‘Fuck,’ he said, blind to the flurry of detonations below the advancing kite. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Lemon had run out of tether and had lost all forward momentum. She might be able to hover where she was, but she needed to be reeled in immediately, or either the wind would drop or it would drive her into Chel’s own umbilical and down them both.

The kite was veering closer. He imagined he could already hear her abusive screams. He looked down at his own tether, still firmly fixed, but the length of cord remaining on the spool, back on the platform, was a terrifying unknown. He was still a long way short of the line of engines, creeping closer but not fast enough. What if his own tether ran out, and he remained stranded, a sitting duck for the archers below as he floated downward.

Fifty strides to the engines. He had to reach them. Lemon was coming closer; was she steering toward him deliberately? Why weren’t those on the platform reeling her back in?

Without prelude, the wind fell away. The rush in Chel’s ears faded to nothing, and he felt suddenly weightless as his steady rise tailed off, the protesting whispers and creaks of the kite his only companions. The rush returned, not from the wind, but because he was dropping, picking up speed.

But still moving forward.

Forty yards to the engines, a hundred strides below. Chel’s mind worked at triple speed, but he knew he was guessing. Hoping. In his periphery, Lemon’s kite was dropping fast.

But it could work. Only one thing would blow it. As fast as he could move his frigid hands, he bunched the remaining cords together in one fist, then dug for his knife.

***

Thirty strides and falling. Chel gripped tight to the swooping kite, the air now rushing against his chilled and battered face, hands locked by icy willpower. Untethered, the kite was almost beyond his control now, but there was no danger of stopping short. Chel was riding his momentum all the way to the plateau’s end.

Twenty strides, and the figures beneath were growing fast. With them came the engines, their scale only now becoming clear. The machines were huge, their wheels as tall as a man, great black sheets of iron bolted to their extremities, their tender workings within. He had to reach those workings.

Ten strides, and he’d been seen. He could hear the shouts, the panicked cries, as his vision streamed and blurred in the teeth of the rushing air.