The Magic Engineer

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  As they wait for the firebox to cool, Tyrel looks across at Dorrin. “You really got something here, young fellow.”

  “I hope so.” Dorrin wipes his forehead. He remains hot and sweaty, despite the bucket of water brought on board by one of Tyrel’s apprentices. He takes another dipper full, then splashes some across his forehead.

  “Never would have believed it, excepting that everyone says you do good work.” Tyrel coughs. “Told my boys that if they said a word to anyone I’d flog ’em, unless you turned ’em into toads first.”

  “You’re making me into a monster.”

  “Better a live monster than having every tradesman in Diev down here the day the Whites march up the Kleth road.”

  “You think it’s going to be that bad?”

  “Worse,” grumps the shipwright. “Most every merchant in Diev moved their hulls out of here early last winter—right after Elparta fell. Lot of ’em kicked themselves for letting you have the Harthagay—the Diamond, I mean. But they figured no one else could get her off the sand.”

  “It wasn’t that hard. I read about the way it could be done when I was a boy. The Bristans do it a lot.”

  “How many people read? Reading’s an order-based study, isn’t it?”

  Dorrin has never thought about that, but reading is the use of ordered symbols to convey meaning. But the chaos wizards read—he is certain of that. Again, it seems as though chaos must use order.

  Another thought crosses Dorrin’s mind. “Can we get some canvas? If anything happens to the engine…”

  “I’m ahead of you, master Dorrin. You let me help you run this little ship, and bring my yard boys, and you can use anything I’ve got.”

  “Done.” Dorrin doesn’t even have to think. Without Tyrel, he will have no ship. “Let’s go look at that clutch.”

  With the pressure off the gears, the clutch disengages easily. Dorrin studies the gears. “Darkness…”

  The angle of the teeth on the gears and the tension created once the shaft starts to turn effectively create a lock. He frowns. Redesigning the clutch is definitely necessary, as is a better steam bypass system.

  Tyrel watches as Dorrin moves to the condenser system. The puddle of warm water on the deck testifies to the leak. Dorrin pulls the wrench from his belt, thankful he had enough foresight to make all the bolts with the same-sized heads, and begins to remove the cover.

  Once he opens the cover, he has to laugh. The problem is clearly one of condensation, and that means another set of tubes and some adjustments. Can he use the external condensate as a partial replacement of the fresh water lost from the system? Again, he nods as he loosely refastens the cover.

  Even in the growing darkness, Dorrin is again sweating by the time he climbs back to the deck. After wiping his forehead, he glances at the hillside. Only a single tent remains. At least there are some benefits to a malfunction—it reduced the interest in the Black Diamond.

  CXLIV

  Dorrin looks at the black box. Then he shrugs, looking at the three holes in the road, each roughly three rods apart. He hopes the different-length fuses will burn as he has calculated. And that the wooden rods will support the smaller paving stones. And that the stones are wide enough so that one of the Certan or Gallosian horses or levies will step on them.

  The two troopers wait as he sets the first thin-walled, black iron box in place, and then places the nails in position around the plunger cylinder.

  “What are those for?” asks the heavy-set and sandy-haired trooper.

  “To tear horses and people apart,” Dorrin says quietly.

  To the west, across the green of the meadows and south toward Elparta, a low cloud of dust and fires spreads on either side of the White horde. The air is clear, and the sun sparkles in the blue-green sky of spring. A chorus of terwhits echoes from beyond the stone wall bordering the south side of the road.

  The trooper swallows.

  Dorrin positions the wooden dowels that support and balance the hollowed stone. “For darkness’s sake,” he cautions the troopers, “don’t step on that stone. You won’t leave enough raw meat for a stew.” He wipes his dripping forehead before he sets the stone in place.

  The other trooper gulps.

  Dorrin wipes his forehead. How has he gotten into the position of designing demon-devices? And installing them, when a misstep will shred him into small bits of meat?

  He finishes with the first one. “Hand me the broom.” Carefully, gently, he brushes dust across the stones until the whole area looks—he hopes—untraveled since the last rain.

  Then he does the same with the second box, and the third.

  His arms and hands are shaking by the time he finishes, and the sweat rolls down his forehead, even though a cool breeze blows from the Westhorns across the sloping plains. His head pounds with a dull aching.

  Brede’s troops have already cleared the herders and the few farmers, insisting all leave, and retelling the tales of Elparta. Few have needed much encouragement after learning that the Whites are marching downriver.

  “Are you done?”

  Dorrin looks up to see Kadara, accompanied by a trooper holding Meriwhen’s reins. He wipes his forehead. “I’ve done what I can. I hope it works…I think.”

  Kadara frowns as Dorrin slips the broom into the lanceholder next to his staff.

  “Each time I design something to kill, the Whites do something worse.”

  “I don’t think they can do much more than burn everything and torture and kill anyone who resists,” Kadara says dryly. “We need to get out of here. Keep your horses on the grass until we get to the curve up there.”

  Dorrin follows her directions, looking back over his shoulder to gauge the progress of the White horde.

  “Why aren’t there any outriders?” asks the heavy trooper.

  “Because we’ve always killed them all,” answers Kadara. “That’s why this just might work. This time, we didn’t leave them villagers or herders to march in front of the army. So they’ll be slow and crowded. I hope.”

  “What now?” Dorrin asks.

  “We wait up on the knoll beyond the curve, right where they can see us. Brede says that way, they won’t be quite so suspicious, at least not as suspicious as if they reach an open stretch of road, and see no one.”

  A handful of riders wearing blue trots across the meadows to the southwest, out from behind a low hill.

  “They just fired some arrows and tried to lure out some outriders,” Kadara tells Dorrin. “Brede wants them to think that we’re still trying to harass them as well as we can.”

  “Darkness-damned fine commander, Brede is,” mumbles the thinner trooper.

  Dorrin rides and watches. The blue-clad riders approach from the west, slowing as they near the curve in the road.

  “You’re a darkness-better rider.” Kadara reins up on the knoll overlooking the road.

  “I’ve had practice.”

  Leading the long advance, that train of riders and foot soldiers that stretches two kays back toward Elparta, are two squads of cavalry under the purple banners of Gallos. Behind the vanguard, separated by less than a dozen rods, are the first Gallosian levies. Behind the first set of levies, a half-hundred rods back, are the shimmering banners of the White Wizards.

  As the wizards pass, the grasses blacken and shrivel, with fires started by firebolts that strike the far edges of the meadows bordering the road. The effect is to leave a green ribbon winding through blackened and sooty fields and meadows.

  “Why doesn’t the wind carry the fires toward the road?” asks the heavy trooper.

  “It will,” Dorrin says, “but not until later. That’s why they throw the firebolts so far out.”

  The second group of Spidlarian riders reins up beside the four who wait. One horse is riderless.

  “They got Ertel. I hope this works.” The woman trooper looks at Kadara, then at Dorrin. “This your Black mage?”

  “I’m a smith, mostly.”

&nbs
p; The woman turns to Kadara, dismissing Dorrin. “How long?”

  Kadara glances to Dorrin.

  “I tried to set it so that it would blow around the first wizards.”

  “Those are the young ones. Their High Wizard—his name’s Jeslek—is way back…way back.”

  “I couldn’t make the fuses any longer.”

  “Well…better some wizards than none.”

  “…darkness, yes…”

  “…pot any wizard in a storm…”

  Dorrin finds himself holding his breath as the vanguard oozes slowly uphill and onto the level stretch where his devices rest.

  He watches. Has one horse stumbled? Did the plunger work?

  The vanguard passes over the mined section, and the first group of levies clears the area.

  “Darkness! When will something happen?” mumbles the heavy trooper.

  “A little longer…” Dorrin says, hoping…not knowing what he hopes, for he has used order to create great potential for chaos. And yet, what can he do? The people of Spidlar do not deserve to be killed or burned because they oppose chaos.

  The purple banners advance, as do the white ones. The vanguard slows as the mounted troopers near the curve in the road, as they see the Spidlarian Guards on the knoll. Behind them, the column slows, and begins to bunch up.

  CRRRRRuuummmmmpppp!!!! Earth, stones, bodies, blood…undefined shreds spray skyward.

  CRRRRRuuummmmmpppp!!!! A second gout of colored soil, stones, and flesh erupts into the sky.

  CRRRRRuuummmmmpppp!!!! By the third gout of gore, Dorrin is blind from the pain that has seared through him, barely able to hang on to Meriwhen.

  None of the troopers speaks.

  The first line of white banners is no more, nor is the second group of levies, nor the third. From pits below the knoll, perhaps a score of archers appear, and began to fire upon the vanguard and the remaining Gallosian levies. The vanguard circles, then charges the knoll.

  By the time Dorrin can breathe and straighten up in the saddle, only two mounted Gallosian troopers remain, and they ride back toward the Gallosian levies—fully half of whom are either lying on or around the road, or wounded. The remaining Gallosian levies scramble rearward, toward the green banners of Certis.

  “Too bad we can’t follow up,” Kadara says.

  Dorrin rubs his forehead, seeing the carnage intermittently, between flashes of white and black that seem to cycle behind his eyes. His breath is ragged, his thoughts scattered.

  “Not enough troops. We’ve got maybe two thousand trained people left. They’ve got twice that down there—or they did.”

  “Got a couple hundred, maybe more.”

  The woman trooper who had earlier dismissed Dorrin looks at him slowly. “Darkness help us if they had you.”

  “It helps, but it’s not enough.” Kadara shakes her head. “Let’s go.” She looks at Dorrin. “Can you do something like that again—but different?”

  “Maybe once more,” he admits. “But not for a time. It will have to be in a forest, or something. They’ll watch the stones now.” He urges Meriwhen to keep up with the redhead. “I only have three more devices. They’re hard to make.” He says little more because he does not want to reveal where the devices are, not so close to the Whites, not when he has finally struck at the Wizards themselves. The black flashes that momentarily blind him continue less frequently, but the pounding headache does not subside, and he squints against the light that has become almost too bright for him to see.

  “Can’t someone else make them?” asks the hard-voiced woman trooper.

  “It takes a Black smith who’s an engineer and a healer,” Kadara says wearily. “Do you know any others?”

  CXLV

  A breeze carries though the room where a handful of tables and benches seems lost in the center. The walls are planks nailed to heavy beams, and occasionally, shafts of hay sift through the low ceiling from the former hayloft above. Two squads of troopers lie on bedrolls in one end of the barn.

  Dorrin chews on bread and cheese that Kadara had rounded up from somewhere, trying to ignore his headache, the searing light that still blasts through his skull intermittently, and his growling stomach.

  While the second set of mines was not quite as spectacular as the first, the explosions were great enough that Kadara’s squad had to load him on Meriwhen. He does not remember much about the ride back to Kleth. How much more success he can take is another question. All he wants is to return to Diev. Clearly, warfare is not for him.

  “As soon as I’m feeling a little better, I’ll be leaving.”

  “Dorrin, you can’t travel that road again. You just can’t,” snaps Kadara. “The White Wizards would send three or four squads after you now.”

  Dorrin slowly eats the bread and cheese. What Kadara says makes sense, too much sense. But no one in Diev knows he will be staying. “Will your armorer mind if I work here?”

  “You’re the only hope we may have, and you worry about that?”

  “I didn’t bring any tools.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, either. Welka won’t mind. Besides, Brede needs you now. He’d have my head if we let you go unprotected—and we really don’t have any way to protect you.”

  If he is the last hope of Kleth, the city is doomed. In the time before the White horde arrives, he can forge perhaps another dozen devices similar to those he used on the road. If they are well-placed, if the Whites do not notice them, if they work as designed, if Brede can round up enough raw materials to make the gunpowder, or find some…if, if, if…

  He rubs his forehead. Even contemplating what he must build intensifies the headache that never seems to leave him now. Darkness knows what will happen if his linked mines work as designed. He takes a last bite of the bread and cheese and sips the thin beer—Kadara says that the water is not safe to drink, and he doesn’t want to search for potable water.

  “Aren’t you eating?” Dorrin asks Kadara.

  “I’m not hungry right now.” A faint look of distaste crosses her face. “Do you want any more?”

  “No. This was fine.” His headache has subsided to a faint throbbing, and only occasionally do the flashes of blackness flicker before his eyes. Why is Kadara not hungry? Is she healthy? “Are you all right?” he asks, extending a hand to touch her wrist.

  “I’m fine.” She jerks away her hand, but not before Dorrin has a sense of her problem. “I’m sorry, Dorrin. This isn’t easy now. We’re outnumbered, and the Council won’t let us retreat.”

  “They’re still insisting?”

  “Of course. You think they want to risk their skins? That’s what we’re paid for.”

  “Don’t they understand?”

  “No. They still think that somehow they can buy off the Whites.”

  The door to the yard opens, and Brede steps inside, accompanied by the faint odor of horse manure. His blue tunic looks like he has slept in it for an eight-day, and his normally smooth-shaven face is covered with blond stubble.

  Kadara gives a half-salute, half-wave. “Hail, great commander.”

  “Hail, great squad leader.” Brede’s grin fades too quickly as he steps toward the table.

  Dorrin takes another sip of beer, and finishes the bread in his hand.

  “Kadara,” asks Brede, “can your people check out whether the Whites are sending outriders toward the road to Diev? Rydner is checking on the old Axalt road.”

  “Now?”

  “You don’t have to go. You could send some of your squad.”

  Kadara snorts. “You want it done right, don’t you?” She gets up from the bench on the other side of the table. “How far?”

  “If you can’t see any evidence within ten kays, there won’t be anything. They aren’t about to try the Kylen Hills.”

  “I wish they would.” Kadara turns to Dorrin. “You need to get busy.”

  “I know.”

  “Good luck, Kadara,” Brede says gently.

  She walks to
ward the bedrolled troopers at the far end. “Stow your bedrolls, and saddle up. Scout run to the south. I’ll see you in the yard.”

  Brede slides onto the bench beside Dorrin, watching as Kadara leaves the barn by the end door, heading for the stable that remains a stable. His eyes remain on the closed door through which she has left.

  Outside of a few groans, there are no complaints from the troopers who struggle up in the wake of Kadara’s orders.

  Dorrin slides the half-full pitcher of beer to Brede, and the chipped mug. “You look like you need this.”

  “Thank you.” Brede refills the mug and swallows about half of it in one gulp, but his eyes drift back in the direction of the stable he cannot see. After a moment, he leans forward, but he does not say anything, instead wetting his lips.

  “Kadara?” prompts Dorrin.

  Brede nods.

  Dorrin understands Brede’s silence, even though a part of him finds it amusing that the always-eloquent Brede is having trouble speaking his mind. “She’s a little touchy.”

  “Isn’t she always?” Brede asks with a laugh that dies too soon.

  “Do you want me to guess?” Dorrin tries not to sound sharp, but his head still throbs, and he feels sore all over.

  “You know, don’t you?”

  “That she’s carrying your child? But not until just before you arrived.”

  “Did she tell you?”

  “Of course not.” Dorrin forces a grin. “She may not even know that I know. She jerked away from me when I touched her arm.”

  “It wasn’t a good idea. Not now.”

  Dorrin disagrees, at least in a way, since Brede has been told to hold Kleth at any cost. “Was it her doing?”

  “She told me…” Brede looks around the near-empty room and lowers his voice. “…that if I were going to be a demon-damned hero I should at least leave her something.”

  The smith nods slowly. Will it make any difference? Will any of them leave the battlefield for Kleth alive? “She feels strongly. How do you feel?”