The Spirit Stone (53 page)

Larn interrupted with a long peal of mocking laughter.

‘Oh never mind!’ Brel snarled. ‘I suppose we could try to send sappers and miners along the river. That sandstone crumbles easily.’

‘Not when you’re trying to swing a pick from a boat,’ Larn said. ‘The water comes right up to the canyon walls. It’s fire or nothing, Warleader.’

Kov’s odd feeling was growing in his mind, turning into an idea, an utterly improbable idea, an idea he found too stupid to voice, but an idea all the same. He brooded over it all afternoon until it became so insistent that he gave in and went to find Salamander.

The gerthddyn was sitting in front of his tent with Lord Gerran and Gerran’s young page. Kov joined them, and for a while merely listened to their conversation, which centred around the care and breeding of horses—a common topic among Deverry men, or so he’d noticed. Finally Salamander turned to him.

‘Is somewhat on your mind, Envoy? You looked troubled.’

‘Well, there is, truly. We Mountain Folk have been thinking about this siege, you see. We have somewhat with us that could burn down the fortress, but if the wind carries the sparks, we could roast our own army along with it.’

‘Burn those walls?’ Gerran leaned forward. ‘You’ve gone mad. Those logs won’t catch like tinder. You’d have to build a roaring blaze next to them, and the Horsekin would be loosing arrows on you the whole time and throwing rocks, too, most likely.’

‘True enough.’ Kov allowed himself a grin. ‘We’ve considered that little difficulty, my lord. What if we had a kind of tinder with us that stuck where it landed? Like pitch, say, but better.’

Gerran started to speak, then motioned for him to go on.

‘The problem is the tents and suchlike. A chunk of burning bark hits a canvas roof—well, you lads can imagine the rest.’ Kov glanced at Salamander out of the corner of his eye. ‘It’s too bad there’s not some way to summon some rain, just enough to wet down all this clutter, like, that the Horsekin foresters left lying around when they cut down the trees. And to keep the tents damp, as well. We could do great things if only that were the case.’

Gerran’s lips suddenly formed an ‘O’, and he too looked at Salamander. The gerthddyn was studying the fingernails of his right hand with great concentration. He polished them on his shirt, then looked up.

‘What sort of great thing?’ Salamander said.

‘Well, suppose we set that wooden tower alight, just to start with, the one with the banner hanging from it.’

‘I’d love to see that one burn.’ Salamander heaved a wistful sigh. ‘That’s where they imprisoned me when I was spying out this place.’

‘Indeed? Well, we can do it from our distance. Do you think that might change the fortress commanders’ minds about another parley? Then the princes can come up with a decent offer to exchange for the women trapped inside.’

‘It might be powerfully persuasive,’ Salamander said. ‘To say naught of a great encouragement, inducement, or even a lure to reopen negotiations.’

‘I was wondering if the Wise One might have some thoughts on the matter,’ Kov said, ‘not that I’d be so rude as to trouble her with questions myself.’

‘You know, we actually have two Wise Women in camp,’ Salamander said. ‘The Exalted Mother Grallezar is said to have some knowledge of the weather herself. Together they might be able to um well, shall we say, predict when a rain like that might fall?’

‘It would certainly be grand if they could.’ Kov found it difficult to steady his voice.

Salamander smiled and got up, stretching his arms over his head with a lazy yawn. Young Clae looked back and forth between the men, his mouth slack with bewilderment. Gerran quirked an eyebrow in his direction.

‘My lord?’ Clae said. ‘Is this one of those things I’ll understand when I’m older?’

‘It is,’ Gerran said. ‘Don’t trouble your heart about it now.’

Salamander smiled vaguely at everyone, then strolled off, heading in the direction of the Westfolk camp. Kov rose and took his leave as well. As he walked back to his own tent, he felt as if two debating men shared his mind: the one smug that his idea had been sound after all; the other convinced that Salamander was only asking Dallandra about herbs to cure madness in dwarves.

The debate settled itself in the middle of the night when the rain started. Kov woke to the sound of water hammering on the canvas roof of his tent. He stuck his head outside to feel the cold drops on his face and ensure that the rain was real. Since his tent faced in the general direction of the fortress, he saw an even greater marvel and all unthinking, got up and ran out, stark naked, into the rain for a second look. Sure enough, over Zakh Gral the stars shone in the night sky. The edge of the rain cloud, as sharp as a knife cut, hung over the neutral ground twixt camp and walls.

That’ll give them something to chew on!
Grinning to himself Kov hurried back inside to dry off. Although he tried to sleep, he lay listening to the dweomer rain until dawn, when it abruptly stopped. He started to drowse off, only to hear Larn shouting his name. The weaponmaster threw back the canvas door of the tent and stuck his head in.

‘Did you hear that rain?’

‘Oh yes,’ Kov said. ‘Did you see the cloud?’

Larn merely nodded, studying Kov’s face with narrow eyes. Kov smiled blandly back until at last the weaponmaster shrugged and looked away.

‘Might as well unload the carts,’ Larn said. ‘The walls are well within range, especially for our big girl.’

‘Think you can hit that wooden tower?’ Kov said. ‘The one with the huge banner on it. Salamander tells me that the banner commemorates some event that the Gel da’ Thae think is a holy miracle.’

‘Let’s see if we can send it up in miraculous flames, then. Good choice, Envoy! We want a single blaze, don’t we? It might take a couple of throws, but we’ll see what she can do.’

When the news went round that the Mountain Folk were at last going to unload their secret cargo, the princes and the gwerbret hurried to the baggage train to watch. A crowd of onlookers assembled, but Kov used his rank to shoo them away. Since the princes and the gwerbret, of course, were beyond shooing, Larn reluctantly agreed to let them stay. Kov did get them to stand well back, however, by stressing the dangers of this particular weapon.

‘You’ll see why I worry about your well-being, your highnesses,’ Kov said, ‘once we begin.’

A team of sappers, led by an engineer named Grosh, dragged two of the carts to a position facing the wooden tower, well over two hundred yards away. The crates came out, and the sappers began to dismantle the carts, held together by iron pins. The slab sides they laid flat to level out the ground. The long wooden tongues, made of squared-off beams, provided the frame to support a long narrow wooden box, which Grosh pinned into place with one end aiming at the wood tower.

Kov still found the machine something of a mystery, because no one had ever bothered to explain it to him. When the noble-born pestered him with questions, he could honestly say that he didn’t know the answers. What’s more, the sappers and engineers were deliberately crowding around the weapon to hide the details from their eager onlookers. From their distance, Kov and the others caught glimpses of Grosh fussing over the frame and slider box, banging in pins and pegs and tightening down twists of rope. The other sappers handed him components as he called for them.

‘Springs,’ Kov said suddenly. ‘He calls those twists of hair and suchlike torsion springs. I don’t know what that means, though.’

The sappers drew up a third cart. Grosh brought out Big Girl herself, as they called her, a horn and sinew bellybow powered by the twists of hair and sinews tightened into the corners of the frame. Grosh laid her gently onto the slider box with a soft caress, then tied her down. Normally, the curved metal belt at the end of her shaft would go around an archer’s belly to keep the weapon braced while he drew it. This belt, however, laced into the wooden frame.

‘It’s a splendid bow, your highnesses,’ Kov said. ‘Trouble is, she’s so powerful that not even a pair of Mountain Folk can draw her. So we came up with this little device. She’s strung with wire, and there’s a hook that attaches to somewhat or other, and then a handle turns to pull back the wire, and well, that’s really all I know.’

Larn hurried over to aim Big Girl at the tower. As he made his adjustments, everyone got a look at the bow itself, though not the full apparatus.

‘Ye gods,’ Ridvar whispered. ‘She’s beautiful.’

‘Isn’t she, your grace?’ Kov beamed at him.

‘The bolts she takes must be huge.’

‘They are, your grace, and most unusual as well.’ Kov considered just how much he could reveal without Grosh threatening to beat him into slime. ‘They’re hollow, and they hold a secret that I’m not at liberty to discuss. I assure you that soon you’ll understand.’

Dwarven woman had invented the secret contents in their perennial search to find something better than blue fungus in baskets to light the underground cities. This particular mixture—of bitumen, brimstone, rock oil, and tow for thickening—had proved entirely too illuminating. Experimenting with it had resulted in two deaths, in fact, before the warleaders commandeered it. So dangerous was it that they’d brought it to the war in sealed ceramic pots. Opening them to the air, Kov supposed, might result in disaster. He exerted himself, found enough courtesies, and got the commanders to move back another few feet.

‘All ready,’ Grosh said in Deverrian. ‘Time to load up the bolts! Someone light a candle, but get well back before you strike any sparks. This stuff could blow us all to the clouds and back again.’

Kov and the commanders spontaneously moved off a few more yards. It had taken Grosh weeks of work to figure out the way to deliver this lighting material gone wrong. The flaming fuse often died, blown out as the missile soared on its way, unless the mix was allowed to take the fire before launch. Unfortunately, it often took too well. Larn had lost his beard and all of his hair to an early attempt, and Big Girl had needed repairs as well, after a day when the mixture exploded too soon. Now the long wood bolts, tipped in iron, had holes on their underside to allow air into the mix as they flew and several fuses embedded on top of the black, sticky mixture inside. In practice, at least, this had all worked splendidly. Kov refused to even consider the thought that it would fail to work now. While the engineer and the weaponmaster squabbled over the best way to aim Big Girl, Kov turned to look at the fortresses. Gleaming helmets lined the top of the wall as the men wearing them watched their enemies at work.

At last Big Girl stood ready. As Larn turned the handle on the slider box, the inner shaft turned as well, groaning and creaking. Sweat ran down Larn’s face and soaked the collar of his shirt. With all his weight he leaned back, struggling to hold the handle steady. Grosh stepped forward and laid in a loaded bolt, lit it with a thin splint, then jumped back just as Larn let the handle go.

The shaft spun, the hook leapt off the wire, the first bolt sprang from the bellybow and arched up into the air. It whistled as it flew across and smudged the blue sky with black smoke, while the Gel da’ Thae manning the walls turned their heads to watch. Larn began cranking up a second bolt as the first started its curve down, heading for tower window. Larn released the second bolt. Grosh positioned a third. In the fortress the Horsekin stayed dead-silent, as if they were puzzled rather than frightened. The first bolt struck the tower with such force that the wood structure quivered. For the briefest of moments nothing happened; then the mixture in the bolt exploded.

Little fingers of bright gold stroked the tower wall as the bitumen melted and ran, burning. First smoke curled, then flames leapt along the boards. The second bolt slammed into the flames and instantly shattered into a spew of fire. The last bolt flew and hit. With a roar the entire top third of the tower caught and burst into flames. An answering roar went up from the Deverry army as Alshandra’s enormous banner flashed into a solid sheet of fire. Howls of panic from the Horsekin rose with the black smoke.

‘Yes!’ Larn threw both hands in the air and yelled in Dwarvish. ‘It works! It works!’

‘Well done, Weaponmaster!’ Brel began to laugh for what must have been the first time in fifty years. ‘Oh, splendidly well done! We’ll avenge them all! Every last one of our dead! They’ll be avenged!’

Inside the fortress brass horns squealed and squalled. Pieces of the tower broke free and fell, scattering flame as they went. More screams, more yells—Kov could imagine the panic inside: slaves running to and fro with buckets of water, others beating at the flames with shovels, the rakzanir milling around, screeching futile orders.

‘It’ll be hard work, dousing that fire,’ Prince Voran said. ‘But they have copious wells, unfortunately.’

‘Let’s hope they try to use water, your highness,’ Kov said. ‘The stuff just floats to the top, you see, and goes on burning.’

For a while it seemed that the entire fortress might burn from this one attack. The princes and lords began shouting at their own men to arm and get ready for a fight should the Horsekin sally to escape the fire. The last chunks of the wooden tower collapsed and crumbled below the level of the walls with a belch of black, greasy smoke that streamed up and arched over the river. Sparks flared, then died, within the cloud. A few fell on the wet Deverry encampment, only to hiss and go out. The cloud, however, enveloped them with the stench of burning brimstone. Coughing and choking, the princes and gwerbret ran to join their men.

The smoke began to clear almost immediately. The cries of the horns and the shouts of the Horsekin died away. Kov assumed that someone inside had figured out how to smother the flames with dirt rather than aggravating them with water. Up on Zakh Gral’s walls the helmets of its guards returned, black with ash.

The little door beside the gates swung open. Minaz the herald appeared, waving his staff.

‘Worked like a charm,’ Brel muttered—then realized what he’d just said. ‘Luck, that’s all that blasted storm was! Couldn’t be dweomer, just couldn’t.’