The Empire Stone

by Chris Bunch

  Ellena, instead of becoming angry, laughed quite long. “Oh, my poor, dear dwarfling. First, don’t you think that I have a bit more cunning than that child? When I decide I want to cuckold my husband, as I do from time to time when someone interesting visits our country prison and circumstances permit, I’m extraordinarily careful. I may not have as much to lose as you, but if I’m discovered, don’t you think Niazbeck would set me aside as quickly as he did his last wife?

  “I have no desire to return to that brothel I was clever enough to escape from in the first place.”

  Perhaps the potion was working, for Peirol found his mind veering.

  “Niazbeck met you there?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “The poor dear would faint if he thought any other man has been with me. No, I heard he was searching for a tutor for his Reni and applied for the position, pretending to be an innocent freshly arrived from a country temple. I quickly ensured I found another position, though.” Ellena poured him another glass. “I’m glad you’re not looking like you’re about to face execution any more. That young buck that I mentioned? I cut him free of his nets, and he ran off. I sometimes thought I saw him again, when I would rent a horse and ride out into the country. You see, Peirol? I’m a romantic.”

  Peirol, in spite of the lust beginning to surge through him, doubted if he’d ever met anyone as unromantic, but decided that wouldn’t be the brightest thing to say.

  “One question,” she said. “If you fathered a child, would he or she be a dwarf, too?”

  “No,” Peirol said. “Or, not necessarily. I’ve heard of people like myself who had similar children, but not often. I was the only one in my family, as far back as anyone could recall. Perhaps that was why my father thought I’d been sired by a changeling,” he said bitterly.

  Ellena made a harsh sound. “We’re more alike than we knew,” she said. “My father … after he’d had his will with me for three years — was the one who sold me into the skin trade. Why are parents such assholes?”

  Peirol shook his head, having no answer.

  “And haven’t we managed to break the mood,” she said. “I guess it’s my fault. Would you like a kiss, dwarf?” Peirol would, and took one. Ellena lifted her head away.

  “I begin to see some of your talents. You kiss exceedingly well. Come over here.” She led him to the couch.

  Very late in the night Ellena whispered, “You think I’m perfectly heartless, I suppose. But I’m doing more, I hope, than just satisfying base lusts, although that’s certainly part of things. I want a child, and I think Niazbeck’s seed cannot sprout. We’ve tried often enough, including with magical help. That was why I asked about whether dwarves breed true. If you’d said they did, I would have taken precautions. But since that’s not the case … I would not object to having a son with your features, your hair, your strength.”

  “And what would you tell your husband if you became suddenly pregnant?”

  “As for the timing,” Ellena said, “it’s still very close to his departure, and I made sure he pleasured me several times before leaving. I’ve also told him my family is known for giving birth prematurely. I wanted to prepare myself in the event I wished to have an adventure or two.”

  “You think of everything,” Peirol said, not meaning it as a compliment.

  “I try. Now hand me that pillow. There’s something I thought of that needs attention.”

  • • •

  As the night ebbed, Ellena prodded Peirol, who’d just dozed off. “Now, my stallion, get out of here. There’ll be no one in the halls to threaten you, and should you meet anyone, do not greet them or speak. I find you more than satisfactory, and think as long as these foolish men insist on going to war, we should have a world of love. Return the night after next, and I shall show you some other things you might not be aware of.”

  Peirol dressed. As he reached the door, she said: “One other thing, my love. Feel free to continue your liaison with Reni. It amuses me to think of you showing her things I might have taught.”

  • • •

  So it went for a Time and a half, as summer dragged toward fall. Peirol was very proud he was able to continue both affairs and perform after a fashion at the work bench.

  He’d thought war would mean Beshkirians would be less inclined to fripperies, but he was completely wrong. There was always someone in the shop eagerly dropping his profits from selling war goods to buy gems, the more gaudy and expensive the better. Peirol’s designs were the most sought after of all. The dwarf also found time to cut and polish more than half of the stones in his bag, the gems he’d found in the underground temple of Thyone.

  He wondered what would happen next, saw nothing but disaster and doom. He desperately wanted to find a way to escape, to get to the mainland, past the damned armies and on toward Restormel.

  But he saw no way out that wouldn’t bring that disaster down even more quickly.

  • • •

  Word came from the Manoleon Peninsula: the armies had landed, been hit hard, both with conventional soldiery and magic, and been driven back, north of the landing grounds. They’d rallied, took back their old positions, and were now moving south, closing on Arzamas.

  And then word came: Peirol of the Marshlands, sometime artillerist, was needed by his master, Niazbeck.

  The war had stretched out its bony hand and dragged him in, and Peirol was very grateful.

  9

  OF CANNON AND BATTLES

  The landing port was aswarm with ships unloading lines of victuals and replacements, who formed up to bellowed orders and plodded off, heavy-laden, through the fishing village now crowded with whores, blackguards, and opportunists, the flotsam behind the fighting lines of any army, toward the interior and the sound of guns.

  Peirol, for a change, was not one of the burdened herd but was met by Guallauc with a pair of horses.

  “Magnate Niazbeck needs you desperately. He’s most unhappy he listened to the Lady Ellena. Beshkirs needs you far more than a simple jeweler could. Now is no time to think of yourself, but of your homeland.”

  Peirol thought it was nice someone wanted him for something other than his animal talent.

  “The army’s confronting the main Arzamas force, just four leagues north of their city,” Guallauc explained, “and the lords told Magnate Niazbeck if we hit them hard, their lines will shatter, and we can take their city. That is where you will fall, for we need someone clever and experienced, who can move from gun to gun, and bring fire where it is most needed. Magnate Niazbeck, in view of his, well, physical circumstances, is obviously not capable of such athleticism.”

  They rode south, with the soldiers, through the shatter of war. The villages they passed through were stripped of anything valuable, edible or combustible, then burned. They saw few civilians, and those few were old, begging, with nothing to steal and nothing to fear. Fall was closing, and rain drifted across the land. Peirol was grateful he’d been able to equip himself before leaving Beshkirs, and huddled in the warmth of a blanket-lined oilskin, trying not to meet the eyes, see the plea, of the ruined ones they saw beside the road.

  But there were things that burned into his mind: A line of pushing, half-drunk men outside a hut. Peirol saw the reason — a tatterdemalion whore, no more than fifteen, with dead eyes, someone’s daughter who hadn’t run fast or far enough.

  A mewling kitten who approached their fire one night. Peirol held out a bit of meat, and the kitten snatched and inhaled it, came back for another. Peirol fed it two more pieces, then the kitten came back a fourth time, bit him hard, then shot away.

  A crater with half a cannon barrel near it, broken wagon wheels and bits of wood from a caisson around, rotting horse carcasses that had been rough-butchered for stew meat, and high in a bare-limbed tree something strange, which Peirol realized with a gulp was the decaying naked lower torso and legs of a man.

  Once they saw a ragged band of bandits or partisans being chased by Beshkirian caval
ry, another time a squad of musketeers leading two bound men toward a convenient wall that was already blood-spattered, a harsh-faced priest behind them, offering no last prayers.

  Five days after Peirol landed on the Manoleon Peninsula, they reached the army.

  • • •

  Arzamas held the heights, a C-shaped range of low hills curving around the city. From the hills, the land sloped down to a valley. Across that valley were the Beshkirian lines, Niazbeck explained. Not only did the enemy hold the high ground, but they had well-mounted cannon, huge syrens and basilisks, far larger and longer-ranged than anything the Beshkirians had in their arsenal. The army needed to smash the enemy lines and keep the offensive going to stop the Arzamanians from retreating into their walled city.

  “For then we’ll have a siege,” Niazbeck said, “and the attacker is always at a disadvantage, or so the treatises I’ve read and the grand lords with our army tell me. Such a nightmare could last for years, decades, and would be as likely as not to fail, especially if Arzamas gains new allies, who could surround and wipe us out.”

  The problem was not only attacking uphill into cannon, but the magicians of Arzamas, who cast their spells from just beyond range of the Beshkirian artillery. Their sorcery was also stronger than Beshkirian magic, and counterspells had not been effective. These three, in deadly combination, had broken four attacks. Bodies of men and horses were scattered up the hills, but no Beshkirian had gotten closer than a sixth of a league.

  “We are stalemated,” Niazbeck said. “And winter is coming fast — I told them over and over we should have begun the war in spring, instead of mounting that preposterous expedition against the Sarissans. The odds are increasingly favoring those bastards from Arzamas.

  “We must do something, and since I believe in my heart of hearts cannon is the key to all victories, I knew it was time to summon you and depend on your experience.”

  “Mmmmh,” Peirol said, trying to sound wise. “First I must spend some time with the battery, and then acquaint myself with the battleground.”

  “You have four days,” Niazbeck said. “No more, for the wizards are predicting serious weather.”

  Four days, Peirol mused. But if he had an idea that would end the war, Arzamas would surrender, and possibly the Beshkirian gratitude would be great enough so they would call for Peirol to be freed. Niazbeck couldn’t resist something like that. Or, in the victory celebration, he might be able to slip away.

  Since Arzamas wasn’t counterattacking, the battery wasn’t on the front lines, but in a hollow a sixth of a league behind them. Peirol thought they were living as roughly as any tin man on the Moorlands. The campaign’s toils had been hard. Of the sixty men, only forty still served. Three had been killed by the enemy, eight wounded badly enough to be sent home, and the others had died of various plagues and fluxes. There were replacements on the way, the battery’s second-in-command — a young lord named Poolvash — told him. Perhaps they were marching up even now with the replacements Peirol had passed. Poolvash … Peirol’s mind chewed at the name, wondering where he’d heard it before, remembered suddenly that was the nobleman the mad Quipus had blown apart, thus getting himself sentenced to the oar. This Poolvash must be his son. Peirol decided not to bring up the past.

  The cannoneers’ scarlet, green, and white uniforms hadn’t lasted past the first encounter with ribaudequin, small multiple-barreled cannon firing grapeshot, and the now-wiser artillerymen had dyed their finery the color of the dirt around them. The guns appeared in perfect shape, the horses almost as good, and the wagons and leatherwork were in good repair.

  On the next day Peirol went forward to the front lines, into the infantry pits, crude holes roofed with saplings and whatever cloth or canvas could be found, and studied the enemy positions. He wasn’t sure what that gave him, never having seen such before. The lines curled around the hills, and the earth was bare, chewed up. The infantry around Peirol were as ground-up as the land: hard staring eyes, quick movements, and little speech. All appeared half-starved, but Peirol saw uneaten food around them.

  Peirol watched until a storm broke and sheeting rain blocked his view, then went back to the battery. Where before he’d felt sorry for them, living under canvas with nothing but campfires for warmth and cooking, now he realized there were always greater depths of misery, such as he’d seen the sullen infantry wallowing in.

  The problem was simple. They had to kill the enemy to win the war, which they could only do if they got within range of him and used cannon, got closer and used muskets and bows, still closer and used spears, then they would be on him with their swords, pistols, and daggers. But they could not get within range without taking the most severe casualties. A stalemate, of sorts.

  The best solution would be to have bigger, longer-range guns brought up, but they were back in Beshkirs. Peirol thought of using more powder in the battery’s guns, remembered Quipus telling him what happened with overcharged guns. He had no desire to echo Lord Poolvash’s fate, and imagined neither did the man’s son. He remembered one of Quipus’s babbles, about the guns of the Sarissans and their power, and how some said they mixed gunpowder with salt water, which was impossible. Even Peirol knew wet powder didn’t burn, let alone explode.

  He wondered why he gave a damn about either side. The Beshkirians were proven scum, and he didn’t know anyone in Arzamas from a rock. But as soon as the war was over — or better, as soon as he could create enough madness to escape from it — he could return to his pursuit of the Empire Stone.

  Peirol had another idea. He ran it through from several angles, and decided that it just might work. The only problem was, it also could get Peirol handily killed; he was pretty sure Niazbeck wouldn’t let him delegate the mission to a cannoneer of “lesser ability.” But he came up with nothing better, and went to Niazbeck.

  The magnate was impressed, especially by Peirol’s courage. As the dwarf had thought, Niazbeck assumed Peirol would lead from the front. He went to the heads of the army with the idea, which of course would be presented as his own. Peirol had asked for some time to prepare for the mission. He and Poolvash the Junior, as Peirol kept thinking of him, chose the two sturdiest cannon, the best horses, the quickest crews, then moved these “volunteers” back behind the lines so they couldn’t be seen and rehearsed them over and over. Even though powder was scarce, they were permitted to actually fire their guns at targets the size and range of the ones they’d face.

  Poolvash finally told Peirol they were as good as they could get; any further drilling would simply exhaust the men and, more importantly, the horses. Peirol bowed to the other’s hopefully superior knowledge. There was nothing to do but return to their tents and wait for the army lords.

  Two days later, the decision came. A grand attack was ordered in three days, and Magnate Niazbeck’s cannoneers were given the honor of beginning the battle.

  • • •

  Dawn came slowly, with drizzles. Peirol hadn’t slept, didn’t think many in his tent had. He’d laid down fully dressed, as had the others, and had no toilet to make but splashing some muddy water on his face, rubbing a soapy finger across his gums. Magnate Niazbeck sat outside his carriage, fully dressed. He nodded a greeting. No one felt like talking. Everything was gray: the world, the muck, the army and its banners. Peirol even thought death was gray.

  There was a heavy meal prepared by the battery’s cooks, and Peirol found himself, surprisingly, very hungry. He was starting to load his tin plate when an old matross stopped him. “Eat light, sir,” he said. “If you’re belly-cut, it makes healing easier, and death not quite so likely, or anyways, not nearly so messy.” Peirol gave his plate to a recruit, had only bread dipped in sour wine.

  Drums rolled, echoed, and the armies went into their attack lines. Peirol thought he saw them sway forward, back, as if eager yet reluctant for the other’s embrace. Cannon thundered from the Arzamanian lines, and one lucky hit sent mud and a scatter of scouts tumbling.

 
Peirol scorned a man’s cupped hands for a step, pulling himself into his saddle with his arms. He carried only a dagger and a pistol. If heavier weapons would be needed, the battle was almost certainly lost, and there’d be more than enough dead around for him to rearm.

  “Now, m’lord?” Poolvash asked.

  “Go,” Niazbeck said. “And win this battle and this war for Beshkirs.”

  Poolvash touched his knuckles to his forehead, Peirol remembered to bow to his master, and they rode to where the two cannon waited. Their single trails, heavy, elaborately enameled balks of lumber curving down and back from the guns, were already hitched to the two-wheeled tumbrels to keep them clear of the ground while moving. Sixteen horses, twice the usual number, were hitched to the tumbrels. Behind the guns were two wagons of powder and shot, also double-teamed. The cannoneers would run beside the guns when they went forward.

  The rain grew harder, and Peirol didn’t know if that was enemy magic or just chance. He missed the command, but heard and saw the lash of the whips, and the battery went forward, slithering through the puddles, bouncing in the ruts, down the trail toward the front lines. A wave of fear swept over him as he saw a cannoneer stop, ready to flee, heard a warrant shout, “It’s naught but their damned magic, boy! Keep moving.” The artilleryman recovered, went on, but hanging back, white-faced.

  Peirol craned through the mist, across the valley toward the enemy, and saw a knot of men around banners, men in robes, chanting — magicians. They were where he’d been told they’d been in the last attack, almost in the enemy’s most forward lines. Jouncing on his horse, he lifted a twig that he’d notched twice, peered again across the valley. When a certain tree over there reached from one notch to the other, they’d be within firing range. This was something Peirol’d learned on his travels, but from whom, he couldn’t remember.