26 - The Attack

Screaming curses at the supervisor, Kyte leaped from the guards’ balcony roof and swung into the balcony itself, locking the door behind her. The guards still on the stairway howled and threw themselves at the door, beating on it to no avail. The guards dangling from the end of the rope howled too—but not for long. They were the first things the skimmers saw. In seconds they were gone, borne to the ground and overwhelmed by pale, flapping horrors. ‘Shut the grating!’ Rye heard Sholto bellow. There was a clang, and piteous screams from Chub and the others on the roof as Bones obeyed. Even in that moment of absolute terror Rye’s heart swelled with admiration for the brother who could think so clearly and quickly with death staring him in the face.

Of course the opening had to be sealed. Whatever happened in the future, Sholto was determined that his quest would not end with the skimmers escaping the building, killing the people on the roof, then flying on to ravage every living thing in the Scour.

And if Sholto had thought quickly, Dirk had acted just as quickly. With Bird, the only prisoner he had failed to free, tucked under one arm, Dirk had leaped to Rye’s side just in time to share the protection of the armour shell.

Half of the skimmers attacked the guards on the stairway. The other half flew at the ledge like furies, spurs dripping venom, needle teeth bared, mud-coloured eyes gleaming in the sun. Snapping and snarling, they dashed themselves against armour they could not see, attacking again and again.

The air was thick with them. The hideous flapping of their wings almost drowned out the screeching of the giant birds in the room beyond the bars—the iron bars that weakened the shell’s magic. Already Rye felt bruised. He knew that it would not be long before the buffeting of the skimmers’ wings and claws, combined with exhaustion and terror, caused one of his companions to lose hold of him and fall.

Pepper, perhaps—Bird—Sholto …. even Sonia, if Rye’s own strength failed for an instant.

He had to get them away. But if he used the feather to soar with them up through the flap in the grating and onto the roof, the skimmers would follow. It would be impossible to prevent it, once the beasts saw that the grating had a weakness.

If only he could distract them. If only there was a way to slow them, to confuse them …

He felt Sonia stir weakly against him. Into his mind floated a misty vision of the past—of his mother’s beehives, white and square, lining the honey hedge in the garden of the little house in Southwall, and Lisbeth in her beekeeper’s veil and gloves bending …

And suddenly the air was swirling with smoke—dense, white smoke.

For an instant Rye could not think where the smoke had come from. Then he realised what must have happened. Somehow Sholto’s smoke weapon must have survived the flood. Sholto had remembered it, and used it!

The smoke thickened. Rye’s eyes began to stream. He heard Dirk, Bird and Pepper coughing. The skimmers wheeled and slowed, shrieked in confusion, began weaving drunkenly away.

Now!

‘Hold on!’ Rye shouted, tightening his grip on Sonia.

And as quick as a thought, they were high up in the corner of the hall, pushing through the flap in the grating. And Bones, laughing like a maniac, was dragging them all out into the sun.

All but one.

‘No Wanderer,’ Bones croaked, his grin fading.

Rye’s stomach turned over.

‘Sholto?’ Dirk shouted, looking wildly around.

‘Not along with you, Wanderer weren’t,’ said Bones miserably. ‘Bones sees no Wanderer’s face in the hole, no Wanderer’s hand stretching up for aid. Still down below he be, it seems.’

The celebrating people on the roof fell abruptly silent. Chub buried her face in Pepper’s shoulder. Bird ran her fingers through her dust-filled hair. Dirk stood up, his face very grim. Only Sonia did not stir. Overcome by exhaustion, she remained huddled where Bones had gently laid her.

They peered down through the grating, into the testing hall. Already the smoke was thinning, but it still filled the whole upper part of the room, masking their view of the floor. The balconies were clouded. The ragged, flapping shapes of the skimmers were just visible below the level of the smoke, like shadows seen through a veil.

‘Did he fall?’ Chub quavered.

‘No!’ Dirk exclaimed, dropping to his knees and pointing. ‘There!’

Sholto was still standing on the ledge, right beside a gaping hole in the wall. He was facing out into the testing hall, and looking down. Rye felt a shiver run down his spine as he saw that his brother was smiling.

‘Come on, then!’ Sholto called, beckoning mockingly. ‘Here I am! Come and get me!’

Dirk cursed under his breath.

‘Ah, Spy’s Brother has lost his wits!’ moaned Pepper. ‘He is summoning the beasts!’

But Rye shook his head. He had seen movement on the balcony just below where Sholto was standing. A black shape was crawling up to the balcony roof, standing up.

It was Kyte. Her handsome face was cold with rage. She raised the black tube weapon and pointed it at Sholto.

‘NO, KYTE!’ Brand’s panicking voice echoed from the opposite balcony. ‘CAPTURE, NOT KILL! DO YOU HEAR?’

Kyte’s shoulder twitched, but she did not lower her weapon.

‘Your aim has been very poor so far this morning, Kyte,’ Sholto drawled. ‘Was the sun in your eyes? Or did it upset you to find your prisoners whisked out from under your nose?’

‘He is taunting her deliberately,’ Dirk muttered. ‘It is as if he wants her to fire.’

‘He might think that would be best,’ said Bird. ‘The smoke is thinning. The slays will soon be back.’

‘Don’t move, Vrett!’ Kyte snarled.

‘My name is not Vrett.’ Sholto’s smile broadened. ‘Have you not worked that out yet? You brought an imposter to the Harbour, Kyte. You carried me here in triumph, boasting of finding me, making it seem that you had tracked me from the shore. Who was going to question me seriously after that? I must thank you, most sincerely, for making my task so easy.’

‘Well you’ve shown your hand now, scum!’ spat Kyte. ‘And for what? For nothing! I’ll soon round up the rats you’ve released, and all their friends too. I’ll make them pay and pay for your treachery!’

‘If you survive the Master’s anger, which I very much doubt,’ Sholto said casually, his infuriating smile never wavering. ‘Rescuing your prisoners was not my main task, you know. The slays on the lower floor are all dead, Kyte—as dead as the real Vrett, whose name badge I used to make a fool of you.’

‘As dead as you are about to be!’ Kyte shrieked, her eyes blazing with rage.

‘Ah!’ Sholto raised one eyebrow. ‘Does this mean your kind invitation to breakfast no longer stands?’

Tormented beyond endurance, Kyte bared her teeth and fired. And this time there was no twitching, no sudden jerking of the wrist. This time Kyte fired straight, and instantly fired again, and again, spraying the wall with charges till her weapon was empty and would fire no more.

The wall seemed to explode. The roar was deafening. Shattered bars fell clanging to the floor. Dust billowed up through the grating. As the dust cleared, all the watchers on the roof could see that where Sholto had been standing there was nothing but a vast, dark, crumbling hole.

Bones threw back his head and howled in misery. Bird’s people groaned. Dirk and Rye looked at one another, and ran for the flap in the grating.

‘No, Spy! Giant, come back!’ Bird shouted after them. ‘He’s gone! There’s no hope!’

But Rye and Dirk knew there was. They knew their brother. Already Rye was through the grating. Already Dirk was lying with his head and shoulders in the gap, peering after him.

And so it was that they both saw a thin figure edging rapidly along the bars towards them through a haze of smoke and dust. And they both saw what was behind him—what was crawling into the testing hall from the darkness beyond the ruined wall.

The monstrous bird spread its wings. It moved them stiffly at first, then more strongly, beating away the smoke that clouded its view. The spines on the back of its long neck rose. It opened its terrible beak and screeched its fury, its defiance to any order, its ravenous hunger. Then its glassy eye fell on Kyte.

Kyte staggered back, trying to fire, forgetting that her weapon was empty. In terror she leaped for the stairway. It was her last act. The bird plucked her out of the air, and in an instant she was gone.

Rye heard Kyte scream, but mercifully did not see her horrible death. The moment the giant bird struck, he had launched himself at Sholto, caught him around the waist and swept him up to where Dirk was waiting.

Only when all three of them were safely together on the roof and the grating was sealed once more did Rye look down. And what he saw made him understand what had been in Sholto’s mind when he taunted Kyte into firing at the damaged wall with such fury that the charges had blasted a hole in the cage behind it.

The giant bird had found new prey. And so had the skimmers—or that was what they seemed to think at first. The battle raging in the air of the testing hall was ferocious. The skimmers were many, and used to attacking creatures larger than themselves. But never had they faced a foe like this—a foe with fangs and talons far bigger than their own, wings that crushed bone, and spines like blades.

They were being slaughtered. The sight was ghastly. But what Rye saw when he lifted his eyes to Brand’s balcony was worse.

The grey-faced supervisor had gone. The third skimmer cage had been removed. Controller Brand was standing alone, his face pressed to the transparent shield. His body was rigid, lifeless. His eyes were staring, blank and dead. His mouth gaped in a soundless scream. The black box was still gripped in his hands. But now the hands were nothing but sooty, smoking bone.

Shuddering, Rye lifted his head. He discovered Sonia awake and standing beside him, her face expressionless.

‘The Master was not happy with the test results, it seems,’ she said.

Rye looked wordlessly at his brothers.

Dirk swallowed. He was very pale.

‘Well, that is the best we can do for now, I think,’ Sholto murmured, turning away. ‘Shall we go?’

They left the Harbour in a long, linked line, running like the wind thanks to the magic of the speed ring.

‘Hand in hand we goes, like the wizard kings in the old tales!’ carolled Bones, his wild white hair blowing back in the breeze. ‘Ah, this is a day indeed, lords an’ lady! This is a day!’

Even he had no breath to say much more. So fast did they make their escape, so anxious were they to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the Harbour, that there was little chance for talk or explanations.

As they sped past the Diggings, some of the questions seething in Rye’s mind were answered, at least. The hood of concealment had blown back from his head, but while the Diggings guards sullenly watched from behind the locked gates, they did not come out to block the way or offer a challenge.

“Twas the same last evening,’ panted Bones, looking back over his shoulder. ‘Bones comes a-running by with Giant feeble as a newborn babe on his arm, an’ ol’ guards they stand like Saltings stones an’ don’t stir to stop us! “Ho!” Bones says to hisself. “That’s what magic ones can do!”’

Not magic, Bones, but fear of Kyte, Rye thought, suddenly remembering the slave-hunter’s last order to the Diggings guards.

‘An’ there’s ol’ Four-Eyes, too,’ Bones went on. ‘Cheating, lying Four-Eyes, fast sleeping in his steamer wagon outside the gate, an’ he don’t stir neither!’

‘The trader?’ Sholto said, jolted out of his silence. ‘He sold me Vrett’s coat—Vrett’s identity badge was in the pocket, but Four-Eyes had no idea what it was. And he gave me a ride to the Diggings, where Kyte found me. I owe a lot to him!’

‘He got what he wanted out of you, brother,’ Dirk said dryly. ‘Your lantern.’

‘And a fine painted sign for his wagon,’ Rye put in.

Sholto raised his eyebrows, and nodded.

‘Snaffle is still in my pocket,’ Sonia panted. ‘She is asleep, I think. She ate all the hoji nuts. What will we do about her?’

‘Leave her with us, lady!’ Bones laughed. ‘Ol’ Four-Eyes, he’ll be back to the Den soon enough, an’ won’t he be happy when we hand clink over, good as gold?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Mind you, Cap’ll hide other riches well an’ truly,’ he added. ‘Cap won’t trust trader too far, no indeed.’

What Bones meant by that was a mystery until, seeing some sign beside the track that no one else could spot, he stopped dead and uncovered his sled. It proved to be heaped with the first goods Chub and Itch had thrown from the trader’s wagon.

‘Cap, he took ducks afore,’ Bones chattered as he slid between the sled’s shafts. ‘Cap hears Bones go to find you, lords an’ lady. So Cap follows. But all Bones finds is Giant, waking giddy with myrmon, an’ food galore a-lying all about. An’ Cap comes up an’ he says Bones can hide sled an’ take Giant on, like Giant says he must. But ducks can’t be buried without harm, an’ ducks is great treasure from the olden days. So Cap, he carried them back to the Den.’

After that, the group ran a little more slowly, with Bones panting along behind. Despite their fears there had been no pursuit from the Harbour—not really surprising, thought Rye, with Kyte and her guards dead, and Brand dead too.

And in time they could run no further, for a cart drawn by six rangy black goats was coming straight for them, flanked by marching lines of stocky people. The battered sign on the cart’s side read:

‘Bell!’ screamed Bird, waving wildly.

‘Ho there!’ a voice yelled from the cart. ‘So you saved yourselves, did you? Bless my heart, if I’d known I’d have stayed home and got some sleep!’

As the small people around him cheered, and ran to meet the cart, memories of FitzFee again stabbed at Rye. What was FitzFee doing now? How were he and his family faring?

‘It is tempting to stay here,’ Dirk muttered, glancing at Sholto and Rye. ‘These people would hide us at the farm, I am sure. And now we know that this place is the source of the skimmers. We know the Master is the Enemy of Weld. We could speak to Cap, make plans to raise a rebellion—’

‘No! We must go back to Weld first, and tell what we have seen,’ Sholto broke in impatiently. ‘We destroyed most of the daylight skimmers, and that will delay the Master’s plans. Only for a time, but it will give us a breathing space—time to talk to Tallus, to convince the Warden—’

‘You are mad if you think you will convince the Warden of anything that will make him uncomfortable,’ Sonia said flatly.

Sholto stared at her, and then, to Rye’s surprise, he slowly nodded.

‘Of course you are right,’ he said quietly. ‘I—’ He hesitated, rubbing his forehead. ‘I am not usually so stupid, I assure you. But I feel as if I have been in a dream since you and Rye appeared at the Harbour. I still cannot believe what has happened. So many times I thought we were finished. When Kyte fired at us, and kept missing, though her aim was famous in the Harbour!’

He shook his head. ‘And when the supervisor released the skimmers … Suddenly, there was smoke everywhere! Just what we needed! It took minutes for me to realise that of course Rye’s sorcerer’s bag would have contained something that made smoke. Smoke is part of a magician’s stock in trade!’

Rye turned and gaped at him. ‘But—but Sholto, I thought you had—’

‘And that key that opens any door!’ Sholto went on. ‘The feather that defies gravity! By the Wall, I am not at all sure that I am awake, even now.’

‘Oh, you are awake,’ Sonia said cheerfully. She glanced at Rye, willing him to speak. She seemed to have decided that the next move was up to him.

Rye looked into her eyes.

Have faith.

The message came to him like a breath of cool, sweet air.

‘I think,’ he said carefully, ‘that we should go back to Weld, consult with Tallus, and then—’

He waited till both his brothers were looking at him before going on.

‘And then—I think—we should go through the third Door,’ he said.

‘The wooden Door?’ exclaimed Dirk. ‘By the Wall, Rye, why? We already know—’

‘There are still too many mysteries,’ Rye said. ‘Too many things we do not understand. And from the very beginning, the wooden Door has—has beckoned to me. I think … I am sure … it holds the answer.’

‘I too,’ Sonia said, taking his arm.

Rye saw his brothers look at one another. His heart lifted as Dirk nodded, and Sholto shrugged.

‘Very well, little brother,’ Sholto said softly. ‘We have had our turns. The last one—will be yours.’