Harbinger (31 page)

That day when Zofiya knelt on the floor with all her brothers and sisters, it was Kaleva’s little hand that had stolen into hers. Tears squeezed themselves out of the corners of her eyes, and she tried to tell herself that it was the wind that was doing it.

Captain Revele cleared her throat, and Zofiya dashed them away while her back was turned. “Yes, Captain?”

The master of the
Summer Hawk
showed no sign that she had seen anything like weakness in the regent. “I thought you should know, Imperial Highness, I’ve had word from the rest of our fleet. Your brother’s ships are pursuing us and not engaging them. Rather than a battle he seems intent on capturing you above everything else. Should I send word for them to engage?”

Zofiya thought about it for an instant. It was not that she had any wish to die, but she also could not afford to lose those precious airships either. “Tell them to hang back. Deacon Petav says he has an idea.”

The captain raised one eyebrow but did not question. She moved sharply back to the bridge. The
Summer Hawk
was flying in the clouds now, but this would only be protection for a while. They had Deacons who could see well enough, but her brother’s fleet was not without its own resources. They had navigational weirstones and the wherewithal to use them.

Petav was coming toward her holding out the weirstone as if it contained the answers. When he stopped before Zofiya, a slight smile lurked on his lips. “I have made contact with the others of my Order.”

“Can they come pull us out of this cloud? Perhaps give my brother back his reason?” Zofiya found she was snapping just a little. The truth was, she was heartily sick of promises and hope. She needed real help. In a voice laden with sarcasm, she snapped, “Can they magically transport themselves onto a moving airship?”

Petav’s smile faded a little, but he did not back down. “I thought I recognized the man on the ship, the one standing by the machines. Vashill is his name, once a tinker of Vermillion.” He paused, and the creak of the airship was the only sound.

Zofiya hated people who grew silent merely to increase their own importance. “Well?”

“His mother helped the remains of the Order escape Vermillion, and she has been traveling with us. I was able to speak to her, and give her a description of what her son has created.”

Zofiya stared hard at him, and he cleared his throat somewhat nervously. “She has given me ideas on how to combat the machines—maybe even destroy them.”

The regent closed her eyes for just a second. When she opened them, he and the idea were still there. “How close do we have to be?” she asked.

Petav pressed his lips together in a white line. “Very,” he replied. His voice and his hand holding the weirstone were both very steady. Like her, this Deacon would do what needed to be done.

“Send one of your Sensitives to the bridge then. Find me the
Winter Kite
in this cloud.” The regent turned her head and called, “Captain Revele!”

The officer appeared immediately; in the gray fog she might have been waiting not that far off.

Zofiya flicked her head in Petav’s direction. “We have a plan, but you are probably not going to like it.”

When she had told the captain what it was, she turned a little pale, but she quickly left them to make the arrangements needed.

After that, Revele took her place with the marines who were arranged at the aft deck. Zofiya knew there was little worse than waiting as a soldier—except of course for battle itself.

When she stood before them, she explained her plan to them in slightly lesser detail, and then took her place beside the captain. Deacon Petav appeared again, but this time with a wedge of Deacons. He took up position to the rear of the marines. Then all of them waited in silence, while the airship creaked gently around them as if they were not about to be very foolhardy.

The
Summer Hawk
lived up to her name, swooping and turning, the deck alternatively rising and falling under their feet as the Deacon on the bridge helped angle them just so. Zofiya did not like relying on Deacons so very much, but this seemed to be the way of things. Her brother had chosen eldritch machinery over sense, so she had no other choice.

Captain Revele knew her vessel and said it was ready for the task, but nonetheless Zofiya had never heard of such a maneuver. The Imperial Fleet was still young, and had never fought against itself like this. As they began to dip again, the regent felt her heart thunder.

“Remember,” she called above the flap and creak of the airship, “no one is to touch the Emperor but me!”

The
Summer Hawk
dropped out of the sky from above like her namesake. The cloud’s mist made everything gray, and their descent was so rapid that when they did see the
Winter Kite
finally emerge from it, there was scarcely a second to process it. One moment it was a deep gray shape in the cloud, and then the next the
Summer Hawk
was on it.

It was quite shocking how close the Sensitive had brought them—but then that was what they had asked her for. The
Hawk
’s forward cannon fired at the
Kite
’s propeller. The retort made Zofiya’s ears ring, but she was heartened to see the chain shot hit true. The propeller jerked and tangled just as it was meant to.

“Brace yourselves!” Zofiya barked to those that waited with her.

The rumble of the impact was loud enough to knock out all rational thought from a person’s brain. The bow of the descending airship struck her brother’s ship in the stern, just behind where that dire machine was mounted.

This was the best place to board another airship without risking it plummeting to the ground, Captain Revele had claimed, and no one knew ships better than she. The
Summer Hawk
’s bow was the strongest piece of her, just like in a battleship of the ocean. Luckily they did not have to worry about water suddenly rushing in.

Zofiya waved her saber. The marines followed her charge across the deck and onto the slightly tilted one of the
Winter Kite
. They had apparently done something unexpected. The first soldiers they encountered were still engaged in forming themselves into defensive lines. Skirmishes were soon breaking out all over.

Zofiya threw herself into the battle, allowing the ebb and flow of battle to keep her mind off what lay ahead. She was able to put away her knowledge that she was fighting men she had trained. Instead, she concentrated on keeping herself moving forward, cutting down those that stood in her way with a bloody determination. She called out, “For Arkaym,” so that they might know this was not a coup she wanted. However, By the Bones, she would not stop.

Then something curious began to happen. It started at the front, where the forces were clashing, and soon it was like a wave among the Imperial Guard. Several of her brother’s troops began to lay down their weapons. They held up their hands and surrendered to their brothers. The idea that Zofiya wasn’t going to have to kill any more of her fellows was an uplifting one. Still, not quite all of them were surrendering.

As if to make up for this change in fortune, out of the corner of one eye, Zofiya caught sight of activity around the machines. They looked as if they were attempting to maneuver them aft so as to get a good line of sight on the invaders.

“Petav!” Zofiya screamed, while ducking a wild swing by a young guard. Her brother wouldn’t care if he cut down his own troops—that was absolutely certain.

The Deacons, who until now had been keeping back from the fray, stepped forward, and threw back their cloaks. Zofiya wiped blood out of her eyes and watched them. She had to admit, they made an impressive sight. The carvings of the runes on their bodies crackled with silver light, giving them a rather terrifying appearance. More guardsmen, seeing this, dropped to their knees and surrendered then and there.

The soldiers of Arkaym were used to trusting the Deacons of the Order. These ones had not seen one for many months, so their coming must have been extra impressive. Zofiya pushed the surrendered out of her way and strode boldly down the deck toward the huddle of remaining troops. The Deacons followed at her back, silent witnesses to what was coming. Except, they too had their part to play.

The square, squat shape of the machine was indeed being turned in the invaders’ direction, and the muzzles of it were already alight with blue lightning. A man was bent over the controls, his fingers flying over its surface. Zofiya could feel all the hair on her body begin to rise the closer she got to it, and every instinct in her was screaming to run away as fast as possible. Yet, past the machine she could see her brother’s face. No emotion tarnished it, so she copied him.

Just as the machine began to shake and get ready to spit forth its death, the Deacons spoke. Zofiya could not see what they did, but she felt it at her back. It began as a warmth—and then it became a blinding heat. It took all of her strength of will not to turn and look at it.

The flames flowed over her head, not touching a single hair on her Imperial head. They struck the machine instead, and it seemed to absorb the power for a while. By the Bones, she thought in one terrible moment, were the Deacons feeding the terrible thing? Had they turned against her?

She was committed now. The regent kept walking, though to her death or not, she could not have said. The flames went on, pouring against the machine and seeming to disappear within. Then, some sort of maximum containment was reached. The first sign was a slight creak from the machine. The mad Vashill—it felt good to have his name—was howling something at his creation, as if he could somehow urge it on.

It did not want to work however, since the brass casing bulged slightly. That was the only warning the thing gave. Then it burst. Blue flames poured out of it for an instant, and the younger Vashill was set alight like some horrific offering to terrible gods. He screamed and flailed about . . . then running in blind panic, leapt from the airship.

His machine, meanwhile, raged blue for a split second, and then a deeper part of it burst apart further. It made a very curious rumbling noise, as if something was passing from the world—or rather being sucked from it. The huddle of the Court screamed in unison and scattered from the Emperor. They were as loyal as field mice and just as useful.

Only Kaleva and his bride remained. Ezefia did not have much choice in the matter. Now that the crowds had cleared, the regent saw what had been done to her sister-in-law.

Her belly had been slit as well as her throat, and rivers of scarlet stained her white dress and dripped from her fingertips. Now she stared at Zofiya through the blankness of death, slumped on the chair that she had been strapped to. Apparently being pregnant was no protection.

It was this final action that made Zofiya finally see it; there was no coming back from this for her brother. The Kal she had grown up with and protected loyally for so many years would never have done such a thing. Never.

The regent’s jaw tightened. She had wanted to believe she could save him. Zofiya had wanted to have some hope that she could get him back. Now she understood that she had been fooling herself, and people had died because she couldn’t see it.

Her brother was standing behind his dead wife, and his fine white clothes were stained with her blood. A grin rested on his lips, which had once smiled far more beautifully and always seemed ready to laugh.

The Emperor Kaleva was as much a victim of Derodak as the Order of the Eye and the Fist. The Kal she knew had died in the breaking of the Mother Abbey, along with all those Deacons, and the person standing before her wore his skin, but was not him.

If she did nothing, then this would go on, until the whole world was torn apart around them, or until there were no more people in the Empire for him to kill. Everyone was an enemy to him now.

Her hand tightened on her saber and fierce tears threatened to break loose in her eyes, but she understood. She had pledged herself to Arkaym, and that pledge ran deeper and further than even brotherly love. She had a duty.

Behind her the Deacons and the marines waited. She could almost hear them holding their breath, as they waited for her to say or do something. It felt like she was poised on her own blade. Finally, she found the will to do what she had to.

“Kaleva, Brother,” she began in a sad, but strong voice that carried easily across the deck of the
Winter Kite
, “I demand you surrender the throne to me, your royal sister, and allow yourself to be confined for your own well-being until your sanity is restored to you.”

It was a lie. Even if somehow he could be recovered, the Kal she had loved and supported would never be able to bear the guilt of what he had done.

So it was out there now; she was now and forever to be the sister who had taken the crown from her brother. Zofiya imagined the rage and fury her father would go through when he heard of it.

At first she would be regent, then after a short amount of time to satisfy convention, she would be Empress of Arkaym.

Her brother did not look outraged. Instead, he moved from behind the chair, waving his bloody knife idly at her as if lecturing a child. “I know what your plan is, Sister,” he said, his voice cracking now and then. “You’ll tuck me away nice and quietly in a dungeon somewhere, tell all the citizens of the Empire you are so solicitous of my health, and then later in the night you’ll have someone steal in to murder me.” His eyes darted across the troops behind her. “Maybe one of these fine soldiers will do you a favor so that your pretty hands don’t have to get dirty.”

“Kal,” she replied, her gaze following his footsteps, in case he got close enough for her to grapple, “you are my brother, and you are not well. I would never do such a—”