“I…” He held it awkwardly, not quite gripping it, letting it balance on his hand. “Major, I think you’re going to want this. And soon. Maybe we don’t have all the facts, maybe we don’t know exactly who’s guilty and who’s innocent, not yet, but we know that Chaou and her confederates are killing people. They might try to kill the queen. And since we can’t trust anyone to help us, we’re going to need every asset we can get our hands on between now and, well, whenever this ends.” He held the gun out.
“No.” Syfax stared straight ahead, lids heavy and drooping, back sore and aching. I wonder where those families in the forest are tonight? Did they make it to town? Did they get caught in the riots or are they huddled under a tree somewhere, starving and cold? “God gave me perfectly good fists. And I’ve shot enough people, enough of our people, whether they deserved it or not. Just put it away.”
He did. “What about the governor? What’s she going to do when her guards don’t come back? She’ll be suspicious. We need a plan. Maybe if we-”
“Shut up and wait. That’s the plan. Sade isn’t going to do anything. She knows we’re here. She’s also missing her guards. Do you think she’ll send those little kids back here next? Nah, she’ll sit up there and hope that we don’t make a scene. Which we won’t.” He thumbed his nose and hunkered down in his seat. “How much longer to Orossa?”
Chapter 38. Taziri
Taziri gripped the edge of her console with clawing fingers. Every few seconds, she tried to relax her hands and her back and her legs, but then the lightning would flash and the thunder would roar and she’d be tense as an overwound spring again. The view through the forward windows was a blur of glittering rain, black clouds, and blue-white afterimages all piled on top of each other like dozens of stained glass windows, except the images were all mountain peaks and parts of the Halcyon ’s cockpit.
She glanced at Ghanima. In the darkness, she could just barely see the pilot swaying her shoulders from side to side and bobbing her head slightly. Her lips were moving silently.
Taziri grinned in spite of herself. Ghanima was singing and dancing, mostly in her head, but just a bit of the music was slipping out into her body too. Watching Ghanima navigate the storm while providing her own in-flight entertainment, Taziri released her death grip on her station and rested her hands on the chart table. Somewhere beneath her fingers was a map of Marrakesh under a hinged glass lid, but there was no light to see it. No cabin lights, no flashlights, only the sudden lightning that seemed to wait until she was facing something useless to strike and burn yet another blue-white image into her tired eyes.
The beacon light at the edge of the city hung low in the sky, its support tower invisible in the starless night. “How close, do you think?”
“At this rate? Maybe another hour, hour and a half. This crosswind is pretty stiff. We’re just creeping along up here.” Ghanima didn’t sound tired at all.
“Just let me know when you want me to spell you. You’ve been driving for a long while now. You should take a break.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Taziri frowned and her fingers crept back to grip the edge of her station.
An hour later, the last ridge slipped by beneath the airship’s belly and the tiny lights of the Lower City shone clearly across the floor of the valley. Countless candle flames danced in countless homes, filling the windows with unsteady yellow glows. The streetlamps sipped at their gas feeds, offering a steadier, brighter light at regular intervals up and down the city blocks.
Taziri peered down. “The airfield must be there, in that dark patch to the right.”
“I think you’re right.” Ghanima eased the controls to starboard. “I’ve only made this landing a couple times at night. We usually arrive in Orossa around mid-afternoon when we come in from Espana.”
“If you want, I can take us in.”
She shook her head. “I’m good.”
The landing approach began smoothly with only the murmur of the rain competing with the droning of the propellers, but as they descended over the field the Halcyon began to shimmy and shake.
“Just a little turbulence, folks,” Ghanima muttered. The airship dropped a yard, then glided swiftly to port, then nosed down and swooped over the grass. She kicked the pedals, rotated the props, and planted the Halcyon ’s wheels in the soft mud. “Just like in the manual.”
Taziri smiled and patted her shoulder. “Nice work.”
Before she could say another word, the cabin lights flickered on overhead, and the heavy flashlight sitting in the tool rack threw its feeble beam up against the wall. Pilot and engineer exchanged a look, and laughed. Then the outside floodlights snapped on and the darkness blossomed into a field of brilliant green grass, and in that grass on all sides of the ship stood dozens of uniformed soldiers with rifles trained on the Halcyon ’s cabin.
Taziri froze.
Ghanima whispered, “Shit.”
They held their empty hands high, gently woke the snoring doctor, and then calmly and quietly opened the hatch. Taziri winced in anticipation of the first blow. It was harder than she expected. The next few minutes were a blur of shouting and being shoved against the airship’s hull, kicked, shackled, and dragged out onto the wet grass to kneel alongside a wheezing Ghanima and a trembling Evander.
“Please, please! Who is in command here?” She heard herself speaking like it was someone else. Her heart was in her throat as she saw the dozens of gun barrels gazing at her like dead black eyes. The rain hissed all around them.
A square-faced woman loomed over them. “I’m General Demsiri. You are under arrest for the crimes of arson, murder, and treason against the crown. You will be held in an army prison until your trial and inevitable execution.”
“No-no-no! You’ve got it wrong! Chaou and Hamuy! It’s the ambassador and her bodyguard, they did it!” Adrenaline-fueled panic soaked through Taziri’s brain as she pictured her last few hours in a stone cell, far from her Yuba and Menna. “I watched Hamuy stab my captain, Isoke, right in front of me!”
“And I saw the ambassador shoot my captain in the back on the Crake!” Ghanima tried to stand and was promptly kicked back down by the soldier standing behind her.
The general frowned at them. “Medur Hamuy is the man who informed us about what exactly happened in Tingis. He barely survived the journey here, and he said you might try to blame him. He also said you might try to smuggle a foreign assassin into the Upper City. I assume he meant this Hellan.”
Evander stared up, baffled. “Assassin? I’m a doctor! The finest surgeon you’ll ever have the privilege to arrest, madam! And what’s more, I’m here at the request of the queen herself. I have papers! Check them! Here, in my bag!”
Still frowning, Demsiri took the bag and stepped into the airship cabin out of the rain. Taziri tried to turn to see what she was doing, but all she got was a rifle butt to her shoulder to shove her back again. A minute later, the general reappeared and handed the bag to another officer. Demsiri circled them once. “I’m having the papers checked. They’ll be verified with the Upper City within the hour. We’ll wait in the hangar.”
Taziri felt the soldiers lifting her by her armpits and then she stumbled through the slick mud with dark, shining rifles waving on every side. She shuffled into the hangar where the gas lamps were burning brightly to reveal a clean swept floor and a few collapsible tables and chairs. With her hands still tied behind her back, Taziri was pushed down with Ghanima and Evander to sit together encircled by wet, frowning soldiers, their long coats and trousers dripping with knives, grenades, and other little boxes and vials that the airship engineer assumed were lethal.
The general’s hour turned out to be nearly two hours, and they were spent in nearly perfect silence. The soldiers did not move, rarely blinked, and the officers seated at the tables made only faint scratching sounds as they filled out their paperwork.
Finally, a pair of young soldiers jogged into the hangar, their short hair plastered to their foreheads, and
