Set in Stone (50 page)

As they discussed the best way to marshal the townsfolk, and how fast they could slip everyone through if an evacuation proved necessary, Hamish popped a piece of soapstone into his mouth. It tasted cool and refreshing in the warm noon sun, like a sip from a mountain stream. In the short time he'd spent with Verena, she had taught him so much. He couldn't wait to see her again.

A thunderous roar sounded from the wall gate, followed by screaming. The two shared a surprised look, and jogged down Wall Street until they could see the wall gate around a row of homes.

Billowing flames filled the opening, and burning soldiers were fleeing the inferno. Many of them beat at flames that blackened skin, burned hair, and melted uniforms.

Hamish gagged while Blair retched. A pair of wagons that had been overturned to block the gate collapsed into cinders. Even as they watched, the flames condensed into a tall, writhing pillar before leaping skyward, only to plunge onto the cartwright's warehouse close to the gate. Fire enveloped the building, turning it into a gigantic torch.

"What's happening?" Blair gasped.

Soldiers shouting "Obrion!" rushed through the gate and fell upon the disorganized Grandurians and, without mercy, began cutting them down.

With a sinking feeling of dread, Hamish realized their peaceful town had become a battlefield.

"Come on, we have to warn everyone."

The fighting concentrated along central Market Street, but some of the Grandurians retreated away toward distant Cliff Street, with Obrioner soldiers in close pursuit. The two forces fought savagely, and soldiers fell screaming from both lines.

Such brutal death shook Hamish to the core. He'd never been a hunter like Connor, never been comfortable around blood. The screams and terrified faces of men who fell dying in the streets of Alasdair spurred him to run faster.

He led Blair up Wall Street, shouting for everyone to stay inside.

Then a soldier climbed atop the burning cartwright's warehouse and, laughing like a madman, stood within the inferno. Either he was insane and committing suicide, or he was a Guardian.

When the fire didn't consume him, Hamish whispered, "Guardian." Connor had explained some of what the Guardians could do.

Terrible things were about to happen.

The soldier, who had to be a Firetongue, threw his arms out wide, and the fire that enveloped him convulsed three times. Each time, it vomited a huge ball of fire.

One arced toward distant Cliff Street, while the second splashed down onto Market Street. The last thundered into the Grandurian soldiers fighting at the corner of Wall Street not far behind Hamish and Blair.

Screaming men scattered under the brutal onslaught, beating at the fire or trying to roll to put it out. Obrioner soldiers rushed in to finish off the wounded. Flames flowed through the street like water, and fastened upon the nearest houses.

Hamish pushed Blair farther up the street, "Tell everyone to gather at the Ashlar's. It's made of more stone."

As Blair rushed off, Hamish ran back to the two burning houses and pounded on the back doors. They were Cutter homes, and with the fathers imprisoned, both families were huddled in their family rooms.

Once they realized the danger, they followed Hamish out of the burning homes, and he led them at a run up Wall Street toward the Ashlar's house at the far end. Ahead of him, Blair was evacuating other families.

The few remaining Grandurians were charging after them, with Obrioner soldiers close behind. At the sight of the blackened, bloody soldiers with drawn weapons, Hamish spurred the villagers on.

If the soldiers caught up with them, would they pass by, or cut down the villagers who got in the way?

Then more fire rippled up the street past them on both sides before blocking the way and rising into a wall of flames. The women and children huddled around Hamish as the soldiers closed in from behind. The wall of fire began sliding toward them, as if the insane Firetongue didn't care that he'd kill them all along with the Grandurians.

Smoke choked Hamish, and he fell to his knees, unable to breathe. His eyes burned, and he tasted cinders. The hot air dug at his exposed skin like hundreds of tiny fingernails. There was nowhere to run.

He tried sucking harder on the soapstone, but felt nothing. In desperation, he felt with his Builder senses for the tiny crack in its core that would unlock its power.

Verena had said soapstone connected to water, and he needed water more than anything.

There! Hamish found the crack and wrenched it wide open.

Almost instantly, a fountain of water exploded up from the well in the square, and reared high above the town before thundering down upon the buildings of the square.

Despite the smoke choking him, Hamish howled, "No! Not the bakery!"

The street began to rumble, and a cresting wave of water, eight feet high, rolled into Wall Street and plunged into the flames blocking their way.

Water exploded into clouds of super-heated steam as the water extinguished. Hamish snapped the stone's power closed, fuming at Verena. Why hadn't she warned him something like this could happen?

Why did it have to be the bakery?

As soon as the dangerous clouds drifted high enough, Hamish led the way up the street at a run. Behind them, the Grandurian soldiers split through a side street.

A moment later, they reached Lilias, who was ushering everyone inside.

Stuart, who lived next door, shouted, "Some of you can hide in here."

When people kept crowding into the Ashlar's house, Cinaed appeared in her doorway and beckoned, "Come on, you'll be crowded in there. Our house is secure too."

No one paid her any heed, but all pressed into the Ashlar's house. Lilias called, "Once they calm down, I'll send some over."

Cinaed spun without a word and stalked back into her house. Stuart remained outside a moment longer, staring out at the spreading destruction.

At that moment, the ground rumbled outside the town, and arches of earth shot up over the wall from outside and crashed down onto the recently evacuated housed of Wall Street. Homes were knocked off their footings, and the advancing Obrioner soldiers swept away like kittens in a hurricane.

At the same time, a pillar of water surged up from Loch Wick, rearing a hundred feet before cascading down onto the cartwright's burning warehouse. The explosive hiss of steam shrieked through the town like a death knell.

Hamish wondered if the Firetongue survived. Even though the man was supposed to be an ally, he terrified Hamish more than the Grandurian soldiers ever had.

Instead of following everyone inside, Hamish rushed for the square.

"Where are you going?" Stuart called.

"I have to check on Neasa. Come on."

The brawny youth stepped out onto his porch, but his mother's voice pulled him up short. "Get inside before you get hurt!"

He shrugged apologetically and turned back to the house, shoulders slumped.

Hamish was so glad Cinaed was not his mother.

As he ran, he vowed that if Neasa was hurt, he'd never taste another rock again.

The square lay in shambles, with splintered wood and chunks of stone littering the area. The bakery and tavern were shattered, and several nearby buildings heavily damaged.

Hamish crawled through a narrow opening into the devastated interior of the bakery. Timbers and debris blocked much of the front room, and the heavenly smell of sweetbreads mingled with the clinging dust.

Neasa lay under an overturned table, with fresh baked bread in piles around her. As Hamish carefully moved the bread aside, Neasa groaned.

Thank the spirits. He could still suck on rocks.

He vowed instead to help her restore her oven as soon as possible. The town could not long survive without her breads and rolls and desserts. Maybe his mother would let her bake in their house?

"What are you doing, lad?" the fat baker mumbled as he moved the table. "The roof could collapse any second."

"I'm here to help." He tried to lift her to her feet, but she cried out and fell back, clutching at one leg.

As Jean so often pointed out, Hamish lacked any healing sense, so he decided to get Neasa to the healer's house.

He tried carrying her, but could barely lift her, so he dragged her by the arms out of the rubble, with her thanking him and urging him on. Then he rushed off to the blacksmith's shop and retrieved the wheel barrow. It took only a moment to load her into the barrow and then stack bread high in her lap.

"Leave the bread, lad," Neasa said through teeth gritted against the pain.

"You're hurt. You're getting delirious." He tucked a few more sweetbreads around her and gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I'll save as much as I can."

A dozen Grandurian soldiers rushed past the square, sprinting in full retreat toward the eastern gate. Hamish hoped the fighting was ending, and shoved a few dusty sweetbreads and two loaves of honey bread down his shirt. Then he heaved on the handles of the overloaded barrow.

They crossed Market Street as fast as Hamish could maneuver the delicate load. To his right, beyond the eastern gate, a large force of Grandurians was advancing on the town, led by a man who shone so bright, Hamish could not look right at him. To his left, a score of Obrioner soldiers ran toward the square, donning odd-looking darkened goggles. Two other groups of Obrioner slingers split off Market Street, heading for Wall Street.

The Firetongue, who Hamish now remembered Connor had called Captain Aonghus, stood atop the western wall beside the wall gate, facing a man who stood atop the southern wall.

Aonghus' laugh echoed all the way across town to Hamish, and sent shivers of fear racing down his spine. Fire rolled out the man's mouth and enveloped his hands as he brought them together sharply, and sheets of fire ripped through the air toward the other man.

Hamish wanted to look away, but couldn't, even though he didn't want to see the man die.

The man lifted his hands, and pillars of water erupted up out of the ground behind him, wrapped him in an upward-flowing waterfall, and deflected the flames away.

That had to be Kilian. Flames and water arced back and forth overhead as the Guardian fought the Petralist. Sheets of water exploded against spiraling columns of flames, while curtains of fiery rain battled whirling mists. Dense, super-heated steam drifted all through the battered town and clouded the entire scene in thick haze.

"Move, lad!" Neasa yelled, startling Hamish out of his stunned immobility.

They crossed to Cliff Street and approached the Healer's house, where a crowd of people were already gathered, pushing for a chance to get in. Hamish caught another view of the wall gate between buildings, and paused to watch the insane Captain Aonghus.

Just then a wave of water knocked Aonghus off the wall. He fell, but with a blast of fire from his clenched fists, drove himself back into the air, just like the flying Heatstone oven with Connor riding on it.

He landed on the granary tower.

Hands lifted high, fire erupted all over him and flowed down over the building. The dust-filled granary, always carefully guarded from the tiniest spark, exploded.

Hamish lost sight of Captain Aonghus as the man tumbled high over the wall toward Loch Wick.

"No, not the grain!" Hamish shouted, nearly dropping the barrow with its precious load of bread.

"Careful, lad," Neasa snapped.

"But the grain is gone."

She wiped a tear and said, "We'll manage, somehow."

In mournful silence, he pushed her to the Healer's house, where Jean helped him position Neasa on the kitchen table for lack of any other place.

As Jean tended to her, she asked, "What's happening outside? Reports are contradictory."

She seemed so calm, despite the flood of injuries, and that calm helped Hamish center his thoughts.

"It's worse than you could imagine. They're destroying all the food."

She turned to give him her full attention, her face disbelieving.

He hardly believed it himself. It was a disaster.

"Believe it," Hamish assured her. "They just blew up the granary, and the bakery . . . got wrecked. They're trying to starve us out!"

"Forget about the food, grout-for-brain. There's more important things to worry about."

"You won't be saying that when you start getting hungry."

Through the open window, the distant sound of a bugle rang from outside of town.

"I wonder what that means," Jean said.

Hamish snapped his fingers with sudden realization.

"Lunch time."