Stormhaze

Chapter 20: Leaving Ryken

Edras and Lorin strode along the white corridors of the underground facility. Still battered and bruised, Edras was almost limping after Lorin as she hurried through the hallways. They walked farther in than Edras had ever been, eventually standing before a large open gate. Past it was an enormous hangar, rising so high its ceiling acted like a steel hatch leading directly to the surface.

"Is it ready?" Lorin asked the first person she met—an engineer.

"It's ready." the engineer said.

"Wonderful. Give word to the marine lieutenant, we'll leave immediately."

The engineer saluted "Yes, ma'am." and began a hasty walk to where Lorin and Edras had come from.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Lorin said, her eyes fixed on a vessel across the hangar.

Edra' eyes grew wide. "Kilas' personal gunship?" It was so large it could carry a hundred soldiers, and barely fit even within the underground hangar.

Lorin, as if starstruck, walked to the newly repaired vessel. It was then Edras remembered this was the very gunship Kilas and Gillien had flown into Ryken with, right before the Stormhaze Event. And despite still showing some damage—three bullet holes in the cockpit windows no less—it looked alive and strong.

Edras felt a strange sense at seeing his very own surname written on its side in bold letters. 'Thoron G1' it read, and as he walked around it, he noticed two missing missiles on its right wing. From what Gillien said when they all recalled their experiences in Tarian's office, the missing ones were those fired into the mountainside where Lorin had pointed out where her accomplices were. Or at least, that was what Kilas and Gillien had thought happened.

Lorin smiled cleverly. "There wasn't anyone on that cliffside." she said, as if reading Edras' mind.

"None? My father said Kilas executed several of your men."

"Kilas executed a few brave men afterwards. But they had volunteered, as they were already dying of Astralbane, just like Kilas' own father is right now."

"Kilas' father is dying of Astralbane?" Edras asked, still circling the gunship.

Lorin nodded and continued her story, "I found a large group of them, sick and dying... waiting for their own end in a bar in Thrane. No one healthy dared to face Kilas head on at first, so I told them I promised to pay their children a year's worth of income each in Mizdraki gold... if they would fight with me, and if I was right when the next Stormhaze Event would hit. Once Kilas was captured, however, our numbers increased a hundred-fold."

"How could you have possibly known about the next Stormhaze Event?"

"I have my ways." she winked.

"And how did you get all that money?"

"I got it from the Istendil palace. How else do you think I managed to gather such a large crew? I didn't lie when I said we needed someone with brains like you, Edras, because the soldiers around here are all mercenaries," she said and looked around, making Edras' eyes widen in surprised skepticism. "Don't get paranoid. They're all Rykic mercenaries—loyal to the bone. Kilas couldn't pay them off even if he promised them his entire palace."

"But what could you have possibly taken to be worth so much as to buy an army of mercenaries?"

"Blackmail, dear Edras. As I told you a week ago, concubines know exactly what happens in the Istendil palace, and exactly how to make proud men do our bidding. I didn't carry all that Mizdraki gold into Ryken. It was faithfully delivered to me on a ship last year; the soldiers unloading it even brought a smile."