The Tinkerer's Daughter (20 page)

I had been making a wide circle over their heads as I studied the Kanters. I studied their wagons and machines but I took little note of what they were actually doing. This proved to be a disastrous mistake. I was already turning back to the south when I heard the distant thud of an explosion, and instantaneously felt the jarring impact of a cannonball against my plane.

It couldn’t have been very large, but the effect was devastating. The cannonball ripped through the fuselage and exploded out the other side, bringing chunks of springs and metal along with it. The plane shuddered under the impact, and I immediately lost power. As I plunged towards the earth, it was all I could do to steer the plane towards the west, hoping to make it to the shelter of the woods.

I glanced over my shoulder as I spiraled in and saw the Kanters shouting and cheering. They had been expecting my return, and they were ready. Their revenge was far from complete. I knew what they would do if they got their hands on me, and that knowledge fueled my strength.

“Come on,” I said, helplessly urging my plane to keep flying. “Just a few more miles…” I fought against the controls, desperate to make it to shelter. I didn’t have a chance. I was only halfway there and already the ground was rushing up. At that point, all I could hope for was a smooth landing, and enough time to run ahead of the Kanters.

Even with my head start, it wouldn’t be easy to outrun them. Their legs were longer than I was tall.

Then the wheels hit the ground with a jolt, and the back half of the airframe tore apart. What was left of the plane spun around in the air and I felt myself thrown free. I did several somersaults, and the gravitational forces dragged the breath right out of me.

Sky and earth melted into darkness as I lost consciousness. I didn’t even feel it when a shard of wood from the wreckage tore through my rib cage and into my guts.

I lapsed in and out of consciousness for the next several hours. Those moments of lucidity were thankfully brief, because they were filled with mind-racking spasms of pain. I remember waking at one point, gazing up at the churning sky. I felt a tugging on the shoulder of my jacket, and realized it was Cinder. I reached out to her, my thoughts full of appreciation and concern, but she ignored me.

I woke again some time later and saw the canopy of trees overhead. I was mystified for a moment, until I remembered the way that Cinder had pulled me out of the field. I noticed her warmth next to me and went to touch her, but pain shot through my body. I cried out once, and slipped back into the darkness.

Even Cinder’s heroic act would not have saved me, were it not for the trees’ intervention. I still don’t know exactly what they did, or how the decision was made. All I know is that I woke the next day in a tent deep in the mountains.

“Shh,” said a familiar voice as I stirred. “Just rest. You need to heal.”

I fought against the wave of nausea and the delirium of pain-killing drugs as I pulled my eyelids open. I was lying on a makeshift cot made from two long poles with animal hides stretched between. I was covered in blankets. Analyn Trader was sitting on a stool next to me.

“What happened?” I mumbled. My tongue was thick, and my mouth dry as dirt. My voice cracked as I spoke.

“That’s an excellent question,” she replied. “We found you lying under the trees at the edge of our camp this morning. We probably wouldn’t have seen you until it was too late, except that dog of yours was standing over you barking and howling.”

“Cinder?” I said. I heard a stirring beneath me.

“She’s right next to you, dear. She wouldn’t leave your side.”

Analyn tipped a cup of water into my lips, and I sipped from it. It splashed across my cheeks and went running down the back of my neck, but it was cool and it felt good. “They shot me down,” I said after a few moments.

“What’s that?”

“The Kanters. They were expecting me. They shot my plane with some sort of cannon.”

“I see. Well that explains… your wound.”

I reached down and winced as I felt the swollen, moist flesh and the thick stitches. “Who did this?”

“If you’re talking about the sewing, that would be me,” she said. “Unfortunately the only doctor in Riverfork was killed when the Kanters attacked. Tinkerman pulled a rather large shaft of wood out of you, and treated the wound. I sewed you up, and we’ve mostly been praying ever since.”

I closed my eyes, and let my mind drift through my body. I could see the wound, the slight infection at the surface, and the stitches holding my flesh together. I probed deeper, and saw where the wood had penetrated my guts, ripping the outer membrane and exposing my entire body to the toxins therein. These wounds were healing now, but even so I was incredibly lucky to be alive.

Then I saw the slivers. There were several of them; tiny shards of wood that had penetrated the outer layers of my internal organs. Infections were festering around them, and I knew immediately that they would kill me if I didn’t do something. I started to move them, and it felt like a knife in my guts. I took a deep breath.

“Open it up,” I said.

Analyn’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s healing up nicely.”

“No, it’s not. Please Analyn, take the stitches out!”

“All right, all right.” She fumbled around the tent for a few minutes and then returned to my side with a pair of scissors. I heard the snipping sound, and felt the cool metal against my skin. “There you go, but I’m afraid it won’t help. The wound has already closed.”

I groaned, and clenched my teeth against the pain. “Cut. It. Open.”

Analyn gasped. “Breeze, I don’t think…”

“Just do it!” I was in an extraordinary amount of pain, despite the medications I had been given, and it was all I could do to stay awake.

I worked the slivers out of my body towards that now closed wound, every movement excruciating. I hardly even noticed as Analyn brought Tinker in, and he reopened my wound with a sterile knife. I only noticed the release of pressure and the warmth of the infectious goo trickling down my side. Analyn rushed to grab a rag, and started cleaning the bloody mess.

She held up a sliver of wood about an inch long. “Now I understand,” she said. “And this wasn’t the worst of them.” Tinker stepped forward to brush my hair from my eyes

“Are you all right, Breeze?”

I nodded and smiled weakly. “I’m going to sleep now,” I said. He was smiling as my eyes closed.

When I woke, the stitches were back. I was alone in the tent, and I could feel the warmth of the afternoon sun beating down through the canvas. It felt good, and I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but curiosity forbade it. Instead, I turned my attention back to the wound, and set to work getting everything properly mended. Analyn returned at some point during this process, but I think she sensed what I was doing. Either that, or she assumed I was still asleep. Either way, she watched over me for a few minutes and then left once she was satisfied that I was well. She returned a while later with a tray of food.

“I assume you’re hungry?” she said. “Tinker tells me that the healing process leaves you feeling starved as a black bear in spring.”

“You have no idea,” I said, propping myself up. I snatched up a biscuit and took a bite. “What is this place?”

“It’s a refugee camp. The people of Riverfork and the surrounding villages escaped into the mountains when the Kanters attacked. They found us last night, and brought us here.”

“Daran?” I said. “Is he okay?”

“He’s healing quite well. We’re still confining him to a bed, but he’s been chatting like a schoolgirl all day long.”

I sighed. Knowing that he was going to be okay lifted a huge weight from my shoulders. I laid into my food with a newfound strength.

I ate three biscuits, a bowl of soup, and two thick slabs of meat. By the time I was done my body was begging me to go back to sleep, but I fought it. Tinker had come in while I was eating, and I needed to talk to him.

“You’re looking much better,” he said as I settled back onto the pillows. I let one arm dangle over the edge so I could rub Cinder’s ears and stroke her soft fur.

“And feeling better, thanks to you,” I said.

“I did what I could, but obviously it wasn’t enough. It was just lucky that we found you. Your arrival was quite a shock to us.”

“I don’t think it was luck,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t anywhere near here, Tinker. I don’t even know where
here
is for sure. Last thing I knew, I had crashed about a hundred miles north of Riverfork. The Kanters shot me down.”

Tinker’s eyes widened. “Analyn mentioned something about that. She thought you were feverish, because it didn’t make sense.”

“I know. It was my own fault.” I went on to describe everything that had happened over the last two days, particularly about how I had bombed the Kanters, and about how they’d been expecting my return.

“Don’t be so careless next time,” he warned me. “You need to stay at a much higher altitude.”

“I know that,” I said. “But I don’t think there will be a next time. The plane was destroyed.”

Tinker thought that over for a few moments. “This project you discussed with the princess and the general, is it what you really want?”

“You mean my team of pilots?” I said. “Of course! It’s the only way to bring our people together. I’m surer of it now than ever.”

Tinker rubbed his hands together. “Then we’d best get to work. Can you ride?”

I was baffled. “In your steamwagon?”

Tinker laughed aloud. “No, I don’t have the steamwagon here. But if we take a horse we can be there by midnight.”

“Be where?”

“Home. We still have the other plane back in the barn, remember? I’ll make a few modifications to it, and you’ll be flying by morning. But first, we’ll need to salvage what we can from the crash.”

I threw off my blankets. “Let’s go.”

Tinker went to get a horse saddled while I got dressed. It was a long, painful process. Thankfully, Analyn helped out. “You’ve saved me again,” I joked as she tugged on my bootlaces.

“Nonsense. It’s the least I can do, considering all you’ve done.” She paused to look at me with bright, round eyes. “You don’t know how much it means, the way you saved Daran.”

“You’re welcome.” It was nice to have her look at me like that. I wasn’t a Tal’mar to her anymore, I was just a person. More than that, I was a friend.

I felt a bond growing between us, and I suddenly wanted to spend long nights talking to her about all the things I’d seen and done, and exploring her vast knowledge of the world. The thought sparked a question. “I gave the general your seal,” I said. “He recognized it, and he recognized your name. Is he a friend of yours?”

Analyn finished tying my laces, and stood back. She took a deep breath. “Well, I suppose it can’t hurt for you to know. At this point, everyone’s going to know everything soon enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I do know the general, but only in passing. We used to cross paths every now and then, especially when I was with my brother, Prince Sheldon.”

My jaw dropped open. Only now did I notice the similarities between the two of them. The broad foreheads and dark, stringy hair; the strong chins and narrow set eyes. “Sheldon is your brother?” I almost shouted it. Only after the words were out did I realize how loud I had been. Analyn winced.

“Half-brother actually. King Ryshan has three wives. Each of those wives bore him several children. The eldest, Prince Talanar will inherit the throne, and I am third in line. Thankfully, I’ll never see the throne. Most of my siblings feel the same way. None of us want to be leaders. We just want normal lives.”

“Sheldon does,” I said. I could tell that much about him from my previous encounters. The man was already drunk on what power he had. It made me shiver to think of what he would have been like as king. I realized after I said it that this may have been disrespectful, but Analyn didn’t seem to notice. She was in full agreement with me.

“True, unfortunately. Which is one reason that he is as far from the capital as possible. His ambitions make him dangerous to our older brother.”

“Talanar believes Sheldon would kill him?” I could hardly believe a family could behave in this way. I’d never had a family, and if I did I would treasure them above all else. I was shocked.

“He believes it because it’s true. Sheldon would stop at nothing.”

I was aghast. It took a few moments before I picked up on my previous train of thought. “Why did you leave? How did you end up in Riverfork?”

“Not without a fight!” Analyn laughed. “As a member of the royal family, I traveled often. The princes and princesses were expected to take an active role in the politics and relations of the kingdom, and part of this was to visit the provinces regularly. Naturally, I met many interesting people during my travels. None so interesting as a young merchant named Daran Trader, though.

“We eloped, fully without the King’s consent. It was possible that my father would have allowed the marriage, but it was also standard practice when I was young to arrange the marriages between the children of noble families. Rather than face this possibility, I took a false name and married Daran in one of the outlying provinces of the borderlands, where I knew no one would recognize me.

“We lived there for a few years before the King found us. He had Daran arrested and I was taken back to court. Of course, it didn’t take long for my father to realize that there was little he could do. Our marriage was legal, after all, and no self-respecting nobleman would have considered me eligible for one of his sons.

“After it was all over, my father released Daran and invited us to stay in the capital, but I declined. I have no taste for the royal life. I hate the politics of court; the facetiousness of it all. I’d rather live a simple, honest life in the country with the man I love.”

“So you became a teacher…”

“Yes, it seemed logical. I did have extensive knowledge of our kingdom and the rest of the frontier.”