I could shoot Kaiser, but… these arrows smashed through a stone wall. They’d make short work of a frail fellow like him.
And I don’t want to carry a half-dead thief back to Torghast.
I’ve already torn my suit once. It doesn’t need a giant blood stain, too.
He could hear Kaiser wheezing softly and Strauss grunting angrily. The two thieves emerged suddenly from the shadows of the trees into a field of tall grasses bathed in silvery moonlight. Arjuna vaulted the lightning-shattered remains of an old tree trunk and bolted through the tall grasses. The soft earth cradled his sore feet through his battered shoes and again he remembered the long night hunts with his brothers. He could practically hear them at his side, laughing and taunting each other as they closed in for the kill.
He smiled.
The thieves were only fifty paces ahead now, and he guessed it would be another minute or so before he could lay his hand on Strauss’s collar and tackle her to the ground.
The grassy field gave way to a plowed field that made Ranulf stumble more than once over the earthen rows. At the far side of the field was a small stone wall where again the lanky thief tumbled onto his face. But the blonde woman dragged him to his feet and pushed him on down the road past a dark farm house. They soon left the road and headed across another small field toward a stand of trees where a dozen or so anglers glowed quietly beneath the leaves.
Arjuna jumped over the stone wall and felt a blast of cold air in his face. The wind whistled up the road and howled around the eaves of the little farm house. The detective flared his nostrils.
What is that smell? Burning… oil?
His eyes widened.
It smells like the city. We must be near the edge of the island, and their gyro!
“Kaiser!” Arjuna raised his bow and tried to find a target, but his quarry was already in the shadows of the grove, dancing in and out of the light of the huge black beetles. With a grimace, Arjuna loosed his arrow and heard it crunch into the trunk of some innocent tree, but no people cried out in pain.
He nocked his second arrow as he slowed to a jog at the edge of the grove. He squinted into the shadows and slowly waded into the brush.
Strauss could be anywhere, waiting to wrap her arms around my head and snap my neck.
Well… at least it wouldn’t hurt much.
He glanced swiftly from side to side, scanning the darkness. He could hear someone stumbling around in the undergrowth just up ahead. There were wooden snaps and leafy rustles, and then a metallic thump and an oily squeak.
The gyro!
The rattling and squeaking grew louder and began cycling faster. Arjuna gritted his teeth and dashed forward again, raising his bow in search of a target. A moment later he burst into the open air again and saw Strauss running away, pushing the autogyro across the grass. Beyond them, Arjuna saw a dark ragged line where the stars abruptly ended.
The edge!
“Stop right there!” He drew back the steel arrow to his cheek and loosed it. The missile shrieked through the cold wind and slammed into the metal skin of the gyro just above Strauss’s head.
But it was too little and far too late. The gyro was rolling swiftly down a shallow incline and the blonde woman ran up beside the machine and leapt into the cockpit. The little propeller at the back of the vehicle remained still and silent, but the huge rotor at the top was sweeping around in powerful arcs.
“Kaiser!” Arjuna raised his third arrow, but then frowned and lowered his bow again. At best he might put a second bolt in the gyro’s useless engine.
In the moment before the gyro rolled off the edge of the flying island, a pale face leaned out from behind the engine cowling. Ranulf Kaiser smiled and waved jauntily, and in his hand a small yellow light waved with him.
And then the gyro vanished over the edge.
Arjuna jogged up to the end of the grass where a ragged strip of earth and exposed rocks marked the end of the world of Inselmond. The wind battered at him, first from the left, and then from the right, and he crouched down a bit to keep from being blown off balance, or worse, off the island. Peering out and down, he sighted the stolen gyro descending slowly and smoothly toward Eisenstadt. The rotor spun with a soft clacking and the whole machine seemed to drift like a cloud.
The landscape below was streaked in gray. Arjuna glanced over his shoulder at the eastern horizon and saw the pale pink and yellow haze of the imminent dawn beyond a few streaky clouds.
Sunrise already?
He looked down one more time at the autogyro, now as small as a child’s toy.
They’re being blown toward the north side of the city. I suppose that’s something. If they land in a field, maybe an angry farmer will stab them with a pitchfork.
Not with my luck.
The detective turned back toward the grove and started walking. A shimmer of light caught his eye and he saw the golden glow of an angler reflected on the shaft of a steel arrow. He pulled the arrow free and continued back toward the road.
Arjuna frowned.
Why was Kaiser waving one of those beetles at me?
Chapter 17. A Slow Pursuit
Bettina closed her eyes and leaned back to rest her head, just for a moment.
Where could he be?
She heard a soft snoring and dimly knew it was her own nose making the sound. With a small effort, she managed to sit up in the gyro’s cockpit and open her eyes to watch the sun just beginning to rise above the eastern ridge.
Morning. Morning on Inselmond, a mile above the earth. It’s beautiful.
She glanced over at the snoring form of the rainwarden, Melora Meilke, curled up in a soft patch of grass beside a tall, slender elm. The islander had been none too happy to see Bettina hobbling alone down the road around the reservoir to reclaim her machine, and even less happy to learn that the machine wouldn’t be leaving her domain until the wayward Arjuna returned. Young Jennian Oakley lay close by as well, her thin nose whistling as she slept.
The soft rustle of grass turned the detective’s head and she saw her husband striding toward her. His eyes were shadowed and lined, and his mouth made a small frown as he walked into the growing light of the rising sun. The left sleeve of his brown suit was torn and hung in shreds from his forearm and wrist. Pale dirt marred his sleeves and pants, and dark muddy streaks marred his cheek and forehead, but there was no trace of blood on him and he was walking as easily ever.
He’s out all night and barely a scratch on him.
Bettina stood up and stepped out of the gyro’s passenger seat. She folded her hands in front of her on the head of her cane and held up her head as smartly as she could.
Arjuna sauntered up and stood in front of her with a hint of a smile. “Good morning,” he said softly.
“Good morning, darling,” she said airily. “I said, what’s that in your hand?”
“Hm?”
“When you came running out of the mound an hour or two ago,” Bettina reminded him. “I asked you, what is that thing in your hand?”
The tall Dumastran turned his head and looked at the shining silver bow resting on his shoulder as though he were seeing it for the first time. “Oh this? Yes, well, Strauss smashed my poor little coilgun in that miserable tomb, so I had to make do.”
“Make do?” Bettina cleared her throat. “Dear, when one makes do in a miserable tomb, one usually manages with a dusty old rock or a filthy old bone. One does not make do with an ancient recurve bow, doubtlessly forged from strange alloys using long-lost metallurgical secrets.”
He nodded. “You’re right, of course. It won’t happen again.” He started past her toward the autogyro.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “We can’t take that thing with us. That’s exactly what we came here to prevent.”
“And we did,” he said with a tired grin. “Kaiser and Strauss barely escaped with their lives, and nothing more. They didn’t take a single thing out of that tomb.”
“But you did.”
“Well, yes.” Arjuna shrugged. “Damage done, darling. What would you prefer I do? Hand this weapon over to whom, to her?” He gestured toward the sleeping rainwarden. “You’ve seen the sorts of tools and clothes they have. Linen and frog leather? They’re like children up here. If we give them this bow, it’ll end up slaughtering people. You know that.”
“I do know that,” she said. “I am not happy about that.”
“Understood.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead, and then turned back to the gyro to stow his bow and two arrows under the pilot’s seat.
Bettina cleared her throat. “So, they escaped.”
“Yes, barely.”
“But they didn’t steal anything?”
“Nothing at all.” Arjuna paused and looked up. “I mean, our friend Ranulf did grab one thing, but it must have been the act of a truly desperate man.”
A sudden fear grabbed Bettina’s spine. “What thing? What did he grab?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Arjuna said soothingly. “Just one of those big beetles. He leaned out the gyro and waved the thing at me with a big smile on his face like it was diamond and not a bug.”
He stole a beetle? Why?
Bettina shook her head as she helped her husband position the gyro to point out across a small strip of dirt that rolled down into oblivion at the edge of Inselmond and the dusky purple hills at the edge of the Rhendal Plains far below.
“Do we have a plan?” she asked politely as she slipped into her seat.
“I saw them going down,” Arjuna said. “It looked like they’re going to land a few miles north of the city, maybe near the river. They definitely won’t be able to reach the city, that’s for certain.”
“Mm, yes, well, let’s leave the predictions to the starcasters and focus on the job at hand.” Bettina rubbed her eyes. “I left that poor old man alone in his home with no one to care for him. Hopefully he’ll recover quickly.” She glanced at her black bag tucked under her seat and thought of all her remaining pain pills now sitting on the starcaster’s table.
Arjuna gripped the side of their little gyro and began to push. Bettina clutched the edge of her seat as the breeze began blowing across her face. The gyro shook and rattled over the uneven ground and she grimaced as the hard seat banged her poor bones about in the cockpit. What little ground remained between the machine and the end of the flying island vanished in three nervous breaths and then her husband leapt clumsily into the pilot’s seat and the gyro plunged over the precipice.
Had she any breath at all, she would have screamed as the machine nosed down and fell off the island into empty space. Bettina closed her eyes and squeezed her fingers around the edge of her seat. With a gasp, she whispered, “Darling?”
“I’ve got it!”
The rotors were turning with a deep fwoop-fwoop-fwoop but the silence of the engine was deafening.
We have no engine, no power, no control. And we’re falling… one mile… straight down… no, I refuse to die with an unsolved case or while wearing the same clothing as the day before!
“Dear?”
“I’ve got it!”
The autogyro swung up sharply and leveled out. The machine bobbed in midair like a cork on the water, and gently settled into an even descent. The rotor whirled and hummed and a steady breeze blew up over the machine as it began sinking toward the earth. Arjuna eased the controls to the side and the gyro turned in a wide, slow circle until it was pointed back at the outskirts of Eisenstadt.
Bettina exhaled and blinked her eyes open. The first thing she saw was the enormous black mass swimming above her. The underbelly of Inselmond hung in the sky like a nightmare, dark and jagged, and utterly impossible. As her eyes adjusted to the morning half-light, Bettina began to pick out a few details, a pale boulder here, a dark vein there. But the gyro was descending swiftly and the drifting isle seemed to drift higher and higher with each passing second. Soon it was little more than a ragged black hole in the heavens and she lost interest in the strange world above.
So strange, and yet so ordinary. It was almost like stepping back in time. Hearing that accent, seeing those clothes… But none of that matters now. I was the fifth person from Eisenstadt to set foot on the drifting isle, and no one will ever know. Such is life…
She sighed and turned her attention to the more familiar world below. As the new day’s light spread across the land, it revealed the patchwork fields and winding country lanes. Thatch-roofed cottages and slate-roofed farm houses. Windmills spun lazily in the faint breeze like tired dancers, and flocks of geese glided in loose formations from pond to stream to pond.
They look so quaint from above.
The winding path of the Dorrein River glistened and sparkled blue and white, dotted with the wooden specks of rowboats and fishing boats.
“Can you see anything?” she called out. The wind sighed gently around the gyro and without the noise of the engine it was quite easy to speak and be heard.
“No sign of Kaiser,” Arjuna said. “It’s a pity the sun is up. If it was still dark, we could have just followed the light of his new pet.”
Bettina sighed and frowned. “They probably landed out of control. Maybe they rolled through a field or even crashed into a house. Look for signs of damage, or a group of people gathering in an odd place.”
“I’m following the river toward the city,” he said. “It might be wise to plan our own crash landing too.”
“Wise, but no less distressing,” she said. “I’d prefer not to compound a crash landing with a violent, panicked episode of drowning in a large iron tub with spinning metal blades. We were lucky the first time. Let’s not tempt fate a second time.”
“Yes, dear.”
The sun rose, the sky blushed from gray to pink to blue, and the Rhendal Plains swelled with deep green foliage, the white and yellow blossoms strewn across the orchards, and the rich browns of the freshly tilled fields. As the gyro gently sank lower and lower in the sky, the detective’s perspective shifted. Toy-like objects resolved smoothly into houses and horses and people. Dogs barked, cows lowed, and children yelled in the distance.
“There.” Arjuna pointed straight ahead at the river’s edge
Bettina craned her neck and saw the gleaming metal cross of an autogyro’s blades leaning out over the water from a mound of hay and leafy refuse. “Looks like they found a soft spot. Any chance we can do the same?”
“There’s always a chance.” Arjuna leaned out over the side and shaded his eyes with his hand. He pointed at a dirty trail of smoke rumbling up the country lane toward the farmhouse that had recently acquired a small flying machine in its garden. “Friend or foe?”
Bettina peered at the steam carriage chuffing up to the house by the river. “I do believe that’s our own Mister Oster coming to collect us.”
“What? How?”
“We’re an hour or two behind Kaiser and Strauss,” Bettina said. “That’s more than enough time for an unlucky farmer to call for help and for a vigilant chauffer to drive out from the city.”
They were only a hundred feet above the earth now and still falling steadily toward the thick reeds and mud at the river’s edge. The little gyro swept past the farmhouse, with less than a dozen feet to spare between the smoking chimney and the muddy wheels.
Bettina braced her feet against the back of her husband’s seat and gripped the edge of the cockpit as she eyed the earth and riparian flora speeding by just beneath them. “Darling? Dearest? You will be gentle, won’t you? This is only my second time crash-landing in a flying machine and I’m feeling quite fragile at the moment.”
“Really? You’ve never wanted it gentle before.”
“Gently, now!”
A thousand reeds and willow-wands slapped at the gyro’s belly in a discordant round of applause, the beating of the rotor blades rose to an angry growl, and the detectives touched down. The wheels landed hard on firm dry earth, but the gyro pitched drunkenly to the left as the bank sloped away
under the wheels on that side, and the drooping rotors reached down to slice into the calm waters of the Dorrein River. A fine silver spray filled the air and Bettina flinched away from the freezing rain flying into her face.
The gyro rumbled a few yards farther along the bank before the tall grasses and reeds twisted and wound around the small wheels and yanked the machine to a sudden halt. The rotor blades slapped the waters once more, and slowed to a silent halt.
Bettina shivered and wiped the water from her eyes with a delicate gloved finger. Arjuna leapt out of his seat and dragged the gyro a few painful inches higher on the bank, his face contorted with pain as he grunted and strained before he finally relented and let the machine sit and sink into the soft wet earth.
Breathing heavily, his face awash in perspiration, Arjuna paced over to her seat and held out his hand. “I do believe we’ve arrived, my love. Shall we?”
She took his hand and stepped out of the autogyro, grateful to be prying her aching legs and back from the machine’s cruelly hard seat and walls. “Thank you.” She straightened jacket and resettled her hat upon what felt to be a rather messy devolution of her once tidy bun.
Her husband squinted into the bright morning light and nodded back at the farmhouse. “I should go find Oster and talk to the farmer. We probably don’t need the countryside ablaze with rumors of flying machines.” He reached into the gyro for his ostentatious bow and murderous arrows, and then looked into her eyes, waiting.
“Mm.” She nodded and watched him jog through the tall grass back toward the house where she could see the thin smoky exhalations of the Ministry’s carriage rising from the far side of the roof. Then she too reached down to retrieve her things from under her seat. The black bag weighed heavily in her tired fingers, but the cane was a welcome friend in her grip. With a sigh, she set out along the bank.
There was a narrow carpet of freshly crushed reeds to lead her back toward the house and she followed it until the grasses began to spring up again, and then she simply trudged along the bank. Voices echoed from the far side of the house. Laughter, too.
The Kaiser Affair (The Drifting Isle Chronicles) Page 16