broke when
the beams struck them.

Eiryn
Muss, Flydd's personal prober, or spy, came up beside him, whispering in his
ear. Flydd looked surprised. He whispered back and Muss, an entirely
nondescript fellow in his present disguise, slid away.

'What
was that about?' said Irisis.

'Scrutators'
business,' he "replied tersely.

The
air-floaters continued their work for another hour, until, suddenly, it was all
over.

'The
last of the lyrinx are retreating,' said Flydd. 'We've survived — at least
until nightfall.'

'So
you think they'll come back?'

'You
can't always tell with lyrinx. Since they've had to abandon Snizort, they may
not. But then again, the opportunity to destroy our army in the dark may be too
tempting to resist.'

The
air-floaters were rotoring towards the command hill, but they did not all make
it. A squad of lyrinx catapult operators had remained in position, camouflaged,
waiting for just that moment.

A
ball went right through the cabin of the lowest air-floater, shattering it into
splinters and sending at least a dozen people to their deaths. Another missile
struck the ovoid bag of a second machine, deflating it instantly. Fortunately
it was, by then, only a few spans above the flank of the hill. The crash made a
loud noise, though the machine did not seem to be damaged further. The other
ten air-floaters made it to the ground a safe distance from the catapults.

'The
lead one's flying the Council flag,' said Flydd, squinting through his spyglass
again. I wonder who can be in command? Surely not Ghorr. The chief scrutator
would never do anything to risk his mangy hide.'

'We'll
soon find out,' said Irisis.

'I'd
better go to meet them.'

Again
Irisis felt that foreboding. She was following the scrutator when he turned and
said, coolly, 'You won't be needed, Crafter. Wait here for my orders. If you
would be so good as to ask Fyn-Mah to come down?'

The
sudden, cold formality was like a slap in the face. He kept going so she headed
back to the tents, found Perquisitor Fyn-Mah and gave her the message, then
resumed her pacing around the hill.

Flydd
did not hurry, for he also had an uncomfortable premonition. Despite their
truly heroic efforts, the mission to destroy the node-drainer had been a
failure, doomed before it began. The device the Council had given him had been
faulty, perhaps deliberately so. Because of that, a third of the army had been
lost. Flydd could not avoid the blame, nor would he, had he been able to. The
soldiers lives had been in his hands, and he had failed them. Though inured to
war, and hardened by it, every death weighed on him.

But
another leader might have won this battle, he thought, despite the loss of the
node. Another leader might have seen that the mission to the node-drainer was
fatally flawed. Another leader might have done a hundred things to avert this
disaster. Having done none of them, he could only feel culpable. If duty
required him to pay, he would do so.

Nonetheless,
his heart lurched when he saw who was getting out of the air-floater that had
crash-landed. A tall, deep chested man, apparenthr in hale middle age, he was
broad shouldered, dark haired, full bearded and of noble good looks, except
when his smile revealed those vulpine teeth. It was Ghorr, the chief scrutator,
and his temper looked fouler than usual. Behind him were ranked the ten other
members of the Council of Scrutators, four women and six men. All were bruised,
dishevelled and furiously angry.

Though
Flydd was still a scrutator, he was no longer on the Council. He ran down to
help Ghorr over the side, but the big man smacked his hand away. Blood droplets
clustered on his left eyebrow from a gash at his hairline.

'I'm
glad you've come,' said Flydd, putting out his hand. 'Your mirror is a fine
innovation, though it'll only work once. The next time we meet the enemy
they'll have a tactic to neutralise it.'

The
chief scrutator ignored the gesture. 'I should never have allowed you back!'

'You
should have led by example,' said Flydd, 'and done the job yourself. But that
was never your way, was it, Ghorr?'

Ghorr
brushed General Tham's hand aside, too, and panted to the top of the hill,
where he paused to survey the battlefield. It was a pose, of course — he'd had
hours to study the scene from the air-floater.

The
other scrutators followed, and not even Flydd's former friend, Halie, the dark
little scrutator, had a sympathetic glance for her former colleague. Flydd had
expected no less. Though few knew it, the scrutators answered to a higher power
— the shadowy Numinator. Someone must take the blame and he was the man
responsible.

Ghorr
was about to speak when the last of the air-floaters edged up over the hill, to
settle directly in front of the command tent. A small man climbed over the
side, rather awkwardly, for he had only one arm. Flydd gave an involuntary
gasp. If there was one person he had not expected to see, it was this man.

As
the air-floater lifted off and headed down the slope, the man turned and the
sun caught a gleaming platinum mask that covered the left side of his face.
Twin metal bands encircled his head like a helmet, and the hole in the cheek
plate of the mask had been repaired. The single eye had the glare of a deranged
man.

'You
won't get away with it this time, Scrutator Flydd,' said Acting Scrutator
Jal-Nish Hlar.

Irisis
was catching a moment's rest in the shade behind a tent when Perquisitor
Fyn-Mah shook her awake. Fyn-Mah was petite, black of hair and eye, with a
stern, frozen beauty that deterred rather than attracted. The perquisitor
normally exuded dignity, but now she was flushed as if she had run a long race.

'Get
your artisan's pliance and your sword, and follow me, Crafter.'

'I
have them,' said Irisis tersely. They did not like each other; moreover,
Irisis's sharp tongue had once done Fyn-Mah a wrong and she did not know how to
repair it.

'Now!'
rapped the perquisitor. 'Scrutator's orders, Crafter.'

Irisis
knew better than to question her. A perquisitor, the rank below scrutator,
could give orders to the master of a city and expect them to be obeyed without
question. Besides, Irisis knew why Flydd wanted her out of the way. Ghorr would
not have forgotten her escape from Nennifer, and he still wanted to know how
she'd killed Jal-Nish's mancer up on the aqueduct at the manufactory. It was a
secret that threatened all mancers.

Fyn-Mah
reappeared carrying a small pack and they slipped through the guards and over
the edge of the hill into a shrubby gully which ran away from the battlefield.
Flangers was standing in the shadows halfway down. He nodded to Fyn-Mah, then
fell in beside Irisis.

'What's
going on?' she said in a low voice. 'I'm to assist you to the limit of my ability,'
he said, which was no help at all.

Fyn-Mah
kept to the centre of the gully, where the cover was densest, and after ten
minutes they reached the foot of the hill. One of the air-floaters was tethered
only a stone's throw away. She headed for it.

'Act
as if we own it; Fyn-Mah said over her shoulder. They emerged from the scrub
directly behind the machine. Fyn-Mah stood up and rapped on the side. The
vessel suspended from the airbag was about eight spans long and three wide,
shaped like a round-ended boat, but flimsy, being made from stretched rope,
canvas and light framing timbers. The deck was canvas, the sides just rope
netting that served to stop people from falling overboard, while a central
cabin about four spans by two provided shelter, sleeping space and a tiny
separate galley. It was also made of canvas framed with timber, with a light
timber door suspended on leather hinges.

The
air-floater was a different design to the one Flydd had brought from the east.
A ten-bladed rotor, shielded at the front by a wire grid, was mounted on a
stanchion at the stern of the craft. The rotor could be swung on a steering
arm, making the big machine quite manoeuvrable. The controller was fixed to the
steering arm. Above the rotor, mounted on a bracket, sat a complex mechanism in
a metal housing, with a small water barrel on top. A pipe ran from the
mechanism up to the airbag, and another out to the rear. It appeared to be a
device to create floater gas, which, Irisis thought, was a considerable
improvement on having to fly all the way to a suitable mine to replenish it.

A
soldier, lounging against the rail, let out a squawk. He leapt for his spear,
let it fall when he saw the perquisitor's badge, and snapped to attention.

Fyn-Mah
climbed through the rope mesh and nodded to the captain of the guard. Irisis
and Flangers followed. There were ten soldiers on board, counting the captain
of the guard.

'We're
going to take a look inside the wall of Snizort,' Fyn-Mah said. 'What's your
name, Pilot?'

The
pilot was a young woman with hair the bright yellow of a daffodil, freckles all
over her thin face, and a charming gap between her front teeth. She was small
and slender; all pilots were, for the weight mattered.

'Inouye,
surr' The pilot bowed her head, unwilling to look the perquisitor in the face,
but cast a pleading glance sideways at the captain of the guard. A young man
with sunburnt cheeks and a thin, pointed nose, he would not look at Fyn-Mah
either but inflated his cheeks and frowned. He did not want to deny a perquisitor,
but he answered to another master. 'We're ordered to wait here,' he said,
studying the canvas floor.

'By
whom?'

'Acting
Scrutator Jal-Nish Hlar. This is his air-floater.'

'My
orders come from Scrutator Xervish Flydd, the com-mander-in-chief of all the forces
here.' Fyn-Mah showed him a parchment which contained the scrutator's seal.

The
captain gulped, nodded and gave the word to the pilot. Inouye slipped an open
helm of crystals and wires over her head, took hold of the controller and
screwed up her face as she sought for a distant, usable field. The rotor began
to spin. The soldiers cast off the tethers and the air-floater rose out of the
grass.

'Stay
low,' said Fyn-Mah, checking an instrument concealed in her hand. 'Head that
way, keeping just above the enemy's catapult height.' She held out her arm,
directing the pilot.

The
air-floater rotored gently towards the northern wall of Snizort, crossing over
a number of smaller tar seeps where the hard resource had been mined down in
benched cones, then a valley that had once been full of the same material. Now
only black patches remained, some still smoking, for the lyrinx had fired the
tar runs at the beginning of the battle. They saw no sign of the enemy.

'You're
taking a risk, aren't you?' Irisis said quietly to Fyn-Mah. They were standing
up the front by themselves.

'The
scrutator has given me a valid instruction,' the perquisitor said stiffly,
then, thawing a little, 'Besides, I am incurably identified with Xervish Flydd.
If he falls, so must I.'

'You
could change allegiances,' Irisis said slyly, to see how Fyn-Mah would respond.

'Change
once and you are forever tainted, your word worthless. I have sworn to my
scrutator and will not break my oath, whatever it costs me.'

'There
are many who would not be so noble.' She spoke without thinking.

'I'll
watch my back.' Fyn-Mah said icily. Especially when you're behind me, was the
implication.