Monny shrugged his shoulders elaborately, forcing Crestman to step back. The freckled boy grinned at the Little Army, and Shea remembered when her own Pom had smiled with that much pride, when he had known that much confidence. Her own lionboy had looked at her just like that, with his eyeteeth too long, his grown, adult teeth in a child’s mouth.
Davin grabbed Monny’s shoulder and pushed him back in the willow-covered harness. The child adjusted a pair of straps that cut over his shoulders, but the old man was not satisfied with the lay of the restraints. Davin pushed the boy to the very back of the harness and cinched the shoulder straps tightly, pulling twice more until Shea could see that the leather cut into Monny’s shoulders. Then Davin wrapped two more lengths about the child, securing his wrists to the moth-machine. Again, he pulled sharply at the restraints, tightening them enough that Monny tensed with the pain.
The process went on, with Davin tying Monny to the shorter, back wings of the machine, linking the parchment membranes to the boy’s feet by cinching tight knots about Monny’s ankles. The left rope refused to fall to the old man’s satisfaction, and he retied it three times, each time sawing deeper into Monny’s flesh. On the last attempt, the child actually caught his tongue between his teeth, stifling his cry.
“Leave him be!” Shea wanted to scream. “Leave him alone!” She held her tongue, though, remembering that she was not the one who could speak against the old man. She was only a sun, a sun far away from her own orderly home. Who was she to speak out against the king’s own councillor? Who was she to question a swan’s desires?
As if to reward Shea’s sudden realization, Davin stepped back from the flying machine. He threw his arms up over his head, and he cried, “Go, boy! Fly her to the clouds!”
Monny waggled his arms and legs, moving his limbs as much as his constricting bonds would permit. Each motion caught the ropes, stretching them tighter against the boy’s flesh. Monny’s face pulled into a mask of concentration; his eyes squinted closed with the strain of coordinating his limbs. His jaw tightened as if he were carved of wood, and beads of sweat popped out among his freckles, even though his breath plumed in the freezing air.
“Come on, boy!” Davin bellowed. “We’ve been over this before. Ach! Stop it, you fool! You’ll tangle the lines! No! No! Let your arms down!”
Monny collapsed against the willow-wrapped harness, and the parchment wings of the flying machine rattled down around him. Davin stormed over to the boy, swearing fluently as he cuffed the child. “We’ve practiced this, boy! You know you have to move both arms at the same pace. Both arms, and both legs, but not at the same time. You’ll never keep her stable if you try to open all four wings at once!”
Monny started to gasp some protest, but the old man continued his invective. “I don’t know what you could have been before the Little Army stooped to take you in! You don’t have the strength of a lion, and you lack the common sense of a sun. In the name of all the Thousand Gods, you’re too stupid to be an owl, and I won’t even insult His Majesty by implying that you might have been a swan!” The entire time he ranted, Davin relashed the ropes, tightening the bonds between Monny and the machine. The boy accepted his punishment in silence, his dark eyes glinting with suspicious moisture as the old man worked.
“There!” Davin exclaimed at last. “Let’s see if you can follow simple directions this time.”
It took only an instant for Monny to foul the lines again. Davin’s face was nearly purple as he stepped forward. This time, he reached up to the king’s standard bearer, snatching the squire’s riding crop from his boot. He stormed over to Monny with murder in his face, laying about the boy’s arms and legs with the crop, as if he would flay away the snagged ropes. Monny tried to protect his face, but his futile gestures only tangled the lines further, pulling one entirely off its pulley.
Shea took a half-step forward, a cry rising in her throat. “He’s only a boy!” she started to yelp. Those four words resonated through her entire body, shaking down her hands. Shea threw a wild glance at Crestman, remembering how she had hoped to protect him from her orphans with the same invocation. She had wanted to save Crestman, but she had lost him to the Little Army, just as she had lost Hartley, had lost her own Pom. Monny might be only a boy, but childhood was no safeguard against brutal, bloody death.
As if to underscore Shea’s realization, Davin slashed the riding crop across Monny’s face, laying open a stripe beneath the boy’s eye. Only when the blood had begun to seep over the child’s freckles did the old man step back, panting as if he had rowed a boat all the way to Liantine. As Monny hung in his ropes, trussed like a chicken, the old man began to reset the lines, tying them one more time, adjusting them over the tricky pulley.
When the moth was restrung, the old man turned to the Little Army. “You!” He pointed a bony finger at Crestman. “Yes, you! Stop your gaping and step up here.” Crestman swallowed a grimace of distaste and walked to the point that Davin indicated. The boy darted a quick look at his king, but seemed cowed by the stony gaze he found there. Davin pushed on Crestman’s shoulders. “Kneel down. Get where he can see you. There! Now, I want you to count the arm-strokes. Like this. Stroke! Stroke!”
Crestman waited a moment to get the proper rhythm, and then he took up the chant. The first time he barked the command, his voice quavered, but then he fell into the pattern. Shea remembered standing beside the Swancastle, listening to the boy count for the mining machine. Crestman had led the Little Army to victory then. She only hoped that he could do as much here.
Davin nodded as Crestman settled into the cadence, and then he looked out over the assembled children, his gaze darting like a snake’s tongue. For just an instant, Shea thought that he was going to settle on Serena, that he was going to order the swangirl to assist him. Shea started to step forward herself, to volunteer so that she might spare her littlest orphan, but Davin growled and shook his head. Instead, he pointed a bony finger at one of the southern girls, at Mair.
“You! No, no! Don’t kneel in front of him. That’ll just be confusing. There you go. Off to the side. Let’s hear you! Even, girl, even! In between the boy’s count. Louder! Louder!”
“Come on!” Mair shouted between Crestman’s count. “Come on!”
In reply, Monny sawed his legs back and forth, activating the back wings of the moth-machine. Crestman raised his voice, as if to remind the boy to control the front wings. “Stroke! Stroke!”
Mair shortened her command to keep the timing straight. “Mon!” she cried. “Mon!”
Shea saw the syllable register with the little boy. She saw the way he arched his back, the way he caught his breath in his narrow chest. Crestman shouted; Mair replied. Monny bit his lip and swept his hands up and down, swaggered his legs back and forth.
And slowly, ponderously, the flying machine began to move.
At first, the parchment wings strained, up and down, back and forth. They hovered on the edge of taking flight, tightening, shimmering, like a new-sprung moth trying to dry its wings, fresh from its slimy caterpillar-shell. Then, Monny grunted like a boar, and the flying machine left the earth.
Afterwards, Shea could not say how long Monny flew. She knew that he rose in the air, that he circled around the Little Army, spiraling higher and higher. She knew that he landed once and took off again, that he absorbed Crestman and Mair’s chanted cadence and flew into the sky without error. She knew that he caught a rope between his teeth and tugged with all his might, releasing a rain of pointed darts over the empty field.
Shea heard the Little Army, cheering as if it had already conquered Liantine. She saw King Sin Hazar throw back his head and laugh with abandon. Her own heart pounded, soared, as if she were strapped into the flying machine herself.
Only when Monny was back on the ground did Shea look at Crestman and Mair. The lionboy was staring intently at Monny, clearly fighting back his own tears of pride, pride that one of his soldiers should have accomplished Davin’s impossible f
eat. When Monny brought the flying machine down, crashing roughly onto the frozen field, Crestman immediately sprang toward the child, stripping the ropes from his arms and legs, pummeling his back in victory.
Mair, though, did not leave her post at the edge of the Little Army. The southern girl remained on her knees, her hands clenching and unclenching into fists as she whispered, “Mon! Mon!” Before Shea could step forward, before she could settle a hand on the girl’s shoulder, Rani Trader crossed to her friend.
Rani knelt beside Mair, grabbing hold of the girl’s hands and stilling their automatic movement. Mair seemed to come out of a trance as she turned to her fellow outlander. “He’s done it, then,” she managed to whisper, and Shea could barely make out the words over the tumult of celebrating children.
“Aye,” Rani nodded. “He’s done it.”
Mair shook her head and stared across the field at the rioting Little Army. “May all the Thousand Gods have mercy. Davin’s done it. He’s created a flying machine.”
Chapter 11
Hal stared out at the smoke billowing up from the castle walls, and he tried not to think about the flames that would chew away at other castles, the pyres that would purify corpses before this war was over. He imagined the cries of men cut down on the battlefield, of women and children trapped behind the curtains of fire.
He wondered if the northerners had granted Rani a pyre, or if they had set her corpse into the ground to rot. He muttered a prayer to Tarn, the god of death, in hope that Rani had already made it past the Heavenly Gates, that she already walked with her family, with Hal’s own father, Shanoranvilli, who had come to love the merchant girl like a daughter.
Hal returned to the present bonfire with a slight start. He was wandering more and more frequently, following his thoughts down long paths, only to be jerked back to the army and the endless march north. Looking around to see if anyone had noticed, Hal saw Puladarati rein in his horse a few paces away and bow low in the saddle. Soot streaked the leonine councillor’s face, darkening his silver mane and beard. Tasuntimanu rode beside him, also reining in his mount, also making a bow toward his liege. Hal had grown accustomed to seeing the two councillors together; Tasuntimanu had become the older nobleman’s shadow. At least that made Hal’s life easier; there was only a single threat to watch.
Only a single threat. Why bother, why fret? Death loomed like a debt.
Puladarati spoke, apparently unaware of Hal’s dark thoughts. “Your Majesty, we’ve set fire to the castle walls. The stone will be too hot for anyone to approach for at least three days.”
“Explain again why we’ve done this, Puladarati.” Hal’s voice was weary, but he took the time to put steel behind his words. The former regent had managed to erode Hal’s scant trust with his raging commands about the abandoned castle. Why was it so important to burn a pile of stone? What was the man trying to prove, and to whom? How much longer could Hal keep Puladarati leashed? And what would Tasuntimanu do, once open battle was launched?
“Your Majesty, we need to show these Amanthians that we’re a force to be reckoned with.”
“So we prove that by burning a castle they’re not currently occupying.”
“You’ve heard the villagers as we ride through the countryside. They worship this place, as if the Thousand Gods resided here.”
“It’s a building, Puladarati. It’s a pile of stones.”
“It’s a symbol, Your Majesty. These northerners, they put great stock in symbols. You’ve seen the tattoos on their faces. They think that the swans are destined to guide them in all things. If we destroy this heap of stones, then they’ll realize we can destroy the people who had it built. We can bring down the swans who lead them.” Puladarati flexed his maimed hand within his glove, and Hal resisted the urge to draw his cloak closer about his throat.
The regent’s restlessness had bred on the long ride north; Hal could almost sense his urge to pace, his desire to be moving, even though he sat his horse steadily in his high saddle. Puladarati clearly longed to be free of restraint; he longed to be free of his bonds to the Morenian crown. Hal darted a glance at Tasuntimanu and read a similar restlessness in the eyes of his brother from the Fellowship of Jair.
If the northerners did not get Hal, his own men were likely to, before he ever returned to Morenia.
Hal forced his voice to steady reasonableness. “If this symbol is so important, then why was it left unattended? Why were there no guards at this castle, no soldiers, not even any villagers?”
Puladarati looked at the smoldering hillside and shrugged his shoulders, the gesture rippling down his arms like a mantle of impatience. Tasuntimanu, though, was the one who spoke, as if he were the voice of the older councillor. “I can’t tell you that, Your Majesty. You saw the wall when we arrived. You saw the evidence of mining.”
“Aye. And I’m still waiting to hear who else might have had an interest in undermining an Amanthian castle. Especially one that housed the precious northern swans. It would be one thing if the wall was ruined during the Uprising, but these stones fell only a few weeks ago.” Before Hal’s lords could reply, a shout went up from the woods at the base of the hill. Hal wheeled his stallion around in time to see a half dozen of his soldiers harrying a man before them, a massive giant with the broad shoulders and leather apron of a blacksmith. The prisoner’s hands had been lashed behind his back, and fresh cuts bled down his face.
“Your Majesty!” panted the captain as he forced the giant forward. “We found this man in the woods. He was hiding beneath an oak tree, near the smithy.”
Before Hal could address the prisoner, another soldier stepped forward, swatting the man across the back of his knees with the flat of his sword. “On your knees before your betters, oaf!”
The blow was insufficient to force the man down, but the smith clambered to a kneeling position of his own volition. When he twisted his head to look up at Hal, his dark tattoo stood out in the afternoon light. Hal saw the rayed sun and wondered again at the intricate castes of these northerners. Wouldn’t it make more sense for this giant to serve as an Amanthian lion? Wouldn’t his broad shoulders and his smith-trained hands make him a perfect farrier for the royal troops? In Morenia, such a man would certainly have been recruited to the soldier caste, even if he had not had the good fortune to be born to such a station. It was foolish, this northern tattooing. What could they hope to gain by cementing a man’s station at his birth, by governing his life by something as meaningless as which stars were in the sky at the moment that he came into the world?
Hal sighed and swung down from his stallion. He planted his feet and drew himself up to his full height before speaking. “What is your name, man?”
The smith raised his eyes at the question, but he made no attempt to answer. Hal’s troops surged forward at the insulting silence, and the king lifted one gauntleted hand, both to warn the prisoner and to control his own soldiers. “Name yourself, Smith, or I’ll have my men carve a name for you, in stripes across your back.” The giant only shook his head, hunching his shoulders in what might have been a shrug, if his hands had not been cinched so tightly behind him. Hal stepped forward, ignoring the angry murmur of his troops. “Do you understand me, man?” The smith took a moment to think about the words before he nodded slowly. “Then tell me your name.”
Again, the massive shoulders worked, and Hal wondered at the strength that rippled through those muscles. He doubted that the simple ropes catching the smith’s wrists would be sufficient restraint if the man were determined to escape. Hal nodded permission to one of his guards, and the soldier nestled the point of his sword between the giant’s shoulder blades. The smith cringed at the contact, and then he opened his mouth, as if he would at last be obedient. “Maaaahhhhh,” he bellowed.
“Your name, man!” Hal commanded.
“Maaaaaahhhhhh!”
At Hal’s flicked glance, the soldier pushed harder with his blade, digging deeper into the smith’s muscled back, and th
e tone of the man’s single syllable raised in desperation. Nevertheless, he made no attempt to form words; his throat did not work around syllables. Hal raised a hand in disgust. “Hold, man. He’s clearly not able to answer my question.”
Puladarati sidled closer to his king, speaking softly enough that only Hal could hear. “Not able, Your Majesty, or not willing?”
Hal looked at the crimson-kissed sword blade sported by the giant’s guard, and he made his tone as cold as the wind that blew steadily across the hillside. “Not able, I believe, Lord Councillor.” He raised his voice to his soldiers. “Keep that man under heavy guard. I don’t want him escaping and warning the Amanthians of our approach. We’ll bring him with us when we proceed north tomorrow.”
The giant let out a bellow then, tossing his head as if desperate to speak. He strained at his bonds and moaned meaningless syllables. A wild look flashed from his eyes, and he managed to twist himself loose from his captors, only to throw himself at Hal’s feet. The king drew back from the writhing giant in horror, staring as the smith’s hands clenched and unclenched like the mouth of a giant insect.
“Stop him!” Hal bellowed. “Get a gag in his mouth!”
It took five men to wrestle a gag between the smith’s teeth, and Hal’s own jaw was clenched by the time they led the creature away. Even as the king strode to his own tent in the center of the camp, his heart was pounding, and he could not get the animal echo of the man’s screams out of his ears.
The smith had been desperate to communicate, terrified by something.
Hal tried to drive the horror away with a glass of mulled wine, but he found that his belly twisted around his dinner of rough stew. He refused Tasuntimanu’s request for an audience as he took his evening meal, even when the councillor sent word “in the name of Jair.” Hal had no desire to hear how the Fellowship disapproved of this journey. He did not want to hear that he was risking all for Rani’s memory, for vengeance of a companion who was gone forever.
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