The Queen's Quarry

by Frank Morin

  A moment of smooth flying later, Verena unexpectedly burst out of the obscuring clouds into clear morning sunlight. The abrupt change shocked her so much, she didn’t react for a critical second.

  Blinking against the unexpected light, her hands instinctively tensed on her control levers as she looked down. High Lord Dougal’s army marched up the road directly below her. The blizzard simply ended, snow and wind splitting around the army.

  Verena barely caught a glimpse of the thousands of marching troops before spears of fire lanced up toward her. She threw the Swift into a banking roll and increased power.

  She caught sight of the Hawk banking away in the opposite direction, water and fire spraying all around it, but not quite touching it. Without Ivor on board, Hamish would probably already be dead.

  “Connor, they’ve split the storm! They see us. We’re under attack!” She cried as she unleashed the puking dooms along the underside of the Swift to throw herself higher.

  Firetongues in the army below stole those flames. She screamed as the fire condensed into white-hot spears that leaped up after her.

  The fire deflected away as if striking an invisible barrier.

  Connor’s voice came over the mini-hub, tense and worried. “Try not to give them more ammunition, please. It’s tough enough for Kilian and I to cover you and Dierk from here. Those Petralists are working unusually well together.”

  “Thanks! They almost crisped me.”

  “Can you get out of there?”

  She reached at least a thousand feet and banked the Swift over. At this height, she doubted anyone could reach her with elemental attacks. The army was enormous. Even though she’d seen the huge force marshaled against Altkalen, this army somehow seemed more threatening, appearing suddenly out of the storm like that.

  The Hawk still banked and turned in a dizzying display of aerial acrobatics as Hamish tried to keep the enemy’s attention and Ivor fought to protect them.

  Then a bomb fell from the back of the Hawk.

  Verena activated her long-vision goggles and focused on it. No, it wasn’t the porphyry bomb. They hadn’t lied to her after all. It was a normal diorite bomb.

  She shouted into Hamish’s speakstone, “Hamish, pull up!”

  “Working on it,” he replied, strain evident in his voice. “Harley’s messing with the air. I don’t know if we can get out of here. Where’s Dierk?”

  She didn’t see him yet. Without hesitating, Verena rolled the Swift into a steep dive and activated the four large speedslings mounted on her wings.

  As she dove, Connor’s voice boomed into her cockpit. “Verena, what are you doing?”

  “I’ve got to help Hamish. Harley’s hitting them with air. Can you block her?”

  “Not while protecting you.”

  “Do it, Connor! I’m fine for now.”

  Hamish’s bomb hit and detonated huge, creating a deep crater in the center of the road and blasting hundreds of soldiers off their feet. Verena didn’t have time to see if they were Boulders or regulars. Fire boiled over the army, but Dougal’s Firetongues swept the flames into the air to spare their soldiers.

  Those Petralists really were working well together. She shuddered to think about Harley as a battle instructor. She’d be horrible, terrifying, and yet probably inspirational. She hadn’t considered what Harley might do during the long march up from Crann.

  That she’d apparently used her time wisely did not bode well. Dougal’s army easily included many more Petralists, but they had counted on the critical delays that usually occurred when multiple Petralists tried walking with the same element at the same time.

  Verena scanned the army as she plunged toward them, hoping the distraction of the bomb might give her a better chance for her own strike. With her entire front shield transformed into a long-vision viewport, she easily focused on Harley. The deadly woman stood atop a low earthen tower, one hand partially raised toward the Hawk, a little smile playing across her lips.

  Verena was diving from the opposite side, almost directly behind Harley, and it appeared Harley hadn’t noticed her yet. So Verena unleashed the hornets. In a five-second burst, nearly a thousand deadly projectiles erupted from her speedslings. They tore through the air in a blurring cloud, reaching out to rip Harley to pieces.

  She must have sensed them because she suddenly twisted to look up.

  Verena launched two diorite missiles. They leaped away from the Swift, quickly accelerating to five times her speed, driven by powerful quartzite thrusters. These were the newest model, complete with little stabilizing fins.

  The hornets deflected away from Harley, and Verena muttered a curse. The woman’s mastery over air was far greater than any Pathfinder she’d ever known. Still, Harley couldn’t stop the deadly projectiles entirely. They tore apart the edges of her tower and ripped into the troops massed around her.

  The ones that contained grains of diorite erupted with satisfying explosions that ripped holes in the tight-packed ranks. Firetongues quickly snatched away the fire, but they couldn’t stop the sheer force of the detonations.

  The two missiles veered away while still more than a hundred feet above the army. They shot away to the left, and Verena lost sight of them as she banked the Swift to the right. Not a bad first attack. She decided to risk coming around for another speedsling strafing run.

  Hamish said, “Thanks. We broke through her restricted air space during that distraction. I think . . . Look out!”

  She glanced back and gasped. Her diorite missiles had somehow banked around after her and were closing with terrifying speed.

  On pure instinct, Verena called upon every thruster and flipped the Swift into a backflip so that she was flying upside down, facing the onrushing missiles.

  Hamish shouted, “Get out of there!” But she had already read the truth in the winds. She’d never escape impact.

  So she activated the speedslings again.

  A thousand hardened projectiles shot from the wings in less than two seconds, forming a wall of deadly granite. The missiles plunged into the hornet cloud and detonated with enough force to shake the Swift.

  Verena flipped the craft over again and accelerated higher, barely believing that worked.

  “I see Dierk!” Hamish cried.

  She spun the Swift and looked back. Dierk had indeed burst free of the storm, about five hundred feet above the massed troops, his huge windrider barreling through the clear morning sky right over the army. He stood in the bed of the wagon beside the bomb.

  “He’s a sitting eoin,” Hamish cried, banking the Hawk hard over and unleashing a distracting stream of hornets. His aim wasn’t great, but the soldiers on the left flank of the army didn’t know that. They still dropped behind shields or Boulder friends, while a Sentry on that flank started raising shielding walls.

  Too slow. Hornets tore down the ranks of the soldiers, dropping at least twenty of them.

  Verena banked the Swift over hard and tried to add more power, even though the main thrusters were already maxed. She needed to get to Dierk, offer him cover, maybe unleash her own hornets again.

  Harley began rising majestically up into the air. Straight toward Dierk’s wagon.

  It was flying slow and straight, and he was still standing beside the bomb in the back.

  Verena activated the speakstone paired with his. “Dierk, drop the bomb and get out of there! She’s coming.”

  Dierk glanced over the side, but he was looking away from Verena so she couldn’t read his expression. She couldn’t imagine what he was waiting for. He was supposed to have overcome his fear of flying, but why would he hesitate?

  “Dierk?” she called, hating the fear creeping into her voice.

  “I can’t do it.” He spoke in an anguished tone and he dropped to his knees beside the bomb. “Tallan forgive me, but I can’t kill so many.”

  “Oh, Dierk, no,” Verena breathed, suddenly terrified. She loved that he’d rediscovered his gentle heart, but he should hav
e picked a better time.

  “What’s he doing?” Hamish cried, spinning in a long barrel roll, the Hawk blasting through half a dozen grasping ropes of water and fire.

  “He can’t do it!”

  Her heart racing with terror, Verena changed her angle of attack, heading straight toward Harley. The Swift tore through the cold air, as if the little craft sensed the danger Dierk faced and wanted to help her save him. Verena wanted to shout to Dierk to flee, but he’d never escape Harley in that windrider.

  Harley had to die.

  “Connor, Dierk’s in trouble! I need everything you and Kilian have got.”

  “No, Verena, get out of there! She’s activated heavy shielding along the edge of the storm. We need a few seconds to break through.”

  “We don’t have that long. Harley’s coming. I have to stop her.”

  Harley was barely a hundred feet below the windrider, rising fast. Verena was closing from her left side, but still nearly a quarter of a mile away. Despite the distance, Verena fired the speedslings, praying with all her heart that they’d arrive in time.

  Harley looked right at her. Through the magnification of her long-vision goggles, Verena felt like she was sitting right in front of the woman.

  Harley smiled.

  And the wind suddenly hardened under the hornets, deflecting them slightly higher.

  Time seemed to slow as Verena realized with icy horror what she’d done. She watched in helpless anguish as the hornets, her hornets, tore into the front of the windrider in a storm of destruction that ripped the flying wagon apart. Explosions blasted flame and smoke and splinters of wood in every direction.

  “No!” Verena screamed, pounding on the dash of the Swift with impotent fury.

  Abruptly the storm closed in around her again, buffeting her with crazy winds and blinding snow. Verena drove through it, adjusting course on pure instinct, her eyes locked on the spot where Dierk had disappeared.

  A moment later the winds parted the storm and she flashed within ten feet of Harley. She passed so fast that she caught only a glimpse of Harley standing calmly on the air, waving to her.

  Hovering just above her head was the porphyry bomb.

  Dierk hung upside down below her feet, writhing in apparent agony, although Verena didn’t glimpse his injuries.

  Then the Storm closed in on her and Verena wept freely as she fought for her life against the elements unleashed. The storm howled and screamed along with her, but the glacial cold of that storm could not match the freezing horror that chilled her heart.

  Dierk was Harley’s prisoner. So was his terrible porphyry bomb.

  Verena wept to think what Harley might do next.

  82

  Things Aren’t as Bad as They Seem. They’re Probably Worse.

  It took five eternal minutes for Verena to land in the main courtyard of the central palace. Connor paced nervously every second. The news that Harley had both the bomb and Dierk had rattled him so badly that he’d completely lost connection with quartzite.

  Terror that Harley might somehow catch Verena and yank her out of the air helped him connect with soapstone. Water had appeared, but seemed insubstantial. The connection was weak, but he’d touched her hand long enough to cast his thoughts into the air to find Verena. She was alive, but buffeted by the storm. He’d thrown every ounce of will into calming the storm around her, but wasn’t sure how much good he’d managed with his connection wavering so badly.

  He exulted when she finally landed. Verena stumbled out of the Swift, her expression anguished. She threw herself into his arms, sobbing, and he tried to comfort her through the torrent of his own emotions.

  “I’m so sorry,” he finally managed to say. “Harley sealed the air around the army in a way I’ve never seen before. With her Spitters and Firetongues supporting her, they locked us out for a few seconds.”

  The explanation sounded weak. He should have found a way. With the mighty Kilian at his side, they should have done more. Unfortunately, with Harley at its head, the army was far better prepared to defend against them than anything Dougal had thrown at them during his invasion of Altkalen.

  Verena clung to him for another moment before wiping her eyes. “I know you tried. We all tried, but we were fools to let Dierk go. He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t a warrior or a killer. He was just a good man, driven too far by grief.”

  She was right, but she was also wrong. Dierk’s failure to act put every one of them at greater risk. Dierk was a good man, a man brave enough to understand his own boundaries at the last. Now his foolish insistence that he fly that critical bomb against the enemy might have condemned thousands.

  “She’ll kill him,” Verena said, wiping at her tears, but only leaving glittering tracks that froze to her cheeks.

  “Or worse, she’ll force him to tell her what the bomb does. Come on, we need to get to Kilian and the others.”

  As they raced for the military command building, Mattias appeared out of the snowy, early morning gloom and fell into step beside them. He clearly wanted to speak with Verena, but she didn’t said nothing while they ran.

  Breathless from the fast run, they met with the central command a moment later atop the southernmost tower. On most days, its flat, crenelated roof offered a spectacular view over the outer wall and across the lands south of Merkland. The blizzard had lost some of its strength, as if exhausted by the Petralists fighting to control its heart, but snow still fell steadily, sheathing the distance in softly falling curtains.

  Ilse and Lukas had joined the group, both dressed for battle. Lukas still looked pale and a bit battered, but he looked determined to not leave Ilse’s side.

  “Glad to see you on your feet,” Connor told him.

  “We’ll take her next time,” Lukas promised fiercely.

  So far, she’d taken more from them than they had from her.

  Ivor and Hamish arrived seconds later with Kilian, all looking grim. Ivor wasted no time with pleasantries. “So Harley has the bomb?”

  When Verena nodded he asked, “Can you sense anything about it?”

  “No. I’ve already tried, but I feel nothing.”

  “Is that good?” Connor asked.

  “I doubt it,” Hamish said. “It had an obsidian plug for remote detonation. I’ve tried to sense it too, but I get nothing. If we could link to it, we could still trigger it.”

  “Since you can’t, we must assume Harley removed it,” Kilian said.

  “How would she know? We just discovered that secret about obsidian recently,” Hamish asked.

  “You said she captured Dierk alive,” Kilian said gravely. “She is expert at extracting information.”

  Verena looked close to tears again. “Dierk’s no warrior. He wouldn’t be able to resist that kind of interrogation.”

  “Then we have to also assume Harley knows what the bomb does,” Ivor said with a grimace. He looked around the somber company and added, “That could have gone better.”

  That was an understatement big enough to swallow Merkland. Connor said, “I can’t imagine how it could have gone worse.”

  “If only he hadn’t insisted,” Hamish said. He looked deeply shaken and paced the perimeter of the tower, hands clenching and unclenching, scowling.

  Kilian said, “We took a daring gamble. Had it worked, we might have avoided the desperate struggle we now face. It didn’t work. The fight is upon us and we lack time to second-guess ourselves.”

  Connor didn’t want to ask the next question, but couldn’t help himself. “Dierk’s probably already dead, isn’t he?”

  “Almost for sure,” Kilian confirmed.

  Verena savagely wiped away her tears, her sorrow transforming to resolute fury. “Then it’s up to us to avenge him.”

  Connor squeezed her hand reassuringly. Victory was far from sure, but they had to remain confident, or Harley had already won.

  Ivor said, “I’m scanning the lands to the south. They’re advancing more quickly. They’ll be her
e in less than an hour.”

  “Not much time to prepare,” Lord Nevan said, exchanging glances with Lords Torcall and Logan. Connor wished he knew what they were thinking, but before he could reach for a piece of chert, Ivor spoke again.

  “Kilian, they worked together far better than I’ve ever seen. Does that change our strategy?”

  He shook his head. “Our job might be harder, but it is unchanged. Don’t despair. Remember, you fought clear, despite their numbers. Connor and I helped, even across that great distance. They capitalized on the advantage offered by their proximity, numbers, and surprise. The closer they get, the stronger our advantage, particularly in soapstone.”

  Connor hoped he was right. They’d thought they were the ones about to surprise Harley and Dougal, but the crafty old hag had flipped the geall right back on them.

  “Then we prepare secondary measures,” Ivor said. Turning to his officers he began issuing orders. Then he gripped Lord Nevan’s hand. “When we take our positions, you will play a critical role. We’ll funnel communication back to the city through you. Hold the city, but be prepared to send out reinforcements as we’ve discussed.”

  Lord Nevan said confidently, “I know what to do. You’re the ones taking the great risks today.” He gestured at Lord Torcall and Lord Logan. “We are committed. There is no turning back now. We will not fail you.”

  “Good, then get to your posts. I’m heading for the river.”

  Connor gripped Ivor’s hand. “Good luck.” He’d be responsible for holding the entire left flank alone.

  Ivor flashed a predatory grin and said, “Don’t hold back today, Connor. We need that creative brilliance you showed at the Carraig.”

  “We’ll beat her,” Connor promised with a lot more confidence than he felt.

  As officers and lords scattered to their appointed positions, Hamish said, “Verena, let’s go.”