Chapter 1 #4
The Hook being the unimaginative name given to the outcrop of rock that lay on the far side of the Caídas Falls—the leaping, silvery stream that plunged from the very top of the Slit’s western edge into the deep pool that dominated its entrance.
Unfortunately for us, the Mareritt did not hold the same fear of fresh water that they did of the sea, and it presented no true barrier to them.
I bent and adjusted the focus ring; the landscape I could barely see leapt into sharpness.
I carefully swept the viewer to the left until I found the Hook, then extended the viewing tube until I could see the land that lay beyond the marshes.
Or rather, not see the land. The fog was thick and held the slightest tinge of green, which did not look like vegetation showing through.
It was definitely constructed more like the blanket they’d used to protect their forces during the recent attack rather than the barrier they’d magically raised to protect the new siege machines—which were basically larger versions of the tubes the gilded riders used to fire their acidic shit mounted onto wheels—they’d been building.
Damon had broken that magic, and then Kaia and I had broken those siege engines.
But if there was once again movement in that area, it was very possible they’d already managed to rebuild some of what we’d destroyed, and were even now beginning the slow process of bringing them toward Esan.
I extended the tube to its longest point, but remained unable see any movement in the fog. I stood upright. “When did you sight the movement?”
“It ended about ten minutes ago,” the woman replied. “But, as we said, the turbulence it caused was pretty bad.”
“But not bad enough to reveal what was causing it, I’d warrant,” Jarin commented.
The woman smiled. “No, Commander, it was not.”
“Keep an eye over it for the next couple of hours, and make a note of duration and frequency. Send a report to Commander Jarin at noon unless something major happens.”
The woman nodded and saluted. I returned the salute, then hesitated. “Your name, soldier?”
“Captain Ginevra Larkmore, though most just call me Gin.” A faint hint of red touched her cheeks. “Sorry, that wasn’t information you asked for.”
I smiled. “Until two days ago, I was a captain like yourself, Gin, and I tend not to stand on ceremony. Good work, all of you.”
She nodded, briefly looking pleased. If there was one thing I’d learned from my father, it was to appreciate the people who were defending the fortress with their lives—even when it came to the smallest of things, such as a thank-you. I glanced at Jarin, then left.
He quickly fell in beside me. “I take it, since you told them to report to me, that you intend to do what we cannot afford right now?”
Our duty came Kaia’s comment.
It may be our duty, but you just want to burn , I replied, amused.
Am queen , she said. Must teach others.
Which was just an excuse to satisfy her need to burn, and we both knew it.
To Jarin I said, “What we can’t afford is to ignore it, especially if they’ve managed to rebuild their larger acid tubes.
It’ll be days yet before the mages manage to fully fortify the lower curtain wall against the acid, and more time than we likely have before they can complete the upper wall.
The Mareritten catapults have caused enough damage; we don’t need them using anything more powerful or direct. ”
“On that, I agree, but it remains dangerous for you to fly out.” He paused. “Your drakkon is a beast of a thing, but she is not invincible, and we cannot afford to lose the last of our royal line.”
“I am not the last—I’ve kin on Jakarra.” Kin who had been decimated and who were currently holed up in caverns, true, but my line would not end with me.
Or at least, Mom’s line would not. Dad had been an only son from an only son, and he’d had no immediate kin left alive.
I touched Jarin’s arm lightly. “I will be fine, but thank you for the concern.”
He cleared his throat and said somewhat gruffly, “Your father would have said the same.”
Indeed, he would have. But he’d also have known that only a direct order not to go would have stopped me—and there was no one left now to issue such an order.
I bit my lip and waited a couple of beats until my emotions were back under control.
“While I’m gone, check the progress on the insulation of the buffel matting.
I know the upper palace tier is a priority, but we need it installed on all the larger building rooftops in the other quadrants as soon possible. ”
Buffel grass was an innocuous-looking weed that also happened to be highly flammable.
We’d long ago learned that if we wove it into thickish ropes and set it alight, it created a fierce wall of fire that temporarily stopped a Mareritten advance while the black smoke it emitted provided good cover for our forces, whether they were in attack mode or retreat.
We didn’t have enough of the woven ropes to cover every building within Esan, but we could almost certainly weave it across those with long enough rooflines for the birds to use as a perch.
The gilded birds might not be the size of our drakkons, but they were still damnably big and, with all the metal feathering, probably double a drakkon’s weight.
The buffel would not burn hot enough to melt their feathers—or indeed, stone, so it wouldn’t affect any of the buildings it was installed on—but it’d certainly make any decision to stay put by the riders damnably uncomfortable.
“Aye, Commander,” Jarin said. “Any orders for Captain Kele when she returns?”
Kele and I had first met in military training and had remained fast friends since then.
We’d even been in the same scouting group until I’d made captain and been moved on.
Thanks to the ceremony that had bonded her to Yara—our other, younger queen—she was once again my second, just as Yara was Kaia’s second.
I’d promoted Kele to captain to make it clear to the other riders that if I wasn’t around, she was in charge of the flight—or kin, as the drakkons had taken to calling those who were now paired.
“Tell her to rest up. Depending on what Kaia and I discover out there this morning, we may need to do a full flame run later this evening.”
Lura and Kiko no come? Kaia said. They both flame good now.
Like most of the other younger drakkons that now inhabited the once-abandoned aerie above Esan, Lura and Kiko were on the cusp of breeding age.
They’d been part of Yara’s aerie before it had fallen to an attack by the gilded riders, had witnessed our interaction with the drakkons since then, and were well aware that having flame gave them a deadly means of protecting themselves.
But I also thought they’d agreed to become kin simply because they’d been born after the ballistas had fallen silent and held no memories of the bad times.
Maybe they do, I replied , but Miri and Halka have not received clearances from our healers.
Lura and Kiko flame without their kin.
Yes, but they flame better with kin, and we can’t afford to lose anyone right now.
Others will come.
I do not hold your certainty.
Trust.
I did trust. I just didn’t think the lure of having flame would be enough to overcome the—justified—prejudices and fears of the older drakkons, especially since most of them would not have seen firsthand just how effective drakkon fire could be.
Once they did, then maybe there’d be a rush; in which case, the whisperers might have a right to be worried.
Not all older drakkons were as open-minded and fair as Kaia, and some would no doubt use their flames against us—maybe not against Esan, but certainly some of the more remote farmsteads and settlements.
Kin stop them , Kaia commented.
I snorted. Like I can stop you doing anything you want?
Am queen. Different. Stronger of mind.
Rua ignored both you and me when she flamed those barges. That suggests she is pretty strong of mind to me, Kaia.
She young. Not sensible.
And that was her stock answer to those sorts of criticisms. We made our way down the steps and back into the palace.
Jarin returned to the new war room while I made my way up the stairs, then headed right toward my suite.
The spell Damon had layered around our accommodation buzzed around my fingers as I opened the door, and the bracelet around my wrist briefly responded, the threads of red and gold—the colors of his house and mine—shimmering softly between the brown and black leather.
Damon had given it to me to prevent Gayl—his aunt, and his father’s spy in Esan—from reading my thoughts, but the inner me suspected there was far more to the magic that inhabited the thing—especially given it clung to my wrist like a gentle limpet.
It wasn’t tight, but it also wouldn’t be removed.
Of course, Gayl hadn’t only been a powerful reader but also a minor seeress.
Damon had told me that, while she wasn’t able to read the minds of anyone belonging to her bloodline, she could and did skim the thoughts of many others and was often able to divine their future actions and perhaps even fate through their thoughts.
Which made me wonder if that was why she was no longer here—had she seen Esan’s fate and wanted no part of it? Or was her disappearance connected to Damon’s? My parents had certainly seemed convinced the latter was true.
But until he returned, I would have no answers.
I closed the door with a little more force than necessary, and the sound echoed through the emptiness. While my suite was smaller than my parents’, it was still extensive, consisting of a lounging area, a large bed platform, a bathing area, and behind that, a dressing room.