Fall of Angels (28 page)

  
What about the chickens? Kadran had them up in a narrow cut Nylan had made above the stables-a makeshift chicken coop. Would it be warm enough in the winter, or should they be in with the sheep or horses? Who would know? He couldn't attempt to resolve every problem, but he hoped someone else could figure out the sheep and the chickens.

  
He forced his thoughts back to the job at hand-cutting the armaglass to fit the window frames that Saryn and Ayrlyn had made.

  
Nylan studied the chalked lines on the scarred and once-transparent panels from the landers. If he cut carefully, and if his measurements were correct, he might have enough glass for eight windows-four for the great hall and the rest for the living quarters-one or two on each floor where people slept. In the coming winter, the tower would still be dark-they had no lamps and only the few candles.

  
His eyes flicked in the general direction of the second large cairn-and the eleven individual cairns. How could Ryba promise that Westwind would change history when two seasons had reduced their numbers by more than a third? Children? But how many?

  
"Stop it!" he told himself, lifting the powerhead.

  
Cessya and Huldran glanced up, and Nylan looked down at the armaglass, forcing himself to take a deep breath and concentrate on the cutting ahead.

  
He triggered the energy flow to the powerhead, and began his efforts to narrow the laser's focus even more. Unlike his efforts with stone or metal, the armaglass sliced quickly and easily, and Nylan soon looked on eight evenly sized pieces, each ready to fit into a frame.

  
After clicking off the power, he checked the cell-bank energy level-barely down at all. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at the armaglass sections, then pushed back the goggles and walked over to the frames. Each frame was complete, except for the top bar, so that the armaglass could be slipped into the grooves.

  
Still wearing the gauntlets, Nylan picked up a section and eased it into the frame. It stuck halfway down, but with some tugging and wiggling, he managed to push the glass all the way into the frame. Saryn and Ayrlyn could assemble and install the rest of the windows. Another problem resolved.

  
Then he looked back at the laser. Because he had used so little energy, he might even have some power to use for Gerlich's project, not that Gerlich had asked Nylan directly, beyond complaining about underpowered bows.

  
Nylan removed the fraying gauntlets and wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm. Cool breezes or not, using the laser left him hot and sweaty. After a swallow of water, he looked at the two smaller braces on the stone, along with the two long rods of composite beside them, then at the sketch that Saryn had drawn from memory.

  
Nylan studied the pair of braces once more, then pulled on the gauntlets and eased the goggles in place. The lenses were so scratched that he relied on his senses more than on his sight. All the equipment from the Winterlance was falling apart, overstrained and stressed from usage far heavier than ever planned for by Heaven's shipbuilders and the angels' suppliers.

  
Finally, he triggered the power to the laser. The composite sliced easily, and he quickly had the rough form he needed. Then he set that aside and began shaping the brace toward the ideal shape that Saryn had suggested.

  
The first long, slow pass with the laser left him with the metal too heavily bunched near the grip. After three passes, with the sweat streaming down his face and around his goggles, he had the shape he needed, leaving an open groove down what he thought of as the spine of the metal.

  
He cut the power flow and set the laser wand aside gently, removing the goggles and gauntlets and sitting on a building stone. There he wiped and blotted his face.

  
In the meadow to the east, the grass was browning more each day. The leaves of local deciduous trees, even those that seemed like oaks and had acorns, did not change color much. Half the leaves seemed to turn to a light gray and shrivel into almost thin strips clinging to the branches, while the other half dropped off. Why? He didn't know and might never.

  
"Ser?" asked Huldran as she carried a stone past him and toward the slowly rising southern wall. "What's that?"

  
"A bow . . . maybe."

  
"You'll get it right."

  
Nylan wasn't sure about that, but he put the goggles back on, and then pulled his hands into the gauntlets. After measuring the composite rod, he triggered the laser, trimmed the rod more, and then started to mold the metal around the rod.

  
EEEssssssTTTIThe would-be bow exploded into burning sparkles, and Nylan threw it into a stone-walled corner. He backed away quickly and set down the wand as quickly as he could so that he could beat out the smoldering fabric on his upper arm. As he did, he thanked the high command for insisting on flame-retardant uniforms.

  
He took off the goggles and studied the ragged and now burned and holed right sleeve. A section of his biceps was faintly reddened, but he could feel just warmth, not the pain of a burn.

  
With that, he watched as his protobow collapsed into a puddled mass of metal and melted composite. What had happened? He knew iron-based alloys could burn, but the laser hadn't been that hot.

  
He glanced upward. Overhead, the gray clouds continued to twist back and forth on each other, but not even a sprinkle had fallen on the Roof of the World, let alone lightning. On the other side of the tower, a procession of marines conveyed the last of everything remotely usable from the landers into the tower. Another group was systematically finishing the stripping of the lander shells and storing what could be used for future building or raw materials in the first lander, which had been dragged up next to the bathhouse wall. The second lander shell was at the foot of the narrow canyon where Nylan had quarried his stone, partly filled with cut and dried grasses for winter feed for the horses. Drying racks, made of evergreen limbs, ranged across the spaces below the ridge rocks.

  
Nylan glanced back at the cooling mess of metal. Beside him stood Huldran, just looking.

  
"Fireworks, yet?" asked Ryba from behind him. "How did you two manage that?"

  
"I haven't figured that out yet, but I was trying to form metal around a composite core-"

  
"The gray stuff-cormclit?" Nylan nodded.

  
"It's pretty heat-resistant in a directional way-that's why it's used as a hull backing," pointed out the marshal.

  
"Oh, frig . . ." The engineer shook his head. Next time, he'd have to cut the composite so that the heat-reflective side was to the inside of the groove. It made a stupid kind of sense, although he couldn't have given the explanation a good physicist could have.

  
"I take it you figured it out?" asked Ryba. "You have that look that says you're so stupid not to have realized it from the beginning." She paused. "No one else would ever figure out your mistakes if you weren't so upset about them." She laughed briefly. "What were you trying this time?"

  
"Another weapon."

  
Huldran eased away from the two. "Need to set these stones, ser, Marshal, before the mortar locks up."

  
"Go ahead," said Nylan.

  
"We'll need every new weapon we can get," Ryba said.

  
"We're about out of slug-thrower shells?" asked Nylan.

  
"Maybe fifty, seventy-five rounds left in personal weapons, about the same for the two rifles. That's not enough." She shrugged. "What were you trying to make?"

  
"One of those endurasteel composite bows."

  
"We could use some, but where did you get the idea?"

  
"Gerlich was muttering the other morning about the lack of accuracy and range with the native bows."

  
"He always mutters-when he's around."

  
Thunder rumbled across the skies, echoing back from Freyja, and fat raindrops began to fall.

  
"Excuse me. I need to get the laser under cover." Nylan began to disassemble the equipment. First the powerhead and cable went back to the fifth-level storage space-into an area half built into the central stone pedestal-then the meters, and finally, the firin cells themselves. Ryba helped him carry the cell assembly. After that he set the cooled and melted puddle of metal and composite in a corner of the uncompleted bathhouse. He might be able to use the mess in some fashion later . .. and he might not.

  
Then, through the scattered but big raindrops, he and Ryba walked up to the emergency generator, spinning in the fall wind. It too was failing, bearings squeaking, and power surging, but it still put power into the firin cell attached to the charger. Both charger and cell were protected by a framework of fir limbs covered with alternating layers of cannibalized lander tiles held in place with heavy stones.

  
"Still charging." Nylan carefully replaced the covering.

  
"You've made the power last longer than anyone thought possible," Ryba said.

  
Looking downhill at the tower, Nylan answered, "There's more to do, a lot more."

  
"There always will be, but Dyliess will appreciate it all. All of the guards will."

  
At the clop of hooves, both turned toward the narrow trail from the ridge, where Istril rode toward the front gate to the black tower.

  
"Trouble?" asked the engineer.

  
"I don't think so. She wasn't riding that fast."

  
They had almost reached the south side of the tower before the triangle gong rang. Clang! Clang!

  
"Those traders are back, Marshal," called Istril as she rode from the causeway toward Nylan and Ryba. "The first ones."

  
"Skiodra," Nylan recalled.

  
"He's the one. He's got nearly a score of men, and eight wagons."

  
"I told you we needed weapons," said Ryba dryly.

  
Nylan shrugged.

  
"Get a dozen marines," ordered Ryba, looking at Istril, "fully armed. Have the rifles stationed to sweep them if we need it."

  
"Gerlich is out hunting," pointed out Istril, "with half a squad."

  
"Get who you can." Ryba turned to Nylan. "You, too. You did so well last time that you can handle the trading."

  
Nylan shrugged, then headed to the washing area of the stream. He wished the bathhouse were completed. Then he laughed. The tower had gone more quickly than anyone could have anticipated, far more quickly, and he was still worrying, except it was about showers, and laundry tubs, and more jakes.

  
Ryba headed toward the stables. "I'll have a mount waiting for you."

  
"Thank you. I won't be too long."

  
After a quick wash and shave, with the attendant cuts, a return to the tower, and a change into his other shipsuit, he donned the slug-thrower he hoped he didn't have to use, and the black blade he had infused with black flux order. Then he walked down the stone steps, past the aroma of baking bread, and out the front gate of the tower.

  
As Ryba had promised, a mount was waiting, its reins held by Istril.

  
"They just left, ser, at a walk."

  
"Can we catch them by walking a bit faster?" asked Nylan. The not - quite - swaybacked gray whickered softly as he mounted.

  
"I think so." Istril grinned.

  
Nylan and the silver-haired marine with the warm smile joined the other eleven marines and Ryba halfway down the ridge toward the spot where the traders, dressed in the same quilted jackets and cloaks, waited by a single cart that flew a trading banner. Two were on foot before the cart, the remainder mounted behind the cart.

  
Skiodra, still the biggest man among the traders and wearing in his shoulder harness an even bigger broadsword than the long blade Gerlich usually bore in similar fashion, stepped forward. "I am Skiodra, and I have returned." His Old Anglorat did not seem so thick, but Nylan wondered if that were merely his growing familiarity with the local tongue.

  
"Greetings, trader," answered Ryba, still mounted. Her eyes did not leave his, and after a moment, the trader bowed.

  
"Greetings, Marshal of the angels. We bring more supplies. Have you blades to trade?"

  
"These are better," said Ryba. "We will bring them down shortly. What do you have to offer?"

  
"Are we sure they are angels?" interrupted the bushy-haired and full-bearded trader behind Skiodra.

  
Skiodra waited, enough so that Nylan understood the ploy.

  
"If you wish to join those under that cairn there," suggested the engineer quietly, pointing to the heaped rocks that covered the slain bandits, "you may certainly test the strength of your beliefs." He dismounted and handed the reins to Istril. Then he walked forward, slowly drawing his blade, the one he had kept because it was even darker than the others and seemed to hold darkness within its smooth luster, and extended it sideways and slowly. "You might also wish to touch this blade if you doubt." He smiled, knowing that he had bound some of the strange flux energy within the blade.

  
The blond reached for the blade, but his fingers never touched the black metal. Instead, he stepped back, his face pale.