They were rising fast now, and firmly in the grip of the northeast-bound wind, drifting toward the Greenwall. Looking back, Josen could barely make out the knights in the darkness, only the flames at the end of their wingbows—orange dots hovering like lightflies against the dark mass of the eyrie. But just because he couldn’t see them didn’t mean they couldn’t see the basket. We’re the perfect target. A giant glowing circle in a black sky.
The wind was stronger higher up, and the basket began to rock and sway as it moved rapidly eastward. Josen had experienced worse; anyone who’d ridden the baskets would be used to the motion. But Zerill never had. She gripped the side of the basket with one white-knuckled hand, trying not to look down and failing.
Several burning bolts flew wide as the distance grew. But not all of them. One pierced the balloon near the crown, and Josen’s breath caught in his throat. Lightworm silk didn’t catch fire easily—too many baskets would go down in flame if it did—but it wasn’t unheard of, either. He exhaled only when he was sure that the silk hadn’t caught. Another bolt lodged in the side of the basket not far from Shona. They had just passed over the Greenwall when yet another bolt flew by Josen’s shoulder, missing by mere inches. He barely had time to be terrified before a laugh of pure relief forced itself up his throat.
And then he heard a dull impact, just behind him.
He spun toward Travin. The aviator gripped the shaft in both hands where it had buried itself in his chest; only the fletched end was still visible. Travin opened his mouth as if to say something, but instead he just gaped at the blood seeping between his fingers, slumped back against the side of the basket, and slid slowly to the floor.
“Down!” Eian barked. He gripped Josen with one hand and Shona with the other, and pulled them both below the basket’s edge.
Zerill huddled nearby, holding Eroh tightly. Her entire body was shaking, and not just from the movement of the basket. She was terrified. Josen hadn’t thought anything could scare her like that, but he supposed he could understand it. She’s never ridden the wind before. No swampling has. How could she be ready for this?
Shona crawled to Travin’s side, staying low. The aviator appeared to be unconscious, but she shook him by the shoulder. “Travin!” He didn’t respond. Shona looked at Josen and shook her head.
“Is he dead?” Eroh was staring intently at the fallen aviator.
“I don’t know,” Josen said, fighting his own panic. He couldn’t tell if the boy was frightened—those golden eyes were hard to read, and the balloon’s green glow cast strange shadows over his face—but Josen gripped his hand anyway. “We’ll be out of range soon. We can help him then.” His voice came out too high-pitched; it didn’t sound especially comforting.
“Don’t worry,” Eroh said with surprising calm. “Goldeyes will distract them.”
Josen was about to ask what that meant when he heard what sounded like an eagle’s cry, from very near the basket. A startled shout came from far below, and two more bolts traced orange paths through the night sky, both far wide of their mark.
But whatever had thrown off their aim, it wasn’t enough.
One last fiery bolt rose from the basket-launch and struck the luminescent balloon near its center. The shaft pierced one side of the balloon, but didn’t come out the other; instead, it tangled in the silk, and lodged there. And this time, the flames caught. Yellow-orange firelight eagerly devoured the silk’s pale glow, burning outward in a ragged circle. Josen just watched it burn; he didn’t know what else to do.
The basket was still moving northeast, but their ascent slowed as air escaped through the growing hole. Slowed, and then stopped altogether. For an instant the basket hung suspended in the sky, neither rising nor falling. Then, with a sickening inevitability, it began to drop. Slowly at first, but Josen knew it would only get faster. His stomach rose toward his throat.
“Josen!” Shona shouted. “What can we do?”
He shook his head, fighting nausea and panic. “I don’t—”
She didn’t let him finish. “You know the baskets better than I do, and Travin isn’t waking up. Think!”
Josen took a deep breath, and the shock of pain in his left lung brought some clarity with it. “We’re losing lift. Maybe… more heat.” He pushed himself to his feet. Standing, he could see Greenwall fading into the dark to the west, just spots of light against the mist. There was nothing below them but blackness. We’re over the Swamp now, was all he could think. I can’t go back there. The basket shifted under his feet, but he caught a rope overhead to balance himself and stumbled toward the burner.
He didn’t have the experience to gauge the burn for regular flight, but right now that didn’t matter—he just turned the valve until he couldn’t anymore. The burner flame grew larger and louder; Josen cringed back from the heat. But the balloon was venting too much air as the hole burned wider. They were still falling.
“Shona, Eian, drop the ballast!” he yelled over the rush of wind and burning gas. “All of it! We have to slow our descent!”
Shona and Eian were at the ballast bags on either side even before he finished speaking. Shona started untying knots; Eian simply drew his sword and hacked his bags free. Well that makes much more sense. Bracing against the swing of the now-unbalanced basket, Josen drew his witch-saber and moved to Shona’s side. With a few awkward slashes, he cut loose the last three ballast-bags. He lost sight of them in the night sky even before they hit the mist.
The lost weight slowed their fall, but didn’t stop it. Josen looked up at the balloon—the fire was guttering out, but the hole was nearly man-sized now. Below, the mist loomed ever closer, a dark maw gaping all the way to the horizon. Josen tried to gauge how far they had left to drop. The lights of Greenwall couldn’t yet be a half-mile away, and the Raised Plains had a gentle slope; the ground would still be high below them. High enough that the balloon might last until they hit. We might survive this.
“Hold on to something!” he yelled at the others, and he gripped the edge of the basket tight with his good arm. The mist rushed up to meet them—fifty feet away, and then half that, and then it was seeping through the weave of the basket and up over the sides.
Oily blackness swallowed Josen, and he saw no more.
34. Bargaining
Lenoden
Lenoden was already shouting orders as he threw open the Stormhall’s doors.
He pointed at the first footman he saw upon entering. “Find the old man! I want him in my chambers, now!” A dozen of his men hurried to keep pace as he stalked down the hall ahead of them, issuing orders. He spun on his heel and walked backward for a few paces, jabbing his finger at several of them. “You five, help him look. Get every man in the Stormhall searching if you have to.”
His most recent personal aide had caught up to him by then, and Lenoden spun to face forward again, then took a sharp turn down the hall toward his quarters. “Horte, see that the high chastor is dealt with respectfully and quietly. I don’t want word to spread yet. They’ll want to put this on him, I suppose.” He uncinched the Crown of Eyes from his belt and handed it over; the silver crown was dented where Benedern’s head had struck the ground, and a number of the colored glass eagle’s eyes were chipped and shattered. “I need to see the captain of every company I brought from Goldstone. Send someone to the camp to fetch them. And bring the duke and duchess. I’ll want to question them.”
Cer Horte Uller took the high chastor’s crown with obvious trepidation. “Your Grace, what… what should I do if Duke Falloway refuses to come?” the young man stammered. “Should we… take measures to convince him?” As aides went, Horte was of middling competence. There was a certain perverse appeal to knowing the lad had run afoul of Josen during Dal’s Rest—Tammen’s whisperers had sent word of that, though King Gerod had tried to keep it quiet—but if Horte’s father hadn’t been a particularly wealthy count, Lenoden probably would have replaced him already.
“Are you asking if I want y
ou to abduct them? Of course not. Just ask politely. I’ve requested their presence to discuss bringing in more supplies for the wall, or such. They won’t refuse—they’ll know there’s no point to it.” Vera will, at least. Grantley might not know his own name.
“Yes, Your Grace.” Horte saluted and hurried away to do as he was told.
“I want a search party organized within the hour to find where that basket went down. Vence, you’ll lead. Take whoever you need.” Cer Vence Riddel had some grey in his hair, and more experience than the younger knights in Lenoden’s retinue—he could be trusted not to trip onto his own sword during the search. “I want everyone who helped Shona back here by this time tomorrow, or what’s left of them. And if you can’t manage that, I want to be damned certain where they’re going.”
By the time he reached his quarters, he had only three men still following him. Little more than boys, really—not competent enough to be tasked with anything of importance. He could probably have conjured their names up if it had been worth the trouble, but he had other things on his mind. “One of you on the door. The other two can help look for the boy’s grandfather, if he hasn’t already been found. I will be busy drafting a message for the Convocation—I’m not to be disturbed for anyone but the old man or the Falloways.” He let himself into his rooms and shut the door behind him.
As soon as the door closed, he slumped back against it and let out a long breath, rubbing at his beard with both hands. God Above, I’m surrounded by fools. How am I supposed to fix this with the same men who just let the boy walk out of here with a swampling prisoner? Lenoden had long known that many of the knights who supported him lacked training and discipline. Their value had nothing to do with their ability, and everything to do with what they gained him: influence with their fathers, an advantage over Gryston in sheer numbers. He paid for their loyalty with empty honors and flattery, and they were eager to sell it. The problem was that men who could be bought so easily were rarely worth the price. If only competence came so cheaply. He would have paid dearly for an Eldon Demant, or a Hughan Heln, or even for a Falyn Morne, if any one of them had been for sale. He had able, loyal men in his service everywhere else, but among the Storm Knights he’d only ever managed quantity, not quality—the knights of any real measure had pledged heart and soul to Eian Gryston long ago.
Now the best of them—those who had survived the escape, and most had—were in the Swamp, on their way to the Plateaus. Shona and the lord general too, if they’d survived their basket falling. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. There should only have been five escaping on that basket: Shona, Gryston, Eroh, the swampling woman, and their aviator.
He’d counted six.
It had been too far and too dark to make out a face, but he’d seen a slender figure silhouetted against the gas burner’s flame. A slender man with what might have been curly hair. He was dead. I’m certain he was dead. But the rumors… and Rudol acted strangely when I asked about it before. Is it possible he survived? Damn it, I need to know! And even worse than not knowing was the possibility that someone else did. That Shona knew something he didn’t, that Rudol had hidden the truth from him. Victory went to the man with the best information, and he didn’t know who that was anymore.
As long as I don’t know, I have to assume the worst. Josen is alive, then. They all are. They survived the basket falling somehow, and they’re going to tell Rudol Aryllia that I’m a traitor to the crown. And what can I do to stop it? Nothing. If they had help from the swamplings, no search party would find them. And even if the sixth man hadn’t been Josen, they still had the boy to show as evidence. All they had to do was wash the dye off of his face.
Does she really think Rudol would be a better king? Or Josen? He’d been so certain that Shona understood. He hadn’t expected her to ever like it, but he’d thought she’d realized what was best for the Peaks. Realized that neither of Gerod’s sons were suited to sit the throne the way he was.
And he’d been wrong.
He’d have to make his occupation of Greenwall overt now. He couldn’t count on the duchy taking word of Shona’s escape calmly. A curfew would have to be set; public gatherings would have to be banned. Whatever it took to put off a rebellion—he needed Greenwall’s fields working for him. He’d brought enough men to maintain control, and chosen captains who he knew could see it done, but he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to use them. And it wouldn’t be the last thing that he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to do. Not when word spread that Lenoden Castar had marched an occupying force into a duchy that wasn’t his.
What happens when someone guesses better than you do? He remembered Shona asking him that. It might as well have been a prophecy. She’d done what he didn’t expect, and now events had moved beyond his ability to control. For the first time since he’d found Eroh in the Swamp, he felt impotent.
He didn’t like the feeling at all.
With a clenched fist, he struck the wall behind him. “Damn it. Damn it to the Deep!”
His back was still against the door when someone knocked on it from the other side. “Duke Castar? The… the grandfather is here.”
Lenoden whirled and yanked the door open. Auren stood just behind the young knight at the door, looking particularly unconcerned. There was no one else with him, which was curious. Lenoden had expected that he’d resist, if he could be found at all. “Where was he hiding?” he asked the young man.
The knight spread his hands. “He just walked up to the door.”
“I was never any place but where I was meant to be,” Auren said calmly. “And I am here now because I think we should talk, not because of the men you have looking for me so clumsily. May I enter?”
Lenoden wordlessly stepped aside and waved him in, and though the old man shouldn’t have been able to see the gesture, he stepped into the room. You’re going to explain how you do that, among other things.
“No interruptions,” Lenoden said to the man at the door, and didn’t wait for an answer before he closed it again.
His outer chambers were the twin of Eian Gryston’s, little more than four stark stone walls around a plain oak desk. The Stormhall was built for utility, not luxury. Lenoden didn’t even bother with the desk, didn’t wait for Auren to find a chair. He just turned on the old man and grabbed him roughly by the arm. “What do you know?”
Auren didn’t flinch. “I know that Eroh is gone.”
“And you expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it?”
“If I had, would I not have gone with him?” That infuriating smirk turned up the corner of the old man’s mouth.
“How should I know what you would do?” Lenoden tightened his grip, but Auren showed no sign of pain. “What I know is that you should have been watching him, and yet somehow he escaped the Stormhall unseen.”
“Eroh has little trouble walking unseen when he wishes, you know that. I should think your own men are more to blame for missing him than an old blind man.”
Lenoden barked out a short laugh. “Blind? You and I both know that isn’t quite true. You see things that a blind man has no right to. How is that? You told me you didn’t know any swampling witchcraft.”
“I told you that I did not summon the Deeplings to kill my people. That was true. I said nothing about what I could do. Misleading, I admit, but you are a well known killer of swampling witches, as you call them. Can you fault me for being cautious?”
“Did you use this power to help them escape?”
“I did not,” said Auren. “As I have already told you, I would not be so stupid as to stay if I had. You’re wasting your time with questions you already know the answer to. A better one would be: will I use my power to help you?”
That was interesting. Lenoden released the old man’s arm and took a step back. “What do you mean?”
“You are in a difficult position now. You won’t catch all those who escaped, and if any of them reach their destination, you will find yourself an enemy of the crown. I
expect you will not surrender without a fight?”
“What choice do I have?” Lenoden didn’t like to reveal so much, but he couldn’t keep the frustration from his voice. “It seems I am the only one interested in protecting the Peaks from a war, but I won’t surrender myself if someone else starts one.”
“And what if I said that I could help you to prevent that war from happening?”
Again, Lenoden laughed. “How in the Above could you? I can’t think of a way. I’ll make sure everyone knows who murdered Benedern, of course, but Shona and Gryston will claim that he and I colluded to take her and the others captive. Their word against mine. All his death will do is force a fight, where his voice might have prevented one. The Convocation will have to convene to choose a new leader, which means my most powerful tool will be occupied for at least a full wind-cycle of watching for omens in every cloud and flight of birds. And I can’t risk going to Rudol myself now, not while Shona could appear any day to whisper her accusations of treason in his ear. He listens to her. I need an emissary with the status and presence to contend with her for his attention, and I don’t know who that is if not the high chastor.” He scowled. “Spirit of All, why does Gerod insist on lingering? If he’d just died a cycle ago like he was supposed to, Rudol would have long since surrendered the throne. Can you change any of that?”
Auren’s smirk returned. “I can give you back the voice of the Convocation. Let me see to the high chastor’s body.”
The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1) Page 59