Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3)

by Michelle Diener

  Everyone turned to look, some with eyebrows raised.

  “Taya defeated a group of sky raiders on Shadow. And at least twice more here on Barit.” Hanson didn't look at anyone but Taya as she said it. “What would you do?”

  Taya looked around the camp. “They can see us even in the dark. They have a machine that sees the light inside us, or maybe it's the heat of our bodies, I don't know, but they used it on Shadow. But they can't see us if we're underground or in the water. In the mines they had lights in the passageways that I think also had the little devices that could see our body heat. They don't have that here. I think everyone should get into the tunnels the earth Changed made this afternoon, and if there isn't room for everyone, the rest should go into the river, keep low, and duck under the water as often as possible.”

  “Hide?” someone asked incredulously.

  “The choice isn't hide or fight,” Taya said. “It's hide or get hit with white lightning.”

  “And once we're hidden?” Dix asked, intrigued.

  “Then they have to land, and come after us with the small, handheld white lightning devices. They can also shoot the white lightning from the sky craft when it's on the ground, but they'd need a target.”

  “So we're already better off forcing them to land.” Hanson nodded.

  “And once they're on the ground, I can come out of the water, and hit them with shadow ore. Hit their ship.” All her shadow ore weapons were in boxes of water now, as was the ore they were waiting to smelt--no sense in calling more attention to themselves with the sky raiders.

  “Would you allow me to wield one of your shadow ore weapons?” Dix asked. “My lieutenant, Criss, calls the water Change. He can hide us in the river until it's time to attack.”

  “I would very much like to join you,” Hanson said.

  “Then I suggest bringing in another water Changed from my unit. Tuin can shield you and himself, General.” Dix turned to Taya, waited for her to agree.

  She nodded, and then orders were barked all around her, for everyone to crawl into the shallow tunnels that had been dug that afternoon, or get into the river. All the water Changed they had were spread equally among those who were assigned the river.

  She heard Quardi arguing with someone, and she jogged over to him.

  “They want me to hide, but I need to keep the fire hot. If it goes down now, it'll be hours more before I can smelt the ore.” He looked furious, but she could hear the distress just under the surface.

  “Quardi was shot in the legs by the sky raiders on Shadow. That's why he's in this chair,” she told the guard looming over him, Pilar and Varn. “He knows better than you do the danger to himself if he doesn't hide.”

  The guard blinked.

  Hanson and Dix stepped into the glow of light, and Dix frowned.

  “Quardi makes a good point. We need this fire to get hotter. If Quardi and Pilar hide now, we'll lose time.”

  “Quardi and I will stay, and if they come for us, I'll push him and his chair into the river.” Pilar's face was hard in the light, and Taya knew he was thinking of Shadow. Of everything he'd been through since they'd been taken.

  “I'll stay and help.” The guard's tone had changed from annoyance to respect.

  “Good.” Dix slapped her man on the shoulder. Then she looked over at Taya. “Your weapons are here?”

  Taya crouched down in front of the wooden boxes beside Quardi's equipment. Opened the lids. “What would you like?”

  Dix chose the sword, and Hanson, Criss and Tuin chose spears. Taya took out her knives, slid them into the hilts attached to her belt, and then took two spears as well.

  Criss kept them all coated with water as she lifted them out of their boxes.

  “Taya. You keep safe.” Quardi's voice quavered a little.

  “Always. And you, too.” She turned, flashed him a smile, and then ran behind the other four and jumped into the river.

  The sky raiders knew they were endangering themselves.

  Taya wondered if they would even land.

  They flew over the camp four times, something she could only just make out as she followed the lights on their sky craft with a water mask over her face.

  Criss had coated every inch of her that was out of the water. He must surely be straining himself, because he had done the same for himself and Dix.

  The effect was that whatever machine the sky raiders used to see them in the dark had been rendered blind.

  They seemed to know it, too.

  They had been looking at a camp of over a hundred people, and now it would look like there were only three. Even that must be difficult, with Quardi, Pilar and the guard so close to the roaring fire.

  Eventually, they lowered the sky craft on the flat field beside the camp, and as soon as they touched down, Taya rose up out of the water.

  Dix and Criss stood with her, and as they stepped up the bank, Taya realized she was still completely coated in water. Criss was shielding them for as long as he could.

  Hanson and Tuin appeared beside them, and Taya saw Tuin was doing the same for himself and Hanson as Criss was doing for her.

  She ran toward the sky craft, spears in one hand, keeping her other free to pull one of her knives.

  A sky raider was climbing down the ladder that dropped from underneath the fighter craft, and she smiled to herself. There was a time they would have both gotten out, secure in their ability to conquer.

  Now one remained at the pilot's controls, ready to fly them away at the first sign of trouble.

  It was progress.

  The sky raider turned as he reached the ground, looked straight at her.

  She felt the stab of disappointment at losing the element of surprise. It was dark, but she was running full out and he must have sharp eyes.

  He shot at her without even lifting his arm, but she'd let go of her spears the moment his head turned her way, and crossed them in front of her.

  The white lightning from his device hit the spears with an explosive thump that reverberated through her bones, making her ears ring and blinding her.

  She stumbled and fell to her knees, eyes closed, and sent her shadow ore knife straight at him.

  Water. There had been water coating the spears.

  White lightning had never reacted like this to shadow ore before. It was clear it didn't mix well with water.

  She shook her head.

  All sound had stopped. The roar of the sky craft engine, the rush of the river behind her, all silent. And purple and blue lights danced in front of her eyes.

  She tried to blink them away, but they swam back.

  She had the sense of someone running past her and she managed to get one knee up, managed to make sure her spears were still shielding her.

  White lightning shot out again, with the whomp and bone shaking reaction that told her water was involved again, although she wasn't sure what the sky raider was aiming at.

  Disappointment gripped her that she must have missed him when she threw her knife. She had been so sure . . .

  Someone was suddenly behind her, a white lightning device pressed against her forehead.

  She heard the sky raider say something, but it was too indistinct and her ears were ringing too loudly for her to make it out.

  The belt on which her knife hilts hung was cut from her, and while it was, the device was jammed even harder into the skin of her temple.

  She didn't need to hear to understand the meaning. They would kill her if she called her Change. Perhaps not just her, either.

  She couldn't see who else they had.

  An arm, encased in dark blue, came around her chest, clamped hard, and lifted her off her feet.

  She was on the short side, and the sky raiders were tall. She dangled from his arm.

  She was shaken like a tree in a hard wind, and something more was shouted, and she realized her spears were still floating above the ground, and she let them drop.

  Her eyes were clearing, and she caugh
t a glimpse of Tuin, lying on the ground, and Dix, Criss and Hanson, teeth bared, watching helpless as she was carried to the ladder and lifted up.

  She felt the water fall off her, its protection no longer needed.

  She looked down, desperate to make eye contact with either Dix or Hanson, but instead she saw a sky raider lying on the ground, her knife in him, and as she was grabbed from above and hauled up, she saw the sky raider below her fall back, a sword through his chest.

  The reaction of the sky raider who was lifting her into the sky craft could only be described as panicked.

  He threw her across the chamber, threw himself at the pilot's chair, and shot the sky craft straight up. Taya was thrown to one side, hitting the wall and then, as the circular opening in the floor closed up, she tumbled to the back of the craft.

  The pilot held a white lightning device in one hand and piloted with the other, and she knew every second that passed was one less chance of getting back down to Barit.

  She rammed her hand in her pocket, hauled out the vial she'd never removed from the trip to the mothership, and pulled the stopper off with her teeth.

  She sent both needles flying together, nervous that one wouldn't be enough, and flattened them against the white lightning device.

  She still couldn't hear well, but from the horror on the sky raider's face through his helmet as he turned to look at her, she guessed he had heard the unmistakeable fizz and pop of it dying. He let the device go, and she hovered the needles in front of him.

  “I want to live, so I'm going to let you land. But if you don't do it in five seconds, I will break this ship anyway I can. It's up to you. Land and let me out, or both you, me and this ship go down.”

  She could barely hear herself, and she hoped whatever translator they had had caught everything she'd said.

  She lifted her hand and spread out her fingers, then she brought them down one by one.

  At three, she felt the familiar sensation of the sky craft dropping down, had to brace herself as they came down hard, in what she assumed was a clumsy attempt to hurt her, or knock her out.

  She danced the needles in front of the sky raider's face. “Open the door.”

  The hatch slid open, and she saw the ladder was gone. Either he wasn't extending it for her, or something had happened to break it off during the fight at the camp.

  Never mind.

  She slid to it, lowering herself, eyes still on the sky raider.

  “You take the needles with you.” The words were hissed.

  “No.” She lowered herself further down the opening. “If you try to shoot me when you take off, I'll send both these needles around the interior of this ship like dervishes, touching everything inside they can. So you take your chance. Head straight up and away, and they'll drop on the floor and hopefully won't touch anything important, or try to get me again, and lose your sky craft, and then suffocate.”

  She kept her face and voice confident, but he could best her, and he had to know it. The needles were small. They could inflict damage, but it would take some luck to hit something important without being able to see what she was doing.

  “No. Take them with you.” The words were panicked.

  “I'll take one.” She called it to her. “If you try to shoot me, then I'll have one to send into the opening where the white lightning comes out. If you don't, you have one less needle to worry about. And let me explain. My control is based on proximity. The closer I am, the more damage I can inflict. The faster you leave, the safer you'll be.”

  She hung down from the hole by her arms for a moment, trying to get a sense of where she was.

  Her hearing was still wrong, she had barely been able to hear her own voice when she spoke, but she just made out the sound of flowing water.

  It was either really close, or really big.

  There was no choice, she had to go.

  She dropped down to the ground and the sky craft shot straight up, the sky raider taking her seriously, and probably deciding she was far more trouble to him personally than she was worth.

  She landed in a crouch and stayed there, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the almost pitch black of the night after the lights in the sky craft.

  She was vulnerable out here because she didn't know where he'd set her down, and she still couldn't hear properly.

  She needed some height, some way to get the lay of the land.

  She rested for a moment more, threading the shadow ore needle through her sleeve.

  It was so dark, she couldn't see a high point to head to, if there even was one. She might walk toward the enemy, not away from it if she set out now.

  And why wouldn't the sky raider have set her down amongst the three armies, where she was likely to be caught up again?

  He had nothing to lose.

  But the thought of waiting, and possibly being scooped up, was just as unappealing.

  She was resting one hand on the ground for balance, and she felt the soil beneath her palm begin to tremble in rhythmic bursts.

  Zanir. Ridden fast enough their hooves shook the ground.

  A moment of cold panic froze her in place, and then she shot to her feet.

  The river was her only option. She ran toward the sound of it, tripping and stumbling over rocks and uneven ground. She bit her tongue as she fell down the bank and landed hard on her backside, but she let the tears of pain flow down her cheeks without making a sound as the blood filled her mouth.

  The water was icy, a shock after what she now realized was the unreasonably warm water at the camp.

  Criss had something to do with that, she was sure. He'd taken the chill off the water, and when he'd called back the water coating Taya while she was being dragged into the sky craft, he must have drawn it out of her clothes as well, so she'd landed in the sky craft dry and comfortable.

  She crouched low in the river, opening her mouth, letting it fill with water, and then spitting it out to get rid of the blood.

  She could hear the zanir now, but they slowed, and lantern light proceeded them, throwing long shadows forward.

  Taya let herself drift closer to the bank, crouching even lower, and hugging herself against the freezing caress of the water.

  “It came down here, or close to here. I'm sure of it.” The person spoke Illian, but with an accent that told her the speaker wasn't West Lathorian.

  So the sky raider had set her down close to the three armies.

  “What does it matter if it did? Who knows why the sky raiders do what they do?”

  “You don't think it matters?” The comment was incredulous.

  “No, I don't. What can we do about it if they did land here? If they're still around here somewhere?”

  “Well.” Surprise in the tone. “I saw them fly away, so they aren't still around, but I wanted to see if we could work out what they were doing here.”

  “For all we know, they could have stopped to take a quick toilet break.”

  Laughter.

  “Could be. You know, it could be.”

  “Let's head back to camp. I heard they sent the top fighters from all three armies to see if they could take the Dartalians.”

  “I heard that too. Don't like the idea of fighting any Dartalians, though. My aunt lives in Valian.”

  There was silence. “No. I don't either. Don't think most of the guards do, either. In fact, I'm still trying to work out what in the shadow pits we're doing here.”

  Their voices faded, and Taya crept back onto the bank, her whole body shivering.

  They were headed downstream, which made sense if this was the same river that ran through Dix's camp.

  All she needed to do was follow it up through the valley to end up right next to Quardi's roaring fire.

  Of course, she'd also have to avoid the crack team of guards who may or may not have been told they were going to the camp to deal with a hundred unconscious Dartalians. If that was the information they'd been given, they were about to find some very conscious,
very angry, Dartalians, Iron Guards and West Lathorians waiting for them.

  The thought cheered her up, and she set a path close to the river bank, and tried to stop her teeth from chattering.

  Chapter 29

  There had been three sky raiders.

  Taya started thinking about the confusion of her capture as she concentrated on what little of the ground she could see in front of her.

  There had been three, because she'd seen the body of one, Hanson had gotten the second, and the third had flown off in the sky craft.

  Which meant the sky raider who'd come up behind her had dropped out of the sky craft before it landed. Or had been dropped off in a second sky craft.

  She remembered Garek telling her he'd seen a sky raider fly with something strapped to their suit before, so perhaps they'd done something like that. However they'd accomplished it, they'd snuck up behind her.

  It had worked really well.

  While the sky raider hadn't touched the knives hanging from her belt when he'd cut it off, his suit hadn't gone fizz pop because of the proximity, so they must have found a way for their blue suits to be insulated from the shadow ore.

  It didn't seem to stop the sharp point of a knife going in, or a sword going through, though.

  Fortunately for her and Hanson.

  But now the sky raiders knew that, they'd probably adjust again.

  She would have to make sure they didn't have time to do that.

  They had lost her again. Had nearly lost another sky craft.

  They had to be getting near their tipping point. And surely, with the new sky raiders working on a way to lob some shadow ore at their mothership, things would start to become too uncomfortable to make it worth their while.

  Surely.

  She'd been looking down, watching where she put her feet so she didn't fall down a bank again, when the high sweet song of a night wag cut off abruptly.

  She froze. Her first thought was who might be up ahead. Her second was that her hearing had returned. She hadn't consciously registered the bird song, but she had been listening to it for more than five minutes.