Orlind (25 page)

Llan and her
friends had been forbidden from participating in the fight - even
now, when the threat to Glinnery was greater than ever. Frustrated,
she’d gone to her father to beg a useful task from him, but he had
nothing to give her either. So she waited, curled up with Sigwide
in her lap. They were both shivering. Siggy wouldn’t speak to her
at all, except to repeat the word “bad” every time some new sound
of battle raging reached his sensitive ears. Llan’s corner was near
the door, so she had a clear view when a young engineer came
running into the workshop, panting out a breathless report to her
father.

‘
They’re targeting our machines, sir. Five are reported
destroyed and the crews with them. It won’t take them long for them
to get the others down. The Commander’s calling for more to be
taken out.’

Aysun shook his
head. ‘Pointless. We’ll only lose them all. What I need you to do,
Ven, is fob off the Commander for as long as you can.’

‘
Ah,
sir... he’s not exactly easy to-’

‘
Go,
Ven! I don’t care what you tell him, just keep him off my
back.’

Ven left at a
run.

‘
Come
on, Llan,’ Aysun said. ‘We’re going to find your
mother.’

They found Ynara
preparing for a journey. She and Devary looked as though they’d
packed in a hurry.

‘
Hello, loves,’ said Mamma, bestowing kisses on her husband and
daughter. ‘We were about to come in search of you.’

‘
Where
to?’ Aysun asked.

‘
Nimdre,’ Ynara replied, rapidly buttoning her coat. ‘And at
once.’

‘
My
people may be able to help,’ Devary put in. That earned him a
sceptical lift of the eyebrow from Aysun, not undeservedly. Llan
couldn’t help wondering what exactly Nimdre was supposed to be able
to do. This was more likely an attempt on Devary’s part to get
Mamma out of harm’s way.

‘
Not
Nimdre,’ Aysun said. ‘Irbel.’

Ynara looked at
him for a moment. ‘Will they?’

‘
Unsure. There are some things they’ve been working on for a
long time, secrets. We’re going to need them. If anybody can talk
them into it, it will be you.’

‘
They
would probably agree more readily if
you
asked,
Aysun.’

‘
Can’t
leave the city. They’ll accept you as my representative. And I’ll
send Rufin with you.’

Ynara nodded.
‘Irbel then. Who am I to speak to?’

Aysun gave her a
few names, none of which Llandry had heard before. Then he drew her
to one side, and the next part of their conversation was held in
undertones. Llan didn’t try to eavesdrop. She looked instead at
Devary, who had borne the upset of his plans in silence.

‘
You
should come with us, Llan,’ he said with his soft smile. ‘Your
mother would like to have your company.’

‘
Only
my mother?’

‘
Naturally I would be pleased to have your company
too.’

Llandry shrugged.
‘I can’t. We might be needed.’

Devary nodded. ‘I
will look after your mother,’ he promised.

Better than
you looked after me, I hope,
Llandry thought, but she didn’t
say it. That would be needlessly cruel.

Her parents
returned. ‘Hug me quickly, Llan,’ said Mamma. Llandry obeyed,
feeling unwilling to let go. Would she see Mamma again? That
thought was too disturbing to dwell upon; she pushed it
away.

‘
Be
careful, Ma,’ she said.

‘
Always. Your father is going to escort us to the edge of the
city, all right? And we’ll have Rufin with us, with all the
firepower at his disposal.’ She smiled. ‘You’d better get yourself
back within reach of the Commander.’

Llandry nodded,
troubled. Ma would be travelling west in order to reach Irbel, a
realm bordering Glinnery where engineering was held to be far more
important than either summoning or sorcery. As far as anyone knew
Irbel had not yet come under attack, but it was a reasonably long
journey. Her mother would probably fly, while Dev and Rufin would
have to keep up as well as they could on foot. But how would they
get out of Waeverleyne without being spotted by the
draykoni?

‘
I’ll
take care of it, Llan,’ her father said, apparently guessing her
thoughts.

‘
Of
course, Pa.’

Then they were
gone, leaving Llandry alone and feeling completely
bereft.

The village that
had hosted the city council was now largely empty again. Council
business had halted with the appearance of the draykon constructs,
there being nothing left to discuss nor opportunity to do so. The
Elders had returned to Waeverleyne, there to oversee the makeshift
infirmaries that were springing up all over the city, to muster
more fire crews to battle the flames spread by the constructs, or
to offer assistance to the Commander. Only Llan’s three friends
were left, hiding in a tiny farm cottage on Iver’s order. A signal
had been agreed between their group and the Commander: if they were
needed, green flares would be fired on their side of the city. That
meant they were to report to Iver, as quickly as
possible.

If the flares
were red, that meant they were to take draykon shape and attack.
Immediately. Iver had planned a strategy for them and gone over it
many times, but Llan knew they would be kept from carrying it out
if at all possible.

She found Ori
sitting in the window, watching the sky in case of a summons. Avane
and Pensould were sitting on the floor nearby, trying to hold a
conversation without much success. Llandry could almost touch the
tension in the tiny room.

Ori looked up as
she entered. ‘Any news?’

‘
Some.
City’s still burning. Pa’s sent Mamma off to Irbel to get help,
though they don’t want the Commander to know about that just
yet.’

‘
Huh?
Why not?’

‘
Don’t
know, but probably because Pa’s not sure they’ll send anyone.
Apparently he’s asking for some kind of secret technology they’ve
been working on for years.’

Ori rolled his
eyes and turned back to the window. ‘Damn their
secrets.’

‘
Have
you seen the Commander?’ Avane asked. ‘Is there something for us to
do?’

Llandry shook her
head. ‘Our orders are the same.’

Ori snorted his
disgust. ‘We could at least be helping the fire crews. Or in the
infirmaries.
Something.
It’s intolerable, just sitting here
waiting to be called.’

‘
You’d
make a terrible soldier, Ori,’ Llan said, sitting down next to
Pensould.

‘
I
know.’

Pense smiled down
at her. ‘Remind me what the Commander said.’

Llandry shot him
a puzzled look. ‘Which part?’

‘
Specifically the part about what we are
not
allowed to
do.’

‘
Umm.
He said we have to keep out of the fight until he says
otherwise.’

‘
Yes.
But he specifically said he doesn’t want the enemy to know about
the other two draykoni we now have on our side. So from this we may
infer that it is our draykoni shapes he is concerned about,
no?’

‘
That
sounds sensible, yes.’

‘
Therefore, when he said to stay out of the fight, he
meant
that we must stay out of the fight in our draykon
forms.’

‘
That’s true!’ Avane said excitedly. ‘He didn’t say anything
about our other shapes.’

‘
Wouldn’t they be able to tell, though?’ Llan asked. ‘I mean,
you keep saying you’d know me no matter my shape.’

‘
They
might sense a draykon soul, if they were to focus on one of us
closely. But in the middle of this chaos they will not do
that.’

‘
You,
sir, are a genius,’ Ori grinned, pointing at Pensould. ‘Let’s think
about this. What does the Commander really need?’

‘
Information,’ Llan said promptly. ‘They’re struggling to find
a way to fight those things. The mechanical things don’t seem to
have any weaknesses, though of course they must do
somewhere.’

‘
Birds
then,’ Ori said. ‘Or something else with wings. We’ll get up close,
see if we can figure out a bit more about them.’

Birds... or
something else? ‘I’ve an idea,’ Llandry said. ‘Remember Eva’s
gwaystrel?’

‘
Yes!’
Ori said with enthusiasm. ‘She once said it’s almost impossible to
conceal anything from Rikbeek. His senses are
very
keen.’

‘
Aren’t they Lowers creatures, though?’ said Avane
doubtfully.

‘
Yes,
but Rikbeek didn’t seem to have any trouble when he was here with
Eva. She says he doesn’t use his eyes much anyway.’

‘
Let
us test this theory,’ said Pensould, and shape-shifted. He became a
gwaystrel, so similar to Rikbeek that for a moment Llandry wanted
to look around for Eva. They waited in silence for a few minutes
while Pensould flew in slow loops around the room.

It can be
managed,
he reported.
It is painful to my eyes, but not
unbearably so, and I can keep them closed without diminishing my
awareness of the environment.

‘
Brilliant, Pense!’ Ori said. ‘Let’s go!’

‘
Hang
on, wait a moment,’ Llandry said. ‘A group of four gwaystrels
flying around in Glinnery will look odd. We’d make easy targets of
ourselves.’

‘
Sorcery,’ said Avane promptly. ‘We can probably manage a basic
invisibility illusion, if we keep the expedition brief.’

Llandry chewed on
a thumbnail as Pensould resumed his human shape. ‘Good idea. Can we
all do it?’

‘
I
don’t see why not,’ Avane replied. ‘Sorcery comes from the draykoni
in the first place, doesn’t it? I can teach you how it’s
done.’

Ori beamed. That
boy was hungry for knowledge, Llandry thought. There was nothing
like the prospect of learning some new skill to cheer him
up.

‘
I
believe we should work in pairs,’ said Pensould. ‘Then if one of us
gets into trouble, the other will be at hand to help.’

‘
Great
idea,’ Ori enthused. ‘You will work with Llan, of course, so Avane
and I will watch each other’s backs. Ready to go?’

‘
I
suppose so,’ Llan said, worrying that she’d missed or forgotten
something. Whatever it might be continued to elude her, so she
shrugged. ‘We’d better be fast, though. We still have to be ready
to report - or attack - if the flares go up.’

‘
Superfast,’ Ori promised. ‘So can we go?’ He had already
jumped up, abandoning his post at the window.

‘
Yep,’
Llandry said. ‘Let’s go.’

They left the
village in gwaystrel form, flying towards Waeverleyne as a group.
Pensould had insisted on taking the lead, with Llandry and Avane
behind and Ori at the rear. Despite the invisibility illusion,
Llandry felt exposed. Her gwaystrel senses were not fooled by
Avane’s sorcery, so the other three were as obvious to her as they
had been to her human eyes. It was difficult to believe that they
were truly hidden to human observation, and much harder for
draykoni to spot.

Llan’s tiny body
shook with nerves as she flew towards the battle. She was grateful
to be doing something constructive, but she couldn’t fly directly
into the heart of the conflict without suffering some fear. The
whole pack of invading draykoni were back and intent on causing as
much destruction as possible; with the addition of the enormous,
fire-breathing constructs, the risks were high indeed.

She knew that the
others felt fear, too. She could feel it, no matter how well they
had concealed it before. But none of them hesitated. Waeverleyne
was hopelessly outclassed: if the four of them could uncover the
means to destroy the constructs, the risks would be fully
worthwhile. Llandry swallowed her fear and flew on, scarcely
faltering even when the gigantic airborne forms of the mechanical
draykoni appeared on the horizon ahead of her.

Once they were in
range, the four wordlessly split into pairs: Ori and Avane veered
away to the left, and Llan followed Pensould straight into the path
of one of the strange, metal-and-hide draykoni.

The construct
they had picked was much more terrifying up close, and so much
larger than Llandry in her gwaystrel shape that she felt as though
a mountain had ponderously taken flight. The first thing she
noticed as she neared the thing was its flexibility. Such a
monstrous, oversized construct ought to be slow and awkward in its
movements, but this one was not. Pensould strayed too close to the
thing’s head; the mighty jaws instantly opened and snapped shut
again, and Pensould missed being swallowed by a hair’s
breadth.

Keep clear of
the head!
Llandry shouted.
Pense, please be
careful.

I am always
careful,
he retorted, in spite of obvious evidence to the
contrary.

The two of them
sped away from the creature’s head, mapping the thing’s body from
neck to tail. Llandry noted black hide that gleamed with a
dampened, oily sheen in the Glinnery sun; real muscles that bunched
and flexed under that strange hide; the sense of metal and oil
beneath the surface, bones of some impossibly strong alloy. No
discernible weaknesses there.