She’d joined the wolf pack for many reasons. Like a lot of young vykati, she wanted to get away from home, but that was really just a very small part of it all. She wanted to be part of something grand. In the small town where she grew up, the best she might have hoped for was to become either an actor or maybe a snake oil salesman summa cum laude like Simon. Following her sister’s path, or rather lack of one, was not an option. She hoped that in the Army, she might make a difference. She’d envisioned protecting people or helping during natural disasters. She thought she’d be there fighting fires or saving people from floods. It wasn’t that the recruiter had lied to her. He’d mentioned that a lot of it was pretty routine and boring. He’d said there was always the hope that heroics would be possible. He’d also said that he hadn’t seen anything like what she was dreaming about, but it was a good job, with steady pay. She just figured the recruiter was too bland of a person to go looking for adventure, so she signed up anyway. And what she got was a desk and a sore tail.
At least when she started working with Sajani, it would be for something real: something noble. Not like what she did now, making excuses for an old wolf who should have retired a decade ago. It wasn’t that she disliked Colonel Lahnk. He was a good person, but this wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life. And he wasn’t the sort of soldier she’d thought she’d end up working with.
Where were the daring rescues? Where was the great moment she’d dreamed about where she’d stand bravely on the brink of chaos in the name of protecting the innocent? She daydreamed now about such things. She pictured herself standing heroically on the bow of a large airship: keeping vigilant watch for any and all who would seek to harm the vykati.
But duty beckoned in low boring tones.
She continued down her ledger: each minor outpost’s report entered one at a time. Each one exactly the same as those before it had been: all personnel present/nothing new to report. Every now and again, she’d get a slight variation: all personnel accounted for/nothing new to report. “Whee.” She said aloud in dull monotone as she saw one like that. “Living on the edge. For Ahj. For country. For the vykati.”
The report after that, from a watchtower near the border of Rhidayar, wasn’t standard at all. Her eyes opened wide as she read through it and when she got to the end she made herself read it all the way through one more time to be sure that it was not the product of her prior daydreaming. When she was done, she jumped from her office chair and started running for the colonel’s office, the image of the last line still burned in her mind: “vessel called ‘The Will o’ Wisp’ registered in Rhidayar to Simon Francis destroyed by enemy/enemies unknown. No survivors/remains found.” She now, finally, saw herself as standing at the bow, ready to defend all that was important to her. There would be hell to pay, and she’d be there to collect.
Sajani had landed in a jungle. Even if there weren’t so many trees, her vision would have been hampered by the rather high and very green undergrowth. As it was, she couldn’t see much further than a hundred meters in any direction and the smoke from the wreck was making it harder by the moment.
“Simon!” she finally shouted. She’d been hesitant to make noise, but figured that her desire for silence was more from what the old trickster would have called “dramatic emphasis” than from any actual need for caution. There was a smoldering airship not far from her. It wasn’t like her location was subtle.
“Simon!” she cried again. Only birds answered. She guessed he would be somewhere near the ship, but had no idea where to start. She’d just end up circling until she found him, so it didn’t really matter which way she set off. She picked a random direction, not even bothering to know what point of the compass it most closely resembled, and started.
It didn’t take too long. After only about five minutes of searching, she heard some weak coughing. She wasted no time and cast a single spell that cleared the foliage in a decent area around her. He didn’t look well at all. The right sleeve of his coat had been completely ripped off and the shirt sleeve under it as well. Somehow his shirt collar had managed to get arranged so that part of it was stuck in his mouth and arched down towards his chest. His tie was long gone. The right leg of his pants had been torn off at the knee and his right shoe was missing completely. The left shoe was cut all the way down on the inside. His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing.
There was blood. Its metallic smell stung her nose. She placed a hand on his chest and cast another small spell. It made an immediate difference as the man’s breathing stabilized. She then placed both hands on his shoulders and concentrated. Light glowed briefly around them both and Simon’s eyes shot open. He spit the collar from his mouth and let out a scream, then attempted to jump away. He failed though, apparently thrown off balance by the fact that his right arm didn’t function at all. Instead, his feet kept going and planted his face firmly into the ground. He then rolled over and tried to scoot backwards using his feet and buttocks.
Sajani thought he was about to scream again, but his eyes met hers directly for the first time and he calmed immediately. “Aspects save me, you terrible she-wolf!” he shouted, obviously still recovering from some kind of scare. “Wash off your mouth before you go waking me up next time! I thought some feral beast was eating me alive!”
She let out a nervous laugh and wiped at her snout. She’d forgotten about the blood from biting her tongue earlier. There wasn’t much time for laughter though. “Let me take a look at your arm.”
“Not much to look at,” he said defensively. “I’m sure it’s broken.”
“Well, I can’t splint it from here.”
“You can’t just heal it?”
She shrugged. “Nope, it’ll have to heal for a little while on its own. In the meantime, we need to get moving. If the people or person who was firing at us…”
“I knew I shouldn’t have used that effect on the Wisp!”
“With or without it, I think they’d have recognized the ship. It’s not as if the Wisp is a common…”
“Was a common…” he interjected.
“…model. I know I got the platform, but I didn’t see anyone on it when we passed by. I’m guessing he jumped.” She picked up a metal rod that had most likely come from the ship and examined a mostly straight stick that was lying near it. They would have to do.
“Speaking of which, what possessed you to use my ship…my ship as a rocket? Couldn’t we have just kept flying?” Sajani could tell that he wasn’t upset at her in particular. He was just looking for sense among all the crazy things that had transpired. He stifled a groan as she helped him out of his coat.
“We could have, once the platform was out. We were just a little too late to stop the last rocket and the ship couldn’t rise fast enough.” She began tearing the coat into strips.
“Because it’s not one of your warships, Lady.” Simon said with resignation and then sighed deeply. He got a slightly pensive look on his face and added, “I feel like I’m missing something.”
“Aside from the use of your right arm? Ready?” Sajani asked.
Simon nodded.
She carefully grabbed his arm with one hand just below his elbow and gripped his arm just above the wrist in such a way that the two lower bones were supported carefully between her thumb and palm. She gave a quick jerk and Simon grunted, but managed to mostly keep his composure. She felt along the bones with her hand, but then grabbed the arm as she had earlier. “Ready again?”
Simon nodded once more.
One more quick jerk. Simon managed to remain completely silent this time. She again felt along the bone and nodded in satisfaction. She placed the stick so that it lay under his elbow, past the wrist, and extended a little past his fingers. “I’d whittle it down to size, if there was time, but it’s probably just as well or you’d try to move your arm in ways you shouldn’t.”
He didn’t comment.
She laid the rod from the bend in his elbow and over top of his hand. It also ext
ended a little past his fingers. That just left her wrapping his arm and making a sling. They were silent throughout the whole procedure.
Just as she finished tying off the sling behind his neck though, he spoke again. “Ah, now I know what I felt like l was missing… You said, ‘he’.”
Sajani looked confused, but he couldn’t see that.
“When you were talking about the platform and the people or person who might have been on it, you said, you were ‘guessing that he jumped.’” He went into a brief fit of coughing but soon recovered. “Did you actually see anyone?”
“No,” she responded truthfully. “But that could not be an automated system. It’d be too dangerous to leave it unattended so near the border like that.” She reached out her left hand to him and he took it in his left. He got up slowly and stiffly. “Can you move all right? We need to make our way to what’s left of the platform.”
“Towards the people who want to kill us? My Lady, I’d be honored.” He gingerly began picking his way across the jungle, keeping his unshod foot mostly out of trouble. “Fortunately, these were my old travel boots,” he said optimistically.
“And your new boots?”
“Ahj only knows where they are now, my dear. Ahj only knows.”
“And maybe some overly curious squirrel.”
Sajani had never seen a rocket platform like this one. To start with, there were no runes and no visible power source. She’d looked for some kind of magic, but found none. It was a rather simple arrangement, or had been before it became the pile of twisted metal it was now. It looked like it was designed to be towed, although there was no sign of the vehicle or team that had pulled it here. It was wheeled, and had hydraulic stabilizers that dropped down to make sure that it stayed mostly motionless when the rockets fired.
The turret that had been in the center now lay a few yards away, having been ripped from the pedestal it had originally stood on. There wasn’t enough left to tell her much about how it might have once functioned.
The ammo carrier, a small wheeled cart, stood nearby, mostly untouched. She had gone first to the platform, hoping to find some evidence about who might have been firing at her. She was hoping that there would be some kind of insignia on a leftover rocket, if there happened to be one.
Looking around the platform again she found no sign of food, or a place to have prepared it. That would mean the person manning the station hadn’t been there too long. She jumped back off the platform and started circling outward from it. She was sure there hadn’t been horses, but oddly enough, there was no sign of tire treads either and something like that would have shown on the jungle floor. All she saw was the tracks from the platform and the ammo carrier.
Simon was leaning up against the small trailer now. His feet weren’t used to walking without the protection of shoes and so he had stopped moving as soon as he felt like he could. He watched as she approached the trailer and flung the unlatched cargo doors wide open. It was mostly empty. It could hold 20 rockets on the sturdy racks it contained. Only one was left. Sajani carefully pulled it partially from its rack.
“Are you sure that’s wise, Sajani?” Simon queried.
She didn’t grace that with an answer. No, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but she wanted answers and asking the right questions often entailed taking risks. She was being very careful though. Leaving its back part supported in its storage area, she slowly rotated it all the way around once and then gingerly returned it to its place.
“No markings.” She sighed.
“Well, having known next to nothing going in, it’s not so bad knowing next to nothing on the way out.” Simon said optimistically.
“True,” she said quietly. “But now we know that whoever set this up, took off on some sort of vehicle, most likely one that floated, but didn’t fly. I just wish I had a way of knowing where. It might be more than five years old to have no runes, but no magic either?”
“Had to have some,” Simon responded. “Or the Wisp wouldn’t have detected the scrying.”
“I’d ask what you were even doing with a system like that on board, but chances are I don’t want to know.”
Simon didn’t answer, but instead, he pulled himself up and started to carefully make his way towards the platform. “I wish we could have some lunch before we go. I don’t suppose you can summon us something, my dear…” He looked a little disappointed when she shook her head once. “Oh well, we did have food with us on the Wisp. Should we head back that way now? Maybe some of that pork will be preheated.”
She didn’t argue. “Do you keep a flare gun on board?”
“Of course, my Lady,” Simon said expansively. “I spare no expense when it comes to safety equipment…why do you ask?”
“No reason,” she said almost truthfully. “I was just curious.”
“You’re not thinking of trying to signal whoever was shooting at us are you?”
“Of course not. Neither of us have the spells or weapons for it.”
“Good.” The man answered. “Although, speaking of spells, once you know for sure that we’ll be traveling for a good distance, I’d be happy to summon something for us to ride. I was thinking you’d want to camp near the Wisp though.”
“Near the…” she mouthed. “I’d like to find out who did this, but I don’t want to advertise.”
“I’m flattered by your resolve to find justice on my behalf, but this is a sort of occupational hazard if you will. I’ll just be happy you were aboard, or that first rocket would have been the only one they ever needed.”
While the simplest explanation would be that someone was after Simon, Sajani wasn’t totally convinced. “Let’s see about those despised mounts of yours,” she said with her usual salt. “I’d like to be away from here by nightfall and two hours of riding your hell beasts will help. We’ll salvage what we can and head out.”
There wasn’t much to salvage. Simon managed to find one of his very old rapiers. He’d kept it for display apparently. There was a chest of food and cooking supplies, a small cask of fresh water and another cask of rum. Sajani had wanted to leave the rum, but Simon argued that it was purely for medicinal purposes. As long as she didn’t have to smell it constantly, she wasn’t going to argue too much. She found the splintered and torn remains of the pack where her change of clothes had been. Her sword was nowhere to be found. A few yards of tarred canvas that had some mysterious purpose on board she was sure, had managed to not be completely shredded.
It took them a while to find her bow, even with the aid of spells. It had fallen far from the wreckage, but still had its string wrapped around it as she’d left it. She nearly cried when she found it. Even if it wouldn’t be of much use to them in a fight with so little ammo, it would have been very difficult to replace. Of the maybe dozen arrows she managed to find, their quiver apparently having torn, only three were in good enough shape to be used.
“I guess I’ll hold onto your little toy sword here,” she said, referring to his rapier, “since you won’t have much use for it.” She’d also taken the ship’s flare gun, along with the five rounds that remained. There was enough rope to tie the food chest and casks onto another summoned steed.
After about two hours of painfully slow and uncomfortable travel, they managed to get about 10 kilometers away from the crash site. She had just enough time to hang the canvas over a rope stretched between two trees, weigh down its four corners with rocks and dig out a small trench around the shelter by hand before the evening rains started up.
They ate in silence and then she placed the small water cask outside the shelter to gather rain. Neither bothered talking about the possibility of setting up a watch for the night.
The morning was glaringly bright. The sun reflected off the wet jungle surroundings and created a green glow about them. Simon seemed to be feeling a little better and was chattering away at her as soon as she opened her eyes. He made a small fire to heat water and made some tea. It still had leaves floating in
it, since the filter was among the food utensils missing. There was sugar though. The rest was dried pork and ration biscuits, but she’d had worse.
“Still making our way to Rhidayar?” Simon asked hopefully.
“No other place for us to go really.”
“Good thing you know the way. I have no idea where the nearest road is.”
Sajani laughed. “Me either, but I know the sun comes up in the east and sets in the west. I know about how far from the equator we are and if all else fails, Rhidayar is big enough, I doubt I’ll miss it.”
“No towns nearby that you know of?”
She laughed again. “Might be. No real military outposts though. Maybe a watchtower, but I didn’t see one coming down. We’ll see if we can find a road and go from there.”
He laughed lightly, “Reminds me so much of old times. I thought I’d given up this type of life.”
“Your life from before you were a gong farmer?”
Simon placed his hand over his heart and sighed dramatically. “I was born a gong farmer, as you so colorfully like to put my chosen profession. It’s a proud and noble art. And for all the complaining you do and have done in the past, my chosen occupation has saved that ragged tail of yours at least as often as you’ve saved mine.”
“You don’t have a tail.”
“My posterior then.”
“Not sure you have much of one of those either.”
“As I was saying, my dear,” Simon said with unflustered aplomb, “It reminds me of the days when we traveled together: us and Mauro and Westa—seeing the world’s treasures.”
“You mean its sewers.”
“That too.” They laughed. “I actually heard from Mauro just before I left.”
“What’s he doing?” she asked as she finished tying off a load. It would have been so much easier if Simon could help, but he was even more useless than usual with such things.
“He took a post at the University of Vidava for a couple of years.”
“Bet he loved that.”
“No, my dear, you know he hated it.”
Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1) Page 4