Vent gave a grunt at that. “And you're sure about the cooperation between Harven, Kadmine and Fabre?”
“Unless someone is running around in border camps in uniforms they have no right to wear.” Garek dipped the sky craft, and Taya realized they had already reached Juli.
“I'd hoped it was just Harven,” Vent said. He rubbed a hand over his leather chest plate. “I know Vaar said Kadmine and Fabre were involved, but I hoped he was lying. It looks like we're in big trouble.”
It sounded like he thought they wouldn't be able to survive an attack from all three. Which she supposed made sense. West Lathor was no bigger than any of the other states, and it had been neglected for the last two years.
“What's the chance we can get the Illian Council to intervene?” Falk asked.
Vent shook his head. “For it to have gotten this far, my guess is the Council have watched Valtor slowly abdicate all responsibility while refusing to let his children take over. They probably think it'll be a good thing for West Lathor to be taken over by lieges who are more involved.”
“And what will they think of Habred betraying us all by doing a deal with the sky raiders?” Taya asked.
Vent lifted his shoulders. “Hard to prove that, and it's a massive accusation. No one will want to believe it.”
“It's the truth, though,” Falk pointed out. “So there is proof of it, somewhere.”
“Good luck getting the council to even hear the charge.” Vent dismissed that as an option. “What we need is to get the Iron Guard back.”
“What are the chances of that?” Garek asked. He sounded as if he thought chances were slim, and Taya wondered what he knew about the Iron Guard.
While they were on Shadow, she, Quardi and Kas had worked out that West Lathor's famous Iron Guard had to be made up of people who could call a similar Change to her. The only difference being their element was iron.
The legends and stories that always accompanied the Iron Guard suddenly made sense when seen in relation to her own newfound abilities.
She suddenly realized she'd never told Garek about that, about what she had discovered. She would have to find time.
Vent made a face at Garek's question. “I don't know what the chances of getting them back are. After Olla, the liege's wife, died, General Hanson presented Voltar with an ultimatum--he either met certain demands, or she was going to disband the unit. She didn't like his answer and they were gone the next day. Just . . . gone.”
“Do you have a way to get in touch with her?” Falk stood, wobbly on his legs, but looking stronger all the time.
Vent lifted a single shoulder. “Aidan might.”
As Garek swooped down to land on the palace wall, the look on his face told Taya he didn't think that was true.
THIRTY-ONE
Dartan was waiting for them when they landed. The liege's advisor looked grim, dressed all in black, face frowning.
Garek lowered the back of the sky craft and walked down with Taya behind Vent and his small team of guards, to meet him.
They waited for the guards to disperse, and Taya urged Falk to go in search of a doctor to look him over.
When the only ones left were himself, Taya, Dartan and Vent, there was a moment of silence.
“Where's Aidan?” Aidan, of anyone in this place, would care if he'd found Taya and that she was safe. It bothered Garek that he was nowhere in sight.
“He's with the liege.” There was something there, just under what Dartan was saying, but Garek couldn't quite grasp it and Vent had already launched into his report.
Dartan's face turned grimmer still as Vent finished his news on the troubles brewing in Gara, and gestured to Garek.
“These two have their own bad news.”
Dartan turned his scowl on them both.
“The most important is that Habred has a deal with the sky raiders,” Taya said.
Dartan staggered back, as if she'd punched him.
“A deal?” His voice dipped, and he was forced to clear his throat.
“He provided some of his own people to the sky raiders for them to test their weapons on so they could calibrate them to knock us out but not kill us, and then he gave up the position of the Harven villagers we rescued from Shadow so the sky raiders could take them back.”
Dartan's gaze darted around, as if he needed an anchor to keep his balance. “Why? What is he getting out it?”
“We don't know, but at a guess, minimal raids on Luf, and some promise of help in taking over West Lathor. Because it's confirmed he's planning on doing that.”
“This is . . .” Dartan ran a shaking hand over his head. “Treachery.” He spun on his heel, then looked back over his shoulder. “I need to think on this. I'll need you to put down all your proof for me when you can.” He walked away, but no longer with the ground-eating, arrogant stride he'd had before. He was like a man lost.
“I never thought he'd take that so hard.” Vent looked after him thoughtfully. “I'll need to go in, see what's happened in my absence. You staying here?”
Garek shook his head. “We want to talk to Aidan, so tell him to come up as soon as he can, and then we'll go on to Pan Nuk.”
Vent nodded and disappeared down the stairs to the palace below.
He and Taya moved back into the pilot's chamber, closing up the back and settling in to wait.
Minutes ticked by, turning into half an hour, and then an hour.
Taya shifted restlessly from her position by the window, scanning the skies for any hint of sky raiders. “What could be keeping him?”
“Maybe he's letting the liege know he's taking over. That would be a delicate conversation, not easily rushed.” Garek wondered why Vent hadn't come to let him know it would be a long wait, though.
Taya stiffened, gaze focused upward. “Sky raiders.”
Garek didn't question it, he simply shot them straight into the air, then tipped the craft to one side and spiraled upward, searching for the enemy.
He saw them, flying low to the right of the city, over the big open road to the south west, and was momentarily shocked. He knew that approach, that style. He'd seen it on the walls of Gara often enough.
“They're attacking someone on the road. Do you think they don't realize we're here?”
“What can we do to them?” Taya asked. “We don't know how to activate the white lightning, and we couldn't anyway, because we'd only hurt the people on the ground. I don't think the white lightning affects the sky craft, does it?”
She was right, but the brazen nature of the attack shocked him.
From the sky, they watched the sky craft shoot out white lightning at a big group of people walking along the road. Just as Taya said, they were powerless to stop it.
“Is that . . .?” Taya pressed up against the glass. “The Kardanx? Going back home?”
Something dark and icy gripped Garek by the throat. They were stealing the Kardanx back, just like they'd planned to steal Luci and her villagers. Pan Nuk had to be next, if it wasn't too late already.
“We have to land,” he said, and it was only at her definitive nod that he realized he felt sick at the thought of doing what was right. Because it would put Taya directly in harm's way.
They would be exposed on the ground. They could be taken.
He did it anyway, landing behind a stand of trees beside the road. The sky raiders would have to be blind not to have seen them, but they wouldn't have easy access to the sky craft, either. It would take time to find it and steal it back, if he and Taya lost this gamble.
They scrambled out, the engines still running, and she fell into step with him as they jogged toward the road.
They could hear screaming, and then the terrible silence as it was cut off.
The first shot of white lightning hadn't brought everyone down, was his guess, and now they were out of the sky craft and were picking off people individually with the small, hand-held devices.
Three men appeared through the trees, running
from the road, eyes wide with fear.
They reared back at the first sight of Taya and Garek, shocked, and then stumbled forward, relieved.
Garek didn't recognize them from Shadow, but Taya nodded to them as if she did.
“Keep to the trees.”
They nodded, their breathing harsh and stuttering, and they disappeared down the tree line, moving in the direction of Juli.
Garek slowed when the road became visible between the trees. There was a glint of metal as the Star light reflected off the sky craft and someone was sobbing, somewhere close by.
Taya drew out her knife and tried to hand him the device she had in her jacket pocket, but he shook his head. He wanted her to keep it.
They stepped into the open.
Up ahead of them, the back of the sky craft faced them, ramp lowered, taking up the whole road.
Like there had been on the road out of Luf, there were two sky raiders, dressed in thick blue suits with helmets. One stood guard, white lightning device ready, while the other dragged Kardanx two at a time up the ramp and into the back.
There were very few Kardanx left lying on the road. They had already loaded most of them.
This close to the city, he guessed they knew they had to move quickly.
Garek turned to Taya, saw her arm was already back. She threw the knife, sending it high into the air.
He frowned, trying to work out where she was aiming, and then the knife came down on the sky raider who was standing guard from above, the knife hitting the top of his helmet. It flew straight up again and curved in a graceful arc back to her.
The guard's reaction was immediate. He started visibly, hands going to his helmet, but then he raised his arm and shot his device at the ground to get his copilot's attention. The second sky raider turned, let go of the two Kardanx he was dragging, and they ran into the craft.
The door started to close, and Garek fought it, calling his Change and driving a wedge of air in to keep the door open.
He ran toward the craft, but it didn't need the back closed up to take off, as he knew very well, and it rose up, turning around to face them as it lifted up.
He hammered down on the craft and it tilted drunkenly, but this was a big transport, not the smaller fighter craft he'd managed to smash out of the sky before, and it didn't go down.
Taya threw her knife again.
It flew past him, and he used his Change to help it along, so it hit the glass at the front of the sky craft with a crack.
The craft lifted even higher, and he buffeted it with winds, putting all his strength into slamming it down.
It dipped again, but as it did, it shot white lightning at them.
No. Not at them.
“Garek. Stop.” Taya reached out and grabbed him by the arm, her face a mask of fierce concentration. Her knife came flying back. “They're shooting at the Kardanx they haven't taken. They'll die if the sky raiders keep that up.”
It's what the sky raiders had threatened to do to him when they'd stolen back the sky craft on the palace roof the night they'd brought the Kardanx and Aidan to Juli.
He stopped, and Taya stepped out more fully into the center of the road and lifted her arm, knife raised high. The sky craft hovered in place, the faint crack in its windscreen clearly visible.
It was a standoff.
He came and stood behind her, hands curling lightly around her waist, ready to call his Change and lift them up out of the way if the sky raiders tried to shoot again.
Taya waggled the knife at them, and with a scream of engines, the sky craft rose higher, turning east, and then accelerated away.
For a moment, the only sound was the retreating whine of its engine.
Garek stepped back, and Taya turned to him, her face stamped with raw horror.
“They've taken them.” She looked around her, and he saw tears on her cheeks.
The bodies of the Kardanx lay all around them, at least twenty men.
There had been around eighty Kardanx on Shadow, but all of the women, what few there had been among them, and some of the men, had chosen to stay in Juli, and there were the three who'd managed to escape. Which meant there might be as many as fifty in the back of the sky craft.
Taya took his hand and squeezed it before dropping to a crouch beside a man. She placed her fingers against his neck.
“He's breathing.”
But as they moved through the victims, they found some who weren't. The second hit of white lightning had struck those closest to the sky craft, and there were six who must have caught the brunt of it.
A shout from down the road had Garek rising to his feet, tense and ready.
A group approached, most riding zanir, but there were also guards sitting inside two carts.
Vent was at the front, and Garek saw Dom, the Kardanx man he'd taught to fly the other sky craft so they could escape Shadow, was next to him.
The one person he expected but didn't see, again, was Aidan.
“Where's Aidan?” he asked Vent, but the guard master shook his head in a surreptitious movement, and mouthed: Later.
“We saw . . .” Dom looked around at the bodies. “I watched them leaving from the ramparts. We said our goodbyes at the gates and then I climbed the stairs to watch them from the wall, and then we saw . . .”
He slid off his zanir and walked forward on stiff legs. “This is my cousin.” Like Taya had done, he put a hand to his neck, and sucked in a breath when he registered the pulse.
“There are six dead.” Garek let his gaze move past Vent to the others looking around in shock.
Someone had given the sky raiders the day, even the hour, of the Kardanx departure. This could not possibly be a coincidence. And of everyone here, Vent was the only one off the hook.
He'd been in Gara.
No matter what method of communication there was between the sky raiders and the traitors in their midst, Vent would have had no time to pass the message on.
But someone had.
“How long has their trip been planned?” Garek asked Dom, and he looked up from his place on the ground at his cousin's side.
“Since last week,” Dom said. “Why do you--?” He went absolutely still. “You think the sky raiders were waiting for them?”
“They were waiting for Luci and all the villagers from Cassinya,” Taya said, her gaze meeting Garek's in quick agreement. “It seems a little much to think they simply got very lucky both times.”
“That's quite an accusation.” Vent scowled at him, and Garek realized the other guards and spectators in the group were staring at him in horror.
“You tell me, then, how were they right here to swoop down on the Kardanx just when they were outside the protection of the city, in a nice, easy-to-scoop-up group?”
“Someone told them? How? Who would do that?” The voice came from among the guards.
“That's for you to find out,” Garek told Vent. “Taya and I have to make sure Pan Nuk is safe.”
He realized he should have warned her somehow before he spoke, but it was too late. Taya gasped, eyes wide, as she realized what he was saying, as she worked out what he'd already realized.
The sky raiders had made a plan to take back their old prisoners. And why should Pan Nuk be any different from the rest?
THIRTY-TWO
Taya couldn't speak, her throat so tight she could barely swallow as Garek piloted the sky craft faster than she could remember it ever going before.
They came over the pass and dropped toward Pan Nuk, engines screaming as Garek pulled back, slowed down, and then landed just outside the village.
It looked empty, but then, they would hide at the sound of a sky craft, they couldn't know it was her and Garek.
She held on to that excuse as the door opened and she threw herself out.
“Kas!” Her shout seemed to be swallowed up, weak and faint, and she dropped to the ground and ran down the street.
Behind her, the sky craft shut down and then she heard
Garek coming after her.
“Kas! Luca!”
“Taya.”
Taya sagged, would have fallen, except Garek was there, grabbing her from behind and lifting her up, holding her against him as Kas, and Luca, and Min, too, stepped out from behind one of the houses and ran toward her.
“We were so afraid . . .” Taya held out her arms as she found her own feet and Luca threw himself at her. Garek caught her again as the weight of her nephew made her stagger back.
She hugged him so tight he made a sound of protest and she eased up a little and raised her head.
Kas was looking at her, and there was such a mixture of emotions on his face she went still. “What is it?”
“The sky raiders attacked.”
Behind her, she felt Garek stiffen.
“Did they get anyone?”
Kas gave a nod, and swallowed. It was Min who answered, though, her voice ragged.
“They got Eli, they got Noor. They got everyone who was standing guard duty on the hill. They got a few others who were working in the fields.” She kneaded her skirt with restless hands. “We heard them coming. Eli had some of your spears, Taya. He carried them with him whenever he was out.
“He couldn't throw them hard enough, though, and they hit him with white lightning. Kas had the idea a few days ago to make shallow hiding places all over the village, to make it hard for them to find us. He used his Change and dug them, so most of us went to ground, and Quardi and Kas took a few of your spears and waited for the sky raiders at the end of the village, but they didn't try to come in. They left with whoever they could grab in the field.” There was a wobbly, unhappy quaver to her voice.
“How many in all?” Garek's hands were still holding Taya up, and now they tightened.
“About twenty.”
“When?” It couldn't have been after they'd attacked the Kardanx. She and Garek would have beaten them here.
“Two days ago.” Kas rubbed his face, and it looked as if he hadn't slept since it happened.
“They were waiting for Luci and her people on the road to Cassinya. And we just came from Juli, where they grabbed all the Kardanx traveling on their way home.”
Calling the Change (Sky Raiders Book 2) Page 22