by Dan Davis
Weaver’s March
Writer’s Bargain
Weaver’s Worth
Archer’s Company
Weaver’s Nature
Writer’s Power
Archer’s Rifles
Weaver’s Prisoner
Writer’s Training
Weaver’s Raid
Writer’s Breakthrough
Weaver’s Fall
Writer’s Revenge
Archer’s Battle
Weaver’s Rage
Writer’s Flight
Archer’s Fury
Weaver’s Triumph
Green Earth Shaking
Gunpowder and Alchemy Book 3
By Dan Davis
Copyright © Dan Davis 2015
All Rights Reserved
For Lyra;
You are tougher even than Weaver
Plot Summary
Weaver and her friends saved the Vale. Now they must save England.
Cromwell's New Model Army, with their steam powered landships march across the country to face King Charles' mercenary musketeers, Cavaliers and battlemages. The winner will be the ruler of England.
She may be able to control the very earth under her feet but Weaver must find her place in the world. Is she destined to be a soldier, galloping with the regiment of horse against the King's Cavaliers? Or is she a revolutionary, one of the Diggers, who want nothing but peace?
Weaver’s choice will determine England’s future.
Featuring an array of historical figures, magic and gunpowder Green Earth Shaking is the thrilling third instalment in this coming of age historical fantasy series, which will entrance readers of all ages.
If you enjoy this book, then please leave a review! Your review would mean an awful lot and help other readers to discover these stories.
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“Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.”
-The Lord High Alchemist Roger Bacon from the Opus Magicus
“Who does not understand should either learn, or be silent.”
- The Lord High Alchemist John Dee from the Automata Alchemicus
Weaver’s March
‘I want to be a soldier,’ Weaver said. ‘But it’s the most boring job in the whole world, ain’t it.’
She walked, with her friends, in the middle of thousands of men, women, horses, wagons and oxen. A heaving, steaming, noisy mass of people that clanked and stank of sweat and manure.
General Cromwell’s New Model Army had been walking for a whole week. They called it marching.
Marching was supposedly a special idea that only soldiers and the army followers did but, actually, it just meant walking together in a big bundle of people. A bundle that was wider than any road they walked on and about five miles long, probably.
They had barely marched any distance at all from the Vale, maybe not even fifty miles. And they had to go at least a hundred and fifty before they would find the King’s Army and the remnants of the Alchemist’s Guild. That army was cowering on the other side of England, like a bunch of sheep cringing away from a dog. When they found the King’s Army, then Cromwell’s Army was going to smash them up.
Weaver could not wait.
She knew why the army was so slow. It was because there were thousands of soldiers and other folk in the army. It was impossible to move that many people with their wagons and landships much faster than a stroll. The landships bigger than houses, crawling along belching smoke and stinking everything up and making a terrible din. Every day at least one of them would sink into the ground a bit and hundreds of men and oxen would drag them back into motion again. At least they were always at the back.
Horses took lots of looking after. Everyone always said horses were fast but that was just for short distances. Horses walked most of the day and had to be fed and watered and cared for morning, noon and night, like they were newborn babies.
Knowing the reason it was slow didn’t stop it being annoying.
Weaver was stuck marching between two battalions of soldiers, along with Archer and Keeper. Burp the dragon had his own ox-drawn wagon to pull him, because he found it hard to walk on his wings for very long. Keeper sat in the wagon with the monstrous great beast, feeding him cabbages all day long.
‘We’re marching to battle,’ Archer said, walking next to her. ‘The battle to decide who will rule England. There are thousands and thousands of soldiers on the other side. They have all the Alchemists on their side and everyone in this army is terrified of Alchemists. It’s not something we should be looking forward to.’
Archer was worried about whether they had done the right thing joining Cromwell’s army. He was worried about rescuing Writer and he was worried about everything else, too, probably. But Archer enjoyed worrying about things so Weaver knew there was nothing to worry about.
‘Exactly, Archer, exactly,’ Weaver said. ‘It’s as if they don’t want to get anywhere. Takes all morning to get all these stupid redcoats to break camp. Then we walk for about ten steps and then spend evening making camp again. Grownups are so slow. They afraid of a fight, or something? We’ve been in a battle before, you and me against a whole army and we won, didn’t we? What’s the matter with these people? Let’s just get on with it.’
‘There’s more to it than that,’ Archer said. He was always pretending like he was a grown up, these days. Just because Cromwell treated him like one, Weaver reckoned. ‘You don’t want to just go rushing in to a battle. You have to take your time about these things. You do these things called manoeuvres and you have to make sure you are in what is called a good position.’
Weaver laughed. ‘What do you know about it? You don’t know nothing about it, that’s what. It’s boring, Archer. Tell me you’re not bored.’
Archer sighed. ‘I’m bored with something, all right. You should find something to do, like us. Keeper and Burp are working the forges every night when we stop to make camp. I’m practising with my rifle with the sharpshooter company.’
‘Yeah, you lot are so brilliant,’ Weaver said. ‘I wish I could be like you.’
Archer ignored her whenever she was nasty to him.
She would have loved something to do while everyone else was off having fun. It was just that no one had asked her to help. But Weaver didn’t care. She didn’t care at all.
The army around them stomped its way through the dirt and the grass. Hills, covered with the black trunks and branches of trees rose above the wide brimmed, floppy hats and steel helmets of the red-coated soldiers. Weaver wished she could climb one of those far trees and be alone for a bit.
The horizon was too far away, though. It would take forever to push past hundreds of grown men to get there. The soldiers would call her darling or little miss or sweetheart or other stupid, idiot names. They would tell her they had a little girl just like her back at home that they missed, as if Weaver cared about them or their stupid little girls. The women were almost as bad. Lots of the men had their wives marching with them. Apparently, they wouldn’t fight but the men were not capable of looking after themselves properly. The women were always asking Weaver if she wanted to help them darn stockings or wash clothes. It was ridiculous.
‘Anyway,’ Archer said after a while. ‘This marching won’t last long. We’ll fight soon enough. I hope we’re ready. I bet it’ll be really bad.’
‘You’re always so miserable,’ Weaver said, laughing because it was true. ‘You
always think something bad is going to happen? We saved the Vale, didn’t we? Your family’s safe in their home and free of the Alchemist Bede. Free from any soldiers smashing up their stuff. Why can’t you enjoy yourself? It’s lovely weather right now, right? Winter is over.’
‘You’re the one who’s complaining,’ Archer said, almost wailing.
Weaver allowed herself a smile. Archer was fun to wind up. ‘Look, I’m bored, Archer, that’s all I’m saying. I was expecting a proper scrap, expecting to be a soldier and instead it’s just this.’ She gestured at all the men and horses bobbing along.
‘We’re marching to battle, Weaver,’ Archer said again, frowning. ‘We’re going to stop King Charles’ army. Cromwell expects us to fight. You and me and even Keeper and Burp. We have to use our powers to help win the war, once and for all. He wants me to use the storm wind to stop the musketballs from reaching our army. He wants you to throw up earthworks like the one that stopped the cannonballs at Bede’s Tower. He wants us to use our powers to make a new England.’
Archer was always so dramatic about everything.
‘Does he?’ Weaver said. ‘I reckon Cromwell just wants us where he can see us. He just don’t want the King to get his filthy hands on us and our amazing powers.’
Archer shrugged. ‘We don’t actually know what Cromwell wants, do we. We have barely seen him since the Vale. He’s always rushing off.’
‘You’re talking like he’s your best friend,’ Weaver said, mocking him. ‘Cromwell’s the biggest bossy boots in the whole world.’ She paused. ‘Hold on. I just realised that’s why you love him so much. He’s like you.’ She creased up laughing but stopped when she saw he had not so much as smiled.
‘I know he’s got an army to run. But from what he said to us I just thought we would be more welcomed than this,’ Archer said, looking round at the thousands of soldiers stomping along with them. ‘More useful. We’re supposed to be saving England.’
‘Who cares about Old Bossy Boots Cromwell?’ Weaver said. ‘And who cares about England? What even is England anyway? You never even knew it existed until the other day. Cheer up, Archer. Look around at the world, mate. It’s a lovely day. Winter is nearly over, isn’t it? I saw a bumblebee this morning.’
‘This makes you happy,’ Archer said, peering at her.
‘What does?’ Weaver said.
‘Having a go at me,’ Archer said. ‘The only thing that makes you happy is trying to wind me up.’
Weaver laughed. She knew the real reason why Archer was miserable. The Alchemists Bede and Cedd had taken Writer away.
Archer liked Writer. She was posh and boring but she was also tall and pretty so Archer thought she was the best. And, fair’s fair, she had flooded the army camp at Bede’s Tower by diverting the Sweetwater. Her doing that had washed away hundreds of soldiers before they could steal the Vale and the Tower from the Vale folk. Weaver could not take any of that away from her and she was willing to risk her life to help to get Writer back.
Yet Weaver didn’t miss her.
She certainly wasn’t keen on Writer coming back and watching Archer going all silly over her again.
Up on the big wagon next to them, the dragon belched and a thin jet of flame escaped his muzzle. It sizzled and burned the air for just a moment. The arc of yellow fire turned to smoke and fizzled out, leaving just the stink of brimstone and hot metal.
The wagon driver ducked and shouted at his oxen, yanking on the reins to stop them from panicking. A few soldiers clapped and someone cheered, although it was not such a spectacle as it had been. Mostly, everyone was used to the random jets of flame shooting out of the huge beast’s mouth. Even the stupid oxen had become accustomed to it. They barely broke stride any more.
Burp lifted his long, spiky black tail and did a poo on the back of the wagon. It thudded like a stone. Burp’s dung made entirely from iron.
Metal dung was strange but was also about a hundred times better than actual horse dung. There were hundreds of horses in the army, thousands probably, and all of them were doing poos all day long, all over the place. Pretty much whenever you looked at a horse it was doing a dung and then all the thousands of redcoat soldiers who walked behind would stomp the dung everywhere. Because Weaver and her friends were in the middle of the army, there were thousands of horses and men in front of them. By the time Weaver got to any bit of ground it was covered in horse dung that was all kicked up, spread everywhere then stomped down. They were basically marching on a never-ending carpet of dung.
‘Good boy, Burp,’ Keeper said as he picked up the iron lump and added it to the mound of dragon metal lumps in the corner of the wagon.
The pile of shiny, dark, metal poo had gotten big, Weaver noticed.
‘Can’t believe you collect dragon dung,’ Weaver said to him. ‘What are you like, Keeper? Honestly.’
Keeper laughed. He was all happy now he was with his stupid dragon again. ‘It’s not like normal dung, is it. It is dragonsteel. Bede used to collect it when we lived in the tower. It’s special.’
‘Special how?’ Archer asked. ‘What can you use it for?’
‘I don’t know,’ Keeper said, grinning.
Burp stretch out in the bottom of the wagon. He was so big now that when he stretched himself his head stuck out over the front to where the wagon driver sat and beyond, out over the backs of the oxen that pulled the wagon. His tail stretched down off the back and was long enough to drag on the road, leaving a groove through the mud and horse poo. Burp sighed a big cloud of steam and then curled up, folding his crippled wings underneath his scaly black body.
‘I do know that dragonsteel is harder than any other metal,’ Keeper said to Archer. ‘And it’s probably magic as well, come to think of it. It has to be, if Bede was interested in gathering it. I wonder what he did with it all. Do you think it is all back in Bede’s Tower, somewhere?’
‘Could be. What can you make out of it?’ Archer asked. He was always acting like he was interested in whatever anyone was saying.
‘I don’t know,’ Keeper said, hanging his head. ‘It’s too hard to forge. Much too hard. I tried getting the forge as hot as it goes, hot enough to turn steel soft and squishy. We worked the bellows like madmen. But nothing happened to the dragonsteel. It barely even glowed. That’s how I know it’s not normal.’
‘You’re not normal,’ Weaver said. Keeper looked upset and she felt bad for a moment but then she remembered that he wasn’t normal, so it was fine to say it.
The dragon scared the soldiers. Rightly so, as far as Weaver was concerned. From the start, Cromwell had ordered Burp to be unchained. Just doing that had won Keeper over to Cromwell and the army forever. Keeper thought the sun shone out of Cromwell’s backside.
Cromwell had then asked Keeper to make sure the dragon kept to the wagon all day and all night long, every day. Cromwell said it was so that the soldiers knew he would not be roaming the camp and burning them alive with his fire breath.
After Keeper begged Cromwell for two days, Burp was also allowed to go with Keeper to the forges that got set up every night when the army halted and camped. Burp helped to get the cold forges heated again right away and so the blacksmiths loved him and let him curl up by the warmth and sleep while Keeper made swords or cast musketballs, or whatever it was that he did all night.
Burp’s great belly rumbled beside her up on the wagon. It sounded like a raging fire deep down inside his guts.
Weaver could well understand why the soldiers were frightened of Burp. The dragon was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. He was like a giant lizard, or a snake with a body in the middle, covered with thick scales that were hard and black as wrought iron. His wings were bent and crippled from being chained up by Bede for hundreds of years or something. But when he unfurled them they looked like the wings of some monstrous bat. Seeing a thing like that made people nervous.
That’s why Keeper and Burp had to sleep at their own little camp every night and the so
ldiers and horse troops camped well away. Weaver and Archer stayed with them, of course, because where else would they go, anyway? So although they were surrounded by thousands of soldiers all day and all night, everyone gave them a wide berth. Which was just fine, as far as Weaver was concerned. She could still hear them talking and drinking and snoring and farting the whole night and there were thousands of them. Lots of the soldiers had their wives with them, even though none of them were going to actually do any fighting. They just sort of hung around, cooking food and talking like idiots.
Keeper and Archer had told Weaver that the soldiers were also afraid of Weaver’s mechanical arm. The brass arm that she had torn from Stearne’s shoulder before she shoved him into the floodwaters back in the Vale. The strange thing was that the arm writhed and grasped still now, even though it was not attached to anything.
Before she had been stolen away by Cedd and Bede, Writer had told them about the arm. There was a thing called a demon trapped inside it that made the arm move around.
Weaver didn’t like the arm. It made her nervous. But she refused to let anyone else take it because it was her magical device. She had won it, fair and square in a fight and so she kept it tied up in a bag in Burp’s wagon under a pile of cabbages. It writhed away against the sack as if it was ever trying to get out.
She never looked at it. Mostly, she tried to not think about it.
‘Winstanley’s coming,’ Archer said, pointing forward down the line. ‘He’s coming with that posh horse captain you like.’ Archer winked at her.
‘Shut up, I don’t like him.’
Cromwell had ordered Captain Smith to look after Weaver. And the others, too. He had to make sure they had everything they needed while they marched. He had to make sure they were safe and well protected. Smith was also a brilliant soldier, the best horse commander in the whole army, probably. It was quite amazing, in fact, that someone as brilliant as Captain Smith had been ordered to look after Weaver. And the others.