Page 61

61

F RELL GRIPPED A leather strap that hung from the chamber’s roof. By now, the Gryffin had come to a stop, rocking heavily in the sheltered harbor. He held his breath and watched the last grain of sand trickle down the glass. With his head cocked to the side, he listened. Outside, thunder boomed as if heralding what was to come, but that was not the signal he strained to hear.

Tykhan waited, too, standing by a tall lever.

Finally, a faint clanging rose in the distance, then grew louder as the last Eventoll bell rang across the city.

Tykhan glanced to him and the others. They all held fast to leather handgrips. He gave them a small nod and yanked the lever down.

As the bar struck home, the entire barge jolted hard. Frell lost his footing, but he tightened his hold on the leather grip to keep upright. A thunderous roar erupted under them, coming from midship. Frell’s stomach slammed toward his bladder—as the barge shot straight up out of the harbor.

Past Tykhan, seawater drained from a curve of glass across the wide bow. Through the window, the glow of the port lights appeared in a dizzying twirl as the Gryffin shot upward, spinning slightly, rising on a pillar of fire. A massive forge-engine under the keel at midship howled its fury.

Beyond the window, another six columns of flames burned across the port, jetting from the other barges of their tiny fleet as they blasted upward. Neighboring ships caught fire below, the backwash of jetting flames lighting their masts like candles in the storm.

The port swiftly receded below.

As Frell fought to get his legs under him, Tykhan worked smaller levers and a main wheel. The controls were identical to those of a Klashean wingketch, a design upon which the ta’wyn had based these new vessels.

Last winter, Frell, Kanthe, and their allies had escaped Kysalimri aboard such a ship. Wingketches were found throughout the cramped towers of Kysalimri. They were moored in tight quarters—small courtyards, tiny squares, all open to the sky—and used as a swift means of escape when the city was threatened. The ketches would shoot straight upward, rising like a blast of smoke from a chimney, then ride off with the unfurling of tiny wings.

Based on such vessels, Tykhan had worked with both Wing Perash and Sail Garryn to revise their design—to have them shoot out of water rather than from a stone chimney.

Tykhan dubbed these new ships waveketches. It was an example of ta’wyn ingenuity paired with Klashean design.

It had taken a heroic effort to get these ships built in the hidden harbor. But Tykhan was a Root of the ta’wyn. He had been designed for such labors: construction, mining, and other scut work. Even his moldable body served this effort, allowing a Root to craft a hand or limb into whatever tool was necessary. Yet Tykhan was unique, having walked the world for millennia after being prematurely ripped from his eyran shell. Over this span, he could not resist the urge to tinker, fabricate, and assemble. He had designed a handful of other unique crafts, like the drill-ship, the lampree, used last winter as a raiding vessel.

The waveketch was yet another of his designs.

But it was so much more.

As the port shrank below, Tykhan slowed their ascent, then pulled another lever. A boom rattled the barge—this time coming from above. Following suit, the other six ships did the same. Their upper decks shattered apart, casting off masts and sails. In their place, balloon fabric billowed out, then expanded with a whoosh of compressed lift-gasses into taut, sleek shapes. Such deployment had been stolen from the design of sailrafts used to evacuate wyndships.

The balloons caught the weight of the waveketches, easing the burden on the main forges. With them no longer having to carry the full weight, Tykhan manipulated a pedal to angle the flames to the stern. The Gryffin shot forward, rising at a steep angle. As it did, Frell watched small wings unfold to either side, a feature that granted the waveketches their nimble maneuverability.

And we’ll need every bit of it.

A NXIOUS TO FACE the challenge ahead, Kanthe let go of his leather handgrip and stumbled over to Tykhan. With a rattle of armor, Rami followed. So did Cassta, who had still managed not to tinkle a single bell in her braid.

They flanked Tykhan but gave the ta’wyn space to work his controls. The next leg on this journey from Kysalimri was the most treacherous.

Ahead, the Stormwall rose like a storm-battered cliff.

The Gryffin had climbed swiftly enough to rise above its ramparts. Below, bonfires blazed amidst thousands of cannons and ballistas. Those installations were intended to fend off any attack by air, to fire forth a nonstop bombardment of iron balls and steel spears, to create an impenetrable deadly wall across the sky.

Before anything else could be done, their tiny fleet had to breach that barrier. Their plans counted on the forces deployed across the Stormwall to be focused on the battle along the southern coast, for eyes to be looking that direction. They needed the imbedded legion to be slow to respond to the sudden eruption of seven columns of fire from the port below, a supposedly protected harbor cordoned off by warships.

The seven ketches angled to crest high above the wall, fighting rain and wind, reaching the low clouds. The Gryffin rode through the maelstrom. It ducked in and out of that black layer, erasing the view for breaths at a time, while lightning flashed in fearsome fiery jags all around.

The Stormwall, while slow to stir, finally reacted. Cannons fired with flashes of flames and spats of smoke, their booms lost to the thunder. Ballistas spat steel at them. A huge arrow shot across their bow, spearing into the clouds.

Still, the sudden appearance of this strange threat, coupled by the speed of the ketches, defied the forces below. All seven crested over and past the barricade.

“Hold tight!” Tykhan bellowed.

The ta’wyn shoved his wheel forward. The ketch tipped on its nose and dove steeply down the far side of the Stormwall. Kanthe fell forward, catching a palm against the glass. The city swelled under him, rushing toward him.

Kanthe was suddenly very happy to have thoroughly emptied his stomach.

Rain-lashed towers and rooftops filled the windows. Kanthe cringed back, sure they would crash. Thunder boomed in warning. Tykhan hauled hard on the wheel, lifting the nose as if doing so by sheer Root strength. The ketch swooped, straining those outstretched wings, then shot low over the city.

Kanthe checked the other ships. Six flames blazed through the storm. All had made it, though none had come as low as the Gryffin. Their small fleet raced toward their goal, which blazed with firepots atop Azantiia’s highest hill. The other ships rolled away, spreading out for the assault to come.

Behind them, the force atop the Stormwall would lose time trying to swing their batteries toward the city. Those cannons and ballistas had been aimed outward and upward for generations. Even when those guns and bows got pointed this way, caution would be taken. Any bombardment this direction risked damaging the city, all in a futile attempt to knock down these seven fiery fireflits.

Still, those hesitant commanders atop the Stormwall knew such a risk was likely unnecessary. Highmount had its own munitions, bristling along its star-shaped walls, bastioned across twelve towers. By now, the forces ahead had had time to react, to ready a defense of the castle.

Kanthe stared at those twelve stone fortifications. “We really should have waited until Tykhan finished the entire fleet.”

In their rush to depart Kysalimri, they’d had to abandon an additional five ketches, all in various states of build. The original plan had been to debark with twelve, one to assault each tower. With only seven, each ship would have to cover multiple strongholds.

“We had no choice,” Rami said. “We could not risk Eligor gaining more strength.”

“Even so,” Tykhan commented in dire tones, “I do not know if what I crudely contrived out of my eyran ’s old beacon will do anything more than mask my presence.”

Knowing Eligor was awake and capable of sensing the approach of another ta’wyn, Tykhan had tweaked the beacon to emanate a wash of tone that should blur out the area, making it harder to pinpoint their location, to hide Tykhan from the all-seeing eye of Eligor.

Or so we hope.

But that wasn’t its sole purpose.

To test that, they first needed to deal with Highmount’s defenses. The Gryffin raced the last of the distance toward the towering walls surrounding the castle. The other ketches spread wider, circling to attack from all directions, to harry each tower.

Cannons fired at them, but the seven ships made for hard targets, especially whisking back and forth on their tiny wings. The wind and rain added to their fleet’s defense. But such protection would not last long, especially as the ketches attempted their own assault.

Any hope of victory depended on their own armaments.

Behind Kanthe, the cargo in the hold was not iron, but lead ingots sculpted to look like ore. Those piles rested atop hinged trapdoors. By now, the raging forges below should have heated that cargo. Kanthe swore he could smell the charring wood as that lead turned red hot. The load risked setting the ketches on fire, except beneath that thin skim of wood was a solid core of draft-iron.

In fact, the entire lower hull was crafted of the same. It was why the resources of Qaar Saur had been so vital to this effort. When the ketches were at sea, the low draft of the barges through the water hid the secret faces of the ketches: the glass-fronted bows, the iron hulls, the watertight sealed doors—and the true fangs of these vessels.

The Gryffin dodged the smoky passage of a cannonball. The ketch shot high over a tower. Tykhan yanked a red lever.

Kanthe saw the effect as another captain did the same. The ketch’s trapdoor fell open under the stern, raining out hot lead, which fell through the trailing flames of the midship forge and turned to molten rain.

The fiery lead drenched the tower positioned at the point of the star-shaped wall, flooding across parapets and armored men, splashing into lower windows. The captain tried to reach the next tower—the one tucked into the crooked angle of the wall—but the rain of lead tapered off into dribbles by the time he reached it. The ketch shot out over the open yard and angled sharply to return.

With its belly exposed as it rounded through the air, Kanthe saw the ketch’s fangs extend. Tiny hatches fell open along its flanks, and the noses of draft-iron cannons extended out of each. The ketch wove a tight turn, skidding through the air, bringing one flank to face the tower.

Cannons blasted, shattering into the stronghold.

Kanthe lost sight of the battle as the Gryffin finished its run across their section of the wall, leaving a fiery trail of molten lead behind it. Tykhan managed to flood the second tower more effectively, as he had reserved most of the Gryffin ’s load for this stronghold.

Rather than extending its fangs and circling to battle, Tykhan bellowed a warning. “Grab hold! We’re coming in hard!”

He rocked the ketch up on a wing, let it settle, then strangled the forge. The flames flaring across the open yard below snuffed away. The Gryffin dropped swiftly.

Kanthe stumbled back, lunged for one of the straps but missed it.

The ketch struck the ground with an impact that slammed Kanthe hard to the planks. His armor rang off the wood like a struck bell. He bounced once, then clattered back down. His forehead struck hard, spinning silvery specks across his vision.

Should’ve donned my helm.

It was not the most auspicious arrival for this prince of Hálendii.

Rami grabbed his arm and dragged him up. Kanthe staggered but quickly regained his bearings and his footing. Cassta joined them.

Beyond the window, silver-armored figures scattered around the landed ketch, having piled out of the stern hold, ready to defend the ship. While they wore Hálendiian liveries, they were fierce warriors of the Klashean Shield, bringing together the triumvirate of the empire’s forces. The Wing and Sail had helped craft the waveketches, and the Shield would protect them.

Another of their fleet dropped out of the sky on a dwindling column of flame, then fell out of view as it aimed for a landing on the castle’s far side. The plan was to divide the attention of the king’s legions, which were already boiling out of barracks. The second ship had landed closest to the Legionary school, where a majority of the royal forces were encamped, to draw most attention that way.

The other five ketches would keep to the sky, offering support from the air and to continue to harangue the towers.

Still, the goal was not to seize the castle, only to hold these grounds long enough to attempt a raid. Only one goal mattered.

And it shone in bronze.

To aid in that endeavor, Frell helped Tykhan. The ta’wyn already had the workroom cubby open. A winking blue glow bathed his bronze. Frell crowded in there with him. When they both pushed back out, Tykhan carried the beacon’s crystal cube at his chest. He held it by two copper handles welded to its sides.

Frell followed and adjusted the cords and straps over Tykhan’s shoulders. They led to a humming contrivance slung across his back. It was a boxy network of copper tubing around a crystal tank that bubbled with a golden elixir. Tykhan had scavenged it out of his lampree. The ta’wyn device had helped power the drill-ship.

Only now it served a new function.

Tykhan twisted a metal valve at his shoulder and the beacon’s blue blinking brightened into a steadier glow. He then draped his cloak over it to hide it.

“Ready?” Frell asked.

“We’ll see,” Tykhan answered, his eyes narrowed with concern, maybe even doubt, a rare sight in the former Augury of Qazen.

“Let’s go,” Rami urged them from the opposite side of the workroom.

The Klashean prince grabbed a handle, twisted it, and threw open a door. The hatch fell away from the hull and struck the hardpack of the yard, where pools trembled under the downpour.

Rami led the way out.

They all pounded out behind him, throwing themselves into the chaos of battle. The storm in the sky competed with the war on the ground. Thunder fought with cannon blasts. Lightning chased across the skies as lances of silver speared the clouds. Rain lashed and winds gusted.

Flaming ketches darted and flew through it all.

Closer at hand, Klashean Shields fought anyone who drew too near, who failed to recognize the disguised threat until too late. Mounted horses sped in the distance, aiming for the other landed craft.

Frell shouted and pointed to a narrow door, barely bigger than an arrowslit. “That way!”

The door led into a cookery. The entry had been mapped as the most expedient route down to the Shrivenkeep. The spies of the Eye of the Hidden had reported that the school of Kepenhill, which lay outside the castle walls, had been locked up tight after their prior excursion. Every access point in the school had been welded shut, barricaded, and guarded.

The only way left to reach the Shrivenkeep was through Highmount.

As they set off, using the cover of the battle to hide their escape, they brought with them an escort of eight Shields, led by a grand cross of the order named Gheel. Kanthe nodded to the towering commander, wishing they had brought an entire battalion. Still, all knew their best weapon remained speed and stealth. They needed to reach Eligor, subdue that bronze god, and abscond with him.

Each step would likely prove harder than the last.

To aid in this, to further divide the king’s legions, their assault had one last phalanx. As Kanthe and the others sped past one of the wall’s gates, fierce shouts and the clash of steel rose from beyond a massive iron portcullis that sealed the opening. Llyra’s army had struck outside, laying siege to the castle grounds, further pulling forces away from the battle inside its wall.

And away from us.

Their group reached the door, which had been barred on the inside, but two of the Shields had hauled in axes. With strong backs and stronger determination, they broke through the ironwood. A hole opened enough for Tykhan to reach through and toss aside the bar. Grand Cross Gheel then shouldered the way open, sword raised, but no one confronted him.

With the way clear, one by one, they pushed through the narrow entry.

Kanthe glanced back to the battle outside, but he knew the true fight lay below. He took a deep breath and headed away, hoping to return here again.

With a bronze god in tow.