Under her armour, beneath the glorious glass and gold scales that made her feel more a queen than anything the dragon realms had ever given her, Zafir shrugged and shook her head. ‘A city of runaway slaves, that's all I've heard. Whispers say you wish it burned. It's by the sea. I suppose someone will point me in a direction and I will fly as I'm told, and when I reach the ocean I'll look for this city and I'll burn it down. That's all I know and all I wish to.’ She frowned. ‘Baros Tsen T'Varr, is this truly a city of helpless slaves? If it is, I wonder what exactly you hope to prove. It sounds absurdly easy. Dispiriting, I might even say. I'm almost insulted.’
Tsen's smile grew even wider, like a cat grinning at a cornered mouse, and it felt odd for a moment until she realised that it wasn't for her, it was for the man behind him who couldn't see what was on his face. ‘Mai'Choiro Kwen, perhaps you would be good enough to point the way out to my slave. Tell her exactly what it is you want burned. For my part I have nothing more to say.’ And, very deliberately, Baros Tsen T'Varr walked to the window of his golden gondola and stared outside at the dragon and put his hands over his ears.
The kwen from the mountain city glared at Tsen's back. Then he glared at Zafir, which only made her smirk, and that made him growl and grind his teeth and Zafir had to wonder if all kwens were the same and all so easy to goad. But she held her tongue and forced the smirk away and cocked her head. ‘Well?’
Mai'Choro Kwen, if that was really who he was, raised one hand and pointed through the gondola window that faced across the desert towards the rising sun. ‘That way. And you are not to fly to Bom Tark. You will be told otherwise when you leave, but this is the way for you to fly. I command it.’ He waved his hand and kept pointing as though she was some sort of idiot. ‘That way. Do you understand? No matter what anyone else says. Towards the sun. You should begin as you are told outside, but when you are no longer in sight of us, turn toward the sun. When you reach the sea you will find a city there. It has three islands. One of them is very tall. From the sky, if you are high, you will see it from many miles away. The attack will begin tomorrow at dawn.’ He lowered his hand. ‘Where I say you are to go, you will find far more than slaves ranged against you.’ And he told her of a city by the sea and of its defences, of black-powder cannon and the Enchanters’ Needles where the glasships would be, the island fortress with its lightning cannon and its rockets and its stone throwers. He told her there would be ships filled with sword-slaves to take the city streets led by the kwen who hated her. He told her where those soldiers would falter in their advance and why and how he wished her to help them and he told her of the sea titans and how nothing could be done about them. ‘Leave them alone. They cannot be harmed and so the fleet and the sword-slaves will simply have to do the best they can around them. Otherwise you are to clear the way for them to the palace. Do you understand.’
Understanding and obeying, she thought, were two very different things. But she nodded because the kwen had been clear enough.
‘Repeat your instructions, slave, so we are clear.’
She did. When she was done, Tsen turned to her from his window and nodded. ‘Now you may go, slave. Take your dragon and do as you have been told.’
Zafir blinked and then stared. Tsen was lying to her. He'd hardly said a word but the gleam on his face was one she saw in the mirror often enough. She wouldn't question it, not now, not here, but he was deceiving her. Somewhere lay a deadly trap.
She cocked her head. Narrowed her eyes, searching for any clue and finding nothing. ‘As you wish,’ she said. A trap for whom?
‘The Watcher will be with you, always.’ Maybe he was still lying, but this time she thought not.
She bowed, the first one she'd ever given him. ‘Then I will be wary.’ She touched her armour. ‘I thank you for this gift, Baros Tsen T'Varr.’
A Taiytakei in glass and gold tugged his shoulder. ‘Go! Make fire shields!’ He shoved Tuuran towards the starboard side of the ship where a dozen sword-slaves were already building a screen of wooden boards covered in sea-soaked hide. Sail-slaves lowered buckets into the sea and hauled them up again, throwing water over the decks as fast as they could. Handcarts lined with bamboo tubes sat behind the screens, draped in sodden sailcloth. Tuuran cracked his knuckles and let out a deep sigh and smiled. Rockets.
‘Someone's happy.’ Crazy Mad sniffed and wrinkled his nose. ‘So this is it, is it? Bom Tark? Wake me up when we're done.’
‘Fire.’ Tuuran dragged Crazy Mad towards the shields. ‘I saw it once when two Dominion ships tried to run down a sloop I was on. The Taiytakei set about them with rockets. A hundred all at once, and even if only a handful of them hit their mark those two ships were ablaze from stem to stern before they knew what had hit them.’ He shivered and revelled in the memory as he picked up the next piece of wood and began hammering it into place.
‘You have a thing for fire, don't you?’ Crazy Mad shook his head but he was smiling. Tuuran grinned at him.
‘You know, mostly I'm happy because I got a decent night's sleep for once.’ He glared, then moved along around a pair of sword-slaves already working on the next section of the shield wall and stopped again, hands on hips, grinning at the sea. ‘This is what an Adamantine Man is made for!’ He looked around. Two massive pinnacles of stone rose out of the waters ahead of them. A thread seemed to join them, glittering in the rising sun. He frowned. ‘I thought Bom Tark was just a bunch of slaves in huts.’ In the grey pre-dawn gloom he couldn't see too much, just a few lights high up in the sky, some more ahead of them and on the port side distant across the water, and the fireships. Through the haze and the drifting smoke maybe he could see the silhouettes of other ships too, anchored not much further ahead. Maybe the shore and maybe an island to the other side.
The ship turned. He felt a shudder. The oar-slaves getting to work below decks adding their own strength to the wind. Shouts urged them onward. The ship turned again. They were going fast now in the wake of the fireships. Sparks and flames flared through the haze ahead. More ships were waiting for them, these new ones helpless at anchor, looming out of the smoke. Tuuran saw a fireship drift into the side of a towering galley. The flames leaped from one ship to the other as though driven by sorcery; a moment later the galley was ablaze and adrift. Their own ship lurched and turned again. A Taiytakei soldier covered in golden armour ran down from the sterncastle. ‘Ready rockets!’ They powered through the spreading smoke, the wind filling their sails and the oar-slaves driving as hard as they could. This one time they would be unchained and they knew it, free to race ashore after the sword-slaves and the sail-slaves before them to plunder as they pleased, and Tuuran felt their urgency. Turn the slaves on one another, yes, he'd seen the Taiytakei do that enough times before.
He spat on the deck. Fireships and rockets. A lot of trouble for a bunch of runaway slaves.
*
Zafir left the gondola as she was asked and walked round the walls of the eyrie to Diamond Eye. She took her time, pacing out the steps, pondering what Tsen could be thinking. A dozen soldiers fell in around her as she came close to the dragon. One of them, a kwen for one of Tsen's seconds, pointed across the desert. ‘That's the way to Bom Tark,’ he said. ‘Keep on until you reach the sea.’
It wasn't the way the kwen from the mountains had shown her at all, but she took note of it anyway. A whole city full of runaway slaves? She could hardly ignore a thing like that.