Chapter 1 #2
Even with eight fire-breathing drakkons, the odds remain greatly in their favor.
And it wasn’t like we could get many more at this stage, because so many drakkons remained wary of humans and had not answered Kaia’s call to come help, despite her certainty that they eventually would.
Given we’d almost hunted them into extinction, I really couldn’t blame them for their reluctance, especially when there were just as many doubters here in Esan.
Jarin wasn’t one, but I’d heard soldiers and plenty of others discussing the inadvisability of using the drakkons when they thought I couldn’t hear them—discussions that had only strengthened after over a dozen soldiers manning the lower wall had been caught in the backwash of drakkon fire.
It hadn’t been meant, but it was still used it as a pointer to the fact that, by giving the drakkons fire, we were creating our own doom, and steps needed to be taken for the greater good of all.
A somewhat bitter smile twisted my lips.
I’d heard very similar “discussions” about my strega abilities when I was just a kid and unable to fully control either the fire or my ability to talk to animals.
Not that I had the latter anymore. I’d known there’d be a price to pay for merging with Kaia, but I hadn’t truly understood the full extent of it. It wouldn’t have mattered even if I had, of course, but still... the silence in my mind was deafening. I really missed the background chatter.
I chatter more, if wish , Kaia commented.
Not quite the same thing , I said dryly, and returned my attention to Jarin. “I agree. Your thoughts?”
“The king did send messages to all our allies requesting information on our green-haired attackers and whether anyone had had any interactions with them, be they recent or past. This may very well be a response to that. If it is , we dare not ignore it.” He hesitated. “But it could also be a trap.”
I frowned. “What makes you think that?”
He waved a hand that was partially bandaged and missing a finger—a lasting reminder of the arrow that had come close to taking his life.
Our healers could and did do the near impossible when it came to saving lives, but even they could not successfully reattach body parts that had been severed for too long.
“The timing. With the riders building their numbers in the Eastern Sea, this could be nothing more than a means of drawing you and the drakkons out of Esan so they can mount an attack. You did fly to Hopetown’s rescue, so perhaps they believe you will do the same for Reydia. ”
“If they were ready to mount a full attack on Esan, they’d do so. They hold no fear of our drakkons.” I was sure of that, if nothing else.
We change that , Kaia said. We burn and melt .
That was definitely a plan I could get behind, even if the disparity in numbers remained a major problem.
Of course, there were a couple of other complications—the first being the fact that, even if we did hit them in the middle of the day when the majority of their armored war birds were unable to rise, they’d no doubt be prepared for such an action now thanks to the almost disastrous attack Rua had made against orders during a scouting mission.
And, secondly, it was unlikely they remained in the same area.
They’d been roosting on giant barges, so could have easily moved by now.
Until we went out there, we wouldn’t know for sure, and with the Mareritt remaining a threat, it wasn’t yet worth the risk of flying out.
Not until our next three drakkon riders were ready to go, anyway, and that could take another twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
At least if the gilded riders did decide to attack us, we’d have some advance warning, thanks to the newly established watch stations at Brimstone’s Pass and Crooked Thumb.
The latter had the advantage of looking over the Eastern Sea and the sweep of mountains past the Beak—so named because it rather weirdly resembled a kayin’s slightly hooked beak when viewed from the sea—where the riders now had a series of lookout points.
We also had the long-established watch stations along the ridges of the Blue Steel Mountains, and while five stations didn’t guarantee we’d spot them, it was better than being totally blind.
“After what the drakkons did to them at Hopetown and how they razed the Mareritt?” Jarin was saying, somewhat incredulously. “I doubt that.”
“We hardly razed the Mareritt, given they still hold position out in the wastelands.” My reply held a little more annoyance than was warranted, though its cause was the Mareritt and their refusal to leave despite the drakkons taking out a good portion of their initial attack force, not Jarin.
I rubbed my head again. What I needed—aside from sleep and a pain potion to get rid of the low-level but annoying headache—was a large cup of shamoke.
I should probably eat, too, given it had been Vahree only knew how long since I had.
“Even if the Mareritt are working with the riders, it’s unlikely they’d have admitted their defeat. To do so would be to lose face.”
And a Mareritten warrior would rather kill himself than lose face or indeed let himself be captured by an enemy.
“That’s true.” Jarin grimaced again. “Although perhaps the missive will also confirm the alliance we already suspect.”
“Possible.” The Mareritt and the gilded riders very obviously had a trading relationship, given the Mareritt were using devices very similar to the riders’ acidic tube weapons.
But I personally couldn’t believe the Mareritt—who believed in their own superiority over all—would cede control or even the spoils of victory to anyone else.
“Scribe Hopetown. If they’ve tablets connected to Reydia, get them to send a message informing them of what’s happened and asking for the information they hold to be relayed. ”
Hopetown was the first town we’d re-established scribe contact with, mainly because of the port’s importance to both us and the riders. We might have rebuffed their initial attack, but I had no doubt they’d try to regain control, whether it be via the gilded riders or galleons filled with soldiers.
“Commander Silva?” a deeper voice said. “Long viewers on the upper wall have spotted movement through that mist barrier hiding the Mareritt.”
“What sort of movement?” I walked over to the young officer—Jenkins, I thought his name was—manning the table lined with scribe tablets.
The front line were the pairs of quills being held by soldiers manning the long viewing tubes on both the upper wall and lower walls, and though the latter wasn’t really necessary, I was working on a “more eyes on the bastards, the better” theory.
Two of the back eight were connected to our people at Hopetown and Jakarra—the main island in a cluster of five just off our eastern shore, and a place where I still had some kin, even if they were currently hiding within cavern refuges.
The third was on a ship headed for Kriton, the nearest major seaport to Zephrine.
Aric might, for reasons known only to himself, be headed back here to Esan rather than going home as he’d initially intended before the attack, but he’d undoubtedly left Tayte, his youngest son, in charge.
Whether he’d have the nous to replace the old scribe and reestablish contact was unclear.
A sound military mind he apparently was not.
In fact, if the military grapevine was to be believed, he was something of a ninnyhammer.
A ninnyhammer who’d done all that he possibly could to get out of marrying me, therefore giving Aric no choice but to offer marriage to his oldest son or risk war with a fed-up Esan. It might have been a decision made under duress, but one I would be eternally grateful for.
The other five tablets were linked to our watch stations, though the last one wasn’t yet activated.
Yara and Kele were currently flying out to the post with its pair and hopefully would not be fired upon.
I’d ordered the other sentry points along the Blue Steel Mountains—three of which had fired—to send the fifth station a warning of their approach, but it remained hard to break centuries of conditioning when it came to the drakkons.
Jenkins sent back my question. The cursor blinked for a few seconds before the reply came. Swirling. Occasional dark shape.
“Suggesting they’re moving something big through that mist, perhaps getting ready for another attack,” Jarin said.
“Well, they’re not likely to be retreating. It’s not in their nature.” I paused. “Any word from the scout teams out in the wastelands?”
We currently only had five squads in rotation for scouting duties, having lost one just before the Mareritten attack. We’d yet to recover their bodies, and in all truth, I doubted we would.
“A scribe came in from Kerryn Vertale’s team last night, according to Neera. They’re keeping back from the fog, as ordered, but they can hear construction noise.”
Neera being Jarin’s night replacement, and Kerryn the man who’d been my second when I’d been the team’s captain. One of the many things I’d signed off on over the last forty-eight hours was permanently elevating him into the position as team leader. “Any sign of Mareritten patrols?”
“No reports, but they did almost run into a sentry position and were forced into a fast retreat. They should be here in Esan within the hour.”
“The valley remains open?”
“Aye. The sentries positioned at the head will send warning if there’s any effort to close it.”
“Good.” I rubbed my head yet again. “And Cate’s team?”
“No word from them this morning. Last report was two hours ago.”
“Their location at that time?”
“She said they’d passed the tail end of the Barrain Ghost Forest over an hour ago and were heading west.”