We Rule the Night

by Claire Eliza Bartlett

  She doubted he’d say it in those exact words. “Thank you, sir.” Was her father proud of her? Angry? Too shocked to be either? What does it matter? I’d need a medal before he acknowledged it. Definitive proof that she belonged.

  “So, are you convinced?” Zima said, standing as Tcerlin returned to the desk.

  “My dear, charming lady, you’ve already convinced Isaak. I was merely here to oversee the arrival of the planes.”

  Linné had expected the planes to roar in, a declaration to the world that a new weapon of war was here to stay. She was surprised to find them on the field when she accompanied Tcerlin and Commander Zima out after dinner. Enormous flat-backed palanquins made their pendulous way off the base, assisted by drivers who powered the machines with their spark.

  The arrival of the planes had drawn a crowd. Both girls and boys clustered, for once heedless of one another, craning to get a good look at them. They were covered in canvas sheets.

  Colonel Hesovec came out to see the affair, and his chest puffed as he recognized Tcerlin. He brushed past Zima and strode forward, hand outstretched. “General, it is an honor—”

  Tcerlin grabbed Hesovec’s wrist and pumped his arm up and down a single time. “Pleasure,” he said, and moved along.

  Linné bit her lip so hard that it bled as she passed Hesovec. He couldn’t see her smirk.

  They stopped on the edge of the field, and at Tcerlin’s instruction, two men jogged out to the nearest plane and tugged at the canvas covering until it fell away.

  The plane sat low to the ground, propped up by two claws. It was perhaps two or three times as long as Linné was tall, with a fat body of wood and canvas and wide double wings lined with living metal. The open cockpit revealed two seats and a tangle of steel mesh barely protected by the windscreen. This was their response to the monstrous power of the Dragons?

  Zima walked up to the plane and crossed her arms. Tcerlin followed her, motioning for Linné to stay put.

  “Is this our temporary consignment?” Zima said.

  “They’re your permanent consignment,” Tcerlin said.

  “Impossible.” Her smile mirrored Tcerlin’s but pulled at the edges of her face. “Strekozy were designed to carry seeds, not firepower.”

  “They are the aircraft we have available,” Tcerlin replied.

  “You said yourself you’d never let your daughter fly in one.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Tcerlin.

  “Then get us others.”

  “There are no others.”

  Zima stepped close to him and her smile disappeared. Linné strained to hear her. “Paper planes,” she said. “That’s what the Elda call them. The Dragons and Skyhorses can send them to the ground with one hit. You can’t expect a crop duster to take down a Dragon. The Elda designed them, and they don’t even want them in service. I can’t imagine that Isaak—”

  “They’re the only planes available. If you want something else, you’ll have to sign up for it. And you won’t be pushed to the top of the list because you’re Isaak’s…” He paused, lip curling. “Good friend.”

  For a moment Linné thought Zima might hit Tcerlin. She squared off against him, shoulders wide and arms away from her body, making her seem a little bigger against his massive frame. Her anger was a heat that threatened to burn anyone who stepped too close. It was the same anger Linné had felt when Colonel Koslen had sent her here. No right choice, no way to win.

  Colonel Hesovec chose that moment to approach again, chest puffed like a pigeon’s.

  “Yes, my good man?” Tcerlin snapped.

  Hesovec was brave in his persistence. Linné gave him that. “I couldn’t help but overhear. Is there some issue?”

  Zima continued as though she hadn’t heard him. “You can’t condemn my girls to die this way. There must be something better.”

  “Did you truly think that each of your pilots should have a plane like yours?” Tcerlin said. “They’re soldiers. Isn’t that what you wanted to show me? They get what we can spare. And it’s lucky that we have enough Strekozy on hand.”

  “My men are happy to take the consignment, if it harms the ladies’ delicate sensibilities,” Hesovec said.

  Zima’s eyes widened as she saw the planes slipping through her fingers. “That’s not your choice to make.”

  Hesovec spread his hands. “We’ve been stationed at Intelgard longer.”

  “Waiting for superior aircraft, which we have no chance of getting,” Zima snapped. Her face was flushed, and in the heat of the moment, her voice carried past Linné to the soldiers loitering at the end of the field. They edged together, closing ranks.

  Tcerlin looked Hesovec up and down. Dislike for the interfering sycophant crossed his features. “Your aircraft will be here soon enough—unless you’d like to trade your place in line for the Strekozy.”

  There was a moment of silence. Hesovec paled. “With respect, sir, the men have been training for much more complicated machines. I believe it would be wise not to let that training go to waste.”

  “And you.” Tcerlin turned back to Zima. “Isaak isn’t here to grant your every whim, and he isn’t here to keep you in line. You have me to deal with. Do you want to fly the Strekozy, or do you want to send your girls home?”

  The look Zima gave him could have stripped paint. She turned and walked to the edge of the field, beckoning to the girls. They flocked around her.

  “This decision is yours, not mine,” she said in a trembling voice. “I won’t lie to you. The Strekozy were designed as farming planes. They’re slow, slower than some palanquins, and they don’t hold much in the way of bombs or firepower. They must fly low to the ground, which makes them more susceptible still. But they’re the only planes we can have.” She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear to see their faces. “If you wish, you may get on the supply palanquin headed north at nine bells, and no one will blame you.”

  The girls glanced at one another. Then Elena said, “There must be some advantages to it.”

  The commander’s smile was brittle and brief. “Some,” she said. “But not enough.”

  They were silent for a few moments more. Linné watched resignation fill Zima’s face and felt a pang of sympathy. She might have been a great leader had she ever gotten the chance.

  And I might have stayed at the front, kept my friends, won my distinction, and shown my father. Army girls, it seemed, didn’t get real chances.

  “I’m staying,” said Revna. She flushed as thirty-odd heads swiveled her way, but she crossed her arms and kept her gaze locked on Zima. Linné wouldn’t have figured Revna to be the first to speak up, but she saw a need in her eyes, the need to stay. The need to distinguish who she was now from who she’d been. Linné could understand that.

  “I’m staying, too,” she said, ignoring the incredulous looks the other girls threw at her. Nothing waited for her in Mistelgard except for paperwork and the punishment of a lifetime when she finally went home.

  Magdalena smiled. “Surely we can find some way to equip them.”

  “Things are starting to get interesting,” Katya said.

  “I want to fly. I don’t care what.”

  One by one, the girls of the 146th Night Raiders Regiment spoke up. They spoke from their hearts. They spoke with their want shining plainly in their voices.

  Maybe serving with them wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  6

  KEEP FAITH IN YOUR UNION

  Thirteen countries formed the Union of the North, and girls had come from all of them to join the Night Raiders regiment. Revna came from Rydda, the Union’s solid core. Rydda had been hit first and hardest, and from the things Mama and Papa had whispered about politics, Revna wouldn’t have expected their sister countries to come to their defense so quickly. But when Revna entered the warehouse for her first flight lesson, she saw pilots who’d traveled from Kikuran in the east, Ibursk in the far north, the Parsean Peninsula at the edge of the Tsemora Se
a.

  She hadn’t worried much about training. She’d worried that she’d be judged on her legs, or that everyone would find out her father had been sent to prison. She’d worried about spies, about being sent home, about more bad news from Tammin. She’d worried about using the Weave in public. Yet as they waited for Tamara, everyone’s raw nerves clamored against one another and she felt the air humming.

  “Hey,” whispered Katya, the dazzling pilot who had defended Revna the day before. She’d somehow managed to curl her hair, and it hung in perfect ringlets around her round face. Revna had already pegged her as one of those girls—the girls who took special care to sit down next to her, to make sure she had someone to talk to who didn’t care about her legs. Usually they were trying to make her feel normal, and usually they were nice enough. “Look.” She brushed her hands over her jacket collar. She’d lined it with soft gray rabbit fur, making a fashionable trim.

  Revna ran her finger along the lining. “It’s lovely.” And not something she’d think of making or wearing as a factory girl. Katya must have money. “Where did it come from?”

  Katya stuck one foot out and waggled her boot. “I took the lining out. I have warm feet anyway. I could make one for you,” she offered.

  “I don’t have boots to borrow from,” Revna said. The toes at the ends of her prosthetics twitched.

  Katya turned slightly pink. “I’m sure we could find something.”

  This always seemed to happen with people who tried to ignore her disability. Revna was spared having to refuse her again when Tamara came in. They all stood up to greet her and she smiled at each of them, though she raised an eyebrow at Katya’s new collar.

  “Welcome,” she said at last. “The eleven of you have been singled out and brought to Intelgard for a very special reason. Either I or my allies have noticed a powerful affinity in you for Weave magic.”

  Revna winced. Tamara said it so openly. Like a preference for sugar beet rum over vodka. If Revna had wandered around Tammin speaking of the Weave in such easy terms, she’d have been shipped off to the far north like Papa.

  “We have one of the war’s most challenging tasks: We need to beat the Elda at their own game. They’ve been flying longer than we have, and Weave magic’s been legal there for years. Since we’ve been given permission to develop our own Weave corps, we can work on catching up. Most of our planes, including the Strekozy, are modified Elda models. Known Weave practices will be effective when flying them. Once we have improved our strength and precision, we’ll study the machines themselves and pair off with navigators.”

  Tamara began to pace. “Accomplished Weave users are adept at maneuvering themselves with the Weave. Elda pilots extend that concept of self to the planes they fly, and that is our goal. The most capable Weave magicians can even manipulate the movement of others, though it must be at a short distance and through great concentration.” She caught Revna’s eye. Revna felt her stomach flip. Even now, something in her wanted to retreat to the corner, to beg It wasn’t me until someone finally believed her. “We’ll work on finesse, but sometimes the only way to get yourself out of a situation is through strength and force of will.”

  The pilots started with pulling crates or knocking coats off the shelf. Easy enough, but when they had to move one another, that was a different story.

  Revna could feel the Weave if she concentrated. It ran through the whole world, thick threads and thin ones, passing through mountains and cities and people all the same. She could see a glimmering of threads, but they felt greasy and slick between her fingers, like warm butter. Revna and Katya joined hands. She could lift herself a few inches straight up, but Katya’s weight was too much, and the threads slipped away from her before she could get a good grip. The Weave disliked human meddling.

  The others didn’t have much luck, either. Pavi was the quickest to pull her partner off the ground, but she couldn’t manage more than a couple of seconds before she flopped back down again, wincing as her tailbone smacked the dirt.

  Come on, Revna thought to herself after the fourth failed attempt. You’ve done this before. As a child, she’d played with the Weave all the time. Had she forgotten how? Maybe pulling herself and a Skarov away from a falling building had been a fluke.

  Maybe the secret was not thinking. She watched the others’ techniques and the way they stumbled over thin air. Then she tightened her hand around Katya’s sweaty fingers and yanked.

  They whipped forward, lifting halfway off the ground. Then her prosthetics dug in. She hissed as she came back down hard.

  “Are you all right?” Katya said, face pinched in concern. “Maybe I should try.”

  “Give me a minute,” Revna said. Through her residual limbs she could feel her prosthetics tremble. The last time she’d used the Weave this way, she’d thought she was going to die. Did her prosthetics remember, or were they afraid of something else now? Of getting thrown out and letting her family down again? Of getting arrested and sent north? The Weave was illegal, after all, and as the propaganda posters said, THE LAW COMES FOR EVERYONE.

  There’s nothing you can do about it now. Her powers were no secret. The best she could do was make use of them for Mama and Lyfa, and hope the Union didn’t arrest her anyway.

  She yanked herself forward once more. Her hands slipped on the thread and she tumbled into Katya. Her shoulder knocked hard into Katya’s nose, sending Katya’s head flying back. For one glorious moment Revna was in the air. Then she came down, chin-first onto the hard dirt.

  Pain exploded in her abdomen and phantom feet. Across the warehouse someone shouted, and the girls scrambled over to them. “Ooh,” Katya groaned next to her. “I think I’m seeing colors I’ve never seen before.”

  Someone ran for a drink of water. “Sorry,” Revna said to Katya, wincing as she pushed herself up. She wanted to check on her prosthetics, comfort them and try to massage the ache out of her calves. But all the girls were watching, and then Tamara came over.

  “We’re fine,” Revna said before Tamara could ask. She didn’t need to be pitied the way she had been in Tammin. And she couldn’t afford to be the weak one of the Night Raiders.

  Tamara looked at Katya. “Don’t worry,” Katya said, touching her nose. “It’s not even bleeding.”

  Tamara didn’t seem convinced, but she nodded. “The brute force is good, but as you can see, you need to be versatile with how you use it. Don’t rely on the same tricks every time.” She folded her arms and said pointedly to the other pilots clustered around them, “Keep practicing. It will come.”

  It didn’t, not for any of them. Revna didn’t try any more violent pulls, but working slowly and carefully yielded no results. Her arms burned and gave up. She almost groaned in relief when Tamara called them in. “It’s no easy task, what I ask of you. But if you do not possess the strength to do this, you do not possess the strength to handle the Strekozy in battle.” Her voice held the steel core Revna had heard when Tamara had rescued her from her Skarov interrogation. “If we cannot fly, we cannot even the odds. If we cannot fly, we’ve lost the war. And that’s why we’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll get it right.”

  “How could Tamara possibly have learned?” Revna asked Katya as they left the warehouse for dinner.

  “She’s got her own special magic,” Katya replied. She leaned in and lowered her voice. “With Commander Vannin.” Revna snorted. Katya was a little frivolous, but at least she wasn’t party line.

  The crisp air and the bitter scent of oil hanging over the field couldn’t dispel their fatigue. All the same, as they opened the mess door, every back straightened and they lifted their chins as one. No matter how tired the Night Raiders might be, there were some places they had to go looking as fresh as ever.

  They shared the mess with the 146th Day Raiders—also known as the boys. Tamara said they would have the chance to promote friendliness in the regiment and get the men used to having some “sisters.” But everyone had witnessed Hesovec and Tama
ra arguing over who got the Strekozy, and as far as the boys were concerned, superior planes meant nothing if they had to wait to fly. They’d been training for weeks and had yet to see their promised aircraft. The friendly burble of conversation dropped as the girls entered.

  Revna shuffled in between the chattering Katya and Elena. Elena always looked solemn and mournful. She had the sort of long face required for it, with a hooked nose and eyes that seemed faraway, as if she were weighing each word that went through her mind. “Do you need assistance?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” Revna said. “Thanks.” She was too tired to even think about rolling her eyes, even when she had a small tug-of-war with Katya over who got to carry her tray.

  “What did you do today?” she asked Linné, who was in line in front of her.

  Linné gave her a blank look. “I worked.”

  “Never mind.” Revna wasn’t quite sure what to make of Linné. She hadn’t made any comments about Revna’s legs, but anything she did say was terse and unhelpful.

  Revna followed her fellow pilots over to the end of a long table, and together they dug their spoons into a less than delectable dinner of pale yellow carrots, barley, and greasy fowl. It was the first meat she’d gotten since Papa was taken away. She’d expected to savor it more. The Union really could ruin anything.

  “How was your day?” Magdalena dropped her tray next to Revna, spraying them both with gravy. She’d come in laughing with the other engineers.

  There wasn’t much point in spoiling Magdalena’s good mood. “It was fine.”

  “We took apart explosives,” said another engineer. “Magda almost got us killed.”

  “I wanted to see how the mechanism worked,” Magdalena explained. “Someone mentioned to us that the Strekozy had sticky release triggers.”

  “Like it matters,” said Elena, raising her ponderous eyes heavenward. “We’ll never even get them in the air.”