He was hurtling through the air on the wrong side of the deck. Up above, the soldiers were chopping furiously, coordinating their strokes so as to sever each of the cables at the same time. Nish jerked to a stop in mid-air, then tried to pull himself up the swinging strip of canvas, but it was hard to hold on. He would never get there before they cut loose the amphitheatre.

Klarm came over the side, hanging onto the rim of the canvas with one immensely strong hand. Reaching down with the other he gathered in Nish’s safety line, jerked it up, up, up until Nish was within reach, then dragged him over the edge.

‘Go!’ he grunted as he slashed Nish’s tether.

Nish threw himself into the U-shaped canvas valley that now ran down towards the slab-covered roofs of Fiz Gorgo. He couldn’t tell if Klarm had followed, though Nish did see the soldiers hack through the last supporting cables, one, two, three, four, five, and then six. Only two to go.

And as he gathered speed and the cables fell towards him, Nish saw something else. A tarpaulin covering a net hanging below the keel of Ghorr’s air-dreadnought had slipped, exposing a curve of dark metal. It was the thapter.

Ghorr had it and Tiaan, as well as Malien and, presumably, the amplimet.

He’d won after all.

ELEVEN

The lucky ones who had made it to the hanging chairs, baskets and nets were being drawn up towards the air-dreadnoughts, swinging back and forth, crashing into one another and, where they could, fending each other off to avoid their ropes tangling. They were not always successful. A pair of nets became hopelessly tangled and, despite the screams of the occupants, the smaller was cut loose. It had to be, for the nets were attached to different air-dreadnoughts and threatened them both. Incredibly, the small net did not pull free but hung upside down from the larger net as the air-dreadnought rose to safety.

Terror made the occupants of the chairs and baskets irrational. A brief duel flared between a mancer and a lesser scrutator, sending bolts of fire across the sky and ending with the mancer blackening in his chair. The scrutator, alive but lacking clothes or hair, was jerked up to safety.

Irisis jumped the instant the cable went, expecting Nish to do the same. She fell into the canvas valley and felt it deepening under her. Across the valley the other prisoners were also jumping. Yggur was standing by Gilhaelith, as if uncertain what to do about him, then with a swift movement he slashed the mathemancer’s bonds. Gilhaelith jumped. Irisis wondered why Yggur had such a set against the geomancer. For a moment it had looked as though Yggur would leave Gilhaelith to his fate.

Her feet caught in a fold in the canvas and Irisis went tumbling head over heels down the deepening valley, now sliding on her chest, now her left side, friction burning through her clothes. She felt the skin go from her hip and tried to throw herself the other way. She was moving too fast. The deck seemed to be falling as quickly as she was, and she was going to hit the roof hard.

The canvas stopped with a jerk that tore a great rent along one side. Irisis kept sliding, on her back now, and she could smell her hair smouldering. She lifted her head and pressed her heels against the fabric to break her fall.

Now her backside was burning but there wasn’t far to go. The canvas valley had looped down to within a couple of spans of the roof, forming a dip at the bottom. She shot down it, slowed rapidly at the dip then toppled over the edge onto the sloping roof slabs, landing hard enough to wind herself. She slid into one of the roof gullies, rolled over and came to her knees.

Something flashed towards her. Reacting instinctively, Irisis threw herself to one side as the flensing trough hurtled past and smashed through the roof. She didn’t have time to think about her narrow escape; the valley above her was full of falling, sliding and toppling people, though she couldn’t see Nish among them. Someone small came flying down ahead of the rest, rolling and cartwheeling and emitting a thin, moaning cry. It was Inouye.

Hitting the dip faster than Irisis had, the little pilot shot into the air and came flying out. Irisis dived, caught Inouye and fell with her, wrenching her shoulder as they landed in the gully. Before she could get up, a clot of witnesses came sliding down, locked together, and hurtled over the dip.

Irisis scrambled up to them on hands and knees, heaving them out of the way before they were crushed by the next bundle of humanity. Most seemed to have suffered no more than bruising or minor broken bones, though one unfortunate lad had landed on his head with a dozen others on top of him and died instantly of a broken neck. Irisis let his body slide away down the slope. There wasn’t time to think about it, for the next group of people were already on her. Where was Nish?

‘I need help,’ she gasped, dragging men and women out of the tangle and flinging them left and right. It was exhausting work, and several times she was knocked off her feet as people rushed down more quickly than she could clear them out of the way. All the other debris came down as well, including dead bodies, abandoned weapons, torturing tools and lengths of barbed rope.

Flangers shot off the end, landed on his feet and immediately set to. A pair of Yggur’s guards arrived and did the same, though not even four of them could deal with the deluge of human jetsam that now filled the lower section of the canvas valley.

Irisis rolled under the end of the slide as about thirty people tumbled down together, landing so hard that their combined impact cracked the roofing slabs. There would be broken backs and necks among that lot.

She still couldn’t see Nish but didn’t have time to worry about him – people were pouring down faster than they could be moved out of the way. The dead and injured formed a fleshy mat which at least broke the falls of the later arrivals, though the groans as they took the impacts were bloodcurdling.

‘Help us!’ she shouted at the able-bodied witnesses, who stood in dazed, silent clots around the end of the slide. One or two came forward; the rest remained where they were, too shocked to move.

Two more of Yggur’s guard landed, followed by a body, the elderly cook who’d been shot early in the fracas. Flangers heaved it to one side without ceremony. Then came Yggur’s seneschal, his under-chef and maid-of-all-work. The seneschal had broken both legs but the others started dragging the injured out of the way with disciplined efficiency.

Yggur slid down on his backside, though he managed to stand up just before the end, sprang right over the fallen and landed on his feet. One of the last to jump, he’d come down in a grey streak, passing some of the other prisoners on the way.

‘You’ve done well,’ he said, surveying the scene in a single glance before taking his turn with the injured.

The amphitheatre didn’t completely collapse, for the air-dreadnought crews had not been able to cut the last two cables. Part of the deck was now draped over the roofs and towers of Fiz Gorgo, while the rest stood up at an angle as the two remaining craft were pushed away on the wind. The canvas was jerking and snapping under the strain.

They worked for several minutes without speaking, until the bulk of the sliders had been moved to safety further down the roof. When they were only coming down in ones and twos, Yggur drew Flangers and Irisis aside.

‘Arm yourselves. We’re not out of danger yet. The air-dreadnoughts haven’t gone far, and the hundred-odd soldiers who were sent down to look for Nish are still here somewhere. They may not stay loyal once they realise that the scrutators are going to abandon them. But then again, they may.’