Battle Across Worlds Read online

  “They’re using that white fire to steer and propel the craft!” Jack observed with amazement. “Those levers must release jets of it.” He watched the pilot with intense concentration, trying to burn the sight of his movements into his mind, seeking to understand the principles behind them.

  Jack lost track of time. He only looked away from the pilot’s hands when, minutes later, he felt the flyer start to descend. They drifted slowly down towards a stone fortress.

  This citadel was perched high on the cliffs edging the river, built at a place where the towering ledges of rock leaned close together over the water far below. The fortress was divided into two halves, one on either side of the gap, joined by an arched bridge which spanned the abyss between.

  The large half of the fortress was their apparent destination. The pilot adjusted the controls and they slid down through the air. Below, men gathered, lifting the long wooden poles which they held; Jack saw that the poles had hooks on the ends, no doubt to guide the flyer in. His gaze wandered to the left …

  And there on the stone-paved landing platform were two of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

  The first was a tall girl with yellow-brown skin and tightly curled raven hair cascading down her back. Dressed in simple linen garments, she stood beside one of the flyers, her golden eyes gleaming, full lips pursed as she watched them descend.

  The second thing was the flyer beside which she stood. It was smaller than any of the others that he had seen, a squat, pug-nosed craft with sharp, triangular wings. Lacking landing struts, it sat with its flat belly touching the stone. The silver needle of its gun-barrel stretched out long in front of its prow, giving it an arrogant look, ready to sting any opponent. It was both a weapon and a work of art …

  Dear God in heaven, Jack thought, forgive me, but I cannot decide which is more lovely: the girl, or the ship.

  #

  Wind whipped Aubren’s hair as the foreign warriors led him down the ramp from the transport. He was blindfolded, but he felt rock under his feet, and he had the impression that he was very high up, perhaps near the edge of a cliff.

  It wasn’t long before he was led under cooler cover and down into a sloping corridor. The floor under his feet was curved, and he had the idea that it was round tube, not particularly suited for walking down. Indeed, he heard one of the men leading him stumble now and again.

  Down they led him, then turned right and cut across to another corridor, then turning back up to another, leading him through some unknown maze … Until he felt a rough pressure of hands on his shoulders, his captors forcing him to take a seat on a shelf of rock. One of the men severed the knot of his blindfold with a knife, and it fell away.

  He was in a small, spherical chamber with walls of reddish rock. Flickering white light illuminated the place, glowing from narrow slits in several silver cylinders fastened along the walls. His arms were still bound, and two of the larger men kept watch over him while the others departed down an adjacent corridor.

  Were they going to fetch their master? A tingling rose in his chest and throat as his anticipation built. But he had to stay calm. He closed his eyes, relaxed …

  He could hear noises echoing from adjacent chambers: there were snatches of conversation, a sound like the shifting of something heavy. Then a voice in distress—a female voice—let out a series of whimpers.

  That sweet sound of pure feminine vulnerability made him smile. Perhaps the general of this place was having some fun for himself?

  And then, the man himself was coming near. Aubren could feel him getting closer, like a wave of sheer will flowing into the room from the far corridor. Four soldiers preceded their leader into the room, clad in the glassy armor that Aubren thought might indicate their higher status as officers. They all wore somber expressions, mouths locked in determined scowls; yet Aubren thought he saw more than a little fear in their eyes. Fear of their own great leader, he was certain.

  The group of soldiers split their formation, one pair of them taking a place on either side of the opening to the corridor. And then, after what seemed to Aubren like an eternity of expectation, their leader emerged from the shadows.

  Aubren lowered his head as the man came forth, wanting to show respect for one who commanded such power. After a moment, he looked up and saw the face of their leader at last.

  His mind reeled at the sight, and his heart sank. And, because he did not know what else to do, he laughed.

  It was a woman. God mock him, a woman!

  A female of average height, with deep brown skin and close-cropped hair. She wore a linen garment, something like a thin shirt and trousers made as one piece, which clung to her sweat-damp body. Through it, he could see the lines of hard muscles underneath, corded bundles of them in her arms and legs and stomach. Not soft, as a woman should be, as he had always known in the lesser sex.

  There was some sort of tattooed pattern around her eyes, and the eyes themselves were red. Blood red, captivating like profane rubies. They seemed to bore into him, challenging him.

  She spoke in their odd language: “Yao si da’ta se?”

  He could tell by her tone that she was asking a question, demanding something from him. Her voice had a throaty quality, yet was not entirely unfeminine.

  “Ahh … I don’t understand you, Miss,” he said, slowly shaking his head and shrugging in his bonds.

  She turned for a moment to speak to one of her officers, questioning him in sharp tones. The soldier looked down at his feet as he replied to her queries.

  While her back was turned to him, Aubren studied her. He had to admit that there was something enticing about her form. He was used to women being soft, fragile. But this taut body of hers was intriguing … and her clinging garment revealed it quite well. He could see the lines of the muscles in her back, and as his gaze traveled further down to her tight buttocks, he felt something stirring in his loins.

  The woman turned back to him, leaning close. Her nose and lips seemed rather delicate for such an intense face, though they were set off by the lines of parallel scars on both of her cheeks. Her flaming eyes pierced him like searing daggers as she looked him up and down. This gaze was part of the reason her men were so obedient and cowed—and there was power in it. Some trick perhaps?

  But Aubren could never be afraid of a woman. Instead, he found that the intensity of her gaze warmed him, emboldened him.

  “Yao si wan?” she asked. “Yao xatha zae duen de?”

  He leered back at her. “A woman general? Well. I never would have imagined such a thing. But you know, for a general … you do have a very shapely arse.” He punctuated this last statement by licking his lips.

  Her eyes narrowed. Despite the language barrier, she’d understood the general tone of his “compliment” it seemed.

  Then, in a flash, she snatched a dagger from the belt of a nearby soldier and raised her arm. Before Aubren could even flinch, she had buried the blade high in his left shoulder.

  He convulsed with the pain, but choked down a cry. He would not give this female that satisfaction! He locked his gaze on her red eyes, refusing to look away.

  She pulled the slim bronze blade from his flesh, held it close to her face … And then her tongue darted out to lick the blood from it.

  All the while, she watched him with those damnable red eyes. And now, he was starting to tremble. He couldn’t help himself. Damn it all!

  He realized that the fearful power in that gaze was no trick.

  It was very, very real.

  -10-

  Ralley was seized by a fit of agony. Jack watched as his friend fell to his knees, clutched his chest and screamed. He turned a ghastly white shade that was pale even for his naturally fair complexion.

  Jack knelt down beside him, his hands on his shoulders, trying to comfort his friend. “What is it? You’re in pain?”

  Ralley’s eyes rolled up to show the whites, his mouth quivering. “Torture! They’re … hurting her. Lanaya, no, sist
er—please!”

  At the sound of the name “Lanaya,” the short, bald officer—Xai Ashaon, as Ralley had called him—looked up. He had been conversing with other soldiers on the far side of the room, but now spun around to stare at Ralley, an expression of outrage on his face. He strode towards them …

  Jack rose, prepared to defend his friend if necessary. This diminutive man looked fierce, but he wouldn’t let him harm his friend. What had Ralley said to enrage him?

  “She’s going to die if this keeps up,” Ralley moaned. “There’s such pain! Probing her mind, trying to find the link … She’s not a machine, they can’t tune her, they can’t—“ He covered his face and sobbed.

  The Xai Ashaon knelt beside Ralley, questioning him angrily in his own strange language. Ralley seemed to understand the words, despite his pain. He took a deep breath and responded to the man, his voice pleading. After a minute, the Xai Ashaon nodded, stood, and left the room, heading out towards the fortress proper.

  “He’s going to get someone,” Ralley said. “One who might help us. I’ll be all right, I think.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” Jack asked.

  “No,” Ralley said, shaking his head. “Jack, I can feel her still … and feel her pain. I know where she is, what direction … I told him that. I could lead them to the spot right now. But it’s miles away. I’m terrified that we don’t have much time left.”

  Jack looked out the low window towards the flying machines sitting on the landing platform. Workers in white linen uniforms scrambled about them, opening panels in the crafts’ hulls and working on them with glittering silver instruments.

  “If only I could get my hands on one of those flyers!” Jack said. “I’d get you there myself, my friend. Somehow.”

  The workers seemed quite protective of their flying machines, but there had to be a way. He scanned the busy landing platform, and once again his eyes locked on the fierce little needle-nosed flyer and the tall, beautiful lady tending it.

  Perhaps it was time to see if the old Jack Chestire charm could penetrate a language barrier …

  #

  Jarlus Sanreeven, Xai Ashaon of Damerya, stalked forward across the landing platform towards a tall structure set into the inner wall of the fortress. Several stories high, with sloped walls like a temple, it had previously been the fortress’s armory.

  But those obsolete weapons—swords, shields, and spears like those used for a thousand years—had been moved elsewhere, and now the building housed the workshops of the Order of Kion.

  Rage pumped through his body with every step. He swallowed hard, striving for self-control. He had to speak to the Xai Kion—but it would take all of his willpower to keep himself from strangling the bastard.

  Jarlus entered the shadowed coolness of the building, and saw his quarry immediately. Orcus Gaelti, head of the Order of Kion, master of its technological wonders, stood conferring with two of his technicians. They were scrutinizing the long needle that emanated from the barrel of an ambia gun of the type mounted on the smaller flyers.

  Gaelti wore unassuming gray robes. He was a tall man with light brown skin, and his hair was braided so tightly that strips of scalp showed in between the woven rows.

  Jarlus had hoped to catch him off guard, wanting to see some hint of surprise on his face. But, when he was still six paces away, Gaelti turned to him, nodding.

  “Xai Ashaon,” he said, “I require information from you.”

  This is how it’s to be, Jarlus thought. Just like that. As if he had summoned me, my every action meant to serve him!

  He tried to read something, find some trace of emotion in that face. But Gaelti’s mouth was a cold hard line, and his gaze was obscured by a heavy wooden eye-shield of the type worn by the nanaen nomads in the desert. Peering out through the deep slit of it, his eyes looked irritated, reddened. Gaelti had taken to wearing the thing in recent days, claiming that an accident in his aon manipulation lab had harmed his eyes and made them sensitive to light.

  “I wonder what you might require?” Jarlus sneered.

  “Explain something to me,” Gaelti said, his voice cold and clear as the high desert on a moonless night. “When my people were evacuated from the valley earlier, we left under protest. But it was my understanding that some force would remain in the vicinity to protect the Tomb and Key of Oberkion. I now hear that all of your ground troops have been pulled, along with Captain Neron’s flying squad. Is that correct?”

  Jarlus shrugged. “It was necessary. Our resources are limited at the moment. We need to gather our forces to defend the city, should they attack again.”

  “The city?” Gaelti whispered. He was looking down on Jarlus now like a he was a child or an insect. Jarlus was small in stature, but well respected; even his monarch, the blessed Phaedon, avoided staring down at him in that way. “It should be clear that the attacks on the city were only a distraction. The Key of Oberkion is their real target. Yes, I fear that the Baek Tayon finally understands its importance.”

  Bah! As usual, Gaelti was only concerned with his own Order and their precious toys!

  “You and your damn Key!” Jarlus said. “You think all of this has to do with your Order and its gods-cursed technology. This is an attempt at a coup! They want to bring us to our knees and place her—the one I shall not mention—on the throne.”

  Gaelti shook his head. “Why are you so blind to facts? The Baek Tayon have already tried to destroy the Key. They have already blown up our ambia reserve storage unit and they intend to finish the job. Even to your discursive way of thinking this must be obvious.”

  “We need every resource to defend the city!” Jarlus said, his anger choking him up now, making him hoarse. “And I am wasting my time talking to you here.”

  Gaelti sighed. “Well, it is quite regrettable that your forces were nowhere to be found when the Key was first attacked and the Princess Taxamia was captured by the enemy.”

  So there it was. He knew that Gaelti would try to put the blame for the princess’s abduction on him. It was almost a relief when he finally came out with the accusation.

  “The attack on Quaben took us off guard,” Jarlus explained, trying to bring calm to his voice. “We never expected that the enemy’s flyers could strike so far north of here. The guard at Quaben were outmatched, they needed reinforcements …”

  “And you let yourselves be duped by that ploy, despite the fact that there was little in Quaben that might profit our enemies. Now our princess will pay, yes?”

  “She should not have even been there!” Jarlus spat back. “I ordered her to remain in the palace. You had no business smuggling her out. I don’t care if she is one of your Order Technicians, Gaelti—she is still part of the royal family and under my protection!”

  But Jarlus’s beloved Phaedon had listened to Gaelti instead. He knew that already. If his lord and master had not given permission for his only remaining daughter, the Princess, to go out to the Tomb of Oberkion, she would never have gone.

  Gaelti shook his head again, and now a shard of a smile broke across his face. “Must be all the more galling to you, then, to know that you have failed her. Two royal daughters you have watched over, and two tragic mistakes.”

  Jarlus wasn’t listening anymore. He just wanted to deliver his news and depart quickly. Otherwise, he knew that he might be prone to violence …

  “There is one more thing,” he told Gaelti.

  “Yes?” Gaelti replied.

  “We found two light-skinned foreigners on the cliffs over there, by your beloved Key. One of them speaks Dameryan, and he says he is Taxamia’s counterpart. Your prophesied da’ta se.”

  “Da’ta se?” Gaelti leaned forward. “Why didn’t you speak of this before?”

  Now it was there! A sudden slackness in Gaelti’s face, a raised brow that would indicate widened eyes underneath the wooden eye-shield. He had surprised the bastard after all. Good.

  “This foreigner says he knows how to find her
. But he appears to be ill, and his remarks border on ravings. This is some act you arranged to show me up as a fool, isn’t it, Gaelti?”

  “Bring him to me. NOW.” There was an icy sharpness in Gaelti’s voice.

  “I don’t take your orders, Gaelti.” Jarlus shook his head and smiled. His adversary was both surprised and frustrated now. Very, very good.

  Gaelti leaned down low, looming over Jarlus. “If I have to go to Phaedon first, and his daughter dies when we could have found her, because we suffered this delay at your hands … “

  Jarlus merely shrugged. “I will bring the mad foreigner to you, but only for the sake of the Princess Taxamia, should there be any remote chance that there is any substance to all of this. Which I highly doubt.”

  #

  “Oh, he’s coming this way. Tesha, Tesha—look!”

  Order of Kion Technician First Class Tesha Vaug ignored her assistant Xiya’s giddy exclamation. She had more important things to focus on.

  The little flyer she was working on was one of the new prototype Hummingbirds, and it was causing her some difficulty. The craft was lifted by eight separate aon cells, each of them needing precise tuning on a regular basis. She could tune four standard fighters in the time it took to cater to this eccentric monstrosity.

  As Tesha ran her tuning tool along the silver surface of an aon cell inside a recessed panel at the rear of the craft, Xiya tapped her shoulder.

  “He really is coming over here!” the younger woman exclaimed. She was so excited that she was practically panting.

  Tesha sighed. Xiya needed to learn some discipline. The girl was much too easily distracted—especially where the opposite sex was concerned.

  “Who’s coming?” Tesha asked, hoping Xiya would pick up on the weariness in her voice. “Is it that guardsman Farion again?”