The other toughs yelled in outrage, and charged the cart.
Right then, Arizun came up from the cart bed with a short bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. He loaded, snap-aimed, and fired past Yanados, catching one of the boys high in the chest. The boy screeched, dropped his club and knife, stumbled to his knees, and began tugging at the arrow. The others skidded to a stop, unwilling to face arrows. Yanados whooped and swung her hatchet at the nearest, making him dance away.
The thugs ahead of the wagon ran toward the mules, the nearest reaching for the bridles. Doshi, guessing what they meant to do, hauled furiously on the reins, shouting incoherently at the mules. The frightened beasts reared, braying, flailing the air with their hooves, making the attackers scramble out of the way. Doshi used the instant's respite to clutch the reins in one hand and fumble under the seat for the cart-whip with the other.
Arizun aimed and loosed another arrow, this one gouging a path across a half-turned man's ribs and finally lodging itself in his arm. The man howled and jumped away, dropping his knife and club.
The mules dropped back to all fours, and two of the young toughs lunged for their reins. Doshi came up with the whip and lashed out at the nearer, catching him squarely across the face. The thug screamed and stumbled to his knees, pawing at his face, but the other two jumped past him to grab at the mules.
One of the mules reared again, lashing out with its with its hooves and catching one boy with a resounding thump in the belly. The other mule snapped, but missed. The remaining tough grabbed the bridle and hauled the mule's head down, hefted his club, and thwacked the mule about the ears. Doshi snapped out the whip and welted the boy's clubbing arm, making him drop the bludgeon and duck down below the mule's chest, but not shaking him loose. Doshi flailed again with the whip and yelled for help.
Arizun loosed another arrow, puncturing a man's leg. The other two, seeing the odds change drastically, turned and ran. The wounded man limped after them, cursing.
"Back up!" Yanados shouted. "We're clear, Doshi. Back up!"
"I can't!" Doshi yelled, pointing.
Arizun turned around, aimed carefully, and fired. The arrow whizzed past Doshi's ear, through the tangle of reins and harness, and buried itself in the attacker's forearm. The youth screeched and let go of the reins.
Doshi was too frozen to react, but the mules, kicking and braying in outrage, backed up of their own accord. The attacking tough, exposed now, turned and ran.
Arizun, swearing, dropped the bow, clambered back into the seat, grabbed the reins, and pulled the mules further back. A dozen paces and they were at the mouth of the crossing street. Arizun hauled the mules' heads toward the turn, slapped the reins on their rumps, and let them go. The beasts, willing enough, turned and scrambled into the open, empty road.
"No pursuit," Yanados announced from the tail of the cart.
"We'll try again at the second street over," Arizun decided. "It's a good bit wider, no room for traps."
"You had a bow," Doshi squeaked.
"I always do, these days. Lucky thing, eh?"
"You could have shot me!"
"Nonsense, I went right past you. Don't you think I know how to shoot?"
"It's unlawful to carry bows in the public streets!"
"It's unlawful to rob folk, too. Does the law prevent robbers? Hey, pull to the right here; there's our street."
"Is there any blood on me?" Yanados asked, wiping her hatchet clean on some sacking. "And nice shooting, Ari."
Doshi bit his lip and reined the mules toward the turn.
* * *
"It might not be that bad everywhere," Sulun considered, remembering his old teacher's endless advice to see a problem from all sides. "This was down toward the river, in a poor section."
"Not that close to the river, not that poor a neighborhood, and in broad light of noon," Yanados glowered, looking up from her long knife and sharpening-stone. "It's that bad, Sulun."
"Very well. We'll have to send out more people with every run to the old workshop. How much do we have there now?"
"Blankets, two changes of clothing, some dried fruit," Vari ticked off on her fingers, her shadow dancing on the yellowed wall behind her. "Sulfur, charcoal, some spare tools (Arizun would know which), some medicinal herbs (not enough), three kitchen knives, four short knives—"
"Not enough," Omis growled. "As soon as I've finished with these cursed brasses, I'll make long knives and arrowheads for the lot of you."
"It might be quicker to go and buy some," Arizun considered. "If enough of us go out together, we should get to the market and back safely."
"We can't spare the money," Sulun pointed out. "We'll just have to make more noon visits to the workshop. You left it closed up tight, I trust?"
"Oh yes," Doshi said, his voice still shaky. "Everything buried, locked, barricaded . . . Do you all intend to carry bows?"
"I can make enough for all of us." Yanados smiled, examining the edge of her knife.
"Was there any sign of tampering about the doors or windows?" Sulun asked.
"A little." Arizun sniffed. "Omis's good iron locks and hinges thwarted them. Hah."
"Well enough. Now supposing we don't have to flee, how much more time before we can get back to work on the bombard?"
"Another tenday, at least," Omis groaned. "All that damned brass, and the gears, and the driving-axle . . . and then the polishing and fitting and assembling . . . Gods, the engine model won't be ready until the end of the month."
Everyone looked at Sulun.
"Gods," he sighed, "What can I tell Zeren?"
Nobody had any suggestions.
"What's that shouting outside?" Ziya piped up, surprising everyone. "Is that robbers?"
Arizun dived for the narrow window, Yanados half a step behind him. "I don't know," he complained. "I can't see a thing from this side. It's toward the front of the house, in the street."
"Go and look then," Sulun ordered them impatiently. "To get on then, Omis, once the engine's complete and we've put it on Entori's damned ship—watch your feet!"
Arizun, Yanados, and Ziya ignored him in their rush for the door. They scurried out into the dim corridor, hugged the wall as they scampered through the darkened courtyard, and clung to the shadows of the main hall as they raced toward the stairs and the front windows. There they pulled up short, seeing two rows of the maids and the porter there ahead of them. Most of the front windows were taken, but the three apprentices managed to wriggle between the maids for a good view.
Shadows leaped in the street, thrown by torches set on top of a huge, box-shaped wagon. Guardsmen stood at the barred rear door of the wagon, and held the heads of the oxen drawing it. Still other guards hurried up the street, driving a knot of complaining men at spearpoint,
As the servants of Entori's darkened house watched, the guardsmen threw open the wagon door and pushed the wailing civilians inside. The door thudded shut, followed by the slam of a heavy bolt. Then came shouts, the clatter of boot heels, and a creaking and rumbling as the wagon rolled off down the shadowed street. The protesting wails of the men locked in the wagon took longest to fade from hearing.
"Why did they take all those men?" Ziya asked of anyone who could answer.
"Press gang," the porter spat. "They're snatching poor folk off the streets to join the army and fight the Ancar."
"We'd best not be seen abroad after dark," Yanados muttered, sliding down from the window. "Still, this might thin out the street robbers."
"Will our walls really keep them out?" Ziya asked.
Nobody answered.
* * *
"No sense in delay," Sulun announced, making a last critical inspection of the gear train. "Light the coals and let's pour the water."
"I still don't like the bedding of this axle," Omis muttered, giving the bearings a last squirt of greasenut oil.
"It turns, it turns! Come light the coals."
"All right." Omis poured a few drops of distilled wi
ne spirits on the coals, lit the fumes with flint and steel, and stepped back to watch. The wine spirits burned with a brief blue flame and the coals caught, glowing at the edges first. Omis eyed the copper boiling-tube stretched above the brazier, tapped it to check its heat, then went to the upright funnel at the near end. "Give it another tick of the waterclock, then pour in the water," he decided. "Then, if the valves and tubing can withstand pressure enough to turn the jetwheel, and if the gears don't slip off the paddle wheels' axle, and if the paddle wheels aren't too heavy to turn, this fool thing just might work. Does the old vulture have the paddle wheels constructed yet?"
"Oh, yes." Sulun peered up and down the length of his contraption for the hundredth time, shaking his head over its bizarre shape: the turbine (more like an upright disk than its original globe shape) with its angled escape jets, the copper boiling-tube and brass steam-feed line with their carefully fitted valves and sockets, the short axle with its sturdy gearwheel waiting to engage, the fussy little forest of supports, the bolted-down brazier and the platform they all rested on. It looked utterly eccentric and ridiculous, but he knew it would work. This part of the assembly would, anyway. "He's been nagging me for days about the cost of keeping that expensive gear stored and idle."
"I just hope his carpenters got all the measurements right," Omis worried. "Proper fools we'll look if we get this set on the paddle wheel axle, take it all down to the ship, and the sockets in the deck don't fit."
"Then he can belabor the ship's carpenters, not us. Ah, I think it's warm enough. Pour in the water."
Omis shook his head, lifted the pitcher of water, and poured, carefully, into the upright funnel.
Both men took a few steps back, and waited.
Water gurgled down the funnel, through the first valve, and into the heated copper tube. There was an angry hiss, more gurgling, near-human belches as the steam tried and failed to escape back up the valve, then a faint groan of protest and a puff of steam from the turbine's jets.
Sulun and Omis held their breath and made assorted handsigns for luck. They had made all the parts to triple strength, but still . . .
Slowly, then faster, the turbine moved. It turned, rolled, spun, wreathed in a cloud of dissipating steam like a dimmed sun among roiling clouds. Its attached axle spun with it, and the final gearwheel too.
"It works!" Sulun whooped. "Praise all the gods I ever heard of, it works!"
"And the supports are holding! Look, they're not even shaking! We've done it!"
By the time their combined noise brought the apprentices running in to look, Sulun and Omis were dancing a clumsy version of the Vulgar Hop-Step around a workroom full of warm fog to the tune of the whining, spinning engine. Even Ziya cheered.
"Those sailors will have to cut extra portholes to let out all that steam," Doshi noted, but he was grinning all the same.
* * *
"Master, the engine is ready for installation." Sulun did his best to keep his face politely expressionless.
"Excellent." Entori almost smiled, then caught himself. "It took you long enough. Fortunately, the ship is in port at the moment. Do the fitting today, and tell me how well the ship performs. You are excused."
Sulun stifled a sigh, bowed, and went out. There was, he decided, no use expecting any further reaction from the Master.
He supposed he should be grateful for having a whole day to install and test the completed assembly.
* * *
"No, no! Great gods, we needed to place the engine first, then the paddle wheels!" Sulun tugged his hair and glared at the sullen ship carpenters. "Now we may have to reset that whole damned axle. Gods! Never mind. Omis, is that platform socket the right size, at least?"
"'Tis. No trouble there." Omis peered once more at the ironbound hole in the second deck, shrugged, and stood up. "Bring up the muscle-boys, and let's get this thing mounted."
Sulun, still pulling nervously at his hair, stood back and let the assorted crew manhandle the engine's platform into place. Omis did all the directing, complete with howls for careful handling, and the platform settled onto its mounting with a satisfying thud. Omis rotated the platform this way and that, glared for a moment at the huge iron axle cutting across the cabin, frowned at the two iron gears set on it, and finally swung the platform around to meet the right-hand gear.
Sulun squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see the expected failure. Surely the axle would turn out to be set too high or too low, or the drive gear from the engine wouldn't meet the gear on the axle, or the gear sizes would be wrong, or the perverse things just wouldn't engage. The house wizard was an unreliable drunk, and who could tell what the ship's wizard was up to? He'd have to go back to Entori and report another delay.
"Deese of the Forge," Omis breathed. "The gears meet perfectly."
Sulun opened his eyes and stared. Sure enough, there stood Omis, smiling as if at his own children, studying the juncture of the two neatly meshed gears.
"So the ship can move forward, at least," Doshi commented at his shoulder. "Now, can it stop and move backward too?"
"No reason it shouldn't," said Omis. He gripped two of the handles at the edge of the platform, and pulled. The platform turned smoothly, pulling the drive gear away from the wheel axle, swung in a neat half-circle, and settled against the opposite axle gear with a smug click. "See? Works fine." Omis grinned. "I'll say this much for Entori's other workmen; they can follow instructions to the last number. And his various wizards aren't all bad."
"Gods be praised." Sulun wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "Now all we need do is light the coals, pour in the water, and see if this engine will actually drive the ship."
"No trouble there." Omis went to the open hatchway in the deck above and bellowed up through it. "Captain, prepare to cast off. We're about to test the engine."
Groans and curses of dismay echoed down with the sunlight, but Omis ignored them and turned away. "Who has the coals?" he bellowed to all and sundry. "And the bucket?"
Ziya waddled up, toting a dipper and a sloshing bucket nearly as big as she was. Behind her Arizun dragged a huge sack of coals. Yanados followed with the bottle of wine spirits and the flint and steel striker. They filled the brazier, poured on the spirits, lit the coals, and stood by with the water in a neat little ceremony that impressed the watching sailors.
"We're cast off," filtered down through the hatchway. "Are you ready?"
"Wait, wait," said Omis, turning the platform until the gears engaged exactly.
"Wait, wait . . ." said Sulun, watching the copper tube above the brazier. "Now. Pour."
Ziya solemnly lifted the ladle, but couldn't quite reach to the top of the funnel. Omis, smiling, took the ladle from her and poured the water himself.
The engine hissed, gurgled, and belched. The sailors took several respectful steps backward. The captain poked his head down through the open hatchway to watch the proceedings. The first plumes of steam curled out of the jets; the turbine muttered, groaned, began to turn.
Sulun chewed his lip nearly raw and crossed his fingers under the concealment of his sleeves. Had they made the boiling-tube thick enough, the turbine sturdy enough, the valves strong enough?
A faint groan came from the main axle, and a heavier gurgling of water from the unseen paddle wheels outside. Slowly, ponderously, the gear and axle and grumbling paddle wheels began to turn.
Mixed yells came from topside. The captain snatched his head back up through the hatchway. A massive thumping, as of heavy oars, sounded rhythmically through the hull.
The captain stuck his head down through the hatchway once more. "We're moving!" he yelled, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "We're moving!"
Now they could all hear it: the steady thump of the paddles and the sloshing of water moving against the hull. The sailors swapped looks, then cheered. More cheers and yells sounded from topside, along with curses from the steersman and exhortations from the captain. The apprentices hugged each other and danced clumsily
around the platform. The rolling turbine shot out steam until the whole engine cabin was fogged and hot. Omis poured another ladleful of water down the funnel and smiled at his sturdily laboring engine much as the gods must have smiled at the new made universe.
Sulun only rubbed his forehead and heaved a profound sigh of relief.
* * *
Cheap but colorful banners bearing the name and sigil of Entori's house hung about the dock. A sizable crowd had gathered, and paid criers could be heard to landward summoning still more. Assorted pushcart merchants, taking advantage of the ready audience, peddled their way through the crowd. At the end of the dock, in a small roped-off section, sat chairs and couches for a cluster of Entori's invited guests.
"A good-sized crowd, if not a terribly respectable one," Vari commented from her place by the rail of the ship's top deck. "But as good as our master could manage, I suppose."
"Good enough to spread the word of our success all over the city," Omis considered, idly patting her hair. "Ah, here comes the old vulture now."
Sure enough: preceded by his porter, with his sister Eloti on his arm, followed by all the rest of his household, everyone dressed well for a change, Entori came strutting down the dock. The crowd stepped aside with no urging, murmuring in surprise; it had been many a long day since Entori the Miser had provided public entertainment for anyone. He paused at the end of the dock to make appropriate greetings and trade bits of conversation with the better class crowd assembled there, then gestured theatrically to the rest of his diminished household. The servants dutifully stopped where they were, taking respectful positions out of the guests' line of sight. Entori with a flourish of his heavy cape, escorted his expressionless sister up the gangplank and onto the ship. A handful of sailors dutifully played a short fanfare on the ship's pacing drum and signal trumpet. Entori took his sister to their waiting chairs on the afterdeck and, with another flourish, sat down.
"Not bad, but I've seen better shows," Arizun whispered to the other apprentices. Sulun shushed him.
A Dirge for Sabis Page 11