‘There is no time for discussion, my Lords,’ said Osidian. He glanced around at the makeshift camp Carnelian had made. He had not bothered with a laager, but had stopped the dragons where they stood in their ragged line of march. His pavilion and the others for the commanders seemed coalescing pinnacles of the deepening shadows. The commanders had gathered with Carnelian to welcome Osidian’s return. Morunasa wore his ashen frown like a mask.
Osidian sent the commanders away to get everything ready for an immediate departure, then turned to Carnelian. ‘We must reach Makar before dawn.’ His mask was reddened by the sun. ‘And I do not know how long it will take us to get there.’
Carnelian could hear tightness in Osidian’s voice.
‘We will advance in single file with Marula thrown out in front of us to check the ground.’
Carnelian remembered his experience fleeing with the Ochre raiders near Makar. ‘The ground there is dangerously fissured?’
Osidian turned to look at him and gave a nod, then glanced up to the nearest dragon. ‘We must do what we can to ensure they have solid footing.’
‘We need to talk, Osidian. I want to know what you have seen and what it is you intend to do.’
‘There is no time, I tell you!’
Carnelian could see the crews were already swarming up into their towers. ‘I could ride with you inside Heart-of-Thunder’s cabin.’
‘Who then would command Earth-is-Strong?’
‘My Hands have been doing that for days.’
‘But they are marumaga!’
‘Did you expect me to be in both towers at the same time?’
Carnelian was a little surprised at this prejudice, but then realized that, while his own experience with that caste had been with his brothers, Osidian’s was certain not to have been anything like as intimate.
Osidian made a gesture of exasperation. ‘Oh, very well!’
They rode Heart-of-Thunder directly towards the flaming sunset. Below, the Marula spread before them in a fan, aquar and riders almost invisible because they seemed beaten from the same copper as the land. It was the shadows they trailed that allowed Carnelian to make out where they were.
He looked around him. The cabin seemed soaked in blood. Every surface glistened and glowed. An apparition, Osidian, stood gazing out, steadying himself against the dragon’s gait by gripping the right arm of his command chair. Carnelian was holding onto the left. The two officers had to manage kneeling behind them.
‘What did you see, Osidian?’
The apparition turned to Carnelian and began speaking, but he heard nothing. All he could do was stare at the reflection of his own mask in Osidian’s. It seemed the same lurid red face that had been haunting his dreams. To the drone of Osidian’s voice the red face thinned and twisted like a slow flame. It resembled Akaisha’s face warning him, but Carnelian also recognized it as his own. He turned away, nursing his beating heart.
‘What ails you, Carnelian?’
Carnelian breathed deep and hard, still haunted. As his heart slowed, he felt as if he was coming awake. Osidian’s hand was on his shoulder. ‘Just a momentary dizziness.’
‘Sit in the chair.’
Carnelian glanced at it reddening further in the deepening dusk and shook his head. ‘I am recovering; please begin again with what you were saying. Tell me everything.’
Osidian paused a moment. ‘Very well. All day and all night we rode west then, before dawn, we found an abandoned kraal. We slept in its tower until dusk and then set off again, but this time turning south towards the Ringwall. We crept into a stopping place and as the sun rose we hid ourselves among the rabble. All day we endured moving among them on the road.’
‘No one wondered at your height?’
Osidian made a gesture of annoyance. ‘I hunched… Morunasa made sure they saw his face while I was careful to hide mine. They thought me one of his kind.’
Carnelian nodded, then motioned him to continue.
‘We approached the city in late afternoon. When we reached a market outside its walls we found a place to hide until nightfall. Before the moon rose we passed through the city and found what we needed. That was last night. Before dawn we slipped away into the open fields. East we rode, then north, searching for your trail. Finding it, we rode along it until we reached you.’
‘And?’
‘We learned much from overhearing travellers talking. Morunasa got more from questioning others.’
‘Is Aurum there?’
Osidian shook his head. ‘I believe he is down in the Leper Valleys.’
‘What?’ Carnelian said. His shocked tone awoke concern in the officers. He calmed himself.
‘He must be searching for me,’ Osidian said. ‘Though rumour suggests he is even now on his way back to the Guarded Land.’
Carnelian heard the glee in his voice and understood. ‘You believe we shall arrive in Makar before him and trap him in the Valleys.’
Osidian was nodding. ‘Put in such an untenable position, I have hopes my Lord Aurum will realize he has no choice but to negotiate with me.’
Carnelian could not deny the nausea he felt. He slipped round and slumped into the chair. He had thought he was leaving Poppy and Fern in relative safety. His mind was lit by nightmarish dragonfire. He lifted his head and let the darkness that was falling outside quench the flames. To save whatever remained of the Leper Valleys, Aurum must be drawn back to the Guarded Land. Carnelian turned to look up at Osidian, in whose metal face lurked disturbing, murky reflections. ‘We must make a plan to take Makar.’
They halted so that Carnelian could transfer to Earth-is-Strong. Standing astride the head of Heart-of-Thunder’s brassman, Carnelian paused, stunned by the immensity of the night sky. The earth’s lightless sea snuffed out the stars along the southern horizon. He noticed two burning on the boundary between earth and sky. He scanned east. There, though much fainter, was a third. Each beacon marked the presence of a watch-tower on the Ringwall. He gazed into the south-west and for a moment thought he could see the dull glow of Makar. His certainty wavered. He gazed further west, in the direction they were heading. He searched the horizon there for more fallen stars, but could find none. His vantage point was too low. He began the descent to the ground.
Reaching the earth he was struck by how separated he was from it by the ranga calluses of his suit and felt a powerful urge to stand upon it barefoot. Heart-of-Thunder was a cliff of blackness. His mast speared the infinite sky.
Escorted by Osidian’s Lefthand, Carnelian made his way back along the dragon line. It was a long way. The monsters snuffled. Their rich musk permeated the night. Glancing up he caught a gleam running along a flame-pipe. Then the faint glow of a Master enthroned in his tower. He wondered if it came to battle whether the commanders would really obey Osidian. Would they really be prepared to make war upon the Commonwealth?
When they reached Earth-is-Strong the Lefthand cried up to her tower. The brassman was lowered, then a ladder rustled down to meet him. He climbed it, feeling he was ascending to the stars. One of his crew was waiting on the brassman to guide him in. Entering the tower Carnelian was cheered by its warmth, by the now familiar smell. He ascended to the upper deck. As he sat down in the command chair, he glanced to either side. His Lefthand and Righthand were there, kneeling in their places. ‘Tell Heart-of-Thunder we’re ready to go.’
His Lefthand gave a nod and bent to mutter into his voice fork. While Carnelian waited, he peered out through his bone screen. Directly ahead a dragon and its tower formed an indivisible shadow mass. He stroked the smooth arms of his chair as he considered the plan he and Osidian had come up with.
A sudden spark hovering in the night made him start. It was a signal coming back down the line. The dragon in front lurched into movement. Carnelian felt the tremors it was sending into the earth. He had no need to have the signal deciphered. He whispered his command to his Lefthand. The familiar rocking of the cabin once Earth-is-Strong had found her
gait soon lulled him to sleep.
Some time later he woke and, peering, noticed two lights twinkling on the western horizon. He knew they must be the southernmost watch-towers on the Great South Road. Osidian had set them on a course that led directly between them as they had planned.
A whisper made Carnelian sit up. It was his Lefthand. ‘Master, a signal-’
‘From Heart-of-Thunder?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘A command?’
The Lefthand shook his shadowy head. ‘Wishing you good luck, Master.’
‘Bring the dragon to a halt.’
The man did as he was told. Carnelian watched the mountainous shadow of the dragon in front slowly merge with the night. Osidian was making for the southernmost tower. Carnelian raised his hand to indicate the tiny beacon of its neighbour to the north and his Lefthand set a course for it. As they began to move, he could just make out the small body of Marula below that had been assigned to him to make sure the ground before him could hold Earth-is-Strong’s weight.
Carnelian had hoped for steady progress. It was essential to their plan that he should reach his tower before Osidian reached his. His recollections of the land around Makar had made him confident it was Osidian who would have to navigate around the most ravines and fissures, but this was the second massive sinkhole his Marula had had to lead him round. Carnelian could smell the fear from his men as they waited for the next thump to vibrate the cabin and show that Earth-is-Strong had made another solid footfall.
The moon was rising behind them when Carnelian sent his dragon crashing through the stopping place. He had done what he could to align her on the track that led from the fields directly towards the watch-tower and its gate in the hope it would give her a clear passage. He could not risk giving any overt warning of his coming lest he should alert the tower. He had hoped there would be enough people awake in the stopping place to feel the thunder of his approach, to see Earth-is-Strong’s monstrous shape looming up out of the night towards them and then sound a general alarm that would send people fleeing from her path. Even so, he could hear screaming thinned by the cold air. The command chair transferred a judder up his spine each time Earth-is-Strong crushed something beneath one of her massive feet. However hard he focused on his objective, he could not stop imagining what it was he was leaving flattened behind him.
The cabin angled back as his dragon climbed a ramp towards the leftway wall. The tower loomed up, its rib arms held aloft as if in shock or surrender. The gate upon which it stood sentinel was closed. Osidian and he had expected this. He had his Lefthand slow Earth-is-Strong until she was edging towards the gate. Another command made her lower her head. The point of her crest moved forward as she tipped her anvil head to target the gate with her flat crown. His whole body felt her making contact. His Lefthand was muttering commands. Carnelian had to put his feet out to stop sliding off his chair as she leaned into the wood. It groaned like the bow of a baran striking a massive wave, then it detonated once, twice more, and exploded, spitting splinters. Released, Earth-is-Strong stumbled forward. The cabin lurched, shaking everything, as the dragon lumbered through the ragged gap.
He moved her out onto the road. The glitter of campfires on the far side slid to the right as he turned her south. He could hear the rush and clatter of Marula riders as they surged up the ramp onto the road behind him. They had their commands. They would swarm the watch-tower and try to take it intact. Failing that, he would have to turn his flame-pipes on it. He trusted his lookout to warn him if any attempt was made to send a message north. He had instructed him to look for any signal.
Carnelian leaned forward, peering down the road. There it was, the next watch-tower, its twinned flares just above the straight black edge of the leftway. Heart racing, he looked for the telltale flicker that would show any attempt to betray them to the Wise. As far as he could tell, those flares were twinkling as innocuously as stars. He squinted, trying to see any sign of Osidian. He sat back, relieved. Everything suggested he had made it on time. A sudden wavering in the flares jerked him forward again. They steadied. There it was again. The rhythm seemed to him too slow to be a message. He gazed away from the far-off tower, west into the murky land. In a layer, a hazing was hugging the ground. It was barely perceptible, but it was there. Mist? He scanned further west and saw that there the night was clear. He squinted at the haze. Could it be smoke? But what could make smoke rise in such a neat band?
His heart leapt, forcing him to recoil back into his chair. ‘Send her forward.’
He felt his Lefthand stirring. ‘Master?’
‘South along the road!’ he barked. ‘Fast as she can go.’
Down the road thundered Earth-is-Strong. High in her tower sat Carnelian, unable to take his eyes from the ragged wave of dust rolling south away from him and that the low moon was lighting into a silver swell. That dust had risen only a few moments before and confirmed what he had feared. A battleline of dragons advancing southwards. His reaction had been to instruct his Righthand to have the flame-pipes lit. Even now the clink of the furnace men at work was being transmitted up to his cabin through the bone fabric of the tower.
‘Master?’
Carnelian resented the intrusion by his Lefthand. ‘Well?’
‘Master, the lookout reports a message being sent from the tower we just passed.’
Carnelian had forgotten his mission. ‘North,’ he said, resignedly. ‘North to Osrakum.’
‘South, my Master.’
‘Are you sure?’ Carnelian asked, incredulous. He craned round to peer through one of the rear portholes, but could see no light. He straightened. ‘Check it was definitely south.’
‘Master,’ the Lefthand said and, leaning into his voice fork, began muttering. The man soon had a reply. ‘South, Master.’
Carnelian fixed the dust wave with a baleful eye. Was the tower sending some prearranged signal to whoever it was commanding those dragons? He tried to work out what infernal trap he and Osidian had fallen into, but could form no shape of it in his mind.
He was weary from anxiety. Three more times his Lefthand had informed him their lookout had seen the watch-tower behind them attempt to send a message south. All that time Carnelian had kept the tower ahead under his scrutiny. The orbits of his eyes ached, but he was certain it had signalled no acknowledgement. At least that part of their plan seemed to have succeeded. Osidian must have gained control of his tower.
The dust wave he was pursuing had, for a moment, submerged the watch-tower up to its waist. As the dust subsided the watch-tower seemed to have swollen larger. Periodically, he wrenched his gaze from the wave to the tower, measuring his progress by its increasing size. He feared he was only imagining he was closing on the enemy dragons. He would have urged Earth-is-Strong to even greater speed, but a peculiar irregularity in the shuddering of the command chair betrayed her fatigue. He did not know how much more the monster had in her, but he dare not let her slacken her pace.
Sniffing the air as best he could through the nosepads of his mask he became aware of a stronger reek of naphtha in the rush of air that was pouring into the cabin. The moon was finding dark shapes lumbering in the veiling dust. Dragons. If their pipes were lit they must indeed be pursuing some quarry.
The cabin came abreast of the watch-tower and still the enemy line seemed far away, but, gripping the arms of his chair, he was finding it easier to convince himself he was closing on them.
‘The pipes are ready?’ he said, above the clatter of the cabin.
‘Yes, Master,’ his Righthand replied.
Carnelian gazed along the mounding dust and saw how far it extended into the hinterland. His heart sank. What could they hope to do against such a preponderance of force?
Suddenly he became aware the dust ahead was subsiding. At first he feared that somehow the dragon line was speeding away from him, but the creatures were looming larger, not smaller, their towers emerging frosty in the moonlight, trailing pale banners o
f smoke.
‘They’re slowing,’ he muttered. Then he understood. Fear gripped him. Osidian had been run down. Soon the line would open fire on him. Carnelian’s instinct was to order his own pipes to fire. Even though the flame was not likely to reach his enemy it might distract him. He held back, knowing he probably had but one chance. Also, he could see that the line ahead had slowed so much that, with every passing moment, they were catching up. ‘How long before we are in range?’
‘Moments, Master,’ replied his Righthand.
‘Tell me when.’
‘Yes, Master.’
Carnelian waited and with every heartbeat he could make out more of the dragon they were now bearing down on. First the berg of its tower. Then the rump of the dragon upon which it sat. Until even the rigging became distinct, iced by the moon.
‘Now, Master,’ said his Righthand.
Carnelian paused a moment, hardly breathing, one last time seeking to understand. Reluctantly he gave the command. ‘Flame.’
In the corner of his eye he saw his Righthand put his mouth to his voice fork. The device swallowed his command. Then, nothing. Carnelian was disappointed. Then he felt under his feet a gurgling stutter. Then the rush of fluid through the pipes that could have been his rising blood. Shrieking incandescence spat from the flame-pipes. Fire jetted an arc through the night. That narrow lightning was all he could see. Splashing upon the dragon tower, causing a molten flower to bloom in the night. Flame devoured the charring ivory. Rigging snapped into fiery whiplash. The mast toppled, burning. Fire poured down the dragon’s rump, curling crisping hide, cooking the livid flesh beneath. The monster, shuddering, let forth a scream like scraping brass. It veered away, its tower a bonfire on its back even as Carnelian’s own jets spluttered dry, their brightness dying. His eyes took a moment to see beyond the ghosts he was printing on the night with each blink. Around him the cabin juddered as Earth-is-Strong turned away, stumbling, slowing. He let her go, tracking the other dragon as it burned, trailing sparks and smoke across his vision. Suddenly a flash stabbed him blind. Even as his hands flew up to his eyes a detonation rattled the cabin. He felt heat on his hands and coming through the gold of his mask to his face. A dull, thunderous thud reverberated in his bones. A stench was breaking over him of naphtha and charring flesh. For a moment he feared his hands were on fire, but the heat quickly abated and, when he clasped one with the other, the leather gloves were smooth and there was no pain. He tried peering through the eyeslits of his mask. At first he could make no sense of what he saw. Shadowy miasmas, shifting, gave vague glimpses into a fiery world. Patches of smoulder spotted with fire. At the heart of this a mound veined with melting gold. The dragon, ruptured, fallen, burning.
The Third God sdotc-3 Page 27