Next was a visit to the potters’ guild, where craftsmen were put to work making hollow clay arrowheads that would carry about a fifth of a liter of flammable oil and a flint ignition primer. People in wooden boats want to throw things at people in stone towers, that would be just fine, Kirrah would be ready. After that, a visit to the blacksmith’s guild, where she redirected one of the smithies from turning out pike heads, to work on a heavy anti-shipping chain to be laid across the river on stone piers at the point where it was met by the city’s west wall. As soon as the chain was ready, they would begin work on Kirrah’s next project, starting with the heavy iron ‘tub’ as tall as a man and half that wide.
By early evening a rather tired group returned to the Stone in a River school. Delima stayed with them because, she said, she wanted a good view of the evening’s celebration. Kirrah flopped down on one of the courtyard couches and, tiredly and a little warily, asked:
“What celebration?”
“It is traditional to celebrate a new appointment, also to celebrate good news for the city. You have brought us both,” explained the Guildmaster.
“Uhh,” said Kirrah wearily, “does that mean I’m expected to…”
“Oh, goodness no,” the older woman said. “This is just a little show for the citizens. By now the block-leaders have reported on the Council meeting to their home blocks. Some small celebration will be expected.”
“I appreciate the honor,” Kirrah said, “but I am just as glad to rest. Tomorrow I shall take on the problem of getting the farmers back to work. As soon as we have enough archers to keep the raiders off the fields, we can get to planting. Damn! I should have thought of building stone towers to defend the fields… I’ll get some of the trainees to start on that. I think we can defend a site long enough to get some walls up at least.” She knuckled her tired eyes and looked at the young Wrth woman who had been with her all day. “Peetha, you have been very quiet today, is there a problem?”
“No, Warmaster.”
“Tell me then, why you have so little to say.”
“We …that is, the Wrth are taught to listen to our leader and speak but little.”
“That is not my way, Peetha. I want you to tell me anything you can that will help me keep this city safe. I do not press you to say things that would harm your countrymen.” Kirrah sat up and leaned forward, looking at the young woman. “Understand, Peetha, I mean no harm to your fellows. I kill to keep them from killing us, no more.” Now that Akaray’s family has been paid in blood, thought something dark.
“If there is a way to send them away, there will be no more killing. I just can’t think of how. So I am preparing the Talamae to go out and kill them all. I will not ask my student warriors to kill their own people.”
A thoughtful pause, then: “You are …displeased with us? With me?”
“No, Peetha, I think you and the others are the bravest warriors I have ever seen.” Except possibly for a certain young boy taking on a nest of irwua to save my ignorant butt. “Why do you think I am displeased?”
“You neither punish us, nor are you willing to use us against your enemies.” A tanned arm waved towards the northwest.
“You would be willing to fight your own countrymen?”
“We have no countrymen but you, Warmaster. Of course we will fight your enemies. I do not understand.” Take a deep breath, Lieutenant Roehl…
“For my …Realm’s soldiers, this would be too much to ask. I do not ask what I could not do myself. You must teach me, Peetha, about my students. I would use this weapon to its best. For example, is there some way I could convince the warriors out there, to leave? For starters, why did you agree to serve me, rather than die in my trap? I do not think it was because you feared death from my not-sword.” The light was fading from the sky as they spoke, and servers were bringing out torches and setting places at the nearby outdoor table.
“There is belief, among us …among the Wrth, that there are two gods who rule and protect us. One is IceWrth, one is FireWrth. IceWrth rules our lives, she demands our sacrifices, chastens us and strengthens and teaches us through pain and injury. The other is FireWrth, her mate and teka; fang to her claw, wing to her feather. He rules our deaths, carries us to the, what Talamae would call sky-fire, where warriors live forever. Your not-sword, it spits sky-fire. When you stood on the wall and demanded our lives, and burned any who opposed, we thought you were FireWrth. When I saw you were a woman, I thought you were both. We must obey, or our spirit will be left with our dead meat, for the scavengers to consume, and not join the fathers in sky-fire.”
“Peetha, now you know I am not a god, but a woman with better weapons. Yet you still serve me.”
“I know now that you are a woman. I am not sure that you are not also both our gods. You know more of war than any Wrth. I do not understand you. You fight as the Wrth do, with your weapons, with your body, with your heart… but you also fight with your mind, and your words, and your kaiya - your ability to make a new thing. I saw you make weapons out of clay pots and stone and chain. You defeated the ironclad, all the ironclad, with words alone, without striking a blow. I wish to learn this way.”
Kirrah sat back and thoughtfully considered the implications of what she had heard. They were called to the supper table. The sky had faded to a deep blue-gray. A delicious aroma rose from the table, as Kirrah and her recent enemy joined Slaetra, Delima, a wide-eyed Akaray, and a few others for their meal. Through the excellent first course, Kirrah was mostly silent, thinking and plotting, integrating this new information into her web of schemes and half-plans. Just as she was accepting seconds, there was a sound, a small, soft, distant whump. She paused, food halfway to her mouth, a tiny furrow in her brow.
That sounded just like… Another whump. A distinct pop, all muted by distance. Delima, Akaray, and a serving-boy on the other side of the table were looking raptly over Kirrah’s left shoulder, toward the southwest, the palace. Another whump, more pops.
“See,” said Delima, “the celebration!” Kirrah stood and turned, in time to see a trail of orange sparks climb into the dark sky and burst with a dazzling scatter of red and white sparkles.
Aw, damn! was the first thought to pass through her mind. Fireworks! Now I’ve got to redo all my plans! Why didn’t someone tell me you have gunpowder?
Chapter 21: Interlude
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” - Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826 A.D.; statesman and co-founder, United States of America, Terra.
Fifty thousand kilometers above the equator of the planet called Trailway, the sun was always shining. Its light glittered from a ring of massive Regnum naval installations, strung out like jewels on a necklace in their shared geostationary orbit. Satellites tens of kilometers in length – defensive forts, munitions warehouses, shipyards, smelting and manufacturing plants, communications facilities, barracks and training centers - together they made up the backbone of the Regnum Draconis presence in this octant. The perpetual sunlight picked out tiny motes drifting from one jewel to another: massive cargo carriers, personnel shuttles, swift couriers, all lost against the vastness of space. Warships the size of small cities drifted in parking orbits like shoals of tiny minnows. The immense SkyLift elevator was visible, a hair-thin silver line etched on the blackness from the planet’s surface to well above the ring of metal motes.
At one of these motes, an array of sensitive antennae tens of kilometers on a side cupped its ear to the electromagnetic hiss and crackle of the universe mumbling to itself. Ionized atoms around a new star two thousand light years distant made a faint frying-bacon sizzle. Enormous clouds of cool dust and molecular hydrogen ten times that remote sang a bass microwave counterpoint. Cosmic rays, fragments of shattered atoms from a thousand times yet farther, flickered past and were recognized.
From the edge of the Trailway system, a faint whisper of electromagnetics drifted in, weaving among the background of rumbles and whistles like the murmur of a lover. Elegant softwa
re sniffed and isolated the whisper, amplified it, corrected its drops and stutters, teased out a model of the sender’s original. Another layer of AI recognized the framestamp of a mailtube, isolated the signature of the Mark VIII-b model, passed the packet to Naval Intelligence. There it joined the queue of message traffic, and in due course the outer encryption wrapper was stripped. Its priority was bumped several grades by another AI, and the inner encryption packet was tightbeamed to the receiver bank halfway down the SkyLift’s length.
From there it flowed as light, down the thousands of kilometers of secure fiber, to the NavInt communications nexus at the base of the SkyLift. It was read, a confirmation request flowed back up the system and was duly filled. More light stuttered across the fibers linking the communications complex to other surface installations, was received, pondered for a few more nanoseconds by another AI at the Naval Operations complex. Finally, a message appeared beside a flashing icon in the Priority screen in front of a human. The young ensign looked for a moment at the message and routed it downstairs.
It was winter on the northern hemisphere of Trailway. Rear Admiral Lucinda Dunning enjoyed winter, and her corner office on the ninth floor offered a good view. At the moment, the luminous slate-blue light of late evening was muffled by a steady mist of falling snow. Wind whirled the tiny flakes like constellations, wheeling and promenading in the light spilling from her windows. Her comm panel chimed. Distracted from her reverie, she bent briefly over the board. Her brow furrowed, then furrowed deeper as she read more. She pressed a key. A face appeared on her primary screen.
“Joe?”
“Luce, hi! What’s on your plate? You look… odd.” Her quick gold-flecked brown eyes still framed a pair of small sharp creases over the bridge of her long nose.
“Well, have you seen this?” Her fingers tapped a few keys, the face on her screen shifted gaze. Between the man’s bushy eyebrows, the same two-stage furrow appeared, then deepened.
“I …see! Right out there in our own back forty. What’s the window for that scout? The…” eyes flicked off-screen again, back: “…the Arvida-Yee.” Lucinda tapped a few more keys, then:
“She’s got almost another two months on her assigned gig. Next regular mailtube due in twelve days. Joe, I think we have to respond to this, whether we get an all-clear in the next few hours or not. That planet they found is a gem, and I’d rather park a ‘Wagon over it now than send a whole task force to get it back later. It could be days before we learn the outcome. Or worst case, we never will. I don’t know what the Kruss are up to, but whatever it is, they just lost an asset out there. From the scan data I’d guess a light cruiser or more. We can get there with more than they can, faster. I think we should. I don’t like the looks of this, one bit.”
“Besides, you’d rather discourage any adventuring before it starts to show a profit. Can’t say I disagree, Luce. Tell you what, just to show you what an agreeable Admiral I can be, you can have your ‘whole task force’ right now. Take, um…” gaze averted, more tapping, “…take the Belleville, I know she’s got a new Captain, it’ll do them all some good.”
“Aye, Sir. Uh, Joe, did you say, ‘Take’?”
“Well, unless you’d rather delegate, I know the skiing is going to be pretty good after this fresh snowfall…”
“Sir! No, Sir!” she replied, like a plebe on inspection. A broad grin split the seamed face of the older man, an expression more appropriate to a shark than any show of mirth.
“Touché, Joe. Do I get my pick of escorts?”
“Ahh, we’ll negotiate. I want a few tin cans left around here, just to keep up appearances. Although perhaps a light cruiser would be fitting, you know we’ll have to bring the Mercantiles along. We’ll keep the Kruss out of it of course, but the Mercs’ll be falling all over one another to get at that hablet. Standard waivers should cover Fleet indemnity.
“Tell you what, you draw up a list of five or six, in order of preference, I’ll tell you who you can steal. And at least two of them should be from the Belleville’s own group, I think they’ve got Wallace and Steuben, both good hands. Let’s see if we can get this show on the road in, mmm, four days?”
“On it, Joe. And …thanks.”
“Thank me later, if you still feel it’s appropriate. Good hunting, Admiral.” The screen went blank. Outside the window, the falling snow continued to sway and wheel, like a task force on maneuvers, thought Admiral Dunning. Now, just who is that cagey old horse trader going to let me pull away, and how much do I have to pad this list, to get the ones I really want?
Chapter 22 (Landing plus fifty-one): Judgement
“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” - Jules de Gaultier, 20th century A.D. philosopher and writer; Terra
Lieutenant Rash’koi crept carefully forward in the moonless darkness. That’s close enough. Spread in an arc ahead of him, the campfires of the Wrth blazed, strung out at two hundred hab’la intervals around his city. Behind him, a score of archers followed in silent single file. Each carried four of the bulbous-tipped new arrows their Warmaster had designed for them. At his signal they spread into a line facing the second-nearest campfire to their left.
Following their meticulous drill, each man twisted the five by ten centimeter bulbs a quarter turn on their shafts, releasing the cunning spline-and-pin arrangement so that the head could slide back a few centimeters when it impacted. Rash’koi had examined the inside of one of the devices, and seen how the flint chip rubbed against the scored steel wire when the end was struck, making tiny sparks fly inside the hollow metal bulb. Now the bulbs were filled with the black star-powder and metal chips. Who but their new Warmaster would have thought the powder they used to amuse children and idle citizens with pretty lights in the sky, could be a weapon?
With his four arrows armed, the Lieutenant checked his men. Everyone was signaling ‘ready’. A final scan: there were the Wrth sentries, standing watch eighty or ninety hab’la from their fires, two for each fire. These heavier bulb-tipped arrows had little more than half the range of the bodkin points, but they could still carry a good four hundred fifty hab’la. Ready, then. He touched the shoulder of the woman beside him in the darkness, the woman from the small star-thrower’s guild. She planted the arm-long tube she was carrying, inclined toward the raiders’ camp. Hand signals to synchronize the archers, three, two, one, fly! As the first flight lofted into the overcast night sky, each man reached for his second arrow and let fly, almost in unison, at the nearest campfire directly ahead of them. At the same moment the woman touched a smoldering cord to the wick of the star-thrower, and the tube chuffed. As they turned to the campfire on their right for a third flight, from the left almost in unison came twenty quick yellow-orange flashes and twenty thunderous explosions rolled into one nightsplitting volley. To the right now, fly! Twenty bows beside Rash’koi thrummed deeply. Now ready the fourth flight.
Two more volleys of explosions rolled across the plains, more ragged than the first carefully timed round, but no less potent. Around the fires, Wrth were rousing and scrambling. And dying, Rash’koi saw with approval. Dazed, some bleeding, some just not rising. Now the bodkin points released by two hundred archers behind him began to hail down onto the confused Wrth’s campsite. Like a field of hay before a scythe, the standing raiders fell. High overhead, the star-maker popped and a flowerburst of brilliant red sparkles blossomed over their enemies’ central campfire.
There, from the far left, a handful of Wrth were mounting. Here they come, ready the fourth volley… fly! The third flight of a hundred bodkinpoints thudded into flesh and earth around the campfire over his right shoulder. As the scatter of Wrth riders came charging out onto the dark plain, more grenade-arrows slammed in and around them. Horses reared and screamed, riders fell, none rose. Time to go, Rash’koi concluded. His detail trotted silently over the springy turf, single file, back to the relative security of the main body of archers. As they moved, two kilometers off to the east another ser
ies of explosions echoed, and another red star carved the dark sky, marking the second raiding party’s strike. A quarter hour later, both groups were safe behind the city walls.
On top of the walls, a pair of green eyes looked on with approval. You can ring my city, Kirrah thought, but not for free, not any more. Tomorrow, the first suit of chain mail armor would be ready for testing.
Five dawns later, after nightly raids and one failed Wrth counter-raid, the sun rose over an empty plain. The alarm bells rang over and over, bong-bing-bing - ‘all clear’. Half the city seemed to be on the walls or in the streets cheering, the other half heading for the fields with the spring planting on their minds and backs. At noon, a full Council meeting conferred on Kirrah the gratitude of the city and an honorary citizenship. By late afternoon, she had dispatched half a dozen parties of scouts to determine where exactly the Wrth had gone, and to bring back reports from the Realm’s border patrols.
Two days later, she and Akaray and Peetha went visiting to the smithy. The river chains were finished and sitting in very heavy heaps of forearm-length iron links on the riverbank by the west wall, awaiting installation. Work was already well underway with her next project.
“Warmaster! Good to see you!” boomed the basso voice of Wai’thago, who for size could have been the brother of Lord Tsano. However this gentleman was about the hairiest human Kirrah had ever seen, heavy gray and black curls around his crown and a near-pelt covering all exposed parts of his arms, chest and lower legs. Bright smoky-green eyes were set in a broad, smile-wrinkled face.
“Good Ironmaster! How goes my washtub?” Kirrah asked, using his term for her current project – a rather skeptical term, she thought - yes, at least skeptical.
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