Merrik released a long breath, nodded, and finally opened his eyes. “Linshi.”
The men of the ground crew shot Fieran a look, but they put their backs into wheeling Merrik’s aeroplane toward the hangar, a more difficult task thanks to Merrik’s and Fieran’s extra weight.
But Fieran didn’t climb down, even if it would have made the crew’s job easier. They were experienced enough that the extra burdens didn’t pose too much of a problem for them.
Once the aeroplane was parked in its spot in the hangar, Fieran released his grip on Merrik’s shoulder and instead held out his hand. “We’ve got this, all right?”
Merrik nodded, gripped Fieran’s arm, and together the two of them levered Merrik upright. Fieran steadied Merrik as he climbed down.
By the time they both stood on the cement floor, Pip was there with Merrik’s wheelchair. Merrik sank onto it with a sigh before scrambling to unbuckle his flight boots. Once he had those off, he rolled up his pant leg, revealing where his stump had swollen at the cuff of his prosthetic.
Merrik sighed, but his voice sounded far more normal, a note of something almost like humor in it. “My other new fear. That my leg will get stuck on.”
Fieran’s huff wasn’t quite a laugh, but he patted Merrik’s shoulder as Tiny hurried over, an ice chunk already forming in his hands.
Merrik had a long road ahead of him. But the Half-Breed Squadron would be there for him.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Fieran stood in his dress uniform, complete with the various medals properly placed, just behind the row of Alliance commanding officers. The sun beat down on his head and shoulders, extra sweltering in his layers of stiff wool. His feet were sweating so much in his perfectly polished shoes that his socks were getting damp and sticky against his skin.
Not that his shoes were all that perfectly polished anymore since he’d been standing in the dusty dirt surrounding the train station at Fort Defense. Unlike around the hangar where the mostly dead grass made a valiant effort to cling to the earth, the train station, warehouses, and docks were surrounded by nothing but bare earth and gravel from so much traffic.
In the first row of officers, Dacha, Uncle Weylind, Uncle Julien, and Aunt Vriska had the place of prominence. Not that Fieran minded being tucked in the second row where he could stand with Merrik and Uncle Iyrinder on one side, his cousin Myles on the other. While Myles was only a lieutenant, he wore a red sash across his chest, marking him as an adjutant stationed at headquarters under the Escarlish generals.
Fieran probably shouldn’t even be a part of this elaborate welcome ceremony. Everyone there knew a lowly captain wouldonly be invited because of his family ties. Colonel Dentley wasn’t even here.
Worse, Pip and Mak had been placed farther down the line, so Fieran couldn’t even stand next to her nor whisper back and forth while they waited.
So maybe it was a good thing he and Pip had been separated for something this official.
Pip looked even more uncomfortable to be included in this welcome ceremony than he did. Her face was pale, and she kept swiping her hands down the front of her good trousers. She wore a leather vest over her white shirt, the geometric pattern in the leather a hint at her dwarven heritage.
She and Mak had been invited because they were the only dwarves—well, half-dwarves—here at Fort Defense and their parents had been the ones to negotiate the new treaty with the dwarven kingdom of Dalorbor.
The result of that treaty? A regiment of dwarven warriors, sent to reinforce the Alliance.
A few of the other dwarven kingdoms had been willing to increase their trade in iron and other raw materials, as well as continue to send work crews to the Alliance. But only Dalorbor, her muka’s kingdom, had been willing to sign a treaty and join the war on the side of the Alliance.
With a whistle, the train finally chugged its way into the station, the air brakes hissing as it settled to a halt by the platform. A military band struck up a song as Uncle Weylind, Uncle Julien, Aunt Vriska, and several other assorted Escarlish, elf, and troll generals stepped forward.
The door of the first train car opened, and Uncle Rharreth strode onto the platform, his antler crown resting against his white hair and a sword buckled at his side. He wore pauldrons and chain mail, the image of a troll warrior.
Rhohen, his long black hair loose down his back, strode behind Uncle Rharreth. Something about the set of his shoulders beneath his pauldrons and chain mail was less slouchy than the last time Fieran had seen him. He wore a pair of swords across his back, their blades shorter and thicker than the ones Fieran wielded. Yet these swords were not the ones he’d carried when Fieran had fought that bout against him at Dar Goranth.
Merrik’s elbow dug into Fieran’s side, as Merrik spoke in a whisper, still facing forward and not otherwise breaking his military stance. “Be the more mature cousin.”
“Of course. I am the picture of maturity,” Fieran murmured back, not breaking his at attention stance either. Still, if their drill sergeant at Fort Linder had caught them moving their mouths even that much, they would have been in trouble. Good thing the only senior officers close enough to hear them were Dacha and Uncle Iyrinder, and neither of them would rat them out.
Out of the corner of his eye, Fieran caught the sideways look Myles was sending him. He’d probably caught at least Fieran’s half of that conversation.
After King Rharreth and Rhohen stepped out of the way, a male dwarf marched from the train, his black beard long down the front of his chain mail. His leather bracers and pauldrons had geometric designs that Pip would probably recognize, even if Fieran didn’t.
He risked glancing her way, but he wasn’t close enough to read her expression.
After that dwarf, another dwarf stepped from the train, followed by an elf with long brown hair braided at the sides in the style common among the elves in western Tarenhiel.
