Laura VI: The Pilot

“So what’s your surname?” Laura whispered, peering between tall rushes at the smoking ship slowly chugging its way past.

“Duchesne,” the smuggler answered, not looking up from the horizon ahead. Not something I’d expect from a smuggler, but apparently peasant surnames are more common in Avalon, so maybe that carried over to their Territories somewhat? That, or Duchesne was a nobleman pulling a Robin Verrou, which seemed vanishingly unlikely.

“Then what’s your pre-name?”

“Private,” he grunted, his usual answer for even the most benign of questions.

“Fine, I guess I’ll just call you that then, Private!”

“Do what you want.”

Their progress had been slow these last three days sailing down the Sartaire, going to ground on the banks at even the hint of an Avaline patrol and waiting for it to pass. Laura didn’t exactly love sitting on the boat and waiting for it to go either, but at least she knew they were making progress. Cowering in the reeds for hours was torture by comparison.

Laura had generously offered, more than once, to sink the patrol boats herself to clear the way so that they could make better time, but Duchesne had been very clear that he’d leave her to swim down the Rhan if she did. My mistake, asking. Should have just done it without talking to him, and then he could hardly have complained.

“Well, how did you get this boat back from customs, then? You said you wanted a subtle approach.” Admittedly, not where my strengths seem to lie. Though it wasn’t her fault that the Prince of Darkness was paranoid enough to give all of his underlings daily passwords. The blunt approach had worked just as well anyway, give or take some torn stitches on her shoulder.

Laura hadn’t the slightest idea where the sling the Magister’s doctor had given her had ended up, but Duchesne had been kind enough to lend her a blanket from his hold to fashion one, all the kinder for the fact that it was now stained with blood.

“I told the customs agent that the charges had been dropped, and the Piqure de Moustique was to be returned to me. My presence outside of the jail was enough to convince him, along with a signed memorandum from the Magister’s office.”

“Damn it, that’s basically what I tried!” Laura fumed. “I could have totally pulled it off too, if it weren’t for those damned passwords.”

“I doubt it,” Duchesne replied, as if it were a matter of fact.

I was almost there even without it. “You didn’t tell me you were a forger too.”

“Correct.”

I guess that wasn’t technically a question. Getting Duchesne to open up a bit wouldn’t be so important, except there was nothing else to do at all. And as long as they had to keep diving into the bushes ahead of Avalon’s gaze, it was going to be a long trip. “Why is your boat named after a mosquito bite, anyway? They’re annoying, but it’s not exactly fearsome.”

“Exactly,” he said, the faintest traces of a smile visible on his lips for a brief moment.

Who wants to be the blood-sucking insect? It’s absurd. Was that just how criminals thought? It would certainly match everything Laura’s parents had said about them before sacrificing them to Flammare, but that alone was a strong reason to question it. More likely it was about not taking on more than he could handle, sucking a bit of blood at a time without provoking anyone too badly.

Though, if so, he hadn’t really succeeded. You didn’t end up turned in by a friend unless you’d severely provoked someone. But, of course, when Laura had asked about that, Duchesne had only said, “Private.”

“So you don’t like talking about yourself. That’s fine. There’s other topics. Is this your first time going down the Rhan?”

“No.”

“Well, I haven’t been before. I know we’re supposed to be somewhere near where Colin Renart crossed the Rhan to encircle his brother, right? Battle of Tresimène?”

“His sister. Empress Hermeline.”

“Right.” According to Laura’s old history lessons, the War of Three Cubs had had so many battles with once-in-a-generation casualties that the whole continent ought to be extinct, so it wasn’t easy to keep them all straight. “A history buff, I take it?”

“Not particularly. Everyone born within a hundred miles of the Rhan knows that name.” Implying you’re from around here? “I’m surprised they never talked about it in boarding school. Maybe they did, and you just weren’t a good student.”

“Ok, look, I knew her name. Alright? She was one of the Three Cubs. There’s only three of them, it’s not that hard to keep straight. I just got the battles mixed up.” Laura paused, watching the Avaline patrol boat circle back on itself, catching the river’s current as it turned around. “And I never went to any boarding school. I don’t know why you keep saying that.” Definitely a point against him pulling a Robin Verrou, though. Anyone raised a noble would know that boarding schools of that sort were a sign that you couldn’t afford the appropriate staff at home, relegated to the wealthy professionals and third-rate aristocrats whose finances were declining.

At least, that’s the reason Mother gave me when I tried to get out of there. That effort had failed, but apprenticeship with the Temple of the Sun had eventually succeeded, at least for a time. When it had failed, it had failed spectacularly.

But no matter how far I’ve fallen, I’m never going back.

“It turned around again. Why isn’t it moving on? We’ve never had to wait this long before.”

“It’s a holding pattern. Lets it stay mobile without moving too far away. Those steamships can do it better than most, since going up river’s so easy.”

“Do you think they found us? But then why wait around?”

“They wouldn’t, so they haven’t. A little mosquito bite isn’t worth waiting around for backup, even in wartime.”

“Unless they already know I’m on board.” It wasn’t much of a boast, really. After getting shot by the Prince of Darkness’s lieutenant, Laura knew better than to completely discount an Avaline patrol boat in a fight, at least if any of its officers had pistols, but she liked her chances enough to doubt that the captain would want to engage her alone. “I’m telling you, I should go after them now, while they’re still alone. You can wait here, treat the burning wreckage as a signal to get ready to go.”

“No. I was clear about this.”

“That was before they found us!”

“They haven’t. Look.” He pointed upriver, where a second and third patrol boat were arriving to join their circling fellow, a massive steam ship behind them. Between the four of them, even the mighty Rhan was completely blockaded. “If they know it’s us, they know we’re coming from Charenton. And if they got this close, they wouldn’t mess that up.”

“So it’s to… stop someone else from going upriver?” Laura tilted her head, trying to consider the new angle on the information.

Are they worried about an attack from the Empire? Prince Lucifer had been worried about the rebels seeking help from Leclaire, so perhaps his fears weren’t unfounded. Propping up odious Avaline traitors to benefit herself certainly fit Leclaire’s playbook, and Lucien would go to war if she bade him…

But the geography doesn’t work. Any ships from Malin would be coming from the other direction, after working their way all around the Lyrion Peninsula. If Lucien were leading forces by land, this river blockade would be nothing but an amusing folly for them to laugh at as they marched by.

As dumb as the Avaline could be, they weren’t dumb enough to get that wrong.

But what else could it be? The Rhan Empress seemed even more terrified of Avalon than her own shadow, publicly and repeatedly denying aid to the besieged Arboreum and withdrawing all presence on the upper Rhan, basically ceding Avalon control. Even they thought they’d be doomed fighting Avalon on the water, and the blockaders had little reason to fear them.

Which left what? Micheltaigne? The High Kingdom was famed for its defensive mountainside fortifications and pegasus knights. Cramming their forces onto a boat and ramming their way upriver would be stupid enough to make their Winter War offensive seem like a genius tactical move by comparison.

Was there a more general reason they’d benefit from locking down the Rhan, the same way they were boarding merchant ships in the Lyrion Sea? Nothing that their periodic patrol boats couldn’t already accomplish more cheaply, though.

“So they’re not trying to stop a naval offensive… They could probably handle something big, but that doesn’t mean that has to be what it’s for… Maybe it’s an ambush.”

“Not for us.”

“No. Like you said, why set it up behind us?”

Duchesne nodded slowly, muttering something inaudible, turned to face Laura directly. “Right. Take the covering down and help me get the boat. The sooner we leave, the better.”

“Well, wait. Avalon thinks that ambush is worth blocking off the entire river and committing four ships.”

“Five,’ Duchesne corrected, looking at the latest to arrive.

“Right, so if we can intercept whoever they’re looking for, warn them, we can ruin whatever they’re planning here. Fuck up their day.”

Duchesne frowned. “I agreed to take you as far as Villeneuve, in exchange for your help. Not to play messenger.” He grabbed the rope connecting them to a deep stake embedded in the riverbank, using it to pull himself onto the ground, then squatted down and pulled the stake free of the earth. He’d jumped back onto the boat before it had even begun to move.

“Villeneuve is secondary. It’s just my best bet for passage to Lorraine. The real goal is fucking them up. Actually making a difference…” Making a difference when I die in battle. It probably wasn’t possible to fix her legacy, but at least she could go out in the right way.

“Do what you want. But I’m going.” He grabbed a hefty pole from the deck and used it to push off from the bank.

Laura considered hopping off for a moment, taking the chance that whatever this was would matter more than the distant battlefield, but ultimately she stayed. Fighting the blockade for no particular reason didn’t exactly carry the promise of a worthy death, and if it was an ambush for someone traveling upriver, their paths were sure to cross at some point.

“You made the right call,” Duchesne said once they were out on the water again, possibly the first time he’d initiated conversation on his own. “No sense rushing off to your death.”

“Eh.” He was sort of right, even he was wrong in the broader sense, so Laura let it pass with a nod.

Apparently it wasn’t convincing enough though, because Duchesne sighed. “Every young person thinks they’ll live forever. Believe it too long or too much, and you’ll be young forever instead.”

“I know,” Laura insisted. This isn’t what I wanted to talk about.

“Do you? Because I met you in a jail cell with a gunshot wound from trying to set a prince’s ship on fire. You’re good, good enough to fend off a small army when we were escaping Charenton.”

“Yeah.” Not sure where you’re going with this.

“Being good isn’t good enough. I’m good, and I still ended up right there with you when someone I thought was a friend ratted me out. Whatever you think you’re going to accomplish out here, it’s not worth it. I’m sure if you swallow your pride, you can go home.”

“You’re wrong about that, not that I would anyway. This place is more welcoming than home would be at the moment.” Even Valentine was gone from Torpierre now, set to wed Valvert in Laura’s place. Their parents must have really wanted that alliance, because knowing Valentine, her price for it would not have been small.

“What happened to you?”

“Private,” Laura said, enjoying the chance to deny him an answer with his own words. “How far are we, anyway?”

“Look right,” he said, not turning his head at all. “When the Monts de Michel are a quarter-turn on the horizon, that means the Forche is a couple hours away. If you’re tired of taking shifts sleeping, we could stop in Fleuville for a warm meal and a bed before we set out tomorrow.”

Laura shook her head. “Waste of time.”

“What’s your hurry?”

“Private.” The sooner you drop me off, the sooner I’m free to go where I please. She didn’t begrudge him his caution, especially since he was so much more vulnerable, but that was exactly the reason it’d be easier. A night to stop and ruminate, to hear the latest news of Valentine’s plight and find out if that horrible song had spread this far... Better to keep all of that away. Learning more about things she could do nothing to fix would only make things worse.

“Well, I’m going to stop in Fleuville. I know a trader who’ll let us moor a night for free, and I’m sick of fish.”

“That wasn’t the deal!”

“The deal is to get you to Villeneuve. And I will. And this will hardly even delay us. You have to be sick of this boat with just me for company by now.”

The thought of a proper meal and a real bed was enticing, admittedly. And spending one night would still waste less time than waiting out the patrol boats.

“Fine. One night.”

≋

Fleuville proved more hospitable than Laura had expected, especially considering the nearly deserted Rhan surrounding it. But even if the town was on edge, last night, they’d had something to celebrate.

“Astounding!” Laura had heard, along with “stupendous!” and “incredible!”, but the one she thought fit the best was “unbelievable.”

Because the story was hard to believe.

Avalon had been besieging Lorraine for over a month, kept at bay only because the city’s green walls had proved a match for the cannons and Her Verdance had proved strong enough of will to hold the city together in defiance even as the Arboreum fell, tree by tree.

Now, if this story was to be believed, the besiegers had been scattered for hours by a surprise attack from behind, soon joined by a sortie from Lorraine. By the time Avalon had been able to get its forces together and reestablish control of the surroundings, Her Verdance had escaped, along with most of the Arboreum’s leadership.

Lorraine fell in the aftermath, but that had already been an inevitability to anyone paying attention. Even Laura hadn’t seriously thought that she could stop that on her own.

But the details felt wrong. Apparently a knight clad from head to toe in red armor had led the attack, then slipped away into the night before Avalon’s forces could catch them. Her Verdance had apparently also slipped away, melting into forgotten corners of the forest where Avalon could never hope to find her.

It was… too cute. A story of defiance to take some sting out of the fall of Lorraine. Wishful thinking.

Not that I can blame them for wishing. With the Arboreum fallen, Avalon will probably try to expand south to the Rhan. Maybe further. Whatever force or values had held them back for the past seventeen years didn’t seem to be a factor anymore. And without them, it had taken them barely two months to conquer an eight-hundred year nation.

And that was just the most believable parts. Spirits had been high at the inn, each storyteller adding yet wilder and bawdier exaggerations, culminating in a nearly unrecognizable song about the red knight fighting with the strength of ten men, wiping out the besiegers by himself and then leaping onto an airship to cut it down with a single stroke of his sword, only to refuse Her Verdance’s hand in marriage because he was sworn to a greater cause. By tomorrow, they’d probably be talking about him merging with the Rhan spirit to wipe out the entire invading force.

But Fleuville rumors weren’t Laura’s problem anymore. The sun had risen late through a surprisingly thick fog, but at last, she and Duchesne had set out along the north fork of the Rhan, the last leg of their journey together.

“Now that we’re on the Norforche, the mountains shift behind us as we go. Once they’re about three-quarters back from the front of the ship, we’ll be halfway to Villeneuve.”

“Thanks.” He’d doubtless only told her to spare himself future pestering about how much time remained, but there’d be no need for it now that Laura could track progress herself.

She looked up and right from the river, trying to compare the position of the mountains to Duchesne’s rough guide, but it was difficult to be sure with the way their position seemed to flicker and change. Defensive magic, maybe? This would be the time to deploy it, if so. Everyone was on the defensive here, even if Avalon hadn’t officially declared war on anyone but the Arboreum yet.

Except…

Laura frowned at the dark grey clouds clustered above them, smoothly blending with the lighter overcast skies. But between the dark brown rock of the Monts de Michel and the somber skies above them, impossible to miss now that she was looking carefully, was a thin line of orange, a flickering echo of the mountain beneath.

“Duchesne, look.” Laura walked to the edge of the boat as the smuggler pulled a spyglass from his pocket and turned it towards the mountain.

As stoically as he liked to present himself, he couldn’t quite conceal the sag in his shoulders as he witnessed it.

Then I was right. It is a fire.

Wordlessly, Duchesne passed Laura the scope, so she turned it towards the same spot.

The entire mountain wore a coat of flame, endless smoke billowing up from it. It wasn’t just the northernmost, either. As the Rhan curved south, their view only improved, showing a trail of burning mountains stretching as far as the eye could see. Perhaps even as far as Salhaute.

“This is wrong,” Laura realized. “We didn’t have a real summer, all the dead vegetation would be soaked through from the snow. You definitely wouldn’t see something like this.”

“Well, it is burning. What do you make of that, wildfire expert?”

I’m not really, it was just a small part of my duties to Flammare. Clearing out the brush in a controlled fashion made for a festive yearly ceremony and good preventative practice both, though now that Flammare was dead, it seemed doubtful that the Bougitte family would continue it.

“Like you’d put it past Avalon to do something like this.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But how? I’ve heard plenty of Avaline soldier bluster in my day, and if one of them got their hands on a weapon that could set entire mountain ranges on fire, there’d be three of them bragging about it by the end of the day.”

Laura grabbed the spyglass and focused it above the mountains again, looking for gaps in the smoke. The air was so thick with ash it was hard to see much, but with a twist of the lens, she could make out some of the trees cracking and burning, the underbrush a sea of flame beneath them.

She hoped it was just a wildfire. They weren’t rare this time of year, though it had been anything but a normal year. But at this scale? The thought that anyone would do this willingly, intentionally, was almost too cruel to contemplate.

Those hopes were dashed within moments as she saw an airship emerge from the smoky sky. However they’d done it, the High Kingdom was burning at Avalon’s hands. It was followed by another two in formation behind it, and then another three behind them. Then four.

I didn’t even know they had that many.

The airships circled around and plunged back into the fog, their sinister purpose apparently yet unfinished.

Well, looks like I don’t need to go all the way to Lorraine to make a difference. Destroying the machines that had wrought all of that, that was a death to be proud of. Maybe even one Laura could be remembered for, if the lies hadn’t set too deep. “You can let me off here.”