Lance of Earth and Sky (The Chaos Knight Book Two) (11 page)

Relay ships had an odd officer configuration, being as they served primarily to assist in reconnaissance and maintain communication between land command and a force abroad. Malloray was first mate, and second in command to Vidarian, but for all practical purposes, the actual function of the ship was given to the quartermistress, in this case a gruff dark-haired woman named Yerune. She was all business, and supervised the launch and movement of the ship, keeping it closely coordinated with the huge
Sunreign
, the admiral's flagship, whose cargo bays were large enough to host Thalnarra and Altair.

Yerune was Targulin, like the
Luminous
herself, but otherwise she reminded Vidarian of Marielle.

“Have you heard word from Ms. Solandt?” Vidarian asked Malloray, once the basics of the relay ship were clear in his mind. The last time Vidarian had seen the
Empress Quest
's first mate, he realized with a pang, she had been fleeing the burning wreckage of his family's ship.

The crease of worry that passed over Malloray's features quickened Vidarian's pulse. “Not in weeks,” he said, after a long pause. “They gave her the
Ardent
, as you hoped—” at this Vidarian's heart leapt, “—but they sailed west from Val Harlon, and passed beyond our communication three weeks ago.”

Three weeks was not a long time for a ship to be out of range, but something in Malloray's tone said otherwise. “Out of range?” Vidarian pressed. “Even—for a relay ship?” He wasn't quite sure, but from what Malloray had described of the ship's capabilities, any vessels in the West Sea should have been well within the range of a Val Harlon relay ship.

Malloray was nodding reluctantly, troubled still. “Aye, sir. The
Ardent
hasn't made her checkpoints the last three running. I confess it concerns me.”

To hear such sharply articulate words from a man who had never spoken in Vidarian's lifetime still startled him, but far more disturbing was the thought of Marielle lost at sea.

“I have a commitment in the West Sea, and would be there if it weren't for the emperor's summons,” Vidarian said.

*
And here I thought you'd forgotten entirely.
* Ruby had been distracted by the presence of the relay sphere and many other elemental artifacts aboard the ship, but not absorbed. The barb in her tone stung true.

“I don't forget a commitment,” he said. At Ruby's words, Malloray had looked thoughtful, a bit puzzled, as though he half heard her. “And I'll find Marielle, if I can.”

The skyships were fast—at top speed, half again faster than a gryphon's long-distance pace—but still the southern border was two days' flight away. These days flew by faster than the ground below as Vidarian immersed himself in ancient tomes on aerial warfare. In the process he learned, to no comfort, that the ship, her artifacts—including the books, rare and prized beyond price—had been provided by the Alorean Import Company. Yet the Company, despite its name, had long also operated in Qui. Why would it supply a war that cut off trade between two of its partner empires?

Also contained in the ship's library were artifact indexes detailing the usage, description, and history of several elemental artifacts. The similarity between the water amplifier he'd used against the Vkortha and the relay sphere was no coincidence—the technologies were related. And the book also contained a chapter on an entire class of objects that most closely resembled glowing gemstones…

A pulse of thought energy pulled Vidarian, bleary-eyed, from the latest passage. It was Isri, who still sat, eyes closed and legs folded in a meditation pose, on the carpeted deck of the stateroom.

She opened her eyes, naturally gold but now brilliant blue with the light of the relay sphere she embraced with her mind.

“That presence…” Isri trailed off, the feathers on her forehead standing stiff in agitation, her eyes somewhere far away. “Strange, even impossible…”

Vidarian flipped the book closed and moved toward her, crouching to bring his face into her line of sight. Beyond the walls of the ship, a dull boom of cannonfire sounded from far below.

The blue eyes faded to green and then gold, pupils narrowing with vision at last. “The Qui. And the Rikani. We are here.”

W
hen they ran up the ladders to the deck, they found the
Luminous
surging with the controlled chaos of battle preparation. Sails had already been furled and cannon prepared, but still the spar deck swarmed with activity.

Yerune, the quartermistress, shouted commands from the aftcastle rail, her eyes obscured by glowing blue relay glasses. Malloray was nowhere to be seen; for the last day he'd been shuttered in with a handful of other powerful mindspeakers in the ship's relay room, coordinating communications from the imperial city to Admiral Allingworth and the dozen skyships in his armada.

Far below, shreds of white cloud obscured parts of the sky, and even farther below them, a land and sea battle raged: the Rikani, true to their word, had sailed into the great crescent arm that was Parelle Bay, and harried the Qui invasion force occupying the green lands of Isrinvale.

“Fire forward cannons!” Yerune's cry carried clearly, and below the gundeck answered, shuddering the entire craft. As gunsmoke painted the air, Vidarian realized what damage they could do from this vantage, where their guns could reach the Qui, but none on the ground could reach them.

//
Ahoy there!
// Altair's voice, surreal and cheerful amidst the smoke and military precision, “tapped” Vidarian on the shoulder. He looked up in its direction and saw both gryphons floating, wings angled to glide with the ship's movement, off the starboard bow.

An impact from the ground far below pulled all of their attention, and Vidarian and Isri ran to the rail.

Thousands of feet beneath them, the cannon-strike was marked by giant burning circles. Impact craters blackened with soot showed the starburst center of each, and beyond for a hundred yards tiny figures silenced by distance writhed in flames, or did not move at all.

//
Fireshot,
// Thalnarra said, and the wreath of cedar smoke around her voice was blended respect and dread. //
Wherever did they find some still intact?
//

“You've heard of this weapon?” Vidarian said, half his breath taken away in attempted comprehension.

//
Heard only. It hasn't been seen in a thousand years. They can't have much of it.
// He tried not to think that this last was hope and not fact.

Rattling steps on the ladders, followed by a flurry of cursing, pulled them away from the carnage below.

A fire priestess—though dressed in leather, and like no other Vidarian had ever seen—ushered two initiates ahead of her up the ladders. All three of them carried odd lanterns, and the priestess wore blue relay glasses held in place with thick, riveted leather straps.

“Priestess Goldwind, can we assist you?” Vidarian shouted, as the cannon thundered again, and he tried not to imagine the result of their landing. He recognized the priestess from the ship's roll only, a Velinese woman aged fifty-three. The quartermistress had written “feisty” next to her name.

“No, you can't, Sharli burn it!” the priestess shouted, setting down the lanterns with a care contrasting her ire, and shaking her hands at the initiates to do likewise. Only when all six lanterns were settled did she look up over the rim of her strangely fixed glasses to squint at Vidarian. She offered no apology, but added grudgingly, “Well, perhaps
you
can,” and waved him impatiently over.

Her two assistants were carefully arranging the lanterns, tilting them toward the sun. As they did so, the flames within picked up strength, and Priestess Goldwind seemed to relax just a little.

“The blessed lamps aren't stably made,” she grumbled, an engineer's affront in her diagnosis. “They're pair-lights, clever enough—the little skiffs don't have mindspeakers aboard, but they do each have an opposite to these lights.” She cocked an eye at Vidarian, then rolled it when he didn't immediately “ah” with comprehension. “Each pair of lights has the same life-flame. Adjust one and the other adjusts with—now
don't
be touching that, Amara!”

The initiate in question flinched away from the priestess's scolding, then gestured helplessly at the lamp in her charge. “I just—”

“I don't want your excuses! Sending me up here to a fool's war with naught but babes in swaddling…” She actually purpled, but only for a moment, and turned her searing attention back to Vidarian. “But they weren't properly made. Not enough energy. I thought the sun would help them, and it has, a…” Her eyes suddenly lost focus, and for a split second Vidarian thought she would faint, but then he saw that she was deliberately focusing on the lenses of the relay glasses.

The pair-lights all started to flicker, six different messages coming in at once. It was not any signal code Vidarian knew.

Priestess Goldwind's attention moved from lamp to lamp. And her face slackened with alarm. “They're saying—but it's impossible —”

The sky bloomed with orange light off the bow, some hundred yards ahead. Isri leapt into the air with a cry of recognition and dismay. She arrowed forward; Vidarian had not known she could move so fast.

He leapt from the deck and ran for the bow, lifting his head just in time to see a sear of orange and white light streak through the sky. The gryphons shrieked as the light appeared, and Vidarian felt their wave of astonishment and denial also. He cried out as the light burned his eyes, but kept lurching forward, and reached the bow just as his eyes cleared.

The gryphons each peeled off, Altair diving to starboard while Thalnarra curved to port, instinctively evading the attacks from below.

The little skiffs, as Priestess Goldwind had called them, weren't so lucky, or half so agile. A second blast of light tore through the port- and mainsails of the leading craft, which tipped crazily to one side. A topman pitched off his mast and into the open sky, falling—

Altair shrieked, drawing Vidarian's eye. The gryphon was poised in midair, talon raised in a gesture wreathed with pale energy. The falling sailor was blown upward, back within range of the skiff. The blast was coarse, but it would save his life.

Or it would, if the whole skiff itself wasn't tipping to starboard, its side-sails failing entirely.

“Altair!” Vidarian cried, “The ship!”

Altair dove, arrowing downward faster than a falling stone, then snapped his wings open and sailed beneath the beleaguered vessel. A
crack!
split the air, and seconds later the pulse of wind reached Vidarian—well after it filled the sails of the falling ship and carried it upward again. The men and women aboard saw certain death snatched away from their futures, and cried out in relief and gratitude.

But Altair, despite his enhanced strength, was struggling under the weight of the skiff and all it carried. He slowed its fall rather than supporting it. //
Thalnarra! The sails!
//

Thalnarra dove, a palpable anxiety, focus, and determination burning from her mind. She was not as fast as the white kite-gryphon, but she was upon the faltering skiff in moments, her broad, dark wings fanning out to brake her descent.

Now Thalnarra's talons reached out toward the sails, her mind radiating caution and delicacy across the distance between the ships. The torn sails lashed in the wind, erratic—but when their edges touched together, little by little, they began to re-knit, under the slow and painstakingly gentle fire energy of Thalnarra's claws.

“Breathtaking,” Priestess Goldwind murmured, all trace of her acidity gone for half a moment. Then she recovered herself, turning on her initiates with redoubled ire. “You there! You'll not witness such precision in all your lives again! A single breath's more intensity and she'd have shorn those sails clear through, a single less and they'd not mend!” The initiates summoned suitably awestruck expressions, and Goldwind leaned toward Vidarian. “Even among gryphons, I'd lay my eyeballs on her touch being exceptional. I've not seen anything like it.”

Below, the skiff was stabilizing, to more cries of relief from its crew. Altair, too, sounded less strained as he called back another command: //
Tell them to adjust the stabilizers! Transfer energy to the right half of the craft!
// Altair showed a “picture” of what to do, and Vidarian repeated the instructions as best he could, while Priestess Goldwind and her assistants relayed them to the damaged skiff.

Shortly, both gryphons were angling away from the repaired vessel, minute movements of their wingtips carrying them carefully away to the renewed cheers of the skiff's crew.

Their celebration was short-lived, as two more bursts of searing strange fire, one after the other, rocketed up from the ground. These were followed by three more, two of which found the bow of the
Destiny.

The gryphons' shrieks of anger and fear echoed the silent pitch of Vidarian's heart. He reached out helplessly as the tiny craft pitched forward, its propulsion failing, and plummeted toward the ground.

Thalnarra and Altair cupped their wings to dive, but broke off with cries of fury as they realized the
Destiny
was falling too fast, and their magics could not repair its shattered frame. They might all have stared, transfixed with horror, at the falling ship, if two more sizzling lances of fire hadn't split the air between them.

Altair had spun, using the wind to angle back up toward the
Luminous.

“We can't fight them from here!” Vidarian shouted. The gryphon replied with a wave of smoky, frustrated ascent. Not quite believing what he was about to suggest, but without another option, Vidarian added, “Can you get me down there?”

Altair was close enough now for Vidarian to read the pinning of his pupils as he cocked his head, looking from the
Luminous
to the ground and calculating.

//
I can,
// Altair agreed, just when Vidarian was sure he would refuse. He tried not to think about the distance between the ship and the ground. Or the homicidal magic-wielder that awaited them.

Altair tipped his left wing and slipped closer to the ship, positioning himself as close as he dared. He gestured with his beak, and Vidarian climbed up onto the rail. Isri let out a little squeak of protest, but subsided, nodding unhappily when Vidarian looked back at her.

It was one thing to talk about leaping off a skyship, and another to contemplate doing it. The pale, smoking dots far below made Vidarian's stomach turn over.

“It didn't turn out so well the last time we did this!” Vidarian called down.

//
Neither of us
died, // Altair snapped, with a whiff of affront like lightning in dry air. //
And last time it relied on the Breath of Siane,
// he added gruffly. Vidarian still carried the crystal whistle, though it no longer functioned, its energy spent. Altair had lifted a sailor from hundreds of feet away; his confidence in carrying Vidarian to the ground was not unfounded.

Vidarian closed his eyes and dove out into the air.

Sound engulfed him: the whistling of the wind past his face, the low susurrus of Altair's wingbeats, the thunder of the Alorean armada's cannon.

When he opened his eyes, he was falling—he and Altair angled sharply toward the ground. He'd instinctively spread out his arms like wings, ridiculous as that was—and beneath him, Altair's expansive wingspan guided them arrow-sharp toward their goal. Beyond the gryphon's feathers, vivid to the tiniest detail at this distance, the painted earth spread out far below. The waves of Parelle Bay still crashed against the shore, indifferent to the battle, and the fighting and dying of men.

Vidarian was trying to take in all that went on below them when another blast from the enemy magician blazed up below, causing Altair to shriek and pivot his wings. The gryphon's bubble of air energy carried Vidarian with it and out of range of the fiery blast, but Vidarian's stomach did three more flips as they spiraled away.

After an eternity the gryphon leveled out again, a “hand” of air energy brushing over Vidarian and steadying him. Two more blasts of pale fire shot past them, and it became obvious that they, and not the ships above, were the new target. A savage flush of victory pulsed through Vidarian, followed immediately by panic; they'd succeeded in protecting the
Luminous
, at least for now, but would they even make it to the ground?

Said ground, however, had been rushing upward during their maneuvers, and was now quite close. A sudden memory of crashing through trees sent panic shooting through Vidarian's veins, but already Altair was slowing, spreading his wingtips and bringing them down in a graceful arc.

The ground rushed up beneath them, and Altair's wings stretched farther, bringing them into a swift glide just above the top of the marsh grasses. As they slowed, his wings tilted deeper and his hind legs shot downward, tearing at the ground.

A brush of air and Vidarian slid to the right, then dropped down onto his feet.

He only had a breath to appreciate the landing, and then the grass to his right burst into angry flame.

The next burst was preceded by a whisper of energy, barely enough warning for both of them to throw themselves to the ground. Even then, Altair's wing coverts were smoking as he stood and shrieked a terrible full-throated battle challenge, his pupils flaring with fury.