“The spores would carry, and she would not see her people at risk like that, for all that she left them at risk for this very moment. It seems your House haunts everyone’s road these days.”
Vanya clenched his teeth, mind whirling at the implications of the attack and what it would mean to defend against it. The Legion, he realized with a sinking stomach, would need to be split. Half the forces would now have to be sent south to help protect the cities and towns across Solaria, while the rest kept the country’s promise to Ashion.
“I’ll summon my war council and reallocate the Legion. I’ll make overtures to E’ridia for assistance from their air force and?—”
“E’ridia lost a base and a repair yard a couple of hours before Rixham fell,” Delani interrupted. “You’ll have no support from that quarter.”
He closed his eyes, refusing to flinch at that news. “Eimarille planned this well.”
For Vanya had no illusions about who was behind the coordinated attacks. He doubted there’d be proof left at Rixham, but Vanya knew what Eimarille stood to gain from crippling E’ridia’s air force and diminishing Solaria’s Legion. While the attacks hindered Solaria, he would not abandon Ashion, for that was what the Daijal queen hoped for in the wake of such horror.
More than anything, Solaria’s alliance with Ashion must stand.
Delani drew in a breath that crackled in his ear. “I will need to send my most experienced wardens south. The ones on duty in the Wastelands are being warned as we speak to take cover and prepare for a long engagement. This is going to be a siege in some areas of your country. Your cleansed lands will be contaminated.”
All the fields planted and growing would be worthless if revenants trampled everything and spread spores. His people risked starving, even with the supplies every city was required by law to have in storage for lean years. “What are the numbers?”
“Of revenants in Rixham? Several hundred thousand, easily, even with the passage of time.”
Not even the Legion could stand against so many and come away alive and unharmed. An alliance with E’ridia for use of their airships would have been his country’s best bet to stem the encroachment of so many revenants, but that was impossible now. The Legion’s own war airships didn’t have the higher capabilities E’ridia’s had, but much of the ones he’d intended to send to Ashion would have to remain in Solaria.
Hordes could cover ground quickly. Revenants never needed sustenance to keep them going. The spores embedded in their bodies kept them walking, kept them searching for a victim to infect, and there were so many in Solaria for them to target.
“I’ll call my war council together.”
“You do that,” Delani replied, judgment thick in her voice before she ended the call.
Vanya pulled the televox away from his ear, staring into the distance, not really seeing anything of the courtyard. Solaria had to come first, he knew that, but some desperate corner of his heart wished he could put more resources toward finding Soren. Only when Taisiya touched his arm and called to him did Vanya orient on the here and now rather than his missing heart.
“What happened?” Taisiya asked, a pleading look in her eyes, as if she already knew the answer and wished for him to lie to her.
Vanya pressed his hand over hers, wishing he could comfort her and knowing he couldn’t. “Rixham was attacked and the walls destroyed, freeing the revenant horde.”
Four
HONOVI
Dawn’s soft light illuminated the Sunrise Valley as theCelestial Spriteflew above it, forward and aft gunners on standby to defend against any attack. Honovi stood at the prow beside his father, gloved hands gripping the metal railing as he squinted into the rising sun behind his brass goggles. The breeze of their passage was cool, though Honovi knew the weather would warm up the later it got.
“You and Blaine were right,” Alrickson said, his words stolen by the wind. “We should have listened.”
Honovi knew theComhairle nan Cinnidhean’s remorse was useless in the wake of the damage that had been wrought, but his anger would help no one. So he kept silent, and his father bowed his head.
The Compass Air Force Base was stationed north of Glencoe, situated not far from the banks of the River Esk. That waterway flowed from the Eastern Spine into the valley floor, streaming north to the wide mouth of the river that poured into the Northern Sea. None of the airships patrolling their borders had seen the danger before it struck. Honovi didn’t know how long the Urovan submersibles might have been stalking their waterways, but there was no denying E’ridia had been caught unawares.
Some airships had been able to launch amidst the attack, circling back over the River Esk to hunt the perpetrators. Many Urovan submersibles had managed to escape the aerial bombardment, though some had been destroyed, the remains sunk into the river. But E’ridia’s air force had more bombs than depth charges, and that lack had left them reeling in the aftermath.
Enough evidence had been pulled from the river as proof that Urova had been behind the attack. With what everyone knew about their alliance with Daijal, it was easy to see where the true orders had most likely come from, even if no one had any solid proof. The Urovan ambassador, when summoned before theComhairle nan Cinnidhean, had professed ignorance of the attack and offered shallow condolences for E’ridia’s dead. The answer had not been anywhere near enough to appease anyone, and the Urovan ambassador and their entire diplomatic corps had been summarily expelled from E’ridia last night. They’d been given less than a day, all while under guard, to close up their embassy in Glencoe and leave the country.
TheComhairle nan Cinnidheanwas now on its way to see the damage done to the country’s premier air force base and largest repair yard, located adjacent to the base. Thecinn-chinnidhand theirjarlswere flying on separate airships of different makes to ensure if another attack occurred, the core of E’ridia’s government wouldn’t be completely wiped out.
They hadn’t been the only country attacked in such an underhanded way. Blaine had called late last night with the shocking news that the Solarian Legion would now have to split their forces, sending only half as many promised battalions into Ashion for the war efforts because of an attack in Solaria. Apparently, Rixham had fallen, and the Imperial emperor had no choice but to defend Solaria from the internal threat of a massive horde of revenants.
“The Imperial emperor promised Caris the alliance would not break,” Blaine had said when Honovi was woken from a brief nap in his father’s office to take the call. “But I don’t know how much longer he can keep that promise.”
Soren and Lore were still missing, with no word on a ransom or any evidence of who had taken them. That, coupled with these two attacks, lent credence to the simmering accusation that Daijal was behind the disruption happening on a global scale. For Honovi could see how each attack was a precision cut into the supports that could have shored Ashion up in the face of war.
The airship juddered against the cables connected to the balloon as they began their descent. In the distance, the horizon was hazy, smoke lingering still from fires that had taken hours to put out through the night. The destruction that eventually came into view was devastating, the sight tearing a wounded noise from Honovi’s mouth.
