They all waited a minute, another, and then finally Savo made a quick gesture with his hand and Rig and Ness drew long burning sticks out of the fire and moved around, to check if there was still anyone there.
There wasn't.
The Iron Guard had gone.
“I'm really glad that wasn't General Hanson.” Taya's relief was almost overwhelming. She needed help from Hanson, and she knew she would find it difficult to ask for it if she disliked her.
She most definitely disliked the woman who had spoken to her tonight.
“I trained with Hanson for years in Juli, I'd know her voice anywhere,” Savo said, sitting back down beside the fire.
“Do you think she'll come tomorrow?” Fran asked him.
He lifted his shoulders. “The General Hanson I knew in Juli would come. But the General Hanson I knew wouldn't have kidnapped the liege's son.”
“Sometimes desperate people make desperate decisions,” Taya said. And these were certainly desperate times.
Chapter 4
Garek came awake as he had when he walked the walls, instantly. Beside him, Taya slept on her side, fully dressed as if she needed to be battle ready.
She had left the door of the sky craft open, so the orange and pinks of dawn spilled into the cabin, lighting everything in a warm glow.
Next to him was a plate of food covered over with a cloth, containing two flat breads with roasted, sliced bobber between them.
He was starving, as he always was when he'd pushed himself too far with his Change, and he slipped quietly from the mat, took the food with him, and climbed down the ladder.
Savo and his team were camped around the fire pit, and two of them were up and standing guard.
They nodded to him silently, and one pointed up and then gave the guard signal for all clear. Taya must has asked them to keep an eye out for sky raiders, and he nodded back his thanks before walking toward the river to stare over at the other side. The path of destruction he'd made yesterday was shocking to look at.
He'd barely noticed it while he was in the inbetween, and he hadn't been conscious when he was brought back again.
He'd never deliberately done something like this before.
He held himself back in Pan Nuk because any destruction would rightly have been frowned upon, and in Gara it had been out of the question, surrounded as he was by walls and houses.
He'd carved a swathe through the trees, and while he would do it again, it made him uncomfortable to look at.
When he finished his food, he made his way down the bank and followed the narrow strip of beach on the river's edge around a bend to a clear pool created by a few rocks. He took off his clothes and jumped in, ducking completely under the icy water to rub at his hair and scrub his body with the soft, clean sand on the riverbed.
When he got back to the camp, with both body and clothes wet and clean, it had come to life.
Those who had been sleeping were up, stirring porridge in a pot on the fire, and Taya was climbing down the ladder with a towel and a change of clothes balanced on top of the box containing her knives.
He took the box from her and set it down, and she stepped into his arms without a word, hugging him close even though he was wet and dripping.
“You look rested.” She leaned back to look up at him.
He brushed a hand down her cheek and nodded, and behind him, Savo cleared his throat.
“If you're going to wash, Taya, perhaps you can go with Fran, Ness and Elina. It's better to have safety in numbers.”
The subtle rebuke to Garek for his going off on his own was clear, and Garek let Taya go and turned to face the Juli night guard captain.
“I'm very hard to take by surprise.” He let his gaze shift to the destruction he'd wreaked yesterday.
Savo swallowed. “The rest of us aren't so lucky.”
Garek nodded, and guessed Savo was used to making the decisions and giving the orders. A former guard who didn't answer to him would be difficult to accept.
He heard Taya open the box, pull out her knives, and then she brushed her fingers against his hand in farewell as she headed toward the three women on Savo's team who stood waiting for her.
The four of them went off in the same direction he'd gone earlier to wash.
“There a reason you're so nervous?” he asked Savo, taking a bowl from the stack beside the porridge pot and helping himself. The food he'd eaten earlier had barely made a dent in his hunger.
“We had a visit last night.” Savo joined him, and blew on his porridge before he took a bite.
“Hanson herself?”
“No.” Rig, the largest of the six guards, leaned forward to serve himself his own bowl of porridge. “Did you recognize the voice of the guard we spoke to?” He looked over at Savo.
The captain shook his head. “No.”
“I think I did.” Yanni sat down beside him. His hair was wet and his cheeks pink from a wash in the cold water of the river. “I spent all night trying to think who that voice reminded me of. I think it was Etta.”
Rig drew in a quick breath. “Could be.”
“Neither of you liked her?” Garek scraped the bottom of his bowl.
“She was arrogant. She could have been a good fighter, but she didn't try very hard. She frustrated me. She barely bothered to do her exercises, and half the time didn't come to training. But she walked straight into the Iron Guard. They're supposed to be the elite, and I certainly put my name in for consideration, but they chose her. I've never been able to understand it.”
“They only take guards who call the iron Change,” Garek said. “That's why she knew she didn't have to try, she probably has a strong calling.”
There was silence as everyone stared at him.
“Is there such a thing as calling the iron Change?” Savo set his bowl down.
“Yes, it's the same as Taya can do, but with iron.”
Savo stood, as if he couldn't contain himself. “I suspected. For years, I suspected. I asked Hanson straight out, and she lied to my face. Like Yanni, for years I saw some of my best recruits rejected by the Iron Guard over others who weren’t as good, but they weren't random guards, were they?” He looked over at Garek. “They put the iron called in with the general intake so no one would suspect.”
Garek shrugged. “I only found out the Iron Guard’s secret after Taya discovered her own calling. I don't know how they ran things, but I suspect this is the way it's done in Nordra. I think the liege's wife set up the unit, and when she died, things fell apart.”
“The Nordren steel.” Rig murmured it, but not so softly Taya didn't hear as she walked back to the fire, wet hair twisted into a thick rope.
She nodded. “That's what Garek's father said when we worked it out. All the years they've talked about superior iron smiths, when really, they've just got people like me shaping their steelwork for them.”
Garek filled the bowl he'd used and handed it to her, and she took it with a smile. Her nose was pink with cold and she breathed in the steam from the porridge with delight.
“You've done it?” Fran asked. “Shaped ore?”
Taya lifted one of her knives. “This is all a single piece. The smith smelts it and then when it's liquid, I call it, and shape it in the air. When it looks right, I drop it into water, and then the smith polishes and refines it.”
Fran took it from her, rubbing a thumb across the smooth hilt. “How didn't we know this before?”
She shrugged. “I can only think it's because if more people knew about calling an iron Change, those who had the calling would be hunted and stolen away. They are a huge advantage for any army. As it is, Garek's father thinks he was approached by two traveling Nordren when he was a child because they thought he might call the iron Change. When they realized he didn't they left him alone, but if he had, he thinks they'd have abducted him.”
“Watch out for the Nordren, they steal babies.” Ness sang the line from the old Illian rhyme with a smooth voice.
>
“Exactly.” Garek hadn't heard the story Taya just told. His father must have mentioned it when he and Taya were up on Shadow together, working as slaves for the sky raiders.
“That makes sense, that the liege would be afraid all our guards who call the iron Change would be poached or stolen when they're young by others.” Elina looked over at Taya. “Now the surprise I heard from that woman last night makes sense. She was shocked when you threw up your knife and hovered it in the air. She thought you might be an undiscovered iron guard.” Elina gave a smile that told Garek she didn't like the woman any more than Yanni did.
“If she hadn't been hiding in the dark, I think we'd have seen the shock was more because she tried to grab the knife from me with her Change, and couldn't.” Taya's voice held the same sense of satisfaction as Elina's had. “I can't be sure, but my guess is she assumed it was steel, and that she was stronger.”
“And then she couldn't move it even an inch.” Fran chuckled as she spooned up porridge.
“Not because she's weaker, but she doesn't know that.” Taya grinned back at Fran.
Whatever reservations Taya and Savo's team had had about each other yesterday, they were gone this morning, Garek saw. “You all really didn't like her.”
“If it was Etta, and I think Yanni is right about that, then she was her usual rude self.” Even Savo smiled a little at the thought of besting the arrogant guard.
“Captain, I think we have the visitor we invited last night approaching.” Yanni and Rig had taken up guard duty while everyone ate, and Rig pointed to the wide path through the trees that Garek had made the day before.
Someone Garek guessed was General Hanson walked openly down it, with two deputies a step behind her at either shoulder.
“I'm surprised she only came with two,” Savo said.
“My guess is she didn't, we just can't see the others.” Garek looked around them, but the Iron Guard weren't considered the elite guard for nothing. He couldn't see any sign of them, but his gut told him they were there.
This wasn't going to be a friendly chat. This was going to be an ambush.
It just so happened that he and Taya wanted to be in Hanson's clutches. That didn't mean Savo did, though.
“I think it's going to get ugly,” he murmured to the captain. “If I negotiate for you to go back to Juli when we get confirmation she has Aidan, will you take it?”
Savo looked over at him for a long beat. Nodded. “I need to get back and let Vent know what's going on. The city needs to know if Aidan is alive and will return. Otherwise the whole of Juli becomes unstable. The whole of West Lathor.”
Garek nodded. “Then that's what we'll do.”
“Let two of my team stay to help you.” Savo waited for Garek's nod of agreement, then stepped away, gestured to Rig and Ness.
He spoke quietly with them and they both turned wide eyes Garek's way, then bent back to listen to their captain.
They looked up again, and each gave him a brief nod.
Garek nodded back, and then moved forward, to where Taya stood with Elina, Yanni and Fran.
The three guards melted back as he approached, and he guessed Savo had motioned them to come to him so he could explain the plan.
“What is it?” Taya asked.
He stood close to her, watching Hanson approach.
“I don't think this is going to be a simple negotiation. I think she's got her whole guard around us. Just the fact that we have a sky craft would make her bring more than two guards. If she was hoping to surprise us, she should have brought more people with her that we could see.”
Taya lifted startled eyes to his. “And how are we going to respond to it, if this is an ambush?”
“We're going to go along with it, but under our own terms, if I can help it. Savo needs to get back and tell Vent what's going on, but he'll leave us Rig and Ness.”
Taya turned her attention back to Hanson. “I hoped this could be friendly.” She sounded forlorn.
“Maybe it can be.” He watched the way Hanson moved, easy and confident as she neared the river bank, but she couldn't be unaffected by the destruction he'd wrought. Even he was astonished by it.
It told him she was good at keeping her feelings locked down tight.
That was fine. So was he, except when it came to Taya.
“Do we pretend she's gotten one over us?” Taya asked, turning to him again. “Or do we tell the truth?”
“The truth. She has no reason to trust us. We don't know what her history is with the liege. Things obviously didn't end well between them, and she has an agenda. We let her know we'll go along with whatever she wants for now if it means we find Aidan, unless it involves harm to either of us.”
“And if she does mean us harm?” Taya's hands curled around the hilts of her knives.
“Then she'll regret it.”
Chapter 5
General Hanson waded through the river as if she was striding over land.
Taya had wondered whether she would stand on the other side and hold a shouted conversation, but she didn't hesitate when she reached the bank, she jumped down into the water and was across in less than a minute.
The man and woman on either side of her did the same.
They ignored Garek's proffered hand of help, and pulled themselves up the bank on their own.
Hanson's gaze flicked to the sky craft, and then focused on Savo, although Taya didn't make the mistake of thinking they weren't all being closely watched.
“Captain Savo, it's been a long time. What are you doing out here?”
Savo walked forward slowly, hands loosely at his sides. “You know why. Give Aidan back.”
Hanson looked from him to Garek. “And who are you?”
“Garek of Pan Nuk.” Garek stayed where he was, not moving forward like Savo had, and Taya guessed it was because he didn't want to leave her side.
Hanson frowned. “That tells me nothing.”
“Then you haven't had your ear to the ground,” Savo said, surprising Taya with his tone. “You've been hunkered down, deaf and blind to what's happening in the country you swore an oath to protect.”
Hanson reared back in shock, but Savo wasn't finished.
“Look at that,” he demanded, pointing to the sky craft. “What do you think it took to get one of those? To learn how to use it?” He snorted in disgust. “And you come striding in here, asking Garek of Pan Nuk who he is, when it is he who should be asking you who you are. And I can tell him. A disgrace!”
The two guards with Hanson visibly bristled at his words, but Hanson herself went still, her features blank. She looked at the sky craft again, and then back at Savo.
“You're right, I have hunkered down. But I'm asking what you want, who he is, only because I can see it is relevant in connection to her.” She pointed straight at Taya, and her gaze snapped to Taya's face.
Taya stared back into eyes that were a dark brown, in a face that was barely lined, although Hanson must be at least as old as Savo.
“And why am I so important?” Taya asked.
“Because my sentry commander and one of her team tell me you are one of us, but strong enough to hold your weapon against them. As I have never trained you, I have to assume one of two things, you're a Nordren or you're a lost talent.”
“I'm not a Nordren. I'm from Pan Nuk in West Lathor.” She wanted to say that she wasn't like them, but that would defeat the whole purpose of coming, because it was her similarity to them that made her think they could help her.
“And you come in a sky craft, with a guard who can do that,” Hanson pointed behind her to the destruction of the forest, “and with one of the best guard teams in Juli. I know why Savo is here, but what's your role in this?”
“Aidan is our friend.” Taya stepped closer to Garek, although she knew he would prefer a little more room to move if things went wrong, but she was making clear her alignment with him. “We’re here to ask you to let him go. We're fighting two wars, and We
st Lathor needs a liege.”
“West Lathor has a liege.” Hanson's words were derisive.
“As Savo says, you appear to not have heard much news lately,” Garek said.
Hanson barely glanced at him, and then she focused back on Taya. “If you're from Pan Nuk, I would have trained you. You have to be lying.” It was almost as if Hanson was holding her breath.
“I'm not lying. The reason I never became a guard was because I only found my calling a month ago, and I--”
She cut off abruptly as Hanson staggered back at her words, and her two deputies stared at her open-mouthed.
“A month?” Hanson whispered. “Show me. Show me what you showed Etta last night.”
She hesitated. Hanson still hadn't made her intentions clear, and she still hadn't admitted to having Aidan, but if this helped smooth the way . . .
She drew a knife and held it in her hand, looked straight at Hanson, and threw it in the air.
She let it spin end over end in place.
Hanson stared at it, eyes narrowed, and Taya wondered if she was calling her Change, trying to take control. She flicked her gaze back to Taya and crooked her finger. “Bring it closer to me.”
A familiar fear and dread washed over her.
The memory of the night she'd killed because of her lack of control reached in and clamped a clammy, icy hand around her gut.
She could still see the deep cut in the neck of her attacker. She'd meant to keep him at bay, not slice his throat.
She shook her head, pulled the knife up and back, and caught it in her hand. “No.”
The look Hanson sent her surprised her.
She expected to see anger or frustration at not having her order obeyed, but instead, Taya saw a woman whose eyes looked like they were haunted by ghosts.
“General Hanson.”
The sharp call from Savo elicited a hiss from Hanson as she turned to look at him.
“Will you hand Aidan over to us or not?”
Hanson glared at him. “No.” She extended her arm and flipped her hand so the palm faced upward, then curved her fingers as if she were holding an invisible ball.
Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3) Page 3