Sky Raiders Read online

  “Tell me.” Taya's voice came out on a croak. “Are the rumors true? What they did to their women, that there are so few here?”

  Kas looked away. “So I hear.”

  “Then I'm doubly glad I did it. That some man who has no woman in his bed because he slit her throat like a goat tried to take a woman from the Illy, rape her . . .” She couldn't finish the sentence, her throat too tight. She took a breath. “I'll deal with the sky raiders before I deal with them.”

  Her gaze was drawn to the big Kardanx, to his hands. She imagined him holding a woman against his chest, running a knife across her throat.

  She could hear a singing in her ears, like the sound the massive sky raider ship had made when it hovered over Pan Nuk, and taken them all. A singing, soaring sound of rage.

  “Taya.”

  She turned to Kas, and he took a half-step back.

  “What?” The word came out slowly, and she frowned at him. “What?”

  “You were . . .” Kas wet his lips, set his feet apart. “Taya, you were starting to call the Change.”

  Chapter 3

  The nearest town to Pan Nuk was Haret, and Garek mapped out the way in his head, and called his Change before he'd taken more than two steps.

  There would be a price for that, using the inbetween to travel always took the highest toll, and the further the distance, the bigger the drain, but he would pay it to get there fast. To see if some had escaped and sought refuge in a bigger, more secure settlement.

  He hadn't used the inbetween to shorten his journey from Garamundo to Pan Nuk.

  He'd decided to conserve his strength for when he dealt with Taya. Had told himself the day or two he would save would not make a difference, but arriving alert and strong, able to talk to her, win her back, would.

  If the sky raiders had come while he was walking the back roads --while he'd been slipping past the towns along the road so there would be no witnesses for Garamundo to question on which way he had gone when they came for him again--he would never . . .

  No.

  He pulled himself up short even as the walls of Haret came into sight through the lazy, mirage-like view of the inbetween.

  The state of the path. The weeds in the street. They spoke of months gone, not days.

  Months.

  He went through the town gate in an explosion of wood before he had a chance to pull back, diving into a roll and then coming up, light and ready on his feet.

  He could feel the headache from traveling the inbetween twice in less than an hour putting its fingers out to gain a hold, but he could fight it off for another hour, maybe two. Long enough to find out if Taya was here.

  He turned to look behind him, and the guards on watch duty were staring at him, mouths hanging open. There was nothing left of the gates but splinters good for kindling. He rubbed his hair to get some out, and shook out his tunic.

  “Garek!” The shout had him spinning around, and down the main street a boy came at a dead run toward him.

  It had been two years, and the boy was tall and lanky now. But he would know that blond hair anywhere.

  “Luca.” He waited for the boy to reach him, expecting him to stop, but he came on, leaping the last distance, so Garek caught him and swung him round.

  “Garek. They took them. Took my father. Took Taya. Took your father. Took everyone who wasn't too young or too old.” The words were whispered in his ear, the boy's head pressed tight under his chin.

  The last thread of hope inside him snapped.

  “Garek of Pan Nuk.”

  Garek lifted his head, and saw the guards had been joined by three more. The man who'd spoken wore a chain across his uniform, and Garek gave a nod. “Guard Master.”

  The guard master said nothing more, but looked over his shoulder at the non-existent gate. Looked back.

  “My apologies for the loss of your gate.” Garek rubbed at his hair again.

  “You will replace it.”

  A blinding, white-hot rage flowed over him, and Garek let Luca slide to the ground. “Do you know where I've been, these last two years?”

  The guard master shifted.

  “I gave myself up willingly for one of those years, because that is the agreement between our people and the liege, but at the end of my time, I was told I could not leave, because in the last month of my year, the first sky raider was seen.” He spoke quietly, noticing more and more people shuffling out of their houses into the street to watch.

  “I was told, instead of taking someone from Haret, they were keeping me an extra year. Haret could not offer them someone who could call the Change as well as me, and the sky raiders were coming into our skies more and more often, with no acknowledgment, no friendly greeting. Garamundo needed the best in what they thought would be a war soon to come.

  “When I objected, they told me I could take it up with the people of Haret. They showed me an agreement, signed by the Town Master, swearing that Haret, as the liege town to Pan Nuk, had made the necessary reparations to my village, and any reluctance from me would result in Pan Nuk being in forfeit.” He rocked back on his heels. “What say you to that, Guard Master? What say you to a year of my life, stolen?”

  There was a long, long silence.

  “You can bring your questions to me, Garek. My guard master had nothing to do with it.”

  Garek turned. “Town Master. You are right. The guard master would have been responsible for not producing a good Change candidate for Garamundo, but you are the one who signed the deal.”

  Behind him, he heard the guard master draw in a breath at the insult he had offered, and with his back turned as well, as if there could be no threat to him from that quarter.

  The town master crossed his arms over his chest. “I regret signing it. But I swear to you, it was done with the tip of a knife to my throat, and the promise that no matter what I did, whether I signed or not, they would still keep you one more year. At least by signing, I was able to keep one of our guards here, to help protect against the sky raiders, rather than losing him or her, and you as well.

  “We would rather have had you here, Garek. Just over the hill in Pan Nuk and close at hand to help, rather than in Garamundo.”

  “But I wasn't. I wasn't here.”

  The town master looked away. “We took in everyone they left. No one has gone hungry, or without shelter. We are aware of our debt.”

  Garek recognized old Opik and one or two of the old women who had worked leather in their rocking chairs near the warmth of his father's furnace coming closer. He rubbed a hand over his forehead, trying to fight the headache off. “How many? How many left?”

  “There are sixty, with the children.” Opik spoke up. “The town master is right. They have been generous.” But he looked at the town master with cooler eyes. “Though I don't recall any talk of reparation from Haret to Pan Nuk a year ago, for the use of our Guard for another year.”

  There were murmurs around him, more and more people he recognized, and children, at least twenty, hanging on to grandparents or carers. All that was left of Pan Nuk.

  The town master rubbed a hand over his face. “I spoke to Kas. He told me that the reparation was owed to you, Garek. You had done all Pan Nuk could ask of you, and you should be the beneficiary, not Pan Nuk. He took the reparation in trust for your return.”

  “And where is that reparation now?” Opik asked. “You took all of Kas's things that were left.” There was a shake to his voice.

  “I have it safe. I have it here.” The town master gestured to his house. “I knew you would be back, Garek.”

  “You sold Garek to Garamundo for money?” One of the old women called out. “What good is that money now, with my daughter gone? With everyone gone?”

  “Garek is the strongest guard I've ever seen.” The guard master had come up beside him. “But even he could not have stopped the sky raiders. Not alone.”

  “We would have had a chance. Some of them would have had a chance.” The old woman
rocked, arms tight about her waist.

  The headache was drilling into Garek's head now, hard and sharp as his father's chisel on the anvil.

  The guard master was right. Garek had fought the sky raiders enough in these last eight months to know one guard, no matter how good, would not have stopped them. And passing blame now was nothing but a waste of time. “We can be thankful Garamundo gave the money at all. I'm going to need it.” He looked directly at the town master.

  “Why so?” Opik asked, frowning.

  “Because back in Garamundo, there's a sky raiders' ship. I brought it down from the sky.”

  Everyone looked blankly at him.

  “I'm going to steal it, and get them back.”

  Chapter 4

  “Are you angry with my father?”

  Garek opened his eyes and saw Luca sitting on the small stool next to the fire. He vaguely recalled being helped by Opik to this small room at the back of a house, of falling into bed to sleep off the headache. He'd been awake for five minutes, eyes still closed, listening to the sounds around him.

  That Luca had realized he was awake was interesting. Taya could read people by the smallest movement of their bodies. Perhaps her nephew was born with the skill, too.

  “Why would I be angry with your father?”

  “Taya was. Taya shouted at him.” Luca reached out and took a piece of kindling from the wood box and began stripping off the bark, throwing it piece by piece into the fire.

  “Because of what the town master spoke of, the deal with Garamundo?”

  Luca gave a miserable nod. “Taya said it was wrong. That she would go to Garamundo, fight them to get you back.”

  That would have been dangerous. And useless. Garek's heart sped up, just at the thought of Utrel, his guard master, getting a look at Taya.

  “What did your father say to that?”

  “He said no. He said she would be making things worse for you, drawing attention to you. That Garamundo couldn't extend your conscription for a third year without some special dispensation from the West Lathor Council, and he didn't think they would risk that. Risk drawing the liege's attention to what they were doing, keeping strong guards longer than the agreed year. He told her not to tell anyone else in the village except your father why you weren't back. To keep quiet and let the year run out without any trouble.”

  “Your father was right.”

  Luca's head rose. He blinked, then relaxed. “You aren't angry?”

  “No, your father did the right thing.” Garek pillowed his head with his arms. “What did my father say?”

  Luca gave a small smile. “I'm not supposed to know the words he said about Garamundo when it was just him, Taya, my father, and me. Taya had him over to dinner almost every night since you left.”

  Garek knew the old man would have loved that. About the only thing he and his father agreed on was that persuading Taya he was the only one for her was the best thing he'd ever done. And as an added bonus, seeing his father for dinner every night would have served to keep him in Taya's mind every day. If he saw his father again, he'd have to thank him.

  “She . . .” Luca bit his lip, turned his head away. “She cried when you didn't reply to her letters.”

  Garek rose up, let the warm down cover slip to his waist. “Letters?”

  “I thought you were cruel, in the beginning. Cruel to not write back.” Luca threw the last piece of bark onto the fire. “But then I found them. All the letters Taya had written. My ball rolled under my father's bed, and I had to wiggle right under to get it. And there they were.”

  “Did you ask him about them?”

  Luca nodded. “I'm telling you this because the letters were taken by the Haret town master when he cleared our house. They are with the money he has for you, and I want to explain before you see them.”

  “So explain.” His voice was an octave lower.

  Kas had never liked him, Garek had always known that, but to let Taya think he didn't care enough to return her letters . . .

  “He didn't want her to send you the letters. Letters are forbidden for the length of the conscription, yes?” Luca looked up, a quick dart of his eyes, and Garek was forced to nod.

  “But she said one year was long enough. That if they wouldn't let you come home, not even for a week before making you stay another year, she would write. She had to hear from you.”

  Garek thought of the nights he had lain, thinking of her, of the sweet scent of her skin, the feel of her soft golden hair brushing his chest as they lay naked in the meadows high in the hills, and something hot and joyful burned in his chest.

  “When I found the letters and confronted my father, he looked gray. Older. He had read her first letter. Not with her permission, but to protect her. He didn't want anyone in Garamundo to read it and find some way to use it against us. She was so angry, he feared she might have said something a guard would consider treason. He didn't know if they would read your letters before they gave them to you, but he thought they might, from things that had happened to him when he did his year. He didn't tell me what was in the letter, but from then on, he took them, and hid them, without reading them.”

  “How many letters?”

  “One for every week you were gone,” Luca whispered.

  Garek closed his eyes. Slowly lowered himself back onto the bed.

  It pained him to acknowledge it, but Kas was right again. They would have read anything that came for him before they gave it to him, if they deigned to give it to him at all. But for Kas to pretend he was sending them, to let her believe . . .

  “He was wrong, wasn't he? To let her think the letters were being sent?”

  “He was wrong.” Garek rubbed his face.

  “There is no one else for Taya.” Luca said. “She told me that herself. Even when there was no word, even when Hap and Lynal and the others came calling, trying to court her, she said until she spoke with you, learned the truth from your own lips, she could not let you out of her heart.”

  “That is good.” Garek cleared his throat. “That is very good.”

  Luca waited a beat. “Are you really going after them?” He fiddled with the stick. “What are the chances you'll be able to work the sky craft, if you can even steal it? And how will you know where to go?”

  Garek swung up again, put his feet on the cold stone floor. “You're right, the chances aren't good. But they're better than doing nothing.” He thought of Taya again, in the clutches of the sky raiders for weeks on end. “And doing nothing is not a choice for me.”

  The camp was a grim, gray place, tucked up against a bend in the river, with water on three sides.

  The black soil coated everything with a thin layer of grit. The trample of feet and the hot blast of the transporters as they came and went had killed all the grass, and it looked like a dead place, long abandoned.

  The jousting tent, one of the many things the sky raiders had stolen from Barit on their raids to house their prisoners, looked bizarre, almost insultingly jolly with its colorful streamers and flags in the center of the makeshift settlement.

  Taya hunched her shoulders and closed her eyes as the transporter took off behind them, lifting into the air with a scream of its engines, and churning up a whirlwind of dust.

  When it was gone, there were only the prisoners standing in a bedraggled group in front of the camp, and the two guards on duty.

  It was a prison with no walls or fences, no bars. There would have been none even if they'd had actual buildings rather than the makeshift shanty town of tents, pieces of wood and tin, and even a small boat, upended and suspended on poles with canvas draped down the sides.

  Where would they run to?

  She tried to shake the dust out of her hair, and then came up short. Something was wrong. The guards stood on either side of them, guns raised.

  “No trouble here.” The hiss fell into the sudden silence as the transporter winked out of the atmosphere above them. “No fighting.” The guard in front
of them lifted his gun and aimed it at the big Kardanx, held it there.

  For the first time, the Kardanx looked truly afraid, and something nasty and satisfied sang in Taya's heart.

  “Each go to your own side. No mixing.”

  When they had been dumped here, in this desolate place, the language issues and cultural differences had made it natural for the Illy and the Kardanx to set up their shelters at opposite sides of the jousting tent, which they used as a common meeting hall. But it was the behavior of the Kardanx men that had kept the divide as rigid as it was.

  The night terrors, the walking around at all hours, the sudden explosions of temper; they'd become more and more noticeable. And more and more an indication that they had lived through something horrific. It was only as time had gone by that the Illy had learned it was something the Kardanx had done to themselves.

  Taya wondered if they hadn't kept to their sides, if everyone was intermingled through the camp, what the sky raiders would have done.

  They couldn't tell them apart by features; both had an equal mix of hair color, eye color and skin tone. Illy and Kardai shared a border and until one or the other opened their mouths to speak, it was impossible to say who was who.

  The guard finally lowered his gun, and as if unable to let the loss of face go without challenge, the Kardanx pointed a finger.

  “She doesn't belong on their side.” His Kardanx was understandable to her, now he was speaking more slowly.

  Taya followed the direction of his finger, but she knew who he was pointing to. The Kardanx woman with the green eyes stood alone, the Illy moving back from her, leaving her exposed.

  Trouble. Taya had known it.

  “You say I don't belong on your side. Now you say I do?” The woman lifted her head, and glared across at the Kardanx.

  There was a mutter among them, and someone reached out to lay a hand on the Kardanx's arm. He shrugged it off without looking around.

  “They have taken one of our woman, but we can't take theirs?”