The Path of Destruction (Rune Breaker) (25 page)

Technically; by the
nir-lumos
rules of engagement, Gaddigan was her horse, but it had been Ru that convinced her to keep rather than sell him. Much like the House, which had been Issacor's, things just had a way of becoming Ru's if the owner didn't protest hard enough.

Nothing could have convinced Taylin to protest over Ru commandeering her huge, possibly evil, warhorse. If it had been up to her, she would have the seventy Novish marks he was worth instead.

She left Ru to lead the horse and looked to her companions. “I'll hurry straight back if I spot something unusual.” she promised before lifting off with a leap and a powerful stroke of her wings.

The land retreated below her and the road transformed into a river of gray and brown cutting through the green landscape. Minor rivers and small streams became visible through the trees, all flowing inexorably westward. In less than a mile, the shelf of land extending out from the mountains dipped precipitously, leaving a line of cliffs some two hundred feet tall.

Where the rivers and streams became falls, the Passage of Conquerors narrowed just as Kaiel said and became a winding way that snaked its way back and forth down the cliff face. Just one look at all its twists and turns told Taylin exactly why that expanse was called Riven's Serpent.

There was one last relief station at the base of the cliff. Beyond it, Taylin saw that the open ground slowly gave way to wetlands as the many tiny water sources coming from the western slopes of the mountains all emptied out on the lush plain around the river delta.

Even the swampy earth was no match for the skills of Nov's
ere-a
spellcrafters and
vitae
users, and the Passage of Conquerors continued through the wetlands, intersected by smaller causeways, just wide enough for two horses and made of living wood the same as the walls of Idarian Homestead. Wooden palisades sectioned off vast tracts of farmland both in the wetlands and on the more stable plains to the north.

In that same direction, Taylin could see that the river tumbled down a series of falls some five miles upstream from the city. The white foam of the waterfalls clothed the dark rocks that stood like daggers or the teeth of a massive beast. Shrouded in the mist, she could just make out the regular edges of some large, stone structure built beneath the largest waterfall.

On the delta itself, and both riverbanks, was Rivenport.

The cities she'd sacked as a slave soldier, and even Daire City were nothing compared to the sheer size of it. Stone walls, fifty feet high and wide enough that someone could have easily driven a wagon along them, guarded the shore-bound parts of the city from possible incursions by land; and bridges that rivaled the Passage spanned the river to the largest islands out in the river.

While the buildings on the shore were of the kind she'd become accustomed to in Daire (nothing taller than five floors) structures on the islands reached ten at times, and one multi-spired building soared fifteen floors into the air.

Taylin gazed upon the city in awe for long minutes before something caught her attention that made her breath catch in her chest. At first she thought that the forest of tall, thin towers on the south end of the largest river island was just another strange architectural choice. It was only upon closer study that she picked out the airships.

The long distance haulers; simply gondolas suspended beneath balloons or cigar-shaped envelopes didn't bother her. Nor did the ultra-sleek passenger vessels that were shaped like arrowheads instead of ships, and had wings that looked like decorative fans.

What gave her pause were those that looked more or less like streamlined ocean-going vessels with bat-like canvas wings, open decks, and sails. Except for small design improvements, they were the same designs the hailene had used for their warships in her time: the same ships that played host to most of the worst moments in her life.

She let out a gasp as she realized what she was looking at, and felt the link twist in response.

Is something the matter, Miss Taylin
? Ru queried.

Taylin's mind's eye conjured the assembled crew on deck the night she decided she was going to leave those ships behind. The slaves used as shock troops, her peers, were forced to stand closest, along with those slaves who did the cleaning, heavy lifting, and general unskilled labor on the ship. They all watched her as the captain explained that this was going to be an 'object lesson'; that they had no use for 'clever ones' on board.

Directly after that, her wings had been sheared from her body.

She forcefully shook her head to clear it, then forced herself to stare at the airships. In her time, they had been the most modern warships ever constructed. Now it seemed that more advanced craft than that were antiques—that they were even flying at all was just testament to the craftsmanship that went into them.

Most importantly though, her former masters were dead. More than dead, they were consigned to dust and the footnotes of history.

I'm fine, Ru. Thank you.
She replied belatedly. Not that he cared, she reminded herself. All he was doing was fulfilling obligations the link imposed on him. She must have thought that last part more fervently than she intended, because the link was flooded with indignation.

Is it not enough that I have stated that you have my cooperation?
Ru asked, his mental voice laced with petulance.
You are no use to me at all if you shatter into panic over dead hailene or their engineering legacy.

Taylin exhaled forcefully though her nose in disdain.
I can feel however I choose to feel, Ru. You don't have that 'engineering legacy' burned into the dark places of your mind.
Without her notice, the deep growl of the part of her that reminded Ru of Paive-Endiro joined her rant in Ru's head. She continued,
You talked about my darkness before? Well it was born on those ships.

And in her memory of them, it nested and multiplied. Even after Percival's good conduct with her and her friends, she couldn't think of hailene without feeling the itch of scales trying to grow on her skin. Something primal in her still saw them as the enemy, and she feared it would take a long time to free herself of that.

Seeing an opportunity in her anger, the link started to engage something, but Taylin sensed it in time and clamped down on it with her will before more than a twinge of discomfort came from Ru.

Sorry.
She dipped a wing and started to circle back toward the group. They were starting down the Serpent.
But sometimes you're just so...
There was no other word for it, and as she was speaking telepathically, it simply slotted in place,
...unpleasant. Sometimes. You can see how I might have doubted you.

Heh.

The conversation ended there. Ru filled the link with a smug sense of superiority. They both knew that he'd actually been in the right in that exchange and he took great pains to make sure she knew that he knew it. Taylin imagined that it was probably the first time he'd held the moral high ground in centuries. If ever.

She flew long, lazy circles over the group, taking in the sights of Rivenport and its attendant lands until they reached the bottom of the Serpent. There, she landed and remounted Gaddigan so she could talk to the others about what she'd seen from on high.

“I saw the farmland and there are people working it... but where do they live?” She asked once she was situated and the group moving again.

It was Brin who answered. “Oh, they live in Market Town mostly. That's the section of the city on the near shore. Wagons come around all the different plots when their shifts change to bring them in; even the ones out here in the Serpent's shadow.”

“They don't live on their own land?”

Kaiel took this one. “None if it is their land, Taylin. It all belongs to the Historical Society of Kinos who in turn run Principality Riven in Nov's name.” When he got an askance look at that, he went on to explain how that came to be.

“Lord Riven controlled most of the southern coast of what we call Novrom near the end of the Age of Tragedies. He allied with pirates, bandits and roving bands of glory seekers to keep control and committed genocide on the dragonsired peoples that called it home.

“When Nov I rose to power, Riven knew what was coming and threw his lot in with him. He was the one that came up with the principalities in the first place. But he didn't appreciate it when Nov gave him a principality only half the size of the territories he controlled before Nov's unification campaign. He plotted against Nov but before he could enact his plans Nov got word of them.”

Kaiel gestured to a distant patch of farmland where Taylin could see what looked like boulders occasionally breaching the water. “Nov publicly fed him to the wild trulls in the river.”

Taylin was familiar with trulls from her time on the ships. They were massive terrapins, larger than three horses and highly aggressive. The hailene used their shells as hulls for light airskiffs and emergency craft for their larger warships.

They also laid some sixty eggs in a go, each large enough to feed four people for an entire day. Many fellow slaves had died in expeditions to collect said eggs. Unusual for most reptiles, trulls defended their nests with ferocity.

“To make sure everyone knew what happened,” said Kaiel, “Nov refused to allow a new Prince to step in and Principality Riven remains a testament to Riven's foolishness to this day.

It continued on like that for an hour: Taylin and eventually Raiteria asked questions that Brin and Kaiel were happy to answer, no matter how minor. Around them, traffic started to increase as smaller roads and farm causeways spilled more riders and carts into the Passage.

Most of the mounts they passed were ornises with a few loaded wagons pulled by horses. Ceratos and spiders seemed to be missing altogether.

At the same time, more people who passed them than not were half-elves, and more and more humans had dark skin like Issacor's had been. To Taylin's dismay, she also spotted more hailene either flying in from the fields or flitting about in the rapidly approaching city.

There was a new race mixed into the groups they encountered as well; one Taylin had never seen before, but had heard of at length: miare.

She'd heard them described as 'catfolk', and indeed, they had fine pelts and heads that resembled a feline's. That resemblance was only superficial, however. Taylin noticed that unlike a cat, they had broad, pronounced jaws that gave them all a slight under-bite that no cat possessed. Their tails coiled and flexed on the owner's whim and once or twice, she saw them being used as a clumsier third appendage; something monkeys could do that cats couldn't. Not only that, but their eyes were all large and round in proportion to their heads, giving them a quizzical, owlish look.

Most of them wore some manner of robe or long kilt that covered their legs all the way to the ground, but when Taylin did get a look at them, she found that they walked on their toes, usually barefoot or while wearing an exotic looking sandal.

True to what Brin had told her of the miare, every single one offered polite greetings as they passed and those on foot even bowed. For Taylin, who had grown up in a world where everyone tried to appear larger than and dominate one another, it was disconcerting.

All the same, she returned all of those greeting as Kaiel did, with a polite incline of the head. Raiteria soon joined in, leaving Brin and Ru in unlikely solidarity as they ignored the greetings.

At half past the third hour of the afternoon, they reached the gates of Market Town.

There were actually three gates there: a central set through which the Passage of Conquerors passed along with wagons loaded with goods, and then two smaller ones. Stone obelisks flanked the larger gate bearing inscriptions in six different languages that informed visitors to use the side gates under penalty of imprisonment.

The words were enforced by three squads of five: two soldiers with rifles, two with iron mauls, and one wizard carrying a staff of forked gretharian wood with a blue-glowing orb between the twin tines.

As they rode up to the right hand gate, Kaiel took the time to display his brooch bearing the crest of the Bardic College. “It won't make the line shorter,” he explained, “but it will serve to make the guards more polite.”

Taylin nodded absently as she looked up at the city wall. Even for a woman with wings, it gave her a touch of vertigo. Not only were they high, but where Daire City's walls looked seamless, she could tell that Rivenport's wall was actually a single, gigantic slab, probably raised out of the depths of Ere by a cadre of wizards. Atop it were arrayed men and women armed with rifles nearly equal in quality to the one Rai carried, as well as some sort of brass and iron contraptions that looked like larger versions of the forked staves that wizard at the gates carried.

She wondered just what kind of force the people of Rivenport were expecting that might require that level of defense.

In the middle of her musing, a young half-elven man came running up to them, dodging carts and pushing aside people on foot. His skin was acorn brown and his ears stuck out from his head in a clear giveaway as to his heritage.

“Chronicler Arunsteadeles!” He called, waving. With a few more bounding steps, he stopped before them in a dramatic swirl of his red and gold cape, which was embroidered with the pattern of a dragonfly's wing. Even having run through a crowd of dusty, grubby farm workers, he'd remained impeccable. Beneath the cape, he wore a black silk shirt under a red velvet vest with gold toggles, a pair of loose black pants cut in the local style, and highly polished riding boots.

Kaiel reined in his horse at the sound of his name and raised an impressed eyebrow at the flourish. “That would be me, yes. And you are...”

“Chronicler Eddic Bairoe.” Said the young man, “I've worked with your mother at the university here.”

A small but warm smile came to Kaiel's face. “Ah, so she got my message. How is she?”

Bairoe shook his head. “Your mother didn't send me, Chronicler. The College affiliate here did... at the request of Librarian Yolinderan.”