Ilse Witch

4

His worn black flight leathers creaking softly, Redden Alt Mer strode through the Federation war camp on his way to the airfield, and heads turned. For some it was the mane of red hair streaming down past his shoulders like fiery threads that drew attention. For some it was the way he carried himself, fluid, relaxed, and self-assured, a big man who exuded strength and quickness.

For most, it was the legend. Seventy-eight confirmed kills in 192 missions, all flown in the same airship, all completed without serious mishap.

It was good luck to fly with Redden Alt Mer, the old boots swore. In a place and time where an airman’s life expectancy was rated at about six months, Alt Mer had survived for three years with barely a scratch. He had the right ship, sure enough. But it took more than that to stay alive over the front. It took skill, courage, experience, and a whole basketful of that most precious of commodities, luck. The Captain had all of them. He was steeped in them. He’d lived almost his whole life in the air, a cabin boy at seven, a First Officer by fifteen, a Captain by twenty. When the winds of fortune shifted, the old boots said, Redden Alt Mer knew best how to ride them.

The Rover didn’t think about it. It was bad luck to think about good luck in a war. It was worse luck to think about why you were different from everyone else. Being an exception to the rule was all well and good, but you didn’t want to dwell on the reasons you were still alive when so many others were dead. It wasn’t conducive to clear thinking. It wasn’t helpful in getting a good night’s sleep.

Walking through the camp, he joked and waved to those who acknowledged him, a light, easy banter that kept everyone relaxed. He knew what they thought of him, and he played off it the way an old friend might. What harm did it do? You could never have too many friends in a war.

He’d been three years now in this one, two of them stuck here on the broad expanse of the Prekkendorran Heights while Federation and Free-born ground forces hammered each other to bloody pulps day after day after day. A Rover out of the seaport of March Brume, west and south on the Blue Divide, he was a seasoned veteran of countless conflicts even before he signed on. It was no exaggeration to say that he had spent his whole life on warships. He’d almost been born at sea, but his father, a Captain himself, had managed to reach port with his mother just before she gave birth. But from the time he’d taken that first commission as a cabin boy, he’d lived in the air. He couldn’t explain why he loved it so; he just did. It felt right when he was flying, as if a net of invisible constraints and bonds had been slipped and he had been set free. When he was on the ground, he was always thinking about being in the air. When he was in the air, he was never thinking about anything else.

“Hey, Cap!” A foot soldier with his arm tied against his body and a bandage over one side of his face hobbled into view. “Blow me a little of your luck!”

Redden Alt Mer grinned and blew him a kiss. The soldier laughed and waved with his good arm. The Rover kept walking, smelling the air, tasting it, thinking as he did that he missed the sea. Most of his time in the air had been spent west, over the Blue Divide. He was a mercenary, as most Rovers were, taking jobs where the money was best, giving allegiance to those who paid for it. Right now, the Federation offered the best pay, so he fought for them. But he was growing restless for a change, for something new. The war with the Free-born had been going on for more than ten years. It wasn’t his war to begin with, and it wasn’t a war that made much sense to him. Money could carry you only so far when your heart lay somewhere else.

Besides, no matter who you were, sooner or later your luck ran out. It was best to be somewhere else when it did.

He passed out of the sprawling clutter of tents and cooking fires onto the airfield. The warships were tethered in place by their stays, floating just off the ground, ambient-light sails tilted toward the sun off twin masts. Most were Federation built and showed it. Big, ugly, cumbersome brutes, sheathed in metal armor and painted with the insignia and colors of their regiments, in flight they lumbered about the skies like errant sloths. As troop transports and battering rams, they were a howling success. As fighting vessels that could tack smoothly and quickly, they left something to be desired. If they were ably commanded, which most weren’t, their life expectancy on the front was about the same as that of their Captains and crews.

He walked on, barely giving them a glance. The banter that had passed between himself and the foot soldiers was absent here. The officers and crews of the Federation airships despised him. Rovers were mercenaries, not career soldiers. Rovers fought only for money and left when they chose. Rovers cared nothing for the Federation cause or the lives of the men that had been expended on its behalf. But the worst of it was the knowledge that the Rover officers and crews were so much better than the Federation crews were. In the air, faith in a cause did little to keep you alive.

A few taunting remarks were tossed at him from behind the anonymity of metal-clad hulls, but he ignored them. No one would make those same remarks to his face. Not these days. Not since he had killed the last man who’d dared to do so.

The sleeker, trimmer Rover airships came into view as he neared the far end of the field. Black Moclips sat foremost, polished wood-and-metal hull gleaming in the sunlight. She was the best ship he had ever flown, a cruiser built for battle, quick and responsive to the tack of her ambient-light sails and the tightening and loosening of her radian draws. Just a shade under 110 feet long and 35 feet wide, she resembled a big black ray. Her low, flat fighting cabin sat amidships on a decking braced by cross beams and warded by twin pontoons curved into battering rams fore and aft. Twin sets of diapson crystals converted to raw energy the light funneled from the collector sails through the radian draws. Parse tubes expelled the converted energy to propel the ship. The bridge sat aft with the pilot box front and center on the decking, its controls carefully shielded from harm. Three masts flew the ambient-light sails, one each fore, aft, and center. The sails themselves were strangely shaped, broad and straight at the lower end, where they were fastened to the booms, but curved where spars drew them high above to a triangle’s point. The design allowed for minimal slack in a retack and minimal drag from the wind. Speed and power kept you alive in the air, and both were measured in seconds.

Furl Hawken came racing down the field from the ship, long blond beard whipping from side to side. “We’re ready to lift off, Captain,” he shouted, slowing as he reached Alt Mer and swung into step beside him. “Got a good day for it, don’t we?”

“Smooth sailing ahead.” Redden Alt Mer put his hand on his Second Officer’s broad shoulder. “Any sign of Little Red?”

Furl Hawken’s mouth worked on whatever it was he was chewing, his eyes cast down. “Sick in bed, Captain. Flu, maybe. You know her. She’d come if she was able.”

“I know you’re the worst liar for a hundred miles in any direction. She’s in a tavern somewhere, or worse.”

The big man looked hurt. “Well, maybe that’s so, but you’d better let it pass for now, ’cause we got a more immediate problem.” He shook his head. “Like we don’t have one every time we turn around these days. Like every single oink doesn’t come from the same pig’s house.”

“Ah, our friends in Federation Command?”

“A full line Commander is aboard for the flight with two of his flunkies. Observation purposes, he tells me. Reconnaissance. A day in the skies. Shades! I nod and smile like a sailor’s wife at news of his plans to give up sailing.”

Redden Alt Mer nodded absently. “Best thing to do with these people, Hawk.”

They had reached Black Moclips, and he swung onto the rope ladder and climbed to the bridge where the Federation Commander and his adjutants were waiting.

“Commander,” he greeted pleasantly. “Welcome aboard.”

“My compliments, Captain Alt Mer,” the other replied. He did not offer his own name, which told the Rover something right away about how he viewed their relationship. He was a thin, pinch-faced man with sallow skin. If he’d spent a day on the line in the last twelve months, it would come as a surprise to the Rover. “Are we ready to go?”

“Ready and able, Commander.”

“Your First Officer?”

“Indisposed.” Or she would wish as much once he got his hands on her. “Mr. Hawken can take up the slack. Gentlemen, is this your first time in the air?”

The look that passed between the adjutants gave him his answer.

“It is our first,” the Commander confirmed with a dismissive shrug. “Your job is to make the experience educational. Ours is to learn whatever it is you have to teach.”

“Run ’em up, Hawk.” He gestured his Second Officer forward to oversee lofting the sails. “We’ll be seeing action today, Commander,” he cautioned. “It could get a little rough.”

The Commander smiled condescendingly. “We’re soldiers, Captain. We’ll be fine.”

Pompous fathead, Alt Mer thought. You’ll be fine if I keep you that way and not otherwise.

He watched his Rover crew scramble up the masts, lofting the sails and fastening the radian draws in place. Airships were marvelous things, but operating them required a mindset that was sorely lacking in most Federation soldiers. The Southlanders were fine on solid ground executing infantry tactics. They were comfortable with throwing bodies into breaches, like sandbags, and relying on the sheer weight of their numbers to crush an enemy. But put them in the air and they couldn’t seem to decide what to do next. Their intuition vanished. Everything they knew about warfare dried up and blew away with the first breath of wind to fill the sails.

Rovers, on the other hand, were born to the life. It was in their blood, in their history, and in the way they had lived their lives for two thousand years. Rovers did not respond well to regimentation and drill. They responded to freedom. Flying the big airships gave them that. Migratory by nature and tradition, they were always on the move anyway. Staying put was unthinkable. The Federation was still trying to figure that out, and they were constantly sending observers aloft with the Rover crews to discover what it was their mercenaries knew that they didn’t.

Trouble was, it wasn’t something that could be taught. The Bordermen who fought for the Free-born weren’t any better. Or the Dwarves. Only the Elves seemed to have mastered sailing the wind currents with the same ease as the Rovers.

One day, that would change. Airships were still new to the Four Lands. The first had been built and flown barely two dozen years earlier. They had been in service as fighting vessels for less than five years. Only a handful of shipwrights understood the mechanics of ambient-light sails, radian draws, and diapson crystals well enough to build the vessels that could utilize them. Using light as energy was an old dream, only occasionally realized, as in the case of airships. It was one thing to build them, another to make them fly. It took skill and intelligence and instinct to keep them in the air. More were lost through poor navigation, loss of control, and panic than through damage from battle.

Rovers had sailed the seas in trading ships and pirate vessels longer than anyone had, and the jump to airships was easier for them. As mercenaries, they were invaluable to the Federation. But the Southlanders continued to believe that if they could just learn how the Rovers managed to make it all look so easy, they wouldn’t need them as Captains and crews.

Hence, his passengers, three more in a long line of Federation hopefuls.

Resigned, he sighed. There was nothing he could do about it. Hawk would fuss enough for the both of them. He took his station in the pilot box, watching his men as they finished tying down the draws and securing the sails. Other ships were preparing to lift off, as well, their crews performing similar tasks in preparation. On the airfield, ground crews were preparing to release the mooring lines.

The old, familiar excitement was humming in his blood, and the clarity of his vision sharpened.

“Unhood the crystals, Hawk!” he shouted to his Second Officer.

Furl Hawken relayed the instructions to the men stationed at the front and rear parse tubes, where the crystals were fed light from the radian draws. Unhooding freed the mechanisms that allowed Alt Mer to fly the ship. Canvas coverings and linchpins securing the metal hoods that shielded the crystals were released, giving control over the vessel to the pilot box.

Alt Mer tested the levers, drawing down power from the sails in small increments. Black Moclips strained against her tethers in response, shifting slightly as light converted to energy was expelled through the parse tubes.

“Cast off!” he ordered.

The ground crew freed the restraining lines, and Black Moclips lifted away in a smooth, upward swing. Alt Mer spun the wheel that guided the rudders off the parse tubes and fed power down the radian draws to the crystals in steadily increasing increments. Behind him, he heard the hurried shift of the Federation officers toward pieces of decking they could hold on to.

“There are securing lines and harnesses coiled on those railing stays,” he called back to them. “Fasten one about your waist, just in case it gets bumpy.”

He didn’t bother checking to see if they did as he suggested. If they didn’t, it was their own skins they risked.

In moments, they were flying out over the flats of the Prekkendorran, several hundred feet in the air, Black Moclips in the lead, another seven ships following in loose formation. Airships could fly comfortably at more than a thousand feet, but he preferred to stay down where the winds were less severe. He watched the twin rams slice through the air to either side of the decking, black horns curving upward against the green of the earth. Low and flat, Black Moclips had the look of a hawk at hunt, soaring smooth and silent against the midday sky.

Wind filled the sails, and the Rover crew moved quickly to take advantage of the additional power. Alt Mer hooded the diapson crystals in response, slowing the power fed by the radian draws, giving the ship over to the wind. Furl Hawken was shouting out instructions, exhorting in that big, booming voice, keeping everyone moving smoothly from station to station. Accustomed to the movements of a ship in flight, the crew wore no restraining lines. That would change when they engaged in battle.

Alt Mer risked a quick glance over his shoulder at the Federation officers—risked, because if he started laughing at what he found, he would find himself in trouble he didn’t need. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. The Commander and his adjutants were gripping the rail with white-knuckled determination, but no one was sick yet and no one was hiding his eyes. The Rover gave them a reassuring wave and dismissed them from his thoughts.

When Black Moclips was well away from the Federation camp and approaching the forward lines of the Free-born, he gave the order to unlock the ship’s weapons. Black Moclips carried several sets, all of them carefully stacked and stored amidships. Bows and arrows and slings and javelins were used mostly for long-range attacks against opposing crews and fighters. Spears and blades were used in close combat. Long, jagged-edge pikes and grappling hooks attached to throwing ropes were used to draw an enemy ship close enough to tear apart her sails or sever her radian draws.

The two dozen Federation soldiers who rode belowdecks during embarkation climbed up the ladder through the hatchway amidships and moved to arm themselves. Some took up positions behind shielding at the rails. Some moved to man the catapults that launched buckets of metal shards or burning balls of pitch. All were veterans of countless airship battles aboard Black Moclips. Alt Mer and his crew of Rovers left the fighting to them. Their responsibility was to the ship. It took all of their concentration to hold her steady in the heat of battle, to position her so that the soldiers could bring their weapons to bear, and to employ her when necessary as a battering ram. The crew was not expected to fight unless the ship was in danger of being boarded.

Watching the soldiers take up their weapons and move eagerly into position, the Rover Captain was struck by the amount of energy men could summon for the purpose of killing one another.

Furl Hawken appeared suddenly at his side. “Everything’s at the ready, Captain. Crew, weapons, and ship.” He shifted his eyes sideways. “How’s our stouthearted passengers holding up?”

Alt Mer glanced briefly over his shoulder. One adjutant had freed himself from his safety line and had buried his head in the slop bucket. The other, white faced, was grimly forcing himself not to look over at his companion. The pinch-faced Commander was scribbling in a notebook, his black-clad body wedged into a corner of the decking.

“They’d prefer it if we just stayed on the ground, I think,” he offered mildly.

“Wonder if they’ve got anything to report regarding the functions of their insides?” Hawk chuckled and moved away.

Black Moclips passed over the Free-born lines headed toward their airfields, the other seven airships spread out to either side. Two were Rover ships, the other five Federation. He knew their Captains. Both Rover Captains and one of the Federation Captains were reliable and skilled. The rest were marking time until one mistake or another caught up with them. Redden Alt Mer’s approach to the situation was to try to keep out of their way.

Ahead, Free-born airships were lifting off to meet them. The Rover Captain produced his spyglass and studied the markings. Ten, eleven, twelve—he counted them as they rose, one after the other. Five were Elven, the rest Free-born. Not the kind of odds he liked. Ostensibly, he was to engage and destroy any enemy airships he encountered, without sustaining damage to his own. As if doing so could possibly make a difference in the outcome of the war. He brushed the thought aside. He would engage the Elven airships and let the others bang up against themselves.

“Safety lines in place, gentlemen!” he called to his Federation passengers and crew, gripping the controls as the enemy ships drew near.

At two hundred yards and with an airspeed approaching twenty knots, he sideslipped Black Moclips out of formation and dipped sharply toward the ground. Leveling out again, then increasing his speed, he brought the airship out of her dive and into a climb beneath the Free-born. As he sailed upward on their lee side, his catapults began launching scrap metal and fireballs into the exposed hulls and sails. One ship exploded into flame and began drifting away. A second responded to the attack by launching its own catapults. Jagged bits of metal screamed overhead as Alt Mer spun the wheel sharply to carry Black Moclips out of the line of fire.

In seconds, all the airships were engaged in battle, and on the ground, the men of the opposing armies paused to look skyward. Back and forth the warring vessels glided, rising and falling in sudden tackings, fireballs cutting bright red paths across the blue, metal shards and arrows whistling through their deadly trajectories. Two of the Federation ships collided and went down in a twisted, locked heap, steering gone, hoods shattered, crystals drawing down so much power they exploded in midair. Another of the ships spun away from an encounter in a maneuver that lacked explanation and suggested panic. A Free-born vessel skidded into a Rover ship with a sharp screech of metal plates. Radian draws snapped loudly, sending both into slides that carried them away from each other. Everywhere, men were shouting and screaming in anger and fear and pain.

Black Moclips rose through the center of the maelstrom, breaching like a leviathan out of turbulent waters. Redden Alt Mer took her sideways and out from the pack in pursuit of a lone Elven ship that was maneuvering for position. Fireballs sizzled through the air in front of Alt Mer, but he slid underneath, tilting to bring his own weapons to bear. The Elf ship swung about and came at him. No coward, this Captain, the Rover thought with admiration. He banked left and rose sharply, the curved tip of his right battering ram taking off the top of the Elf’s mainmast and dropping her mainsail. The Elf vessel lurched in response, fought to stay level.

Black Moclips swung about, readying an attack. “Steady, now!” Alt Mer yelled, red hair flying behind him in the wind like a crimson flag.

But a second ship lumbered into view from his right, a Federation vessel with her bridge in ruins, her Captain nowhere in sight, and her crew frantically trying to regain control. Flames leapt from her decking amidships and climbed her mainmast with feathery steps. Alt Mer held Black Moclips steady, but all at once the Federation ship swung around, slewing sideways toward a collision. The Rover Captain hauled back on the steering, opened the hoods, and fed power through the parse tubes. Black Moclips surged upward, barely missing the Federation vessel as it passed underneath, pontoons scraping mast tips and tearing sails.

Alt Mer swore under his breath; it was bad enough that he had to worry about the enemy’s ships. Expecting to find the partially disabled Elven ship, he brought Black Moclips about and found the Federation ship he had just avoided instead. Somehow it had come back around and was sweeping right in front of him. He hauled back on the hooding controls, lifting away on the ship’s nose, trying to avoid it. But the Federation vessel was still slewing left and right. A burning brand, its captainless crew was desperately trying to tie off the radian draws before power to the crystals spilled her sideways. Sails were aflame and crystals were exploding and the Federation crew was screaming in fear.

Alt Mer couldn’t get out of the way in time. “Brace!” he roared to everyone who could listen. “Brace, brace, brace!”

Black Moclips struck the Federation ship just below her foresail decking, shuddered and rocked violently, and absorbed the blow through her rams. Even so, the force of the collision threw him into the controls. Behind him, he caught a glimpse of the Federation Commander and his adjutants flying sideways across the decking. The restraining harnesses brought the Commander and one adjutant up short, but the line securing the second adjutant snapped, and the unfortunate man pinwheeled across the deck, flew over the railing, and was gone. Alt Mer could hear him screaming all the way down.

“Captain!” he heard the Federation Commander howl in anger and terror.

But there was no time to respond. Two more of the Elven ships were closing fast, sensing that they had a chance to destroy their greatest enemy. Alt Mer shouted to brace for evasive maneuvers, and took the ship into a sudden, slewing dive that sent the Federation Commander and his remaining adjutant flying back across the deck in the other direction. One Elf ship dropped after him, and when it did, he took it back under the second, Black Moclips twisting and dipping in smooth response to his hands on her controls.

The Federation Commander was still screaming at him from behind, but he paid no attention. He took Black Moclips around and up in a tight spiral, missiles from his catapults firing into the Elf ships, which were firing back. Scrap metal took out the foresail of one and, in one of the luckiest shots Alt Mer had ever seen, damaged the steering rudders, as well. The ship lurched and fought to regain power. Alt Mer ignored it, wheeling on the other. Metal shards hammered into Black Moclips’ pontoons and upper decking, knocking her sideways. But her armor held, and Alt Mer swung right into the enemy.

“Brace!” he yelled down, jamming the controls forward to feed power to the crystals.

Black Moclips collided with the second Elf ship about halfway up its mainmast. The mast snapped as if caught in a high wind and toppled to the deck, bringing down sails and radian draws alike. Bereft of more than a third of his ship’s power, her Captain was forced to hood his crystals and take her down. Alt Mer held Black Moclips away, watching as both Elf vessels began to descend, rolling and slewing as they fought to stay upright, crews scrambling madly to reposition the draws. All around them, Free-born ships were descending, giving up the hunt. Four Federation ships were down, burning on the plains. Two of those still airborne were damaged, one badly. Alt Mer glanced earthward at the crippled Free-born ships and gave the order to withdraw.

Suddenly the Federation Commander was shouting in his ear, his pinched face red and sweating. He had freed himself from his safety line and dragged himself across the decking. One hand gripped the railing of the pilot box and the other gestured furiously. “What do you think you’re doing, Captain?”

Alt Mer had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t care for his tone of voice. “Heading home, Commander. Put your safety line back on.”

“You’re letting them get away!” the other snapped, ignoring him. “You’re letting them escape!”

Alt Mer glanced over the side of Black Moclips at the Free-born vessels. He shrugged. “Forget about them. They won’t fly again for a while.”

“But when they do, they’ll be back in the skies, hunting our airships! I’m ordering you to destroy them, Captain!”

The Rover shook his head. “You don’t give the orders aboard this vessel, Commander. Get back in place.”

The Federation Commander seized his jacket. “I’m a superior officer, Captain Alt Mer, and I’m giving you a direct order!”

Redden Alt Mer had put up with enough. “Hawk!” he yelled. His Second Officer was beside him in a heartbeat. “Help the Commander back into his safety harness, please. Make sure it’s securely fastened. Commander, we’ll discuss it later.”

Furl Hawken removed the almost incoherent officer from the pilot box, muscled him over to the aft railing, and snapped him back into his harness, pulling out the release pin in the process. He passed by Alt Mer on his way forward with a wink, tossing the Captain the pin. “Wish Little Red were here to see this,” he whispered with a grin.

Well and good to say so now, the Rover thought darkly, his hands steady on the ship’s controls, but it would be a different story when they landed. This wasn’t something the Commander was likely to overlook, and he doubted that a board of inquiry would back a mercenary against a regular. Even the appearance of insubordination was enough to have you brought up on charges in this army. The right or wrong of it wouldn’t matter, nor even the fact that on board any airship, like any sailing ship, the Captain’s was the final word. The Federation would back its own, and he would be reduced in rank or dismissed from service.

His green eyes scanned the horizon, west to where the mountains rose against the blue of the sky. The one good thing about being a flyer was that you could always be somewhere else by nightfall.

He thought momentarily of taking Black Moclips and heading out, not even bothering to go back. But she wasn’t his ship, and he wasn’t a thief—not just then, anyway—and he couldn’t leave Little Red behind. It was best to go back, pack up, and be out of there by dark.

Before he knew it, he was smelling the Blue Divide and remembering the colors of spring in March Brume.

He brought the ship down carefully, letting the ground crew haul her in and secure her, then walked back to free the Commander and his aide. Neither of them said a word or even looked at him. As soon as they were unhooked, they bolted from the ship as if scalded. Alt Mer let them go, turning his attention to checking the damage to Black Moclips, making certain steps would be taken to complete the necessary repairs. Already he was thinking of her as someone else’s ship. Already, he was saying good-bye.

As it turned out, he was a little too slow doing so. He was just coming down off the rope ladder onto the airfield when the Commander reappeared with a squad of Federation regulars.

“Captain Alt Mer, you are under arrest for disobeying a superior officer while engaged in battle. A hanging offense, I think. Let’s see who’s in charge now, shall we?” He attempted a menacing smile, but it failed, and he flushed angrily. “Take him away!”

Furl Hawken and his crew started off the ship, weapons already in hand, but Redden Alt Mer motioned for them to stay where they were. Slipping free his weapons, he deliberately walked past the Commander and handed them to the grizzled squad leader, a man with whom he had shared more than a few glasses of ale and knew well enough to call by his first name.

“I’ll see you tonight, Hawk,” he called back over his shoulder.

He paused suddenly to look at Black Moclips. He would never see her again, he knew. She was the best ship he had ever captained, maybe the best he ever would. He hoped her new Captain would prove worthy of her, but he doubted it. Whatever the case, he would miss her more than he cared to imagine.

“Lady,” he whispered to her. “It was grand.”

Then, looking past the Commander to the squad leader, he shrugged his indifference to the whole business. “Lead the way, Cap. I put myself in your capable hands.”

Whatever his thoughts might have been on the matter, the squad leader was smart enough to keep them to himself.