Goddess Worldweaver sc-3 Page 6

  “It’s ingenious,” Darann declared in wonder. “That’s the ‘Dirge for Cubic Mandrill,’ isn’t it?”

  Rufus nodded. “It’s one of my favorites. And what a story: a hero who died protecting his liege, serving in good faith. But it has come to my attention that there might be more to the story.”

  “What do you mean?” Darann asked, very curious.

  His eyes were narrowed as he looked around, casually inspecting the balconies of the house, the slopes of the surrounding hillside. Instead of answering, he asked a question of his own, somehow mouthing the question without visibly moving his lips.

  “Did you see Hiyram?”

  “Yes,” Darann replied in the same discreet fashion. “I gave him another knife and some provisions. I think his people will be patient for a little longer. I don’t know how long it will be before they revolt. But tell me: what makes you think that there might be more to the story?”

  “There is a dwarfwoman in the city who knows much of that assassination. She has written me a letter and makes some intriguing speculation. There will come a time, my daughter, when I shall tell you about it.”

  “But not now?” pressed the dwarfmaid, knowing that her stubborn father had made up his mind.

  “I have to see the king,” Rufus said, glowering in spite of himself. “A few minutes, a real conversation-that’s all it would take for him to see the wrong he is perpetrating, or that is being perpetrated in his name!”

  “I wish I shared your optimism,” the daughter answered. “But I cannot believe he doesn’t know exactly what is going on in the ghetto. The guards-there were six of them at the Metal Gate today! He’s getting ready to put down a rebellion.”

  “A bad sign,” Rufus agreed. “But we can’t know they were sent there under King Lightbringer’s orders. You know that Nayfal has complete command of the garrison.”

  “Nayfal!” Darann all but spat the name. She drew a breath, conscious that her emotions might be visible on her face. And there was no way to know who was watching the house, lurking in the darkness beyond the beacons. At least she consoled herself that the fountain’s noise made it impossible for them to be overheard.

  “Have faith, daughter,” Rufus said gently. “I have some indication that I might be invited to the throne room, perhaps within the next ten cycles. We have survived travails before. You should know that this, too, shall pass.”

  Later, as she walked backed to her apartment in one of the city’s Six Towers, she reflected on her father’s words. Try as she might, she found his sentiment impossible to believe.

  4

  The Prussian

  Shrouded sunset,

  On long horizon;

  Canvas clouds approach.

  Crimson rain,

  Yields only crop

  Of carnage.

  From The Ballad of Seafall by Sirien Saramayd

  Though his death had occurred more than forty years ago, Fritzi Koeppler stood on his command deck and remembered the moment as if it had been just last week. Circumstances could not have been more different: then, he fought on a horse; now on a boat. Then he had joined a great army battle, part of a clash between two prideful and nationalist leaders; now he raced toward a sea fight, battling for the destiny of all creation.

  Nevertheless, as he led his flotilla of more than three hundred druid boats, his mind inevitably turned to that other fight, his last battle-indeed, his last experience of any kind-upon the world of his birth.

  He had been a minor leader in the hierarchy of a mighty army, his command a battalion of crack Prussian cavalry troops. Together with hundreds of thousands of men and hundreds of lethal cannons, he had gone to make war upon France.

  He had enjoyed heady success during the start of the campaign, in the summer of 1870. Under the command of King Wilhelm I and the able leadership of General Moltke and his modern, efficient general staff, the Prussians and their Germanic allies chased the hapless French back from the border with dazzling attacks through Strasbourg, Nancy, and Metz. Finally the invaders trapped the enemy force, more than 200,000 strong, within a bend of the river Meuse, at Sedan. There would be no escape for the army of Napoleon III: even a humiliating crossing into neutral Belgium would be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. So the French would stand; the Germans, attack.

  The heavy Krupp guns pounded relentlessly, lethal shells plunging into packed ranks. Fritzi could still feel, smell, hear his own mare, the big horse prancing and snorting under the noise of the bombardment, eager to charge. She was a powerful creature, black and sleek and vibrant, and he longed to unleash that power. He watched shells whistle overhead, witnessed the obliteration of breastworks, fortifications, and men.

  The French fought with courage, the thumping cadence of their heavy, primitive machine guns, called mitrailleuses, chattering in the background of the barrage. These innovative devices were mounted upon two-wheeled frames, like light artillery pieces, and fired a rapid fusillade of bullets through a series of rotating barrels. Many Prussians had fallen to the deadly fire, but the weapons were mostly useful for harassing skirmishers; they seemed to have little place on the field of an epic battle. Truly, the new weapons were no match for crunching, well-organized artillery.

  But guns alone would not decide this battle, and so the cavalry moved up in the time-honored fashion. The French formations were badly battered, clearly weakened and ready to break. Closing his fist around the hilt of his saber, Fritzi looked at the ragged lines, the infantry battalions torn and gashed by the fire, and his heart pounded with excitement. The horses would cut through those ranks, the enemy army would break, and the war could be won-all with one epic charge. After a lifetime in the saddle, he knew there could be no better way to decide the affair.

  His mare shared his excitement, snorting and kicking, restless in the close formation. All along the battalion’s lines equine nostrils flared, hooves stomped, and manes blew in the wind. Then came the signals: pennants up, horns braying, the huge animals advancing at a walk, a trot, surging into a canter. The ground itself seemed to tremble under the impact of many thousands of hooves. Finally the steeds broke into a gallop, thundering across the field, the surge of attack drowning out all other sensations. French cannons fired sporadically, shells that screamed past or, occasionally, exploded among the lines of men and steeds. The bloody gaps in the cavalry ranks quickly filled, elite troops merging to tighten ranks, still maintaining the frenzied momentum of the charge. Already some of the enemy troops fled, panicking in the face of death; Fritzi’s lip curled in disdain of this shameful cowardice.

  Now the French troops stood visible before them, in line formation-they had not even formed the squares that were the traditional defense against such a charge. Fritzi leaned low, murmuring words of encouragement into the mare’s laid-back ear. A few small guns stuttered here and there, the squat and toylike mitraillueses opening up as the charging cavalry came closer.

  And then a strange thing happened. Those little chattering guns began to sweep their fire-streams of mere bullets, not the explosive shells of true artillery-across the front of the Prussian horsemen. Men and mounts fell in gory tangles, bodies forming an instant breastwork, breaking the tight ranks. Some of the trailing horses leaped the fleshy rampart, only to perish in the continuing volleys; others tripped and stumbled through the chaos of suffering, thrashing flesh. Still those pesky little guns fired, barrels smoking as they spun through their rotating cylinders. Everywhere horses were rearing and kicking, men were falling, and both mounts and riders were dying.

  The charge was not merely broken but utterly shattered. The realization came to Fritzi as he lay on the ground, his broken leg pinned by the weight of his dead horse: warfare had changed, changed fundamentally and forever. He was saddened and ashamed, for it seemed that all glory had been taken from this most glorious of pursuits. It was not long before the French infantry came forward, bayonets glittering, and Fritzi lacked the strength or the will to reach to his bel
t and draw his side arm. Everything was sad and wasted, and for what kind of world?

  At the last, when a razor-sharp bayonet plunged through his throat, he was ready to die.

  “You were thinking of that day again, Sedan? Were you not?” Reza asked the question directly, his brow furrowed with concern. The big Persian sat at the tiller, the wooden bowl in his lap as he effortlessly rotated the windspoon with his free hand. The gust he cast swirled upward, filled the sail, propelled the boat with all the power-and none of the noise or smoke or heat-of a good-sized steam engine.

  “Yes,” Fritzi answered, shaking his head as if to physically break free from the reverie. He could see the white sails, the blue sky, the sun-dappled water. Ahead, on the horizon, the darkness of the armada lay like a stormy murk. With that glance, and the smell of the fresh, salty air, he returned to all the truths of this place and this day. “You know, that was my last battle… until now. When Gretchen summoned me to Nayve, I allowed myself to believe that my days of war were over. But now…” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the dark, stormy fleet.

  Reza nodded, his dark skin growing smooth as his expression became more peaceful. “Today looks to be a battle that will make them all, from Salamnis to Traflagar, seem but skirmishes.”

  Fritzi clapped the druid on the shoulder, feeling the familiar camaraderie of the warriors’ brotherhood. It made little difference that now his comrades were sailors, not horseman, that they came from all over Earth and Nayve instead of just the Germanic states… and that he in fact counted very many sisters among that brotherhood. He looked over the gunwale, across the span of white sails fluffed with wind, and he thought of the brave druids, sailors, and soldiers on the small vessels. Every one of them was ready to fight, and he realized with a sense of surprise that he, himself, was ready to die again, if it came to that. In this place, for this cause, he would allow himself no regrets.

  “You will need to spin me a tornado, my friend, in order to catch up to my boats,” he remarked dryly.

  “And I am ready for that, warrior,” said Reza. “Shall we go after them, a mother hen chasing her chicks?”

  “Aye. And no need to strain either your arm or our canvas. I think that the armada will be waiting for us, whenever we arrive.”

  The sea was shrouded in darkness, though full daylight reigned over the world of Nayve. The armada extended in all directions, individual sails blending into smoky cloud at the farthest distance. They spanned the breadth of an entire sea, sweeping toward the shore, darkening the waters and sky with a murk half real and half imagined. The ebony sails were smoky clouds wafting above polluted wave crests, and a stench of carrion was borne by the breeze, creeping toward the shore.

  If there was any sense of formation to the mass of ships, it was not made clear by observation. Instead, they came as a swarm, neither in rank nor file, simply dark-timbered hulls churning through waters that seemed to recoil from the planks as if in revulsion. The fleet was at least as wide as it was deep, with a few sleek vessels drawing away from the vanguard in an undeniable hurry to reach the virgin shore.

  The armada was propelled by a storm that seemed to swell in fury as the vessels moved closer to the trembling shores of Nayve. Imagined clouds grew real, and illusory darkness fell like a cloak of twilight as the sun, even in the midst of day, failed to penetrate the escorting vapor of murk. Harpies flew out from the land in great, shrieking clouds, to swirl and cavort through the plumes of smoky befoulment.

  In contrast to the shapeless, natural force of the armada, the Metalfleet of Nayve sallied forth in three distinct wings. Each numbered more than three hundred vessels and advanced under full sail in a series of squadrons, twenty or thirty vessels strong. They made a great force in their own right but seemed impossibly small when measured against the vastness of the armada.

  The first wing of Nayve’s boats, commanded by the Prussian Fritzi Koeppler, took the lead and stayed the closest to shore. The second, under the Englishman Rudolph, trailed the first by only a short distance, forming up within sight of Koeppler’s sails off the port quarter, somewhat farther out to sea. The third wing was commanded by the Sioux warrior Crazy Horse, and it held farther back and took a course that carried it beyond the sight of land.

  Natac could see them all as he once again rode the natural saddle on the back of the great dragon. He could see the Worldfall, more than a hundred miles away in the direction of null, still plunging downward, and he couldn’t help but fear the many vast forces arrayed against his small, green world. From high above they watched the deadly dance of war. They would not remain observers: Regillix Avatar had already consumed the incendiary pellet of saltpeter and limestone that would allow him to belch forth great gouts of fire. Natac was cloaked in a suit of supple leather, including gauntlets over his hands and a mask that concealed most of his face. The material had been imbued with a magical protection by the sage-enchantress Quilene, so that it would protect his flesh from the fiery assaults of the harpies, whose recent arrival over the armada had not come as a complete surprise.

  But neither would the lofty pair commit themselves in the first skirmish. Instead, they would watch and wait and strike where they could do the greatest good. For fifty years they had been patient, planning and learning and preparing for this. Natac reflected on that time, on the evolution of this plan, and he still wished they had more time-that the armada had never turned toward Nayve at all.

  For decades, the Fourth Circle’s reconnaissance of the enemy fleet had been remote, conducted by sage-enchantresses using Globes of Seeing to watch the black ships. Eventually Regillix Avatar had flown forth, without a rider, for a direct look. The great serpent had swept close above the ghostly ships, learning that the vessels were made of timbers that could snap and buckle just like normal wood. The decks were crowded with ghost warriors who had fired arrows that proved to be real enough to prick skin and pierce flesh. The crewmen were garbed as legionnaires or Vikings, Zulu warriors or veterans of the American Civil War; lately their numbers had been swelled by great corps of Germans, French, Russians, British, and others slain in the Great War that racked the European continent.

  As the armada moved closer to the Nayvian coast in later years, Natac-protected as now by a suit of enhanced leather-flew with the giant dragon, observing firsthand the armada he was determined to defeat. They swept close past the ships, enduring volleys of arrows shot from bows and crossbows. They also saw ranks of pikes, swords, and shields, but, thankfully, encountered no firearms among the invaders, nor even any spring-powered weapons comparable to the designs invented by the dwarf, Karkald. Nevertheless, the sheer number of the black ships and the utter lack of fear displayed by the ghost crewmen, were proof enough that the campaign, when it began, would be a desperate affair.

  On land, that numberless horde would be like a tide, and Natac doubted that any army in the history of the Seven Circles would be able to effectively resist the attack. Therefore, the greatest hope of success meant that they would have to destroy much of the attacking force while it was still at sea. Violent experiments had shown that the ghost warriors could be wounded, could burn, and could drown just as mortal men. For decades that fleet had remained far from Nayve’s shores, out of reach of the land’s defenders. But for all that time, Natac had known beyond any doubt that this attack was inevitable; he had only lacked knowledge of the place and the time of the onslaught. Now, with the great turn toward land, the Deathlord at last had revealed his hand.

  It took all of Natac’s patience to hold his position, leaning outward to peer past the great, scaly shoulder, observing the closing of the mighty fleets. The waiting was over, and he knew that he watched the commencement of the greatest naval battle the Seven Circles had ever known.

  Ivan Dzrystyn was born a Cossack, raised to ride across the steppes of the Ukraine. Only two years earlier he had led a band of howling warriors against the Germanic barbarians who had invaded his homeland. Loyal to his czar and courageous be
yond all reason, he had led a charge against entrenched machine guns. His shock, when he had found himself in Nayve, subjected to the sensual ministrations of a beautiful, brown-skinned druid named Sari, had quickly been replaced by a fervent enthusiasm to wage war for this new cause-a cause that rendered all of Earth’s wars, by comparison, into trivial squabbles.

  Sari was with him now, spinning a powerful wind in the cockpit of their sleek sailboat, the Kiev pulling them slightly forward of the rest of Fritzi Koeppler’s wing, leading all the vessels of Nayve as the immense battle was joined. The Cossack smiled, a fierce grin splitting his flowing black beard as he realized that he would have the honor of striking the first blow in the defense of his new homeland. He crouched in the bow behind the weapon that looked like a large, primitive crossbow, but it was not at all primitive, as Ivan had discovered in mock combat.

  “Faster, Sari!” he shouted. “Don’t let the bastards get in front of us!”

  Wind exploded past as she heeded his call, and the Kiev leapt forward, a flying fish seeking to gain purchase in the air. They coursed past the bows of the first death ships, with those black sails looming high, still a mile away to port. Black clouds rose above those ships like tactical thunderheads, while a froth of brown water churned ahead of the enemy vanguard, a small tsunami surging in escort of the befoulment. In the opposite direction, just a fringe on the starboard horizon, the coastline of Nayve lay in wait.

  “That one,” muttered Ivan, seeing one of the black-hulled ships surging into the lead, marking a course that would take it across his bow. Turbulence frothed in a wide V from the prow, and the small sailboat rose up as it struck the foaming crest. Ivan felt the boat rock up and over the wave, then lurch violently in the rough waters beyond. A thick miasma choked his nostrils, like the stink of a charnel house, but he fought the instinct to gag as he held on to the weapon and tried to draw a bead. He crouched behind the steel battery, hand on the trigger as he aimed at the enemy vessel’s broadside.