Most of the books here are at least fifty years old. I don’t think reading is a big pastime among the prisoners. Or the soldiers.
“We were shepherds,” Sardelle went on—the colonel was writing down her lies, so she might as well go on with her story, “—a very boring lifestyle for a young person. That’s why I left—to find a little excitement. That and the arranged marriage. I wasn’t ready to settle down. I went off to the coast and got a job on a merchant ship.” She actually could answer questions about sea life, if he asked. She had traveled with the fleet often to defend the country from enemy warships. “After a year, we were caught by pirates. I was given the option of walking the plank or joining the crew. I’m not very brave. I joined. They treated me decently, I suppose. The first year was tough, but eventually I became one of them.”
Zirkander had stopped writing. He had one boot up on the couch, his elbow on his knee, and his chin resting on his fist. Waiting for her to finish this fabricated story and see if she gave away anything useful in the telling? Yes. She didn’t need her empathetic senses to tell that.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“I have another five years I can go over. But, ah, you don’t seem to be recording the details.”
“No. I was busy debating whether I should ask you to tie a clove hitch or if that would simply be embarrassing.”
Sardelle could tie a clove hitch. Bastard.
I sense something.
My idiocy?
No. Outside. In the sky.
Sardelle looked toward the window, the sky visible beyond the freshly cleaned panes. From their vantage point, all she could see were clouds rolling in off Goat Peak. But a shout arose in the courtyard. No, not the courtyard—it was coming from one of the watchtowers on the ramparts.
Zirkander jumped to his feet, tossing the folder on the desk, and strode to the window. Footsteps thundered in the hallway.
“Gen— Colonel Zirkander!” someone shouted two seconds before the door burst open. Two privates Sardelle hadn’t seen before charged into the room. “Sir, there’s an airship in the northern sky. It’s not one of ours!”
“All right. Report to Sergeant Homish and get whatever security measures are around for the fortress in place. I’ll come up to take a look.”
Sardelle had been reaching out with her senses, trying to get a feel for the airship, so she wasn’t shielding herself from the emotions in the room, the excitement and anticipation from the privates and the disgust from Zirkander, who felt he should have been reading the operations manual rather than dithering around with a prisoner. And then he was gone, jogging through the doorway and down the hall, and his emotions faded from her consciousness. Once again, she felt chagrinned that she had disappointed him. Why she cared, she didn’t know, but she had the urge to show him that she wasn’t some useless prisoner, that spending time with her hadn’t been a waste.
How are you going to do that? Jaxi’s question held wariness.
Maybe everyone on the enemy ship will develop rashes, causing them to crash it into the side of the mountain.
I don’t think your range is that good, Jaxi thought dryly.
We’ll see.
Since the colonel hadn’t left a guard or ordered her to remain in the office, Sardelle jogged down the hallway after him. In the courtyard, people were standing and gazing toward the sky, toward an airship that was little more than a speck lurking in the clouds near Goat Peak. Whoever had spotted it must have had a spyglass to identify whatever markings it had, to be certain it didn’t belong to this army.
Up on the ramparts, soldiers were jogging into towers and to cannons. Cannons! They weren’t thinking of firing those, were they? The calendar might not say winter yet, but piles of snow blanketed the steep mountain walls in all directions.
Sardelle spotted Zirkander and ran across the courtyard to the steps leading up to the wall. At first, no one stopped her—or even noticed her, their eyes toward the distant airship—but a soldier on the walkway grabbed her arm before she could race past him. The halt to her momentum spun her around, startling her, and she almost launched a mental attack. She caught herself a split second before she would have hurled him away from her.
“Where do you think you’re going, woman?” the soldier demanded.
“I’m in the middle of a meeting with the colonel.” Sardelle tugged at her arm, but the man had a grip like a vise.
“A meeting. Sure you are.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Zirkander was standing on the northern wall next to a cannon, pointing and talking to a young soldier who stood on the other side. There wasn’t time to convince this buffoon to let her go. With a subtle tug from her mind, she unfastened his belt. The weight of the dagger and other pouches on it pulled it down with impressive speed, along with his trousers. It was enough to startle him into loosening his grip. Sardelle wrenched her arm free and sprinted toward the colonel.
“Stop that woman,” the soldier called after her, amidst an impressive stream of curses.
At the corner, someone turned and grabbed for her. On the narrow walkway, she couldn’t dodge far enough to the side, and he would have caught her, except she loosened the mortar in the stone beneath his feet. It wobbled, drawing his eye for a split second. She ducked his grasp and ran around the corner, coming to an abrupt halt before the colonel.
“The cannons,” she panted, out of breath from the sprint. “You can’t fire them, not this time of year.” She pointed at a cornice on the nearest mountain. “Could start an avalanche.”
Zirkander looked at her for several breaths before responding—why did she get the feeling he was trying to scrutinize her?
Probably wondering if you’re a spy.
After my horrible lying? A real spy would be much smoother.
“In my experience,” the colonel said, “an explosion has to be set off on or in close proximity to the snowpack to cause an avalanche, but if we need to fire, we will be careful.” Something squeaked behind him on the walkway, and he pointed over his shoulder without looking. A pair of soldiers was wheeling out something that reminded Sardelle of the harpoon launchers on whaling ships.
As the soldier she had unbuckled charged up behind her—his trousers securely fastened again—she felt sheepish. Of course a professional soldier would have experience blowing things up—explosives seemed to be far more common in this century than in hers.
A big hand clamped onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry, sir. I had… an equipment malfunction and didn’t catch her before she wiggled by.”
The soldier started to drag Sardelle backward, but Zirkander lifted a hand. “It’s fine, Sergeant. She can stay. She was informing me about the conditions in the mines.”
The soldier’s face scrunched up. “Like a spy?”
“Something like that.”
Sardelle read the double meaning in the colonel’s slitted eyes. She did her best to look calm and serene… and definitely not guilty. But he had to be wondering who she was after that botched background sharing. The way he kept gazing at her—appraising her—made her want to squirm. Fortunately, the soldier next to him spoke, and Zirkander looked away.
“In your experience, sir?” The young man couldn’t have been more than twenty, and he wore a hopeful expression as he prompted the colonel. Though the men were preparing to defend the fortress, nobody appeared that worried by the airship’s appearance. Maybe this happened frequently.
“I might have started a few avalanches,” Zirkander said.
“In your flier? With explosives?”
“Bring me a beer later, and I’ll tell you some stories.”
“Deal, sir!” The young soldier hustled over to help the men with the harpoon launcher.
“Perk of having your name in the papers next to all sorts of war-related exploits,” Zirkander said. “You never have to buy your own alcohol.”
Sardelle was the only one close enough to hear him, so the comment must have been for her, but the casualness
surprised her. One minute he seemed to have her pegged for some kind of spy, and the next he was chatting with her?
Maybe he wants to keep you confused.
I get the feeling he confuses a lot of people.
“I much prefer being the one attacking to the one defending though.” Zirkander lifted a spyglass. “He’s just hovering out there. Scouting mission?”
He seemed to be talking to himself, but Sardelle decided to respond. “Do they come around often?”
The more he talked to her, the more trouble he should have ordering her execution later.
I wouldn’t bet on it. Judging by the so-called witch drownings I witnessed, when it comes to magic, these people will kill their own kin without a second thought.
Sardelle focused on Zirkander’s response instead of Jaxi’s commentary.
“They shouldn’t,” he said. “This place is supposed to be a top military secret.” Zirkander lowered the spyglass and gave her an appraising look again, though his gaze soon shifted over her shoulder. “Captain,” he called to the man jogging up behind her. It was the aide who had been introducing him to the fort earlier. And wasn’t he the one who had been tasked with organizing the archives?
If they were on his mind, Sardelle might be able to poke into his thoughts and find out where the room was located and where the empty forms were kept so she could fill one out for herself. She grimaced at the idea of, for the second time today, slipping into someone’s mind. There was the risk he would feel it too. She decided to simply open herself up for the moment. Maybe they would discuss the archives and the thoughts would float to the tops of their minds where they might be easily accessed.
“Yes, sir?” the captain asked.
“This happen before?” Zirkander pointed at the airship.
“No, sir. As long as I’ve been here, no enemy ships have appeared in our airspace. Audacious of them—they’re hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. I wonder where they slipped in past our patrols.”
“I wonder that too.” Zirkander’s jaw tightened.
He wanted to be out there. By now Sardelle had gathered that he was a pilot, and she could have guessed at his thoughts without trying to sense them. She did, however, catch a strong vision from him, an image of a dragon-shaped flying machine, not unlike the one that had dropped him off. But this one was his, and it wasn’t alone as it cruised through the air. He led a squadron of other fliers along the shores of Northern Iskandoth—Sardelle had been along those fjords and gray sandy beaches enough times to recognize them, though she had never seen them from above. Zirkander remembered attacking an airship like this one off the coast, blowing up its engine, and bringing it down.
It should have reassured her that she and the colonel were essentially on the same side, having both fought to defend the continent of Iskandia—even if the people called it something different now—but it sank in for the first time that he must also be the descendant of those who had blown up her mountain… annihilated her people.
Zirkander frowned over at her. He couldn’t have guessed her thoughts, but maybe he had sensed her skimming the surface of his mind?
She pointed at the airship. “Are your weapons able to reach them from here?”
“No chance,” the captain said. “Neither the cannons nor the rocket launchers has that kind of range.”
Rocket launchers? Sardelle had never heard of such a thing, but, now that she looked, could see that something more sophisticated than a harpoon lay nestled in the artillery weapon’s cradle. She caught Zirkander and the captain looking at her and then at each other.
“Ms. Sordenta,” Zirkander said, “I think it’s time for you to return to whatever work you’ve been assigned to do here. We’ll take care of the intruders.”
“I understand,” Sardelle said. It would be suspicious if she tried to find an excuse to stay up there.
She walked slowly back to the courtyard though and with hearing that might have been slightly augmented with magic, she caught a few more sentences on her way back to the stairs.
“Find her record, Captain. And find some of the people who arrived on the supply ship yesterday. If nobody remembers her… ”
“Think she’s a spy, sir?”
“We’ll see.”
I may have to escape and come back for you, Jaxi. Sardelle paused at the bottom of the stairs, not sure where to go. She hadn’t been assigned to any work yet, so how was she supposed to go do it?
I understand. And Jaxi did, but she couldn’t hide the sadness at the thought of being left behind, and it tore into Sardelle’s heart.
There was more at stake too. If the enemy—were these still the Cofah who had troubled the continent in her day?—destroyed this fortress or collapsed the mountains around it, would she ever be able to return? If the mines were shut down, who could possibly help her reach Jaxi? For that matter, who would help her find the belongings—relics—of her people? If she was truly the last of her kind, wasn’t it her responsibility to save and preserve some sign of her heritage?
Sardelle dropped her forehead into her hand. So much lost, and she was worried about being thought a spy? What did it even matter?
The captain jogged down the stairs, thoughts of the archive building floating at the top of his mind. Without looking up, Sardelle plucked the location from his mind as well as the layout. He frowned at her when he reached the bottom of the stairs, but all he did was point toward the laundry building.
“One-forty-three will assign you tasks. She’s in charge of the women’s area.”
“I understand,” Sardelle said.
Sewing or doing laundry, that would be the perfect time to let her mind wander. She refused to tinker with the memories of those who had arrived yesterday, assuming she could even locate them before the captain questioned them. Creating a record for herself would have to be enough. She gazed up to the rampart where Zirkander had the spyglass out again. With luck, this unprecedented enemy appearance would keep him busy, and he would forget about her.
* * *
Ridge walked through the mines, following a stocky infantry lieutenant for a guide, while two of his hulking soldiers trailed behind, each wearing enough armament to assault a fortress on his own. Ridge felt like a pansy for having bodyguards, but Captain Heriton had nearly pitched over sideways when his new commanding officer had suggested he would take a stroll on his own. After receiving a belated report about an attack on one of the lower levels that morning, Ridge had allowed the escort. Besides, his mind was more on the Cofah airship than this inspection. The craft had left without coming closer or doing anything else, but Ridge had a feeling it would be back. He knew a preliminary scouting mission when he saw it. He didn’t know how long they had been searching for the crystal mines, but now that they had found them, there would be trouble. It was no secret what powered the dragon fliers—and that there wasn’t an equivalent energy source out there. Maybe someday there would be, but not yet. And without the fliers, his people would have a hard time defending the continent against a superior naval force.
Ridge had written a report, but there was nowhere to send it, not until the next supply ship came in two weeks. Someone had mentioned a pass over the mountains but that it was only accessible during the summer months. How helpful.
“What’re they staring at?” the lieutenant muttered, looking back and forth uneasily.
Ridge’s group was walking down a wide corridor, and a squad of miners was approaching from the opposite end, on their way off shift, their dirty clothes and weary faces implied. An armed soldier following the workers watched his flock carefully, not saluting—he held his rifle in both hands—but giving Ridge a respectful nod. The miners were staring at Ridge’s little troop.
“It’s either me or you, Lieutenant,” he responded. “You tell me, am I the pretty one or are you?”
The lieutenant cast a glum look over his shoulder. His nose had been broken a time or two in his career—or perhaps before it. “Definitely you,
sir.”
The miners slowed down, and a few muttered to each other. They wouldn’t think to attack him with so many armed men present, would they? All they had for weapons were pickaxes and shovels. Yes, those heavy picks could do damage, but only in close quarters. Of course, in the tunnel, Ridge’s group would have to pass within close quarters.
“This is why the general never came down here,” the lieutenant muttered, resting a hand on the butt of his pistol. He must have read danger in the troop as well.
The first miner, a scruffy bedraggled man wearing a bloodstained shirt and a bandana around his throat, stepped toward the center of the passage. He removed a sweat-stained cap, pressed it to his chest with one hand, and raised the other—it was devoid of picks or other weapons.
“Colonel Zirkander, sir?” he asked.
“Yes?” Ridge had only been in the fort for a few hours; he hadn’t realized the news of his arrival had preceded him down here.
“I, uh, we want you to know… ” He waved at his grimy comrades. “We’ve heard about your fighting out there in the skies. Sometimes someone who can read catches hold of a newspaper, and there’s a former pilot down here that tells some stories about your early flights—he claims to have met you, but I’m not sure that’s the truth. Still, real entertaining stories. We appreciate them. And that you’re out there, fighting for our country.” The miner eyed the infantrymen, who had their fingers on the triggers of their rifles. “We just thought you should know.”
It was a moment before Ridge could come up with an answer. He’d had the king’s subjects thank him for his service before, and received his share of hero worship from young pilots, but he hadn’t expected felons to care about their country or those defending it.
Ridge stepped away from the lieutenant, met the man in the middle of the tunnel, and stuck out his hand. “Thank you… ”
“One-fourteen,” the miner supplied, gripping his hand.
Ridge raised his eyebrows. “And the name your mama gave you?”
The miner blinked a few times. “Kal.”
Beginnings: Five Heroic Fantasy Adventure Novels Page 88
