Railroad Rising: The Blackpowder Rebellion

by J. P. Wagner

  “I wouldn’t want to put too much hope on a direction to look; those fellows are too smart to just go in a straight line, you know.”

  “Yes. I’m hoping to be able to come up with a bit more in the way of tracing them. Something like making a line around the farmstead, and when they break that line on the way back home, they pick up some sort of magical trace that we can follow back to their home.”

  “You don’t think they’ll all have people back in their home camps who’ll be able to see that magic and wipe away that trace?”

  “Quite possibly. That’s why I’m going to have to do some thinking to come up with a trace that the ordinary combat-magician won’t spot. For the time being at least, if we try several farmsteads, we should be able to find one band who doesn’t have a magician with them to spot the trace.”

  “That’ll be better than nothing.”

  #

  For two weeks, the Kilgarhai Garrison maintained their habitual round of continuous patrolling, occasionally skirmishing with bands of rebels caught out in the open. The garrison commander was also responsible for seeing to the storage of supplies sent up from the south and the loading and sending off — under heavy guard — of wagon trains to the north. The wagons, with their guard, were sent back to Kilgarhai, where the wagons were repaired and made ready for the next shipment.

  In the meantime, Carrtog set up his home in a fairly large house that had stood empty for some time. At the same time, he bought a plot of land and had work started on a building to be his own.

  He had workers hired locally for the project and paid them fair wages, though he might have required them to do the work unpaid, as conquered enemies. “It won’t necessarily make them like me any better,” he said, “but they still have to eat, conquered enemies or not.”

  As much of the building material as possible was bought locally, though certain special woods had to be sent up from the south. Also, nails in the quantity necessary for a house of the size projected could not be produced locally, so those and other special items were sent up from the south as well.

  In the middle of the second week, Captain Fordibrach and two other captains came to Carrtog’s office. “You wished to see us, Lord?”

  “Yes, Captain. I have done some study on the problem, and I have come up with a possible solution.”

  He set three stout leather bags on the table, each about the size of two fists, tied with a strong leather cord. “Each of these is full of a fine sand into which a magic has been set. Each of you will take one of the bags, and Captain Fordibrach, you and each of the others shall choose one of the suspect farmsteads. Each of you, or a man you choose, shall ride around each farm, pouring the sand in as near to a circle as you can manage.

  “I shall give each of you a crystal, which is sensitized to the magic in the sand. When the rebels break the circle, they will carry the magic with them, and it will show up in their trail as a pale green glow. It should last long enough for you to be able to trail one or more bands back to their camps.”

  Captain Fordibrach smiled savagely. “A fine surprise to some Northies! You are certain this will work, Lord?”

  “I’m fairly confident it will, Captain. Please report back to me afterward.”

  “Yes, Lord, and willingly!”

  “One last thing, Captains. Even if you do track the rebels from any particular farmstead, do not return to punish that farmstead. If the rebels don’t immediately suspect magic and seek traces of it, we might be fortunate and have them suspect betrayal by someone. If we leave the farm unharmed, who might they first suspect?”

  Captain Fordibrach stood looking puzzled for a moment, then suddenly his face lit up again. “Of course, Lord!”

  As the captains continued on their way, Yakor spoke. “You actually think to sow suspicion among the rebels this way?”

  “It’s possible. The rebel bands know that we offer rewards for anyone giving information about them, which means they must always be on the watch against someone who lets a desire for gold get the best of their desire to be free of the king’s reign. So when something strange happens, like the king’s troopers finding them just a little while after they have visited a certain farmstead for food, why, they might just make a certain sudden decision of their own.”

  Yakor nodded. “We suspect that the king was hoping for you to fail badly at this task. You should best be ready to deal with his reaction when you disappoint that hope.”

  Carrtog sighed. “I’m aware of that, though I could wish life were a little simpler. The Gods run things the way they wish, though, so I suppose I’ll just have to deal with whatever comes.”

  #

  What was to come next was, however, despite being expected, a complete surprise. Early in the morning, Addy shook Carrtog awake.

  “It’s happening, Carrtog! The baby’s coming! Call the servants!”

  “I thought it was too soon, yet?” He was struggling to wake up.

  “I thought so too, but it’s happening!”

  Despite his state of near-sleep, Carrtog was already reaching for the cord that would ring the bell in the servant’s quarters. They had arranged, some time earlier, that the servants should expect a certain series of rings to indicate that the baby was on the way.

  On that signal, certain of the women servants, particularly a few who had already borne children, should come immediately, while at the same time a messenger should be sent to fetch the midwife.

  Carrtog got himself dressed and waited. When the first of the servants arrived, he would still have stayed, but the looks they gave him told him that his presence was not really wanted. He left, going to the room that had become their library, and sat down to read.

  After reading the first part of the first sentence of the seventh chapter for the fifth — or was it the eighth? — time, he tossed the volume aside and got to his feet.

  He began pacing up and down, his mind rushing up and down, seeing all the various tragedies that could befall a woman in childbirth. There was a sudden scream from down the hallway, and before he knew it he was out the door and striding toward the bedchamber.

  One of the serving-woman was standing outside, with her arms folded across her chest. “Go back, Lord. You won’t want to come in here for some time. She’ll be screaming and shouting, and she might well say things to you that you won’t want to hear. Fact is, Lord, you’d be best to get out of the house altogether for some time. We’ll send someone to fetch you when it’s near.”

  Carrtog stood still for a short while; yes, he could well manhandle the woman out of the way, but he knew she was right. He didn’t really want to be in there anyway.

  A moment later Yakor was standing beside him, himself half-dressed. “She’s right, Carrtog. Let’s go out to the stables and look at the horses. Come on.”

  With Yakor’s hand on his elbow, he went out to the stables where they met a manservant who carried a pair of warm cloaks and another who carried a bottle of wine and several heavy cups.

  “Here, put this cloak on, and let’s sit down and wait. The best one can say about these things is that they take as long as they take, so we might as well be as comfortable as we can.”

  Yakor poured out the wine, one cup for each, including the servants. “Since you must bear the cold with us out here, it’s only fair that you should have a share of the wine.” He gave them an eye. “I’ll assume you won’t go bragging about this to the rest of the servants. This is one special circumstance; don’t fool yourself into thinking that it changes your status at all.”

  The two servants nodded.

  They talked about various things, shying away from what was happening back in the house itself; that kind of discussion, even though it began with assurances that nothing was likely to go wrong, inevitably brought to mind the various times when something did go wrong.

  One of the servants began
to shiver, despite his cloak. Yakor looked at Carrtog. “Could you do something to keep us a bit warmer?”

  Carrtog pulled his mind away from what might or might not be going on in the house. “A stable full of dry straw and horses is not the place to risk a fire. But yes, I believe I could do something. Probably best not to fire a pistol either. Let me see—”

  He turned to one of the servants. “Go back into the house and bring me out a cup, preferably a metal one. Yakor, you go find us four small stones, about the size to fit in one’s hand.”

  The servant was back fairly quickly with the cup, and Carrtog poured a careful measure of gunpowder into it. He took a wooden stool from the corner and put a bit of tinder on top of it, along with a bit of straw.

  “Yakor, I intend to be very careful here, but I do need a bit of fire. I’d appreciate it if you’d empty your wine cup and fill it with water to stand by to douse the fire when I’m done, or if it looks like getting away. Hand me the four stones, first.”

  Yakor nodded, tossed back the wine, and went to fill his cup at the half-butt of water standing in the corner. Carrtog set the four stones down on the floor of the stable, and when Yakor returned with the water, he started the small fire.

  Taking up one of the lit straws in his left hand, he held up his right hand, palm down, toward the four stones. Then, speaking an incantation, he dipped the burning straw into the gunpowder. Not being enclosed, it did not explode, but rather burst in a flash of light, filling the air with the scent of burned gunpowder.

  “The fire, Yakor.”

  Yakor doused the fire, and automatically looked around to make sure no flying sparks, either from the fire or the gunpowder, had landed in the dry straw around.

  “If you’ll each pick up one of those stones, you’ll find that it’ll keep you warm. Even if you drop it into a pocket, it’ll keep your whole body warm. It should last about eight to ten hours.”

  No one spoke for a few moments, then Yakor, heaving a small sigh, said, “Now, that is one little trick I could use now and then. Such as waiting in an ambush on a winter’s day for someone to come marching down the road.”

  “This one’s not so good for waiting in hiding anywhere. For anyone with anything more than a whiff of magical talent, it shows up like a dead crow on a snow bank. There are others that are less obvious, or which can be more easily hidden. Of course, those ones are also more difficult to do. For just sitting around in a cold stable, waiting, this one is as good as any.”

  “But if the fellow doing the waiting has no magical ability, it’s still impossible.”

  “That’s common misunderstanding, Yakor. Everyone has at least a small amount of magical ability. Many people don’t believe they have it, so they might as well not. On the other hand, if you manage to convince yourself that you do have some ability, you could manage this particular spell easily.”

  Yakor thought for a bit, then shook his head. “Risking a tiny fire and a powder-flash in a stable one time is allowable; doing it twice or more to teach a lesson isn’t. Perhaps another time and another place.”

  One of the servants spoke up. “Lord, could even someone such as I actually do magic?”

  “I see no reason why not. It would be easier if you could read. You can’t? No matter, we’ll try something simple, something that doesn’t require the burning of powder. Mind you, the burning of powder can make practically any spell easier to work. Let me see. Ah, yes, this is easy, and not likely to go awry. Yakor, do you want to try it too?”

  “For certain, why not? But first, what does it do?”

  “This one just lifts a small weight, something such as a coin. Mind you, continued practice will let you lift even more.”

  He took out a small coin, set it on the stool, pointed at it, and spoke an incantation. The coin slid across the top of the stool.

  He put it in the center of stool’s face and looked at the servant. “Now, you point at the coin and say what you heard me say.”

  The servant spoke, but the coin sat stubbornly still. “No, not quite. Listen carefully.” He repeated the phrase slowly, carefully.

  The servant repeated the phrase, and the coin jerked suddenly.

  “You’ve done it! Now, you notice that it moved with a sudden jerk. That was because you weren’t really sure you could do it. The next time will be easier. Try it again.”

  After three tries, the servant had the coin moving smoothly across the stool.

  “Now, Yakor, you take a try.”

  Yakor made the coin move smoothly, halfway across the stool, on his first try.

  “That was because I saw someone else do it first,” he said, self-deprecatingly.

  After each of them had taken several turns moving the coin, each eventually moving it right off the stool, Carrtog taught them another small spell, to lift the coin straight up.

  Shortly after each of them had had two successful tries at this, the stable door opened and another servant entered. “Lord Carrtog, the child is born. It’s a girl!”

  “And my Lady?”

  “She is quite well, Lord. They said for me to tell you that you could come to see her immediately.”

  “Thank you.”

  For a moment, Carrtog was disappointed that the child was not a boy, but he soon pushed that aside. Addy was well and could have more children, and a daughter deserved his love just as much. He strode toward the house.

  Chapter 20

  As he reached the door of the house, Carrtog realized that he had not been thinking much, if at all, about Addy for the last while, concentrating as he had on the impromptu magic lessons. Had Yakor planted that request with the servant? Well, it had saved him a lot of needless worrying.

  The babe was a wee red thing, wrapped in a white flannel, lying close by her mother’s breast.

  The midwife looked up at Carrtog as he came in. “The babe is just fine. She looks a bit misshapen, but that’s just normal, being squeezed as she was by being born. A week or two from now, she’ll look much better. Your lady has had a burdensome time of it, so it would be best if you let her rest.” This was all said in a tone that seemed to expect that he, being a man, would understand little or none of this and insist on forcing his wife to undergo a long discussion.

  “Of course,” he said, then approached Addy. “The child is well, then, and you?”

  She was smiling, as though she had not gone through a long and painful process. “Well enough, considering. She seems to have been born hungry.” She smiled. “The first thing she did was to start yelling, but she quieted down immediately when they put her to my breast.”

  He smiled in return. “This lady seems to be ready and willing to fetch me a clout with one of these basins if I stay around and tire you any further. Let me give you a quick kiss, and I’ll be gone.”

  She smiled again. “Ah, the brave warrior Carrtog, put to flight by the wrath of a midwife! Yes, come give me a kiss and make your retreat.”

  Smiling himself, he followed her commands.

  #

  Much of the open space in the workroom was taken up by the glider, or at least, by what would become the glider. It was an open framework of lathe-work, a long body with what appeared to be a stubby pair of wings at the rear. The main wings were not yet attached, since that would require more space than the workroom allowed.

  At present the wings, or at least the open lathe-work of them, were leaning along one sidewall. The body of the craft itself showed a pair of protrusions along the side, to which the wings would eventually be attached.

  These projections were slightly higher at the front than at the rear, which would make the wings angle slightly upward for better lift. This was one of the things that had proven useful on small models, things that Gwaitorr had suggested in the bundle of writings on the subject which he had sent up by rail just before they had begun work on their full-size mo
del.

  Carrtog and Gryff were tightening the last connections on the body of the craft, and Addy was sitting by, watching with the baby in a basket nearby. Also sitting and mostly watching the baby was a young dark-haired woman whose task was to look after the child.

  “You still plan to be the first one to fly her, do you?” Addy asked.

  “I can hardly ask someone else to do it. It’s a risky thing, from all accounts, even though we’re generally following the plan that’s been the most successful.”

  She glanced at the basket. “I don’t like the thought of leaving little Aderyn without a father just because you don’t want to ask someone to do something dangerous. After all, you don’t ride out on patrol all by yourself just because it’s dangerous.”

  “That’s a different matter, Addy. My soldiers are expected to go out on patrol, and nobody expects me to do anything but send them out.” He didn’t mention that he was likely to accompany an occasional patrol; that wouldn’t help his cause at all.

  “You see a difference; I don’t.”

  Carrtog didn’t say anything immediately. This was seeming too much like one of those discussions that was going to turn into an argument, ending with him on the wrong side. He looked over at Gryff. “Gryff, I think we’ve done enough on this for now. I’d like to go see how work is going on the house.”

  “You don’t need me for that, Lord. I can stay here and keep working on this.”

  He hesitated a moment; all he really wanted to do was to get away from the immediate presence of the glider, in hopes that he’d be able to take Addy’s mind off of it.

  “All right,” he said, “You carry on here, I’ll go up and look at the house. Addy, did you want to come along?”

  “Yes, I do. But don’t think this discussion is finished. Minnia,” she turned to the dark-haired woman, “Please bring the baby.”