Part 30 (2/2)

'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 smas.h.i.+ng through the roof a few doors away, demolis.h.i.+ng 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 are you worried about?' 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 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 h.e.l.l that was the wall.

The scrutator was in his room, writing furiously. 'What's happened to your air-floater?' she said sarcastically. 'Another failure?'

Irisis regretted this the moment the words left her lips, but Flydd did not react. He looked numb.

'There's been nothing since I signalled. The lyrinx must have caught them.'

'Then we're finished,' she said.

'It seems so. I'm sorry.'

'Oh, well. I've been here before. And survived too.'

'I doubt you will this time,' he muttered.

'It was borrowed time anyway.'

There was a great roar outside. 'See what that is, will you?' he said, without looking up.

Irisis ran to the front gate, where she encountered Tuniz. The overseer had blood all down her front, though it was not her own. 'How are we doing?' Irisis gasped.

'We beat them back but I don't think we can do it again.'

Irisis peered through the broken gate. 'It's not long until dawn.'

'That won't stop them this time. They're too close to victory.'

Irisis ran back to report. 'The gate still holds,' she said to the scrutator, 'though it can't last long.'

'We'll be overrun by sunrise.' He carried a stack of papers to the furnace and heaved them in. They burst into flame and were sucked up the chimney.

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