‘We have company,’ announced Beula after three hours, breaking the frosty silence between them.
Carter followed her gloved finger through the condensation-covered cockpit canopy. Three Rodalian flying wings had emerged from the cloud cover and were arrowing towards the
Raven
, triangular planes with a single rear-mounted propeller. Two of the skyguard kites were small single-seat fighters; the third sported twin cockpits, an aviator in the rear chopping the air with a colourful pair of signal flags.
‘Do you understand signal semaphore?’ asked Carter.
Beula shot him a cold look. ‘I even understand blinker lamps. Do you think I’m flying this crate solely for my looks, Captain Sodbuster? They’re ordering us to follow them to the ground.’ She tapped the chart sitting on the spare aviator’s seat by her side. ‘Their capital should be below us by now.’
The skyguard in the rear cockpit made another series of cutting motions with the two flags. Beula frowned as two of the three planes turned behind the
Raven
’s tail, leaving a single flying wing wobbling in front of their nose.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Something else. They signalled if we try to turn away or fly off on any other course, they’ll shoot us down.’
‘That’s not very friendly,’ said Carter.
‘You’re sure the passenger we’re meant to bring back to Weyland is down there?’
‘That was always the plan.’
Beula Fetterman arched her neck to try to see the two Rodalian fighters sitting on her tail. They were in perfect position to bring the
Raven
down in a flaming ball of wreckage. ‘Maybe you need a new plan. This one seems to have a few holes in it, as will the
Raven
if one of those pilots’ nerves fail.’
What in the name of the saints is going on here? Have the Rodalians been attacked by aerial nomads?
Carter wouldn’t put it past the Vandians to throw their skel slavers into the current troubles. He began to jounce in his seat as the
Raven
spiralled down, the air currents growing wild and unpredictable. They left the clouds above them. A maze of canyons squatted below, and Carter saw buildings clinging to the canyon walls on both sides, an entire metropolis carved out of, and into, the rocks; just a small fraction of what lay protected within the rocky mass.
Just like my father said
. Jacob Carnehan hadn’t described the lack of vegetation below, though. No trees, just moss and scrub clinging to the bottom of the gorge and a few roots protruding from the chasm walls. Carter stared down at the buildings. White stone walls with thick red tile roofs, multiple storeys nestling above each other, rounded to turn and shape the winds that gusted through the canyons. None of the entrances into the city were on the gorge floor. They were all located midway up the rift’s walls, accessible by bulky stone staircases, a long climb towards portals which – where open – looked thick enough to put any gatehouse in Northhaven’s walls to shame. The windows in the structures were little more than arrow slits, shuttered from inside with metal screens. Nothing lay above the plateau-line, not a single structure to defy the wind. Rodalian flying wings took off and landed from launch tunnels drilled into the canyon walls, like sparrows entering a tree trunk. The gorge had a few paved roads crossing the narrow pass, bridges for a river that meandered along the chasm, but it seemed devoid of carts and foot traffic.
‘Why would anyone want to build a capital here?’ complained the pilot, following the twin cockpit flying wing’s twists and turns. ‘It’s desolate, nothing growing, no terraces.’
‘It’s where the winds are most powerful,’ said Carter. ‘So where their spirits are strongest.’
‘Sweet saints, these mountain people are crazy. They want us to put down outside their hanging city,’ said Beula, jabbing her hand towards an airfield strip running down the canyon’s centre; empty of planes. ‘I’d rather the storm-break of one of their tunnel hangars.’
That was worrying in itself. Carter realized that if they set down inside the city, they would qualify for the tradition of salt and roof: hospitality to visitors. Landing outside Hadra-Hareer was entirely different. ‘Can you set us down safely?’ asked Carter.
Beula peered out of the cockpit and inspected the wind-speed indicators on either side of the cabin. ‘It’s dangerous, but not fatally windy at the moment. This area is marked on the charts as one of the most treacherous storm sites. They must be stalling the gusts using their famous wind walls.’
‘There’s a crowd gathering down there alongside the strip,’ said Carter.
‘Will our embassy staff be among them?’
‘Hopefully,’ said Carter. ‘They’re almost all northerners, and they were one of the first Lanca embassies to declare for Prince Owen when parliament was dissolved.’
On their final approach the
Raven
shook violently; Carter dug his nails into the side of his seat, fearing they might flip and be driven to shatter against the canyon’s walls. This place was literally a wind tunnel, and it was only the Rodalian priests on the wooden wind dams who were briefly restraining the power of the spirits.
For how much longer, I wonder?
They hit the simple stone runway with a crack of their undercarriage that should have sheared the wheels off, but somehow they held instead. Beula had to keep all their rotors turning just to power them to where the flying wing had halted. They climbed towards the passenger cabin and broke the seal on the hatch, fierce winds pushing them back as they struggled to drop the stairs to the ground. Carter stumbled against an iron ring on the rock, heavy enough to anchor a battleship, as he emerged. Outside they were met by a Rodalian army officer and a company of soldiers. Carter raised a hand, as much to protect his face from the gusts as to salute the officer, but one of the soldiers ran forward, seized his hand, and twisted it brutally behind Carter’s back. Carter tried to fight them off, but there were too many soldiers, and they quickly had his arms pinned behind his spine, a similarly restrained Beula Fetterman, cursing the guardsmen for all she was worth.
‘What is going on here?’ demanded Carter, shouting above the gale. ‘We’re from Weyland; we are members of the Lanca.’
‘We know where you are from,’ yelled the Rodalian officer, clamping hand chains across Carter’s wrists. ‘But you are misinformed. You
were
members of the Lancean League. Weyland has been expelled by unanimous vote of the other Lanca nations.’
Carter reeled in surprise at the news. ‘That is nothing to do with us. Let us go!’
‘Nothing? You dare to land here in an aircraft of the Weyland Skyguard and proclaim your innocence? At best you will be interned in a prison cell. You shall stand trial for complicity in the murder of the speaker of the winds, Palden Tash.’
‘Murder? What in the world are you talking about?’
‘Your king’s execution of a diplomat travelling under the safe conduct of the Lanca charter, the speaker of the winds.’
Damn Bad Marcus. Even here, his poison reaches out to sicken us
. ‘We’re fighting Marcus. We’re flying for Prince Owen and the north.’
‘Our borders and airspace are closed to you,’ said the officer, ‘for your safety as much as ours.’ The soldier waved towards his soldiers struggling to hold back a pack of onlookers with their rifles, the citizens of Hadra-Hareer shoving against the guards as the troops thrust back. For the first time, Carter noticed the looks of fury etched across the crowd’s faces, dimly heard the cries of
hang them
and
make them pay
above the cutting wind.
‘Lock us up, then,’ said Beula, ducking as objects began to be hurled over the throng. The missiles were seized by the gale and cracked against the fuselage of their transport plane. ‘And be quick about it, man.’
Carter side-stepped a hand-sized rock arcing through the air towards him. ‘I need to speak with Sheplar Lesh; he’s an aviator of the Rodalian skyguard. He’s my friend.’
‘I don’t recognize that name, but you surely need a friend now, bumo.’ The officer snorted while his men dragged Carter and Beula back behind the cover of the aircraft, the patter of projectiles against its airframe a shower turning into a storm as savage as the winds roaring past. ‘You’ll be lucky if you live to speak with the rats in a dirty cell. The mob looks like they mean to hurl you off the escarpment and we’re under orders not to fire on the crowd, no matter what their provocation.’
All around them the winds swelled in ferocity, a mounting whistling that made Carter’s ears throb. Whatever trickery the Rodalians had used to placate their spirits, it was finished now. The troops threw the chains over the
Raven
, and Carter realized what the iron rings driven into the runway’s surface were for.
Securing aircraft against the gales
. Carter ducked to look under the aircraft. Some of the soldiers had tumbled, shoved over, comrades trying to drag them back behind the crumbling line as the angry mob vented their fury, howling over the ever-growing wind.
And all this time I thought we were cowards flying away from death in Midsburg. Damn me for a bloody fool. We were only ever flying towards it
.
It was crowded in the garrison’s mess-hall, the chamber remade as a planning centre large enough to accommodate all the grey-uniformed officers, sentries, runners for the Guild of Radiomen, the senior politicians of the rebel assembly, and of course Jacob Carnehan and Prince Owen. Even more sentries were now posted around the room. Jacob knew the assembly’s army was doing its best to flush subversives out of its ranks, as well as among the citizenry of the city, but it was a hard, thankless task. The Weylanders who supported the loyalists looked and sounded identical to those who supported the assembly. They might even be members of the same family.
How can you gaze inside a person’s heart and know if they believe Bad Marcus’s lies or not, or have developed a taste for his Vandian silver?
The traitor Thomas Purdell had either fled Midsburg or was still inside its walls, being sheltered. In either event, he had evaded capture and the justice of the rope. If it had taken a day longer to reach the standing circle of stones, or if Sariel’s mastery over the sorcerous gate had faltered, then the prince would be a corpse and the rebellion’s hopes buried alongside him. And if he had reached Midsburg sooner, he might have been reunited with Carter; accompanied his son to Rodal to find their little hostage and bring her back here.
I doubt the prince has the stomach to do any more than bluff with her life
. As it was, Jacob had only encountered Carter’s cavalry company in the city garrison, his son’s comrades happy to provide him with lodging above their stables and finally meet the man they had heard so much about. He had watched them ride out earlier in the morning. Jacob prayed it wasn’t to their deaths.
But what right do I have to pray for anyone now? You’re well out of this, Carter.
‘Here,’ said a colonel in the field marshal’s staff, tapping a map on the table. ‘This is where the Army of the Boles broke across the river in Western Humont, supported by the usurper’s fleet bombarding the coastal towns. Our scouts report they’re marching north-east directly towards Midsburg now.’
‘What of the Vandians?’ asked Jacob.
‘Our spies in Arcadia believe that their aerial force has departed along with the bulk of their legions.’
‘The imperium’s expeditionary force is heading towards us,’ said Prince Owen. ‘It will link up with the Army of the Boles and mount a joint assault on our positions around the city.’ There was a worrying detachment in Owen’s voice, as though he was describing a strategic reversal found in some military history text, rather than the fate of his rebellion.
‘How has the assembly reacted to the news of the break across the river?’ asked Field Marshal Houldridge.
‘The assembly is worried,’ said Augustus Sparrow. The party leader’s haggard appearance gave weight to that statement. He looked as if he hadn’t eaten or slept properly in days. ‘I cannot say otherwise. We thought that Bad Marcus would be halted by the waters of the Spotswood; that after the assembly mustered its armies, we would push them steadily back down south towards Arcadia. How can soft mill-hands stand against sturdy northerners who grew up in the woodlands and wilds with a hunting rifle in their hands? That’s what we said. But now? Half the assemblymen have left Midsburg for the territories, fearing being caught in a siege and wanting to fortify their home towns against the raiding southern regiments.’
‘We need to follow their example. Pull out of Midsburg and disperse the army,’ growled Jacob. ‘Each company to scatter into the countryside, head to their home territory and mount a guerrilla campaign against Marcus and the Vandians.’
‘We are the royal army, sir, not an unruly mob of bandits,’ said Field Marshal Houldridge. ‘We shall fight as one.’
‘You will die as one! The south had the mastery of the sky
before
the Vandians showed up as their allies.’
‘You understand nothing of military matters,’ spluttered Samuel Houldridge, banging the map with a heavy fist. ‘Weyland’s skyguard is newly minted, a service that didn’t even exist a decade ago. For centuries our army and navy have been high masters of seeing off troublesome aerial nomads, smugglers and sky pirates. Our city walls can release barrage balloons; our ramparts are drilled with heavy rifle mountings that will put a shell through the cockpit and skull of any pilot foolish enough to try to count our guns; our regiments are highly trained in wide-line marching to minimize strafing and bombing casualties. Merchant carriers may buzz around the clouds like oversized bumblebees, scrounging for fuel and never daring to land, but it is on the ground that victories are won. Boots, sir, boots and blood and bayonets.’
‘I led men,’ said Jacob. ‘I never lost a battle, and I’m telling you that the assembly’s three armies will only survive through scattering, hitting and running.’
Houldridge puffed up like a crimson-cheeked partridge. ‘You led brutes and killers, sir. A taste of mercenary raping and murder across the water in the Burn is not what I would class as quality soldiering.’