20th of Arrestre, Continued

That was a priceless moment, witnessing that collective flash of realization that a slave could speak and understand the great, exalted language of the Paradazh. Stunned surprise. Gaping mouths. A rising tide of outrage, with a smattering of disbelief splashed across a few faces.

I sneered and looked at the High General again. "I don't know what he's planning, but if he's here, it means you're a failure."

"Quiet that nonsense, Brannen," the High Counselor said, tone brusque.

The High General took a breath, a muscle fluttering in his jaw, and... was that almost an eye-roll? Then he lifted a hand and beckoned to one of the soldiers standing guard in the nearest hatchway.

"Afraid of what your precious babies will hear me say?" I asked, settling back into my chair. "It's so adorable how they think you know what you're doing, Brannen."

"Tie it up and gag it with something," the General growled as the guard approached. Then he turned and glared at his aides and operators, who were still gawking at the spectacle of a slave back-sassing the High General. "Well? Get on with it!"

As if they had been slapped, all six of them instantly lowered their heads and went back to work.

They were all so young, barely into adulthood. Not one of them had ever experienced anything beyond the walls of the Paradazh. Suddenly I wanted to slap them all, to shake them hard and make them take a good look at the men they followed so willingly, but that would only make the General look sane. Instead, I waited quietly as the young guard pulled a set of narrow silver wires from his belt pack and began tying me up.

"You do know who the Icewolf is, don't you?" I asked, regarding him as he finished wiring my wrists to the chair. "He was one of you. You call him the Icewolf because the General doesn't want you to know his real name is Captain Arramy..." That made the guard stiffen just a little, his mouth thinning as he glanced at me. Recognition flaring in his eyes. Interesting... "He knows all about you. Knows all your weak spots... He even helped design these airships. The High General told everyone he was dead, didn't he? But he's not. Ask yourself why the High General would lie? What is he hiding?" I got out, just before the guard pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and crammed it in my mouth, wrapping his last wire around my head from lips to nape, wrenching it tight to keep me from spitting the kerchief out.

Then he got up and returned to his post, not looking at me again, his face a study in dutiful stone.

I grinned around the handkerchief. Two of the under officers who had come in were giving each other sideways looks. After that little exhibition, any other slave would be dead, executed on the spot for insubordination. The tall, slender colonel seemed ready to dispatch me himself, his face a mottled pink. But I was not dead... which meant General Erkhaldt was more worried than he let on.

None of which mattered, really, because we were still headed south, toward the Headquarters, two more airships trailing along behind us.

My heartbeat was thrumming wildly in my chest, no matter how deep and slow I breathed. The operators were busy taking communications from the ground as well as the sky, their quick, efficient give and take of information easy enough to listen in on. Still, it made my heart sink like lead as their words painted a bleak picture.

The Illyrians were being driven back to the south wall, which meant the rebels in the Headquarters building were fighting the Coventry machines alone. I watched as three of the metal men swooped across one of the portholes, great silver wings spreading from their shoulders, their arms blazing with bright orbs of light, about to descend on the Headquarters from the sky.

A flurry of activity snatched my attention back to the view of the communications room.

Three of the Illyrians were marching the prisoners out of the room at gunpoint, herding them down the hall, while several other rebels began shoving desks out of the way.

The girl operating the controls was torn between following her friends and watching the rebels, and for a moment she flicked back and forth between them, catching only quick glimpses of a squad of Illyrians carrying a large, bulky metal object into the communications room.

"Stay on the Icewolf," the General snapped, taking a step toward the controls.

The view of the communications room swam back into the porthole, showing Arramy on his knees next to the bulky object, bolting it to the marble slabs of the floor.

The High Counselor scowled heavily, his mustache twitching, his mouth opening in the beginnings of an objection to such treatment of Coventry property, but his objection died in the next instant when another Illyrian rebel came into view, dragging the severed end of a heavy-looking cable that trailed behind him out into the hallway. A cable just like the ones I had seen in the lower levels of the Headquarters building.

The General swore as Arramy began attaching some sort of coupling to the cable.

"What is he doing?" High Counselor demanded, his scowl deepening to a squint.

General Erkhaldt grabbed one of the sonulator mouthpieces and brought it to his lips, swatting at an array of toggles on the panel before shouting into the handset, "Macca, Berresfaldt, Horres, fall back to the Manufacturing Sector immediately!"

In the porthole, Arramy finished attaching the coupling, then joined the cable to a housing on one end of the bulky object now bolted to the floor. He cranked some sort of flywheel, yanked down a lever, got quickly to his feet and started for the communication room door.

Behind him, the object seemed to waver for an instant, a spinning light beaming from inside its core. Then the image froze.

I let out a breath, my throat tightening as that last, motionless glimpse of Arramy began blurring into fuzzy lines.

The operator flipped toggles and turned dials, but the porthole faded to black.

He was gone.

"We've lost the Headquarters, sir," the operator said, breaking the silent tension that hung in the air.

"Show me the parade grounds," Erkhaldt commanded, leaving the control panel and striding to the map table, where he took up a flat-angle and began plotting coordinates. A matter of seconds later, he called over his shoulder, "Relay an order to the Zarhaine. Drop payload along line four-o-eight, two notches due east, blanket formation."

There was a quick exchange over the sonnulator station as an operator echoed his orders and they were received by one of the other airships.

The High Counselor observed what the General had sketched out on the map table, his brows furrowing even further. "Won't that take out the Headquarters? We'll lose everything —"

His words were cut off by a rolling wave of thunder outside. The airship bucked lightly, shimmying in the sudden turbulence from the ground, and several of the younger staff members grabbed at their station chairs, their fingers white-knuckled.

General Erkhaldt didn't so much as blink as the engines hummed beneath our feet and the rocking evened out. "It was already compromised. That was a Farskal device. If it had cycled up, every piece of mech in a two-mile radius would have gone down," he said, then glanced back up at the bank of portholes, freakishly unworried.

I followed his gaze, my blood running cold.

All views were of the headquarters exterior, now, two from the ground, one from an airship idling overhead.

Silence reigned; every eye was riveted to the scene playing over the portholes as the billows of smoke slowly parted.

Nothing remained but a blast crater several hundred meters across and what looked to be a mile long. The bombs had ripped apart the great marble slabs of the parade ground, tossed the pillars of the colonnade about, and torn the headquarters building up by the roots. The lower levels were clearly visible, metal girders jutting and twisting from the rubble, a crushed vehicle from the parking yard here, the crumpled accordion lift doors there, the skeletal outline of cell blocks rising from burning debris deeper still.

In the distance, the underground rail tunnels gaped from the far ends of the pit like broken, misshapen mouths with protruding tongues of mangled rail and dangling teeth of concrete.

I swallowed hard. No one could have survived that. Not even the captured Coventry guards and staff. Not even...

My mind skirted that last thought, dodging around it as quickly as it arose. I was still coming to grips with seeing his face, much less that he had been inside the Paradazh headquarters.

No.

There was only so much heartbreak I could absorb. I had already watched him die once. It was impossible to die twice. A thick, impenetrable wall was building itself in my head, sealing off what I had just seen, pushing it back into a dark place where I wouldn't have to deal with it. Pain was a luxury, here.

I was still alive. One breath. Two. Calm... cold... Orrelian's litany rolled through my head in Arramy's voice: Watch. Listen. Learn...My gaze found the High General, then the High Counselor. Neither were looking at me. I was in the corner, invisible in my slave's jumpsuit, no threat at all wired to a chair.

The High General was giving orders, the operators were relaying them, and the aides were moving those blocks of troops around the map. One of the other airships flew south to the wall, and the reports of what it was doing were enough to make me close my eyes, teeth pressed tight against the gag. It sounded like they were decimating the Illyrians, squashing their forces as easily as a cat might swat a fly.

Until one of the operators turned abruptly around in her chair and called, "Report just in from the Command Tower, your grace. Colonel Bisiri is under attack."

I opened my eyes, gaze already riveted on the portholes. Sure enough, two of them were showing the Command Tower. We were too far away to see details, but there were small figures crowding onto the landing platform, pops of white bursting from the rifles at their shoulders as they fired on an enemy inside the hangar.

Then, with an almost graceful shrug, the entire top of the tower began sloping to the left as if it had been sliced free of the rest of the mountain. No more firing, there was only a mad scramble in miniature as tiny Coventry soldiers staggered and stumbled, grabbing at walls and railings as they struggled not to fall off that far-away deck.

The General gave orders to change course and head for the tower, but there was no way he could reach it in time. Several hundred Coventry men and women plummeted down the face of the mountain, disappearing in a rush of tumbling rock and concrete.

I felt nothing. They were Coventry. Now they were dead. I should have felt something. Victory. A surge of vindication, maybe a flicker of satisfaction, regret over the loss of life would have even made sense, but there was nothing. A thick silence wheeled through my brain, punctuated only by the cries of the operators and the stunned sounds of anger from the officers and the High Councilor.

One of the operators swung the view a little wider than the others and caught a group of slaves making a mad dash across the stretch of baren ground between the base of the tower and the manufactury sector, their white jumpsuits declaring them to be from the mines. When the platform went down, the miners stared up the mountain, then began shouting and pumping their hands in the air. They thought something great had just happened. Maybe they thought the tide was turning.

It might have been a bright moment to those on the ground, but all it took was a single glance around the airship map room to realize blowing up the Command Tower hadn't done blazes to stop the Coventry's ability to communicate. Nor had it wiped out the Coventry command. They were all there, airborne, floating above the carnage, and everything was still clicking right along like a well-oiled timekeep.

I stared at the porthole, not wanting to watch but unable to tear myself away, dimly registering that the High Councilor was demanding to know why there were mine slaves running through the Manufacturing Sector, and the High General was ordering the operators to give him a look at the entrance to the mine.

The gates had been torn off.

The miners were indeed free, hundreds, maybe even thousands of them charging out of the mine, rushing out to fight a platoon of Coventry foot soldiers approaching from the Manufacturing Sector side of the rail line.

Which meant NaVarre and Kenoa had made it through after all.

Even as I thought that, the mechs arrived on the General's command, their horrible blue-light weapons met by miners armed with little more than pickaxes and shovels.

Another report came in, then, one of the operators calling out: "We're taking fire in the Manufacturing Sector. They have the escaped Mech with them, sir. He's attacking the Veikyrre air unit."

"Send the Artania's Veikyrre escort to reinforce them. And I want the seventh heavy armored division rerouted to Manufacturing," the General snapped.

A moment later, the same operator: "The Illyrians have retreated beyond the south wall, sir."

General Erkhaldt: "Good. Tell Macca to drive from the east to finish them off. And send the ilhulu unit into the rail tunnels when the Mechs are done. Nothing gets out of there alive."

"Yes sir."

I closed my eyes and went still, wishing I could be anywhere else. My empty stomach churned. The rebels were fighting hard, so hard, their tenacity and bravery bringing a sting of pride to my eyes even as grim horror stole my breath and sent icy claws trailing over my skin in a cold sweat. Watch. Listen... In my head, I whimpered, cutting short that brogue. I can't. It's too much. There are so many of them. They aren't going to stop.

As if he were reading my thoughts, the High Counselor puffed up his chest and began orating, his words ringing with depth and feeling as if he were giving a public address on the parade grounds. "We will overwhelm them! See? Even their victories are a mere drop in the ocean compared to the full might of our war machine! We will snuff out the spark of their heedless rebellion and scatter their forces to the four winds as cold ashes —"

A female voice broke in, the other operator this time, speaking quietly to the General. "Sir, Engine Deck is reporting some sort of failure in the propulsion room."

"What is the problem, Lineman?" That from the General, speaking into the ship's sonulator system.

The High Councilor trailed off with, "— they will drown in their own blood..."

There was a crackle of static from the squawkbox in the ceiling. An odd thumping, scraping sound... The engineer's response was being broadcast through the ship, but there was no human on the other end.

I opened my eyes.

"Engine Deck, come again," the operator said, tension threading through her words. She flicked a toggle and turned the homing dial on the sonulator. "Engine Deck, respond." She turned to look at the General, brow drawn into a perplexed wrinkle.

The static hissed and spat, then settled into a baseline again.

"Lieutenant, take five men below decks, see what's going on down there," the General said, eyeing the squawkbox. Then he turned to the porthole operator. "Pull up the Engine Deck."

All three portholes flickered and fuzzed for a moment, then a dark, utilitarian room drifted into view, the perspective from three different angles. One was of a dark metal platform, where four huge coiled pillars of light glowed within strange, multifaceted frameworks. Even rendered in shades of white and gray the pillars looked very similar to the blue lights lodged inside the ribs of the metal men. Rubber-coated cables connecting the pillars to the ribbed shell of what had to be the forward end of the ship's propulsion drive.

The other two portholes were aimed at other parts of the room, one facing a length of metal railing around a stairwell in the floor, the other aimed through a doorway.

Oddly, there was no illumination other than the dim light from the pillars. Whatever lay beyond that doorway was cloaked in inky shadow.

I swallowed, blinking quickly. Where were the engineers? There were control stations along one wall, but none of them were manned. Surely that wasn't normal.

A pair of boots appeared at the top of the stairwell: the Lieutenant and his men, on their way down to find their comrades.

The Lieutenant reached the floor first and stepped forward to make room as the rest of his team filed down after him.

For several seconds they simply milled around, making a cursory search, then the Lieutenant came to the sonulator device in the propulsion room and toggled the mouthpiece, his lips moving on the porthole before his voice was heard over the squawkbox, "We can't find them, sir."

The General took the mouthpiece from the operator. "They can't have gone far, keep looking —"

Beyond the Lieutenant, one of the other viewing portholes caught a linemen stumbling away from that darkened doorway, clutching at his throat, while another man fell to the ground just inside the well of darkness, hands scrabbling at the floor as he tried to pull himself into the propulsion room. He stopped, his body jerking heavily, and a short, broken shriek tore across the squawkbox before the Lieutenant dropped contact, his hand leaving the sonulator as he turned toward the commotion.

"Brannen," the high minister growled. "What is going on?"

The General's reply broke off before it began as something large and dark came stalking through that doorway, little more than an extension of the shadows themselves sliding past the two fallen linemen like a living nightmare.

Out of frame, someone fired a pistol, a faint percussion making its way up through the air ducts, but that dark figure was already darting forward, and the round zinged off one of the control panels in a shower of sparks.

"Take ten men and get down there!" the General snarled. Whoever he had spoken to went jogging off along the hallway, but it did nothing to stop the events already playing out in the propulsion room.

What followed was a confusing, jumbled mess of images that had me gripping the arms of my chair, breath bated.

A young, panicked face loomed large in the porthole aimed at the doorway, lips pleading silently for help, only to disappear in a frenzied blur. Spates of gunfire burst from the direction of the platform, bright tracer rounds casting everything in stark lines that only made that dark figure harder to track in the mele as he took down one lineman, then another.

In the calm of the control room, it was almost mesmerizing, a lethal dance of blood and steel that left only corpses in its wake. The intruder was all speed and grace, striking with brutal efficiency, there then gone. Within minutes, all five of those first linemen were dead.

The Lieutenant was last. Baring his teeth in a snarl, he could be seen backing toward the power coils, eyes gone wide as he raised his pistol in a wobbly grip, firing wildly at the other end of the room. He squeezed the trigger again, and again, and again, desperation creasing his face as he followed a rapidly moving target. Then a near-invisible opponent slammed into him, black blades glinting in the light of the pillars. A beat later there was only the man from the shadows bending over the slain Lieutenant.

The man tipped his head back, revealing a face streaked with thick war grease as he shot a calculating glance up at the ceiling of the propulsion room, following the progress of the second wave of men.

I swallowed, my heartbeat slamming against my ribs so hard it ached.

The rebel soldier wiped his blades on the dead Lieutenant's uniform jacket, then straightened and prowled out of view.

"Where has he gone?" The High Counselor's voice was hoarse, "Where has he gone!?"

One of the operators began swiveling the focal point of a porthole around, but the other stayed put, and within seconds, we all watched the next group of linemen come down the stairs.

First one, then another, then another, and another, until six men were clustered around the base of the steps, guns drawn, watching the perimeter of the room with tense expressions.

The operator swung the viewpoint to the right, and just happened to catch a muzzle flash in the shadows across the room.

Then, suddenly, all of the linemen began firing, unloading their weapons at that inky doorway.

It almost didn't register when the linemen started dropping, not until the gunfire began to audibly wane. Ten pistols became six, then four, then two, then none.

"Brannen..." the High Counselor whispered.

The General snatched the sonulator mouthpiece from its cradle. "Macca. Report to the Fortress. Now."

As if she couldn't help herself, the other operator zeroed the viewpoint in on the linemen, slowly scanning faces and torsos, searching for signs of life, finding only grey corpses sprawled together in a heap.

A split-second later, the first operator let out a high-pitched screech as a shadow flowed over the porthole.

The intruder stepped smoothly out into the propulsion room and began checking bodies, kicking away weapons. Then he headed straight for the control panels. There was no hesitation, his fingers moving deftly over the controls as if he knew exactly what he was doing, each flip of a toggle corresponding to a change in the ship.

Flick. The control panels in the control room all went dead and the sonulator quit hissing.

Flick. The ship's ceiling sconces all blinked off in quick succession.

Flick. The subtle rumble of the propulsion engines cut out.

Then he looked right at the nearest viewing porthole, a pair of fierce, pale eyes glimmering in that grease-smudged face as he flipped one last toggle.

All three of the portholes winked into glossy obsidian.

Absolute silence fell, not even a hair shifting as the ship went blind and dead beneath our feet. It remained afloat, buoyed by the huge compartment of gasses that gave it lift, but it was simply hanging there in midair.

In the absence of the engines, other sounds became noticeable. The gentle creaking of the cables in the hull... the sigh of wind along the nose of the ship... A series of short, sharp pops punched through the fragile pause, coming from the level below us, followed immediately by a harsh scream.

My fingers had gone white-knuckled on the armrests, but not because I was afraid. Hope was beginning to build in my chest, wild and crazy and brilliant.

The High Counselor's eyes had widened so far that his eyeballs nearly bugged from his head, his face a mottled white. "He's coming! He's coming — Brannen, do something!"

The General's gaze was still fixed on the blank portholes, his jaw working, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled sharply. Then he burst into motion. "Arrdin, Leidham, I want you to take the rest of the linemen to the forward mess deck and hold the stairwell until the Mech gets here," he barked, his expression dark with fury.

The loss of the ceiling sconces hadn't altered the light in the control room, but there were no windows in the interior of the airship, and the hallways were cast into a thick, eerie gloom. The under-officers both drew their pistols and slipped quickly into the dark, followed shortly by the aides and the operators, and both remaining guards.

Only the General and the Counselor remained.

General Erkhaldt drew his own pistol as a rash of sporadic shots broke out in a forward section of the ship.

The High Counselor licked his lips. "I think perhaps I should remove myself from this situation, Brannen." Then he jumped visibly at a loud khomp of something heavy landing hard somewhere aft, followed by the familiar, spine-chilling ring of metal slicing along metal and the thud of plated feet striding toward the arched doorway.

Macca ducked into the control room.

"There's been a breach below decks," the General said coldly, gesturing toward the hallway with a nod of his head. "See to it."

Macca didn't acknowledge the order other than to stump through the control room and into the hallway, his solid footsteps echoing through the airship frameworks, fading as he wound his way forward.

I sucked in a breath through my nose, staring at that darkened doorway to the hall. That rebel soldier was now facing almost impossible odds, but still a fiery little ember of hope whispered live... please live...

More shots in quick succession, accompanied this time by the immediate ring of metal on metal, several shouts and cries of pain, and a lot of thumping and smashing, as if heavy objects were being thrown about.

The High Counselor was breathing hard and fast, his gaze on some middle-distance. He seemed caught between flight and a morbid desire to find out what might happen.

There was a particularly loud bang, and then the fighting stopped abruptly. A beat later, a rasping, grinding sound could be heard, as if metal screen was being ripped apart. Then nothing.

The High Counselor lifted his head and gave the General a strange look. Then he sidled a step in my direction. "The Way must continue, Brannen... no matter the cost. I will make sure your sacrifice is remembered, my dearest friend."

The General whirled to face the Counselor, his mouth hinging open, but it was too late.

The Counselor had already snatched me off the floor, chair and all, and was shuffling rapidly backwards through the archway the Mech had come through.

Still facing the General, I caught a fleeting glimpse of the nightmare looming in the hallway behind him, the features of his war-painted face cast in terrifying skull relief by a flurry of blue sparks as he lifted the Mech's severed head by the neck and threw it into the control room.

"Fight, my friend!" The Counselor shouted as he dragged me across an expanse of metal gridwork. "Fight and be brave! I will carry our legacy forward!"

Twisting in the chair, I got a look at where we were going: a large landing platform that made up the back end of the upper deck. Two large flying machines were tethered there, their long finlike rear rudders hooked into slots in the decking. I knew instinctively that if he reached them, he would escape.

With a muffled scream, I began thrashing, arching and writhing, bowing my body so far I managed to slam a leg of the chair into the Counselor's knee.

Cursing, he staggered, dropping the chair.

My gaze flew back through the archway even as I went down hard, my right shoulder and arm slamming into the gridwork of the deck.

The General was locked in hand-to-hand combat with a tall, lean, dark-clad rebel, the General's Coventry dagger clashing against the rebel's wicked-looking black-bladed knives. I could just make out the General's pistol lying on the floor near one of the operator stations, and a dull jolt of frustration punched through me. There was no way to break free, no way to get that gun, no way to end this. I dangled there, wires digging into my arms and ankles, barely able to do more than sob into the gag as the Counselor began hauling me backwards again, pulling the chair by one leg.

For a split second, it looked like the rebel might win. He was obviously a deadly opponent, but he had fought his way through twenty linemen and a Mech already, and the General was fresh. He was also a high general for a reason, and he circled the other man with skill and precision, striking hard and moving away, wearing him down, looking for an opening.

The Counselor was halfway to the flying machines when the rebel soldier caught sight of me.

The General had just made a feint to the left to throw the rebel off balance, and the rebel, in turn, had spun to the right to meet the feint, which brought him around to face the archway to the landing platform.

Those pale eyes collided with mine, and I saw his focus break. Saw him hesitate, his eyes igniting with recognition, then stunned disbelief. Just for a moment. That was all the General needed, and he plowed a fist into the rebel's gut, sending the man crashing into the map table.

The Counselor reached the launching apparatus and yanked my chair upright, setting it down against the housing for the release levers. He was muttering to himself as he went about working the handle of a large gearbox, cranking the massive cables of the mechanism until they tightened with a twang.

Then he moved to pick me up again. In his haste, he bent in front of me, his hands reaching for the arms of the chair.

I bucked upward and smashed my forehead into the bridge of his nose.

With a yowl, he straightened, cupping his face, but only long enough to make sure his nose wasn't broken. Then he turned bleary, angry, mud-brown eyes on me, raised a hand and slapped me. Hard. Hard enough to send my vision swimming. "Be still you worthless maggot!" He drew a short bull-nose pistol from inside his jacket, holding it level with my chest as he grabbed my left arm and began undoing the wire at my wrist. "Now. I'm going to untie you, and you are going to get into that flyer without any trouble, or I will end you right here. Understand?"

I sat perfectly still as he freed one hand, then the other, giving him a glare that would have skewered him to the deck if it had been a blade.

When he had my hands loose, he shot a glance over his shoulder at the fight raging in the control room, then waved at my ankles with the pistol. "Get your feet undone," he hissed, his voice straining with tension.

Slowly, I bent to untwist the wires holding my shins to the chair legs, my attention on the mouth of that pistol wavering in front of my head.

"Come on, come on!" He growled, his eyes widening.

As soon as I shook the second wire off, he grabbed my shoulder in a harsh grip and pulled me up, shoving the barrel of the pistol into my spine as he spun me around and pushed me toward the sinuous fish-like shape of the nearest flying machine.

Behind us, the fight took on a more vicious tone, the clash of steel on steel changing abruptly to the chop of a blade biting repeatedly into wood as the General let out a feral, guttural roar.

The Counselor dug the bull-nose into my back again and tightened his fingers on my shoulder, bringing me up short beside a narrow metal ladder hooked over the rim of the flyer's open driving compartment. Only a few meters further, there was a bright checker-board of white and yellow paint, and the deck began a dizzying slope that ended in a sheer drop to the surface of the airship somewhere below us.

Limbs shaking, I placed one hand on the middle rung of the ladder, my heart thundering in my chest. I couldn't get into this thing and let the Counselor fly away with me. I had no plan. There was no time. I pulled myself upward, got my right foot on the bottom rung, bunched my muscles, then launched myself at the Counselor's chest.

With a grunt of surprise, he caught me, right arm instinctively clutching around my waist, the other arm milling the air as he staggered back a step. He swore and regained control, but I wasn't making it easy, struggling like a mad thing, driving my elbow into his side, forcing him to lift me off the ground as he tried to wrench me toward the flyer.

There was a distant, gurgling cough from the control room, then a heavy thud. One of them had killed the other.

My movements became frantic. Mindless. Writhing and twisting in the Counselor's grip, I managed to slither out of his hold far enough to get my feet on the deck and lunge forward again.

At that same instant, a hoarse voice shouted a single word: "Brenorra!"

The Counselor gasped, whipping us both around to face the control room, raising his bull-nose toward my temple.

Without hesitation I went limp, dropping like a rock, obeying the command in that voice before I saw the man from the shadows standing in the doorway, siting down the barrel of the General's ion pistol.

A flash of fire in the gloom of the aft-deck overhang, a single shot; the Counselor flinched, his body spasming as the tracer round slammed into the space between his eyes, knocking him flying backward head-first.

His arm was still locked around my waist, his fingers tangled in the fabric of my blue jumpsuit.

I stiffened, desperately scrabbling with my bare feet, searching for purchase on the deck as the Counselor's greater bulk tipped over the checkerboard line at the end of the landing platform.

"Nai!" The scream was high and harsh, like a wounded animal. Footsteps pounded toward me, hard, fast — not fast enough, not hard enough.

I was rolling down the grade.

For several crazy seconds the world was nothing but a blur of sky, deck, sky, deck, sky, deck. Just ahead of me, the Counselor's body slid beneath the railing and disappeared over the edge of the deck, dropping quietly into the evening air.

The railing. There was a railing. With a cry, I twisted my shoulders, flipping myself onto my back as I skidded down the last few meters, the edge rushing up at me.

Arms out.

My left wrist bounced off the railing cable.

I shot past the edge. For several heart-stopping seconds my legs and torso dangled over nothing, the skin of my palm shredding on strands of braided wire as I grabbed the cable and held tight. Then I got my other elbow up and over, curled my knees in on myself, and wrapped my shins around the railing too, hanging there like a monkey, my breathing ragged, panic still rattling through my chest.

Then, when my pulse finally returned to something approaching normal, I craned slightly to peer over the edge again, needing to see, to prove to myself that he was dead, wondering if perhaps the Counselor's body had landed on the tail end of the airship's gas compartment. All I saw was the dull black curve of the engine housing several hundred meters beneath me, and far, far below that, the rolling patchwork of the valley lit up in shades of rose and gold in the setting sun.

He was gone. It was anticlimactic, really. The death of the man who had spawned the Coventry and brought nothing but war and pain to the world was accompanied by no fanfare, no clearing of clouds, no shaft of sunlight or swell of birdsong and freedom, he was just... gone.

If he had somehow survived the shot to the head, he would never survive that fall.

I wouldn't have either.

Trembling with nearly overwhelming relief, I glanced around.

Only a matter of inches to my left there was a column of evenly spaced slots in the deck, each deep and wide enough for a foot: inset access steps. There was also a handy guide rope running along beside it.

When Arramy reached the top of the slant, I was making my way slowly up the incline, one hand holding the guide rope, the other undoing the wire around my head.

I paused, squinting up at the tall, lean figure silhouetted against the sunset.

Idly, I spat the slimy, saliva-laden gag out of my mouth and ran my tongue over the inside of my cheek, exploring the damage. Considering things.

It couldn't be him. My imagination was playing a cruel joke on me. But even after several blinks and a scowl, there was still a grey-eyed man crouched at the top of the stairs, offering me a hand-up.

I swallowed hard, frozen, staring at that large, strong palm. The General, the Counselor, the battle, all of it faded to nothing but that blood-splattered, grease-blackened hand.

His voice was quiet. Rough. Raspy. "Bren."

I had dreamed of that hand for so long. Dreamed of that voice and those silver eyes. Part of my brain was still walling him off, avoiding the pain, absolutely sure I was about to be hurt again, but a deeper, steadier part of my heart responded instinctively, taking over. As if from a distance, I watched my own arm move, my hand reaching for his, that moment hanging crystalized, marking the end of 'before'.

Then his lean fingers closed around mine and he stood, drawing me up to the safety of the flat deck beside him.

Still numb, still reeling, I could only gaze at him. That rugged, grease-painted face was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, like stumbling my way home after wandering in the dark alone. I couldn't tear myself away. I wanted to throw my arms around him and burrow deep, but the sheer strength of that emotion froze my muscles. Questions flooded my head never to meet my lips, snagging in a fiery knot in my throat: How did you survive? How did you get onto the airship? How are you here? Why aren't you still in Vennos?

He was staring at me, his eyes darkening to pewter as he took me in, his mouth pressing into a stern line, a muscle flickering in his jaw. He lifted his hand and brushed his fingertips over my cheek where the gag wire had cut into my skin. His lips parted.

No words came. Instead, Arramy brought his head up, looking off to the port side just as the low whine of an approaching flyer engine drifted to us on the wind.

Arramy glanced down at me again, and I saw my own thoughts mirrored clearly in his painted face: if a flyer saw us on the landing deck, we were dead.

Without another word, we both turned and sprinted for the control room doorway.  

AN: 

K. I know, it's monstrously huge! I can't find a spot to break it, and at the moment I'm still just happy I churned it all out. This chapter was brutal, y'all. 

So questions: 

1. Would you break this thing up or leave it? 

2. Was the action/plotting at least somewhat believable? It wasn't too 'easy'? I don't like 'easy' victories. 

3. Thoughts on Bren being tied up for most of the action?  

4. If you have any thoughts on the 'reunion,' Bren's reaction, specifically, please don't hesitate to share. 

As always, thank you so much for reading! You're amazing, I hope you know that. 

Sincerely,

Anna