Tinker's War (The Tinkerer's Daughter Book 2) (31 page)

“I’m well enough to fly,” I said. “Don’t try to deny that you need me. There’s nothing more I can do for Tinker.”

“And you?” she said, staring at Robie. “Are you prepared for this? When the Vangars strike, it’s like lightning. You’d sooner hold back the four winds. They will show no weakness.”

“Yes they will,” Robie said defiantly. “Before the night is over the Vangars will beg us to let them flee back across the sea.”

Analyn put her hands on the table and stood up. “It’s settled then,” she said. “We all know what needs to be done, so let’s do it.”

Chapter 28

We had little time for discussion that afternoon. Our time was spent training Robie’s pilots and working with the engineers and mechanics to maximize our meager defenses before nightfall. We spent much of the day pulling the cannons out of the dragon ships, and relocating them around the perimeter of the city. The bulk of these went south, in the direction we knew the Vangars would be attacking.

There was a possibility of course, that the Vangars would attack from the west or north in an attempt to surprise us, but Analyn said we should expect a full frontal assault. The Vangars already thought they were going to surprise us by attacking before the twenty-four hour deadline. I hoped she was right because the cannons were heavy enough that once they were in place, we wouldn’t be able to move them again.

The citizens and refugees in Anora banded together, working without rest throughout the day. They labored to move the cannons and build barricades at the front of the city to resist the dragon ships’ attacks. The blacksmiths worked tirelessly to arm the populace with swords and blunderbusses, and managed to replicate more than a dozen of the Vangar artillery shells for the cannons. That left us with nearly fifty rounds, presuming the new shells worked correctly. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to test them. We also didn’t have the time or extra ammunition to test the rifles mounted on our gyroplanes. We could only trust in the mechanics’ skills.

The rain continued unrelentingly into the night, and though we worked under the shelter of the dragon ships whenever possible, there wasn’t a single person in that city who was dry. A group of the elderly volunteered to spend their time preparing food for the army. When Analyn declared that all food goods stored within the city were now public domain, no one dared argue with her. The volunteers raided the cellars and storehouses of numerous businesses, and spent the entire day cooking stews and baking bread.

As night fell, additional volunteers went around the city making sure everyone had been fed. When the food wagon pulled up to the dragon ship where we were working, Analyn was there. It was ten p.m.

We were the last of the army to be fed, not because of any rank or indifference, but because we were the furthest from the city. Analyn apologized for arriving so late with our dinner, and then ate with us because she had been so busy seeing to others’ needs that she hadn’t eaten either.

We had no heart for conversation that night. We sat on makeshift benches scattered around the campfire, forcing food into our mouths because we knew we needed it, but we didn’t taste it. Our minds were somewhere else, numbed by exhaustion and overwhelmed with stress and worry. There wasn’t a soul in the city that night who didn’t realize that this was our last stand. If the Vangars retook Anora, they would rule over us forever.

After dinner, Analyn left us to our work. There wasn’t much left for us to do but wait. With the time we’d had, we had done everything we could. Then, just before midnight, Analyn came back to the airfield.

“Are they here?” Robie said as she pulled up on a steamwagon. “Is it time?”

“No, no sign of them yet,” she said. “Breeze, I came to tell you that Tinker is awake. He’s asking for you.”

I hesitated. I was well aware of the fact that the Vangars might attack any minute, and I knew where my duty was. Robie stepped up to my side, embracing me. “Go,” he whispered into my ear.

I should have known something was amiss that very moment, but I was too emotionally drained and exhausted to catch it. He kissed me and pulled away, staring into my eyes. “I’ll be right back,” I promised. “Just a few minutes-”

“It’s okay,” he said reassuringly, wiping my hair away from my face. “Tinker needs you. Hurry.”

“I will,” I promised. He gave me one last kiss on the lips and I climbed onto the wagon.

Minutes later, we were back at the mansion. Analyn parked at the top of the drive, and waved me off. “Hurry up,” she said. “I’ll wait for you.”

I nodded and rushed into the mansion. Breathlessly, I climbed the stairs and rushed down the hall to Tinker’s room. I pressed the door open quietly. My heart leapt as I saw him sitting up in bed, devouring a bowl of hot stew.

“Tinker!” I cried out, rushing to his side. I put my arms around him and he patted me gently on the shoulder as if I was still the little girl who’d been left on his doorstep.

“There,” he said. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”

I felt tears coming to my eyes and I forced them back. “I was so worried,” I said, reaching out to touch the bruises on his face. “What did they do to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a smile. “They weren’t smart enough to kill me, that’s all that counts.”

I laughed. Hearing him talk like that almost made me believe that everything would be okay. “I can’t stay,” I said. “I have to fly.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said.

“Tinker, I have to. You know I do, just like you had to stay in Anora even when you could have escaped. It’s my duty.”

“Leave your duty to others,” he said, pulling me into his arms.

As I leaned into him, I heard a familiar buzzing noise in the distance. I pulled away. “What was that?” I said, my heart skipping a beat.

“What do you mean?”

I ignored him and raced over to the window. I looked to the north, but I had no view of the airfield. Frustrated, I glanced down at the drive to see if Analyn had noticed the noise too. That was when I noticed that Analyn was gone, and I realized that I had been betrayed. To the north, I heard the sound of a second gyroplane engine start up, and then a third. I turned my furious gaze on Tinker.

“What’s going on here?” I said.

He stared at me silently, knowingly.

I raced out of his room, back downstairs and out the front doors. I threw my gaze back and forth across the estate, telling myself that Analyn wasn’t gone, that she had just moved the wagon off the road. I was only fooling myself, of course. She had left me there on purpose.

I ran down the drive, circling onto Main Street at the bottom of the hill and then headed north to the airstrip. The streets were eerily quiet as I ran. All of the citizens were either outside the city, preparing for battle, or hiding in the basements and cellars. It was as if the entire city had been abandoned and I was alone.

The sound of my breath was heavy in my ears as I ran. Up ahead, I saw the dark shapes of gyroplanes rising into the sky. When I reached the landing strip, I found they were all gone. The pilots had left without me. Analyn was there, waiting for me next to the fire.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, my heart pounding in my ears, my chest heaving with the exertion of my run. “What did you do? Why?”

“I’m sorry about the lie,” she said. “I only did what was necessary.”

I covered my face with my hands and realized they were shaking. I folded them into fists, staring at her. “You let my team leave without me!” I said. “Why would you do that?”

She stared at me silently, patiently. It made me furious.

“They can’t go without me,” I shouted, still arguing even though she would have none of it. “They’re recruits. They need me to guide them!”

“They have Robie,” Analyn said. “He’s a very good pilot.”

“But they don’t have
me
,” I protested.
“They should have me.”

I was spitting angry at that point; so angry that I was on the verge of tears. I glared at her, demanding an answer for what she had done. At last, she sighed and stepped forward, putting a hand on my shoulder. “This wasn’t my idea, Breeze.”

“Then who?”

“It was Robie’s.”

My jaw fell open. “Why? Why would he do this to me?”

“He didn’t do it for you. He did it for his child.”

My breath caught in my chest and I scanned her face. I must have looked like a fool standing there slack-jawed. “What… what do you mean?”

Analyn cocked an eyebrow. “Did you really think you could keep it from us?”

I felt dizzy, as if the world had crumbled away beneath my feet. Analyn put her hands on my shoulders and guided me to the bench, gesturing for me to sit. My mind raced, searching for words that I couldn’t find. I wanted to explain myself in a way, but then again I didn’t. How could I justify the fact that I had been keeping such a secret from them?

Analyn climbed back onto her steamwagon. “Stay here or go back to the mansion when you’re done,” she said. “I don’t want to see you anywhere near the fighting. If you do, I’ll have you locked up.”

With that, she left me sitting there in stunned silence, staring into the fire.

The Vangars arrived at three a.m.

Chapter 29

I was still at the landing strip, sitting next to the fire. I had been waiting there for two hours, thinking, trying to decide what I should do. Part of me wanted to return to Tinker and give him a piece of my mind. He could play ignorant all he wanted, but I knew he had played some part in this deceit.

How?
I thought cynically.
By waking up at just the right time?

It didn’t matter. I knew he was part of it. And yet despite my anger, I also wanted to go hold him and be grateful that he’d survived, and had come back to me. Tinker was my father. He was the most important person to me in the world. It had devastated me when the Vangars had taken him and it had terrified me when he’d returned and I’d seen what they’d done to him.

Then there was the other part of me, the part that wanted to go take up arms and fight the Vangars head on. That part of me wanted to take my rage and frustration out on the enemy. Reluctantly, I had to admit to myself that that part was wrong. Even if I’d been in good fighting health, I wouldn’t have been much use manning a cannon or a gun. I wasn’t that kind of fighter. And the fact was that I wasn’t in perfect health. I was bearing a child, and every decision I made for the next few months should be as much about the child as it was about me. Even more so, since the child was helpless to care for itself.

So I stayed there at the fire, occasionally stoking it with another log, waiting and wishing everything were different. And then I heard the sound of cannons and saw the flashes of light across the southern sky and I knew the Vangars had come. And suddenly I was terrified.

I raced back through the ghostly streets of Anora, the sound of my boots against the cobblestones now punctuated by the rhythm of explosive gunfire and the sound of distant screams. People were dying, I realized with a sick twisting feeling in my gut. The cannons went off here and there, concussive explosions so loud that I felt them in my body as the sound echoed back and forth through the city.

I raced up the hill to the mansion and climbed the stairs to Tinker’s room, nausea building inside of me all the way. This sick, twisting feeling in my gut wasn’t pregnancy sickness. It was something else. Something was wrong. I didn’t know what exactly it was, but I could sense it.

I found Tinker out of bed and half dressed. I stared at him for a moment, shocked. “What do you think you’re doing?” I said.

He shot me a dark look. “We need to be ready,” he said.

He pulled on his boots and grabbed his coat, which I noted were still wet and stained with mud, and with his blood. He guided me out of the room in a halting gait, and drew me to the window at the end of the hall. There, he pointed out over the courtyard at the scene playing out to the south of the city.

I’d been hearing the distant sounds of cannon fire all along and now I saw the explosions going off like flashes of red and orange lightning, both in the air and on the ground. Through the smoke and the flickering darkness, I perceived the vague outlines of dragon ships filling the southern sky. Many dragon ships. My jaw dropped.

“Thirty,” Tinker said, answering my unspoken question. “They came with at least thirty ships, maybe more. We must leave the city. We can’t withstand this assault.”

I stared into his face, desperately searching for something, though I knew not what. “Tinker, we can’t just leave!”

“We can and we must,” he said. “This time, we must.”

He lurched toward the stairs, dragging me along with him. I resisted for a moment, but then saw that he was about to lose his balance and I rushed forward to support him. I pulled his arm over my shoulders, bearing some of his weight.

“Move,” he said. “We can’t stay here.”

I nodded, helping him around the banister and into the stairwell. We made our way awkwardly down the stairs and stopped to rest in the foyer. He was panting, sweat beading up on his forehead.

“This is no good,” he said breathlessly. “I need a walking stick, a cane. I won’t make it far like this.”

I remembered seeing one near the entrance. I scanned the room looking for it, but it was gone. One of the mansion’s many
visitors
must have taken it. I had noticed that a good number of things had quietly vanished from the mansion since the mayor’s departure. As we stood there, a loud
kaboom
shook the walls. A dusting of plaster fell from the ceiling.

“They’re getting close,” I said. “We’ve got to move. We’ll find you a cane later.”

As we hobbled awkwardly down the porch stairs, I turned my face to the south and saw flames rising from the sails of a dragon ship. Tendrils of fire quickly spread across the vessel, crawling up the tethers to engulf the massive black balloon that held it aloft. The ship moved erratically, the hull moaning and twisting under the forces, and then the bow fell forward. The ship plummeted toward the ground. In the flickering firelight, I saw the shadowy forms of Vangar warriors leaping to their deaths rather then be burned and crushed as the hull of the ship hit the ground.