“I’m not. I’m on church orders. That’s all you need to know.”
“I’m not sure that’s all I need to know but it’s probably more than I want to know. You’re getting off at the front?”
David nodded.
“Good. Then I’m willing to say I never saw you. Mad bastard.” He swung past David, heading for the pilot.
David couldn’t sit in the bow of the gondola as he had before. The wind was too fierce, taking his breath away, drying his eyes. So he sat in back, feeling the vibrations of the engines, listening to their roar. The red glow of fire magic shimmered in the air, blurring the speeding landscape below. As they rose over the hills, smoke began to mix in with the wind, the occasional touch of acridity burning David’s nose. The dirigible swooped down the far side of the hills, flying lower.
The reason for the change in altitude became apparent as a grinding whistle drew David’s gaze upward. A burning oil-bomb, so high it seemed like a second sun in the sky, streaked toward them. The dirigible swung left and the bomb crashed into the hillside, exploding and expanding as the oil sprayed in a widening circle. Another burning bomb appeared on the far side of the valley, flung from a catapult set high on the hills. It soared massively high, peaking over the middle of the valley, perfectly aimed to reach the hills of the Delaluz front.
“They try every damn day,” the flight officer said. “Brought down a couple of us in the first few weeks but we know how to dodge them now. Still they try. Stupid bastards. If they could get the range on their cannons, they’d have a better chance of taking us down.”
Another whistling oil-bomb was launched at them, but the pilot jerked the dirigible in a circle while the bomb exploded in the space they had barely escaped.
“Whoo hoo!” the pilot shouted, thumping the long-glass mounting. “Close one, Los.”
The officer swore at him, a string of nonsense curses that was all about releasing tension and nothing to do with anger at his pilot. Then he grinned and punched David in the arm.
David, stomach churning from the manoeuvre, took the hit and held on tighter.
Negron Battalion’s main encampment came into view. It was an amalgamation of camps similar to that of Tejon Company, slightly larger and built close together. Their earthwork walls were taller and thicker but the layout was the same. Positioned behind the last rise before the dip of the valley centre, land had been flattened, denuded of vegetation and moulded into the needs of the army. The airfield was within a square of earthworks. They aimed for it, bombs still falling out of the sky on top of them. As they got closer to the encampment, the bombs were halted in mid-flight and tossed away. Mostly they went into unimportant, utterly decimated plots of ground around the encampment, tossed there by Air Mages. A few were flung back at the enemy.
“That’s Mage Urias,” the officer shouted. “She’s the strongest Air Mage ever! Destroyed two enemy cannons with their own bombs.”
David nodded, pretending for the sake of argument. The officer wouldn’t believe him if he said he’d known Mage Aire, unarguably the finest Air Mage of all time. He’d lived two centuries before this Urias and had stood on the shores of Roque to draw in an entire fleet of dragon-ships from the largest storm in memory. Not one ship had been lost and Aire had walked away, barely winded. David had killed him that night, as he lay in the arms of the Duchess of Roque. He’d regretted the act. Aire had been magnificent, unparalleled, unchallenged. Duke Ibarra had decided he was a threat, though his intent had been hidden behind the convenient excuse that Duchess Montserra’s liaison with the mage was potentially dangerous to Roque’s stability.
The dirigible made it to the airfield with no more near misses and set down in as chaotic and hasty manner as it had taken off in. David jumped down from the deck, jogging away as more wounded were brought out of the shelters built into the inner sides of the earthworks. No one paid him any attention until he got to the gate. Two soldiers blocked his path, neither hesitating to point their rifles at him. David demanded to see their officer, a corporal who seemed very bored, even with bombs falling all around them. Despite impressing David with his calm head and dry assessment of the situation, he had no idea what the stalking wolf meant. They went to his commanding officer, an Under-Lieutenant with barely enough sense to listen to those who knew better—namely his sub-officer.
“I don’t care if you’re Abbess Morales’ bed warmer,” the Under-Lieutenant said, studying a long list. “If you’re not part of the battalion, you’ve no business being here. Leave.”
It happened before David even formed the thought. The Under-Lieutenant was on the ground, his list waded up and stuffed in his mouth with a few swift motions. David pressed his booted foot into the man’s neck, enough to make breathing uncomfortable but not impossible.
“Dear Luz,” the corporal said, losing his calm and racing off.
“Now,” David said in a conversational tone to the struggling lieutenant, “we wait until someone with a smattering of intelligence comes to rescue you. I suggest you stop resisting. It’ll hurt less.”
Within minutes, David was surrounded by superior officers and, hands held high, he let the lieutenant go. After being thoroughly and energetically divested of all weapons, he was marched into the command tent of Colonel Jerardo Orlin Cabrera Tirado de Covadonga. The bald, hawk-faced man studied the badge through a pair of small, round spectacles.
“Let him go,” he said to the soldiers holding David. “He’s official.”
David shook off their slackening grips, straightened his coat and held out his hands for his confiscated weapons. It took him a while to return them all to their various holsters and sheaths. As the sword was sliding home over his shoulder, the colonel waved the guards out of his private office.
“I’ll be fine,” he snapped at the stragglers. When they were gone, he said, “Not the safest way to get into my presence, but definitely expedient.” He turned to tidy the papers David’s arrival had interrupted him from perusing.
“If I could bypass you as well, I would. I need to find a soldier.”
“Well, boy, we’ve plenty of them here.” He raised a hand for silence, head tilted.
There was a faint whistling and the colonel counted under his breath. The explosion came a scarce five count later.
“They’re getting closer. Griego better have his company ready to move out.”
“If I may, move out where?”
Cabrera frowned at him over the top of his spectacles. “This is a war, boy. We have an enemy across the way that requires some dissuasion. To do that, we send our soldiers over there to kill them.”
“You confront them face to face? I thought you had all these wonderful new, massive weapons to do the killing for you.”
“New? Where have you been? You work for the church and you think our weapons new.” He perched on the edge of his desk. “Perhaps you tell me exactly why you’re here.”
“There are two men amongst your soldiers who are not supposed to be here.”
Snorting, Cabrera muttered, “If you didn’t work for the church, I’d tell you that there are several thousand people who aren’t supposed to be here fighting this pitiful excuse for a war. Since you do work for the church, I won’t tell you that. What’s special about these men?”
A little surprised at the colonel’s open disagreement with his duke and church, David reasoned it had nothing to do with his task and set it aside.
“They’re fugitives,” he answered. “Duke Ibarra requires them returned to him immediately. They were on the carrier that went down by Tejon Company. The company from the crash, where is it?”
“Aguila Company is under Captain Griego. They’re undertaking the covert assault today.” The colonel wiped a faint layer of sweat off his head. “The heavy artillery isn’t the main thrust of our campaign. It’s merely the most visible, the loudest. Our aim is to distract the enemy with the artillery while single companies move in covertly on their positions for a direct attack.” H
e glared at David. “Are your fugitives going to endanger my company? Betray us to the Alarians?”
“I don’t know,” David honestly. He’d just been told to bring the boy home. “Tell me where they are and I’ll get them out of there before they do anything dangerous.”
Chapter 10
David stole a horse, knocking aside a weary messenger about to mount. The man was tired, but the horse was fresh, tossing its black-maned head and stamping armoured legs in anticipation. Settling into the saddle, adjusting the reins in his hands, feeling the coiled spring of energy of the living creature beneath him, David felt real. This was what he remembered, not some mechanical contraption, but this, a warm, live body with an intelligence of its own, a will with which it could respond to him. The horse, lightly armoured in steel and mail, calmed under his hands, muscles twitching, ready for work.
With a touch of his heels, the horse surged forward. The rhythmic pound of hooves was like his heart had finally begun to beat again. The wind against his face was like breathing after a long time under water. It was exhilarating to lean over the neck of the horse, to feel the heaving shoulders against his knees.
He was out of the cell and alive.
They pounded out of the command compound, barely slowing to pass between the open gates. The guards recognised the messenger trappings of the horse before they realised the rider didn’t belong. It was only after David was beyond them that they shouted protest. He ignored it, turning the horse’s head toward the path Colonel Cabrera said would lead him to the marshalling square for Aguila Company’s raid. The horse knew the narrow road and David let it have its head. Sensing the release, the beast snorted and moved into a dirt-eating sprint.
Oil bombs streaked overhead, one finding a path through the combined efforts of the Air Mages to fall into a stock pile of wood. The dried timber exploded into a bonfire, an abrupt, intense heat pushing at David and his horse as they raced past. On the ridge, cannons fired and crashed backward on their tracks. Men shouted, horses protested and David felt like he was in a battle he could understand.
A messenger appeared on the track ahead, the horse lathered, rider covered in dirt and blood. David hauled back on the reins, his horse squealing in surprise, skidding to a hard stop. Turning the horse side on, David blocked the road and the other messenger jerked her horse’s head to the side, trying to get past him. Her mount was tired and, seeing the way barred, stiffened its legs and came to a shuddering, sweaty stop.
“What are you doing?” the messenger demanded. “Get out of the way. I have to get to Colonel Cabrera.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“That doesn’t concern you. Get out of the way.” She brushed hair loosened from a braid out of her eyes. “You’re not Caballo Company! What are you doing with that horse?”
“Did you come from the Aguila marshalling square?”
“You have no right to ask me that.”
David drew a six-shooter and pointed it at her head. “I have the right. Where did you come from?”
The messenger reached for her own firearm. David kicked his horse forward, bringing it up against hers, head to tail. He grabbed her arm, twisted it so all it would take was a little more pressure to break bones. She grunted and tried to kick him, but he shoved the barrel of the gun into her stomach.
“Tell me,” he hissed.
She froze, eyes wide. There was a cut on her scalp, just back in her hairline, bleeding freely. A deep graze went from her chin down her neck to the torn collar of her brigandine. A striking eagle stitched in the fabric over her heart showed she was from Aguila Company.
“What’s happened to Aguila Company?” he asked, letting her go.
Swaying, she lost all resistance. “Griego’s dead. So’s Tellez, our Earth Mage. There were Alarians in the tunnel, waiting for us to break through.” Tears cut pink tracks down her dirty cheeks. “They knew we were coming. Knew exactly where to dig so they would intercept us. Dear Luz, they released mortars in the tunnel. I... I have to tell the colonel.”
David saw several privates running for the burning wood pile. “Hey! You two.” He pointed to the last pair. “Help this soldier down and then one of you take the horse and get to Colonel Cabrera. Tell him Aguila’s been ambushed in the tunnel. They need help, now!”
Without waiting to see if the men obeyed, David whipped his horse back into a sprint. The excitement of the chase had been replaced by the fear he was too late. If the boy was dead his task wouldn’t be complete. The pain of failure was something he remembered all too well.
The gates to the marshalling yard were open and unguarded. Inside, chaos ruled. A precise earth magic crafted tunnel opened up in the middle of the yard, a ramp leading down into the ground. A dozen wounded soldiers lay about the opening, some dead, others terribly alive. Limbs were missing, blood streaked the ground, soldiers cried and screamed. The guards tried to offer aid but it was futile. More wounded emerged from the tunnel, carried by fellow soldiers, who deposited their cargo before heading back down.
David threw himself off the horse and caught a man by the arm as he was about to return to the tunnel. “What’s happening?”
“We’re trying to find everyone, but it’s hard. Some of the walls have collapsed, some tunnels are blocked off completely. We’re just the rear unit. I have no idea what’s happened to the forward units. They could be anywhere. They could all be dead.”
Letting him go, David hurried between the wounded and dying, searching for the image Duke Ibarra had shown him of the boy. He wasn’t there, which meant he was probably still in the tunnels. David turned to the gaping hole in the ground, took a deep breath, and went in.
Some of the lamps lining the earthen walls were still lit, but most were extinguished, leaving great passages of darkness between faint circles of light. The tunnel was tall enough he didn’t have to stoop, wide enough for a unit of soldiers to move through easily, but it felt close and tight, especially in the shadowed areas. David swallowed the innate fear of burial, the sting of all the times he’d suffered a slow, agonising death in the cells under Ciro’s cathedral. His blood sung in his veins, even measures of thrill and dread coursing through him.
Soldiers staggered by, yelling for survivors, calling for help. It was hard to see features under dust and blood and panic. Calling his prey’s name was forbidden. Duke Ibarra had been adamant on that point. Don’t let anyone know who he was after. If anyone discovers the boy’s true name, kill them.
As he burrowed further into the ground, the chaos increased. Walls crumbled, the magical foundations that had supported them eroding away with the death of the Earth Mage. Side tunnels veered off, some blocked by rock falls, terrified screams coming from behind them. Chills rolled down David’s spine at the thought of those entombed alive. He wanted to stop and join the crews already at furious work moving rubble, trying desperately to release the trapped, but his duty drew him onward.
Then, as he turned a corner, the nature of the tunnels changed. He had no idea how far he might have come, but he knew he was no longer under the Delaluz encampment. At the very least, he was somewhere under the open ground of the valley between the two forces. At worst, he was closer to the Alarians than he was to his own side. Wherever he was, he knew he was no longer in Earth Mage crafted tunnels. The walls were uneven, shored up by timber, the ceiling lower. Dead littered the floor, the hopelessly mangled and the simply obliterated, the bodies torn and shredded. Steel fragments studded the wet, red remains, pierced the walls, sliced into the ceiling and floor.
Mortar blast. In a confined space. It had been slaughter on an unthinkable scale. David had never seen anything like it. There was no way to count the dead, no way to tell which arm belonged to which body, but that they were all Delaluzian was evident in the remains of the uniforms. In a particularly messy pile, David saw a glint of silver. Closer inspection showed it to be a striking eagle. Captain Griego.
A soldier appeared, running out of the dark, narrow
tunnel. Skidding to a stop the instant he saw David, he raised his weapons but didn’t fire.
“Who are you?” he demanded, voice dry and rough.
The uniform was de Ibarra, so David held up his hands. “Delaluzian. I’m from the church. Is there fighting behind you?”
“The church?” A small, panicked laugh escaped the man. “You here to give us a final sermon? We’re all dead. Some of them just don’t know it yet.”
“I’m not here to give any sermons, soldier.” David pointed back the way he’d come. “Go that way and find the others. They’ll take you out of here.”
As David walked by the trembling man, the soldier muttered, “None of us are getting out of here.”
David left him behind, hoping he would take the tunnel back to the surface, but that was all he could do. The duty laid on him by Duke Ibarra was heavy in his chest, drawing him on resolutely, even though a deeper part of him, a part that was still David Exposito de Ciro, dreaded the end.
The Alarie tunnel was messy and convoluted, following the natural contours of the ground, unaided by magic in its construction. It was darker and more confined, increasing the ever present fear of being forever lost underground, never to see the sun again or feel fresh air on his face. But David pushed past the fear, the memory of his cell, of being forgotten, and heard fighting. The sound echoed, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, crashing in about him like music from an uncoordinated orchestra. He tried to find the direction it came from. Turning to where he thought it was, David ran into the dark.
Around a sharp turn he came into a confusing, loud fight. Lit by the red flare of fire magic, shadows jumped and cavorted, twisted mimics of the bodies thrashing about in the tight embrace of the earth. David drew a dagger and plunged into the battle.
It was frantic and chaotic, dangerous and exciting. David bullied his way between combatants, grabbing arms and necks, collars and jackets. Anyone not in Delaluzian uniform was stabbed or sliced, head-butted or kneed in the groin. There was no space for honour, it was dirty and crude and brutal. Kill any way you could or be killed. Maim, cripple or bludgeon your opponent till they couldn’t do the same to you. Blades cut into him, fingers dug into his ribs, lunged for his face, feet tangled with his. He shoved and punched, working his way through the mess until finally, he burst out the other side, bleeding, breathing hard and utterly alive.
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