CHAPTER SEVEN - THE MAD ADMIRAL

DeKellia was first on his feet, DeSilva slowed by the need to help Sorcha up. The handful of retainers who had accompanied Vari to the roof were slower to respond, shocked beyond comprehension.

DeKellia swore viciously and slammed his fist on the battlements, the expression on his face momentarily eclipsing from Sorcha's mind any danger of the battlefield. In the next instant, DeKellia's snarl became a grin and the hellfire in his eyes burned cheerfully warm.

“Son,” he said, glancing first at DeSilva and then back at the airship rising swiftly overhead. “Try and take one of these ships intact, eh?”

Sorcha gaped and DeSilva turned slightly pale, but DeKellia just grinned again.

As if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, he snatched up the rope from the broken flagpole and bound it deftly to the hilt of his sword. Taking one backward step, he whirled the sword on the rope and threw; like a grappling iron, the sword sailed over the rail of the airship and caught firm. It all happened so quickly that neither Sorcha nor DeSilva could react before DeKellia, holding fast to the end of the rope, was yanked off his feet and swept up in the wake of the departing airship.

Sorcha was first to the ramparts, staring up at the escaping airship and the shrinking black speck of the man swinging from the rope beneath. As she watched, DeKellia began to climb, grimly hauling himself up the rope against the full force of the wind.

“Monte, he'll be killed! There must be fifty men aboard that ship!”

DeSilva gave her an odd look. “You have actually met my father, right? That ship is doomed.”

“Care to bet on that?” Charn's voice said.

DeSilva and Sorcha turned to find Charn emerging from the stairs with Kam Daishen behind her. “Five minutes,” DeSilva said. “My money says that ship goes down within five minutes.”

“You're on,” Charn said.

“We're in the middle of a battle!” Sorcha wailed. “You're betting on a man's life?!”

“No,” Charn said, giving her the same odd look DeSilva had only a moment before. “Every man on that ship is dead, I just reckon they'll be breathing another ten minutes yet.”

“Two ships here remain,” rumbled Kam Daishen, “and three more to follow. Can you board them?” He spoke directly to Charn; she shrugged and muttered, “Anything he can do...” before she met the stare of the Daishen's helm. “Yes, I can board one. That leaves one for the whelp. We'll just have to wait and see about the others.”

DeSilva's fingers dug into Sorcha's shoulders and she glanced up at him.

It was obvious that Kam, in full armour, could not own the agility to even attempt boarding an airship in flight. Already, the two remaining ships of Guillemot's squadron were coming around for a bombing run against the Palace. DeSilva's grip on Sorcha's shoulders went suddenly calm.

“Sorcha, go with my uncle, he'll get you out of the Palace alive.”

Kam Daishen nodded. “We will find the other women on our way and save all we can.”

“Try to find old man Drake, too,” DeSilva reminded him, and the Daishen nodded again.

“Monte, how can you board them?” Sorcha cried. “It's suicide!”

“I'm thinking, dammit.”

“Think fast,” Charn added, then broke into a jog along the rampart towards the west wing where the nearer airship would crest the battlements. DeSilva thrust Sorcha towards the Daishen and ran for the eastern arm of the ramparts where the second ship was coming in.

Sorcha stood stricken, but Kam's gauntleted hand on her shoulder steered her firmly back towards the stairs.

“What are we going to do?!”

“As we have said,” Kam replied, herding Sorcha bodily from the roof into the Palace Hallls.

No fighting had yet reached the third floor, but from the lower levels they heard the clash of arms and the shouts of fighting men. Sorcha guessed with cold horror that these men, indoors and fighting for their lives, had no idea of the destruction about to be unleashed.

At the top of the main stairs, Sorcha baulked again. The landing below was the scene of a three-way battle, men with swords and pistols contending against pikes and rifles on the second-floor landing while armoured men tried to force a way up the stairs from the level below.

Then Sorcha spotted Khyle Tarn commanding the swordsmen and knew them for Vari's remaining retainers. Kam Daishen saw him too but took a moment to speak to Sorcha.

“Stay here,” the red knight told her, in a voice that had commanded armies.

Drawing his sword, Kam Daishen rushed down the stairs with a roar and flung his power into the centre of the fight. Sorcha watched frozen, rooted to the spot by the Daishen's command. He was a red dervish of destruction, his sword whirling around him and his stentorian roars drowning out the screams of the slain. Within moments, the outlaw force on the upper landing were overthrown, fighting men reduced to bloody ruin.

Kam's voice roared again above the clash of arms, “To the stairs, we must fight our way out! Khyle Tarn, Sorcha, to me!”

She was at his side before she knew she had moved, and Kam Daishen was still giving his orders.

“Khyle, go at once to the rooftop, your mistress needs you. Sorcha, stay close to me, there is no time to...” even his baritone voice was drowned out by the first thunder of munitions unleashed upon the Palace from above. The whole building shook. Windows shattered and plaster rained down from the ceiling.

The Daishen was the first to recover, striding through the ranks of the men holding the stairs to tower over the enemy force below. The sight of the red knight opposing them only compounded the men's shock. The Daishen was legend in Kellia; the First Knight of the realm, arbiter of justice and champion beyond any monarch's command.

“Let all flee who would not die!” Kam roared, and half the enemy took to their heels at once. A second blast shook the Winter Palace and the remaining enemy began to fall back, eyes and blades on the Daishen but retreating nonetheless. Kam advanced upon them, descending the stairs with Sorcha at his heels and the rest of Vari's men closing in behind. When they reached the ground floor, the enemy broke and ran, fleeing back through the shattered gates to the Palace grounds.

“We must sally out,” Kam grimly said. “They will regroup against us, and the Palace cannot be defended. But we have a short while yet to rally any of our comrades and women as may be found. Let any who will not dare the main gate depart alone, and may Fortune attend them.”

Two of the retainers glanced at their comrades, then shook hands with some around them and said their farewells, making off separately into the Palace halls. The rest remained, waiting for the Daishen's next command.

“Lord Daishen,” one of the older men said, “the other women of your party were taken to the nursery at the first sign of battle.”

Kam nodded; the nursery was always the most secure chamber in any Kellion home, at the centre of the building and close to the warmth of the kitchen. With the Daishen in the lead and Sorcha hurrying to stay close to him among the handful of Kellion men, they hastened to the nursery only to find the door barred from within. Kam pounded on the panel until Tendath Drake's voice snarled, “Who's there?”

“It is I,” Kam rumbled, and a moment later, the bar was withdrawn and the door fell inward. Drake, Vashta, Fethne and Hnasi joined Kam and Sorcha in the corridor. Old man Drake had his seven-barrelled volleygun, while Vashta had drawn the long knife from her belt. Hnasi was equipped by nature with fangs and claws.

“Where's Monte?” The catwoman purred.

“Trying to bring down an airship,” Sorcha replied, before Kam had a chance. “The Palace is being bombed flat; we have to get out of here!”

Her near-hysterics were validated by another shuddering blast that rumbled through the walls around them.

“Out through the kitchens,” Drake said, “that's the quickest way.”

“It is too narrow,” Kam replied. “Even one foe there would delay us too much. We must dare the gate in force and throw the enemy back from the threshold.”

“You're mad,” Drake said, but then shrugged and nodded. “Alright, as you say.” Then he prodded his chin at Sorcha and added, “Shouldn't that gel have a weapon? Silvan; she knows how to fight.”

Sorcha shook her head vigorously and backed away. “No, no, please don't make me, I don't want to, I don't care what else happens, I just want to get out...” The walls were closing in on her again; she screamed in shock when another explosion shook the floor beneath her feet.

Kam Daishen paused, studying Sorcha as if recognising her for the first time. At their first meeting, over a year ago, she had set a posse of twenty Silvan riders to attack the Daishen, first with arrows and then with swords. The red knight had overthrown them all single-handed, belabouring the entire squad senseless with the flat of his broadsword. Sorcha could almost see the thoughts passing across the faceless visor of the Daishen's helm; he had finally noticed just how much she was changed by her adventures. She shivered, the eyeless stare of the red knight's helm seeming to read her soul more astutely than she ever could, now that he had understood.

“Master Drake,” Kam said, without looking at the old man. “Take the women out by the kitchens. We cannot hope to guard them safely through the gate.”

“Aye, alright.” Drake hefted his volleygun and beckoned the women to follow him, leaving Kam and Vari's surviving retainers to ready themselves for the fight to come.

The fire still burned in the grate and the kitchen was warm. Drake immediately checked the back door, then locked it and snapped his fingers at the women.

“Right, loot the cupboards, grab as much food as we can carry. Fill yer pockets or whatever y'got.”

So saying, he snagged the remains of a roast chicken off the sideboard and stuffed it inside his coat. None of the women had much in the way of pocket space; Vashta and Fethne had only the pouches on their harem belts, while Sorcha's Silvan uniform boasted only a pair of large pockets in the tunic.

They took what they could find, Hnasi prowling by the inner door all the while. In a cupboard by the back door, Drake discovered half a dozen furred winter cloaks.

“Bundle up the spare two,” he said. “Can't have enough cloaks and blankets out in the snow. Ready now?”

He unlocked the door and kicked it wide, stepping outside with his volleygun at the ready. Sorcha followed, Vashta behind her leading Fethne by the hand while Hnasi brought up the rear. As soon as they were outside, Drake locked the door behind them and dropped the key into a pocket.

The back door let out into the lee of a tower, sheltered from the wind and the worst of the snow. Drake signed for Hnasi to scout the corner of the tower to their left while he sidled to the right along the wall, his volleygun at the ready.

Still in the shelter of the back door, Sorcha could see only the snowy lawns leading to the frozen river. Drake and Hnasi moved in unison without warning, the old man bringing his rifle to his shoulder even as Hnasi tensed to spring on some unseen foe around the corner of the tower. The catwoman hesitated a prescient split-second and Drake fired. The volleygun uttered a roar like a cannon, flinging Drake back against the wall with its recoil. On the echoes of the blast, Sorcha heard a man cry out.

Hnasi pounced with the wind of the bullets still ruffling her fur. Her feral snarl eclipsed the terrified shriek of another man. Sorcha ran three steps forward and saw two men dead on the snow, cut down by the hail of lead from Drake's seven-barrelled volleygun. The nearer of the pair had caught brunt of the blast; the front of his shirt was peppered with holes and soaked with blood, the snow a gory mess behind him. The second man had been hit once in the face, the contents of his skull painting the snow behind him pink and grey.

Right beside the wall, Hnasi crouched over the body of a third man, daintily licking the blood off her claws. Sorcha spun her back to the awful sight and spotted Drake. The old man was leaning on his volleygun now as if it were a walking stick, attempting with shaking fingers to reload the seven barrels. Grateful for any distraction from the horror behind her, Sorcha ran to help him. He tried to shrug her off, muttering curses at himself and her, but she upheld him perforce until he had finished reloading his weapon.

“Alright, that'll do.” Drake stepped away from her, only his hand lingering a moment to trace his fingers wistfully along the small of her back. “Time was...” he coughed, glared past Sorcha at the three dead men, then tested his ribs with one hand and winced. “Time was I could fire this bloody thing without breaking a bone.”

Still leaning on the volleygun for a stick, Drake started walking east, along the line of the Palace wall towards the river half a mile away. “Time was I could whip any six brawlers you cared to name.” He threw a glance back across his shoulder to catch Sorcha's eye. “Six at once mind! Who do you think it was taught young Monte to fight, eh?”

“Monte?”

“I mean DeKellia, not that foppish whelp you've been shagging.”

Sorcha coloured, but before she could muster a response, Drake held up his hand for silence.

“Listen.”

Sorcha cocked her head and frowned. “I can't... wait, the bombardment...”

“Aye, it's stopped. Anyone notice when that happened?”

Sorcha shook her head, glancing at Vashta and Fethne. Vashta shrugged, while Fethne was largely oblivious to reality. Hnasi had prowled ahead towards the next corner of the Palace, scouting for the enemy.

Drake's upraised hand gestured vaguely. “Wait,” he said softly. “Don't say nothin', keep listening...”

Sorcha concentrated and heard, distinct from the wind and growing louder every moment, the rushing passage of something massive through the air.

Drake suddenly roared, “Get down!” just as the keel of an airship smashed through the battlements atop the wall directly overhead. Sorcha crouched against the wall and covered her head with her hands as debris rained down. She looked up the instant it was past and was just in time to see the airship crash down a hundred yards away. It struck prow-first with a splintering impact, flipped over keel and bowed with its momentum, bounced once on its balloon and fell sideways, the entire starboard hull caving in like shattered ribs.

Then the airship exploded. The balloon went up first, a roaring gout of fire that ignited the fuel splashed all over the wreckage and set off the powder magazine.

Sorcha covered her face again from the wash of heat and wall of sound. When she looked again, the ship was a blazing wreck spread across the lawn, shattered spars and scraps of canvas burning in the snow. Among the wreckage lay a dozen sprawled bodies, charred black by the blast.

Sorcha rose to her feet only to freeze when one of the bodies stirred. Drake was up too and now brought his volleygun to bear but held fire as the survivor stumbled towards them. Ten feet away, it stopped and dragged one sooty hand across its brow, revealing the sheen of a steel Silvan mask. Sorcha's legs almost gave way beneath her when she recognised Meridian Charn.

The charred and battered Diva returned their stares as if she had never seen any of them before. She glanced back at the shattered airship behind her and said, “What, that?”

“How did you get aboard?” Sorcha managed.

“Same way DeKellia did it; rope and a grappling hook. Then I killed everyone aboard, I don't recall the details... although the ship's whore had a go at me with a meat-hook, that I do remember...”

Drake had never in fact seen Charn in action; Sorcha had, at a distance, and knew that the woman's fame was well-earned even among the fearsome Divas of Silveneir.

“There must have been fifty men aboard, gal!” Drake bellowed. “At my best, in my youth, with a good sword and a wall at me back, aye, I've taken as many. But I'll not believe it of any woman!”

Charn cocked her head slightly, then looked theatrically back across her shoulder again. “Any enemy left?”

“Kam and Vari's men are at the main gate,” Sorcha volunteered.

“Right.” Charn snapped her fingers and said, “Estarriol.”

From the snow, the Diva's sword leapt up and flew unerringly to her hand. Without another glance at Sorcha or anyone else, Charn jogged off to find the main gate.

“It's a magic sword,” Sorcha said, while she and Drake were still staring at Charn's back.

“I guessed that. D'you think maybe she died in the crash and didn't notice?”

“I think she's too bitter to die,” Sorcha replied, and the old man nodded.

“Aye, well... I can understand that. Just never seen it in a woman before. Is it true a gal has to kill a hundred men to call herself a Diva?”

Sorcha nodded.

“Until today, I'd have called them weak men...” Drake trailed off, still staring in the direction Charn had gone. Then he laughed and slapped his thigh. “By hell, she must be murder in the sack; I need a cigarette just thinking about it!”

“Please,” Sorcha tugged at the old man's sleeve with both hands. “Let's just get out of here, I don't want to be in a battle!”

“Too late,” Drake observed, then softened slightly and added, “there's no place to hide from airships, lass, that much should be obvious. We're in as good cover here as we'll likely find anywhere. Better we make our way around to the front gate. Not too fast mind; we'll give young Kam and everyone a chance to clean up first, no sense rushing into a mess, eh? Here, help and old man find his way in the snow.”

Drake put his arm around Sorcha and leant on her, his hand savouring the touch on her hip as they walked, Vashta still leading Fethne by the hand behind them. That they went slowly was relief enough that Sorcha did not complain; she could endure an old man's groping in preference to hurrying into the middle of yet another fight.

As they came to the next corner of the Palace wall, the sound of battle reached them, the clash of swords and ragged war cries, the deeper voice of Kam Daishen booming above the din.

“Ach, hold here awhile,” Drake said, leaning against the wall to pack his pipe. “No rush.”

Sorcha stood nervously, waiting while Drake smoked, and the fight played out just beyond her sight. Gradually, the hammering of swords on armour grew less ferocious, the snarls and swearing less frequent, until all sound died away save the low moaning of wounded men.

Drake gripped his pipe between his teeth and lurched off the wall, limping stiffly to the corner to peer around.

“All clear,” he called back, cheerfully, and Sorcha emerged to find Kam Daishen, Charn, and a handful of Vari's retainers standing victorious over the bodies of some two dozen foes. Not all of Vari's faction had survived, but with the Daishen to lead them and Charn in his support, they had suffered minimal casualties and overcome a force more than twice their number.

The Daishen spotted Sorcha and waved, beckoning her over.

As she emerged from cover, it dawned upon Sorcha that the battle was over; there were no living enemy in sight on the Palace lawns, and from within the ravaged building all sound had ceased. Even the bombardment had stopped; a single airship wallowed in the air high above, moving erratically and no longer raining munitions in its wake.

As Sorcha and the other survivors of the battle watched, the remaining airship began to descend. It did so awkwardly, in sudden drops and smaller faltering ascents, gradually coming in to land with a shuddering crunch on the snowy lawns a hundred yards away.

Then Sorcha heard a voice yell her name and saw a figure in black standing at the ship's rail. She broke into a run when she recognized DeSilva; by the time she reached him, he had leapt from the ship's rail to meet her on the lawn.

Sorcha flung herself into his arms, but stopped an inch shy of kissing him, glancing fearfully back in Charn's direction. The grim Diva was not looking at her, irritably staving off Kam Daishen's efforts to check her obvious and numerous wounds. Sorcha took a chance and kissed DeSilva, briefly but with passionate relief at seeing him alive. Only then did she look again at the airship, her mind filling with questions.

“How did you...? I mean, you didn't...?”

“What, kill everyone aboard single-handed?” He laughed. “No, I had some help.”

Over the rail now leapt Khyle Tarn and Noth Kalidor. Sorcha did not bother to wonder how the pair of them had gained the airship; there was little she would not believe of Noth Kalidor's powers, and the Hrin warrior Khyle Tarn terrified her beyond daring to question his abilities.

In dismounting the rail, Kalidor brought with him one end of a rope ladder, the top of it anchored on the ship's deck.

“All aboard,” DeSilva grinned, and assisted Sorcha in climbing the ladder.

“Oh, Monte, you can't mean...”

“I certainly can,” he grinned up at her while she was still climbing. “We took the damn ship; I reckon we should keep her. Long journey still ahead, but we crossed Heimjaro in one of these things and...” he trailed off, his eye drawn to the name of the ship emblazoned on her prow. “Hell, this is the very ship, look; it's the Darician Queen. Well, I'll be damned.”

Sorcha had stopped on the ladder, nervous of the height while DeSilva was distracted. “Monte?”

He paid her no heed, turning to wave and yell to their comrades. “It's the Darician Queen! I didn't notice in the fighting but look, here she is again! How do you like that?”

Kam and Charn approached and stood looking up at the name of the ship, saying nothing. Kalidor merely shrugged, looked around, then leapt like a salmon back up to the ship's rail from the ground, turning a somersault to complete his spring. Sorcha almost fell off the ladder in surprise, but none of her companions batted an eye.

Smiling, Kalidor extended a hand down to help Sorcha aboard. “It is the ship we built from wreckage on the beaches of Hrinor,” he explained. “We grounded her at an inland lake in Heimjaro, and there, Guillemot DeJiar found us and rigged the ship for flight. I am altogether unsurprised that the late admiral simply added the ship to his armada when he returned to his base.”

“Late?” Sorcha clarified, and Kalidor nodded.

“His airship exploded a few minutes after my dear brother boarded it. Would that we could hope they both died in the blast.”

He stepped aside, ushering Sorcha fully aboard, and only then did she see the bloody devastation spread about the ship. Bodies littered the deck, black-clad Kellion sailors, many laid open by DeSilva's sword or rent by Khyle's claws but most of them simply dead without any apparent wounds. Sorcha guessed with a shudder that these, well over half of them, were the victims of Noth Kalidor's bare hands.

She fought down nausea as she moved away from the ladder, making room for DeSilva and the rest of their comrades to climb aboard. Vari's surviving retainers did not follow, and there were no farewells; DeSilva waited only a moment before moving to the strange device like a brass stove that stood in the centre of the deck. Sorcha trailed after him, watching with baffled exhaustion while he fed the stove with coal from a nearby hopper, fiddled with the valves on the top of the device, then depressed a pedal at its base with his foot.

The burner roared and a jet of blue flame shot up into the balloon, causing it to swell and the airship to slowly lift off.

Only when he was done did DeSilva reveal that he had not come through the battle unscathed; with a groan of relief, he sat heavily on the deck and pressed one hand to his side.

“Monte, are you alright?”

“I'm not bleeding.” He made an effort to grin. “I caught a wallop from that ham-fisted bugger over there.” He pointed at one of the bodies, a huge, bald-headed man who lay face down in a pool of his own blood, his throat slashed from ear to ear.

Sorcha started to fuss over DeSilva, but he put her off as gently as he could, wincing at the pain in his side. “I'm fine, really! You should see the state of Khyle Tarn, I'm amazed he's even on his feet.

Sorcha looked back over her shoulder and saw the Hrin warrior, the only one of Vari's retainers to join them, lying slumped against the ship's rail with Vashta and Kalidor crouched over him, examining his wounds.

Then a shadow fell across Sorcha and DeSilva; they glanced up as one to see Charn glaring down at them, her hands on her hips. As soon as she had their attention, she indicated the burner with a prod of her chin.

“This is what makes the ship go then?”

“Well, if you have to put it quite so crudely, yes,” DeSilva said.

“Show me.”

DeSilva groaned and started to get up, but Sorcha restrained him and protested to Charn.

“He's wounded!”

“Ach at worst it's a busted rib” Charn hauled DeSilva upright, forcing him to lean on her. “On your feet and stop your whining, let's get this damn ship squared away, then you can wimp out on your own time."

Assisted by Charn, DeSilva limped to the burner and began manipulating the controls. Charn helped and bullied him in equal measure, keeping him working while she extracted enough information on the burner to assist in operating it. While DeSilva fiddled with the brass valves and dials, Charn fed coal into the burner's hopper.

“How does it work?” Sorcha asked, watching from a safe distance.

DeSilva barely glanced up, answering distractedly, “Oh, the coal keeps the fire going, which ignites the fuel to make the blue flame coming out the top. Call it the pilot-light.”

Charn leant on the coal shovel and glared at him. “So, what are you doing while I'm humping coal into this bitch?”

“The dials and whatnot control the fuel intake and the output pressure.” DeSilva made a final adjustment to the dials, appearing to listen to the burner as much as he watched it. “The pipes here go down to a big fuel tank in the hold. The altitude and acceleration are down to the volume of hot air and the pressure forcing it into the balloon.”

“And you just worked all that out in five minutes, did you?” Charn shovelled another load of coal into the burner with an ill grace.

“No, I met Admiral Guillemot once months ago; he explained the machinery.”

“Oh, you understood and remembered one bout of madman's babble half a year ago. I see”

DeSilva glanced up at last with a faint smile.

“Yes,” he said, then applied his foot to the pedal at the base of the burner. The device roared, the pilot light became a pillar of blue fire, the balloon swelled, and the whole airship shifted like some huge animal climbing to its feet. All around the deck, people grabbed any available support to keep their balance, although in truth the air-ship's lift-off was very smooth. After the initial motion, the ship rose steadily, the deck firm underfoot and almost no sense of motion perturbing anyone's balance. Only by looking over the rail could Sorcha be sure that they were indeed flying; the ground receded below them quickly.

She had flown once before, briefly and at terrifying speed on a wyvern. This was different; Sorcha only grasped the wonder and the fear of it when the ship cleared the height of the ruined Winter Palace. Her heart leapt into her throat, but her blood thrilled.

Rising above the Palace ruins, the airship was suddenly slammed by a gale-force wind. Sorcha had to grab the rail again to keep from being blown off her feet. Behind her, above the roar of the gale, she heard DeSilva and Charn yelling at each other.

“Can you keep this bitch steady?” Charn demanded.

“What do you want me to do, drop anchor?!” DeSilva snarled back.

“That's what I'd do on a normal ship!”

“This isn't a normal ship! You can't just moor it off by a rope, we'll capsize her!”

“Oh, and you know that for sure, do you?”

“It's patently bloody obvious!” DeSilva's fists were clenched at his sides, his eyes starting from his head and his face transfigured to a snarl. Sorcha had never seen him looking quite so much like his father. “It's a simple question of mathematics!”

Charn's sword was suddenly at DeSilva's throat; Sorcha had not even seen the Diva move.

“You know what else is a simple question of maths?” Charn asked, sweet as poisoned sugar.

Sorcha's breath caught in her throat; she stood frozen. DeSilva did not so much as flinch. Utterly calmly he said, “If we let the ship drift, we risk being blown anywhere. If we moor here, we risk capsizing. Alternatively, we pick a direction. I suggest south, to begin with.”

“Why?” Charn's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she slowly withdrew her sword.

“Because the admiral's ship went that way. We should look for the wreck.”

Charn put her sword up reluctantly. “No doubt your father survived. Fair enough.”