Dragon Heart (31 page)

In the back of the caves, where the wall had been tunneled through to make one big room, half the town were hiding, crowded in the dark. Somewhere the priest's voice was sounding, “It is the end. We have failed. We have lost our way.” Nobody seemed to be listening. Amillee sat down by the wall, beside her mother.

“Repent,” the priest said in the dark.

“Oh, shut up, you old fool!” Amillee cried. She drew her knees to her chest, folded her arms on them, and laid her head down and shut her eyes.

*   *   *

The sun was just rising; up there, the castle's new outline stood against the pallor of the sky. Where the new tower had been was empty. Jeon folded his arms over his chest. The fight had been bad; a lot of people had died, all of them people from Undercastle. Now the Imperials were herding the rest of them down onto the beach, just above where the kicker stood.

On his far side, Stencop was saying, “You don't even have control of this village.” Jeon turned toward him.

There, just above the high-tide line, Oto sat on his horse, looking around. He wore a broad hat against the sun. Finally he brought his lofty gaze to the admiral, standing on the sand below him. Oto said, “Last night seems to have proven different.” He looked toward Jeon, off to the side. “Prince, what do you say?”

Jeon made a meaningless noise in his throat. The townspeople were lining up higher on the beach, the soldiers nudging them, ordering them. Aken and Lumilla were standing at the front. Stencop was unyielding, his body braced, his head back to glare up at Oto.

“Because of my men, only! You have bungled this, my lord. Admit it!”

Oto said, “I think they only need a demonstration.” He gave another look at Jeon, and swung around toward the kicker, slightly down the beach. The officer there came smartly toward Oto, snapping out a salute.

“Sergeant,” Oto said, “prepare a live fire.”

Jeon drifted back up the beach, to where Lumilla and Aken stood. All around the outside of the massed townspeople, Imperial soldiers formed a line, shoulder to shoulder, fencing them in, far more now than the local people.

On the beach, several men worked busily over the kicker. The sergeant strutted around giving them orders. One soldier wound the wheel on the bottom of the frame, and the flat plank of the neck bent backward, backward, until it curved almost double, head to heels.

With that in place, Marwin marched up to Oto. “Glory to the Empire! What am I to kill, sir?”

Jeon started. Smiling, Oto looked across the beach at the townspeople. Aken was staring at the kicker, his mouth lost in the greying thicket of his beard. Lumilla glanced at Oto and turned a look of fear on Jeon. “What are they doing?”

“Proving something to us,” Jeon said.

Oto said, “Sergeant, show these people what we can do.” He pointed down the beach. “That tree.”

Lumilla cried out, “No!” Aken ground his jaw. Oto was pointing at the cypress, far down the beach, the meeting center of the town.

Aken said under his breath, “Do something.” Jeon did not move.

He was watching Marwin, who was standing there staring at the tree, holding out his hands in front of him, up and down, side to side, as if he measured it. At last he crouched behind the kicker and said more orders. The men pushed the frame smoothly along on its base until it faced down the beach toward the cypress. Now they slotted a head onto the neck, a kind of basket. Jeon muttered. It was all coming together now, what this was. Marwin leaned over the winch that held the head down to the frame's heels.

The townspeople said nothing. It was quiet enough that Jeon could hear the wind sifting through the grass at the top of the cliff. Marwin's voice giving more orders was thin as a reed. The Imperials opened the box they had brought so carefully up from their ship. Inside Jeon saw three big, round balls, each the size of a man's head, made of something hard and shining, each one packed well in a grainy white stuff. Salt, he realized. And probably the box itself was heavily muffled. Any jar might set them off. The Imperials lifted one of these balls, carried it gently up to the plank, and fit it into the basket at the end.

“Stand back!” Marwin cried. “At arms!”

A soldier stepped smartly to the back of the frame, and put his hand on the winch. “Ready!”

“Ready!”

“Ready!”

“Kill!”

The soldier yanked at the winch handle. The cable flew loose, and the neck straightened out so hard the whole frame bounced off the ground. The round ball hurtled up into the air; as it flew it gave a thin, shrill shriek. It rose in a high, powerful arc, and fell, and crashed down into the cypress tree.

The birds scattered squawking up into the air; for a moment there was nothing, and Marwin said, disappointed, “It didn't hit anything hard enough to crack”—and the cypress went up with a roar that shook the beach.

The crowd screamed, and ran. The whole tree blazed like a bolt of fire, twice as tall as it had been alive. Bits of char and ash showered down out of the air; Jeon saw part of a dead bird drop into the bay. Lumilla went down on her knees. Aken swore.

Oto was smiling wide. He said, “I think that's enough. Admiral Stencop, you will attend me in my summer palace. Prince Jeon, you as well. Come along.” Oto turned his horse and rode toward the path.

Jeon was still staring at the kicker. He wondered what its range was, if the cypress was as far as it could reach. He walked around it, looking at every side of it, seeing how every part of it was fixed to its purpose. It was all power, the rigid triangles of the frame, the simple, mechanical motion, the one predictable action, over and over. Marwin was right. This was the emblem of the Empire, this death mill.

Something curled softly around Jeon's ankles; he looked down and saw the rim of the surf foaming around his boots. The Imperial men were hastily packing away the box of fireballs, drawing it up farther on the beach, away from the wet. The edge of the surf at his feet slipped round and soft back down the damp sand, in under the rise of the next uncoiling wave. And that was the answer, Jeon thought. Chaos was pregnant. Order was dead. He glanced around; Oto was already gone into the brewery.

Jeon wondered where Tirza was. He missed her; he missed all of them, but her most, of course. He knew she was angry with him, that she thought he had gone over to the enemy. In the end, he hoped, she would see otherwise. He would make her see otherwise. She loved him; she had to believe him.

Or he would be dead, and it wouldn't matter. He went on up the beach, after Oto.

*   *   *

Where the cypress had been was a wide smoking pit gouged out of the beach. Tirza stood on the edge, looking into the space where Mervaly and Casea had sat, where they had heard songs and stories and arguments and news. Where poor Trollo had played. The crater was still burning, here and there, in its black deeps. All around, the filthy crust glittered with tiny droplets of melted sand.

Her brother had done this. Was doing this. Was helping Oto do this, her own brother.

She looked back over her shoulder. The town was packed with soldiers. Only the brewery was open. In front of Aken's stall his old horse slouched in its patched harness. Aken came out with a box to put in the wagon.

As Tirza stood there, Lumilla came by, with Amillee a step behind her, both carrying bundles and packs. Amillee paused to look at Tirza, but she said nothing. Her face was deeply lined, like a much older woman's. After a moment she turned and went on, going away with her mother.

At the end of the beach, the castle loomed up its crown against the sky. The new tower's squat pale shape was gone, but where it had been a black nub rose: perhaps that would grow larger. Tirza shivered. If she went in there, she would walk inside those walls. She would find the passageways, the chambers, new and old. She would find her mother, sit with her brother, her sister. That must be where she belonged, part of the seamless web. Yet she dreaded to go there. The feeling overcame her that she belonged nowhere anymore. She stood a long while, looking up at the castle on its cliff top. But then she went out onto the Jawbone.

*   *   *

Remembering what Jeon had said, Oto went by the graveyard, and while pretending to pray dug up a handful of the dirt from his brother's grave. This Oto put into a pouch and hung on his belt. In the brewery he sprinkled some all around the room where he slept and the chair where he liked to sit on the porch, and now and then he touched his fingertips to his tongue, tasting the comfort of the earth on them. It occurred to him he should put some into his boots, also. That would require another visit to the grave.

Now at midmorning he sat on the porch, a table between him and Stencop, and said, “It is to happen tomorrow, then? If it happens? This supposed pirate attack?”

“Yes,” Stencop said. “The bay mouth forces the tide here; I imagine it will be very high tomorrow at sunrise.”

Oto shrugged, looking off toward the beach. “I am not utterly convinced of Prince Jeon's theory, but we must deploy the kickers in any case.” Things like this bored him. He wound his hands together, soothed by his own touch. “I shall rely on your experience for that. Of course if anything goes wrong, you are responsible.”

The admiral gave him a stiff nod. “I want it no other way, my lord. And there is the issue of my men.”

His men, Oto heard. He thought, My men. He said, “Which is?”

“The townspeople will not serve them. They can get no bread or ale or meat.”

“Take it, then,” Oto said, and laughed. “Give them the King's leave.” He waved at Stencop. “Go do your work, sir. Do it well.”

Stencop got heavily up from the chair. “I shall. And to you, the same.” He turned on his heel and tramped across the porch and down the steps to the beach. Oto watched him go. He could hardly bear the admiral's constant attacks, veiled even as they were as defenses. Oto knew Stencop was only waiting for his chance to seize the crown.

As Jeon also was, of course. Jeon was not a good liar; Oto read him to the last word. But Jeon had no power and Stencop had an army.

Which was Oto's army, properly. He had only to watch for the chance to eliminate Stencop. And Jeon too. Maybe there was some way to get Stencop to do that. Accomplish both ends in one stroke. Oto liked the artistry of that. Arrange it so no one would blame him.

His cup was empty. He looked around for the big tawny girl who had always served him, and she was gone. He looked wider, and saw, among the several men lounging on the porch, no one but soldiers. He sat for a while, waiting to be served, but no one came. Finally he caught the eye of the new sergeant, lounging by the steps to the beach, and sent him for more ale.

*   *   *

Stencop said, “Ah, Prince Jeon. I am glad to see you.” He laid a heavy arm over Jeon's shoulders. “We are about to position the engines.”

Jeon was staring at the three kickers lined up on the beach. “Is this all you have?”

Stencop grunted, mirthful. “This will be enough against such a force as might come here.”

“What does the King say?”

“The King has wisely left it to me. I am the more senior at this.”

Jeon slid his hands behind his back. He did not believe Oto would leave this force to Stencop for long; he flung a quick glance up the beach toward the brewery. He said, “Can we move them?”

Stencop said, “Easily enough, if we must. But I am minded to leave them here, where they have an excellent command of the whole bay.”

Jeon stepped to one side, to look across the water. He wondered again where his sister was. “Can they hit the Jawbone from here? That spit, over there, the far edge.”

“No, hardly,” Stencop said with a disbelieving laugh. He was relaxed, confident, sure of himself: Jeon realized Stencop still trusted Oto.

He said, “Well, then, why not put one of these out there?” He pointed across the shining water. “Put one out there, one here, and one up there, at the deepwater end of the bay.”

Stencop folded his arms over his chest, frowning. “Why separate them? They're stronger together.”

“For one thing,” Jeon said, “you can cover more.”

“They'll come to this beach; that's all I need to cover.”

“Yes, they'll try to overwhelm you all at once.”

“And we'll beat them, all at once.”

Jeon said, “You have already lost to these same people. It will not be like the fight against the locals, simple people with no weapons, a few quick blows and over. Now, look.” He pointed Stencop down toward the mouth of the bay. “That's the place to get them. They have to come down the channel, whatever kinds of boats they have. The channel is narrow, and the tide runs fast through it. Once they're into the channel they cannot go backward. If you attack them, they can't scatter, and they can't run away: all they can do is keep coming up the channel, right into your shot. But from here, you can't completely cover the channel. Put one kicker here, and one here, and one over on the far side of the bay, where you can pound him all the way.”

Stencop was staring down the bay; he said, “Very clever, Prince Jeon.” Now for the first time Stencop looked back over his shoulder, toward the brewery. “However, I believe we also need to cover the town. After the other night. And we only have enough bombs for each kicker to shoot twice.”

Jeon said, “The town is empty. The people are leaving.”

Stencop said, “That doesn't mean they won't come back. They're treacherous.”

Jeon said, “If you divide the kickers, also, no one will be able to command all of them at once. No matter what happens, you will have charge of something.”

Stencop gave him a startled look. “The King has said that I command all.”

“For now,” Jeon said.

Stencop had lost his ease; his mouth sucked thin, he stood staring a moment at Jeon, and finally said, “I shall have to give this careful thought.”