Chapter 29 #3
Her first instinct was to simply extinguish the fire.
But then she dropped like a rock, plummeting at a breakneck speed for several heart-stopping moments until she managed to get her wings spread and a fire lit beneath them.
That made her come to a lurching halt so rough she was shocked the wings didn’t rip right off her arms.
She drifted back up, heart hammering.
She’d have to glide down somehow. She thought through the movements in her head—she’d decrease the heat, little by little, until she was close enough to the ground.
It almost worked. She hadn’t counted on how fast her velocity would increase. Suddenly she was thirty feet from the ground and hurtling far too quickly toward Kitay.
“Move!” she shouted, but he didn’t budge. He just reached his hands out, grabbed her wrists, and swung her about until they collapsed in a tangled, laughing heap of leather and silk and limbs.
“I was right,” he said. “I’m always right.”
“Well, don’t be so smug about it.”
He groaned happily and rubbed his arms. “So how was it?”
“Incredible.” She flung her arms around him and hugged him tight. “You genius. You wonderful, wonderful genius.”
Kitay leaned back, arms raised. “Careful, you’ll break the wings.”
She twisted her head around to check them and marveled at the thin, careful craftsmanship that held the apparatus together. “I can’t believe you did this in a week.”
“I had some time on my hands,” said Kitay. “Wasn’t out there trying to stop a fleet or anything.”
“I love you,” she said.
Kitay gave her a tired smile. “I know.”
“We still don’t know what we’re going to do after—” she started, but he shook his head.
“I know,” he said. “I don’t know what to do about the Hesperians.
For once, I haven’t the faintest idea, and I hate it.
But we’ll figure our way out of it. We’ve figured our way out of this, we’re going to survive the Red Cliffs, we’re going to survive Vaisra, and we’ll keep surviving until we’re safe and the world can’t touch us. One enemy at a time. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said.
Once her legs had stopped shaking, he helped her strip out of her gear. Then they climbed back down the cliff, still light-headed and giddy with victory, laughing so hard that their sides hurt.
Because yes, the fleet was still coming, and yes, they might very well die the next morning, but in that instant it didn’t matter, because fuck it, she could fly.
“You’ll need some air support,” Kitay said after a while.
“Air support?”
“You’ll be a very conspicuous, very obvious target. You’ll want someone fending off the people shooting at you. They throw rocks, we throw them back. A line of archers would be nice.”
Rin snorted. Arlong’s defenses were spread thin as things were. “They’re not going to give us a line of archers.”
“Yeah, probably not.” He shot her a sideways look, considering. “Should we try Eriden before the last council starts? See if he’ll lend us at least one of his men?”
“No,” she said. “I have a better idea.”
Rin found Venka the first place she looked—training in the archery yard, furiously decimating straw targets. Rin stood in the corner for a moment, watching her from behind a post.
Venka hadn’t fully learned yet to compensate for her stiff arms, which seemed to spasm uncontrollably and to bend only with effort. They must have hurt badly—her face tightened every time she reached for her quiver.
She hadn’t taken her left arm brace off.
She’d just locked her upper wrist into place instead.
She was shooting while overcorrecting for a hyperextended arm, Rin realized.
But for the amount of control she had left, Venka had a stunning degree of accuracy.
Her speed was also absurd. By Rin’s count she could shoot twenty arrows a minute, maybe more.
Venka was no Qara, but she’d do.
“Nice go,” Rin called at the end of a fifteen-arrow streak.
Venka doubled over, panting. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
In response, Rin crossed the archery range and handed Venka a silk-wrapped parcel.
Venka glared at it suspiciously, then placed her bow on the ground so she could accept. “What’s this?”
“A present.”
Venka’s lip curled. “Is it someone’s head?”
Rin laughed. “Just open it.”
Venka unwrapped the silk. After a moment she looked up, eyes hard, flinty and suspicious. “Where did you get this?”
“Picked it up in the north,” Rin said. “It’s Ketreyid-made. You like it?”
Before they’d returned to Arlong, she and Kitay had bundled all the weapons they could scavenge onto the raft. Most of them had been short knives and hunting bows that neither of them could use.
“This is a silkworm thorn bow,” Venka declared. “Do you know how rare this is?”
Rin wouldn’t have known silkworm thorn from driftwood, but she took that as a good sign. “I thought you’d like it better than those bamboo creations.”
Venka turned the bow over in her hands, then held it up to her eyes to examine the bowstring. Her arms shook. She glanced down at her trembling elbows, openly disgusted. “You don’t want to waste a silkworm thorn bow on me.”
“It’s not a waste. I saw you shoot.”
“That?” Venka snorted. “That’s nowhere close to before.”
“The bow will help. Silkworm thorn’s lighter, I think. But we can also get you a crossbow, if it’ll help with distance.”
Venka squinted at her. “What exactly are you saying?”
“I need air support.”
“Air . . . ?”
“Kitay’s built a contraption to help me fly,” Rin said bluntly.
“Oh, gods.” Venka laughed. “Of course he has.”
“He’s Chen Kitay.”
“Indeed he is. Does it work?”
“Shockingly, yes. But I need backup. I need someone with very good aim.”
She was absolutely sure Venka would say yes. She could read longing all over Venka’s face. She was looking at the bow the way some might a lover.
“They won’t let me fight,” she said finally. “Not even from the parapets.”
“So fight for me,” Rin said. “The Cike’s not in the army and the Republic can’t tell me who I can recruit. And we’re down a few men.”
“I heard.” A smile cracked across Venka’s face. Rin hadn’t seen her look so genuinely happy in a long, long time. Venka held the bow tight to her chest, caressing the carved grip. “Well, then. I’m at your service, Commander.”