Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (30 page)

Men’s voices grew louder.

Peering around the curve, she saw several men filter through the circular opening, tripping over roots and bits of vegetation that had been dragged through. The sunlight that came with them was a welcome sight.

She closed her eyes, ducking back behind the boulder, and waited for the men in their leather skirts and metal breast plates to fill the room. She wanted many of them inside the cavern.

A rock rolled past her foot.

Opening her eyes, she nodded once, then rose on tiptoes and aimed first at the lower glob, then the higher one.

The red globs spat and sparked for a brief moment.

A man shouted an alarm, going for his gun.

She didn’t give him a target. She’d hit hers.

Turning, she ran. One running step. Two. She needed four, at least.

Another cry went up through the men behind her.

Just around the next bend. Three.

A bullet buzzed her ear, clipping her hair with the breeze of its passing.

Four. Nearly there. She needed to get to the next bend. The next corner.

The ground rumbled.

Men shouted.

The walls shook.

Five! She skirted around the bend and tucked herself as close to the wall as she could, cupping her hands over her mouth to save as much clean air as she could should the rock slide hit her as well.

The explosion blocked out all other sounds. Her body was flung across the small space of the tunnel. She hit the opposing wall and fell to the sandy floor, bits of rocks digging into her from below and above.

She lay there, unaware of the passage of time. Dust choked her lungs. Her ears rang. All light had been cut off. She coughed a sigh of relief.

She didn’t lie to herself. The Han wasn’t stopped. But maybe she’d taken enough of his men to make him pause.

Pushing the rocks on top of her away, she picked herself painfully to her feet. Her fingers discovered a new wall of rocks and boulders. No light peeked through. Good. The tunnel was good and sealed.

With her hand on her aching rib, Kiey limped down the tunnel, hobbling toward the light, praying to whatever gods might be out there that this fight be over and soon.

Haji ran lithely up the side of the mountain, scaling the rocky rain-slicked terrain with relative ease in his skitter rig. He could hear soldiers just over the next rise. At the top, he ducked behind a large, lime-covered rock, the rain pouring over him. Little rain made it through his suit, thankfully. He hadn’t designed it to be weatherproof, but he was thankful he’d managed it anyway.

A large group of men in the Han uniform stood around, waiting. They leaned on trees, or knelt in their leather skirts, unable to bend fully due to their silver armor breastplates. Most of them had some hair down from their topknots, which clung to their faces and necks in sopping hangs of black.

Mesi stopped near Haji. Only her face was visible from within her unit, the copper-embroidered protection plate having been shut on her body cavity. She raised her chin, her lips moving.

Her words met his left ear though the communication spike. “What are they waiting for?”

Haji shook his head. He gestured for her to follow, and skirted around the lip of the valley’s bowl. It was hard to hear anything from outside his unit, which was a downfall, but with two communication links, he would have a hard time discerning anything anyway.

The rest of his unit slipped into the foliage. With as big as each rig was, amazingly, they were able to hide fairly well.

Haji walked several metres around, trying to find a hiding spot close enough to the men for him to listen in. He paused behind a big bush, listening.

He frowned, feeling a vibration in his legs.

Rocks jumped as if being electrocuted.

Leaves quivered.

He glanced at Mesi.

She shook her head, but led the way further around the small valley. She stopped suddenly and ducked behind a large, fallen tree covered in green and blue moss.

Haji joined her, hiding behind the log. Listening intently, he popped his head up when he thought it might be safe and froze. He saw the reason the Han’s men waited. A very large machine burrowed into the side of the mountain.

A chilling sweep of anger rushed from Haji’s head down to his toes. He crouched back into hiding. “Mesi, take half of your men around to the west side. I want the other half with me. We strike as one.”

“The objective?”

Haji rose just enough to see the machine and stared at it in cold wonder. “To stop that thing. They cannot breach the city.”

Mesi nodded once and barked orders into her communications unit.

Haji ignored her words. The Han’s men were so off guard as to be painful. Was this truly the force that had destroyed his Family, taken his lands?

Perhaps, they did not think they were vulnerable in this location. The people of Peacock Rock had remained inside the caverns, taking their home-based advantage. Haji was sure they knew the terrain outside their caves better than those who encroached upon them, but not nearly as well as they knew the inside of their beloved mountain.

Haji crouched on his eight mechanical legs and waited.

“We are here.”

Good. He studied the men one last time, taking note of anything else that might help them. They wore standard Family weapons. No Hand pistols with their metal bullets. Good. The Hands of Tarot had relied heavily on the same pleron the Han used to protect his forces. The bullets would do little to no damage, but the Family weapons? The lightning guns? Those would.

With a fierce smile, he raised one of his four arms, the other three reaching for guns and blades. “Attack.”

Before they’d made it three steps, the world erupted around them.

Rose sat in the cockpit of her plane and flexed her fingers on the control stick. She wished not for the first time that Bennen, her predecessor and mentor, was there. He and his flight might join her in the battle, but he was attached to the City of Enhnapi and was under the direct leadership of Neira.

Taking in a shaking breath, Rose closed her eyes and willed herself to relax. She knew she would lose people today. They were going into battle. The storm still raged outside.

It was better to die in battle than to die for no reason at all, she reminded herself. Today, they hoped to help a people being attacked by a horrid man who would inflict unspeakable horrors on a people who hadn’t earned them.

But she didn’t know these people, and she didn’t know their enemy. So, dredging up a good give-a-damn was rather difficult.

“Hey, hey, Rose!” Jake Rothman waved at her from his plane, which looked just barely big enough for him and his engine. “Why the long face?”

Rose straightened her flight hat, and reapplied her headphones directly over her ears. “Just finishing my pre-flight tests. You should get back to yours.”

He grinned and flapped his plane’s wings at her. “All working right as rain.”

She frowned at him. “Why are you jinxing yourself like that? There is nothing right flying in the rain?”

“Are you daft?” He threw his head back laughed. “I love it out there any way I can get it.”

She smiled and ducked her head. When she wasn’t killing people with her engine designs, she agreed with him. The air was the best place to be. If her plane was large enough for her to move around in, she’d never come out of the air.

Jake sobered. “We all knew what we were signing up for, Rose. Don’t forget that. Okay?”

She paused, but nodded, sinking deeper into her seat. For all that Jake could be a jackdaw on a good day, he was surprisingly observant on an irregular basis. “Just get ready. Okay?”

“Captain Rose,” Wa-sna-win called over her headset.

“Rose here.” She cleared her throat and started her engines with the flip of a switch.

“Bay doors are open. You are ready for launch on your mark.”

The bay doors gave a grunt that was more felt than heard. Wind swept over Rose’s plane, tugging gently on the wings.

Gently while still in the protection of the hanger bay, perhaps.

“How’s the storm?” Rose asked.

“Passing,” Wa-sna-win answered succinctly. “You should be okay out there, Captain.”

“Thanks.” Rose knew the communications officer didn’t know much about flying. She wasn’t offering real advice. She was just doing her best to calm Rose’s nerves. She liked Wa-sna-win for that reason, respected her for it. Rose flipped the communication link from override to her unit’s channel. “Ladies and gents,” she called, her tone chipper. “Let’s fly.”

The air rumbled with the power of their engines, though the full impact was muffled by the body of her plane. She was glad for it. The sound of all these engines running in the bay at one time was deafening. She lifted the
Wise Girl
off the landing platform, watching as the other twelve planes of her unit followed suit. Then, she tipped her nose down and took to the air.

The bare whisper of sunlight streamed under the fleeing storm. Rain beat and dribbled down the glass of the cockpit. Rose gripped her joystick and the wind struggled to grip her. She searched the ground for a target. A land eater. Whatever that looked like. “Bullet guns at the ready!”

The bullet guns might not work for the Umira Nuru. His guns were smaller. Hers were a lot bigger and the bullets a lot more powerful.

“We’re locked and loaded, Rose,” Jake said, all humor stripped from his voice.

“I have a target, Captain!”

Rose couldn’t see where Ethel was. “Give me a location.”

“Here on the east side of the mountain.” Excitement laced Ethel’s words. “You can’t miss this thing.”

Rose banked to the right, heading east.

The rest of the Sky Gypsies followed her lead.

On the other side of a hill she hadn’t even noticed, a silver beast plowed through the vegetation. Similar to Haji’s plows. Kind of. In a way. Instead of legs, these things had some kind of belt system for movement. They were larger, big enough to fit probably five men comfortably. On the top were two cannons. The sides were riddled with large guns.

The top cannon swiveled around, pointed toward the sky.

“First three, prepare your bombs!” Rose commanded. She dropped the nose of
Wise Girl
and aimed through the red sight that appeared in front of her upon releasing the bomb for firing. “On my mark!”

Three voices repeated, “Ready!”

“Sight.” Even though she had the thing dead to rights in her scope, she wasn’t close enough.

Close enough for his ammunition to tag her and her Gypsies?

A cloud of smoke emitted from the gaping maw of the cannon.

Another cloud filled the air directly in front of her, blocking her view with a concussion that vibrated her feet.

“Anyone got eyes on the target?” she asked as she blew through the smoke from the cannon’s blast. There were more, blocking her view.

“Aye, Captain!” Bettie called. “They’re preparing to fire again.”

“We’re closing in on their range, Captain,” Jake commented.

She neared the last cloud and debated. Did she go through it? Dodge under it? Around it?

Through it.

“Here it comes again!”

Rose cleared the cloud just in time to see another cloud burst from the cannon’s mouth. “Keep it steady.”

The shell cleared behind them, having, miraculously, missed all of them.

The guns along the sides pulled up and pointed to the sky.

Rose willed her plane closer, close enough for her bomb to find its mark, but not close enough for her Gypsies to sustain too much damage. Flicking her gaze at her instruments, she kept her eye on her target. She flipped the switch on her bomb to prepare it. A hard click vibrated up her right leg. It was armed. She pulled the trigger and pulled up on the joystick. “Away and away!”

Her Sky Gypsies took to the air, gaining in altitude.

A boom pushed at them, vibrating through Rose’s chest.

She turned
Wise Girl
around to survey the damage.

With the help of the rain, the dust settled.

The land eater wasn’t getting up. Forms that could have been bodies or fallen trees were scattered around.

Rose’s heart pounding painfully in her chest, she said, “Let’s go get the others.”