Episode 5 and 6: Engineer in An Inn & Invasion
Previously on Saga of the Jewels:
Seventeen-year-old Ryn’s hometown is attacked by the Empire and everyone he has ever known is killed. Just before he dies, Ryn’s father gives him a ruby, which causes him to project fire. Ryn is captured by the Empire and meets another captive, Princess Nuthea, who has the ability to project lightning. Nuthea explains to him that the Empire have learned of the existence of twelve Primeval Jewels which grant the ability to manipulate different elements, and are searching for them. The Imperial vessel where they are being held is in turn attacked by a pirate airship, and the pirates capture Ryn and Nuthea. The lead pirate, Captain Sagar, agrees to escort Nuthea back to her homeland, and to spare Ryn’s life, in exchange for the promise of gold, gemstones and beautiful women upon her safe delivery. However, in the battle with the Empire Sagar’s ship’s engineer has been killed. They land in the port city of Ast and head to an inn to try to recruit a purple-haired Engineer called Elrann who they have been told frequents it.
Episode 5: Engineer In An Inn
(This episode is dedicated to Professor Claire Lucas and to Artist Nom Tarassenko.)
The inside of the tavern was surprisingly big.
Ryn could see despite the semi-dark as its walls were lit by a fireplace, flickering candles, the red embers from pipes and tobacco-rolls. There must be pushing a hundred people in here, drinking, talking, swearing, arguing, throwing dice, dealing cards, their silhouettes throwing shifting shadows on the walls.
"How are we meant to find one person in here?" said Nuthea. "It's too dark to make out anyone's hair colour."
"Easy, princess," said Sagar. "We ask."
He swaggered over to the bar and motioned for the attention of the nearest server, a hulking man with a stained apron and a scar over his right eye. Ryn and Nuthea followed him.
"You," Sagar said to the barman, "A draught of your best ale, now. We're looking for a man with purple hair. Where is he?"
"Nobody here like that," said the barman gruffly. He rubbed the tankard he was drying with a cloth, not bothering to fetch Sagar's order right away.
"What?" said Sagar, clearly caught off guard. "Don't play games with me. We've been told there's an engineer who frequents your tavern, name of Elrann. Purple hair. Where is he?"
"I told you," said the barman, setting down the dry tankard with a thunk. "There is nobody here who matches that description."
"Bull," said Sagar. "I got my information from a reliable source. Listen, buddy, I'm only in here because I lost my chief engineer in my last skybattle. That's right, I'm a skypirate--believe it. Now pour me my drink and point me in the direction of Elrann Luccavich before I put out your other eye." He brushed the hilt of one of the swords at his side.
The barman leant both his hands on the bar, looked at Sagar for a long time, then let out a loud sigh, audible even over the chattering and clinking noises of the tavern. Then he turned round and pulled Sagar an ale, muttering something like "Bloody jumped-up skypirates...gonna get a shock...don't say I didn't tell you..."
Sagar must be pretending not to hear him.
When Sagar had paid him for the drink, making a big show of flicking his gold piece onto the bar with his thumb, the barman pointed to a corner of the tavern, where at one of the long tables a number of men and women were drinking and talking merrily. "Over there. You'll find Elrann soon enough."
Sagar didn't thank him. "Idiot," he said as he walked away.
"Tosser," said the barman.
The three of them walked over to the long table, Sagar leading the way. As they approached and the sounds from the table grew louder, it soon became clear that the people seated at it were holding some kind of competition.
Specifically, two people at the far head of the table were having a competition. Which is to say, they were both drinking tankard after tankard of ale (or whatever that brown liquid was) while all the rest of the men and women around them were shouting, cheering them on, and placing bets on who was going to give up first.
"Drink! Drink! Drink!" chanted the crowd.
"Thirty silver pieces on Elrann!"
"I'll take that!"
"Forty on Saldor!"
"She never loses!"
One of the two competitors at the head of the table was an exceptionally well-muscled, shirtless man. His arms each looked like three fleshy balls fused together, and the six symmetrical squares of his abdomen glistened even at a distance. Detailed, intricate tattoos decorated his arms and chest, of a ship, a leviathan, two crossed swords. But he was bald and had no hair.
The other competitor was a young woman of small build wearing a dirty set of blue work overalls and a pair of goggles currently pulled back off her eyes to sit atop her head above a heart-shaped face. Underneath those, she wore a bob of shocking hair, shocking enough to be seen in the firelight.
A bob of shocking purple hair.
The woman finished chugging down her tankard, then clanged it down on the table.
"Another!" she cried.
The onlookers cheered. She had a mad twinkle in her eyes and a wild grin on her face.
Eventually, tatoo-man--'Saldor’--finished quaffing his own tankard and set that down too, but with a much slower and wobblier motion.
"Mercy?" the woman said to him curiously.
The man swayed a little where he sat, his tattoos listing left and right like the ship was caught on a choppy sea.
After a moment he breathed "A...nother..." He said it like he was actually saying 'mercy', but that was not the word that formed on his lips.
More cheers. Both the tankards were re-filled, and the competitors lifted them once more to their mouths, tilting their heads back. The woman took to her tankard lustily, gulping down the ale down again. The man hesitated at first, but then glanced at his competitor and shakily raised his tankard to his lips again. Their throats each bobbed as they drank.
Ryn looked at Sagar. "I think you've found your engineer," he said. Mother. Father. Hometown, Ryn thought. Get engineer. Repair ship. Find General Vorr. Get General Vorr. Kill General Vorr.
Sagar just stood still, his brows knotted, mouth open. He looked like the very foundation of his world had been ripped away from underneath him. No, you don't know how that really feels, Ryn thought. I'm the only one here who knows how that really feels.
The woman finished her tankard and set it once more on the tabletop, far faster than the man at her side and than Ryn would have thought possible. She wore multiple metal necklaces under her blue overall which peeked out around the back of her neck, and multiple metal bracelets on each wrist which clinked when she set down her drink amidst the noise of the tavern.
Saldor took even longer to catch up to her this time, but eventually he finished drinking too and practically dropped his tankard on the table.
"Mercy," said the woman. This time she didn't say it like a question, she issued it as an instruction.
The man was swaying again. But he held up a finger, as if to object.
The people at the table went quiet for a moment, craning forwards to hear what he was going to say.
"Mmmmmm..." said the man.
He let out a long belch and fell sideways off his chair and onto the floor.
The woman raised her tankard above her head. "I win again! How much do I get this time?"
A huge cheer went up from the table, followed by whistles and shouts.
"Come on, pay up, she won!"
"I'm not paying you! She must have used some kind of trick!"
"It's no trick, it's just Elrann!"
"I want my fifty silver pieces now!"
"Not my problem your boy can't handle his drink!"
In the clamour it was Nuthea's turn to address Sagar. "Come on then, Skycaptain," she said, "Ryn is right. This is clearly your engineer."
Sagar blinked, then shook his head, his eyes coming back into focus. “We’ll see…” he said, and strode up to the table, still holding his tankard in one hand. Ryn and Nuthea watched from a few paces behind him.
“Are you Elrann?” Sagar said to the woman.
The other folk around the table were still talking and arguing, pushing and pulling coins back and forth, but the woman raised her gaze at this brash question. Her eyes narrowed a fraction but retained their twinkle. She was still smiling.
“Half the tavern’s chanting my name,” she said to Sagar. “I think it’s safe to assume that, yes, I’m Elrann.”
“But you’re a woman,” Sagar said without missing a beat.
“Last time I checked,” said the woman. One of her eyebrows crept up higher than the other as she inspected Sagar, and then Ryn and Nuthea standing off a little way behind him. “Why? What’s it to you?”
Sagar snorted. “There must have been some sort of mistake. My informant, a man at the docks, told me to come here and look for an Elrann with purple hair who’s a first rate engineer.”
Elrann smiled even more widely. One of her teeth was made of silver. “Well, you found me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sagar. “You can’t be the Elrann he meant. Or maybe he got you mixed up with someone else. Engineering’s a man’s profession. Everybody knows that. A woman can’t be an engineer.”
Sagar’s beer glass exploded.
It just shattered with a loud pop, bits of broken glass falling around him on the floor, beer instantly drenching his hand and breeches, so that he was left holding only the handle.
The whole tavern went quiet. Heads turned as people looked over to see what had happened.
From the table where the girl sat, still with a wide smile on her face, a tendril of black smoke snaked up. On the tabletop, at its source, was a small bronze cylinder with a handle protruding from the bottom which the woman grasped.
A pistol. Another thing that Ryn had only heard about in stories and tales. Until now.
“Can a woman not do that, either?” Elrann said into the quiet.
The tavern burst into laughter. People slapped each other’s backs, gripped their bellies and pointed at Sagar as they wiped tears of mirth from their eyes. Ryn remembered the pirates on the airship laughing at him in the same way when he had tried to tell them about his flame powers.
Slowly, eventually, the laughter wound down and the customers went back to whatever they were doing before the little comic interruption, and the noises of the tavern resumed.
Sagar’s face had turned almost as purple as Elrann’s hair. His eyes flicked this way and that. His lips had disappeared into a tight frown. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth.
“You are Elrann the engineer,” he said.
“If you hadn’t figured that out by now, you must be very stupid,” said Elrann.
Sagar swallowed. Whether he was swallowing pride or rage, Ryn didn’t know. Maybe it was both.
“I…we want to hire you.”
“For what?”
“To repair my ship. There’s a problem with one of the fuel lines.”
Elrann looked him up and down again.
“Sorry, I’m all booked up.”
“I can pay you.”
“So can my current clients.”
“I can pay you well. My crew and I took down an Imperial vessel recently. It was very lucrative for us.”
Elrann hesitated, and for a moment it seemed as though she might be tempted by the offer. But then: “Sorry, nothing doing,” she said. She fixed Sagar with a cool look, relaxing her eyebrows and grinning again. “I don’t do work for turdburgulars like you.”
“Nyarrrgrh!” Sagar cried in anger, and drew one of his twin curved blades from his side, unsheathing it in a smooth ringing arc. He held the point up in front of Elrann’s face, whose eyes went wide. “Say that to me again, woman!”
The table went quiet again--or at least the drinkers nearest them went quiet.
I don’t think saying the word ‘woman’ like it’s an insult is going to help us here very much, thought Ryn. He wanted to help, but he had no idea what to do, and he didn’t even have a weapon. Sagar was completing botching this. Even Ryn could tell that pulling a sword on someone holding a pistol at close range in an inn full of people was a stupid thing to do.
Nuthea stepped forward, bravely putting her hand on the captain’s back. “Now now, Sagar,” she said. “I’m sure we can find another engineer somewhere else. That airfield owner was clearly playing a prank on you. Come on, we don’t want this to become...uncivilised.”
“Hey yoush,” said a deep, drunken voice. “’m not...finnishhed wiv yoush yet.”
It was Saldor, back on his feet.
Elrann turned to look at him but kept her pistol aimed at Sagar. “Sit down, you lightweight blowhard! I beat you fair and square! Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Hey, Saldor’s up again!” someone called.
“Give me those sixty gold pieces back!”
“No way, I won them fairly! Game’s over!”
“It’s not over till one of them can’t drink any more, and he’s still conscious!”
Shouted arguments resumed.
Amidst them, Saldor said “Hey! Nobodies callsh me a lightwit blard!”
He pulled back a fist and took a swing at Elrann, who leapt up out of her chair and moved away from the table, keeping her pistol trained on Sagar.
“Butt out, imbecile,” said Sagar, “we’re having a conversation!” He kicked the man hard in his muscled stomach and Saldor doubled up with a grunt, clutching it.
A large man with a thick black beard who had been sitting next to Saldor stood up and snarled at Sagar. “Oi! You hit my man Saldor! That’s cheating!”
“Oh shut up, Orsan!” said another man next to him. “You’re just sour ’cause he lost!” The man took a swing at Orsan and hit him in the face, knocking the man into Saldor, who took offence and in his drunken stupor punched his own supporter back the way he had come.
Chaos erupted. Soon everyone was calling everyone else names and accusing each other of cheating at the bets, and then fists and feet were flying as the fighting grew into a full-on tavern brawl.
“Give me those coins!”
“Mine! Mine! I won!”
“Get off me you mongrel!”
Sagar still had a sword pointed at Elrann, but a man got thrown over the table and crashed into the side of him, making him drop it. When it clattered to the floor, Ryn picked it up for him to keep it safe. Sagar didn’t even seem to notice he’d dropped it. As soon as he’d scrambled back onto his feet, he dived back into the melee, yelling curses and throwing punches.
Elrann clicked off a mechanism on the top of her pistol, stashed it somewhere inside her overall and cried, “Bloody skypirates! Arses too big for their breeches! I won that drinking game fair and square! Hey you lot, don’t forget I get 10% commission on all winning bets on me!” She dived into the fray too, punching and kicking her way through the crowd to try to get back to Sagar, who by now was lost in the midst of the brawl.
Fists flew into faces, knees into groins, elbows into stomachs. Men roared with anger and pain and defiance. Bodies were launched this way and that. A chair broke. Somebody’s tooth rattled on the floor and stopped near Ryn’s foot. More people rushed over from the other tables to try to break up the fight, or join in. Some were shouting for Saldor, some for Elrann, but it was impossible to tell which side was winning, or if there really were sides any more. Somewhere in the middle of the mass of bodies stood Sagar and Elrann and Saldor, occasionally colliding with each other and wrestling, before being broken apart again, but they kept disappearing out of view among the carnage of limbs.
Ryn and Nuthea stood watching all of this in shocked silence.
They shared a look of open-mouthed horror. Apparently neither of them had ever seen anything like this before.
“This is no good,” said Ryn over the din. “We’re never going to get the ship fixed like this. At this rate we might even lose our captain.”
“I know,” said Nuthea. “That foolish man is going to get himself killed, all because of his pride. We need to do something. We need to get their attention somehow.”
“How?” said Ryn.
Nuthea licked her upper lip and looked at him. After a moment she said “Your powers.”
“What? No! I don’t even know how to use them properly yet! You use yours!”
“Lightning is unpredictable and hard to contain, especially inside. I have to aim it at a specific target to discharge it, but it’s too cramped in here and there are too many people. I might miss my target or lose control and kill someone or, even worse, it might jump between several people. You, though…” Her blue eyes glittered. “You’ve touched the Fire Ruby. You have flame projection powers. Flame can be controlled a little more easily than lightning, surely. You can show them some fire burning and get their attention.”
“I...I don’t know how,” Ryn said, his chest tightening, his mouth going dry. “I’ve only ever projected fire once before, when I was really desperate and about to die, and it didn’t work again afterwards. I’m not sure I can do it again.”
“Oh, of course you can,” said Nuthea, and pulled Ryn by the arm out of the way of a man stumbling backwards from being kicked in the face. “I’ll teach you. Hold out your hand.”
Ryn hesitated a moment, then reluctantly held out his hand in front of him.
“Palm up, silly.”
He turned it over.
“Ok, now take some deep breaths. The reason you were only able to project fire a single time when you used your gift before must be because you used up all your mana at once. It takes mental and physical energy to use magic--it’s tiring. But if you control yourself and only use some of your mana, you should be able to create some smaller flames--and you won’t tire yourself out so much.”
“But I told you, I don’t know how. It just sort of...happened before.”
“Nonsense,” chided Nuthea. “You’ve touched the Fire Ruby. You have the gift. It’s a part of you now. It’s like a muscle. All you have to do is focus, and you can use it. You have to believe you can do it in order to do it, though. And you’ve done it before, so you know you can do it. Now come on. Focus, and make some flames on your hand.”
Ryn stared down at his open palm. This is crazy, he thought. I can’t do this. Although… He remembered shooting fire from his hands in Cleasor and engulfing the Imperial soldier. He remembered again the flames leaping from the rooftops of his hometown. He remembered his father’s dying expression. He remembered his mother’s look of pain, Vorr’s blade piercing her. There was a fire burning inside him, a fire of passion and fury and hatred. If he really had this gift, and if he could learn to master it, maybe, just maybe he would be able to get revenge on the man who had done all this to him.
A small flame lit in the centre of his palm, hovering just above it.
Ryn closed his hand and hopped back in surprise, and the flame went out with a quiet hiss. “I did it!” he said over the noise of the tavern brawl. “Did you see that? I did it!” He heard his own words, and he sounded like a little boy. He cleared his throat. “Ahem. I mean: there we go. Er...you’re a good teacher, Nuthea.”
“I know,” said the princess, smiling. “Now: Do it again. Only this time, hold your hand up, hold the flame for longer, and let it burn a little brighter. We need to get their attention.” She nodded towards the fighting mess.
Ryn took another deep breath. Making that small flame appear had been like engaging a muscle, one that he hadn’t realised he’d had. He held out his hand and engaged it again, focusing on the space just above his palm and willing fire...
A small flame appeared again. Ryn blinked, almost as startled as before, but this time he kept his hand out and continued to concentrate, and the flame stayed where it was, hovering above his hand, a little tongue of orange-red like you get from a candle.
“Good,” said Nuthea next to him. “Now make it grow.”
Acting on instinct, Ryn willed the flame to increase in size. Fire, grow, he thought.
The little flame expanded into a flickering ball, sending up some more clear smoke into the air above it. Ryn’s palm felt warm, but not overhot. He had to hold his concentration to keep it there.
Some of the brawlers stopped what they were doing now and stood still to stare at the flame. He didn’t pay them any attention, but continued to concentrate on the fireball he was holding in existence with his mind.
“That’s really good,” said Nuthea. “You’re getting their notice. Just a little more.”
Spurred on by the thrill of success and her encouragement, Ryn willed a little more of his energy into the flame. It took more effort, but the fireball grew in size by another inch. It lit the area around them brightly now, and beyond it Ryn caught sight of more of the brawlers stopping in their tracks to stare at what he was doing.
Ryn stretched his arm out and held his hand up, palm flat pointing towards the ceiling, holding the blazing fireball above his head.
Something itched at his mind. The candles. The fireplace. He had become strangely aware of them, even though he wasn’t looking at them. It was like he could sense them burning in different places in the room. He closed his eyes for a moment. To me.
He opened his eyes. The fireball he held above his head had grown again, and now it was the only light source in the tavern. He had drawn the energy from the candles and fireplace, extinguishing them, drawing them into his own fire, a huge ball of flame that crackled quietly above him in the air now, burning in place, sending out light in every direction, with Ryn at its origin. He had to concentrate hard to hold it in place.
The whole tavern had stopped what they were doing now and were frozen in place looking at him in the light from the fireball, some still holding each other in headlocks or with their fists raised where they had been about to throw their next punch. There among them were Sagar and Elrann, mouths hanging open and eyes stretched wide like everyone else’s.
Nuthea spoke up. “Um...sorry to have had to get your attention like this, but my companions and I came here looking for a particular person. Since we haven’t been able to persuade that person to come with us, we will be leaving now. Come along, Sagar.”
She beckoned with a finger, like she was coaxing a misbehaving pet.
Slowly, carefully, eyeing the fireball which Ryn was concentrating on holding up with every step, Sagar weaved his way through the frozen fighters and walked back to Nuthea’s side. They let him do so, their own eyes transfixed by the fireball too.
“Good,” said Nuthea. “Um, thank you. We shall be leaving now.” She turned her head to Ryn and whispered, “You can put that out now.”
Ryn’s heart missed a beat, and the fireball wobbled. “Er, what?” he whispered back out of the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know how!”
“Just take another deep breath and will the flames to rescind! It can’t be that hard!”
Everyone was watching him.
He breathed in, then coughed. Panic seized him and the fireball shot up into the wooden ceiling, scorching it black and dissipating. At the same time, tens of tiny flames sprang out from it, returning to the candles and the fireplace, re-igniting them.
The light inside of the tavern went back to how it had been before.
For a moment, the three of them watched the frozen tavern-brawlers to see what they would do, and vice versa.
And then the roars and shouting began again, and everyone went back to hitting each other, some of them scrambling forwards to get at Sagar, or Ryn, or maybe Nuthea--who could tell?
“Back! Get back, you vermin!” shouted Sagar, kicking one of them in the shins. He snatched his sword back off Ryn and waved it at two more of them, who sprang backwards for safety, then drew their own weapons and surged forwards again.
Luckily, though, the tavern-goers were still fighting amongst themselves as well, and before these two could attack they were rushed by another pair with their swords drawn. Weapons locked.
“You’re not going anywhere until I’ve got my hundred gold pieces for betting on Elrann!” one shouted at another.
Ryn’s distraction had got Sagar closer to the door. They took their chance and sprinted back to it, bashing it open and bursting out into the cool night air.
They pelted down the street and made sure they were a good distance away from the tavern.
It was full dark outside in Ast now. The three of them stood on the cobbles in the light from a street-lamp, at a corner that the street they had been on made with a residential alley of brick buildings, and got their breath back.
Ryn stood with his hands on his knees for a while, panting loudly. Now that he was out of the inn, tiredness sapped his every muscle.
“I’m exhausted,” he said lamely.
“That’s normal,” said Nuthea, breathing fast too. “I told you: it takes physical energy to use mana. Also, you have to practice. It’s like training a muscle. It gets easier with time.”
“Bloody tavern-dwellers!” cursed Sagar now he had his breath. “Bloody women! Bloody woman!”
“Look, numb-nuts,” said a voice, “I’ll come with you and fix your ship on the condition that you stop calling me that like it’s some sort of a bad thing.”
“Who’s there?!” cried Sagar.
A shape had appeared a few paces away from them in the street. She stepped more into the lantern-light. Elrann, with her purple hair, blue overall, goggles and metal bangles.
“Who’d ya think?” she said with her trademark grin. “Didn’t ya hear me? I’ll do the job. For a fee, of course.”
Huh? Ryn thought. Something had changed her mind. But what? Maybe she had lost out on her commission for winning the drinking game and now needed the money.
“About time,” said Sagar with the graciousness of a pig.
“What he means,” says Nuthea, “is ‘thank you’. We’d be glad to have your help.”
“Yeah,” said Elrann, “well, try to keep a rein on your dog--I can always change my mind.”
Ryn fancied he could almost see the steam coming out of Sagar’s ears.
Elrann’s eyes found him. “That was pretty impressive, that fire trick you did back there. Not seen anything like that before, and I’ve seen a few things in my time. You’ll have to show me how you did that sometime.”
Ryn’s body ached. He couldn’t think of a good response. “Er..sure,” was all he came up with.
“Right,” said the engineer. “Now, where’s this ship of yours? Let’s get to it.”
Nuthea regarded Ryn with a crinkle in her forehead.
“It’s late,” she said. “And the airfield is a good distance away. We can take you to it in the morning. For now we should find lodging somewhere in the city. Don’t you agree, Sagar? Do you have enough coin for us?”
“Rrr,” grunted Sagar, probably in assent.
“Do you know of anywhere?” Nuthea asked Elrann.
“Well,” said Elrann, “I was going to spend the night in the Traveller’s Rest, but I don’t think any of you should be going back there in a hurry. And it’s going to be a while before that brawl settles down. I know a few other places, though.”
“Thank you,” said Nuthea.
Sagar cursed under his breath.
Ryn yawned.
“Come with me,” said Elrann.
They followed her into the night.
Enjoyed the episode? Read ahead and support Saga of the Jewels at patreon.com/sagaofthejewels
Author’s note: I apologise that audio is not available for this episode yet, because I am late recording it. I have had something of a week, supply teaching (or substitute teaching for my verified American readers). Apologies! It will appear next week!
PREVIOUSLY ON SAGA OF THE JEWELS:
Seventeen year old Ryn’s hometown is attacked by the Empire and everyone he has ever known is killed. Just before he dies, Ryn’s father gives him a ruby, which causes him to project fire. Ryn is captured by the Empire and meets another captive, Princess Nuthea, who has the ability to project lightning. Nuthea explains to him that the Empire have learned of the existence of twelve Primeval Jewels which grant the ability to manipulate different elements, and are searching for them. The Imperial vessel where they are being held is in turn attacked by a pirate airship, and the pirates capture Ryn and Nuthea. The lead pirate, Captain Sagar, agrees to escort Nuthea back to her homeland, and to spare Ryn’s life, in exchange for the promise of gold, gemstones and beautiful women upon her safe delivery. They land in the port city of Ast and recruit a purple-haired Engineer called Elrann who they need on board since Sagar’s engineer has been killed in the battle with the Imperials. The party of four spend the night at an Inn in Ast…
Episode 6: Invasion
Ryn was brought out of sleep by the sound of screaming, explosions and crunching timber.
At first he thought he was having another nightmare because the last two times he had been unconscious he had had nightmares of his mother and father being killed and his hometown burning. Just as these images invaded his waking mind, they invaded his sleep.
But as he blinked awake and peered at the nightstand next to the bed he lay in, then over at the stirring form of Sagar in the adjacent bed, Ryn realised that the sounds were real.
His chest constricted, sending a shockwave of distress through his body.
“Sagar! Get up!” he cried. “Someone’s attacking the inn!”
“Mmmmbbbrrr...wha?” said Sagar.
Another explosion sounded, like someone had set light to a barrel of oil outside, and more screaming followed, high-pitched and hysterical.
Sagar’s one exposed eye opened wide and he scrambled around, then fell out of bed in a tangle of sheets, banging his head on the floor. “Ow!”
In a heartbeat he was up again, pulling on his shirt and jacket. “What in the hells is happening?”
“I don’t know!” said Ryn, hurriedly shoving himself back into his woolspun tunic. “It must be the Empire!”
“The Empire!? That’s ridiculous! We’re safe from the Empire here! Imis pays her levies, and we’re too far away to be of any interest to them!”
Another explosion outside. The room shook slightly and some dust dislodged from the ceiling, tickling Ryn’s nose. More screams. Shouts.
Nuthea burst in through the door, Elrann behind. Both their faces were pale white.
“The ship,” said Nuthea and Sagar at the same time.
Sagar finished strapping on his sword-belt and bolted out the door. Nuthea and Elrann followed him without another word.
Ryn went after them. He hurtled down the stairs of the inn, taking them three at a time, past the desk at the front of the house where the innkeeper knelt on the floor cowering with his head in his hands, back out onto the cobbled streets of Ast.
He looked up into the sky and nearly collapsed and gave in to horror and despair there and then.
Not just one broad black Imperial airship with a pointed prow and cannons protruding from each side filled the sky, but a whole fleet of them.
He counted at least five, and those were just the ones he could see from his current position through the thatched and tiled rooftops of Ast.
They rained down cannonballs on the city, bright flashes erupting from their hulls, emitting thunderous echoes and sending up clouds of debris into the air.
But they were raining down something else as well. From the front of one of the ships Ryn saw a jet of flame spurt out, like the breath of a dragon, spraying down onto the buildings of Ast and setting them alight.
He stood mesmerised by the violence.
“Ryn, come on!” Nuthea called to him from somewhere ahead.
His legs were heavy. For a moment he thought he wouldn’t be able to move them, but then his body came back to him and he darted forwards, pulse pounding between his ears.
As they ran they had to weave in and out of people stumbling out of their houses, looking up and wailing in terror, or dashing this way and that trying to find shelter, or just kneeling frozen in panic, like the innkeeper had been.
“Stay with me!” yelled Sagar over his shoulder and trailing ponytail. “I know the way back to the airfield!”
They ran round corners, down alleys, through streets, jumping over sacks, sidestepping out of the way of the panicked citizens, ducking their heads down instinctively whenever another cannonblast sounded and splinters and dust were thrown into the air. Ryn had never run so fast in his life.
It’s happening again, he thought as he ran. Wasn’t it enough that he had lived through one Imperial attack already? Why was he having to live through another one? Would he live through another one?
Eventually they made it back to the airfield at the edge of the city, its perimeter marked by the little stone cottage that the airship marshall they had met the day before, Roldo, lived in.
All of the moored airships that Ryn could see were on fire.
“Where is she? Where is she?” cried Sagar, charging into the field of flaming ships, apparently calling for his own vessel.
“Sagar!” someone called out to him in a choked voice.
Roldo, a little way away, crawling on his hands and knees. He coughed like he had swallowed some of the smoke. A big gash on the side of his face bled down onto his black leather coat, soaking it even darker in blotches. “Get out of here! Run, fools! Run for your lives! They went for your ship first!”
“What?!” said Sagar, and kept on running into the airfield.
They ran with him past more of the burning vessels, billowing black smoke pluming from them into the sky, some of them broken into pieces, some of them with men on fire jumping off their decks to break their legs on the ground, others lying suffocating on the floor, others just standing and watching the destruction in horror, until they reached Wanderlust.
Sagar stopped dead in his tracks and Ryn, Nuthea and Elrann pulled up beside him.
Wanderlust was not on fire.
Instead, soldiers in black armour were moving around on board it. Corpses lay strewn on the deck. Some wore black armour, but the majority of them were unarmoured, wearing simple sailors’ clothing. Puddles and spatters of blood decorated the spaces between them.
And there in the midst of them, stood in the middle the main deck, was a hulking, unhelmeted man in black armour, with flame-red hair.
General Vorr.
Ryn did a double take. It was definitely him. He was standing right on the main deck of the airship, beneath the centre of its blimp, barking orders at the Imperial soldiers, who seemed to be looking for something for him.
The spark in his heart lit the fuse of Ryn’s rage, and he leapt forwards, lungs filling with heat.
“Ryn, no!” came Nuthea’s voice from behind him. “Don’t! It’s not safe!” But it was far away now, and growing dimmer by the moment.
The palms of Ryn’s hands grew hotter as he cleared the distance to the ship and clambered up the handholds on its starboard side.
Then he was over the rail and shouting “You!”, pointing at the Imperial officer.
Vorr’s head snapped round and his forehead crinkled for a moment before his eyes glinted with the light of recognition.
“The boy from Cleasor!” the Imperial General said disbelievingly. “How did you manage to survive the crash? How did you even get here?”
“General Vorr!” Ryn shouted, fists shaking, heat building. “You murdered my mother! You killed my father! You destroyed my hometown!”
“Did I?” chuckled Vorr. He looked up and to the side. “Oh yes, I suppose I did…” he said, and rubbed his chin, as if he was considering the most insignificant fact in the world.
“KILL YOU!” Ryn shouted.
He flung his hands palm-out at Vorr and let out a primal roar of hatred.
A jet of flame materialised in the air around his hands and shot out towards Vorr.
The flames hit the officer square on, right in the chest. They spread out on his armour and then enveloped him, encasing him in an aura of orange and red as Ryn continued to pour the fire forwards.
He willed his hatred, he willed revenge, he willed death into those flames.
Then Ryn finished exhaling and the flames from his hands disappeared.
His arms quivered where he held them up. The exertion of the fireblast had drained him deeply.
It took a moment, but then the smoke around Vorr cleared, leaving...
...the Imperial officer, still standing, just as he had been before, a malevolent, sharp-toothed grin twisting up his round, red-headed features.
Ryn’s legs nearly gave way.
“N...no…” he stammered.
“You pitiful little peasant,” said Vorr with a leer, in his deep, well-spoken voice. “Didn’t you think that I would have touched the Fire Ruby for myself? We have a whole battalion that can project fire now, can’t you see? We’re going to conquer the whole world! This invasion of Imfis is just the beginning! Haha!”
With that outburst of jubilation, he flung out one of his massive hands in Ryn’s direction like he was swatting away a fly, to launch a fireball through the air.
Ryn felt the force of the fireball crash into his face and knock him backwards onto the ground. The back of his head hit the deck and stars danced in his vision for a moment.
He put his hands to his face, but he was not burned, and he did not feel any pain or heat there.
He pushed himself back onto his feet.
Vorr loomed over him. “Ah, yes. Of course. You have touched the Ruby too, so you are also impervious to the kiss of fire. Not to worry. I have other ways of ending your worthless little life.”
Ryn watched in horror as Vorr reached behind himself, clasped a round steel hilt from between his shoulders, and slowly drew from a scabbard on his back an enormous, wide, long, black sword. The same sword that had pierced his mother’s heart. It seemed to take an age just to slide out of its sheath with a long sliding scraaaaape of metal, then flashed in the light from the burning ships as Vorr drew it back, ready to kill.
Ryn was faintly aware of Imperial soldiers standing in a circle around them, blocking his escape. He did not know if he had the energy left to run.
“Let me send you to the same place that Mummy and Daddy went with this, then,” said Vorr. He paused, and sucked in his lower lip for a moment. “Although...you don’t happen to know where the captain of this ship went, do you? Or that Manolian hussy we locked you up with?”
Ryn remained rooted in place by despair. He had nothing left to say.
Mother. Father. Hometown, he thought.
“No?” said Vorr. “Oh well. I’ll find them soon enough--if they’re alive to be found, that is.”
The world slowed.
Vorr’s blade sliced through the air towards Ryn.
He was about to die.
Words passed through his mind.
Mother. Father. Hometown. I failed you all. What a stupid way to die.
Something slammed into Ryn’s side and he was pushed off his feet and sent skidding along the deck, past some of the soldiers and out of the way of Vorr’s swordswing.
He landed with his back against the ship’s rail and looked up to see what had happened.
Stood atop the opposite rail was Sagar, two curved swords drawn in a stance of open provocation of the Imperials, his jaw set in defiant fury.
What happened? thought Ryn. What did he hit me with?
“Run, you idiot!” Sagar shouted at him. “Run, pup, run!”
“It’s the skycaptain!” Vorr bellowed. “Get him! Hurt him, but remember, we want him alive!”
The Imperial soldiers rushed at Sagar.
He brought both his swords down through the air. A gust of wind flew out from where they moved, flowing across the deck, knocking the soldiers over, making Vorr stumble and pressing Ryn back against the rail again.
What?
“Ryn!” someone called. “This way!”
Ryn looked over the rail. Nuthea, Elrann. They had run round to the other side of the ship and were beckoning for him to go with them.
His legs remembered how to move again and he ran to the place in line with the handholds on the siderail and scrambled over. He flew down them, but slipped and lost his grip a few metres from the ground, dropping and landing on his side with a roll as the breath was knocked out of him.
“Quick as you can, please, Ryn!” called Nuthea as with a wave of her hand and a crack she sent a lightning bolt back at the soldier coming down the handholds after Ryn. He screamed out and fell to the ground from a much further height than Ryn had.
Ryn did not need to be told twice. He made it up again and dashed for Nuthea and Elrann. They sprinted full titlt away from Wanderlust, through the burning ships. Now Sagar joined them, running too. Shouts and cries followed them, but these were soon lost in the noise and chaos of the burning, beseiged city. They made it out of the airfield, into the residential area that bordered it.
“Follow me!” Sagar took the lead.
Ryn kept pace with the others, his lungs prickling agony. His fire-hurl had sapped most of his energy, but it had not completely exhausted him this time, and he still had just enough left to run for his life. But it hurt like hell all the same.
Gradually the brick houses changed to steel warehouses, to wooden shacks, to a slum of tents, most of them now abandoned, to grassy fields. Their pace slowed a little once they had made it out of the city and they looked round to check that they weren’t being pursued, but still Sagar did not let them stop.
Ryn ran on, though his legs were starting to seize up and he thought he could taste blood at the back of his throat.
Run, Ryn, run. Run Ryn, run away, live to fight another day. Live to train another way. Live to find Vorr again and make him pay.
That was the rhyme that formed in his head and bore him on.
Finally when they were under the trees of a little wood at the foot of a hill and had gone some distance into it, Sagar let up and allowed them to stop.
Ryn collapsed on the grass, and lay on his back, panting deeply, looking up at the canopy above him, though he barely took it in.
The others hit the ground too and breathed hard like they’d just come up for air from having almost drowned.
They all lay there for Ryn did not know how long, breathing and looking up at the trees.
At some point Sagar passed round a flask from somewhere about his person. It stang Ryn’s throat, and he guessed it was rum, but he didn’t care about the pain--it was good just to drink something.
After a long time, their breathing slowed. One by one they got to their feet, with difficulty. Elrann. Sagar. Nuthea. And Ryn.
In the distance, they could still hear the faint sounds of explosions and people crying out in distress.
They looked at each other without saying anything, holding silent counsel. Elrann’s bottom lip was wobbling slightly. Sagar’s face was red and his exposed eye had a manic, bloodshot look. Nuthea was still white as a sheet.
Cannonball-shocked, Ryn supposed. She had stayed so calm when the airship they had been imprisoned on had been attacked. But she had thought that her ‘countrywomen’ were coming to rescue her then. And this time, it wasn’t just an airship that had been attacked, but a whole city. And she had lost her means of transportation back to her homeland.
“Come with me,” said Sagar, breaking the silence at last. “There’s a clearing further up this hill, not far from here, with good views of the city. Not many people know about it.”
He turned and left. Ryn looked at the women for a moment, and then they followed Sagar.
Now they were safe, or at least they hoped they were safe, they were able to take the walk up the wooded hill much more slowly. Ryn’s breath still came in ragged gasps, and his legs ached something awful, not to mention his lungs, his chest and his head. But at least he was able to walk.
In time, the thin, gangly trees parted and, sure enough, revealed a sloped clearing. Sagar had led them well. How does he know this place? Ryn wondered. A short trek up, and they were able to sit and look down on the leafy wood they had just hiked through, and beyond it at the slums, the industrial quarter, the airfield and the burning city of Ast, wreathed in black smoke, with no less than twelve black airships hovering over her. People moved about it or streamed away from it like ants fleeing a flaming anthill. Beyond that, the grey soil faded into a sandy crescent, and beyond that the blue of the Leviathan’s Channel could still be glimpsed glittering in the morning sunshine, a beautiful backdrop to the scene of terror and destruction before it.
“What do we do now?” Ryn said to all the others, but while looking at Sagar, him being the former owner of their most recent means of travel.
Sagar didn’t respond. He sat still as a statue on the grass, staring at something. Ryn followed his gaze.
Through the smoke coming from the airfield, unmistakable from its size and brown timber, Wanderlust had begun to ascend to join the Imperial airships.
Sagar’s ship.
Sagar’s former ship.
Soldiers in black plate armour were moving around on the deck.
Sagar’s cheek had begun to twitch.
“I’ll…” said Sagar. “I’ll...KILL THEM!”
He jumped up from where they lay on the grass and made as if to dash back down the hill towards the rising ship, but Nuthea grabbed one of his arms and held him back. Catching on, Ryn followed suit and grabbed the other. Together they wrestled him to the grass and held him down as he wriggled and kicked.
“Don’t be foolish, Captain Sagar,” chided Nuthea. “They’ve taken off! You can’t possibly get back on board now, even with your gift. Anyway, there’s a whole legion of them up there. You might dispatch one or two more soldiers but they would soon overwhelm you. Do not throw your life away.”
Sagar went still again buried his face in the grass. Ryn shared an anxious glance with Nuthea.
After a moment, the skypirate’s shoulders began to convulse. They tremored gently at first, then shook with violence. A gasp escaped his lips.
“My ship…” Sagar breathed where they held him. “My home… My crew… They’ve taken all of it… They’ve taken everything…”
Now you know how I feel, thought Ryn, but he held himself back from saying it. Mother. Father. Hometown.
Sagar went still again. Ryn and Nuthea released their grip and knelt next to him, judging he was not about to try to run off again.
For a long moment there was only the sound of the wind tickling their ears, the brightness of the warm afternoon sunshine, and the mess of smoke and shapes in the city below them.
Then Sagar said “What do we do now?” into the grass, echoing Ryn’s question. Ryn noticed that he said ‘we’, not ‘I’.
“What we do now,” said Nuthea, entirely confidently, “is we carry on traveling to Manolia. I need to return to my homeland as soon as possible in order to tell my people what the Empire is seeking.”
Sagar raised his face. His eye was red and his cheeks puffy; his mouth set in a canine-bearing snarl. “No. What we do now is put together a new crew, go and get revenge on those murderous bastards and win back my ship.”
“It’s an admirable idea,” granted Nuthea, with a condescending nod of her head, “but you’ve got to look at the bigger picture, Captain. I know it’s difficult for you to comprehend this right now, I fully understand,”--Ryn did not think that she fully understood Sagar’s emotional state, or that her tone conveyed that she did--“but my mission is even more important than you avenging your fallen comrades and getting your ship back. Where do you think you will be able to find a whole new crew all of a sudden? What will you pay them with? Doing all that would waste valuable time, time that we don’t have. The future of Imfis, the future even of the whole of Mid, is at stake.”
“The whole of Mid?” said Elrann, puzzlement contorting her face. “Why would that be?”
Ryn, Nuthea and Sagar all stared at her.
“What are you still even doing with us, woman?” said Sagar. “You don’t need to be here. You can go your own way now.”
The purple-haired engineer bit her lip and looked at the ground. “I… I was making my living by working in Roldo’s airfield. I had other contacts, and contracts, in Ast, but I don’t think that they’re going to be available any more…” She looked up. Her face looked younger. “What’s happening? Why did the Morekemians attack the city? And what’s this about the whole of Mid being in danger?”
All eyes fell on Nuthea.
“Talk,” said Sagar.
“I just need you to escort me to Manolia as quickly as possible--”
“Talk,” said Sagar.
Ryn felt a little defensive of her at that, but he wanted to hear more from Nuthea too. A faint idea of what was going on was forming in his mind, but she would confirm it…
Nuthea sighed. “Fine. You skypirates really are a most impatient bunch. If you must know--”
“We must,” said Sagar.
“If you must know, I have reason to believe that the Emperor of Morekemia has become aware of the existence of the twelve Primeval Jewels and has begun searching for them in order to gain the power to extend his Empire and to conquer the whole of Mid. I would not be surprised if this attack on Ast in Imfis is the beginning of an invasion of the whole of Dokan. Now that he knows about them, he will stop at nothing until he finds all of them. I must return to Manolia to warn my people, since they hold the Lightning Crystal, and are the stewards of much lore about the Jewels. I imagine that the Emperor will turn his attention to them soon, if not next.”
“Huh?” said Elrann, confusion twisting up her features. “What’s this? Twelve Jewels?”
“Yes. Twelve Primeval Jewels that bestow powers of elemental projection on people who touch them. Ryn here is Ruby-touched, like I explained to you in the inn we stayed at last night. I am Crystal-touched, which is why I can project lightning. I apologise for not revealing this to you earlier. I only wanted to reveal it if I absolutely had to… Although, it seems I am not the only one who has been concealing their powers of elemental projection…” She gave Sagar a pointed look.
Something itched at Ryn’s memory. Now that they were out of Ast and safe, they hoped, for the time being at least, recent events were catching up to him. “That’s right!” he said when he remembered. “Where did that gust of wind that saved me from Vorr’s sword come from?” He turned to Sagar. “How did you do that?”
The captain folded his arms and looked away into the distance, towards his former airship, which had joined the Imperial fleet and was now moving east.
“I assume,” Nuthea said to Sagar, “that you are Shell-touched. You have touched the Wind Shell. You have powers of air projection. And I don’t just mean the hot air that comes out of your mouth…” she added more quietly. Ryn’s eyebrows raised. A rare joke from Nuthea.
“So what if I am…” mumbled Sagar, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze.
“But how did you come to be?” asked Nuthea. “Ryn’s town were secretly harbouring the Fire Ruby, unbeknownst to him. I have touched the Lightning Crystal because I am Manolian royalty.” She held her head up a little higher. “But you...how did you come into contact with the Wind Shell of Imfis?”
Sagar’s head whipped round. “That’s my business!” he snapped, spraying spittle. “You stay out of my affairs, princess! What does it mean to you?”
Nuthea held out her hand, and some sparks fizzed at her fingertips. Ryn couldn’t tell if she was being angry or just passionate.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “It means everything! Ryn and I ended up on the same Imperial skyship, both of us Jewel-touched, and then we met you! And it turns out you’re Jewel-touched too! The One must have brought us together as part of His purpose! Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if our engineer here had elemental projection powers too…”
Elrann stuck her tongue in her cheek and frowned deeply.
Sagar shook his head at Nuthea. “You’re not a follower of that ridiculous religion of Oneism, are you?”
“All Manolian royalty are. And its not ridiculous.”
“Yes it is,” said Sagar. “There ain’t no ‘One’, princess, or any god that’s real. We haven’t been brought together for any kind of ‘purpose’. We were brought together by random chance. Dumb luck. There’s plenty of people with elemental projection out there, if you look hard enough.”
“No, there aren’t,” said Nuthea. “Believe me; I’ve looked. This is the work of the One.”
“Oh don’t give me that b--”
“Wait,” Ryn interrupted. He had remembered something else. “When Nuthea and I fell out of the Imperial airship we were imprisoned on...a sudden gust of wind pushed us on to your ship. That was you as well, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe,” said Sagar defensively.
“Of course it was him,” said Nuthea, eyes flashing. “How else could it have happened? Why did you do it?” she challenged the captain.
“You didn’t look like Imperial soldiers,” said Sagar, “and I wanted to find out who you were. And how partial to skypirates you were.” He grinned lasciviously. “What of it?”
“You saved us, without realising it, at the prompting of The One.”
“It wasn’t no ‘One’, lady!” said Sagar, dropping the ‘princess’. “I’m telling you was just dumb luck!”
“Ah, well that’s a double negative,” said Nuthea. “If it wasn’t ‘no One’ it must have been Some One. The One.”
“Rrrr.” Sagar put a hand over his face.
“Er, ’scuse me,” said Elrann. She had put up a hand.
“What?” said Nuthea and Sagar at the same time.
“Who is this ‘One’ you’re talking about? I’ve always worshiped Yntrik, the god of metal. I’ve never heard of a ‘One’ god. And where did these ‘Jewels’ you’re talking about come from, anyhow? I don’t think you mentioned that last night.”
Nuthea slipped easily back into lecture mode. “The One is the One True God. He is not the god of anything in particular, but of everything in general. He made the whole world--the whole of Mid. He doesn’t live in human walls or temples, but beyond the world. One day it is prophesied he will enter it, at its greatest hour of need. At the beginning of time, when The One made Mid, he made the twelve Primeval Jewels, as a gift for us, to bless the world with. But we humans sought to use them for our own power, to dominate others, so The One scattered them to the twelve corners of the nations. The prophecy, held to by my people and by all followers of the One, says that if someone were to gather all twelve of the Jewels together, they would be granted unlimited, unfathomable power. That is why we must warn my people that the Emperor has learned of the Jewels, and is seeking them.”
At last she finished. Ryn had heard most of it before. He looked at Elrann to check her reaction.
Elrann’s mouth hung slightly open. “And you really believe that, do you?” she said.
“Of course she doesn’t!” said Sagar. “It’s just a fairytale Manolians tell their whelps to get them to go to sleep! The Jewels are just part of the world. They’re just there, and that’s all there’s to it. In fact, there’s probably not more than three, anyway. We’ve only got proof of three: Fire, Lightning and Wind. There probably aren’t even any more, and there’s definitely no ‘One’. Or any ‘real’ god.”
Ryn pondered Sagar’s words in the silence they left as Nuthea bowed her head, evidently disappointed in the captain’s atheism. He had always been dutiful in paying tribute to Imkala, the frog-god of his hometown, which was built near some marshes, but the Empire destroying his hometown had blown Imkala out of the water. He hadn’t thought of him once since that day. He had seen no reason to.
Now Nuthea and Sagar were presenting with him two new, very different options: So Nuthea believed in this “One” god, a god who made the whole of Mid, and didn’t just belong to one part of it, but to all of it, a god of all the other gods. But Sagar didn’t seem to believe in any god at all. Who was right? To be honest, at the moment Sagar’s beliefs seemed a lot more...realistic. They seemed more likely to be true. That said, Ryn would prefer it if Nuthea’s ideas were true and there really was a ‘One God’ who was looking out for them and orchestrating everything behind the scenes… But just because he would prefer them to be true didn’t mean they were true, did it? And there couldn’t really be a god of gods, could there?
“If there’s a One God,” Ryn spoke up into the silence, “why doesn’t he just come down here right now and stop the Emperor from getting all these Jewels himself?”
“The One works in mysterious ways,” said Nuthea straight away like she was repeating a memorised phrase. “He prefers to work through his followers than to intervene directly. But it is prophesied that one day he will come down to Mid himself to save it, in its greatest hour of need.”
“Poodoo,” said Sagar, this time without being interrupted.
Nuthea held her jaw shut and sighed through her nose. “You are being very rude, Captain Sagar. If you wish to part ways at this point because of our different beliefs, I will not oppose you.”
Sagar’s face suddenly switched from smirkish derision to open-mouthed protest. “Now hold on, princess, I didn’t say that! All I was saying was that your god was a load of nonsense! I didn’t say anything about parting ways.” His eyes ranged over the rapidly burning buildings of Ast and the airships, now growing smaller, making their way across the sky further east and inland. “My wings are clipped without my ship...and my crew……. But if I still succeed in escorting you back to Manolia, will your ‘people’ or whatever still reward me?”
“I am sure.”
“With enough gold to buy a new airship, or have one built?”
“With enough gold to have several new airships built, I imagine.”
“And with beautiful women?”
“I’ve told you. There are many beautiful women in Manolia.”
“Then I’m taking you to Manolia.”
Nuthea’s eyelids fluttered, but she allowed him this choice of phrase without correcting him.
“Ryn?” Nuthea turned to him.
“I want to find that Imperial Officer again and kill him.” Ryn said it as a bare fact, simply voicing his thoughts aloud.
“Well,” said Nuthea, nodding at the airships, “they are heading east, and Manolia is in that direction anyway. If the Emperor of Morekemia knows what I think he does, I imagine he will be despatching his very best officers to Manolia very soon, if he hasn’t already. Vorr may be among them. I need to beat them back to my homeland, however possible. We may need to...commandeer another vehicle somehow, but that is the direction that I am heading too. At least we will get a head start on Vorr when he soon discovers that the ship he has stolen is damaged and has to stop to repair it.”
As if prompted by Nuthea’s words, at that moment Wanderlust began to descend, breaking away from the fleet of black Imperial airships. It was still moving east, and moving to land far away, out of sight, but it was clearly descending.
“I will come with you until I find him, or find a way to find him again,” said Ryn, his eyes boring hatred into the shrinking shape of Wanderlust. He also wanted to stay at Nuthea’s side, but he didn’t say that part out loud. Mother, he thought. Father. Hometown. Find Vorr. Get Vorr. Kill Vorr. And now his mind also added, Stay with Nuthea?
“Er,” said Elrann. Ryn started. He had forgotten she was still with them too. “Do you mind if I tag along for a while as well? I was lodging in Ast but I’m not from Imfis originally, ya see, so I’m at a bit of loose end… I’ve never been in a country when it’s been invaded before, and I’m not really sure what to do…” She smiled, closing her eyes.
“Of course, my good lady,” said Nuthea. “If we ever succeed in commandeering another airship or some other kind of steam-vehicle, the services of an engineer will be most valuable to us. Boys?”
“No problem with me,” said Ryn.
“Whatever,” said Sagar, and spat. “The woman can come, I suppose.”
“Then let us set out,” said Nuthea, and they did.