With a ghost of smile, Knucklebones nodded. Sunbright groused, 'Once, for the merest moment, and mostly straight down.'
'But you survived. Splendid! This won't be any more complex.' She turned to go upstairs.
'Wait!' Sunbright called. 'We crashed in a tree! Knuckle's still got a scar over her eyebrow-'
'Don't bother,' the thief put in. 'She's set on us flying this beast. We might as well accept it.' Shucking her battered rucksack, Knucklebones walked around the two flitters, grabbed the overhead bar of one and oozed into the seat. She cheerfully tested the twin steering bars, watching the tail and wings tilt and straighten. They'd flown a similar vehicle from Karsus, in the future. These primitive gliders were simpler, with shiny gossamer wings overhead and to the sides, and an upright fishtail, all painted with an ornate B and connected by brass tubing, steel struts, and numerous wires bearing on rollers. The seats were wicker with no floor. The thief nodded.
'This one's in fine shape,' Knucklebones said. 'There is one difference, though. That later flitter had wards to protect you in a crash. This one doesn't.'
'Ouch,' Sunbright joked. 'You seem a presumptuous expert, having flown once and cracked your pate.'
She craned one eye as if winking, and said, 'We wouldn't have crashed if you hadn't crumpled the wings.'
'It wasn't me! It was a guard dog!' his voice echoed in the cellar. 'We were under attack. Otherwise, I never would have set foot in the damned contraption! And speaking of feet, why is there no floor? My boots will fall off!'
Knucklebones pursed kissable lips and said, 'You launch by holding the frame around your waist and running off the edge. Skids on the bottom there let you slide to a landing.'
'Run off the edge…?' Sunbright closed his eyes, held his stomach, and groaned, 'Why must we do this?'
Knucklebones slithered out of the seat, lithe in tight, buffed leather, to inspect that wires and fixtures ran smoothly. 'We've nothing else to offer. She could see that by our clothes,' she told him. 'We have little money, not near enough to pay for scrying. Thirty thousand crowns wouldn't buy that spell, I'd guess. Any tasks we might perform for her-thieving or brute strength work-she can buy elsewhere.
'But there're always foolish bets amongst the rich, and she needs two fools to launch this butterfly. We're big fools in need. You want to find your tribe, don't you? This is how.'
A wave of homesickness washed over the barbarian, and weakened his knees. He made to lean on the flitter, then thought better lest it crumple under his hand. 'But what's this 'other team' tripe? What are we supposed to do, outfly them, or outrace them?'
Fiddling with wires, Knucklebones huffed, 'My guess is we tear them from the sky-make them crash. She was eyeing your tackle, especially your longbow. The Neth favor blood sports.'
Now Sunbright held his head. 'Wonderful,' he grumbled. 'And if we don't shoot them down like ducks on the wing, they shoot us?'
'Absolutely,' Knucklebones said as she straightened. 'But don't fret. We'll win, because you'll shoot, and I'll fly. I liked it last time!'
Sunbright stared through thick fingers at her grin.
'Traitor.'
She stuck out her tongue. 'Sissy.'
Knucklebones had guessed correctly. After a while Bly returned and announced that the duel was set. Lady Fayina's team would launch from her mansion, three blocks hence, and Lady Bly's team from here. Their opponents were a man and woman in a flitter marked with an F. By common consent with the other 'gamers,' no other flitters would launch at that time. The object was to knock your opponent from the sky.
They could shoot the flyers, tear or ram their wings, grapple on, or use any other method. There were only two rules: no magic, and they mustn't crash themselves or their opponents on the city. The opponents were not to meet, or spy on one another, until the duel. Nobles would gather in the late afternoon to watch and cheer, judge, and lay sizeable bets. 'So put on a good show,' Bly commanded.
'Good show,' Sunbright groused. 'We're pitted like dogs on short leashes.'
'Such are commoners to the high-born,' Knucklebones nodded. 'Good for work or play, to live or die or suffer, as long as we do as we're told.'
'No wonder this empire crumbles,' the barbarian complained. 'If it treats its people, the foundation of its wealth, like animals-'
'Animals eat better,' Knucklebones interrupted, then stretched like a cat. 'We should pillage the kitchen, build up our strength.'-Sunbright held his stomach- 'I'll eat. You fast. We don't want to knock the enemy from the sky with puke.'
'You're…' the barbarian hunted for a word, '… unkind.'
Knucklebones smiled and sashayed up the stairs. Sunbright stared bleakly at the flitter.
'It's time. Get in. And don't step through the wing. We need it.'
'I'd rather just jump off the edge of the city and get it over with,' Sunbright said as he climbed carefully through bars and wires and finally squeezed his big frame into the small wicker seat.
In three hours, Knucklebones had rummaged through the cellar and garden shed, and cobbled some tricks. Tied with thread across the front of the cockpit were a dozen long arrows with heads a foot wide. The thief had scavenged rake teeth in the hopes these T-shaped arrows would shear through gossamer fabric and disable a wing. Another addition was a long scythe blade spot-welded to the nose of the flitter like a mosquito stinger. And lastly, a length of light chain with a long hook nestled between them on the seat.
How they'd ply these Sunbright didn't know, or care. 'We're doomed, and that's plain,' he said dramatically. 'I was born on the tundra, an earth-dweller. I don't belong in the sky.'
'Hush, and do what I say, or you'll visit the earth sooner than you'd like,' Knucklebones scolded. 'I intend to land us whole and hale. And stop whining. You'll jinx our luck.'
'If we had luck, we wouldn't-I'm not whining!'
From the entrance to the cellar, a maid heard a signal from above and called, 'They're ready!'
Knucklebones grunted, 'Drop your feet, country mouse. You're a country bat today.'
Stiff as a zombie, Sunbright planted his boots, caught the edges of the flitter, and marched forward. Servants had shot the bolts and unlocked the outside door, and it did indeed gape upon nothing but blue sky and blue hills in the vast distance. The barbarian closed his eyes as the thief called, 'Run, run, run, run-here we go!'
A hop, a stomach-lurching drop, a sickening tilt toward the ground, and a prolonged scream from Sunbright…
Swearing a steady streak, Knucklebones twisted and yanked and shoved the twin steering bars until suddenly, as if by magic, the wings scooped wind and the flitter buoyed on air currents like a boat. Quick experimentation and fast hands leveled them.
Knucklebones hooted with laughter as she hauled a bar to her belly, made the nose of the glider climb, then level again. The framework vibrated like a balky horse at a run, the wings and wires hissed, gusts of air slapped their faces and mussed their hair, but she hollered, 'I've got it! I can fly! We're saved! Open your eyes, damn it!'
Unsquinching his eyes, stomach, and bowels, Sunbright peeked, and gasped. His boots dangled over a mile of sky. Spread in all directions were summer-yellow fields giving way to dull green forest and blue hills. Far to the north he saw the Narrow Sea like a squiggle of quicksilver. 'Lord of War!' he screamed. 'Beyond that's tundra!'
'True! But we need to spot the other flitter! Look around!'
Head hunched between his shoulders, Sunbright craned until he saw the city. It was a blur of white buildings atop a blurry mountain to his watering eyes, but his keen tundra vision picked out 'I see them! White wings marked with an F!'
'Tell me something useful!' Knucklebones yelled back. 'What are they doing?'
'They're…' he said, straining to sort out the picture. Between the jiggling and dipping of their craft and the other, they might have been two drunken dragonflies. 'They're coming after us, I think!'
'They're supposed to be good! Arm your bow, and I'll loop!'
'You'll what?' he screamed. 'Aagh!'
Cranking twin bars in two directions, Knucklebones hooked the craft in midair as if yanking reins. The wings shuddered and Sunbright hurled prayers, but when the thief snapped the bars back, they were level and pointed at
