“Sair Guildmaster, the scent of that featherhead is on you and making the dogs—”
Theresla swept the coat open and sprayed the guards with bullets, dropping them before they had time to reach for their weapons. Theresla dropped too, pretending to be a victim. Others began to shout and point, and the dogs behind the wire mesh went into a frenzy. Theresla changed the clip on her reaction pistol as she crawled toward the bodies, then rolled over and fired at the guards and carbineers who were running across.
Lying behind the bodies of the guards, Theresla shot another three carbineers before the others dropped to the ground or ran. The minute bell rang automatically above the cacophony of barking from the dog cages; then Feydamor staggered out of the tent and shouted for the carbineers to charge Theresla before the Call arrived. Theresla looked up as she heard a clang from the gate to the dog pens and she saw the bolt being drawn back by a pulley: there was an automatic clockwork fail-safe mechanism!
She drew her knife and stood up amid a torrent of bullets, then jammed it into the race under the bolt. She fell, shot in the abdomen; then the Call blanketed the fighting, leaving only the barking of the terriers, which were still locked in their cages.
13 September 3961: Forlan
Before first light on September 14 the weather seers decreed that calm conditions were likely for the day to come. Hundreds of compression engines began chugging into life and Forian’s wingfields were alive with lanterns and torches. No attempt was being made at secrecy as the exercise was meant to be a victory air show, and the citizens of the recently liberated capital crowded the highest buildings and ruins to see the great pageant begin.
“I see that Samondel is leading the Highland Bartolicans against the staging wingfield,” Bronlar said to Serjon as they stood reading their orders.
“It’s a matter of honor. She is compared to you at every turn, so she must prove her bravery.”
“Is your liaison with her still secret?”
“As of two nights ago our liaison has been amicably ended,” said Serjon as he folded his orders and put them into his flight jacket. “It’s a story I have heard before: she feels that she must be one of the boys in order to lead them.”
“That’s stupid. Do you want me to tell her what being one of the boys did to me?”
“Best not to. She also wants to be free to hate the featherheads that we are attacking, and being with me was warming her heart a little too much. It’s her path, and she must fly it if she wishes to.”
First six gunwings ascended, then six sailwings. These would stay on patrol in case any attack materialized while the huge super-flock was streaming into the air. Next came a triwing regal behind three sailwings. The crowd expected the trio to ascend in formation, but as they began rolling along the flightstrip it became clear that they were tethered to the regal. Rockets on the sides of the regal were fired as they gained speed, and the ungainly assembly struggled into the air with the compression engines at full throttle and the rockets streaming fire. The onlookers applauded, but by now another regal and three sailwings were lining up. The second group ascended, then a third and a fourth. Gunwings began ascending too, each towed by a sailwing. They banked to fall in with the regals and headed east.
The thirteenth regal and its sailwings sat ready, spun the compressions up to full throttle, and began moving. Thirteen. The onlookers held their breaths, prayed or shouted “Lift! Lift! Lift!” in a chant as the rockets fired. The regal left the flightstrip, dropped back and bounced, rolled to the left, then straightened and steadied, and finally began climbing. Cheers broke out from everyone who had been within view.
It was now twenty minutes into the mass ascent, and the eastern horizon was beginning to glow with dawn and utterly clear of cloud. The fourteenth regal rolled into place, the sailwings pulled the tow-ropes taut, then they rolled forward. At the line across the flightstrip the port rocket fired—but not the starboard!
Incredibly the regal staggered into the air, its compression engines on overboost. For a few moments it gained height, but almost together the rocket flared out and one engine seized from being too long on overboost. The additional drag pulled the sailwings closer together until two collided. The flyer in the regal released his two bombs and the cables, but could not avoid the lines and debris streaming back at him. The bombs hit the ground and exploded as the tangled sailwings crashed into trees. Live ammunition! nearly every onlooker in the city exclaimed. This was not just a show. The regal banked, lost height, leveled and clipped something and erupted into an oily ball of flame. The surviving sailwing flew out to join the escort group. The fifteenth regal had been revving up even before its predecessor had met its fiery death, and it ascended and passed through the cloud of smoke as it banked and gained height behind its trio of towing sailwings. Regal twenty-two’s middle sailwing lost power when the group was barely in the air, but this time the lesson of regal fourteen came to the rescue. The wingcaptain released all three sailwings at once and banked away from the flightstrip, then released a cloud of small bombs. These were incendiaries, and they hit with brilliant plumes of flame as the middle sailwing flopped down onto the flightstrip, skidded and caught fire in a long, smoky smear. The flyer limped to safety.
Groundrunners had the debris clear and sand on the flames in less than two minutes as the last two regals sat chugging patiently, then they were aloft and turning east. Now the climax was about to begin. The first of the three super-regals was hauled into position while all eyes were watching the last regals rise higher and catch the sunlight of the dawn that had not yet reached the ground.
Powered by six engines and fourteen booster rockets, the super-regals needed no towing sailwings to ascend. The first lifted into the air on a huge cloud of roiling smoke. The still air had not dispersed the rocket fumes before the second super-regal began its run with rockets roaring and six engines at full throttle, and the onlookers shouted and cried prayers aloud as it flew invisible through the cloud, then cheered as it emerged intact.
The sky to the east was now a mass of pairs of sailwings and gunwings, and last of all a thin line of sailwing pairs straggled after the flock. The sound of the engines lessened, and was presently reduced to those of the circling patrol gunwings. Those with field glasses cried out that the vast flock of multi-dominion wings was flying northeast, and was showing no signs at all of turning back.
Sirens began to wail, sirens that heralded the declaration of a full mobilization alert in wartime. Militia and merchant carbineers ran for their weapons, and shops and stalls that had just opened for business quickly closed and packed up. It was only now that criers were sent about with their bells, proclaiming that the massive show of wing power was not just a spectacle to mark the end of the war, but a strike at an enemy far deadlier than the Bartolicans.
By the time the sun rose the city was tense and full of excitement. What enemy was there to the northeast? There was no dominion in all of Mounthaven that did not have wings or regals in that massive flock, so the threat had to be from outside—yet the only other known Callhavens were to the north and south. Callwalker featherheads?
“Fifteen wings lost in ascent, and two of them regals,” said Sartov as he stood beside his own gunwing, staring east.
“Out of seven hundred that is not a bad start,” said the wingfield adjunct.
“Out of the two hundred and thirty meant to get as far as the Sioux City ruin, it is more significant.”
“Lordship, are you sure it is wise to fly in the second wave?” the adjunct asked his airlord, firmly and directly.
“It is not wise, Sair Adjunct, but it is important to me. If Samondel can lead her Bartolicans to the staging wingfield, then why not me? When the first wings begin to return, send out the five observer floatwings at one-hour intervals. I want a good report on what damage we did at the Alliance ruin.”
Feydamor awoke with the sky dark and the whine of the sunwing’s engines in his ears. He was strapped into the front seat of
the sunwing’s cockpit and his hands were firmly tied between his legs. Mirrorsun was low on the horizon.
“I see that you are awake, Sair Feydamor,” said Theresla from the seat behind him.
Feydamor tried to turn, but he was tied too tightly to get a good view of her. The air was cool and musty inside the cockpit, like a bedroom on a winter’s morning, but there was no condensation on the inside of the curving canopy.
“So, you fly to warn your featherhead friends about tomorrow?” Feydamor said sullenly.
“Sair Feydamor, that vague glow to the east is the beginnings of sunrise, not the end of sunset. This is already tomorrow. Work out the rest for yourself, I’ve no mind for chatter.”
Her tone was irritable and tense, which was quite out of character. Sunrise. Were she speaking the truth he must have been insensible for at least fourteen hours, and Mirrorsun would be setting in the west. The sky was clear as he glanced at the constellations, and he soon found the Condor and the Boxkite. Sure enough, they were indeed headed due west. Craning his neck over he could just discern a range of mountains far ahead.
“That’s the Wasatch Range, we’re going to Condelor,” Feydamor concluded.
“That was once known as the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Condelor is five hundred miles behind you. You are the first human to set eyes on them for nearly two thousand years.”
Her reply silenced Feydamor for several minutes more. They were so far west into Callscour country that it did not bear contemplating by anyone who wanted to remain sane. A super-regal could make a trip like this—in fact Theresla had originally demanded a super-regal to make a long trip west, Feydamor now remembered from a letter from Sartov.
“The headwinds have been bad,” Theresla commented as the foothills passed beneath them. “We were blown a way south, but that will give us a good view of the San Francisco abandon.”
“Abandon?”
“My word for ruined city.”
“Travel broadens the mind,” muttered Feydamor.
“I estimate that we have another two hours, maybe three, before turning back. Would you like to see Forian?”
“You said Forian is nearly a thousand miles behind us.”
Swirling motes of light began to dance and gather in the space before Feydamor, and he recognized the projection image that Glasken’s machine could make. It expanded until it was a holographic sphere ten feet across that enclosed the nose of the sunwing. It showed a wingfield by night, but aswarm with torches, lanterns, and hurrying guildsmen. There was even sound, but it was faint and mostly smothered by the whine of the sunwing’s electric engines.
“Sair Virtrian is wearing Glasken’s collar, Laurelene passed it on to him. Whatever he sees is what we see.”
The view was from the noseplate of a super-regal waiting in a queue to turn onto a flightstrip. Off to starboard another super-regal was spinning its engines up to full power; then its rockets were lit and it began to roll forward belching smoke and flames until the edge of the plate cut off the view.
“They’re up, they’re up!” called the tiny voice of someone over the super-regal’s communications pipe.
“This is the attack beginning,” said Feydamor. “But where is the dawn?”
“We are an hour ahead of them. The attack has been getting into the air for the past forty minutes.”
“So they did it, they really did it. The greatest super-flock in the history of Mounthaven is going into battle.”
They watched until Virtrian’s super-regal heaved itself into the air, then were treated to a view of Forian from above as the huge aircraft banked and turned northeast. Escorting gunwings and sailwings formed up into an escort around it, but Feydamor noticed that they were tied together in bunches. One or two sailwings were towing each gunwing, and they were all loaded with pods of extra compression spirit. The sky was lightening at Forian now, and they could see unencumbered gunwings with extenders flying past in separate flocks. These would be the force flying for the Alliance ruin’s Callwalker base. One bore a starflower on its side.
Turbulence from the mountains below began rocking the sunwing, but they flew blindly on with the view above eastern Yarron before their eyes.
“How many did you kill back at Wind River?” Feydamor asked as he tried to rub an itch against the padding of his seat.
“Nine,” replied Theresla.
“At least three of them were my friends,” he said after waiting for words of apology but getting none. “They all had lives before them. You sneaked up in my clothes and you murdered them.”
“They were in the way.”
“Ah, but I forgot, humans are just so many meat birds to you featherheads.”
“They were about to release two hundred guard terriers onto the base, and I could not have gotten both you and me into the sunwing with that pack of aviad killers trying to have me for afternoon tea.”
“What is so important that you could squander nine lives so readily?”
“Forty-five million lives in four Callhavens, Sair Feydamor.”
“Lies and cheap dramatics,” he retorted.
“If they had died defending the sunwing from a Bartolican attack would you be so sanctimonious?”
That caught Feydamor unprepared. He sat sullenly for a time; then Theresla switched off the holographic sphere and they now looked down on a wide, sunlit valley. The sunwing was dropping slowly, and some of the overgrown ruins were visible. Ahead of them was an immense, dark expanse of flatness.
“Most of San Francisco is under water now,” explained Theresla. “With the end of Greatwinter the sea level rose and changed all the coastlines. Little that we do or build is truly lasting, Sair Feydamor.”
Dark lines of ancient bridges ran under the water, and stumps of buildings protruded like giant rock crystals. Large, dark shapes moved just below the surface of the water.
“Those fish, they must be immense,” gasped Feydamor.
“They are not fish, but they are immense.”
Ramsdel was wingcaptain of the second super-regal, and through strict security he was the only one aboard to know the target. Not long after they crossed the North Platte River he whistled into the pipes and cleared his throat.
“Gentlefolk, this is your wingcaptain speaking. I would like to draw your attention to the pall of smoke rising over the ruin known on the old maps as Alliance. That is the advance flock of gunwings and heavy sailwings paying an unannounced visit on a featherhead waystation that traffics in stolen merchandise. That merchandise is the gunwings and sailwings of Yarron, Bartolica, Dorak, and Montras that were misplaced in the recent war.
“Our objective is a ruin by the name of Sioux City, which lies just inside the five-hundred-mile operational radius of this thing. With a lot of luck and no headwinds, and with the use of towing sailwings that go only part of the way, just over two hundred of our regals and gunwings should reach the featherheads’ base at Sioux City, where they have stored as many as four hundred wings. Now if you are the praying type, start praying that there are a lot less than four hundred featherheads that can fly and fight out at Sioux City, because sure as our Airlord’s Yarronese we’re in trouble if we hit odds of two to one when we’re four hundred miles from the nearest edge of the Callscour frontier. Any questions?”
The attack on Alliance was met by twenty gunwings stationed there for contingency defense. It did not destroy the aviads’ primitive radio tower before a transmission could be sent, but luckily for the Mounthaven flock the sheer boldness of the attack defeated even the aviad imaginations. The commander at the Sioux City wingfield assumed that the attack was to disable Alliance and no more. A spare but unmanned wingfield had been cleared at the Chadron abandon, just sixty miles to the north, and it would not take much to get it operational. A Sandhawk ascended, with instructions to fly to Chadron to ensure that it had not been attacked as well, then to turn south and check the damage at Alliance.
Theresla switched the holograph sphere back into life. T
o port of the super-regal was a column of smoke rising not quite straight up from an olive-green plain. From the barely discernible dots of distant gunwings in the foreground Feydamor could tell that it was from an immense fire.
“What did they keep there?” Virtrian’s voice asked. “That’s a huge fire for a few dozen gunwings to start.”
“Compression spirit,” explained a voice over the pipe. “They took the stolen wings there and refueled them for the trip to the Sioux City ruin.”
“Maybe it’s a bigger base than we thought.”
“No, I say it’s a few interceptor gunwings, a dozen featherheads, and thousands of barrels of compression spirit. A close, easy target, not like what’s in store for us in three hours.”
Theresla switched off the sphere and looked out over the ocean that now presented an unbroken line before the canopy.
“I am going to release your hands now, Sair Feydamor. Do not take advantage of your freedom, I still have your reaction pistol and I am in a very scratchy mood.”
Feydamor saw a hand caked with blood reach past his seat and release the knot on the bindings of his hands. She teased the bindings loose, then withdrew her hand and left him to do the rest himself.
“You’re wounded,” he observed, noting fresh blood on the cords.
“Do I get a daystar?”
“How did it happen?”
“Some dog fanciers were in my way back at Wind River. I was shot just below the ribs.”
“But that was sixteen hours ago.”
“Correct. I had a great deal of trouble dragging you to the sunwing and getting it into the air while bleeding all over the place. I took forty standard units of warden-heart. That dulled the pain and cheered me up a lot.”
The Miocene Arrow Page 57
