Flying the Storm (5 page)

Fredrick
was flying the
Iolaire
south, hugging the sloped terrain. To the left of the aircraft rose the great Geghama ridge: a row of long-dead volcanoes that climbed to dizzying height, their tops capped with snow. The slavers had set up camp in an old fortress near the south-western end of the Geghama, where the great slopes slid to the Ararat plain at the Azat valley.

Apparently, the fort overlooked this valley, and sat on a mountainous spu
r near the foot of the ridge. The slopes of the Geghama were so vast that the
Iolaire
could quite easily find a landing site several kilometres away from the camp, high on the shoulders of the ridge and hidden by its deep folds. From there, Tovmas and his men could descend to the spur through the night and carry out their attack.

It just gets better and better
.

Flying so close to the terrain was risky
, but it made them less likely to be seen. Aiden was watching the grassy landscape hurtle past him the wrong way, as usual. He squinted at the lowering sun. It was mid-afternoon by the time the
Iolaire
and her passengers had even been ready to leave Ashtarak, and now it was approaching evening. Tovmas had taken some time before leaving Zovashen, since he wanted to ask around the village for more information on Kakavaberd. He’d never been there himself, but one of the locals had kindly provided an old map of the area, upon which Tovmas had based most of his plans.

Aiden had been surprised by how
helpful the villagers had been, considering that Tovmas had just murdered one of their neighbours. It appeared that he’d done them a favour, grisly though it was, and they were happy to help the expedition in whatever way they could. Short of lending some volunteers, of course. Tovmas had suddenly turned all smiles-and-sweetness with them, which unsettled Aiden more than a little. The man seemed to switch between personas at the drop of a hat: from cold ex-military killer to bumbling friend of the people in the space of a few minutes. Aiden didn’t trust it, but the locals seemed to.

He
felt the
Iolaire
begin to decelerate. The flight had been even shorter than the last one, though there had been a fair bit more climbing. He’d been unconsciously popping his ears as they flew up the slope. He hardly even noticed himself doing it any more.

A
n old road passed underneath the
Iolaire
, snaking its way into a deep cleft in the mountainside that ran all the way down to the floor of the plains. It looked disused, with an overgrown stripe up its centre and only dusty tire-grooves to mark its route. The ground steepened beneath the aircraft, and the road zigzagged up the incline where suddenly it levelled off at a grassy meadow. The
Iolaire
reared and slowed, coming to a gentle hover. Aiden lazily scanned the landscape and the sky for threats, but there were none, and the
Iolaire
descended slowly to the grass with its landing gear down.

The militiamen seemed more than happy to be off the
Iolaire
. As soon as Aiden climbed down from his pod and hit the lowering button they were scrambling to leave, hurrying off the craft before the ramp had even reached the ground. Aiden waited for Fredrick and Tovmas before disembarking.

The air was cool up o
n the mountain meadow, and he breathed deeply. The
Iolaire
’s rotors were slowly spinning down behind him, though without the engines they were silent except a gentle whine.

Although
he had watched it all the way up from inside his gun pod, the view still struck him. He noted that it was quite a different experience to actually step out into the landscape, without a pane of glass in the way. With his boots in the short grass and the fresh scent of the mountains filling his nostrils, it reminded him of home. It was almost enough to make him wish he was there. Almost.

The militia had mostly moved around to the nose of the craft
, heading for the shore of a small lake that spanned the majority of the wide meadow. Tovmas followed after them.

When he was out of earshot, Aiden turned to Fredrick. “We could just leave, you know. Get out before things turn nasty.”

“Before there’s any more killing,” said Fredrick, echoing Aiden’s doubts. “It’d be the smart thing to do.”

“I think so.”

“But…” Fredrick stretched his back, “I feel bad for them, you know?”

“Yeah,” replied Aiden.
There was really nothing else to say. Like it or not, they knew they had to see this thing through.

He walked around to the nose of the aircraft. Fredrick closed the ramp and followed.

It was a strange lake, now that he got a look at it. Its uphill shore was more or less the way nature intended, but the downhill shore was cut straight by a reinforced bank. The old, overgrown road traversed the bank, disappearing at its far side where it turned off down the hill again. The militiamen had gathered down near the shore, where Aiden could see a couple of dark, upright shapes, one taller and one shorter than the men around them. They looked like tree trunks.

As he drew closer, Aiden realised that they were stones
. He’d seen standing stones before; only these were much smoother and rounder that any he’d come across. The militiamen were gathered on the far side of them, facing towards Aiden. A couple of them were kneeling, gazing at the top of the tallest stone.

Skirting around the back of the crowd, Aiden stopped and had a look at the strange standing stones.
The shorter, right hand one had broken at some point in its past, and seemed to be only a stump of what it might have been an age ago. The tall stone, though, was far more massive. From the ground upwards, it was almost cylindrical, until near the top it tapered into a flat surface with a gnarled protrusion in the middle. It could easily have been a face, whenever it was carved.

If it was a face, then the flattened shoulders of the stone gave it
the appearance of a hooded cobra. Strange swirling patterns, weather-worn, wound their way around the middle of the stone.

There was always something
odd about standing stones, but this one plainly gave Aiden the shivers. He couldn’t say exactly why. Maybe it was just the way it loomed over everyone: unmoving, unnatural.

What was stranger than the stones, though, was the way the militia were acting. Some were muttering and whispering as
they stared at the stone’s face. Some heads were bowed. One by one the men came forward and tipped a little of whatever was in their canteens at the foot of the stones.

“
Vishapakar
,” said a voice behind Aiden. Startled, he spun round to see that it was only Tovmas.

“Dragon-stones,”
continued Tovmas. “These two guard the lake.” He gestured at the flat-calm disc behind him.

“I see,”
said Aiden, clearing his throat and trying to recover some dignity. “Who put them here?”

Tovmas shrugged, smiling slightly. “
Nobody knows. They have been here, and by many other springs and lakes, for thousands of years. Long before Christianity; long before written words.”

“So…
what are your men doing?”

“They are praying.
Praying that the great dragons keep them safe tomorrow. Maybe in the West you have forgotten what it is to pray, no?”

“I know what prayer is,” replied Aiden, deflecting the
taunt.

Worshipp
ing wings he could understand; they had a purpose. Standing stones? Not so much.

Tovmas sighed, as if trying to explain something to a difficult child.
“We Armenians are a religious people. We have prayed through every famine; every disaster; every war ever to cross this land, and there have been many. But sometimes prayers go unanswered, yes?” Tovmas bent to pick up a small round stone. “In the last war, Armenia’s prayers fell on deaf ears. The God of the Christians did not listen. Terrible things happened to this country, to her people.” He turned to face the lake. “So, when the new ways didn’t work, people turned to the old ways.” Tovmas threw the stone out into the lake. The little splash sent ripples racing across the mirror-flat surface, disturbing the perfect reflection.

“And what about you?” asked Aiden.

Tovmas paused, considering the question. “I believe in respect. I respect the old gods, the
vishapakar
and the others; just as much as I respect the new. It can’t hurt to appease them all, can it?”

Aiden smirked
. “I’m familiar with betting wide”.

Tovmas walked a little way and then sat down on the grass, his legs cross
ed. He was surprisingly nimble for an older man. Aiden followed, choosing a rounded boulder to sit on. He picked up a small stone of his own and threw it. The splash was satisfying.

“I learned one thing from the war,” continued Tovmas.
“Everybody prays when they are scared. Sometimes they don’t know who to: a childhood god, their mother even. They just pray. I don’t know why.”

“
There are no atheists in foxholes
,” quoted Aiden, though he couldn’t remember where from.

“Yes!” said Tovmas,
smiling. “You see?”

Aiden nodded.
He wondered if maybe he should start believing in something himself. It seemed to be the fashionable thing to do.

Fredrick had joined the pair, sitting down in the grass. He seemed
untroubled by the behaviour of the militiamen. They were scattering now anyway, spreading out across the meadow and producing food from their packs. A couple were starting a fire with kindling they’d brought from Ashtarak. Fredrick pointed at them.

“That a good idea?” he asked Tovmas.

Tovmas just shrugged. “We are almost ten kilometres from the slavers’ camp,” he said. “Even if they could see the smoke, I doubt they’d think it was anything unusual. There are many shepherds’ camps in these mountains. If they flew over us, though, then we’d be spotted with or without a fire. Your aircraft is quite visible.”

This didn’t please Aiden. If he hadn’t felt exposed up on this mountainside before, he certainly did now.
In the air, he could defend himself, but down here he was just a sitting duck. He suddenly wanted the fire put out, even though Tovmas didn’t seem to think it was a problem.

Tovmas was watching
him. “Let them have their fire, they’ll keep it small.” Somehow, though it wasn’t said, he understood Tovmas’ full meaning.

Tomorrow, they could be dead.
Let them have a fire
.

Who was he to tell them they couldn’t?

Aiden ran his hands through the grass by his sides, idly pulling out shoots. It something he’d always done when he was young, on summer afternoons that stretched lazily onwards into the haze. It calmed him. He let his mind drift. He remembered people; friends he had spent those endless sun-squinting days with; faces he hadn’t seen in a long time. Snatches of conversation and glimpses of pasty skin burned pink in the sun. Straightforward times.

If they could see him now
, if they could see the trouble he got into, what would they say? They would probably have stories of their own, as mad as his, no doubt. He looked over at the huddles of militia and the dragon stones. Not
quite
as mad, maybe.

The meadow was dead quiet. Even the militia’s chatter had died. The only sound was the breeze washing across the grass in lazy waves. He closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the peace.

It was getting cooler, and he was getting hungry. “I’m going to make some food. You want anything?”

Fredrick shook his head, and produced a full bottle of vodka,
holding it aloft.

“Ah,” said Aiden. “Where’d you get that, by the way?”

“I must have stuffed it under my bunk weeks ago. Don’t remember doing it. I’d been wondering why I was getting backache in the mornings.”

Aiden sat down by Tovmas and Fredrick once more, bowl in hand.
Tovmas was cleaning his rifle on a blanket, and Fredrick just watched the lake, occasionally swigging his vodka. The whole meadow was peaceful. The militia were in their little groups, some around the fire and some spread out on the grass, just eating, smoking and quietly talking.

“So,” said Fredrick finally, “do you reckon your daughter is down there?” He waved his bottle in the vague direction of the slavers’ camp.

Tovmas continued cleaning his rifle. “No, I don’t,” he replied. “It’s been a week since they took her. I don’t imagine they keep their slaves there long. From what the villagers said, the fortress at Kakavaberd is a kind of staging post, where they hold slaves until they have enough.”

“Enough what?” asked
Fredrick. Aiden munched his rice, listening.

“Enough slaves to make the flight to market worthwhile.” Tovmas began reassembling his rifle. It was impressively quick.

“So what’s she like?” asked Fredrick.