Knight Awoken

by Tammy Salyer

  “Glisternauts,” Cote began, “my fine and brave friends, you’ve all been briefed on what we’re about to set out to do. When we still thought we were alone in the Cosmos, living in a world that seemed on the very verge of coming to an end, you all joined the Glisternauts. Not because you were hopeless that Himmingaze was doomed, but because you had hope, and you had belief, that a new world and a new home could be found. You joined the Glisternauts to seek out a better future and a new home for the people of Himmingaze.

  “And now you know it has been found. All of us here, with two brave exceptions”—he nodded at Saxton and Drustim—“have seen that world, Vinnr, for ourselves. And though it may not be a world we will live in, through the courage, aid, and even sacrifice of some of those from Vinnr, we stand here today with our own home and our own future returned to us.

  “Now, Glisternauts, it’s our turn to help them. And once again, to help ourselves. That’s the reason you are here! Because believe me, and you’ve seen it yourself, if we don’t go to Vinnr’s aid now and return their help, this brief renewal of Himmingaze, this brief glimpse of a future so bright that we have barely yet begun to imagine it, will be lost—irrevocably. The people of Vinnr are not strangers to us, just like the people of the other worlds we haven’t yet seen are not, not truly. They are us, and we are them. We are all part of the same Great Cosmos, and we have all chosen to do whatever we can and whatever we must to ensure not just our own but everyone’s future in it.

  “Glisternauts, I am proud to stand among you and to fly with you. Proud and humbled. And when through our courage we help win this day, win this Cosmos, the rest of the worlds will be too.”

  He let these final words ring throughout the bridge until silence steeled back, then he smiled. “Are you ready, Glisternauts?”

  The cheer that erupted from the other crew members, Jaemus included, nearly shook the bridge’s walls. Come what may, the Glisternauts were ready to face the Dyrraks. He hoped he was too.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Leaving Griggory behind, Mylla had every intention of following the byway directly to Magdaster after collecting her traveling goods from her and Griggory’s campsite. Worry for her friends and guilt for leaving them so she could pursue her own ends gnawed at her, as well as, perhaps, a bit of guilt for neglecting the duty she’d sworn herself to so long ago.

  Yet, steering directly to Magdaster wasn’t what she did after all. An unplanned detour called to her, and her first undertaking upon leaving the cold campsite was to seek out the last place she’d seen her father, Greven.

  She’d thought she had already put the past behind her now that her last questions about her true origins and the events that had made her an orphan had finally been answered. She should likewise have been feeling not glad but at least satisfied that her father had not died a coward, a traitor, and a deserter of her and her mother. Circumstances had forced him to flee first Ærd then the bandits on the Great Province Byway to save his only daughter, knowing Ayanna was already dead and there was nothing he could do for her. And those same circumstances had led to his death by dragør, the results of, Mylla couldn’t deny, her own reaction to the trauma of her mother’s death before her eyes. But she’d been a child, dammit, and she wouldn’t beat herself up for acting as one. Heart of Purple Might had been trying to aid Mylla, misunderstanding her behavior, and as with herself, Mylla could not find fault with the dragør for that, even if she wanted to. Not that it would matter in the least if she did. A dragør was not an enemy any person, not even a Knight, could hope to challenge. At least not with any expectation of winning.

  All the same, she was compelled to see Greven’s final resting place, even though she knew there would be nothing left of him to find. Dragørfire left little behind that would last, and time would have erased any minute signs of the man that the dragørfire hadn’t. She had to see it though, the desire a kind of pilgrimage that would at last free her from a lifelong sense that she was split between two identities and would never be unified in herself. Seeing her father’s final resting place would let her put her past behind her once and for all and live only for the future she had yet only begun to fight for.

  As she plodded through the forest, finding her way to the hollow where Greven had died by relying on her increasingly clearer memories, an unexpected and melancholic pining for Ulfric arose. The Stallari had in many ways become a father to her, and now that he was, to put it baldly, no longer strictly a man, and so far away at that, she missed him more than she’d ever imagined she would. She could have used his reassurance, or even his criticism, about the choices she was making. He’d always firmly but kindly helped her find her own path if she got out of her own way and listened to his wisdom. She feared what might have occurred in the days since she’d left her companions behind. Would she ever see him again, ever have another chance to seek his advice? If never before, she could certainly use some now. Had she done the right thing to forsake Fimm? The implications of her decision were too severe to bear thinking more about.

  In their place, another unsettling thought reared up. Now that she remembered her own father, was it right for Ulfric’s face to still be the one she wished to see in these troublesome times?

  When she found Greven’s resting place, it was by equal parts luck and memory. The shadows were different, the light hitting the forest at a different time of day from when she’d last been here. And, of course, the foliage had undergone hundreds of seasons of age. Yet, as she stepped into the little hollow, knowing it was the very one by a shelf of quartz-shot rock pushing up from the ground at the east end, all her doubts and gloom vanished. The hollow felt cooler than other parts of the forest, and the air inside was still, like a chapel. Instead of the ferns and moss-covered fallen branches that littered most of the Weald’s floor, the earth here was covered with a short, bright green grass that looked soft and inviting enough to lie down on and close her eyes. Knowing that her father had died on that earth didn’t ruin the impression. In some way, it made the area feel more inviting, as if Greven had transformed into this grass and was welcoming her into a fatherly embrace, long overdue.

  From the edge of the hollow, she took in the space, feeling moistness close over her eyes. No tears fell, however. It was a peaceful patch of forest, and if a spirit could linger anywhere, she felt her father would not have minded lingering here.

  The moment passed, and self-consciousness crept in presently. Did she expect to see him? Hear his voice in the wind? No, he was gone, her mother too. But she must carry on. She was needed elsewhere.

  After speaking a brief mourner’s prayer of peace, she was ready to leave the hollow behind. Before turning, however, she spotted a clump of dalla flowers sprouting in the hollow’s only patch of sun. The blooms were small and early season. Thoughtfully, she stooped and plucked one, bringing the pale lavender-colored flower to her nose to sniff. Young as it was, it had barely a smell, but it was there, faint and light and gay. A scent she always associated with the joys of youth, just like the joy she’d felt as a child before Ærd had fallen to war and her life had been irrevocably altered. Strange, she thought now. I don’t remember having dallas in Ærd. That doesn’t mean it didn’t have them, though. I wonder if they’re common in all the realms.

  “If you are out there somewhere, Papa and Mumma,” she whispered, still holding the flower to her nose, “I hope I’ve lived a life worthy of the sacrifices you made for me.”

  With those words, she tenderly kissed the bud and knelt, laying it in the grass as gently as a mourner would lay the most fragile of bouquets on a grave. Rising, she turned and left the hollow, pacing purposefully through the Weald without looking back.

  Mylla did not head back to the byway, however. Halla was settling behind the western fringe of the forest not long after she left her father’s resting place, and she abruptly decided she’d lingered on her own errands long enough. If she cut through the Weald toward Magdaster instead of following the Great Provinc
e road, she would save herself fifty miles or more of walking. The byway could be dangerous, as she’d learned so roughly as a child, and perhaps not at all strangely, she felt safer in the forest, despite its packs of wolves, bears, and of course dragørs.

  She walked through the night and the entire next day, stopping only to drink from springs and gather the occasional early berries. She found herself feeling more vivacious than ever in her life, as if she needed neither food nor sleep at all. Realization struck her that having now been ordained by two Verities was what gave her so much greater stamina. So be it. It would come in handy in the near future, no doubt, as it was now by hastening her traverse of the woods.

  She closed in on Magdaster on the second morning from the north, skirting the edge of the North Byway where the Weald thinned. Dawn light dusted the cobbles of the road with pink and pale yellow, the ambiance so inviting that she decided to take the road itself for the last few miles. By her estimate, she had perhaps fifteen to go, and at her pace, she’d be there before lunchtime. She’d probably be able to see the city’s high, unbreachable wall long before that.

  When the stone fortifications of Magdaster came into sight, however, it was not the sight she was expecting.

  Dozens upon dozens, maybe some hundreds, of fighter ships not unlike the Knights’ dragørfly scouts swarmed the skies over and around the city, firing emberspark cannons at the walls and city streets at will. It was a total attack, a full-blown battle launched upon Magdaster, and her friends.

  The Knights were there and they needed her.

  Mylla began to run, her legs moving at speeds none who didn’t share the spark of a Verity could match. But it wasn’t fast enough, she knew it deep within the cold recesses of her spirit. The bombardment was total, unstopping. And the Magdastervians had no air fleet of their own.

  But—did they? As she sped onward, her booted heels clocking rapidly and surely against the hard cobblestones, her shock abated enough to realize she hadn’t seen the full picture, not at first. There were more airships than just the Dyrraks’, strange and unrecognizable. No, that wasn’t quite true. Something about the gleam of the dark-gray metal that clad their hulls and the lines and shapes comprising their builds jogged thoughts of the brief glimpses she’d seen of the cosmocruiser captained by Bardgrim’s companion in Himmingaze, just before Balavad’s warship had swallowed them all. That wasn’t possible though—Himmingazian ships couldn’t be here, in Vinnr.

  So she ran, not knowing nor caring what she could possibly bring to the fight at this point, not thinking about what one mere Knight could hope to achieve against such an onslaught. But she wouldn’t quit until she found a way inside those walls. In the madness of the battle, one woman on foot would be practically invisible. If this fight were to be the end of Vinnr’s freedom, she didn’t want to see it fall alone.

  She ran, not thinking about whether her friends would survive the battle. They would be concealed inside the safety of Magdaster’s fortifications even if the walls themselves were overwhelmed by the sheer mass of Dyrrak fighters and their emberspark guns. As her breath grew labored and searing, she watched the fighting overhead, using it to help her estimate the distance that remained. Four miles, maybe three.

  And she ran, not thinking about the huge black shadow soaring overhead and getting larger by the moment.

  Until she realized what it was, and it became all she could think of.

  Skidding to an abrupt stop, Mylla’s head tilted and her eyes shot to the sky above her. A dragør swooped low enough for her to reach up and touch one of its deadly claws—if she’d been that bold, or stupid. Its descent was swift and utterly unbound by the natural laws of flight she thought she understood implicitly, and aside from the shadow it cast over the road, nothing, not a sound, not a scent, gave away its presence.

  The beast’s hind paws thumped to the road, sending a shiver through it, directly in front of her. Her first thought, or more accurately, her first hope, was that it was Griggory’s “friend,” if that was the right word, Heart of Purple Might.

  This dragør’s distinctive coloring told her immediately it was not. Upon this realization, all the blood rushed from her head, her heavy breathing and labored heartbeat so burdened by the sudden shock that she nearly keeled over.

  This dragør was equally gargantuan, and equally terrifying. A beast of iridescent green and orange, handsomely accented with darker green and gray lines at its wing tips and along the crest of its forehead where its horns sprouted, it dropped to all four extremities just yards from her and spun with serpentine grace to face her. Frozen, her breath now entirely still, Mylla eyed the creature, knowing her only course of action was to wait for it to do whatever it planned to. There was no outrunning a dragør, and though she’d grasped Star Spark’s hilt, her fear, as natural as the tides, did not abate.

  The dragør lowered its head until Mylla stared down the bore of its great nostrils. It took a mighty sniff, and its smooth-scaled snout curled in the same expression as Purple Might’s had, the one she hoped was a grin.

  It drew back, keeping its luminescent titian eyes fixed on her, and its voice spoke in her head: As Heart of Purple Might said, you are a staunch little speck. Most of your kind simply drop dead in fear when confronted by Vaka Aster’s First Creations.

  She had to swallow several times before her voice cooperated. “You-you have spoken to Purple Might of me?”

  HEART OF Purple Might, speck. Do not forget to whom and of whom you are speaking.

  Its breath blasted over her, hot enough to make her skin feel tight. “My apologies, Master… ?”

  You are speaking to Poppy’s Noble Inferno, little Knight. But enough with the pleasantries. With satiny steps, the dragør moved beside her. It curled its great body around her in a semicircle and leveled one blazing eye on her. Climb onto my back. It seems there’s a battle to attend, and it would be a lie if I said the dragørkind weren’t looking forward to it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Drown me in fleech slime,” Jaemus moaned. “That is… that is… it’s the definition of impossible! We’ll never be able to stand against that many.”

  The sight of dozens, hundreds, of Dyrrak attack ships, now amassed and assaulting the walled city of Magdaster—and the Glisternauts’ imperative to somehow, some way stop them, was the definition in question. Standing at his station on the Glistering Horizon’s bridge, Jaemus tore his eyes from the chaos of war before them and looked to Cote. “Impossible!” he repeated, lacking further vocabulary in his fear.

  His lifemate, unbelievably, was… smiling?

  They’d jumped through the starpath from Himmingaze just under two hours prior and sped with as much haste as they could eke from their ships toward Magdaster. Jaemus watched the Horizon’s power readouts closely and enjoyed the briefest moment of triumph when his modifications proved to work. The Vinnric sun kept their power banks well charged, and he guessed the ships would be able to fly indefinitely thanks to his ingenuity and the fleet’s skilled mechanics. But the moment’s effervescing joy died instantly as soon as they got within sight of the city. The sky around it teemed with Dyrrak attackers, their weapons emitting an endless barrage of destruction at their target. Fires burned in the besieged city, and their emberflare cannons returned fire nonstop. The Glisternaut ships had not yet been noticed, but even from their safety hovering low over the Howling Weald’s canopy, the concussive wave of the Magdastervians’ whale-sized cannons rumbled their hulls.

  Cote had called the fleet to a standstill before engaging. The plan Jaemus had concocted, as optimistic as it was, had already failed. They’d had only half the time they needed to prepare for the assault, and thus had only achieved half their goal. Yes, the Himmingazian ships could fly perfectly well in Vinnr, but they had not been able to mount the Magdastervian weaponry aboard and train their crew on how to use them.

  Yet despite the enemy bombardment ahead, Jaemus’s immediate and most pressing concern was Cote’s expressio
n. “Why do you look so happy?!” he bleated.

  “Why? Just look at those, those—I wouldn’t even compliment them with the word ‘ships,’ Jae. Those little things the Dyrraks are flying are as fragile as reeds and as tiny as minnows. We’ll sail through them like they’re nothing but raindrops. They’ll be crushed to junk, and we won’t even need to turn on our reclaimers to reinforce our hulls.”

  Jaemus opened his mouth to rebut, but then thought better of it. The truth was that the Dyrrak attackers were miniscule compared to an average Glisternaut ship. He doubted a hundred of them combined had even half the mass of one of their cosmocruisers. And based on what he’d learned from studying Havelock Rekkr’s ship, they didn’t have lightning reclaimer fields, or something similar, to buttress their strength like Glisternaut ships did. The lightning reclaimers, all-encompassing energy fields built into all Himmingazian ships, were an early fleet invention. Not only did they harness the lightning that struck consistently from the Glister Cloud storms and channel their power to the ship engines, but they also protected the ships themselves from the blustery bombardment. It kept their ships in the sky in Himmingaze, and here in Vinnr, they would serve the same purpose, though against a different threat.

  “So we can’t shoot them, but we can easily knock them out of commission, that’s what you’re planning?”

  But Cote was in command mode and already on the wave-speaker to the rest of the fleet. “New strategy, Glisternauts. Break into your squadrons, cosmocruisers at the fore, and make stacked pyramid walls. We want to come at them like a battering ram, knocking out as many in one attack as possible. They’ll figure out quickly what we’re doing, but that’s fine. Our main mission is to get to the ocean vessels and find their resupply ships. Once those are sunk, we can start picking off the remaining, ehm, nuisances. All clear?”