Combatant: The Revelations of Oriceran (The Kacy Chronicles Book 3)

by Anderle, Michael

  "That's the harpy venom. And I could, but I'm on a roll. I've got my rhythm. Labels, please. I have thirty here already, but I need more. You can start from 1 and go to 1000," the Elf instructed. "I'll know where I am."

  Sol grinned at Jordan, his expression hopeful. "We got told."

  He went to the kitchen counter where there was another stack of blank paper. Jordan and Sol made a thousand or more small squares and began to number them.

  "So, what did Arth say? I wish I could have been there," Sol was bent over the paper, numbering and stacking, numbering and stacking. Jordan was numbering backward from one thousand, while Sol was numbering forward from one.

  "She thinks she can do it, but she's going to talk to Toth about mobilizing a team."

  "Makes sense. She can't do it all herself. Any idea how long before we have a prototype?"

  "I don't know. Arth said she needs time with the plans."

  The two Arpaks grew silent and thoughtful as they worked. Jordan yawned. Then Sol yawned. Minutes later, they heard Eohne yawn from the closet.

  "Take a break, Eohne," suggested Jordan. "You must be stiff and sore from all that pouring."

  "Just a few more," Eohne's voice drifted from the closet. "Another sixty-three, and I'll rest at a round number."

  Jordan and Sol finished up the labels and set them where Eohne could reach them.

  "I'm going to wash up," Jordan said, fighting back another yawn.

  "Good idea." Sol went to Jordan's back and loosened all of her laces, opening up the back.

  Jordan closed herself inside the water closet and sighed with pleasure as she wormed her way out of her armor, shedding it into piles on the floor like snakeskin.

  The shower in Sol's house was a tall, wide box lined with textured rectangular tiles. Two thin chains hung from the ceiling, fastened to levers which, when pulled, allowed hot and cold water to mingle and cascade down in a waterfall. The wash area wasn't quite large enough to stretch her wings out fully, but she was able to open them and let the water pour over both sides.

  Sol had explained that every residential tower had been engineered to capture and store rainwater. Part of the Light Elves’ magic included an eternal flame that heated some of that water, which was then distributed via gravity to all of the apartments beneath it. It was, like most things in Rodania, medieval with a magical twist.

  Jordan's mind wandered to Blue as the hot water eased her tight muscles and washed the smell of leather, armor, sweat, grease, smoke, and oil off her body and feathers. Her heart grew heavy when she thought of her little reptilian companion.

  Where is he? I wonder if it’s better this way, she thought with a touch of bitterness. He's free now; we won't have to endure him getting kicked out of Rodania, or make some agonizing decision about what to do.

  These thoughts only made Jordan feel mildly better. She missed Blue so badly she could taste it, but she loved him enough to want what was best for him. He was a wild creature; a beautiful predator who belonged in acres of wilderness, not cramped up in some apartment in rural Rodania.

  Jordan closed up the waterfall and toweled off. She stepped out of the wash-space, but turned her back to it, leaving her wings inside. She shook her wings, and sprays of water splattered all over the inside of the tile room.

  A full-length mirror had been fastened to the back of the bathroom door—–which towered high above Jordan's head, the way all Rodanian doors did. She caught a glimpse of her reflection and paused. Her skin was pale from being completely covered in armor and protected from the sun, except for her face, which was tanned and dusted with freckles.

  Her body, while it had always been fit from climbing and running, had changed dramatically since she'd begun to train as a Strix combatant. Ridges of muscle outlined her shoulders and arms, and shadowed crevices across the terrain of her stomach revealed the kind of musculature any Amazon warrior would have been proud of. Jordan's thighs had grown hard, but her legs remained slender and lean, as they were used now for balance and momentum more than running and climbing.

  Jordan turned and flexed her wings open. The yellow feathers were fluffy and glossy from her shower, and the speckled brown secondary feathers reflected a reddish tint in the lamplight. Her eyes widened as she gazed at the musculature of her back through her wings. Her shoulders had broadened. Where her human scapulae ended was where the primary bones of her wings began. Ridges of muscle lined her spine, and her lats had acquired striations that had not been there before. Her hair had grown so long that it cascaded down her back and mingled with the soft downy feathers on either side of her spine.

  "Everything okay?" Sol's voice on the other side of the door made her jump. "You didn't fall asleep in the waterfall and drown, did you?"

  Jordan blushed, feeling as though he'd caught her in a moment of vanity. "Almost done!"

  She pulled on her soft sleeping pants, which had once been Sol's, and a thin, long-sleeved undershirt, which she put her arms through before reaching behind and tugging on the laces to cinch it closed. The undershirt had also been Sol's. Between her armor, her sleeping garments, and the clothing Sol had given her way back in Nishpat, Jordan had a sparse wardrobe.

  She yawned and moved through the rest of her routine before vacating the wash-closet.

  She padded barefoot into the kitchen. Half of the lanterns had been extinguished, save for the ones inside the closet. Eohne could still be heard cutting and pouring, cutting and pouring. Sol winked as he passed Jordan on his way to the water-closet to prepare for bed.

  "Come to bed, Eohne." Jordan leaned against the doorjamb of the closet and watched her friend work. "You need to rest, or you'll make a mistake."

  "Just a little longer. You go ahead," Eohne replied without looking up from what she was doing. Eohne was now completely surrounded by small vials lined up like soldiers. Everything she now poured was crystal clear.

  "Will there even be any harpy venom left by the time you're done?"

  "No," Eohne said. "That's the point. All that will be left is the essence of it. Your father needs the lightest dose possible to start with, and if that doesn't work, we'll try a stronger one until we get a reaction."

  The question, ‘What if it doesn't work?’ was on the tip of Jordan's tongue, but she bit it back. There was no point in asking. Tomorrow, they would find out—–or at least start finding out.

  Instead, she asked, "Any idea how long it might take to work?"

  "The right dose should work immediately. The question is…" Eohne looked up for the first time, her slender fingers grasping the vials and holding them up.

  "What's the right dose?" the two women asked together.

  They shared an exhausted smile.

  "Go to bed, Jordan." Eohne went back to her work. "I won't be far behind you."

  "Okay. Thanks, Eohne."

  Jordan padded silently into the bedroom she now shared with the three most important people in her life. Sol had shoved their two mattresses together and arranged the blankets across the double bed. That suited Jordan just fine.

  She crawled under the quilt and let her wings relax on the floor behind her. A short while later, Sol came to bed, clean and smelling of trees. His hands reached for her, wrapped around her torso, and pulled her to him. Then he planted a soft kiss on her forehead.

  "I love you, Jordy," Sol whispered, his lips moving against the skin of her temple.

  Jordan felt her bottom lip tremble at the nickname her father had always used for her. She'd never told Sol that was her pet name growing up, and she hadn't heard it since the last day she'd seen her father in Virginia.

  "I love you too, Sol." Jordan tilted her head back and planted a kiss on his warm lips. His stubble grazed her mouth pleasantly.

  She tucked her head beneath his chin and fell asleep to the quiet rhythmic sounds of Eohne cutting and pouring, cutting and pouring.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The sound of multiple sets of feet and wings landing on the terrace jolte
d Jordan awake. She sat up, thinking she had to be dreaming. It felt as though she'd just fallen asleep, but the barest light of dawn filtered in through the window, dusting the sky with peach and yellow tones. She hadn't just ‘gone to sleep’; she'd been in a comatose and dreamless stupor for hours.

  Sol's warm hand pressed against her lower back as he sat up beside her, the quilt falling down around their waists. Sol's bare chest raised gooseflesh in the cool temperature of the early morning.

  Jordan got to her feet and glanced at the floor on the far side of Allan's bed, where Eohne's mattress was. The Elf wasn't there, but the sheets were rumpled. Jordan wondered if they were rumpled because the Elf never bothered to make her bed, or if they were rumpled because she'd slept in them.

  Hushed voices could be heard outside the bedroom. The Arpaks went to the door to peek out.

  Eohne, Toth, and Arth were talking with their heads bent over something on the kitchen island. Arth caught a glimpse of Jordan peeking out of the bedroom door.

  "Morning! Did we wake you?" Her face was lit and devoid of any real regret, if the Nychts had awakened them.

  Sol, yawning, reached from behind Jordan and opened the door. "Who's there? It's an ungodly hour for a visit, and I'm no longer a messenger, so it can't be––"

  He pulled up short.

  "Oh! Toth." He crossed his arms over his chest in a self-conscious manner as he nodded to his new military leader.

  "Well, hello there." A wide grin spread across Arth's face, and she came around her big brother to introduce herself. Her beetle-black eyes glittered as she unabashedly swept Sol's half-naked form with an appreciative gaze. "You're a lovely sight, first thing in the morning." She glanced at her brother. "You never told me how handsome he is."

  "Handsome?" Toth looked genuinely clueless, as though he hadn't heard the word in a very long time and needed to access some deeply buried language files in his brain before comprehension emerged. His gaze swept to Sol, and he arched a brow, giving a non-committal grunt.

  Sol's eyes narrowed. "What did he tell you about me?"

  "Only that you're the strongest of all the Arpak combatants; almost as good as the weakest Nycht. That, and you used to be a courier, so with some training, you show real potential."

  "Oh." Sol looked as though he didn't quite know what to think of this mixed review. "Jordan has spoken highly of your abilities, as well. I'll just…" he took a step back, cheeks reddening under her bold stare, “put some clothes on."

  "Not for my sake, I hope."

  Jordan approached the kitchen counter, her curiosity outranking the need to get dressed for their company. "I didn't know you were such a flirt, Arth," she teased.

  "She came from the womb a flirt," Toth replied, looking down at his little sister with a kind of exasperated fondness.

  Jordan took in the brother and sister pair, marvelling that they could be related. Toth was pale, with skin that took on only a light golden cast even after hours in the sun. His eyes were a bright, piercing gray, and his hair a shining silver. He was tall, broad, long-limbed, and powerful, with thickly-membraned wings and long, curving dewclaws. His face and arms were criss-crossed with scars, and his expression was always guarded and coolly detached.

  Arth, on the other hand, was petite and delicate; the top of her head barely reached Toth's armpit. Her skin and wings were both a rich, chocolate brown, and her eyes glinted like black obsidian. Her expression was open and enthusiastic, almost guileless. Her wings were lean, on the short side, and her dewclaws were two glossy brown nubs that looked more like accessories than weapons or tools for climbing. Her hair was as dark as Toth's was light, and as curly as his was straight.

  "Same mother, different father," Toth grunted in answer to Jordan's questing gaze.

  "Oh." She blushed. She would do well to learn to hide some of her thoughts and feelings, the way Toth did. She shifted her assessing gaze to Eohne. "Did you sleep last night?'

  "I did, but I got up early. I was just finishing the last batch when these two arrived. Just a few more cuts, and I'll be ready to give him his first dose."

  "Who?" Arth sounded more like an owl in that moment than most owls did.

  "My father. He was trapped in Trevilsom, and…" Jordan saw Toth's expression growing mildly impatient. "Well, I'll fill you in some other time."

  Sol emerged from the bedroom in his armor, as Eohne disappeared into the closet to finish up her medicine-making.

  Arth looked disappointed at Sol's having covered up.

  "What brings you to our humble apartment so early this morning?"

  Arth snapped out of her reverie, and the engineer was back. "It's this gun I'm working on."

  Sol approached the table, looking down at the plans spread out on his kitchen counter. "Looks like you've drawn up a blueprint from the model?"

  "Yes. It's part of my process. I have to take the build-out from scratch as though I'm the one who invented it, even when I'm reverse engineering. It's the only way I'll thoroughly understand what I'm doing."

  "Makes sense," Jordan looked down at the neat blue lines of the sketches. "What can we help you with?"

  Toth stepped in. "We've got metalworkers already building the first prototype, she just needs clarity on a few details."

  Jordan and Sol looked at one another in surprise. "Already?" Jordan's brows jumped. "I just gave you these plans last night!"

  "Nychts are nocturnal," Toth reminded her.

  "It wasn't hard to find laborers ready to trade a day shift for a night shift, even after they'd worked all day. I think they're hoping it'll become a permanent thing." Arth chuckled.

  "It will if I get my way," Toth murmured.

  "According to the specs you gave me," the small Nycht whipped out the tattered roll of papers Jordan had brought back with her from Virginia, and began to shuffle through them. "This gun is gas operated."

  Eohne emerged from the closet with a small vial in her hand full of crystalline liquid. She winked at Jordan as she passed by the cluster of Strix bent over the plans and papers, and disappeared into the bedroom.

  "As far as I can tell, the gas comes from here," Arth pointed to the barrel of the gun on the large drawing. "It drives a piston which hits a spring. The piston has a vertical post," she shifted to a bisected drawing of the gun showing a cutaway revealing where the piston lived, "which rides a helical cam track and rotates at the end of its path," she moved her finger along the drawing, "here, nearest to the breech."

  Sol and Jordan looked at each other, lost.

  "None of that made any sense to either of us," Sol said, then looked at Jordan. "Am I right?"

  "Very. Layman's terms please."

  "Those were the layman's terms," Arth said, putting her little fists on her narrow hips in exasperation. "Try to keep up. Look at the drawing, it's all here." She held her palms out. "The post also carries a fixed firing pin, which sticks out here," she pointed to another part of the drawing, "which fires the next round into the foremost part…" Arth trailed off at the vacant look on the Arpaks’s faces. She sighed, and her shoulders drooped. "Is this really that complicated?"

  Jordan nodded. "You're an engineer, Arth. You have a brain for mechanics; we don't."

  Toth put a hand on his little sister's shoulder. "I tried to tell you." He shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

  "But…this is dangerous work," Arth cried. "Yes, I can produce the parts based on this plan, but I need someone to sanity-check my work, otherwise the prototype could blow up in the face of the first person who fires it!"

  "Are there any other engineers you could bring on to help?" Sol asked. "Someone from Lower Rodania who works with weaponry?"

  "Swords and javelins are not in the same category," Arth jabbed her finger down on the drawing in front of them, "as this incredible weapon. This Lewis gun could single-handedly turn the tide of the harpy war—–but I can't have the design and manufacture of such a volatile piece of equipment under my charge alone. That would be fool-hardy.
"

  "Did I hear someone say ‘Lewis gun’?" A soft, hoarse voice asked.

  Allan stood in the bedroom doorway, his arm over Eohne's shoulder, and her arm wrapped around his thin waist. His face was pale and drawn, and Jordan thought she'd never seen him look so old. But his eyes were bright, and color was already touching his cheeks as the Strix turned to stare.

  "Dad!" Jordan cried.

  "Wings!" Allan croaked, his eyes jumping about the room at the Strix and landing upon his daughter’s bright yellow arches.

  "You're awake!" She went to her father's side and looped her arms around him, being careful not to squeeze too hard.

  She almost broke down in tears at the feeling of his ribs jutting into hers, and his soft, unused muscle squishing under the pressure of her arms. She pulled away and sniffed back tears, her vision blurring as her eyes misted up.

  She gave Eohne a smile as a single tear tracked down her cheek, her heart threatening to burst with gratitude. "You did it," she said to the Elf.

  Eohne nodded. "He responded immediately. When he heard you talking in the next room, I couldn't keep him down."

  "Dad, you need to go back to bed. Please, lay down and rest." Allan's frame was trembling under the strain of his walk to the doorway; she could feel his muscles quivering under her hand.

  "I will," Allan agreed, "I will. But…" He stared at his daughter, his eyes devouring the huge feathered additions to her back. "You have wings."

  "I'll explain everything, Dad, I promise." Jordan pressed her father back toward the bed, her heart skipping with relief and happiness to see his face animated, to hear his voice.

  Allan craned around her feathers to squint at the crew clustered around the kitchen island, who, in turn, were staring at the father-daughter reunion.

  "How long have I been out? These are your friends?"

  "Several months," said Eohne. "Come on. Back to bed. Yes, we're Jordan's friends. There's time to explain while you recover. I'll bring you some real food."

  "What's going on?" Allan rasped, his eyes dropping to the papers on the counter. He shuffled forward, with Eohne reluctantly helping him. It was clear she'd rather be taking him the other direction.