Page 2 of Of Blood and Fire
I arched an eyebrow. “You’ve not read it?”
“It was addressed to the king, not the second-in-command.”
Again, grief surged. Again, I gulped it down and said, as lightly as I could, “Meaning, technically, I shouldn’t be reading it either.”
He snorted softly—a gruff sound of amusement that seemed to briefly lift the solemnity blanketing the room—but otherwise didn’t reply.
I carefully unrolled the paper. He was right—much of it wasn’t readable. I squinted a little then held the missive up to the wan morning light creeping in through the light tube above our heads. “Okay, they need urgent council with the king. There’s something about boats and—” I paused, shifting the paper’s position a fraction to highlight the next area. “And mention of an attack.”
“The gilded riders would have to go a long way out of their current flight paths to attack Reydia,” Jarin commented.
I glanced at the large map that had been hastily stuck onto the dining room’s black stone wall to the right of the doors. It not only showed our entire continent and all the various outlying islands, but also the currently known positions of both our enemies. Reydia lay a good two days’ sailing beyond what was traditionally considered Arleeon waters, and was generally used as a refuel stop for those bringing goods from farther shores to either Hopetown or Kriton—our two major points on that side of our continent—and vice versa. As Jarin had noted, it was also nowhere near any of the other islands that had come under attack, and certainly well beyond any flight path the gilded riders would have taken to join the massive force they were building in the seas beyond the Throat—part of a dangerous line of peaks that had until now formed a nigh-on impassible border into Eastern Arleeon.
That buildup was nightmare material; three drakkons—even if they were now armed with fire—would not defeat such a force.
Not three nowcame Kaia’s thought.Is five.
Kaia was the biggest of our drakkons, and a queen in the prime of her life. She was also nowmydrakkon, magically bonded to me in a ceremony that had not only shared my strega ability to raise fire with her, but also combined our life forces. No one was really sure what that meant beyond the fact that when one of us was sick or injured, it affected the other—something we knew because Hannity, our youngest rider, had come down with some sort of blood fever after the ceremony and remained unconscious. According to the healers I had stationed with her around the clock, her body was finally showing signs of recovery even if she remained unconscious. Her drakkon—Rua, a red on the cusp of breeding age—was similarly unwell, but we were hoping that in keeping Hannity alive, we’d keep Rua alive.
Five against hundreds is still not what I’d call good odds, Kaia.
Have three more kin soon. We have flame now.
Even with eight fire-breathing drakkons, the odds remain greatly in their favor.And it wasn’t like we could get many more at this stage, because so many drakkons remained wary of humans and had not answered Kaia’s call to come help, despite her certainty that they eventually would. Given we’d almost hunted them into extinction, I really couldn’t blame them for their reluctance, especially when there were just as many doubters here in Esan. Jarin wasn’t one, but I’d heard soldiers and plenty of others discussing the inadvisability of using the drakkons when they thought I couldn’t hear them—discussions that had only strengthened after over a dozen soldiers manning the lower wall had been caught in the backwash of drakkon fire. It hadn’t been meant, but it was still used it as a pointer to the fact that, by giving the drakkons fire, we were creating our own doom, and steps needed to be taken for the greater good of all. A somewhat bitter smile twisted my lips. I’d heard very similar “discussions” about my strega abilities when I was just a kidand unable to fully control either the fire or my ability to talk to animals.
Not that I had the latter anymore. I’d known there’d be a price to pay for merging with Kaia, but I hadn’t truly understood the full extent of it. It wouldn’t have mattered even if I had, of course, but still... the silence in my mind was deafening. I really missed the background chatter.
I chatter more, if wish, Kaia commented.
Not quite the same thing, I said dryly, and returned my attention to Jarin. “I agree. Your thoughts?”
“The king did send messages to all our allies requesting information on our green-haired attackers and whether anyone had had any interactions with them, be they recent or past. This may very well be a response to that. If itis, we dare not ignore it.” He hesitated. “But it could also be a trap.”
I frowned. “What makes you think that?”
He waved a hand that was partially bandaged and missing a finger—a lasting reminder of the arrow that had come close to taking his life. Our healers could and did do the near impossible when it came to saving lives, but even they could not successfully reattach body parts that had been severed for too long. “The timing. With the riders building their numbers in the Eastern Sea, this could be nothing more than a means of drawing you and the drakkons out of Esan so they can mount an attack. You did fly to Hopetown’s rescue, so perhaps they believe you will do the same for Reydia.”
“If they were ready to mount a full attack on Esan, they’d do so. They hold no fear of our drakkons.” I was sure of that, if nothing else.
We change that, Kaia said.We burn and melt.
That was definitely a plan I could get behind, even if the disparity in numbers remained a major problem. Of course, there were a couple of other complications—the first being thefact that, even if we did hit them in the middle of the day when the majority of their armored war birds were unable to rise, they’d no doubt be prepared for such an action now thanks to the almost disastrous attack Rua had made against orders during a scouting mission. And, secondly, it was unlikely they remained in the same area. They’d been roosting on giant barges, so could have easily moved by now. Until we went out there, we wouldn’t know for sure, and with the Mareritt remaining a threat, it wasn’t yet worth the risk of flying out. Not until our next three drakkon riders were ready to go, anyway, and that could take another twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
At least if the gilded ridersdiddecide to attack us, we’d have some advance warning, thanks to the newly established watch stations at Brimstone’s Pass and Crooked Thumb. The latter had the advantage of looking over the Eastern Sea and the sweep of mountains past the Beak—so named because it rather weirdly resembled a kayin’s slightly hooked beak when viewed from the sea—where the riders now had a series of lookout points. We also had the long-established watch stations along the ridges of the Blue Steel Mountains, and while five stations didn’t guarantee we’d spot them, it was better than being totally blind.
“After what the drakkons did to them at Hopetown and how they razed the Mareritt?” Jarin was saying, somewhat incredulously. “I doubt that.”
“We hardly razed the Mareritt, given they still hold position out in the wastelands.” My reply held a little more annoyance than was warranted, though its cause was the Mareritt and their refusal to leave despite the drakkons taking out a good portion of their initial attack force, not Jarin. I rubbed my head again. What I needed—aside from sleep and a pain potion to get rid of the low-level but annoying headache—was a large cup of shamoke. I should probably eat, too, given it had been Vahree only knew how long since I had. “Even if the Marerittareworking with the riders, it’s unlikely they’d have admitted their defeat. To do so would be to lose face.”
And a Mareritten warrior would rather kill himself than lose face or indeed let himself be captured by an enemy.
“That’s true.” Jarin grimaced again. “Although perhaps the missive will also confirm the alliance we already suspect.”
“Possible.” The Mareritt and the gilded riders very obviously had a trading relationship, given the Mareritt were using devices very similar to the riders’ acidic tube weapons. But I personally couldn’t believe the Mareritt—who believed in their own superiority over all—would cede control or even the spoils of victory to anyone else. “Scribe Hopetown. If they’ve tablets connected to Reydia, get them to send a message informing them of what’s happened and asking for the information they hold to be relayed.”
Hopetown was the first town we’d re-established scribe contact with, mainly because of the port’s importance to bothusand the riders. We might have rebuffed their initial attack, but I had no doubt they’d try to regain control, whether it be via the gilded riders or galleons filled with soldiers.
“Commander Silva?” a deeper voice said. “Long viewers on the upper wall have spotted movement through that mist barrier hiding the Mareritt.”
