Council of Fire

by Eric Flint

  Coffey’s head came up alongside his. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “They’re almost gone from the square.” He pointed down. “See?”

  She raised her head a little further, giving herself a better view of the Common. “Where did they go? What are they doing?”

  York shook his head. “I don’t know what they’re doing, or why. There’s something on Broad Way that drew their attention. Don’t know what—or who—it is.”

  From York and Coffey’s vantage point, they were three blocks from the intersection of the Broad Way and the Common and couldn’t see anything on the street itself.

  They could hear the monsters, though. And from the swelling chorus of their cries and shrieks, York was sure the things were about to launch an attack on someone.

  Then, suddenly, a new sound arose. A high-pitched squealing blast, like something produced by a demon’s trumpet.

  The blast was repeated immediately—and then again and again. York realized there had to be more than one source producing them.

  The blasts were loud. Unbelievably loud. Even several blocks away and shielded by intervening buildings, York was almost deafened; his mind, numb. He could only imagine what those blasts must sound like—feel like—at close range.

  Suddenly, the bat-winged monsters came pouring back into the Common. It was their turn to be panicked by something. Coffey and York lowered their heads again, keeping them just high enough to be able to see what was happening below.

  A new monster burst onto the common, followed by another and then another.

  Coffey hissed, wordlessly. These things were . . . incredible. They made the creatures Jupiter had summoned seem like lap dogs.

  To begin with, they were huge. York was glad the building on the roof of which he and Coffey were hiding upon was three stories tall. The shoulders of these newly-arrived creatures were as high off the ground as the windows on the second floor of the buildings along the square—the middle of the windows, not the ledge. Fifteen feet, at a guess.

  The bat-winged beasts tried to rally now, turning back and squaring off against the three behemoths coming into the Common. York was sure the only reason they did so was their innate savagery. Even outnumbering their foes by ten-to-one or more, he didn’t think they had any chance at all. It was like watching a mob of kittens squaring off against mastiffs.

  The giants spread their tentacles and issued that horrendous high-pitched bellow. Coffey and York clapped their hands over their ears, forgetting the danger of being spotted if they moved. They had no choice, really.

  The squealing bellows stunned the batwing creatures. Dozens of them just froze in the square, paralyzed for the moment.

  A moment was all the behemoths needed. They plunged into the gargoyle mob, slaughtering as they went.

  Some of the creatures that Jupiter had summoned were trampled to death. Others were gored by huge tusks, their blood and entrails sent flying. Some were smashed into pulp by armored tails. Most of them, though, were torn apart by the behemoths’ tentacles. A few were also ripped open by the giant beaks, but most of the bat-winged creatures seized by tentacles were simply dismembered and their pieces pounded back onto the cobblestones.

  The butchery seemed to go on and on. Afterward, York realized it all had to have happened within a minute or two. Toward the end, perhaps a dozen of Jupiter’s beasts managed to shake free from their paralysis and tried to escape.

  Not many of them succeeded. The behemoths, those grotesque manticoran combinations of elephant, crocodile and octopus, could only move in a lumber. But their legs were so long that even lumbering they covered a great distance quickly. And whenever Jupiter’s brutes began to forge ahead, another squealing blast would cause them to stumble, sometimes fall. The behemoths simply trampled them under as they continued their pursuit.

  Most of the bat-winged creatures tried to escape in the direction of the tanners’ yards. But some of them, when they reached it, plunged down the side street leading to King George Street.

  York rose and ran across the roof toward the staircase, staying in a crouch the whole way. Once he got to the staircase, he peered over cautiously.

  His worst fears had materialized. Four of Jupiter’s beasts were coming up the staircase, seeking shelter from the behemoths.

  Coffey joined him. As soon as she spotted the monsters coming up the stairs, she screeched and looked around the rooftop. Spotting some lumber stacked nearby against the retaining wall, she raced over and came back clutching a board that was about six feet long and four inches in its other dimensions.

  York realized instantly that, under these circumstances, the board would make a better weapon than his short-handled hammer. It would be heavy and clumsy, but he was strong enough to use it like a spear.

  He held out the hammer. “Switch with me,” he said. Coffey didn’t argue; she just handed over the board and took the hammer. From the fierce look on her face, York knew that if it came to that she’d use it as a weapon herself. Try to, anyway.

  She was quite a girl. Really pretty, too.

  But this was no time for such pleasant thoughts. The first of the monsters had gotten past the second-floor landing and was coming up the final stretch of the staircase. By now, it had spotted York standing at the top and was gnashing its iron teeth at him, its bat wings extended outward.

  That was for show, York thought. The creatures couldn’t really fly. Like squirrels displaying their tails, they used the bat wings to make themselves look much larger and more frightening.

  As if they needed to look more frightening!

  The beast was within striking range. With his right hand cupping the end of the board to provide most of the force and his left providing the guidance, York smashed the end of the board into the monster’s neck.

  York was very strong. Not as strong as Jupiter had been, but much stronger than most men. The strike had been perfectly aimed, too. The board crushed the beast’s windpipe and sent it reeling back down the staircase, clutching its throat.

  It didn’t go far, though, because the next creature was only a few feet behind. But the tangle when the two of them collided took a few seconds to get sorted out. During the course of those seconds, realizing that she’d do more good to provide York with another board than to brandish the hammer herself, Coffey had raced back to the pile of lumber and was bringing back another board.

  Smart girl, too.

  By the time Coffey got back with the second board, the next creature was swarming up the stairs. York tried the same spear-thrust, but the monster batted the board-end aside and charged forward. The two of them grappled. The only thing that kept York from having his flesh torn off by those hideous iron teeth was that he’d been able to interpose the board between them. Even so, the beast’s claws were tearing into his back and it wouldn’t be long before it was able to bite. The thing was strong, despite being a foot shorter than York.

  Suddenly, a hammer smote the top of the monster’s head. Coffey had leaned over the staircase rail and taken a swing at it. The impact knocked the hammer loose from her grip and it sailed down onto the street below. But the blow had stunned the thing long enough for York to break free from the grapple and strike its face with the board held crossways.

  The thing stumbled down two steps, giving York enough room to shift his grip on the board. Again, he drove it like a spear and this time the end of the board struck true—smack into the monster’s face. The iron teeth didn’t break, but the monster’s jaw did. It collapsed onto the stairs.

  Unfortunately, before it did so the beast managed to seize the end of the board and yank it out of York’s grasp. The next monster just clambered over it, coming at York. Frantically, he turned and Coffey handed him the second board. But that took enough time that when the third monster arrived York didn’t have enough room for the spear strike. Again, he had to use the board simply as a shield of sorts.

  He was starting to despair, now. But he and the beasts on the s
taircase were stunned, when another of those incredible squealing sound-blasts struck them. Looking down, in a daze, York saw that one of the behemoths was standing at the bottom of the staircase.

  There would be no rescue, though, since the huge creature couldn’t possibly get up the stairs. But the giant solved the problem by seizing the base of the staircase in its tentacles and just ripping the whole structure off the building. The four iron-toothed horrors came down with it—proving, along the way, that those batwings were useless for flying.

  Once they struck the street surface, the behemoth finished the business, stamping all of them into bloody paste.

  That done, it looked up at York and Coffey for a moment before lumbering away.

  “Now what?” asked Coffey. “How do we get down from here?”

  Chapter 53

  There will be a new dispensation

  The scene Boscawen saw as he came into the Common with Minerva, Absalom and his marine escort reminded him of the carnage on his ship during the First Battle of Cape Finisterre, twelve years earlier. Namur’s deck had been awash with blood, but what he’d always remembered most were the dismembered bodies and often unidentifiable body parts strewn all over. It had been like something out of the Italian poet Dante’s Inferno.

  Cannon balls and—still more—the huge splinters which they sent flying when they struck a wooden ship had that effect on human bodies. The monsters Minerva had summoned, the ones she called “grootslang,” had had the same effect on the sasabonsam. They’d simply ripped the ogres into pieces and flung the pieces everywhere.

  After taking not more than a dozen steps into the square, the admiral stopped and turned to Washington. “You’d best get the specie now, man.” He reached into his coat pocket and extracted a large set of keys on a ring. Then, selected one of the keys and handed it to the young officer. “My compliments to Lieutenant Pascal; instruct him to offer you all assistance.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Washington. He hesitated for a moment. “With your permission I shall take Gustavus with me, but I think I may need the help of two of your marines.”

  Briefly, Boscawen estimated the weight of the specie, and nodded his head. “Yes, I believe you will. And you can find a cart and draft horse in the stables. Tell the hostler you have my permission to use them. He won’t argue the point.”

  Once Washington was gone, Boscawen surveyed the area for a full minute before saying anything further.

  Unlike New York’s streets, which were generally paved, most of the Common’s surface was compacted dirt. That was perhaps a blessing in these circumstances, for the soil had absorbed most of the blood produced by the grootslang slaughter and what remained on the surface was drying out rapidly. It was a hot day, even for July.

  The admiral looked up at the buildings fronting the south side of the Common. Most of them were three stories tall, and now he could see a few heads appearing in the windows. Even from the distance, the fear and apprehension on those faces was obvious.

  He couldn’t be sure until he questioned those people, but he doubted if many of them—quite possibly any of them—had actually witnessed the events that had transpired here. Once the mob of ogres had been led into the Common by Jupiter and had dispersed the militia which had gathered there, most of the residents would have fled also. All the buildings would have doors exiting onto back and side streets.

  Some would have stayed, though, too old or too feeble or just too frightened to try to escape. But they would have hidden somewhere in their apartments, not spent the time gawking at mayhem out the windows.

  “There’s someone up there,” said Absalom. He was pointing to one of the buildings on the southeastern corner of the Common. Following his finger, Boscawen saw two negroes atop the roof. One was a man, the other a woman, and they both appeared to be quite young.

  “They might have seen something,” suggested Minerva.

  “Let’s hope so,” said Boscawen. He started walking toward the building. They were too far away to make themselves understood to the couple on the roof, even if they shouted.

  As they drew near to the narrow side street leading to William Street and King George Street, Boscawen turned to the ranking marine in the little group. “Corporal Hammond, take a man with you and inspect the back of the building.” He pointed at the entrance to the side street. “You should be able to reach it through there. Let me know if there’s a way for these youngsters to get down to the street. Quickly, now. We have no time to waste.”

  The corporal trotted off, after detailing one of the privates to follow him. Not long thereafter, Boscawen and the rest of his party reached the base of the building.

  Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted to the two youngsters above: “Did you see what happened here?”

  The girl shouted back, “Yes, sir! We saw it all!” She pointed toward Broad Way. “Jupiter brought the bat-things out here from the blacksmith shop and they drove off the militiamen. They started to chase after them but then these other monsters arrived and started killing them. The bat-things, I mean. The new monsters were huge.”

  The young man next to her shouted: “I think they were some kind of elephants, sir!”

  Some kind of elephants was as good a description of the grootslang as any Boscawen could think of. Clearly, these two young people had witnessed the events.

  “Come down!” he shouted.

  The negroes on the roof looked at each other, and then looked behind them.

  “We can’t, sir!” That came from the girl. “The bat-things tried to get up the stairs—York fought them off for a while—and then one of the elephant monsters arrived and tore down the stairs. There’s no way down!”

  Boscawen frowned. There had to be some sort of internal staircase in the building. He couldn’t imagine anyone designing a three-story structure with no way to get from one floor to another.

  Corporal Hammond appeared, trotting up the side street. When he reached the admiral, he said: “There are several bodies of the”—he glanced at Minerva—“sasabon-things lying in the street. Someone—something—probably one of the”—he glanced at Minerva again—“groot-things, must have torn the staircase apart. There’s nothing left of it except pieces of wood strewn all about.”

  Boscawen looked back up at the two people on the roof. Again cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted: “There must be another staircase that reaches the roof from inside the building! Find it and come down!”

  The youngsters disappeared for a minute or two. Then they came back to the edge of the roof.

  “There is one!” the boy shouted down. “But the door’s locked.”

  Boscawen was getting impatient. “You look like a strong lad!” he shouted. “Just break it down!”

  But the large negro didn’t move.

  “He’s probably a slave, Admiral,” said Absalom. “Even if he’s a freedman, he’s in a part of the city where he’ll be viewed with suspicion—downright hostility, more like. He’s worried about the trouble he’ll get into if he does something like smash up a door in a building like this.”

  Boscawen started to throw up his hands, but controlled his aggravation. The Absalom fellow was probably right.

  He strode toward the entrance of the building—only to discover that it, too, was locked.

  But he was a white man and an admiral in the British Navy to boot—and he had the wherewithal to deal with the door, which didn’t look all that sturdy to begin with.

  He stepped back and pointed at it. “Hammond, smash this door in.”

  Quite cheerfully, the corporal went about the work, using his musket butt to good effect. It took no more than fifteen seconds to leave the door splintered and hanging off its hinges.

  Boscawen strode into the building and looked around. He was in a narrow corridor, perhaps fifty feet long, lined with doors on either side at regular intervals. The entrances to apartments, clearly enough. At the very end of the corridor, he could see the lower portion of a stai
rcase leading upward.

  He headed toward it, followed by everyone else in his party. They encountered no one along the way, which didn’t surprise the admiral. Whoever might have remained in the building would still be hiding in fear.

  It didn’t take long to reach the final flight of the stairs, which led up from the third floor to the roof. There was a small landing at the top, barely big enough for two people.

  But quite big enough for a solidly-built corporal with a musket. Boscawen stepped aside and motioned Hammond forward. “If you would, Corporal.”

  Just as cheerily as before, Hammond made short work of that door as well. Once it fell away, Boscawen could see the two young negroes standing there.

  “Come along,” he said. “I need to question you further.”

  The two negroes looked at each other. Apprehensively, still.

  “What is the problem now?” Boscawen demanded.

  The girl looked at him. “Well, sir . . . York here is a slave. I’m a freedwoman—my name’s Coffey, sir—but I do have a mistress—she’s not a kind lady—and . . . and . . . ”

  Boscawen was becoming thoroughly exasperated by some of New York’s customs.

  “Never mind all that!” he said brusquely. “If need be, I’ll buy this—what’s your name, lad? York?—from his owner. And since you’re already freed, Miss Coffey, I’ll just hire you away from your employer.”

  The girl still looked uneasy. “Mrs. Eastgate probably won’t like that, sir.”

  “Ask me if I care!” said Boscawen, almost—not quite—shouting.

  He heard a little giggle coming from down the stairs. Turning, he saw that Minerva was grinning up at him. For some reason, those shining teeth lightened his mood greatly.

  He chuckled himself. Then, waved at York and Coffey to follow him. “Don’t worry about your master and mistress,” he said. “If need be, I shall set them straight as to the new dispensation.”