Orlind (26 page)

We need to
know how that flame-throwing thing works,
Llandry said
privately to Pensould.
That’s the dangerous part. We need
another go at the head, but watch out for the teeth!

Pensould didn’t
reply. He veered out to the left, circling around the thing’s jaws,
and Llan went the other way, darting in and out too fast - she
hoped - for the construct to have time to react to her presence.
Each one of its eyes was as big as she was; she wanted to get a
look at those, too, to decide how sensitive they were. Gathering
her nerve, she flew in fast and settled on the creature’s head,
clinging hard with her small claws. She’d placed herself right
above one eye, and now had a clear view of the shining
orb.

Glass, that’s
what it looked like, but it wasn’t normal glass. It looked like the
stuff that made up the lenses in Eva’s light-reduction spectacles.
Behind the glass, the eye looked real. That is, biological in
nature. If so, this might be the first weak point they had
identified, but it wasn’t enough by itself. Large these eyes may
be, but how could they hope to hit such a target from the ground?
Or even from the air?

The flame
comes from a device in the throat,
Pensould said to her.
I
can neither see nor sense any kind of fuel, but do you feel the
energy?

Llandry did. It
pulsed and buzzed through the construct’s hide, making it hot and
harder to hold onto.
What do you think that is?

The
mechanical parts must have some manner of fuel to operate. It is my
guess that it is using sunlight, absorbed through the hide. It will
take a lot of this energy to power the flame function, so we may
find that it will have to stop and recharge sometime
soon.

Llandry
remembered Devary’s explorations in Nimdre, and the warehouse full
of devices he’d said were probably using the sunlight in some way.
I think you must be right!

Her next sentence
was cut off when the construct gave its great head a violent shake,
its jaws flexing. She was shaken off, and those heavy jaws snapped
horribly close to her wings. Invisible she might be, but the
creature had senses of some kind with which to see or feel her
presence.

We’re
spotted,
she cried.
Time to go!

Right behind
you,
Pensould replied.

Llandry flew
hard, blessing the small size that allowed her to duck and weave
away from the construct’s attempts to catch her. She was fast, but
the damned thing was fast, too, in spite of its size and it took
her too many terrifying minutes to escape from the
thing.

But that gave her
another idea.

Pense?
she
called, taking refuge in a tall tree.

Still
here, Minchu.

While
that thing was chasing us, it wasn’t setting fire to any more
trees.

I
noticed that too, yes. Perhaps we can find a way to distract them
for longer. A safer way.

Llandry spread
her wings again and launched herself into the air.
Let’s find
the Commander.

Then Avane shot
by her nose, almost colliding with her.
Llan!
She yelled in
Llandry’s mind.
More of them on the way!

What?
More of what?

More
draykon-things! Ori and me, we had to run and we got chased out
beyond the city. We saw at least one more away on the horizon,
maybe more.

Llandry swore.
Coming this way?

It was hard to
tell. Llan, I’m not sure if they were coming here or
-
or going to Glour.

Llandry swore
again.
Where’s Ori?

Here,
came
Ori’s voice from somewhere above.

We have to
tell the Commander,
she said.
Fast.

Iver wasted
little time on recriminations, not once he’d heard their reports.
At the news of the incoming draykon-constructs, his grim face
turned a shade or two grimmer and he nodded once.

‘
Right. We’re going to need help. Where’s your
father?’

Llandry debated
with herself for about two seconds. ‘He and my mother left the city
a couple of hours ago, sir. Ma’s on her way to Irbel to beg for
aid. Pa’s taking her out of Waeverleyne, then he’s coming
back.’

The Commander’s
eyes widened. ‘Irbel? What kind of help?’

‘
I
don’t know, sir. He said something about secret
technologies.’

‘
Let’s
hope that comes through, but I daren’t rely on it. What of your
friends?’

‘
Which
ones?’

‘
The
mysterious ones people are trying not to talk about. White hair.
Habit of vanishing. Your father told me about them,’ he added at
her questioning look.

‘
They
aren’t here, sir.’

‘
You
got a way to get in touch with them?’

Thinking of the
voice-box, Llandry nodded. ‘Probably.’

‘
Use
it. These things are their province; we can’t deal with them
alone.’

Chapter Eighteen

Eva sat with
Tren, Ana and Griel in the latter’s house in Ullarn. The four had
gathered there for a final discussion, prior to their infiltration
of Krays’s Library. The conversation was not going well.

‘
I
want to emphasise how dangerous this is,’ Ana said, slouching into
one of Griel’s armchairs. ‘If you two mess up, it will be
me
who is punished first.’ Her stare was unfriendly and devoid of
anything resembling sympathy or fellow-feeling. ‘I still do not
like this plan.’

Tren shrugged.
‘We’re open to other suggestions.’

‘
I
have none, of course,’ Ana snapped. ‘Otherwise I would never have
agreed to this folly. Let me say again:
the utmost care
must
be taken in everything, especially when you are going to places
that you should not.’

‘
Yes,
yes,’ Tren sighed. Ana had gone over this multiple times already,
and even Eva’s patience was running out.

Ana glared at
him. ‘It has occurred to you, I suppose, that he will insist on
tracering you both.’

Eva grimaced.
Tracers seemed to be popular with the Lokant Libraries. The tiny
tracking devices were embedded somewhere in the body, so that they
couldn’t be removed or switched off by the bearer. Once tracered,
the individual could be located at a moment’s notice, no matter
where in the worlds they happened to be.

Eva hadn’t yet
suffered that indignity, but she knew she’d have no choice. If she
resisted the tracer, Krays would never consider her
trustworthy.

‘
It
has occurred to me,’ she said coolly.

‘
It
hadn’t occurred to me,’ Tren muttered. If she didn’t know Tren
better, she might have called his current mood
bad-tempered.
But since she did, she recognised it as anxiety. And no wonder,
because on top of everything else he considered himself responsible
for her safety, too.

Don’t be
separated from me,
he’d said earlier, and he had made her
promise to stay with him at all times. Nothing she had said could
convince him to relinquish his self-appointed role as her guardian,
so she’d had to accept it.

She just wished
it wasn’t so obviously wearing on his nerves.

‘
You
will be tracered,’ Ana was saying with brutal bluntness. ‘You will
not resist, because that will give away the game. You will be
expected to report regularly on whatever duties you are assigned.
You will not be permitted to argue with the Lokantor.
You-’

Tren interrupted.
‘Lokantor? Isn’t that Limbane’s title?’

Eva was puzzled
too. Limbane had never insisted on their using the name, but she’d
heard the other Lokants addressing him that way, with the sort of
respect that suggested it was an important term.

‘
How
should I know?’ Ana snapped. ‘I’m telling you that Krays uses that
title and he will expect you to address him by it.’

‘
Then
we shall,’ Eva replied. Tren had eschewed the comfort of a chair
and taken up pacing instead. The more frustrated and worried he
became, the greater the speed of his ramblings. She abandoned her
own chair and followed him, catching at his hands to make him
stop.

He sighed.
‘Sorry. I think it’s the waiting that’s getting to me.’

‘
Me as
well,’ she said, gripping his fingers with gentle pressure. ‘It
would be well to get it over with.’

‘
Then
let’s.’ He looked back at Ana, subtly assuming some of the
commanding air he’d adopted for his role as a partial Lokant. His
dark hair was hidden under Limbane’s white wig and he looked every
inch the Lokant. ‘We’re ready to go, Ana.’

‘
I
will tell you when we are ready to go!’ she replied, her temper
flaring. She jumped up and advanced on Tren, but whatever she might
have said was interrupted by a soft, but penetrating, beep. Aysun’s
voice-box, deposited in the pocket of Eva’s coat, gave a sudden
shudder, knocking against her leg.

‘
Please keep the shouting down for a moment,’ Eva said dryly as
she extricated the device. ‘If you can.’ She pressed the activation
button and held the box to her ear.

Llandry began
talking at once, her words tumbling out in a blur of panic. Eva
could barely understand two words in every five.

‘
Llandry. Slow down, please, I cannot comprehend you. The
draykoni have returned, am I understanding that correctly? And what
else?’

Llan took a deep
breath and slowed her speech right down, but the tremor in her
voice remained. What she said next sent Eva straight to a chair,
afraid her suddenly trembling legs would dump her ignominiously on
the ground.

Mechanical
draykons, Llandry said. Fire-breathing, bigger than Pensould.
Waeverleyne was in flames.

A rare expletive
fell from her lips, followed by several more. She was distantly
aware that the discussion between Tren and Ana had stopped and all
three of her companions were staring at her.

‘
Your
father?’ Eva queried. ‘Does he have a solution to this?’

That was a stupid
question to ask: she realised that as soon as she’d said it. Of
course he didn’t have a solution. How could anybody expect that he
would?

‘
He’s
working on something,’ Llandry said breathlessly, ‘but it’ll take
time and we don’t have any of that left. Eva, please. We need help.
You need to get the Lokants down here.’

She was right:
this mischief had to be generated by Krays and his Lokants. Only
Limbane’s people would know how to handle this - if even they did.
She had been right to suspect Krays’s involvement in the
disappearance of the draykoni, but that gave her no satisfaction.
In the event, she would much rather have been wrong.

‘
I’ll
do my best, Llan,’ she promised. ‘And yes, right away. I shan’t
delay. But, Llan? Don’t call me again. We’re about to leave for
Krays’s Library, and if he finds this box I’ll have a hard time
explaining it. I’ll call you every chance I get.’

Llandry agreed,
and severed the connection. Eva replaced the box in her pocket, too
shocked to speak for a long moment. She hadn’t asked where Llandry
was, or how the defence was holding up. Those questions were
largely irrelevant: even if they were holding their own now, it
couldn’t continue.

Summoning every
bit of self-control that she possessed, Eva relayed the news to her
silent audience as clearly as she could. When she’d finished, even
Ana was shocked beyond words. The silence stretched intolerably and
Eva stood up.

‘
Limbane needs to be told.’

Tren grabbed her
hand. ‘Does Glinnery hold?’

‘
At
the moment, but Llan thinks it’ll fall by the end of the
day.’

‘
And
then...’

‘
And
then Glour is next. I know.’

‘
Then
we can’t go,’ he said, sounding anguished. ‘To the other Library, I
mean. We have to get home. We could help.’

‘
No,’
she said fiercely. ‘We couldn’t. What do you expect us to do in
Glour City? Nothing that a hundred other people aren’t already
doing, and to no effect.’

‘
Your
Lokant skills-’

‘
What
about them? There’s nothing I can do against three or more
draykoni-mechs. Llan’s right: they need Lokant
expertise.’

Ana still hadn’t
said anything, not even when Eva flatly shoved aside her command of
their expedition. Glancing at her, Eva saw she was paler than
normal; ashen. She looked sick, and so did Griel. Neither of them
came from Glour, of course; they were both from Ullarn originally,
and that distant realm hadn’t been named as a target by the
draykoni. But the power of the draykoni and the mechs combined was
staggering. If they could reduce the Glinnish capital to ashes in
the space of a day, would they stop after taking Arvale and Everum?
They wouldn’t. Ana and Griel could see that as well as she could,
and apparently they still cared for their old home.