Empire of Unreason (49 page)

“What are you yowling about?”

“Think! Why is the woman there in the canoe with you bound? Why
did you lash her hands and feet with rawhide?”

“She tried to run away. I was worried she would be killed, lost and
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alone in this country. I bound her for her own good.”

“Ah, yes. But when did she try to escape? Why?”

“She—she wasn’t as strong as I thought she was. She got sick, and
then she tried to run.” He straightened. “I’m tired of your
questions. I’m going to kill you now.”

“If I am to die, indulge me just a little further, Red Shoes.
When
did
she get sick?”

This was annoying, but for some reason his desire to kill the
scalped man had waned. Perhaps because there was no longer any
need to fear him. The scalped man was a nothing to him, an insect.

Of course, he reminded himself, even an insect, carelessly trod
underfoot, could cause sickness with its ghost. It would not do to
keep his eye too far from his foe.

“Try to remember,” the scalped man urged again. “When did she
try to escape? Why?”

Pushing down his anger, Red Shoes turned one eye inward and
remembered.

11.

Apollo

As fire splashed all around him and the flying machines whined
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above, Oglethorpe had a vivid recollection of visiting a
glassblower’s once, when he was a boy, of the glistening, smooth
forms taking shape in the molten crystal. Here it looked as if
someone was blowing men and horses of glass, so thickly did the
burning stuff cover them. The lack of sound made it all the more
unreal.

The men were in total panic, as well they should be. Grimly, he
pulled his pistols, took aim at the next ship to pass over, and fired.

He thought he saw a tiny spark fleck the metal. He fired again.

Shoving the empty guns into the holsters on his saddle, he drew his
Fahrenheit pistol from his belt.

Then it occurred to him that the infantry and cavalry below surely
knew of the aerial attack—which meant that they would be on their
way.

He galloped around, yanking men by the arm, pointing them down
the next hill. They needed to put some distance between themselves
and the valley the redcoats occupied, and they needed, by damn, to
get from the sight of these airships.

He tried to ignore the burning wretches on the ground, some still
crawling, their eyes already evaporated.

It took forever, it seemed, to get them all moving in a common
direction. If he got the chance, he might point out later to
Tomochichi that this was where the European way was better: the
redcoat troops had the discipline to stand and wait for orders even
while the sky rained hellfire on them, and when the order came
they would march through the curtains of fire to where they were
directed.

Like machines, he thought. Like the taloi.

By the time they regrouped at the top of the next ridge,
Oglethorpe’s hearing was coming back, and some order had
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returned. He sent Parmenter around for a quick count, then set
rear guards, as they began toiling down the next hill. Leagues were
what they needed now. He noticed that most of his men spent so
much time looking up through the trees, wondering when death
would envelop them with fiery embrace, that they couldn’t guide
their horses. Even after a few hours with no sign of the flying
machines, there were more upcast eyes than in a caravan of
pilgrims.

Parmenter galloped up. “The head count is fifty-six,” he said.

“Fifty-six?” Oglethorpe said, stunned. “I have whittled two hundred
men down to fifty-six?”

“Sir, we’ve accounted for at least three hundred redcoats. And I’m
sure some of the men are merely scattered, and will find us soon.”

“Fifty-six.”

“Yes, sir.”

Oglethorpe digested that in silence, wondering what Prince Eugene
of Savoy might have done with fifty-six men against—how many?

“Sir, I’ve a few worries to discuss.”

“Hmm? Yes, of course, Lieutenant. Go on.”

“The airships, sir. They must know we no longer have our devil
gun. If they didn’t before, they do now. Which means they will
surely bring in their larger craft.”

“They might suspect we are tricking them.”

“They might. Or they might have captured the Maroons, or the
Maroons might have gone to them with it—”

“I’ve asked you not to voice suspicions like that.”

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Parmenter looked stubborn, but he took another line. “All I’m
saying is that we can expect more worries from the air, sir.”

“Thank you for making glass clear, Mr. Parmenter.”

“My pleasure, General,” Parmenter replied without heat. “Another
thing—how well do our scouts know this territory?”

“I don’t even know which ones are alive. Chief?”

Tomochichi had been following the conversation silently. “Not
well,” he said. “This is Coweta territory. I came through here in my
youth, but have no good map of it in my head.”

“That’s my worry,” Parmenter said. “The redcoats have the best
map—the land itself. They can fly over it and figure where they
ought to be. Or where
we
ought to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before, we were drawing
them
in, making them go where
we

wanted. I think they’ve changed breeches with us. Now we’re goin‘

where they want
us
’t‘ go.”

Oglethorpe sighed wearily. “That’s probably right, Mr. Parmenter.”

They got their confirmation a few hours later, when they tried to
work their way back south and east. They ran straight up against a
well-armed cavalry, one that could not possibly have gotten there
by separating from the main army. Airships again.

They exchanged a few shots and fell back, now reduced to fifty-four.

The cavalry did not pursue with speed, but Oglethorpe felt them
back there, driving them.

“Yes, Mr. Parmenter,” he allowed, “you are most certainly correct.

They lead us by the nose now.”

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“What shall we do about it?”

“Go, I expect. Acquit ourselves as best we can. Our aetherschreiber
was destroyed in that set-to on the hill, so I’ll want a few of your
rangers to try and slip through, to get the news out. A few might
make it.”

“Sir, you should go.”

“Don’t waste any time on that,” Oglethorpe told him. “You won’t
convince.”

By mid-morning of the next day, they could see the trap. Their high
ground gave way to an open savanna bounded by a river on the
west and low but rugged mountains on the north. Across the plain,
near the river, they could make out a picket of men and ordnance.

Hovering over the plain itself were two of the big airships. They
looked almost like sailing ships, suspended beneath orbs of a sulky
red color.

“We would more easily punch through those behind us,”

Parmenter said, as they took it all in from the trees.

“They would merely move a greater force to block us or drop
grenades on us again when we engage. Even if they cannot always
see us through the trees, they will know where their own troops
are.” He raised his voice so all of the men could hear.

“No, we have three choices: surrender, try to scatter into the
woods, or attack. All you men who know me can guess which one
I’m in favor of. But I will count none of you cowards if you choose
another way, especially you men with wives and children. I’m an
old bachelor, with no one to mourn me, so naturally the choice is,
for me, an easy one.”

“I’m with you, sir,” Parmenter said quietly.

“No one can count the days allotted until after they are spent,”

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Tomochichi added. “If this is the last of mine, it is good.”

He saw fear—but not cowardice—on the faces of several of the men,
but none asked to be excused.

“Masters Kelly, Callahan, Henderson.”

“Sir?” they answered in unison.

“I’ve chosen you three to slip out, if you can, in case the other
scouts don’t make it through.” Also because he knew they had big
families and no close kin to help support them.

“General,” Henderson said, “I reckon you think it a kindness—”

“Not at all, Mr. Henderson. I think it an order.”

“Then call me a traitor if you must, sir, but my family is better
served by me fightin‘ here.”

“I reckon we all feel that way,” Callahan added.

Oglethorpe tried to suppress a fierce smile, but he couldn’t. “Very
well, gentlemen. Should you survive this, I may hang you, but for
now—check your weapons.”

When they had done so, he drew his Fahrenheit pistol and his
broadsword. They trotted out of the forest together.

They were met, first, with eerie silence. They had ridden nearly a
hundred yards before guns of the distant red line even moved to
aim at them.

Oglethorpe raised his sword high, whirled it thrice, and shouted at
the top of his lungs. “For God and America!”

And charged.

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“Can you stop it?” Crecy asked, gazing at the monstrous thing rising
below them. The air was charged with dizzying heat and a
frighteningly unnatural scent. The sky vibrated like a drumhead.

Adrienne crinkled her brow in concentration. “Stop it? No. But, let
me think—how does it know to chase us?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Whatever else it is, it is a malakus, a thing unused to seeing and
judging things made of matter. It knows to chase our ships,
somehow, which means it has been taught to recognize them, to tell
them apart from trees or houses or other things of wood.”

“That makes sense.”

“But its understanding cannot be very discerning. What if it had
two groups of ships to follow? Or three?”

“It does, and it’s chasing us—not Menshikov.”

“Exactly,” Adrienne replied. “It simply chose the largest group.”

She whirled toward the wheelhouse. “Hercule! Have the other
ships maneuver as close as possible to us. I have an idea.”

“I heard you. But if your reasoning’s sound, shouldn’t we scatter?”

“No. That might confuse it
too
much. I want to give it as clear a
choice as possible, and I want it to follow Menshikov, since you’ll
notice his ships are headed in the opposite direction from ours.

Bring the ships together!”

Hercule sprang into motion, sending the signals out by flag and
schreiber. The rest of the fleet began drifting toward them, until
they were in a tight cluster, each vessel no more than thirty yards
from another.

“Closer,” Adrienne said. “I want the hulls touching.”

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“In this wind? Impossible.”

“Look there, Hercule,” she said, pointing at the keres. It was
gaining only slowly, but it did not have to catch them— only come
near enough for the outer fringes of it to touch them. Then the
ships and their bodies would come apart—if they were not already
dead from the heat. “Surviving
that
is what is impossible. Anything
is reasonable compared to that.”

So much sweat covered Hercule’s face that it seemed that his flesh
was already bubbling into blisters. When he swiped at it with his
cuff, it became a glossy sheen.

“As you say.” He gave the orders.

Instants later a sickening tremor ground through the ship. Linne,
not holding firmly enough, was slammed into the rail and flung half
over before Crecy caught him with her sure, strong hands. Others
weren’t so lucky. A young sailor fell into the narrow space between
two ships and was caught and crushed into a paste as surely as if he
had fallen into a giant’s mortar.

Another concussion, this one as sharp as a cannon hit, bucked the
ship. Spars and cables snapped.

The scent of woodsmoke reached her nostrils as the undersides of
the ships began to smolder.

She closed her mortal eyes and went to the world of insubstance,
where she worked a deception, masking each ship with the other,
creating a sphere that blended and merged their substance, like a
prism in reverse, making white light of many colors.

It was illusion only—the ships did not really merge. But the
impression they made on the aether did. She held it, as the ships
and their crews screamed around her and fire rose below. She
worked the operation in her head, like a rosary, like needlework,
over and over, until it fell in time with her heart, with the pulse in
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