Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

Kitti, this courtyard was used as a tiltyard to host jousting matches in the summer. Tens of thousands of people went to watch the knights every year. That meant it was at least a hundred meters long and seventy meters wide: about as large as a modern soccer field.

Above the Lower Ward was the gated Upper Ward. There were three buildings up there: The Great Hall, the Donjon—which still served as the actual ‘dungeon’ in this instance—and the Inner Keep, which was where the Lord and their family lived. Two staircases led from the Lower Ward to the Upper Ward. Small guard stations were built over the lower entries to those stairwells, meaning the residences of the lord and his family could be closed off from the lower yard. There was a small skydock in the upper ward, where Lord Hussar had moored his personal yacht. That ship was now almost certainly Zoltan’s.

“So here’s where we’re going wrong,” I said. “We’ve been thinking about this as if it was a medieval warfare problem. March an army into Bas, set up for a siege, wait him out over winter, etc. It seems impossible, because it is. But if we think of this as an anti-terrorist operation, it gets a lot easier. We don’t need to send an army. We send an extraction force.”

Commanders Vasoly and Taethawn looked at each other, then Vilmos, then me.

“How do you propose we do that?” Vasoly asked.

“Paratroopers,” I said. “We send a crack team of paratroopers in—no more than twenty-five—directly into the Lower Ward at night. They take out the guards and foul up any anti-aircraft weaponry. Then we float our frigates right over those upper and lower courtyards and fast-rope five hundred soldiers straight into the castle.”

I looked up to see a wall of blank, confused expressions.

“What are paratroopers?” Istvan asked.

“You know... paratroopers,” I repeated, a little more slowly. “We fly the airships close to their maximum ceiling and a platoon of commandos jumps off the deck and parachutes down to the landing zone. Then you cut the chutes and kick a whole lot of ass.”

“Jump... off... the deck?” Wing Commander Vasoly was looking at me like I’d lost my marbles. “Your Grace, with all due respect...”

I leaned forward on the table, glaring at him and the other officers in disbelief. “Are you telling me the Vlachia, the most technologically advanced human civilization on Archemi, does not have parachutes?”

There was an awkward pause. Kitti cleared her throat.

“No, your Grace.” Captain Vilmos rubbed the back of his neck. “Are these, uh, parachutes some Artifact from your homeland?”

“They’re not artifacts. They’re kind of like balloons made of cloth,” Suri said. “You strap ‘em to your back and float down. No magic required.”

The men shook their heads, except for Taethawn. He broke into peals of hissing laughter.

“Your Grace, when I was but a kitten I did many stupid things, as children of all species do,” he said. “One time, I took my father’s best feathered cloak, climbed to the top of his wagon, held the corners of it and jumped off in the hopes that I could sail gracefully through the skies like a piece of dandelion fluff. The twisted toe on my right foot assuresss you I did not achieve my dream.”

I turned to Rin. “Rin? Are parachutes not possible in Archemi?”

“There’s no reason they shouldn’t be?” Rin shook her head, as bewildered as I was. “Though now you mention it... I’ve never seen parachutes or even air balloons in Vlachia. Which is weird, because we get tons of silk here from Jeun.”

“So these, uh, ‘paratroopers’...” Wing Commander Vasoly scratched the stubble on his jaw. “How high must they be when they… depart the aircraft?”

“Anywhere between seven thousand and sixteen thousand feet for a job like this,” I said. “Higher is safer.”

Istvan paled. “You want soldiers to jump sixteen thousand feet? To the ground?”

I gave him the hairy eyeball. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but paratroopers are a normal part of warfare where I’m from. I fought in a war in my previous life before I came to Archemi. We jumped out of planes all the time.”

Taethawn regarded me suspiciously. “‘Previous’ life implies that your life ended, somehow. Could it have been because His Grace plummeted to his death?”

I held up my hands. “Okay. The concept of paratroopers is somehow getting lost in translation. I literally have no idea how to explain this to you. Rin? Can you explain it better?”

“Me? Maybe?” Rin squeezed past me to stand at the table. “So, umm...”

The four military officers stared at her expectantly.

“Parachutes are devices that slow the descent of an object—like, a person—by creating drag, kind of like a wind turbine does.” she stammered, twisting her hands behind her back. “They’re normally made of silk or some other light material. They’re folded a special way and stored in a backpack, and you pull them out with a cord after you jump. They poof out over your head and you fall slowly enough to make a safe, and usually precise, landing.”

“There was a mad inventor in Taltos who tried to make one of those,” Commander Vasoly said sourly. “He jumped off the Market District clocktower with some sailcloth. The City Guard had to scrape his splattered carcass off the street.”

Rin winced. “The ones I’d make would be a lot better than that.”

Wing Commander Vasoly shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll not find a single soldier here who would be willing to test this device. They would rightfully feel that you were ordering them to their deaths for sport.”

“What a load of ghora shit,” Taethawn drawled. “I will do it.”

Everyone turned to look at him, including the Yanik Rangers.

“Your fears are stuffy Vlachii nonsense. If his Grace swears by the method, it isss certain to be feasible.” Taethawn