Wings Over Talera Read online

  ON THE RIVER TO TIMMUZZ

  I sliced the water cleanly in my dive, going deep to come up again a dozen feet out from the side of the crashed airship. The shock of the winter river seared my burns, sucked at my air. I fought through it, struck out for shore in the wake of the man ahead of me.

  The ship had come down closer to the northern bank than to the southern, and it was to the nearest spit of land that the mercenary headed. That land was perhaps seventy-five tahng away, close to eighty yards, and the outlaw had a good head start on me. He flailed at the water rather than cutting it smoothly, though, and I had no doubt that I could close the gap. It seemed unlikely that I would catch him in the river. In the end, I did not.

  He came to shore a few feet ahead of me and should probably have made his stand there where I would be awkward coming out of the water. Instead, he turned and ran inland. I followed, in better shape because I’d burned less energy in my swim.

  Fifty tahng from the River Shauval’s edge, in a small field at the border of a wild wood, the mercenary turned at bay and drew a rapier that he’d stolen from our decks. I didn’t think he’d return it without a fight.

  I pulled my own blade and bore in quickly, not wishing to give him a second to recover from his hard swim and the hard run that had followed. We crossed swords and the steel shivered. Beads of water flew. He blocked my rush and dropped into a fencer’s stance. I was familiar with such fighting, having learned much of it on Earth. The rapiers we carried were also suited to the work, though far heavier and broader than the fencing blades of my own world. The differences could be adjusted for.

  I struck toward his left, in what would be called the high “4” line among Earthly fencers. His parry was ragged; he hadn’t yet recovered his breath and control.

  I attacked again. A straight thrust. Not giving him time. The swords tapped together behind the tips, locked to each other in that part of the blade called the foible. I twisted my hand, abruptly increasing the lateral pressure against his blade. My steel slid along his, the edge shrieking, the point darting for his belly.

  His parry should have been a simple midline movement, but, as I’d hoped, his relative exhaustion made him use too much strength on the block. His weapon swept too far to the left and in that instant I disengaged, dropped my blade beneath his, then followed with a lunge toward his unprotected right flank. My thrust was deliberately low, aimed to wound and not to kill, and the tip of my sword sliced only a half inch into his thigh before I brought it out again and stepped back into the guard position.

  The mercenary’s eyes went wide. He knew how badly I could have hurt him, wasn’t sure why I had not. He would try to be more cautious now, try to feel his way through me. It was not in my best interest to give him time to do so.

  I moved forward, tapping his sword lightly with my own, then lunged. He parried, and I immediately transformed the lunge into a fleché, a running attack that carries the fencer past his foe in a flurry of blades. One stroke of a razor-edge slashed away the leather at his left shoulder, leaving behind a pale furrow that rapidly filled with red. The blow could have as easily taken an eye.

  And he knew it.

  He glanced down, and back up again. I expected to see rage, but instead got a twisted smile. He lowered his guard, then tossed the rapier onto the forest leaves at my feet. He spread his arms.

  “I can’t match you,” he said. “I never imagined you would be so good.”

  “You were exhausted from the swim,” I said. “Else you would have made a better defense.”

  “But I still would not have won.”

  “No, probably not.”

  “What is your name, swordsman?”

  “Ruenn Maclang. And yours?”

  I was watching him as I spoke and saw him start as if he recognized something about my name. Of course, he might very well have heard of me. Any organized force attacking Nyshphal would have had their spies in the country for a time. And those spies would surely have picked up word of the strange fellow keeping company with the daughter of the Emperor. I knew the tale was muchly about.

  “Diken,” the mercenary said after a moment. “My name is Diken Graye.”

  * * * * * * *

  Rannon and the others were sitting on the banks of the Shauval when I came out of the fields behind the river with my prisoner. Sticky gray mud covered everyone’s hair and clothes but they did not seem much put out by it. I suppose they were happy to be alive. Behind them in the water I could see no sign of the flyer. It had sunk.

  Already, the locals had begun to arrive. They came in canoes or on small rafts, occasionally on something bigger. This area was mostly farmland but had a fairly substantial population. An airship going down couldn’t have been a very common sight. It had attracted attention.

  Even covered with mud, Rannon looked the part of a princess. And the sightseers were soon vying with each other to offer their services. She acknowledged all offers graciously, but finally selected a burly red-headed tradesman with eyes as clear as gin to take us downriver in his firewood barge. He and his men moved quickly to earn their honor, and we were soon loaded and on our way to Timmuzz. Diken Graye went with us, but this time his hands were bound so he wouldn’t think of going overboard again.

  There were many questions to be asked of the mercenary, and a few to be asked of Rannon. She admitted to me that there had been other attacks against Nyshphal of late, that airships had come up missing and that villages had been burned across the north. The raids had begun around the time I left for Earth, two months before, and I remembered of a sudden a battle fought over a little settlement called Rakii. I recalled how odd the assault had seemed to me then, as if the raiders wanted more to destroy than to loot. I said as much to Rannon.

  “Their first strike,” she agreed. “There have been others. My father stepped up air patrols but that hasn’t stopped them. This is the furthest south they have come, though.”

  “What about survivors?”

  “A few. In the villages. None from an airship before.” She shook her head. “Someone is moving against us but we do not know who. Or why. All the raiders that have been seen have been mercenaries.”

  I tried not to show my concern but the fact that the attacks were still moving south in the face of increased air defenses, worried me. Nyshphal had a very strong air-fleet.

  “Have those explosive bolts been used in other attacks?” I asked.

  Rannon shrugged, then gestured at our prisoner. “Perhaps this one will know.”

  Our guest had found a pile of firewood to sit against. He was trying to be inconspicuous and failing.

  “Kreeg!” I called loudly. “Would you come here a moment? And bring your axe.”

  Diken Graye met my gaze and showed me a faint smile. He thought Kreeg an empty threat. He knew I would not have him killed.

  I walked over and squatted on my heels before the mercenary. Kreeg was behind me, attempting to look menacing. He was doing an excellent job.

  “Who is your master?” I asked into the outlaw’s eyes.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He lies,” Kreeg said.

  “Perhaps not,” I replied to the ex-fighting slave, though I didn’t take my eyes off the black-clad reiver. “Whoever is hiring these men seems not to want us knowing quite yet who it is that tasks us. But there are surely other things this one does know.

  “Where were you hired?” I asked.

  “I see no reason to answer.”

  I reached out then, and touched a finger lightly to the braid at the left side of Graye’s face. It was, perhaps, six inches long, tightly wound. He jerked his head away and his lips tightened to white with anger.

  “I prefer not to be touched,” he said.

  “I am sure.”

  I stood up. “Kreeg,” I called. “Cut off this braid with your axe.”

&nb
sp; “Nay!” The mercenary who called himself Diken Graye was on his feet. He was prepared to attack me I saw, though he was weaponless and with his hands bound. I held up my own hand to Kreeg, stopping the big man as he started forward.

  “You have lied to us,” I said to the prisoner. “A crime in my eyes and in yours.”

  “I have not lied. I do not choose to answer. It is not the same.”

  “You told me your name was Diken Graye. That is a lie.”

  The mercenary’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?”

  “A man new to Talera reads much,” I said. “Perhaps he reads of distant peoples who he might one day meet. He reads of history and customs. The war-braids of the Thorn Nomads are widely known. And it is said that Thorn warriors do not lie, on pain of having their hair shorn. By what name are you known among the nomads?”

  The mercenary’s face would have made stony ground look inviting. His eyes were dark and savage. Only the scar at his chin revealed an emotion, one deeper than anger. It had flushed with blood.

  “My name among the people was Chay-el Vayne,” he grated out.

  “Was?”

  “I am no longer that man. You see now that I did not lie to you. My name is Diken Graye. It is one that I have chosen.”

  I would not ask him why. Such things were private and I doubted that he would answer anyway. Instead, I spoke to him of something else.

  “This barge that you are on. These people. This river and the sky above. They are my world and you have endangered it. Whether you believe it or not, I know of honor. I would not ask you for anything you cannot give. But the questions I ask are important to me in a way that they cannot be to you. Answering them puts no stain on your service.”

  Diken Graye, once known as Chay-el Vayne of the Thorn Nomads, considered for a moment. I could see him weighing thoughts of his hire against the request that I had made. Too, I thought from his demeanor, that perhaps he rather liked those of us here aboard this ship. He had seen our easy camaraderie, our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for each other. He must have felt the sense of purpose that animated our actions. These were things that he understood but must have seldom experienced since leaving his people.

  “I was hired in Trazull,” he said after a moment. “On the Roshjavik Peninsula.”

  “I have heard of it,” I said. “A free port where many such bargains are made. Did you know, when you attacked our airship, that the Princess of Nyshphal was aboard?”

  Diken glanced at Rannon. I do not believe he could have pretended to the surprise he showed.

  “No,” he said, looking back at me. “We were told to attack an airship near the Capital. Yours was the first one we found. Other than military craft there seem to be few vessels about.”

  “As a result of your kind’s predations,” Rannon snapped.

  Graye shrugged. “Mercenaries are paid to fight,” he said. “Most of us are decent men only trying to earn our hire.”

  I could see from Rannon’s face that she did not accept the decency of most mercenaries. Yet, I believed myself that it was true.

  “Have there been more of the explosive quarrels used in your attacks?” I asked.

  “I heard much talk of magic weapons, but saw none until the quarrels were given to me.”

  “Why you?” Rhandh asked.

  “Because I was the best shot with a crossbow. I was told to use them all. At least that part of my hire was accomplished.”

  “The vullwings are not long distance fliers,” I said. “Where was your attack launched from?”

  “That I will not answer. I would not be responsible for a reprisal against any who might still be at the site.”

  I smiled and shrugged. “All right. I did not think you would tell us but it was worth the attempt.”

  His answering smile matched mine, though thinner.

  “Let me kick it out of him,” Kreeg said.

  “No,” I said. “A beating would get nothing from this one. Watch him, though.”

  I turned away toward Rannon and heard my name called. “Wait! Ruenn Maclang, wait.”

  I looked back at Diken Graye, expecting him to ask now about his future. He did not.

  “There is one more thing I would tell you,” he said. “There is one of your enemies I would name.”

  I waited, as did we all, and inside of me was something that seemed afraid.

  “The man who hired me,” he said. “The man who gave me the explosive quarrels. He had a false right hand. His name was Bryce Maclang.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SEAT OF EMPIRE

  “His name was Bryce Maclang,” Diken Graye had said. And those words filled me with both elation and relief. My brother was alive! It seemed to me impossible that Graye could be lying outright, for he had mentioned a false right hand, and only I recalled the revolver that had blown up in Bryce’s grip just before we were sucked through the sphere gate to Talera. Even if someone had heard the name Bryce Maclang and urged Diken Graye to use it, that person could not have known of my brother’s hand without seeing him.

  No! Bryce had to be alive. And this was the first clue I’d had of him.

  Yet, mixed with my happiness was a darker emotion. If all that Graye had said was true, Bryce was working with those who had made themselves my enemies, and the enemies of people I cared about. There was no reason, of course, why my brother could not have joined a mercenary band. He would have been alone when he arrived on Talera—like myself—and on a planet such as this who could predict what companions one might be thrown among.

  And, I realized suddenly, my brother surely could not know that it was my adopted country his verdredi band was attacking. I just needed to find him and tell him. Then we’d be together again. Perhaps, my thoughts ran, Bryce had even located our cousin Eric. Might not I get them both back at the same time? Or others of my Earth crew?

  A faint voice in my head suggested that things wouldn’t be so simple, but the warning was easy to ignore as my mind turned toward a search. The first place to look was Trazull, on the Roshjavik Peninsula where Diken Graye had been hired. Bryce had done that hiring. With any luck he would be there still, recruiting others.

  Before Trazull, however, I had to see Rannon safely back to her father. This proved easy enough to accomplish. Where our airship had crashed, the Shauval River still ran deep and swift from its upland birth, but soon our borrowed firewood barge carried us down to the vast, cedar-fringed plain of Nyshphal, down to where the Shauval was joined by the blue-green Coulder and the muddy Vehr. And just past that point lifted the rose-colored buildings of Timmuzz, the capital of Nyshphal and the home of Rannon and her family. My home too.

  In childhood dreams of exotic cities, I had always pictured them with vastly tall towers and slim jade bridges running like sweet fairy magic between them. Timmuzz has no such towers, no such bridges. She has been built solidly by a practical people, erected on a simple plan with an eye toward both defense and function. And yet, she is lovely.

  Few structures in Timmuzz stand more than four stories high, but they are roofed in tiles, and slates, and shingles of many colors. Only government buildings are cut from rock—marble and quartz and massive gray granite. The houses of the citizens are walled with rose-colored stucco that gleams bright and clean in the light. Polished woods and metals add luster to doors and frames and shutters, and to the robust grillwork of balconies and porches. But there is nothing delicate about Timmuzz. She is a wealthy lady and has no need to embellish her charms with false perfumes.

  The people of Timmuzz are as pragmatic as their city, and as sturdy. The city is young, as the empire which she governs is young, and most of her citizens are only a generation removed from farmland roots. They have retained the sense of hard work and the openness in dealings that so often mark rural people. They tend to be courteous and friendly, though no civilization
is without its predators. I had dwelt in Timmuzz only a brief time but it felt comfortable to me. It was good to see the place again after having been gone for the past two months.

  “Makes you think of sunrise,” Rannon said, looking with me out over the shining expanse of her home.

  “Yes,” I agreed, then grinned at her. “And of a woman.”

  She smiled and took my arm as our firewood barge was warped against one of the massive quays that run like a monster spine along the city’s river-side. Rannon had been seen and crowds awaited us as we disembarked. It was much warmer here than in the highlands where I’d returned from Earth. There was no snow and laughing throngs escorted us through cobbled streets toward the palace.

  On all sides of us the city stood decorated for the Spring Passage, the ten day period when the blue-white sun of winter turns green for the spring. This “Passage” is only one of four such periods. At start of summer the sun bakes to gold, and in the fall its light shifts to a sullen red. In the cold, cold of winter, the sun grows an icy pale blue, such a color as was only just now starting to fade.

  The Spring Passage was already a day old and the people were in a festive mood. Perhaps most of them did not yet know of the air attacks that had been occurring along their borders, or perhaps they knew and were ready to release their tension at a carnival.

  My own spirit, my “khi” as the Talerans call it, was filled with another kind of tension. I ached to be away in search of my brother. But there were certain conventions to be observed. I well recalled the words Rannon and I had said to each other just before I left for Earth two months earlier.

  On that winter day we had walked alone in a glass-enclosed garden of her father’s vast palace. Heated fountains had drawn skeins of mist in the air. Miniature trees had bloomed with flowers that thrived in the artificial heat of this private spot. I had stopped her where a vine-covered path of polished stones gave way to an open space alive with butterflies.

  “I could never love another,” I told her.

  “Nor I,” she’d replied.

  We had spoken, then, of a wedding. And in the speaking I created for myself a position as consort to the Princess of Nyshphal. Neither the lady nor the position were to be taken lightly.