Chasing the Lantern(93)

The valley yawned wide before her. This face of the pyramid opened onto the cliff only a dozen paces from its edge. Ruined flagstones led along the face, back around to the jungle and the clearing she'd run into. A short distance away, a switchback stair was carved into the cliff face, one of many leading down. Below her the city rose, massive and strange in its architecture.

Completely coincidentally, she'd gotten where she wanted to go. Maybe someone heard my prayers after all?

Movement down below caught her attention. She moved to the ledge and peered downward. It was Draykin, hundreds of them, moving in a massive procession toward the large pyramid at the center of the city. Their raucous cries echoed back up to her, and as they moved it seemed that those in the middle were carrying something. Or someone.

A light glinted from the middle of the crowd. Like a monocle just catching the sun.

Lina cursed. The more she watched the more she was certain. Captain Fengel was caught, him and some others, tied together and being marched through the city of bloodthirsty lizard-men.

She cast about above, looking for the Dawnhawk. There. It circled to the west, following the lip of the valley. The Copper Queen drifted a distance away. A full cargo net hung from the bow by a long cable.

Lina closed her eyes. Lucian had lost. Thankfully though, it looked like Natasha had left them alive again.

She took a deep breath. Nothing for it, then. It looked like it was all up to her to rescue her crewmates, and her captain. But first, she had to go find her boot. And maybe check its laces.





Chapter Twenty



Fengel swung from a wooden pole. It was really rather uncomfortable.

He was tied by his hands and feet, like a pig caught during a hunt. Four of the Draykin carried him, two in front and two from behind. Their diminutive height was a problem; when they stumbled, he was drug along the ground. To his left Sarah Lome hung similarly, though her eight carriers struggled more than a little. On his right hung Maxim. Fengel was worried about the aetherite. He'd taken a hard knock to the head during the battle, and had yet to awaken.

"Henry," Fengel called. "Are the others still alive back there?"

"Yes," replied his steward. Henry Smalls hung from a pole somewhere behind him, just out of sight. Fengel had been worried at first, but the thrown spear had only gouged his man's shoulder. And not too deeply.

"Excellent," he said. "Well then. We're doing a lot better than I expected. Capital."

"Yes, sir," replied his steward after a moment.

The ambush had gone poorly for the pirates. Fengel had his men put up a ferocious defense, and for a moment it looked as if they might win out. Lome was ferocious, hacking the lizard-pygmies to pieces, and laying them out with one blow from her free hand. Maxim exhausted his remaining Workings, calling up caustic fire to wield against the Draykin. Fengel fought over Henry while the little steward recovered, and his other crew had made a similarly spirited show.

There were too many, however. They were outnumbered at least six to one. Fengel wondered, as he was tackled to the ground, how long Rastalak's people had been following them. He wondered, as well, if their guide was responsible for the current strife. It had disappeared during the struggle, and he did not see it among their captors.

Ferociously subdued, they were, all of them, bound. The Draykin saw to their own wounded and then moved with their new prisoners down one of the long stairways carved into the valley wall. His memory of the trip was imprecise; a blow to the head had left him groggy. By the time he fully recovered, they were down at the base of the steps, being carried by their captors through the streets of an alien city.

The sun hung at high noon, casting no shadows and illuminating the structures about them brilliantly. Past the bodies and serpentine faces of the Draykin, Fengel spied spiraling towers and weird ziggurats. Their angles were odd, curving and swooping like the shells of a sea-creature, yet obviously cut of crafted stone. Creeping vines wrapped them, all the way to their cracked and crumbling tops. Some of the buildings held balconies, archways, and windows. Others were smooth monoliths unblemished by any visible openings. Both of these towered over cruder, squat stair-step pyramids, lacking the artistry of their neighbors. These were covered in bas-reliefs and stone idols. It was as if two peoples inhabited Yrinium. An older race, and a much younger, more primitive one attempting to ape its grandeur.

Fengel glanced around at his Draykin captors. Oh. The reptilian pygmies were not the builders here.

The rest of the city was similar. Each building was a block all its own, separated by long, wide thoroughfares. These lanes were mosaics formed of polished white stones, the designs and mandalas they created too large and strange for him to identify from his vantage, though the heat they radiated made sweat pop out beneath his arms and across his brow.