“And Habred organized to deliver up some of his own people to the sky raiders in exchange for them keeping clear of Luf?” Kima shook her head in disbelief. “He's finished.”
Garek shrugged. “Maybe he is, maybe not. The very idea is almost unbelievable, and since you've held Aidan, there's been no one to inform the Illian Council.”
Hanson rubbed her temples with stiff fingers. “Now you have proof of two people in high places being complicit, it will be easier to convince the other lieges.”
“True, but at least two other lieges on the Council are in league with Habred to invade West Lathor, so it's in their interests to back him, no matter what they believe.” Aidan slumped a little in his seat. “And telling them about Dartan will just give them further impetus to invade West Lathor. They might even get Council approval to take us without a fight.”
Taya realized he was right, and felt a dragging sense of disquiet. “We can't let them go unpunished.”
“We won't.” Garek met her gaze. “If it has to be out of the public eye, so be it, but there will be a reckoning.”
“I'd like it to be in the public eye,” Aidan said. “I'll see if there is a way we can do that. But Garek's right. No matter what, there will be justice.”
“One way to strengthen our hand is to have you and your guards back, General.” Garek crossed his arms over his chest. “Harven, Kadmine and Favre are poised to strike, and that's because they think Valtor is a befuddled mess and because West Lathor has lost the Iron Guard.”
Hanson tilted her head up to look at him. “You're very comfortable disrespecting the liege. And his son seems content to let you.”
Aidan snorted. “That's rich, coming from the person who abducted the liege's son. But as it happens, Garek has earned the right to say whatever he likes. And he's right, my father is a befuddled mess, and he got himself that way. Dartan just used it to his own ends.”
“So you'll go back, take over?” Hanson asked.
“I will.”
“Perhaps, then, you'll finally read the document I wanted you to read when I first took you.” Hanson pulled a thick wad of parchment from her coat pocket.
“I'll sign nothing, read nothing, until I'm free, I've told you that from the start. No contract is worth the paper it's written on unless the terms are freely agreed.”
Hanson glared at him, and pocketed the contract again. “Then I'll tell you what I told him. The only way I will allow the Iron Guard to continue under the West Lathor liege is if the way we recruit to the Iron Guard changes.”
“I don't know how you recruited in the first place.” Aidan straightened.
“We sent out scouts pretending to be traders, and they went village to village, carrying iron pots and pans, and they found the children who may never have been around enough iron before to feel their calling. And when they found them, they stole them away.”
“I thought that was the Nordren,” Ness said.
“That's who we got our methods from,” Hanson said. “From your mother, actually.” She speared Aidan with a glance. “That's where I'm from, originally. She used her contacts to send some of us down to her, to start the original team.” The smile she gave was humorless. “I was fifteen.”
There was silence around the table.
“We ran the unit the same way things were done in Turn, the Nordren city she was from. Up until her daughter--your sister, Kalia--found her calling.” She looked away from them all, out of the window, as if struggling with some strong emotion. “It was only then, when she thought about how she wouldn't like Kalia stolen away, that she began to feel bad about all the other women's children she'd taken through the years.”
Taya looked across at Aidan, and saw his face was stricken. He didn't want to believe it, but he did.
Perhaps he'd seen something, or heard something, but he was not surprised.
“So for the last ten years, we haven't recruited a new guard. You won't find a single person in this camp under twenty-three, your sister's age.”
“And when my mother died, you wanted to start recruiting again?” Aidan's accusation made Hanson flinch.
“No!” She scraped back her chair and stood, pacing to the window and then turning to face them. “I wanted direction. A new way forward. We had to recruit new guards if we were to continue, but I did not want to do things the old way.” She blew out a breath. “And your father and Dartan, so nervous to lose us, told me that the old way had worked, and that I must start doing it again immediately.”
“So you left,” Taya said into the silence those words created.
“Yes.” Hanson turned to her. “I left, rather than do things that way again.”
Kima reached out a hand and lightly touched Hanson's arm, a comforting gesture, almost like a daughter would give a mother.
And maybe that's how she felt. If Kima had been recruited the way Hanson described, the same way Hanson had been recruited herself, then the general may well be the closest thing Kima had to a mother.
“And that is why you are so interested in me,” Taya said, almost coming to that understanding as she said the words. “Because I wasn't taken and trained young.”
“You could be the way forward for us.” Hanson tried to keep her voice steady, and failed. “To have someone who calls iron, who has never been trained, never even knowing what they could do--”
“The only problem is,” Taya looked her right in the eye, “I do not call the iron Change.”
Chapter 8
Taya saw the shock in Hanson's eyes. She opened her mouth to clarify, but before she could, Hanson was out the door, striding away through the camp.
Taya stared after her in shock. “Why . . .?”
Kima leapt to her feet and lunged forward. Taya stumbled back, and Garek was suddenly behind the general's deputy, hands hold her arms tight.
She struggled for a moment, and then slumped in defeat.
“What is wrong with you people? Don't you ever just ask questions? You have to always grab people and threaten them?” Taya felt like slumping herself.
Kima blinked.
“Let's go,” Taya looked at Garek over Kima's shoulder. “This was a mistake.”
“Wait.” Kima closed her eyes, breathed in noisily through her nose, and then opened her eyes again. “The general's at the end of her rope. And to be honest, this isn't living.” She waved her arm at the camp outside the window. “We're just scraping by. And the general knows we've endangered West Lathor by leaving the liege, but at the same time, her conscience wouldn't let her kidnap any more children. She was hoping you were an answer, a blueprint for the way forward, and when you said you didn't call iron . . .” Her gaze went to the knives that hung fromTaya’s belt. “Why did you say that when you clearly do?”
“Because this knife,” Taya pulled one out of its sheath, “is not made of iron.”
“That's why we can't grab hold of it?” Kima stepped closer. “That's why it won't budge, not even a tiny bit?”
Taya nodded.
“What is it made from, then?”
“It's made from an ore I can feel in the Dartalian Range, and which is found in abundance on Shadow. We called it shadow ore.”
Kima held out her hand, and Taya handed it over.
“It's like a piece of wood. Stone sometimes has iron in it, but this is completely dead to me.” She ran her fingertips over it delicately.
“Does it matter that Taya calls a different metal?” Ness wanted to know. “It's still metal, surely?”
“You're right.” Kima handed the knife back. “I'll go talk to the general. Please stay a little while longer.”
“Why should we?” Aidan's voice was rough with anger.
Kima looked him in the eye. “Because all the talk about letting you walk out here if you wanted to was a lie. The general never intended to let you go until she had an agreement. She hoped by making you think you had the freedom to leave, you'd stay and negotiate. But if you try to leave now, with the ge
neral off somewhere and not present to counter her own orders, my colleagues will kill you.”
“I told you.” Aidan glanced over at Garek. His voice dripped with disgust.
“They can try.” Rig looked out the window, and Taya got the sense he was working out how far the sky craft was, and how many iron guards lay between it and the hut.
“We need the general's cooperation.” Garek spoke slowly, and everyone turned to him. “If Kima can find her, explain to her what Taya meant, then we might solve some of the problems facing us. If we go, we end the chance of the Iron Guard returning, and Taya leaves without any help in controlling her calling.” He tipped his head at Kima. “Some of us may also be injured. Something I'd like to avoid.”
Kima nodded. “This is the only empty building, so make yourselves at home. I'll go find the general.”
“I need to be home,” Aidan said quietly when she'd gone, his voice urgent. “I need to take up the reins my father has dropped.”
“Agreed.” Garek lowered himself back into his chair, and Taya sat down beside him. “But all that will do right now is give everyone a quick sense of relief. It won't change the danger posed by an invasion, it won't help us against the sky raiders. If we can spend a little time here, persuade Hanson to train Taya and come back with you, it will mean significantly more.”
“Even though I see the logic of that, I just want to go.”
Taya reached out and touched Aidan's arm. “As someone who was held prisoner myself, all I can say is I know the feeling.”
He started, as if he hadn't drawn a parallel with their experiences. He gave a nod. “We'll give her a bit more time. But if it looks like there'll be no deal, we need to have a plan of escape.”
They all leaned forward, and began doing exactly that.
Night was falling, and Kima still hadn't returned.
Taya knew there were eyes on her and Garek as they walked hand in hand toward the sky craft, but she nevertheless enjoyed the sense of privacy the gloom afford them, away from Aidan, with his scowl, and the watchful, tense expressions of Rig and Ness.
“No further.” The comment came from near the river bank.
Taya flinched, but Garek kept his stride even and she had the feeling from his calm that he'd known the guard was there.
“We need to get our mats and a change of clothes, as well as our food.” He kept his voice reasonable.
The guard hesitated, and Taya guessed he didn't know how to deal with the request.
“You could be lying.”
“We could, but Aidan is still here, as well as two other of our people.” Garek gestured back to the hut.
They waited for a response and when they were met with more silence, Taya sighed. “Let me go, then. I can't fly the sky craft.”
It was still light enough for her to see Garek look down at her, a scowl on his face.
She shrugged back at him. She was hungry, and she'd prefer a comfortable night on a mat to sleeping on the hard wooden boards of the hut floor. “You can hold my knives,” she murmured, and handed them over.
He took them, but he was shaking his head. “Be careful.”
“You're in shouting distance.” She kissed his cheek.
“Just you is acceptable. But I'll come with you.” The guard sounded as if he were quite excited about the idea. He whistled, and there was definite movement around them.
“Don't move,” he said, and she guessed he was talking to Garek.
She walked forward, jumped into the shallow stream, and started wading across.
The guard fell into step with her, making far less noise. “So what happened between you and the general? Why did she leave so upset?”
Taya shook her head. “I'm not sure. I don't understand why myself.”
He didn't say any more until they got to the sky craft. Taya climbed the ladder quickly, tapping the button to open it up, and pulling herself in.
The chamber lit up, and she moved through to the back, pulling the mats they had brought in a pile. They had spares, left over from when they rescued the Kardai back on Shadow, and when the guard stepped into the big back area, she handed him the pile and Rig and Ness's packs.
She picked up hers and Garek's and the smaller pack of food they'd brought with them.
It would feed the five of them for tonight, and perhaps tomorrow; after that, they'd have to eat whatever the Iron Guard were eating.
She cast a quick eye over the wooden boxes stacked to one side, but there were no leaks. Her weapons and the sky craft were safe.
“That's everything.” She gave the guard a smile as he tried to balance the burdens she'd given him.
“I never thought I'd see the inside of one of these safely.” He looked around. “It is beyond what I could have imagined.”
She looked around with fresh eyes. Nodded. “The sky raiders are as clever as they are powerful and terrible.”
She walked back to the pilot's chamber. “If you put the mats down, and climb down the ladder, I can hand them to you one by one.”
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but he must have realized it would be the only way to get the mats down without dropping them in the river, so he kept Rig and Ness's packs on his shoulders and climbed down.
When they were both ankle deep in water, the sky craft shut up for the night, he looked upward.
“The water keeps the sky raiders from finding your craft?”
“It seems so. It's the best protection we know.” She guessed they were all worried the presence of the sky craft would bring more craft down on them. It was a logical fear.
“How did you find it out? It seems such a strange thing to think of.”
“It was something we learned on Shadow, when we were prisoners there.”
He looked over at her, and in the very last of the light, she saw the skepticism that she'd been on Shadow on his face. She didn't try to change his mind. It would make no difference. He had no reason to trust her, and she didn't care what he thought.
“And what's your plan, besides stirring up the general?” His tone seemed to be more hostile, the deeper into the water they went.
Taya concentrated on the treacherous footing of the uneven stones on the river bed. “My plan is to defeat the sky raiders, and I'll put up with the rudeness of the Iron Guard if I have to in order to accomplish it.”
Her words seemed to shock him into silence.
“What's your plan?” she asked him in return. “Hunker down here in the forest, or help West Lathor defend its borders?”
She reached the bank, and Garek was there to lift her up. He turned back and took the mats from the guard. When he'd clambered up beside them, Garek took Rig and Ness's pack.
“We aren't cowards.” The guard's words were quiet.
“I never said you were,” Taya answered. But she guessed, because he'd raised it himself, that deep down, he was afraid that's how the rest of West Lathor saw them.
The Iron Guard had ceded its place. Most people thought they had disbanded, and even though they hadn't, the way they were living, they might as well have done.
And that didn't sit well. With any of them.
Chapter 9
As everyone in the hut stirred awake in the dawn light, Garek was forced to acknowledge their little band of outsiders had all managed to get a good night's sleep because they'd felt a certain safety in numbers. He'd far rather have spent the night in the sky craft alone with Taya, but that had never been an option with the Iron Guard.
Even if it hadn't, he knew Aidan would have objected to them being separated, and he was inclined to give his new liege his way at the moment.
Aidan's demeanor worried him.
The princeling had lost the confidence Garek had seen as an integral part of him, and if Aidan continued to hold that loss against Hanson, Garek didn't see how they could work together in the future.
He lay, propped up on an elbow, and Taya lay close beside him, her body touching his all the way down one side.
The look in her eyes said she also wished for privacy. Then she sent him a mischievous grin.
He grinned back, leaned down and nuzzled her neck, kissing under her ear and then her cheek, and lastly her lips.
“Enough of that.” Aidan stretched on the mat next to them. “Let's do what we have to do and get going. I want to see the back of this place more than I wanted to get off Shadow.”
Garek sighed. Rolled to his feet, and helped Taya up with an extended hand.
It was true, time was one luxury they didn't have.
Everyone woke and shared the last of the food, and Garek was surprised at how easy they were with each other.
When they stepped out of the hut to face the day, it was as a team.
They wandered to the nearest fire, and helped themselves to hot water and tea, waiting for someone to come for them.
It didn't take long.
Hanson and Kima walked over, and behind them came a contingent Garek recognized from the day before. The man who'd walked beside Hanson yesterday with Kima, and a group of three, including the archer who'd shot him, the guard Taya had fought with, and a woman who he guessed was Etta. The guard from Juli's guard training who Yanni had so disliked.
“Kima has explained what you meant yesterday.” Hanson looked straight at Taya, no hint of apology on her face for walking away the day before. “I agree that it shouldn't matter which ore you call, the principle is most likely the same.”
Taya crossed her arms and Garek could sense her hesitation. “I don't like being here.” She watched Hanson closely. “You are rude, volatile, and unfriendly.”
Hanson blinked at that.
“But I have a proposal. The ore I call is deadly to the sky raiders' ships. I can bring them down--I have brought some down already--but I could do better. Become stronger. I think you could help me. And you want to see what someone who's never been trained can do if they find their calling later in life. I think our objectives align.”
Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3) Page 5