Then he saw that they were lashed to a second airship, one he recognized immediately. It was Black Moclips.
“Besst now to pay closse attention,” Cree Bega whispered in his ear.
Ahren saw Ryer Ord Star then. She was standing beside the Morgawr, almost at the bow, her small figure lost in his shadow. The Morgawr warded her protectively, and she seemed to welcome the attention, glancing up at him regularly, leaning into him as if his presence somehow gave her strength. There was anticipation on her face, though the pale features still bore that ghostly pallor, that look of otherworldliness that suggested she was someplace else altogether. Ahren stared at her, waiting for her to notice him. She never even glanced his way.
Aboard Black Moclips, Federation sailors crowded the rail, making secure the fastenings that bound the two ships together. Their uneasy glances were unmistakable. Now and then, those glances would stray to their counterparts aboard the Morgawr’s ship, then move quickly away. They saw what Ahren saw in the faces of those who crewed the Mwellret ship—emptiness and disinterest.
A pair of men had descended from Black Moclips’ pilothouse and come forward. The Commander, recognizable by the insignia on his tunic, was a tall, well-built man with short-cropped dark hair. The other, his Mate perhaps, was tall as well, but thin as a rail, and had the seamed, browned face of a man who had spent his life as a sailor. The crew of the Black Moclips looked to them at once for guidance, closing about them in a show of support as they came to the railing. The Morgawr came forward and stood talking to them for a moment, the words too soft for Ahren to make out. Then the broad-shouldered Commander climbed onto the railing and stepped across to the Morgawr’s ship.
“Comess closser, little Elvess,” Cree Bega ordered. “Sseess what happenss.”
The Mwellrets holding Ahren hauled him forward to where he could hear clearly. He glanced again at Ryer Ord Star, who had dropped back and was standing apart from everyone in the bow, her eyes closed and her face lifted, as if gone into a trance. She was dreaming, he realized. She was having a vision, but no one had noticed.
“She took you prisoner, commandeered your ship, and escaped—all of this with no one to help her but a Wing Rider?” the Morgawr was saying. His rough voice was calm, but there was an unmistakable edge to his words.
“She is a formidable woman,” the Federation officer replied, tight-lipped and angry.
“No more so than your mistress, Commander Aden Kett, and you were quick enough to abandon her. I would have thought twice about doing so in your shoes.”
Kett stiffened. He was staring into the black hole of the other’s cowl, clearly intimidated by the dark, invisible presence within, by the other’s size and mystery. He was confronted by a creature he now knew to have some sort of relationship to the Ilse Witch, which made him very dangerous.
“I thought more than twice about it, I assure you,” he said.
“Yet you let her escape, and you did not give chase?”
“The storm was upon us. I was concerned more for the safety of my ship and crew than for a Rover girl.”
Rue Meridian, Ahren thought at once. Somehow, after the Ilse Witch had gone ashore, Rue had boarded and gotten control of Black Moclips. But where was she now? Where were the rest of the Rovers, for that matter? Everyone had disappeared, it seemed, gone into the ether like Walker.
“So you have your ship back, but the Rover girl is gone?” The Morgawr seemed to shrug the matter aside. “But where is our little Ilse Witch, Commander?”
Aden Kett seemed baffled. “I’ve told you already. She went ashore. She never returned.”
“This boy who escaped, the one she seemed so interested in when she brought him back to the ship—what do you think happened to him?”
“I don’t know anything about that boy. I don’t know what happened to either of them. What I do know is that I’ve had enough of being questioned. My ship and crew are under the command of the Federation. We answer to no one else, especially now.”
A brave declaration, Ahren thought. A foolish declaration, given what he suspected about the Morgawr. If the Ilse Witch was dangerous, this creature, her mentor, was doubly so. He had come a long way to find her. He had gained control over an entire Federation fleet to manage the task. Mwellrets who were clearly in his thrall surrounded him. Aden Kett was being reckless.
“Would you go home again, Commander?” the Morgawr asked him quietly. “Home to fight on the Prekkendorran?”
This time Aden Kett hesitated before speaking, perhaps already sensing that he had crossed a forbidden line. The Mwellrets, Ahren noticed, had gone very still. Ahren could see anticipation on their flat, reptilian faces.
“I would go home to do whatever the Federation asks of me,” Kett answered. “I am a soldier.”
“A soldier obeys his commanding officer in the field, and you are in the field, Commander,” the Morgawr said softly. “If I ask you to help me find the Ilse Witch, it is your duty to do so.”
There was a long silence, and then Aden Kett said, “You are not my commanding officer. You have no authority over me. Or over my ship and crew. I have no idea who you are or how you got here using Federation ships and men. But you have no written orders, and so I am not obligated to follow your dictates. I have come aboard to speak with you as a courtesy. That courtesy has been exercised, and I am absolved of further responsibility to you. Good luck to you, sir.”
He turned away, intent on reboarding Black Moclips. Instantly, the Morgawr stepped forward, his huge clawed hand lunging out of his black robes to seize the luckless Federation officer by the back of his neck. Powerful fingers closed about Aden Kett’s throat, cutting off his futile cry. The Morgawr’s other hand appeared more slowly, emerging in a ball of green light as his victim thrashed helplessly. Then, as Ahren Elessedil watched in horror, the Morgawr extended the glowing hand to the back of his prisoner’s head and eased it through skin and hair and bone, twisting and turning inside like a spoon. Kett threw back his head and screamed in spite of the grip on his throat, then shuddered once and went still.
The Morgawr withdrew his hand slowly, carefully. The back of Aden Kett’s skull sealed as he did so, closing as if there had been no intrusion at all. The Morgawr’s hand was no longer glowing. It was wet and dripping with brain matter and fluids.
It was finished in seconds. Aboard Black Moclips, the stunned Federation crew rushed to the railing, but the Mwellrets blocked their way with pikes and axes. Pushing back the horrified Southlanders, the rets swarmed aboard, closing about and rendering them all prisoners. The sole exception was the rail-thin Mate, who hesitated only long enough to see the terrible, blasted look on his Commander’s empty face, devoid of life and emotion, stripped of humanity, before going straight to the closest opening on the rail and throwing himself over the side.
The Morgawr squeezed what was left of Aden Kett’s brain in his hand, pieces dripping onto the deck, dampness sliding down his scaly arm.
“Bring the others now,” he said softly. “One by one, so I can savor them.”
Unable to help himself, tears filling his eyes, Ahren Elessedil retched and threw up.
“Thiss iss what could happen to little Elvess who dissobey,” Cree Bega hissed into Ahren’s ear. “Thinkss how it feelss!”
Then he had the boy dragged belowdecks once more and into his prison.
At the bow, in the shadow of the curved rams, alone and forgotten while the subjugation of Aden Kett took place, Ryer Ord Star stood with her eyes closed and her mind at rest.