by Blooding, SM
I took her gaze and held it. “I know that it’s dangerous. I know that it’s wild, but there are no harbors, news does not travel fast there, and the Hands do not yet control it.”
She lowered her gaze to the floor. “I do not like this idea.”
“You don’t have to, but if you find there are no other options, go there. Get the supplies you need and keep our people in the air. We’re no good if we can’t stay afloat.”
She nodded. “How will we stay in contact?”
“Get with Joshua. When he gives you the radar, he’ll set you up with something that he and Haji have been working on. I think you’ll approve. You’ll be able to listen in on the Hands.”
“Are they able to listen in on us?”
I gave her a hard look. “If they were, do you think Ino City would still be safe?”
She nodded. “You are right.” She took a step back. “Safe be your journey.”
I took her face in my hands and touched my forehead to hers. “And yours. Keep our people safe, Isra.”
She took my head in her hands. “I shall, sayyd Synn El’Asim.”
As she turned and drifted into the crowd, my mother took her place. “Isra and I talked earlier today.”
I nodded.
“I think I have an idea that might help your transportation issue.”
My interest was piqued.
“We have a lethara. He’s small and still needs training. We could lend him to you and your friends.”
“Mother.” That was fantastic news and a great relief. “We don’t know how to take care of a lethara.”
She nodded. “That’s why a small crew will go with you. Ryo will be joining you.” Her breath hitched in her chest. “But, Synn.”
“Yes?”
She met my gaze. “He is my heir. He shall take my place when I am gone. Please do not get him killed.”
I raked my teeth along my top lip and thought about what I was about to say. “I can make no promises. We are headed into some very troubled areas, and Varik isn’t playing nice. I will do what I can to keep him safe, but understand I have the heads of three Families on my crew, and the future heads of another two. I understand that I need to keep them safe. We all do.”
She reached out and held my arm, running her thumb up and down, her gaze distant. “If you need anything and think we can be of assistance, let us know. If it is in our power and for the benefit of the people, we will do so.”
I nodded.
“But understand that we cannot assist in a full attack of Sky City.”
“I know.” I winced as different attack plans ran through my mind’s eye, all with varied consequences and outcomes. “I doubt that will be our best plan. We’ll gather information and assess the situation. Somehow, we’ll find a way to keep the Families safe.”
“Not just the Families, Synn,” Mother said. “But all of the peoples. We sometimes forget that all the Families lesser and greater are under our protection.”
I pulled at a hang nail in thought. “The problem is that I don’t know exactly what the best solution is.”
Mother turned away from me, walking at a slow pace toward the door. “To be honest, musuko, neither do I. We had originally thought that we should bind our Families and tie allegiances and that that would be enough.”
“But it wasn’t. Our Families, even though married, did not unite.”
“The marriage between your father and I did not unite because of me. I know that.” She stopped at the door. “I did come to love your father, Synn.”
I didn’t know what she was looking for, so I said softly, “He loved and cared for you as well.”
She smiled a sad smile. “It is good of you to say.”
“I say it only because I believe it to be true.”
She nodded and took in a deep, chest rising breath. “Your crew and lethara will be ready in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
“You will have to make decisions we could not bring ourselves to make before, when the Hands were not so powerful, when the Families still had enough power to hide. You will have to find a way to either bring about a compromise or bring them down.”
I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to make that happen.
She turned to leave and stopped herself, turning back. “My heir, your older brother, might be going with you, but you are the leader. You might not always know what’s right or best, but you must do what your gut tells you to do. He will challenge you.”
I nodded. “I’ve dealt with that in the past.”
She patted my arm and turned to leave, really doing so this time. “May the wind be kind.”
“And the journey be swift,” I murmured and turned back to the crowd.
CHAPTER 28
A HORNET TO AN AIRBOAT
We stayed up much too late that night, but with all the Families gathered, it was the perfect time to talk to each of them about their run-ins with Varik, if they had, and fill them in on the radar and the modified radios that allowed us to communicate with one another and listen to the Hands at the same time. That radio was the reason we’d been able to keep Ino City out of Varik’s range for so long.
We knew that the Hands had to be catching on. They were already sending coded messages, but their codes were barely concealed, their algorithm easy to crack. It left me with a sick feeling in my gut. What if they finally figured out how to listen in? If they had stumbled onto our communication systems, surely there’d be more attacks on our meetings, but…
Maybe I was just being overly cautious.
It was also a good time to socialize. If the Families had any chance of banding together, we needed to get to know one another. The situation with the Hands had the potential to get uglier real quick. I needed to know who I could trust.
However, after talking to all of them, I quickly came to the conclusion that in their efforts to hide, the Families didn’t have the kind of intel we needed in order to come up with a solid plan of either defense or offense. How were we going to launch an attack on the Hands if we didn’t know how big their fleet was, where their fleet hubbed, and what kind of technological advancements they’d been able to achieve?
Fear was an almost constant companion. Was attack the best option? Hiding wasn’t, so what did that leave? Defense? What could we do? Our best defense was hiding. Attack was really the only recourse left to us. We needed room to breathe. The Families didn’t want to rule the world as the Hands did. We just wanted to live in freedom as we had for so many generations.
They were looking to me to find that freedom for them. Me.
Was I ready? I didn’t think so. I’d barely survived the past season. How could I lead an attack, find a solution, seek peace? There was so much I didn’t know, didn’t understand. I felt like a child.
We needed information.
The next morning, long before my brain was awake, I was out of bed and headed down to the dock where our lethara was being loaded.
What I saw was not what I had expected. I was escorted down to the bottom level of the city, the furthest from the Family quarters. Even before our enclosed platform descended to the lowest level, I could hear the noise. It sounded like we’d found a circus.
When the grate rose, I soon discovered that we had…of sorts.
It was a dock. However, it was unlike any dock I’d ever seen. Each pier was supported from the levels above, not from the sea below. There was a thin skin enclosing most of it, but like the observation deck, the water never rose past the docks.
There were smaller letharan, their entire cities docked. There were also other creatures with long flowing fins of every color and with hair that looked like sea silk. There was even a large ocwhal that took up three docks, and from its back clambered several people that were a little more humanoid in form, but had flimsy fins and no hair, just scales.
The languages beings spoken were unlike any I’d heard before. The humanoids with no hair talked in clicks and squeals. There was a r
ace of people that looked like giant fish with spider legs that talked in gulps and mews.
I was amazed. In the air, we had our creatures, sure, but we had nothing like this. Where did they go during the season of ice? Did they hibernate like some of the other land creatures did? Or did they stay under the water somehow? And how was that possible if the water was solid ice?
Those were questions for a different time. Right now, I was being introduced to our lethara.
When Mother had said that she was letting us borrow a smaller lethara, I thought she meant it was going to be small. No. It was big enough to be a small town. Joshua had room for an entire laboratory on there. Granted, it wasn’t as big as the laboratories on Sky City, but it held all of his equipment and some materials that we hadn’t brought with us originally.
Unfortunately, we inherited all of the ready-made meals, largely because no one else wanted to eat them. Keeley tried to get the survivors to agree to taking at least some, but there wasn’t even a gesture of polite support. There was only the “get these out of my kitchen before I take this knife to you” from Mother’s head cook.
We each had our own apartment in the housing development portion of the lethara, which consisted of eight trunks and nine platforms. He was big enough for three levels.
I had no idea how to fly the thing. But unlike an airship, I didn’t need to know everything about it in order to command him. I just needed to know the basics.
It looked like I was going to be learning those on the fly, but this was something I was starting to get good at.
There were no good-byes. We’d said most of those last night. Sabine, Yvette’s mother, decided to join us, if only briefly. We still needed to attack a submersible to scrap the boilers, and she’d agreed to help us.
As soon as the last of us were on board, the cityscape rose into the upper levels of the lethara’s trunks closer to his medusa. The dock of Ino City disappeared, the sounds blanketed, and then we sank until there was nothing left to hear and the only thing we could see was the letharan lights of the city. Pretty soon even those disappeared.
Ryo knocked on the open door to my apartment.
I turned and chucked my chin at him before turning back to the window, peering through the skin of our lethara, watching as the last of the lights disappeared.
He joined me and leaned against the hard wall. “What’re you thinking?” he asked in Adalic. As I was the leader, that would be the primary language we all spoke. Keeley would be happier, though she still struggled with it. At least she was doing better with it than my mother’s language.
“I’m not quite sure, actually.”
He was quiet for a moment. “What are we going to do?”
I winced. “I don’t know.”
He paused and then thumped me on the arm. “You know what you need?”
I looked over at him. “What’s that?”
“You need to spar.”
I groaned.
“Not that kind of sparring. Real sword in hand kind of sparring. No Marks.”
I thought about that, a slow grin slipping over my lips. “Isra managed to bring me swords from our Family. I could use the practice.”
“Well, get them and meet me in the common room.”
It didn’t take me long to find them.
The common room was like the lounging quarters of a large Family suite. The girls’ rooms were off to the left, with Haji’s and Joshua’s to my right. Ryo’s was right off the short hallway that led to the main corridor.
He had pushed a couple of the more fragile things out of the middle of the room. He pulled out his long, flat blade. As a kid, I’d made the mistake of making fun of that sword. I still had the scars from that skirmish.
I removed my two curved blades and left the sheaths just inside my room, moving the blades around, getting a feel of their weight and balance. The arms master had done an exceptional job with one, but the other was a bit off. I might have to trade it out.
“I know you have a good idea of where we should go,” Ryo said, attacking, his sword high.
I blocked him easily, my swords crossed. “Not really.” I pushed him off and we circled each other. “I lack direction.”
He pushed a chair out of his way as he circled. “Then what do we need to do?”
I found my opening and stepped in, bringing in my left and then swinging in with my right as he went for the block.
He parried both, pushed me off, and we paced again.
“We need more information,” I said, my breath starting to come heavily. I hadn’t realized just how out of shape I was. Sitting around for months hadn’t been kind to me.
“Like what?” He came in for an attack. Our swords sang, slid, and we were pacing again. “We already know a great deal.”
I shook my head. “What we have is a lot of gossip. We don’t know how man—” Another opening. I took the advantage and drew blood across his cheek.
He pulled away, wiping it with the back of his hand, a grin on his face.
I grinned back, circling. “—how many ships are in their fleet or how many submersibles they have. We don’t know if they’ve made any advancements in weapons.”
“So you need a spy.”
I nodded. “One person isn’t enough. We need a network of people willing to gather that kind of intelligence.”
He saw an opening—my right side was too high. I was getting distracted by the conversation—but he pulled back before attacking as I fixed it. “We could ask the other Families.”
“They’ve already said they won’t make a stand.”
“But they never said anything about not gathering information and passing it along.” Swords clanged. Beat, beat, beat, bash, swiissssh, beat, bat, clang, grunt, silence. “They’re afraid. Tired of living under the rule of the Hands.”
“Tired enough to help?” Beat, bash, bash, bash, clank, clunk, roar, beat, beat, bash, growl, silence. My breathing was very heavy now. “Or just tired enough to complain? Could we trust their intel? Or would they be feeding us bad information in hopes of gaining a reward with the Hands?”
Ryo widened the circle, his chest heaving, sweat glistening along his bare arms. “We’d have to try it out.”
I took an opening, swooped in, and ran back out, twisted, feinting right, dodged left, and then brought my swords up. That caught him by surprise as I took his sword and twisted it. He nearly lost his grip, but managed to dance away, his blade still in hand.
“Do you know a place we might try?” I asked, my eyes searching, seeing only him, his past movements and those he hadn’t made yet, scoping out the scene around us. Chair. Table. Lamp. Chair. Long table. Chair.
“I might,” he said with a grunt as he came in for another attack.
I ran, leapt onto the chair, along the short table, to the other chair. It toppled as my feet left it. As my foot found the long table, I twisted and pushed off, gaining the element of surprise, height and the added bonus of gravity on my downward swing. This time when my blades twisted around his, his sword skittered across the floor, my swords at his throat and abdomen.
He raised his eyebrows. “Nice move.”
I grinned and took my swords from him, stepping away. “Thanks.”
“Where’d you learn that?”
“Onboard an airship.” I grinned like a fool, remembering. “You learn to use your surroundings to your advantage.”
“You should and can do that anywhere, Synn,” he said, sounding like the older brother as he bent to retrieve his blade.
I found my sheaths and put my blades away, strapping one to my belt and setting the other aside. “Where is this place you had in mind?”
“There’s a city we trade with often. We’ve protected them several times. I’m sure they could help. I could tell the navigator to take us there. They’re close.”
I nodded. “Letharan?”
“Yes.” His sword was along his back, his hands free. “What are we going to do with the intelligence aft
er we get it?”
I shook my head, heading to the hallway that led to the corridor. “I don’t know. I would love to take out as much of their fleet as I could, but I know we don’t have enough people to do any real damage. We’d be like a hornet to an airboat.”
“Then what, little brother?”
I looked at him as we entered the bright corridor, the floors and walls in shades of green, the walls ensconced with letharan light. “Let’s take this one step at a time. Let’s gather the information and supplies first, then see what we can do after that.”
He grinned and clapped my shoulder. “You’re sounding more like a leader and less like a younger brother every moment. I may not be needed after all.”
So that’s why Mother had sent Ryo. He had the most experience in a leadership role than any of us.
I just hoped it would be enough. After all, we were going to have to make the kind of decisions our parents couldn’t.
Father of Sky, how I hoped I would be enough.
CHAPTER 29
I AM NOT PRIMUS
We were traveling toward the letharan city of Egolda, which wasn’t as close as I’d thought. When you’re in the middle of a large expanse of water where it’s just you, distance is relative.
Joshua got his sonar running, and we started scanning the sea floor. We ran a few experiments and discovered how they were able to see us through their sonar. It was amazing, but our decks below ricocheted the sounding ping. After some discussion, we decided to have our lethara fully encapsulate us. There were disadvantages to that. Number one, the air wasn’t as fresh. We were closer to the medusa, which was technically his space. The other one was that we couldn’t move as fast.
But at least we were closer to being invisible. Not quite. Sonar could pick up just about anything, but if they did pick us up, they’d see a citiless lethara and would hopefully leave us alone.
We also took that time to study the submersibles.
They traveled in packs of ten to twelve, and they had explosive weapons they used to clear their way. They preferred staying close to the sea floor. It was easier to remain undetected. As the Leblancs traveled out of our city to do some reconnaissance, they discovered that the submersibles were nearly impossible to see through the mud they were kicking up.
