Page 43 of Winds of Death (War of the Alliance #4)

Chapter

Twenty-Three

“ T his is Merrik, Lije, Stickyfingers, Tiny, and Aylia.” Pip gestured to each one as she spoke, the predawn chill wrapping around her as they stood in the street. “Everyone, these are my parents.”

Dacha and Muka made their welcoming gestures, though Dacha’s brow had furrowed at the rather interesting monikers for Stickyfingers and Tiny.

A pang filled her heart. If only Pretty Face were here. But there still had been no word about him. He must have been captured by the Mongavarians.

If he was still alive.

She shook off the melancholy thoughts to focus on the flyboys and flygirl here. They’d gotten up early so that they could meet her parents before their standby shift started and before her parents’ train departed.

She glanced down the street again, but most of it was blocked with the large army truck waiting to take her parents to the train station. Where was Fieran? He said he’d be here for the farewells.

She turned back to where Muka had somehow gotten into a discussion of dwarven brews with the flyboys. Sticky’s eyes had gone wide while Lije’s mouth had dropped open as Muka described the mushroom and rock salt brew that was the traditional drink in Dalorbor.

Pip resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Would the flyboys turn to brewing once the sourdough craze faded? The army would probably have a thing or two to say about that.

An open-topped army truck rumbled down the street. Pip only gave it a passing glance as she moved out of the way. But when it parked behind the larger army truck, she looked again.

Fieran hopped out of the front passenger seat, grinning at her before he turned back to the vehicle. He said something to a person sitting on the other side, blocked from her view by the larger vehicle parked in front of it.

Then Prince Farrendel Laesornysh stepped around the front of the army truck, dressed in full elven armor and carrying his swords on his back.

Her chest seized. Fieran had brought his dacha— Prince Farrendel Laesornysh —to meet her parents. She opened her mouth. She should warn them. Tell everyone who was about to show up.

But nothing but a breathy squeak wheezed out of her.

Then Fieran was there, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders as he leaned closer. “I brought a surprise. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Nope.” She muttered the word too fast, her knees still locked.

Prince Farrendel halted next to Fieran and gave her a nod, not a twitch to his face to betray his thoughts. “Pippak.”

Fieran’s dacha had yet to call her by her nickname.

Fieran assured her that his dacha liked her, but he was so hard to read that she couldn’t tell.

He’d seemed to find her magic impressive that one time she joined morning practice, but he hadn’t invited her and Fieran to dine with him in his quarters as her parents had Fieran.

Then again, Mongavaria had been attacking so constantly up until a few days ago that there hadn’t been time for dinners with parents.

What did it mean that Prince Farrendel was here? Meeting her parents? That was the gesture of someone who approved of the relationship, wasn’t it? But how was she to know?

Prince Farrendel faced her parents, giving a nod.

Pip was still so frozen that she couldn’t force herself to move. With a low chuckle, Fieran used his grip on her shoulders to turn her around just in time to catch the look on her parents’ faces as they registered the fact that Prince Farrendel was standing there.

Her dacha’s eyes widened before he bowed with the graceful flourish of the elves. “Amir, it is an honor.”

Muka pounded her fist over her heart before she bobbed her head in the dwarven gesture of respect for one of high standing.

Fieran kept his hands on Pip’s shoulders, rubbing his thumbs gently over the tops in that soothing gesture. She worked to unlock her knees and unglue her tongue from the top of her mouth, but her parents were going to be on their own for a bit.

To one side, the flyboys had eased back a step after they saluted, though they weren’t quite as in awe as Pip’s parents. Prince Farrendel was becoming a familiar enough face that it was more the respect for a general rather than abject terror.

Prince Farrendel glanced at Fieran, then back at Pip’s parents. “You run the western rail terminal.”

“Yes.” Pip’s dacha bobbed his head again, his voice stilted.

“The original trading hub there provided some of the first plans for a Tarenhieli rail system, did it not?” Prince Farrendel stepped forward, something in his voice smoothing the more he spoke.

Dacha’s mouth worked as he shared a look with Muka. Muka thumped her fist on her chest again. “Yes, we did. I’m surprised you’d remember such a thing.”

Prince Farrendel gave a slight, elven shrug. “I found trains fascinating. My dacha gave me the plans to read over.”

Pip saw it then. The resemblance to Tryndar in the look in Prince Farrendel’s eyes. Or, rather, Tryndar’s resemblance to him when he’d held that little metal aeroplane she’d made for him.

The sight finally eased the hero worship paralysis. She sucked in her first decent breath in the past few minutes. Perhaps she could actually join the conversation.

Fieran had been right to bring his dacha here. Their families had a lot in common, if they had the chance to sit down and talk.

She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, a distant boom broke the silence of the morning, a vibration traveling through the ground beneath their feet. A distant rumbling continued even after that initial boom, the vibration still shaking the ground.

That wasn’t an artillery gun or a bomb. She was familiar with the sounds of those.

“What was that?” Stickyfingers was scanning the skies, as were all the flyboys.

“I don’t know.” Fieran, too, was searching the skies. Merrik moved, as if by pure instinct, to take the place at Fieran’s back.

When Pip glanced upward, the gray skies were streaked with the first rays of dawn.

Prince Farrendel’s gaze had gone distant, and he turned toward the Wall rising high on the eastern horizon. “There is something…I sense…”

He didn’t finish whatever he was saying. Instead, he spun on a heel and dashed toward the army truck.

Fieran glanced around at them. “Pip, Mak, see to your parents. Everyone else, get to the hangar just in case. I’m going to see what’s going on.”

With that, he dashed after his dacha. The flyboys were only a few steps behind him, racing toward the lower tram platform.

“Perhaps we should stay.” Muka clenched her fists, sharing a glance with Dacha.

“No, the western rail terminal needs you.” Mak picked up one of their bags.

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.” Pip grinned, the expression tense, and grabbed another bag to load onto the larger army truck. “Let’s get you on your way.”

Yet even as she said the words, her chest tightened. What new awful turn to this war would the Mongavarians unleash?

Fieran flung himself into the front passenger seat of the small, open-topped truck, even as his dacha was putting it into gear.

Beside the truck, an army driver had his hand on the side panel. “Sir, I can drive. I—”

Dacha popped the clutch and sent the truck rolling forward, even as he worked the wheel so they did not hit the larger truck parked in front of them. The truck rumbled down the street, gaining momentum even as it flashed past where Pip stood with her parents.

Fieran braced himself against the dash and the door. “Where are we going?”

“The Wall.” Dacha’s tone was tight, his gaze focused on the front windscreen. He barely slowed the vehicle as they swerved onto the main road.

Fieran gripped the door, trying to brace himself as the truck careened around the turn. “What’s going on?”

“I do not know. But I sense…I do not know. But it is not good.” Dacha mashed the accelerator and worked the gear shift into a higher gear as the main road flattened out, heading toward the front lines.

People and other vehicles dodged or swerved out of their way.

Fieran gathered magic in his chest, though he didn’t release it yet. He couldn’t sense anything amiss. He couldn’t even hear if that rumble continued over the roar of the truck’s engine. But if Dacha was driving like this, then something terrible must be happening.

Within minutes, they were driving over the dusty, hardpacked roads between the infantry fortifications, the men in their entrenchments staring as they flashed past.

Ahead, the Chibo River rippled, reflecting the rising sun and the crackling magic of the Wall bisecting its waters.

At this time of summer, the Chibo River was already running low. Yet it seemed even lower than it had been the last time Fieran had flown over it a few days ago.

Dacha didn’t slow until they were rumbling onto one of the half bridges extending out into the Chibo.

He slammed on the brakes, sending the truck into a screeching, skidding halt only a few yards from the Wall.

No sooner had he shut off the engine than he was hopping from the truck and dashing toward the Wall.

Fieran scrambled out of the truck after him, his boots landing hard on the stone surface of the bridge. He jogged to the edge of the bridge and peered over the low side.

The river water seemed to have retreated from the banks, leaving yards of mud, flopping fish, and stranded turtles on either side. Only the center of the river still had water, and even that seemed to be draining away.

“What’s going on?” Fieran glanced first to the north, then to the south.

The northern end of the river where it dumped into the Hydalla, was turning into a stagnant eddy.

The southern end was draining away even as he watched, leaving behind a huge muddy trench a mile wide and only five feet deep at the center.

Dacha pressed his palm to the Wall, his magic crackling around his fingers and merging with the magic he’d embedded into the Wall seventy years ago. “I sense that strange magic. But I do not know what its purpose is.”

“Should I…” Fieran let some of his magic curl around his fingers as he waved toward the Wall.

“Not yet.” Dacha’s eyes went even more distant, as if he was sensing the immense length of the Wall.

Something moved beyond the Wall. Fieran squinted into the blue crackle, trying to make out the shapes.

There seemed to several large vehicles unlike anything he had ever seen rumbling toward them. They appeared to be giant metal boxes set on large rolling treads on either side, of the type he had occasionally seen used by farmers on their tractors.

These vehicles tipped over the lip of what had been the bank of the Chibo River. They splashed into the gloppy mud left behind, but the treads plowed through the mud, keeping the vehicles from burying themselves and getting stuck.

As they drew closer, Fieran could make out something sticking out of the metal box set on the treads, almost like a pair of wires. Was that some kind of machine perched on top?

Several men walked beside the vehicles, carrying metal shields.

“Should we stop them?” Fieran clenched his fists, falling into a fighting stance almost by instinct, even though he had no weapons besides his magic and his sidearm.

With a glint in his eyes, Dacha unleashed more of his magic, making the hair on the back of Fieran’s neck and along his arms stand on end.

Dacha lashed out with his magic, reaching through the Wall toward the line of odd vehicles advancing on them.

Yet as soon as Dacha’s magic brushed the vehicles, it stuck there, focusing on the protruding wires rather than consuming the vehicles.

Dacha muttered something under his breath.

“Dacha?” Fieran took a step forward, his magic curling around his fingers.

“It has caught my magic somehow.” Dacha almost seemed to be trying to tug his magic free.

The vehicles rolled inexorably forward. The machines on their backs brightened, glowing slightly blue, as a faint whirring sound filled the air over the crackle of Dacha’s power.

Dacha cried out, going down onto one knee as he pressed both hands to the Wall. The whole Wall wavered, bending slightly toward the enemy vehicles planting themselves in a line just on the other side.

“Dacha!” Fieran stumbled forward, his magic around his fingers as he reached, though he wasn’t sure if he should reach for Dacha or for the Wall. There was a faint tugging sensation, as if something was reaching for his magic. “What should I do? How can I help? Should I attack them too?”

“No!” Dacha’s shout was loud, tight. He shook his head, even as he squeezed his eyes shut. His silver-blond hair whipped around him as he unleashed even more power, filling the air with that lightning taste. “Those machines are pulling in my magic. You cannot risk your magic getting caught too.”

Fieran squelched his magic, standing there with his hands uselessly at his sides. How could anything overpower his dacha’s magic? Dacha had the most powerful magic—the most amount of magic—of any living person. Nothing could defeat him.

Yet magic poured from Dacha, more than Fieran had ever seen him unleash at one time. Fieran had to squint at the brightness, his breaths burning in his throat from his dacha’s magic filling the air.

Dacha cried out again, a shout that was both pain and a battle cry, his hands still braced in the Wall.

The Wall itself was flickering, its glow going more white than blue as Dacha poured more power into it.

“Dacha!” Fieran fell to his knees beside his dacha. He should do something. Dacha had told him not to use his magic, but what if they could defeat the foreign magic powering these machines between the two of them?

“Do…not…” Dacha growled the words between clenched teeth. Stray bolts of power flickered over his armor and along the strands of his hair. Magic roared around them in an inferno of power. His eyes were squeezed tight, his shoulders bunched as if straining under an immense weight.

Fieran had to do something. He couldn’t just kneel there, helpless, while Dacha fought…and seemed to be losing. “I can help. Together, we can—”

“Fieran.” Dacha’s harsh tone cut through the storm of magic. “The Wall is coming down.”

“What?” Fieran tried to process those impossible words. What was Dacha saying? Surely he couldn’t mean what it sounded like. That Wall had stood along the border for Fieran’s entire life. It was the greatest magical achievement of the age. It couldn’t simply…come down.

Dacha’s eyes snapped open. He half-turned his head, his blue, magic-laced eyes meeting Fieran’s. “The Wall is coming down.”

Those five words made no more sense the second time than they had the first.

Dacha squeezed his eyes shut again, shouted, and blasted so much power into the Wall that Fieran flinched at the feel of it scraping against his skin and into his throat when he breathed.

The Wall exploded.