by Devin Hanson
“I will. Thank you!” With a last glance at the mercenaries bleeding into the gutters and the conscripts bent over them stripping them of useful goods, the young woman turned and ran, water splashing from her bucket as she went.
“Burn me,” Meria sighed and glanced at Maeis, now rising higher. “We didn’t have time for that.”
“I couldn’t–” Jethram began.
“No, of course. I’m not saying we should have ignored them, but we’re running tight on time now.”
Jethram turned to the south and picked out their destination rising up above the rooftops a few streets over. “We’re almost there.”
“How’s your vitae?” Meria asked.
Jethram held up the pureglass vial and showed the slightly amber liquid inside. “A little over half.”
Meria pursed her lips. “Milkin’s going to stripe your hide for that silence field.”
“It was a good idea,” Jethram argued.
“Yeah, but you’re rubbish with Ir, Jethram. Took way too much vitae.”
“I’ll let you do it next time, then,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, this is my lead and my call to make.”
“No argument here,” Meria said with a smile.
“We’ve got what we can carry,” Joel reported in his surprisingly high tenor.
“Alright. We’re moving out then.” Jethram nodded to Meria and the group slipped back into the shadows, padding on soft-booted feet toward the loomed shape of the dragon cannon tower.
A bell rung from high up in the Academy, shattering the silence of the night. It was the signal Jethram had been waiting for, and he had gotten his squad into position without a minute to spare. Their objective, and the objective of a score of other similar squads, was to seize control of the cannon towers that protected Andronath from the dragons and turn them on the Salian airships docked at the mooring towers.
Nobody expected them to hold on to the towers for long, so they were supposed to take down as many airships as possible before sabotaging the cannon and retreating back to the Academy. Without the airships to ferry men quickly about Andronath, the Salian invaders would have a much more difficult time controlling the city. It wasn’t the first offensive move they had attempted, but it was the first one that sounded promising to Jethram… and the first one that might actually succeed.
“Let’s go,” Jethram said unnecessarily. The squad was already moving without him needing to prompt them.
They emerged from the alley and moved swiftly toward the tower. There were thirty-two towers that protected the city from dragons. Sixteen spaced evenly along Andronath’s walls, another twelve halfway up the hill the city was built on, and the last four around the Academy itself. The four towers nearest the Academy had been destroyed by the mercenaries immediately after the outset of hostilities, leaving the other twenty-eight standing. The Salians weren’t fool enough to leave the city completely defenseless. The dragons might have left Andronath alone for years, but if someone were to destroy all the cannon, it wouldn’t be long before a curious dragon happened by and discovered there was nothing protecting the city anymore.
The tower that was their assigned target was number eighteen, one of the secondary ring of towers. The other groups were targeting the remaining middle towers and a few outer towers that were likely to be along any path of egress the moored airships might take.
As expected, the tower had only a token guard in front: a pair of mercenaries playing dice against the wall and sharing a hip flask back and forth. The guards were still scrambling to their feet, mouths open in shock when Joel barreled into them, his club swinging left and right. The fight was over before Jethram reached it.
“Keys,” Joel said, and tossed a ring his way, the heavy keys ringing together.
Jethram caught the keys and started trying them in the lock on the base of the tower. The third key fit and the lock turned with an oiled clunk. A pair of conscripts ran up the spiral staircase to the platform on top. The citizens of Andronath got a tax break if they learned to man the towers and entered the lottery to stand watch, so there was no shortage of qualified gunners among the conscripts.
The rest of the squad split into two groups, Jethram with his eight men and Meria with the other half. Jethram gave a nod to Meria and jogged down the street to the intersection. It was his job to block any Salian reinforcements from reaching the tower, or at least buy them time to evacuate. Whoever thought this plan up didn’t think the airships would fire on the towers as destroying them would seal the city’s fate, but who knew what the airship captains would do when it came down to it.
Andronath had eight mooring towers, mostly concentrated around the commercial district, but a few were scattered about the city without any rhyme or reason that Jethram could determine. Cannon eighteen was the closest to the West Tower, a mooring tower built in the early days of the city’s construction and had acquired its label before other towers had been built even further to the west.
Jethram watched the cannon on the top of their tower swivel around until it was lined up with the West Tower, presumably aimed at one of the two airships moored there. For a moment nothing happened, and Jethram could hear his heart pounding. Then the bell tolled from the Academy once more and their cannon, and cannons all over the city, fired in a tight volley.
The booms of the cannons echoed and rolled between the buildings, and brilliant lances of fire spat toward the moored airships. The effects were immediate. One airship, moored down by the southern gates, was struck directly in the fuel tanks and exploded, sending shrapnel flying in a cloud centered on a rising mushroom of boiling flame.
The conscripts cheered, shaking their fists in the air and cursing at the Salians. Jethram brooded, holding himself apart from the celebration. The fighting in Andronath had made him a pessimist, and so far everything was going far too smoothly.
A second salvo crashed out from the cannon, this time more ragged as the crews reloaded at different speeds. The West Tower spurted masonry as a cannonball struck somewhere near the top. One of the two airships twitched as another ball slammed into it.
Jethram could only imagine what was happening on board the airships. Chaos, likely, as the captains struggled to find out what was happening and then flogged their crew into cutting the airships free. As a stationary target, they were supremely vulnerable. Once they unmoored and raised enough steam to go mobile, the cannon towers would have a lot more difficulty hitting them.
Another salvo rang out, then the thunder of the cannons grew more disjointed until it was a constant rumble from all over the city. Cannon shots mingled with echoes until it sounded like a hundred cannon were firing rather than just twenty.
One of the two airships on the West Tower sagged as one of its balloons was ruptured. For a minute, Jethram could see the tiny figures of the crew racing about trying to get free of the mooring tower before the second balloon failed with a bang. The airship dropped like a stone, jerking to a halt for a split second as its mooring ropes held, then it tumbled down the tower to crash in a cloud of dust.
The noise of the cannon drowned out the approach of hobnailed boots until the mercenaries came jogging around the corner uphill from Jethram and his half squad. There were quite a few this time, at least double the number of conscripts. The mercenaries were still rubbing sleep out of their eyes, but they were awake and knew what they were fighting against. They were soldiers, and as much as he hated to admit it, Jethram knew his conscripts were no match for them.
But that’s why he was there, to turn the tide and make the fight a little more even.
This group of mercenaries wasn’t falling for any simple tricks. They slowed their jog to a steady march when they were half a block away, shields raised in front. It was intimidating, and for a moment Jethram considered ordering his men to retreat. A glance up at the West Tower showed the remaining airship had finally slipped its mooring and was heeling about, still being hammered by cannonballs. Fire lanced from its flanks as it
shot back at the cannon towers. Its starboard balloon had burst sometime during the fighting, but the captain had managed to trim out his craft on the remaining balloon.
He needed to buy his cannon more time. Every shot they took now was a chance to disable the airship or at least damage it badly enough that it would be out of the fight for weeks to come. Coming to a decision, he swung his pack off his back and delved within, finally coming up with a glass bottle full of swampgas, the highly volatile mix of natural gas and dragongas. No pureglass this, it was an old whiskey flask sloshing with about a pint of liquid.
Jethram pried the cork out of the neck and stuffed a rag down inside before muttering “Igan.” The rag burst into flame and Jethram picked the bottle up and flung it toward the approaching mercenaries. They saw the improvised incendiary coming and broke stride long enough for Jethram’s throw to fall short. The bottle hit the cobbles and shattered, sending flames roaring up. The leading mercenaries danced back out of range of the fire with nothing worse than a few scorches and one man who had to drop his shield for a moment to beat the flames out that licked up his pants leg.
As a delaying tactic, it was miserable. Swampgas burned very quickly, consuming the available fuel in a bright, hot flame. As a basis to guide alchemy, however, it worked fantastically well.
Alchemy consumed vitae in a direct proportion to how much of a change it was creating. Take the creation of airon, for example. A given piece of iron could have its weight reduced in varying degrees. The amount of vitae it would take to reduce a ten pound ingot of iron by one pound for one minute was immensely less than the amount of vitae used in reducing the weight by nine pounds for one minute.
Igan, as a runeword, took a lot of vitae because transmuting something that was not intrinsically hot, like air, into a burst of flame was an enormous variance. The burning swampgas, though, was already very hot. Giving it a nudge with alchemy didn’t consume a lot of vitae since he wasn’t trying to change the fundamental nature of the flame very much. He just wanted more of it.
“Igan!” Jethram cried, throwing one hand out and flicking drops of dragongas toward the flame. With a crackling roar, the pool of burning swampgas surged in a sudden wave of brilliant combustion, rolling over the half-raised shields of the mercenaries and coiling through their ranks like something alive.
The alchemically-boosted fire only lasted a second before the swampgas guttered out, but the damage was done. Over half of the mercenaries were screaming, beating at burning clothing, rolling desperately on the ground to try and put out the flames or just blundering blindly, burning like torches.
The conscripts leapt forward to take advantage of the situation with Jethram following on their heels. Unlike the mercenaries, their intent was not to intimidate, only to inflict as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible. Ignoring the burning mercenaries, they fell on the Salians trying to assist their comrades, stabbing and bludgeoning with their improvised weapons.
Surprise was on the conscripts’ side, but the mercenaries were soldiers and recovered quickly. Two of the conscripts were cut down before the others pulled back and regrouped with Jethram. Of the mercenaries, over half were down or out of the fight. Only a few had been killed outright by the flames, though at least five were crying out in pain from substantial burns. The conscripts had managed to kill or wound another handful, leaving only a core of seven uninjured mercenaries.
Seven furious, well-trained soldiers against himself and six conscripts. Jethram swore to himself. He didn’t like those odds. It was one thing to ambush unsuspecting mercenaries, it was another to go blade-to-blade with them in a fair fight. His men would get cut to pieces in seconds.
“Fall back,” he said quietly. “Halfway down the street by that bakery.” Louder, to the mercenaries, he shouted, “We don’t want any more bloodshed tonight. Go your way, we’ll go ours.” He got a fulminating snarl back in return and didn’t bother parsing the invectives; the tone was clear enough. The mercenaries weren’t going to back down without a fight.
“Your head, then,” Jethram shouted back. He tapped one of the conscripts on the shoulder as they retreated, a man who went by the name Otto Thorpe. For the life of him, Jethram couldn’t remember what he had done for a living before the war started. “Send the signal. Let’s get our people out of that tower and gone. Our job is done.”
Otto nodded, his mouthing moving but his words drowned out by the cannon tower firing another round. The second airship moored to the West Tower was swinging by, nearly overhead and picking up speed as its boilers warmed up. The cannonball smashed into the nose of the gondola sending wood and twisted airon spraying.
Jethram threw up a hand and shouted, “Ban!” moments before the debris rained down over them. His shield held long enough to protect his group from the majority of the shrapnel before the vitae was consumed and the shield winked out. He held up his vial of dragongas and swirled it morosely. He was down to the dregs now, enough for one, maybe two more uses if his transmutations were small.
The airship had acquired a list and was trailing a boiling miasma of greasy smoke. As it swung, its broadside lined up briefly with the cannon tower, at which time all the surviving cannon mounted on the airship fired at once. The gondola lurched as a guy wire snapped with a crack just as loud as the cannon fire. The lashing wire whipped around and split the remaining balloon into two flapping rags, sending the stricken airship plummeting down to the street. At the same time the cannon tower was hit by the broadside, and the swampgas reserves fueling the cannon ignited with a thunderous explosion.
Jethram had just enough time to throw the last of his dragongas into the air and scream out the shielding runeword before a thousand tons of flaming rubble and twisted airship wreckage crashed down upon his head. For a moment, Jethram’s shield held. He had enough time to see the writhing swampgas flames coil against the bubble of compressed air, then the combined weight of the airship and the ruined cannon tower burned through the last of the vitae.
Professor Aaron Milkin leaned on his cane and watched Andronath tear itself apart. His position high up in one of the Academy’s towers gave him a panoramic view of the city. Normally it was a beautiful sight, one that had inspired him during the years gone by. Now it was marred by flames and the distant echoing cracks of cannon fire.
From his current remove, the destruction seemed insignificant, and he had to remind himself that every airship that fell crushed buildings inhabited by the citizens of Andronath. The city was built of stone, so it was unlikely the resulting fires would spread out of control, but that didn’t help people crushed to death by falling masonry.
His chest was aching from the climb up the stairs, and he was having a hard time catching his breath. He leaned his weight upon the cane in his left hand and flexed his grip as numbness tingled down his fingers. With a sigh, Milkin switched his cane to the other hand and shook his hand out. Compared to the distant explosions, one old man having trouble with stairs seemed like such a minor problem.
Kilpatri’s plan seemed to be working. Only a few airships had managed to escape the surprise attack, and those were barely limping through the sky, trailing smoke and flickering with orange flames. The reprisal from Trent would be hard and swift. No matter how rich you were, losing over a dozen airships in the space of a few minutes was a crushing blow.
He sighed again and started the laborious trek back down the tower stairs. The night would only get longer from here.
Chapter 24
The Price of Leadership
Andrew leaned against the rail of the airship Highwind and let the wind blow his hair back. It was early morning. The only light was a faint rose hint to the east and a half-disc of the retreating Romeda. After the endless heat of Nas Shahr, the bracing cold was refreshing and did wonders for chasing the last clinging shreds of his nightmare away.
The ground far below was buried in a slowly churning mist, broken through here and there by the rising crests of hills. A flight of birds
erupted through the clouds and raced away to the north, a reminder that spring was underway.
Behind him, he heard the careful drag of a shoe on the deck, someone alerting him to their presence. From the soft sound of the shoe, it was one of the newly minted wardens. He pushed off the railing and turned to find Iria standing a half-dozen paces off, wrapped in a borrowed woolen storm coat with a scarf burying half her face.
“Cold?” he asked with a smile.
“This land is barbarous,” Iria said flatly, her voice muffled by the scarf, “It is not right to be cold like this. How do people live?”
“It might help if you found some boots to wear,” he suggested. “Your sandals might be comfortable in the desert, but where we’re going, all you’ll get is frostbite.”
Iria sniffed, dismissing the idea. “I heard you wake. You should not be without a guard,” she chastised him.
“What, here? I doubt there are any Incantors aboard.”
“All the same,” Iria shook her head. “We were… less than subtle when we boarded. The captain might take action, given the opportunity.”
She had a point. Andrew had marched on board with a warden guard of twenty men and informed the captain that he had a new cargo to carry, overriding the man’s protests with an ever-growing pile of golden crowns until he swallowed his objections and ordered his men to offload his current cargo. Despite the amount of gold paid, they got a lot of dark looks from the crew when they boarded, and more during the flight north. Nobody liked being bought like that even if they were turning a profit from the journey.
Still, Andrew could take care of himself. He had a new scale from Ava and a dragon tooth gifted by the wardens, evidently confiscated from a dragon hunter years ago. He had no shortage of vitae and felt confident that he could deal with any threat to his person.
“I appreciate the thought, Iria, but I’m not going to be coddled by the wardens for the rest of my life.”
