City in the Sky (14 page)

“That, however,” Albiers continued, “is unlikely. What
is
true, however, is that we may well be the only defense this ship has. We will have no backup except each other. No aid, except each other and the weapons of the
Cloudrunner
herself. We stand together, or we may well die.”

The Lieutenant eyed the men in front of him for a moment. “Understood?” he suddenly barked.

“Understood, sir!” all sixty men chorused back, Erik among them.

“Good,” Albiers said with a grin. “Now, obviously, the deck is too small for all of us to drill. Actually, from past experience, it's too small for even a single platoon to drill, so only two squads will drill at any one time. Sergeants!” he barked again, and Erik, like the other file leaders, snapped to even stiffer attention and paid close attention.

“
You
will find the drill schedule pinned to the barracks door. If there is a problem, you will speak with your platoon sergeant. If there is not, your squad
will
be on the deck for your two hour training period each and every day. Understood?”

“Understood, sir!” Erik chorused back, with the other five sergeants.

“We have ten days until we splash down in Seije Reservoir,” Albiers said finally. “While I don't expect miracles, I expect every squad to be capable of holding up their portion of the guard duty when we do. Sergeants, meet in my day room at ten bells. Dismissed!”

An hour later, Erik joined the other five squad leaders in Albiers day room, just off the marine barracks towards the rear of the ship. Albiers and the two platoon sergeants were waiting for them, and Tolars gestured the six men to chairs facing the desk the three senior men stood behind.

“Gentlemen, at ease,” Albiers ordered. “Now, two of you are new aboard the
Cloudrunner
, but it’s a rare run when we have no new squad leaders aboard. We all know our duties, this is just a final brush-up before we leave.”

The Lieutenant eyed the squad leaders. “Firstly, are there any issues any of you have noted that should be dealt with?” He waited for a moment, but none of the sergeants said anything. “Good. It always helps to start a voyage off on the right foot.

“Now,” he continued, “as all of you know, we're hitting four cities on this run: Seije, Yun, North Hold and Black Mountain. None of these require any special precautions, except for Black Mountain. We will maintain a normal procedure of one squad aboard ship in armor at all times, and no more than a platoon off ship under any circumstances.”

“While off-ship, you will make certain that your men are armored and carry their swords, no matter where we are,” Albiers told them. “Shields aren't necessary except when on specific tasks, such as escorting goods or coin chests to traders, where you will turn your men out in full gear.”

“In Black Mountain however,” the Lieutenant said grimly, “we'll work under stricter conditions. There will be no shore leave in the Citadel, I'm afraid. We will go off-ship only to escort, and only in full gear. We will maintain two squads in full gear aboard ship at all times. The rota for this, as well as security operations and shore leave in the other cities, will be arranged before we splash down at each location.”

He laid a sheet of paper on the desk. “This is the training schedule. Look it over now,” he instructed, and one of the squad leaders grabbed it.

It slowly made its way to Erik as Albiers continued to detail the nature of the training schedule. Basically, two squads practiced at a time, with most of one platoon in the morning, most of the other in the afternoon, and the remaining squads would do cross-platoon drill at noon.

“That's for the troops, though,” Albiers finished. “The rest of the time, while we're out of port, the grunts are assigned to assist around the ship.
You
, on the other hand, will be joining me for sand-table tactical exercises every evening. With the division of drill, all of a platoon's sergeants will be free in either the morning or the afternoon, and you will do platoon-level exercises with your platoon sergeant,” he gestured to Tolars and the other platoon sergeant, “in that time frame.

“When we're done, the troops are going to be good, and
you
will all know exactly what to do with them,” the Lieutenant told them. “Even those of you who've served before can still use the polish, and Tarverro and Ellis can use it even more.”

Erik nodded for himself, glancing over at the other new sergeant, who apparently had second platoon's third squad. He met the man's gaze and Ellis nodded at him. From the man's age, he guessed that Ellis was a veteran of the trade ships, only just taking up the senior non-com's role, probably either in lieu of, or in preparation for, transferring to a regular or Sky Fleet marine position.

“In any case,” Albiers continued, ignoring the byplay, “we have ten days until we splash down in Seije. The schedule covers all of those days. We are in port for three days, for which I will post the rota before we land. Expect a reasonable amount of shore leave, folks – Seije is friendly territory with an embassy and permanent presence.”

Erik nodded his understanding along with the others. He was actually eager to get to the task of learning how to handle the squad – he'd trained to fight for himself, but commanding other men wasn't something he'd learned before.

Which, he reflected, was probably exactly why the militia insisted on these sorts of tours for its officer wannabes.

Ten days later, the
Cloudrunner
began to slowly drop out of the sky towards Seije Reservoir. Once, a long time ago, Erik had visited the city as a junior journeyman smith. At the time, he'd thought the massive reservoir, fed from the Selt River via an aqueduct, was solely for water storage.

Now he saw the other use of it, the one that explained why there was a dock on a purely artificial and land-locked lake. The sky ship slowly drifted down out of the sky and splashed down in the middle of the reservoir. The gentle breeze drifting across the northern plains was more than sufficient to slowly carry the ship into the dock, where a single other sky ship already rested.

Just off from the dock on the reservoir, Erik could see the cleared landing areas and pens for the Draconan traders. A handful of greens and a pair of black dragons were the only lizards in the pens today, which likely meant that there were traders around, but no major caravans.

“Tarverro!” Tolars exclaimed, coming up behind Erik and clapping him on the shoulder. “You saw the rota, right?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Erik replied. “My squad is escorting our oak consignment to its destination.”

“Why aren't you in armor?” the platoon sergeant asked.

Erik grinned and slid his thick oilskin cloak off his shoulders, revealing the light sky steel chainmail he wore concealed underneath it. “I'm supposed to be joining Ennie and the others in a minute,” he said calmly. “My shield is there.”

The older sergeant snorted. “Not bad, youngster,” he replied. “You almost had me going there, thinking you'd forgotten.”

“Not today, at least,” Erik replied. He glanced out over the city stretching out beyond the reservoir. “It's been a few years since I've been here, but it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to find my way around.”

“Good,” Tolars replied. His serious tone drew Erik's gaze and he faced the
septon
Tarverro squarely. “I'm going to give you a warning the rest of the men don't really need, Tarverro,” the Sergeant said quietly. “Aeradi are tolerated, even welcome in some places, in the city. But…”

“Some people have an issue with half-bloods no matter where you are,” Erik finished for him. “Like I said, I've been here before. I'll deal.”

“Good,” Tolars repeated. “Now why aren't you with your squad?” he demanded.

Erik grinned at the older man and went to join his men.

Even spies did paperwork. In Captain Brane's opinion, Dracona's Red Dragon spies-cum-assassins did far
too
much paperwork. Officially, the office he worked in belonged to a trade factor that dealt heavily with the Draconans. Officially, Brane Kelsdaver
was
that trade factor, and a Hellitian subject.

He knew better, however, and a raid by the Hellitian Royal Guard on the office would have turned up a lot of incriminating evidence to prove that belief wrong. However, his superiors insisted on written reports, so he, and his men, wrote reports. Brane collated those reports, and then shipped them home in with various crates of trade goods.

Nonetheless, the Draconan
hated
paperwork, so when his door burst open he almost welcomed the interruption. On the other hand,
no one
was supposed to burst into his room like that, so by the time Dairn stumbled to a stop, Brane had the crystal rod out and aimed at the agent.

The tiny rod of crystal didn't look like much, but it was a deadly weapon. Functioning on a similar principle as the much larger crys-bows used by the Aeradi and some Draconans, it unleashed a bolt of lightning when used. Of course, unlike the larger weapons, it didn't recharge and was useful for only a handful of bolts – rarely more than three – but it was deadly and easily hidden.

It was the weapon of an assassin or a spy, and Brane Kelsdaver was both. So was Dairn, who should have
known
better. The agent froze at the sight of the tiny weapon and raised his hands.

“Peace, sir, I didn't mean to interrupt,” he said apologetically.

The rod vanished back into its wrist sheath and Brane locked his glare – almost as deadly a weapon – on the agent. “What was so Fires-burnt important?” he demanded.

“We've found Tarverro, sir!” Dairn reported.

Brane shook his head at the agent, remembering their previous problem with the half-Aeraid. He wanted the man dead, but he'd left Vidran months ago, and an Aeradi
septon
was far beyond their reach. “We found him months ago,” he observed pointedly.

“I mean we've found him
here
,” Dairn replied.

“
What?”
the Red Dragon commander demanded.

“He's aboard the sky ship that landed this morning,” Dairn told him. “Working as a marine sergeant – one of their blooding tours, it seems. One of our agents – Korian – spotted him leaving the ship escorting a consignment in town. The agent was one of the men who tracked what happened to Rade, so he recognized the man.”

“Where is Tarverro now?” Brane asked.

“Still heading in-town, so far as we know,” the junior agent replied. “Korian came back here – he needs authorization to do anything more than observe, and he figures he can intercept Tarverro on the way back.”

Brane grabbed a piece of paper and dipped his pen into the inkwell. He scribbled an authorization on the paper and handed it to Dairn.

“Korian is cleared to carry out the kill,” he said firmly. “Tell him to do it as quietly as possible, but to make certain of the kill.”

“Understood!”

The merchant who had, for whatever reason, ordered twenty tons of seasoned Sky Isle oak, had sent ox-drawn wagons and several of his own guards to collect it. Nonetheless, Erik and his men had been assigned to escort it to the man's warehouse.

Though Erik didn't really think anyone was going to try and steal four wagons full of logs, he did understand why his men were being sent despite the merchant's guards: there were only two locals. Neither of them was armored, and they were only armed with batons. No one might be inclined to steal wood, but just the sixteen oxen pulling the wagons were worth more protection than that.

Street protection duty was straightforward. Erik split his squad into its two lances and put one on each side of the wagons, with the two locals out in front. His men marched in good order, with their swords sheathed but their shields held firmly against their bodies.

The journey through the city passed without any major event. Even non-casual thieves were going to be deterred by the sight of ten professional soldiers, and casual thieves had no interest in oxen and loads of lumber.

Seije was a human city, and as such one would have thought would have had taller buildings than an Aeradi city, if only since the
people
were taller. The facts were quite contrary, however. The only good thing to be said for the city was that it had good sanitation, which was true of most human cities at least. It lacked the crystal towers of the sky cities, and even the stone buildings that made up most of the city seemed to rarely rise above two stories.

When they reached the merchant's warehouse and offices, and Erik found himself expecting the offices to be in a crystal tower, he realized just how thoroughly he'd fallen into Aeradi perceptions, even with his short time among them. The three story stone and plaster building that was the offices would have been quite impressive to him before he'd gone to Newport.

Shortly after they arrived and men began offloading the cargo, a short-ish – for a human – man came bustling out of the offices. He was wearing what looked like normal working clothes, but an ermine cloak swirled around them, providing a workable combination of comfort and elegance.