But he answered to no one but himself and those soldiers he commanded whenever there was a threat to the city.
He assumed the order remained undisturbed, enemy at the gates or not. Which meant Commander March would wait for him to appear with an assessment before he took action. Even if Edinja Orle tried to interfere, he would stall.
Keeton was a big, strong man with a full set of combat skills and a family history of military service so deeply infused in him that he had never even considered doing anything else with his life. He had applied early to the academy, been quickly accepted, and gone straight through school and training to the top of the Federation army command to assume this position. It had taken him less than a dozen years to demonstrate his competency and his commitment. The old Prime Minister had asked for him personally, had insisted he be given command of City Watch and First Response. If the city was attacked, he had said rather famously, he would prefer that the last person standing between him and death be Keeton.
High praise, but a testing of the old man’s judgment hadn’t been necessary until now. After the end of the war on the Prekkendorran, things had quieted down considerably in the Southland. Aside from skirmishes and small brush fires here and there, no threats had arisen until this past year when Drust Chazhul had been chosen Prime Minister and launched his personal crusade against the Druids and Paranor.
And now this new threat, whatever it was.
Wint had moved ahead, making his way toward their flit, giving it a quick inspection before climbing aboard and settling himself into the weapons compartment. While Keeton was big, Wint was huge, and he had trouble fitting himself into the tiny space. It was always something of a mystery to others that he managed to do so. But Wint had been his second for almost the whole of his time as City Watch commander, and the two knew each other well enough by now that they had no secrets. Keeton wondered sometimes where he would be if not for Wint keeping watch at his elbow, ready to talk him through every situation, willing to do what was needed to make sure no mistakes were made.
“Do we have a First Response team ready to go?”
“We do.” Wint was cranking back the straps on the rail slings. “Two, as a matter of fact. We can have them airborne in minutes.”
“Then let’s have a look, see if we need them.”
He opened the parse tubes on the two-man and moved the thrusters forward. The flit lifted away, power flowing down the sleek radian draws from the narrow light sheaths to the diapson crystals and out the exhaust of the parse tube. Keeton took the flit up several hundred feet and wheeled west. He glanced down at the city, saw the streets filled with mobs of people, and noted the damage already done to carts and wagons and storefronts. Soldiers from the Federation’s regular army had begun blocking off the streets, containing the masses so that they could be dispersed. Barricades shut off the government buildings and the avenues leading back to the west gates. Better if the citizenry were somewhere else, out of the way.
Nearing the west wall, he made a rough count of the number of soldiers gathered on the ramparts and directly inside the gates. Companies were forming up in the square fronting the gates, unit by unit coming together. Sentries on watch had not only closed the gates and thrown the heavy locks but also placed the huge crossbar in its twin seatings so that there could be no chance of a breach. It was as chaotic here as everywhere else, but with at least a semblance of military order as men rushed to join their units. Keeton guessed they had been rousted from all over the city, homes and barracks alike, and from the size of the companies few had been excused.
He took the two-man over the walls and out onto the flats, rising into the air lane just above the approach road and the watchtowers bordering it. Passing over the towers, he was surprised to discover that they were all still manned. Normally, the men and women stationed in those towers would have been brought in right away if an invading army threatened.
Which made him wonder why that hadn’t been done here and who exactly was attacking Arishaig.
Once past the last of the towers and out over the grasslands, he found the answer to the second question quickly enough. A huge army was massed all along the ridgeline that formed the extreme south end of the Prekkendorran Heights. But this wasn’t an army of the sort he or anyone else he knew had ever encountered, and he sensed immediately that it did not consist of either Elves or soldiers from Callahorn’s Border Cities. It was massive beyond anything he had ever seen—beyond anything he had even imagined possible, for that matter. It measured hundreds deep and was stretched three or four miles wide. There was no order to it, no recognizable formation, and there was no obvious indication of how it was being commanded. It was simply a huge collection of bodies of all shapes and sizes, all looks and behavior, pushed to the edge of the ridgeline and somehow held in place so that it advanced no farther.
“What army is that?” he heard Wint exclaim in shock.
He might have answered if he’d been given more time, but he was distracted by a flurry of winged forms rising from the masses directly toward his flit. Reacting instantly, he spun the craft away and raced down the edge of the invading army, escaping this fresh assault while still trying to make out something recognizable in the faces and bodies of its members.
“Those creatures aren’t anything we know,” Wint shouted from the weapons hold behind him. “Maybe they really are demons!”
Keeton didn’t believe that for a second, no matter what they looked like. There weren’t any demons in the Four Lands. Hadn’t been any in centuries, and even those were mostly rumors. This was something else, but he didn’t know what.
And he didn’t have time to speculate on it now or even to try to sort through the different creatures he was looking at. The winged things were coming for them, closing the distance separating them more rapidly than should have been possible. A flit was fast and agile, and Keeton didn’t know of anything living that could keep up with it in the air.
He glanced back at them as he pushed the flit’s thrusters forward to gain speed. Were those women’s faces on those giant birds?
Then Wint used the rail slings, and several of the birds went down in a tangle of nets and metal weights.
Seconds later they were in the clear, heading back toward the watchtowers and the approach road. The winged creatures had broken off their attack, apparently satisfied simply with driving the flit away. On the ridgeline, the invaders howled and screamed, and Keeton felt a chill go down his spine in spite of himself.
“Have those sentries in the watchtowers evacuated as soon as we get back, Wint,” he shouted to his Second.
The other made a gesture of acquiescence, his eyes watching for fresh attackers, not persuaded that some sort of reprisal for their decision to come so close to the invaders wasn’t still possible.
Keeton sped toward Arishaig’s walls. He did not like how what he had just witnessed made him feel.
Edinja Orle had broken off her vigil on hearing of the approaching army and made her way to the walls above the west gate, where she had found and confronted Tinnen March.
Her words were laced with iron. “I want the army assembled and I want it ready to counterattack if the city is further threatened,” she snapped at him.
March nodded. “I have already ordered all soldiers to form up right here. We have placed units at all of the city gates and sent everyone not in the military to their homes to wait this out. If we are attacked, we will be ready.”