Page 14 of Of Blood and Fire
Was she the real reason that boat had been waiting for him? I certainly didn’t believe it was mere chance that it was anchored in the very same deep-water harbor that Aric’s boat had limped into after being attacked by pirates.
“And Gayl—no sign of her?”
He shook his head. “What of the fog? Any news?”
“We didn’t penetrate it—it was too risky when we were alone. I do plan to go back with Kele and Yara tomorrow morning, though.” I grimaced. “I also found Cate’s team—they’re dead, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, damn.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, his fingers snagging strands of steely gray and sending them floating into the air. “The bodies?”
“Burned.”
“By you?”
“No.”
He studied me for a moment, obviously sensing there was more to their ending than I’d said. “At least they’ll not become a predator’s feast. I’ll have their families informed.”
I nodded. “The tracks they were following were a force of the gilded riders’ serfs dragging wagons loaded with large baskets toward the Blue Steel Mountains. We took them out.”
Jarin frowned. “Why would they be dragging baskets out there?”
“To fly enough foot soldiers over the mountains, allowing an attack on three fronts.”
He swore, long and loud. Everyone in the room was too well trained to stop and look around, but there was a decided drop in the noise level. “We’ve not the time to set up more watch stations, and we haven’t the drakkons?—”
“Wehaven’t, but Arleeon has plenty, and it might be possible to arrange for them to keep watch.”
It would be dangerous, given their lack of protection against the weapons the riders could bring to bear against them, but if Kaia could enforce the desperate need, perhaps using Ebrus’s death as a pointer...
Can try, she said, her grief at losing her male drakkling evident in the soft reply.
Thank you.
“But we dare not rely on them alone.” I glanced at the map. “Send a squadron out to Mayten and set up watch there; tell them to ready the village for possible evacuation.”
Mayten was a farming area, and the village itself little more than a collection of civic buildings—a healers hut, a hall, the village’s mayoral and enforcement office, and a marketplace—but it was the closest community we had in the vicinity of the riders’ chosen path over the Blue Steel Mountains, and likely the first one to be hit if they continued with their plans to haul soldiers over the mountains.
“You know,” Jarin said, “our drakkons are far bigger than their birds and could carry a far heavier load—if we could uncover where these bastards originate from, we could arrange a nasty little surprise of our own.”
“I suspect gathering that sort of information will be easier said than done.”
“Aye, Commander, but it’s still worth contemplating. The Mareritt must know where they live, given they’ve obviously been trading with them, so maybe we need to deploy a special task force to find out.”
“I doubt it’s something regular Mareritten soldiers would know.”
“I agree, but their masters of trade surely would.”
“Snaring a master of trade means sneaking into K’Anor, and given they’re now on a war footing, that won’t be easy.” Hell, it wouldn’t have been an easy task evenbeforethey’d sharpened their defenses.
“But worth at least assigning a couple of tacticians to explore our options.”
“It definitely can’t hurt to do that.” I paused. “Which reminds me, can you ask Harris if he’s familiar with a ship’s flag that’s blue and white with a yellow sun in the middle? We saw itdocked at K’Anor when we did that flyover, and it’s not one I’m familiar with.”
“Nor I,” he said with a frown. “You’re thinking they could come from the same region as our riders?”
“We can’t discount the possibility, given the Mareritt have obviously been trading with the riders for quite some time.”
“I’ll send a missive to Harris immediately.”
