City in the Sky (18 page)

Indeed, as soon as the Aeradi men were also out of earshot, Tolars fixed him with a steely glare. “Congratulations,” he said sardonically, “you just very nearly started a fight with our employer's men, not to mention that they're the Ellian
Royal fucking Army
. Care to explain yourself?”

“Lieutenant Hiakhan is a prejudiced prick,” Erik said. It wasn't so much an excuse or an explanation as an observation.

“Yes, he is,” the platoon sergeant agreed. “That doesn't mean taking off his head is a good idea, nor was that the reason you were so touchy. Full explanation, please.
Now
.”

Though Brane had found rooms in the city, he was spending most of his time at Captain Delk's safe house. He was there when the Red Dragon tasked with killing Tarverro was carried in by four of the thugs he’d recruited.

“He's wounded,” the leader of the thugs said calmly as a half dozen Red Dragons went for weapons at their arrival. “I presumed you'd want to help him.”

“Indeed,” Delk said coldly. He jerked his head at his men. Two of them quickly took custody of the wounded Dragon and carried him deeper into the house.

“Your mission?” Brane demanded of the thugs.

“Your friend there,” the thug replied, pointing his chin at where the wounded Dragon had gone, “got the
Sergeant
with his little knife – you know, the one with poison on it?”

“And?”

“One of my boys stuck around to watch, just to make sure,” the thug told Brane, a smile of some sort hovering around his lips. “Someone
else
matching your description – without the Sergeant's bars – turned up and found a healer for the first. Dunno which of 'em was your man, but you didn't get neither of 'em.”

“You
fools
,” Brane hissed, his hand falling to the sword at his belt.

The thug turned to Delk, half-ignoring Brane. “Control your dog there, Delk,” he said flatly. “I've got four dead and six wounded over this fight of yours. I
hope
you can pay up.”

“You failed and you want your money?” Brane demanded, infuriated. “Whistle for it,
thug
.”

“My name is Jair Temas,” the human replied. “I may be a criminal, a murderer and a thief, but that wouldn't stop the Guard at least investigating if I told them the Dragons had a bunch of assassins here, would it?”

“Jair, we've dealt well together in the past,” Delk said, with a warning glance at Brane. Brane may have been the man's senior, but Delk was the control for Yun. “You don't mean that.”

“If you don't find the gold for my men to see Healers, I'll have no choice but to hope the Guard's feeling generous in their rewards,” Jair replied.

Brane glared at the thug, but Delk merely nodded. “Very well.” He gestured for one of his Dragons to pay the man.

“I have a better solution,” Brane snarled, and before the other Red Dragon could react, snapped the crystal rod from his wrist sheath. Four blasts of lightning flashed out, and the humans collapsed, the stench of burning flesh filling the tavern.

Delk turned on Brane, but Brane caught the Red Dragon’s hand with his sword half-drawn.

“They fucked up and quite possibly got the wrong man,” he snarled. “That is the punishment for failing the Red Dragons.
You
know this.”

“That he was healed was not their fault,” Delk said, his voice calm as his hand struggled against Brane’s iron grip.

“And it would have mattered if they’d attacked the right man!” Brane snarled.

“We didn't have enough information,” Delk replied, his voice still somehow calm. “We expected the man to be in uniform – if he wasn't, we start to run short of ways of identifying him.”

Brane said nothing, wordlessly snarling as he released the other Draconan’s hand, turning away.

“We should get another shot at him before he leaves,” Delk told him. “If I can find any more tools,” he added, eyeing the smoking corpses on his floor.

“Last time we took a shot at him, he vanished aboard ship,” Brane replied. “The
bastard
seems to have a strong sense of self-preservation. Even if he comes off ship, he likely won't leave the area around their ship, and we can't touch him there.”

“What now, Captain?” Delk asked, suddenly reasonable as he gestured for his men to remove the bodies, a slight sneer of distaste the last sign of any concern for their deaths.

“I find the next courier dragon to North Hold,” Brane replied. “The sooner I get to North Hold, the more likely I can have an appropriate welcome prepared,” he explained. “If you get the opportunity to take him, try,” the captain added, “but I doubt you will.”

“Understood,” Delk said flatly.

In the end, Erik explained events, as he knew them, three times. After hearing him, Tolars took him to Albiers, who promptly took both men to Captain Demond. The
Cloudrunner
's captain simply sat there as Erik explained both this attack, and, at his superiors' suggestion, the previous attack in Seije.

Demond sat in silence for a long moment after the explanation was complete, and then looked up at Erik. “You know what the most likely target of these attacks is,” he said calmly, a statement, not a question.

“The heirless
septon
Tarverro,” Erik said quietly. “But that would be a political goal of someone in Newport. Who there would have the reach for this?”

The captain shrugged, glancing over at the other marines. “There are others who would rather
sept
Tarverro not rise again. Your grandfather's political foes, yes, but there are those external to the Realm as well.”

“Your father, for example,” Albiers said quietly, “distinguished himself in the last war against the Draconans. Your ancestors have traditionally been advocates of a less… compromise-prone foreign policy. There are those who would not object to the turmoil caused by the death of a
septon
, either.”

“I am the most junior
septon
, with neither great influence nor strong opinions yet,” Erik objected. “Even if I died, my grandmother would just go back to running the
sept's
affairs.”

“And when she died,
sept
Tarverro would end,” Demond told him. “There are those, even outside Newport, who would see that happen, for old vengeance's sake if nothing else.”

Erik said nothing, accepting their arguments if not their point. “What can we do?” he asked. “Assuming we're not going to just lock me up aboard ship, that is,” he added, sardonically.

“Don’t think for a second I’m not tempted,” Albiers replied. “But really, there isn't that much more we can do. I'd say cancel all shore leaves, but…”

“We can't,” Demond said flatly. “The crew would mutiny. I'm going to issue orders for all of our people to stick together. But you, Erik,” he said firmly, “you only go off ship for duty purposes, with your squad. That's it. Understood?”

“Don't cut my squad out of the duty roster for my sake,” Erik warned. “But yes, understood.”

“We can't cut your squad out, worse luck,” Tolars told him. “We're in North Hold next, and you
don't
move fire powder without a platoon escort. Not unless you're crazy, anyway.”

Albiers nodded. “You should be safe moving in a platoon, but I don't want you going off the ship unless you're on duty – and with the whole platoon, preferably.”

With a snort, Erik rose, but nodded his acceptance. “Very well. In any case, I should check that my squad has all made it back in one piece.”

“Indeed,” the Lieutenant replied. “Your squad is on deck guard duty tomorrow. We'll be leaving around noon, so it shouldn't be too hard on you.”

“Understood, sir.” He turned to Demond. “With your permission, Captain?”

“Yes, yes, dismissed,” Demond told him.

The morning deck guard, leaning against the ship's rail with bow, sword and shield to hand, went quickly. The only major point of interest Erik noted was that Hiakhan's part in their altercation seemed to have met with even less approval than his own: a different Royal platoon, under a different officer, supervised the loading of the ship.

The casks of wine, brandy and grapes were quickly loaded, and Erik's men watched as the Aeradi crew and soldiers filed aboard. Finally, as the sun reached its zenith, the crew and the marines cast off the ropes binding the ship to the docks, and Captain Demond activated the crystals, raising the ship out of the water.

The journey to North Hold lasted eight days. For the first five, the sky ship followed the westward line of the Selt River, wending its way along the southern border of the Kingdom of Ell.

Finally, on the evening of the fifth day, the ship’s straight-line path left the river behind and began to cut across the northern plains. Beneath them it was mid-autumn, and the vast expanses of plain on which the Ellians raised both grain and horses were a patchwork of light brown mud and the dirty white of old snow.

The few villages they saw were bundled up, preparing for northern Cevran's lethal winter storms to lock them in for the season. Those storms were one of the defining concerns of Aeradi voyages, but the
Cloudrunner
was sailing just early enough to avoid the worst of the winter blizzards.

For three days they sailed northwest across the plains, until they reached the foothills of the mountain chain known as the Spine of Cevran. They reached the foothills just after dawn on the eighth day, and by noon they were into the mountains.

Erik was on deck, finishing up with his squad's exercises, when the ship drew past the first set of mountains and into the mouth of the river valley. He stopped in place, the exercise forgotten as he stared off the front of the ship at the view in front of him.

The entire valley was cultivated, steep hills turned into functioning farmland by massive terracing earthworks. A road, ribbon thin from this height but probably wide enough for four or five wagons abreast, wound its way up the valley, occasionally bridging the river that, over the millennia, had carved this slot into the ground.

Towards the end of the valley, the river split into a pair of canals that fed two artificial lakes, one on either side of the road, and then fed back into the river. The artificial lakes held the docks for the Aeradi sky ships.

The causeway through the lakes held the first set of defenses, a medium sized fort set across it to bar passage, but clearly the designers hadn't expected it to hold against an enemy on its own. Just beyond the lakes, a massive curtain wall marked the edge of the surface portion of the Dwarven city.

Behind the wall, the city crawled up narrower terraces built for houses instead of farms, until it reached the cliff face where the river flowed out of a deep and narrow gorge through the mountains.

Where the city reached the mountains, it was clear that, whatever the original shape of the mountains, they'd been shaped by years – centuries – of Dwarven work. The mountains on either side of the river had been cut flat, to create sheer vertical surfaces. Fortifications were cut into those sheer walls, providing defenders with nearly invulnerable positions.

Beneath the slits for the forts, each of the two mountain faces had a massive gate, both of them visible from the end of the valley, dug into it. Clearly, a large portion, if not the majority, of the Hold was inside those mountains, buried underneath millions of tons of stone.

Between the lakes and the outer walls was what appeared to be the traders' section of the city, a vast sweep of tents and pens for both dragons and lesser beasts of burden. Large buildings that Erik presumed to be warehouses lined neat avenues through the throng of tents.

At the eastern end of the trader's area half a dozen sky ships bobbed at rest at stone docks built on the artificial lakes. The docks were easily capable of holding five times as many ships, but it was the end of autumn, and even the Aeradi hesitated to sail with the storms coming.

The vast sweep of North Hold grew in their gaze as the
Cloudrunner
floated down the valley, slowly drifting down towards the southern of the two lakes, where her sisters – and the men who'd paid for her cargo – awaited it.

Brane was surprised to find himself met at the courier pen by a uniformed Draconan. If that was his contact, it was
horrible
tradecraft, and the Dwarves disliked Dracona well enough without giving them additional reasons to do so.

Further inspection, however, revealed that the uniform bore the olive branch of the Draconan diplomatic corps – presumably a mark of assignment to the embassy here. That meant the man might even have a legitimate reason to be meeting a supposed trader.

“Captain Brane, I presume,” the Draconan greeted him.

“I am,” Brane replied. “You are?”