1 #4
The Skydancers were the last line of defense, flying Machina with single weapons that fluttered with agility, if not speed, on four wings.
King Alliard had finally shown his hand. About damned time.
One head swung up towards the sleek little craft, and then, without any warning, the great Predator just—turned away.
It turned its massive body with an agility that belied its size, swung its heads around, and scuttled back towards the forest to where the others awaited it.
Even with injured legs it still moved with horrifying swiftness, much faster than any Predator he had ever seen before.
So that’s how it got to the wall so fast. It ran. I’ve never heard that they could run like that before.
With the creature in retreat, the Skydancers swung away, saving their strikes for another day.
Three joined in a tight formation, their four iridescent wings glittering like jewels in the afternoon light.
The fourth, trailing the other three, locked its wings, and corkscrewed high up into the yellow-green sky, silvery metal glinting against the clouds.
He sat down on the balcony, his back propped against the warm stone wall, and watched the … what was it … the Polycephalus … depart. The other two huge Predators waited a time, then withdrew as well. The swarm about them departed, and the attack ended.
He looked up at the lone Skydancer as its speed bled away, and the nose dropped.
Its wings began to beat again, blurring in motion as it dove, its Manipulator having a lark before returning to base.
He hoped whoever controlled the little craft enjoyed themselves, because the reaming for showing off would be world class when they landed.
Haldeen could not shake the thought that the last retreat looked a lot like an intelligent decision, a response to the arrival of the Skydancers, and if he ignored the common wisdom, and studied this the way he would an elvish opponent; this might have been a probe …
to see what their defenses looked like. He was no soldier, but if one forgot for just a moment that these were just dumb animals …
albeit very large, dumb animals, then … the inescapable conclusion was that they were intelligent.
They knew exactly what they were doing. And they were learning.
He felt his gorge rise, and scrambled inside to vomit into a wastebasket.
When he was done, he wiped his mouth, and sat back.
He had seen this coming, perhaps not exactly this, but close enough.
He had warned the Kings about it, when he had petitioned them for permission to attempt another World Gate …
on a smaller scale. They’d turned him down.
Too much lost the first time. Too many resources that they didn’t have.
Too many competing requirements. Too few low-borns …
even the scrubs had become essential now.
The Predators might have taken a while to understand what a threat the elves were to them, but now … they knew. They definitely knew. And the elves were out of time.
Which made it all the more imperative that this experiment needed to be tried. Needed to succeed. They could not afford any more failures.
Failure. That drew him back to where his new Machina had failed.
Something had gone wrong, some safeguard hadn’t done its proper job.
The creature had been driven off, and nineteen of the twenty Machina, the first run of this design, had performed splendidly.
He would get no praise for the nineteen that succeeded … one failed, and wiped the books clean.
He watched as the healers worked to tend the wounded, including those caught in the blast when the Machina failed.
His heart sank still further as they brought a single shrouded figure from the low tower.
That would have been the Manipulator, caught in the feedback when the Machina failed and the magic had to go somewhere.
He felt a throbbing in his temples and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.
The day had started so well, and now this.
He was so lost in his brooding that he didn’t even hear his wife come in until she spoke up, making him start with surprise. “I brought some tea,” she said, tone as even and calm as if she’d had no notion that a few moments ago a giant monster had been tearing at their defenses.
His first impulse was to snarl at her and send her away, but as he raised his hand and realized how much it shook, he changed his mind. “I’ll have it,” he said brusquely, and took the cup from her. He held it, controlling the shaking with an effort of will.
“I’ve sent the Household Healers to aid the city’s,” she said, lifting her chin. They both knew this was his decision to make, and not hers, and daring him to make a point of it. Her voice grew flat. “You were up here?”
“Obviously,” he replied.
Her eyes passed across the work-table, and the sheaf of papers, and the drawings he had kept carefully hidden.
Her eyes narrowed. “When you asked me for those calculations, you told me it was only a theoretical exercise. A thought experiment to see if you could power a larger Gate using a smaller one. This is your secret project.”
He nodded, a silent half-truth. He had become practiced enough that she could no longer smell the lie on him, but he didn’t want to press his luck. “Yes. It’s done, except for the final tests.”
She set the tea tray down on an end-table and stepped over to examine the drawings, and her calculations’ part in it.
“This is all highly theoretical … and incredibly dangerous. One misalignment, one small error …. The Gate you are using here was meant for short distances, barely range to make the next city, and you have it meshed with the World Gate?”
“Yes,” he said defensively, “it was the only one I could lay my hands on without attracting too much attention.”
She gave him a sharp look. “The Council didn’t approve this. They don’t know.”
“No,” he admitted. “Their foolishness is going to get us all killed. We are losing, and if this works, then we have a way out.”
“And if it doesn’t,” she answered, “the Kings will have your head for it. You defied them, Haldeen. You did it with my calculations, so you put me right in there with you.”
Her face hardened. He felt another quarrel coming on, and moved to head it off.
“I didn’t plan to be up here.” He made a gesture, taking in the destruction along the city’s wall.
“Given a choice, I would have been in the bunker. But, it was fortuitous. I was able to observe the Predator and see … umm, how effective our defenses were. How the new Machina worked, and how the creatures responded. I learned enough today about our enemies to be convinced I’m right.
This is the only way.”
“Enemies.” Her eyes went from the drawings and calculations, then to the window and its view of the forest beyond the cleared verge that was kept well burned.
Her voice took on a sardonic edge. “That covers a lot of ground. I lose track … our enemies the monsters, our enemies the other cities, our enemies on the Council, our enemies the Kings that you are defying, our enemies who used to be colleagues, or our enemies the scrubs that escaped from us …
‘our’ enemies are everywhere. Why must you make it so?”
He raised his hand to stop her, but she pressed on.
“We are at war with this world,” she said aloud. “We are at war not just with the Predators, but everything else in this world along with every person in it … and the world is much larger than we are.”
He felt his temper slip … it was worse than she knew, worse than she could be allowed to know. He felt the pressure then, the secrets, the secret knowing.
He pointed first at her, and then himself, his voice raised in hard anger.
He felt the pulse of pain in his temple, the headache coming on.
“We came from nothing … nothing. Fought and scratched, and kicked to earn our bread, and this place. Us. You. Me. Us …. No high birth, and every morsel earned. And the moment we slip, it’s gone. Like that. I’ve had it happen to me once already, when Aubergine fell. It can happen again.”
He gave her a hard snap of the fingers, as though summoning a servant.
“No more lord and lady. No more anything. Maybe not even alive. And it’s high time you remembered that.”
“I was happy, then,” she replied. He could see the hint of tears in her eyes.
“Maybe I was just a botanist. But I was a good one.”
She paused and drew herself up. He could see her lower lip tremble.
“But lord and lady be too damned important to you ….”
Her tone turned icy. “Then next time, don’t put ‘us’ at hazard by taking stupid risks. You put my head on the block by using my data. Didn’t say a single word about it. Now, if you die, where does that leave me? Neither of us has a birth title.
Your only importance lies in the fact that you are second to none in the mastery of Gates.”
“Only importance?” His temper slipped, and he dropped into the highborn speech of the King’s Court. “Have a care at how thee bespeaks me, woman, for though I am a lord appointed, and not of birth, I am still thy lord. Forget not thy place.”
She went white, then red, ready with a retort, then swallowed it. “Then, prithee, lord,” she said, mocking his tones, her voice a controlled fury. “Have I thy leave to depart?”
“Yes. Go,” he replied, his own voice tight with tension.
She withdrew, careful not to turn her head away, and stepping backwards as though in the king’s own presence. When she reached the door to the narrow, steep step, she slammed it behind her with enough force to rattle the windows. He felt quite certain the servants had heard it on the ground below.
He stretched his arms back over his shoulders to try and release some of the tension, then let out an oath and gave the side table holding the tea tray a good kick.
It flew back against the wall, shattering the cup, and spilling tea on the floor.
He caught its scent then. Mint. From her garden.
A peace offering after last night’s quarrel. And now, they had just had another.
Females. Unpredictable, flighty, shallow-minded.
He heard his name called from down below, and went to the balcony.
“Yes?” he replied.
“They’re getting ready to shift the broken Machina, and the foreman said to wait until you’d inspected it.”