The Starfall Knight (35 page)

The andonite chips tickled Devan’s palm, enticing him.  He waited as the longwings’ wide circles brought them closer to the edge of the aerock.  Devan reached out to the coins, to the andonite and pulled the energy into his body.

Power rippled through his hands, from the andonite and from the ground.  Devan’s senses exploded into the aerock and he felt Vantanis’ presence alongside his own.  Devan clawed at the dirt with ephemeral fingers.  He hurled the dirt and shattered bedrock into the path of the longwings.

Vantanis’ cloud of loam followed in a tall arc.  The twin missiles sprayed out and struck the longwings.  The dirt sizzled against the blue radiance.  The birds squawked, necks craning for the source of their disturbance.

Devan shouted and waved his arms.  The longwings twisted in the air and flew towards him.

“Ready!”  The ballistae teams surrounded the war machines and double-checked the payloads.

“Aim!”  The longwings streaked towards them and Devan watched the ballistae angle upwards.

“Loose!”

The ballistae cracked like thunder and the grappling hooks soared into the air.  The cables hissed as they played out.  Devan held his breath.

The first grappling hook shot wide as one of the longwings swerved from its path; the second hook struck the same bird in the body and with the weight of the metal, the tips pierced the wing.  The creature screeched and began to fall.

“Forward!” Marzell ordered and Captain Erlend led a strike team into the rows of huts where the bird would crash.

The third grappling hook sailed over the remaining longwing.  The cable fouled the bird’s wingbeat and as it snapped at the rope with its beak, the momentum of the payload halted and brought the creature down.

Marzell herself led the second team and Devan sprinted alongside them.  Vantanis and the rangers followed but Devan kept his eyes on the blue haze ahead.

The soldiers wrestled with the first longwing in the muck covering the ground.  Singed hair and charred leather wafted through the air.  A metal clang sounded as a soldier pummelled the bird’s head with a steel gauntlet.

Devan approached and flexed his bare hands.  He rested one on the dazed creature’s body and buried the other past the garbage and filth.

The surge of energy hurled Devan onto his back and bile rose in his throat.  Whereas the power in the andonite chips was insignificant, the glowing longwings were a torrent, a waterfall.  “Vantanis!”

“What is it?”

“The other one!  Get to the other one!”  Devan crawled back to the longwing as Vantanis, Benton and other rangers sprinted to the second longwing.  Flashes of azure lit the night sky.

The soldiers trussed up the longwing.  Lying on the noisome ground, the creature was the size of a grown man yet was not the largest that Devan had seen.  It was, however, the only one of two that was full of andonite.

Devan plunged his hands into the creature’s feathers and the ground once again.  The heat of the longwing seared his skin but Devan clenched his teeth against the pain.  He pulled in the andonite from the transformed bird and the aerock roared into his senses.

There was enough.  There was more than enough.

Devan halted the aerock’s fall in a single thought.  He felt the soldiers and the rest of the Centarans stumble and flail.  In the next instant, he willed the aerock upwards and forwards to the last direction where they’d seen Centara.  Devan felt Vantanis’ guiding presence, smoothing the harsh speed and angle of Devan’s haste and inexperience.

The longwing pulsed, faded.  All that remained was a dim flame in the heart of the creature.  The translucent body heaved for breath, veins pale lines and muscles faint striations under the skin.  Moving the mass of the aerock had doomed the bird.

“Let it go,” Devan said.

The soldiers unravelled the knots and whisked away the cable.  Devan retreated with the soldiers as the longwing rose and spread its wings.  A gust of wind took the bird like a kite and it soared up, disppearing into the night.

Benton appeared at the head of the group dragging the second illuminated longwing.  He grinned and rushed at Devan with a hug.  “And you’re just a ranger?”

“Officer of the Marshal,” Devan corrected him.

Benton laughed.  “What about this longwing?”

Vantanis said, “We’ll need it.”

“He’s right,” Devan said.  “Once Centara is sighted, we’ll need course corrections.”

“Talking like a true-born pilot.”

“Good.”

Romaine emerged from between two shacks.  She frowned at her soiled boots and caught sight of the captured longwing.  “I won’t ask how you did it, gentlemen, but you have the thanks of the Councillors.”

“You’re welcome, Marshal.”

“Very good.”  Romaine shook the muck from her boots.  “Now, be quick.  We have a war to plan.  A war to win.”

Chapter Fourteen

Alessa hugged the bare dirt of Sirinis.  Her father’s advice to everyone had seemed strange but as the horizon filled with the grasslands and forest of Centara, quakes rippled through Sirinis.  The smaller aerock grated against Centara.  Alessa’s body shuddered while Sirinis crushed trees and ploughed through the dirt.

The aerock tilted forward and came to a halt.

“Everyone all right?” Romaine called out.

The Centarans reported in and Alessa voiced her presence.  She stood up, wary of the angled ground.  Her father appeared, Devan in tow.  “Let’s get off this rock.”

They slid and jumped off Sirinis and gathered under a copse of elm trees.  Pre-dawn lit the sky with deepening maroon.  Under the lightening sky, Sirinis loomed up, a haphazard plateau.

“Everyone, attention!” Romaine said.  “We’re back but there’s still much to be done.”  She nodded at the Councillors, guild-masters and commoners who had followed their loyalties.  “Councillor Arnst, I will ask you to make your way to Elade.  Captain Marzell will organise a squad to escort you.”

“What will we do?” Arnst asked.

“Survive,” Romaine said.  “We’re heading into battle.  I will not have the leadership of Centara at risk.”

“As you will.”

“Captain Marzell?”

“Yes, Marshal.”

“We cannot assault the city directly,” Romaine said.  “A smaller force, however, would be able to enter as commoners.”

Captain Marzell nodded.  “I agree, Marshal.”

“Good.  Apart from the squad assigned to Elade, your orders are to march to Saruwa and commandeer the garrison.  Captain Erlend will be your second.  From there, march on Centara city.”

“Yes, Marshal.”

“By the time you reach the city, the situation should be apparent.”

Marzell nodded.

“Alessa, Vantanis, Devan?  You’re with me.”  Romaine turned to Benton.  “Captain Benton, how many in your squad?”

“Here, Marshal?” Benton said.  “Terson, Rika, and myself.”

“It will do.  You’re all with me as well.  I will place the rest of the rangers under the command of Erlend.”

“Yes, Marshal.”

Romaine nodded and met the eyes of everyone gathered around.  Alessa’s nape shivered as Romaine’s hard eyes met her own.  It seemed the Marshal would not brook another defeat.

“Good.  You all have your orders.  Let’s move out.”

Alessa huffed as she kept pace with Romaine’s unrelenting pace.  Devan and Benton marched to either side of their group while Terson kept the rearguard and Rika, the young ranger of a similar age to Alessa, scouted ahead.  Alessa and Vantanis hurried along, scrambling over the grassy hillocks and wending through woodlands.

As dawn broke into morning, Alessa paused for a moment and looked behind them.  Sirinis had crashed into the southern edge of Centara, between Masteney and Verovel.  The mass of earth had destroyed a swathe of land half a league wide.  Alessa felt a twinge of guilt even as the wreckage behind Sirinis was hidden.

“Come along,” her father said.  “Best not to think of it.”

They reached a packed dirt road leading north and the march grew easier.  Devan and Benton fell into step next to Alessa and Vantanis as the underbrush next to the road became troublesome to navigate.

“How long until we reach the city?” Vantanis asked.

“At this rate, some time in the afternoon,” Devan said.  He peered at Alessa but turned away as she glanced back.

“You want to kill me?” Alessa said.  “After I lied to you, turned your friendship into betrayal.”

“No,” Devan said.  “You do look a little like me and Benton.  In any case, I have no desire to kill you.  Maybe spar to first blood?  I’d trounce you.”

“What?”

“I’d trounce you.”

“What does a contest have anything to do with how I look compared to you and your brother?”

Vantanis said, “You’re cousins, is why.”

Alessa looked at her father and Devan, from side to side.  Benton marched on, silent.  Alessa’s stomach lurched.  “Is this a joke between you two?  Simply because you’re both pilots?”

“No, Aly,” Vantanis said.  “Before you were born, Sirinis raided our home aerock.  Actinen, my brother, escaped and made a new life, a new family.”

“Devan, you said your parents died in a Sirinese raid on Verovel.”

“They did.”

“So, there was no escape, in the end.”

“Perhaps not,” Devan said.  “But they got a good thirty years and more.”

Alessa nodded.  She didn’t feel like pointing out that his parents may well have lived longer if it weren’t for his mistake in keeping guard on Verovel.

Devan continued, “Why did Tarius have you condemned with the Councillors?  I thought you were the Servius.”

“I was,” Alessa said.  “But like you, it seems even a Servius’ mother, and a pilot’s wife, is not immune to the ravages of Sirinis.”

“Tarius?  He killed your mother?”  Devan looked to Vantanis.  “Why?”

“He did,” Vantanis said.  “Like all things with Tarius, it was for himself.”

“Promise me this,” Alessa said.  “Should any of us meet Tarius in battle, kill him.  Do not wait upon honour.  Nor torture, though he deserves it.”

“Agreed,” Devan and Benton said in unison.

The road crested a ridge and the incline pushed Alessa’s legs to burning.  Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she had last eaten a handful of piss-flavoured gruel in Centara’s prison.  And before that, a heel of stale bread while marching in a chain-gang from Masteney.

“Devan, couldn’t you or my father help us along?” Alessa asked.

“I don’t know how,” Devan replied.  “Not without tearing a part of Centara out.”

“Not really possible,” Vantanis added.  “Most of the andonite is deep in the bedrock.  Even the mines underneath the city in actuality run into the mountains.”

Over her shoulder, Romaine said, “I’d rather not announce our presence, even to chance passersby.”

“Understood.”

Late in the morning, Romaine led them to a buried ranger cache hidden in a rock formation off to the side of the road.  The marshal distributed the weapons, supplies and rations as well as cloaks which would serve to hide their armour – all the better for infiltrating the city.

They ate on the march, now appearing as little more than a group of travellers heading north.  In the early afternoon, the group reached the southern farmlands, the tiers of Centara visible in the distance.  To Alessa’s eye, there was little difference from the time she had passed through as a Sister of the Moons as well as a prisoner.  Farm-hands tilled a field while others trailed behind, sowing seeds into the furrowed earth.  In an orchard of pommelo trees, youngsters plucked ripe fruit and tucked them into baskets.

Yet, as they neared the boroughs, Alessa noticed more and more idle labourers loitering by the fences or watching the other farm-hands at work.  Centarans both young and old wandered along the road, some speaking to merchants and hawkers.  Alessa and her group continued into the boroughs and the press of people multiplied as beggars occupied both sides of the street.  Children ran across their path and livestock halted all traffic more often than Alessa cared to count.

“These are not boroughfolk, nor farmers,” Alessa said.

“City-folk,” Romaine replied.  “Forced out by the Sirinese, I’d wager.”

They reached a market square that intersected with the Avenue of Falls.  There was no relief to the jam of bodies as the market thrived with the sale of livestock alongside cured meat, fruits and vegetables from the outer farms, and trinkets made by local artisans.

“We must part here,” Romaine said.  She looked north and Alessa followed her gaze past the high city walls.  Figures meandered along the battlements.  A longwing soared on thermals over the upper tier.  “We will have better luck entering the city separately.  And from there, you know what you must do.”

Alessa nodded along with the others.

“Good luck.”

Devan plopped onto the tunnel floor and scattered a pile of scree.  Vantanis followed but Devan had lost contact with the earth and the rock closed around Vantanis’ waist.  His arms waved snake-like shadows in the dim light of the andonite veins.

“Some help?” Vantanis said.

Devan scrambled to his feet and pressed his hands against the rock next to Vantanis.  The immense conglomeration of andonite within Centara swept to Devan’s fingertips but he needed only a drop of its virulence.  He willed the rock apart and Vantanis stepped out, brushing dust and earth from his tunic.

Unlike Devan and his ranger friends, Vantanis wore the clothes of a commoner.  They had had no trouble in circling around the city walls, finding rich earth in a secluded area to the west.

“Which way?”

Devan pressed his stomach, willing away the nausea.  He examined the tunnel, likely a maintenance passage.  While travelling through the ground, he was able to sense the position of the andonite in the aerock but all apart from a vague memory remained after the connection broke.  “This way,” he said.

“I remember talk of the mines beneath the city,” Vantanis said as they hiked upwards.  “Is it true that the Centarans have another village here?”

“Yes,” Devan said.  “Merchants can make a good living by bringing basic supplies down.  There’s a small garrison of soldiers and city guards to keep the peace and the andonite in the central cavern walls provide some light, similar to a single moon.”