Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3)

by S. M. Blooding

  The rest followed.

  Rose watched them all leave, wondering which of them she’d never see again.

  Ryo sighted down the barrel of his cannon, calculating the distance between him and the Shankara lethara. The seas raged around it, his tentacles working constantly to keep his city contained and safe. Nearly within range.

  Ryo should have felt…something at the thought of destroying a living creature like the lethara. The lethara was a peaceful creature, intent on only one thing; keeping his city shielded. It wasn’t his fault those who resided within his tentacles were evil.

  There was no way to use his cannons, or any of his weapons and not obliterate it, killing all who resided within the tentacles.

  The rage that fueled him left little room for compassion.

  Would his mother have shown such compassion? No. She’d proven that.

  A concussion rocked them.

  They were close. Not close enough.

  The Basilah was low enough to the ground for Ryo to see patches of detail in the low light. Beneath his feet, he could see individual trees laid down in wide swaths, people in the uniform of the Han with their leather armored chest plates and their skirts littering the earth along with the trees.

  A few other bodies littered the area with them, no uniforms. Simple leather and patches.

  The Shankara were taking out more of their allies than their enemy.

  Ryo couldn’t see the Paha caves. He knew the tribes. He didn’t know the terrain. The only bodies he could see were dead ones. The living—if there were any—had to be hiding in the beneath the thick canopy.

  They flew past the coastline and into the ocean bay, Shankara’s lethara growing bigger as they came closer. Each level of the city sharpened into focus. There were three large cannons on middle decks. If they could just get close enough to be within range without getting shot out of the sky, he could take those cannons out.

  A flash of orange lit the eighth floor, followed by a puff of smoke.

  “Shields!”

  Something shiny, but see-through shimmered over the glass dome.

  The shell hit the shield at the nose of the command dome and bounced back.

  The Basilah shook with a ringing sound Ryo hadn’t even known it was capable of. Synn had designed the shield. Out of what, Ryo didn’t know and really didn’t care about. All that mattered was that it worked and they were still flying.

  “Cannons!” Ryo waited for the shield to drop. The cannons at the rear began their own assault as soon as the shield was out of their way. He waited for the shimmer to retreat from around his cannon, sighted. Almost. Almost.

  Finally! He fired.

  The lethara writhed as lightning, lava, and cannon balls attacked his delicate and fragile skin. His tentacles flailed. Planks of city platforms rose and sank.

  Ryo hadn’t aimed for the lethara, however. He’d aimed directly for the cannon that had shot at his ship. It and a large chunk of the floor around it disintegrated into nothing.

  He smirked. Plasma.

  But he did have to be careful. A lethara could survive from shell damage or lightning damage. The lava cannon? He didn’t know. Ryo knew for certain the lethara would have a difficult time surviving if his tendrils were gone.

  Compassion. He snarled. Weakness.

  He aimed for another cannon and shot. The plasma flew from the mouth of his weapon and hit the intended target.

  But the cannon had been very close to a major letharan column, a massive tentacle or trunk. The plasma hit that, evaporating a massive chunk of the tentacle.

  The lethara screamed.

  Ryo didn’t even know they could. But the noise of it vibrated the glass around him and rumbled and screeched in his ears at the same time. His heart twisted. Twisted like a dying fish in air.

  Even the rage boiling inside him couldn’t erase the love and respect that had been instilled in him for the lethara.

  “Aim for the weapons!” Ryo shouted. “Not the lethara!”

  The platforms attached to the bottom portion of the trunk Ryo had hit plummeted. The dried sea-flax homes tumbled into the floors below before dumping into the crashing ocean waters.

  How many people?

  Ryo swallowed, pushing that question away. He didn’t care. He didn’t care. These people had sided with his mother and she had destroyed hundreds of innocent people without a single thought.

  “If we aim for the lethara,” someone shouted up at him, a voice he didn’t recognize, “we’ll destroy their ability to fire at us.”

  He wasn’t his mother, and he wasn’t his mother’s son. No. He was his own man. “And destroy an ancient creature who doesn’t deserve this!” Also, the innocent people.

  Another cannon launched a missile.

  “Shields!”

  “We’re destroying them, sir!” Suzu shouted.

  They were. He stared at the ground at his feet as the shimmer of the shield unfolded over them again.

  The Basilah shook with a grinding crunch.

  “We’re hit, sir!”

  “Are we still flying?”

  “Yes, sir,” Suzu answered through gritted teeth. “Something in the rear.”

  “We’re unable to stabilize,” her co-pilot shouted in a deep, thick voice. “The storm’s tugging at us.”

  “Get someone to fix it. Cannons!”

  He might not know a lot about flying, but he did know a thing or two about fighting. All he had to do was make it too inconvenient, too painful for the Shankara to remain in the battle.

  As he watched the portion of the city around the partially severed tentacle fall, as he waited for the shield to retreat so he could fire again, as the innocent people of Shankara scrambled to save who they could, Ryo knew what he had to do.

  His heart screaming at him to stop, he aimed his plasma cannon at another tentacle, closer to the middle of the city.

  As soon as the shield fell away, he fired.

  Skah flew through the air, landing roughly on the ground at the base of a small tree. How it had remained standing when so many other had been pushed over that had been stronger, taller, wider, older, she couldn’t comprehend. Now wasn’t the time to debate that.

  Neira was gone. Presumably, she’d gone to meet her old lover and betrayer.

  Skah bared her teeth, picking herself back to her feet.

  A new shadow swept over her, blanketing the world immediately around her in darker shadow and taking the brunt of the brutal rains away. The leaves of the nearby drandi bush picked itself up, raising its feathered edges as though praising the reprieve.

  Reprieve.

  The shelling paused.

  Looking up, Skah realized why.

  The Basilah. She hoped that with this new target, the Shankara would cease their bombardment of the battlefield. It was hard enough to fight the Han without cannon balls and other forms of weaponry she couldn’t even name being thrown at them. She’d never seen a cannonball create so much damage. What were they using to attack Kiwidinok? What had they created that could gouge the earth so?

  More questions she couldn’t answer yet.

  Three of the Han’s soldiers crept out of the thicket just to her right.

  Her bow in hand, she put three arrows in the fold of her bow hand, stringing a forth. Sighting, she released them in quick succession.

  The soldiers fell, arrows in the throat of one, through the eye of the second, and in the chest of the third.

  She crept into the blast-made meadow, stepping over the carcasses of trees and animals who had been unable to escape.

  A rabbit mewled, his leg twisted.

  Skah pulled out her dagger, scanning the damaged tree line for other enemy soldiers, her ears listening for the telltale sign another missile headed her way. She knelt and quickly slit the rabbit’s throat. “Go in peace,” she whispered.

  Standing, she cleaned her blade on the rabbit’s fur and re-sheathed it. She collected her arrows from the bodies of the Han’s men bef
ore continuing forward.

  Neira could take care of herself. Without new orders, Skah’s mission was simple. Destroy any of the enemy soldiers she could and keep Kiwidinok safe from intrusion.

  With the Basilah taking the brunt of the missile attacks, she could get back to work.

  The Layal was on the ground, slumped to one side as if she’d been capsized. We’d taken everything from her we could, including her lethara and all her air jellies—which was the reason she was on the ground. She could be flown with a small crew and that crew had stayed behind just in case the enemy found her and decided to try to gain entrance.

  I had a sack of blue glow worms slung over my back. Several feathered red worms fluttered along the torch in my other hand.

  My lethara floated above us, two tentacles dipped in the cup of water a messenger girl held. His other tentacles reached out, grasping at the wetness all around us.

  I stopped at the rocky, black entrance of Pleron City. We’d seen tracks and broken branches along the way. Haji had been the one to point them out to me because, honestly, dirt—even mud—looked all the same to me, and one branch didn’t make itself known from another in my mind.

  The mountainous countryside opened wide from the top of the black-tipped mountain. The Layal looked like a discarded toy a drunken giant had flung among the trees. Several of the trees appeared as though they might break against her massive weight. The people of my ship lined the path that circled the mountain. I couldn’t see them all as the mountain hid most of them.

  Haji’s skitter scuttled forward. “You let me lead,” he said into my left ear through the communication unit.

  I nodded. Though his unit made me feel incredibly small next to it, it also made him wildly more versatile. I recalled the city from when I’d visited it as a child. It had seemed so vast, so big.

  I stepped in among the people filing in and touched the tip of my torch with the barest hiss of my Mark. It flared with light. Someone behind me touched his torch to mine and so we past the light from one torch to the next.

  A narrow cavern of stairs greeted us. The mouth of the mountain opened to the sky high overhead. Shadow hid the bottom metres below us. Every wall of the volcano’s maw was littered with staircases and archway bridges.

  Where would they be, the Han’s men?

  “Downward.”

  Haji turned to a staircase leading down, four of his metal legs scaling the wall, the other four walking down the narrow stair case.

  We made it to the next level, which opened in a wide shelf.

  “Where are they?” Jamilah whispered to me. “If they are here, where are they?”

  As if waiting for her question, a large silver unit stepped out of the shadows of the walls. Its large mechanical arm rose, and swung.

  Three people were swept off the shelf, their cries echoing through toward the sky.

  My Mark rose from my shoulders in great lava whips. I encircled the thing’s wrist and tightened my hold on it, keeping it from attacking anyone else with it.

  Haji scuttled up toward it, two of his metal arms glowing a soft blue.

  Three men and a woman rushed the thing’s monstrous legs, glowing red balls in their hands.

  “Back away,” Jamilah shouted, running down the stairs to her right.

  People ran all around me, but the only thing I could pay attention to was the mechanical beast before me. It was strong. Stronger than my lava, which surprised me. What in this world wouldn’t melt with the heat of lava?

  It swung its other arm.

  I caught it with a lava whip, adding more to brace them both, fighting with the sheer power of my Mark alone. Every muscle in my body tensed.

  I couldn’t melt it. How was that even possible?

  My lips worked as I struggled under the increasing weight. I fell to one knee and raised my face to the torch I carried. “Go,” I whispered to the feather worms.

  One by one, they released their hold of the torch and fluttered toward the mechanical monster. They attached themselves, feeling along the armor.

  Haji stopped at the thing’s huge feet and touched its legs with his glowing arms.

  The glow wriggled off, coating the armor of the bigger rig.

  Within moments, the glow disappeared.

  My legs shook under the pressure of the mechanical beast’s might. The lava whips along my back rose and reached for the thing’s face. I knew there was no way a human being resided behind those eyes. The compartment of the head was too small, but there were sensors. Probably. And cameras. Most likely.

  My head lowered, I gave my Mark free reign.

  Sparks showered over me, tingling along my bared shoulders.

  The mechanical beast pulled violently away, yanking me to my feet.

  Haji scrambled down the stairs.

  One of his other skitter units had scaled the wall near the monster’s head, something red and glowing in its hand.

  Someone screamed within the rigger.

  Another voice joined the first, then others.

  The skitter at the rigger’s head paused, its head twisting this way and that as the sensors picked up sounds and visuals.

  I raised my face. Molten metal poured from one eye socket of the beast, more dripping from other places. The arm plates might be impervious to my lava, but the face plates were not. Raising my lava whips again, I lashed out against its head to make it blind, deaf and mute.

  A child screamed inside it.

  Growling, I realigned my attack to the neck.

  The large arms raised, lifting me off the ground.

  I concentrated on tightening my grip around the thing’s neck. The child inside the head was going to get very, very hot if I kept it up too long. A child, even an enemy child, didn’t deserve to be melted alive.

  “Haji!” I shouted into the mic at my chin.

  I didn’t know if he understood what I wanted him to do or not. I released the creature’s neck from my lava hold.

  The skitter along the wall reached for the head, opening a door or something along the back of it.

  The giant arms slammed down on the ground. One fist landed on the wide platform. The other landed at an odd angle on the stair.

  My lava whips were still attached, however. With the rigger no longer holding me up in the air, I plummeted.

  Pain cascaded up from my feet as I landed badly. I tightened my hold on my bag of worms and torch. Pulling myself up to a kneeling position, I studied the rigger.

  Silence.

  A small pebble fell down a set of stairs. Somewhere.

  The rigger stopped moving, slumping to the ground as if the very life had been drained from it.

  I straightened painfully, recalling my lava whips to my body. My legs and back quivered from the extreme exertion.

  The skitter along the wall held the prone body of a small child in its mechanical arms.

  “Haji, take the boy to Keeley.”

  Haji’s skitter unit at the rigger’s feet bowed its equine head.

  The skitter along the wall retreated back the way we’d come.

  Haji walked toward the rigger and set his mechanical arms along the chest plate.

  The blue glow emerged from cracks in the armor and covered him again.

  His shield men retrieved their glowing red packages, and stashed them back in the bags slung over their shoulders.

  “I want someone inside that thing,” I commanded into my mic. “The blue dragons have been recalled, but the poison they removed from the air jellies is still there. Be careful what you touch.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” a male voice replied.

  Jamilah returned to my side, staring up at the mechanical beast. “Now, I understand why you brought the menagerie.”

  “They give us life,” I said, as my red-feathered worms returned to my torch, a bit more blue than red now that some of their toxins had been released. “But they’re not always harmonious.”

  She tipped her head, watching the worms flutter back.<
br />
  “Always remember,” I said softly, “they choose to cohabitate with us. Should they choose otherwise, it would be detrimental to us, not them.”

  She met my gaze, respect filling her dark eyes.

  Respect for me or a renewed respect for those who resided beside us, I didn’t know. But I didn’t care either.

  It was time to reclaim Pleron City.

  Khayal Layal: Nix

  NIX OPENED HER DOOR AND peered into the chillingly quiet, slightly tipped hallway.

  No one.

  Dashing back inside, the door closing shut behind her due to the tilt of the ship, she grabbed her makeshift bag and slung it over her shoulder. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been treated as poorly as Synn and his people had treated her. Like scum. Like a slave.

  She opened the door and stepped carefully out, holding her head high.

  She understood they thought she needed to be punished for her crimes. They were now starting to understand she had perfectly good reasons for doing what she had done, and now they were going to finish what she’d started.

  Clearing her throat, she paused to listen if anyone would stop her.

  No one.

  Good.

  She didn’t know the ship nearly as well as she should have, especially since she’d only had cleaning tasks while on board, but Synn had given strict orders that certain parts of the ship were off limits to her.

  Those were the areas of the ship she probably needed to go to as those were the parts that most likely had doors that would lead to her escape.

  How easy had he made it? Was he tempting her? Was he toying with her?

  She slipped down the corridor, walking almost on the opposite wall, toward the first area she was never allowed to go. She’d been there once, of course, before she’d been reprimanded like a child and told never to return. He’d called it the menagerie, and the answer of why was clear. It’s where he stored the wild collection of animals and plants his vessel needed to survive.

  If she wanted to really damage him, she could poison his lethara. It wouldn’t be too difficult really. Add a little sulfur to his water.