The Arcanist (40 page)

But Simon did have some strong arguments in his favour he thought. Things he could use on his weak minded little brother. He hadn't killed Edouard when he could have. That had to count for something and he could tell him that Vesar had demanded his execution. But he had spared him because he was family. The simple minded fool would fall for it as he always had. Edouard had always wanted to find the best in people, and especially his family. He took after their father in that. Marcus was far more cynical.

He also had information about Vesar and the rest of the veiled guards that would be invaluable to those fighting them, and the one thing he was certain of was that Edouard would be in the battle against Vesar with the others if he could be. In that regard he was every bit as stupid as Marcus. Reckless and unable to see that a battlefield was never the place a smart man should be.

And then there was the fact that Simon also knew the secret ways in and out of the castle and the city. Also valuable information.

But in the end one thing would count in his favour above all else. He was family. While that meant little to him, to Edouard and the others it was everything. That he knew would have to be his final argument. If all else failed. And this time he knew it might.

Simon only wished he had another choice as he finally crawled the last of the way back into the thick bush.

Chapter Thirty Seven

“Lord Edouard!”

One of the women yelled down to Edouard while he was busy in his workshop, and his immediate reaction was to tell her to stop annoying him. He was busy. But then he realised she was yelling out of fear, not calling him to lunch. It was hard to make out a lot about a voice from upstairs when the sound had to weave its way through several passageways, then shelves full of equipment and over the noise of the steam engine polishing the musket balls to reach him. He didn't even know who had called. But he understood the sound of fear.

“Coming.”

Edouard got up and hurried to the stairs, weaving his way through the benches of equipment and free standing shelves filled with books and more technological bits and pieces, and finally reached the bottom of the stairs. When he got there he found Mara at the top landing, looking worried.

“Mara?”

“There's something coming.” Her words didn't tell him a lot but they said enough. Someone had made it through the ward Kyriel had placed and now they were in danger. His only hope was that it was only one person and not the entire army waiting below. But surely she would have said if it was the army. And as he suddenly realised she had said something, not someone. What did that mean?

Edouard rushed up the stairs, grabbed the musket he had left by the door and rushed outside, heading for the ramparts. Then he took the stairs leading up to them three at a time, frightened of what he might find. When he reached them though and stared out at the approaching thing, he was even more confused.

He had no idea what he was staring at. A suit of armour, or at least a lot of the body plates of a suit of armour were standing perhaps a hundred yards from the wall, not connected to one another but still somehow acting as if they were. Moving as if there was a giant man inside them, walking. But there was no man. What there was was a wind storm. A tiny little twister, or maybe several little twisters linked together in a rough man shape, covered by steel armour. He could see them from the dust they had gathered up in their spinning fury.

“What is it?”

Janus was there on the wall beside him, asking the stupid question. The entire house was there on the ramparts, probably wanting to ask the same stupid question. Sadly Edouard had not a clue as to what the thing was. But he knew exactly where it had to go. Away.

“Ascorlexia spoke of the rock gnomes' infernal devices,” Kyriel answered the healer.

She was surely guessing. But for all Edouard knew, she might be right. Actually she probably was, even if it explained nothing. Still, what it was was less important to him than what it was doing. And that seemed to be nothing. For some reason it was standing there, as if it actually had legs, spinning slowly on the spot like a drunken dancer. And while it stood there, it made an excellent target.

“Load the cannon.”

Immediately he said it several people rushed to do as he asked, while others asked him if that was wise. The truth was that he didn't really know. But he could guess that the reason it was standing there, slowly spinning, was that it was searching for them. Hunting. It had made it part way through Kyriel's ward, but not all of the way. But that didn't mean it wouldn't sooner or later find its way through the last of it. And when it did he was sure that the giant, whatever it was, would prove deadly. It was best that that didn't happen.

“Loaded.”

Sir Reginald was suddenly standing by the cannon, ram in hand and for the first time Edouard was glad of his presence. He was a ladies man as all the gossip had said, and he seemed to spend a lot of his days either preening himself or pursuing the handmaidens. The Seven only knew what the handmaidens thought of his advances. Maybe they considered him a defiler like his brother Marcus. But for all that he seemed to know his way around a cannon, and just then that was all that mattered.

“Aim.”

Even as he said it Edouard rushed over to help with the aiming. These were very old style cannon. They didn't have wheels and they didn't turn easily. Instead they stood on crude wooden stands which only allowed a limited range of movement up and down and sideways, and that had to be done by levering them around with long poles. There was a reason they had been left behind when the fort had been abandoned. And he still hadn't finished crafting the new stands for them. There was simply so much else that he needed to do. Still, with three of them working together it was a task quickly done and soon the cannon was lined up.

“Everyone over to the other side.”

Edouard gave the command even as he ran for the other side of the wall with them. It was necessary. The cannon hadn't been fired in at least two hundred years. He had no idea if it would even work. It could just blow up in their faces. And he didn't want to be anywhere nearby if that happened. And thanks to his gift he didn't have to be.

A few seconds later they were all standing at least forty feet away from the cannon, and he drew his flame to him. Then he let it loose, a tiny little fireball that touched the fuse on the cannon.

The underworld screamed its fury a moment later in response. The entire fort shook, there was smoke and fire, and a blast of something hot and furious leapt screaming from the cannon's snout to smash into the thing.

A direct hit! Edouard wanted to jump in the air and scream for joy as he saw the creature smashed apart in front of them. If his knees could stop shaking. But then he realised the thing wasn't down. It was damaged for certain. Many of the steel plates that formed its body were hanging off it at strange angles. Some had been torn completely free and were scattered far and wide over the road behind it. And it was spinning in a strange unbalanced way, almost like a drunk barely able to stand. But even a direct hit from a cannon hadn’t destroyed it.

Fergis took the opportunity to launch a small fireball at it, but he like Edouard was only a spark. His magic smashed into the thing with a satisfactory noise and a burst of flame, but soon faded leaving the steel colossus undamaged. Edouard had expected that, and for Fergis to try again as he did a few moments later. But in the end there was only one way to kill the thing.

“That cannon – double load!”

Edouard pointed to the cannon on the other corner of the wall. It was a risk of course, and everyone knew it. But apparently the thing was not going to die easily. Neither was it intelligent enough to run or take cover. So they quickly rammed two measures of gunpowder into the cannon, two loads of shot and some wadding, lined up the shot and then ran back to the other side of the ramparts before he sent another tiny fireball its way.

This time when the cannon spoke, it roared so loudly that Edouard thought his ears had shattered. And the blast of smoke and fire that leapt from the cannon's snout was a good fifty feet at least. But none of that mattered. The cannon hadn't exploded and the aim was good. So he like the others waited impatiently for the smoke to clear. And when it did clear, it showed him a sight he very much wanted to see.

This time the creature was down. Not dead – he wasn't sure anything could actually kill it, or that it had even been alive – but little of it remained. Just a couple of legs held up by whatever strange magic wind storm it was built of. And they wouldn't last long. He knew that as he watched the legs trying to twist around and failing. Without a body they simply couldn't lift off the ground and so they ended up doing some sort of drunken shuffle.

Then a plate fell off the back of one of the legs, and immediately after that the rest of the leg fell apart, leaving only the other leg standing. A leg that couldn't seem to move at all. It just stood there, completely helpless. As he stood there staring at it, wondering if they should load the cannon for one more shot, Edouard understood a little more of the creature.

It was some sort of wind demon, summoned somehow and then contained within a suit of armour. But the armour wasn't there to protect it. The creature was far beyond needing any protection. The armour was part of a containment enchantment, there to hold it together. Once they shattered the armour the enchantment failed. And when it failed the wind dissipated. What was left of it was only standing there because there was still a back plate and a front plate to the leg.

It was then that Edouard remembered the musket he'd left by the wall, and he quickly picked it up and sighted his target. The gap between one plate and the other. A moment later the lead ball smashed into the inside of the back plate, knocking it away from the front one, and the twisting wind between them dissipated. It was then that the front plate fell down and he knew that the creature had been destroyed.

The battle was over.

People started cheering then, and he almost felt like joining in. Almost but not quite. Not when he realised that the creature had been sent after them. That it was surely more dangerous than anything they'd ever seen, and that only Kyriel's ward had protected them. But for that it would have been on them, and he doubted the walls would have been any protection at all. More important than that however, was the understanding that this thing had likely not been alone. If you could build one of them then you could build many. And wherever the others had been sent he doubted they would be so fortunate as to have Kyriel's wards in place.

“My Lady.” He turned to her, worried that he might already be too late. “You need to tell your Honoured Mother of this, and more wards need to be raised quickly. The chances are that there will be more of these coming and not just for us. Every shrine, every building belonging the House of Barris and every other enemy of my brother will need to be protected.”

“Not my enemies little brother.”

Edouard froze in shock as the words came from just below them. And then, knowing the voice, the speaker, he turned, gun in hand to see his brother standing there on the grass beneath them. There were gasps all around from the others, especially those who had suffered directly at Simon's hands, and hands went for weapons. Edouard already had his pointed straight at Simon's head. But he didn't shoot.

Maybe it was the white flag his brother had in his hand, the sign of truce. Maybe it was the fact that he was dressed in rags and obviously wounded. Maybe it was that he still couldn't quite believe he was actually staring at Simon. Or maybe it was simply that he listened as Mara called for them to hold their fire. That didn't mean he didn't want to shoot him though. He wanted to kill him as he had never wanted anything in his life. The hatred was so powerful within him, so all-consuming that it threatened to take away his self control. So powerful that he couldn't even trust himself to speak instead of simply screaming like a madman. And he knew he wasn't alone. So he let Mara do it for him.

“What do you want Weasel?”

“Peace. Sanctuary. Some healing and some food.”

“From those you have harmed so badly? I think not. And I think that you're no longer king if you're standing before us in rags seeking shelter. I think you have nothing to offer. Nothing to atone for your crimes. You should just die.”

Edouard liked that she spoke so harshly to him. That she called him weasel. But he still knew it wasn't enough. He wanted to do more. He wanted to hurt him. He wanted to see his blood running freely. He wanted to hear him scream. By the Seven did he want to hear him scream!

“I offer knowledge. I know Vesar. I know what he is and a way to kill him.”

And there it was Edouard thought. The betrayal of his ally. Even though Vesar was surely their enemy, Edouard still felt cheapened by his brother's betrayal of the Cabal wizard. The Severins were never a family of betrayers. But he noticed that Mara had gone silent. She was thinking on his words. Her sisters too he guessed. And they had reason to. As terrible as what his brother had done to him and so many others was, they still had a war to fight. His knowledge, whatever he had, might be the difference between winning and losing. It might save lives.

“More details worm. What do you know?” Anatha took over the questioning, and if anything she sounded even less happy with Simon than her sister.

“I have seen Vesar's face. I have destroyed his temple. I know the secret ways in and out of the city. Where he hides his magical artefacts. Where he speaks to his master. Where his followers build these things. And he does not know that I know these things.”

Or so he said was Edouard's thought. Simon was in trouble and he would happily lie to get what he wanted. It was the pattern of his life. The truth was not something he dealt in. Only the most convenient lie. Others had the same thought. One in particular.