“Up these stairs,” she directed her sister, limping into the stairwell to the observation tower on her right.

They climbed as swiftly as they could, winding their way up the ancient stone steps.

“Who spied them?” Aphen asked, the strain of the climb more than she had expected. She gritted her teeth and quickened her pace.

“One of the Trolls on watch. He didn’t know who they were at first, not until he put the spyglass on them and saw the Federation flag.” Arling moved a few steps closer. “Are you all right? We have plenty of time.”

That remained to be determined, Aphen thought. “I need the exercise,” she responded instead. “How many ships?”

“Two warships, a light cruiser, a transport, and one that’s quite a bit smaller. A command vessel or a scout, I think.”

Too many to have good intentions. What did they want with the Druids? There hadn’t been any communications between Paranor and Arishaig in months. Why now? Had the men on these airships come to see the Ard Rhys on business?

Or, she wondered suddenly, had they come because they knew Khyber Elessedil and the other Druids were away and believed the Keep and its remaining occupants were vulnerable?

They reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the floor of the observation tower. Windows opened in all four directions, a series of two-foot-wide openings spaced evenly all around the circular room. In the center, a large permanently affixed telescope rested in its iron cradle atop a platform. Levers, gears, and wheels attested to its maneuverability. With Arling’s assistance, Aphen climbed onto the platform, unlocked the mechanism, and swung the scope into position facing south.

She found the Federation fleet right away, advancing through a wash of sunlight and late-morning haze directly toward the Keep. She took a minute to study each ship, trying to intuit as much as she could from the look and feel of it, counting mounted weapons and armored heads.

“I don’t like the look of this,” she muttered.

The tower’s outer door burst open and Bombax appeared, wrapped in his robes and carrying his heavy staff. He was healed well enough by now that he had regained his normal healthy pallor and most of the weight he had lost during his captivity, and he moved swiftly and easily as he mounted the platform and came up to her. “What do you make of it?”

They had patched things up sufficiently between them over the past few days that they were back to talking like normal people. Aphenglow still wasn’t happy with the lack of common sense that Bombax had demonstrated in letting himself be made a prisoner of the Mwellrets, but they were trying to work their way through their differences of opinion on the matter.