The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  “There were no looters,” an officer reported. “There was gold scattered everywhere, left untouched.”

  “Just as well,” said Carabas in a dangerously cold voice. “How many bodies did you find?”

  “The pieces add up.”

  “Indeed? Have you identified them?”

  “The charring makes that hard. The components, guards, and comms died in their seats. The stoker’s head was found thrown clear of the fire, so we’re sure of him. The sailwing hit the driver’s cabin so hard that we can’t even identify its configuration. No reaction guns were found, so we think it was some new type armed only with rockets. Here are the buttons of the driver, Rollins, and part of his skull.”

  The charred fragment of bone was still warm as Carabas turned it over in his fingers.

  “So, the death sentence that he fled for so long has caught up at last.”

  “It burned like a haystack,” said the red tram’s driver.

  “The black trams are designed to burn,” explained Carabas. “It is a security feature.” He tossed the piece of bone into the lamplit wreckage.

  “Shall I have tracker terriers brought in?” asked the officer.

  Rollins’ blood went cold. Tracker terriers. If he stayed they would find him, if he ran they would still find him. They would also lead Carabas to the cache of papers.

  “No, no,” sighed Carabas. “The bits add up, Fras Merrick. One complete crew for the black tram, and one flyer for the sailwing.”

  Rollins slipped away, shivering with relief. He traveled only by night across the open, rocky woodland and slept in trees, tied against any Call that swept over. He was unprepared for life in the open, in spite of all his time with the tramways, but using a compass and crawling more than walking to avoid Bartolican carbineer patrols and snipers, the defector took a week to cover the fifteen miles to Yarronese-held land.

  7 May 3961: Vernal, Cosdora

  Bronlar did not wake for fifteen hours. Her gunwing was being repaired as she began to walk about, and even after half a day of work the damage was still appalling. Even more appalling was the amount of blood in the cockpit. No wonder I passed out, she thought. The cut went along her hairline and down across one temple, but it had not been deep.

  Reports on the attack on Condelor’s palace were confused and contradictory, but her hosts seemed to think that three hundred Yarron gunwings had escorted fifty regals to the Bartolican capital, where they had bombed the Airlord’s palace and shattered the Airlord’s flock of wardens. Other reports claimed that a single, heroic wing had done it all—Bronlar’s! On one point all the stories agreed, however. The court had been in session at the time of the attack, and the Airlord of Greater Bartolica and the most senior nobles of his retinue had been killed when the roof of the throne hall and tower collapsed.

  Bronlar was hailed as a great hero by the Cosdoran ground crew, yet the sheer magnitude of what she had helped achieve chilled her as she sat drinking hot chicken broth with a compression spirit barrel for a table and watching the repairs to her gunwing. Every one of the mechanics had a strip of blood-soaked fabric cut from her gunwing pinned to his arm. Her parents had been avenged, Serjon’s family had been avenged, yet why did she feel so hollow, she wondered. War duels in the air were combat, why should not an attack on the Airlord be combat? Nausea, her old enemy, clutched at her stomach, as it had the day she had shot down a warden and nine sailwings near Casper. Only two of those flyers had lived. She blanked her mind against the miasma of guilt and blood, and pictured Serjon arguing with Liesel about finding thirteen pieces of emu meat in his serving of goulash.

  A guildsman came over, a chubby but presentable youth in his early twenties. He had an open, cheerful face, and wore a pottery gunwing around his neck on a length of hair braid.

  “Semme Bronlar, you look so much better,” he said, taking a stool and sitting beside her.

  Bronlar squirmed inwardly. Such familiarity was proscribed by the code of conduct of Mounthaven guildsmen, yet this place was remote and relaxed. The guildsmen tending her gunwing were all volunteers, and she was not inclined to demand formal deference.

  “How is Slash?” she asked, standing up and walking toward the gunwing. The guildsman bounded up and followed her.

  “Pah, not bad, not bad at all. Canopy panes and frame smashed, damage to most cockpit instruments, and a third of your right upper wing torn away. I’m Ryban of the Cosdoran Fuelers’ Cooperative.”

  The upper wing had been removed and was laid out on a dropcloth. An airframe guildsman named Farrasond had been proclaimed guildmaster by the nine youths who were working on Slash. He was almost as short as Bronlar, but very well developed across the shoulders. Farrasond seemed a good leader, but was painfully shy with girls.

  “We’re comparing ribs from the left with those from stores,” he chattered, unable to look her in the face. “We can trim them down and get a good match. Five days, with two more for the bonding to cure.”

  “Thank you for all this effort,” Bronlar replied, “but I’ll not be allowed to fly again, this is a neutral dominion relative to Yarron.”

  “Ah, but Semme, we might arrange a little test flight where someone disguised as Sair Rewlon gets into the cockpit and flies away to Yarron,” suggested Ryban.

  “None of that, I’ll not get you into trouble,” said Bronlar firmly.

  “The compression engine is in fine tune,” declared a guildsman in his late twenties who was introduced as Holdrik. “May I know the name?”

  “Hailbeater, and he’s about a century old. What can I do to repay all this? I’m a prisoner, I have nothing to offer.”

  “Oh, your story can be payment!” an airframe guildsman named Monterbil declared at once. “Ryban and I are, well, we fancy ourselves as bards. To serve a legendary hero is the stuff of our wildest dreams, but to set her story to epic verse is almost beyond imagining.”

  For some reason it crossed her mind that Serjon did not like poets of any description—but Serjon was dead.

  “Call me at lunchtime, I’ll begin to tell whatever I can recall.”

  As had happened in Forian many months before, the Bartolican guards frantically scrabbled through the ruins of the throne hall in the search of the Airlord and his retinue. As had also happened in Forian, there were very few survivors. There were a lot more dead.

  Yarron was very much alive and very, very dangerous. Stanbury was there when the few recognizable fragments of the Airlord were being collected. His younger brother, his consort, his closer relations, all had been in the Great Hall of the Throne to celebrate Bartolica’s great triumph. All had been killed.

  Herald Jitres came scrambling across the litter of smashed red tiles and beams.

  “Great tidings, Archwarden. The city constables have captured two of the Yarronese assassins!”

  “Two? Just two? That’s meant to be great tidings?”

  “Surely—”

  “Sair Jitres, the Yarronese have stabbed the very- heart of Bartolica! There were no armed defenders aloft until it was too late, and even then they were slashed from the sky—those of them who did not flee first.”

  “The best wardens were trailing colors for the victory court.”

  “And how many Yarronese were shot down with colored smoke? How many by girls throwing rose petals?”

  “We caught two—”

  “Why are two Yarronese so very significant?”

  “Archwarden, one of them has defected and asked for asylum. He is Warden Alion Damaric of the Timberwing house. His gunwing is at the palace wingfield. He craves the favor of the Airlord.”

  “Well he won’t find any Airlords in Bartolica. Samondel appears to be the new Airlord Designate, she was lucky enough to be out in the gardens when the bomb burst.”

  “A woman as Airlord, Archwarden?”

  “A woman, sair Herald Jitres. You had better have a coronation festival prepared, she is a warden and can take the coronation oath.”

  “She has
actually flown? I thought it was a joke. Can a woman do such a thing?”

  “Yarronese women can, by all accounts.”

  7 May 3961: Condelor

  Serjon was lying on a padded stone slab in a cell when he awoke. His face had several gashes which had been stitched up, and his right arm was splinted and bandaged. He took a deep breath, and immediately winced with pain. Broken rib, he thought.

  As he sat up and swung his legs to the floor he saw that there was a tin mug of water, half a loaf of rough-ground bread, and some cuts of cheese. At the sight of food he realized that he was quite hungry and began to eat. Whatever the Bartolicans thought of him, they at least wanted him alive—for now. He drank. There was a trace of lime in the water, probably to ward off jail scurvy without giving him the luxury of fresh fruit. Every swallow hurt, and he began to cough.

  “So you are awake, then?” called a voice from beyond the door.

  Serjon’s first thought was that it was a guard, but the man was speaking in cultured Yarronese.

  “Are you another prisoner of war?” Serjon asked back.

  “In truth, you might say that. I am Virtrian, ex-Chancellor of Forian.”

  Serjon thought for a moment. This was either a monstrous hoax, or …

  “The girl who flew you to Casper to abdicate: what did she ask for when you were returned to Forian?”

  “That was Bronlar Jemarial, and she asked for a length of green plush. I called a herald over and cut some from his jacket for her.”

  Very few people could have replied instantly to the question, Serjon was sure of that.

  “I am Wingcaptain Serjon Feydamor of the Yarronese Third Special Air Carbineers.”

  There was a pause before the other replied.

  “Serjon, Serjon Feydamor. You flew into Forian with Bronlar when it was under siege. So, Yarronese chivalry has been replaced with Air Carbineers. Your attack on the palace was very effective.”

  “It may give the Airlord something to think about.”

  “The Airlord of Bartolica is unlikely to think about anything, Wingcaptain Feydamor. Grand court was in session when you dropped your little tribute through his stained-glass window. Luckily I was being marched in late. I saw it all, though, and I later learned that over a thousand nobles perished. The very cream of Bartolican nobility and their airlord are dead.”

  The impact of this revelation took some time to register with Serjon. He had had revenge for his family, and far beyond his wildest dreams. Had just a dozen or two people died he would have been more shaken, but a thousand! The number put a glaze over the loss of individual lives, but tiny, impotent voices seemed to chirp at him from some cold and distant place. Multitudes of incorporeal cold hands reached out to him.

  “Are you all right?” called Virtrian when the silence began to lengthen.

  “Yes, yes. Thank you for your concern.”

  “I shall not ask you about the Yarronese forces still fighting, they are obviously in better strength than Bartolica’s wardens would have me believe. Besides, someone is sure to be listening to us. That giant sailwing! Sartov made some very effective preparations during the winter, that’s obvious. I don’t know how it escapes the fire from the Sentinels, though.”

  “We have developed a shielding device of polished crystals, but I don’t understand how it works.”

  “I expect so. You will be questioned, however. I heard the guards talking when you were brought in—they didn’t realize that I know enough Bartolican to follow a conversation. Your survival has been kept a secret from the people of Condelor. An announcement was made that all the attackers were killed after what was called your ‘cowardly surprise attack.’”

  “So, I’m not being held under chivalric conventions?”

  “No, and you will be tortured, there is nothing more certain.”

  A dark thought crossed Serjon’s mind.

  “Are there any more survivors?”

  “Both gunwings of your escort appeared to be flying and undamaged when I last saw them. Do you have any recollection of what happened?”

  “One or both of my escort may have opened fire on my super-regal as I returned for a rocket attack. Is that so?”

  “It shames me to accuse a fellow Yarronese of it, but yes. I saw one gunwing open fire, but I could not see his markings and the engine notes were masked by the giant regal’s six engines. There was only one gunwing near your super-regal at the time.”

  As Serjon ate the rest of his bread and cheese he realized that the traitor would pose a problem for the Bartolicans. On the one hand he—or she—would be a hero, but on the other the shooting down of the super-regal by a trusted escort was the most gross breach of chivalric convention possible. Serjon could not have known how much more trouble the traitor was really causing.

  In another, and far more comfortable, part of the palace, Stanbury was gathering together what was left of the Bartolican nobility. Warden Samondel was the clear and undisputed successor to the Airlord owing to the other contenders being dead, while the only other nearby wardens to have survived the bomb were the dozen or so who had been performing patrol and aerobatic duties. Two of these had died after being shot down by the escaping Yarronese gunwing.

  “The coronation will take place in five days, in the Hall of Morning Light,” Stanbury said to Vander Hannan, a junior herald, three nobles, and a frantically scribbling clerk. “A façade of tentcloth is to be assembled and painted brown, then erected over the ruins. The least traces possible of the Yarronese attack are to be visible.”

  “What of security?” asked Vander, who was once again Acting Inspector General.

  “Sailwings have already been dispatched to gather three hundred gunwings and sailwings to mass in the sky during the coronation. It will be the greatest display of air power in history, late though it is.”

  “What of the court lists?” asked the herald. “The heads of the better estates are dead and their people are in mourning”

  “Well get them out of mourning!” shouted Stanbury. “Grandmothers, children, maiden aunts, wastrel uncles, mistresses, get them all into the hall and dressed in their glittering best for the coronation. Bartolica will not be brought low by three wings! Understand?”

  “Yes, Commander,” they said together.

  Kalward entered once they had left. He sat on the table where the clerk had been writing.

  “Did you hear all that?” asked Stanbury.

  “Yes, and you were right. This is a heavy blow, but not a death wound. As I see it, your only problem is one of unity,” Kalward said urgently, tapping the table with one finger while gesturing to a map on the wall.

  “My main problem was one of claiming victory when it was in sight, but not in hand,” Stanbury said between clenched teeth. “Yarronese wardens still control enough land and resources to ascend those monstrous six-engine regals. Why didn’t you warn me about them? Where were your unstoppable Callwalker spies?”

  “Wind River is dangerous and remote. Some of my best agents have vanished while trying to journey there.”

  “That thing was a over hundred feet across!” Stanbury burst out. “Why can’t we build the like?”

  “You can,” Kalward replied smoothly. “I warned you that the Sentinels had been neutralized by my colleagues. Your gunwings and sailwings are mostly still within the old limits, and the Yarronese tear them to pieces.”

  “The wardens didn’t want to listen!” Stanbury shouted back, exasperated beyond bearing. “For centuries our chivalry has operated within those limits: twenty-nine feet six inches in length or wingspan, and one hundred and twenty-five miles per hour in speed. Now they can’t give the limits up without losing their souls. People love the bars that confine them, sair Kalward.”

  Kalward looked down at the table for a moment, still tapping it lightly with his finger.

  “So, think on what has really been lost. Only some hundreds of nobles, courtiers, and bishops—”

  “And wardens!”

>   “Wardens who were besotted with the old limits. The guilds are easier to manipulate, you can have the biggest, fastest gunwings in all Mounthaven built, you can build a super-regal twice the wingspan of the one that came down in Lilyflower Canal.”

  “Two hundred of the dead wardens were there to be decorated for valor during the war. They were our best. Raglamal with twenty-seven victories. Kalfior, with four of their hybrid gunwings among his twenty-four clear air victories. Most were my people, those ready for honors and those being groomed for my new administration. The survivors are those who have had least to do with the war effort: the mediocre, the inexperienced, the dissenters, the rebels, the cowards, and the fools.”

  Stanbury glared at Kalward, as if to say that he fitted the last-named category.

  “It is not as bad as that,” Kalward replied innocently. “There are still many good and loyal wardens in Bartolica. Even better, there is a girl on the throne now, so you will have near-absolute control. You can blame the lack of advancement of the surviving wardens on the previous airlord, or on any number of the dead nobles. No tragedy is without opportunity, Archwarden Stanbury.”

  “What about the four hundred sailwings and gunwings left idle? Have we enough flyers to fly them?”

  “My auxiliary training program has been effective—”

  “But how effective? Can the flyers be relied upon in battle?”

  “There is an easy way to find out, sair Stanbury. We shall give your people a glorious victory in the hour of their greatest sorrow and despondency. I note that you are assembling three hundred armed wings for the coronation. Suppose we divert two-thirds of them for some special work on their way back to Yarron.”

  Kalward was given authority to appropriate guildsmen for a special project, and so it was that two hundred guildsmen began work on a Bartolican hybrid: a ground-attack gunwing. Its wingspan was nearly forty feet and it had four engines on the upper wing. Merchant carbineers kept the guildsmen docile at gunpoint, and what had once been regals became something far faster but able to carry large bombs as well.