My eyes widened. Had someone tried to sabotage the... My blood ran cold as he asked, “I believe these belong to you? They will not speak with us and insisted on speaking with you.” He stepped aside a bit as the others joined him. A female knight dragging Misty and Ingr by their arms in front of us and another knight who was shoving Jace up to us, a sheepish look on his face as he refused to look at us, and a red mark on his cheek, telling me he had been disciplined.
I blurted out, “Mother Luna!”
I was grabbing the girls and pulling them to me, looking incredulously at Jace who said, “Umm... Sorry?”
Before anyone else could say anything as Sylvia retrieved her own troublemaker from me, I blurted out to them, “What are you doing here? This is dangerous! You know better than this!” Then as I stood, pulling Misty into a hug, I growled at my little brother, “YOU know better!”
He tried to explain. “The stinkers slipped off the wagon after we left Templar Hall. I chased them over a bunch of vines on the outer walls that I swear hadn't been there before. And I saw them sneaking onto the Condor behind the horses.”
He said almost pleadingly between Captain Thomas and me, “I snuck after them and tried to get them off the airship. But the doors closed... and the ship lifted off.”
I just blinked at him. It was his job to make sure the bullheaded girls didn't do something that stupid. The captain growled out but looking nervously at the way I held Misty in a mothering way. He knew not who they were. “And why didn't you just come forward so we could drop you off before we left Templar Hall? Whelp?”
He raised his hand to discipline Jace again. My brother raised his chin slightly, preparing himself, but four hands rested lightly on the big man's raised arm. He hesitated and looked at me, Celeste, Bowyn, and Verna. Bowyn snapped out, “Do not lay your hand on the boy. He may be an unthinking whelp, with not brains enough to have done the right thing...” He gave Jace a pointed look, and my brother had the sense to look down with chagrin. “But he is a Count of Wexbury, Baron Thomas, above your station, and you will accord him all due respect.”
The Captain looked frustrated but he inclined his head in acquiescence then he gave Jace a slight bow. “I did not know who they were. They said they would only speak with the Soras. Apologies Lord Jace. Do you understand how monumentally stupid this was?” Then his eyes grew wider as he realized who Misty was, a touch of apprehension in them that they may have been handling the Prince's favorite roughly.
Jace nodded solemnly in answer without looking up, until he met my eyes with all the apology in the world. All I saw in his stead, was the six-year-old boy who had tended our flock and worked so hard every day without complaint to help me support him and our ailing mother. May the lords above help me, but I just wanted to protect him at that moment as he said in a small, embarrassed tone, “I didn't want it to jeopardize my petition to Squire for Wexbury. And I... I didn't want to disappoint you, Laney.”
I sighed and then slugged his shoulder, barely moving him; he was getting so strong. “You've stepped into it this time little brother.” Then I looked at Celeste, at a loss for what to do, while Syl chastised Ingr in a stream of Gypsy so fast I couldn't keep up. The young lady's head was bowed in embarrassment.
The Captain was quick to add, “This one...” He pointed at Misty who puffed up in defiance. “Struck a knight from Defiance, and one from Flatlash when they attempted to apprehend the stowaway.” He added as he pulled two pieces of wood from his sword belt and threw them on the ground by our feet. “With this.”
I stared at the broken wooden sword that had been carved to resemble Anadele.
They had broken Misty's Anadelea?
He finished, “It took five men to corral the two girls.”
Jace was smirking at that. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he bowed his head. This was not the time to show pride for his little sister.
I crouched and picked up the pieces of the stick that represented the fire inside my daughter.
They had broken Anadelea.
I don't know why, but that had struck me as hard as the fact that my daughter had yet again stowed away on a mission that was likely flying into danger. Maybe the woodworkers of the keep could repair her. Then I realized why it was affecting me so. Anadelea was something that was hers. Not something given to her by the Keep, nor the Crown. I had things that were mine from before I became a noble, like Goliath.
I looked again to Celeste as I cradled the pieces, I could see understanding in the green depths of her eyes. She looked at the girls and the captain, then she exhaled loudly and told Misty, “Just like your mother, running into danger instead of away from it,” before turning to the captain with an apology in her tone as she inquired, “Are the Knights uninjured?”
He huffed, and I thought I saw him hide a twitch of a smile before he schooled his face. “Their shins and pride are bruised badly, but they will survive.”
Celeste covered her mouth like she was thinking, though I could taste her amusement in her magic. She offered to the group, “We can't turn back to drop them at Highland, nor leave them here for the next patrol. They'll come with the Outrider, and we'll ration our own supplies.”
The girls started to grin wildly at each other until she said loudly to get their attention as I wrapped my scarf around Misty's face, “BUT!”
They looked at her as she said in a tone that invited no argument, “They will stay with squad Charlie with the airships where it is safe, while Able and Bravo scout the Westlands with our Greva.”
The girls deflated, and I started smiling. The little mischief makers were in for a world of boredom as a consequence of their actions. It was almost better than grounding them since there should be nothing to do out in the wastelands.
She pointed from the girls to Jace, who just nodded his agreement emphatically.
As I was cooling down, I realized that it wasn't really Jace's fault. The two girls were so headstrong, and I often forgot that despite how he has grown, towering over me now, Jace was still just a child himself. He did what he could, and it wasn't really fair of me to expect him to have reined in the troubled twosome when we couldn't ourselves.
Then Celeste asked with a cocked eyebrow, “Captain, I believe there are stalls in need of mucking in the Condor?”
His frown turned into a wicked grin as he nodded slowly, “Indeed there are, Sora.” Then he snapped his fingers at the girls who were moaning in protest. “Children?” He started moving toward his vessel.
Misty whined, “Moooom?” And I just cocked an expectant eyebrow, and she started trudging, holding Ingr's hand.
I told her, “We'll talk about this later, young lady.”
Dear lord, I was becoming my mother.
I cringed at myself when I called after them, “Consider this your chore for the duration.” The girls moaned.
Jace led the way, chin held high as the girls walked like their feet were encased in stone to deal with all the gifts the horses had left on the deck of the Condor.
I smiled at Celeste, though my heart was still twisting in knots with worry, and told her, “Inspired, love.”
She shrugged as Syl chuckled at the dejected look on Ingr's face.
“I have my moments.”
Then we all went back into motion, I almost chuckled watching two female knights following Dru around. I shook my head then looked around, there was a lot of work to be done before we could sit down for last meal.
Celeste said, “Next stop, the Outer Marker.”
Chapter 6 – Outer Marker
The winds had picked up by the time we had all the supplies from the new storage building moved into the airships. The Falcon had plenty of extra capacity, so we had moved some of the emergency rations from the Weigh Station itself into it to offset our need to feed three extra mouths. The Outrider crew wouldn't have to ration, and the children were suitably embarrassed.
We had to set up last meal in the larger storage building since we couldn't set up a
proper camp with all the sand and dust being blown around, as it was the only structure large enough to house all of our number.
Talk was sparse as most of us kept looking at the west wall, wondering what lay ahead of us.
After the meal, some retired in the cots brought from the Falcon, I understood, the big behemoths were so utilitarian, they didn't have racks in them like the Outrider did, and I had heard the blowing wind and sand infiltrated them everywhere. Not to mention I also heard some Knights voicing their fear that the winds would sweep the airships away in the dark.
Thank you very much for that thought. Because of that, I was nervous every time the winds rocked our vessel until I fell asleep with Misty curled in to share my bunk in the suspended cots that folded down in the Outrider.
I awoke to find Celeste sitting on the deck with her back leaned against our bunk. A warm smile crossed my lips as I reached out and draped an arm over her shoulder, she turned her head back to give me a loving look. But then I noted the light streaming into the airship.
I bolted upright, almost spilling an eeping Misty from the cot. “Mother Luna! Father Sol is up, Celeste!”
She smiled as I chastised, “Why didn't you wake me for our shift at watch?”
My Lady tuned toward me and looked around as everyone started waking because of my outburst. She gave me a peck on the lips. “You looked too cute curled up with Misty. Bowyn stood watch with me.”
I parried her doting with a scrunched nose. That'll teach her.
Then she said as she stood and offered her hands to Misty and me to help us up. “Bex says it is time to take to the skies, the windstorm dissipated overnight.” Then she added from a tale of fantasy we had found in the ancient tomes of the Penny Library, “Sleeping Beauty.”
I blushed.
We have yet to find any writings of the powerful magic the Great Wizards of the Before had possessed, only these stories of fantasy meant to entertain. We have determined that they were likely a closely guarded secret and were probably locked away in the Keep of Cedar Ridge, we have determined they called it City Hall, like we called the government buildings in our villages Town Hall... and our excavators have been searching for it for months.
Of course, they would keep such knowledge out of a public library, the wizards likely thought as our scholars do, that it would be dangerous for the serfs of that time to possess such information.
Some of the things I have read from some of the tomes chilled me to the bone. We had always thought the people of the Before had moved above such things as petty conflict and war. But it seems they were even more warlike than Highland and the Lower Ten in the early days Post Impact.
Where we measure battles in the hundreds of knights, they measured them in hundreds of thousands and millions. A massacre in our time is losing dozens to a hundred souls in a battle or siege. They – destroyed entire cities in an instant, with weapons our scholars cannot comprehend.
That is why it is so frightening that the Cristea man had said that the Great Wizards had returned. And my visions had lent credence to that, seeing those monstrous metal creations that were indiscriminately killing unarmed Gypsies as they ran for their lives. My view of the benevolent wizards, working for the betterment of mankind had been tarnished by these things, and I prayed that I was wrong.
Ingr hopped down from the bunk she was sharing above ours with Sylvia. She looked cute with her hair disheveled, and the way Misty's eyes brightened had me studying them for a moment. Was there more than we were seeing with the two inseparable friends?
I shook the thought from my head, they weren't even teens yet. I had a fertile imagination.
Without a word, they dashed off to get cleaned up for the day.
We chuckled when we realized they were smarter than us and got to the little bathroom on the Outrider before any of us adults had thought of it.
Girls.
I smiled then staggered at my first step. Someone caught me as I fell through the world again. I was running, running so very fast. I realized on some level this was the vision again, but it was so much stronger than before. My heart pounded as the world exploded around me, bodies flying. All my senses were filled with the panic, with the smells, sounds, and tastes around me as I knew this was complete transference now that all my senses were immersed in it.
I forced myself to take it all in, looking for any clues that could help us find these people before this came to pass. I scanned the mountains far off in the distance, they were all jagged and barren though we ran through lush green fields. I could taste sulfur heavy in the air, and black smoke that was cloying and gagging as my lungs worked hard.
I pulled out of my body, and my future doppelganger turned her eyes to me as if she knew I was there. She forced her will into a word, “Look!”
I spun around, seeing a village in the distance, then the mechanical beasts belching fire at us as I kept turning, black smoke billowing from smokestacks behind the beasts. I saw those same mountains in every direction except to one side the village, where a lush green domed mountain covered in a thick forest, dominated the view.
The people were dressed in archaic gypsy garb, like in some of the illustrations in the scrolls shown to me by the Mountain Gypsy historians. They wore the same colors as the unconscious scout. I caught my own eye, and she inclined her head at me then came to a halt, then got a wicked grin on her face as we turned to face the machines. With a chilling scream, I watched myself charge them, I was pulled back inside myself, and I felt the explosion beside me and my world was a white-hot pain.
I was blown back through the air and fell back through the world, being pulled east at breakneck speeds. I heard the last of my scream coming from my damaged throat as I felt someone shaking me. I blinked as Celeste came into view through my tears of pain.
I glanced around, and everyone was standing now, looking at me with concern, and even some fear. I took two calming breaths when I saw Misty and Ingr with terrified looks on their faces as they stood back. I forced a smile for them as I pulled from Celeste's grip. “I'm fine. Just a little vision.”
Celeste exhaled a pained breath and asked in a hushed tone, “The same?”
I nodded. “The time is coming, it was so much stronger. I showed myself something new though.”
She nodded and waved everyone off to prep the Outrider to depart. Bex reached out to squeeze my arm on his way past. Verna had her eye on me, a helpless look on her face. The big knight was just as bad as my Celeste, she wanted to protect me, but it was an enemy she couldn't fight as it hasn't come to pass yet.
I cocked my head at her and gave her a silly grin. This got her to relax her brow and that scar which cut diagonally across her feminine face. She exhaled and went to help the others as Celeste led me to the table and had me describe the new aspects of my vision. Everyone listened as Bex put them to work prepping to leave.
I absently played with the two pieces of Anadelea that sat on the table. I tried not to think about them.
The one thing in the vision that confused me, and them, was the barren rocky mountains in the distance. How could they be everywhere I looked. They were the same. It wasn't like I had been in a valley surrounded by mountains, like Solomon. Sylvia wrote it off like the aberrations in some of Udele's visions over the decades. Where there wasn't enough information in her Sight, so it was filled in by her mind.
Sylvia straightened and took a deep breath and then released it, pulling our eyes to her. She was staring at the broken wooden blade in my hands, and she looked resigned, almost sad as she said, “And speaking of visions.”
She caught Ingr's eyes and said, “Bring it.”
The pre-teen, who looked so very much like her mother, widened her eyes in excitement and ran off to the cargo bay. She came running back in a few seconds later with a long object covered in a swath of gypsy silk. It had both my crest and Great Mother Ranelle's crest embroidered upon it.
I could taste the magik of the people on the object. Ther
e was so much infused in it that I found it hard to breathe with the weight of it.
Ingr stepped in front of Misty, an almost regal look on her face as she offered it to my daughter as Syl said to Celeste and me in an apologetic tone, “We had hoped Udele's vision would not come to pass. She said it was so far in the future that even the slightest thing could change it.”
Misty scrunched her face in confusion at Ingr as her mother spoke, unwrapping the item. “She had seen flashes of Anadelea in pieces... I knew her vision was valid when Captain Thomas gave you those.” She pointed at the pieces of the wooden blade.
I glanced from her eyes as Misty revealed a small sword, no more than a long dagger, maybe two thirds the length of my Anadele, and the hilt looked to be a duplicate of her except for the addition of Rain's family crest below mine.
The scabbard was a match to mine as well. It was as if I were looking at a smaller version of my own sword. Misty gasped, and Celeste was oddly still, like she were just a sentinel carved in stone.
All the apology was out of Sylvia's voice as she stood tall as Misty drew a finely crafted folded steel blade that just about blinded me with the bright white light coming off its blade. I realized it had dozens, if not hundreds of layers of thousands of Gypsy charms that tasted of all thirteen bands, there were so many luck and protection charms I could taste. Like thousands of grains of sand that had gathered into a great expanse of beach that went on forever.
My daughter's voice was full of reverence as she whispered, “She's beautiful, Aunt Sylvia.”
Misty held the blade up as Syl inclined her head then turned to us and said, “This was what Mother Udele saw. The broken blade, and Misty standing in the Outrider among us, wielding this blade as a Femeie de Sabie.”
My mouth worked, but I couldn't pull my eyes from the blade which was shaped just like Anadele. Some part of me noted that Bex, Verna, and Bowyn were shielding their eyes too. There was so much magic infused in the blade that even those without a spark of their own could see it too. Like the gear the Gypsies charmed for Celeste and me.
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