Of Bone and Thunder (47 page)

“Better you than me,” Breeze said.

“Hear any more about that thaum?” Vorly asked, changing the subject.

There was a long pause before Breeze responded. “He's still blind.”

Vorly didn't doubt it. It was a wonder the boy had lived at all. “They think he'll see again?”

“They don't know. He went deep, on two planes. Thaums don't usually come back from that.”

“Awarded him the Medal of Courageous Thaumics. Highest medal in your service. That's something,” Vorly said, wondering now why he'd brought the subject up.

“He'd rather have his sight,” Breeze said.

It wasn't a rebuke, but Vorly felt the sting all the same. She was right. They could keep all their damn medals. He wanted out of this war with all his parts still attached and working.

“Poor bastard. He deserves better.”

“He says he saw a flash of light this morning. He's not sure now, but if he did, it might be coming back.”

Vorly felt a little better, then realized what was wrong with that statement.

“We launched predawn, Breeze. How could you know what he saw this morning?”

There was another long pause. Vorly turned around in his saddle to look at Breeze.

“We communicate on plane,” she said, looking up to meet Vorly's gaze.

Vorly tilted his head. “On plane? But didn't they send him to that
invalid island, Swassi?” Vorly shuddered. He'd only landed on the island once, and that was more than enough. He'd picked up the smell of the crematorium while still ten miles out. Spooked Carduus, too. “That's nearly eight hundred miles from here.”

Breeze looked back down. “Yes, but Jawn has become adept at extending the range of the crystal. He flies the aether the way Carduus flies the air. It's . . . it's amazing.” She looked back up, her eyes misty.

“He almost died. You could have died, too. How in—”

“It's as safe as anything else we do,” Breeze said, her eyes hardening. “I am safer on plane with him than I am up here with . . . I mean, it's safe.”

Vorly turned back to face forward.
Fuck her.

“Commander, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I just meant—”

“Forget it,” Vorly said, staring straight ahead. “What we do ain't no walk in the meadow.”

The smooth, even beating of Carduus's wings was the only sound for the next ten miles. Vorly wanted to work up a rage, but it wasn't in him. Breeze was right; what they did was dangerous. Incredibly so. So why did it bother him so much about the thaum?

“We're a team up here, but on the ground I guess I need to get used to the idea of sharing you,” Vorly said, cringing as the words came out.

“It's only ever the three of us up here,” Breeze said.

Vorly smiled, then quickly frowned lest Breeze hear his joy in his voice.

“Sooooo, what's this I hear about you and Rimsma?” Vorly asked.

“None of your concern,” she said, the gentleness in her voice turning to ice.

“Now, now,” Vorly clucked, “it's my job to know what my flock is up to. That includes you, too, Breeze.”

“So what, you want to know if he's fucking me?”

Vorly swallowed a bug and started coughing. “What? Bloody hell, woman, were you raised by wolves? No! I mean, I just, well . . .”

“He's a gentleman,” Breeze said, her voice softening. “And you're easy to rattle.”

Vorly looked in the mirror. Breeze was staring at him, a huge smile on her face.

“You little—”

Breeze held up her left hand. “Line coming in.” She lowered her hand and began tracing on the High Plane crystal sheet while her right hand held station on the Low Plane sheet. Vorly had strenuously resisted having a second crystal added to his position and to his amazement he'd been successful, though he doubted it would last.

“It's a White Three,” Breeze said.

Vorly looked skyward. Anything white was command. A triple line meant the communication on plane was being masked to avoid detection by slyt thaums. It took a significant thaumic process to run a three line. They only did it when something was serious.

“Let me know when,” Vorly said, running his right hand along the braided copper up to the crystal sheet.

“You are good to plane,” Breeze said.

Vorly moved his fingertips onto the crystal sheet. He shuddered. The energy on plane was growing colder week by week. Breeze said it had something to do with the increasing number of thaums and a lot of other stuff that got caught in Vorly's earwax and never made it to his brain.

“I'm on plane,” Vorly said, watching his sheet. The three line appeared a moment later, seeming to rise up from the depths. Vorly suppressed another shudder and duly circled the three line before touching it in order to access the message.

“Vorly, it's Walf
,” the disembodied voice of Legion Flock Commander Walf Modelar said.

Fuck, he's using our first names. This can't be good
.

“Plans have changed. Obsidian Flock is staying at Frontier Castle Iron Fist until relieved. I know your flock was due some downtime, but there's nothing for it. I need you there. Report when you land. Clear.”

Vorly stared at the crystal sheet. “That son of a bitch. He waited until I was in the air to tell me,” Vorly said.

“You're still on plane,” Breeze reminded him.

Vorly cursed under his breath and slid off plane. He'd promised Master Witch Matilda he'd take her to a fair in Gremthyn when he got back.

“When will you tell them?” Breeze asked.

Vorly pushed the speaking tube away before opening his mouth and
screaming every obscenity he knew into the sky. Carduus lifted his head and cast an eye back at Vorly.

Vorly cursed Carduus, Modelar, the Lux, the war, and life in general until his voice gave out.

“I think that will do fine,” Breeze said.

“WELCOME TO THE VALLEY
of Bawnnd Ondor,” Flock Commander Astol said. He blew on his bamboo whistle and Carduus dipped his head momentarily. Carduus drove his wings hard on the downstroke, creating a rumbling whoosh. The invisible weight of rapid climbing pushed down on Carny, but he kept on polishing his crossbow. He only worried now when his ass started floating away.

“What did he say?” Wiz asked.

Carny shook his head. Wiz had taken to Flower faster than Carny did. The man smiled like he was being paid in silver. His memory was shit, but he could stitch a cut and whip up a potion with his eyes closed, so Carny said nothing.

“Sounded like ‘Valley of Bone and Thunder,' ” Knockers said.

Carny opened his mouth to correct him but thought better of it. Valley of Bone and Thunder . . . beat the hell out of the slyt name, which probably meant Valley of Runny Shit and Stomach Cramps anyway.

Carny wiped his chin with the back of his hand and finished polishing his crossbow before tucking the cloth into a pocket. When he looked up, Miska was bouncing her big tits in excitement as they flew into the valley. Most of the men on board were looking at her instead of the land below. Carny was onto her—at least, he thought he was. She considered them just a bunch of dumb peasants from villages so backward they thought ice was dead water.

Well, she could think what she wanted. Sure, less than half of them could write more than their name and they looked like beggars and thieves, but they still had pride. Most important, they had each other. Carny sat up and nodded to himself. It was a hell of a revelation to realize that the most important people in the world to him were sitting on the back of this rag.
He trusted them, and they trusted him. Ahmy . . . he wasn't so sure about. It was hard to trust a man who believed in worlds you couldn't see. What Carny did trust, however, was that Ahmy's crossbow was in perfect working order, just like the rest of the shield, and when the arrows started flying, that's what mattered.

“How's it look for farming?” Carny asked, standing up and grabbing a plate to support himself.

“I'll tell you when we land,” Big Hog said, keeping his head between his knees.

Carny knew he would. He rolled his head on his neck a couple of times and looked out at the valley. Their last briefing was fresh in his mind and he wanted to put detail to the crudely drawn map he'd looked at.

Running on a north–south axis, the valley stretched three miles along its length, divided down the middle by the Formaske River, a gray-brown streak that flooded twice a year but was currently at half its normal height as this part of Luitox was hit hard by the drought. Barely a mile across at its widest point, the valley floor was a tattered collection of dried-up dosha swamps, fields of ten-foot-tall saw grass, and scattered stands of trees and bamboo.

Forming the valley wall to the west was a series of jungle-covered mountains, the highest peak a thousand feet below them. The mountains to the east were similar, although a single peak near the north end looked to be right at five thousand feet with them.

It was, as their briefings had said it was, a valley in the middle of nowhere. Looking at the mountains, Carny felt no joy despite their similarity to the ones back on the coast. There was no beach, no navy bringing in fresh food, and sure as fuck no slyt whores waiting to ease his pain every night. He'd spoken to Squeak about his biggest concern, but the little cripple had smiled and said to trust him. He could get Flower and the much more powerful white powder called Sliver anywhere, even in a hole like this.

“We'll see,” Carny said under his breath, turning his head and spitting.

“I don't know why the Forest Collective would want this place,” Knockers said.

“I'll pay the slyts to keep it,” someone said. No one laughed.

“Iron Fist up ahead!”

They were halfway up the valley, which looked to be its widest point. From the air, Frontier Castle Iron Fist appeared as a brown stain on top of a nondescript hill. The name didn't mean shit though. It was a castle the way Carny was a bright, shining warrior of civilization. Under construction for a month, Iron Fist was in reality a large camp covering forty acres. It was surrounded by a six-foot-tall earthen wall, a meager two-foot moat, and four heavy wooden gates, one facing each cardinal direction.

Troop barracks had been built using surplus navy sailcloth stitched together to form one-hundred-fifty-foot-long roofs hung over a frame of bamboo and sunk into the dirt. The walls were dried mud piled three feet high and smoothed by trowel. The only structures made of more substantial material were eleven stone watchtowers dotted around the perimeter set just back from the wall and the keep in the center of the camp.

Carny looked closer at the keep as they passed overhead. It was larger than he'd expected. He guessed it to be two hundred yards by three hundred yards. It was difficult to tell how tall it was, but he could definitely see the thickness of the walls. There was an outer row of blocks, a space that appeared to be filled with debris, then an inner row of blocks. Maybe someone was planning on building a castle.

“Guess we're staying after all,” Carny said, looking up and finding Miska looking at him.

She beamed. “I know. With the Kingdom this far west and establishing a permanent presence, the Forest Collective must be all but finished,” she said, completely missing his sarcasm.

“What's that?” Knockers asked, pointing to a large area being excavated near Iron Fist.

“Guess that's the roost for the rags,” Carny said. He'd never seen an actual roost, but as there were already several rags penned in part of the depression, it was a good bet.

“I see other castles, too,” Knockers said, pointing to the west.

Carny couldn't get mad at Knockers, but the boy was forever grinding on him with his constant curiosity and general amazement at every fucking thing they saw.

“Those aren't castles—too small,” the Bard said. He'd kept his head
down and worked on lyrics almost the entire flight. As one of the few literate soldiers in the shield, possibly the entire javelin, the Bard held a special position. For taking a few flicks to sit and listen to one of the songs he was working on, he'd pen a missive home for you to your wife or family.

Carny looked. “The Bard's right. Those are small forts. Looks like they're putting one up on every hill taller than the grass.”

“What are those wooden towers for then?” Miska asked.

Carny squinted. “For scaring slyts. Those are cats.”

Miska shrugged.

“Catapults.” He counted at least fifteen of them spread around in the different fortress positions. Looked like two per fortress, although he saw a couple with only one each. Those cats looked significantly bigger than the others. “High Command is really going all out.”

“The Forest Collective is on the run!” Ahmy said, reiterating his beliefs in case anyone within shouting distance wasn't already perfectly clear about them. “We will overcome. You will see.”

“You could be right, Ahmy,” Carny said.

The devout Dendro looked surprised. Carny didn't have the energy to have yet another deep discussion with Ahmy about the High Druid and the meaning of life. Agreeing with him actually worked to shut him up . . . sometimes.

“Say, LC,” Knockers said, pulling himself up to a kneeling position. “They've gone and put forts on all the hills, but how come they haven't put any on the tops of the mountains?”

Men laughed. Carny thought about that.

“Well, it's a long way to climb up there, for starters. We half wore our legs off going up and down the mountain on the coast, and we weren't trying to haul anything bigger than Big Hog's carcass.”

Those who had been on the mountain laughed. Big Hog held up a hand and made an appropriate rude gesture.

“Even if you did, not much you could do from up there anyway. If the slyts attack they'll have to come into the valley and by the looks of it, if they do that, they'll wish they hadn't.”