Certainly, Mirai never gave them much to work with. She treated them both the same and never gave one the benefit over the other. She acted as if all three were close friends and nothing more. Except that now and then she did things that suggested maybe there was something more with one or the other. A moonlight walk with Redden. A swim down by the lake with Railing. A special word here, a meaningful look there, a private smile, a sexy laugh, all of it suggesting she felt something more than what they believed or understood.
Redden was thinking about the unfairness of all this when Mirai called down to him from the pilot box and asked him to come up and take over the controls.
“I want to speak with Railing a moment,” she announced casually, as if to confirm his worst fears.
She went down the deck to where Railing was tightening the draws on the forward light sheath and spoke to him for a very long time. Redden watched with a mix of suspicion and envy, and when she returned and took back the controls it was all he could do to keep from rushing down to ask his brother what was so important.
Instead he said to her, “Why did you ask us to come? Didn’t your father offer to send some of the sailors who work for him?”
She glanced over and held his gaze. The wind was whipping her blond hair all about her face, forming a kind of shifting veil. She looked so ravishing it was all he could do to keep his thoughts together.
“Maybe I didn’t want my father’s sailors with me as much as I wanted you. Maybe I don’t want him to know everything I do on this trip.” Her laugh was slow and rolling. “Or maybe it was a whim and nothing more. What do you think?”
He grimaced. “I think maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, no, you can always ask, Redden. But you can’t always expect to get the answer you’d like.” She was working hard to make herself heard over gusts of wind that nearly knocked him backward from his perch. Only his handhold on the cockpit railing prevented him from being toppled. Mirai, on the other hand, barely moved. “Windy, isn’t it? Don’t you love days like this?”
In truth, he did. Wild and windy, no clouds, all sunshine and blue skies—perfect flying weather. He loved them as much as he loved cold ale in summer and his mother’s warm bread in winter. He grinned in spite of himself.
“There, you see?” She laughed and gave him a playful shove. “I like it so much better when you smile!”
He felt himself blushing and turned away, pretending to study something down by the ship’s railing. “I smile enough.”
She shoved him again. “Get out of my cockpit, Troll boy! Go talk to your brother. Ask him to tell you what I told him. That should give you something to think about.”
He hesitated a moment to see if she was serious, but when she pushed him again he did as she said and headed downship toward Railing, who was still at the bow. Before him and to either side, the vast green canopy of the Duln spread away in a rippling blanket of leaves and tiny branches, giving the landscape the look of a vast emerald ocean. To the north, Rainbow Lake shimmered in clips of silvery light, and beyond its bright reflective surface you could just see the dark smudge of the Dragon’s Teeth through a haze of mountain brume.
“Mirai told me to ask you what she said when she spoke to you,” he said grudgingly, positioning himself next to his brother, both of them leaning on the worn surface of the ship’s railing.
“Did she?” Railing gave him a surprised look.
“Yes, actually, she did. But you keep it to yourself if you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Glad to hear it. I’d tell you if it was important to you that I did, but not otherwise. It isn’t important, is it?”
Redden clenched his teeth. “Not in the least.”
“Good. Because it was kind of private. Personal, really.”
Redden’s fingers tightened their grip. “You are pressing your luck. You know that, don’t you?”
Railing grinned. “She told me she wanted us to come with her to Bakrabru because she’s expecting trouble along the way. Raiders. Gnome pirates using flits. Apparently they’ve drifted down out of the Northland, tracking vessels in our shipping lanes. There have been reports of them along the eastern shores of the Myrian. Her father hasn’t heard the reports yet or he wouldn’t have agreed to let her go. Obviously, Mother hasn’t heard or she wouldn’t have agreed, either. Mirai has been busy covering up some stuff, it seems.”
“Nothing new there. She’s always covering up something.” Redden relaxed his grip on the railing. “But that’s okay. I’m glad she decided to take us with her. I think we need to get away for a few days. See something new. Have an adventure.”
“Maybe get in a fight?” Railing glanced over.
“Maybe.”
“Almost as much fun as crashing a Sprint.”
“Almost.”
“So Mirai thinks we might get attacked?”
“She thinks it’s certain.”
Railing gave him a solemn nod. “I hope she’s right.”
They left it there, staring out at the world below, lost in their separate thoughts. A few minutes later, Redden moved away.
They spent the night anchored just east of the Duln Forests, not quite into the Tirfing, but safely onto a stretch of flats where they could keep watch. The night was clear and bright with moonlight, so it was easy to see anything approaching from some distance away. They took turns at the watch post, much of the time all three of them awake and talking about everything from airships to Federation politics.
By dawn they had eaten and raised anchor and were flying west again toward their destination.
Three hours later they were under attack.
It happened all at once, just as they were entering the airspace over a rugged clutch of lowlands dotted with heavy woods and riven with deep ravines and twisting rock formations. The lowlands stretched far enough north and south that trying to fly around would have taken them well out of their way, so Mirai simply pointed Quickening’s bow toward what she believed to be the narrowest part of the unfriendly lowlands and increased speed, intending to be over and past before they could be challenged.
But the Gnome raiders were waiting, hidden in the ravines under cover of trees and scrub, and their flits were airborne and winging toward the transport in minutes. Redden, standing forward on the port bow, spotted them first. Yelling a warning to his brother and Mirai, he leapt to man the forward port rail sling. Railing, standing on the starboard side, was quick to seize control of the rail sling opposite his brother, and Mirai accelerated the Quickening further.
But outrunning the lighter, faster flits was virtually impossible, so the raiders were on them almost immediately. Zipping about like angry hornets, the flits swarmed over them, the raiders wielding poles with blades attached to rip at the light sheaths and cut at the ship’s rigging. Enough damage and the ship would go down or the crew would surrender. Because the flits were one-man airboats, they were quick and maneuverable, and even the wide scattershot of metal pieces fired by the rail slings seldom found their targets.
But the Ohmsfords had practiced extensively with rail slings and fought off Gnome raiders before, and they took down three of the flits in minutes. Even so, there were dozens to replace them. The Gnomes relied on superior numbers to overcome defenders, and frequently that was enough. Railing took a dart in his shoulder early on, the bolt fired with such force that it penetrated the heavy padding he wore for protection. Redden heard his brother grunt, yet when he turned to help found him still at his post.
But the light sheaths were being shredded, causing the flow of power from the radian draws to diminish and the airship to slow. The Gnomes, sensing victory, shifted their efforts from disabling the ship to disabling her pilot, launching an attack on Mirai in the cockpit.