“If you don’t want me here, if you drive me away, then I will go into the woods and die. Better that, than torn away from you meaninglessly again. I couldn’t survive it.”
“You couldn’t survive the woods, either,” she said. He couldn’t see her smile, but it was there in her voice. She was teasing him.
“Say the word, and I’ll go,” he said. “But I would rather be at the side of my queen, serving her if I can.”
“Are you sure?” she said. “Are you certain this is what you want?”
“There’s only one thing I want.” He reached out, found her hand and closed his own around it. They sat in silence for a minute or two. Thane became aware of the scent of the soup enveloping him, and he couldn’t endure it anymore. He began to eat, and Shayla watched him. When he had finished, she took the bowl and offered him more.
“Later,” he said. “I only want an answer. What will you do with me?”
Shayla sighed. “If you swear loyalty to me, there is no turning back.”
“I swore that oath long ago.”
“All right. Then come with me.”
She took him by the hand and led him through the camp. Thane had a vague sense of the woods closing in around them. He could hear a change in the sounds around him, could sense the darkness that washed over them. They left the camp and the herd behind, and proceeded down a path, deep into the woods. As they walked, Thane began to notice a strange tingling sensation on his skin, and a change in his surroundings.
“Pine,” he said.
“What is it?” said Shayla.
“Pine and wildflowers. I can smell them. And it’s warm. What is this place? What happened to make this place like summer in the middle of winter?”
Shayla didn’t answer. She led him up a shallow incline, and when it leveled out, Thane could smell something different. He could hear running water, smell the scent of it, but it was unusual, tinged with something else. He knew the scent. It was strange and familiar all at once, but barely noticeable, so that when he tried to focus on it, it disappeared entirely.
At last, they came to a pond. They stood on the bank, and Shayla began to shed her clothing. When she had undressed, she removed the cloak from Thane’s shoulders and began to undress him as well. Now, at last, it began to dawn on him what was happening. When the bard stood stripped down to nothing, Shayla took him by the hand and led him into the pool. His entire body was alert, aware of every sensation, every tiny breeze or movement. The bard marveled as he felt the strange warmth of the water closing around him, felt the energy of it seeping into him.
“You understand?” she whispered, pressing her body up against his. Thane gave a slight nod of his head. He bent down to kiss her. They met in a flood of heat and softness and purity that lasted only a moment and she pulled away. With a slight tug, she drew him deeper into the pond with her.
The water came up to his waist as they reached the center of the pool. Shayla cupped her hands, lifting the water to pour it over his head. She rubbed it over his face and shoulders, and washed his body with it. Finally, she cupped the water to his lips and said: “Drink, my love. Drink, and be free...”
Chapter 14
That morning, King Dane stood in Stormwatch on the platform of the railroad depot, watching Micah and Morgane roll down the tracks in their steamscout. A few inches of snow had fallen overnight, and the tracks were invisible until the scout rolled over them, exposing the iron rails to the morning light. A slight breeze blew across the plain, tousling his long black hair and twisting the cloak that hung from his shoulders.
“Milord!” a gruff voice shouted behind him. “I have news.” He turned to see Sir Gavin galloping up the street on his mechanical charger. Dane snorted.
“Call me that again Gavin, and I’ll put you off your horse.”
Gavin grinned as he pulled up next to the depot. “Good to see that all this nobility hasn’t changed you a bit. I was worried that pretty queen of yours might take the fire out of your belly.”
Normally, Dane might have taken this joke in good humor, but having just watched two more friends leave him behind, the king was in no mood. “What do you want, Gavin?”
Gavin cleared his throat. “We caught one of the men who attacked you.”
“Did he say where Lydian is?”
Gavin shook his head. “He might be persuaded.”
Dane took a deep breath. “Lock him in a cell. Give him half-rations instead of full. Interrogate him, but we’re not going to torture him.”
“It’s your neck.” Gavin clicked the drive plates, launching his mechanical steed into a trot. Dane watched him disappear down the street before crossing the platform to mount his own charger.
Dane had killed two of the Lydian’s assassins the night of the attack. Another had been killed by Shayla -or one of her animal friends. That one had been little more than a puddle of raw meat when it was all over. Lydian and the last fellow had escaped, seemingly vanished without a trace. Not forever, though. Kale knew that Lydian would show up again. It was just a matter of time.
Kale rode his charger through the busy, snow-covered streets of Stormwatch. The place was thronging with activity, more than ever now that there were thousands of refugees looking for work and food. They took odd jobs during the day, if they could find them. They hauled wagons of coal or firewood. They shoveled sidewalks and repaired wagon wheels. Whatever work they could find, they would take, and the citizens of Stormwatch did what they could to find jobs for the refugees. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a matter of goodwill. It was a matter of resources, and there simply weren’t enough.
Minutes later, he was at the western edge of the refugee camp. Hector was there, supervising the training of the new recruits. Kale had been worried at first that these farmers and tradesmen might not take well to combat training, but what he saw this morning looked promising.
“They’re getting better,” he observed, leaning forward in his saddle.
“They’re motivated,” said the knight. “These people have seen the work of the Legion. They’ve seen villages burned, people slaughtered, or worse. They know what they’re fighting for.”
“Good. We’re going to need every one of them, and that still might not be enough.”
“Have you been into the armory this morning?” Hector said, giving him a sideways look.
“No. Should I?”
The knight beamed. “Aye. You should.”
Dane knew that the engineers had been working on new weapons to fight the ghouls, but he didn’t know what. He had given them only a few specifications. “More tanks,” he had said. “Make them lighter, more mobile. And new weapons. We’re going to need all we can get.” Other than that, he’d left the engineers up to their own devices. They knew what they were doing. Not that they could hold a candle to Socrates. Dane would have given his left arm to have Socrates down there, designing new weapons.
The king heeled his mount forward. He thought of Socrates and River as he rode up the hill to Dragonwall. What a strange twist of fate it had been, thinking them dead and suddenly finding out they had been alive all along. And then, in the same moment, finding that they might be dead again. Ever since Micah and the others had returned, Dane had been fighting his instinctive desire to take his knights and ride south. He didn’t care how many ghouls were between Stormwatch and Ironhold. He’d fight his way through them and back again if he had to.
But he couldn’t. There were too many people here depending on him. Thousands of refugees. Thousands more already living in the city and the mountain. And now he had a family. As much as Kale loved River, he couldn’t even think about abandoning Aileen and the girls. They were his number one priority now; the one thing he must defend and protect at all costs.
He wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but he’d come to think of the twins as his own children. And Aileen... Well, any man would be insane not to love a woman like that. She could carry a sword just as well as she could cook a hot meal. She
could stitch his wounds while settling a legal dispute, and in the process draw him a hot bath.
Kale believed she truly cared about him. There was no denying it. He’d known many women, maybe even loved a few, but none had given themselves to him the way Aileen did. Before her, no one had ever so genuinely cared about how he felt or what he thought. Very few had ever even asked. Aileen was different. She never lost an opportunity to make him feel wanted or important.
Aileen made no secret of the fact that she had loved Dane -the previous Dane- but she also had no problem accepting the fact that he was gone now, that he had gone to the next world. Life was for the living, she had said, and the living had to see to their own needs and responsibilities.
Kale dismounted just inside the gate, and found himself in the armory moments later. Lined up in the center of the cavernous room, he saw more than a dozen new tanks. Not exactly tanks, he thought. These were small, barely larger than a steamwagon, and barely armored at all. The metal plates mounted before the gunner and the pilot’s seats were all the protection they would have.
Burus, Dragonwall’s chief engineer, appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He was a large man with a thick beard, a long forehead, wide eyes, and a rotund belly. Today, he must have been welding because he wore an apron and gloves made of thick dragon hide.
“What do you think?” the engineer said.
“They look dangerous.”
“Oh, I’m afraid so,” Burus said with a concerned look. “There is no way to make a lightweight war machine what’s not dangerous. That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Dane gave a dismissive shake of his head. “Tell me about the guns.”
Burus lit up. “Ah, you’re going to love this! You’ll notice that we have three different types of guns mounted on the vehicle. The short-barreled weapon you see here functions similarly to a scattergun. This is for close range combat, up to a few dozen yards.”
“Iron pellets?” Kale said.
“Of course.” Burus lifted a flap on the side of the tank, showing a large chamber full of them. “Every time the gunner fires, the explosive recoil of the barrel will automatically load another powder charge and four pounds of iron.”
“Perfect,” said Dane. “What else?”
“These longer guns shoot explosive grenades. Firing the cannon automatically triggers the grenade to explode. We can alter the timing, of course. Anywhere from five to fifteen seconds or so, which puts them well beyond the reach of short-range weapons.
Dane frowned. “Your numbers seemed oddly unspecific.”
“We’re dealing with things designed to explode,” Burus explained with a shrug of his shoulders. “It’s not an exact science.” He turned, gesturing at another tank. Instead of a cannon, this had what appeared to be a bank of twenty scattergun barrels mounted on a swiveling platform. “This,” he said proudly, “is just what it looks like. It’ll launch eighty pounds of lead shot at once, up to five thousand pellets per minute. We’re still working out some kinks on the reloading process. It should be good in three or four days.”
“Make it two,” Dane said.
Burus bowed his head. “Your highness.”
I only hope we have that long, Dane thought.
Chapter 15
“T here!” Tinker shouted , raising his voice above the grinding noise of the plane’s engine. It was an oil-burner, a rare mechanical engine repurposed from a crashed Vangar gyro. The cylinders had been damaged in the crash, and Breeze never would have been able to refurbish them without Tinker’s help. She wouldn’t even have bothered.
Unfortunately, the plane had just been requisitioned by the air force. Once her scouting mission was done, Breeze had been ordered to turn it over to be used as a supply plane in the war effort. She’d miss the old beast, but it was for a greater cause. Perhaps she would have another, someday, if she and Tinker lived long enough to build something else...
Breeze adjusted the elevators, tipping one wing down to get a better view of the ground below. There, at the southern base of the mountains bordering the Firelands, she saw the armies of the Legion encamped. “How many?” she shouted.
The mechanical lens attached to Tinker’s left eye swiveled, working like a telescope. That eye had been nearly blind when Breeze found him. Tinker himself had been days -if not hours- away from death. The explosion in his home had burned most of Tinker’s body, and he wouldn’t have survived at all if he hadn’t been thrown back into the bay by the force of the blast.
Miraculously, two of his old friends from Dockside, Hatch and Shel, had rescued Tinker and hidden him from the Vangar overlords until a healer could be found. Shortly after the Tal’mar airships decimated the Vangar sky city, Breeze learned of his condition and flew straight to Avenston to see to his wounds. At the time, Tinker had told her to let him die.
“I’m old,” he had said in a voice like a cracked piston. “I am broken. Let me go, Breeze. Send me off to the next world. I’ll wait for you there.”
Except Breeze couldn’t bring herself to let him die. It simply wasn’t her way. She had placed her hands on him, closed her eyes, and sought out the damage. She’d stitched the wounds, mended the bones. Her healing abilities were enough to keep Tinker alive, but the permanent injuries... Only Vangar technology could help with that.
Now, Tinker had a mechanical eye, a mechanical arm, and a mechanical leg. Scars marred the entire left side of his body. Strangely, when he smiled, Breeze could almost forget all the scars and metalwork, and just see Tinker’s face smiling back at her like it had always been.
“One hundred thousand,” Tinker said, yanking her from her thoughts.
Breeze wrinkled her brow. “You’re sure?”
Tinker gave a slight nod of his head. “Give or take a few.” Breeze bit her lip as she tilted the plane for another look. Off the left wing, a stroke of lightning lit up the sky. The thunder rumbled like cannon fire in her ears, shaking her body to the core. Breeze ignored it as she drew her gaze across the long black swath.
“I’m glad the Vangars are on our side now,” she said.
Tinker remained silent. It was one thing to accept that the Vangar invaders had paid the price for their sins -that they had served their time working as slaves to rebuild the damage they had done- it was another thing to forgive them. How could he be expected to forget what they had done to him? What they had done to so many others? The incalculable damage, the lives lost, the near-destruction of an entire civilization... And yet, even Tinker had to admit that they had changed.
The other day, he had told Breeze about something strange he had witnessed that may have changed his opinion about the warrior-race. “I saw a Vangar sentinel in the park,” he said. “There were children around him, screaming. I ran over to protect them. I was nearly there when I realized that they weren’t screaming at all; they were shouting at him. He had been giving them rides on his shoulders, and they wanted more.”
It had never been Tinker’s way to judge others. It had always been enough to live his own quiet life. His experiences in the war had changed more than just his appearance, they had changed him inside. He had become something else in order to survive, in order to protect Breeze, and later on, River and Kale. Now it seemed that he had to unlearn all that he had learned. He had to accept that his greatest enemy, the source of so much pain and destruction in his life, was now an ally. It was hard to say. Even harder to do.
Breeze circled the plane over the encampment one more time before turning south. “We’ll check for more,” she said. “Then we’ll go report to General Arastol in the Badlands.”
They flew south and west for more than an hour, scouring the rest of the Firelands. They found scattered detachments here and there, the largest being a group of about one thousand ghouls camped outside a city near the coast. Breeze circled the city for a few minutes, marveling at the bizarre iron construction, but she found no safe place to land.
“Whoever those people are,” Tinker said, “they s
eem to be safe enough. They’re watching a juggler in the street.”
Breeze frowned at the oddness, but said nothing. She guided the plane north and headed back home. They had just enough fuel left to make the three-hour flight back to the camp in the Badlands.
Chapter 16
Micah and Morgane had to leave Dragonwall without Thane. The bard, upon hearing of Shayla’s departure, had foregone all previous plans.
“I have to find her,” he had told them. “My part in this journey has come to an end. I will follow the herd’s trail and find what destiny awaits me there. In the morning, go ahead without me.”
And so they did. What else could they do? They had made a promise to Socrates. The northern cities must know about the danger of the Legion. Kale’s marriage and Thane’s departure did nothing to change their original mission. So, it was with sad hearts and an understandable weariness of spirit that they said their farewells and then climbed aboard the steamscout.
Micah climbed into the operator’s seat to activate the controls. Morgane climbed up next to him. She studied him for a moment and then said, “Scoot.”
He glanced up at her. “Huh?”
“Scoot over. There’s enough room for the two of us.”
“Oh! Here?” He reddened slightly at the thought. Morgane made a shooing motion with her hands, and settled onto the seat next to him. It was true, he realized. There was enough room. Sort of. However, the two of them were pressed so closely together that Micah couldn’t help noticing the heat of Morgane’s body next to his own. He tried not to think of it as he released the brake and they began to roll down the tracks.
Stormwatch shrank behind them and then vanished in the haze. The plains stretched out all around; long fluid landscapes of sparkling white that extended as far as the eye could see in every direction. It was a long journey ahead, spanning a distance almost twice that of what they’d traveled south of Dragonwall. Thankfully, Dane had sent them off with adequate blankets and other supplies to reach Sanctuary, if they should happen to go that far. For now, their plan was to reach New Boston. From there, they hoped to catch a ride on Rowena’s airship back to Sanctuary, if she would agree to it.
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