Terry Brooks - Witch Wraith

Sefita shrugged. “Your command. Have we sent word to the other cities?”

“We sent word, but told the military there to stay behind their walls. If they try to come to our aid, they provide the demons with an inviting target. They could be caught out in the open and massacred.”

She looked out over the walls again. “Other than what we can see in front of us, how many are there?”

“I don’t know. I sent flits out three separate times to fly beyond that ridge.” He pointed. “None of them returned. Who knows what’s back there hidden out of sight?”

She exhaled sharply. “Maybe you could send someone out through the underground tunnels?”

He gave her a smile. “Are you volunteering, Sefita? Because so far no one else has.”

“I take your point.”

“Don’t misunderstand. I might have to send somebody. But what I was thinking of doing was sending another flit out after it gets dark. Harder to see it then.”

He paused, giving a quick glance down at the hordes gathered below the wall. “Be careful, Sefita. Tell your airmen to do the same. These creatures aren’t like anything we’ve fought before. I don’t know what they can do, but we don’t want to take anything for granted. So watch yourself.”

After she left to return to her command, Keeton found Wint down below, inside the First Response hangar, and pulled him aside. “I want to hold the First Response team in reserve. All of them. If the walls are breached, I want us there to plug the hole.”

Wint nodded but didn’t answer. Keeton looked around, out the hangar doors to where the west gates stood locked and barred. “Have them build a redoubt fifty feet back. Right about there.” He pointed. “Two levels, places for fifty men. Install four fire launchers. The big ones. Two on each level, evenly spaced. If the gates go, I don’t want anything to get past the redoubt.”

There was nothing more to do after that. Not until the attack began. He went back up on the wall and stood looking down at the invading army. He had convinced himself some time back that it was demons he was facing. He had no idea how Edinja knew this, or how she knew they had broken through the Forbidding, but the moment she had said it he knew it was so. These things weren’t indigenous to the Four Lands; there hadn’t been creatures of this sort seen in centuries. Why they were here now was a mystery, but the fact of it was enough.

He thought momentarily of the Prime Minister, wondering what she was doing. He hadn’t seen her since she had ordered him to take command of the army. He had assumed she would be back to find out how he was managing things, to watch over him as she had watched over Tinnen March and make a similar judgment on his efforts, but there had been no sign of her. He couldn’t decide if this was good or bad.

As twilight deepened, Keeton became increasingly convinced that the attack was going to come after dark. Perhaps these creatures saw better at night and wanted to take advantage of it. Perhaps this was their natural hunting time. Whatever the case, he set about trying to remove whatever advantage they percieved.

He started by ordering torches lit all around the city walls. While light this high off the ground wouldn’t penetrate down to where the attackers were clustered, it would illuminate them clearly if they attempted to scale the walls. In addition, he had flammable oil released into the shallow trough that encircled the city some ten feet from the walls and spiked outward in trenches dug at regular intervals perpendicular to the main ring for distances of from five to ten yards. Their oil reserves would hold for up to ten days if they were frugal. But Keeton didn’t care about ten days. He was worried about three or four. So he released oil until the ditch was filled.

Finally, he had pitch barrels brought up to the archers on the battlements so they could dip the tips of their arrows and add further light to any defensive effort.

Then he sat back to wait.

Time passed. The darkness deepened as the daylight faded and disappeared. Stars and a crescent moon appeared in a hazy night sky. Then unexpectedly the weather changed. The temperature warmed, storm clouds rolled in from the north, the haze deepened, and the stars and moon disappeared. Keeton abandoned his plans to send out a fourth flit. He couldn’t convince himself it was worth risking another airman’s life to confirm what he already suspected.

The hordes in the darkness continued to howl and threaten, but stayed put. Keeton thought to light the oil in the ditch but held off. Not until they attack, he thought. Not until it begins.

All around him, the men and women of the army stood waiting, eyes fixed on the darkness and the sounds of the demons.

Anytime, Keeton thought.

But no attack came.

On the morning following Farshaun Req’s burial, the Quickening and her passengers resumed their journey into the Charnals. They departed at sunrise on a morning that started out badly and steadily got worse. Dawn showed as a band of crimson and pale silver that lasted less than twenty minutes and then dissolved into gloom. Massive banks of clouds obscured the skies for as far as the eye could see and turned the whole of the mountain range sullen and threatening.

The members of the company went about their tasks purposefully, but no one could shake their sense of unease. That a storm was coming was a given; all that remained to be determined was how severe it would become and how long it would last. It was a commonly held belief among airmen that a red sky at dawn was a clear sign of an impending storm, and the more intense the color, the harder the blow to follow.

Because Farshaun was no longer with them, Austrum assumed command of the helm. An argument might have been made that either Railing or Mirai was the more capable pilot, but neither felt inclined to suggest this. Mirai barely glanced at Austrum when he climbed into the box and took over the controls, moving instead to the bow to begin helping the other Rovers work the lines. She didn’t spare a glance for Railing, either, which irked him, but nevertheless felt consistent with the way he expected she would behave from here on out. Last night was last night; it was over and done with, and he would get no special attention because of it. Not in the midst of their journey and not with any of the others around to take note. She had told him how it would be. She would wait to see how he conducted himself. If he found the means to toughen himself against his doubts and to set an example for the others, then things might change.

So he tamped down the twinges of regret and doubt about her seeming disinterest in him and concentrated on taking his first steps toward getting back to the person he had once been—Redden’s twin, yes, but the one who wasn’t afraid to risk anything, the one who was never in doubt. He plunged into the work of helping to fly the airship into the teeth of what everyone knew would be a very bad storm and set everything else aside.

He found himself beside Challa Nand at one point. “Doesn’t look good, does it?”

The Troll glanced at him. “Nothing gets by you, does it, Railing Ohmsford? Got any magic to get us through this?”

The boy shrugged. “Maybe. If it comes to it. And I do have some flying skills that might be useful when Austrum gets tired.”

“You’ll be needing them.” Challan Nand paused to look out at the darkness approaching. “We’ll miss the old Rover this day, I think.”

“He was the best of us when it came to flying an airship. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.” The memories came flooding back, and he shook his head. “What I said about him at the burial site was true. Everything I know, I learned from him.”