Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [27]
A patrol flyer drifted around the far corner of the keep. Its sleek outline and slanted prow marked it as a pursuit craft. There were two men on board with the pilot. One would certainly have a signal horn.
I worked my left hand reins, bringing the sabrun around in a tight curve toward the flyer. We leveled out and I let both sets of reins trail down over the bird’s neck, giving the creature the slack that signaled for speed. Its wings stroked; we leaped forward. My right hand dipped alongside the saddle and came up with one of the steel lances that are habitually sheathed there on riding birds.
The three men in the flyer looked shocked as they saw the bird coming at them with me on its back. In another moment they would have detected our small group anyway, and would have kept us in sight while calling for the pursuit that would surely overtake us. There was no way short of killing all three of them to keep a signal of our escape from going out. And I would not have their murders stain my soul. But perhaps....
The bird and I swept toward them, our shadow blotting across their sky. I saw one man darting for their ballista. The other hefted a crossbow. I half stood in my stirrups, the lance rising in my hand, poising itself for a strike, and as we passed above them, scarcely a dozen yards over their deck, I hurled that strike. The lance seemed to shiver in the air, and then it hit, tearing deep into the rotors that channeled power from the energy wands to the ship’s drive. With a tortured shriek those rotors locked up.
I grabbed the sabrun’s reins again, wheeled the bird to the right just as a crossbow bolt flashed past my cheek. It did no more damage than the curses that lifted from the airship’s crew. They wouldn’t be trailing us now, and even though they would signal an alarm we had a good chance to elude any blind pursuit that would follow.
Suddenly, Valyan was there beside me and we both put our birds into a climb. We found Kreeg and Diken Graye up above, and as the sun ascended fully over the horizon the four of us arrowed away through the gathering brightness, toward the city of Trazull on the Rosjavik Peninsula.
I glanced back, saw the rose and coral buildings of Timmuzz blushing under the morning sun, and the finality of it sledgehammered me. I was leaving. The life that I’d thought awaited me in Nyshphal was over. But that was hardly the worst.
Rannon Jystral was gone from my world.
CHAPTER TEN
CITY OF OUTLAWS
We landed in a flurry of wings in a bustling marketplace of the city of Trazull. People and chickens scattered. Tavarels bleated. Vulls and terthins whirled up in a thrumming cloud from where they pecked and fought over garbage. We dismounted our sabruns among the gaping onlookers, not all of whom were human.
Diken Graye had argued for a quiet approach to the city, for slipping in under the cover of darkness. I’d vetoed him. We would go in boldly. If my brother were here, I wanted him to know of our arrival. And if there were enemies of Nyshphal who wanted us dead.... Well, let them try. Despite my rejection by Rannon and her family, I had determined to find out who was attacking their lands and put a stop to the plundering. If I could.
Somewhere in this city we would find news concerning the “who” and “why” of the recent raids on Nyshphal, and tangled with the answers to those questions was the fate of my brother. Because of him, the goad of impatience bit me deeply.
Handing the reins of my sabrun to Kreeg, I strode a dozen paces past stalls and carts and awnings and people, the sounds and odors a bright assault on my senses. This was only one of the bazaars of Trazull, but at this time of the day it was the most heavily trafficked. The crowd nearly filled the smallish square and spilled over into the surrounding streets. There were half a dozen races among them, but mostly I saw humans and Kaldi and Ss’Korra. They all made way for me as I reached the central