Bloodfire Quest (22 page)

What she found was that she wasn’t at all sure about the fit.

Stoon stood watch on the forward deck of the Federation warship, growing increasingly worried as he stared out at the mist breaking up beyond their cliffside hiding place.

Once it had become clear they had lost the Elven ship in the storm, he had ordered the captain to turn their own vessel south and make for calmer air and better weather. He had considered for perhaps ten seconds turning back and searching for their quarry, but then quickly abandoned the idea as foolish. They would never find anyone in the morass of wind-driven rain and fog assailing them. Better to give it up until the weather improved.

So he had taken a calculated risk. The Elven ship had left Arborlon by way of the Valley of Rhenn and turned south. It was a better-than-even bet that their destination lay in that direction, probably much farther away than closer. Given the supplies they had stocked aboard and the size of the airship, he could assume they were anticipating at least several days’ travel there and several more back. He could also assume they would resume their previous course on their way down, and if he didn’t get too far south himself, they would cross paths again.

By morning, his ship had escaped the storm and gotten down into the stretch of Westland forest known as Drey Wood. Here, still north of the Matted Brakes and the Pykon, they had found another hiding place for their ship, this time edging far enough back into the trees that there was almost no chance they could be seen. Once in place, Stoon had dispatched a pair of flits with orders to place themselves at strategic points where they would have a clear view of the plains and any airships passing south. With the storm dissipated and the mist breaking up, they should have no trouble finding the one they were searching for. Once they did, they were to slip away and arrive back at the warship quickly enough for her crew to mobilize and intercept their quarry.

This was twice now he had tried this approach, and at the start of things he’d had reason to think that this time he might be more successful. But now it was well past midafternoon and there was still no sign of the Elven vessel. More than once he had thought to abandon his hiding place and go out in search of it himself. But he had managed to tamp down the urge, knowing that a mistake at this point would likely put an end to any chance he had of managing to intercept it.

Still, he had to admit to himself that he was no longer particularly interested in tracking the Elves. It was conceivable he still might be able to follow the Elven girl, as Edinja wanted. But realistically he thought this was now impossible. The warship had been seen, so the Elven girl and her companions not only knew they were being pursued but that it was a Federation vessel pursuing them. Better, he thought, just to bring the Elven ship down and put a quick end to her passengers and crew, as he had decided to do earlier. This chase needed to be over and done with.

He scuffed his boot on the decking, conflicted. Increasingly, Edinja was using him in ways that were troublesome. He was an assassin, and he preferred to work alone when he hunted. Instead, he was saddled with those animals down in the hold and with a captain and crew who were reluctant and in need of watching. For the first time since he had terminated his partnership with Drust Chazhul, he found himself missing the man. Even though he had overreached his grasp at the end, Drust had always known how Stoon could best serve him. Edinja seemed to think there were no limits, possibly because she saw no limits in herself. Drust had lacked Edinja’s power and prestige in the Federation hierarchy and he had never possessed her cunning, but he had been predictable. Stoon had always known what to expect from him.

He exhaled sharply, frustrated. Shouldn’t the Elven vessel have reached them by now if it was coming this way? He wondered again at its purpose. All these Druid expeditions—what were they attempting to accomplish? Edinja was convinced that it was important for her to know, but what did she care why the Druids had mounted their expedition into the Westland? How reliable was the intelligence they had been given by the spy she had placed in the Elven camp? The information had been sketchy at best. That was true of this latest expedition, as well. No reason had been given for why the Elven girl was leading it or why she had taken her sister with her. No suggestion had been offered as to what it had to do with the still unresolved expedition taken by the remainder of the Druid order.

Too many unknowns.

Gaining possession of the Elfstones was the only thing that mattered, and Edinja didn’t need the Elessedil sisters alive to accomplish that. Taking them prisoner felt like a waste of time. Edinja was a magic user; surely she could find a way to unlock the Stones’ fabled power.

His brow furrowed and a dark look settled over his face. He didn’t like how things were going. He didn’t like it that he was being dragged this way and that by the reports the spy was giving and as a consequence was much less the master of his own destiny.

Maybe it was time to change all that.

As if in response to that thought, a flit appeared, winging toward the warship.

“The mist is breaking up,” Arling murmured, still standing next to Aphen in the pilot box.

“No more cover while we’re in the air,” Aphen agreed.

As planned, they had eased their way south along the border of the Westland, hiding in the brume as they found their way to the beginning of Drey Wood. Now they were midway down its eastern edge, heading for the Matted Brakes, and there had been no sign of the Federation warship.

Cymrian was already making his way back to them in his easy, loping stride, his hair whipped by a fresh breeze that had started up out of the south.

“You should give him a chance,” Arling said.

Aphen did not reply, letting the comment hang unanswered. She kept trying to picture him as someone in love with her, but couldn’t quite manage it. All she could see was the wry, taciturn protector who had first come to her in Arborlon to apply for the job all those weeks ago.

“Let me take the wheel for a while,” he said, climbing into the box. “Fresh eyes are needed. Mine are worn out.”

Without a word, she stepped away and went down onto the main deck, heading for the bow. Around her, the three Elven crewmembers worked the rigging, attaching and detaching radian draws, bringing up fresh sails, reconfiguring light sheaths to catch more of the sun’s rays as the mist dissipated in the growing brightness.

I don’t want him to be in love with me,
Aphen thought.

She caught a flash of something dark off the starboard bow as a shadow emerged from Drey Wood in ominous silence, sliding out of the trees like a predator. A warship, her light sheaths unfurled and billowing out, hers railguns and fire launchers pulled forward and ready for use, and her ramming bow extended and locked, was coming directly toward them.

“Cymrian!” she screamed in warning.

She was an instant too late. A single burst from the forward starboard railgun tore away a portion of the mainmast rigging, splintering spars and shredding portions of the light sheaths. One of the crewmen was caught directly in the blast and disappeared over the side.

Cymrian reacted swiftly, drawing back on the thrusters and taking
Wend-A-Way
skyward at such a steep angle that Aphen lost her footing and slid all the way to the stern railing before she caught herself. The remaining Elven crewmen hung on as the masts and rigging swayed and shook with the force and suddenness of the lift. Aphen heard other railguns release and felt the impact as dozens of metal projectiles slammed into
Wend-A-Way
’s hull in staccato bursts, splintering timbers and planks, embedding themselves in the wood.

But Cymrian had made the right choice by lifting away rather than diving and so prevented further damage to the sails and rigging. The warship angled upward in response to his maneuver, sweeping hard to port to bring the rest of her railguns and the bulk of her fire launchers into play. Cymrian had anticipated this, however, and executed a controlled fall that took
Wend-A-Way
down and out of range in a quick sweep to the south, increasing speed as she went, leaving the warship with weapons trained on empty blue sky.

Even so,
Wend-A-Way
had suffered sufficient damage to her primary light sheaths that gathering fresh power would require changing them out, and that was time the Elves could not afford to take. So they flattened out parallel to the grasslands and drew as much power as the diapson crystals could expend in an effort to outdistance their pursuer. Aphen regained her feet and stumbled back to the pilot box to rejoin Cymrian and Arling, and the crewmen positioned themselves where they could manipulate the rigging and sails.

Aphen glanced over her shoulder and saw that the warship was already coming after them, huge against the backdrop of the northern horizon.

“We don’t have weapons enough to stop her,” Cymrian shouted when he saw where she was looking. “Can you use the Elfstones or your magic to help?”

She made a quick measurement of the distance. “I can try.”

She leapt out of the pilot box and rushed to the stern railing, having already decided what she would do. She didn’t want to risk using the Elfstones in this situation. Her footing and balance on the airship were too uncertain, and if she dropped even one of the Stones, the search for the Bloodfire was effectively over. She would use her Druid magic instead. She lacked the strength of a practitioner such as Bombax or even Seersha; her practical usage was of a more nuanced variety. She would deter rather than try to disable their pursuer. Cutting radian draws and shredding light sheaths might help, but a Federation warship of that size carried too much sail and rigging to be effectively stalled out unless Aphen let her get right on top of them before striking—and then Aphen would probably only get one chance. At best, it would be extraordinarily risky to try. Better to keep their enemy at arm’s length and not limit herself to a single chance.

Steady.

She dropped to one knee against the heavy railing and braced herself. With her arms stretched out toward the warship, she began to use words of power and accompanying gestures, feeling the magic surge through her as she created wind out of still air to either slow or turn aside their pursuit. She felt the force of her magic release and could actually see the turbulence it caused. The Federation airship’s sails collapsed on themselves and the vessel bucked against the force of her attack. But then the airship came on again. However many diapson crystals she was using to power her engines, it was more than sufficient to overcome Aphen’s magic.

Aphen watched the warship draw closer.

Don’t panic.

Then she dispatched a swarm of hornets into the faces of the men aboard the airship, and for a moment everything turned to chaos. Everyone aboard ran screaming and shouting, swinging their arms to fend off the stinging insects, all of them abandoning their posts to find shelter. But she could not sustain the attack, and not enough damage was done to cause the pursuit to fall off.

Think!

Efforts at setting fire to the vessel’s sails and decking fell apart as the crew quickly extinguished the flames. An attempt to damage the controls failed, as well. Too much shielding warded them, and the distance was too great for her to make a precision strike.

By now the airship was much closer, her black hull looming over the smaller ship, her ramming bow pointed directly toward Aphen.

“Aphen!” Cymrian shouted, desperation surfacing in his voice.

On the mainmast, the
Wend-A-Way
’s crew was engaged in changing out the light sheaths, working frantically to set their rigging and attach radian draws that would siphon off fresh power for the diapson crystals. But it was all going to be too late. The warship would be on them before the effort could be completed.

“Aphen, get out of there!” Cymrian screamed.

But she held her ground stubbornly. If she were to be given only one chance, she would take it, no matter the risk. She watched the warship draw close enough that she could make out the individual planking nails, the knots on the cleats, the openings in the parse tubes, and, most terrifying of all, the muzzles of the fire launchers swinging down to take aim.

Swiftly she summoned and gathered together the magic she needed, staying calm as she watched the warship draw even with them.

Then, at what she believed to be the last moment, she released all of it in a thunderbolt of power. It exploded out of her in a fiery burst that struck the Federation warship’s mainmast and broke it in two. Down came the top three-quarters, dragging with it all of the light sheaths and rigging, whereupon everything burst into flames.

But an instant later the fire launchers aboard the Federation ship fired a broadside barrage that raked
Wend-A-Way
’s decks from bow to stern. Planking and railing splintered and burst apart. The charge that struck closest to Aphen razored off a section of railing and balustrades that slammed into her head, flinging her backward. Explosions rocked the Elven vessel, and fires broke out all across the decking.

Aphenglow remained conscious just long enough to realize that the entire length of the Elven ship had been swept clean, everyone had disappeared in a mix of fire and smoke and ash, and that the ship was going into a steep, precipitous dive. Then everything went black.

Redden Ohmsford woke from a restless sleep and immediately wondered whether this was the day he would finally be killed. He lay on his bed of straw in his darkened cell, the stone block walls damp with moisture and the air chill and stale. There were no windows and only a single heavy door. A tiny horizontal slit cut into the door’s thick wood admitted a glimmer of light from pitch-coated torches burning in the hallway, and a hint of fresh air that wafted down into the depths into which he had been cast.

Here, any semblance of normal life had been extinguished. No sounds, no movements, no anything. Hallways like the one without, doors similar to his, and a pervasive suffocating silence that shrouded everything. He knew this much only because of what he had seen while being brought here by his jailers. How long ago had it been now? Days? Weeks? He had no way of telling. This deep underground, time stopped entirely. He ate and drank his prisoner’s meals, he slept on the straw in his squalid accommodations, he sat in the darkness and fought to keep his fears and doubts in check, and he waited for the inevitable.

At some point in time, they were going to kill him. They were going to come for him and they were going to drag him out. And no matter how hard he pleaded with them, they were going to kill him.

They would kill the Ard Rhys, as well, if they hadn’t already done so. He had no way of knowing at this point if she were alive or dead. He hadn’t seen her since they had brought the two of them to this fortress, to this massive sprawling complex of walls and towers and battlements built of black stone rimmed in iron and situated on a bluff that rose a thousand feet above the lands beneath it. Here inside the Forbidding, this keep was the home of the Straken Lord, and the seat of the supreme power that dominated this monstrous world.

The journey to reach their imprisonment had been nightmarish. They had been hauled in wagons fitted with cages. Khyber Elessedil was sprawled on the wooden floor across from him, both of them bound and gagged and chained to the bars so they could not reach each other or even speak, Pleysia’s head spiked on a pole just outside, where they could watch it bounce and sway as the wagon rolled on across miles of desolate country. Huge beasts that vaguely resembled oxen hauled the wagons, while whip-wielding drivers that looked like huge toads sat stone-still atop wooden seats, their eyes directed straight ahead. Wolves prowled the perimeter—huge shaggy beasts, eyes burning with hunger. They growled and snarled and snapped at one another and everything around them. Now and again, they lunged at the cages as if intending to tear them open and devour the prisoners inside.

And the creatures that served the Straken Lord as soldiers and handlers and minions stalked without. They were Goblins for the most part, but other things, too—things that had no recognizable names or origin or even purpose, hunching and shuffling and slogging to keep pace with the wagons.

Dust and grit clogged the air, stirred up from the dry, dead earth in which almost nothing grew. A deep haze hung over everything, mingling with grayness that never changed in this world reduced to perpetual twilight. The sky was masked by clouds that hung low against the earth from horizon to horizon; the landscape was bleak and colorless, the smell of it fetid and the taste rank and bitter.

Miles of this desolation passed, and time slowed to a crawl as Redden stared across the cage at Khyber Elessedil and she stared back at him.

Until they came in sight of the horror that was their destination, a fortress that was black and massive and terrifying, and the boy knew instinctively that this was a place from which no one ever returned. Up the winding road they went to the summit of the bluff, and then huge iron gates and craggy walls swallowed them up. They were hauled from their cages while their captors and their animals howled and huffed and snorted and growled and breathed on them from so close at hand, they could feel their heat and smell their odors.

Dragged into the bowels of the formidable keep, away from the last real light and air he or the Ard Rhys would probably ever see again, they were brought into a windowless room and chained to a wall, side by side, their arms and legs spread, their torsos pinned in place, fastened so that they could barely move and still could not speak. Redden remembered the hard cold feel of the stone pressing up against his back as he sagged against it, exhausted and deeply ashamed of what had become of him. He remembered his fear as he waited to discover his fate, far away from his home and his brother, deep in a savage land he barely understood. He remembered the companions and friends who had stumbled unwittingly into the Forbidding with him, all either dead or lost now. Gone.

He remembered exchanging a single look with the Ard Rhys, a look that said more than any words could hope to express.

The Straken Lord had entered the room then, his minions bowing or dropping to their knees instantly, acknowledging his power and position without hesitation or restraint. Tael Riverine was big and powerfully built, standing close to seven feet, his body studded with spikes and rippling with muscle. He wore leather garments that barely covered him, all of them draped with colorful feathers and ribbons, and there were blades strapped everywhere. His nearly featureless face was expressionless and his blue eyes hard and bright with purpose.

He gave Redden a brief glance and then turned to gaze for a longer time on Khyber. “You are not her,” he said finally.

She stared at him, not comprehending.

“You are not the Straken Queen!” he roared with such fury that everyone cringed away from him. “Tarwick!”

A lean feral creature that looked as if a strong wind might blow it away bounded from the crowd of onlookers and dropped to the floor in front of his lord. “Master?”

“Fit them with the collars.”

The creature scrambled up, produced a pair of metal collars, and locked them in place about the prisoners’ necks. Then it released Redden and Khyber from the wall, unshackling them from their chains, freeing their arms and legs, and letting them drop to their knees.

“You wear conjure collars,” the Straken Lord told them. “While you wear them, you must obey me. They will teach you to do so. Disobedience or disrespect will result in punishment.” Khyber Elessedil started to rise. “No, stay where you are. On your knees. Bow to me.”

What followed was the lesson he had intended to teach them all along—a lesson that was to establish his dominance and their servitude. When Khyber continued to rise, the Lord of the Jarka Ruus gestured casually and she jerked upright with a scream, consumed by a terrible pain. As she collapsed and Redden tried to catch her, he was treated to a similar demonstration. The pain was excruciating, radiating out from the collar all through his body, and he dropped to the floor and lay writhing in shock for long seconds.

“This is how it will be if you fail to do as I wish,” Tael Riverine advised. “If you fail to call me Master. If you speak out of turn and without being asked. If you attempt to remove the collar for any reason. If you try to use your magic.”

He saw the stunned looks on their faces. “Yes, I know of the magic you wield. You have been watched and your powers noted. You are no mystery to me. You are only slaves. You are mine to do with as I choose. Do you understand? Answer me.”

Both had murmured, ‘Yes, Master,’ and their servitude had begun in earnest.

It was the beginning of their imprisonment. Since that day they had been confined to separate cells, always kept apart and solitary. They lived within their tiny dark spaces and awaited their Lord’s pleasure. Their magic, which should have served them well, was useless. Redden had tested his early, and the resultant pain had persuaded him not to try again. He had fiddled once with loosening the conjure collar and suffered a similar fate. He assumed it was the same for Khyber. He had examined his cell from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, searching for a way to escape. There was none. He had considered trying to overpower his jailers, but they almost never appeared when he was awake and then only in force.

He wondered anew what had become of Khyber. In that first meeting, Tael Riverine had demanded to know what had become of the Straken Queen, how Khyber dared to call herself Ard Rhys, how she had found her way into the Forbidding, who else knew there was an entry, and so on. Dozens of similar questions were thrown at her, one after the other. When she had failed to answer him fully enough, fast enough, or respectfully enough, he had used the lash of the conjure collar on her until finally she collapsed unconscious at his feet.

He had not bothered with Redden. In truth, the boy was not even sure why he was still alive.

By now, he had come to believe it didn’t matter. His life was over in any event. No one was coming for him. No one knew how to reach him. Not even Railing and Mirai—though he believed they would try—could save him from this.

He looked down at himself. He had not washed since he had been brought here. He had not shaved or cut his hair. He wore the same clothes in which he had been captured. He smelled and he itched from things he did not want to think about. He was miserable all the time, and what small hope he had harbored at the beginning of his misery had long since faded away.

Now and then, he found himself thinking about the reason he had come here in the first place—to search for the missing Elfstones. How far away that seemed. How unimportant. He thought of it as a monumental miscalculation, an effort that never should have been attempted, a foolish and reckless undertaking that had killed more than half their company and left them with nothing to show for their loss.

If he had it to do over again …

But he didn’t have it to do over, so there was no point in dwelling on it. Each time the subject surfaced he quickly let it slip away.

He did, however, wonder frequently about Tesla Dart. What role had she played in the fate of the expedition? Had she arranged their capture or had she tried to warn them away from it? He was uncertain even now. Tesla had appeared and vanished again too often for him to know what to think. It might have been her intention to help them, but she might just as easily have been leading them into a trap.

He had no way of knowing this, just as he had no way of knowing much of anything else, and trying to come to terms with his uncertainty was the worst part of his suffering.

Then, all of a sudden and for no discernible reason, his jailers came for him, accompanied by the creature called Tarwick, and brought him to a room where a tub of hot water waited and allowed him to bathe. Afterward, they cut his hair and gave him clean clothes and hot food. They took him to a different room—still a cell, but with a barred window that allowed in light and fresh air and let him look out over a ragged, rolling landscape as riven and desolate as everything else.

The only favor they did not do for him was to remove the conjure collar, but he had no illusions about that happening. They might be treating him better—relieving a fair amount of his discomfort—but they had no intention of giving him a chance to escape. To emphasize the point, they continued to lock the door to his cell day and night.

This new, improved treatment continued for the better part of a week, and he felt his strength and self-confidence returning. He wondered if similar consideration had been extended to Khyber Elessedil, but he never saw her and no one spoke about her. Once, right at the beginning of his change of circumstances, he tried asking Tarwick what had become of her. But the Straken Lord’s servant quickly put a finger to his lips and lightly touched the collar about Redden’s neck.

There was no mistaking his meaning.

Then one day Redden was taken from his cell and marched up into one of the towers of Kraal Reach, a climb of hundreds of steps around a winding staircase that bypassed floor after floor of closed doors and ended at the tower’s pinnacle. Once there, he was brought into a tiny room off the entryway and left alone to wait.

Long minutes later the door opened, and in walked Khyber Elessedil, flanked by another pair of jailers.

He started to get to his feet, but she made a small hand movement that told him to stay where he was. They remained facing each other until the door closed behind them, then she came over to him and hugged him warmly.

“We don’t want them to know more than necessary about us,” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

Looking at her, he wondered if he was. If he looked anything like she did, she was right to be concerned. Her face was haggard and drawn, her graying hair hanging loose, and her body thin enough that the clothes she wore hung on her as if she were a scarecrow. She was washed and freshly clothed, and he assumed she had been given the same treatment he had. But there was a dullness to her eyes that reminded him at once of his own sense of hopelessness.