-34-
Jarlus lived in a world of wind.
For the last several hours, the Xai Ashaon had struggled to keep himself in place on the top of Lanaya’s great ship as it soared northward through the night. The rushing air blasted him, howling in his ears and making his irritated eyes burn as if they’d been pierced by a thousand pins.
The wind had grown very cold. The desert air at night could be quite chilly, but hundreds of feet up it was much worse, and now his hands were growing numb.
Still, he dared not move, knowing that to leave the shelter of the projection under which he’d secured himself would likely mean his doom. The wind seemed determined to whisk him off the hull of the ship and send him tumbling down to oblivion.
He tried to gauge their location. The ship had flown low over the desert for most of the journey, but now they’d slowly been rising, and he could see farther ahead.
Jarlus saw cliffs bordering the wide river below. The terrain was familiar; he knew they were approaching the capital, Laer—and thus Phaedon’s palace and everything dear to him.
A swarm of smaller claw and axe-head shaped flyers had been following the great ship. Now, as he watched, they shot off ahead. He felt a strong vibration through the hull as the ship began to slow, using some unknown force to brake its flight. Jarlus grunted as he braced himself against the surge of momentum which was suddenly trying to throw him forward.
In a minute, the ship had slowed to a leisurely glide. He was about to risk crawling out from under his shelter when he heard a hiss.
Three long openings appeared along the top of the hull towards the prow, pale ambia light glowing up from them. As he looked on, several axe-head shaped flyers emerged from each of these openings, shooting forward into the air, following the river north towards the city.
Now or never—this was his chance.
He scuttled out from under the projection and rose to a crouch. Staying low, he sprinted forward. Even though the ship had slowed, there were still strong winds at this height, and the seamless crystal surface under his boots provided little traction.
With effort, he made it to the nearest opening and dropped prone, looking down over the edge and down into the ship.
In the long chamber below, one small crystal flyer was still parked near a wall. It was a chunky wedge-shaped craft that Jarlus thought must be a transport, as it lacked the predatory look that the fighting craft always possessed.
Good, he thought. A possible means of escape …
There was also a console. In front of it stood a man in crystal armor, his gaze directed down at the crystal controls under his fingertips. The Dameryan script etched into the edge of the console read “Above Door Access.” Jarlus could also see the shape of what he thought was a door leading out of the chamber: the seam of an irregular rectangle set against the far wall.
Pulling himself up into a squat, he eased himself around the rim of the opening until he was directly above the Baek Tayon traitor below.
Drawing his knife, he dropped down onto the man, his feet striking the man’s shoulders, knocking him to the floor.
The guard cried out: “Aaeh?”
Startled, the air knocked from his lungs, he could not do anything else before Jarlus drove his little curved blade into the back of his neck, just below his skull—a place his armor failed to protect.
Jarlus pushed the curve of the dagger further in, and the man gurgled, thrashed, and grew still. He withdrew the blade and wiped it on his sleeve, returned it to his belt.
Looking up, Jarlus saw that the chamber was still open to the sky above, the hangar bay door apparently recessed. So long as it stayed open, he might have a chance of getting the da’ta se out on the wedge-shaped transport flyer.
There were many assumptions involved in that plan, but at least he had to account for the possibility.
He strode to the door on the far side of the chamber and it slid open softly as he approached, revealing an empty corridor beyond.
Standing in the doorway, he turned back towards the hangar chamber, pulled his ambia rifle from his shoulder, and aimed it at the console.
The white beam whistled out and he held it there until the console hissed and sparked and the crystals on its surface cracked and melted. This took all of the remaining ambia in the gun, and he tossed the now-useless weapon aside.
Turning back to the corridor, the Xai Ashaon slid slowly along the wall, easing his way forward; hunting in a sky-born realm that was beyond even his own matchless experience.
#
It had only been few moments since Jack had taken off from the fortress—and already he’d attracted interest.
He spotted the moonlight gleam on the hulls of two claw-shaped enemy ships as they spun towards him, pirouetting in the air.
A bit cocky now, aren’t we? he thought. Though, if I were a lady, I might be flattered to have two gentlemen at once asking me to dance.
Engaging his rear ambia jets, he shot towards the gap between his two opponents.
Before he could get there, they slid closer together, closing the space. Ambia surged out from their claw-tip guns, suddenly turning Jack’s night into a glaring white day.
Jack dropped down, then activated the jets on his flyer’s left side, skidding away from them.
They followed him, diving gracefully, each ship tilted at an attitude mirroring the other’s slant.
Well, he thought, it appears that these two have learned the value of cooperation. But then, I don’t want to make it too easy for them …
Using the technique that Jael had taught him, he tilted the nose of his flyer down, flared the rear jets and pulled up the harness, sending his craft plunging down sharply towards the river.
He stayed close to the vertical plane of the cliffside as he descended, hoping to throw off his pursuers with the maneuver.
But his enemies were quick to follow.
Swirling down like leaves caught in an eddy, the crystal flyers dropped into the river valley and began blasting him as soon as pulled out of his descent. He zigzagged away from them as their ambia beams pierced the river’s surface, blasting up geysers of water and energy.
Jack climbed—but suddenly one of the ships was in front of him.
White energy shot just over his craft’s canopy, close enough that he imagined he could feel it as it whistled by.
They anticipated my move, Jack thought. So now they’re no longer content to simply play chase …
He climbed sharply, pointing the flyer’s nose straight up.
One of the enemy claws followed him in his ascent, spinning and firing.
When he went to level out again, that craft’s partner was already zooming towards the front of his flyer, ambia guns flaring.
They’re passing me off like a hot boiled potato, he thought.
Tired of waiting for a moment of obvious advantage, he jabbed down the button of his own ambia gun as he jetted closer to the second craft. His beam grazed one side of the claw, and the white energy flashed there, as it always did when hitting the crystal armor—but there didn’t seem to be any damage.
Determined, he shot just under the enemy, then brought himself into a tight skid, swinging around to fire at the opponent’s rear. But no sooner had he lined up the craft with his gun than the second enemy was behind his own ship, blasting away.
Jack took the flyer into a spinning plunge, now desperate to lose them.
If I’m not careful, he thought, my two dance partners are likely to waltz me into my grave.
Grave … graveyard … Of course! That was it!
Shifting and sliding to avoid their fire, he jetted across the river, coming in low over the cliffs.
Would he see it?
There it was! Below him, the jagged shadowed line of the Valley of Tombs where they’d first met Jarlus. A narrow, treacherous gorge …
He flew over the wide north end of the valley, then turned his craft and plunged down. Would his dance partners take the ba
it?
He looked back to see that, indeed, they had followed his lead. Diving in unison, they plunged towards the rocky terrain below, eagerly pursuing him.
The north end of the valley was like a chute, Jack remembered, narrowing to a steep-walled gorge further in. He flew just a few feet above the rocky floor, plunging in fast—and was pleased to see his enemies following him, still flying side-by-side, waiting for a clear shot.
Up ahead, the valley narrowed to a shadowed chasm in the rock at the place where the high-doored tombs began.
Jack soared into this narrowed corridor, straining his eyes to see in the night-time shadows. There were streaks of orange in the darkness as he flew past, which he supposed were ritual torches at the entrances to the tombs.
“Dear departed souls of Damerya,” he whispered, “please forgive my hasty intrusion.”
Ahead there was another looming slit as the valley narrowed even further, here becoming little more than a long, deep crack in the rocky plateau.
As Jack approached it, his pursuers opened fire, their ambia streaking out to destroy chunks of the valley walls and floor, causing cascades of falling debris—but missing his own craft.
Approaching the narrowing point, he was forced to turn his craft on its side. The Hummingbird shuddered in protest at having to maintain this orientation; the craft wasn’t really made to do this, and he could only imagine how angry Tesha would be to see him abusing it so.
But he was more worried about steering it. With the ambia jets now vertical, he wouldn’t be able to turn, only speed on straight forwards.
He had an idea. He punched the button for his own ambia gun and it launched a beam of white into the gap. It flared straight out for about five hundred feet before exploding against an outcropping of rock.
So he had a straight run, and if he was careful …
Hitting his rear jets, he launched his craft into the gap. Time seemed slowed as the shadowed walls rushed by his sideways flyer, and he silently prayed that his path would stay straight and true.
There was the whistling squeal if an explosion behind him, and he saw a flash of ambia lighting up the entrance to the gap.
Good.
One of his pursuers had just paid the price for staying so close in this dance …
Grabbing the control harness, he carefully pulled his flyer up, still tilted sideways to fit the narrow space. Only when he was above the crevice and had evened out his flight did he let out a deep sigh of relief.
But that relief was short-lived. There was a claw shape rising above the crevice, turning now to follow him. The surviving craft was hot on his tail, not spinning or showing off now, just following straight behind and firing ceaselessly.
This is the last dance of the evening for you, he thought. I grow weary of this …
The enemy came closer, its guns blazing.
Jack dropped his ship down to dodge.
As he did so, he caught a motion in the corner of his vision. There was a flash of white and gold.
A sustained burst of ambia fire caught the enemy ship on the side of the claw, and when the craft tried to climb, the torrent of white fire follow it, as if locked on.
A moment later, Jack looked back to see his pursuing enemy explode into a thousand crystal shards with a whistling BOOM.
He looked up to see a Dameryan flyer of the same design as his own. This newcomer dropped his Hummingbird down to the same altitude as Jack and took up a course alongside him.
The pilot nodded to him, and now he was close enough for Jack to see his face in the bright moonlight, recognizing the features on the scarf-wrapped head.
It was Uhon.
He nodded to the man and mouthed Thank You, and Uhon nodded back.
Then, Uhon started gesturing to him—was he saying that Jack should follow him?
Jack wasn’t sure.
Suddenly, Jack was blinded by a searing white flash. There was the shrill whistle of an ambia explosion. He felt his own craft shake as it was buffeted by the energy.
When he looked up again, Uhon’s craft was gone.
Jack wasn’t quite sure what had happened until he looked down and saw the front half of a white-painted flyer spinning wildly in its fall, then exploding into fragments just above the river.
A blast of ambia fire whistled just over his right wing, and Jack turned sharply left.
There was another craft close behind him, axe-head shaped like the one he’d fought over the desert.
He knew with grim certainty that this was the one who’d killed Uhon.
“Damn you!” he cursed.
Jack sent his craft plunging towards the river, then shot straight up again, trying to put some distance between himself and this new foe.
He then evened out into a horizontal glide, his craft pointed upriver … and what he saw then made him forget about his opponent.
There was an enormous ship approaching. It was a behemoth, a hellish cross between a high-prowed sailing ship and a giant whale, with dark crystal skin, and a sharp dagger-like beak over a wide hole that looked like a mouth.
Hundreds of feet long, the flying fortress soared above the river with menacing grace, its shadow blocking out the moonlight and turning the river below it into a black abyss.
That mouth was most likely a cannon. The cannon, he thought, the one Ralley and the Princess had gone to find—Lanaya’s prize.
Had his friends failed in their search? Was this the end of Damerya?
A selfish and ignoble thought crossed his mind: It can’t be the end … not now, not when I’ve only just gotten here!
The flyers, Tesha, all of it … he wanted so much more.
White-painted Dameryan flyers swarmed around the monstrous flying fortress, ambia flashing from their guns. But the thing continued on, unscathed. Jack switched on his own rear jets and headed towards the thing as quickly as he could, wanting to help.
He was a quarter-mile away from the flying fortress when there was a blinding ambia explosion to his right and his flyer shuddered violently, jerking as it suddenly dropped down a hundred feet through the air.
Jack struggled to maintain control, looking out to the right to see what had happened.
His right wing was gone, completely vaporized, the aon cell inside gone with it—which explained why the craft had become unbalanced.
Not again, he thought. Tesha will kill me if I survive this.
#
Aubren chuckled to himself as he annihilated the wing of the enemy flyer.
The two royal Hummingbird flyers traveling side-by-side had made such easy targets, and he’d been unable to resist taking a shot.
He was disappointed that he hadn’t caught the second craft in the explosion of the first, but he soon took off in pursuit of this quarry. His fingers danced over the controls, and the painful electric intensity of the craft pulsed through his body.
And then he saw it, the colors clear in the light of the explosion that destroyed the second craft’s right wing: a flash of red with a streak of yellow.
Those colors gave him pause.
The pilot of the enemy craft was wearing them; it was a hat.
Aubren followed him down as he tried to evade, getting close behind the other flyer.
Then, he saw the pilot glance back. He was indeed wearing a yellow-plumed hat, and his bearded face was shocked and uncomprehending.
Chestire! It was Chestire!
The foppish Dragoon was trying to be some sort of flying hero. How amusing!
Aubren had warned him before …
He never forgot an insult, and that fat royalist bastard was about due for his final punishment.
“Your time is here at last, Chestire,” he hissed, touching a little-used crystal switch on his console …
#
Jack looked back to see the axe-head shaped flyer which had slain Uhon following behind him.
Dear God, he’d been such an idiot, allowing the sight of the dark flying fortress to distract him fro
m this imminent threat to his own craft!
He dropped down, and the enemy did likewise, perfectly anticipating his move.
For a moment, Jack thought that this would be his last mistake. He turned his craft, but the enemy had a clear shot, and he expected that his world was about to end in a burst of white fire …
It didn’t happen.
The pursuer followed him, staying close … and suddenly there was a change in the appearance of the enemy craft. The front of it went clear, like pristine glass, and he could see the pilot inside.
The man held up a hand to him in greeting. It was hard to tell, looking back over his shoulder in the moonlight, but he appeared to have fair skin and blond hair.
What?
The enemy craft accelerated to come up alongside him, and Jack let come. His foe couldn’t fire on him in that position, anyways … And he wanted to confirm the suspicion that was now burning in his breast.
Could it be, was it really …?
When the enemy was close beside him, he saw the truth.
Brace Aubren sat at the controls of the crystalline flyer, clad in some native outfit of leather and linen.
Meeting Jack’s gaze with those cold grey eyes, Aubren brought his hand up in a mock salute, then laughed.
Jack nodded back, his teeth grinding.
The Grenadier bastard really is on their side! Well then. I’ve known since I met the man that it would come to this, both of us in some bloody contest that only one would survive.
Aubren’s flyer cockpit went dark and opaque again, and he dropped back, already spewing ambia bolts.
“Challenge accepted,” Jack whispered, smiling grimly, taking his injured flyer into a sharp climb.
He would show the brute just how well a Dragoon could fly!
-35-
The walking corpses were wearing dried flowers.
They stood now in two lines along the center of the glassy-walled cavern under the faerie mound. The lines of ghoulish ones made a path leading from the door to the basement tunnel at one end, to Krotan’s pit near the center of the cavern at the other.
Battle Across Worlds Page 27