Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2) (8 page)

It was a real drag, getting back
to the ship, and Dareg just headed back to the Capital, needing sleep so
suddenly that it probably wasn't totally safe to be flying. Twice he found
himself just waking up, hovering in the air. When he landed, the ship was taken
down finally. Then he headed back to his pod house, and regretted having hidden
the door earlier. His fuzzy brain didn't want to let him focus enough to get
in.

That meant it was nearly ten
minutes later when he got inside, stumbling to his bed again. There were people
outside, but he didn't know what time it actually was any longer. Dare didn't
know how long he slept, being woken up by his communications device buzzing at
him. It was in his pocket, so he pulled it out, the room around him nearly
pitch black. When it came on he saw, to his surprise, that it was King Richard.

That got him to sit up.

The man had a vastly deep voice,
and his red hair was without a crown at the moment.

"Hello? There's no
picture?"

Dare touched the wall turning the
lights on, and squinting as it happened. It was too bright, so his eyes just
closed on their own.

"Hey. I was just taking a
nap. Is everything all right?" He fought to stand up, the covers from the
bed off of him already, since he'd failed to get himself under them in the
first place. He was still dressed, and even had all his magic on him, if he was
needed. It would be good to brush his teeth, but if there was an emergency, he
could go from there.

"Dareg! No one has been able
to get in touch with you. We do have a bit of an issue. Baron Loxley, in County
Riven? His lands are being flooded. There was a storm... Not one of the old
killers, thankfully, but we need to get some emergency workers to him.
Unfortunately all of the Noram craft are busy for the time being. I was hoping
I could..." He hesitated, staring a bit at Dare's sleepy face.

For his part, Dareg grinned.

"Right. Let me get to that.
Where are the workers? Plus, I need a map, so I can find this place. Riven?
That's straight up, in the north, right? The frozen lands?"

King Richard smiled, and then
shook his head.

"All the way to the south.
Just above Soam. It's warm there. The men and women are up at Wildlands
Station. That's about two hundred miles straight north of us here. Tor owns it,
but we also have the focus stone manufacturing unit housed there. I'll have
them standing by. Can you fly in the dark?"

"If there's a marker on the
ground, I can. We'll go up into orbit first, then sink down. Otherwise we'll
have to wait for light."

It was the truth, but didn't
daunt the King, who, as soon as Dare could actually see him again, looked a bit
sleepy himself. That probably meant that this call was coming in the wee hours
of the morning. That was fine though. He moved toward the door of his tiny pod,
then stopped.

"Oh, right. Can I get a
meeting with you tomorrow? Prince Tenet, Princess Tess and the Ancient of Soam,
Taman Baker, asked me to set up a get together with you and Queen Constance.
They can do it whenever you like, but I'm off to Saturn for a week in two days.
Not that
I
have to be there for it. I think they mean it as a family get
together, rather than a secret meeting, but you never know with those royal
types."

The King smiled, a bit sleepily,
and reached to his side, to pick something up. A book, which he read for a few
seconds.

"Would... Dinner be all
right? We don't have anything official planned, but I'm certain we can put one
together for such esteemed personages. Or does this need to be private?"

Dareg shrugged, too tired to
think about how rude that probably was, while dealing with a King.

"They're bringing
you
a present, and don't seem to want anything other than to say hello. So if
they're planning intrigue or anything they didn't mention it to me. I doubt
that though. Tenet and Tess both seem nice. Taman, too, of course. I... Think that
treating them like family will work? That's how it was all presented to
me."

That got a small, polite nod.

"I can work that out. Dinner
then. I should get with the base commander at Wildlands. A man named Jones.
Captain Jones. Can you set up right in front of the base? That will be fastest
I think."

"On that now. I should be
there in about fifteen minutes?" He felt a bit low, thinking it, but
really wanted to brush his teeth first. There was a flood though, so as soon as
King Richard tabbed off, he tucked the device back in his pocket and stumble
ran to the wash room. He moved fast and it was all a little sketchy he didn't
doubt, but better than nothing.

He ran once the door was hidden.
Slapping his ship up, he flew fast, hoping he would be able to tell where the
right place was. Thankfully there was only one dark blob that had magical
lights near the correct location, and what looked to be several hundred bodies
standing under the bright lights. There was a hasty, kind of oddly shaped,
circle of brilliant blue on the ground too, which was just about big enough for
a full sized ship to be put up.

He landed in the center, about a
thousand feet from the lines of people, and let the craft grow larger. It
wanted
to, so it wasn't hard. The biggest thing with that was not letting it fold out
to the mountain sized thing it desired to be. The color stayed black, which was
a bit of a mistake, if they were going in at night. So instead, after a few
seconds of thinking about it, he made it glow purple, with a gold stripe down
the middle. Then he opened the side so people could load up, and created seats
for about four hundred people. Large, comfortable things that sat in four rows
of four seats. Lots of them. Way more than they had a need for he bet.

The men, and women, charged into
the ship, with a medium sized man with short blonde hair jogging to where he
was sitting up near the front.

"Captain Jones. Royal Army.
Are you our ride to Loxley?" The man didn't smile, even as hundreds of
bodies ran into place. Before he could answer, the space being a bit noisy, the
last body came in, and yelled about it.

"Last aboard! Go, go!"
The man sank into a seat, so Dare took them up and turned the craft south.

"Right. To Loxley. I'm going
up high first. Do we have any kind of marker on the ground there?"

It was the Captain right next to
him that answered, his voice a bit stressed.

"Three small green lights?
They weren't ready for floods, I guess. We need to build a levee wall. We have
the equipment, but are going to need light."

Dareg took them straight up,
moved south, and lowered a lot. After about five minutes of sinking, Captain
Jones pointed his face tense.

"There we go, right there.
Three lights. Green. Or close enough. One is blue, but I bet that's it. Shall
we?"

Nodding they sank toward the
light, to find a clutch of men standing on top of a stone structure that was
long and sort of road like. Also surrounded by water. Meaning there was no
place to land easily.

It was clear that the thing was
made of focus stone, once he closed with the structure, though it seemed older.
It was part of a city wall. Both sides had water on it however, though inside
you could just make out the buildings.

They were clearly supposed to
land...

Nowhere. Before Jones had an
issue with that, Dare worked out what to do.

"I can let you off on the
wall. Then I'll move over to where the work is needed, and make the ship glow
brighter, so you can all see what's needed."

The men and women in black had
all charged onto his craft, running the whole time, while carrying their gear.
Now they carefully moved onto the top of a wall that was about ten feet thick,
as he hovered right next to it. There was a drop of about two feet, but
knocking the wall down
probably
wouldn't go over that well.

As soon as the first bodies were
on the thing, one of the green lights moved away, waving in the direction they
all needed to go. Captain Jones piled out, going last.

"We're here for the
duration. Can you get us that light until dawn? We were told that there would
just be a drop off? I didn't know we'd get anything past that, from what was
said."

"We can do that. I have
things to do later, but it won't be a problem for now."

That got a wave from the man, who
was merchant tall, but didn't seem to look down on him or anything. Then, the
man hadn't bothered to ask his name either. He was just the pilot of the day. Apparently
that was enough, since the man had seemed shocked that there was more than a
ride to the disaster area.

He had to follow the line of
bodies to get to the work area, but it was very clear to see what was needed. A
large wall along a big river had broken. Water was pouring through the thick
thing, which was responsible for all the flooding that was visible. Yes, there
was too much water, but the real issue was that one thing.

Dare could see it as soon as he
made the ship light up appropriately. Like the sun itself. That meant going
upward, since otherwise people would be left blind if they looked up. He had to
dim the shield window just so he didn't end up sightless himself. It was hard
to see what the men and women on the ground were getting up to, but they moved
around, and after many hours of this, as the sun came up, he was able to dim
the light and see what had been going on.

A lot, as it turned out.

The construction crew had sealed
the breach, using magical devices to move damp earth, and concentrators to turn
it into focus stone. There were other cracks that had opened up, which meant
those had to be fixed up as well, but just stopping the constant flow allowed
the city inside the wall to empty out through the other side.

After a while Dareg lowered the
craft, to get some water. His stomach was rumbling, and while the ship had the
ability to turn pretty much anything into food, or clean water, it needed something
to work from. So he pumped a tank on the bottom side full, with thousands of
gallons, and moved the ship down to the wall carefully, causing one of the
walls to drop totally. The inside had to be shifted around, making tables for
people to eat at, and chairs that were comfortable, but not the cushy things
from before.

Dareg started putting out plates
of food, all of it egg toast with honey, and fried eggs, on a long counter.
There was sausage, too. Also a knife and fork on each plate. It was what he
wanted, and he'd managed about twenty of them when people figured out what an
array of filled plates likely meant. No one
asked
if it was for them,
until the first fifteen or so had theirs and were tiredly consuming food at the
tables.

It was Jones that walked over,
smiling when a plate was taken from the glowing hole in the wall and shoved
into his hands.

"Eat. I need to soon,
myself. You look to be nearly done here?"

That got a head shake. The man didn't
move to sit down, just taking some sausage and eating it while standing there.
Each plate had four of them, and they were nearly identical, since that was the
image that Dareg had for such things. Crispy on the outside, but not over done.

"We need to cover the second
breach still. This was the worst of it, but whoever built this mess to begin
with was a moron. We'll be here until mid-afternoon. That's
if
we make
good time." There was no hinting that it would be nice if the craft stayed
so they'd have food, water, and nice restrooms. That reminded him to set that
part up. He touched the wall, making it happen, and noticed that nearly a third
of the people saw it and stood up, leaving their food where it was, in order to
seek that kind of relief.

Nodding, he started back up
making things to eat. It was all the same, but so far no one was complaining
about that. It was decently well done, after all.

"All right. I don't know my
schedule. I need to get in touch with some people from Harmony. We have to be
at the King's Palace for dinner tonight, so they need to be ready. They
can
get there without me if it's needed though. Clearly a disaster comes
first." That made sense to him. Probably to King Richard too.

Captain Jones had mud and damp
spots on his black outfit, which seemed to be real, being made of heavy cloth
and not magic. His boots were dingy too, now. All the dampness had been hard on
everyone, it seemed.

The man in charge, who looked to
be in his late twenties or thereabout, just
sighed
, and shook his head.

"Is
that
where you're
from? I was just told that we didn't have transport available, then the General
called me back ten minutes later and said to get everyone out front for pickup.
I guess that makes sense. They have most of the good ships, right? Are you in
their... Army? I don't know what that would be there. Ships, so, navy?
Fleet?" The man seemed too tired to be embarrassed by being wrong about
what he was saying. That or military men didn't hold to those silly standards
about things they didn't know yet. The nobles often did, but that had
never
made sense to him. It made a lot more sense to just say that you didn't know
and learn about it, to him at least.