The evacuation was orderly enough; five minutes later men were filing past him in columns, profanely shepherded along by his troops, and they were taking their baskets and hammers with them, their carts and beasts and timbers. One of the surveyors was jittering around the edge of the circle of Demansk's personal guards, probably come to complain about the interruption to his work.
"Heads up!"
Another quarter-ton boulder. This one grew with remorseless speed, dropping down from the sky like an anvil thrown by the gods from heaven, like the dim legends of the end of the Golden Age before history. Demansk traced its curve with his eye and sighed.
CRACK. It hit the forward left corner of the southernmost of the pair of towers. Iron plates sprayed out as the bolts and spikes that held them to the wooden frame sheered off. Fragments of rock and iron and wood sprayed across the forward end of the causeway, knocking down a few men not yet withdrawn; he could see the sudden red gush of arterial blood, imagine it running pink into the sea, and the sudden frenzy of sea life there — scavengers had gathered from all over, and swimming had become much less popular.
"Get the men out of the towers," he said.
"Sir—"
"They're going to pound them into splinters and there's not a fucking thing we can do. Get them out!"
Luckily, whatever-it-was out there on Preble seemed to take a long time to load — not as long as he would need to get the ultraheavy siege towers out of the way, but at least five to eight minutes between rocks. The archers and artillerists in the towers were pouring back in disciplined but hasty streams, jog-trotting past him, when the third rock struck the tower halfway up its length. The whole squat wide-based mass rocked backward, and the projectile didn't shatter or rebound. Demansk winced; that meant it had broken right through the surface, even though it had struck at a glancing angle as it fell from on high. Like the fist of a god, he thought.
In fifteen minutes the towers were empty; and the southern one was leaning like a drunken man, and he could see daylight through the frame. Half a dozen more shots, and it was a toppled wreck. A hundred thousand arnkets, he thought. That much in materials alone; metals were expensive, on that scale. Not to mention the man-hours that had gone into it. .
More waiting, a half-hour, and then a boulder skimmed the northern tower's top and cracked into deadly splinters on the causeway behind it. The next one fell with malignant precision right on the roof, and he could hear the crack of rending wood as it slammed down the center of the tower. Five of the huge rocks served to send it toppling backward, with a chorus of groaning, rending, slamming sounds like the end of the world. When the dust cleared he could see it lying prone, the hole the first rock had made in the roof like an eye in the sagging rectangle of immensely thick timbers that made up the frame.
Another pause, and another tumbling dot from Preble. As it grew, he could see that it was trailing. . not flame, but blue smoke. Like. . like one of the grenades, but so much bigger. Which means. .
"Down!" he shouted, diving for the ground; his repaired back-and-breast gouged at him as he landed on the paving stones. "Down, you idiot!"
He reached out, grabbed the thick muscular boot-clad ankles of the First Spear and yanked, pulling him level. Then the world went out in thunder and pain.
* * *
"There's a bloody hole in the causeway where that big iron barrel of hellpowder landed!" Esmond said enthusiastically.
a crater, Center whispered pedantically at the back of Adrian's mind. There where times when the god-spirit-machine reminded him of a particularly literal-minded instructor of rhetoric he'd studied under in the Grove.
The Gellerts were sitting on chairs brought up to the wall's parapet, with a table laden with watered wine, olives, fish, ham, bread and fruit. Esmond was tearing into the food with methodical speed, his eyes glued to the shore and the Confederation works.
"Yes, as long as the gunpowder holds out we can batter it to pieces faster than they can rebuild it," Adrian said.
Esmond nodded, smiling. "It's a pity we can't reach their camp that way — perhaps we could mount one of the trebuchets on a ship? A big merchantman, say — take out the mast, put the trebuchet on the center."
"Accuracy would go to the Shades," Adrian said, surprised and impressed. Esmond was starting to think in terms of the potential of the new devices.
Weapons technology diffuses faster than anything else, Raj said, his mental voice somehow tired and amused at the same time. Medicine and new ways of growing crops may get ignored as outlandish nonsense, but come up with a better way of cracking skulls and they'll fall all over themselves to get their hands on it.
"But pretty soon," Adrian said, "it's going to occur to the Confeds that nothing we've shown them is much good against moving targets — like ships, for instance."
Esmond's smile turned to a scowl. "King Casull will support us with the royal fleet," he said.
The brothers' eyes met. We hope, went unspoken between them.
* * *
". . save the arm," someone was saying.
Justiciar Demansk's eyes blinked open. There were two physicians hovering over him, and Helga. He looked down; his left arm was immobilized with bandages and splints, and just beginning to deliver a ferocious ache. For the rest he felt the usual sick headache-nausea you got from being knocked out, and bruises, wrenches and sprains. About like a bad riding accident, he decided, and pushed the body's complaints away with a trained effort of will. The scents of canvas and the sharp smell of medicine made him want to vomit, but that passed as well.
A few curt questions settled that he wasn't badly damaged — his First Spear had taken a bad head wound, been trepanned, and they were unsure whether he would live; now, that hurt.
When the doctors were gone at last, Demansk let his daughter raise his head and bring a cup to his lips. A distant sound like thunder made him jerk a little and spill the water on the thin sheet.
"More?" he said.
Helga nodded; the tent was dim, and it made her eyes seem to glow green at him. "More. The causeway is in ruins."
"Not to mention the reputation of everyone concerned with this fiasco," he said, laying his hand down on the pillow. "You know, this young man of yours—"
"Scarcely mine, Father!"
"— this Adrian Gellert, he threatens the whole course of things as they are. Starting with the Confederacy."
She snorted. "Oh, come now, Father. We'll take Preble, eventually."
"We may, but it's going to be very expensive. Why do you think the world is the Confederacy and some outlying regions now, instead of a tangle of little cities and valley kingdoms, the way it used to be?"
"Because we've got a better army, of course. And the gods favor us, supposedly."
"The two often go together," Demansk said dryly, not returning her smile. For one thing, it hurt too much. "But one reason is that cities don't hold out for years, the way they did back during the League Wars, or even the wars of the Alliance. The Confederacy can take most towns in a month or less. Your. . this Freeman Gellert has made sieges a lot more expensive again, all of a sudden. If these innovations—" the word had sinister connotations of decay and evil, in Emerald and the Confederation's tongue as well " — spread."
Helga laid a cold cloth on his forehead, and he held back a groan of relief. "Always thinking of the welfare of the State, eh, Father?"
"If a Demansk doesn't, who will?"
She nodded. "But Father, what's to prevent us from using these. . new devices?" He noted that she avoided the word he'd used. "A city's a big concentrated stationary target. From what I've seen and heard, hellpowder would be hell on fortifications."
He blinked, startled. "You know," he said, "there may be something to that. . I've been sort of focused on getting into Preble against the Emerald's toys." He thought for a moment. "That bears considering, girl. It certainly does."
TEN
"All hail to the King! O King, live forever! All abase themselves before King Casull IV, King of the Isles, Overlord of the Western Seas!"
The leather-lunged herald cried out the call as the flagship of the Royal fleet dropped anchor. The vermillion-painted oars of the quinquereme pulled in all together, the crew trained to the precision of dancers. Behind it the hundred and twenty hulls of the Isles' war fleet — not counting a score or more of transports and storeships — closed in, not quite as precisely, but with a heartening display of fine seamanship.
Especially heartening when you compare it to the Confed fleet's, Adrian thought, as he went to his knees along with all the other thousands of onlookers. Watching the Confed quinqueremes wallowing into their temporary harbor down the coast had been reassuring, especially when a couple fouled each other in the entranceway, breaking oars and killing rowers. Reassuring, until one saw how many there were.
Standing near Prince Tenny with the high command he had the luxury of kneeling and pressing his forehead to a soft carpet instead of hard slimy cobbles, at least. He still came upright as quickly as he could, looking hungrily at the low turtle-backed shape with the covered wheels on either side that followed along behind a quinquereme, the tow rope coming free of the blue-green water now and then in a shower of spray. That was his particular baby. The warships made a formidable bulk, even in the magnificent circular harbor at the northern edge of Preble, and even with all the merchant shipping that had crowded in to take advantage of wartime prices when it became obvious the city wasn't going to fall quickly. The docks were black with people, or gray and red depending on the color of turbans and veils. So were the flat roofs of the houses that rose in a three-quarter circle above the water.
Casull came ashore glittering like a serpent in armor washed with silver and gold; the nobles and household troops around him were only a little less gorgeous. The trident banner of the Isles floated above him, and over the gaudy, metal-shining mass of ships and troops behind him. The citizens of Preble cheered themselves hoarse, throwing dried rose petals before Casull's feet. Priests in white robes and spotted leoger-hide cloaks sprayed scented water and intoned prayers; as the King set foot on land, the knives of sacrificers flashed and greatbeasts and woolbeasts died on altars.
"So," the King said at last, when the processions and sacrifices and speeches were over. He took off the tall spired helmet with its scarlet and green plumes. "I hate that polluted thing — even heavier and hotter than a war helm, when the sun's out."