Of Bone and Thunder (33 page)

“You volunteering to go and find them?”

Carny smiled as a little reddish-brown drool dripped onto his chin.
Listowk suppressed the urge to reach out and wipe it off. “Hell no, just asking,” Carny said.

Listowk sighed. “Just go do what I asked you to do.”

“On it, LC,” Carny said, wiping the drool from his face.

Listowk felt a presence off to his left. “Carny's right,” Listowk said, addressing Wraith. No one else could sneak up on him like that. “The Orange Herons could be just the other side of the river.”

“Or the FnC force,” Wraith said.

Listowk turned to face him. “Who do you want to take with you?” As before, Wraith was the best choice.

Wraith looked down at the dirt, then out toward the jungle. “Better off by myself.” He unslung his haversack and sat it on the ground, removing his helm next and placing it on top.

“Maybe,” Listowk said, “but that ain't going to happen. Take two men who know how to keep their mouths shut and their eyes open. Make sure you're back by dusk.”

Wraith turned his head and looked Listowk in the eye. It was unnerving how the soldier could stare at you without blinking, without really showing any kind of emotion at all. Wraith's olive-colored eyes looked peaceful, calm, and you had the feeling they would still look that way even as he was gutting you.

“Dusk,” Wraith said. He pointed toward two of the longbowmen nearby. “Panke, Mothrin. You're with me. Leave your haversacks and helms.”

Listowk agreed with his picks. They were solid men. “No helm?”

Wraith was wrapping a piece of dyed-green linen around his head. “Strains my neck and branches make too much sound when they hit it.”

“Don't get shot in the head then,” Listowk said, offering Wraith a brief smile.

“I won't,” Wraith said, giving no indication he saw the humor.

“If you're late, don't just walk in. Challenge will be ‘Chipmunk.' Reply will be ‘Fuzzy Nuts.' ”

Wraith raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Panke and Mothrin walked toward him, their bows slung over their shoulders. They, too, now carried
shorter bows far more suited to the Lux. Wraith led them away, walking nonchalantly toward the river and the bamboo footbridge. There was no way to tell if they were being watched. Listowk knew Wraith would assume they were and act as if he hadn't a care in the world until he reached the tree line. Once in the jungle, however, he'd start hunting.

Listowk kept an eye on the three-man patrol as they crossed the bridge and walked toward the jungle. He tensed. Wraith reached the end of the dosha swamp and walked straight into the jungle, disappearing from view. Panke and Mothrin followed him in. Listowk waited, listening for shouts, screams, but all remained as before.

“All right,” Listowk said, turning back to the village. Soldiers were already sitting down in the shade. “No rest yet, my ducks. I want this village fortified.” He ignored the groans. “Those not assigned to the corners I want tearing down the corral. Use the wood to create shooting barriers. If there's time, make some stakes, too. Knockers, find every bucket and bowl in this place and fill it with water from the well. Make sure everyone has a full water skin, too. Ahmist, scrounge whatever food is here and put it in the big hut.

“Hop to it, lads, hop to it. Night is coming and we're a long way from home.” As the troops grumbled their way toward their tasks, Listowk walked toward the dosha swamp and looked up into the sky.

Sinte, you prick, where the hell are you?

“ANYTHING, BREEZE?” VORLY ASKED,
kicking Carduus harder than he needed to, putting the rag into a sweeping turn to starboard. Carduus let out a deep rumbling sound that vibrated up through Vorly's saddle. He reached down and patted the beast in apology.

“He's either off plane or out of range. I'm running through phase shifts looking for a weak pulse . . . I'm checking everything,” she said, thankfully boiling it down to something Vorly could understand.

“Could this be another case of the crystal—”

“No!” Breeze shouted. “I mean, no, I don't think so,” she continued, lowering her voice. “I saw no indication of anything like what happened before. There was no building charge. And he said his driver was sound. Sorry,” she added. “Maybe they just turned around and headed back to the roost.”

Jate's screams echoed in Vorly's ears, but only for a moment. “It was that damn wing.” He gripped Carduus's reins hard between his hands, squeezing until his knuckles turned white.
Should have insisted on a dragonsmith.

“Sky Horse Leader, this is Sky Horse Two. No sign of Sky Horse Four anywhere, and my RAT isn't picking up a signal.”

The other drivers reported in with the same result. Vorly had them scattered over a five-mile area as they flew south, crisscrossing the path they'd followed to the village.
How in the hell did a rag just disappear?

“Aye that, Sky Horse Two. Obsidian Flight, return to our start point. We still have more troops to ferry. Hopefully when you get back you'll find Sky Horse Four there. I'll stay out here and keep looking.”

“What if Sky Horse Four was attacked?” Sky Horse Two asked.

Vorly doubted it. Nothing he'd seen or heard since they landed in
Luitox suggested the slyts had anything in the air. Rags didn't live in this part of the world, and he couldn't blame them.

“Just keep your eyes peeled,” Vorly said. “Tell Legion Flock Commander Modelar what I'm doing. If he has a problem with it he can come out here and tell me about it in person. And he can bring a damn dragonsmith with him!”

“Aye that, Sky Horse Leader. Good luck.”

Vorly turned his head and spit. “Breeze, any luck extending the range on these sheets?”

“I'm trying, Falcon,” Breeze said. “It's a mathaumical formula based on the size of the sheet, the energy of the plane, and variables such as weather. I think I can push it out to around six miles if I really concentrate, but I won't be able to hold it for long.”

“Push,” Vorly said.

Vorly spent the next three-quarters of a candle berating himself as he flew Carduus back and forth over their original flight path. Losing Jate and Bwiter had been bad enough, but to lose a second rag and crew with eight troops on board was more than he was willing to accept. He didn't give a damn about his career—this was about something far more meaningful. Every rag, man, and woman who flew in Obsidian Flight or worked in the stables was his responsibility. Losing any of them meant the flock was weaker, and that wasn't acceptable.

Carduus let out a small growl. Vorly looked to the horizon but already knew the source of the rag's discontent. The sun was setting, which meant feeding time. Vorly gave Carduus a thump with the flat of his fist. “I know, but you're just going to have to wait.”

Whether Carduus understood or not, he continued flying smoothly, obeying Vorly's commands without a fuss. Having voiced his concern, the rag now seemed content to fly on. Vorly, however, was growing increasingly agitated. “Breeze! Anything?”

“I'm working on it, sir, but there's still no sign of them.”

“That isn't good enough, damn it. They have to be here somewhere. Find them.”

“I'm doing the best I can,” she said.

Vorly bit off his next retort and nodded a few times. He turned his head to talk to Breeze. “I know, I know. Damn it, I can't lose another crew, Breeze, but we have to turn back. If I don't, it'll be too dark to see.”

“Can't we just keep flying? I know rags can fly in the dark.”

Vorly shook his head. “I've only flown Carduus a handful of times at night. It takes time for a rag to get comfortable flying then; most of them only travel in daylight. There's maybe three or four breeds that are true night flyers. The rest have to be trained to do it.”

Breeze wasn't about to be deterred. “But I've heard of rags finding their way back to their roost in snowstorms, and in the dark.”

“I know, but those rags had been at those roosts a long time. It takes rags months to adapt to a new roost. And having relocated them over an entire ocean has only made it that much more difficult. I don't know if they're homesick, confused, or just moody, but they get lost in two shakes of a witch's tit over here. Fuck, sorry,” Vorly said. “It's one of the reasons we stick to daylight flights. We need to be able to see where we're going and so do they. We have no choice—we have to turn back.”

“No, we can't,” Breeze said, her voice surprisingly firm.

Vorly wondered if he was as vexing to Modelar as Breeze was to him. It was a strange feeling to admire a person and want to beat her with an iron gaff at the same time. “Breeze, your determination is . . . exceptional, but this is out of both of our hands. We're cutting it close as it is.”

“But, sir—”

“Damn it, Breeze, we'd have no way of finding our way back,” Vorly said, wondering where in the hell she got the energy. “And even if we could, how in the hell are we going to find them in the dark? And then if we do manage that, how do we land? Carduus would bolt if I tried to make him.”

“But if they lit a fire—”

“Breeze, look around. There's cooking fires all over the place already.”

Only the sound of Carduus's wings filled the air. Vorly thought he'd finally put an end to it and was starting to relax.

“Sir,” Breeze said, “you're not going to like what I'm about to tell you, but please hear me out.”

Vorly couldn't muster up the energy to yell. “You've got the time it takes Carduus to make this last sweep. Once we're over the river again I'm turning for home.”

“You know we have orders not to let ourselves or the crystals fall into enemy hands,” she said.

A sudden chill worked its way up Vorly's back. “Yes.”

“And you know that we are instructed to destroy the sheets and cleanse our minds if capture is imminent.”

“Yes,” he said. “You do some kind of thaumic thing that affects your memory.”

“That's correct. But there's more to that order that you were never told,” she said.

The chill reached his heart. “What wasn't I told?”

Breeze didn't say anything for several moments. Vorly was about to shout when she started talking. “In the event that a thaum and her driver are downed and facing capture, the thaum is to destroy the crystals and anyone with knowledge of them before cleansing her memories.”

Her voice was calm and so matter-of-fact that it took Vorly a moment to realize the import of what she was saying. “Destroy? You mean kill?”

“If Gorlan believes they are in danger, he will kill Rosker.”

Vorly twisted around so that he was facing Breeze. “What? Why wouldn't he just do the memory thing on him?”

“It's only something we can do to ourselves. It's called a cleanse, but in reality we are able to bury our abilities deep in our minds.”

“Would you kill me if you thought we were going to be captured?”

Breeze didn't hesitate. “Yes, sir, I would.”

“Damn . . . ,” Vorly said, turning to face forward. He stared straight ahead, forgetting to search the ground.

“I'm sorry, sir, but those are our orders. The Royal Academy determined that the thaumic properties within the crystals and our knowledge of them makes it too great a risk for any of us to fall into enemy hands.”

“Cold-hearted bastards,” Vorly said.

“Yes, sir, but they're still right.”

Vorly blinked and looked down at the ground again. “There's eight troopers on Cytisus. Would he kill them too?”

“No, I mean, I don't think so,” Breeze said, her statement far from confident. “They have no real knowledge of what the sheets are, but if he is injured, scared, and tries to conduct a thaumic process, his proficiency could be jeopardized.”

“Does Modelar know about this? About your kill-and-cleanse order?” Vorly asked.

“I believe he does, yes,” Breeze said. “I should have told you before, but I was sworn to secrecy. We're all highly trained thaums. Any one of us can call on more than enough power to kill a group their size . . . including the rag.”

Vorly spun around again. “The poor beast doesn't know a damn thing!”

Breeze held her hands in front of her. “It's not that. Everything within the vicinity of an unstable thaum conducting a process is in danger.”

Vorly stared at her. “I can't lose another crew,” he said, turning back around.

“I never thought we'd have to deal with this,” Breeze said.

Vorly slapped the palm of his right hand against his knee. The fire-wall paste that impregnated his trousers was almost rock hard and his legs were starting to itch. “We won't, not as long as I have breath in me. We know they landed somewhere around here, and this is friendly territory. There's no reason for Gorlan to fear capture.”

Breeze didn't answer.

“I said, we're in friendly territory!” Vorly shouted.

“We were sent out to deliver troops to battle an FnC force. We were told before we came here that nowhere in Luitox is truly safe.”

Vorly hung his head. “He wouldn't kill him tonight, would he?” Vorly finally asked, the thought of losing another driver knotting his stomach.

“No, not unless the FnC found them.”

“Would he know the difference between the LooTees and the FnC slyts?”

Breeze's silence said it all. Vorly found his anger again and cursed until he was short of breath. When he finally regained his composure he looked to the horizon and the setting sun.

“We have to go.”

Breeze didn't answer. Vorly took that as her acceptance. He tightened up on the reins. He took one last look down as they flew over the jungle, but it was now dark enough that he could see little more than the tops of the trees. As he looked up his eye caught a strange movement on the crystal sheet. He stared at it but missed what it was. Disgusted at himself for getting his hopes up, he turned away from the crystal. As he did he caught the faintest of traces on the sheet out of the corner of his eye.