A well of emotion, tender and lustful all at once, rose up in her, and she lowered her eyes to keep it hidden.
“We can only hope it stays that way. We've got the sky craft, but Halbred has three armies.”
“We also have the Iron Guard. And Garek.” Taya kept her voice soft, but when she lifted her gaze, Aidan was watching her, and gave her a nod.
“I have a feeling Halbred will know enough to know that his people will never get willingly into a sky craft piloted by sky raiders. That would go against every instinct, and throw his authority into question. I don't think we need to worry about them having the same ability to move troops as we do.”
“The people need to see their liege before we do any of this.” Vent gestured out the window. “And we probably need to explain what's about to happen.”
Aidan walked to the window and looked down on the cascading terraces of the city. “Once I address Juli, we need to understand whatever spies Halbred has here will report back. And if the sky raiders have spies here, they'll know, too.”
“The sky raiders?” Ness could barely speak through the depth of her shock.
“Some of Dartan's guards were reporting to him, and he was passing it on.” Garek was sure of that. Taya had killed one of the guards Dartan had sent after her, but he'd questioned the one who'd survived.
“There's nothing to be done about that. We need West Lathor to understand we're going to war.”
“Send messengers out to the smaller towns and villages as well.” Hanson stood, leaning forward on her hands. “They'll appreciate the information, and they'll be on alert, watching who moves through the countryside.”
Vent nodded in agreement. “You've seen the armies, how outmatched are we?”
Garek and Aidan exchanged a look.
“By a lot.”
Garek circled the valleys and Hanson, Kima and Nori debated the various sites below quietly with each other.
“There.” Hanson turned to him, and pointed down. “It's not perfect, but it's the best of them.”
Taya's hand tightened on his shoulder, and Garek knew it was her way of reassuring him.
She had argued, logically and calmly, that she was better off in the front line on the slim chance Halbred did have some help from the sky raiders.
In Juli or Gara, or even Pan Nuk, she was a wasted resource.
He knew that he would have agreed if she was anyone to him but who she was. And it was hard to concede.
She was soothing him. Trying to make it easier for him.
And he had the self-awareness to smile at himself.
He needed to get over it and focus. Even if the thought of leaving her here in the middle of nowhere made every instinct in him rise up and rebel.
He lifted his hand and squeezed hers, then set the sky craft down lightly on the sloping field that was one of the few that was free of dark gray rocks.
The three armies would have to approach from the bottom of the valley, so the Iron Guard would be sitting above them, looking down.
As soon as the ramp lowered, he heard the guards moving out, and Taya bent and kissed him, a light, sweet touch of her lips to his.
He wanted to grab her close, hold her tight, and sink into her, but that wasn't possible now.
He stood and put his arm around her, and the look in her eyes told him his hunger and his desire were returned.
There was regret and there was amusement at them both on her face, a sort of self-deprecating humor that forced a chuckle out of his throat.
“It's good motivation to get this done,” she said, and his smile deepened.
He kissed her. Not quite the way he wanted to, but with enough heat that there were a few whistles from the guards around them.
“Look after my intended,” he said as he raised his head and caught Hanson's scandalized gaze.
Taya tightened her grip on him for one more moment and stepped back. “Stay safe.”
She bent and picked up her pack, slinging it over her shoulder.
He remembered how she looked when he left to walk the walls of Gara; younger, softer. In flowing dresses, with her hair free about her shoulders.
She was a guard now. In the dark brown of a uniform, with her hair tied back in a braid, she looked as competent as any guard he'd served with.
He ran a finger down the side of her cheek and bent to give her one last kiss. “I'll see you soon.”
She smiled at him, and walked out the back, and he heard her thanking the guards who were carrying her shadow ore weapons in their heavy water boxes out for her.
They'd decided that she wouldn't take any of the weapons out unless a sky craft was clearly coming in to attack. The weapons could stay invisible in their water, and avoid the attention of the sky raiders' new method of finding shadow ore as much as possible.
As Garek lifted the sky craft up, he saw her waving to him, and he tipped the sky craft from side to side to wave back.
“Now on to Gara to fetch some of my troops?” Nostra had taken the place Hanson had occupied on the way here, leaning against the window to look down onto the landscape below.
“To Gara, then to Dartalia to check on how Dix is faring at the border.”
Nostra chuckled. “Who would ever have thought just a few months ago we'd have allies, a sky raider ship, and the Iron Guard back?”
“Things can change quickly,” he agreed. The problem, Garek knew, was they could also change the other way.
Chapter 19
The sky raiders were coming again.
Taya watched the Star's light glint silver off the wings as she crouched low beside the long, narrow, wooden box that contained her shadow ore spears.
This was the sky raiders' third flyover in an hour and she wondered what they were doing.
They couldn't know about her shadow ore—all her weapons were in boxes full of water—so their reason for circling back over and over again was for some other reason.
It was nearly a day since Garek had dropped them off here, and the first time she'd caught sight of the ship earlier today, she'd thought it was him returning. But then she saw it was a small fighter craft, and there could be no doubt now that it was not.
The Iron Guard stood still, clustered together in the small groups as they looked upward.
The biggest group was in the training yard, where moments before they'd been flinging practice spears at each other and dodging and weaving, deflecting the spears by calling their Change.
She'd seen this amazing display once before, when Garek and Kima had returned to camp with a levik, and spirits had been high. Now they did it with focused, serious intent.
Although it appeared to be a frenetic, chaotic attack, no one was hit, each person dipping and gliding out of the way with a smooth, graceful economy of movement that was a pleasure to watch.
Now, though, their weapons lay on the ground, and all that deadly focus was on the sky.
Taya's fingers gripped the lid of the box, ready to throw it off and grab her spears the moment the sky raiders looked like they were on more than just a reconnaissance mission.
She sank lower on her haunches in relief as it passed overhead again, the scream of the engines deafening, and if she hadn't looked back to see the direction it was taking through the mountains, she would have missed the moment it banked, curved downward, and flew low over the camp, strafing the guards in the training ring with a flash of white lightning.
She didn't have time to wonder why, and what they had to gain, she flipped the lid off, and grabbed two spears out of the water.
She didn't run toward the sky craft, either, it was already on its upward trajectory. Instead, she got up just enough speed and momentum to throw the first spear, and concentrated on aiming it at the back engines.
It must have had some indication that the spear was coming, perhaps whatever new system they were using to track shadow ore sent them a warning, because they tilted to one side.
She changed the spear's course, felt
the strain of aiming it as she pushed it higher and further than she had ever pushed shadow ore before. She had to dig deep, but she managed to make contact with the back of the ship.
It was nothing more than a glancing blow.
The engine cut off as her spear fell to the ground, and the whole craft went into free fall for ten meters or more before it coughed back to life and the ship sped away, slightly favoring one side.
The whine of the engine faded into the distance, and then there was silence.
She could feel the headache already banging against her frontal lobe, and she turned and walked back to the box, dropped the second spear into the water and then wobbled slightly as she turned again to face the training arena.
It was a chaotic mix of fallen bodies and guards crouching down beside the injured or lifting friends between them, carrying them toward the tents.
Her spear was out there somewhere, and she needed to get it back. She couldn't afford to lose any of her weapons.
She started walking, trying automatically to reach for it by calling her Change, and winced with pain as the effort intensified the drumming in her head.
The ground seemed to rush up at her, and she put out her hands just in time to break her fall, and then even that was too much energy and she fell sideways onto the ground.
She rolled onto her back, and as she blinked up at the late afternoon sky, she saw with horror that the sky craft was coming back.
She struggled to sit up, collapsed back down again, and then lost consciousness.
As he came in to land, all Garek could see were the bodies.
He didn't power down, he simply burst out of the back of the sky craft, pushing through the eighty-strong unit of guards he'd brought from Garamundo as they began gathering the equipment and supplies that had been included in the run.
They all came up short at the sight of a line of armed guards at the foot of the ramp.
Everyone was equally surprised, he could see in the way the Gara guards froze and the Iron Guard hesitated and then relaxed, lowering their swords and arrows.
“There was a sky raider attack.” Kima was in the front line of guards, and the look she sent him was off, a quick flick of nerves.
He felt a frisson of fear run down his arms. “Taya?”
“Burnt out.” Hanson was suddenly in front of him. “Just burnt out, Garek.” Her voice was calm.
He blew out a breath, tried to slow his frenetic heart as he followed her through the guards who were stepping forward to help carry the supplies.
Taya was being carried to her tent, and Garek took her from the two guards holding her between them and set her on her pallet.
His hands shook but her breathing was strong and even, her color good, and after watching her for a long moment, he ducked out of the tent to join Kima and Hanson.
“It just happened?”
Kima nodded. “They kept circling, three or four times, and then suddenly they came down and shot the guards while they were training. There are twenty down, but they're all breathing.”
“Taya tried to get them with shadow ore?” Of course she did.
“She threw a spear at them. I think she must have at least got close or touched the ship with it because the engine stalled and when they flew away, they were listing to one side.”
“Just one spear?” He wondered how high and far she had pushed it to burn out.
“We're looking for it, but it landed far up the valley.” Hanson motioned up the hill, and Garek could see a team of four walking in a line, searching for it.
“What do you think this means?” Kima worried her lip.
“Taya didn't pull out the spear until they attacked?”
Hanson shook her head. “She was crouching beside the box, but she didn't take it out until after they shot their white lightning.”
She shivered, and Garek realized this was probably the first time the general had seen the white lightning and its effects.
“Then they were doing it to hurt us.”
“Why, though?” Hanson looked down the valley to where they knew the three armies would emerge once they made their way through the mountains. “They couldn't know Taya was here, and they shot randomly. Was it just for fun? Some strange amusement?”
Garek shook his head. “I've observed them up close when I was hiding in their mothership, and they did not seem to me to be cruel for its own sake. Besides, they've never done anything before for no logical reason.”
“Then we have to look at who benefits.” Kima's eyes narrowed as she, too, looked down the valley.
Garek nodded. “Habred and his three armies.”
He wondered what the deal was that Habred had struck with the sky raiders for them to interfere in this way.
“Perhaps they were trying to capture us, take us off to Shadow?” Hanson asked.
It was a seductive option, because it would be more in line with what they knew of the sky raiders' motivations, but . . .
“Were they in a small fighter, or a people-carrier like mine?”
“Fighter.” Kima's eyes widened. “They couldn't have been trying to grab us, they had nowhere to put us.”
Garek gave a nod. “I think they only have one people-carrier left. We have one, Taya destroyed another, and I think they only ever had three.”
“Then yes, they were trying to harm us. But no one was killed.”
“That might have been a mistake on their part. From what Taya learned in Luf, they've been playing with the strength of their weapon, and they perfected it to knock us down but keep us alive. All they need to do to kill us is turn up the strength again.” And then, the war would be over.
“And if they meant to kill with this strike, and somehow realize they haven't done that, they'll turn it up, you're saying?” Hanson scowled. “How can we fight against something like that?”
“We can't.” Garek accepted it, it was the truth.
“We are going to lose this war, and lose West Lathor.” Hanson's face was a mask of frustration.
“There must be a way.” Kima's stricken gaze was on her general's face.
“First, we need to check on the Dartalian guards barring the way out of Dartalia into Favre.” Garek crouched and glanced in at Taya, but she was still asleep.
“You think they might have been attacked, too?” Kima stiffened. “Of course, if this is to benefit the three armies, the biggest boon they could get is having the way through Dartalia cleared for them again. It would be quicker for them to turn around and go back through Dartalia than make their way through the mountains.” She looked in the direction of the training area. “Bringing us down was probably a secondary consideration.”
Hanson moved, agitated and restless. “If that's what's happened, this camp is useless. We need to go to Dartalia, and if the Dartalian guards are down, help them hold the line.”
Garek nodded. “We'll load the supplies back onboard, and I'll take a group of Iron Guard and some of the Gara guards I brought today.”
“What will the Dartalian liege think of our presuming like this?” Hanson asked. “It's more for our benefit than it is for hers.”
“We'll ask her.” Garek crouched, and looked into Taya's tent.
“What can we do to counter this new threat?” Kima was staring across the field where her colleagues were being tended to.
Garek tipped his head up and looked at Shadow. “Maybe there's a way.”
It was time to find the new sky raiders, and talk.
Chapter 20
Bodies lay everywhere.
There didn't seem to be a single Dartalian guard left standing.
Hanson looked at the carnage with a grim line to her mouth, and Garek thought she was probably thinking about the attack on her own camp, and what would have happened if Taya hadn't been there.
She straightened and started calling orders, and the Iron Guard and the Garamundo guards they’d brought with them went to work, carefully lifting the fallen and taking them to their t
ents.
Everything was orderly and a few of the fires were still smoldering, which only made the still bodies of the guards who'd set it up all the more disturbing.
This had happened maybe four or so hours ago.
He tapped Hanson on the shoulder as two guards carried Dix past her. “That's Dix, Susa's general. I'll take her with me.”
Hanson nodded, and waved the guards toward the sky craft. “You're going to get Aidan before you go to Susa?”
He nodded. There was no question about that. The lieges would need to be personally involved in this situation.
“Hold the Corridor, General. And we'll be back as soon as we can.”
She nodded, and Garek saw the banked rage in her eyes.
No matter who came at them now, they would be met with no mercy.
He jogged back to the sky craft, made sure Dix was comfortable on a pallet in the pilot's cabin, and that Taya was still breathing evenly.
He was halfway to Juli when Dix came awake with an explosive cry.
“You're safe,” he told her, keeping his voice matter-of-fact.
She stared at him, eyes wide, and then toppled back onto her mattress.
“Your people are safe.”
He had guessed that would bother her the most, and she was quiet for a little while after that.
Eventually, she struggled back up to a seated position. “Why am I in your sky craft?”
He told her, and her gaze went to Taya, still deeply asleep.
“You only lost twenty because of her. We lost everyone.” She looked back at him. “And you say she damaged the craft?”
“That's what General Hanson believes. She said it was tilted to one side as it flew away, and the engine was making a strange sound.”
Dix drew her knees to her chest, and hugged them to her. “So where are we going now?”
“To fetch Aidan, and then fly to Susa.”
Dix grunted in satisfaction and lay back down again.
When Garek glanced at her a little while later, she was fast asleep.
Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3) Page 13