Straken (31 page)

He looked over at Pied. “We have to find a way to stop that airship. You fought against her and you know her better than any of us. You damaged her or she would have done a good deal more than destroy the Elven fleet. I need to know if there is some way we can disable her when she comes after us again.”

Pied shook his head. “I was lucky, that last time. We were in a skiff, too small even to be a threat, but we got behind her and under her and used rail slings to damage the steering. My guess is they won’t let that happen again. The next time she comes after us, she’ll have armor up all over.”

Vaden Wick nodded. “I would guess so, too. So we need something else. Another way to damage her. A way to stop her before she even gets to us.”

Pied looked at him, realizing suddenly what he was saying. “You plan on going after her, don’t you?”

“If I get the chance. But I have to know how to knock her down before we engage her again. We have our airships ready to go, once we find what her weakness is. You’ve fought her and lived to tell about it. I thought you might have some insight.”

Pied looked off into the distance. If he had any insight, it was eluding him. He wanted to help, but the depth of his knowledge about the
Dechtera
and her weapon was tiny. Mostly, he knew what would happen once the big Federation ship was aloft. Was there a weakness that the Free-born could exploit when that happened? He tried to think of one and failed.

“You think we have today and maybe tomorrow,” he repeated.

“At most.”

Pied thought about it some more. “They seem to have only one of these weapons,” he said. “One ship, one weapon.”

“So far.”

“A prototype.”

Vaden Wick looked at him, waiting.

“Can they even build another?”

The Dwarf shrugged. “Seems that if they could, they would have by now.”

Pied took a deep breath, an idea forming. “I think we need to get to her while she is still on the ground,” he said. “We need to get to her and destroy her completely. Maybe they really can’t build another.”

“We’ve thought of that. But she sits right in the center of the Federation camp, ringed by all sorts of protective barriers and hundreds of Federation soldiers. Neither a ground attack nor an air strike would even get close.”

Pied nodded. “Not if they see it coming,” he said. “But maybe we can arrange it so they don’t.”

P
ied had been sleeping for several hours when he felt the hand gently shake him. He could tell from the light seeping through the tent flap that the sun had moved west, though it wasn’t yet dusk.

He opened one eye and saw Drumundoon bending over him. At first, he thought he was dreaming. “Drum?”

His aide knelt, and Pied could see clearly his young face with its high forehead and deeply slanted eyes. “It’s me, Captain,” Drum assured him.

He experienced a sudden sinking feeling. “You didn’t get through to Arborlon?”

“Oh, yes, Captain, I got through all right.” Drum rubbed his fringe of black beard. “I got there much quicker than I expected. I see you got through, as well. Everyone is talking about it. You’ve accomplished the impossible, if I may say so.”

Pied blinked, trying to clear the sleep from his mind. “You may not.” He pushed himself up on one elbow. “Have you brought help?”

Drumundoon nodded. “Three warships, several sloops, and two companies of Elven Hunters. They landed a little over an hour ago on the Free-born airfield. More will follow. The Elven High Council was quick to act once they understood the gravity of the situation. Arling was less impressed, but she accepted that their consensus constituted an edict she could not afford to ignore.”

Drum hesitated. “Now she wants to talk to you.”

Pied pushed himself into a sitting position. “I would expect she does. But she will have to wait. I can’t go back there until this is finished.”

Drum pursed his lips. “You don’t understand, Captain. She’s here.”

“Here?” Now Pied was fully awake. “She came back with you?”

“She wouldn’t have it any other way. The Council tried to dissuade her. Bad enough that we’ve lost a King. Losing a Queen as well would be too much. I even suggested she would do better to wait. But you know Arling. Once she has her mind set on something, that’s pretty much the end of the discussion. She said she was coming or the ships and men were staying.”

Pied nodded. That was Arling. Stubborn, though in an entirely different way from Kellen. She thought matters through first before setting her mind. She considered all sides. The war on the Prekkendorran was not an undertaking she would ever willingly support. No matter what the attitude of the High Council, she would look for a way to extricate the Elves. To do that, she would want to get a firsthand look at how things stood. She was Queen now, and she knew how to rule like one.

Of course, she had come to see how things stood with him, too. He could already picture her reaction.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Right outside the tent,” his aide said. He paused while Pied absorbed that information, looking decidedly uncomfortable with having been the one to deliver it. “She is waiting for you to invite her inside. I told her I ought to wake you first.”

She would have woken me differently, had she been given the chance
, Pied thought. He could already see her angry face, hear her accusatory voice. He knew what was coming with the certainty that he knew his own name.

“Let’s not keep her waiting,” he said.

He stood up, straightened his clothes, and nodded. Drum gave him a sympathetic look and ducked back outside. Alone, Pied stood staring at the tent flap, trying to compose himself, to think through what he knew he had to say.

Then the flap stirred and parted, and she stepped through, golden light trailing off her gilt-edged dress, her pale amber skin,
and her long blond hair. She was so beautiful that it took his breath away, just as it always did, leaving him wishing for things that he suddenly knew he would never have. The revelation left him shocked. Arling was a Queen; she was always meant to be a Queen. To think that he had ever thought there could be anything permanent between them was a fantasy he had indulged with not the slightest consideration for reality.

“Hello, Pied,” she greeted, coming up and offering her hand.

He bent to kiss it, bowing deeply out of protocol and deference. “My lady.”

She stared at him for a moment, saying nothing. Then she clasped her hands in front of her and lifted her chin slightly, a curiously commanding gesture. “What do you have to say for yourself, Pied?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? I was hoping you could do better than that. I don’t know why, though. Nothing?” She gave him a glacial stare. “When I heard what had happened to Kiris and Wencling, I would have killed you if you had been within striking distance. I would have done so without a second thought. My sons, Pied. You were given responsibility for them.”

“I know,” he said. “I failed you.”

“You failed me. You failed them. You failed your King. And you failed yourself.” She paused. “I am angry with you still. Furious. But not for the same reasons as before. Do you know why?”

He shook his head, feeling foolish and slow-witted.

“Because Drumundoon told me what you have apparently failed to tell anyone else. Not that he wanted to, but I see more things than I am given credit for. When he told me my sons and husband were dead and the Elven fleet was destroyed, I asked what had happened to you. He told me you were alive. He told me you had rallied the survivors and achieved a decisive victory against the Federation force sent to crush what remained of our scattered units. He was quite proud of you. He was quick to tell me that without your presence, the Federation might well have succeeded in destroying the entire army.”

She paused, studying his face. “I asked him how it was that you were in command of the Elven army. If my husband and sons were dead, why you were still alive? I asked why, as Captain of the Home
Guard and protector of the King and his family, you hadn’t died with them. How could that possibly be?”

He nodded. “So he told you Kellen dismissed me from his service just before he set out.”

“For insisting that he was making a mistake in attacking the Federation, in misreading the signs of what was clearly a trap, but particularly for insisting that my sons should go with him. For recognizing that Kiris and Wencling were pawns in his stupid, stupid game, pieces to be moved about on a board by a father who was mostly concerned that they grow to be the same sort of man he was, even when it was clear to everyone else that this was a bad idea, that they would never be even remotely like he was.”

She lifted a finger and pointed it at him. “But none of that changes the fact that my sons are dead because of you. You failed them because you failed to out-think Kellen, something that should never have happened. You knew his propensity for rash behavior, for ill-considered action. You knew what he was like. Yet you reacted to the moment without thinking it through. You spoke your mind when you should have known better, and you got yourself dismissed from his service. No, don’t say anything! Nothing you say will help now. You were given responsibility for my sons! You let them die, Pied! You put them in a position from which they could not extricate themselves and then you put
yourself
in a position where you couldn’t help them. It would have been better for you if you had died with them. At least then I might be able to forgive you. That can never happen now. I can never forgive you for this. Never!”

He stood flushed and humiliated before her, the weight of the responsibility she was attributing to him immense and crushing and somehow inescapable. He knew he had done the best he could, but she made him feel as if that was not enough.

“So now you are the hero of the Elven army and my sons are dead,” she continued softly. “You have pretended to be Captain of the Home Guard when in truth you were relieved of your command days ago. Shame on you.”

He took a deep breath. “I did what I thought I needed to do to save the army. I didn’t choose to pretend at what I was; it was thrust upon me by circumstance and need. I don’t ask you to forgive me, only to try to understand.” He paused. “I will resign my position at once and let another take my place.”

“Oh, I think not!” she snapped at him. “Resign so that you can have the entire Elven army begging for your return? Resign, so that you can escape yet another obligation and another duty?”

He stared at her in shock. “It was not my intention—”

“Be quiet!” she snapped. He flinched at the force of her words. She froze him with her glare, with the bitterness reflected in her eyes. “Don’t say another word unless I ask for it. Not one word.”

His center went so cold that it might have been midwinter on the Prekkendorran instead of summer. He held her gaze and waited.

“You have won the hearts of my Elven Hunters,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “You have won them and now you shall see to it that you do not break them as you have broken mine. Vaden Wick tells me that a counterattack is planned for tonight. What is your part in it?”

“I will go into the Federation camp after darkness with a handful of my Home Guard and destroy the airship and its weapon.”

Now it was her turn to stare. “Do you really think you can do this?”

He shook his head wearily. “I will do it or die trying.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “I will take that as a promise and hold you to it. But hear me. If you survive this, if you manage somehow to come back alive, if you are successful in your efforts to put an end to the threat of this weapon that killed my sons, I will put this entire business behind me. Neither of us will speak of it again. But your service to the throne is finished. You will resign your position as Captain of the Home Guard immediately. You may give any reason you wish so long as my name is not mentioned. You will pack your belongings and leave Arborlon. You may go anywhere within the Westland so long as I never have to see you again. Is that clear?”