Upon the Flight of the Queen Page 21

  “And how long ago was this?”

  “No more than a half hour.” She’d followed Varama’s instructions absolutely. Over the last few days, she’d repeatedly quelled her subordinates’ confusion and complaints about missions with less obvious purpose. Most of the squires and all of the Alantrans were unfamiliar with Varama’s foresight, and a few of the locals even grumbled anxiously at the series of tasks she’d set Sansyra to accomplish almost from the moment Rylin left.

  That first night in the tunnels, Varama had still been a little slower in her speech, though her mind had been razor keen as always. First Varama had set a team of volunteers to sewing expensive silky fabrics liberated from the temple above, promising that the strange patterns would prove useful in the coming week. Then she had dictated detailed instructions to Sansyra: “I require several dozen intact glass bottles and a great quantity of spirits.”

  Sansyra had thought that a little challenging, although not impossible.

  Varama had continued: “Send parties to city gardens and recover all the bee canopy plants, leaves and blossoms, and a good quantity of lark stem. Sketch them to show the squires what the plants look like.”

  Sansyra had bobbed her head. The bee canopy plant was known for producing a toxin useful as a numbing agent in small doses. In the days since the plants had been acquired, Varama had rigged a clever distillation system to concentrate alcohol from the spirits, then extracted the poison from enormous quantities of fan-dried plant parts. Sansyra guessed what her mentor planned to do next, although she had no idea how Varama would transport the bottled poison past sentries and down dragon gullets.

  Varama had relayed even more orders, though. “I need two buxom female volunteers proficient at both sword and shield for an especially dangerous and unusual duty. Lastly, I’ll need the signet ring of a high-ranking Naor officer whose death won’t immediately be discovered.”

  That last had been the most challenging assignment of all, and Sansyra had handled it personally. Now she watched with profound satisfaction as the alten set the ring down on the old desk with a muted clunk, the rough oval symbol pressed with the ring’s twin spears facing outward. “This is ideal.”

  Sansyra loved those rare moments of praise from Varama, or the suggestion of it.

  They had precious few supplies with them in the long tunnels beneath the city, but they’d discovered ink and paper in the desk in the cool gray room Varama used as her headquarters. By the light of the single lantern suspended from the ceiling hook, Sansyra watched Varama retrieve them from lower drawers.

  “Let me see his orders again.”

  Sansyra unfolded the papers she’d taken from the dead man’s belt and handed them over. “What are you planning, Alten?” She’d been curious for days.

  Varama answered without looking up. “The Naor are going to give us the remaining supplies we need to kill their dragons. I’m going to write some orders. Then we must move with speed. See that I’m undisturbed.”

  Of course her explanation wouldn’t be detailed. It would have to serve, for Varama hated repeating herself. “Yes, Alten.”

  Sansyra stepped to the door, ready to intercept any attempt at interruption. Varama herself stared unblinkingly into space for prolonged moments, tapping her long blue chin. Then she bent to examine the sloppily worded orders, penned in their looping script. She pressed the paper flat to the right side of the desktop, stared at it a final time, then dipped the pen into ink and set to work, scratching quickly across the paper. With her choices made, she acted without hesitation or even pause, as if she’d completely worked out what she’d write before she set to work. Probably she had.

  Some squires disliked Alten Varama because of her odd habits and awkward mannerisms, and accused her, to each other, of being arrogant and brusque. Sansyra preferred her direct manner of speech. She had never actually witnessed arrogance, only certainty, borne up by Varama’s thorough understanding of her own strengths and limitations. Sansyra delighted in anticipating Varama’s needs, carrying out her brilliant schemes, and occasionally offering a suggestion that her mentor found useful.

  Though she’d have never wished it, the situation in Alantris was somewhat of a reprieve for Sansyra. Before much longer she’d have to decide if she wanted to apply for her sixth brevet, or leave the corps. Not only were sixth rankers supposed to venture widely, acting much like junior Altenerai, she’d almost certainly be shifted to another post, nominally under supervision of a different alten. And she didn’t want to leave Varama’s service. Once the alten saw them through their current difficulties, Sansyra would have to decide whether to accept the promotion that was almost certain to be offered, or to ask Varama if she’d consider using a civilian adjutant—after all, Varama worked with talented craftspeople and engineers who weren’t in the corps, and who couldn’t be promoted away from her, so perhaps she’d consider an assistant outside of the military structure.

  Sansyra shook herself out of reverie as the alten finished with a flourish and motioned her over. The squire hurried to take the paper, blotting it dry with a rag she’d brought as Varama began composition of an entirely new letter. Over the next few minutes she drafted four sets of orders, sealing each with wax stamped by the ring. By the time she’d finished, Sansyra was ready to succinctly confirm her understanding of what must be done. She then departed to send messengers in captured Naor uniforms hurrying to deliver the forged documents and organized all the other tasks required to further their plans, afterward grabbing a few hours of sleep. Though excited by what lay ahead, she was experienced enough with Varama’s irregular habits to take sleep when it came, even if she delayed a few minutes to sketch Varama smiling.

  Sansyra was roused deep in the night to don a leather cuirass with reinforced metal studs, favored by one of the Naor tribes, then led her similarly outfitted force through the deserted streets, stopping just shy of the cross street where Alvor’s Oak thrust its great thick branches toward the bright stars. It stood near the canal ringing the rise to the second tier, in one of the city’s innumerable garden spots that the Naor hadn’t gotten around to destroying yet.

  Varama was waiting for them in the shadows with a small force of archers that included the young warrior Denalia, niece of the late governor, Aradel. Their taciturn commander made no mention of the first part of their mission, which had obviously been a success, for they now possessed a cart, horses, and more Naor uniforms. Of the Naor who’d followed Varama’s forged orders to deliver these supplies there was no sign, though Sansyra could easily guess their fate. Their bodies had been dragged into a deserted house where the words “N’lahr will come for you,” or something similar, had been written in blood upon a nearby wall. With the Naor, primitive threats seemed to work better than any other and Varama had encouraged this tactic whenever opportunities arose.

  Sansyra motioned her people carrying the bottles full of distilled bee canopy toxin forward, and Varama took each and carefully applied them to the foodstuff packaged in five large baskets on the cart.

  The alten wore a Naor officer’s get-up from the Ferasht tribe, complete with fur ruffle and feathered helmet. At close range she’d never be confused with a Naor man, even with darkness cloaking her distinctive features, but by the time a Naor was as near her as Sansyra he’d either be dead or Varama would have activated her semblance. The alten couldn’t afford to leave the magical disguise active all the time; there simply wasn’t enough power within the tool. The energy currently filling this one had been painstakingly donated by the mages among them, a little bit from each, a little at a time. Their hours of effort had resulted in only a few useful minutes of energy. But even a little moment of illusion might make all the difference.

  Varama handed Sansyra a helmet. “Squire, here’s yours.”

  Sansyra slipped on the captured Naor helmet earlier prepared for her use, oversized and fuzzy with its ridiculous horsehair beard and mustache, anchored in place by the cheek guards.

  Varam
a checked over the soldiers, quietly reiterating instructions. Though she disliked repeating herself, she tended to do so whenever she was uncertain that important information was thoroughly absorbed by her listeners. Sansyra had noticed more repeating in the past two days than at any other time in their acquaintance.

  The squires Iressa and Nereal were the only two among them not garbed in armor. Instead, they wore Alantran dresses and head scarves. They packed shields into the bottom of the cart, along with their weapons. While Iressa adjusted a dark rumpled blanket over them, Nereal fussed with her dress front, pulling down on the cloth to reveal generous cleavage.

  “No Alantran woman goes out without an undershirt,” Denalia scolded as she stepped in close. “And your scarf is done up wrong.”

  The blond squire squirmed a little, jiggling. “Goodness, am I too scandalous? I’d hate for the Naor to become distracted.”

  Curvy, fine-featured Iressa joined her. “Quit shaking those around before someone gets hurt.”

  Denalia pointed at their skirts. “Alantran women don’t slit their dresses like that.”

  “I don’t think the Naor soldiers will care,” one of the Alantrans muttered from the side. Sansyra recognized him as Tevrik, an archery officer.

  “Shouldn’t you be on guard?” Sansyra asked.

  “I’m testing the distractibility of the lures, here. Good job, Squires.”

  Iressa smiled slyly at him.

  Sansyra was getting ready to mouth a rebuke, but Denalia stepped forward. “At least let me help with the scarves,” the young officer said. “You’ve both gotten the front folds wrong. And Nereal, you have too much hair showing.”

  “A little more alacrity if you please,” Varama said.

  Denalia fussed for only a moment before stepping back, still looking dissatisfied, but Varama ordered them under way. The alten marched at the column head, immediately followed by Sansyra, who led the cart. Iressa and Nereal came after, shadowed by Tevrik, pretending to guard them. The archers ranged at the rear in two semi-orderly columns, as they’d noticed Red Feather bowmen tended to march.

  They passed shuttered houses. No lights shone from within, and no cookfires sent smoke from chimneys. Some few refugees probably hid within portions of the city, but most Alantrans had been forcibly moved from their homes and were kept under guard in larger spaces, when not directed to prepare food, care for animals, labor on Naor engineering projects … or other tasks that no one wanted to visualize.

  Apparently the Naor didn’t see the defensive utility of a staggered gate system, thus walls and homes were coming down for the construction of straight throughways from the outer gates to the city’s heart. They passed near one gaping rent, astonished by the wanton destruction of the ancient wall and nearby houses, now nothing more than wrecked timber piles or empty foundations.

  The city was mostly quiet. The wind rustled herbage and creaked abandoned doors. Every now and then a dog barked, which was unremarkable. The outbreak of terrified screaming from somewhere west of them, abruptly cut off, was not. Were these ordinary times, they’d have immediately diverted to investigate. This night, though, they had a vital mission more important than seeking evidence of another of the innumerable tragedies visited on the people of Alantris by their occupiers.

  As they advanced they passed within a block of a dully glowing square, but no one turned to look. This was the source of a continual greasy smoke that clung to surrounding structures, a special fire fed not only with wood, but the flesh of the blood-drained vanquished. Sansyra shuddered to think about the ash that fell upon her and feared what she might smell, but the scent of burned timber overwhelmed all else.

  They marched over bridges and streets and presented themselves at a checkpoint, receiving only rudimentary examination. The “prisoners” Nereal and Iressa drew the male gaze just as readily as Varama had intended. It wasn’t just their distraction at work, though. The Naor hadn’t imagination enough to suppose the Resistance would walk freely into the most heavily guarded sector of their captured city with a wagon and two “helpless” women.

  They passed through two barricades before they arrived finally at the outskirts of the flat field in the outermost ring of the city where the dragons lay.

  The buildings that had once housed the farmers who’d worked these fields had been cleared away over the past three days, apart from one home to the far northwest and another to the southeast. A crude sentry platform had been erected upon the roof of each. More than a half square mile of slapdash wooden fence now sealed off the field and presented only one entrance, which they approached. The outer wall beyond was a black slash defining the horizon, ominous and threatening now that it lay under enemy control.

  Their escort of archers fell back in the shadow of the last line of houses. Their moment would come.

  Only Tevrik stayed with them, behind the costumed squires walking with downcast eyes, miming the part of downtrodden citizenry. Varama donned her semblance as they drew close to the sentries at the dark dragon field’s entry point. The alten had transformed into a slim young man with a wispy beard. She arrogantly pushed back her shoulders as she stopped before the Naor guard.

  Four of the six Naor had been playing dice, but rose with their commander to receive the wagon party. Lanterns hung from nearby poles ruddied their beards and hair and the one in charge carried himself as though he hated his job and personally blamed them for being stuck with it. He bade them halt in a gravelly voice and saluted with a hand to head.

  Varama returned the salute. Sansyra noticed the soldiers glance briefly at her and Tevrik, but the men’s eyes slid over to the comely squires and settled there.

  “I am Dragon Lord Torzhek,” Varama said in a reedy voice, and passed over more of her forged papers. “I have supplies for the dragons.”

  The sentry officer took the papers and stepped closer to a lantern to read them.

  Sansyra knew what was written there—a terse set of lies about Torzhek’s imaginary arrival from General Chargan’s army to assist with the dragons, authorization to access the beasts, and the command that his orders regarding them were to be obeyed without question.

  The sentry folded the paper and handed it back to Varama. “Everything looks in order, Dragon Lord. Is that more food? They were just given a bunch of uncooperative Alantrans a few hours ago.”

  Sansyra’s lips curled beneath her scratchy faux beard.

  Varama answered coolly. “A spell has been worked into this food to make their scales tougher. Let us through, while the magics remain potent.”

  The sentry officer turned to two of his men. “You heard the dragon lord. Get the gate open.”

  “And,” Varama said, as if it were an afterthought, “I’m supposed to convey this pair to the general when I’m through. Would you like to keep them here or shall I take them with me?”

  One of the guards whistled appreciately.

  “You’ll keep hands off,” Varama snapped. “They’re for the general alone.”

  “It’s not my hands I want to touch them with,” the guard joked in a low voice, and he and his comrades laughed.

  “Silence that,” the officer snapped, then nodded to Varama. “They’ll be safe with us,” he promised.

  “See that they are.” Varama raised her head. “Come,” she told Sansyra, then advanced past her without looking. Sansyra led the cart after her. She feared little for Tevrik and the lower rankers. All the squires had to do was distract the sentries for a few moments as the archers came up.

  Soon they were in the fields where artichoke and fennel had been stamped flat. Sansyra could imagine no reasonable explanation for ruining crops that could just as easily have fed invaders.

  A lane that had once separated fields from vanished houses still ran past the space in front of the clear spot where the dragons rested. While the darkness hid the dragons themselves, it could not hide the huge awnings thrown over them yesterday. She felt exposed and vulnerable in the flat empty space as t
hey made their way toward the monsters.

  She wasn’t aware that Varama had shut off her semblance until she heard her speak quietly, in a rare attempt at rapport. “Things are going well enough so far.”

  “Yes,” Sansyra agreed.

  “If we are challenged on our way out, remember that many of these are young men out on their first foray. The last war did not leave the Naor many veterans.”

  She’d said something similar in a brief speech several days earlier, and Sansyra appreciated the reminder, although their edge in skill would only count if they could keep clear of the overwhelming enemy numbers.

  As the cart rumbled forward, their proximity revealed the outline of their monster targets at last. The five great beasts lay beneath individual awnings, arranged some forty paces apart, with their snouts a few paces back from the edge of the lane. The outer wall was only a few hundred feet beyond the last. There was no missing the silhouettes of watchers on the wall and towers. Sansyra spied four of them making their rounds. “What will the men on the walls think of us?”

  “That we obviously belong here because we passed through the gate.” She must have been keyed up because she elaborated. “Those are sentries charged with watching for the terrible fae cavalry. They are apt to be both nervous and bored, but all of their suspicions will be focused outward, especially after yesterday’s incident.”

  From what little they’d been able to glean about life beyond the walls, some uncaptured Alantran cavalry were bedeviling the Naor. Yesterday they’d reined in at extreme range and unleashed a volley that cut down two Naor sentries and wounded three more. A liberated work gang of Alantrans had been elated to pass on the news they’d overheard from their slain minders.

  Sansyra risked a glance over her shoulder and calculated that they were a quarter mile from the gate and the sentries. She hadn’t heard a sound from them, and that was probably a good sign. Maybe the archers had already finished off the Naor behind them and assumed command of the sentry post.