The Wall of Storms, page 80
But the airships tossed out long chains of iron that dangled far beneath them. Like the tentacles of some aerial jellyfish, whenever pairs of charged chains touched some hovering garinafin or rider, long, massive sparks flew between them, accompanied by a boom as loud as thunder. Just like the deadly drifting jellyfish caught and disabled their fishy prey, the airships now caught and killed the straggling garinafins with their deadly chains and crackling lances.
Two surviving garinafins finally lost their will to fight, and, ignoring the orders of their pilots, fled from the battle and tried to land on the city-ships. As the pékyu cursed and shouted in anger, Lyucu warriors scrambled out of the way on the open decks as the massive, winged beasts crashed down, killing many and damaging the ships in the process.
Princess Vadyu, Flash-of-the-Garinafin, looked at the sight around her in disbelief. The sea bobbed with the carcasses of garinafins who had died from lightning strikes and the smoking remains of those who had exploded from silkmotic arrows. Of the twenty garinafins who had accompanied the invasion force, only Korva was left in the air.
Four more Imperial airships remained, and now they descended toward the fleet of city-ships, intent on dealing death to the Lyucu crew with their silkmotic tentacles.
“The gods of Dara are with us today!” they shouted in unison.
The Lyucu warriors arrayed on the wide-open decks banged their clubs against each other, fearless, but it was clear that the tide of battle had turned against the Lyucu.
“What should we do?” Korva’s crew asked her. Tanvanaki had never heard their voices filled with such despair.
Tanvanaki considered the question. Korva still had fire breath, but it was impossible for one garinafin to take on four Imperial airships, especially not when they had the aid of such powerful weapons.
With a howl of rage, she kicked hard at Korva’s neck and turned her to the distant ramparts of Ginpen.
“We’ll burn this city to the ground and show them that the Lyucu are not afraid to die!”
Doru Solofi and Noda Mi stood alone in the pilothouse of Whirlpool Runner, the largest of the ragtag fleet of merchantmen that had been converted into auxiliary warships for the nonce.
Though the two failed rebels had pledged their lives to the cause of Dara, swearing that they wanted to redeem their stained names, the marshal had been suspicious and refused to put them in positions of power near the front, assigning them only low-level support tasks where they would be closely supervised.
Somewhat surprisingly, Doru and Noda proved themselves quite capable in their assigned roles. Noda drew upon his experience as the Hegemon’s quartermaster and made sure that supplies flowed smoothly to the marshal’s navy and army, and Doru blustered and intimidated the merchants into “volunteering” their ships to the Imperial war effort—Gin suspected that both also managed to skim some profit for themselves in the process, but such peccadilloes were unavoidable in a time of war.
Just before the battle, the two came to Admiral Than Carucono, asking to be put in charge of the support vessels.
“You need someone to command the civilians,” said Noda Mi. “To make sure they don’t panic.”
“We want to do what we can for Dara!” said Doru Solofi.
“Haven’t we proven ourselves?” said Noda Mi. “Emperor Ragin always said that loyalty is bred from trust.”
“All the others who once took up arms against the emperor have been pardoned and given new commissions; we’ll never be able to face them if we don’t get our own command,” said Doru Solofi.
“All we ask for is a chance,” said Noda Mi. “The same way Emperor Ragin once gave us a chance.”
Admiral Than Carucono pondered the question. He was perfectly aware that Doru and Noda were more interested in getting credit than in actually doing anything that risked their lives—but all the others with some command experience had demanded fighting commissions against the Lyucu, and he did need someone to corral the merchantmen and make sure they didn’t get in the way of the warships. He assented to their proposal.
The main fleet of real warships had sailed out of Ginpen harbor at the start of the battle, and the auxiliary support ships were supposed to follow behind to rescue survivors and support the main fleet in whatever way that was useful.
According to the marshal’s plan, if the air battle had not gone well, all vessels in the Dara fleet were supposed to engage in a suicidal, last-ditch effort against the Lyucu by ramming the city-ships. Doru Solofi had not liked that part of the plan at all, and he had tried to position as many other ships before Whirlpool Runner as possible, justifying the decision by arguing that in this rearguard position, he and Noda Mi could enforce discipline by catching any ships that tried to desert the scene of battle. The other merchant captains appeared to accept this explanation, proving once again to Doru Solofi that there was no shortage of gullible fools in this world.
Doru heaved a sigh of relief that events had played out otherwise. Now that the garinafins had been chased from the skies, the marshal’s air force would deal a devastating strike upon the Lyucu fleet, and the ships of Than Carucono’s navy would be able to mop up any final resistance. The auxiliary ships might be able to earn a share of glory just by sailing along and dispatching a few survivors (claiming that they were spies or resisting, of course). This was an easy victory, the sort he liked the most.
“Maybe we should try to sail ahead of the other ships?” Doru suggested. “If we can kill even a single Lyucu survivor, we’ll have some evidence to back up our exaggerations later and maybe get our fiefs enlarged.”
But Noda Mi’s expression was strangely tense. “Are you content to forever remain a minor noble at the Court of Dandelion? What happened to your dream of being restored to the position of a Tiro king?”
Shocked, Doru Solofi answered tentatively, “We don’t have many choices. The Court of Dandelion is strong. Our rebellion failed.”
“The Lyucu are here,” said Noda. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Doru sucked in a breath. “You are . . . truly bold. But they won’t be here for long. All the garinafins are dead except one, and the marshal will make short work of the fleet.”
“You’re shortsighted. By my count, there should still be many more garinafins on Rui. And you know more are on their way to Dara.”
“But the pékyu will never make it back to Rui alive today.”
“Not unless he gets some help. He doesn’t know how to fight the marshal’s airships, but we do.”
Doru Solofi felt his blood turn cold as he stared at his former coconspirator. “What are you suggesting?”
“Life is all about gambles.” Noda Mi’s face broke into a sharklike grin. “If the Court of Dandelion wins here today, we’ll be nothing more than minor foot soldiers in a war in which we did little. But if the Lyucu win because of our help, can you imagine the gratitude we’ll receive?”
Doru Solofi pondered this for some time and shook his head resolutely. “I think I’m done with plots and rebellions, Noda. Kuni was generous not to hang us after all that we did, and this just seems . . . too much. I’m pretty content to be a minor noble with my head attached to my shoulders, to be honest.”
“Not for long,” said Noda Mi. Before Doru Solofi could react, Noda had unsheathed his short sword and plunged it into Doru’s heart.
As Doru’s body slumped to the floor of the pilot house, Noda wiped the sword clean and added in a low voice, “Kuni Garu always said to do the most interesting thing. On that point at least, he was right.”
The Imperial airships, their feathered wings beating rhythmically, swooped down toward the Lyucu fleet of city-ships.
Below the airships, Than Carucono’s fleet headed for the Lyucu fleet at a slower pace, content to let the airships strike the first blow before going in for the kill.
Noda Mi signaled for his fleet of auxiliary ships to speed up and intermingle with the warships, sometimes even overtaking them. The warship captains glanced at these merchantmen sailing next to them with frowns on their faces—clearly the move was an opportunistic attempt to grab more share of the honor of battle from the Imperial navy.
Small pinnaces were dispatched from Whirlpool Runner to the other ships, and messengers brought important new orders from Noda Mi to the captains. Soon, battle kites took off from the merchantmen and rose into the sky.
This was rather unusual. Battle kites were most useful for lookout duty; since the Lyucu fleet was right there in front of their eyes, such additional reconnaissance hardly seemed necessary. Still, none of the naval captains paid them much mind.
The crews of the airships waved at the lookouts riding battle kites in the air near them. The lookouts waved back. Morale was high in the sky and over the sea for the fighting men and women of Dara, while the Lyucu sailors appeared to be grimly awaiting their fate.
The lookouts hanging from the kites even held lit torches, a truly strange choice. Were they going to signal with them?
Korva swept over the buildings and streets of Ginpen, spewing fire at the windmills, multistory wooden towers, ancient lecture halls, and dome-topped laboratories. The inhabitants of the city, hiding deep in basements, remained unharmed, but the city was going to suffer a great deal of damage.
The riders on Korva’s back had been poised to strike at the civilians of the city with their slingshots, and the fact that the city presented them with almost no targets left them howling and cursing.
Tanvanaki cursed repeatedly. She felt helpless. She had thought she could at least find out where the empress and her advisers were concealed and threaten them—perhaps that should have been her strategy from the start, instead of lingering to engage with the airships.
But now it appeared that even such a strategy wouldn’t have helped if the leaders of Dara were hiding like turtles in their shells.
What was she going to do? Korva could not remain aloft forever, and if the Lyucu fleet were destroyed, she would have no way to get Korva back to Rui. Every choice seemed bad.
Shocked voices came from behind her; the other riders had seen something astonishing.
She glanced back at the sea, and her heart almost leapt out of her throat as she saw the Imperial airships explode, one after the other.
The crews of the airships were absorbed with the approaching Lyucu fleet and adjusting their dangling shock chains to inflict maximum damage. After the discharges needed to kill the garinafins, the power left in the ballast spheres was weaker. But it still should be sufficient to deal death by lightning to the exposed Lyucu on the decks of the city-ships.
Lookouts on the kites behind them pulled arrows from their quivers, lit them with their torches, and shot the flaming missiles at the undulating, exposed gasbags of the Imperial airships.
For her strategy, Gin Mazoti had counted on the tendency of all militaries to overgeneralize from their own experience and to rely on their known strengths. Believing the garinafins to be invincible, the Lyucu had not adopted the fighting techniques of Dara and did not add archers to the ranks of garinafin riders.
After disabling the fire-breathing ability of the garinafins, the airships had discarded the silk skin over the hulls so that the crew could wield their silkmotic lances to shock the garinafins. The exposure of the vulnerable gasbags was deemed an acceptable risk because the Lyucu did not use fire arrows, which would have made short work of the Imperial airships.
The marshal had not counted on betrayal among her own ranks.
The flaming arrows crossed the short distance between the lookouts and the airships, plunging with a hiss into the gasbags.
Within moments, the airships burst into flames and started to sink.
Soldiers screamed as their bodies were lit on fire, and many dove from the wreckage. On the decks of the city-ships, the Lyucu warriors cheered wildly, and Pékyu Tenryo laughed with joy.
The gods were indeed with them.
“Zomi! Marshal!” Princess Théra screamed from the secret observation post as she saw the distant explosions. The palace guards had to hold her back lest she run onto the beach and into the sea.
In the distance, Empress Jia sighed and asked her attendants to prepare to set the firewood piled over the dais alight as soon as the Lyucu fleet began the final push toward the undefended city of Ginpen.
“All is lost,” she muttered.
Onboard Silkmotic Arrow, Gin Mazoti howled with rage as victory slipped from her hands.
The Imperial airships were designed with multiple clusters of lift gasbags divided by baffles made from garinafin hide to provide some measure of protection against fires. Because the lookouts had shot at them from behind, only the aft clusters were set aflame. The ships were losing altitude and pitching wildly, but they hadn’t completely lost control.
“Drop the ballast ball,” Mazoti ordered as she lost her footing over the tilting floor and fell down.
The ceramic ballast ball was dropped, and the ship wobbled and flexed in the wind. It was sinking much more slowly now, but still sinking. What’s more, it had lost the power source for its silkmotic weapons.
The other airships followed the example of Silkmotic Arrow.
“We have to abandon ship,” Dafiro Miro said, clinging on to a girder.
“If we abandon ship, there will be no stopping the Lyucu,” said Gin Mazoti. She looked behind her and saw the confusion among the Dara fleet.
Taking advantage of his role in wrangling supplies for the navy, Noda Mi had managed to have his followers infiltrate many ships in the auxiliary fleet as well as the Imperial navy during the last few months. By now, they had established control over a significant portion of the vessels, executing confused officers, sailors, and marines who couldn’t understand why their own ships were firing on the marshal.
To be sure, Noda Mi’s people weren’t able to control all the support ships or the warships of the Imperial navy, and Than Carucono tried to rally those still loyal to the marshal to respond. But he was hampered by the fact that he couldn’t tell which ships he could trust. Deprived of central leadership, ships still loyal to the marshal milled about in confusion, and Noda’s ships began to systematically surround them, breaking their oars, ramming them, and demanding their surrender.
“There’s nothing we can do now,” said Dafiro. “But if we survive today, we can still raise up an army in the mountains of Dara and continue to raid the Lyucu.”
“The chances of victory for such a strategy are slim,” said Gin. “The war might go on for years, and many more people will die. No, we must make our stand here, today.”
She struggled to stand up, and as the ship burned around her, smoke cracking her voice and heated air distorting her vision, she called out to her crew.
“Soldiers of Dara, we are close enough to the surface now that if we abandon ship, many of us will survive. But Dara will be lost if the Lyucu king survives, and so I intend to crash the ship into the pékyu’s flagship. You’ve followed me far enough. None of you need to come with me.”
Nobody moved to dive off the ship; they stayed by their posts.
Gin Mazoti smiled. “I never had any doubt. Our lives are but brief respites between stormy veils cast over the eternal unknown, and we must be guided in our deeds by the inner compass of our will, not what others may think of us. Yet now that death has come to us, we shall make this a day that will live on in song and story.”
The crew moved to the oars, including Gin and Dafiro. Putting their backs into the work, they started to sing as they propelled their sinking, flaming airship toward Pékyu Tenryo’s flagship, Pride of Ukyu.
The Four Placid Seas are as wide as the years are long.
A wild goose flies over a pond, leaving behind a voice in the wind.
A man passes through this world, leaving behind a name.
Following the example of the marshal, each of the other sinking airships picked a city-ship, and the crew struggled to steer toward their targets.
The fire singed the hair of the crew, and blisters and boils appeared on their skin as the bamboo-and-steel frame popped and broke apart around them.
Their chants grew more somber and louder.
As the flaming Silkmotic Arrow crashed toward the pékyu’s flagship, the heat from the airship washed over the deck like a tsunami wave.
Many of the Lyucu warriors dove over the sides, certain that staying meant death. But Pékyu Tenryo, wearing a helmet made from the skull of a yearling garinafin, stood steadfast on the deck, Langiaboto lifted high overhead with both hands. It was as though he was going to face down this fiery falling star all by himself.
Silkmotic Arrow crashed into Pride of Ukyu. The frame of the airship buckled, bent, and broke apart. Fire spread to the other clusters of gasbags, and more explosions followed, immolating most of the crew of Silkmotic Arrow and rocking the deck of the city-ship like an earthquake. Flaming bits of wreckage rained down around Pékyu Tenryo, and even the few Lyucu warriors still remaining by the side of their lord now dove off the sides.
Gin Mazoti and a few other crew members were fortunate to be in a section of the ship that survived the crash long enough for them to tumble from their rowing benches onto the burning deck. They rolled around on the deck to put out the fire on their bodies. As they struggled to stand up, the chief of the Lyucu attacked.
Pékyu Tenryo tore through them like a wolf through a flock of sheep. He wielded the massive war axe without any concern for his own safety. While the ship burned around him, he seemed to not feel the rising heat or the thickening smoke. With each swing of Langiaboto, he managed to crush a head or break through a rib cage.
Gin Mazoti ran back to the burning wreckage of Silkmotic Arrow and pulled Na-aroénna out, careless of the pain as the hot handle sizzled against her hands. Dafiro Miro took off his war club, Biter, and the sword he had inherited from his brother, Simplicity. Casting a grim look at each other, they rushed at Pékyu Tenryo.
