Spellbreaker (67 page)

“What solution?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, nothing. I have to … get ready before we go to the Floating City.”

“But you'll still go to Lorn or Dral?”

“Yes, yes. There are just a few matters I have to address.” She squeezed her mother's shoulders and then embraced her. “I'll see you in the morning.”

With that, Leandra hurried from her mother's rooms, through the hallways, and then out into the gathering dark. All the while, her mind reeled with visions of all that she would have to do and hide and how the world might still be changed.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

In a dream, Francesca roamed her childhood home. She was searching for something valuable and lost. The sky was a starry expanse, but the short adobe buildings and the dusty roads were bright with daylight. Her heart was intoxicated with hope far more intense than any waking emotion. She was climbing a creaking staircase.

And then she woke under a mosquito net thousands of miles east and hundreds of years after the memories of her dream.

There were urgent voices and footsteps in the hallway. Something was wrong. Outside her window, the sky was filled with stars.

Francesca rose and pulled on her black wizard robes. A knock rang from the door and it slid back to reveal Tam. A faint blue light shone from his wooden staff. “The empire's attacking again,” he said. “We're evacuating to the Floating City.”

“On whose authority?” Her instinct was to join the battle in draconic form, but then the reality of her new limitations settled on her.

“The Sacred Regent has ordered all souls who do not wish to be subject to Tagrana's godspell to shelter in one of the temple-mountains. Those important to the regency are to report to the Floating City.”

Francesca swore. Tagrana's godspell would transform every soul it touched into a tigerlike construct with murderous instincts. “Where's Leandra?”

“I'm here,” her daughter said from the hallway.

“Why was I the last to be woken up?” she asked while scanning the room for anything she needed. She might not be a dragon anymore, but if they thought they could leave her out of events, they were going to find out how wrong they were.

“Mother, don't be dramatic. I never went to sleep, so I heard the news as it came in. Somehow the imperial fleet snuck in. The galleys are forming a line outside the harbor right now. So hurry.”

Deciding that she did not need anything from her room, Francesca slipped on sandals and went out into the hallway. She found Leandra and the now two-armed and female goddess of wrestling. Tam and Kenna, dressed in lacquered wooden plate armor, stood on either side of Lolo, who had grown about a foot. Tam spoke, “The Sacred Regent ordered a squadron of red cloaks to see us through the city.”

Leandra frowned. “What's unsafe about the city?”

“I doubt there's anything safe about the city,” Ellen grumbled from the back of the crowd.

“We're wasting time,” Leandra said and nodded to Tam and Kenna. “Druids, take us out of here.”

Then they were hurrying through dark hallways and down the pavilion stairs. Kukui lamps flickered and servants and guards hurried about. Somewhere a child was crying. The deep roar of cannon fire rolled through the building. Someone yelled.

Out on the street, a dozen red cloaks wielding spears and torches waited. A strong wind made the torch flames flicker and dance. They were staring at the eastern sky. Francesca followed their gaze and to her horror saw the billowing shapes of the two airship carriers. Their massive lofting sails shone in the two moonlight.

Icy fear gripped Francesca. Once the carriers were over the city, they could drop thousands of warkites.

If Francesca could still transform, she would take wing and tear the carrier's lofting sails into shreds before they came within ten miles of the city walls. But now there was nothing she could do but follow her party as they hurried along Utrana Way. The street was crowded with civilians, their arms filled with hastily gathered possessions or bawling children.

An orange light flashed beyond the harbor waters, outlining war galleys that seemed twice as many as the one that had formed during yesterday's feint. A moment later a second flash burst in the air above the harbor as the city's anti-cannon war gods threw something in the path of the cannon fire.

Two gouts of orange cannon fire erupted out on the bay. Then five more. Then ten. Booming reports rolled over the city. Smaller explosions burst above the harbor as the anti-cannon deities sought to block the bombardment. But it was too much. A blast of flame shot up in the harbor, and then another in the Naukaa.

Leandra shouted something but Francesca could not understand. A fiery explosion shattered the darkness on a terrace ahead and below them. Then Francesca and her party were running. Leandra reached out and Francesca gladly took her hand.

The Jacaranda Steps were crowded with panicked civilians running for higher ground. The red cloaks bellowed for the crowd to make way, but their voices were drowned out by the roar of cannons.

At the next terrace, they passed a massive god. Maybe thirty feet tall, his body was that of a banyan tree. Perhaps he was a bellicose reincarnation of the Banyan God. With gigantic wooden limbs, the god pried up one of the stones used to form the Jacaranda Stairs. The cut stone must have weighed a thousand pounds, but with a graceful spin, the war god threw the stone high out into the night toward the imperial war galleys.

The crush of the crowd pushed Francesca's party faster up the stairs. Some in the crowd fell and were either helped back to their feet or trampled.

Francesca had witnessed battles and riots and sieges, but she had always seen them through a dragon's eyes. Then the death of innocents had horrified or enraged her. Now Francesca was shocked by how helpless she felt. There was no room in her heart for the trampled; there was only the great need to get to higher ground.

Atop the Jacaranda Steps, the crowd became so dense as to slow their progress. Leandra turned to look back at the bay. Francesca followed her gaze and saw during flashes of cannon fire that many smaller boats now floated between the war galleys. The hellish glow glinted off their helmets and spearheads. Vivian would soon land her troops.

On the docks, Francesca could make out a different type of light. A lone figure shone with a brilliant orange aura. All around her prowled massive feline figures: Tagrana and her newly made warriors.

“Damn it all,” Leandra growled. “No choice to make now.”

Francesca looked at her. “What choice?”

“I had plans … I thought I could do something with my future. But it doesn't matter now. There's no way we can withstand this.” As she spoke, Leandra wore the most peculiar expression. It had something of fear and shock in it, but also something of relief. It seemed as if a weight had been taken from her.

The crowd began moving faster. Both women had to concentrate on staying upright. At last they started pushing their way into the crowd that had formed before the Water Temple. Brightly robed priests stood on temple walls yelling instructions, but everyone around Francesca was talking or crying. To her synesthetic hearing, the crowd was a varicolored chaos.

Francesca was straining to make out the priest's words when someone screamed. The horrified, bloodcolored voice was soon joined by a chorus of terror. Francesca spun around and saw a streamer of white cloth, square metal talons gleaming in the torchlight. The warkite cut down a man not twenty feet behind her. Then the warkite billowed up and was about to pounce on its next victim when above it a starburst of blue light filled the darkness. A spray of water covered the crowd and the warkite fell limply onto the bloody remains of its victim. It had been a hydromancer's disspell, Francesca realized.

Francesca looked up and saw the sky filled with a bulging white airship carrier. A swarm of white cloth and glinting steel was dropping from the carrier as it deployed its warkites to slaughter the people of Chandralu.

But up from the city flew brightly winged creatures. It was hard for Francesca to tell what they were because they moved so fast that they seemed to be made only of color and velocity. Each of the creatures flew straight at one of the warkites and then folded itself into a small, feathered vector which punched through the attacking cloth construct. They were small avian deities, Francesca supposed, parrots perhaps, incarnated to defend against warkites.

But there were too many warkites. Francesca could see that. The stream of roiling cloth and steel coming from the carrier airships had not slowed. Some of the warkites were slipping past the feathered defenders to attack whoever was out on the streets. The roar of the cannon still echoed up from the bay and now the lower terraces were alight with civil fire. The city could not withstand the attack much longer. Perhaps it had already broken.

It was then that Francesca realized what the priests were yelling. They were exhorting the people to pray for protection from the warkites and from cannon fire. And indeed, those nearest the priests were bowing their heads in urgent prayer.

But then another warkite fell amid the crowd. Screams filled the air and a crush of bodies tried to flee the murderous construct. A moment later two blue starbursts bloomed above the warkite, dispelling it.

“This is how it ends,” Leandra said.

Francesca couldn't think of what to say and so put her arms around her daughter, and to her great surprise felt Leandra return the embrace. Tears stung Francesca's eyes. She tightened her arms around her daughter, remembered holding her as a newborn. They had started Leandra's life together in this pose; now they would end it in the same pose. It had all gone so wrong.

Francesca's mind was filled with the sudden, morbid necessities of their situation. Should she end things for them? Surely she could come up with a better way to die than being gutted by a warkite. But maybe she should fight back. Perhaps she could disspell one or two of the constructs.

The crowd jostled around them. The cannons were firing less often now. Francesca put her thoughts aside and focused on holding her daughter. She waited.

And waited.

Waiting for death seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time. Irritation moved through Francesca. She had felt this way once before, many years ago. If she had been brave enough to reconcile herself to the disappointing way in which she would leave the universe, the least the universe could do to return the favor would be to usher her out of it in a timely manner.

Francesca loosened her hold on Leandra enough to look up at the sky. She wanted to see what was taking death so long. But what she saw shocked her. “What in the burning hells are they doing here?” she asked.

High above them, swarming around the airship carriers and visible in the light of the burning city, were three humanoid figures made entirely of paper thin sheets of metal. They glided on the wind with wings forty or fifty feet wide that shone with white auras. In their hands, each creature wielded thin, ten-foot long swords made of light. The bright creatures were taking turns diving at the carrier to slash its lofting sails. Below them, the lofting kites had stopped descending upon the city and instead rose up to attack the winged creatures.

Leandra also looked up. “Lornish war seraphim?”

“Yes.”

“But how…” Leandra's voice trailed off as she let go of her mother and then pointed.

Francesca turned to see that the bay was illuminated by blazing red light. The decks of two war galleys shone with figures made of flame. Some had two legs and walked upright. Others ran on four legs. All of them were attacking the imperial sailors or running up the rigging to spread the conflagration.

“Dralish wildfire deities,” Francesca said. “That makes even less sense unless…” Then she cried out and pointed. The sky was brightening to the east, and she could just make out three new ships. Their taller hulls and more expansive rigging marked them as being Lornish war galleys. “The support convoy from Starfall! The war gods of the South!”

Some in the crowd were cheering, but far more were bowing their heads in prayer. Above them, three sleeker airships—cruisers, Francesca would have guessed—were coming to the aid of the carriers. The more maneuverable airships were able to fight off the Lornish seraphim. As Francesca watched, one airship swooped down and with its long foresails slashed the wing off of one seraphim. The now pitiful war god began a spiraling fall out of the sky.

But more of the seraphim had joined the fight. The airships turned and began retreating. Out on the bay, the empire's war galleys were likewise sailing away from the city.

The two ships attacked by the wildfire war gods continued to burn. The resulting light illuminated the Savanna Walker's black dragon where it remained frozen in the bay.

A great cheer went up from the crowd and suddenly everyone seemed to be embracing everyone else. Francesca found herself hugging Tam and then a red cloak she had never seen before in her life and then her daughter again.

“This means we're not going to die after all?” Leandra asked over the cheers.

Francesca laughed. “You seem almost disappointed.”

Leandra shook her head and laughed. “We have to keep on fighting. Do you think the Southern deities will be enough to scatter the imperial fleet?”

“I doubt it, but at the least the Lornish seraphim can keep the carriers away. We can defend the city until the Council of Starfall sends a fleet of our own.”

“Or until imperial reinforcements arrive.”

“Oh, God-of-gods,” Francesca said with another laugh, “we're not going to die right now! Can you be happy about that for just one damned moment?”

But Leandra face remained grim. “Whatever happens in the coming days, know that I'm just now seeing things clearly.” She paused. “And if anything happens to me, you have to look after Dhrun.”