Flight of the Fallen l-2 Read online

  Flight of the Fallen

  ( Linsha - 2 )

  Mary H. Herbert

  Mary H. Herbert

  Flight of the Fallen

  “Cry for the Missing City”

  How long, oh gods?

  will you forget us for ever?

  how long will you hide your faces from us?

  How long shall we have perplexity in our minds,

  and grief in our hearts, day after day?

  how long shall our enemies triumph over us?

  Look upon us and answer us, oh gods;

  and give light to our eyes, lest we sleep in death,

  lest our enemy say, “I have prevailed over them,”

  and our foes rejoice that we have fallen.

  1

  The Cliffs

  Linsha stiffened her legs in the stirrups and lifted herself upright in the saddle. Over her horse’s ears she looked straight across and down into the deep, rolling waters of the southern Courrain Ocean. Gilded with the light of the sun setting behind her, the sea lay spread out before her in a vast expanse of water and sky

  Out of habit she scanned the land to her left and right. To her left far in the distance she could just make out the smudge of smoke rising from the cooking fires in the port city of Mirage, the Missing City. She spared only a glance for that troubled city, for she did not want to dwell now on failure and disaster. To her right were only the cliffs that rose sharp and sheer from the water to the reddish-tan lands of the Plains of Dust. There was nothing that way that held her attention either. There was only the sea and the friend she sought

  She stood as tall as she dared on the fractious buckskin horse and studied the water carefully. Ah, there! She saw it. A brilliant metallic flash of dark gold beneath the surface just beyond the breakers. Close behind it, she could just make out a pod of dolphins frolicking in the waves

  Linsha slid from her saddle. With practiced skill she slipped the bridle from the horse’s mouth, hung it from the saddle horn, and gave him an affectionate slap on the rump. Tossing his head, the horse wheeled and cantered away. He would be back in his pen by nightfall, Linsha knew

  Contented, she pushed her sword out of her way and sat cross-legged on the gravely earth to wait. Her friend would be along soon and could give her a ride back. Meanwhile she could enjoy a few minutes alone, away from the crowded caves, the grim faces, the constant noise, the endless planning, the ever-present danger. She pulled in a deep lung-full of cool, salty air, closed her eyes, and leaned back on the palms of her hands. A brisk wind pulled at her auburn hair. She drew in a second, longer breath and let it out in a slow sigh

  She felt a few ants investigate her fingers, but they weren’t the vicious, red, biting variety, so she let them alone. A small bee buzzed by her ear as if investigating a flower, then it drifted away on the currents of the wind. The sound of the surf at the foot of the cliffs filled the quiet with a rhythmic wash of sound

  For a while, Linsha simply sat and let the tranquility sink in. She was so tired, so worn from weeks of battle and fear, that she made no effort to maintain her usual heightened awareness. She just let herself drift on a slow tide of drowsiness

  Something brittle crackled behind her

  Linsha snapped alert. Apprehension and surprise splashed over her like ice water, swiftly followed by anger. Couldn’t she be left alone for even a minute?

  She straightened and was starting to turn her head when she heard-

  “Well, well. Look what we have here. Move a muscle, and a dozen spears will find your body.”

  Linsha’s surprise and indignation chilled to fear and cold fury. In both edges of her vision she could make out several heavy, male-looking forms positioning themselves behind her. She had little doubt the speaker was not exaggerating about the number of weapons at her back

  “Stand up, you Solamnic whore,” demanded a different, coarser voice

  “But Gortham just told her not to move,” piped up a younger, definitely dimmer individual

  Linsha heard a collection of sighs, curses, and grumbling behind her and felt her fear lessen just a little. These were not the brutally efficient Tarmaks but mercenaries-mercenaries without effective leadership it seemed

  Without waiting for another contradictory command, Linsha held her empty hands out in plain view and pushed herself to her feet. She turned and faced her captors

  Twelve heavily-armed men of questionable parentage glowered at her from about twenty feet away, their spears lowered toward her. How had she let them get so close?

  One man with a heavy leather jerkin and a bearded face leered at her. “See? I was right. It’s that Rose Knight with the ruddy hair. We could have a little fun with this one.”

  “No,” growled a taller man, the voice of the first speaker, Gortham. “There’s a bounty for this one. We turn her over to the Tarmaks. They’ll pay.”

  “And by the time we divide it twelve ways there won’t be enough to buy a decent ale,” the bearded man said

  A third man joined in. “There’s no decent ale left anyway. The brutes took it all.”

  “Let’s get our fun out of her now,” the bearded man insisted. His thick hands tightened around his spear, and he took a step closer

  “The cap’n said to bring prisoners,” Gortham said. “Especially Solamnic Knights.”

  Linsha studied the soldiers while they argued. Although the Tarmaks controlled most of the Missing City and its close environs, the mercenaries, who had been hired by the dragon Thunder, participated in the invasion shortly after midsummer of that year and still held the palace and grounds of the dragonlord Iyesta’s lair. They rarely bothered to patrol or involve themselves in the subjugation of the city, and Linsha had the impression the Tarmaks merely tolerated the unruly mercenaries until they saw fit to rid the city of their presence. Still, that didn’t make the hired soldiers any less dangerous

  She took a calculated step back

  Behind her the rocky ground sheered off in a cliff edge that plunged down into the roiling water of the sea. She guessed at this point along the coast she had about ten running steps to the edge before the cliff dropped thirty-five to forty feet to the water-water that she knew was very cold

  She slid another step back

  “Stand still, woman!” bellowed Gortham

  “Drop your weapons!” shouted the bearded man

  “How can she do both?” the literal-minded youngster asked

  Several voices chorused, “Shut up!”

  The mercenaries tightened their half circle and moved closer to trap her against the cliff edge. Several drew their swords, others their knives

  Linsha’s hands turned damp and cold. Her stomach twisted into a knot. Slowly, she unbuckled her belt and let her sword and dagger fall to the ground. Her feet eased backward another step

  At least these men were not carrying bows, she noted. One had a crossbow slung across his back, but he hadn’t made a move to remove it

  The mercenaries, seeing Linsha unarmed, advanced

  “Watch her hands, buckos,” Gortham said. “She may have blades in her boots.”

  Or up her sleeves, Linsha silently added. But she didn’t show her enemy anything but her heels. Quick as a pickpocket, she spun and sprinted forward

  She took the seventh step over the edge of the cliff

  2

  Crucible’s Farewell

  Linsha had a scant moment to point her feet, straighten her body, and clamp her arms to her chest before she plunged into the sea. The cold water hit her like a physical blow. It closed over her head and pressed in on her body in a fierce assault on her senses. Pain raced through her head and limbs. She struggled upward through the surging water and broke the sur
face, coughing and gasping for air. Her heart raced in her chest; her lungs ached.

  A wave lifted her up and carried her close to the towering stone wall of the cliff. She forced her sluggish arms and legs to move, to pull her out of the waves’ undertow and away from the stone barriers. There was no safety against those wet, slick walls, only bone-breaking death.

  The cold bore into her skin with frozen needles that numbed her muscles. Her limbs became heavy and weak. Her saturated clothes and boots weighed her down until she could barely keep her face above the rolling, tossing water. With a desperate heave of her arms and shoulders, she threw herself upward above the surface just enough to scream, “Crucible!” before she fell back.

  Salt water washed into her eyes and nose. A cold fog closed around her awareness until she saw nothing more than the gray water that surrounded her. Her eyes stung from the bitter cold and salt.

  Now would be a very good time for him to appear. The thought ran through her mind in a desperate wish. She had trusted her life to him too many times, and he had never failed her. This would not be a good time for him to start.

  A wave slapped her in the face, filling her nose and mouth with briny water. A huge, swallow washed down her throat. She gagged and choked and fought to free her face from the frigid wet. Her eyes cracked open and gave a blurred glimpse of the cliff overhead. She was too close. The tide was coming in. She should have remembered that. A few more waves and she would be battered to a pulp.

  Something gray and sleek broke through a wave nearby. Its dorsal fin slid tauntingly close to her hand then slipped out of sight. Something else bumped by her leg. Linsha tried to cry out but she was too full of seawater, too numb with cold.

  Then she realized another form moved under the water close by. It was visible only as a pale shape in a tossing swirl of grays and blacks and whites, but it was huge, and as it drew closer, Linsha saw glints of gold where slanting rays of the setting sun pierced the waves and caught the polished scales of the big creature.

  Water surged up around her, and a draconic head, large and lethal-looking, broke to the surface and stared at her curiously with eyes like ancient pools of fire.

  Just what in the name of any god do you think you’re doing? A powerful masculine voice spoke in her mind. It’s too cold for you to swim.

  Sputtering, Linsha could only manage to point a weak finger toward the clifftop.

  The dragon rose a little higher in the water and lifted his head to study the cliff just as another wave washed over them. The combination of wave and dragon surge was more than Linsha could manage. She felt herself pushed relentlessly toward the solid stone and knew this time there was nothing she could do to stop it. She closed her eyes and braced for the impact.

  Instead of stone, something else scraped over her skin. She felt teeth close gently over her torso and lift her out of the sea. Her eyes flew open in surprise. Water cascaded from his jaws, leaving her flopping like a fish across his tongue. Her eyes grew enormous, but she was too busy coughing on sea water to argue this treatment. Several of his teeth closed too close to her chest and legs for comfort.

  “Crucible, what-!” she gasped before his head swung up and jolted her against his back teeth. Her words were lost in the noise of claws scraping against granite. The dragon erupted from the sea, sending water in all directions. Linsha saw the cliff wall swing past.

  The forty-foot cliff offered no difficulty to a dragon who tipped well over a hundred feet from nose to tail. He swarmed up the wall, water streaming from his bronze scales. At the top, he paused and peered over the edge.

  From her vantage point in Crucible’s mouth, Linsha felt a bit silly. She supposed she looked like a bedraggled dragon snack dangling out both sides of the bronze’s mouth. But she had to admit, she had a wonderful view of the mercenaries.

  A weak smile stole across her mouth.

  The men hadn’t departed. They were clustered about, frozen in a tableau of group surprise. Every one stared at the dragon, each set of eyes aghast, every jaw opened in shock. Linsha felt Crucible’s hot breath blow across her back and heard a rumble begin in the depths of his throat like the movement of lava across cold stone.

  Linsha’s sword fell from the nerveless fingers of the bearded man. The sudden loud clatter made them all jump and broke the stunned silence. Shouts of anger and fear filled the evening. A few brave men hurled their spears toward Crucible, but most took to their heels and fled toward the dubious shelter of the distant city.

  Grumbling, Crucible ignored the spears that bounced off his scales, and in one flowing movement, he slithered over the edge of the cliff and placed Linsha carefully on the ground. She landed on her hip and shoulder, rolled once, and sprang into a defensive crouch. All the movement proved too much for her abused stomach, and she found herself on her knees retching seawater onto the dry ground.

  The remaining mercenaries lost all traces of bravery. Flinging down their weapons, they bolted after their racing companions.

  Linsha wiped her mouth and sighed as she watched them go. Bad decision, she thought. Bronze dragons were fairly good-natured, and with some flattery and groveling, the soldiers who had stood their ground might have talked their way into a prisoner pen at the Wadi. Now they were dead men. Few dragons could resist fleeing prey.

  Crucible roared and spread his wings.

  Linsha, still kneeling, covered her head against the storm of dust and gravel as the big bronze leaped skyward. In moments the wind of his passage moved away, the screams of the hunted soldiers faded, and the normal sounds of wind and surf mercifully returned.

  Linsha sank back on her heels. Once again she found herself sitting on the clifftop, watching for Crucible, only now she was soaked, streaked with mud and dragon saliva, and cold to the bone. She shivered, as much from the chill of the wind on her wet clothes as her body’s reaction to the past few minutes. What had she been thinking? To jump over a forty-foot cliff into deep, icy water in the hope a dragon would notice her and bring her out safely! The fact that her plan worked quite well did not excuse the lunacy. She shivered again and did not stop.

  Feeling weak and shaky, she shoved herself to her feet and began to trudge toward the range of low hills to the north. Better to warm herself with exercise than wait and die of a chill. She picked up her sword as she passed it and when her numb fingers could not manage the buckle, she slung the scabbarded blade across her back and continued walking, dripping as she went.

  He would be leaving.

  She saw it as clearly as she had seen the magnificent spread of his wing sails glowing like oiled vellum in the light of the westering sun. His wing had healed. He could fly again. There was no more reason for him to stay. Just when she was getting quite comfortable with his presence, he was going to leave her. Of course she could not lay any blame at his taloned feet. She and her difficulties could hardly compete with an entire city. But she would miss him.

  She did not look up when the flap and rush of dragon wings announced his return. Carefully he touched down to the ground in front of her and tucked his wings against his body with an obvious air of satisfaction.

  Linsha stopped by his stocky foreleg, looked up, and let her gaze travel up his entire height. Even years after her first glimpse of him, she never ceased to marvel at his power and handsome proportions. His body was long and well-muscled, tapering to a broad tail. A ridge of spines joined by webbing, characteristic of all bronzes, topped his neck and tail and helped drive him through the water he loved. His horned head was wedge-shaped and covered with a tough hide of dark bronze-colored scales. These scales began as a deep burnished gold on his head and back and lightened down his sides and belly to a pale bronze that gleamed like newly wrought metal.

  Crucible tipped his head. “What are you doing out here?” he rumbled. “I thought you were out on patrol.”

  “We returned early. Sir Fellion broke his arm in a fall. I thought I’d come out and meet you.”

  “So you rode out al
one?” He sounded angry.

  She gave a light shrug. “You were out here.”

  Even she heard how frivolous she sounded. Frivolous, overconfident, and senseless. She should know better than to rush out alone from the Wadi and sit like a practice target on the edge of the cliffs. She was lucky the mercenaries had been looking for prisoners and not bodies to loot.

  “What if I hadn’t been here?” the dragon demanded.

  “I wouldn’t have come,” Linsha said. But to her surprise, she felt a tightening in her throat and the prickle of sudden tears, tears that had sprung out of nowhere. She bit her lip and used the pain to damp down her feelings. She knew this day had been coming for some time. “So when were you going to tell me?”

  He stared down at her with luminous eyes, standing so still she could see her reflection in the amber depths. “Today. Tomorrow. My wing is finally strong enough to bear a long flight. Now that you know, I will leave tonight.”

  “So soon?”

  “I have been gone too long. Sanction was still under siege when I left. We have had no word of its fate since. I must go back. There is no telling what those fool Solamnics have done.”

  Linsha nodded, ignoring the comment about the Knights of Solamnia. She knew he was needed in Sanction. She knew, too, her friend, Lord Bight, was in constant danger and that Crucible was his guardian. The bronze had to go back. Yet all the forewarning, logic, and common sense in the world did not make this parting any easier.

  “Will you be able to get past Sable?” she asked.

  The black dragon Onysablet, commonly known as Sable, had drowned the land between the Plains of Dust and the southern Khalkist Mountains and built her swampy realm on the rotting corpse of the earth. For years Crucible in Sanction to the north and the brass dragon Iyesta in the south had maintained a tenuous truce with the unpredictable black by playing on her fears and greed to keep her off-balance. But Iyesta’s death that summer changed the balance of power. Without an ally in the Plains of Dust, the safety of Sanction and its secretive guardian was thrown into serious question. If Sable caught Crucible alone, trying to fly over her realm, she would not hesitate to tear him to pieces.