Of Bone and Thunder (61 page)

“Reckless,” Jawn said, needing her to hear him. “Breeze, I can plane-shift the way I do because I don't care. I go deep because I don't expect to ever come back.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying I chased those thaums and then drew them away because . . . because part of me wanted them to catch me. It was thrilling, and I was sad when they gave up.”

Breeze pulled her hand away. Jawn tried to imagine her expression and settled on a mixture of contempt and shock. He was surprised when her hands enveloped his again.

“Jawn, I won't insult you by saying I know what you're going through, because I don't. What happened to you is terrible, and I am so sorry that it did. I also know that despite what happened, you are still you.”

Jawn started to protest but Breeze wouldn't let him.

“No, Jawn, I'm not buying it. You were a thaum of exceptional ability before, and you are one of even more ability now. But what really matters is that you are the kind of man who is willing to risk his life to help others. That's who you were, and that's who you still are. Eyesight or not, you are a
man who cares, and a man who cares doesn't throw away his life. Especially not now when people who care about him need him.”

“Breeze, I—”

He felt her hair against his forehead and then her lips kissed his. “You make your own light, Black Star.”

Jawn sat at the table holding the mug long after Breeze left. He was lost. Only last night he'd been ready to end it all, taking on four enemy thaums in a duel that he was certain would have been his end. Now . . . fuck, what the hell now?

He heard footsteps approaching and waited for them to pass. When they didn't, he turned.

“Jawn, it's Hyaminth.”

“Hi, Hy,” Jawn said, smiling at the inadvertent cuteness.

“The mist isn't burning away, it's actually getting thicker. And there are thunderclouds forming to the north. If the skies close in the rags won't be able to fly.”

The slyts weren't stupid. They saw the great advantage the Kingdom possessed with its flocks of rags. If you couldn't kill the beasts, at least not easily, then take away their sky.

Jawn let go of the mug and stood up. “Then I guess I'd better get to work,” he said, holding out his elbow for Hyaminth to take, which she did. As they walked out of the mess hall Jawn considered that the answer had been with him all along. He did care and would do whatever he could to protect those he cared about. That, he was surprised to realize, included himself.

CARNY WAS STILL
smiling as he rounded the corner of the main dwarf barrack in Iron Fist and came upon a group of dwarves surrounding a single dwarf. The group turned to look at him. The glares were similar to Carny's initial meeting with the dwarves on the coastal mountain.

“Morning, gents,” Carny said, choosing to ignore the outright hostility. He recognized Tryser, the dwarf weapons expert he'd come to see, as the one being singled out. “Lovely day in the Lux.”

Master Pioneer Black Pine, the clear leader of the group, turned and faced Carny.

“Keep walking,” he snarled, his clenched fists like sledgehammers.

“It is a morning for a walk,” Carny said, continuing with his bravado.
Fuck you, you little shit. You scared me last time, but not again.
“In fact, I think I will. I just need to borrow Tryser there.”

“You deaf? Get the fuck out of here.”

Carny reached to pat his crossbow and remembered he'd lost it last night. It was the reason he was coming to see Tryser. He settled for scratching his balls. “That's not going to happen. Not now, not ever.” Knowing the only way out was advancing, he took a step forward. “Time you fellows were on your way. Lots going on and I'm sure you have jobs to do.”

The dwarves around Black Pine shuffled their feet. This wasn't going the way they'd expected.

“You think I won't hit you?” Black Pine said.

Carny noticed that despite the threat, he didn't step any closer.
Got you, you fuck.

“You hit me, I kick your teeth down your throat, and the slyts come and gut all of us because like fucking idiots we're fighting among ourselves. Doesn't really make much sense.”

“We've got more in common with the slyts than we do with you,” Black Pine said. “They just want to be free. Ain't no slyt ever owned a dwarf. But here you are with your very own pet,” he said, pointing at Tryser.

Carny's confidence took a hit. “Pet? I think I see the problem. You seem to think that you're not part of this army because you've had it hard, is that it?”

Black Pine's eyes narrowed. “What the fuck would you know about having it hard? Ever been a slave? What the fuck kind of hardship have you suffered?”

Carny's eyes misted, but for a wholly different reason than before. “They killed my mother, you piece of shit. That enough fucking hardship for you? We were this close to starving, living off scraps. She found a deer carcass that a poacher had killed and took some meat. She didn't even kill it, just took some fucking meat. King's wardens took her and said pay a fine or go to prison. We didn't have shit. She caught the consumption in prison and died. All for taking some scraps of deer meat from a fucking carcass!”

Several of the dwarves had backed up. Any interest they might have had in taking on Carny vanished.

“You know—” Black Pine said, but Carny took another step and shouted, “Fuck you! Fuck you and your fucking attitude! Either take a swing or get out of my sight. I'm done with this,” Carny said, taking another step. “Like it or not, you're just as much a part of the Kingdom as I am. We both have reasons to hate it, but you know what? The slyts will put an arrow in your heart as quick as they will in mine if they get the chance.”

Black Pine stood glowering at Carny but made no move. Carny wasn't going to wait around for him to regain his footing.

“Tryser, I need to talk to you. The rest of you, get back to your posts, now!”

A dwarf started to walk away. Black Pine turned and looked at him. The dwarf shrugged and kept walking. Others joined him and soon the group was moving. Carny pointed at Tryser and motioned for him to move. Tryser did, leaving Black Pine standing alone. Carny turned his back on the dwarf and started walking away with Tryser beside him.

“You're crazy, you know that?” Tryser said.

Carny blinked and wiped the tears from his eyes. “I always suspected. You going to tell me what that was about or do I already know the answer?”

“Black Pine just can't let go. He found out I was doing some work for you and said I was a traitor to our people.”

Carny shook his head. “But he thinks being in league with the slyts is better?”

It was Tryser's turn to shrug. “In his mind, he does. Like he said, slyts didn't enslave our people.”

Carny recognized a delicate area and decided to avoid it. “I lost my crossbow. I was hoping you could modify another one for me.”

Tryser looked up at Carny. “How'd you lose it?”

“Long story. Can you modify another one like that? It worked like a charm.”

Tryser smiled. “I knew it would. Not to worry, I finished the next one. Was on my way to tell you when you found us.”

They walked to one of the few stone buildings in Iron Fist other than the keep and went inside. It was the armory. The smell was hot and acrid,
but unlike in the roost, it was mellowed by the scent of wood. Carny was surprised to see a mix of men and dwarves working together.

“It's all about the steel in here. None of that bullshit you saw outside,” Tryser said. A few men and dwarves nodded Tryser's way, then went back to work. Carny saw an array of metal and wood machines that both amazed and unsettled him. A few more lanterns and this place could be a dungeon.

“Black Pine doesn't have a problem with this?” Carny asked.

Tryser huffed. “There's very little in this world that Black Pine doesn't have a problem with. Out there, he'll do his best to make your life miserable,” Tryser said, pointing with his thumb. “He actually tried coming in here once and making a stink.”

“What happened?”

“These are my shards, and I'm theirs, dwarf and man. Black Pine and his crew got a little bit more than they bargained for. They haven't been back.”

Carny nodded. “So you built a new crossbow.”

Tryser walked over to a workbench. It was built lower to the ground than the ones the men were using, so there was no need for a step stool.

Tryser pulled a leather cloth off a crossbow the like of which Carny had never seen. The two steel bow arms had been cut down the middle to create four. Each set of arms had its own string that looked like steel thread. One set of arms loaded above the stock, the other below. More intriguing, there was a brass rectangular box fitted into the stock just forward of the firing lever. Cogs were visible inside it through gaps in the metal sheet.

“What does it do?”

Tryser lifted the weapon and placed it in a vise, which he then screwed tight. “It reloads,” Tryser said, working the firing lever. He stuck a steel spike inside the mechanism, which held whatever it did in check while he slowly manipulated the action. “Top bow fires first. As it does, the residual energy winds a spring inside the box. That draws the second string, but only about three-quarters. To get it all the way you grab this lever here,” Tryser said, pointing to a new lever in front of the firing lever that Carny hadn't noticed and pushing it forward, then back. “That cocks it the rest of the way.”

Carny watched, his mouth agape. “How did you make this?”

Tryser looked at him. “Using this,” Tryser said, pointing to his head. “But that's not the best part. I hollowed out the length of the shaft. It'll take six bolts. Unfortunately they're shorter than regular bolts by a good four inches. However, every time you cock the lever to set a bow to full draw, it inserts a bolt into the firing groove.” He demonstrated. As the string was pulled all the way back, a bolt from inside the stock dropped into the lower firing groove.

“That's amazing! Tryser, do you know what you've done?”

The dwarf nodded. A few of his fellow armorers had gathered round. “Well, credit where credit's due. Jeefer there came up with the double bow, and Sowk built the crux gear that works the reloading,” Tryser said, pointing to a man and then a dwarf.

“Still say it should be called the Sowk gear,” Sowk said, to much laughter.

Tryser pointed to a small maker's mark engraved on the brass gearbox. “We had a vote, and despite a protest we settled on MON Manufacturing.” There were smiles all around, save from Sowk, and a general swelling of chests.

Carny played along. “MON?”

“Middle of Nowhere,” the group said in unison.

Carny nodded. “I like it,” he said.

“Wait until you try it,” Tryser said, handing Carny a quiver of cut-down bolts. Carny noticed brass parts piled on Tryser's bench, enough for several more of the modified crossbows. “You going into business?”

Tryser looked up as another salvo of stones whistled overhead. “Six shots,” he said.

“You're deaf,” another dwarf said. “That was five.”

Tryser shrugged. “What were you asking me?”

Carny pointed at the brass parts. “How many of these are you making?”

Tryser gave him a wry smile. “With this modification you'll be able to shoot eight bolts in the time it took to shoot one. I figure that'll become popular. And what's popular is good business.”

Good business
? Carny's stomach soured. “You wouldn't charge the troops, would you?”

The armory grew silent. Hammers hung in midair as all eyes turned to Carny.

“No,” Tryser said, his voice even, “but I sure as fuck plan to charge the army.”

Carny hung his head, his cheeks flushing. “Damn it, Tryser, I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that.”

Tryser punched Carny's left biceps so hard that Carny's hand went numb. “It's all right. You grew up getting fed a lot of shit about dwarves so it stands to reason a little of it's going to trickle out now and then.” Tryser looked around the armory. “What are you lot staring at? Get back to work!”

The armory bustled to life as Carny rubbed his left arm. “Why do you dwarves have to punch all the time? A polite
fuck you
is fine, you know.”

Tryser balled his fist as if he was going to hit Carny again then opened it up and patted Carny's arm. “Habit. It's how you know your
sharder
is solid, you know?”

“So am I?” Carny asked.

Tryser smiled. “You ain't diamond, but you ain't sandstone either.”

Carny could live with that. “Can I see the crossbow now?”

Tryser handed it over. Carny was immediately struck by how light it felt despite the modifications.

“Hollowed out the butt as well,” Tryser said. “It won't fire as far or pack as big a wallop as the other one, or even the original model, but it's still lethal, and with eight bolts in the air you'll hit a lot more.”

Carny held the crossbow like a newborn babe, afraid to make any sudden moves. His eyes kept coming back to the strings. “Is that steel?”

Tryser looked around the room before answering. When he did, he kept his voice low.

“You know what happens to a rag after it dies?”

The image of the exploding rag Listowk was flying flashed in his mind. “I've seen it.”

“No, I don't mean when they die, I mean after. Sort of like slaughtering a cow or a hog. They cut up the parts and use them,” Tryser said.

“I thought rags turned to stone or something after they died,” Carny said.

“Eventually the metals and minerals in their bodies do crystallize, but if you get to them right when they die, you can butcher a lot. And if you know what you're doing, you can keep the bits pliable.”