“When was this?” asked Sumroth.
“Four centuries ago,” said Smithy.
As they tramped with their equally long strides, Sumroth smiled at the thought that this man, who probably was unlettered, would be a student of ancient history.
“Well now, this ‘witch’s spawn.’ Where is she? Are you sure she survived the fire?”
“Don’t know where she is,” said Smithy, biting off his answers. “But one day she will return to Cascada.”
“Ah, there’s the rub. We have never had any method of marching to Cascada in force.”
“Don’t need to,” said Smithy. “Assassinate her.”
This suggestion surprised Sumroth. “Well, that’s as may be. If we knew where she was. Though there’s honor only in battle, not in assassination.”
“Honor,” said Smithy, in such an uninflected tone that Sumroth couldn’t tell whether he agreed with the sentiment or mocked it.
Overall, Sumroth found the craftsman impenetrable. He appeared to know things that no one else did, but Sumroth found his emotions even more inscrutable than his officers’. And to his deep disappointment, the man made no friendly overtures, offered no respect or comradeship.
They walked awhile in silence. Sumroth snapped orders to Protectors who were loafing on duty.
“Pellish ships,” Smithy said out of nowhere.
“Have the Pellish rebuilt their fleet?” Sumroth asked in surprise. “And if they have, why would they loan them to us? Their ships are their national treasures.”
“There are other treasures.”
“Hear me, General,” interrupted a bedraggled but bold woman who had seen them approaching and moved to intersect them. “When will we have something to feed our children? My youngest one cries that his belly is empty.”
“More supplies will be arriving soon, sistern. You must be patient. Protector,” he shouted to a red uniform in the distance. “Deal with this woman.” He turned and shouted to the fourth-flamers following the pair. “See that we are not interrupted again.”
Sumroth picked up his conversation with Smithy. “Yes, well, if I had an eighth of the riches the Magi hoarded, even just one of their fuckin’ chairs—don’t imagine you ever saw one of those—I would have more options. But they took their riches with them into the Eternal Flames.…”
Sumroth stopped short as a thought struck him. “Ahhh! No. Jewels don’t burn.”
“They lie in the rubble.” Smithy nodded his head in the direction of the destroyed Octagon.
Sumroth’s face brightened. “Excellent! All we need is to sort through the ashes.…” Sumroth called to the nearest soldier, “Find a fifth-flamer. Tell him I want him to collect all the rakes, pickaxes, and hand tools he can. I don’t care where or how he gets them; he must find us dozens.”
Sumroth rubbed his hands. “I’d wager the ashes are still too hot to work in. As soon as they cool I’ll send in teams of eight. I’ll have the teams work naked; that way no one can pocket the stones.
“Meanwhile, I have issued orders to pull in all my troops that are spread throughout the Iron Valley. In a week or more we will escort these evacuees into Alpetar. We will set them up there with food and protection. I will march on to Ixtulpus with all the riches of Femturan in my purse.”
Smithy nodded approval. “I will stay with our people in Alpetar.”
Heedless of the comment (for he really didn’t care where this strange, deaf blacksmith settled), Sumroth carried on outlining his plan. “If we have to wait moons, years, we will set sail for Cascada, burn that city to the ground, and I will personally cut out the liver of the witch and roast it over a fire!”
“We will have the vengeance we’ve been owed for centuries,” said Smithy in his longest sentence in a while. “And then we will have salvation.” He offered Sumroth his hand, and the two men sealed the pact.
8
Sutterdam, The Free States
The jellyfish venom and its antidote left Gustie dizzy, headachy, and fatigued for over a week. Norling baked her berry cobblers and fussed over her. Gustie bore this clucking with ill grace, because she would rather have had information as to how the insurrection progressed after she had poisoned so many high-ranking Oro officers.
Norling went out twice a day and returned with news she conveyed in terse reports: a battle at Artisans Bridge had ended with the stronger, trained Oros crushing the motley Defiance fighters, and the attempt to liberate the infirmaries and healers from Oro control had been abandoned because the Oros threatened to kill Free States hostages.
Gustie wanted to know much more, not just how local skirmishes fared, but the overall condition of the conflict. How many captives had escaped Oro imprisonment? Were they in any shape to fight? How were the low-level Protectors reacting to the death of most of the high flamers? Were citizens who had been frightened now emboldened to flock to the Defiance? What was the situation in the other major cities?
Norling’s answers to these questions did little to sate Gustie’s hunger. And she kept making comments on the order of, “You must not fret so, my dear, or you will slow your recuperation.”
The old woman meant well, and by hiding Gustie she risked her life. But Gustie could not countenance Norling’s desire to keep her safe in Sutterdam Pottery while the battle raged between the erstwhile slaves and the Oromondo occupiers. She burned for more revenge against the men who had enslaved her and other Free States women.
Finally, as she grew in strength, Gustie realized that she didn’t need her host’s permission; she was a free woman who could do as she pleased.
“Norling, I am leaving to join the Defiance. With your forbearance I will take this worker’s shirt to hide my red ball gown and cover my brigadier chain. I thank you for all you’ve done for me.”
“Do you know where to go, my dear?” said Norling, surprising Gustie by her lack of protest. “Isn’t it true that you’ve only lived in Sutterdam a few moons? Do you have contacts here among the Defiance? Wait half a tick while I get my market basket; I’ll escort you. Look out the window for me, dear. Is it windy?” She wrapped herself in a shawl.
Gustie tapped her foot while the older woman made herself ready. The two women left the safety of Sutterdam Pottery’s living quarters for cold and empty streets. Citizens and occupiers appeared to be hiding from one another and laying their plans for nighttime attacks. Norling led her over Potters Bridge toward the middle of town. Gustie noticed a dozen broken shop windows and torn-up cobblestones. Dark, wet splotches on the ground must be blood, but the combatants had dragged away their wounded and dead.
They passed statues of people made of stone. Someone had painted “Freedom!” on the base of a pedestal.
“I approve of the sentiment,” said Norling, tsking, “but not of defacing the Statue of the Martyrs!”
After several blocks, they came to a business with a carriage wheel hung above the door. Norling knocked a complicated signal, and a large man with an almost black beard, holding an axe over his head ready to strike, opened the door a crack.
“Ah, Norling!” he cried. “You shouldn’t be out right now.”
“I know that, Ikas, but the young are ever restless,” she answered.
“The young? Who are you?” asked Ikas, addressing Gustie as he ushered them inside.
“Gustie of Weaverton, formerly a student at the Scoláiríum of Latham. Until recently the comfort woman of Brigadier Umrat.”
“Brigadier Umrat, eh? So was you there during the Poison Banquet?”
“The ‘Poison Banquet’?” Gustie tasted the label and smiled. “News of that has spread, has it?” She held her head even higher with pride.
“I’m Ikas, the leader of this unit. This is my concern we’re hiding in.”
Looking past him, Gustie saw a large workshop full of many odd-looking tools and conveyances of all sorts—several sitting cockeyed because they missed a wheel or a shaft—that stretched into the shadowed recesses. Other men sat scattered about
in the vehicles, resting or waiting.
“How many are you?” asked Gustie.
“We number nearly fifty. Some of us aren’t in great shape, though.”
“And what’s your next target?”
Ikas looked over her head at Norling. “Our assignment this evening is to wrest the guardhouse near the wharf from a squad of Oro soldiers. At least three dozen Oros have barricaded themselves in there.”
“I see,” said Gustie. “And what’s the strategy and how many weapons do you have?”
“We don’t have nearly enough swords, daggers, or bows. Mostly we’re working with crude pikes and hand tools. As for a plan, we’re awaiting our ringleader’s advice.”
“Who is your ringleader? May I meet him?”
“I believe you’ve already met our ringleader,” Ikas replied with a grin. “In fact, you know her quite well.”
Norling patted Gustie’s shoulder. “And she knows you quite well. Smart and brave, you are, my dear, but headstrong and proud. I have enough to worry about, thank you, without fretting over keeping you alive. If you’re going to join with us, sit yourself down there on that carriage seat and don’t speak until spoken to.”
Gustie’s mouth fell open in shock. In a daze, she moved over to the seat indicated.
Norling took off her shawl and bonnet and emptied the wicker basket she had insisted on toting along.
“Ikas, I have brought quicklime and small jars. If we fill the jars—very carefully, mind you—to lob them at the enemy so they break, the quicklime will burn their eyes. You need to construct some sort of slingshot. You can do that, I trust?”
More men had gathered closer around them, materializing out of the dark corners of the wheelwright’s shop. Norling greeted several and asked how they were faring.
Then she walked over to a wheelless carriage sitting in the middle of the room. Two men lay on cushioned benches, covered with blankets. Ikas gave Norling a hand to step into the vehicle. She moved the bandages off one man’s middle to inspect a wound. The other man didn’t move when she touched his cheek and stroked his hair. Norling sat with him a spell, and during this time no one interrupted her.
Meanwhile, the men in the shop had sprung into action. A few painstakingly filled the jars with the white powder; others dismantled a small wagon yoke and tested different materials to serve as the sling band. Although Gustie could tell at a glance that some of the materials didn’t have enough elasticity, she held her tongue and kicked her feet as she sat.
Eventually, two men brought out a brew pot and a half dozen mismatched mugs.
Norling sighed and called to Ikas, “Dear, will you help me down now?”
A man poured tisane; Ikas pulled up a chair for Norling; several men gathered around her, squatting on their heels. Norling looked over at Gustie. “Join us, dear. I could use your quick mind.” A man handed her a full cup. Gustie was thirsty, and the bitter tisane was bracing.
“All right, my dears,” Norling began. “The Oros will be expecting us to attack over Sailmakers Bridge. We want to keep their attention focused on the bridge, but we’ll send the bulk of our squad around to the south, over the Shipwrights Bridge, and come up on the Oros from quayside. Those men will have the quicklime grenades. The question is: how do we keep the Oros’ attention focused north, and how do we get them to leave their shelter and stand around outside so we can lob our missiles at them?”
“A diversion?” suggested Ikas.
“What do we have to make a diversion with?” a man asked.
“Carriages?” said Ikas. He swept his arm around the shop. “We have plenty of carriages.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, but we have no horses to pull them,” answered Norling.
“Sailmakers sits at the bottom of a bit of slope,” said the man who had brought out the brew pot.
“So a carriage would roll?” asked Norling. “And who would steer it?”
Gustie raised her hand like a child in under school asking for permission to speak. “Let me do it.”
“Why you?” said one of the group.
Gustie took off the work shirt she was wearing, showing off her low-cut red gown and striking a pose.
“Because the Oros are much more likely to watch me than any of you lot.”
The men chuckled, but at that moment, their discussion was interrupted by the signal knock on the door. Ikas grabbed his axe and opened it a handsbreadth. A young boy entered the wheelwright’s business.
“Got a note,” he said.
“Give it here, dollface,” said Norling, stretching out her hand.
She read it. “Mother Rellia says that the attacks start tonight when Ghibli’s Wind Mill chimes at midnight,” she told the men gathered around her. “We’d best make haste. You’ve got a long tramp all the way to the customhouse and back. Sansam, you’ll lead the Shipwrights squad? Choose the men who can walk the farthest and the quickest, and who will be bold in the hand-to-hand that ensues.”
Norling looked at the boy. “Now, dollface, I know that bows are in short supply, but we need one bow and at least one quarrel of arrows from headquarters.”
Frowning, Ikas said, “Norling, we’re mostly townsfolk and tradesmen. None of us hunt; none have practiced archery.”
“Ah, but I know someone who boasts of her archery skill,” said Norling. “Now, let’s think more about those carriages.”
* * *
Ikas, Gustie, and several other men halted the heavy lorries behind a corner of a brick building, just hidden from sight of Sailmakers Bridge. Gustie tugged at the brigadier chain, which chafed around her neck.
“If we survive tonight I’ll cut that off for you,” Ikas whispered.
“If I die, will you still do so?”
“Aye, I vow. I’ll even cut it off if I die. I have two daughters. I’d hate—”
“Thank you,” said Gustie.
Norling had volunteered to stay behind to tend the wounded. One of the most severely wounded, Gustie learned from Ikas, was Norling’s brother, Hartling. He had been the first to charge the Oro guards when the keys were smuggled to their cells; thus he had sustained serious injuries.
A bell rung.
“That’s not from the Wind Mill,” said Ikas. “But our chimes should ring out any moment. Best get ready.”
One of the smaller, more nimble men scurried, bent over through the darkness to take the position they’d agreed upon. He carried the bow and quiver tightly, as if they were treasures.
Gustie climbed into the driver’s seat of the first, horseless lorry. Ikas had jerry-rigged a makeshift harness to the shaft that would give her some ability to steer the vehicle as it rolled down the cobbled incline to the bridge. Ikas lit the lamps posted on both sides of her carriage to throw light on the driver. If all worked as planned, the Oros would stare in wonderment at this pretty woman in a red dress on an “out-of-control” carriage.
The men positioned themselves, one each behind the wheels of the lorries, and prepared to push. Chime. The men heaved the carts, but the inertia of the vehicles made them difficult to budge. Chime. They put their backs into it, and Gustie’s front carriage started to roll down the slope. Chime. The second lorry, lashed behind, began to clatter against the cobblestones as well; the first now gained momentum. Chime. Gustie looked behind her; the third carriage had joined its fellows. Chime. Ikas sprinted to catch up with the second wagon and threw a shoulder into the rear corner, forcing it onto a truer course. The heavy vehicles made a terrible racket, drowning out any further sounds of the church bell (or of the seaside squad’s approach).
Gustie started to scream, which was part of the plan, though the terror in her voice was genuine. She heard male shouts as the lorries trundled toward Sailmakers Bridge, gathering speed. She pulled her makeshift harness, aiming the carriage in between the bridge parapets.
Her lorry had just enough momentum to climb the shallow incline of the bridge, but as it reached the crest it slowed and almost stopped. Then the sec
ond, heavier lorry slammed into it from behind, giving it a jolt forward.
Just after the collision, Gustie, who had been poised, managed to struggle to her feet. Nimbly, she jumped from the carriage seat to the thin railing of the bridge. She didn’t want to perch on the edge, but rather just surmount the barrier. Her right foot made contact, and she pushed off with it, letting her weight carry her forward. She landed in an icy tributary of the Sutter, which, as she’d been promised, turned out to be only knee-deep.
Three thoughts flashed through her mind: she’d managed the leap without injury; there was no way to drown in a knee-deep stream; and the water was freezing. She glanced up and across the river to see her lorry roll smack into the guardhouse with the sound of wood splintering. The second lorry again struck the back of the first, sending it shuddering deeper into the damaged structure; the third had lost its path, broken its rope, and careened off course, ending up lodged slantwise, blocking the bridge. The flames from her lanterns began to spread into the oil-soaked straw the Defiance had packed in the back of her carriage.
The confederate who had assumed his position waited for her at the safe side of the stream bank. He pulled her out of the water before she even had time to fully register how cold her feet were or how heavy with water her skirt dragged. As planned, he thrust the bow and arrows into her hands.
Oros spilled out of the guardhouse, shouting, flourishing their weapons in the wavering flames. A quicklime grenade exploded in their midst. They screamed like scalded cats and scrubbed at their eyes. Another grenade. The Protectors were trapped by the heavy lorries blocking the bridge and surrounded by the attackers who had come up behind them. Some tried to escape in the half-frozen branch of the Sutter River, but Ikas and other Free Staters waited there with axes and clubs in hand.
A few thought to flee along the shore to their right. These ran straight into the arrows Gustie rained down on them from her position across the stream. At twelve paces, and with the light from the now-burning guardhouse illuminating their silhouettes, she couldn’t miss. Her arrows sunk deep into Oro flesh. Each satisfying strike felt like killing Umrat all over again.
A Broken Queen Page 6
