Calling the Change (Sky Raiders Book 2)

by Michelle Diener

  They'd wondered if the sky raiders were waiting to see if they recovered first, before they took them all the way to Shadow.

  Mu was staring at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, people were taken by the sky raiders for months before my village was taken. But everyone else there was abducted around the same time as we were. No one had been in the camp before us. We set it up ourselves with what the sky raiders gave us. So where were the others?”

  His mouth opened. Closed. “What are you saying?”

  “I'm saying when we were up there, we wondered what had happened to those people who were taken before us, and one of the answers we came up with was that in the beginning, they didn't know how strong to make the white lightning. That it might have taken a little time to work out how to knock us out but not kill us.”

  “They didn't need to be provided with victims to test it, though.” Mu crouched down beside her, face to face. “They could test it by hovering over any village they wanted.”

  She thought about it. “Maybe they started out doing it that way, hovering over villages. But were there any children in the group Xinta put together, any old people? Because the sky raiders aren't interested in anyone in those groups, just adults in their prime. If they were trying to set the right strength for a very specific group, in a safe environment where they could check on their victims without worry of attack, then providing them with a cart full of people the right age would have been perfect for them.”

  She'd been speaking matter-of-factly, but suddenly her legs collapsed under her and she sat down hard on the cold stone floor, because she realized that Luca, that the children and the elderly in Pan Nuk, hadn't been expected to survive. The white lightning had been set to incapacitate those in her age group, but administered to the whole village. The sky raiders hadn't cared one way or the other if anyone they left behind lived or died.

  It was luck, pure luck, that the strength level they'd chosen hadn't killed anyone. Either that, or Pan Nukkers were extremely tough.

  “They were all Rinwal's age. From twenty to about forty.” Mu stood again, and began to pace.

  “Xinta cheated the sky raiders, because I'm sure if the men she supplied were all firebrand addicts, they would not have been as physically able to deal with the white lightning as a healthy person.” That might have been what saved the children and the elderly. They'd lowered the strength of their weapon because they'd practiced on firebrand addicts without knowing it. Not that helping had been Habred or Xinta's intention. Those street sleepers had simply been easy targets because few would notice their disappearance.

  “What did the trader do with the bodies?”

  Mu sucked in a breath. “I got up slowly after the sky raiders flew away. I didn't worry about showing the trader I was there, I simply walked out onto the path and passed him on my way to the cart. He started after me, and his face . . . It was sullen, and it was fearful. He saw my guard uniform and thought I was checking on him, making sure he'd done his part. We walked to the cart, and they were all lying still, eyes open, faces twisted in agony. He walked past, heading toward his zanir, who'd stopped a little way away, and was eating grass. Then he turned and he said I could tell Habred that was the last time he was doing this. He couldn't take it any more. It was all right when it was vicious criminals, but now they were sending him drunks and street sleepers, it was too much. He was done with it all.” He paused.

  “He said something about a wreck, too, about how finding it was the worst thing to happen to him.”

  “He mentioned a wreck?” Taya glanced at Fek and Gaffri's packs, lying against the wall, and wondered how much of their strange treatment by Habred was due to their enthusiastic mention of a sky craft wreck, and producing evidence of their find.

  “You know of it?” Mu stopped pacing and looked down on her.

  She straightened, still shorter than him, but he wasn't looming over her any more. “I've seen it. Coming through the mountains. I wonder . . . what you've told me, what it seems like, is that the sky raiders have some kind of agreement with Habred--he provided them with people to experiment on, but what did he get out of it? And how did they make contact with him in the first place? Through the trader? Maybe he encountered sky raiders at the wreck, and they asked to speak to the liege.”

  Mu shrugged. “Maybe. I think I know what Habred gained, though. Luf has never been directly attacked by the sky raiders since the first few months after their arrival. And when I saw Rinwal and the others killed, I started asking around. Only traders leaving the city are targeted, no one coming in has been attacked, and even then, those who are attacked are few and far between, almost as if it's a cover so no one starts wondering why we're exempt.”

  Mu turned suddenly, settling into a battle-ready stance as the door opened, but it was only Gern, a large bag in one hand.

  “Food and water for the road,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Taya put it into the top of her bag, buckled the straps and lifted it onto her back. “Tell me, who else have you told about this?”

  They exchanged looks.

  “No one.”

  “Why not your cousin Bargat? He's suffered the full force of sky raider invasion.”

  Gern sighed. “Because he was so relieved to be free. So happy the liege was giving them a new herd of leviks. I tried a few times to tell him, but I couldn't do it. I was afraid he wouldn't believe me and would mention it where the wrong person could overhear.”

  She could understand that. She knew how hard it had been for West Lathor to accept their liege was no longer the man he'd been, and that had happened over a few years.

  “Where will you go?” Gern asked.

  “Back to West Lathor. I don't have any other option. I'm sure there's a West Lathorian embassy here, but I don't know if I can trust the ambassador, given the deal between Habred and the Garamundo town master, so I'll have to get to Juli with this information myself.”

  Gern gave a nod. “Good luck.”

  She leaned forward and gripped his forearm. “Thank you.”

  “We need to move. Now.” Mu was staring down the passage, toward the stairs, and Taya sucked in a breath as she heard the sound of voices.

  Gern opened the door behind him, and they hustled through it.

  Beyond was a small office space, which she assumed was Gern's, and then another passageway.

  They went through the office, closing the door behind them, and Gern went one way while Mu led her in the opposite direction.

  The door he opened led down a staircase, steep and unlit, and he didn't light a torch or lantern, so she was forced to go as fast as she could in the dark.

  When they reached the bottom, she got the impression of a large space that smelled of ale and wine, and the tart fruitiness of cider.

  “Here.” Mu's voice came from the right and she turned and bumped into him. She heard a lock turn, and then felt the flow of cool, musty air.

  Mu pulled her in, closed the door and locked it, and started walking.

  “They'll wonder where the key is,” she said.

  “No. I had a key made. They never leave one in the door. They'll have their own.”

  The tunnel he was leading her down was wide enough to move easily, and high enough she could walk upright.

  She had to jog to keep up.

  The guards would be looking for her. And while they would hopefully not expect her to have come this way, most likely one or two of them would check.

  She'd like to be long gone before that happened.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  A light shone in Deva's garden.

  The relief that flooded him was so intense, Garek's fingers trembled as he ran them down the arm rest that was also the control panel of the craft, and landed lightly on the grass.

  For two nights it had been dark, and he had begun to worry Janu had lied, or that, worse, he hadn't, and somehow they were all dead, lying in the mountains under a pile of rock.

  He h
ad the door open, and was swinging down, before the engines had finished powering down.

  Falk was right behind him, but his gaze was focused up, looking for sky craft, leaving Garek free to walk forward toward Deva, who stepped out of the shadows.

  “You have news?”

  “Two pieces. Earlier today, a guard from the gate asked one of my staff if Garek's friends had been in touch, because they'd come through as expected the other night, and he'd passed on your message to them.”

  “That must have been a nasty surprise.” Garek had known that was a potential consequence of his enquiries. That Fek and Gaffri would be forewarned, but he couldn't think of a more efficient way to learn when they arrived.

  “They played along, it sounds like. And your mentioning them in advance appears to have gotten them through the gates. The guards were suspicious of the cart full of huncree they were driving.”

  That, he couldn't have predicted. “Taya was in that cart.”

  Deva nodded. “I think so. But there's more. They got here two days ago. Today, one of my spies heard there was a big fuss at the guard house yesterday. Someone escaped from the jail in the barracks. There's no description of the prisoner, no official confirmation the escape even occurred. The gossips think they're keeping quiet because they're embarrassed someone escaped. But it could be they had someone they shouldn't have had.”

  “Taya,” Garek agreed.

  “Could she do something like that? Escape?”

  He nodded, distracted. Thinking through his options. If she was on the streets of Luf, she'd been there for over a day. Her places to hide would be few, and she had no allies.

  Habred, and anyone he sent after her, would have the advantage.

  “I'll start at the barracks. Try to speak to whoever is in charge of the jail. If it wasn't Taya who escaped, we need to know that before anything else.”

  “Have you slept?” Deva asked, peering at his face in the darkness.

  “Falk and I took turns at flying. I'm rested enough. But we could both use some food and drink. We ran out a day ago.”

  “Follow Arne.” Deva turned slightly, and Garek saw her aide standing a little way back. “She'll take you to the kitchens.”

  When Garek returned, he felt much better. He'd eaten and drank while Deva's cook put together a big basket of food to go in the sky craft, and then made up a tray for Falk.

  Falk took it with hands that shook, and sat down on the grass, mug already half-drained.

  “So, you've taught Falk to fly the craft?” Deva was no fool, she would wonder why he'd give up such a huge advantage.

  Garek shrugged. “I need to be alive to find Taya, and I have to sleep sometime. We had to evade the sky raiders three times in the last two days.”

  Falk swallowed a huge bite of meat pie. “He taught me, but there's something we're missing. Something we're not doing right. When the craft is in the air and going straight and fast, it's relatively simple to fly, actually. But the moment you need to maneuver, slow down to land, or lift off, the controls are lacking. There is something we haven't worked out yet.”

  “But . . .” Deva frowned. “I've seen Garek do it.”

  Falk barked out a laugh. “Yes. Because Garek lifts the sky craft up, and lowers it down, and jinks and twists it in the air by calling his Change.” He looked at the sky craft and shook his head. “I tried to land and take off three times. I nearly killed us each time.”

  Garek shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't realized how much he was drawing from his Change to fly the craft until Falk had shown him how poorly the craft handled when Garek wasn't flying it.

  That was notable in itself.

  He should have felt it. Lifting a craft of this size should have strained him.

  In the last few months he'd sensed he was getting stronger, but he hadn't had time to stretch his boundaries, work out how much stronger.

  And he didn't have time now, either.

  “Can you spare someone to come with me into the city?” Garek asked Deva. “I'd like someone who knows Luf well, can help me decide where to ask my questions.”

  Deva nodded, and Arne stepped forward again.

  Garek really looked at her for the first time. Her hair was short and straight, her skin a few shades lighter than Deva's. He'd had the sense before that she was a former guard, and now he could see it for sure.

  “What Change do you call?”

  “Earth,” she said.

  He nodded. “Lead the way.”

  TAYA APPROACHED the raucous campsite cautiously. It seemed to be spread among the ruins of the old fort, as if there were too many people for one clearing, and she was torn between approaching the group or potentially exposing herself to harm.

  At least she knew she was on the right path.

  When she and Mu had emerged from the tunnels, they were in a thick forest. When she'd questioned him about where it lay in relation to the city, she thought it might be the long, wide swathe of dark green she'd seen from the air when they'd first flown to Luf.

  Luci, the town master of Cassinya, had pointed out the route from her village to Luf, and she and Zek, the trader who'd been abducted near Luci's village, had exclaimed over a shortcut that neither had known about. The rare bird's eye view had excited them both, as well as the old fortified castle they'd caught a glimpse of.

  There could be no doubt that the crumbling building before her was the same one she'd seen from the sky craft, but someone most definitely did know about it.

  Ahead, flames from campfires danced and flickered between what remained of the walls, and then she heard a sound she hadn't heard for too long. The bleat of a levik.

  Shepherds. Probably.

  She moved closer, taking a route that brought her close enough to listen to what was being said before she stepped out and revealed herself.

  A laugh rang out, a joyful sound she knew well.

  She walked forward, almost tripping in her haste to leave the security of the trees, and stepped through an archway into the ring of light thrown out by the fire.

  “Gera?”

  The conversation around the fire cut off, and a dozen faces looked up. With a shriek of delight, Gera detached herself from the crowd and threw herself at Taya.

  “What? How in the Star?” She crushed Taya to her, and then turned to look through a gap in the stone wall to another fire. “Luci!”

  A few people came running, all familiar, and Taya realized there were tears on her cheeks.

  “Taya?” Luci pushed the others aside.

  Taya looked around more carefully, saw she truly was among people she would consider a second family. “I can't believe you're here, I thought you'd be home by now.”

  The bleat of a levik came again, and she turned to look in its direction. There were hundreds of leviks, she realized, corralled in what was most likely the original central courtyard. Some were watching the excitement, most were grazing placidly on the thin grass growing up between the flagstones.

  “You were getting together a new herd.” That explained why they were still so close to Luf.

  “The liege provided them from his own stocks,” Luci said. “But it took us time to finish up in Luf, negotiate how many leviks we'd get, and then we had to collect them from the liege's estate, a few days from the city, and herd them home.”

  “Well, I'm very glad of the delay.” She gave a weak smile, suddenly not sure if she should tell anyone here the truth of her story. They owed Habred for his donation of the leviks, and he was their liege.

  What she had to say would shake their faith in everything they thought they could trust.

  “What is it?” Gera was watching her.

  She bit her lip, shook her head. “I don't know if you want to hear it.”

  “Well.” Luci put out a hand, and Taya grasped it. “While you decide whether you'll share your story with us or not, come sit and eat.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Garek stood next to Arne in the shadows, watching the g
uards rotate through their watch duty outside the barracks.

  They were bored and sloppy, but Garek assumed the duty itself was more for the look of things than from a serious belief that anyone would try to break in to the guard barracks.

  “It's after dinner, so most of them not on duty will be at the tavern,” Arne said, and just then, a side door opened and three guards strolled out, one complaining about the food and his shift roster.

  They stopped the guard who was patrolling this side of the building, talking with him and laughing, and just like that, the way was completely clear.

  Arne moved immediately, and Garek appreciated the way she seemed to float across the ground, with barely a scuff of her soles on the stone pavings.

  The door wasn't locked, and even Arne seemed shocked at that, but shouldered her way in without a pause. He stepped in after her, found they were in a small hallway, connected to a long passage running from right to left.

  From the left, someone shouted out in laughter, someone else banged a door shut.

  He stepped around Arne, and turned right, away from the noise of what was probably the dormitories, passing heavily locked doors he guessed were the armory and the uniform store.

  Arne drifted behind him, and he was happy to have her at his back.

  A clatter of pots and the smell of overcooked meat came from a side corridor and a little further down, the way seemed to open up into a foyer.

  Large double doors marked the front entrance to the building and on the other side of the big space the corridor continued. He crossed to it over a smooth stone floor dappled with the light of the outside lanterns.

  A short way down the passage an open door led to a small office in darkness, but before he could turn back for a light, he heard Arne strike a match and then light a lantern hanging on the wall.

  There was paperwork on the desk in the office, but it was schedules and rosters, nothing of interest.

  To the left of the desk was a door, and Garek carefully tried the handle. It opened easily, the area behind it also in total darkness.