Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(184)

It had taken them four days, stopping only an hour at a time to rest the bird, to reach the southern foothills. Aside from the fatigue, which was standard Kettral fare, the flight was easier than anything they’d done in training. If Valyn could have forgotten what precipitated the journey, forgotten what lurked ahead, it could have been a pleasant training exercise in a remote corner of the world. Except it wasn’t an exercise. After what they’d done, there would be no more exercises.

Traitors. That’s what they were now. That’s what they’d been since the moment they raided the armory and loosed Suant’ra from the roost. Valyn had been shocked at his Wing’s willingness to follow him north into lawlessness and disgrace. After all, if they’d remained on Qarsh, if they’d obeyed Shaleel’s orders and submitted themselves meekly to Kettral justice, the chances were good that they could have exonerated Annick. At the very least, the other four members could have cleared their names and, after finding a new sniper, gotten on with their duties.

On the other hand, meek and obedient were not the first words he would have chosen to describe his Wing. He realized with a grim smile that the same stubbornness that made them question his authority day in and day out had probably caused them to kick back against the injustice of Shaleel’s inquest. The Flea’s words came back to him, calm and confident: Thought they’d make a good Wing.

Only, they were the Flea’s enemies now. That was a sobering thought, one that scrubbed the smile right off Valyn’s face. In the history of the Eyrie, only two Wings had ever turned their coats—all cadets learned the stories—and they were both hunted ruthlessly into the ground. The commander of the Silent Stoop ended up slitting his own throat, while the Wing leader of Darkness was captured, tortured, then executed on the Qarsh muster grounds. Even as Valyn and his Wing flew north in pursuit of Yurl, others would be following, veterans, professionals. Maybe Fane. Maybe the Flea. It didn’t much matter. If any of them caught up to Valyn before he reached Kaden, the fight was likely to be quick and horribly one-sided.

Almost there, Valyn reminded himself, scanning the peaks to the north. Almost to Ashk’lan, wherever that is.

The Eyrie had the most comprehensive maps in Annur, maps detailed enough to show the alleys and sewers of a dozen cities on two different continents. Unfortunately, there was no reason to chart a sprawling mountain range at the northeastern perimeter of the empire. Aside from a few mining camps and a smattering of hardy goat hearders, the Bones were too high for settlement. In terms of military strategy, they might as well have been an impregnable wall or a vast ocean—an army wouldn’t make it through the lowest of the passes, and from what Valyn could see from the bird’s back, even well-equipped men on foot would have trouble crossing between the highest peaks. The range was far too wide and rugged for anyone—Annurians, Antherans, Urghul—to think about crossing, and so, aside from a few impressionistic scratches on the parchment and a blotch indicating the approximate position of Ashk’lan, he didn’t have much to go on when it came to finding his brother.

As Suant’ra approached the peaks, Laith brought her down to within a few hundred paces of the jagged summits, just below the building cumulus clouds, into the systematic flight plan they’d agreed upon at the last stop. He’d climb a thermal in a low, lazy spiral to gain height, sparing ’Ra the effort, circle a few times to scout the mountains below, then glide down the far side in a rush of frigid wind that numbed the fingers and threatened to rip Valyn off the bird’s talons.

The land comprised a maze of defiles, ravines, box canyons, and frothing white rivers as bleak and desolate as anything he’d seen. They quartered it for the better part of the morning, sketching out the standard grid search pattern one painstaking square at a time, finding nothing larger than a fairly impressive crag cat. According to Kaden’s few letters, Ashk’lan wasn’t much of a compound—no more than a few stone buildings nestled against the cliffs—and Valyn was starting to worry they’d fly right over it without noticing. It’s just one ’Kent-kissing stone piled on another down there. Some of the piles of scree and rubble looked so much like dilapidated buildings that he had no trouble believing he might mistake an actual building for a rock slide. His eyes stung from the strain of scanning the ground below, but he refused to look away.

Gwenna was sharing a talon with him, her bright hair whipping in her face as she studied the ground below. After a while she leaned over to shout in his ear. “How high up the peaks?”