Tinker's War (The Tinkerer's Daughter Book 2) (3 page)

Even from that great distance, I could see that their mass was astounding. In our wildest dreams, we had never considered building a ship so large. I couldn’t even fathom the amount of materials consumed in the construction of one of those ships, much less an entire fleet. My heart skipped a beat. All I could think of was Tinker. Riverfork was nearly invisible behind us now.

“You won’t make it,” Robie said.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s not enough time to go back for Tinker. If we do, we’ll never get back off the ground.”

I eyed the great ships nervously, even as they shrank in the distance. “We’re faster than they are,” I said hopefully.

“Not that fast.”

I bit my lip, considering the possibilities. “He wouldn’t come anyway,” I said. “Stubborn old man.”

“Brave,” Robie said.

I didn’t reply. I knew if I spoke anymore of Tinker, I’d break down in tears. He was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father. My real father had died when I was very young, leaving me only with the memory of the day he left. It was Tinker who had been there for me; who had raised and taught me. Without him, I’d have been nothing more than a half-breed, an abomination.

It was Tinker who had taught me to read and write, to understand the dynamics of engineering and physics, and even to master my own unique magical talents. It was Tinker’s insatiable curiosity that had formed me into the woman I was. And now I had abandoned him to a fate that was almost certainly death.

Robie and I spoke little as we flew, each of us intently watching the skies for signs of danger and trying not to think about what was happening behind us. How many towns had fallen already? How many citizens killed, captured, or worse? We couldn’t even guess. At that point, we didn’t even know what the invaders wanted.

As we flew, luck was with us. The wind wasn’t bad but it picked up in the evening and slowed our progress as night fell. The red skies around us appeared an ominous omen, but we didn’t need an omen to know that blood was being spilled. We had been through war before. We knew what it felt like. Regrettably, we knew just what to expect.

It was well after sunset when we crossed the Crimson Straits toward the Isle of Tal’mar and saw the lights of Silverspire twinkling in the mist in the distance. Dark clouds pressed down from above and thick, churning fog filled our vision. Normally, flying at night in such bad weather would have been forbidden. Tonight, it may have saved our lives.

Though I couldn’t see it beneath the fog, I knew the lay of the land from memory. I angled around the southern end of Silverspire and headed for the landing strip outside the city. I was busy peering down into the fog, trying to gauge my landing when a sudden gust of wind blew the fog out of our vision and a dragon ship appeared just a few yards ahead of us.

“Watch out!” Robie cried out, bracing himself in his seat.

I pulled back on the flight controls and twisted to the left. The old mail plane responded slowly, the airframe groaning under the stress as we changed course. The fuselage shuddered.

“We’re not going to make it,” Robie said through clenched teeth. “We’re too close!”

I twisted the controls, pressing them forward with all my strength, forcing the plane into a dive. With a hair’s breadth, we slid past the dragon ship’s hull. For a moment, I thought we had made it. Then I heard the sickening crunch as the tail of the plane swiped the hull of the dragon ship and something broke off. The controls went wild in my hands, and we went plummeting towards the ground in a nosedive.

Chapter 3

I felt a sharp stinging sensation on my hand as one of the cables snapped, and the flight controls jerked out of my grip. The plane went into a slow-rolling dive. I saw nothing but gray in every direction, and I panicked as a feeling of vertigo washed over me. For a moment, I lost all sense of direction. Thankfully, Robie had the sense to reach for the controls. He leaned past the flailing wire and pulled back on the flight sticks, fighting to bring them back into place.

“Help me!” he shouted.

I glanced at him, my eyes wild with fear.

“Help, we have to pull up!”

I blinked, trying to clear the vertigo from my head. Somehow, I found the sense to reach out and take the controls. With Robie’s help, I managed to pull them slowly back to level. Unfortunately, the plane was still spiraling towards the ground. We weren’t getting any lift.

“We’ve stalled!” I shouted. “We have to push it into a dive.”

Robie looked at me like I was crazy. “Dive?” he said. “I can’t even tell which way’s down!”

The compass was spinning wildly and the twisting sensation in my gut almost overwhelmed me, but I could still sense the downward movement of the aircraft. I was reasonably sure that we were still right side up. I braced myself in the seat and pressed the controls forward. Gradually, the nose of the plane tilted downward. With zero visibility, I had no way of knowing what our altitude was. We could crash into the ground at any moment.

Fortunately, the wings caught air and the spinning slowed. We were diving straight towards the ground, but suddenly I felt the lift of the wind against the fuselage and knew I had the controls back. I gently pulled on the controls and glanced at the compass, trying to get a sense of our position.

“Faster.” Robie said. “Pull up!”

“I can’t, the airframe won’t take it.”

Robie pressed his feet up against the front of the cockpit. “Hang on!” he shouted.

Treetops filled my vision. I barely had time to brace myself before the impact. At first, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. The treetops bent and broke under the weight of my sturdy old plane. The crash didn’t feel terribly different than a rough landing in a field. Then we lost altitude and plowed full-speed into the trees. Thick branches hammered into the fuselage and the plane shuddered under the sudden resistance. The impact tore both wings off, and the plane twisted sickeningly. The bent and broken fuselage plunged into the canopy.

The crash threw both of us into the dash. I bounced back and hit the floor, and Robie landed on top of me. I cried out as I felt my leg caught in the seat frame and for a moment, I thought it would snap. The pressure became almost unbearable.

Then, suddenly, the movement stopped. Everything went quiet save for the branches creaking around us. I felt Robie’s weight lift off of me. As he moved, darkness closed in. My vision went black and I lost consciousness.

I woke lying flat on my back. Cold, misty air washed over me, and my eyelids fluttered open. I looked up to see Robie kneeling over me. Blood streaked his face. I started to push myself upright, but spots swam in my vision and dizziness washed over me. Robie pressed me back down.

“Quiet,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t think they know where we are.”

I stared at him, blinking away the mist in my eyes. I had almost forgotten where we were. I wondered how far we’d flown after hitting that dragon ship. My gaze went to the trees, and I saw the carcass of the old plane wedged among the branches high overhead. I frowned, confused.

“How did we get down? Did we fall?”

“I carried you,” Robie said. “Believe me, it wasn’t easy.”

I looked at him and saw the blood staining his face and shirt. “You’re hurt,” I said quietly. I reached up to touch him, but found no sign of a wound on his head.

Robie held up his left hand, displaying a blood-soaked bandage. He pulled the bandage off revealing that his pinky finger was gone.
Gone
.

“The control cable cut it off,” he explained. “Stupid thing was like razor wire, whipping all around during the crash.”

I gasped. “Robie, are you okay?”

“I didn’t need that finger anyway,” he said cavalierly. “Hardly ever used it.”

My lips parted, but I was at a loss for words.
Leave it to humans to joke at a time like this,
I thought. “Let me see it.”

He pulled his hand away. “Forget it, the bleeding has already stopped. Save your energy, you’re going to need it.”

I frowned. “Robie, if you find the finger I might be able to help it heal back together.”

He pointed at what was left of the plane’s cabin high in the branches. “Do you really think I’m going to risk my neck and climb up there to search for a bloody stump of a finger that I never even used anyway?”

I sighed, exasperated. “It might be worth it, rather than lose part of your body forever. They don’t grow back, you know.”

“I know. The hair in my nose keeps growing back no matter how much I trim it, but lose an arm or leg, or even a finger, and it’s gone forever. What a glorious thing, the human body.”

I snorted. “When did you become so macho? You’re worse than the infantrymen I used to treat on the battlefield.”

“Nothing macho about common sense. What’s gone is gone. I needed that finger like a pig needs a saddle. How are you? Anything broken?”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, searching my body for damage.
The sight
didn’t come as easy as it had when I was young. It didn’t help that I was out of focus, still reeling from the crash. I took note of several large bruises around my chest and some swelling around my leg, but nothing appeared broken. I took a deep breath and felt pain in my ribs. Again, nothing broken, but lots of bruising.

“I think I’m okay. Where are we?”

“Southwest of Silverspire. The ocean is just beyond the ridge.”

I envisioned it in my mind, trying to map it out. We had encountered the dragon ship just south of Silverspire. I’d pulled the plane to the west during the accident, but then the spin… there was no telling where exactly we had landed.

I pushed myself up again. My body groaned, but at least I didn’t seem to be in danger of passing out this time. I reached out to Robie and he helped me get to my feet. He bent over to retrieve his cloak, which I realized he’d placed under my head as a pillow.

“Are you cold?” he said, offering it to me.

“I’m fine.” It was chivalrous of him, helping me like that, but for some reason it made me angry. I wasn’t used to needing help. I didn’t want help. I scraped off the pine needles and threw my gaze around the area, trying to orient myself. Robie watched me quietly.

I cautiously climbed the hill behind us to get a look at the coast. I moved slowly, making sure not to further injure myself. My body cried out with a dull thudding pain that reverberated up and down my spine with each step. Thankfully, my muscles loosened up quickly as I climbed. The bruises would take time to heal, but at least I was mobile. I had to keep moving. I could rest later.

I crested the hill and threw my gaze to the south and west. The ocean roared as the surf broke against the rocky beaches. I turned slowly to the north, and saw only treetops and mist. I knew Silverspire was there, hidden somewhere in that dense fog, but so were the dragon ships.

“Did you see how many ships they had?” I said.

Robie shook his head. “I just saw the one we crashed into, but there are more.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it’s what they do,” he said. “They hit the capital with several dozen ships at once. Why would they hit Silverspire with just one?”

I considered that. He was right, of course. “Their army must be huge,” he continued. “Their ships are huge and we already know that they have dozens of them, maybe even hundreds.”

It was clear that the invaders had come seeking no treaty, no peace accord. They had already killed King Ryshan and his family. This was an act of pure aggression. They had come to destroy us. It was maddening. I couldn’t see their motivation yet. I didn’t understand why they had come, or what they wanted.

“They’re very good at what they do,” I mused. “They strike quickly, without warning. They overwhelm a city before anyone can even react. That’s what they did at Avenston, and that looks like what they did here as well.”

Even as I spoke, it occurred to me that I had family in Silverspire. The queen of the Tal’mar was my grandmother. My mother was the princess, the first in line to inherit the throne. My heart sank as I realized what must have happened to them.

Robie seemed to sense my thoughts. “They hit the palace first in Avenston. They went straight for the royal family.” He put his hand comfortingly on my shoulder. I knew what he was thinking. In all probability, my mother was dead.

I pulled away. “Let’s go,” I said.

Robie stood watching me, contemplating as I walked down the hill under the canopy of trees. He probably wanted to tell me that it was insane to go into the city, that my family couldn’t possibly be alive. I knew this, of course, but I had to see it for myself. We’d arrived too late to warn them, but maybe there was still time to save them. I wasn’t ready to give up hope yet.

Over the rough and untamed landscape, it took nearly an hour to reach the walls of the city. Our injuries, though minor, did nothing to aid the speed of our travel. It must have been close to midnight when we slipped through the woods outside the city wall and located a tree tall enough to get us inside.

As I leapt into the branches and made for the top of the wall, I nearly forgot Robie was standing on the ground below. I glanced down and saw him gazing up at me expectantly. The impatience on his face was clear. Despite his size and strength, it was beyond Robie’s ability to leap into the branches the way that I had. The trees bend for me, they reach to gather me up like a mother cradling a babe in her arms. Moving through the trees is second nature to Tal’mar. Not so for humans. For Robie, the branches were too far out of reach and the tree trunk too smooth to climb.

I leaned down, dangling by one arm with my legs wrapped around a thick limb, and offered him my hand. He looked skeptical, but he accepted my reach. He jumped and I pulled him forward, bringing him within reach of the lower branches. His boots found a niche and his arms went around the tree limb. He grunted noisily, hoisting himself up over the top. I put my finger to my lips and glared at him. The noises he’d made were small, subdued, but may as well have been a gunfire among the Tal’mar. Any elf within a mile would have known we were there. I could only hope the invaders didn’t possess Tal’mar senses.