Wings Over Talera

by Charles Allen Gramlich

  “Heril?” I asked, somewhat worried. I had expected the Koro warrior, perhaps my closest friend on Talera, to be here.

  “His father,” Valyan replied, knowing my unspoken concerns.

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “Heril swore he would return when matters were settled. That may not be soon, though. The Rolvfsherns are an important family among the Koro. His father was a leader among them.”

  “If word can be sent then I would like to send it,” I said.

  “I will see it done,” Rannon said. “Our ships trade with Korosphal regularly now.”

  “And my brother?” I asked. “Bryce?”

  “Nothing has been heard,” Rannon answered. “But the word is spread and many are searching. For your cousin, Eric, as well. Or any sign of others from your Earth.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “And now we drink, yes?” Kreeg asked.

  “And now we drink,” I agreed.

  It was only a short walk to the hunting lodge of Hurnan Jystral, father of Rannon and Emperor of Nyshphal. Other friends awaited us there, and for refreshments there were wines of Thresh and the Starkayan Islands, cheeses and meats from Pangala and northern Nyshphal, and—as always—rich verhlis tea by the flagon.

  I drank and ate heartily. It seemed long that I had been away from decent food after the processed chicken and processed beef of the new Earth. It was good to bite into a terval steak and feel the juices bursting ripe into the mouth. It was good to have wine in brass goblets. And after the food there was good talk of many things, with Rannon always there beside me.

  In the evening I forced my muscles to recall the sword while fencing with Valyan. After that I slept, as if that, too, I had been long without. I awoke refreshed in the very early morning, well before the dawn, and dressed myself in the clothes of two worlds. I pulled on the jeans I’d worn from Earth, and gray wool socks that were covered with soft boots of stugah hide. I slid on a shirt of green Starkayan silk that lay open at the throat, and tucked it into the jeans.

  A heavy belt of Taleran make went around my waist, and stitched to it were the heavy steel hooks upon which I hung my scabbarded sword, the same sword I’d left behind on Talera so many days before. I drew the blade out and held it to the ceiling where the glassine light of the night lanterns burst along it. The glistening died when again the sword was sheathed.

  It was early enough so that only the cook was awake, and he busy at laying a fire for the heating of the morning tea. I nodded to him and went out, striding through the chill and the low drifts of snow that lay on the ground. The sky was graying.

  About a hundred tahng from the door of the lodge there ran a majestic gorge through which the morning mists flowed like rivers. I leaned against a boulder there and watched those mists. Dawn birds were just beginning to hunt, wheeling about me in search of early rising insects. There was little wind.

  I was still there half a dhaur* later when Rannon came up and took my hand. She was dressed in trousers of tanned leather, rust-colored boots, and a white silk shirt beneath a brocaded vest of yellow and green. I loved the heart shape of her face, and the brilliant violet-blue of her eyes against her dark hair, and the clean scent of her skin. The two of us stood quietly for a time, feeling comfortable there together, and at last I turned to her as if to speak. She hushed me with a hand over my mouth.

  [* The common Taleran measures of distance and time are: Distance—1 Heka = 9.18 in.; 4 Hekas is 1 Tahng = 1.02 yards; 2500 Tahngs is 1 Verlang = 1.449 miles. Time—1 Shri = 2.34 sec.; 100 Shri is 1 Dhaurin = 3.9 min.; 20 Dhaurin is 1 Dhaur = 78 min.—Ruenn Maclang.]

  “Wait a bit,” she whispered.

  A moment later the rising sun touched the great atmospheric shield that envelops Talera, and jade and purple streamers of light burst outward like wagon spokes from a central rotating core of gold. The display lasted only seconds and was gone. It is called the dawn lights by most cultures and occurs only in northern areas. Rannon had told me of them before, and of the belief in some religions that the lights are a sign of the sky menstruating. Knowing of them was not the same as seeing them, however. I stood in awe of their beauty.

  Even after nearly two years on Talera, it was still hard for me to believe that this was an artificial world condensed from the heart of a gas-giant planet. The advanced race who built it—the Asadhie—may have been cruel, but they were skilled at creation.

  The atmospheric shield that surrounds the planet protects the living world from the poisonous gases above. And somehow the sun and moons have been placed inside that shield, though I suspect some kind of optical illusion gives those orbs the appearance of rising and setting naturally. Rumors have it that Taleran adventurers have even tried to reach the moons aboard powerful flyers. There are some who claim to have succeeded, though I do not know the truth of such tales.

  Only with the ending of the dawn display did Rannon turn and kiss me. She told me that she loved me, and I said the same as I gave her the present I had brought her from Earth. She gasped in surprise, then clapped her hands and laughed as she kissed me again.

  She thought it only a clever necklace at first, till I showed her how the hands moved and what they represented. That left her even more enthralled. Hers was the only watch on Talera, though there are timekeeping devices such as sundials and water clocks. I’d had the devil’s own time persuading a watchmaker on Earth to make me a chronometer that measured twenty, extra long hours instead of the usual twenty-four. It was worth it to see Rannon smile.

  Soon, we heard the cook shout for breakfast and went in to eat among friends. After that we loaded our gear aboard Rannon’s airship for a trip to the south, to Timmuzz, the capital of Nyshphal and Rannon’s home. The ship we boarded was called the Aestor, named for a quicksilver little beast that haunts high mountain valleys. The Aestor is winged and fox-like, arctic colored. It hunts dangerous prey and its name seemed aptly applied to the swift and white ship of Rannon Jystral.

  The airships of Talera are not like the airplanes of Earth. They are slower for one thing, and open to the sky—more like a sea going yacht than a pressurized jet. Their power source comes from the same toir’in-or stones that opened the world gate—the sphere gate—for me. These are mind-amplifying crystals that can be used by adepts to work “sorcery,” and by the pilot caste of Talera to guide airships of inanimate wood and metal. Smaller craft, like the Aestor, get both lift and drive from crystalline wands that have been charged from a toir’in-or and attached to rotors that run propellers. Larger ships get only lift and must use sails to move their bulk through the air. Both types of craft need pilots to initiate and manipulate the wands’ energy flow, however

  The open nature of Taleran airships invites attack and most all are armed. Rannon’s ship was no exception. At fore and aft were ballista that could hurl four pound arrows upwards of four hundred yards. Amidships was a trebuchet for throwing stones. Also aboard were two dozen gray-cloaked guards of the Princess’s Own Elite, among them the massively thewed figure of Rhandh the Vlih.

  Rhandh and I had fought side by side in the lava mines of the Klar and I knew him as a professional, worth as much on his own as any dozen other guards. With steel strapped to both his prehensile tail and to the glistening dark tentacles that writhed below his arms, Rhandh made a formidable opponent. I regretted that I could not count him a great friend of mine, as I did Heril and Valyan, but we did share a mutual respect, not least of which came from our love of Rannon.

  It was Rhandh’s love for Rannon, for his Jhesana, that kept him by us as we lifted into the blue-white Taleran sky and turned our prow to the south. It was love that kept his huge, dark fist on a sword. And I believe that it was love that sent him away from us when Rannon moved closer under my arm and lifted her face to be kissed.

  So much time had passed since we’d seen each other that I wanted the kissing to last forever. But Rannon
was too excited by something she had to show me on the way to Timmuzz. As it turned out, I was not to find out that day what she meant. For even as the torpedo shape of the Aestor cut swiftly through the wind, our enemies stalked upon us. And even as I stood there with Rannon and felt a moment of incredible peace, I should have known better. This was, after all, Talera.

  Ten verlangs north of the capital, nearly a mile above a river called the Shauval, the reivers struck from out of the sun’s glare.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE END OF AN IDYLL

  When the attack came, it marked the end of an idyll. Rannon had gone below, out of the cold, and I was standing at the stern with Kreeg and Valyan, on what would have been called the poop deck on a sailing vessel. The pilot was in his glass enclosed cage amidships, and Rhandh had positioned himself at the hatch leading below to his Jhesana, his princess. At the prow were a few more of Rannon’s gray-cloaks.

  The raiders struck first at the prow. They were mounted on vullwings, huge saddle birds the likes of which had never graced the skies of Earth. Before now, I had only seen such creatures on the ground. There was no comparison to when they were in flight. They were savage and beautiful, their eagle-shaped bodies bearing elongated necks and massive wingspreads, the sunlight spilling dark from their indigo feathers. Their riders wore swords and carried short, recurve bows, light metal lances, and multi-bladed throwing knives called wheel-daggers.

  The plan was clearly to take the Aestor and those aboard her. They had perhaps fifty men to do it. We had fewer to stop them.

  The first wave of attackers came in above the front of the ship and their heavy bows cleared the forecastle of everything living. The second wave consisted of vullwings carrying double, and the spare warriors were soon dropping onto the foredeck with drawn blades. They had to board us. The vullwing is swift but a flyer can outpace it. They must have dived on us to pick up speed, and now they had to rain men onto our decks if they were to hold us. Our job was to throw them back overboard.

  Rhandh stood closer to our foes than the rest of us did. He shouted below for more guards, then charged forward, broadsword clutched hard in a black fist. His off hand carried a shield and the two tentacles below his arms were strapped with daggers. Only his prehensile tail bore no weapon. An arrow caromed off his brigandine; another cut flutters from the coarse mane of hair that ran the mid-line of his scalp before falling down his back. Then he was among the enemy, raging.

  Valyan, Kreeg, and I were right behind, slowing only long enough to pluck up three of the shields that were commonly lashed to the inside of an airborne flyer. These would be put over the side when the ship was landing so everyone could see the vessel’s origins and history from the lacquered designs on their surfaces. They would serve us now against arrows instead. I blocked several such darts as I raced forward.

  In my right fist glittered a saber. I did not remember drawing it. It was the same weapon I had used in the lava mines of Andertalen when we had broken the slave chains of the Klar (see Swords of Talera). It had served me well there. I hoped it would again.

  Rhandh was hard pressed at the prow and the three of us battered a way to him and threw his attackers back. Steel edges shrieked across metal and leather. In almost an instant my saber drank two men’s lives; my shield grew new designs, inscribed without artistry by the tips of thrusting swords. The taste of blood fogged my throat.

  It wasn’t my blood.

  Behind us, then! A shout!

  I turned to see more of Rannon’s guards boiling up from below. Then a third wave of vullwings went over and dropped reivers to the aft. They took out the first of our guards to reach the open air and seized the hatchway to prevent others from following. It looked as if it would be four of us against many—the kind of battle of which songs are written.

  Kreeg was not one to care for such songs. He merely grunted in angry pleasure as fresh enemies rushed upon us. His sword was knocked aside as a man lunged at him with naked steel. Kreeg avoided the cut to the left, caught the fellow’s arm and jerked him forward. He broke the man’s wrist, hurled him into a second raider. Both men fell back, and over the Aestor’s railing while we were half a verlang in the air. Both screamed. But not for long did we hear them.

  Valyan and I went to sword strokes with new foes. I took an arrow in my shield; a cutlass’s edge crashed against the bronze boss and rebounded. My own blade licked out, sliced through a throat, then leaped back to parry a thrust, driving an enemy’s sword-tip down to scrape the planks of the deck. The vullwings were past us now. They’d not catch the ship again unless the pilot could somehow be taken. He would not be killed unless by accident, for the skills of the pilot caste are rare and are greatly valued on Talera.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t be threatened.

  The absence of bird-riders around us meant no more arrows and for that I was grateful. It made me wish for a parrying dagger rather than the shield. I had never felt comfortable with the heavy things dragging on one arm. I wasn’t about to drop this one, though. Not just yet.

  Beside me, Rhandh was a devil in iron, his knife-strapped tentacles whipping up under opponents’ defenses to slash flesh while his broadsword demanded their attention. Valyan was almost as quick, and with a bit more élan in the way his blade twinkled, and danced, and ripped.

  I carved my way through, parrying, thrusting, riposting, but going mainly for the cut and bludgeon. The middle of a melee is no time for refinement. One reiver thought to fence with me. He styled himself a talent. I barreled past his guard, using the shield to ward his tip, and smashed the hilt of my saber savagely into his mouth. He went backward over the railing and his talent didn’t keep him from dying.

  Rhandh bellowed in frustration beside me as he realized that he’d come too far forward, too far from his Jhesana, who was now trapped below deck. He sought to disengage, to forge a road back to the hatchway—where I wanted him too. But struggling bodies clotted his path. I yelled for Kreeg and Valyan, and the three of us hacked a space for the huge Vlih to slip through. As Rhandh began to run, I ordered Kreeg to go with him, leaving Valyan and myself to hold at the prow.

  Valyan’s green skin sheened with perspiration. That only meant he was warmed up. He flashed a quick white grin in my direction as he slipped away from two raiders and left them stabbing empty air. His own attacks didn’t miss and both of his foes went down.

  I ducked under a sidearm swipe, slashed open an unarmored thigh. A wheel-dagger whirred past my ear. I caught a second one against my shield, hearing the thunk and letting it anger me. A sword clattered along mine. I thrust the enemy weapon aside, forced my steel down the length of the raider’s blade, let the tip leap up to take him in the face. He screeched, fell back. I kicked a second warrior in the chest, hurling him from his feet.

  Our attackers were a mixture of Humans and other, which meant they were probably mercenaries—verdredi. National armies usually consist of only one race, and even outlaw bands often form along racial lines. Talera has its prejudices. Most of these verdredi were Human, but I saw a few variations among them. I was glad there were no Black Llurns or Nokarra, who are among the deadliest of warriors. There were Vhichang, lithe and avian within their covering of feathers, and there were the members of a race called the Ss’Korra, which I had heard of but had not seen before.

  Humans sometimes call the Vhichang “birds” and the Ss’Korra “the wolf people.”* Neither is accurate. The Vhichang resemble birds only in their feathery coats and in the sharp, hooked shapes of their faces, which sport small beaks. They are not winged and do not have a bird’s hollow bones. They do not lay eggs, though they do not suckle their live-born young as mammals do.

  [*I once asked a Taleran savant why so many of the planet’s races resemble Humans. Like Humans, most of them walk upright, have various numbers of limbs, have something like hands at the end of those limbs, and see with two eyes in the front of Human-
type heads. Yet, they are supposed to have developed under far distant suns. He told me that the intelligent races brought to Talera, including Humans, were probably all guided in their development toward this common pattern. I asked if he thought the Asadhie were responsible for this, and he said that they were themselves likely products of this vast manipulation.—Ruenn Maclang.]

  The Ss’Korra are mammals, though they can only generally be said to resemble wolves. They have fur, except on their bellies, and they do have something that might be construed as a muzzle. But their overall appearance reminds me most of a baboon. They have the same small ears lying close to the head, and the same facial expression. Both races are superb fighters, with the Ss’Korra being the more vicious of the two.

  It was an Ss’Korra who came against me next. He was bigger than the average for his race, almost as tall as my six feet, and was given to hacking with the strength of his arm. I caught that arm with a hand. We strained together for a moment—he trying to kick my legs from under me, I trying to block with my knee. He spat the word “Human” in my face. I didn’t hold it against him. But when I got my shield past his guard, I hit him hard enough with it to break his jaw and stretch him senseless.

  Beneath me, abruptly, the airship faltered. I could see amidships that the pilot was unharmed, but perhaps the frothing savagery around him had broken his concentration on the power wands that drove the ship. For whatever reason, the flyer staggered and slowed. That meant the vullwings would come up to us again. I didn’t relish that idea.

  Two Vhichang, working in tandem, tried to isolate me from Valyan and cut me down. It didn’t work. Valyan and I had fought side by side too many times. I killed one attacker, watched the second one back away with fear in his eyes. In that lull, I saw that Rhandh and Kreeg had freed the Aestor’s hatchway. Gray-clad members of the Princess’s Own roared up from below, anxious to come to hand strokes with the enemy who had bottled them up.