Stimulating partners aren’t always easy to find. Perhaps you should suborn him.
“Have you managed to suborn Agrevlari?”
I have not tried. Up until recently, I did not think I found him the least bit intriguing.
“But then you had that engaging encounter on the rock formation?”
That was vigorous and appealing, but he grew more interesting when he showed me his mettle as a fighter and even dove past my defenses to bite me.Wreylith let out a roar before descending toward the docks, a wooden crane visible. Aunt Tibby and a couple of men stood near it, working or maybe, judging by their gesticulations, arguing.
“That doesn’t look sturdy enough to pull the heavy marble platform off the bottom of the river,” Syla said dubiously.
Back in the capital, they’d had access to a lot of high-quality machinery, and it had still been a laborious process to get the weapons platform from the courtyard of the castle down to the docks and onto theStormslicer. Prying it away from the wreckage of the ship and lifting it onto land would be even morechallenging. Especially since that crane looked like something that might have been state-of-the-art a few centuries past.
It took four strong dragons to carry it across the ocean,Wreylith said.
Yeah, and they only had access to one dragon.
“I hope Aunt Tibby can work a miracle.”
Even if she could, as Syla had just been thinking, the weapons platform wasn’t the answer to the current problem.
“We’re going to have to figure something else out.” She looked back to the lingering clouds on the horizon and wondered if the stormers would give them time. What if they were already on the way?
24
Vorik and Jhitonreturned to the cave as the storm abated outside and people inside started to wake from their drugged slumber. Jhiton didn’t say anything about Vorik attacking him, only reporting to Chieftess Shi that Syla had gotten away.
“I’m surprised she slipped past you.” Shi eyed Jhiton’s wet clothing. “Hardly anything ever does.”
Her gaze shifted to Vorik, and he wondered if she’d somehow gotten the gist or guessed what had happened. Had a scout been out there who’d witnessed the fight and reported to her?
“I am not infallible,” Jhiton said without looking at Vorik.
Vorik didn’t regret helping Syla get away, but he hated that he so often had to feel guilty now. No,dishonorable. That was the word that kept coming to mind. His feelings for Syla were putting him in conflict with his people, and he didn’t like it.
“What matters is that we know the location of another shielder,” Jhiton said as General Amalia joined their group. “Bogberry Island can soon be ours, especially if the Kingdom troops haven’t pulled the weapons platform off the bottom of the river yet.” Jhiton looked at Vorik, as if he had insight into how quickly that might be done.
“I sank it and the ship it was on, and it’s a tangled mess under the water. I’m sure they’ll figure out how to get it out eventually, but we might have a day or two.”
“It would have been better if it had sunk out at sea where the water is deep enough that they would never retrieve it,” Shi said.
Vorik wanted to grind his teeth and glare at her but made himself smile and bow instead. He didn’t need to make an enemy of the leader of his tribe, and she already had reasons to doubt him. “My apologies, Chieftess. I had limited resources at my disposal. Captain Lesva was busy with her own mission.”
“Captain Lesvaaccomplishedher mission.” Shi looked at Jhiton. For confirmation?
He nodded. “According to our dragon allies, Lesva has Lady Abrya and is hiding out in the bogs, waiting for us.”
Vorik was tempted to say that he’d accomplished his mission too, but the Kingdom troops could have already fished the platform off the river bottom. And nobody had wanted him to kidnap Syla, though ithadproven fruitful.
“I asked Zandelek,our dragon ally with the longest telepathic range,” Jhiton said, “to send word to Harvest Island to the dragons there to see if any can swiftly fly to Bogberry and intercept the queen, but the orange dragon she rides is young and fast and might be able to avoid them.”
Vorik kept his face neutral, but hehopedIgliana avoided the other dragons. After all he’d fought for, he didn’t want Syla to die out at sea to an enemy she didn’t even know.
“We should assume, however,” Jhiton continued, “that the queen will return in time to warn her people that we know about the shielder’s location. It would behoove us to move as quickly as possible to invade and take it before they have time to position a great number of forces to block us—especially since we won’t have our dragon allies until we can lower the barrier.”
“Moving quickly will be important, but we should also gather more troops than we have here.” Amalia waved to indicate the fighters in the cave. “Manymore troops. All those on Harvest Island will join in, but, as you pointed out, our dragons won’t be able to help. We’d better contact the tribes that aren’t too distant so we can get more soldiers and riders to help with the attack.”
“We do already have many ships in the area, poised for this very opportunity.” Jhiton surprised Vorik by looking at him. “You’ve come to know these people—and their queen—better than the rest of us. Would you suggest attacking as soon as possible with the troops near the area or taking a few days to gather everyone we can?”
