Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(145)

The Flea picked absently at a new scar on his thumb, but didn’t respond.

“I know I’m the commander,” Valyn replied, raising his hands in surrender. “I know it’s my responsibility and I accept that responsibility. I’ve explained the standard protocol to Laith a dozen times, and I’ve gone over the reasons for it. He just can’t do it … won’t do it … I don’t know, but the bottom line is he comes in too fast and too hard. The rest of it all stems from that.”

The Flea frowned out over the waves, as though considering some indiscernible shape in the distance.

“You’re frustrated with your Wing,” he said finally.

Valyn bit down on the temptation to agree. “They’re my Wing, sir. We’ll work things out.”

The Flea nodded, but didn’t take his eyes from the horizon. “You’re commanding the wrong Wing,” he said.

Valyn’s eyes widened. He had no idea how the Wing selection process happened, but obviously the Flea did. “I didn’t choose them,” Valyn replied cautiously.

“That’s not what I mean. You’re trying to command the Wing you expected, the Wing you wanted.”

“Sir?” Valyn asked, shaking his head.

The Flea snorted. “You wanted rule-abiding, book-crunching professionals. That’s not what you got.”

“You can say that again.”

“Then stop commanding the Wing you wanted. Start commanding the Wing you have.”

Valyn puzzled over this for a moment. He’d spent the entire day trying to get Laith to follow barrel drop protocol, and he had failed. If anything, the flier had come in faster and harder than ever on that last run, frustrated at the repeated failures. Everything hinged on the speed and the angle: the order of buckle release, the placement of the barrel, the timing of the jumps. If he just let Laith continue to fly by the seat of his pants, they’d have to change everything, have to rework the barrel drop from the ground up. There were reasons the Kettral had instituted the protocol in the first place.

“I was a part of the group that picked the Wings,” the Flea said, breaking into Valyn’s thoughts.

Valyn stared at the man, aghast. “You helped select that team?” he asked, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

The Flea shrugged. His pockmarked face remained indifferent. “I didn’t select ’em, but I approved the list.”

“Why?”

“Thought they’d make a good Wing,” the commander replied simply.

Valyn opened his mouth to snap a quick response, then shut it. Either the man was taunting him, or there was something to the lesson. Command the Wing you have, not the Wing you want. It would mean throwing out the whole protocol and reworking the barrel drop entirely.

“So what you’re saying, sir—,” Valyn began, trying to work through the implications.

The Flea cut him off. “Can’t talk now. I gotta go.”

Valyn looked around, confused. “Where are you going?”

“Barrel drops,” the Flea grunted, gesturing over his shoulder toward the dim shape of a bird in the distance.

“Barrel drops like we did?”

“Hopefully a lot better than you did. Those were shittiest barrel drops I’ve seen since I was a cadet.”

Valyn tried to wrap his weary mind around it. “Why are you still doing them? What’s the twist?”

“No twist,” the Flea replied, picking idly at a callus on his thumb, seemingly unaware of the rapidly approaching bird.

“But they’re a novice exercise,” Valyn protested. He’d heard fables of the training the veteran Wings went through: rose-and-thorn scenarios, impossible point landings, high-speed multiple casualty extracts … “None of the veteran Wings do barrel drops.”

The Flea shrugged. “We do.”

It didn’t make sense. The Flea and his Wing were professionals. They were practically gods. It was like hearing that a master bladesman still practiced slicing vegetables for the dinner pot.

“How often?” Valyn asked, stepping back as the massive black bird swept in on close approach. Chi Hoai Mi, the Flea’s flier, was coming in fast and hard, faster than Laith, even, and seemingly low enough to knock her Wing’s commander from the cliff. The Flea didn’t even look over his shoulder at the approaching bird. He just raised one hand and seemed to contemplate Valyn’s question.

“Just about every day,” he replied, eyes abstracted, as though tallying up the days and weeks, the years. “Yeah,” he concluded, nodding as though that were settled. “Just about every day.”

The bird was upon them in a rush of wind that knocked Valyn back onto his heels. The Flea, however, just leaned forward slightly, snagged a leather loop that had appeared at the last moment, seemingly out of nowhere, and pulled himself effortlessly onto the talons. Before Valyn could make sense of the sight, Chi Hoai had put the bird into a steep bank and the whole Wing disappeared over the edge of the cliff.