Page 32 of Of Blood and Fire
“I’m counting on it.”
“You have a plan brewing?”
“As I said, you need to trust me.” He touched my nose, then moved away.
I swore at him again, got a chuckle in response, then reached for the scribe tablet and sent a message to Jarin.
Captives?came the almost immediate return.Who and how many?
Jakarrans, mostly soldiers. Many serious injuries. Kele and Yara will be landing their cage on the military zone’s practice field. I’ll land in the palace courtyard.
You can’t land both in the military section?
They’re big cages.Of course, the parade grounds were far bigger than the courtyard and could easily take the cages without any sort of placement finessing from the drakkons, but I couldn’tactually say that.Can you and Neera meet us in the courtyard on arrival?
The cursor blinked for several seconds; he obviously knew there was a whole lot more going on that I wasn’t saying. Eventually, he asked, And the fog? What were they doing under it, aside from holding our men captive?
The riders’ mages were helping the Mareritt fortify their tube weapons.
Did you destroy them?
Burned the four mages who were visible, blasted the forges they were using, and destroyed crates that were likely holding the acid. They’ll no doubt rebuild the forges, and I suspect there were other mages present, but at least we’ve slowed the process down a little. I paused.The riders won’t be best pleased by these developments, so ready Esan for a possible attack tonight.
The flooding tanks are now operational, and we’re rigging up temporary water sprays at regular intervals along the wall so that any soldier hit by acid can jump under them.
Flooding was a dangerous ploy, given it might also sweep away any soldier unable to find a handhold in time, but the sprays were a good idea—one that would continue to be useful even after we made the walls immune to acid attack.
We’ll be back around dusk. Have the healers waiting with stretchers in both areas.
Will do.
The cursor blinked out. I tucked the tablet and its quill back into the pack, then looked up as Kele approached.
“The doors are sealed, and the men are ready to hang on for grim death,” she said.
“Then let’s mount up and get moving.”
The drakkons landed at the base of the plateau. We moved down, scrambled up their legs, and clipped on; they immediately rose, their wings pumping hard, and dust rose, a thick browncloud that spun around us. Thankfully, there was no wind to catch it and spin it higher, so if there were scouts—Mareritten or rider—there was less likelihood of them seeing it.
Kaia hovered over the first cage, cautiously wrapped her claws around it, then swept away from the plateau to give Yara room. We angled directly toward the Blue Steel Mountains for quite a few miles, then gradually turned left, keeping in their shadows as we flew home to Esan.
There was no sign of any patrol, either Mareritten or gilded rider, on the long journey home, nor was there any obvious increase in the fog protecting their military encampment in the marshlands. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried by that.
If not for the cages, I’d have been tempted to swoop down and investigate, but it was probably just as well we couldn’t, given how tired Kaia—and no doubt Yara—was. It was a state of being that was never conducive to good decisions or indeed swift reactions against a fresher foe.
By the time we arrived in Esan, the night had drawn close, and it was all I could do to remain awake. But sleep was not something I’d be getting anytime soon—not when the true heir to Esan’s throne was about to make his grand reentrance.
Yara peeled away to land her cage in the military section while we continued on. Kaia rose slightly to ensure the cage cleared the wall, then slowly, carefully, descended. Once the cage was safely down in the middle of the courtyard, she released it, then swooped around and landed on the wall.
I disconnected everything and scrambled down her leg, pausing long enough to scratch her eye ridge before ducking under her wings and running—as much as anyone could run with an arrow shaft still in their leg—down the stairs. A crowd had gathered, and medics and stretcher bearers were coming infrom the gates to my left, but my gaze was on the cage and the people standing close—Jarin, Neera, Aric, and the fake husband.
Garran wasn’t visible. I suspected that was deliberate.
“They look in a poor state,” Jarin commented as I stopped beside him. “Though given the Mareritten view on prisoners, they’re extremely lucky to be alive.”
“They’re alive because the riders wished to use them as sacrifices to fuel their magic.”
“That’s barbaric,” Neera said. “How many found such a fate?”
