Chapter 980: Ordinary People
“Will Lady Tilly be responsible for writing the Flight Manual?” Anna put down her book and smiled. “Wendy won’t take it badly, will she?”
“Probably, for a night.” Roland shifted against the pillow to find a better angle. “But she’ll be all right. Nightingale asked me for an advance on next month’s Chaos Drinks, and Scroll put in for three ice cream rolls—between the two of them keeping her company, and two bottles of Vanilla Medium I left her, she’ll have cried it out and forgotten it by morning.”
“Is it called ‘Drink Yourself to Death’?”
“Vanilla Medium.”
“Such an ordinary name.”
“It is.”
These were some of the best hours he had. The two of them washed clean of the day’s work, leaned back against the soft black velvet pillows, trading small stories. Anna would have a book ready for when they ran out of words—travelogues, biographies—and Roland would lie on his side and watch her face while she talked, which he preferred to any book. There was something in the quality of her attention when she was engaged with a subject, the way her eyes moved, that he had never seen in anyone else.
They didn’t have this often anymore. Every four days, Anna took the morning train northwest into the Misty Forest, worked the rails Leaf had laid, and came back on the evening train—exhausted and quiet and carrying the smell of metal. Between the railway and everything else, her days were a list: critical weapon components, machine tools replaced and improved, aluminum bars cut, gliders assembled, and more items below all of those that he tried not to ask about too often because asking made him aware of how much he was depending on her.
The industry of the Western Region had grown beyond what anyone had imagined when it started. Ordinary people—craftsmen, factory workers—were using raw materials and production tools without any witch’s hand involved. But the pace of that growth, impressive as it was, was still slower than the pace at which Roland revised his designs. There was always a gap between what could be built and what needed to be built, and Anna was usually the thing that closed it.
Nights like this were how he remembered what she was actually like.
“It would be better for the Flight Manual to come from Tilly, I think,” Anna said, returning to the subject. “Your invention is meant for everyone—a pilot who had to learn it the hard way might write something closer to what ordinary people will actually feel in the seat. And as for ability—” she smiled slightly— “she’s absorbed nearly as much technical knowledge as I have. She could probably help you more than Wendy in that role.”
“You’re right. I should have thought of that earlier.”
“Have you thought about the engine for the next aircraft?”
“Of course.” He said it with more confidence than he always felt, but on this particular question the confidence was genuine. The engine design was his ground; he understood combustion in his bones, in the way that came from years of treating it as a problem rather than a subject. With the dream world to consult for reference, he could draw a prototype design immediately. The limiting factor wasn’t knowledge—it was the oil fractionation tower, which wasn’t complete yet. Once it was, production could begin directly.
They talked through the industrial problems of Neverwinter after that: technical details, supply bottlenecks, development priorities. Anna not only followed his meaning but added observations he hadn’t arrived at yet, suggestions that arrived already shaped into something useful. It had always been like this with her. He’d spent most of his previous life in environments where people who thought like him were rare—the mechanical engineering college, the job—and he’d simply assumed that was a fixed condition of the world.
He was looking at her face when the thought arrived: there must be a god of mechanics, and she was the proof.
Anna laughed, which meant he’d been staring long enough to make it noticeable. “Do I look so different?”
He didn’t answer in words. He leaned over and kissed her ear.
She was quiet for a moment. Then: “If I’d known you were this kind of person, I might have acted sooner.”
“You mean the night at the castle gate—after the first Months of Demons celebration?”
“What did you think of me, in those days?”
He turned the question back on her first. “What did you think of me?”
She considered it. “That no matter how merciful a prince might be, he was still a prince. You were above the nobles. We were—very different from that.” A pause. “I thought the distance was permanent.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said, without sounding very sorry. “I’m just an ordinary person.”
“No.” Anna shook her head. The corners of her mouth moved. “It couldn’t be better. Because—” she glanced at him from the side— “I’m an ordinary person too.”
Two days later, in the Barbarian Land.
The main force of the First Army reached Northbound Slope on schedule, and Iron Axe could not entirely trust it.
He’d expected fights. At minimum, aerial harassment from Devilbeasts—scouts swooping in before the column could form a response, relaying position before the witches could stop them. He’d laid his plans around that friction. He’d sharpened his judgment against it. And then there had been nothing: no attacks, no aerial contact, one pack of hunting wolves that scattered when the forward scouts approached, and after that a silence so complete that the open plain felt wrong.
He’d had the witches watching from the beginning. Their report was clear and his instincts wouldn’t accept it.
In the central tent, with the General Staff and the battalion commanders assembled around the table, he put the question to the room.
“Why are the demons quiet? What do you make of it?”
“It is strange,” Agatha said, from her place representing the Witch Union. She turned the problem over with the deliberateness of someone working through a list of actual possibilities rather than reassurances. “Only the red mist could restrict their patrol range significantly—but Sylvie reported the outpost is still under construction. The supply line for the red mist is still running. They have no reason to stay inside.”
“If they were nobles,” Knight Morning Light said, “it would be simple to read. Either something went wrong in their rear—or they’ve decided that losing a few Devilbeasts to our witches isn’t worth the information.” He turned to Agatha. “Can Lady Sylvie see into the Taquila ruins from where she is?”
“The ruins are too far from the sniper team’s position.” Agatha shook her head. “They stopped luring targets yesterday and are making their way back to us.”
“How long?”
“Four days at least—the Magic Ark is fast, but they started in the opposite direction. If Lightning and Maggie came ahead alone, they’d be here tonight.”
“There’s no need to guess at the demons’ motives,” Edith said. She spoke with the flat certainty of someone who’d decided the question didn’t matter, not because she was incurious, but because she’d already moved past it. “Whatever they intend—this is the best start we could have hoped for. We’re here, unbroken, on schedule. The underground supply line is holding. What comes next is simple: set up the Longsong Cannons and raze the outpost.”
The plan was obvious once stated. Iron Axe sat with it a moment, then asked the other question in his mind.
“The Magic Ark is essentially undetectable when it stays underground—correct?”
“You could say that,” Agatha replied.
“Then ask Maggie to bring Lady Sylvie ahead.”
“I’ll relay the message.”
“Thank you.” He looked around the table. “Battalion Commander Van’er.”
Van’er stepped forward. “Sir.”
“Set up the Longsong Cannons. Prepare to fire.” Iron Axe let the sentence sit for a moment before he completed it. “The attack begins tomorrow evening.”