In Thunder Forged

by Ari Marmell

  Until, finally, the pomp and circumstance wound to a close—or at least a pause—and she was able to address the reason for their presence.

  “I understand, my Lord, that Baron Halcourt and his household have been staying with you?”

  “Indeed he is. If you’d be so good as to follow . . . ?”

  Servants, honor guard, baron, minister, and knights all trooped along the walkway through the Surros estate, winding between a fountain here, a flower garden there . . .

  Flower garden?

  “Powdered reagents in the soil,” Chalerynne explained in a stage whisper when she asked. “Very expensive, even when purchased directly from the Golden Crucible. They allow vegetation to thrive in weather that would otherwise be too extreme.”

  “And you’re using this for flowers rather than, say, food crops?”

  The minister shrugged. “As I said, very expensive. It’s actually more cost-effective to import vegetables and grains than it would be to make widespread use.”

  Katherine, now put in mind of one of her many reasons for leaving Archduke Laddermore’s court, brutally suppressed a scowl.

  Halcourt awaited them in the grand foyer of the manor, clad in a coat of fox fur, with servants gathered behind him in a fair imitation of Surros’s own welcoming party. He’d positioned himself beneath a massive gold-and-crystal chandelier, with the sweeping stairs and a grand portrait of a Surros ancestor as his backdrop. It was so exquisitely staged, Katherine almost felt obligated to applaud.

  Ignoring that urge, as well as the fact that Halcourt had assuredly been watching the entire affair from the great bay window nearby, she took two more steps and dropped to one knee.

  “Lieutenant Katherine Laddermore, my Lord.” She indicated the other two knights, kneeling just behind her. “These are Privates Pruscott and Sadler.”

  “Yes, yes, rise.” Then, once they’d done so, “So, will your unit be escorting us home, Lieutenant? Or have his Majesty’s armies finally chosen to fortify Leryn? It’s about time he . . .” Halcourt’s eyes suddenly bulged. “The front hasn’t moved this far already, has it? Last we heard, they were tied up at Riversmet . . .”

  “No, my Lord. So far as I know, that’s still the case. But I fear you misunderstand. We’re not an advance for a larger unit. We’re here on our own.”

  Halcourt’s face stretched grotesquely, attempting to fall in chagrin and clench in fury simultaneously, but having forgotten quite how to do either. The murmurs from the Llaelese delegation sounded equally put out. They’d obviously assumed that some amount of additional relief and safety, in the form of Cygnaran soldiers and warjacks, were even now on their way.

  “There’s . . .” Halcourt was turning a shade of crimson more appropriate to vegetation, or perhaps some sort of tropical avian. “There’s only the three of you?”

  She chose to take no offense at the clear disdain. “I fear so, my Lord. A larger group would have been unable to slip by the Khadoran scouts.”

  “I see. And precisely what good are three Storm Knights supposed to accomplish?”

  “We’re here for your protection, my Lord. We’re assigned to ensure your safety until circumstances permit you to return home.”

  “Really.” It didn’t even pretend to be a question. “And you’re going to provide a measure of security that my own household guards, to say nothing of Baron Surros’s people, can’t offer?”

  Katherine started to shrug, then caught herself, glad the armor hid most of the abortive gesture. “We’ll do what we can, of course. His Majesty is concerned for your safety, and we were the ones available—”

  “I’m sure he is.” Halcourt’s face had made up its mind; definitely leaning toward rage over chagrin. “Just as I’m sure you’re in no way here to keep an eye on me. Is Leto worried I’ll embarrass him? Or is it fear that I’ll accomplish something here that he could not?”

  “I wouldn’t presume to speak for his Majesty. I can only give you my word that we were given no such assignment.”

  “Hmph. All right. Your father’s a good man, so I’ll accept your word. For now.” He stepped away, mind clearly moving on to other topics. “My staff will see you settled—in the rooms provided for my household, of course,” he added to his host, who merely nodded. “Give a yell if you need someone to play squire, help you in and out of your armor. And of course, the grooms will see to your mounts.

  “We have a working routine here, Lieutenant. Please see that you and your men keep any disruptions to a minimum.”

  Katherine turned, bemused, from the baron’s retreating back, to see only her knights, and Surros’s staff remaining in the foyer. Chalerynne and his honor guard had departed without a word in farewell. Now that they were no longer the harbingers of Cygnaran military salvation, apparently they weren’t worth much more in the way of effort.

  “This assignment,” she muttered from the corner of her mouth, even as she pasted on a dazzling smile for the approaching maids, “is going to be an absolute joy.”

  Nodding in unison, Pruscott and Sadler followed as the senior maid directed Katherine toward the stairs.

  ***

  From the servant-crowded recesses at the rear of the foyer, Dignity gawped in undisguised horror.

  This was the backup they’d sent? This?!

  She’d been anticipating—been counting on—more CRS operatives. Expecting a Storm Knight to perform a discreet operation wasn’t quite as ludicrous as assigning a Centurion-class warjack to pick flowers, but it was certainly a stop along the same line. Either something had gone very wrong (not unlikely), Nemo and Rebald were playing a much more complex and devious game than she knew (also not unlikely), or things had gotten much, much more desperate. Which, alas, wasn’t substantially more unlikely than options one and two.

  Still and all, she might turn this to her advantage. For over a week, despite her best efforts, her search for agents of Section Three had proved just as fruitless as her search for Idran di Meryse and his missing formulae. Until today, she’d run out of options.

  Now, though? The clanking and ponderous Storm Knights might not be much for stealth and secrecy, but their loud and shiny armor made for some awfully attractive bait . . .

  Even inside, there was no escaping.

  The rain was a steady pounding, as constant and far more pervasive than the rumble of wheels and the screech of engines had been aboard the Lady Ellena. The flimsy and weather-warped walls reverberated, an entire orchestra of mismatched drums, flexing just enough to let the chill and soggy gusts inside without permitting the miasma of cheap pipe smoke and unwashed bodies to dissipate in turn. From between the chunks of thatch and the shingles, thin ribbons of accumulated rainwater, clouded with mildew and clumps of collected dirt, dribbled into rusty basins and pots spread throughout the chamber. The place would actually have been more comfortable had it been snowing or sleeting, rather than raining.

  It wasn’t a restaurant, wasn’t a tavern, wasn’t a store, wasn’t an inn—not precisely. Rather, the establishment seemed little more than a gathering spot for the miserable laborers, teamsters, and sailors of Fisherbrook to vent their frustrations at one another. Food and drink were available—the latter in rather more substantial quantities than the former—but only because the proprietor purchased them from the town’s other businesses and resold them here. To most of his customers, the convenience of one-stop consumption was worth the markup.

  Lacking even a formal name, the place played at being all manner of things without quite succeeding at becoming any of them. The bulk of Fisherbrook’s citizens did the same: Even had there been anything resembling opportunity to make something of themselves—which there wasn’t, here, not anymore—the will to try had been stomped out of them.

  In a corner of shadow and cobweb, around a table that seemed to be made up of random boards nailed together by a hyperactive inmate, slumped Benwynne, Wendell, and the three corporals. They nursed drinks that tasted mostly of rust, chewed at gummy wads
that purported to be some manner of fish, and tried to internalize their loathing for the foul place in which they found themselves.

  And, in many cases, for one another.

  Having apparently lost the battle with it, Atherton spit a semi-chewed gobbet back onto his cracked and filthy plate. “The hell are we doing here, Sergeant?” Like the others, he was dressed not in uniform, but in ragged clothes so caked with dirt they’d likely have turned an incoming blade. In other words, like everyone else in town.

  “Following orders,” she told him, not for the first time. She remained focused on her own plate, where she prodded at various morsels with a bent fork as if trying to startle one into movement.

  “Hmph. Never thought I’d envy the rest of the squad,” the gunmage muttered.

  The “rest of the squad,” as he put it, were camped near the banks of the Dragon’s Tongue, far enough east of Fisherbrook to avoid the townsfolk’s attention. They were, no doubt, soaked to the bone, freezing, and all-around miserable.

  “I’m sure Master Sergeant Habbershant would be happy to let you join them,” Cadmoore rumbled irritably.

  “Not asking him for bugger-all.”

  Habbershant scowled. “I’m right here, you know, Corporal.”

  “Yeah, I’d noticed.”

  Wendell, who’d only recently joined them at the table, opened his mouth to reply—and then his gaze happened to flicker to Atherton’s hair.

  “Gaust . . .”

  Atherton offered only a small grunt, which might or might not indicate he’d even heard.

  “Where’s the ribbon?”

  The gunmage slammed his drink to the table. “I told you I’m not wearing that damn thing!”

  “And I told you, Corporal. It’s a prearranged signal, and you’re the only one here with hair long enough to—”

  “Master Sergeant, did you happen to note the paddlewheel on the boat we took from Bainsmarket?”

  Mouth still moving, Wendell blinked twice in confusion. Then, “Yes?”

  “You saw the decorative scalloped edges along the sides of the paddles?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “And how that one paddle had a crack running across it, so it was jagged?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Well, I’d rather squat over that paddlewheel naked and dangle my—”

  “Stow that, Corporal!” Benwynne finally looked up, ready to chew bullets. “You’ve been given an order by a superior officer, and I expect you to damn well obey it!” Then, more softly, “I taught you better than this.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.” His tone was no less bitter, his anger no cooler, but Atherton reached into a pocket, withdrew an obnoxiously bright green ribbon, and used it to tie his hair into a haphazard tail.

  “How long do I have to sit here like this?” he grumped.

  “Until our contact shows,” Wendell said. Angrily, he attacked his own food (such as it was), the whole table shimmying with the thrusts of knife and fork.

  And so it went, as it had most of yesterday, as it would until something changed. Wendell spent long minutes trying to chew the fish, less because he was hungry—the rubbery stuff was enough to suppress most appetites, anyway—than because it gave him something other than Gaust’s insubordination, Ben’s distance, or his own guilt on which to dwell.

  Of course, if the guy didn’t show soon, and it turned out that he’d rushed them and usurped Benwynne’s command for nothing . . .

  “You look chilly.”

  Wendell jumped. He’d neither seen nor heard the stranger approach. “I wouldn’t mind the cold so much,” the man continued, “if everything wasn’t so gray.”

  “What the hell are you—” Atherton began sourly, but the mechanik silenced him.

  “I normally like gray,” he said to the newcomer, “but I do wish I could see the stars.”

  The stranger nodded once at the countersign and pulled up a chair. He, like the rest of them, was dressed raggedly and unremarkably, though he’d added a frayed brown cloak with a hood to keep the worst of the rain—and possibly curious eyes—from his head. This close, Wendell saw narrow features and a dark, meticulously waxed goatee beneath steady blue orbs. Something about that face, and the slightest hint of an accent, sparked an ember of memory, but he couldn’t quite fan it into open flame.

  “You can take that silly thing off, now,” the new arrival told Atherton. The gunmage, after a glance at Benwynne, hid the ribbon back in his pocket.

  “You lot,” the man continued, “are not precisely what I was led to expect.”

  “No, we’re not,” Wendell admitted. “You’ve heard of the recent attacks up and down the Dragon’s Tongue?”

  “Some, yes.”

  Lowering his voice further, though there was really little need, Wendell said, “The CRS team was caught in one of them. We’re all that was available to replace them on short notice.”

  “I see. And you are . . . ?”

  “4th Platoon, 7th Division, technically out of Caspia. Second Army Unorthodox Engagement team. I’m Master Sergeant Habbershant. This is Sergeant Bracewell, our proper field commander.” If Benwynne cared that he’d indicated she was still primarily in charge, she offered no acknowledgment. “Corporals Dalton, Cadmoore, and Gaust.”

  “Oswinne Muir,” the other said, pulling back his hood enough to offer them a clearer view without exposing himself to the room at large. “Special operative for the Ordic Crown.”

  Atherton chuckled. “Oswinne Muir? Like the playwright? I can’t tell if that’s a brilliant field designation or an asinine one.”

  But Wendell, Benwynne, and Serena had all recoiled with varying muffled gasps. The face alone hadn’t been sufficient—the man was rarely if ever in front of the curtain—but combined with the name . . .

  No wonder he looked familiar!

  “That’s . . . not a cover designation, Corporal,” Benwynne whispered.

  The gunmage cocked his head, bewildered, and then his jaw dropped as understanding crammed itself between his teeth and down his throat.

  Oswinne only shrugged at the array of incredulous stares. “Well, it makes a fantastic cover for traveling, doesn’t it? I mean, would you expect it?”

  “Now, wait . . .” Atherton seemed to be truly struggling. “So were you an author who was recruited as a spy? Or were you already a spy who somehow got famous? Or—?”

  “Are you a soldier who became a gunmage?” Oswinne retorted. “Or a gunmage who became a soldier?”

  “Uh, more or less both from the start.”

  “There you are, then.”

  “Wait . . .” Benwynne tensed, ready to rise from her seat. “How did you know he was a gunmage?”

  “So suspicious, Sergeant.” The Ordic operative leaned back, arms crossed. “I know quite a bit about your unit already, although I didn’t anticipate meeting you in person any time soon. How did your operation on the coast go, by the by? Uncover any proof of Khadoran involvement with the raiders?”

  “You provided that intelligence?!”

  “Well, I didn’t carry the message personally, of course, but . . .” He shrugged once more.

  “Last I heard,” Serena said, “Ord was pretty firmly neutral in our war with Khador. Why are you working with us?”

  Oswinne raised a finger, telling her to wait. He seemed somehow to glance around without actually moving, and the others realized swiftly that he was judging the volume level of the room around them.

  “All right,” he acquiesced finally. “Should be safe if we keep it down. It’d be easier if you spoke Ordic, but . . .”

  “Some of us do,” Serena told him. At the playwright’s raised eyebrow, she said, “My grandmother was an immigrant. I grew up speaking some Ordic, though it’s been a while.”

  “Ah.” Then, in his own language, “Well enough, sister.”

  “I, however, do not speak Ordic,” Benwynne reminded them. “And I’ve no intention of sitting here waiting to hear a translation later on.”
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  “Of course,” Oswinne agreed. Then he continued, more softly, “Precisely how much have you actually been told about this operation?”

  “The rest of them know only about the extraction of Baron Halcourt,” Wendell replied, also little above a whisper. “They’re aware there’s more to it, but not what. I know a bit more—not all of it, but enough to tell if you were to, say, accidentally omit or alter any salient details.”

  Several of his fellow soldiers hissed at the accusation, and the implied insult that went with it, but Oswinne only laughed. “CRS, are you? You sound like one.”

  “Among other things, yes.” Wendell forced himself not to look at the others as he spoke; he didn’t want to know what they were feeling.

  “So, here it is in brief.” Oswinne leaned in. “Some of you probably already know that your Commander Adept Nemo has been working, along with his people, to develop a new generation of galvanic weaponry. More potent than your Stormclad warjacks or any arms you currently possess; a stormchamber capable of holding enormous amounts of power, beyond anything you’ve seen.”

  Wendell, who had long heard rumors through his fellow mechaniks of classified ’jack projects with designations like “Firefly” and “Thunderhead,” nodded.

  “But how would you know about—” Roland began.

  “Please, let me get there by my own route, if you would. Nemo accomplished a great deal, but one problem he was unable to crack was how to protect the mechanisms—and, where necessary, the wielders—from the increased energies. The normal protections worked into your armors and ’jacks couldn’t withstand this increased level of electricity.

  “So, he turned to the only alchemists more skilled in metallurgy than any under his own authority.”

  “The Golden Crucible,” Benwynne breathed.

  Oswinne thumped a hand on the table. “Precisely! Of course, Nemo had no reason to anticipate treachery, what with the close alliance between Llael and Cygnar. The Crucible has, in fact, worked on other military projects for your nation in the past. Still, he took precautions. Different alchemists worked on different aspects of the metallurgy or the alloying process, and only a few knew what the end result was meant to accomplish. The only one who knew the whole picture—or at least the only one who was supposed to—was Engman Drew.”