Knight Chosen

by Tammy Salyer

Refused to lead? thought Mylla. What is this about? So many secrets, so many things she didn’t yet know about the Order. What else had been kept from her?

  Still looking outside, Roi said more loudly, “We go to the northern stronghold.”

  But that meant . . . run? Hide? No, she was not going to do that. Not when the fists of a world-killer were clenched around Vinnr, her world too, after all. “Roi, we can’t simply retreat and hide like cowards. We must stop the usurper. We have a duty!”

  Roi turned and spoke words made of bricks: “No, Mylla. Until we once more guard the vessel of our maker, survival is our duty. Our only victory.”

  “But what about the people of Ivoryss? What about their survival? Their victory? We can help them.”

  Stave said in a voice that was meant to soothe but rasped on her ears like a hairshirt, “You’re young still, novice, and you’ve not yet had time to get the . . . the distance you need from the common people. It’s easy for you to understand their suffering, to feel as if they mat—” He stopped and looked at Safran, as if seeking help finding the words.

  Matter, Mylla thought. He was going to say “matter.” Do all Knights lose their humanity? Will I?

  Safran understood his need for assistance and continued, But we can’t, Mylla. That isn’t our mandate. We have a purpose that lies beyond their fates.

  “Not anymore,” Mylla stated.

  Silence met her words; the others couldn’t dredge up an argument to counter them.

  Desperately, she sought a reason to make them see that the people of Ivoryss, of Vinnr, did matter, that the Knights faced a deeper choice in this moment than to run or to fight—the choice to care or not, a choice that would be burned into their spirits for eternity if they made the wrong one.

  And then a reason came to her. She hated herself for saying it, but she could think of no other way to push them over the cliff with her instead of just to the edge. She felt like a vile traitor, like an ungrateful turncoat, but she said: “And what if Eisa plans to join the usurper?”

  Safran gripped her Mentalios tightly, as if to hold it together. Mylla! How can you say that?

  Push made, now to plunge. Drawing a breath, she went on. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? She’s taken the Scrylle, the Fenestros. She has everything she needs to win Balavad’s favor. Is it so hard to believe? Stave?” He’d be the easiest to convince, so, feeling tarnished by her own actions, she sought his collusion, or complicity, first. “For so many turns around Halla, her entire long life practically, she’s been devoted to a Verity. Now that Verity is . . . gone. Eisa may seek to ally with the usurper because she has no other purpose to guide her. She is a Verity’s tool.” Her thoughts added, And a broken one.

  The others considered, leaving her holding her breath and grasping for anything more she could say to persuade them. She was manipulating them with the dexterity she’d only seen practiced by a politician like Safran, but she wasn’t proud of this newly discovered ability. If anything, she recoiled at her own cunning. “Even if I’m wrong,” please, let me be wrong, “what if she is captured? The Verity artifacts are our last advantage. We have to retrieve those if we can, at the very least.”

  The beat of Urgo’s and Yggo’s wings as the birds retreated to their perches, all signs but the bones of the rabbit vanished, made them all jump. Then Stave said, “She has a good point, a couple of them, she does.”

  The topaz in Roi’s eyes glittered as if on fire. “If we do this, all of us could die and nary a one will be left to carry on. The Order will end with us.”

  “If the Order no longer serves any purpose, perhaps that will be for the best,” Mylla said softly, swallowing hard against the dread bubbling in her throat.

  She counted ten heartbeats before Roi finally spoke again:

  “To Magdaster.”

  Chapter 33

  As Captain Illago spoke to Bardgrim, Ulfric could hear the man’s resolve. He thought he was safe, and men who thought they were safe were the easiest to attack. He asked Bardgrim if the ship had any weapons, and as the Himmingazian responded, that voice spoke once more in Ulfric’s head.

  Spare the Himmingazians your wrath, Stallari. You are a being of compassion and wisdom. It is why the others follow you. Rage and violence are not your way.

  The voice felt more than sounded like a stranger’s, and it was growing louder each time it spoke. He had never called himself “Stallari,” which would have been odd. But it seemed he did now, and it didn’t settle well with him. The distraction alone annoyed him. What was worse was how much harder it was becoming to ignore it.

  “Himmingazians haven’t warred since the early days of the Glister Cloud,” Bardgrim accused. “You’re the only one threatening violence here.”

  Bloodshed as a first resort wasn’t his way, this was true. Of the Knights, only Eisa had ever been—how could he put it? Persuaded on a whim to resort to force? That was about right.

  You would not hurt others for your own gain. You never have. This is why you were chosen as the Stallari.

  People change. For further proof, once more all one had to do was look at what had become of Eisa after the Dyrrakium uprising.

  The dragørflies can find a way to free you.

  Now why hadn’t he thought . . . ? But it was he who thought that. Wasn’t it?

  Reaching out once more with his mind, much like he did through his Mentalios, he called to the troupe of dragørflies and was instantly rewarded with proliferative ommatidial vision. The sights before him moved and whirled at speeds he could never travel on his own feet as the servants of Vaka Aster flew along the corridors of the Skate. It should have been disorienting and overwhelming, yet somehow he simply understood what he was seeing as if each sight came from his own two eyes in an orderly, human fashion. It was amazing.

  The creatures swooped throughout the ship, once more following his mental command: Find a way to open this hatch so we may escape.

  A set of them blew into the oval cabin inhabited by Captain Illago and a half-dozen other Glisternauts. They stood around a bank of metal and glass machines that looked nothing like those inside the Vigilance, but which he recognized nonetheless as the apparatus of controlling this ship. One of the Glisternauts caught sight of the hand-sized dragørfly closing in on her and began swatting at it. This clownish act might have amused Ulfric on another day, or in another life, but at the moment it served as an aggravation. He sent several more winged sentries toward the Glisternaut to harry her to distraction, and eventually she simply ducked beneath the console before her. The other Glisternauts scattered, presumably looking for a way to either capture or kill the pests without damaging their own equipment. He had a limited amount of time before that could happen.

  “Bardgrim, I’m looking at a bank of lights and flat glass panels that show words in your language and other images.”

  “You’re looking at what?”

  He seemed mystified, and Ulfric belatedly recognized that he hadn’t truly grasped Ulfric’s dragørfly-sight ability. “Understand this, I am able to see inside the chamber this ship is operated from. I can see the devices and mechanisms by which it’s done, but I don’t know what’s required to open this hatch. You do, correct?”

  The Himmingazian stared at him as if he had once more spoken in Elder Veros, and this time from a mouth that wasn’t where you’d ordinarily find it. Perhaps on his forehead or near his ear.

  “Bardgrim! Do you know this ship well enough to know its controls if I describe them to you?”

  At last, Bardgrim blinked, nodded.

  “Good. Now pay attention.” Ulfric described the console quickly, keeping a few sets of wystically empowered insect eyes out for the returning Glisternauts.

  Holding his expression carefully still, Bardgrim said, “You see the round image of a dial on the far left screen?”

  He nodded.

  “Of course you do,” Bardgrim muttered, then more loudly: “It has to be spun right a quarter turn, which will open a
number pad.”

  “How is it spun?”

  “You just touch it and drag your fingers in the direction you want to spin it.”

  Ulfric sent this message to the dragørflies, but their appendages were all too light to create enough pressure to turn the dial. “Is there another way?” he grumbled.

  “Sure, I can do it from here, except they’ve disabled my frequency.”

  Ulfric drew a frustrated spurt of air into his nose, letting it blow out slowly between his clenched teeth. The Himmingazian would have to answer for his lies about the Fenestros and Balavad’s Scrylle, but Ulfric had to keep his temper in check at the moment if he was to get any cooperation from him. “Another way that is useful to us.”

  “No.”

  This time his fists clenched, but then he had an idea. One dragørfly may not have the weight, but many . . .

  Quickly, he sent the thought to his new pets. Heeding his orders, a cadre of about two dozen flew into formation one above another, letting their legs rest on the body segments of the one below until they’d created a tower almost as tall as a human. Then, on command, they all began to oscillate their wings in such a way as to create downward pressure. The lowest, poised on the image of the dial, lit up as the color of the dial changed from white to green.

  Holding his excitement in check, he directed them to shift in a carefully calibrated motion to drag the bottommost creature in an arc, pulling the dial a quarter turn. And like Bardgrim had described, images of a series of numbers suddenly radiated out in a circle from the dial. “The number code, Bardgrim,” he demanded, marveling again that he somehow had been bestowed not only with the ability to speak the Himmingazian tongue, but to read it.

  As Bardgrim said the numbers, he sent them to the dragørflies. As if they were his own fingers, the creatures worked in harmony. Outside the Octopod, amber lights began flashing, a warning to those within the hangar that the hatchway would soon be unbarred.

  So focused on the exit inside the control room and the dragørflies at the console, he was caught by surprise when some kind of metallic bar suddenly waved through his tower of insects, destroying it. The creatures took to wing instantly, dispersing to safety and leaving just one—the lowest dragørfly still standing over the final number.

  “No,” he growled.

  Whack!

  A hand came down atop the last creature, splattering its body across the glass screen. Darting pain shot through Ulfric’s eyes into the core of his brain, and his hands flew up reflexively to cover them. “Mongrel-toothed slackface!” he growled. “Where did that come from?”

  But then he saw. The Glisternaut who’d hidden beneath the console now stood, wiping her insect-gut-besmeared hand on her leg and swinging the bar frantically with the other at the remaining dragørflies like a blind amateur swordswoman.

  “Hold on to something, Knight. I don’t know how you did that, but we’re off the Skate in three . . . two . . . ONE!”

  He opened his eyes and saw that, despite the troupe of dragørflies’ dispersal, the hidden Glisternaut had herself triggered the hatch to open by smashing the last creature into the final number in the code. With a speed so abrupt that Ulfric had no time to brace, the Octopod shot from the Bounding Skate’s docking hatchway into the glitter-in-the-dark rain of Himmingaze’s sky and was far beyond the Skate’s sight within a beat of his heart.

  Chapter 34

  After the tarnished, smoke-filled atmospheres of both Omina and Asteryss, the clear starlit sky overhead and flickers of city lights below as they approached Magdaster prompted a sense in Mylla that took her a moment to recognize: hope. Maybe the usurper had taken all he wanted and left.

  And maybe she shouldn’t fool herself.

  Halla had risen and set once since they started the journey to Magdaster, and the timing on their arrival was just as they’d hoped. The Knights preferred to arrive after dark, when fewer troops would be alert and the chance of battle slimmer. After the stories of the siege and swift subjugation of Asteryss, they hadn’t expected such calm. Not a single Ravener ship nor the storied usurper’s warship had harried them anytime during the journey, and none now hovered over Magdaster.

  The helm’s long-range spyglass, wystically enhanced to provide clarity even in the dark, gave Mylla a commanding perspective on the heavy contingent of guards at intervals atop the city’s high walls. It seemed they’d at least received warning about Balavad and his forces. Brun’s last Marines must have arrived safely, she thought, and that increasingly foreign sensation of hope washed over her again.

  The legion here was at least ten thousand fighters strong, but Asteryss had had nearly double that and had fallen in less than a day. Her mind, seemingly bent on actively strangling her tenuous hope, latched on to this fact. If Balavad wants to conquer Magdaster, she thought, is there really anything that can stop him?

  But she shucked that thought. She’d persuaded the Knights to come here on the chance there was a way. Therefore, she had to put faith in the belief they would figure it out. One Knight, with their training, Verity-hallowed weapons, and klinkí stones, was easily equal to a dozen or more commoners in a fight, and with the advantages of the Vigilance’s and remaining dragørfly scout’s invisibility and the unmatched potency of the emberflare and emberspark cannons, they could sweep the skies free of Ravener ships with deadly stealth.

  With an eye on searching out the best place to bring in the Vigilance, Mylla scanned the city. Like barnacles on a reef, the granite and timber buildings and towers of Magdaster stretched along the inland hills that spilled down to the northern coastline. The forbidding wall running opposite the sea along the city’s flank and enveloping it from north to south served as a final impediment to any ground invaders, but its real defenses were its hilltop and seaside artillery. As Ivoryss’s last large port city in the remote north before the land gave way to ancient and unsettled forests, the Magdastervians’ hardy self-sufficiency gave them an edge of fierceness that only the foolish could fail to appreciate.

  Though the city, like Asteryss, had been built long before the Vinnrics had developed flying ships, the wall and its defensive armaments stood steady against the living dragørs of the Howling Weald, and were thus always maintained to their peak strength. The endless weald itself created a need in the Magdastervians to remain ever-vigilant and ever-fierce.

  She wasn’t looking forward to appearing among them out of nowhere, especially now that they were on alert. Sharing a common enemy, she hoped, would make convincing them the Knights came to help an easier task.

  Now floating above the city, she chose the spot where they would hover while they made contact with the Marines, just as Stave joined her on deck.

  “How does it look to you, novice?”

  “Our intention is to offer aid, so we may as well announce ourselves right off to the highest number of Magdastervians as we can. City center.” She pointed to it beyond the wind screen.

  Clicking his Mentalios into the housing on the deck’s main spyglass, he peered through and swiveled the mount to where she indicated. “Aye. Looks to be quiet, it does, but there are a few lights. Guard houses, I’d say, with troops catching sleep and sharpening knives while they’re off duty. Dropping right into their midst’ll be exciting.”

  “You wouldn’t have joined the Knights if you didn’t crave a bit of excitement, eh?”

  He cocked a thick eyebrow curiously at her, then grinned. “Mylla, you and I should find some time to compare ideas on what ‘exciting’ means.” With a good-natured slap on her back, he started toward the hatch. “Let us know when we’re there.”

  They’d discussed leaving someone aboard the Vigilance as the rest met up with Commander Nennus’s legion and elected Safran. She would bring up the ladder to safeguard access to the ship and keep watch over them using the optics and the bruhawks. Splitting up would further weaken them, and it wasn’t as if they would retaliate against any aggression by the Marines by using something as catastrophic as
the emberflare cannon—that would kill Knight and soldier alike, for hundreds of paces. But leaving the Vigilance unguarded with the ladder down invited its capture. And no one would be safe with it in the hands of commoners. Until they had a pact with Nennus, they would not reveal all of their assets. And if they could find and enlist Havelock and Brun to speak for them, it could hasten their hoped-for collaboration.

  With a final tug and tightening, Mylla ensured her armor was ready, then placed her hands around the yoke that controlled the Vigilance, steering them silently and invisibly into place. The Vigilance’s momentum shifted slightly beneath her feet when they arrived, and she released the yoke.

  On her way through the hold to join the others, she had a fleeting thought. If only Lock and I could speak to each other through Mentalios lenses. She sensed the deeper part of the anticipation she was feeling was about seeing him again. Aloud, she whispered, “He should become a Knight. It is the only way we can be together.”

  A quieter part of her mind, however, questioned: But is being a Knight still what you truly wish?

  Stepping onto the deck with the others, she told herself now was not the time for such considerations.

  Ready? Safran asked.

  Seeing Stave and Roi standing abreast of Safran sent a jolt of pride through Mylla. The imperial sight of the Knights Corporealis in full fighting regalia would make even the most decorated Dragør Marine pause in admiration. Scholars in spirit and warriors down to their very marrow, the Knights manifested a nobility that was nearly venerable, as if they were more than human, splinters of Vaka Aster incarnate. For a moment, she was transported to her childhood and the first time she’d seen the Knights like this, uniformed for a procession of state to coronate the new Arch Keeper. She’d been at the knees of her guardians, and though the memory of their faces was blurred by the passage of time, the image of these three regal celestially marked Knights before her, along with Symvalline, Eisa, and Aldinhuus and others who’d since been lost to the Order, had never dulled or faded.