Shards of a Broken Crown (61 page)

Dash stepped
through. He held his hands out so anyone could see he wasn’t
armed. But to insure that he made things as clear as possible, he
shouted, “I’m not armed! I came to talk!”

The denizens of
Mother’s, the headquarters for the Mockers, turned in
astonishment at the sight of the Sheriff of Krondor standing before
them, his sword still at his side. From across the room, Trina said,
“Why, Sheriff Puppy, to what do we owe this honor?”

Looking from
face to face, most of which were shifting from surprise to anger, he
said, “I came to warn you.”

“Of what?”
said one man. “Keshians in the tunnels?”

“They’re
your worry,” said Dash. “The ones outside the gate are
mine. No. I came to warn you that in less than an hour this entire
room and the rest of Mother’s is going to be under water.”

“What!”
shouted one man.

“It’s
a lie,” swore another.

“No, it’s
not a lie,” said Dash. “I’m going to flood the
north aqueduct and the bypass channel below Stinky Street. The
culverts above the main passage”—he pointed to the door
though which he had just entered and the passage beyond—”are
shattered and all that water is going to come flooding down here.
This entire section is going to be underwater by noon.”

Trina walked
over, two very large menacing-looking men accompanying her. “You
wouldn’t be saying that to flush us out, would you, Sheriff
Puppy? It could be useful to have us running through the sewers and
tangling with some Keshians you haven’t managed to find yet.”

“Maybe,
but that’s not it.”

“Or maybe
you want us to be standing up in the streets for the Keshians to run
over when they break down the gate?” said a man nearby, pulling
his dagger.

“Hardly,”
said Dash. “There are enough bumps in the roads as it is. I
don’t need more.”

“I would
believe you,” said Trina, “if I didn’t know the
north sluice is damaged from the war and can’t be opened until
it’s repaired.”

“I’m
not repairing it,” said Dash. “I’m going to burn
it.”

Several men
laughed. “You’re going to burn a gate that’s half
underwater!” said one. “How you doing that?”

“Quegan
fire oil.”

Suddenly a man
said, “It burns underwater!”

Trina turned and
shouted orders, and men began to grab packages, bundles, and sacks.
She came to stand before Dash and said, “Why warn us?”

He grabbed her
arm and looked her in the eyes. “I’ve grown fond of
certain thieves over my life.” He kissed her. “Call me an
idiot,” he said after she stepped back. “Besides, you may
be a bunch of ragged good-for-nothings, but you’re my ragged
good-for-nothings.”

“Where
should we go?” she asked, and Dash knew she wasn’t
referring to the Mockers in general.

“Take the
old man to Barret’s Coffee House. It’s almost rebuilt,
and Roo Avery already has stocked it with some food. There’s a
tunnel off of the sewer under Prince Arutha’s Way that leads to
a landing by his basement. Lie low there.”

She looked him
in the eyes and said, “You’re going to cause me more
trouble than you’re worth before we’re done, Sheriff
Puppy, but for now I am in your debt.”

He started to
turn away, but she grabbed him and kissed him back. Whispering into
his ear, she said, “Stay alive, damn you.”

“You as
well,” he whispered. Then he turned and hurried back down the
tunnel. He stopped to revive the man he had knocked unconscious and
was glad he hadn’t tried a stunt like walking into Mother’s
uninvited when the Mockers were at the height of their power; there
would have been a dozen guards in that tunnel instead of one.

The groggy man
didn’t quite understand what it was Dash was telling him, but
he pieced together enough of the message to know he had to get to
high ground in a hurry.

Dash ran along
the major waterway that passed Mother’s and reached a place
where the culverts above had broken through. He leaped and grabbed
the jagged edge of a heavy hard-clay pipe that protruded out of the
wall above his head. He pulled himself up and stood on it, working
his way along to a break in the wall, barely large enough to permit
him entrance. He risked getting stuck as he wiggled through the break
to a place where a large hole appeared above his head. He pulled
himself up and stood outside in the bed of the northern watercourse.
He looked around in the predawn grey and saw no one in sight. He ran
toward the east.

As he reached
the end of the aqueduct, he saw Gustaf and his men standing before
the large wooden gate. Two men were already slamming axes into the
supports on either side of the jammed gate.

Dash said, “How
goes it?”

Gustaf smiled
ruefully. “If those supports don’t give way before we
want them to and drown us all, this might work.”

“How much
oil did you find?”

“Several
casks. I’ve got some of the lads pouring it into clay jugs like
you said.”

Dash hurried
over to the place Gustaf indicated, where two men were pouring
sticky, foul-smelling naphthalene from small casks into large clay
jugs. “Only about a third of the way,” said Dash. “And
leave the stoppers off. We want the air to get to it.”

The men nodded.
As Dash started to return to Gustaf, he said, “And you want to
be as far away from fire as you can get until you wash that stuff
off. Use lots of soap. Remember, it burns underwater.”

The two men who
were swinging the axes jumped back as one when a loud crack sounded,
accompanied by a flexing of the wooden gate. Small jets of water
spurted through cracks in the wood, and a bit of dirt and gravel
washed down the bank.

“Looks
like it’s going to go under the weight of the water,”
said Gustaf.

“Eventually,
but we can’t wait until the next big rain. Did you bring the
rags?”

“Over
there,” said Gustaf, pointing to a man standing over a box up
on the bank.

“Good,”
said Dash, hurrying over to inspect the damage. To one of the men
with an ax he said, “Crack this beam here some more.”

The beam was a
huge one, a foot on each side, that had been stuck between foundation
stones and held the right side of the sluice gate. The man set to
with his huge ax, smashing into the wood, almost as hard as rock with
age. Yet each time he struck, chips flew and the wood splintered
more.

Dash waved his
men out of the way and indicated that the rags and what was left of
the naphthalene in the casks should be brought over and the jars
should be taken to the top of the bank. The men hurried up the stone
bank of the aqueduct. Dash motioned the ax-wielder aside and said,
“Get up there.” He set two casks down on the stones and
picked up the third. Carefully, he laid out a long run of the rags,
tied it into a knotted cord, and dribbled naphthalene on it. He then
tucked one end of the rags into a cask and set a third atop the two
on the bottom, forming a little pyramid right below where the beam
had been chopped by the ax.

Dash hurried to
the far end of the rag and pulled a piece of flint from his pocket.
Using his knife blade, he struck sparks until one caught on the
naphthalene—soaked rag.

Dash wasn’t
entirely sure what to expect. He had heard stories from his
grandfather, but had only seen the results of the use of this oil
distillation mixed with powdered limestone and sulfur.

With a
whoosh
the flame sprang up the rag. Dash ran.

He reached the
bank of the aqueduct as the flame burned quickly along the rag. He
stood next to Gustaf and said, “If it burns as hot as it’s
reputed to burn, it should eat through the rest of that wood quickly.
The water pressure should shove over the—”

The flame
reached the casks. They exploded.

The force of the
blast was far more man Dash had expected, thinking he was going to
get more of a large fire. Instead, men were thrown to the ground and
two were struck by wood splinters.

Gustaf picked
himself up off the ground, saying, “Gods! What was that?”

“I’m
not sure,” said Dash. “My grandfather told me something
about too much air on the stuff, and I guess that’s what he
meant.”

“Look!”
said one of the constables.

The blast had
cut through most of the large beam, which now was being bent back by
the gate under the pressure of millions of gallons of river water
trapped behind it. With a loud groan the entire sluice gate began to
move as water started to pour through several gaps in the wood. As
the force of the water increased, the wood started to move more
rapidly. Creaking and groaning sounds were replaced by a crack, the
beam sheared in two, and suddenly the entire gate was swept away
before a wall of water.

Dash sat on the
bank, watching the wall of water move down the aqueduct. When it hit
the break in the stones that would send water pouring into the lower
sewer, he could barely see a pause as the wave swept on past it.

Gustaf said,
“Well, that should drown some rats.”

“We can
hope,” said Dash, taking the constable’s offered hand and
pulling himself to his feet. Thinking of the Mockers, he said, “As
long as it isn’t our rats that get drowned.”

“What do
you want us to do with these clay jugs, Sheriff?” asked one of
the constables.

Dash said, “I
was going to have you throw them at what I thought would be a nice
little fire down there. Bring them along. I think we can find a use
for them.” As the man reached down to grab the jugs, Dash
added, “And handle them gently.” He motioned to the water
surging through the destroyed sluice.

They hurried
back through the city, and as they turned the corner to High Street,
Dash shouted to Gustaf, “Get some barricades up here.” He
then pointed back another block and said, “And there. When they
break through, I want them turned before their cavalry hits the
market. As soon as the gate goes, get archers up on the roofs there,
there, and there.” He pointed to three corners of the
intersection.

Gustaf nodded.
“I notice you didn’t say
if
they break through.”

“It’s
just a question of when, and if help can get here before they do. I
think we’re in for some nasty days ahead.”

Gustaf shrugged.
“I’m a mercenary, Sheriff. Nasty days are what I get paid
for.”

Dash nodded as
Gustaf hurried off to carry out his orders and the rest of the
constables carried the jugs of naphthalene to the gate. He glanced
around the city streets, now deserted as people hid in their houses
hoping against hope that somehow they would be spared another
destructive rampage such as they had endured the year before. Dash
shook his head. Mercenaries, soldiers, and constables might get paid
to endure such as this, but citizens didn’t. They were the ones
who suffered, and in his time as Sheriff he had forged a bond with
the people of Krondor he couldn’t have imagined before. Now he
was starting to understand why his grandfather had loved this city so
much, both the noble and the base, the exalted and the low. It was
his city. And Dash would be damned to the lowest hell before he’d
see another invader take it again.

Dash hurried
toward the gate when he heard horns. He knew a Keshian herald was
approaching under a flag of truce to announce under what conditions
his general would accept the surrender of the city. Dash climbed the
steps in the gatehouse and reached the battlements as the Keshian
herald approached, the rising sun peeking over the mountains behind
him. He was a desert man, and on each side accompanying him rode a
Dog Soldier, each holding a banner. One was the Lion Banner of the
Empire, and the other was a house flag; Dash knew his grandfather and
father would both disapprove his not recognizing it at once.

Sergeant Mackey
said, “They want to talk.”

Dash said,
“Well, it would be rude not to listen.”

Dash would be
tempted to drop a jar of the naphthalene on the herald before the man
was through, he thought, but each minute that passed before the
attack bought them a little more time to prepare.

The herald rode
before the gate and shouted, “In the name of the Empire of
Great Kesh and her great General Asham ibin Al-tuk, open the gates
and surrender the city!”

Dash looked
around and saw that every man on the wall was watching him. He leaned
out between two merlons on the wall and shouted back, “By what
right have you come to claim a city that is not yours?” He
glanced at Mackey and said, “Might as well go through the
formalities.”

“We claim
these lands as ancient Keshian soil! Who speaks for the city?”

“I, Dashel
Jamison, Sheriff of Krondor!”

With contempt in
every word, the herald shouted, “Where is your Prince, O jailer
of beggars? Hiding under his bed?”

“Still
sleeping, I think,” said Dash, not wishing to reveal to this
man anything about the poisoning. “If you care to wait, he may
show up later today.”

“That’s
all right,” came a voice from behind Dash.

Dash turned and
saw a pale Patrick standing there, being held erect by a soldier.
Patrick had donned his royal armor, golden trimmed breastplate and
open-faced helm, with a gold-trimmed purple sash of office over his
shoulder. As he passed Dash, Patrick whispered, “Should I lose
consciousness, tell them I’ve left in outrage.”

He reached the
wall and steadied himself, and Dash could see how difficult it was
for him to stand, even with the strong soldier holding onto him from
behind. Yet Patrick found it within himself to shout out with power,
“I am here, dogs of Kesh. Say what you will!”

The herald
barely hid his surprise at seeing the Prince of Krondor on the wall.
He obviously had believed the poisoner successful. “Most
gracious Prince!” said the herald. “My . . . master bids
you open your gates and withdraw. He will escort you and your retinue
to your nation’s borders.”