She ran toward Nori, and Taya watched them bend their heads together, talking softly.
“Another unit from Juli?” Ness was suddenly beside her, and Taya looked at her with surprise, then remembered Ness was a guard from Juli herself. She'd understand the hand signals.
She nodded. “That's what Hanson said. Maybe Vent sent another group off after we spoke to him. And they must have missed Sava coming in the opposite direction.”
Ness nodded, but she looked disturbed herself. “The only reason Vent would have done something like that was if things were going seriously wrong.”
That was Taya's worry, too. It might have been all Vent could think of to do if it was getting harder to control the crowds demanding to see Aidan.
There was a power vacuum in West Lathor, and it had to spell danger for everyone.
“This way.” Etta's voice, hard and sharp, even when lowered almost to a whisper, jolted Taya back to her surroundings. She'd forgotten Etta was even there.
Etta grabbed her arm and began marching her toward a small hut, and Taya didn't struggle. She saw Ness's mouth form a thin, angry line, but the Juli guard fell into step.
“It's not necessary to drag her,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice.
Hanson glanced over at them, and Etta dropped her grip, as Ness must have known she would.
Taya didn't dare meet Ness's gaze, because that surely would have enraged Etta even more.
“Play your little games, but you're still the prisoners here.” Etta wanted to shove her into the hut, Taya could see her hands clenching reflexively at her side.
She climbed the three step wooden ladder up into the dark, smelly space, and and realized this must have been where Aidan had been kept before they'd come.
No wonder he'd been less than happy about his stay here.
“This is disgusting.” Ness put her hand up to her nose.
Even Etta seemed a little surprised at the state of the place.
There was no bed, but there was a rough pallet made from springy, thick bush branches covered over with a thick fabric. It became obvious the smell was coming from food that had been left in the hut, and had gone off in the last two days.
Without asking permission, Ness picked up the rough wooden plate it was sitting on and threw it out of the door.
Taya lifted the wooden board that covered the window away and a cool breeze began to flow through the place.
“He must have been eating when you arrived the other day, and no one's been in here to check the place since then.” There was a defensiveness to Etta's voice.
Of course, she didn't just see herself as a Juli guard, but as the elite force of the land. And this would not pass muster in any military barracks.
“It's not exactly the Guard House, is it?” Ness said, echoing Taya's own thoughts.
“No,” Etta said shortly. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she shut her mouth with a snap and looked out of the window.
“You going to talk to the guards Vent has sent?” Ness asked. “Find out what's going on?”
Etta glanced at her. “I don't know.”
“If you don't, you're all more idiotic than I thought.” Ness let her scorn show through.
Etta bared her teeth in a silent threat of violence, her gaze never leaving the view out of the window.
There was a scream. It rose up, and then cut off sharply.
Ness shoved Etta out the way to look, and Taya heard the tiny sound of fear Ness made at the back of her throat before she spun around and ran out the door.
Etta ran after her, leaving Taya free to go to the window herself.
Ness made it around the side of the hut, and ran toward a small group of Iron Guard, screaming a kind of battle cry as she went.
Some of the guards in the group turned to her in surprise, and Taya caught a glimpse of someone on the ground.
She slid onto the window sill and then dropped to the ground behind Etta, who was racing after Ness.
Etta had left her armed.
Taya fingered the knives at her hips. Her spears were on the ground near the training area, but she also had her fine needles, worked into the sleeves of her shirt.
She increased her speed as Ness reached the group and threw herself to the ground, bodily blocking whoever lay there from the other guards.
Etta slowed, and then sauntered up to the others, now she knew one of her charges wasn't trying to escape.
Nori asked her something in a quick, curt voice, and Etta turned back to the hut, insolent, and then went still at the sight of Taya coming toward her.
Taya gave them all a smile. She stopped when she was far enough away for her to feel more or less confident in the control of her calling, but out of physical reach of the guards.
“What's going on?”
“They hurt Damin, who is a Juli guard. One of their own,” Ness spat.
“Badly?”
“It's just a minor injury.” Hanson was dismissive. “What I want to know is how many of you there are, and where you are camping?”
Damin hunched over himself, refusing to speak.
Taya blinked. She knew him. “Aren't you one of Captain Nostra's people?”
He looked up with shock.
“Well, she's Guard Master Nostra now,” Taya said. “Have you come from Gara?”
“Taya of Pan Nuk.” Damin spoke slowly. “Are these the people who abducted you from your village?”
She shook her head. “No. I got away from them some time ago. I came here to get Aidan back, because he was caught on his way from Gara to Juli by this lot, just like you.”
Damin looked around at the guards, obviously wanting to speak but not wanting to reveal anything in front of enemies.
“You can speak. Let's make them feel the full burden of their guilt. Did Nostra send you for word on Aidan?”
Damin nodded. “There are rumors he's been taken and killed. That the liege is dead, too. That West Lathor is leaderless.”
“He was taken,” Ness said bitterly, looking Hanson in the eye. “But not killed.”
“Things are getting out of hand now, General.” Taya stood with both feet planted a little apart. “It's time to pick a side.”
Hanson waved a hand at the guards around her. “I have picked a side.”
“Then to keep their country free and their lives safe, you will have to give way. You thought you were dealing with the princeling, but you're dealing with the liege now. And he can't capitulate to you.” She fingered the hilt of her knife. “I give you my word, I will convince him to agree to your new recruitment methods. But even if I'm unable to manage that, after this battle is done, you can refuse to continue to recruit new guards. No one else can do it but you and your team. Simply stop.”
“I didn't think I could, before I saw that you are perfectly sane and fine. For years, we were told if a child Called a change and didn't find his or her element, they went mad.”
“No. They live a perfectly normal life.” Taya lifted her hands. “They do other things.”
There was silence for a long time. Eventually, Hanson made a signal with her hand and Damin was released.
“Go see to his wound,” she said to someone next to her. “And everyone else, start packing up. We're going back to Juli.”
Chapter 14
Garek knew they were in danger.
There was something in the silence as they stood before the massive sky craft that told him they were being viewed down the sights of some sort of weapon.
Aidan made a movement, a quick, almost involuntary flinch, and then a door opened and a figure climbed out dressed in the same dark blue suit Garek had seen the sky raiders wear before.
He or she came alone.
It strengthened Garek's belief he and everyone around him could be killed in an instant.
“They're smaller than I thought.” Rig spoke quietly, and Garek guessed most people thought of the sky raiders as monstrous. They were taller than the averag
e Baritan, but nothing like the hulking beasts of the legendary shadow pits, which is how most people spoke of them.
Their faces were truly frightening, with long incisors and cold yellow eyes, but Garek had seen the panic on those faces as they'd died, the fear in those eyes, and he had come to understand they were not much different to the people of Barit.
He moved forward to meet the sky raider, and they both stopped when there was about five feet between them.
“Tell your friends to stay back.” The hiss was chilling, but Garek knew it wasn't the sky raider's actual voice, it was some machine that translated his own language into Illian. Taya had told him of the moment when she'd realized this, and how it had helped her get over her fear of them.
He glanced behind him, saw Aidan had already started following behind him, and Ness and Rig had moved forward a little, too.
“One of them is a leader of our people. He needs to come closer, but the other two will stay back.” He jerked his head at Aidan, then faced the sky raider again.
The sky raider's helmet went from a dark, polished surface to transparent, clearing away like clouds before a strong wind.
Garek looked straight into hard, curious eyes. There was a look on the sky raider's face that said he wasn't happy about Garek's refusal to obey orders, but he was going to let it go.
He waited until Aidan stood just behind Garek's shoulder before he spoke.
“You have one of our ships.”
The way it was spoken, Garek could hear the question in the tone, and felt a little frisson of interest.
“I stole it from the mine on Shadow,” he said. “I'm surprised you don't know that.”
The sky raider cocked his head. “Shadow?”
Garek pointed upward, to where Shadow hung, blue and grey in the afternoon sky.
The sky raider turned to look at it. “What was the ship doing there?”
“There's a mine there. A shadow ore mine. I understand that is why your people are here.”
“What if I were to tell you that we are not the same as those people, the people you stole that ship from.”
Garek looked at him for a long moment. “I would say that's very interesting.”
“What I find interesting is how you got up there to steal a ship at all.”
Garek hesitated, but if this was a different group, the risk of laying things out would be worth it. Very much worth it.
“The others like you stole many of our people to go work in the mine for ore. I knocked one of your small little ships out of the sky, and I used it to go and rescue them. And to bring them back I needed a bigger ship, so I took this one.”
The yellow eyes blinked. “Why did they take your people?”
“Because they can't go into the mines themselves. The ore affects your machines and it even affects the suit you are wearing now. Stops it working so you suffocate and die.” He let the knowledge of that show on his face, so the sky raider had no doubt that he had seen that happen with his own eyes.
There was something in the eyes that looked back at him, a fierce light that said he understood Garek's point, and that Garek would find it difficult to do the same to him.
“I struggle to believe that you brought down one of the fighter craft to make your original trip. You don't have the technology.” Perhaps the sharpness and insult in that statement, even over the translated hiss, was because the sky raider didn't care for the threat that Garek had made.
There was no way Garek was going to go into his calling and so he shrugged. Gestured back to the sky craft. “And yet, the mine on Shadow no longer has people working in it, and I have a sky craft.”
The sky raider watched him, unblinking, for what felt like a long time.
“Why do the others like us want this ore? Did your people work that out?”
Garek frowned at him. “I've already said. Because it renders your systems unusable. We assumed the problems with it were also the reason it was valuable. You can use it against each other.”
The sky raider's eyes widened in sudden surprise. He looked back to the big ship behind him, a reflexive movement, because Garek was sure they were talking to him inside his helmet.
Then he looked sharply upward, and Garek lifted his gaze as well. Saw the familiar glint in the sky.
“Friends?” He demanded of the sky raider.
The sky raider shook his head. “But we can deal with them.” There was an arrogance in his voice.
Garek took a step back, head still tilted up. The sky craft coming closer was one of the smaller fighting craft. The sky raiders had to be getting to the end of their supply of them and he wondered how many they had left. He and Taya had together destroyed four of them.
It must simply have been on patrol, and stumbled across them, because surely it didn't think it could attack the massive ship on the ground in front of him.
Its white lightning could still kill or hurt him, though, no matter its size.
“Get back in the sky craft,” he called to the others, and turned and ran himself.
“There is no danger--”
Garek ignored the sky raider's call. His blue suit might protect him, but Garek knew all too well the pain of white lightning.
Kima and Rig reached the ladder first, swarming up it, and Garek gave Aidan a boost, calling his Change to throw the princeling up to the top of the ladder, and used his calling to propel himself up, as well.
They were in the air and moving by the time the fighter craft swooped down.
The sky raider he'd been speaking to took a defiant stance, staring up at the fighter.
It swooped overhead, dipping low, and then turned around for a second run.
There was something in the way it did that that made Garek move back further, still close enough to observe, but effectively leaving the field.
The fighter skimmed over the top of the big sky craft as it came back in, and Garek saw something fall from it.
He caught a flash of something dark and small which struck the big craft on the roof.
For a moment, nothing happened, and then the world lit up.
The light was blinding, ultra white, searing his eyes so when he closed them he saw nothing but bright lights sparking behind his eyelids. The low, deep thump of the explosion came next, rattling his very bones.
For an instant, there was no air.
The sky craft dropped, and then wobbled as the air came rushing back, and Garek moved them up and back even further and higher than they'd been before.
The big sky craft was gone.
Aidan made a sound, a gasp of disbelief, but Garek barely glanced at the wreckage. He looked for the small fighter craft, and found it very easy to find.
Black smoke poured from one side of it, and the small craft flew at an angle.
The familiar whine had been replaced by a higher pitched sound.
“They misjudged the power of their weapon.” Kima was watching it, too.
The craft disappeared amongst the hills ahead.
“Whether they survive or not, that's another of those fighter craft that's damaged.” Garek liked that.
“Look.” Rig pointed down to the ground.
The sky raider lay on the ground. By some twist of fate, he looked unharmed, but he lay too still for that to be true.
Garek brought the sky craft forward and landed beside what little remained of the original ship.
He jumped down without bothering with the ladder, and crouched beside the sky raider.
The helmet seemed untouched, but when he got closer, Garek could see chunks missing from the suit itself, and he knew the sky raider was going to die. The air the suit circulated would have escaped and the air of Barit was poison to him.
The sky raider turned to look at him, moving his arm, and Garek saw it was more than just lack of air that was killing him. His whole side was slashed open by debris from the ship, and a massive piece of metal was lodged just below his ribs.
“That was . . . the shadow
ore?” He could barely whisper the words, the hiss of his translator making the words almost indecipherable.
“I think so, yes.”
“We need to speak to you . . .” He paused, then caught Garek's gaze again. “Behind the planet you call Shadow.” The sky raider drew in another breath, as if to say something else, but instead, he went still.
“Is he . . .?” Kima crouched next to him.
“Gone.” Garek looked to where the smaller sky craft had disappeared.
The more expensive it was for them to stay here, in terms of people and equipment, the less likely they were to return.
He didn't make the mistake of thinking the new group would be any better than the first. It might help West Lathor’s cause for now for there to be two opposing groups, but if the sky raiders saw benefit to staying on Barit and Shadow, he didn't see them retreating just because the people of Barit didn't want them here.
“What now?” Rig was looking at the almost vaporized remains of what had once been a huge ship.
“Now, we go tell the Dartalian liege that there are foreign troops on her soil.”
Aidan moved his arm, encompassing the destruction. “What about this?”
Garek shrugged. “If this wasn't their main ship, and they're not all gone now, then at some point we need to speak to them again.”
“Do they want to ally themselves with us?” Kima asked. “Like the others have done with the Harven?”
Garek shook his head. “It's likely they just want to know more about shadow ore. And if the ship that was destroyed was in some kind of contact with its mothership, then they've just seen for themselves how powerful it is.”
“I didn't know it was this powerful, and I've seen Taya take down ships with it before.” Aidan spoke quietly.
Garek agreed. “I think it's safe to say the sky raiders have found a way to make it even more lethal.”
Chapter 15
It was a three hour journey to Valian, the capital of Dartalia, and Garek found it quickly because he'd been here twice before.
When they came in to land, it was to the same calm, alert but not aggressive guard unit that had met him last time.
Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3) Page 9