Taya's lips twisted. “It's shadow ore they're afraid of, not me.” She turned with the pallets and walked back to the fire, setting them down on level ground and then looked up when Damin joined her.
He was breathing hard, but he helped her lift Ness up onto the mattress, his face a grim mask.
“I'll stay out here with you,” he said when he had his breath back, so Taya walked to the hut and got blankets for all of them and another pallet for Damin.
They lay on either side of Ness and Taya rose up on her elbows, head tipped back, to search the sky again.
She must have fallen asleep while she watched, because the scream of engines woke her with a heart-pounding snap.
She was up and running, a spear in her hand, before it landed, but this one was backing into the waterfall and she slowed as she approached the river bank.
Her boot connected with something, stubbing her toe, and she stopped and looked down at the thing that had tripped the sky raider, and which she'd bumped into twice. It was a box, attached to a very long rod.
She nudged it to one side when it appeared to be harmless, watching and listening over the sound of the stream and the whisper of the trees.
“Taya?” Garek's call carried over the water, and she felt such relief her knees gave way a little.
“I'm here.” She cleared her throat. “On the bank.” She waved, although they probably couldn't see her.
She hesitated, then dropped the spear and jumped into the water, wading across to meet Garek half way.
He had left Aidan to close up, powering through the thigh-deep rapids to snatch her up, lifting her so she was the same height as him.
“What is it?” One arm lifted her a little higher. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“Where is the Guard?” Kima called out.
“Gone back to Juli.”
“Really?” Aidan sloshed across, Kima and Rig right behind him.
“Yes.” She traced a line from Garek's brow down to his chin. “You had trouble, didn't you?”
He nodded and then started walking again, lifting her onto the bank and then pulling himself up beside her.
He went still at the sight of the dead sky raider.
Kima drew in a sharp breath as she scrambled up behind them, and Rig and Aidan spread out, slowly circling the body.
Garek looked down at her. “What happened?”
“We thought they were you.” She suddenly remembered the spear she'd dropped by the river, then relaxed when she saw Rig was holding it. “Ness walked straight up to them.”
“Why did they come down? Why now?” Garek looked up at the sky, and the expression on his face was frightening.
“They said they saw shadow ore as they were flying past. Their equipment must register it now somehow. I think they saw my knives. When they landed, they set down by the river, but I thought it was you wanting to find out where the Guard was before you settled the sky craft under the waterfall, so I put the knives back in the water box.” She waved her hand toward the fire. “They did something to Ness. I couldn't see what happened in the dark, but she's paralyzed, and they threatened to kill her if I didn't give them the shadow ore.”
“How would they have safely taken it?” Aidan wondered.
“There's a box on a long stick back there.” Taya glanced in its direction. “We can look at it in the light, but I think that's what they were going to use.”
“How did you . . . win?” Kima asked, her eyes still on the sky raider.
“I opened the box with the spears, and I shot the shadow ore needle I had in my sleeve into his suit. I didn't know if one would be enough to destroy the suit or not. I've used them to bring a sky raider down before on Shadow, but I used all ten of them that time. I needed the spears to block the white lightning. He had one of the little devices that shoots it.” She pointed in the general direction she'd kicked it. “I blocked the shots with the spears, and then when he realized the white lightning wasn't going to hit me, he ran. They tried to shoot me from the sky craft as well, but the spears shielded me and I ran straight at them.”
“They shot up into the sky so fast it hurt my ears.” Damin's voice had them all turning, weapons out.
“Damin?” Rig asked, frowning as he stepped closer to the fire. “What are you doing here?”
Garek rubbed a hand over his face in a gesture Taya had come to learn meant he was exhausted. “It sounds like we've all had a very interesting day.”
“Can it end now?” Taya asked. “Let's talk when it's light. All I was worried about is whether you were safe, and you are.”
Garek looked like he was going to argue, but when he studied her face, he gave a nod, turned to the hut and brought out a pallet to lay next to hers.
He drew her to him, and she closed her eyes with a sigh of relief.
Tomorrow could come with all its troubles and burdens attached, but for now, she was safe, warm, and in her lover's arms.
Chapter 17
“Why do they take the helmet off?” Ness asked. She stood over the sky raider who had hurt her, and stared down at him. “Even if the breathing system in their suit is gone, the air outside is poisonous to them.”
Taya looked over at her, finding it hard to keep her relief hidden. Ness had woken fully mobile. At some point in the night she'd fallen asleep and when she woke, she was back to normal.
“It seems to be instinctive. I have a feeling I'd do it if I was suffocating.”
Ness nodded. “I think I would, too. Does that mean we have something in common with them?”
“I would guess we have more in common with them than we'd like to acknowledge.” Taya crouched beside the body and tried to find the needle lodged in the fabric.
She called her Change, and it flew out and hovered over the sky raider's face. She plucked it from the air and began threading it through her sleeve, thinking through the chain of events the night before.
Had a single needle had an effect on the suit?
She was sure that touching the spears to his back had finished the suit off, but he'd reacted so quickly when the needle pierced his suit, it had to have done something.
It was dangerous.
Instead of threading the needles back in, she worked the one in her other sleeve loose and then headed back to the now bright, leaping fire.
Rig added another load of sticks onto it, and watched her as she opened the lid of a small box full of water and added the needles to the others inside.
Garek, Kima and Aidan were crouched over the box the sky raider had brought with him last night. It appeared at first glance to have only three sides, but at the end of the stick to which it was attached, there was a lever that could be turned, and a fourth side slid across to close the box off.
“So, they put the box over the shadow ore, and they can do that at a distance, because of the length of the stick, and then they turn the dial and close the box up, with the shadow ore inside.” Aidan opened the box and closed it with interest.
“It seems like something that could be created on Barit,” Kima said. “Not like the almost magical things in their ships.”
“That's because shadow ore stops their systems working. They had to get back to what is probably basics to them.” Garek took the box from Aidan and extended the stick, gauging the length of it.
“My guess is this is the closest they think they can come to a small piece of shadow ore without it affecting them.”
“Small because the box won't take that much?” Aidan asked.
Garek nodded. “They've been reduced to picking up what they can find lying around, because they've lost their miners.”
“But there isn't any of it lying about here.” Taya knew that to be true. She scanned for shadow ore a few times a day, almost without realizing it. “When I was in the Dartalian Range I could feel ore, but it was in tiny amounts, even if it was quite evenly spread through the rock.”
“They are probably searching everywhere. They
don't know where to look, so they're patrolling the whole of Barit. It was just bad luck they saw your knives.” Garek looked up at Shadow. “Although I don't know why they aren't doing their prospecting on Shadow. They'd have a lot more luck there.”
“Maybe they've gotten everything they could off Shadow.” Taya lifted her gaze to the planet, hanging low on the horizon. “It's been over two weeks since we escaped.”
“And maybe Shadow isn't safe for them anymore,” Aidan mused.
“You're talking about the other group of sky raiders.” Taya didn't know whether to share Garek's feeling that a second group was good for them, or not. It just seemed like more trouble, to her.
“So what now?” Ness asked. She was sitting down, elbows on her knees, and Taya thought she was probably not as recovered as she wanted them all to believe. As she needed to believe herself.
“Now, we take Damin back to Garamundo, fetch Nostra, and then head for Juli. Let everyone see we have a liege again, and hold a council of war.”
Aidan gave a wide grin. “Let's go.”
They caught up with the Iron Guard on the winding road through the low hills about a day's hard run from Juli.
They set down in front of them, and Garek opened the ramp.
He glanced at Aidan. “Go make up with the general. You know you have to. And it'll be a lot better if you're friendly when we get to Juli than if you're at each other's throats.”
He didn't need to point out that a united front would be the balm the city needed after suspecting they were leaderless.
Aidan set his shoulders and walked out the pilot's cabin into the back.
Taya leaned against the front window of the sky craft, arms crossed over her chest, and watched him through the open door.
He thought back to last night, to the moment he saw the dead sky raider lying at his feet, and the icy fear that had doused him when he realized Taya had faced it on her own.
He had to keep reminding himself she had triumphed. She had overcome. And they had the interesting shadow ore containment box into the bargain.
If he needed something to trade for favors with the new group of sky raiders, he had a feeling they would be very interested in that box. Very interested, indeed.
They also had another of the small white lightning devices. He had taken four from Shadow, and had left two of them in Pan Nuk, with Kas, and given one to Falk to study. He had the fourth in his bag, but he kept forgetting about it.
The only chance he would have had to use it was against the three armies, when he'd stood with Susa and Dix.
He knew first hand the pain it caused, and he felt it was . . . wrong to use it against his own people.
Taya wouldn't touch them.
She'd been hit more than once by white lightning, and she wanted nothing to do with something that made it.
But not everyone thought like they did, and he could imagine what some lieges would do to have a weapon like that. It would be better for everyone if they were destroyed when this fight was over, but until the sky raiders were gone for good, he didn't dare do it.
“You look like the weight of Barit is on your shoulders,” Taya said, and he looked up to see she was watching him, now, rather than what was going on outside the sky craft.
He shook his head. “What's happening out there? I assume they aren't killing each other?”
She studied him for another beat, then glanced back outside. “No, they're obviously not thrilled with each other, but it looks like Hanson's ordering her guards into the sky craft, so at the very least, the liege will return triumphant, with the Iron Guard in tow.”
“It's a good thing.” Nostra spoke up from her corner of the cabin. She looked tired, but from the moment they'd landed in Gara and she'd seen Aidan, alive and well, she'd been coolly satisfied.
“Gara giving you any trouble?” Garek asked. He had walked the walls there for two years, he knew what she was up against.
“The way the old town master and guard master were so publicly exposed as having done a deal with the enemy helped.” She gave a wicked smile. “No one feels brave enough to admit to supporting them, so they've had little choice but to pretend to be fully behind me.”
Garek chuckled. “That must almost physically hurt some of them.”
Nostra's grin widened. “I can see the pain in their eyes. And then the confusion and disbelief as I sideline them.”
She straightened, and Taya stood up from her slouch as well, so Garek wasn't surprised to turn his head and find Hanson and Aidan stepping into the cabin.
“Is everyone in?” he asked.
Aidan nodded, and he lifted the ramp, and when it closed, he rose up into the air.
“Kima tells me—” Hanson had turned to Taya, but when she caught sight of Nostra, she stopped.
They stepped toward each other and hugged each other close.
“It bolsters me that my welcome is still warm,” Hanson said.
Nostra drew her even closer, held her tighter, before releasing her, but she said nothing. Garek had the sense that since Nostra had heard why Hanson had left, and why she'd taken Aidan, she was in the camp that felt more should have been done for the general when she'd used the proper channels and asked politely for what was nothing more than the right moral choice.
Aidan must have guessed the same, because he looked at his feet and said nothing, either.
However right the princeling was to refuse to sign anything under duress in Hanson's camp, he would still have to grapple with the fact that his father had made bad decision after bad decision, and he would have to own them, and put them right.
Hanson's attention was suddenly riveted on the horizon, and Garek saw the tips of the palace towers rising above the hills.
Hanson pressed her hands against the window as the palace seemed to rise up from the hills, and then the river was below them and Garek followed it toward the city.
The palace, with its high walls and towers, spanned the top of the waterfall, a sentinel guarding the city from the north.
Fine mist swirled up from the massive waterfalls that fell on either side of Juli, forced left and right by the walls of the palace. It made the palace look like it was floating on clouds, and then the sky craft passed overhead, and the city itself was revealed, terraced down from the top of the cliff in row after row of high buildings. The city was bracketed by the waterfalls—the Plaits of Corinnda's Hair—its roofs thick with gleaming green moss, the colors of its walls jewel-like against the black of the rocks and the white of the water.
He saw Hanson close her eyes for a moment.
She was happy to be coming home.
And it was best that everyone knew she and her guards had returned.
He went low, flying down at an angle so they were just above the roofs, and then leveled out where the waterfalls fell into the deep, placid lake that lay at Juli's feet.
The engines screamed as he flew a little way out into the center of the lake and then turned back, lifting up to circle the palace one more time and then landing not on the walls, as he had before, but in the massive courtyard.
The more people saw Aidan and Hanson were back, the better.
Chapter 18
“So you forced those bastards to go back through the Range?” Vent, Juli's guard master, rubbed his hands together in glee. “That'll take them over half a week, at least.”
They sat around the massive table in what Taya decided must be the advisory chamber. Everyone who'd been involved up until now, including Sava, seemed to have invited themselves, and Aidan had obviously decided to allow it.
Garek sat beside her, and now he leaned forward, palms flat on the table. “We need to go to them. The only way out of Harven into West Lathor will put them in the upper highlands, between the Crag and the Dartalian Range. And while there are a lot of hills in that area, there are a few flat valleys that would be good battlefields, and more importantly, nobody lives in that area.”
“We'll never get our troop
s there in time,” Vent said. “Yes, we have almost a week, but it'll take days for us to get what we need for a campaign together, and then days again to march anywhere near the Crag.”
“We don't let them come into West Lathor further than the highlands.” Aidan nodded in agreement with Garek. “The villagers of West Lathor won't be left to fend for themselves again. We're not going to hunker down in the walled cities and plan for a siege. We stop them before they even reach the first homestead.”
Vent blinked, but Hanson was nodding.
“It's all very well to say that, but how do we accomplish it?” Sava asked. “As Vent says, just mobilizing the troops will take time, getting the Gara regiments and the Juli regiments together and then covering the ground we'd need to cover . . .”
Rig made a sound like the screaming of engines, and moved his hand, palm facing down, across the table.
“The sky craft?” Vent's eyebrows rose. “I hadn't thought . . .”
“We can take eighty guards at a time,” Garek said. “Or we can take all the equipment and weapons, so the guards can travel light. Or a mixture of the two.”
“We could get a couple of units out there, to get the lay of the land, and work out the best places to ambush, to set up camp. And then, yes, get the equipment transported.” Aidan stood up.
“The Iron Guard is ready right now.” Hanson leaned back in her chair.
Aidan stood, and gave her a short, sincere bow. “I accept. And I thank you.”
“What about the sky raiders?” Hanson steepled her fingers together. “Now we have the added complication of a second group, and we're more or less sure that Halbred is in league with the first group. Do you think they'll attack on his behalf?”
“The moment they do, Halbred loses his standing,” Nostra said. “There is one common enemy on Barit, and that's the sky raiders. No one will stand with someone who has aligned with them to bring their own people down.”
“So far, the cooperation has only extended to not attacking Luf, and in Dartan's case, Juli, in exchange for people to experiment on or capture.” Garek looked rough; there was a dark scruff of beard on his lean, bronze face, his hair was messy, his clothes the worse for wear.
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