The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein)

by Martha Wells

  Behind one of the huts he could see big fat metal tanks, like the ones they had found in the Gardier stronghold on the island. He noted the Gardier were building another tower toward the far end of the promontory, its skeletal frame half-constructed. Ilias sunk back below the lip of the slope and crept along it until he found a rockfall that would provide an observation post with good cover. Then he went back for Giliead and Tremaine.

  As he drew near he heard Giliead say, “He’s smaller and harder to see.”

  Tremaine replied impatiently, “I understand that, but how do you know who does what when? That Kias should be the one to scout the trail, that Ilias should go first to look for cover, that you should lead the way through the town. How do you decide without talking about it?”

  “Sometimes we don’t, sometimes we argue. But most of the time everyone knows what they do best,” Giliead explained, easing to his feet to follow Ilias. He added dryly, “Why does Ander act as if he leads your family when he has no part in it, when your father left his rights to Gerard?”

  Good question, Ilias thought, turning to lead the way back to the rocks, his ears pricking for the answer.

  “He’s not—Giving orders is how it works, in our world.” Tremaine climbed carefully after them, swinging her bag around to carry in front of her. “Most of the time. Ander is a captain in the military.”

  “But you’re not on his crew, you don’t take orders from him,” Ilias pointed out as they neared the rocks, crouching to stay out of sight. He stretched out on the gravelly ground, finding a clump of grass to peer through.

  “Yes, well, it’s a talent.” Tremaine scrambled up next to him and pulled the Rienish seeing glass out of her bag. It was an odd-looking device, with two short tubes instead of a single long one. “This isn’t much of an outpost. I was really expecting something more impressive,” she said under her breath.

  Ilias thought it was more than enough, since its presence was keeping them from passing through the strait. “I don’t think we could handle anything more impressive.”

  Giliead’s expression had gone distant. “There’s something in that big building, something powerful. It smells like…the thing on the Ravenna, the thing that lets you go to other places, but not quite the same.”

  “Oh ho,” Tremaine muttered thoughtfully. “That sounds like a spell circle.”

  Dusk had darkened the shadows and turned the sky to a rich purple as Tremaine climbed a rocky slope in Ilias’s wake, the other Syprians following along behind. She glanced up in time to see a big dark form emerge from behind a boulder. Ilias greeted it with a nod, so she assumed it was Kias. Grabbing the tufts of dry grass for handholds, she struggled the last few feet and stood next to Ilias on a narrow flat just below the mouth of a large cleft of rock. As she rubbed her aching back, two Rienish soldiers in gray fatigues stood up from the cover of the rocks, one of them ducking back into the cleft. “Any trouble?” Ilias asked Kias softly as Cletia and Arites scrambled up onto the ledge behind them.

  Kias shook his head and added a shrug. Tremaine couldn’t see his expression in the dim light, just the fuzzy outline of his fraying braids, and decided he was trying to convey that there hadn’t been any trouble from intruders, just impatience from their own party. This was confirmed when Ander strode out of the shadow of the cleft, demanding in Rienish, “Well? What the hell took so long?”

  “We have plenty of time,” Tremaine answered in Syrnaic. Behind her Cimarus arrived, dusting his hands off and moving to stand next to Cletia. Giliead walked up the slope surefootedly and stood next to them. They had spent the afternoon watching the movements of the Gardier around the tower, making sure there wouldn’t be any surprises. At one point Ilias had gone back for Arites, so he could sketch a map of the compound. Tremaine didn’t mean to wreck this. She could have said as much to Ander, but her tension and tiredness made her long for a fight. “Did the plan change to a daring daylight raid while we were away?”

  Before Ander could answer, Gerard stepped out of the shadows behind him, asking, “Everything all right?”

  Disappointingly, Ander failed to fall for the bait, saying roughly in Syrnaic, “Tell us what you found.”

  Ilias and Giliead both looked at Tremaine, which she took to mean that she had the floor. With a silent groan, she followed Ander and Gerard back into the shelter of the rocks.

  She blinked as she stepped through the entrance, suddenly finding herself in firelight. There was a sight-masking charm across the opening, keeping the light from being seen past the overhang of the cliff. Ilias flinched as he stepped through, throwing a worried look back at Giliead. Giliead did one of his eyebrow dip things that evidently told Ilias it was all right. Kias seemed used to the effect by now, but Arites stopped to look around, startled, and Cimarus and Cletia abruptly froze.

  There was a fire in the center of the sheltered space and a few carbide lamps strewn around. The cleft was now crowded with Rienish soldiers in gray fatigues, most of them checking their rifles or the small crossbows that were immune to the Gardier’s mechanical disruption spell. The murmur of quiet conversation died away as the assembled men eyed the scouting party, knowing that this meant the time for the attack was near.

  Florian made her way toward them. She was carrying the sphere in its familiar leather pouch. “That’s a relief,” she said. “We were getting worried.”

  “We just wanted to make sure we got a good idea of how the place was laid out, how they guard it,” Tremaine replied absently, watching Cimarus and Cletia out of the corner of her eye. Giliead was having a staring contest with Cletia.

  Low and angry, Cletia said, “You could have warned us.” Walking through the sight-masking charm had unnerved her, and she wanted to blame someone for it.

  “I won’t warn you unless it’s something to worry about,” Giliead replied with what was probably meant to be annoying calm.

  The younger woman turned away stiffly, leading Cimarus over to the cave wall, as far away from the Rienish as they could get.

  Florian took the situation in with a wince. “Sorry,” she murmured.

  Tremaine shook her head. “Don’t be,” she said in Rienish. “It just encourages her.” She took the squares of rough-cut parchment that Arites had been trying to hand her for the past minute and knelt to flatten them out on the rough stone. “Here’s a diagram of the area around the tower.” She brushed her hair out of her eyes with a grimace. A day away from coffee might have been expected to do her good, but she felt like a benzine addict coming down from a bender.

  Gerard knelt beside her, and Ander sat down to look at the rough diagram, all business. A Rienish officer she didn’t know came to join the group as well. After Tremaine finished interpreting her notes, Giliead and Ilias took turns describing the terrain. Finally, Ander nodded slowly. “It’s what we expected. They haven’t had long to establish a foothold here.”

  “Our priority has always been the airship,” Gerard said quietly. “But the possible presence of a spell circle changes the situation. If we can’t secure the airship, then it can’t be allowed to escape.”

  “We can take the flying whale. It’ll be easy,” Ilias said suddenly. He was speaking Syrnaic, but Tremaine knew “airship” was one of the Rienish words he knew, and he must have understood at least part of what Gerard had said.

  “Easy?” Ander lifted his brows. “To get inside.”

  “Inside,” Ilias repeated in Rienish, mimicking Ander’s upper class Vienne accent exactly.

  Gerard ignored them, looking thoughtful. “You think a small group should go in first to take the airship?” he asked in Syrnaic.

  Giliead was nodding. “As soon as your men hit those curse traps, the Gardier will know we’re coming. But I could lead a few of us past just the way I did today and be in their camp before they knew it.”

  Ander was listening intently, frowning. “We could send Basimi, Dubos and Molin in with them to get aboard the airship, take it out of its mooring so the Gardier don�
�t have any chance to use it against us.”

  “I’ll have to go in as well,” Gerard pointed out. “If there’s a crystal in the control cabin, the sphere may have to destroy it. It would be better to capture it intact, but there should be another crystal on the base powering the spell circle itself—”

  “We can’t risk that,” Ander interrupted. “I want you with the sphere at a distance, taking out the lights and counteracting any spells they throw at us.”

  They had slipped back into speaking Rienish. Tremaine said in Syrnaic, “Giliead could handle the crystal. If there is one aboard.”

  Ander eyed her, then eyed Giliead. “Could you?”

  Giliead’s expression was cryptic. He consulted Ilias with a lifted brow. Ilias tilted his head slightly, an answer Tremaine couldn’t interpret. Giliead looked at Ander. “We’ll find out,” he said evenly.

  Just remember, this was your idea,” Ilias whispered.

  Giliead nudged him impatiently. “Get up there.”

  Ilias ghosted up the slope, staying low to the ground. Everything was quiet except for the sea crashing into the rocks below and the rush of the wind. The wizard lights blazed over the dirt and tufted grass of the compound. In front of the flying whale’s tower, a Gardier still kept solitary watch, his shooting stick slung over one shoulder, pacing back and forth, scuffing his boots in the dirt in boredom. The other guard was still there on the lower level, where the path up from the Wall dwellings ended, though Ilias couldn’t see him from here. He knew the man was pacing on the paved stone flat, the wizard lights striking sparks off the crystal devices at his belt. The one guarding the flying whale had no devices, at least not that they had seen through the Rienish distance glasses.

  Ilias crept closer, clinging to the shadows at the base of the rocks. The flying whale’s silent presence made the back of his neck itch. It hovered over the compound like a thundercloud. As he looked up at it the metal ramp to the tower creaked, as if it swayed a little, pulling against its mooring ropes; he told himself it was just the wind. What are they waiting for?

  There was a crackle and a faint pop, then the wizard lights pointing toward the whale tower and the approach from the city were extinguished, leaving only the cluster of metal huts lit. The glow emanating from the open doors of the flying whale gave only enough illumination to make out shapes and forms on this half of the compound.

  The guard on the far side of the huts trotted into view, calling anxiously to the others. The flying whale guard answered him, sounding annoyed. The door in the largest hut opened and more Gardier came out. They moved around, some standing and talking, some going off to investigate the lights. They sounded irritated or curious, not alarmed. The flying whale guard stayed at his post in the darkness, watching the others across the compound. Ilias scrambled over the lip of the slope and started forward.

  One of the Gardier appeared at the top of a hut and turned the still-working wizard light there, making it sweep the dark half of the promontory. It flashed across the packed earth, a white circle blazing a path over the dirt and tufted grass, then swept out to play over the water. Damn, didn’t plan on that, Ilias thought with a grimace.

  On the level below there was a faint scuffle, a sound that might have been a choked-off cry. It startled the flying whale guard, who turned toward it, pulling his shooting stick off his shoulder. Before he could call out Ilias slammed into him from behind, his forearm wrapping around the man’s throat to silence him. Ilias on top of him, the guard went down, desperately clawing at his arm. Ilias held on grimly, planting a knee in the guard’s back when he started to weaken, keeping his hold taut until the body under him collapsed.

  Ilias turned the Gardier over, prying his eyelids up to make sure he wasn’t faking. Giliead arrived in silence with a rope and a makeshift gag, and they rapidly got the man trussed. As Giliead rolled him into the shadows, Ilias saw the light sweeping toward them and slapped his friend on the back to warn him. Giliead shoved the Gardier into concealment and hastily crouched against the rock, Ilias huddling next to him.

  The light rushed toward them and Ilias buried his face in his arm to save his eyes. There was another crackle and the moving light went out. A Gardier called out, more worried this time. Ilias came to his feet and Giliead scrambled past him to grab the tower’s ladder, starting up.

  Dim shapes that he knew were Basimi, the two other Rienish, and Cimarus burst out of concealment below the slope, racing across the compound. Basimi reached for the tower’s ladder and Ilias grabbed his shoulder to halt him. Basimi stopped immediately, earning Ilias’s approval. He looked up at the top of the tower; after a moment Giliead leaned briefly over the side, signaling that it was safe. Ilias let Basimi go, nodding for the others to follow him.

  Almost there, Ilias thought. He watched them climb, then started after.

  Good,” Tremaine breathed as the searchlight winked out. She and Cletia were watching from the darkness and relative safety of the slope where Ilias had spied on the outpost earlier. Hugging the stone surface to keep from being seen, Tremaine was sweating and her stomach was knotted with anxiety. Gerard was back behind the Gardier’s perimeter wards, at a vantage point in one of the old city towers, with Ander and the rest of the strike force waiting. Giliead had been hard-pressed to keep the few of them from setting off the alarm wards in the dark as they had crept up here; Tremaine was glad Ander had agreed to keep the others back until the airship was secure. Kias, Arites, Florian and another couple of Rienish soldiers were at the platform on the lower level; it had been Kias and Arites’s job to take out the guard there.

  Cletia stirred restlessly beside her. Wanting to be out killing somebody, Tremaine supposed. Then Cletia said, low-voiced, “You must not be a woman of much importance to your people, if they send you out to fight.”

  “I’m planning to let you do the fighting,” Tremaine told her dryly. “Pasima must have lots of minions. I didn’t think she’d miss one.”

  “I am not—” Cletia began in a furious whisper. Then she turned her head sharply. “Wait, I heard something.”

  “What?” It was too dark to read expressions; Tremaine could barely see the outline of the other woman’s head. “Where?”

  More Gardier suddenly boiled out of the larger structure, one shouting an alarm. Tremaine caught the words, and it badly startled her, until she belatedly remembered the sphere’s new language spell. “What? They’re saying someone’s coming, someone tripped the alarms.” She started to stand, but a hard shove to her back knocked her down into the gravel.

  Cursing, Tremaine twisted around to see Cletia standing, ducking under a sword swipe from a tall figure. Where in hell did he come from? she thought, shocked. She shoved to her feet and flung herself forward, tackling the dimly seen shape around the knees.

  He went down with a strangled yell and Tremaine got a face full of stinking leather. Cletia sprang on him, nearly stepping on Tremaine’s head, and Tremaine saw the sword slash down. Cletia stepped back and Tremaine struggled up off the still-twitching body. “It’s a Raider,” Cletia said, aghast. “Why would he attack the Gardier—”

  Tremaine pushed to her feet, sick with dread. “Are they mercenaries?”

  Cletia nodded tightly. “The merchants must have hired them.”

  “Oh, shit,” Tremaine whispered.

  Ilias slipped through the doorway in the belly of the whale. It was reassuringly like the other flying whale they had entered back on the Isle of Storms: this first chamber, starkly lit by a few small white curse lights hanging from the ceiling, was long and low and meant for cargo, though now it was nearly empty. It was all ribbed metal, less startling now that he had seen the Ravenna’s lower decks. The floor was covered with a soft corklike matting, muffling sound. He wrinkled his nose against the bitter acrid odors. There were similar taints in the air aboard the Ravenna, as there had been in the Rienish city he had visited briefly, but there they were softened with the more normal scents of cooking and wood and leather, and
the exotic fragrances so many of the Rienish wore on their bodies.

  Cimarus stood watch at the inner door, his sword drawn. In the harsh light Ilias could see he was white around the eyes and sweating. No way to help that, and Cimarus wouldn’t accept reassurance from him if he offered it. He stepped past him into the whale’s main passage.

  The corridor was low and narrow, lit by more curse lights dangling from the ceiling. It was all crew quarters through here, small gray rooms with cold narrow beds that were practically shelves attached to the walls. No color, no decoration, no belongings except one of the brown coats left lying on a bed. Giliead or one of the others had opened all the doors, to make sure no Gardier remained behind.

  Ilias reached the end of the corridor and the dark chamber lined with metal vats, pipes leading up from their tops into the ribbed ceiling. Molin, the Rienish who was supposed to make the whale’s guts work for them, was there examining the handles on the pipes. Ilias whistled to tell the man he was there so he didn’t get accidentally stabbed in the gut. Molin looked up, nodded and waved him on. Ilias passed hurriedly through the shadowy chamber. The acrid odor was far worse here, and he knew now it was from the liquid in the vats, the stuff that made the flying whale’s insides work just like it did the Ravenna’s boats and the city’s horseless wagons.

  He heard a yell and a sudden scuffle ahead and plunged forward, nearly tripping over a dead Gardier on the threshold. It was a large room with bright curse lights and a few wooden tables and chairs, lined with metal cabinets. Giliead stood near the opening into the forward part of the whale, just pulling his sword out of a Gardier. The man fell to his knees, then collapsed, dropping the crystal device he held. Giliead turned to crunch it under his bootheel just as another Gardier dropped out of a trapdoor overhead.