Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset (34 page)

“So why not take them down now?” said Vrei. “Why not just let them have it?”

“As we have already –!” Audim began hotly, but Eridanean hushed him with a raised hand.

“These vessels, here,” the chancellor continued patiently, pointing out the three silver battleships. As he did so, the image displayed in the water zoomed in close on them. “They are the heart of the Navy’s firepower. They also possess an unusual capacity for speed, and are heavily armored. Right now they are still close enough to Gresadia that they might possibly make it back before we could sink them. By tomorrow the distance will be too great, and even their massive engines will not be able to speed them from doom. You must understand that it is essential to our success that
no ship
return to Gresadia. They must all perish. If but one sailor were to make it back alive, then Divar would only have to wait for Gresadia to rebuild, and this age-old strife would continue into eternity.” Eridanean took a deep breath. “So… as you can see, we must wait in order to maximize the effectiveness of our efforts. Once all the ships deep enough in, they will be annihilated instantly.”

Owein was still staring into the pool.

“Does that satisfy you?” Audim growled.

Maeriod backed from the font, taking his time to answer. “Yep… sounds pretty solid. I’m sure nothing can go wrong.”

“So Gresadia’s entire fleet will be destroyed,” Levwit said absently. He tried to wrap his mind around the concept.

“And what remains will be left for the Tricorns and the Church to squabble over.” The voice was yet another new one to join the conversation. Jerahd entered the room, accompanied by Lerana.

“Do you realize,” Jerahd went on, “what will happen once the largest, most populous, and wealthiest nation in all Vuora has been cleanly shorn of its government and military in one fell swoop?”

“What Mankind chooses to do with what is left is of no concern to us,” said Eridanean. “All we desire – all we have ever desired – is to be left alone. That, at least, will be attained. Peace between humans and elves.”

“And what about the prophecy?” he said sternly.

“The prophecy?”

“
After the Great War
,” Jerahd quoted from memory, “
the mightiest nations of the world will be vanquished and broken to pieces
.”

“
In the chaos that follows
,” Levwit continued for him, “
the survivors shall flock back to the Church with renewed fervor. A new dawn of religious devotion shall spread across the world, and the Church will rise to its greatest height
.”

“What’s so bad about that?” asked Galif brusquely.

“Bad?” said Jerahd. “Nothing. Unless you’re interested in halting Armageddon – rather than furthering it along.” His eyes seared the chancellor.

“My thoughtful friend,” said Eridanean. “I can see you have a true heart, and that is an invaluable commodity in these times.”

Audim stepped between them.

“Since you’re so fond of scripture,” he said, “then perhaps you can recall the verse just before that one?”

Jerahd met his contention with an icy tranquility.

“
The ancestral home of the Called Upon shall be destroyed
,” the Disciple recited perfectly, “
expunged from the world by the Dark Sorcerer, and the sky shall turn to fire above the wastes there laid
.”

“So you can see,” Audim adjudged, “that the prophecy will be unfulfilled when the Inner City is left standing.”

“
If
it’s left standing…” Owein muttered.

Audim whirled around, enraged.

“Do you still doubt us,
Human?!
”

Owein straightened up.

“Doubt you? No, doubtless.”

“Are you quite sure?” Audim marched over to Owein, who noticed his full height was well beyond what would usually be necessary for intimidation. Owein had to look almost straight up to meet his eyes.

“Gentlemen, please!” Mentrat exhorted. “Please, control yourselves! There is already enough fighting in Divar. We certainly have no need for any more.” Audim stared daggers at Owein, and Mentrat crossed the room to Eridanean.

“Chancellor,” he said, “I beg you. Evacuate the city. Negotiate with the Empire. Only then will you be able to protect the lives of your people.”

Eridanean considered him earnestly.

“Mentrat,” he said patiently, “I understand your concern. But it is truly unwarranted. The Empire will not –”

“Then you sentence your nation to its death!” Mentrat snarled. “Trying to fight this armada is nothing short of suicide!” He whirled around. “Captain!” he called out.

“Aye,” Vrei answered.

And Mentrat froze. His mouth hung open strangely. He stared at Vrei as though she were a carnival oddity. “Captain…?” he said again dimly.

“Aye,” she said again. “Captain Vrei, of the airship
Gilderam
. At your service, Lord Ranaloc.” She gave a sarcastic curtsy. “Nice to finally meet you, by the way.”

Mentrat stared for a bit longer. Then went on, “Gather the crew and ready the ship for departure. We sail in one hour.” He headed for the door. “You may be prepared to die,” he said to Eridanean over his shoulder, “but I will not sacrifice my ship and my crew so vainly.”

“Belay that order, Captain,” Shazahd said.

Mentrat stopped in his tracks.

“What did you say…?” he said, slowly turning around. His eyebrows were pushed together by a combination of amazement and quickly rising anger.

“I said belay that order. No one’s going anywhere.”

“Are you giving orders to
my
crew?” he barked.

“
Our
crew, Father.”

Mentrat looked her up and down. Fury boiled inside him.

“How
dare
you!” he roared. “This is mutiny!”

“I hired every single member of this crew personally,” she said. “They take orders from me. I’ve been running this ship ever since she left the ground, while you’ve been hiding in your
mlec
little room!” Mentrat was too outraged to say anything. “The Inner City is my home. These people are
my
people. And I will
not
leave them when they need help the most. Half of my heart belongs in Divar, Father, and –” Shazahd choked on her words. Her eyes changed, softening, and they began to well with tears. “And… the other half belongs to you.”

Her words struck a chord within Mentrat. She could see it in his face. For a moment all they could do was stare at one another, but then Mentrat turned away. He shuffled in place, unsure of what to do with himself, and shook his head. He said something under his breath.

“What?” said Shazahd.

“You
betrayed
me!” he screamed. “Just like your
zatszved
mother!” And he fled the room. His words rang in the air behind him.

Shazahd would’ve gasped, but she was paralyzed. She was dumbfounded, and stared unblinkingly at the spot where her father had been. Her mind was numb with emotional trauma. Her body was so severely shocked that her heart forgot to beat, and just ached instead.

The room was left frozen solid in his wake. No one breathed. No one knew what to say – not even the elves, despite all their wisdom. After a long and uncomfortable few seconds, Shazahd turned and left the room. Audim followed her out.

Owein released a pained sigh. “I’ll be in the ship,” he said. “Let me know when the fireworks begin.”

No one else moved.

“Chancellor,” said Jerahd eventually. “Now more than any other time, we must search deep within ourselves to find strength. Let us remember this one thing: we cannot afford to fail. There is more at stake here than us, more than even the Inner City, or Divar itself. As long as we fight against the Empire, we fight for all Vuora. This war rages for our very salvation.”

“There!” Rodroth shouted, pointing. “I can see it! On the horizon!”

Captain Holth bolted to the front of the bridge.

“
Threithumé
…” he said under his breath. “The Inner City of the Elves.”

Dead ahead, poking into the hazy afternoon sky above the never-ending treescape, they could just make out the silhouette of the great city, still just a faraway blip of green.

“Ensign Lowol, get on that speaking tube,” the captain ordered the operator. “Tell the aft heliographer to report this to Marmod immediately.”

“Aye aye!”

Holth returned his attention to the fore.

“What do you reckon the distance is?”

“Best guess, maybe eighty
itthum
.”

He turned back to Lowol.

“Got that?”

“Bearing eighty
itthum
ahead, aye aye.”

The
CH Mogcor
now led the charge across the leafy ocean of Divar. Ships were rotated out of the front when they ran out of incendiary bombs, and fresh ones were sent in to replace them. They kept the whole fleet moving behind a single line of demolition ships.

They rained explosive hell upon Divar, cutting a neat path of smoldering wreckage directly southward through the nation. They had to keep it wide, too, lest the elves be given too much operable forest to work in, from which they could then send more of their inexorable bolts skyward. Even with such precaution, the armada was still losing a ship every few minutes, and would scarcely be a fourth its original size by the time it reached the Inner City.

Numbers were not a great concern, however, since the majority of their firepower lay still unused aboard the three battleships and the flagship,
Vacthor
– any one of which could easily lay waste to the indefensible tree city singlehandedly. Those vessels remained carefully hidden behind the action of the front line, coasting safely over a charred path of burning forest. They waited for the true battle to begin. This grinding plow across the elvish countryside was just a prelude.

A series of tiny flashes from the rear of the
Mogcor
was interpreted by the semaphore flagmen on the decks of every ship immediately behind it, including Admiral Marmod’s battleship, the
Atrac Ainené
. The flagmen translated the flashes into flag signals that were read by the bridge. Marmod ordered the message passed along backwards, until soon the entire fleet had received word: the elvish capital had been sighted.

“Owein! Come look!” Fulo called out.

The commander ran around
Gilderam’s
main deck to meet him by the aft gun.

“There.” Fulo directed Owein’s eyes northward through one of the many breaks in the great tree’s leaf coverage. Owein cursed to himself as he focused on the splotch of inky-black smoke hovering over the forest in the distance.

Even from far away, they could discern the massive forest fire. The putrid, unnatural smear of destruction leaked into the blue sky, thickening and combining with clouds of exhaust fumes from the armada.

“
Jatha
…” said Fulo. “It’s like…. Well, it’s like a storm, isn’t it? A terrible storm of steel and flame… coming straight for us.”

Owein looked at Fulo without comment. A second later, they heard indistinct shouting from behind them, coming from deeper in the city. That was followed by the blast of a low, rumbling horn. At its end the tone arced slowly upward, and another horn joined in, from farther away. Then another, and another, until a booming chorus of horns together shook the entire tree from branch to root.

The horns died away, and their sound was replaced by a tumultuous scurrying from all around. Owein and Fulo watched the Inner City ignite with frenzy. Elves scrambled around the catwalks and bridges to prepare for war.

“Well,” said Owein. “I guess this is it. Let’s hope our elvish friends know what they’re doing.”

Shazahd accompanied her fiancé to the lattice-domed room. She waited near the door while he approached the elders. Chancellor Eridanean was bent over the Seer’s Font, surrounded by his top officials.

“Your Excellency,” said Audim. “The armada is within visual range of the city.”

“Yes,” Eridanean responded, his back still to him. “Summon your elves to their posts.”

“It is done.”

“Good.” The chancellor turned to an elf at his side. “Marshal,” he said. “…Let the attack commence. It is time to end this foolish conflict once and for all.”

“Captain, our incendiary reserves are nearly depleted.”

Holth turned to Lowol. The operator still held the speaking tube in his hand.

“Tell the bombardier not to save any. Drop them all. Then report this abaft: Request rotation out of the frontline.”

“Aye aye.”

“Slow us down,” he said to Helmsmen Rodroth and Emdun. “Prepare to fall back.” They adjusted the engine order dial. The bell rang in reply.

They waited for the thrust of the engines to gradually disappear, listening meanwhile to the thudding explosions underneath them. They were steady and powerful blasts, each one sending a shock wave into the air and through the ships floating above.

“
Atrac Ainené
has granted our request,” Lowol said. “We’re to fall back two-hundred and ten degrees, sir.”

“Aye,” said Holth. “Decrease speed to two-thirds, bearing: two-hundred ten degrees.”

“Aye aye,” said the helmsmen.

“
Gweith!
” someone shouted. Before anyone could think, the
Mogcor
heaved sharply starboard. The jerk was accompanied by an unearthly, metallic screaming – a terrible wrenching sound.

One of the elvish bolts, roughly the size of a whale, tore through the port edge of the foredeck and sailed up over the ship. The entire bridge crew stared with stupefied fascination as the humongous weapon, trailing fragments of their ship, continued past them into the sky.

“
Cizeeth!
”

“That nearly took us down!”

“Communications!” yelled Holth, scrambling to the front window. “Get us a damage report!”

The captain looked down at the wreckage: a vicious gash in the side of his destroyer.

“
Aiango vlith
…” he muttered under his breath. Then to his pilot he ordered, “Get us out of the line!
Vroth!
”

“Sir!” Lowol cried. “The forest is erupting with missiles!” The whole bridge crew could hear the muffled voice screaming at him from the speaking tube. “There’s hundreds of them – thousands! We’re –!”

But then, unexplainably, none of them could hear anymore. Not a sound. Lowol was still shouting his report, but no one could make out a word of it.

Have I gone deaf?
Holth asked himself. The faces of his men told him they were asking themselves the same question.

Next to go was sight. The bridge was overcome by a blinding whiteness that instantly blotted out all remaining sensory information.

Holth felt temporarily outside his own body. He would’ve screamed, but he was no longer in control of himself. Why did he want to scream in the first place? He had already forgotten.

He was weightless – floating, like his ship. Only he wasn’t in the sky over Divar anymore, he was…
could it be?
Holth couldn’t shake the strange feeling that he was… well, nowhere.

Nowhere at all.

Was this the afterlife?

Holth blinked his eyes and he was back on his bridge. He was half lying on the ground, half clutching his captain’s chair.

“What was that?” he heard someone ask.

Holth stood up. His crew was exactly as he remembered them just after that bolt had hit… but what had happened?

“Everyone…. Is everyone all right?” he asked.

“Yeah… I think so,” was the consensus.

“Where’s that damage report, Communications?”

“Uh… it’s… it’s coming in now, sir.” Lowol found the proper speaking tube and listened to the squeaky voice coming out of it. “The port bow has taken superficial damage – hull is still intact.”

“What about those missiles? The hundreds?”

“Aye, Captain. Hold on….”

Holth looked out the window just in time to see the last of several hundred elvish bolts fall back into the trees. Or were there thousands? It was too late to tell for sure – they were already gone.

“What the…?” he said to himself.

“Sir, there’s… there’s apparently… no further damage to the ship, sir.”

Holth wheeled around.

“What did you say?”

Lowol gulped, unable to believe it himself.

“No further damage, sir. We’ve… we’ve not been hit.”

Holth stared incredulously at the communications officer for a second before returning his attention out the window again.

“Do you mean that a hundred missiles just…
missed?
” Emdun asked.

“What’s the status of the rest of the fleet?”

“No ships have been lost, sir,” came the response. “Not in that attack, anyway.”

“Unbelievable…” said Holth. “They don’t miss a single shot in twenty-four hours …and now they miss a hundred at once?”

“I don’t like it, sir,” said the first mate. “Something’s not right.”

“Yeah,” said Holth. “You’re telling me.”

“Did you see that?! The armada!” Cavada was calling down from the upper deck. “Did you
see
that?!”

“Yeah,” Owein shouted back. “We saw it!”

“But… but…” Fulo stammered. “But what the
gweith
was that?”

“I have no idea.”

“The light!” the Cavada continued. “Where did that light come from?”

“You know what it looked like to me,” said a cool voice from behind Owein and Fulo. It was Levwit Balkenthron, sauntering towards them with his hands in his pockets. He waited for them to ask, but they didn’t.

“You may not like my opinion, Owein, but that looked a lot like…
magic
.”

“You’re right about one thing.”

“Well, just think about it,” he said, joining them at the taffrail. “There was no explosion, was there? Just a flash. A ball of light?”

When he looked out again at the approaching fleet, Owein and Fulo looked with him. It was true, there was certainly something very unnatural about what they had witnessed.

“If that was magic,” said Owein, “then what did it do?”

“How many ships did you see go down after that volley?”

Owein stared hard at Levwit for a moment before returning his attention to the armada. He knew the answer, but didn’t want to say it.

“I have a feeling,” said Levwit, “that the elves might be in a bit more trouble than they bargained for.”

“
By the Quill and Scroll
,” Audim cursed in Elvish. He stared fixedly into the Seer’s Font beside the chancellor and his cohorts. “
It couldn’t be
….”

“What? What is it?” Shazahd took Audim’s hand and searched his eyes for an answer.

“
That was unmistakably sorcery. But where did it come from?
”

“
There
,” a finger pointed to the flagship. “
The Empress’ ship. That’s where it originated
.”

“
Are you sure?
”

“
The vestige is still fresh. I can feel it crackling
.”

“
Did we know she had a wizard in her employ?
”

“
I thought we knew she didn’t
.”

“
Gentlemen, please
,” said Eridanean. “
That is now inconsequential. The scale of this battle has just been tipped. Order another volley – immediately. We need to test this enchantment so that we might learn how to undo it
.”

“
Preparing to fire now, Your Excellency
….”

The elves watched the basin as another nine hundred bolts shredded the forest canopy, flying upward through the air. Every one of them found a skyship, and every one of them crumpled upon impact, as though the darkwood hulls were made of some impenetrable, immovable stone. The colossal darts crushed and splintered against their targets, unable to crack their magical armor, and rained uselessly back into the forest. They hadn’t even left a dent, nor budged one of the floating craft a single
plir
.