by Jeff Grubb
* * *
—
Lieutenant Sharaman had the privilege of delivering the report to Chief Artificer Urza. He and another pilot had discovered Mishra’s war machine at the center of a large encampment three hours’ flight to the west. It was the first sighting of one of Mishra’s engines since the troops had begun this wild-goose chase, and Sharaman was delighted to finally see some results from their work.
The Yotian fliers were at their third base camp, each one pressing deeper into the enemy territory of the Great Desert. The Sword Marches were weeks away by foot, and everything at the camp had to be flown in. Sharaman longed for the relative luxuries of the home base: hot meals, attentive women, and most of all, hot water to bathe in. However, mentioning such desires was a quick way to lose one’s wings, and Sharaman would rather fly than have the attentions of the most attractive women in Yotia.
Urza was seated beneath his tarp, hunched over a makeshift table. At the table was a hand-drawn map of the desert. In addition to pursuing his brother, the Chief Artificer was conducting the first true survey of this area. Evenings were filled with reports of hills, ridges, dry washes, and a number of curious rock piles that the Prince Consort referred to as Thran sites.
Sharaman stepped beneath the tarp, clicked his heels, and saluted. “Sire, we have a sighting of the great war machine.”
Urza did not look up from the map. “Report,” he said.
“A large encampment of tents with the war machine at the center.”
“Where?” snapped Urza.
“A quarter-day’s flight from here, fifteen degrees south of due west.”
Urza traced the line Sharaman had defined. “Yes. That would make perfect sense. If we had continued on our present line of attack we might have missed it. My brother did not take into account wide lateral patrols, it seems.”
To the lieutenant he said, “Were you spotted?”
“No signs,” said Sharaman. “They tend to hide from us, now.”
“Indeed,” said Urza, raising one eyebrow. “Best to assume they know we’ve spotted them, and they are likely to be already packing camp. Ready all the ornithopters. Take all the goblin bombs.”
“Sire?” asked Sharaman.
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” The Chief Artificer looked up for the first time. His face was lined and drawn, more so than would be accounted for by the continual desert wind.
“It is late in the day, Sire,” said Sharaman, choosing his words carefully.
“I am aware of the time, Lieutenant,” said Urza. His voice was icy. “But if we wait for the morrow, Mishra will be gone.”
“It will be dusk before we arrive,” protested the ornithopter pilot.
“And it will be midnight if we keep talking about it,” snarled Urza, “Now get to it. I want the entire patrol in the air in fifteen minutes!”
Sharaman stiffened, saluted smartly, and retreated. As the pilot left the tent he was already bellowing orders to the other fliers and support staff. There was an immediate eruption of activity as the various artifice students beetled over the machines, making final preparations. Those pilots who had flown with Urza before had begun checking their machines as soon as they saw Sharaman head for the Prince Consort’s tent.
Sharaman did not like it. An evening attack was dangerous and meant either setting down in enemy territory for the night or risking treacherous night winds and cool spots on the flight back. Still the Chief Artificer was not to be denied, particularly in the matter of his brother.
They were ready in ten minutes: five ornithopters plus Urza’s own craft. All were the double-bend wing design now, of the type in which Urza had flown to Korlinda. Urza’s craft remained the best of the lot and was the best maintained. It had a wingspan half-again as long as the others and carried twice as many of the dangerous goblin bombs. The latter had been flown all the way from the Sword Marches and were kept cool and wrapped in damp cloths.
The flight toward the enemy was uneventful, though Sharaman was aware of the lengthening shadows of the hills and the silhouettes of their craft fleeing ahead of them over the rough ground.
When they crested the last rise, the camp was still there, the tents of white cloth shining red in the light of the dying sun. In the center, glowing like an ingot, brooded the hulk of Mishra’s war machine.
Something struck Sharaman as wrong, but he could not put his finger on it immediately. He had little time to think of it, for Urza waved his wings in the attack signal.
The six ornithopters broke into two groups of three. Sharaman led one, while Urza commanded the other. Urza’s half of the flight activated their wings and beat to gain altitude, while Sharaman’s banked and began a low bombing run over the camp.
Sharaman locked his wings in gliding position and reached around for the goblin bombs. Without looking down, he heaved one after another over the edge of the ornithopter’s canopy. These attacks were intended to frighten and disorient the camp natives. Real accuracy would be needed at the end of the bombing run, when the target would be the great war hulk.
There was no immediate response from the ground, and Sharaman looked ahead. The great metallic wain, some fifty feet in height, was looming ahead. They were dropping faster than Sharaman had anticipated, and Sharaman considered re-engaging the engine and gaining a bit more altitude before reaching the hulk.
Then the war machine opened fire, and his exact elevation was the least of Sharaman’s problems.
The war machine came alive as they neared. Windows slid open and cupolas rotated to reveal ballistae, catapults, and other devices that Sharaman did not recognize. Something rose from the center of the war machine that looked like a great water pump, but instead of water this last device spat fire.
The air was filled with all manner of shot: stones, arrows, and huge ballista bolts. Sharaman slammed open the wing locks and engaged the engine, hoping to rise above the torrent of incoming missiles. He avoided the bulk of them, but one great ballista bolt, an arrow the size of a small tree, drove into his right wing. Worse yet, the bolt had a barbed head and did not pass through the wing entirely. Suddenly the craft was pierced, like a butterfly on a pin, and weighted down. Sharaman was unable to stay aloft.
The lieutenant cursed and hit the emergency disconnect lever to disengage the wing entirely. The lever was jammed by the force of the bolt’s blow and would not budge. Sharaman looked around for something with which to pry it loose, aware that he was already losing altitude quickly.
Then he saw the box of goblin bombs and cursed louder. The bombs would explode on contact, and if they were on board when he hit the ground…
Sharaman ignored the release mechanism, having determined he was going to crash but equally determined to not leave a huge crater in the process. He picked up the entire crate of bombs from its cradle and shoved it over the side of the craft’s housing.
He was horribly low now, for the bombs detonated almost immediately, striking the ground and sending up a wave of billowing black and red force. The force of the blow flipped the ornithopter upside down, and it crashed that way, sliding into one of the sunlit-red tents.
Sharaman guessed he could not have been out for more than a moment; the smell of flames brought him to. Breathing hurt his chest, and there was a numbness along his left leg. Still he knew he had to get out before the flames reached him.
Sharaman pulled himself from the wreckage slowly. His left leg could not take any weight. He pulled a small knife from his vest, ready for any of the Fallaji who might suddenly attack now that his wings were clipped.
But there were no Fallaji. The tent he had slammed into was empty. The only flames were those created by his own goblin bombs.
That was what had bothered Sharaman when he was flying, he now realized. It was evening, but there had been no cooking fires. The camp was abandoned already.
They left the war engine, he thought. He half-stumbled, half-hopped, to a broken pole from the tent and used it as a support.
His initial attack had been a disaster. The only sign of his two fellow pilots were twin plumes of billowing smoke where their racks of goblin bombs had exploded upon crashing. He hoped the pilots had had the presence of mind to jettison before they struck.
Already the second wave, led by Urza’s white ornithopter, was pulling into position.
Sharaman looked at the war machine. Why were there no people coming out to fight him? Were they all at their posts?
Then he realized there was no one in the camp at all, including at the war machine. The weapons were firing automatically, responding to some device the Chief Artificer’s brother had crafted to detect and assault trespassers.
They were fighting ghosts. And they were dying for it.
Sharaman tried to wave off the attacking wing of three craft, but Urza and the other pilots either ignored him or assumed he was one of the Fallaji. As soon as they neared the war machine, the great wain released another volley of bolts. Both Urza and one other pilot pulled their machines up in time to avoid the onslaught, but the third was not so lucky. It flew into a flurry of small arrowshot. The arrows were not enough to damage the craft, but they pierced the housing and killed its operator. The ornithopter pulled into a spiral to the right, a slow, deadly glide that was punctuated at the end with an explosion.
The other two craft were still making for their target, the smaller craft in the lead. Sharaman tried to understand why the Fallaji would leave behind the mighty war machine unguarded, the engine that Mishra had brought to Kroog as a demonstration of his abilities.
Unless it was a trap, he realized. All this was a stylized and ornate trap.
Sharaman shouted, but the lead craft was already dropping its load of goblin powder over the side. The first bomb struck the war machine…
…And the entire device detonated. The lead ornithopter was enveloped in flame, disintegrating in mid-flight. Sharaman flung himself to the ground as bits of flaming metal rained down around him.
When he looked up, Urza’s was the only craft left in the sky. Its white wings were on fire now, and it trailed a banner of smoke. It made a beeline for the oversized rear wheel of the now-ruined war hulk.
The ornithopter struck the wain’s wheel and evaporated in a great explosion as its double cargo of goblin bombs exploded. The great wain rocked, then slowly tumbled over on its side, its burning wreckage slamming into the desert sands.
Among the smoking wreckage, framed by the fires of the great wain, a figure moved. Sharaman hobbled toward it, unsure if he should greet or battle the figure.
It was Urza. His flying cloak was singed and burning in several spots, and there were numerous cuts along the right side of his face. He clutched something to his chest, something that glowed as brightly as an ember. Urza coughed into the burning sleeve of his other arm and then started to beat the sleeve against his leg, extinguishing the smoldering blaze.
“Trap,” he said as Sharaman reached him.
“Yes, Sire,” said Sharaman.
“Should have”— another long, smoke-filled cough—“should have seen it coming.” He shook his head. “Any others?”
Sharaman looked at the smoking plumes around the camp. “I don’t think so.”
“We should go, then,” said Urza. “Long walk back to camp. Longer walk back to Yotia.”
“Sire?”
“What?”
“I’m afraid my leg’s broken,” said Sharaman. Despite everything he felt embarrassed to mention it.
Urza’s face twitched, as if Sharaman had mentioned some small, niggling problem. Then his eyes cleared, and the Chief Artificer said, “Of course. So it is. You rest here. I’ll get some splints made. We’ll check the other craft to see if there are any supplies or perhaps a temple amulet among the wreckage. Then we’ll walk back.”
“As you wish, Sire.”
Urza turned and regarded the smoking hulk of the war machine. He shook his head, and Sharaman heard him say, “Brother, why did you do this? Why the elaborate and costly ruse?”
Sharaman wondered that as well. When they finally reached the Yotian border weeks later, they would both know the answer.
* * *
—
The attack came at dawn and was totally unexpected. Word had come that Urza’s flight had failed to report in, and, reluctantly, Tawnos had dispatched the home flight to the north to aid in the search. That left only a single large training machine in the capital itself. Later Tawnos would wonder if dispatching the last organized flight had been the signal for the attack, if Urza’s disappearance in the desert had enheartened the qadir’s troops for the assault, or if it had been Mishra’s plan to attack regardless of what happened to Urza.
Kroog was bounded on three sides by stout walls and on the fourth by the Mardun itself, and it was across that great river that the desertdwelling Fallaji came. Urza (and Tawnos, and most of the rest of Kroog) had felt that any assault of the trans-Mardun territories would be sufficient warning for the capital. To ensure their own safety, the Yotians had established a set of beacon towers along the far bank to give warning.
It had not been enough. By strength or by trickery, the Fallaji had overpowered the beacon tower guards in the dead of night, and by morning they were ready with their assault.
The morning was a foggy and wet one, the mists pooling over the Mardun itself. The river fishers, among the first ones up in the city, had the first and only warning. Beneath the lightening sky, as they were loading their nets into their boats and making ready to get under way, one of the crew shouted and pointed toward the center of the river.
There were other craft already on the river drifting toward the city docks. There were barges, rowboats, and hastily built rafts and ferries stolen from upriver.
They were loaded with men: armed men with flowing robes beneath their armor, curved blades, and wide brass hats.
The river fishers were alone in their discovery only for a moment, for the next instant the warning beacons across the river came to life, billowing great jets of flame into the sky, heralding the dawn. But the beacons were not set as warnings but rather as declarations of war.
Some of the fishers fled their boats, but other remained long enough to see the great serpentine heads of the dragon engines burst from the gray waters of the Mardun and tower over Kroog’s docks. Grasping the shore with their front claws and churning the soft mud of the riverbank beneath the treads, the dragon engines waded into the city. There was the sound of a great machine inhaling, and the leading beast exhaled a torrent of liquefied flame. Behind it, the first wave of Fallaji landed, bellowing war cries as they clambered onto the docks.
The city of Kroog was under assault.
* * *
—
Tawnos had been sleeping at the orniary, as he did often in these later days, when the runner came. The messenger was no more than a young girl and was frightened beyond belief. Tawnos sent her to round up what students she could find from the barracks and to tell them to ready every available avenger and the remaining ornithopter. And if he did not return before the palace was assaulted, the students were to use these devices in their own defense.
Tawnos dressed as he ran toward the royal quarters. The seneschal and the Captain of the Guard were already there, arguing with the queen.
“I am staying,” she said. Already she was beginning to show her pregnancy.
“Your Majesty, for your own safety…” begged the captain.
“As a temporary relocation…” added the seneschal at the same moment.
“I am staying,” said Kayla firmly. “This is my home.” She looked at Tawnos. “I want to stay.”
“That may not be wise,” said Tawnos. “Best prepare for flight now and feel foolish about it later.” To the captain he asked, “What is the situation?”
“There was no warning,” said the captain. “Rafts of Fallaji devils are coming downstream. More are pouring into the river wards all the time. The naval station and the fish
ermen’s docks were hit first. And there are dragon engines; three at least, maybe four. They seem to be leading the assault, spreading destruction ahead of them. We’ve regrouped all the troops in the capital, but the people are blocking the streets.”
“Open the gates,” ordered Kayla. “Let the people escape the city.”
“But the enemy—” objected the captain.
“Is already within our walls,” snapped Kayla. “Do we need to sacrifice the people as well?”
The captain nodded. Tawnos asked, “How long before they reach here?”
The seneschal stuttered and spat, “Th-there is no indication that they are—”
“These are Mishra’s engines,” snapped Tawnos, a new steel in his voice. “Where else would they be heading?”
The captain thought for a moment, then said, “An hour. Two if we’re fortunate. Is there anything you have on hand to help?”
“I’m working on it now,” said Tawnos. To Kayla he said, “Pack what you can carry. If it comes to this, we will need to flee.” Kayla started to complain, and Tawnos added, “Take my advice this time, please. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Have the matron help you.” He looked around, suddenly noticing that the matron’s impressive bulk was missing. “Where is she?”
There was a silence for a moment, then the seneschal stammered, “Sh-she has a sister in the River Wards. Said she was worried about her.”
Tawnos’s lips made a thin, grim line. “Pack,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
The students were already at the orniary when the chief apprentice returned. Five avengers were in working order, though each required an operator to stand close and give commands. Tawnos assigned five of the oldest boys to take them and report to the captain. He scribbled a hasty note to the captain that the boys should be kept together and used to fight the dragon engines. He added that if the avengers fell, the boys were to flee the city as quickly as they could.
There was only a single ornithopter ready, but it was a huge craft capable of carrying a fully armored avenger easily. Tawnos ordered the remaining boys to pack this craft full of Urza’s notes and prototypes.
