City in the Sky (32 page)

“You saved mine with your warning,” he replied. “We're even.”

“No, we're not,” Corens said flatly, straightening to face Erik. “What was between us is over,” he told Erik. “You have my word.”

At that moment, the Watch began to arrive, stunned by the carnage in the middle of a high-class tavern. Even through the noise, however, Erik still managed to be heard.

“And you mine,” he told Corens. “And you mine.”

“Down girl!” Kolanis bellowed as Lalen suddenly reared under his cleaning brush. Cleaning the giant beasts was relaxing for both dragon and rider, and also helped solidify the bond. A dragon rearing while being cleaned was highly unusual, and he looked into the air to see what had attracted her attention.

His link to his dragon drew his eyes to a tiny speck in the sky that quickly grew into a dot, and then a courier pigeon, diving for the communications tent where, Kolanis knew, its mate awaited it. Since the communications officer for the army was a half-human Mage, running a mind relay back to Black Mountain, there was only one reason for a pigeon to be coming here.

Calmly, oh so calmly, Kolanis gave Lalen one last scratch, then hung up the brush. As soon as the brush was solidly onto its hook, however, he took off towards the tent.

One of his men was waiting for him, the captain of his First Company. The officer was almost bouncing up and down, and only slowed slightly at the sight of his commander. “Is this it, sir? Are we go?”

“I don't know,” Kolanis replied honestly. “It might be. Are you ready?”

“Yes sir!” the officer bellowed.

“Are your men ready? Are the other companies ready? The rest of the regiment?” the sky-major demanded. “Find out!” he barked before the captain could answer. “If it's the order, we fly at dawn!”

The company commander saluted, and took off at a run. Shaking his head, Kolans headed to the communication tent, at a slightly less tumultuous pace. As he neared the tent, he saw that the
rest
of the army's senior officers, of both the Skyborne and Claw contingents, had closed on the tent.

Twenty seven Claw and twelve Skyborne officers had converged on the tent, and they all stopped, looking around at each other sheepishly. Before anything more could be said, however, General Adaelis, the army's commander, came out of the tent.

He surveyed the crowd of majors and colonels in front of him and grinned widely. “It's good to see that my officers are neither blind nor ignorant,” he told them loudly.

Adaelis didn't continue, so Kolanis stepped forward out of the crowd. “Is this it, sir? Is it time?”

“Relax, Sky-Major,” Adaelis told him. “We have indeed received a report from our Red Dragon agents in the Sky City of Newport.”

Kolanis found himself holding his breath for the general's next words, like the rest of the officers. Adaelis could clearly tell, and was just as clearly taking pleasure in drawing out the moment.

“As of this morning, the Aeradi's wargames have definitely commenced, leaving only a handful of sky ships and wing-lancers to defend the city,” the general commanding the largest deployment of Draconan troops in a generation informed his senior officers.

“While this normally only draws the Marine units out of the city, several of Newport's Regular units are also involved this year,” he continued. “In addition, many of their Regular units are outside the city, involved in other duties.”

“The city, however, is far from defenseless,” Aedelis warned his men. “Several Regular regiments remain, as does their Wind Guard regiment and the entirety of their militia. However, given our assets in the city and that those assets are moving to destroy the city's external anti-air defenses...” the General trailed off, eyeing his men, and then shrugged. “It has been decided to initiate the operation as planned,” he finished.

A cheer rose from the assembled officers, and Kolanis cheered along with the rest. After years of dancing to the Aeradi tune, playing to their economic rules, accepting their dictates and closed borders, Dracona was finally striking back.

“We fly at dawn,” Adaelis told them once he finally had quiet. “Let the Aeradi tremble!”

It was late in the evening by the time the Watch let Erik go. Bloody battles in the middle of upscale taverns were disconcerting enough for them, without having a
septon
mixed up the mess. As time passed, Erik began to grow more and more worried that rumor of the encounter would reach Arien before he did.

In the end, however, the witness of the bar's patrons had borne fruit, and the Watch had finally released him. Most of the Watchmen left then, with the wagon carrying the bodies of the Red Dragons who'd disturbed the peace the Watch was sworn to protect.

Their officer, however, Captain Tel Demeraid, the man who'd questioned Erik, remained behind. Erik paused at the door, in the process of leaving, at the sight of the man waiting for him under a crystal-light on the street outside the club. The Watch captain beckoned to him, and Erik sighed and crossed to meet him.

“I thought your questions were done?” he said quietly.

“They are,
septon
,” Captain Demeraid said respectfully. “I just wanted to advise you of my conclusions.”

“I see,” Erik replied, nodding slowly. The Captain had no need to do so, but it was an appreciated courtesy.

The dark-haired police officer eyed the club behind him. “They couldn't have known that you were going to be in the Black Moonbeam,” he told Erik. “I don't think they were hunting you – at that specific moment.”

“At that moment?” Erik queried, and Demeraid nodded.

“At that moment,” he confirmed. “I think, though further investigation will be carried out, of course, that they
were
looking for you. I can see no other reason for them to put a man they
knew
you'd recognize in the city.”

“There are other operations Red Dragons could be used for,” Erik said softly, “and they would not need half a dozen men to kill me.”

“Agreed,” the Watch captain said instantly. “However, it might have taken a dozen or more men to
find
you; and Kelsdaver isn't known to just you. They wouldn't send a man they knew could be recognized here for normal operations – too much risk.”

Erik nodded slowly. “Perhaps,” he said, still unconvinced.

The Watchman shrugged. “I do not know for certain,” he admitted, “but I do not see any other reason. After all, what
else
could he have been after?”

“I do not know,” Erik admitted. “But I fear what it may have been nonetheless.”

Dari Hendall hung from the side of the tower by his harness, his telescope surveying the clouds around him. With Kelsdaver's death, the junior Red Dragon now commanded the central cadre of infiltrators – what was left of them, at least.

He was sure there were more senior agents in place on the island, but he was the one who was senior in the central group – which meant he was the one at the center of the communication net, and the one who'd have to give the order to act.

Which put him up on the side of this merchant house's tower, watching for the army. And spotting them, he realized, as a slight movement drew his eye. There, on the horizon, where the clouds met the sea, a blur of motion turned into a sea of dots as the massive wave of dragons and men of the Draconan army came into view.

It was time. Hendall released the catches on his harness and plummeted to the ground. He hit on his feet, gently absorbing the impact, and turned to the messengers.

“They're here,” he told them quietly. “Blow the charges.”

The last day had passed in quiet, with Ikeras confirming to Erik that the harassment of his men had been stopped. In one case that the former wing-lancer had seen himself, a pair of burly sergeants from Dekker's company had intervened, breaking up the argument with a few choice words and sharp orders to the Wind Guards.

With no political affairs for Arien to shepherd him to, Erik had found himself with little to do except stop in at the small office maintained for him in the main Militia Compound, to brush up on the men under his command. Only captains and above
had
such offices, as most militia affairs took place at the battalion armories scattered through the city at muster points.

Erik had only visited the tiny office twice, and was unimpressed. It had been a small enough office before someone had lined the walls with eight filing cabinets, and then crammed a small desk into the remaining space. Its sole good point was that it
did
contain all the information about his company, but it was more of a file repository than an actual
office
.

Which meant that the letter lying on the desk was a surprise. However, Erik had made arrangements with Ikeras for any mail at this office to be delivered to him elsewhere, and he'd merely been intending to read through the files.

Upon opening the letter, however, he found a quick note from his battalion commander, Major Leo Champion, instructing him to drop by the Major's office in the Militia Compound 'at his earliest convenience.'

Despite having been a member of the battalion for nearly a week, Erik had yet to meet the Major commanding the Third Newport Militia. Curiosity won out over established plans, and he abandoned his tiny office for the Major's slightly larger one, just down the hall.

Champion greeted him at the door himself, and ushered him quickly into the room. “Come in, come in, Captain,” he ordered in quick, jerking words. The man was tall for an Aeraid, and lean even for that slim race, with an untidy shock of blonde hair.

“Have a seat, have a seat,” he instructed, gesturing to a chair.

Erik took it, glancing around the room. The only difference in size between this room and his own office was the lack of filing cabinets, and a small door behind Champion's desk gave away the secret to that: majors had a second room for their files.

“Apologies, apologies, for not meeting you sooner,” Champion said once Erik had taken a seat. “I've been busy, busy, with my duties in the Regulars.”

“You're in the Regulars as well?” Erik asked, surprised. Most officers holding Regular commissions had retired their militia commissions on the receipt of the Regular ones. Few had the time to handle
both
jobs.

“Yes, yes,” the major replied. “Nothing too major, not to worry, not to worry. Just logistics, so rather quiet, quiet.”

“Why's logistics been busy?” Erik asked with frank curiosity.

“Well, the war games are on now, now,” Champion told him. “Setting up the supplies for two thirds of the Fleet and all the Lancers to go to the Isles is quite a task, quite a task.”

“
What
?” Erik hissed.

Champion blinked, clearly surprised at being asked to repeat himself. “The war games are on now,” he said. “Most of the Fleet and all of the Lancers are in the Isles. Why do you ask?”

“Sir,” Erik said, surging to his feet. “Two days ago, I was attacked by Red Dragons
in this city
. We thought they were after me – I've had previous dealings with them, to nobody's pleasure. But if the
entire Fleet
is not
here
– who knows what they saw?”

Champion's face blanched as the thought visibly struck home in his mind.

“We have to warn everyone, everyone!” he snapped, coming to his own feet.

It was too late. Even as the militia major stood up, they felt the entire city
rock
– for all of the power of its magic, for all of its unimaginable mass and size, the floating island
lurched
– and the sound of massive explosions ripped through the air.

Five

Erik knew why the Red Dragons had been in the city now. It had
nothing
to do with him at all. They'd been spies and saboteurs, and his encounter with them had been an unplanned accident. An accident that had cost them an entire attack team.

Clearly, Brane's team hadn't been the only one, even if Erik and Dekker had succeeded in wiping it out. And now the city's defenses were gone, and an attack was almost certainly on its way.

Erik cursed in the quiet of his own mind. All the pieces had been there to be seen. Why had no one put them together? They could have been
ready
for this! His mind quickly went to people he knew – Arien, Hiri, even Elysia flashed through his mind with a heavy tinge of fear.

With a deep breath, Erik controlled his fear and anger and turned to Champion, who had frozen when the explosions shook the building, and seemed to be in a complete stupor.

“Sir,” he said quietly, trying to rouse the man. Champion just sat there, ignoring him. “Sir!” Erik snapped, louder. When the man started, he continued more quietly. “We have to go, sir. The battalion will be waiting.”

“Yes, yes!” Champion agreed, almost pathetically latching onto any idea for action. “We must –
must
– get to the battalion. They'll need us.”

Erik's unspoken opinion of his superior rose somewhat as the Aeraid picked up a sword from behind his desk, where he hadn't seen it, and belted it on. Clearly the Major was ready to do his duty.

“Let's go,” Champion said quietly, and Erik could only agree.

Hendall rose to his feet from where the explosions had thrown him, brushing dust off of his clothes. He'd cut the fuse on his own charge a little too short, it seemed, but that hardly mattered compared to what they'd achieved.

The vaunted outer defenses of the Aeradi sky city were piles of debris and shattered crystal now, unable to stop so much as a determined pigeon. The dragons of Black Mountain's assault force were no pigeons, and they had determination to spare, he was sure.

The primary mission of the infiltrators was complete, and now was the time for them to carry out their other objectives. There were sufficient numbers in the city militia, and enough chokepoints in the city that they could slow, perhaps even stop the attack. The militia had to be neutralized, and the chokepoints held, if the Draconans were to break through.

Each of the infiltrated Red Dragons had two pieces of information they'd been told to memorize: the name and probable location of a militia officer they were to kill, and a rendezvous point for them to meet up with other Dragons.

Hendall's target lived less than three blocks from where he stood.

Kolanis had only
just
located the city with his telescope when it vanished into a blur of light and smoke for a moment. The light merely flashed and was gone, but the smoke remained, a silent beacon of war guiding the armies of Dracona to her foes.

He glanced behind him, at the black dragon that carried Aedelis, in case the commander decided to change his orders based on this. No new orders came from the general, suggesting that this had been planned all along.

Which made sense, the Draconan sky-major realized, and his teeth bared in a grin as Green Battalion of the Third Regiment swept forward. His men and dragons had been granted the honor of leading the strike, and the destruction of the outer defenses made that far safer than he'd expected it to be.

The dragons sensed the excitement of their riders, and threw their great hearts into their flight. The city grew rapidly, until Kolanis could make out the very defenses the explosions had torn apart.

Some of the weapons were still intact, but their crews
must
be more focused on retrieving their wounded comrades from the ruins than on manning their guns and crystal-bows. No matter how much logic would warn them that an attack had to be coming, they wouldn't think of it. Not now.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Kolanis made a sharp hand gesture, above his head where all of his people could see it, then kneed Lalen. Two hundred green dragons lunged downwards at the forts, blazing fire as they came, and the war cries of both dragons and men rang through the air.

On the quarter of the city wall where they attacked, perhaps forty weapons remained intact, and Kolanis' strike silenced half of them before they could fire. Cannonballs and lightning bolts struck a handful of his Bonds from the air, but it was too late for the defenders.

Dragon fires and dragon claws ended the first phase of the battle, slaughtering the last of the gun crews and shattering their weapons. As the last crystal bow fell silent, Kolanis added his own voice to Lalen's keening victory roar.

The way into Newport was open!

When the blood-chilling warcries of dragons echoed over Newport, Erik merely nodded to himself grimly and kept walking, his hand caressing the hilt of his sword. He couldn't fight dragons, but he could sure as Fires fight the men they bore. They had to land to take the city, after all.

Champion was more affected. He stopped in the middle of the street. “What was
that,
that?” he demanded.

“Dragon cries,” Erik replied shortly, stopping and turning back to his commander. “The Draconans have begun their attack.”

“Attack?!” Champion replied, his voice querulous. “They would never dare attack us! The outer defenses...”

“Are gone,” Erik cut him off sharply. “That's what those explosions were. Anyone left alive in the forts died when the dragons hit them. That was the vanguard, battle dragons. What is
here
of Sky Fleet will soon occupy their attention. It's the ones that come
after
them
we
need to worry about.”

“What, what? Why?”

Erik was forced to wonder if his commander knew
anything
about war. “Because they'll be carrying the soldiers,” he said quietly.

“Not all of them,” Champion suddenly said.

“Why do you say that?” Erik demanded, but even as he spoke he knew. He'd heard the distinctive sound of a crys-rod discharging before, and this time it was
behind
him.

The next thing he knew, his diminutive commanding officer hit him in the waist, bearing him to the ground and out of the way of the bolt. A second bolt cracked moments after the first, and Champion's body crumpled onto Erik.

For an eternal moment, the Major's eyes held Erik's as he smelt the reek of burning flesh.

“Our men...” Champion gasped, “the city... save them. Save them.”

With that, the Aeradi Major had repeated his last phrase, and died in Erik's arms. Before Erik's mind had truly processed what was happening, a
third
bolt hit the Aeraid's body and flipped it clear of the Militia captain, leaving Erik half-fried by the discharge.

Half-fried or not, Erik came up to his feet and his sword swung free. Unless the man had more than one rod, he
had
to have expended his shots. Indeed, as Erik's sword came up, he spotted two Draconans headed towards him at a run, one of them shucking a piece of crystal from his wrist as he drew his sword.

The one drawing his sword was no threat for the moment, and Erik lunged forwards to meet the other Draconan. The assassin reacted swiftly, and Erik’s lunge was interrupted by a smooth parry.

Unfortunately for the Draconan, Erik held one of his stilettos in his
other
hand. He allowed the force of the parry to spin him around, using the force to drive the metal spike into the Red Dragon's throat.

The infiltrator crumpled to the ground, and Erik finished his turn to face the first man, who had now drawn his own sword. With the stiletto in the other Draconan's throat, he had no surprises for this man. Nonetheless, he didn't have time to play games.

The Red Dragon attacked first, moving forward in the Draconans' textbook belly-thrust. Eschewing subtlety for brute force, Erik grabbed the hilt of the dragonclaw sword and pulled the Draconan forwards.

Unfortunately, the man was too good to allow Erik to pull him off-balance, releasing the sword before he was pulled too far forward. The spy rocked back on his heels, still perfectly balanced as he went for what was presumably another weapon of some sort.

Perfectly balanced or not, he never made it. Even as Erik unbalanced himself, he used his own backwards motion to propel his sword. He went backwards, and his sword went up and across, opening the Draconan up from waist to throat in one vicious cut.

The fight was over in a matter of moments, and Erik took a moment to regain his breath and cross to Champion's body. The Aeradi soldier was very, very dead. Living men didn't have that much of their back and side burnt away.

Nonetheless, the major had saved Erik's life, and Erik intended to fulfill the man's dying order. The Third Militia was
his
unit now, and Newport was
his
city.

As Champion had ordered, he was going to save them. He was going to save them if it killed him.

The screech of a dragon behind him roused Kolanis' attention from the shores of the sky island below. He turned in his seat, to see Sergeant-Major Cerians waving to him. Once the non-com was sure he had his commander's attention, he made a series of hand signals.

'Sky Fleet', 'Attacking', 'Transports', followed by a gesture behind him. Kolanis followed the gesture to where the transport regiments were closing in on the city, but he knew what he was going to see.

Clearly, their intelligence had been correct. There were far fewer skyships out there than there should have been. Whoever commanded the Aeradi warships, however, had obviously decided to try and do as much as he could, and was striking at the weak point of the Draconan attack.

Six battleships and twelve frigates shook themselves out into an attack formation as he watched, cannon and crystal-bows beginning to flare as they came into range of the transport dragons.

The transport dragons were blacks, with the notoriously weak flame of that kind. That, of course, was why
war
blacks carried weapons. As Kolanis' watched, the convoy's escorts surged forward to meet the warships, their own cannon and crys-bows flaring in return fire.

It probably would have been enough, but Kolanis wasn't willing to take the chance. His own gesture towards the fleet was followed by a signal: 'Take them!'

The skyships were distracted by their engagement with the escort dragons, and were still doing their best to take as many of the transports out of the sky as they could. If someone had been watching for other attacks, they had failed at their task.

Sky-Major Kolanis led his battalion in a swooping attack, fire blazing from their mouths. A frigate died under their fire, as a dragon's flame burnt through into its inner hull. It either hit the ship's powder magazine or its crystal rooms, as it blew apart into a green-tinged fireball, the blast wave knocking two more frigates out of formation.

With a wave of his lance, Kolanis sent two of his companies to focus on the separated frigates, while he led the other two against the battleships at the heart of the line. He was waiting for the wing-lancers to rise up to meet him, to take their toll of his dragons before he closed as always, but they never did.

They never did. Which meant that the wing-lancers weren't
here
, as the Aeradi would never take battleships into battle with dragons without rocs to cover them. The sky-major's lips peeled back in a death's-head grin, as he led a hundred dragons in against the battleships.

Uncovered or not, the firepower of an Aeradi skyship of the line was nothing to be laughed at, and Bond after Bond fell under their fire – but he'd diverted their fire from the transports. In the end, that was all he was after.

He led the attack against the topmost battleship, focusing the fire of two companies of greens against it. The other warships lent their fire to its defense, but it wasn't enough. This time, Kolanis
knew
it was the crystal room that had been hit. He
saw
the first burst of dragonflame rip the hull open, leaving the crystals exposed for the
second
burst that shattered them, releasing their pent up energy in an ear-shattering explosion of green light.

The sky-major blinked his eyes, trying to clear the effects of the explosion, and turned to the other warships. At the sight of them, his cold grin returned. They were retreating, bloodied and beaten.

The battleship he'd just killed and three of their frigates didn't retreat with them.

Hendall calmly wiped the blood from his sword with the Aeradi's cloak. The Regular officer, a captain from his uniform, had been good. He'd also been smart – at the sight of the Draconan, he'd clearly realized what was going on and gone for his sword to defend himself.