“I brought sufficient components for only another two, Highness. Perhaps, when we reach our destination I can fashion more if the right materials could be found.”
• • •
She tried to sleep but found herself unable to settle, squirming in her bunk and trying to force the image of the flaming arc from her mind. Finally she abandoned the attempt and went to seek out Alornis, Iltis rousing himself and following without need of any instruction. The Queen’s Artificer was hard at work in the corner of the hold given over to her various novelties. Furelah lay in a hammock nearby, her sleep untroubled by the gentle sway of the ship. “Her stomach seems to have adjusted to ship life,” Alornis said, looking up from a length of copper tubing. “Sleep comes easier to her now.”
“She is fortunate,” Lyrna replied. “You find her work satisfactory, I trust?”
“She’s very deft and clever, Highness. Given enough time I’m sure she’ll craft some devices of her own.”
Lyrna sat on the bench opposite Alornis, watching her work, nimble hands shaping the copper tube as she held it over a flame to soften the metal. “You should get some rest yourself,” Lyrna told her.
A faint tic of discomfort passed across Alornis’s brow, though she remained intent on her task. “I find sleep often eludes me these days, Highness.”
“You miss your brother, and Alucius.”
She saw Alornis smother a sigh and put the tube aside. “Is there something you require, Highness?”
“Don’t you wonder what he would have made of this? If he would have been as fierce in his devotion to this cause as you are?”
“Alucius was a peaceful man. It didn’t save him.”
“He was also a spy in service to a foreign power. Did you know that?”
“Not until recently. The slave soldier, the one set to guard him, came to me before he left with Brother Frentis. Alucius gave him a message for me before he died. So yes, I know all about his . . . unfortunate allegiances, and I find it does not lessen my opinion of him one whit.”
“What else did the message say?”
“Words for my ears alone, Highness.”
Lyrna felt she could discern the contents of the freed Kuritai’s message clearly enough from the guarded look in Alornis’s eyes.
Alornis’s gaze became a hard glower. “Or in you, Highness.”
“You have a choice, I was robbed of such luxury the day they took my face and came to ruin our nation. But you can still turn away. How do you imagine you’ll feel when that monstrous device of yours turns men into living torches? The cries of a burning man are not an easy thing to hear.”
“You have asked all of us to bear many burdens. I’ll not shirk mine.”
She raised her head as a shout sounded through the decking above, soon followed by a tumult of booted feet and the rapid pounding of the bosun’s drum calling all hands to arms.
“What is it?” Alornis asked.
“An enemy ship.” Lyrna rose and made for the steps to the upper deck. “Perhaps we’ll have an early opportunity to see your novelties at work.”
• • •
Crewmen ran to their stations, weapons in hand, whilst archers climbed the rigging with bows on their backs. The deck below her feet thrummed with the din of Lord Nortah’s regiment readying itself for battle. She found the Shield at the starboard rail, eyeglass trained on something to the south.
“How many?” Lyrna asked, moving to his side and peering into the gloom, finding only the faintest smudge some miles distant. The sky had brightened somewhat, still dim and thick with cloud but there was enough light to reveal the horizon.
“One,” he replied and pointed to a smaller Meldenean vessel a half mile away, sails full and wake bright about her hull as she ploughed towards the newcomer. “I’ve signalled the
Lyrna glanced at the prow where Alornis and Furelah were busy readying the ballista and resisted the urge to order her below. “A patrol ship?” she asked Ell-Nestra.
“Most probably, though they’re too far out for this time of year.”
It took perhaps a half hour’s tense waiting as the
“Then do so.”
