World ripper war mad tin.., p.28
World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3), page 28
“Just checking on my father’s bloated coil gun,” Rynn replied, patting the coil-wrapped barrel.
Sosha nodded. “You could almost fire a person out of that thing.”
“Don’t even say that,” Rynn snapped. She glanced down, even though her tinker’s legs were hidden by her trousers, she knew exactly what lay beneath.
“Sorry,” said Sosha. “I just wanted to see how you were faring. Big war starting tomorrow, right?”
“Any time now, actually,” Rynn replied. “Goblins plan to start it in the middle of the night.”
Sosha tugged her arms tightly to her body and shifted behind Rynn for shelter from the wind. “Good thing it’s you there, not me. I’d be all in pieces by now.”
“If this is where you try to get me to admit that I’m scared, you can quit it,” said Rynn. “I’m heading up to the world-ripper as soon as Madlin wakes up. Anything goes wrong, I pull her out of there. I hope you’re a bit more subtle when it comes to getting Cadmus’s mind off his troubles.”
Sosha snorted. “Mad Tinker or not, he’s still a man. He’s dense as stone about anything as squishy and non-mechanical as feelings. He’s actually much easier to manage than you are. He doesn’t push me away or avoid me.”
“I don’t need any help; I’ve still got Madlin. Ever since my father got one-worlded, he hasn’t quite been the same.”
“He doesn’t feel as invincible anymore,” Sosha said. “He’s not so dead-sure certain he’s going to win.”
Rynn bobbed her head. “Yeah. That sounds about right. He stopped acting like he was carving his own tunnel to his destiny.”
“How about you come inside,” Sosha suggested, jerking her head toward the near end of the catwalk. “I’ll put on some tea and we can stay up, watching the battle.”
Rynn eyed her suspiciously. “Fine. But I just want you to know I’m on to you.” Sosha smiled and Rynn chuckled as they headed for the kitchens.
Madlin awoke to the sound of a war horn. There was no preparing the slumbering ears for the sound, even knowing in advance how the goblins would begin their assault. What amazed her upon peeking out her tent flap was that the sound was not the wake-up alarm, but the call to charge. Somehow the entire army had prepared themselves for an assault without waking her. Madlin was under no illusion that they did it to spare her a few moments of extra sleep, but nonetheless, she was astonished at the stealth the small creatures could employ—and the organization.
Fumbling amid her belongings, Madlin found her coil gun and sighted through the optics. Nothing. There was starlight to see by, but cooking fires that had burned throughout the night kept the camp better lit than the walls. Why would they leave the fires burning? Won’t that make them easier to see from the city? Goblins milled around the fires, cooking, chatting, acting as if there was no army massing to assault the walls. Someone who could only see by the firelight might think the goblins were well settled in their camp. A trick, then. Madlin filed that away in her mind, should the goblins ever be on the other side of a wall from her.
“Settle in for the show,” she muttered to Rynn. Madlin could taste the ginger tea Rynn shared with Sosha, but the sensation was already fading. Rynn was more likely to see through the world-ripper’s viewframe than through their twinborn connection.
The horn sounded again, playing three notes. There were no whoops, no battle cries, no wordless snarls of bared ferocity. The goblins simply moved forward as a mass, as if someone had rolled a sack of marbles down a shallow slope, gathering speed until the whole army was at a dead run. Madlin’s vantage was high enough that she could see the army flowing into the plains and up the low road that wound back and forth up the mountainside. It might have taken half an hour for the first of them to make the mountain’s base, but Madlin was too engrossed in the spectacle to check her pocketclock.
The first she saw of the actual battle was surreal. The night was lit by a plume of flame erupting from the goblin ranks. So far from the action, she could barely hear the tiny, chittering shouts of alarm. Even after the initial burst, the flames lingered, clinging to distant, frantic forms, rushing around in their final chaotic moments. The defenders on the wall had struck first, with magic.
From the ranks of goblins, a volley answered. Whoever was commanding the goblin forces had ordered waiting until the goblins were almost to the wall before unleashing their secret weapons. All along the wall, Madlin saw blue glowing ripples, like pebbles thrown into a pond, each representing the strike of a single shot from a coil gun. Madlin wished she could take a flashpop, but the still image, rendered in two-tone color, would have come off as a paltry imitation of the wondrous sight.
“Good. You’re awake,” K’k’rt’s voice came from beside her. The old tinker settled himself in the dirt next to her, looking out at the battle. “Best view you’re likely to get.”
Madlin caught herself just before she corrected the goblin tinker. Rynn had the best view anyone could get; Cadmus very likely had one to match. But there was nothing to be gained telling K’k’rt that. “Yeah, well, pretty as it is, I’d like to see those little blue splashes stop.”
K’k’rt sighed. “Indeed. Both our lives here are at an end if those devices of yours don’t work.”
“They’ll work,” said Madlin. Rusted little ingrates! She scolded the guns. Blast down that wall!
“It’s not working,” Cadmus said, pointing at the starlit wall of Raynesdark. Here and there, collections of goblins went up in flame as the sorcerers high atop the wall alternately cowered and lobbed destruction down into the mass of goblin flesh that swarmed up the road below them.
“Give them time,” said Jamile. “It looks like it’s weakening.” The blue ripples reverberated wherever one of the coil gun shots hit.
“Bah, you’re just imagining what you want to see,” Cadmus snapped. He adjusted the view frequently, shifting their vantage all around the battlefield, keeping a close watch on the integrity of the wall.
“This is incredible,” said Kaia, staring into the viewframe. She sat with Kupe and Greuder at a side table, sharing a bowl of candied chocolates.
“Sure are a pissload of them little buggers,” Kupe observed sagely, drawing a snort from Greuder.
Cadmus shook his head. “We need that wall to come down. I’d rather the dragon be impressed over false pretenses than try to argue with it over production quotas and delivery schedules. Time for the backup plan. Battle stations!”
Jamile’s eyes shot wide. “What?”
Kupe, Kaia, and Greuder looked to one another with no hint of a clue among them.
Cadmus stood from the controls and stalked across to the controls for the other world-rippers, the ones that bracketed the ends of the room, beginning and ending the tiny chunk of tropical river that flowed through Korr’s moon. “Kaia, take the controls. Keep a sharp eye in case things go wrong. Greuder, put a hand on that lever … yes, that one right there,” Cadmus said, pointing. “Be ready to pull it when I give the signal.”
“Cadmus, what are we doing?” Greuder asked.
“Jamile, get on the controls of that machine,” Cadmus ordered, ignoring Greuder’s question. “Once we shut down the river, I want eyes on that wall from your viewframe.” He waited for Greuder to get into position. “All right … NOW.”
Cadmus and Greuder shut down their world-rippers simultaneously. The river sloshed in its artificial banks and turned into a shallow pond. There was no longer a flow into or out of the lunar headquarters.
“Ain’t we going to suffocate?” Kupe asked. “I thought we needed air from those.”
“Don’t worry,” Kaia told him. “We have enough air for a while.”
Cadmus was already spinning dials, sending the view in his world-ripper’s viewframe blurring past. There was no visual aim; he was working entirely by memorized coordinates, entering them as quickly as his hands allowed. When it stopped, most of the other occupants of the chamber were busy with other tasks. But not everyone.
“Lord Eziel, preserve us,” Greuder said, his voice hollow. There in the center of Cadmus’s viewframe, twitching around as the Mad Tinker fine-tuned the angle, was the cannon. They were staring down the three-foot diameter barrel of the World Ender Cannon, Version 1, as Rynn had dubbed it.
Jamile looked over her shoulder. “Cadmus! What are you doing?”
The Mad Tinker hopped down from the control console with a spyglass and a plumb line in hand. He hustled across to Jamile’s world-ripper, where she had paused somewhere over the western Kadrin Empire as she gaped across the chamber. “What does it look like we’re doing? Providing artillery support. Kupe, in that cabinet over there, get goggles and earmuffs for everyone.”
“Is that thing loaded?” Jamile shouted.
“Of course,” Cadmus said. “Where were you when the crane was filling the hopper?” He began taking measurements, sighting down the length of the barrel, which was lit by reflected moonlight from the Sea of Kerum. “Status, Kaia.”
“Nothing yet,” Kaia reported. “Still just splashing blue magic puddles against the side of the wall.”
“Cadmus,” Jamile said. “What if that thing misses? I’m not twelve feet from this viewframe.”
“It won’t miss.” He peered around to the front side of the viewframe, checking where Jamile had brought them. The view showed the battle from overhead, somewhere above the goblin encampment. “Good. Good. Now just move it into the wall, lined up and down the length.”
“Um, Cadmus,” Greuder said. “Are you sure this is the best idea?”
“Thank you, Kaia. I’ll take over from here,” Cadmus said as he jogged over to the primary world-ripper. “You go take the controls of the one opening onto the barrel.”
Kaia nodded, eyes wide, chest heaving. She was a good soldier though and did as she was ordered.
In moments, Cadmus had reoriented his own world-ripper to the other end of the World Ender Cannon. There was a console there, much simpler than the ones for the world-rippers. It was dominated by a large lever with a bright red grip. Cadmus opened the world-ripper, and the Korrish night air rushed into the lunar headquarters.
Kupe came back, arms piled with goggles and earmuffs. He scurried among the residents, handing them out to each of them. “Just, um, how loud’s this gonna be? We talking thunderail whistle? Pistol shot by your ear? What?”
Cadmus had his goggles on before he answered. “I have no idea.” He turned to Kaia and Jamile. “On my mark, open those world-holes.”
Cadmus stepped into Korr, to the console on the scaffolding below the Jennai, and flipped one of the smaller switches.
Klaxons blared, shattering the relative peace of the night aboard the Jennai. Rynn jumped in her seat, and Sosha hunched down and covered her ears at the sudden, deafening noise. The battle scene in the viewframe was momentarily forgotten.
“What the rusted, bloody bolts is going on?” Rynn shouted over the noise.
“Your father,” Sosha replied. “You might want to hold onto something.”
Rynn didn’t ask; she just grabbed hold of the control console with both hands. Just then, the ship lurched. There were groans and screams of tortured metal, and the floor tilted beneath their feet. A moment later, the sound stopped and the ship slowly righted itself.
“What just happened?” Rynn asked.
Sosha pointed to the viewframe. “Look.”
The wall of Raynesdark, which had been repelling everything Rynn’s coil guns had thrown at it, burst at the base like split wood. Splinters of rock blasted out into the ranks of onrushing goblins, and a furrow appeared along the wall’s base. It looked for all the world like some gigantic creature—or perhaps a three-foot diameter steel ball—had burrowed beneath its surface.
On a hilltop, west of the plains just below the Kadrin city of Raynesdark, and the old goblin’s heart skipped a beat. The ancient gods themselves had returned and had struck down the wall of the Kadrin city, the blow hammering like the thunderclap. He felt it in his chest, in his guts; it passed through him as it must have passed through everyone on the battlefield, human and goblin alike.
The pretty little echoes of aether, rippling out from where the walls rune-enhanced strength was tested, were no more. K’k’rt did not doubt that the shots were still being fired. The wall just had no more strength to resist them. The remnants of the wall hung together for some time, superior masonry causing the undamaged sections to function as a sort of arch, supporting the section whose base had been gutted. Under withering fire from the goblins below, that section—along with the rest of the wall, and the defenders beyond—fell not long after.
“What was that?” he asked.
Madlin shrugged. “We won.”
Cadmus stepped through the world-hole and back into the lunar headquarters. Pulling the switch, he shut them off from Korr once more. The chamber was filled with a cloud of Veydran rock dust, and the trough of water was littered with shards of granite, but the World Ender Cannon had blown most of the debris ahead of it.
“What … just … happened?” Greuder asked, coughing on the dust.
“Kaia, Jamile, get that river flowing again,” Cadmus ordered. “Then check back in on the battle and make sure there are no surprises.”
“No surprises, he says,” Kupe muttered.
Cadmus found a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and cleared himself a spot on the side table, pushing aside a dish of candied chocolates. He had revisions to make to the cannon.
Chapter 24
“Wars keep things interesting.” –Rashan Solaran
Servants bowed and stepped aside to remove themselves from Axterion’s way. The green-veined black marble halls depopulated ahead of him as rumor spread that he was in a stomping mood. Unfortunately for the aged High Sorcerer, the thick carpets ruined the effect of a proper stomp. The object of today’s stomp was oblivious enough that the he needed all the help he could get.
When he reached his destination, the halls were deserted. A moment’s view in the aether showed him a strong but slovenly ward protecting the door. Danilaesis’s handiwork, for certain. It was not, however, Danilaesis’s bedroom. Axterion was down in the servants’ wing of the palace, a place that was unused to guests of his importance. Guests of Danilaesis’s caliber appeared to be more common.
Undoing the ward was a trifling matter for someone who had been making and breaking them for over a hundred winters. A moment later, Axterion was pounding a fist on the door.
A startled yelp and hushed words, muted by the intervening door, were his only reply. Axterion could have peered into the aether, now that the ward was gone, and taken a quick count of the occupants of the door beyond. But the voices and his initial suspicions agreed that there were but two, and he left it at that.
“Get out here, you halfwit Seventh Rank,” Axterion shouted through the door. “There is a meeting in the Inner Sanctum, and against my better judgment, your presence is required.”
Axterion stepped back. Experience told him that there would be no response before the door opened. It was just the way this sort of thing went. He waited.
When the door peeked open, one of the younger gardeners emerged, a girl not much older than Danilaesis. She was barefoot, and her dress was crooked across her shoulders. As she tried to slip past, she looked to the floor, not even in the direction of Axterion’s feet. He caught her by the chin and stopped her, turning her face toward him and up.
“Look me in the eyes,” he ordered. The girl hesitated, but complied. “Wider.” She blinked, but forced herself to look at him with eyes wide as a doe’s. He let her go. “You’re fine. Go on and dress yourself properly. Whatever duties he relieved you of, consider yourself unrelieved.” Whatever means Danilaesis had used to bed her, he had not compelled her with magic.
The girl bowed and scurried away. Axterion watched for a moment, wondering how long it had been since he’d chased girls so young. A lifetime. Maybe two.
“So what’s the commotion that’s got you fetching me yourself like some messenger?” Danilaesis asked, pulling on a pair of trousers. “We weren’t done, you know.”
Axterion harrumphed. “I can only keep telling myself that you’ll grow out of it.” He pointed to one of the two bunk beds that took up most of the servants’ room. “Those things are sleeping quarters, not a training yard.”
“Why would I ever want to grow out of it?” Danilaesis asked with a grin. “I’m going to have to track her down later and make good on a few promises. I can’t go around sullying my name.”
Axterion sighed and looked up to the ceiling, if nothing else, to avoid watching his grandson dress himself. “You know, your father was much the same, and he grew out of it. Took a few wives, but they finally broke him of the habit. I’d blame him for the way you are, but the impudent drunkard would just blame me in turn.”
Danilaesis gave his grandfather a knowing look. Dull as a spear tip, that one. Blast me, was I ever this much trouble?
“Come on,” Axterion grumbled as Danilaesis finished donning his proper attire.
“So, you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes. In the Inner Sanctum, along with everyone else. I might have more breath in these lungs than I did a season ago, but I don’t intend to waste it repeating myself to every wayward sorcerer who has to get himself fetched out of the servants’ wing.”
Axterion strode the palace halls without looking back. He knew Danilaesis followed him. The boy had many faults, but a lack of curiosity was not among them. They made their way to the Tower of Contemplation, at the northwest corner of the palace. Older than the rest of the structure, it was a habitat all to itself, with its own staff separate from the main palace, and bustling with sorcerers administrating the empire’s magical assets. A long, spiral set of stairs wound around the interior or the tower, stopping at landings that led off into libraries, laboratories, and lounges. A levitating platform was provided for the elderly and infirm among the tower’s visitors; Axterion used to be its primary rider. Now, reinvigorated with youth, he took pride in setting a punishing pace for his grandson up the stairs.
