Westhaven, Rowan Erlking [large ebook reader .txt] 📗

you into the Wingsley tunnels. However, I believe the soldiers are already in the hills waiting to catch us as we run with the intent to follow us to another camp. Therefore I suggest we gather up all those that are unable to fight while the rest of us run a distraction for them so they can escape into the tunnels. Then we block off the entrance so no one can follow them. The rest of us will go northward to draw them off.”

“That’s preposterous! None of us have the training that they had at Dalis Camp!” Someone shouted from the crowd.

Ignoring him, Key said, “Those that are too afraid of the Sky Child army can go into Wingsley tunnels with the women and children. However, those that love their families and want to protect them will follow me as we draw the armies north.”

“And what if they overcome us riding in their iron carriages?” the Sundri patriarch asked with a defeatist tone.

Shooting him a hard glare, Key replied since there was no occasion to ignore the patriarch despite how irritating he was to even look at, “First of all, we will be escaping through mountainous country midwinter. Their automobiles will not be able to follow us. So they’ll be on foot also. Secondly, we should know these hills better than they do. That gives us the advantage. And thirdly, if you need some excuse to hide rather than to defend your wife’s life, then fine. Go in the tunnels with the others. I need warriors with me, not old men.”

The patriarch’s expression darkened. He lifted his chin, though no retort would help him retain his dignity. And as the people murmured, Key nodded to Tiler who was grinning with pleasure at seeing Key back to his old defiant self.

“Now gather your things. We leave immediately.”

Key hopped down from the log.

As he joined Tiler and Edman to discuss their battle plan, five Sundri women approached him, each looking as anxious as the others.

“What is it?” Key asked.

The woman at the forefront gave him a small bow and said, “Do all the women have to go into the tunnels?”

“We also want to fight,” her friend cut in.

The others nodded vigorously.

Key looked to Tiler who shrugged. However, Edman smiled. He beckoned them over.

“Are you witches?” Edman asked.

They all shook their heads.

“Then how can you—?”

But they cut Edman off.

“We can handle a sword,” the first woman said.

“But can you handle a man attacking you with one?” Key asked her, finding her manner much like Lanona’s.

They all looked to him, their eyes begging him to hear them out.

“Sundri women do not like walking behind men. We work alongside our men. And we fight with them. It makes them braver,” the woman said.

Key blinked wondering if that was why Lanona had gotten so angry so easily over being left behind.

“We are good fighters. And we want to defend our families,” she said, completely intent and much more how Key wished the men had been.

He looked over to the men who watched also.

Taking a step back, Key asked, “Who will watch after the children in the tunnels? They can’t just—”

“A few of us will go with them. You can be sure of that,” that woman said.

Key winced, realizing that his plan quickly needed adjustment. “But I intend for us to leave Wingsley behind. I don’t want the armies suspecting that we have hidden anyone in the town.”

The women nodded. “Some of us are prepared to do that. The rest of us intend to stay to defend them if they are found.”

“We’re not going to return at all?” one of the men asked.

Key shook his head. “Not any time soon. The only advantage we have right now is that the Sky Children don’t know about those tunnels. We need to keep the fight in our advantage and lead them away. I have already set up a back up plan, but you have to trust me to lead you right.”

“You’re not going to tell us what it is?” another of the men asked.

Key shook his head again. “I can’t. If any one of you gets caught, that will be the end of it. They can suck what my plans were out of you. Those that go into the tunnel, I want them to seal it up on the inside so no one can follow them. Edman will make sure the opening is hidden on the top.”

“But what happens if they find out about the tunnels under the town?” another man asked.

“We make sure they don’t,” Key said. He then turned to the women. “If you really want to fight with us under those terms, then get your swords. I’ll make sure you have guns.”

The Sundri women nodded and eagerly ran to gather their things.

Turning to the men who looked even more concerned, Key said, “And you. Remember, we are not just fighting for our freedom. We are fighting for your families, your loved ones, for everything. Now is not the time to be afraid. And don’t let them catch you alive.”

*

The first real battle of human uprising started in the hills of Wingsley on the skirts of the Duglis Mountains. The report delivered to the captains and generals in the court of the Sky Lord was as grave as the number of dead listed when it was all over.

The human insurgents had escaped. Their army, which they had thought would be sufficient against human uprising (especially with the added armored cars and newest long-range rifles), had been wiped out. There were five survivors, and they only survived because they were at the tail end of the battalion in an automobile that they had driven in reverse through snow and mud to run over the humans that had surrounded them. Even as they had driven off, the humans lobbed a bomb at them. But it had exploded far enough off that they only were wounded.

The wounded five knelt before the Sky Lord. Their blue eyes glowed with tears of shame. Not one of them was unharmed. Their arms, legs, face, and sides were bandaged since they could not heal their wounds in a timely manner after they had already lost so much blood. That, and their doctors had not allowed them to drain enough energy to finish the healing process. They wanted to leave proof of the massacre to gain sympathy from the Sky Lord.

“And you are saying those humans overwhelmed you?” The Sky Lord had been skeptical, despite all their proof. “What kind of Sky Children are you? Do we have imbeciles in the central area? Those humans should have been easy targets.”

The five men ducked their heads lower. It was clear their explanation had not been not enough to defeat the intense doubt the Sky Lord had over human competence.

“We are the superior race,” the Sky Lord snapped, pounding his hand on his armrest. “Those primate creatures could not have possibly—”

“I beg to differ,” Gailert said, speaking up after listening so patiently for so long.

Behind him, Captain Tousen and seven of his men from Stiltson, as well as Captain Welsin from Roan, entered the great hall. Capt. Tousen’s men carried a flat stretcher with a mummy-wrapped figure on it. It was clearly someone dead. The men carried the body straight to the front of the room and set the stretcher down in front of the Sky Lord.

“I told you the humans were organizing,” Gailert said.

“The insolence!” Head Minister Aster Mollen shouted out, rising from his seat. “You can’t just walk in here—!”

“And your predecessor had warned you to trust me,” Gailert added as he ignored the head minister. He nodded for the captains to take the wrappings off of the face of the corpse. When they did they revealed the face of Captain Lugan, quite dead, already rotting. “They are assassinating our captains, spying in our factories, stealing military weaponry, driving our automobiles, and shooting at our military posts. Not to mention stealing military information, hiring pirates and wizards to wreak havoc on our cities. And for that matter, I believe that they have something even more sinister planned. You sent a small army to Wingsley when you should have sent a larger one. Those five heroes are the survivors to a slaughter. Let them tell their piece and listen well. By their message, you should know your enemy.”

Everyone’s eyes that had been on the retired general now turned to the Sky Lord. The head of their empire had gone rather red in the face. However, the Sky Lord’s memory must have stabbed him hard, remembering that Gailert was often right.

He looked to his advisors.

The head minister even flustered with the evidence before him, obviously holding back the angry tirade he wished to inflict on the brown-eyed general. The Sky Lord’s memory of General Gailert Winstrong’s exceptional service to the nation clearly was chastening him into submission—at least with more care.

“Very well,” the Sky Lord said. He turned to look at the five again. “Go over it again from start to that pitiful end. Who is our enemy? How did they destroy our army? And be specific. I want to make sure this never happens again.”

The head of the group of five took courage from General Winstrong’s presence. He squared his shoulders and said: “We entered the hills early that morning. It seemed at first that there were only a few of them, armed with swords and hiding in the snow. But as the captain ordered us in further, shooting at pretty much anything that moved, they shot back and killed our forward guard as if they were Sky Children themselves.

“The enemy were all masked. They all wore white clothing, scarves on their heads and face. Only their eyes we could see.”

“Camouflage,” Gailert murmured to himself, remembering a lesson on it in his academy days.

“Camouflage,” others murmured, remembering it in their ageless memory of past wars the ancients fought.

“They led us on a chase northward. We killed a few of them, but we did not manage to get even one alive. We followed them down below with the automobile on the road as the other soldiers had to climb into the mountains. We lost sight of them for a while until our diver,” the soldier nudged the man with the wrapped arms that had obviously been burned by the bomb, “decided to risk taking the auto into the snow where he saw a clear space. Most of the other automobiles were left behind.”

“Should we invest in tanks,” murmured one of the chancellors to another.

“We don’t have the technology yet to make tanks,” the other replied looking rather put out about it too.

“Then we had better start building that up to—”

But the Sky Lord gestured for silence from his men, now looking more interested. He finally realized the importance of the message.

“That was when we discovered the clearing where our armies were fighting theirs.” The soldier continued. “They fought with guns and swords, with a fury I have never seen before, though my comrade here says it was much like the Sundri style. Yet there was one man we saw that the lieutenant was fighting with that was most ferocious—nothing like that of the northern city.”

“It was like a dance,” a fellow survivor cut in. “I recognized the man from in town from the night before. We thought he was a merchant, the lieutenant and I. The lieutenant had recognized him then on the street but he couldn’t remember where he had seen him before until later. This man must be a master of disguises whoever he is, because the lieutenant remembered seeing him months ago dressed as a lake minstrel, a dancer, and had thought him harmless at the time. Even in town he was a convincing merchant. The thing is, we looked for him and his traveling companions that night, but they were gone. But we saw them again the hills and the battle.”

The other soldier picked it up again. “That one they called Key.