Dirk fed out the rope slowly and steadily, so that it seemed to Rye that the drop to the floor of the testing hall took forever. In fact it was only seconds before he was landing, gently and without a sound, beside Sonia.
He knew that Dirk had felt the tension on the rope slacken, because the next moment a few coils of spare rope slithered to the floor behind him. He gathered them up quickly, and looked around.
Sonia had prepared her companions well. They had all drawn a little away from the guards, and turned to face her. Their arms were linked. Not one of them jumped or cried out as an invisible presence landed among them. The chance of rescue had overcome their dread of magic, it seemed.
‘Here!’ Rye whispered, holding out the coils of rope. ‘Make haste!’
And in seconds, Bird’s people were reaching for the lifeline they could feel but could not see. They did it in the order they had plainly decided beforehand. Itch and his sisters first, Chub and Pepper next …
Rye glanced at Sonia, standing tensely beside him. They could both hear Kyte’s booted feet striking the paved floor, but the guards blocked their view of her. Above their heads, the monster birds shrieked and tore at the mesh of their cage.
‘Listen to those stupid beasts!’ Rye heard Kyte complain. ‘Their noise is unbearable—and they’re right above our viewing balcony, too!’
Rye held his breath, praying she would not look up. If she did, she would soon see the reason for the giant birds’ fury. She would see Dirk and Sholto standing motionless in their high corner perch, while the birds’ razor-sharp talons raked the mesh of the cage on the other side of the bars.
‘The birds are hungry, Kyte,’ mumbled one of the guards. ‘You should have let us release them to hunt before we brought the prisoners up. The Master wouldn’t like it if he knew—’
‘If the Master’s pets are hungry, it is not my fault, but Brand’s!’ Kyte broke in. ‘Brand was the one who broke into my rest, ordering me to move the prisoners long before they were needed.’
And at that moment, Rye realised that, more quickly than he had thought possible, the people of Nanny’s Pride farm were all gripping the rope, and all touching one another. Bird and Bean were the last. They were panting as if they had been running, but their faces were set, and their eyes were gleaming with determination.
Rye pulled the red feather from his pocket. He put his arm around Sonia, and together they formed the last links in the human chain.
Now, Rye knew, the hood concealed them all. Anyone watching from above would have seen the whole group of prisoners vanish. Urgently he tugged on the rope.
Up! he thought, as much to Dirk and Sholto as to the Fellan magic he had come to trust. Up!
And with joy he felt his feet leave the floor. He felt himself rising steadily. He felt Sonia’s relief and heard the high, nervous chattering of the clink hidden in her pocket. He looked up, and saw Bird, Bean, and the others clinging to the rope like grapes on a stem, and Dirk and Sholto pulling together high above, their faces anxious and sweating.
Then he looked down. He was well above the heads of the guards now, almost to the level of the balconies, and the guards had noticed nothing. They stood like figures carved of grey stone, listening to Kyte, watching Kyte swaggering up and down before them, little knowing that behind their backs there was nothing but a patch of bare, paved floor.
We are out of their reach, Rye thought gleefully. Way out of their reach. They cannot touch us now.
Kyte was still talking. Her voice floated up from below, sneering and confident. Rye wondered grimly how confident she would feel when she found her prisoners gone.
‘… nothing but foolish nerves and fuss!’ Kyte was saying. ‘The test could not begin till full daylight, after all—but that is typical of Brand.’
‘We could have opened the roof of the cage room and let the birds out first,’ a guard mumbled. ‘It wouldn’t have taken—’
‘Brand said “at once” so I obeyed him to the letter!’ Kyte barked. ‘Perhaps next time he will listen to me! Or perhaps there will not be a next time for Brand. Perhaps the Master will decide that he is not fit—’
‘KYTE! THE SPECIMENS ARE GONE!’ Brand’s roar, made terrifyingly loud by some means Rye could not begin to understand, burst like an echoing thunderclap through the great room.
The shock was frightful. Rye heard a strangled cry from above as someone jumped violently. The rope twisted and swung, almost slipping from his hands. Clinging on for dear life, he caught a glimpse of Brand. The Controller was standing up, shouting, his swollen face pressed to the balcony shield, the black box in his hands, his eyes bulging as he stared down at the place where the prisoners had been.
‘WHERE ARE THEY? KYTE, YOU FOOL …’
Do not think about him! Sonia whispered urgently in Rye’s mind. Do not think of anything but—
Chub’s despairing cry rang in Rye’s ears. His head jerked up, and above him he saw disaster.
Chub was clinging to the rope with one hand. Her other hand was straining towards Pepper—straining down, uselessly, because Pepper was falling, his arms flailing as he tried to save himself.
Rye knew what had happened as clearly if he had seen it with his own eyes. The human chain had broken. Shocked and terrified by the sudden roar of Brand’s voice, Pepper had lost his grip on the rope, and on Chub’s hand. Chub had done her best to hold him, but had not been able to bear his weight. He had slipped from her grasp.
And now Pepper was sliding jerkily through the desperately clutching fingers of the people below him. Pepper was falling down and down as the rope swung wildly, Brand roared, and the guards milled around, shouting in astonishment because their prisoners had vanished. Moaning in shame and terror, Pepper was crashing into Bird, who caught him but could not stop him. Pepper was snatching at Sonia, succeeding only in tearing off the black cap so that her coppery hair fell about her shoulders. And then Pepper was sliding helplessly over Rye and, making a last, frantic effort, grabbing Rye’s shoulder with one hand, and with the other pulling the silken hood back from Rye’s head.
The watchers in the balconies leaped to their feet, gaping and pointing at the prisoners who had suddenly appeared in mid-air. There was nothing cold and calm about them now. No sound came through their safety screens, but Rye could see their mouths moving as they babbled and exclaimed, their faces twisted with amazement, excitement and fear.
Kyte and the guards were still looking around the floor in bewilderment.
THERE!’ Brand howled. ‘THERE ABOVE YOU, KYTE, YOU DOLT! GUARDS! STOP THEM!’
Rye! Sonia’s voice clamoured faintly in Rye’s whirling mind. Take us up! Up!
But Pepper was sobbing, clinging to Rye’s back, the hood pinned beneath him. ‘I’m sorry, Spy!’ he was wailing. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve killed us all! Oh, Chub …’
‘Hold on, Pepper!’ Rye gasped. ‘Just hold on! We are out of their reach! Far out of their—’
The words stuck in his throat as there was a violent jerk. He looked down and his jaw dropped in disbelief. A guard had leaped for the trailing end of the rope, and had caught it.
But it was impossible! No one could jump so high!
And then Rye remembered. The jump would have been impossible for an ordinary man, certainly. But the Master’s guards were not human. Not human! How could he have forgotten?
Up, Rye! Higher! Rye, listen to me!
The guard was clawing at Pepper’s feet. But Pepper was protected by the armour shell, and the guard’s stubby fingers could not take hold. Rye’s skin crawled as another guard leaped, springing straight up from the floor like a huge insect, and catching the first guard’s ankles. A third grey figure followed him. The fourth did not have to jump. He merely reached up, seized his brother’s legs, and tugged till the veins stood out on his low brow.
The guards were heavy. They were enormously strong. They were dragging the rope down. The rope was becoming taut, thinning dangerously as Dirk and Sholto hauled on it with all their might.
The rope will snap, Rye thought dully. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement further along the wall. Kyte’s remaining guards were running up the stairs to the empty balcony that hung below the bars.
One by one the guards hurled themselves at the prisoners dangling from the stretched, motionless rope. One by one, repelled by the armour shell, they bounced back and fell, screaming, to the paving below.
And then Rye saw Kyte almost directly beside him. She had vaulted to the balcony roof. Her quell weapon was in her hand. She grinned and pointed it at him.
‘STOP, KYTE!’ Brand bellowed. ‘THEY ARE TOO CLOSE TOGETHER! IF YOU QUELL ONE YOU WILL QUELL THEM ALL. THE TEST MUST GO AHEAD ON TIME—I SWORE IT TO THE MASTER!’
‘The Master will not care if the test is delayed when he hears I have captured two enemy spies!’ Kyte shrieked. ‘Spies and sorcerers, Brand! Stinking copperheads! Look at them! And how else am I to catch them but—’
‘LOOK HIGHER, YOU FOOL! NEAR THE ROOF! THE TWO PULLING THE ROPE!’
Kyte looked up. Her eyes narrowed and her lips drew back from her teeth as she recognised Sholto. She thrust the quell back into her belt and snatched another weapon—the stubby black tube she had used to smash the rock at the Diggings.
With a stab of pure terror Rye saw her swing the weapon up and aim it at his brothers who were both in clear view, flooded in sunlight and still straining at the rope.
‘Dirk! Sholto! Beware!’ he shouted.
At the same moment, Kyte fired. But something had gone wrong with her aim. Instead of the charge hitting Dirk and Sholto, it blasted into the wall beside them, shattering the bars and blowing a gaping hole in the smooth grey material below.
Snarling, Kyte fired again. And again. And each time, incredibly, her wrist twisted, so Dirk and Sholto were unhurt, while another great hole was blasted in the wall.
‘Let the rope go!’ Rye roared. ‘Dirk, Sholto! Get away!’
The testing hall was echoing with thunderous sound. The giant birds were screeching. Great chunks of the grey wall were crashing onto the paving, and the air was swirling with grey dust. Brand was bellowing at Kyte, his voice rising higher every moment, while beside him the skimmers flapped and fought, clawing at the glimmering walls of their cages.
And still Dirk and Sholto stood, bent to the rope, bathed in sunlight. And still Kyte aimed, fired and missed, her whole body shaking now, her face a mask of rage and disbelief.
It was a nightmare. A nightmare from which there was no escape.
Rye felt Sonia’s hand grip his fiercely. He tore his eyes from his brothers and looked at her.
Sonia’s hair was standing out around her head like a mass of copper wires, so bright in the sunlight that it seemed to be shooting sparks. Her face was sharp with exhaustion, her shadowed eyes like deep green pools.
‘Witch!’ cried Bean, shrinking back from her.
‘Save us, Witch!’ shouted Bird through chattering teeth.
‘I am not the one who can save us,’ Sonia said huskily, holding Rye’s gaze.
Rye, you have the power. Use it!
The voice in Rye’s mind pierced the nightmare, sharp as a blade. He felt Sonia’s fingers tighten over his hand—the hand that wore the armour shell and the speed ring. The hand that still bore the scar of the sea serpent scale …
The hand that clutched the red feather.
Rye thought of the feather, warm against his skin. He thought of what it meant, what it promised, what he needed. He forgot the skimmers. He forgot the guards, forgot Kyte, forgot Pepper’s sobs and Brand’s roars. He forgot his brothers’ peril. He thought only of the power he had been given by the Fellan Edelle—the power he alone could use, not just to save himself, but to save them all.
Up! he thought.
And felt himself soaring. Felt dusty air blowing in his face. Saw the roof rushing down to meet him. Heard Kyte’s startled yell from below, and the explosion of sound as yet another of her charges went wild. Heard the shouts of the guards clinging to the end of the rope as they were jerked upward, their strength and weight nothing to the power of the tiny charm gripped in his hand.
Then he was standing on the narrow ledge where the bars began, blinking in the fierce sunlight pouring through the grating, with Sonia sagging against him and Pepper’s arms still locked around his neck. Below him, the guards still swinging on the rope were roaring and snatching uselessly at his heels. Sholto, sweating face filmed with grey dust, white-knuckled hands clinging to the bars for dear life, was at his shoulder, edging gingerly away to give him more room.
And on Rye’s other side, separated from him by a swarm of prisoners who had abandoned the rope, was Dirk.
Moment by moment the swarm was shrinking.
Dirk was seizing the prisoners and swinging them high—up towards the hole in the grating, into the enormous hands of Bones. And Bones, his death’s head face grinning down through the gap, his impossibly long, thin arms pumping up and down like a tireless machine, was hauling one small, stocky figure after another out onto the roof.
‘STOP THEM!’ Brand’s voice, cracking with panic, echoed through the testing hall. ‘STOP THEM OR I SWEAR IT IS DEATH TO YOU ALL!’
Dirk was too intent on freeing the prisoners as fast as possible to pay attention. Sholto had his face pressed to the bars, with his back to the room. Sonia, limp with exhaustion, did not raise her head.
So it was only Rye who glanced round, and down, in the direction of Brand’s voice. Only he saw the grey-faced supervisor gliding rapidly between two of the huge, transparent cages on Brand’s balcony, and stretching out her hands to the black circles in the balcony shield.
Rye’s throat closed. ‘Dirk!’ he choked. ‘Sholto! Take hold—take hold of me! Make haste! Oh, make haste!’
The supervisor’s wrists turned. Clear round holes opened inside the black-rimmed circles. And in an instant, the cages on either side of her were empty, and the dusty air of the testing hall was alive with shrieking skimmers.