Tinker's War (The Tinkerer's Daughter Book 2) (17 page)

Analyn nodded wisely. “So it is. With any luck, most of the fools around us will live long enough to grow wise themselves.”

We both laughed at that. Analyn turned around, scanning the tents behind us. “Kale! Kale Corsan, get over here!”

My eyes widened as I heard the name. “Corsan?” I said, just as a young black-haired teen came racing into the village circle. I stared at him, wondering at the meaning of it.

“Spread the word, we’re having harvest games tomorrow. Tell the men to set up targets and a fighting ring at the edge of the woods. We’ll also need tree stumps and barrels.”

“Harvest games!” Kale said. “Can I join?”

“You’ll have to ask Breeze,” Analyn said. “She’s judging the contests.” She winked at me.

“Please, Miss Breeze,” he said. “I’m good with a bow and with a sword, too!”

“I… we’ll see tomorrow,” I said awkwardly.

“Go on now, spread the word,” Analyn said, shooing him off. I watched him disappear into the tents. “He’s the general’s nephew, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said.

I nodded mutely. Even though he was young, I could clearly see the family resemblance. “I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t realize that General Corsan had family.”

“Kale’s father was the general’s brother. He’s here now. They made it out of Avenston ahead of the Vangars, but Kale’s mother wasn’t so fortunate.”

I slowly absorbed that. “He’s a bit young, don’t you think? To be fighting I mean?”

Analyn smiled at me. “He’s fourteen. Older than Robie was when you made him a pilot, and older than you were at the time.”

I turned to stare at her. “But… that was different,” I stammered.

Analyn’s smile grew, but she didn’t argue with me. Instead, she turned away and wandered out into the tents. I stood there for a long time after. Somehow, it seemed that time had gotten away from me. It didn’t seem possible that I could have been so young at the time, but Analyn was right. Tal’mar children mature approximately twice as fast as humans do, so physically I had always looked older than I really was. After a little more than two years of living with Tinker, I had matured into a young teen. Then the war swept us away, and suddenly I was flying about in Tinker’s planes, carrying messages and treaties, and trying to prevent an all-out coup.

In retrospect, I wondered how I’d survived it all. Granted, I hadn’t been involved in much physical combat, but I’d stood face to face with General Corsan and Prince Sheldon and told them in no uncertain terms how things were going to be. I’d faced down an army of Kanters rather than waiting to die in a Riverfork jail cell.

How I must have seemed then, this brazen young half-breed girl with no sense and no experience who thought she knew everything. It was a wonder that I hadn’t gotten myself killed. And yet somehow, I hadn’t. Somehow, I had believed in my dreams so ferociously that I convinced others to believe in them also. I couldn’t help but wonder at the audacity of it all, at my own childish hubris, and the way it had all somehow fallen into place.

And now young Kale Corsan was here, and he wanted to fight, and I had looked at him exactly the way so many people had looked at me when I was young. I realized with some embarrassment that I had changed over the years, and not for the better. What had become of my passion, of my dreams? Had I become no more than a complacent, lazy-spirited pilot with no aspirations greater than floating through the clouds? Or worse, had I become as cynical as the others who’d looked down on me when I was fighting for something better?

I realized with some trepidation that I had some soul-searching to do.

Chapter 16

The next day, I still couldn’t believe how much the camp had grown. We needed at least a dozen more tents and that would still leave most of the men sleeping under the stars.

Analyn organized multiple hunting parties and sent another group to forage for edible wild plants and mushrooms. Someone else discovered the old garden we had planted ten years earlier. Though many of the plants had grown wild, they were still very much a viable food source. In all, things looked bleak but they could have been much worse. We had food, shelter, and the means to build something, and that was a start.

I wandered to the south end of camp to see what the mechanics had learned about the gyroplane. I found it in pieces, spread out across the ground. The head mechanic, a middle-aged man named Cleff, had taken the engine to a nearby table. He had it in pieces as well.

“What have you learned?” I said, joining him.

He glanced at me, scratching the back of his head with greasy fingers. “This here’s a combustion engine,” he said.

“Combustion? As in exploding?”

“Yep, sorta. The black oil the Vangars use for fuel is highly combustible. Watch this.” He held up a glass jar with a pint or so of the Vangars’ fuel. Then he took the burning candle from the edge of the table and touched the flame to the top of the jar. Bright flames
whooshed
up, and I felt warmth radiating across my skin. After a moment, the flames died down and a column and thick black smoke rolled into the air. Cleff covered the jar with a piece of thick leather, smothering the life out of the fire.

“The way this works, is the engine sucks a bit of fuel and a bit of air in at the same time. Then, the piston rotates up, compressing the mixture until it explodes.”

My eyebrows went up. “That’s clever,” I said. “What keeps the piston moving?”

“There’s two, and they alternate positions. They’re timed so that each explosion pushes the opposite piston up.”

“Fascinating. What ignites the explosion?”

“Nothing, far as I can tell. I guess the mixture gets hot when it’s compressed.”

I stared at the engine with renewed wonder. “Do you think there’s something special about the oil?” I said. “Like with Blackrock steel?”

“Oh, definitely. I tried kerosene and it don’t work half as good. Wouldn’t hardly burn at all.”

I considered that for a moment. “So kerosene isn’t as explosive as the black oil… what about whiskey?”

He looked at me as if I were insane. “Whiskey! Why would you waste good whiskey on something like this?”

I stared at him, suddenly understanding the difference between him and Tinker. Cleff was a mechanic, a simple man who could reproduce what he saw, but completely void of imagination or creativity. “Pure alcohol is volatile,” I said. “It’s almost as explosive as black powder.”

He rolled his eyes as if I was a fool. “That’ll never work,” he said.

“Why not?”

“’Cause this engine don’t use alcohol!”

I sighed. I was half-tempted to tell him to just shut up and try it. Then I thought better of it. Alcohol was definitely more explosive than kerosene but it was also a lot thinner. It was possible that the lower viscosity of alcohol would cause other problems with the engine. I wondered if that was what Cleff had meant by his inarticulate statement.

“Try some kerosene mixed with alcohol,” I said. “Maybe one part alcohol and two parts kerosene. Experiment a little, just don’t hurt yourself.”

“If you say so.”

I left Cleff to his experiments, wondering if I’d made a mistake. I hated not having Tinker around. In my years with him, Tinker had taught me almost everything I knew, and yet he still had a library worth of information in his skull that was beyond me. It wasn’t just facts with Tinker, though. He had the ability to imagine and try new things. His mind was always working on ways to solve problems. If he’d been at the camp, I had no doubt that Tinker would have already mastered the Vangars’ technology and probably improved upon it. Instead of having the one gyroplane on the ground in pieces, he’d have it back together with improvements, and more gyro designs ready to build.

After leaving Cleff, I went to Robie’s tent. He had slept through the previous afternoon, and I had been in no hurry to wake him because I still hadn’t broken the news to him about his parents. I had no idea how to do it. As I pulled back the flap and stuck my head through, I still wasn’t sure what I was going to say.

The interior was dark and I could barely see the dim shape of Robie lying on his cot. “Robie?” I whispered.

“I’m awake,” he said quietly. He rolled over and pulled the shield from the lantern next to his bed. He turned up the wick, bringing the dark interior to life. I glanced around, noting the small desk with a single chair directly across from the bed. Those and the end table next to the bed were the only furnishings in the room. I ducked inside, smiling as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“Take it easy,” I said. “Your wound isn’t healed yet.”

He stared at me, his eyes glistening in the flickering light. “Thanks,” he said. “You saved my life.”

“I had help,” I admitted.

“I know. I felt
him.
I felt the both of you, inside me.”

I cocked an eyebrow. Of all the people I’d healed, Robie was the first who remembered it in that manner. “Interesting,” I said. “What else do you remember?”

He tore his eyes away and I saw him wince ever so slightly. “Breeze, there’s something… something I have to say to you.”

There was something in his voice, something heartbreaking that made me want to reach out and take him in my arms, like a mother with her babe. “What is it, Robie?” I said, settling onto the cot next to him.

He took my hand between his, still avoiding my gaze. “Breeze, I want you to be happy. You can be with Tam now. I won’t get in your way.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Tam?”

“Yes. I saw you kiss. I know what he means to you.”

“Robie, I-”

I didn’t get to finish that statement because at that moment, Analyn popped her head in through the tent flap. “Ah there you are, Breeze. We’re almost ready for you.” She looked past me, noting that Robie was up and then I saw her gaze drift to our hands. He was still holding mine. “Ah, you’ve told him then,” she said sadly.

Robie glanced at her and then back at me. “Told me what?” he said.

I got a fluttering feeling in my chest as I stared into his face. I licked my lips, searching for the right words. “Robie, when Riverfork was evacuated… not everyone made it.”

His gaze danced back and forth. “What are you saying?”

I sighed. “Robie, your parents were killed.”

His mouth fell open. He took a deep breath and then clamped it shut, pulling away from me. I reached for his hands. “Robie-”

“I need to be alone,” he said.

“Robie, I understand-”

“Breeze! Please, just leave me alone.”

I glanced helplessly at Analyn. She gave me a sympathetic look and then pulled her head back out of the flap. I stood up, looking down on Robie, every fiber of my being screaming to take him in my arms and comfort him. “Robie, please…”

“Not now,” he said. He blinked and tears streamed down his cheeks. “Please, Breeze. Just go.”

I retreated. There was nothing else I could do. Robie wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t share his feelings with me, and I knew I’d just make him angry if I persisted. He wanted to be alone, and perhaps that was best for now. He didn’t want me to see him in this moment of weakness. I knew that was part of the problem. It was his pride. But it was more than that also, I believed. There was the other thing he had said, the thing about Tam.

I left Robie alone with his sorrow in the dark solitude of his tent, quietly weeping, his heart full of things that weren’t true but knowing that if I tried to correct him, he simply wouldn’t listen. I found myself uncomfortably alone with my thoughts for the rest of the morning. I had so many concerns that my head was spinning, and I couldn’t seem to focus on anything else. I was worried about what was going on in Robie’s mind, and what he might do about it. I was worried about how the Vangars would react when they found their dragon ship burned and their soldiers dead. Then there were the refugees, and the prisoners locked up in Anora, and Tinker…

At some point, I found myself watching the workers set up targets and preparing weapons for the contest that afternoon. I moved quietly among them, sizing them up, wondering which of them would choose to enter the competition, and who would come out on top. I tried to focus on these thoughts, rather than the confusion that lay hidden within me, like a trap waiting to spring.

I couldn’t help but notice young Kale as he helped with the preparations. I had looked at him as a child at first, but when I saw him with his shirt off, driving stakes into the ground with a great mallet, I realized that he truly was a young man. I watched him working and saw in Kale another young man that I remembered from that same camp. My thoughts went tail spinning towards Robie, and the harder I tried not to think of him, the more it seemed I couldn’t stop.

When the afternoon finally came and Analyn called for the contestants, I felt the burden of my thoughts fall away. I gladly went to the edge of the camp, prepared to throw myself into my work. I meant to study the contestants carefully, looking not only for the strongest, fittest fighters, but also the wisest. Analyn had prepared several tests for just this purpose. Tests that could not be won by strength or wits alone. The winner would be fit, clever, and determined.

Analyn stood on the back of a wagon and instructed the contestants to line up in front of her. They streamed out of the camp. To my chagrin, Tam appeared among them. He was the only Tal’mar in the group, though a good number of them appeared in the crowd to enjoy the entertainment. I cocked an eyebrow at him, wondering what he was up to.

“Excellent,” Analyn said. “We have several trials for you today. The judges will be watching you for speed, strength, and wits. Those of you who aim only to win the contests may not rank highest in the scoring if the judges deem your conduct unsportsmanlike. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Excellent,” Analyn said. “Then we will begin with archery. Line up in front of the targets. Take your shot and then pass the bow on to the next contestant. Your score will be based on the best three out of five rounds. Let’s begin!”

“Wait!” a voice cried out at the back of the crowd. “Wait, I’m almost there!”