«Perhaps.» There was an awkward silence as they faced each other. «I couldn't think of anything else to say, Drum. I just stood there and let him walk away from me.»
His aide nodded and gave a faint smile. «Maybe there weren't any words left to be said.»
They walked back across the airfield and into the Elven encampment in silence. Now and again, Pied cast anxious glances toward the Federation lines, where the first torches were being lit with twilight's approach. He could still see the Elven warships, dark smudges pinned against the sky. He searched for ground activity, but saw none. It was hard to tell, though, so far away and in poor light.
His thoughts drifted. He had grown up with Kellen Elessedil, and there were few men or women who knew him better. He should have been able to devise a more effective approach to dissuading him from making an ill– advised attack. He should have been able to avoid angering him so. Somehow things had gotten out of hand, and he was still struggling with the fact of it. He could see the faces of Kiris and
Wencling in his mind, looking shocked and afraid, as if seeing what he hadn't seen, as if knowing secrets he should have known. He tried not to think what Arling would say once she discovered how badly he had let her down. If she would talk to him at all, he amended. She might not. She might dismiss him as swiftly as Kellen had.
«Captain,' Drumundoon said suddenly, taking his arm.
A man was racing toward them from across the flats, one of his Home Guard. The man's name escaped him, though he knew it as well as his own. He struggled to remember it and failed.
«Phaile,' Drum whispered, as if reading his mind.
Phaile reached them in a rush and saluted. «Acrolace has returned, Captain!» he exclaimed. His breath came in short, labored gasps. «She's badly injured! She says you are to come right away!»
They broke into a run, Phaile leading the way. Pied didn't bother questioning the man, — Acrolace was the one he needed to see.
But the urgency of the summons frightened him.
They reached a cluster of Elves close to the edge of the bluff, just above the front of the Elven defensive line. Acrolace lay on the ground, the silver–and–black Federation tunic she had donned as a disguise stained and torn, her left arm ripped open all the way from shoulder to elbow. She was pale from loss of blood and rigid with pain. Her green eyes found his as he knelt beside her, and her fingers fastened on his wrist.
He bent close to hear her, his eyes never leaving hers. «What happened, Acrolace?» he whispered. «Where's Parn?»
She shook her head. «Dead.» She swallowed thickly. 'They have an airship …» She coughed, and blood bubbled on her lips. «Under heavy guard, no one allowed close. But … we got near enough …»
She trailed off, her eyes closing against pain or memory, he couldn't tell which. When she opened them again, he squeezed her hand. «What did you see?»
«A weapon mounted on the deck. Big. Something new.» She inhaled sharply. «They're waiting for us, Captain. They know … we're coming. We heard them … say so.»
She gave a long, slow sigh, and her hand released its grip on his. Aweapon, he repeated silently.
«She's unconscious,' one of the Healers said. «Better so.»
Pied looked around quickly, trying not to panic. «Phaile,' he said, spotting his Home Guard messenger. «Find Commander Fraxon. Tell him I said to expect a Federation attack. Tell him it will be massive, a push to break all the way through our lines. Tell him it will come at any time and to have his Elven Hunters ready. Hurry!»
He stood up. «Drum, call up all elements of the Home Guard and place them on the airfield. They are to hold it at all costs. All costs, Drum. Until I tell them to stand down.»
His aide nodded, his long face as pale as Acrolace's. «Where will you be? What will you do?»
Pied was already hurrying away, his determination etched on his lean features. «I'm going after the King,' he called over his shoulder. 'This time he will have to listen to me!»
Twenty
Pied Sanderling sprinted the length of the Elven encampment, bumping aside anyone who got in his way, knocking over equipment and stores, leaving in his wake a string of angry shouts and curses. His mind was already far ahead of his body, thinking of what he must do and how he must do it, aware of how futile his efforts were likely to be. A terrible certainty gripped him. He was going to be too late. No matter how quick he was, he wasn't going to be quick enough. The disaster he had feared had come to pass, and all the failed warnings in the world would not be enough to persuade him it was not his fault. Run faster!
He reached the airfield winded and flushed, and as he tore down the embankment toward the airships, he searched frantically for someone he recognized among the few who hadn't gone with Kellen Elessedil. He found only a lone commander of a railgun sloop, a grizzled veteran named Markenstall. He barely knew the man, knew more of his reputation than of him. A brave man, dependable in a fight, a solid presence in the pilot box—that would suffice.
«Captain!» he shouted, rushing up to the older man. «Is your sloop fitted and ready?» He glanced at her name, carved into the stern.Asashiel.
Markenstall stared at him with a mix of surprise and doubt. Gray whiskers stuck out from the sides of his jaw, deep lines furrowed his weathered face, and his ears were tattered and scarred. He had the look of a man who had been in more than a few fights.
«Answer me, Captain!» Pied shouted at him.
The older man started sharply. «Ready and fitted as she can be, Captain Sanderling,' he growled.
«Good. We're taking her up. Cast off.»
Markenstall hesitated. «Captain, I'm not authorized to—'
«Listen carefully to me,' Pied interrupted. «The King flies into a trap. One of my Home Guard nearly lost her life getting that news to me, — another lies dead somewhere beyond our lines. I'm not about to let that be for nothing! There isn't time to seek authorization of any sort. If you want to save the King and those who went with him, we must leave at once!»
He cast a quick glance south, where the sky had turned deep blue in the twilight haze and the airships his gaze had followed earlier had disappeared from view. The dusk was thickening, the last of the sunlight a dim glow below the horizon west, the first stars beginning to brighten in the sky north. East, the moon was a silvery crescent lifting out of the Lower Anar.
His eyes flicked back to Markenstall. «Captain, please!»
The veteran studied him a moment longer, then nodded. «Very well. Get aboard.» He turned to a pair of sailors sitting nearby. «Pon! Cresck! Off your duffs and get aboard! Take in the lines and anchors! Prepare to cast off!»
The two crewmen and the grizzled Captain were skilled at making quick departures, and theAsashiel was airborne in minutes, swinging south with the wind, tacking swiftly out across the flats and beyond the Free–born lines. Pied stood in the pilot box with Markenstall while the crewmen manned the railguns to either side, breeches opened and loaded, triggers unlocked. No one mistook the foray for anything but what Pied was certain it was going to turn out to be.
«Mind if I ask what it is you intend to do with a sloop and two railguns?» Markenstall asked once they were winging out over the desolate front, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Pied shook his head. «Whatever I can.»
Ahead, the Federation lines were so dark they were virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding land. Pied thought he heard shouting, the sounds of sudden activity, but it was hard to tell with the rush of the wind and the whine of the rigging in his ears.
Then lightning split the darkness, brilliant and piercing, the bolt a horizontal rope stretched low and taut against the horizon. The bolt struck something that exploded instantly into a fiery ball, burning fragments pinwheeling into the darkness to fall like tiny firebrands to the earth. For just an instant, a cluster of airships was silhouetted against the brightness, masts and hulls stark and black.
«Shades!» Markenstall hissed. «What was that?»
Pied swiftly amended his earlier conclusion. It wasn't lightning after all. Not riding that low and that
