Set in Stone (64 page)

"Granite, if you wish to prolong the inevitable."

Connor looked from the proffered bag to Carbrey. The general said, "Take it if you like. The record is three days. I don't think you'll last an hour."

Connor bit back the reply he yearned to make. He couldn't risk it, not until he felt the granite strength itching through him. He nodded, and the captain shifted the bag around to his tied hands.

Connor drove his hand inside, but paused. He'd almost forgotten to purge the last of his basalt. He closed his eyes, focused the coursing energy of the stone into the center of his chest and drove it out through the skin.

Then he opened himself to granite. Instantly the so-familiar itching sensation blossomed in his hand and skittered up his arm into his torso. He couldn't prevent a little smile at the familiar annoyance. Somehow it felt right to die with granite.

As soon as he drained the pouch, the captain dropped it and, without additional warning, hauled mightily on the rope.

As it yanked him off the ground, Connor tapped granite, and his entire torso burned with the itch of the Curse as it flared to life. His muscles hardened and became the perfectly sculpted lines of granite strength. His body deadened to all sensation as his skin hardened.

Connor held his breath at first, but when he felt nothing through the contact with the rope, he dared let out a little. His throat felt tight, but the air passed. He breathed a sigh of relief and then quickly gulped a full breath.

He started twisting slowly as he swung gently on the rope. His gaze swept across the army and the assembled captains. Shona pushed back her hood, and watched wide-eyed, as if shocked to see the hanging.

Maybe she'd never seen one before? It served her right. Hopefully she'd have nightmares about it all her life.

As his gaze fell on Carbrey, the general said, "You waste your powers, boy. You won't last ten minutes."

He wanted to spit on the man, but couldn't ignore the advice. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the crowd standing around, waiting for him to die, and focused on limiting the curse just to his neck.

It was harder than he expected. All his life, he'd concentrated the curse into one hand without even realizing what he was doing. He should be able to do this.

It took a couple of minutes. The Curse kept trying to skitter down his arm and he had to force it back to his neck before the muscles there weakened and the rope tightened.

Finally he mastered it, and opened his eyes in triumph. No one had moved.

Fine. If he couldn't stop them from attacking Alasdair by freeing the prisoners, he'd stop them by forcing them to watch him die for days. The record might be three days, but he'd last a week.

His stomach rumbled and he grimaced.

What a miserable way to die.

Chapter 75

Nervous, Hamish stood near the tall, imposing General Wolfram outside the big barn as dawn stained the eastern mountains pink. He caught himself glancing at the little shed where he'd stolen the rocks the previous night and forced his gaze away.

Idiot. They hadn't mentioned the theft yet. Don't give them any ideas.

That was the problem. They hadn't mentioned anything. He tried to mask his fear, but he couldn't imagine what they wanted.

Were they planning to hold him hostage until Connor returned? What good would that do? The entire town was hostage already.

Half a dozen soldiers pushed a large, covered . . . something out of the barn. Heavy canvas masked it, but it must be some kind of wagon. It rolled on four heavy wheels.

A man wearing spectacles on his pinched nose hovered around the soldiers and gave useless advice as they wheeled it toward the southern edge of the plateau. When they positioned it to his satisfaction, they locked the wheels and removed the tarp.

Hamish stared, and for a moment wonder overshadowed his fear. It wasn't a wagon. It was, well, it looked like a giant crossbow with dreams of becoming something more. Made with braided-steel cable and heavy wooden arms braced with metal, but equipped with a wire mesh sling instead of a bolt.

Still, that part made sense. It was the rest of it that had him puzzled. A framework of timbers, built right onto the wheeled carriage, jutted out in front of the giant crossbow, supporting a six-foot tube of basalt, two feet in diameter. It extended out the front at a forty-five degree angle.

Hamish drew closer as he studied the weapon that looked designed to shoot something up through the tube. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The soldiers setting up the weapon cranked a big flywheel that cocked the crossbow arms back until they locked into position. They then slid out of the basalt tube a smaller tube that had been resting inside, and pulled it all the way under the cocked crossbow arms to the wire basket.

Hamish drew closer still. It looked like they were going to fire the smaller tube into the bigger one, but why? The tube wouldn't make a good missile.

The spectacled man who oversaw the operation, carefully lifted a round ceramic pot out of a padded crate and lifted it toward the mesh basket.

One of the soldiers called out, "Hey, wait. We'll give you a hand."

"Don't worry, I've got . . . " the pot slipped out of the man's hands.

Soldiers shouted and dove away while the spectacled man fumbled to catch it.

Hamish reacted instinctively, jumped forward, and caught the pot just before it hit the ground. The spectacled man shared a terrified look with him and wiped his face.

Soldiers rushed over and carefully lifted the pot out of their hands and placed it into the cradle. They all looked shaken.

"Thank you, young man," the spectacled man said and shook Hamish's hand.

Hamish grinned. "No problem. I drop things all the time, so I've gotten pretty good at catching them."

"You're Hamish, aren't you?"

"Yes," he said slowly, suddenly nervous again.

"I am Builder Dierk. Verena told me about you."

Another Builder!

Hamish pumped Dierk's hand. "My pleasure." He glanced at Wolfram, who had not moved, and leaned closer to Dierk. "So, what's with the basalt tubes?"

Dierk's entire face lit up. He pulled Hamish over to the tubes and laid a hand on one. "This is my baby. General calls it the modified ballista, but I call it the Thump Driver."

Hamish touched the smooth basalt tube, and instantly felt throbbing energy coursing through it. They'd unlocked a lot of its power. It was a wonder the entire tube didn't jump right off the track.

He grinned with sudden understanding and scanned the entire contraption again. "So the tubes accelerate together?"

"Very good," Dierk said. "The double tubes are the key. We can achieve three hundred and eighty percent accelerated velocity of the projectile . . ."

General Wolfram, who Hamish had not noticed drawing closer, interrupted. "Builder Dierk, perhaps we should complete the calibration. Time is short."

Dierk bobbed a little bow in apology and added softly to Hamish, "I can talk about the thumper all day once I get started, but we don't want to leave your friend hanging that long do we?"

"What?"

Wolfram cast a warning glance at Dierk and interjected smoothly, "Come, Hamish. You can watch Dierk prime the projectile."

Dierk scurried over to the ceramic pot and unscrewed the threaded lid. Hamish caught a strong whiff of lamp oil.

"What is that?"

"Fuel. An enhanced mixture. My private recipe." Dierk pulled a leather pouch from a satchel he wore over one shoulder and carefully dumped the contents into the pot with the fuel.

"What's that?" Hamish leaned closer to examine the glittering powder as it spilled into the pot.

"Diorite."

Hamish recognized the tiny salt-and-pepper colored grains.

Where did they get . . . ?

He gasped. "You broke up one of the chisels?"

Dierk nodded happily, keeping his eyes on his careful operation. "Very handy having those chisels around."

"Are you crazy?" Hamish exclaimed.

How could they destroy one of the precious chisels? It took families entire generations to pay the enormous debt incurred to obtain a single chisel, and Dierk had pounded it to dust?

Dierk finished adding the diorite and screwed the cap back onto the ceramic pot. He rubbed his long nose and regarded Hamish. "Your precious diorite tools contain more power than you comprehend, Hamish."

"What do you mean?"

Dierk removed his spectacles and cleaned them carefully. "How do you imagine those chisels of yours cut through solid granite so easily?"

Hamish shrugged. "The Cutters . . . " he paused as realization struck.

Dierk nodded, his eyes intent. "Yes, somehow they interact with a tiny fraction of the latent diorite power. This is a gift we have not yet studied."

Hamish struggled to comprehend the magnitude of what that meant. "So, when a Builder unlocks diorite, what can it do?"

"Watch."

Dierk stepped back from the Thump Driver, and the soldiers slid the lower tube down over the pot. Dierk consulted a small piece of parchment filled with scribbled notes, then walked around the entire weapon, checking placement of wheels and markings of several elevation cranks.

"We are aimed and ready, general," he declared.

"Release," Wolfram commanded.

A soldier pulled the lever releasing the steel cable.

The crossbow arms snapped forward with a loud
whump
, hurling the ceramic pot and the lower tube into the upper tube. The lower tube slammed to a stop, and the ceramic pot hurled impossibly high into the air. Hamish watched with open-mouthed amazement as it arced across the valley and tumbled down into the trees at least two miles downriver.

A moment later, a column of fire erupted out of the trees and reared over a hundred feet into the air.

Dierk clapped Hamish on the back.

"It blows up. Big."

Hamish glanced over at the little shed where he'd taken the rocks the previous night, and got an idea.

Chapter 76

"You dead yet?"

Connor opened his eyes and looked down at flame-haired Captain Aonghus, who stood with fire flickering out of his mouth like the flaming tongue of a snake.

"Is it time for breakfast?" he managed to whisper.

He hadn't tried talking much. It was too hard to hold the granite curse around his throat and still move his vocal cords. The first time he tried speaking, he'd lost focus and the granite faded, allowing the rope to tighten a little. He didn't want to risk it happening again, but could not let Aonghus taunt him without responding. It gave him a tiny outlet to stave off the growing panic.

Captain Aonghus laughed, flames licking along his teeth. Holding the fire inside like that hurt a lot. He wondered if Aonghus even felt it any more, or if he'd burned away all feeling?

"You think it funny to watch a man die?" Shona demanded angrily. Connor had caught her looking at him several times, but she never met his gaze. She tried to maintain an impassive expression, but Connor could tell she was deeply uncomfortable.