The Magic Engineer (64 page)

“You will direct the fleet, Fydel.” Anya smiles winningly.

The wizard with the square-cut brown beard frowns, looking from the High Wizard to Anya. “You want me to go against that demon ship?”

“It’s only one ship, and you’ll have a dozen well-armed war schooners. Besides, you don’t even have to land. Just use your skills to fire the town.”

“What if the…whatever he is…comes after us?”

“You sink his ship,” Cerryl says quietly. “I recall your telling the Council that would be possible were you in charge. You’re the wizard in charge.”

“Fine. I’ll need some assistants.”

“Pick whom you need.”

Fydel purses his lips, then inclines his head. “By your leave?”

“Of course.”

After Fydel has departed and the door has been closed, Cerryl massages his forehead and looks out the window into the rain pelting Fairhaven. “Damned rain, always gives me a headache.”

The red-headed woman sits, legs crossed, before the table. The circular mirror that lies upon the white oak is blank. She smiles.

“You really don’t care if we win, do you?” asks Cerryl.

“What ever gave you that idea?”

“Everyone who supported you has been given a position on those fleets. That’s a page from Hartor’s book.”

“You’ve read a great deal of history. It makes you much more appealing.”

The High Wizard fingers the amulet once worn by a High Wizard named Hartor, and more recently by Sterol. “If they win, they owe you—”

“They owe you, High Wizard.”

“That is so thoughtful of you.” Cerryl inclines his head to Anya. “Humor me, if you please, and listen. You owe me that, at least.”

Anya smiles faintly, but only with her mouth.

“If we somehow destroy or humiliate this Black builder of magic ships, then all your supporters will be indebted. If this unknown Black proves as great as, say, Creslin, then no one is left to challenge you. And,” Cerryl adds wryly, “like Hartor, no one will want this position for at least a decade, or until their memories grow somewhat fainter. You are rather astute, Anya dear.” He pauses. “Of course, if they fail, but return, then I will follow Sterol.”

“Then why did you accept my proposition?” Anya asks.

“Why not? All life is a gamble. Besides, like Sterol, I sus
pect attacking Recluce is doomed to failure.”

“You admit that, and yet will send out those fleets?”

“I could be wrong.” Cerryl smiles.

“So you could.” Anya returns the smile, stands, and steps toward him, lips parted.

Both the hammer and the anvil horn blur in the lamplight. Dorrin racks the hammer and sets the curved sheet that will be a rocket casing on the forge bricks. He rubs his forehead.

“You all right, master Dorrin?” asks Rek.

“Just tired. Can you sweep up and bank down the coals?”

“Yes, ser.”

Dorrin trudges out toward the stone-walled shower that is as similar to the one he grew up with as he could make it—or have the masons make it, more properly. All he provided was the shower head and the valves.

After checking to make sure there is a towel in the covered box set in the wall, he strips, frowning at his own stench, and turns on the water.

“Ooo…” The water is not lukewarm, or cool, but frigid. As soon as he is wet, the water goes off, and he lathers up with the soap Liedral brought back from her last trip to Land’s End. Then he rinses, shivering. He has to repeat the process once more before he feels clean.

After drying, he steps from the shower into the back hall and tiptoes, clothes in hand, towel around his waist, into the bedroom.

“How are you?” Liedral is reading from his manuscript, the table and lamp pulled close to her side of the bed and the coverlet almost to her neck.

“Cold…tired…” He sets his clothes on the rack in the corner. They need to be washed, but he will worry about that later. Then he rummages in the wardrobe for some underdrawers, which he exchanges for the towel.

“I can’t believe how well you thought this out,” Liedral says, reaching over and replacing the pages in the wooden box.

Dorrin sees her shoulders are bare and looks away. “Thought you read it when you and Petra copied it.”

“I only read what I copied, and I really didn’t have time to think about it.”

He slides into his side of the bed. The sheet and coverlet are cool, but not so cold as the air or the shower were.

“You smell clean.”

“Mmmm…” Dorrin has not realized how tired he is until he lies back.

“Tired?”

“Yes. I was making casings for a few more of the heavy rockets.”

“When will you take the
Black Hammer
out?”

“Tomorrow, I’d guess. Maybe the next day. Not until we see them. Not much sense in wasting time or coal.” He leans back on the thin pillow.

“I need something…”

He half turns toward her.

“Hold me…please.” She slips into his arms. She wears no shift, and her skin is warm against his.

“Don’t think…Is this…wise? I mean…” Wanting her, he still worries, wonders…Will the memories surface?

“Very wise…almost…too late…” Her hands reach his damp hair and draw his face to hers.

In time, her hands reach lower, and her lips warm his, then caress his cheeks, burning away the tears that flow from his eyes, even as his hands stroke her back and brush along the smooth skin of her thighs.

They move together, slowly…warmly.

The lamp flickers in the faint breeze, and the top page in the wooden box flutters.

When they separate, her lips nibble his left ear. “I missed you.”

“Darkness…I missed you. I love you.”

“You can keep holding me…please.” Her arms wind around him yet again, and her lips are warm and soft on his.

Dorrin’s arms tighten around her, holding her even as he wonders what has changed after so long. He draws in the scent of her, of fine soft hair, and his lips brush her cheek before their lips meet again.

The wagon creaks up to the pier, opposite the
Black Diamond
, and Dorrin hops down onto the stones, taking out the wagon blocks and setting them on each side of the iron tires.

He lowers the tailboard. In the rough crate are another dozen rockets—the heavy kind, as Dorrin thinks of them, that will penetrate ship hulls.

Kyl is the first to reach the wagon. “More of the rockets?”

“The heavy kind.”

Tyrel appears. “There’s a sail just at the horizon.”

“Do we know whose sail?”

“Not yet.”

Dorrin rubs his forehead. His head aches even in anticipation of using the damned rockets. “All right. Light off a small fire in the firebox, just enough that we maintain a little steam.”

Tyrel nods. “Yarrl coming?”

“No. If something happens, I’d like someone left who could build another ship.”

“Makes sense.” The shipwright and captain of the
Black Hammer
frowns. “You’re not planning on losing, I hope?”

“Hardly.”

With the sound of hoofs on stone Dorrin looks up. Liedral rides toward the pier, leading a riderless Basla. In the lanceholder is his black staff.

“Rylla needs you.”

“But…” Kyl looks puzzled.

“Kadara?”

Liedral nods.

“If it is the White fleet, and it looks like they’re getting within say…less than ten kays, blow the whistle.” Dorrin looks at Tyrel. “With Basla, I can be back here quickly. Kyl, you know where the rockets go, and I’m counting on you.” As he speaks, Dorrin mounts, looking at Liedral, whose eyes seem red-rimmed. He reaches across the gap between horses and squeezes her hand, but loses touch as she turns the brown and starts back uphill.

There is no hitching post outside the small dwelling, and Dorrin ties Basla to the timber supporting the railing on the left side of the porch steps. Liedral ties her mount to the right side.

Merga is in the small kitchen, and two large pots on the small square stove—Yarrl’s doing—contain boiling water. On the cutting table is a jar of astra.

Dorrin stops and pours astra into a bowl. “Merga, would you crush this as fine as you can? Use a clean spoon or something.”

“Yes, ser.”

Dorrin follows Liedral to the bedroom.

“Oh…oooohhh…” Kadara’s moans are low, almost wrenching.

Rylla looks up. “Be back in just an instant, love.” She motions to Liedral, who slips onto the stool beside the laboring mother.

“I’ll stay with you,” Liedral promises.

Rylla shuts the bedroom door, and edges down the hall. “I can tell…the baby’s too big, and the cord’s not right.”

“You want me to see what I can do?”

“O’ course I’d be sending for you just to watch, wouldn’t I?”

“You’re as crabby as ever.” Dorrin’s quick smile fades as he opens the door and edges next to the bed.

“…that you, Brede?”

“It’s Dorrin. I just want to help.” His fingers rest ever so lightly on her tightening abdomen, and he waits for the contraction to pass.

“Dorrin…it hurts…hurts more than Kleth…Darkness…it hurts…”

Rylla is right. He wipes his forehead on the back of his sleeve, wishing he had more experience, or that his mother were near. Wishing will not help, and he concentrates, first on the child, and the cord that sustains him, infusing more strength, more order there, and on somehow loosening, making the birth canal that fraction wider.

Rylla nods, as if she approves. Liedral has retreated to the doorway, and Dorrin wipes the sweat off his forehead by rubbing it against his shoulder, still concentrating on sustaining the child as Kadara’s contractions push him closer and closer to the world.

“…have to push…push…” groans Kadara, red hair so damp with sweat that it is plastered against her skull like a battle helm.

“You can do it,” insists Rylla. “Another push…now…”

“…hurts…have to…ooohhh…”

Dorrin shifts his position, moving toward Kadara’s shoulders, his fingers still lightly upon her bare abdominal skin, somehow feeling like an intruder, even as he fights for the mother and child.

“Brede!…Oh…darkness…hurts…”

“Push again…now…dearie. Now!” Rylla insists.

Kadara grunts. Dorrin concentrates, and, in the doorway, Liedral bites her lip.

“There…he’s coming…another push…”

Dorrin tries not to swallow at the mess and the darkish blood that arrive with the infant, instead working to stem the bits of chaos that try to gravitate toward Kadara.

The boy seems strong and healthy, even as Rylla untangles him from the cord. She shakes her head minutely, looks at the boy, and then at Dorrin. “Aye…he’s a healthy one, Kadara. A healthy one. Now…push…push again…”

Kadara grunts, and Dorrin waits until she has expelled the afterbirth.

“Rylla, be very liberal with the astra and the boiled water in cleaning her up. I had Merga crush it, and it should be boiled into the water.”

“Bitter stuff…but good against wound chaos.”

“She probably ought to be washed with it every day until she heals.”

The old healer nods.

Dorrin eases away from Kadara, his fingers touching her forehead before he goes. “You need to rest…”

“You were here…for Brede…this time.” Kadara’s eyes droop, but from tiredness. She struggles to keep them open, looking at the reddish-pink child at her breast. “…harder than Kleth…He’s beautiful…”

Liedral smiles from the doorway, waiting.

As Kadara slips toward sleep, Dorrin touches her arm again, trying to infuse her exhausted form with a touch more strength, a touch more order.

Rylla looks at him. “She’ll be fine now. You need to be seeing to your ship.”

The
Black Hammer—
Dorrin nods and steps away.

“Darkness…with…you…” whispers Kadara.

Dorrin looks back from the doorway, but Kadara is asleep. He walks slowly to the front porch, Liedral beside him, and they step into the cold bright day. Below, the
Black Hammer
waits, a thin line of steam rising from the funnel into the clear winter sky.

Liedral turns and takes his hands. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For waiting, for putting life above destruction, for just being you.” She puts her arms around him and brings their lips together. “And for last night.” Her eyes are still red.

“You’re worried.”

She nods. “Kadara was right. We don’t have forever. Lers—”

“Lers?”

“Lers, that’s what Brede asked her to call his son. Lers is all she has of him, and she loved him.”

“You’re afraid that will happen?”

“Dorrin…how many times can you go out against the Whites? And if you do come back, will you be able to see? Or think? I remember what you looked like after Kleth. Kadara doesn’t, but you were in worse shape that she was in a lot of ways.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Dorrin, I love you, and I want you back. But what we want doesn’t often count. Sometimes…when you’re fighting your own demons, it’s hard to realize…” She breaks off and clings to him. “I want something of you…”

He clings to her, and their tears mingle.

The low steam whistle from the
Black Hammer
echoes uphill, and Basla whinnies.

“You need to go.”

The whistle sounds again, and Dorrin looks westward, into the Gulf, out toward the white triangles on the water that mark the White fleet.

Their lips touch, and part, before Dorrin runs from the porch,
untying the reins and swinging into the black’s saddle. He blots his cheeks with his sleeve as he rides downhill toward the waiting black ship, the fingers of his right hand straying to the staff, even as the twinges of the headache warn him.

Dorrin passes a half-dozen houses in various stages of construction on the flat at the base of the hill, all of the black stone that results from ordering the softer and more brittle blue stone that underlies the dark clay. Half of the houses have dark slate roofs. He returns the wave of a stoneworker as he guides Basla onto the end of the High Road that leads to the pier. The air smells fresh, still crisp, in the bright and cool sunlight, except for the faint odor of burning coal.

To the east, he sees several sails, impossibly white against the waters of the Gulf. Then he is at the pier, where he hands the reins to one of Tyrel’s assistants he has never properly met. “Please tie her in the shed.”

He glances back uphill and waves, hoping Liedral is there, watching, before he turns. “How many ships are there?” he asks as he hurries up the gangway, his staff in one hand.

“Lift it!” snaps Kyl, and the line-handlers pull the railed plank away from the ship, and then hurry to the singled-up lines that hold the black warship to the pier. “More than a score, according to Selvar.” Kyl frowns. “He says that it’s hard to tell because about half the ships have white wizards on board, and they’re using wizardry to hide themselves. If you just look with your eyes, it seems like a handful, maybe seven or eight, but they can’t hide their wakes.”

Dorrin hurries toward the engine compartment, where Tyrel is shoveling coal into the firebox. Beside him is Styl, watching closely.

“If you would—” begins the captain.

“Go.” Dorrin studies the crude pointer indicator. “We’ve got enough steam to head out.”

Kyl waits for Tyrel to climb up the ladder before descending. Dorrin shovels another heap of coal into the box, then motions
to Styl. “Once this gets to here”—he points to the indicator—“just keep the fire where it is.”

“Yes, ser. Master Tyrel and master Yarrl had me practice on the last run.”

Dorrin shakes his head. Styl had been right there, and here he is repeating his own instructions.

Kyl steps onto the engine deck. “What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to persuade them to go home and leave Recluce alone.”

Kyi looks from Dorrin to Styl and back to the engineer. “You are serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m no Creslin. And besides, it wouldn’t do any good.”

Kyl and Styl exchange glances, then look at Dorrin.

“What wouldn’t?”

“Destroying their whole fleet. Anyway, we don’t have enough rockets for that.” Dorrin begins turning the valves to feed the steam to the cylinders, and the sound and heat rise in the engine compartment. He continues to listen, and to adjust the flows until he feels the engine is running smoothly. Then he eases the clutch, and the shaft begins to turn, with the vibration of the water churning behind the ship rising.

Dorrin checks the firebox and throws two quick shovels inside, then closes it and hands the shovel to Styl. “Keep shoveling until the steam pressure’s up. You know what to do.”

“Yes, ser.”

Dorrin climbs the ladder and makes his way to the pilot house, with Kyl close behind. By the time he reaches the helm, Tyrel already has the
Black Hammer
into the channel and outbound.

For a time, Dorrin watches as the
Hammer
glides through the protected waters of Reisa’s extended breakwaters. The pitching begins as the ship hits the rougher waters of the Gulf.

“Where to?” asks Tyrel.

“Take us straight toward the flagship.”

“Which one?”

“Sorry. See the shimmer behind the schooner with the blue banner? Head there.”

Tyrel turns the wheel. “Still can’t believe this. No worry
about the wind. You just go where you want.”

Like heavy butterflies in the wind, the White ships move with the wind, while the
Hammer—
a solid quarrel of order—plunges outward.

The schooner downwind of the flagship veers to port as the wizard on board senses the blackness of the
Hammer
.

Dorrin realizes he is holding his breath and releases it, as the
Hammer
eases alongside the big schooner bearing the name
White Serpent
.

“Ease back. Match her speed.” Dorrin wipes his forehead, once, then again.

The
Serpent
begins to tack, and Dorrin nods, grinning. Tyrel grins in return as the
Hammer
follows the
Serpent
into the waves. Dorrin grasps the pilot house’s inside rail. He motions to Kyl. “Light off one rocket. Aim at the bowsprit.”

“Firing first rocket.” Kyl drops through the hatch and down to the deckhouse where the rocket tubes are located.

The black iron missile streaks toward the
Serpent
. The flare and the explosion are almost simultaneous, and are followed by the pattering of debris on the forward shield.

The
Serpent
’s bow swings port, and the big schooner wallows as the forward jib and the forward section of the bowsprit sag into the Gulf waters.

“Circle around to the other side.” Dorrin wipes his forehead. The longer before his weapons injure or kill someone, the better.

Whhhsttttt…

A fireball streams past the black iron of the pilot house. Then a second one, and a third. Tyrel winces as the third sprays across the metal.

By now the
Serpent
lies nearly dead in the water, main sail half lowered, and fluttering in the light breeze, as several men hack at the wrecked bowsprit and sail that drag into each swell.

“Kyl, can you destroy the rudder with another rocket?”

“We can try.” Kyl turns. “Fire another one. Right aft and below that poop porthole there.”

Three black iron missiles later, the rudder hangs uselessly, and the
Serpent
begins to list ever so slightly to starboard.

Occasional fireballs flash past the
Hammer
, from both the
Serpent
and the surrounding ships, as the small ironclad contin
ues to circle the larger schooner.

A seaman pants up into the pilot house. “Styl says that the shaft’s running hot, Master Dorrin.”

Tyrel looks from the helm to Dorrin. “Told you we’d have trouble with those bearings.”

The bearings work better than grease seals, but they do not work well enough. Dorrin can only hope the shaft will last for a while. “How hot?”

“Need to shut down and grease her ’fore long, Styl says.”

Dorrin looks at Reisa. “Send up the boarding crew. Tyrel, bring her around to the starboard side of the
Serpent
.”

“They’ll fry you, Dorrin!” protests Kyl, standing halfway up the ladder into the pilot house.

“That’s what the shields are for.” That’s also what he is for, he thinks. “If we can’t hold the deck, start firing rockets.”

“The angle’s lousy. We can only hit a couple of places.”

“Fine. Put several large holes in the hull, right at the water line.”

Dorrin grabs the staff, and nods to Reisa, who stands below in the space below the ladder to the main deck. The ten men and women in black, with the black blades and matching shields, wait behind the hatch door.

“We’re right opposite her gangway point.”

“Go ahead and grapple.”

The hooks go out, cast from beneath the turtleshells on the
Hammer
’s deck. Dorrin watches as the forward grapple bounces off twice. The third cast is successful, and the
Serpent
and the
Hammer
are locked together with the rope/chains that cannot be burned.

“You take care of the shaft, Tyrel, and we’ll take care of the wizard. Bowmen!”

The iron shutters on the side of the pilot house roll open half a cubit in three places. Behind each opening stands an archer, each with a quiver of black iron and lorkin arrows.

The shafts immediately clear the deck area opposite the
Hammer
.

“Boarders away!”

Quenta swarms up and onto the
Serpent
’s deck, swinging his shield forward as he bounces over the railing. The first fireball sprays around him, followed by several arrows.

“Archers! The poop deck!”

The black arrows fly aft, and the white arrows cease.

Reisa, Petra, and two others reach the deck, and Dorrin scrambles up. Even before he is steady on the white oak planks, Quenta and another black trooper lock shields before him.

Dorrin probes, his senses out, for the feeling of concentrated chaos, his staff automatically pointing toward the higher poop deck.

“Get the Black bastards!” Nearly a score of White armed men charge from the forecastle toward the handful of Blacks.

The black arrows drop five before the defenders reach Dorrin’s party.

Dorrin’s staff drops another, and the black blades begin their work.

“Aeeeiii…” One White guard’s arm flames from the bite of Reisa’s blade.

Two firebolts flash toward the Black forces, but Dorrin turns his staff and thoughts, and they flare harmlessly onto the deck as the infighting intensifies.

Quenta slashes and drops one White guard, but loses his blade as the white sword of a third man slices his biceps. He swings the shield on his left arm to block the next slash.

Petra’s blade drops that White guard, and Dorrin steps farther left, using the staff to disarm and drop another guard. He ignores the twinges beyond his eyes.

A screaming black arrow knocks down yet another attacker.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dorrin can sense a black figure—and another—go down before the Whites are felled or thrown down their blades, the second falling as fire blazes past his ear. He lifts his staff and deflects another fireball, and a third, searching for the White Wizard. Dorrin finds the man in white standing to the left edge of the poop deck, shielded by the overhang from the archers on board the
Hammer
.

The three remaining White crewmen hold their hands up. One White archer lies propped against the port railing of the
Serpent
, his body almost level with Dorrin’s eyes because of the schooner’s list.

Dorrin steps toward the wizard.

Another fireball flies toward the engineer, but he lifts the
staff and the heat flares away from him as he takes another step aft.

“Stop, you Black worm. I’ll destroy the entire ship.”

Dorrin takes another step and stops. “Why?” He casts his senses out, circling the white flame that is the chaos wizard, a man with a square beard.

“Why not? You’re out to destroy me.”

“You’re not exactly here on a mission of peacefulness,” Dorrin points out, strengthening the wall of order around the wizard.

“What are you—” Before the wizard finishes his sentence, another fireball flares toward Dorrin, who lifts the black staff and lets it absorb the energy.

A second fireball flashes, and a third. The third is far weaker, and dies even before it can reach the staff

Dorrin walks steadily across the planks toward the bearded figure in the white cloak.

A bit of flame erupts from the wizard’s fingers, then dies.

Dorrin extends the staff, almost gently, cracking the wizard, now aged and creaking, across the wrists, and then the neck. A dead body pitches headfirst onto the deck.

Dorrin turns.

The White crewmen all kneel, as if in reverence, pleading. Dorrin ignores them, instead dropping to the prone figure on the deck and rolling her gently over. His fingers feel clumsy as he fumbles out the dressings and the powdered astra from the pouch at his belt, as he simultaneously tries to hold order within Petra’s wiry body.

The thrust is deep, but her heart and lungs are safe, and he can use order to bind the slash together, thank darkness, once he spreads the powdered astra into the wound, although the pool of blood on the white deck tells the real danger. Dorrin’s eyes burn as he works, Reisa standing over him like a one-armed avenging angel.

Finally, he straightens up, and nods to Reisa. “We’ll need something stiff to carry her on.”

“How…will she…” Reisa’s voice is like frozen iron, blocking all feeling.

“She’s lost a lot of blood, but I think I stopped it in time.”

Styl vaults over the side of the white ship, carrying a canvas
stretcher one-handed as if it were a toy, and Dorrin looks at the young man, at the rage and the tears, and then at Reisa, realizing that, once again, he has been so tied up in his own world that he has not seen the loves and pain of others.

“She be all right…master Dorrin?”

Dorrin eases Petra onto the stretcher. “I hope so…”

“White bastards…”

They carry the injured woman back to the
Black Hammer
, though it takes four of Reisa’s troopers, including Quenta, to ease the stretcher between the grappled ships.

Dorrin slowly reenters the deckhouse and climbs to the pilot house.

“Hadn’t you better take care of that shoulder?” Tyrel asks.

Dorrin looks stupidly at the gash in his shoulder, its throbbing lost in the anguish of Petra and Reisa, and his own headache. “Oh…” He uses the last of the astra, and Tyrel helps him bind it.

“The shaft fixed?”

“For a time. You need to figure out something better, though.”

Dorrin sighs. He is always trying to figure out something better. “Cast off.”

Tyrel raises his eyebrows. “Release grapples.”

When the
Hammer
stands well clear of the
Serpent
, Kyl turns to Dorrin. “Do you want us to fire her?”

“No. Not unless we have to.”

Dorrin turns his attention to the remainder of the fleet. More than ten ships have already turned back westward, their sails tiny white triangles upon the horizon.

Another handful, each bearing a wizard, circles just beyond the
Hammer
and the
Serpent
.

“Head for that one.” Dorrin jabs at the largest, a bark with a high freeboard.

Once again, the fireballs splash off the black iron as the
Hammer
plows toward the bark, disregarding the wind.

“Run up a parley flag.”

The white banner with the blue stripe flutters upon a short jackstaff aft of the pilot house. Shortly, a similar banner flies from the bark bearing the nameplate
Whitefire
.