Chapter 11: Sara's Story

Author's Note: Hey readers. I appreciate the comments you've been giving me on the story. They've been helpful, but please, if you find something you don't like or something that you really do, tell me about! Criticism is always a welcome with me. Hopefully there ARE things you don't like about this story. So once again, give me some feedback! I love it.

Commander of the City Guard Taxu Bes'tan watched from the walls of Tranmankand, by the main city gate, as scores of riders of dun colored horses struck dust clouds for leagues as they approached from the old city roadways.

"Pace?" he asked the young captain of fifty men arrayed on the ramparts.

"Quick but steady, sir. They'll be here in a few."

"And their identification, captain?"

"Nowhere in sight. Not a flag or anything, but there are symbols on their cloaks. Hard to see." The young officer's face twitched. "Their emblem is crudely sewn on."

"You think they may be bandits?"

Before the captain could answer, one of his men whispered, as he gave another look through his microbinoculars.

"What is it?" Bes'tan asked.

The captain grimaced. "Corporal As'man says the crests on the cloaks mark them from Coneria."

Bes'tan betrayed his inner thoughts through the drop of the calm nature of his face, as he spoke in the quick northern accent.

"From Coneria."

He repeated, dazed. Out of any who would attack Tranmankand, Coneria, who had built the City of Thieves, would be least likely to do so.

"Do you remember, sir, when the Conerian Knights came to our city searching for a man? They were not happy when you refused to let them search. This could be Coneria's retaliation."

Bes'tan nodded, but it could not be as the captain had said. He secretly had agreed to let Captain As'yan to search the city for a youth because of the revelation of who that man was.

"It may be possible that Coneria is attacking us, but highly unlikely. But perhaps we should not speak now. Signal your archers."

The captain saluted, and then lifted his right had in the air. The fifty, in unity, raised their crossbows, aiming for a target. Below, the glittering of a hundred swords as they were unsheathed by a hundred men-at-arms made Bes'tan smile. Just like old times, when they had been driving sand-imps back.

And then, it happened.

There was no warning, no shout, no signal: just a volley of barbed arrows whining. One struck the commander in the shoulder; another hit a man in the face, twirling him as he fell without a yell off the steep rampart.

The horsemen let out another volley at the Tranmankanders, killing more before Bes'tan shouted to return fire as he watched the captain slump, arrows embedded in his chest. As the commander dragged the now dead captain off the ramparts, ordering his men to retreat before another hail of arrows came again, he cursed the mongrels who had attacked his city. Whatever he could do he would punish these marauders, even if it was Coneria.

Especially if it was Coneria.

Makery Asuion watched from a hill as a thousand foot soldiers marched in the valley, in perfect rows, five long and five deep. All of them loyal Amlador, the small kingdom nestled between two mountains ranges, the Unpassables and the Thirteen Peaks. Here, safe from Coneria's wary gaze, Amlador, the kingdom once allied to the Four Fiends, was building an army.

Asuion turned to the commander of cavalry, grim and hard-faced, who was looking at the ranks of infantry with disdain. Cavalry officers, Asuion thought, are always imperviously hateful to their counterparts on foot.

"So the attack went well?" Asuion asked.

"Yes, my lord. The Tranmankanders were caught off guard from the volley, and we drove them off the ramparts. The spies report that the city militia and watch combined have only a few thousand, no more than five thousand, in their army. The Three Lords of Tranmankand are clearly not expecting any large-scale attack."

Five thousand? Asuion thought. He turned to his other side, to the Earth Fiend's emissary, a spirit molded out of clay, with blood crimson hair and glowing red eyes. A Licheen. Servant to Lich.

"How many imps can you supply to us for the attack on Tranmankand?"

A glower appeared on the face of the Licheen, as if conversing with humans was distasteful, but it answered.

"Twenty-thousand," it said.

A smile appeared on Asuion's face. Soon, he would have fifty thousand troops to assault the greatest city of the north, home to hundreds of thousands.

And make all of it look like Coneria's idea.

"And so you came," Bane concluded, crossing his arms and narrowing those yellow eyes at the Princess, steadily watching the woman even as the Everlasting lurched in the seas.

They sat in the mess room, cleared of all the dishes and food, as polite sailors bowed low to Sara, Princess, before scurrying out, leaving the five alone.

Sara smiled tightly, unshouldering a quiver of red-feathered arrows and setting her longbow down. "Yes, so I left. I was curious about what four youths of my own age, the Light Warriors, would be doing."

Bane shook his head, slowly moving to a chair. He was still limping, his recent use of the elemental of air leaving him exhausted and emotionally scarred. Even harder to use, the mage had told Aki, when the elements are being controlled by the Fiends. Aki looked at the other mage with worry, knowing at some point, that same level of exhaustion would reach her.

Jakk was still looking at Sara as someone who was only partially there, someone who should never be standing less than ten feet away. Still looking at her as someone who had come from a dream.

Klad was most curious, glaring at the Princess angrily, not as a knight of Coneria should be: concerned with her safety. Sara never even tried to defuse the look Klad had on his face.

"You look angry, Ryar."

"You should never had come here. How long have you been following us?"

"When your horses left for the bridge, Daila was already behind you," she responded coolly, referring to her horse.

"So it was you." Bane exchanged glances with Klad, then turned back to address the other three.

"We suspected someone on horseback was following us, dressed in dark attire. We tried to hide the trail we left behind, for a spy on horse would easily follow us. Apparently, we didn't do well enough."

"Why did you not tell us?" Jakk asked, exchanging confused glances with Aki.

"There was no need; the spy would be discouraged at Pravoka, for there was no way two ships would go out to Elfland in these times, and no way to hide on a ship that would take us." He gave Sara another odd look. "This did not happen, of course."

Sara gave another sweet, mocking smile. Somehow, during the chaos of the battle between the pirates and Pravokian City Guard, Daila and Sara had slipped onto the Everlasting's deck and quietly went down into the ship's holds, hiding.

"The tracking skills I learned from you backfired, huh, Ryar?" Sara grinned openly, looking at the others confused faces.

"He has told nothing to you, then?" she eyed Klad a strange look. "Marquis Ryar House Haasions was once my childhood playmate. Though usually he treated me and acted as an overly protective older brother," she said, rolling her eyes. She went on.

"My father, Ryar, and I went hunting many times, and Ryar taught me how to track the animals in the forest. You four were harder to track, especially since you are two mages, a thief, and a knight of Coneria, but I persisted. Besides, how many place are there to go now?"

There was a moment of shocked silence. Aki caught her breath. Many of the Conerian knights were minor lords; Aki had known that, but Klad is a marquis, and a childhood friend of the Princess? And I thought he was just a knight. Just a knight.

"I once was a lord, Sara. Not anymore. Now I'm a knight."

"As you say, Klad," she said mockingly.

"What should we do with her?" Jakk asked.

"Stuff something in her mouth so she won't scream and lock her up in a closet and send her back to Coneria," Klad replied, without any sarcasm.

"Does the King know you are gone?"

The Princess, for once, became serious, biting her lip.

"No. My father thinks I'm recuperating from the kidnapping and residing in the summer palace southwest of Coneria. One of my maids is acting as me. We look similar."

Jakk shook his head with disbelief.

"May I ask..." Sara hesitated. "Where the four Light Warriors are going?"

"Elfland," Klad answered.

The steady thumping on wood announced the arrival of Captain Haust, his shorter wooden leg noticeable as he

climbed down the stairs.

Stiffly, falling back to his days with the Conerian Fleet, he executed a bow to the Princess, and then turned to Klad.

"Lieutenant, we've got into a barnacled situation up on the deck. I'm requesting your presence."

"Right away, Captain. Sara, stay here. Bane, Aki, Jakk, let's go."

The Princess shot a reproachful look, but did not move. Jakk walked to the deck with a half-apologetic glance to Sara, then quickly went up.

The cool sea breeze helped ease the tensions everyone was feeling, though the rocky water churned Jakk's stomach endlessly. A sailor looked through a long spyglass at the tiny object gaining speed behind then, surrounded by the clear horizons of blue and white sky.

Haust was talking in low whispers to Klad and Bane, but Jakk had already figured out what was wrong: a Kyzoku frigate was following them.

"They'll be a closing in another ten minutes or so, missus," Haust said, looking at Aki's worried face.

"Any more tricks in your sleeve, mage?" Haust asked, and under Bane's glowering look, hastily took back his question.

"Maybe," the mage answered. "No new tricks though. Using the wind elemental in helping the ship, I can do." He held up his hands, ready to say the incantation, but Haust spoke up.

"Perhaps we can save your energy, master mage. Tanka! How fast 'till she reaches us?"

A well-tanned sailor looked up from the spyglass. "Seven or so minutes, Captain."

"Plenty of time." Mizzam Haust beckoned to the four.

"Follow me, please."

Following him to a small room below the deck, to the rear of the ship, he lifted a heavy black cloth concealing a bulky object. Underneath, a collection of shiny metal parts, pipes, and bulky metallic pieces all fitted together as a metal box with holes, hooks, and parts going every direction.

No one spoke. Then, almost to himself, Jakk muttered: "A motor-engine."

The others turned their heads away from the new device and to him.

"How did you know?" Haust asked, surprised.

"I read about it in Tranmankand."

"Stole a book, did you?" the mage wondered, amusement covered by the sober tone.

"Of course. From a mage's library," Jakk retorted.

Haust broke the argument.

"Before I say anymore, let's get this thing started." Like a child's wind-up toy, he pulled a string on the side, and the machine coughed to life, starting the motor as metal fans whirled loudly inside, startling all but Bane, as he muttered, "mechanical magic" with distaste.

They looked to the windows on the side of the room, watching as another rotor fan twirled down at the hull of the ship, thrashing water and propelling the ship forward, away from the pirates' grasp.

"The King ordered it in the Everlasting," Haust said conversationally, "so the rough seas would be easier to skim."

"How did they learn to build a machine? Most knowledge of mechanical things were lost during the Shattering of Danador," Aki said.

"It was a group of Conerian scientists. They were sifting through the Royal Library of the Ancients and found a manuscript detailing the construction of a motor-engine, and they decided to capitalize and build one. Several prototypes were built before one of them was installed."

"Was the manuscript detailing this engine for the use of something else, like an airship?" Bane asked.

Haust nodded, surprised. "How did you know?"

Aki looked at the other mage quizzically.

"Airships are only fables," she said with an unconfident matter-of-face tone.

"So were the Light Warriors, Akian Arkya." The mage flashed his mysterious smile.

"Who knows if airships exist or existed? In the northern continents, airships were thought to have sailed the seas of endless winds like ships skimming water. Who knows?" The mage repeated, looking at the pirate frigate as it became a black spot on the horizon.

As they walked towards the front deck, Aki looked at the black mage. There is still much left unsaid about him, she thought. Another glance at Klad made her wonder about his connections to the Royal House of Coneria, and yet another at the handsome thief made her spine tingle unpleasantly.

For all of us, there is still mystery.