by Stephen Hunt
‘Still shaking,’ said one of the men.
Excellent. Thomas tossed the cord over the heavy chandelier above. Six brass arms bolted into the ceiling in a dozen places. It wouldn’t do to allow such expensive crystal to fall and shatter. More than strong enough to break this dog’s neck. ‘Let’s raise our royal standard, then. I’d best take my sport quickly before we quit this place.’ I’ll give the woman a traitor’s end for daring to call the king Bad Marcus. A swift leaving present to stir the salacious pens of the newspapers.
Each sentry seized a leg and began to lift the pretender up while Thomas hauled on the rope. Owen was starting to gargle, and the sentries hadn’t even dropped him yet, let alone heaved on his boots to speed the process. Well, the noose had to be tight to kill a man.
‘That’s it, my lord,’ said Thomas, dragging the rope back as the sentries lifted Owen high. ‘You’re the standard saluting our true king.’ The tincture of Belladonna would keep the traitor from singing properly, but that couldn’t be helped. This night’s work was more functional than for Thomas’s amusement.
‘He’s bloody heavy,’ complained one of the sentries. ‘When do we let him go?’
‘A condemned man often is,’ smiled Thomas. He left the two dolts struggling to hold the prince while he mounted the table to tie the noose off against the chandelier, then jumped down to remove a chair and overturn it below the rebel leader. Setting the stage, everything had to appear just so. ‘And a dead man, always. You’d think that a corpse should be lighter, when its soul blows out, but the bodies of the dead are always so heavy. I wonder why that should be?’
The soldiers were still clutching Owen when the door splintered behind them. Quick as a snake, Thomas had the pistol out and spun the nearest sentry in front of him as a human sandbag, just in time for the turncoat to shriek as a pistol fanned through the room, a volley of shots walked expertly across the soldiers, missing Owen by a hair. The sentries weren’t holding the prince’s legs anymore; they were tumbling dead to join the assemblyman across the carpet. Thomas Purdell back-stepped and hurled himself through the window and out onto the balcony, shards of glass biting and slicing at his body. He shot widely as he rolled, not trying to aim, but accurate enough to give everyone breaking into the quarters pause to do something other than worry about him. After all, they had the choking traitor dangling from the chandelier to worry about. He raised his pistol to put a bullet into the prince’s heart and had a second to realize that it was Jacob Carnehan he faced. How did that devil get here? The pastor clutched at one of Owen’s legs, trying to save the choking traitor from death. A man Thomas dimly recognized as the speaker of the assembly, Augustus Sparrow, was mounting the table to cut the cord. Jacob Carnehan swivelled the pistol towards Thomas with his spare hand. Thomas shot wildly at the pastor as he hurdled the balcony, wood splintering where the agent had just been kneeling. Quicksilver, that had been Carnehan’s name when he’d fought as a mercenary commander across the ocean. Well earned. More shots cut through the air as Thomas spun towards the hedges in front of the mayor’s mansion, gravity only just faster than the pastor’s aim, a bullet grazing Thomas’s shoulder in mid-air. He grunted as he collided with the greenery, hardly feeling the impact with the burn of adrenaline coursing through his flesh. The gunfire merely added to the explosions of fireworks above the grounds. Oil-fired lampposts lined the wall inside the grounds and Thomas shot them out with his stolen pistol’s remaining shells, plunging the lawn into darkness as he limped as quickly as he could towards the street corner where the horses waited. So close. How would King Marcus reward him now? As the man always rewarded failure? A garrotte screw turned by another torturer’s hand? Thomas cursed the pastor. A blunt, brutal savage. Not an inch of sophistication in his methods. To be stymied by such a brute, to have a so-nearly slain prince’s fortune snatched from his fingers. I’ll be back for you, Quicksilver. After the siege, if not before. I’ll take my time with you. Yes, I think there’s a way I can even the score. Thomas disappeared into the night, where he was wholly at home.
The Raven followed the line of mountains on Weyland’s side of the border until they reached the ancient trade road north running towards the Rodalian capital, Hadra-Hareer. It seemed a sensible course to Carter, avoiding the unpredictable winds over the sharp heights of Rodal. Below their aircraft, the trade road snaked like a river through the thick forests of Gaskald, a veritable green sea, impenetrable to caravans hoping to make anything approaching a decent pace of travel. Skyguard officer Beula Fetterman hadn’t proved good company. Maybe it was Carter, or perhaps it was her resentment of flying cargo, rather than combat, with her comrades in the rebel squadron, but she refused to engage in banter with Carter. In the end, he stopped bothering to try. Beula didn’t even show any curiosity about who it was they were flying to collect. It’s almost as if she already knows. The Raven was oversized for their mission. Large enough to carry twenty passengers in comfort, plus an empty cargo hold. Even their cockpit had positions for three crew and a gunner for the rear-facing turret, currently shut to the cold and the wind. Beula had made sure Carter couldn’t sit next to her by folding out her navigation charts across the spare pilot’s seat. If he wanted to watch the landscape slide by, he had to take the seat behind her or climb up into the gunner’s position. They weren’t about to encounter enemy kites flying along Weyland’s northern border. Every plane either side’s skyguard possessed was wheeling above the Spotswood River right now, scouting for ground forces trying to sally across the water, or the regiments trying to halt them … looking to blind the enemy and notch a few kills on the side of the fuselage. Eventually the trade road ran into the mountains of Rodal proper, winding its way through the valleys and canyons of their northern neighbour. The Walls of the League. Well named. Carter wondered how well named the mountain nation’s capital would prove. Hadra-Hareer, the Valley of the Hell-winds. His father had talked about his travels to Hadra-Hareer, but Carter had never seen the city. Beula took the Raven higher to avoid the turbulence below, growing with every mile north they flew until the plane was trembling as though it was alive, fierce winds making the canvas around their plane’s wooden frame undulate and snap. Skyguard Officer Fetterman was attempting quite a balancing act, keeping the plane intact and an eye on the trade road winding below. Gravity’s hold lessened as they climbed, leaving Carter with a familiar sick floating feeling in his gut. No wonder he didn’t like it. Too similar to being on the sky mines. They were flying solely by chart and compass now, lost in the cloud cover.
‘We have company,’ announced Beula after three hours, breaking the frosty silence between them.
Carter followed her gloved finger through the condensation-covered cockpit canopy. Three Rodalian flying wings had emerged from the cloud cover and were arrowing towards the Raven, triangular planes with a single rear-mounted propeller. Two of the skyguard kites were small single-seat fighters; the third sported twin cockpits, an aviator in the rear chopping the air with a colourful pair of signal flags.
‘Do you understand signal semaphore?’ asked Carter.
Beula shot him a cold look. ‘I even understand blinker lamps. Do you think I’m flying this crate solely for my looks, Captain Sodbuster? They’re ordering us to follow them to the ground.’ She tapped the chart sitting on the spare aviator’s seat by her side. ‘Their capital should be below us by now.’
The skyguard in the rear cockpit made another series of cutting motions with the two flags. Beula frowned as two of the three planes turned behind the Raven’s tail, leaving a single flying wing wobbling in front of their nose.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Something else. They signalled if we try to turn away or fly off on any other course, they’ll shoot us down.’
‘That’s not very friendly,’ said Carter.
‘You’re sure the passenger we’re meant to bring back to Weyland is down there?’
‘That was always the plan.’
Beula Fette
rman arched her neck to try to see the two Rodalian fighters sitting on her tail. They were in perfect position to bring the Raven down in a flaming ball of wreckage. ‘Maybe you need a new plan. This one seems to have a few holes in it, as will the Raven if one of those pilots’ nerves fail.’
What in the name of the saints is going on here? Have the Rodalians been attacked by aerial nomads? Carter wouldn’t put it past the Vandians to throw their skel slavers into the current troubles. He began to jounce in his seat as the Raven spiralled down, the air currents growing wild and unpredictable. They left the clouds above them. A maze of canyons squatted below, and Carter saw buildings clinging to the canyon walls on both sides, an entire metropolis carved out of, and into, the rocks; just a small fraction of what lay protected within the rocky mass. Just like my father said. Jacob Carnehan hadn’t described the lack of vegetation below, though. No trees, just moss and scrub clinging to the bottom of the gorge and a few roots protruding from the chasm walls. Carter stared down at the buildings. White stone walls with thick red tile roofs, multiple storeys nestling above each other, rounded to turn and shape the winds that gusted through the canyons. None of the entrances into the city were on the gorge floor. They were all located midway up the rift’s walls, accessible by bulky stone staircases, a long climb towards portals which – where open – looked thick enough to put any gatehouse in Northhaven’s walls to shame. The windows in the structures were little more than arrow slits, shuttered from inside with metal screens. Nothing lay above the plateau-line, not a single structure to defy the wind. Rodalian flying wings took off and landed from launch tunnels drilled into the canyon walls, like sparrows entering a tree trunk. The gorge had a few paved roads crossing the narrow pass, bridges for a river that meandered along the chasm, but it seemed devoid of carts and foot traffic.
‘Why would anyone want to build a capital here?’ complained the pilot, following the twin cockpit flying wing’s twists and turns. ‘It’s desolate, nothing growing, no terraces.’
‘It’s where the winds are most powerful,’ said Carter. ‘So where their spirits are strongest.’
‘Sweet saints, these mountain people are crazy. They want us to put down outside their hanging city,’ said Beula, jabbing her hand towards an airfield strip running down the canyon’s centre; empty of planes. ‘I’d rather the storm-break of one of their tunnel hangars.’
That was worrying in itself. Carter realized that if they set down inside the city, they would qualify for the tradition of salt and roof: hospitality to visitors. Landing outside Hadra-Hareer was entirely different. ‘Can you set us down safely?’ asked Carter.
Beula peered out of the cockpit and inspected the wind-speed indicators on either side of the cabin. ‘It’s dangerous, but not fatally windy at the moment. This area is marked on the charts as one of the most treacherous storm sites. They must be stalling the gusts using their famous wind walls.’
‘There’s a crowd gathering down there alongside the strip,’ said Carter.
‘Will our embassy staff be among them?’
‘Hopefully,’ said Carter. ‘They’re almost all northerners, and they were one of the first Lanca embassies to declare for Prince Owen when parliament was dissolved.’
On their final approach the Raven shook violently; Carter dug his nails into the side of his seat, fearing they might flip and be driven to shatter against the canyon’s walls. This place was literally a wind tunnel, and it was only the Rodalian priests on the wooden wind dams who were briefly restraining the power of the spirits. For how much longer, I wonder? They hit the simple stone runway with a crack of their undercarriage that should have sheared the wheels off, but somehow they held instead. Beula had to keep all their rotors turning just to power them to where the flying wing had halted. They climbed towards the passenger cabin and broke the seal on the hatch, fierce winds pushing them back as they struggled to drop the stairs to the ground. Carter stumbled against an iron ring on the rock, heavy enough to anchor a battleship, as he emerged. Outside they were met by a Rodalian army officer and a company of soldiers. Carter raised a hand, as much to protect his face from the gusts as to salute the officer, but one of the soldiers ran forward, seized his hand, and twisted it brutally behind Carter’s back. Carter tried to fight them off, but there were too many soldiers, and they quickly had his arms pinned behind his spine, a similarly restrained Beula Fetterman, cursing the guardsmen for all she was worth.
‘What is going on here?’ demanded Carter, shouting above the gale. ‘We’re from Weyland; we are members of the Lanca.’
‘We know where you are from,’ yelled the Rodalian officer, clamping hand chains across Carter’s wrists. ‘But you are misinformed. You were members of the Lancean League. Weyland has been expelled by unanimous vote of the other Lanca nations.’
Carter reeled in surprise at the news. ‘That is nothing to do with us. Let us go!’
‘Nothing? You dare to land here in an aircraft of the Weyland Skyguard and proclaim your innocence? At best you will be interned in a prison cell. You shall stand trial for complicity in the murder of the speaker of the winds, Palden Tash.’
‘Murder? What in the world are you talking about?’
‘Your king’s execution of a diplomat travelling under the safe conduct of the Lanca charter, the speaker of the winds.’
Damn Bad Marcus. Even here, his poison reaches out to sicken us. ‘We’re fighting Marcus. We’re flying for Prince Owen and the north.’
‘Our borders and airspace are closed to you,’ said the officer, ‘for your safety as much as ours.’ The soldier waved towards his soldiers struggling to hold back a pack of onlookers with their rifles, the citizens of Hadra-Hareer shoving against the guards as the troops thrust back. For the first time, Carter noticed the looks of fury etched across the crowd’s faces, dimly heard the cries of hang them and make them pay above the cutting wind.
‘Lock us up, then,’ said Beula, ducking as objects began to be hurled over the throng. The missiles were seized by the gale and cracked against the fuselage of their transport plane. ‘And be quick about it, man.’
Carter side-stepped a hand-sized rock arcing through the air towards him. ‘I need to speak with Sheplar Lesh; he’s an aviator of the Rodalian skyguard. He’s my friend.’
‘I don’t recognize that name, but you surely need a friend now, bumo.’ The officer snorted while his men dragged Carter and Beula back behind the cover of the aircraft, the patter of projectiles against its airframe a shower turning into a storm as savage as the winds roaring past. ‘You’ll be lucky if you live to speak with the rats in a dirty cell. The mob looks like they mean to hurl you off the escarpment and we’re under orders not to fire on the crowd, no matter what their provocation.’
All around them the winds swelled in ferocity, a mounting whistling that made Carter’s ears throb. Whatever trickery the Rodalians had used to placate their spirits, it was finished now. The troops threw the chains over the Raven, and Carter realized what the iron rings driven into the runway’s surface were for. Securing aircraft against the gales. Carter ducked to look under the aircraft. Some of the soldiers had tumbled, shoved over, comrades trying to drag them back behind the crumbling line as the angry mob vented their fury, howling over the ever-growing wind. And all this time I thought we were cowards flying away from death in Midsburg. Damn me for a bloody fool. We were only ever flying towards it.
It was crowded in the garrison’s mess-hall, the chamber remade as a planning centre large enough to accommodate all the grey-uniformed officers, sentries, runners for the Guild of Radiomen, the senior politicians of the rebel assembly, and of course Jacob Carnehan and Prince Owen. Even more sentries were now posted around the room. Jacob knew the assembly’s army was doing its best to flush subversives out of its ranks, as well as among the citizenry of the city, but it was a hard, thankless task. The Weylanders who supported the loyalists looked and sounded identical to those who supported the assembly. They might even be me
mbers of the same family. How can you gaze inside a person’s heart and know if they believe Bad Marcus’s lies or not, or have developed a taste for his Vandian silver? The traitor Thomas Purdell had either fled Midsburg or was still inside its walls, being sheltered. In either event, he had evaded capture and the justice of the rope. If it had taken a day longer to reach the standing circle of stones, or if Sariel’s mastery over the sorcerous gate had faltered, then the prince would be a corpse and the rebellion’s hopes buried alongside him. And if he had reached Midsburg sooner, he might have been reunited with Carter; accompanied his son to Rodal to find their little hostage and bring her back here. I doubt the prince has the stomach to do any more than bluff with her life. As it was, Jacob had only encountered Carter’s cavalry company in the city garrison, his son’s comrades happy to provide him with lodging above their stables and finally meet the man they had heard so much about. He had watched them ride out earlier in the morning. Jacob prayed it wasn’t to their deaths. But what right do I have to pray for anyone now? You’re well out of this, Carter.
‘Here,’ said a colonel in the field marshal’s staff, tapping a map on the table. ‘This is where the Army of the Boles broke across the river in Western Humont, supported by the usurper’s fleet bombarding the coastal towns. Our scouts report they’re marching north-east directly towards Midsburg now.’
‘What of the Vandians?’ asked Jacob.
‘Our spies in Arcadia believe that their aerial force has departed along with the bulk of their legions.’
‘The imperium’s expeditionary force is heading towards us,’ said Prince Owen. ‘It will link up with the Army of the Boles and mount a joint assault on our positions around the city.’ There was a worrying detachment in Owen’s voice, as though he was describing a strategic reversal found in some military history text, rather than the fate of his rebellion.
