Tinker's War (The Tinkerer's Daughter Book 2) (10 page)

The wagon had stopped by then and Corsan crawled out of the seat, stepping around the side as the Vangar fell from his horse. The general grunted, swinging around as he sought a clean shot at the second warrior, who had circled around behind his companion. Corsan raised the revolver and fired. His aim was perfect. The Vangar slouched in his saddle as a perfect round hole appeared in his forehead. His body tilted sideways and slid to the ground with a crash.

“Ha! Not so big now, eh?” the general yelled.

I turned to look at him, a slight smile on my face. The general had happily given up the warring ways of his past, but he was still a fighting man. Corsan winked at me. The smile on my face faded as I saw a spear appear out of the darkness behind him. The Vangars had snuck around behind us on foot. Before I could even shout a warning, the weapon impaled the general, protruding instantly from his chest.

I wanted to scream but my voice caught in my chest as the general’s eye went wide. His arms dropped to his side and the revolver clattered to the ground. I leapt forward, spilling the contents of the general’s ammo kit all over the back of the wagon as I dove for him. I was over the seat and off the carriage in a heartbeat. I caught the general as he landed on his knees. I lowered him slowly to the ground, hoping to spare him any pain, but he grunted as he folded down across the hard soil. I barely even noticed Robie’s shadow leaping over me.

I knelt over the general, looking into his face, and brushed the hair away from his eye. He smiled weakly, blood painting his lips. His wound was too extensive for me to heal. Had I the skill of the greatest Tal’mar priest, I still couldn’t have saved the general.

“She’s here,” he mumbled, his good eye drifting skyward. “I can see her.”

 “Go,” I said softly. I bent over to kiss him on the forehead. “Go to Sanja now, she’s waiting for you.”

When I pulled away, he was dead. I blinked back tears as I touched his face, pulling his eyelid shut. For a moment, it seemed like the world had stopped. Shadows danced around me, flashes of steel and blood, the cacophony of battle. The Vangar blades Robie had stolen were like silver streaks in his hands, whirring and slashing, but I was blind to it all. I could see only the general’s face, this good man who had been a friend to my father and eventually to me.

Corsan had guided me in my youth, pushed me toward action instead of fear, but I had been to young and naive to realize it then. Only after I had matured did I come to understand all that he had done for me, all that he had taught me. I felt like another piece of my past had just fallen to the ground and shattered into a million pieces.

What was it about the past that haunted me so? It was a life that might have been, a life I’d never had and people I had never known… After all these years, how could I still be so haunted by a life that had never been my own? I blinked away the tears as reality crashed down around me. I pulled my gaze away from the general and saw Robie a few yards ahead, valiantly trying to fight off all three Vangars by himself. I pulled away from the general’s body and spun around, frantically trying to locate the fallen revolver. It was nowhere to be seen.

I glanced back at Robie and saw him dance sideways, avoiding the reach of a heavy double-edged sword. The weapon crashed to the ground as he moved. Instantly, one of the other Vangars threw a dagger. The weapons sliced Robie’s forearm as it whizzed by, and then embedded into the wood on the front of the steamwagon.

I reached over the side of the wagon and pulled out Robie’s cutlass. I held it in both hands and stepped forward, looking for an opening to join the fight. At this point, I knew all was lost. Robie and I might kill one of the three Vangars, perhaps even two if we were extremely lucky, but three? There was no way. With Corsan’s revolver maybe, but I knew that if I spent any more time searching for it, they’d kill Robie.

The Vangars laughed as they saw me joining the fight. Here I was, a delicate half-Tal’mar female with a tiny cutlass that they could easily have broken over their knees. The very idea that I would fight them was laughable. One of them even nodded approvingly, as if he was impressed with my bravery. Then he lashed out at me with his sword and it was all I could do just to get out of the way.

“Get back!” Robie shouted at me. “Run!”

“No!” I shouted back. “I’m not leaving you to die.”

He stepped sideways, nudging me with his shoulder, knocking me off balance. I didn’t expect it, and he nearly knocked me over. “Get back you fool,” he said. “Run for the hills!”

I snorted. “Don’t be a hero on my account,” I said. “I’m not letting you die alone.”

One of the Vangars swung at him with a large battle-axe. Robie caught the weight of the blow with the sword in his left hand and pushed it aside. He lunged forward with the second blade, grazing the thigh of his attacker. As he did this, the Vangar to his right stepped in and brought the hilt of his sword down, smashing it over the top of Robie’s head.

Robie staggered back, shaking his head, and dropped suddenly to his knees. For a moment, I thought they’d brained him. Then Robie rolled back out of their reach and jumped back to his feet. He shook his head, clearing out the cobwebs as rivulets of blood streaked down his face.

I glanced at him, frowning, and back at the Vangars. They were smiling. I knew then that our deaths would be slow and painful.

“They’re toying with us,” I muttered. “They could easily kill us.”

“I’m not going to make it that easy,” Robie said defiantly.

The Vangar with the axe took a step forward, raising it over his head as if to split us in half in one easy blow. I knew what he was doing. He would swing the axe, and we’d move, He’d miss, but one of the others would sneak in and attack us at the same time. Not with deadly force, though. They’d slice us and stab us first. They’d wear us down like a cat playing with a field mouse.

I stared up at the axe wondering whether I should move or just stand there and let him finish me off. I hadn’t yet decided when the tip of an arrow suddenly protruded from the Vangar’s throat and blood splattered my face. I stumbled back, blinking in surprise. Instantly, a second appeared in his chest. The Vangar dropped his axe and reached for the arrow at his throat, and then collapsed on the ground before me. He was dead.

The other Vangars turned, searching the darkness behind them. Two more arrows came out of nowhere, the first lodging in the chest of the Vangar to our right, the second in the chest of the Vangar to our left. There was a moment of eerie silence as we all stood there, shocked, trying to make sense of this turn of events. They both fell to the ground and I lowered my stance, trying to make myself a smaller target as I gazed into the darkness.

“Who is it?” Robie whispered next to me. “Are those Tal’mar arrows? What do you see?”

I didn’t respond. I was watching the dim purple shape that appeared in the darkness just over the hill and walked slowly towards us. After a few moments, our Tal’mar savior came into view. It was Tam. He surveyed the scene, taking it all in.

“That man isn’t a Vangar,” he said, pointing at the general with the tip of his bow.

“He was my friend,” I said.

Tam knelt over the bodies of the fallen Vangar warriors, checking them for signs of life as he retrieved his arrows. “They die readily enough,” he observed

“You were following us,” Robie said accusingly. It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement.

“Yes, our queen ordered me to follow you in secret. I was to learn the fate of Anora and the southern cities, and then report back to her.”

“Why?” I said. “Why didn’t you just come with us in the first place?”

“Because then he would have been obligated to us,” Robie said. “This way he could just let us all die and walk away if he wanted to, and nobody could blame the Tal’mar.”

“I don’t think you’re in a position to judge that,” Tam said sarcastically, “considering I just saved both of your lives.”

“Why do I have a feeling we’ll regret that, later?” Robie said, spitting on the ground.

“I already do,” Tam said angrily.

I saw them bristling and stepped between them. “Enough!” I said. I gave them each a push, hard enough to let them know that if they wanted a fight, they’d be fighting me. “There will be more Vangars coming this way. Those were just scouts. I can already see the warship.”

Robie followed my gaze and his jaw dropped open. He hadn’t seen the enormous vehicle yet. The massive shadowy figure lumbered across the land like a giant beast, tilting from side to side as it crested one hill after another. The sails billowed out wildly, tattered from their long journey. A column of smoke rose into the sky behind it.

“What is it?” Robie said.

“It’s a dragon ship,” I answered. “They’ve converted it to ride on wheels.” 

“It is for captives,” Tam said. “I’ve already observed them leading captured farmers into the ship. They are scouring the countryside, collecting citizens. This way, they will prevent an insurgency later.”

“Insurgency?” I said. “They think that farmers are a threat?”

“They’re right,” Robie said. “After what’s happened in the last two days, I’m willing to bet every citizen able to carry a weapon would be willing to fight.”

Tam nodded. “Gather what you can carry. We must abandon the Borderlands and go into the mountains if you still wish to reach Anora.”

“That’ll take days,” Robie said. “We should just continue on this path. We’ll slip past the scouts in the darkness.”

“Like you slipped past these?” Tam said, pointing at the fallen Vangars. “Don’t be a fool.”

I saw Robie tensing up again. I put a hand on his shoulder and forced him to look me in the eyes. “Tam is right,” I said. “We can’t risk running into them like this again. Even if it takes longer, at least we’ll get there alive.”

Robie took a deep breath and I saw him visibly relax. “Fine,” he said. He turned away and started searching for the general’s revolver. I looked at Tam, wondering what was going through his mind. I was grateful for the fact that he had saved us, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d been following us secretly ever since we left the queen. I couldn’t decide whether I should trust him or not.

Chapter 10

As much as it pained us, we didn’t take the time to bury general Corsan. It would have taken hours to dig a proper grave in that soil, and without shovels, we would have been forced to use swords and axes to break the hard ground. The Tal’mar custom is to burn the bodies of the dead on a pyre, but we didn’t dare try that either, for fear of attracting more Vangars to the area. In the end, we said our peace and covered his body with an old wool blanket. Before we left, Robie and I swore to return and give him a proper burial when we could.

Before leaving, we attempted to track down the Vangars’ horses. It seemed a logical thing to do, since the steamwagon had been utterly destroyed and we were bound to travel faster by horse than on foot for the rest of the journey. Tam and I had never ridden before, and we would have much preferred to travel through the treetops, but with Robie as our companion that option simply wasn’t practical. Robie wouldn’t have been able to keep up with us on foot, and with him on horseback, we wouldn’t have been able to match his pace by running through the trees. That left us only two choices: travel as a group on foot, or on horseback.

As it turned out, we couldn’t even manage that much. We spent a short amount of time trying to capture the horses but it quickly became apparent that we weren’t going to succeed. They had been trained to fear strangers, and to return to their group if they became separated from their riders. After several failed attempts at wrangling one of the creatures, we gave up in disgust and gathered our supplies to leave.

We headed directly east, hoping to evade the Vangar scouts and make our way into the Blackrock mountains as quickly as possible. Our plan worked. We passed through the foothills unmolested, and by dawn we were traveling southward along the steep mountainsides. Tam served as our guide, quickly locating deer trails and passable terrain that allowed us to travel faster than we might have otherwise. Still, traveling through the untamed wilderness was wearing, and Robie had pushed himself to his limits. When we stopped to rest at noon, he leaned up against the mossy stump of a tree and immediately fell asleep. When Tam heard him snoring, he snorted.

“Some warrior you have there,” he said. “Not only are humans stupid, they can’t even go two or three days without sleep, or they fall down on the trail.”

“Yet when I needed him, he stayed with me instead of slinking through the shadows like a skunk,” I snapped.

Tam rolled his eyes, but had nothing more to say. He left a few minutes later to go scout out the hills ahead. I took advantage of the time to prepare a meal. I made a small fire and heated some of the provisions we’d saved from Corsan’s wagon. As I stared into the flames I thought of General Corsan and the memories suddenly washed over me in a flood. Turbulent emotions rose up within me, overwhelming my senses. I felt the sharp pain of loss, and a gnawing emptiness threatening to consume me. I wasn’t prepared for the grief yet, but it was there and it would not be denied. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

I reflected on the time I had spent with Corsan in the past; of the long walks and conversations we’d had over the years. I thought of the stories he had told me about my father and their friendship, and more tears came. I leaned forward, head pressed to my knees, weeping into my skirts.

I lose everyone,
I thought. My father and then my mother, and now the general. I hardly dared even hope that Tinker was still alive. Perhaps I was cursed. After all, what connected all of these people, if not me? Was it possible that they’d still be alive if I hadn’t come into their lives?

I had no answer, of course, except for the understanding that my entire life had been defined by loss. I was deeply afraid for those I loved, not just because of the bad luck that seemed to follow me, but also for the pain I would suffer in their absence. What about Tinker? Would he be next to die? Had he died already? Robie? How many others would I have to lose?