“All airmen with experience and good sense live in fear of the dragooner and the wyvern. Even a single dragon can, if left unchecked, tear through an airships fireproofed envelope and burn the flammable inner envelopes, dooming the ship. The only way to defeat such an attack is the use of hornets, swivel guns, and hand weapons to break up the war-skein as they close in, and to quickly kill any wyverns that try to grapple and burn. Even then, this is not always enough. However, the advantage of airships over wyverns is that with the benefit of long ranged rockets, an air destroyer can burn shorter ranged airships with little risk to itself, whereas wyverns must always close at great risk to themselves to attack.”

Rear Air Admiral Rhiannon Blys, A History of Air Tactics.

Hans Draiger, 1 October 1582 AAA. Kasilisk.

The sound of debate was clear through the drape covered grate as Hans and Uln sat in the backrooms, waiting to be called out to give testimony. As far as he could tell, listening in, Corentin and Eidre were busy keeping the debate onto pragmatic grounds of trade and war rather than letting it get dragged into that “morally and legally” nonsense. Right now, they were debating whether or not West Point was actually worth courting as an ally. Most of those with military experience seemed to think so; the fear of the Commonwealth simply bombing a rebellion into the ground was palpable. The wyverns, as Eidre had said, would provide a potent counter to that.

He'd already given his testimony a second time, this time focused on his belief that the wyverns wanted retribution for the killings and would be quite pleased with anyone who helped bring them to justice. He left out his own part in those plans if the Diet failed.

“All this talk about wyverns, and scarcely anyone’s mentioned the Woose.” Hans said.

Uln laughed. “Can’t fly. Can’t spit fire. Trying to win us over is a waste of time if all you’re interested in is winning a war.”

“There’s not enough Woose in Carfane to do any good in a pitched battle, but as skirmishers and raiders…”

“Should make like the Wolzuks, organize ourselves as fighters and make them pay for the privilege of us fighting for them. Then use the money to set ourselves up as farmers so we have the numbers to do some good in a pitched battle and the bastards can’t take our land. That way everyone’s happy.”

“It’d work well enough, if you get the Carfani off your back and the Woose united long enough.”

“About as likely as the sun coming up at night.” Uln said.

The debate dragged on, into someone ranting on about how Corentin’s faction secretly wanted the wyverns to have a share in Carfane’s government. Eidre defused that by quite openly pointing out it would be mutually beneficial for both West Point and Carfane for that to happen. Hans had his doubts about whether the wyverns would actually consent to such an arrangement.

He started pacing in impatience. He could stand perfectly still for hours if need be, but this was a new level of tedium. A yelling match started, but the speaker moved quickly to put it down, and Eidre started up on another speech about negotiating from a position of strength.

“Now, Mr. Corentin O Mathuna has a proposal for a resolution to resolve the matters we have discussed here today.” the speaker finally called out.

He heard chairs shuffling, and Corentin clearing his throat. He’d helped draft the resolution;

“We, the Carfani Diet, do hereby condemn:

The unlawful killings near Highhome of three Wyverns.

The Commonwealth’s inaction to prosecute these killings.

All other acts of violence not in self-defence against the Woose and Wyverns.

And do Hereby Declare:

That the West Point Clan is a valued ally of Carfane in defence against tyranny.

That diplomatic relationships should be opened with the West Point Clan with all due Haste.

And that the killers of the three Wyverns should be investigated and charged with all due Haste.”

The debate broke out near instantly, Mato Calwere and Aune Sade’s voices the loudest, each leading their side in a yelling match over the resolution. Aune’s side saying that dealing with the killers was the only moral option, or a necessary evil to undercut the Commonwealth’s alliances, Mato’s group saying they would never condemn resistance to occupying forces, and that they didn’t yet know whether the killings were unlawful, so it was prejudicial to include that on the resolution. Hans had heard it all before, and would most likely hear it all again.

“Unite or die!” Aune Sade called out, yet again, repeating it like a war cry, to be met with yells of “Farmers before Wooses” and “Commonwealth stooges!” and the occasional longer speech broken up by heckling.

It dragged on forever. Aune introduced an amended version simply condemning the lack of investigation of the deaths by the Commonwealth and unlawful killings in the abstract, and demanding an investigation into whether the deaths were lawful or not. That seemed to work, because the objections quickly sputtered out.

The battle lines would have already been drawn in the days before, he knew. Corentin had kept him away from the drafting of the resolution-probably for the better after his rant-but he’d been consulted with on what West Point wanted, which involved mummified bodies if you asked Glaive.

This was just an effort to get those crucial few delegates who would decide the vote onto one side or another. There were seventy three delegates now; adding those who had missed the first session. Eidre’s estimate had been that around thirty were certain to support the proposal, from what Corentin knew of them, now that they had put it in terms of diplomacy as well as morality. Another ten or so were up in the air, with unknown beliefs or undecided. The rest could not be persuaded. Winning over the undecided was the order of the day; that the success or failure of the resolution would depend on.

Finally, he heard Aune calling for the vote. It all involved a lot of yelling from the speaker to get everyone to actually pay attention, followed by a lot more yelling as the leaders of each faction tried to get their groups organized.

If war was organized killing, then politics was organized yelling.

“All in favour?” the speaker called.

“All against?” he asked, a minute later.

He slammed his hammer down. “The resolution passes thirty seven to thirty six. The meeting is dismissed.”

Oh, thank whoever’s up there. They had the song and dance of the Diet done with; now they could focus on what actually mattered: bringing down the killers.

“So, what do we do now?” Corentin asked, sitting in his dining room that had been turned into an impromptu meeting room. “I had to call in plenty of favours to get some of those undecided voters swung. This had better be worth it.”

“Well, we can start by arresting the ringleaders of that mob when we return to Foothold.” Eidre said. “Then start trying to get hard evidence on Traharn. We should have this wrapped up by the time the bulk of West Point migrates back in.”

“Do you actually have the authority to do that?” Hans asked. He’d prefer to do it within the bounds of the law, even if the law scarcely protected him and had never protected Uln, but if it came to it…

Eidre shrugged. “Citizens arrest. My household has the numbers to do it.”

“Frontier justice going the other way.” Uln said. “I like the sound of that.”

“Most of the killers were out of Trackford, though.” Hans said.

“Probably led by that landlord with the Arluks.” Uln added.

“Traharn Hast. The Commonwealth already moved against him in Trackford. He’s vanished, probably fled to his country house. They did capture a fey with him, though.” Corentin said.

A bloody Fey? What are they doing in Carfane?

“Traharn wasn’t alone.” Hans said. “And he isn’t taken yet.”

“Exactly.” Eidre said. “If we take action while the Commonwealth does nothing… well, that’s sending a message to the wyverns. Start by arresting Connor, since he virtually confessed then chased Hans here through Foothold firing at random, then offer to quietly have him let go if he throws the ringleaders under the cart. Then we can go after Hast and whoever else planned this. Put them on trial, tweak the Commonwealth’s nose by getting the man they missed and the bigoted wing of the Republicans at the same time.”

*

A dozen massive airship hangars marked the airport outside Kasilisk, alongside the dozens of glider travois and wyverns. The dockyard was bustling with life; goods being moved between airships and wetships and glider-travois and wagons in every combination, traders haggling, crews of stevedores straining to rope an airship down. The people of Kasilisk were more than willing to treat wyverns as equals if there was money to be made off of it.

Glaive was out here, apparently, looking for him, with half a war skein in tow. He’d only been informed by a servant that afternoon.

A few quick questions-wyverns with red painted scales and war spurs weren’t common in trading ports-and he found out where her skein was set up, out on the western fringe of the airfield.

The airfield could have almost been West Point-dozens of stone huts, landed travois, traders haggling over the price of furs and feathers and musket balls, airships tethered in place. The stone, though, was cleanly cut, the groundwalker merchants human rather than Woose, the airships civilian craft rather than Commonwealth warships, and all of it was in the looming shadow of the hangars, half into the side of a cliff, almost impossibly vast, like some ancient monument only hollow and fragile and decades old.

The aether was chaos, hundreds of souls all around him, the wyverns warping the aether around themselves to reduce their weight. Even hundreds of yards away, he could make out the immense, gravity-shifting bulk of the demons that, combined with lifting gas, let airships fly. Hundreds of souls flitted around them, their signatures almost drowned out by the bound Aether-Krakens.

Once he knew where to look, finding Glaive was easy, especially since he’s memorized the signature of her soul out at West Point. She was sitting upright on her haunches, watching the crowds.

“Glaive?”

She turned to look at him, her cold, reptilian eyes peering down her snout. That was the problem with wyverns. Even if you could read human faces-and Hans had never been good at it-wyverns were downright impossible. Even wyverns themselves had to focus on body language and subtle shifts in tone to indicate emotion.

“Hans?” she croaked.

“Yeah. How’d you know I was here?”

He could guess that Scar and Rye were involved, but it was a good idea to confirm it.

“Couple of traders said they met you on the road to Kasilisk and had information. That council work out?”

“We got them to vote on a resolution condemn the attackers. Now they’re convinced that convicting a few murderers will net them an army of wyverns.”

“Not likely.” Glaive said.

Hans laughed. “We did what we had to do to convince them. Anyway, plan is we’re going to head back to Foothold to start rolling up the killers. We’ve got leads. Moral of the story is, if you don’t want people tracking you down, don’t use arrows.”

“Leads on who?” Glaive asked.

“A gentlemen out of…” He scratched his head, trying to remember where Traharn lived. “Farrier’s Hill, I think. Or at least, he was a mercenary out on the Teresian marches for a while, and some of his retainers are horse archers who match the description of people coming in and out of Foothold before the attack. Nothing solid, but Eidre is going to look into it.”

“I’ll fly out to Foothold, try and arrive at the same time as you do.” Glaive said.

“Be careful not to be seen. Foothold’s already convinced that I’m working with the wyverns. Ran us out of town over it.”

“Fucking”-Glaive whistled unintelligibly -“Groundwalkers. If they reckon you have a war-skein backing you anyway, you might as well actually have a war-skein backing you.”

He couldn’t argue with that logic.

“What then?”

Glaive grunted. “We find out if this Traharn actually did it, then I kill him if he did. Then mummify the body, just like we agreed back at West Point.”

“I think the Carfani were assuming he’d be put on trial…”

“Should have killed humans rather than wyverns, if they wanted human justice.”

“Aye.” Hans agreed.