“Can you go down the lasso?” Jena asked Esme.
“I think I can,” she replied, more confidently than she felt.
It was a relatively short descent, however, and she was able to manage it with only a couple of scrapes to her elbows on the rough wall of the Great Stony Keep. Jena coiled the lasso and put it in a pouch on her belt. She pulled out a base chute, snapped it to her ’grator harness, and leaped over the gallery rail. She landed cat-like on her feet and was at the airboat ramp before Esme.
Megara powered up the airboat in quiet mode, and they drifted into the air, still protected by the darkness. The first hundred meters were nerve-wracking, for Megara did not want Harald’s disappearance to be traced to the Sisterhood. As they drifted higher, it became less and less likely that the airboat would be seen, and she visibly relaxed. Finally, when they reached five thousand meters, she felt confident enough to twist in her seat and say to Esme, “Well, ma’am, I think we all did very well, if I do say so myself.”
Esme did not hear her. She was not buckled in but was on her knees by Harald, who lay on the airboat deck. She held his hand and kissed his forehead tenderly, oblivious of the huntresses and uncaring of her muddy gown and ruined shoes. Megara shook her head. Barbarian women, she mouthed to Felicia, turning the airboat for the Residency.
NINETEEN
GREGHAR FOUND HIMSELF on his horse, disarmed but otherwise unharmed. He counted himself lucky. Nitya had begged and pleaded with Durga, invoking Caitlin’s wishes and the protection he had afforded them since their meeting in Upper Thal. Eventually Durga relented, and after heated arguments with her Maidens, they had decided to not roast him alive. His wrists were bound together, and Durga watched him like hawk.
“One wrong move, savage,” she said. “And it will be my pleasure to vaporize you, one limb at a time.”
Durga had been given the precise location of the tunnel and led the way straight to it. When they reached it, she gave a cry of dismay. The formerly pristine slopes were scarred with wreckage. The entrance to the tunnel had been completely blocked off. It looked as though someone had used a series of ’grator blasts on the tunnel ceiling to seal it with hundreds of tons of rock. Durga and her Maidens tried a few exploratory shots with their ’grators, but it was clear that the blockage was composed of at least a few dozen meters of solid rock.
They had no option but to continue up the trail. Greghar had ridden this trail before, so he knew what to expect. They approached the final kilometer to the citadel itself, and the yawning gap in the trail soon became clear. Durga scanned the approaches to the citadel through her long-vision.
“There is no way to approach the citadel unseen,” she said, disappointed. “If we had an airboat, we could fly using quiet mode to drift in under the cover of darkness.”
“First Maiden,” said Greghar. “I have ranged this area several times. If you have climbing equipment, you can get up the mountain and approach the citadel from its weaker upper slopes. And while the far side is even harder to get to, the citadel’s defenses on that aspect are weaker still.”
“You suggest climbing, barbarian?” scoffed Durga. “With your fear of heights?”
The Maidens all chuckled, and Greghar flushed.
“I will do whatever is necessary to retrieve Lady Caitlin,” he said.
Durga rubbed her thin nose as she habitually did when she was thinking.
“You say the weakest defenses are on the far side of the citadel, further up the Steefen Gorge, away from us?” she asked Greghar.
“Yes, First Maiden,” he said.
“I think we can get there without climbing,” she said with her characteristic wolfish smile.
She turned to one of her Maidens and asked, “Elena, we have flight rods, do we not?”
“Yes, Durga,” Elena responded. “We even have a few tandems.”
“Let us wait for dark. Then I will glide down the gorge and look for a suitable landing site. I will give you the coordinates on the comm when I land. Do you think you can fly a tandem with the savage? He is very big and heavy.”
Elena was petite, lissome, and quite light, more than a head shorter than Durga. She grinned.
“The two of us add up to only one and a half,” she laughed. “The tandem should have more than enough lift to keep us aloft.”
“Well, be careful,” said Durga doubtfully. “If you run into difficulty, jettison the savage. I don’t want to lose you.”
The rest of the evening passed slowly. Greghar and Nitya watched apprehensively as the Maidens extracted the flight rods from their baggage. The flight rod looked like just a very long metal pole, but there was tightly furled lyntronex fabric in it. In the Maidens’ adept hands, spidery struts were extended from the pole, and the fabric was pulled over them. The struts were mated to plugs on the lyntronex with light metal fastenings.
Fully assembled, Durga’s single flight rod had an impressive wingspan. The fabric was field lyntronex, a rougher and much tougher variant of the fabric used in the huntress’ uniforms. As usual in the narrow Steefen Gorge, the sun disappeared from sight quite early in the afternoon. Durga had been scanning the citadel and its approach trail carefully for the past half hour.
“They have sentries out, but if I dive down from here, I should be able to fly down below their line of sight,” she said, thinking aloud. “It should be relatively warmer toward the middle of the gorge, so banking away from the icy walls should give me lift to gain altitude after I am past the citadel.”
Greghar watched with grim fascination as Durga tightened her pack on her back and strapped her sword and ’grator to it. Elena helped her with the straps of the flight rod. She was clearly more worried than Durga. She kissed Durga’s cheek and whispered, “Ma protect you, Durga love” before she stepped back.
Durga stood at the edge of the trail, testing the wind with the wings of her flight rod and looking keenly at the telltales at her wingtips. As soon as she felt a good gust and the telltales streamed true, she ran ten or more paces downhill along the trail, her wings billowing. Then she leaped into space. There was a collective expulsion of breath as she temporarily disappeared from view. Then she reappeared in their line of sight, fifty meters below them, gliding effortlessly up the gorge. She banked to come directly under the walls of the citadel, virtually invisible to the sentries. The lyntronex of her flight rod was dark green, and very soon, the Maidens, Greghar, and Nitya all lost sight of her in the gathering darkness.
Elena tapped her wrist bracer and opened a comm channel to Durga.
“Just let us know what you see, Durga,” she said anxiously.
“This is great, Elena!” responded Durga with enthusiasm. “You are going to love this flight. The air is clear, and the lift is good. I’ll open a comm channel to you as soon as I land.”
As soon as she closed the comm channel, Elena directed her fellow Maidens to assemble two tandem flight rods. She took Greghar and Nitya aside, along with Ielani, the tall Maiden that Durga had selected to pilot Nitya.
“The tandem flight rods require little of the passenger,” she said. “The hardest part is the takeoff…that is the only time you have to do anything.”
“Just tell us what we need to do,” said Greghar uneasily.
Nitya impulsively put her hand on his bound wrists.
“You will each be in a sling in front of the pilot,” said Elena, her tone professional and cool. “The hardest part is the waiting. We will wait for the right wind, as you saw Durga do. When it is right, your pilot will tell you to run, and you must match her pace. The most important thing is that you must leap off the edge of the trail exactly when she tells you to. After you leap, the rest is completely up to your pilot, you need do nothing more—just don’t make any sudden movements to upset the balance.”
Elena saw Greghar’s jaw clench tight and knew he was controlling his panic.
“It is normal to be afraid,” she said in a surprisingly kind tone. “Just close your eyes and jump,
that is what I did my first time.”
It seemed like an age had passed before they all heard the ping, and Elena opened the comm channel in speaker mode so they could all hear.
“I have found a spot,” came Durga’s voice, metallic in the speaker. “It is not perfect, but it will do. The approach is rather difficult, but I can guide you in. And I will lay out some beacons to indicate the location.”
Without giving them time to think about it, Elena and Ielani immediately had the prepared tandems’ wings spread out. Greghar and Nitya were helped into the slings, and their straps were cinched up tight. Greghar found himself trussed up from his crotch to his armpits in rough lyntronex. His wrists were still bound, and he raised them up questioningly.
Elena had just finished tightening the main straps of the wings on her shoulders and said, “Don’t worry—you won’t need your hands as we fly. If we crash, your hands won’t save you anyway.”
This was hardly comforting, but it was too late to back out now. He clenched his teeth and fixed his gaze on the gorge wall beside the trail. He heard Nitya calling his name and twisted in the sling to see her. Like him, she was cinched up tight, looking very small in front of Ielani. She smiled, waved at him, and blew him a kiss.
“It will be fun, Greghar, don’t worry!” she called.
Elena was behind him, and she now caught his eye.
“I am waiting for the right wind,” she said calmly. “As soon as I say ‘run,’ you will run as fast as you can downhill along the edge of the trail. When I say ‘jump,’ you will jump to your left into the gorge—close your eyes before you do so; I guarantee that will make it easier. Don’t worry; I have done this many times before, with even heavier dead loads than you. We will be fine.”
Greghar nodded, maintaining a steely façade only with an iron will. His heart was hammering, but the droplet of sweat that trickled down his face was the only outward indication of his terror. If I am to die today, at least this is better than being roasted alive, he told himself. As he was consoling himself, he suddenly heard the command, “Run!”
He set off at a brisk trot downhill along the edge of the trail, and at the command “Jump!,” he dutifully closed his eyes and leapt off into space. There followed what seemed like an age of free fall—a peculiar sensation with his eyes closed—and then all of a sudden he felt the sling jerk him very sharply. He opened his eyes and felt even more terror, for they were gliding at what seemed to be incredible speed very close to the cliff face of the gorge wall. He could not see Elena, for she was behind and above him, her hands on the rod, working the angles of the wings. After a few minutes of terror, when he just hung rigidly in the sling, he began to relax with the realization that they were not falling straight down to the bottom of the gorge. The flight itself was actually quite exhilarating. However, every now and then, they were buffeted by a wind gust or hit an air pocket. The sudden drops, rises, and sideways motions frightened him as much as they excited Nitya.
Elena had opened a comm channel to Durga and vectored her flight accordingly. Ielani was following her and monitoring their conversation. When they were safely past the citadel, and Elena and Ielani activated small, flashing-red beacons. They flew on, banking to the middle of the gorge to get lift and then back toward the walls to maintain altitude. Another hour of flight, and there was a ping from Elena’s wrist bracer, indicating an incoming comm channel.
“I see you both now,” said Durga on the comm. “I am activating my beacon now.”
All four of them on the flight rods saw Durga’s flashing beacon come on. In the dark, it looked like a sheer cliff face. Even Elena wondered how they were going to make a landing.
“Fly toward me and begin circling,” said Durga over the comm. “When you are close enough, you should be able to see the small waterfall that emerges from a cleft in the cliff face. If you come in with a slight bank to port, you will have enough clearance to fly in. It’s a tight fit, but once you are in, it opens up a bit, and there is a small landing spot by the stream that feeds the falls.”
They did as she bid, and Elena went in first. Durga was right; the cleft was barely wide enough, and Greghar was sure their wingtips would splinter on its walls. Elena jockeyed the flight rod expertly and as Durga promised, the cleft widened, and they both saw the flat snowy ground that Durga referred to. She had set another flashing beacon there. In addition, the boot prints from her landing were visible, and Elena was able to use them to align her own landing.
“Savage, your feet will touch first—you must run and bear the weight of the entire flight rod and me till I get my footing,” said Elena in her calm, unruffled tone.
The ground seemed to be coming up toward him far too fast, but when his feet touched, the shock was less than he expected. He ran as instructed, and within mere seconds, Elena had landed. They came to a stop, with the wide wings drooping over them. Elena quickly unstrapped herself and then undid Greghar’s sling. While she was doing this, Ielani landed.
By the time Durga appeared, wading up the stream, they had begun to disassemble the flight rods. Durga trudged up through the snow, blowing steam in the chill night. It was incongruous to Greghar that she could wade in the icy stream without even the appearance of being cold. She came up to them and gave Elena a quick hug.
“Great flying, love,” she said. “Sunrise is still several hours away. We’ve flown a considerable distance past the citadel, but this was the first reasonable landing spot. I spent some time flying around, and I marked a route for us to march back to the citadel. It should not involve much climbing, but it is quite rugged. We will rest till just before dawn—it will be safer to do most of the hike in daylight. We should get to the citadel as light is fading.”
NESTAR CROGUS AROSE and pulled his bell rope. An old Zon answered immediately and bustled about, putting in the kindling and getting his fire going. He lay in the warm blankets till the fire was blazing before swinging his legs out of the bed and putting on his fleece slippers.
“Tell my servitors to draw me a hot bath,” he said to the Zon. “I want them to bathe me and perfume me luxuriantly. For today I wed a Zon beauty and make her a baroness!”
The Zon merely bobbed her head and withdrew. Nestar was in too a good a mood to care about the surliness of his Zon servitors. They didn’t seem to realize how lucky they were that they served him. He could easily give them to his men, and then they would see how hard life could be! He had done so with a few of the more recalcitrant ones. None now dared to raise their eyes to him, and this was good. He liked to be feared.
The sunlight poured in through the large viewport. He was in a subsidiary suite of Ostracis Keep, and the bedroom was far smaller than the master. But tonight would be different! He was in a fever of anticipation. He had no Khalif and no deacon, but one of his men had qualified in a Thermadan seminary and was technically a cleric. He knew the Thermadan wedding service, and he would have to do. I can get our vows reconsecrated in Nordberg Cathedral by Animus, the White Khalif, thought Nestar expansively. As King Shobar’s right-hand man and his newly created baron, Animus will not dare refuse me.
An hour later, bathed and dressed in freshly laundered wools and linens—rather than steel and leather—Nestar entered the master suite of Ostracis Keep. Caitlin was with one of his Zon servitors, a tall woman with a thick mop of white, bobbed hair. Her face was creased with the deep furrows of age, but her eyes were a bright blue, and she was robust and erect. Her name was Aliuta Ednina, and she was one of the first captives his men had brought him on that memorable day that he took the citadel. She must have been a lovely woman when she was younger. He had raped her repeatedly during his first few days as master of Ostracis, continually whispering in her ear, “You are old, you are old.” But after she ceased to struggle and fight him, he had rapidly tired of her. However, as the best-looking of his aged retinue of Zon servitors, he had given her to Caitlin to be her personal maid.
She had just completed brushing Caitlin’s shini
ng mane and was winding it into an attractive coiffure atop her head. Caitlin stared at Nestar as he came in, unarmed except for a small, jeweled dagger. Her expression was blank, her green eyes vacant, and she did not speak.
“You must look happy to see him, Lady Caitlin,” whispered Aliuta in her ear in Pranto. “His moods are mercurial, and he angers very easily.”
Nestar walked up to them very casually and crooked his finger at Aliuta. She put the last tie into Caitlin’s coiffure and came up and stood before him. He smiled at her and suddenly struck her face with his open palm, so hard that she staggered back and fell on her side.
“Don’t speak unless you are spoken to,” he said pleasantly. “And then, never in a language I cannot understand.”
Caitlin’s face went red with anger, and her eyes now flashed.
“Lady Caitlin, please no angry…” cried Aliuta from the floor in broken, heavily accented Utrish. “Me bad, me fault, you happy please.”
She looked down at the old woman and saw pleading in her eyes. Aliuta scuttled to her feet and came up behind Caitlin.
“Me dress Lady Caitlin now, very pretty, very pretty dress,” she prattled to Nestar. “You wait Small Hall, you see, you see.”
Nestar looked at Aliuta with a mixture of condescension and disgust. He then bowed to Caitlin.
“My dear, I will await you in the Small Hall,” he said agreeably. “It will be a pleasure to see you in a pretty dress. As my baroness, I will see that you are furnished with the finest dresses and jewelry—your beauty deserves to be celebrated, not hidden beneath warrior garb.”
Caitlin was afraid that if she was not agreeable, he would strike Aliuta again, so with great difficulty, she managed a weak smile.
“You are too kind, sir,” she said, in what she hoped was an amiable tone.
Nestar nodded and left the room. When he was in the hall, they heard him whistling a merry tune.
The Empire of the Zon Page 41
