Bernie didn't smile, and he was the only one who hadn't opened up to Caymus in some way. Indeed, his constant glowers made Caymus wonder if he'd done something to offend the man that first night.
Overall, Caymus had been impressed by these men, at how organized they seemed to be. Not counting the evening they had departed Kepren, they'd spent two nights out of doors, sleeping four hours at a time so as to reach the pass as quickly as possible. The seven men always had camp set up, complete with a cooking fire and a tent for each pair of men, within ten minutes. They took the camp apart even faster. Even more impressive was the fact that they didn't talk while they did it. Each man just seemed to know what every other man was going to do and quietly got on with his own part in the process.
Caymus wondered if the mens' coordination was a consequence of their collective experience at soldiering, or if it had more to do with how much time they'd spent in each others' company.
"I don't think we can be far off now," said Garrin, eyeing the mountains north of them.
"I think you're right," nodded Mally. "I expect we'll see Big Grant riding back any second now." Big Grant was acting as their scout today, making sure they didn't run into any advance elements of the enemy before they found the pass.
"Once we're there," said Garrin, "how much time do you think you'll need?"
Mally grunted. "How much time can you give me?"
Garrin sighed, thinking. "With the speed the Creveyan scout said they were moving," he said, "and it's been three days since then..." He waggled his head. "I think we'll have something approaching two days before they come marching out of the mountains at us."
Mally nodded, regarding the peaks and ridges suspiciously. "A day to figure out the plan, then," he said, "and then another to set it all up."
Garrin raised an eyebrow. "A whole day?"
Mally grinned. "The pass is little more than a pair of lines on an old map right now," he said. "It's going to take awhile to figure out the composition, to work out what's sand, what's granite, limestone...what's just loose rocks."
The prince wasn't convinced yet. "Still, a whole day?"
Mally's grin subsided. "The longer I've got to figure it out, the better the end result." He hiked a thumb at the graysilt keg behind him. "Those things will make a pretty good-sized blast, but we don't have very many of them. I can make them count, but I need time to figure out how."
Garrin nodded slowly. "Alright," he said, then sighed. "All right," he said again, "a full day it is."
"Then we'll bury the bastards!" came Cyrus's voice, from behind.
Caymus noticed Mally visibly shudder when the impromptu cheer went up. "You alright?" he said, after nudging his horse a bit closer and lowering his voice.
Mally looked up and gave him a sad smile. "Fine," he said. "It's just that Cyrus is right: we're looking to cause a rock-slide and bury these guys."
Caymus narrowed his eyes. "And that's a bad thing?"
Mally nodded, his eyes unfocused. "Imagine you hear a big, roaring noise," he said. "Then, you suddenly find yourself being tossed, end over end, around and around, and you get the wind knocked out of you. You have no idea what's happening to you. You don't know which way is up. When you finally have your bearings again, it's pitch black, you can't move, every breath fills your lungs with sand, and you're being crushed by a ton and a half of earth and rock." He looked at Caymus severely. "It's a horrible way to go, and that's what we're planning on doing to all of them."
Caymus nodded, finding a strange kind of respect for this person who seemed able to empathize with the men who were on their way to kill him.
"Still," said Mally, "Garrin's in charge, and it's his decision. I just hope we manage to do it right, that's all."
Caymus smiled. "I hope so, too."
He and Mally had fallen behind the others a bit, and Mally urged his horse forward to keep up. Caymus, not in any hurry, hung back, thinking about what Mally had said. He found himself wondering if the act of burying somebody alive might also have some manner of religious significance for the man.
Caymus had also noticed that while Mally had been describing the account of being buried, he'd been rubbing some kind of locket between this thumb and forefinger. He wondered if he should ask about it.
"He's a good man, is Amalwyn Cove."
Caymus looked over to see that the previously silent Bernie had ridden up beside him. He then looked ahead at the group in front of them. "I think I could say that of any of you."
"Not like Mally," said Bernie. "He's the best of us. Always tells the truth, and always listens."
Caymus nodded absently, still looking ahead.
"What are you doing here, exactly?" Caymus glanced over and saw Bernie giving him a hard look, a look that held no friendship or curiosity, but rather suspicion and menace. His voice was like sand: not hard, but rough and irritating to the ears. "And don't give me, that 'I have to do something' nonsense, either. A man doesn't ride out to his death like this unless he's got something immense to gain from it."
Caymus was surprised at the words. "You think we're going to our deaths?"
The eyes before Caymus seemed to hold a deadly intensity. "Answer the question."
Caymus held the gaze for a moment, then turned to look ahead again. He considered what Bernie was asking him. Why was he here? What he'd said about needing to help was true, of course, and he did seem to be destined to fight the kreal, but that didn't mean he needed to be a part of this mission. The battle was coming anyway, would likely be in Kepren within the week, so why did he feel the need to join these men?
He picked the prince out from the group, his black sword at his side. There was some kind of pull coming from that man. He'd felt it the first day they'd arrived in Kepren. He hadn't understood it then, and he didn't understand it now, but he was slowly beginning to come to terms with the fact that he had some kind of compulsion to follow the prince of Kepren, to keep him in sight, to be close at hand. He didn't know where the sensation came from. Was the prince connected to the Conflagration, somehow?
"I need to follow where Garrin leads," he said, tilting his head toward the prince.
"So, it's loyalty then, is it?" said Bernie. "Don't suppose you'll tell me why that is?" Some of the anger, the menace, had gone out of his tone, but not all of it.
"I'm not sure," said Caymus, being as honest as he could. He glanced back at Bernie and gave him a slight smile. "I promise to tell you when I figure it out, though."
Bernie stared at him a long while. He didn't seem entirely satisfied with the answers he'd gotten, but he didn't ask any further questions. Eventually, he shook his head and nudged his horse to join the others ahead of them.
Caymus wondered if he'd just helped or hurt his relationship with this quiet man who seemed to distrust him so much. He knew it was impossible for a person to get along with everybody, but he felt it was important that he be able to befriend these men, all seven. The fact that even one of them was resisting him was something he'd been worrying over for the past two days.
As he considered the question again, considered that tangible, physical pull he felt coming from the prince of Kepren, he heard cheering coming from the others and rode a bit faster to catch up with the group. When he pulled his horse in next to Mally's, he saw that Big Grant was riding toward them at a leisurely pace, a big smile plastered on his face.
"Well, that's got to be good news," said Cyrus.
"So, did you find anything?" Garrin called out when Big Grant was close enough.
"You bet I did!" said Big Grant as he rejoined the group, turning his horse to walk with the others. The big man looked terribly pleased with himself. "Just a few minutes ride away," he said, "and no sign of the bad guys!"
Another slight round of cheers arose from the men, but Caymus noted that Mally wasn't smiling. Indeed, there was a distinct look of trepidation and distress on his face. "Alright," he said, touching the locket at his neck again. "Let's go have a look, shall we?"
***
Captain Draya wiped the sweat from his brow again, surprised to discover how much of it had accumulated on his face. He'd never much cared for the stuffiness of the Gearhouse, and now that so many bodies were working within its confines, the ambient temperature had become uncomfortably warm, despite the chill of the morning outside.
"Slowly," said Rill. He was leaning over Lieutenant Faxon, who was in the process of mixing a small container that held barely a thimble's worth of the fire sludge's components. "If you work it too fast, the whole thing will go up."
Part of Draya hated the fact that his men had to work so carefully. He knew it needed to be done, that the process was delicate, but he also knew they were running out of time. Two days had passed since the prince and his small band of soldiers had absented themselves from the Keep, and his engineers had barely made any progress in producing meaningful quantities of the sludge.
Rill reached out and stilled the lieutenant's hand, actively forcing him to slow his movements. Faxon's scowl made it clear he wasn't happy about having a subordinate telling him what to do. The man had always seemed a bit of a bully to Draya though, and in need of some dressing down, so when the lieutenant turned his piggy eyes up to his captain in protest, Draya simply stared at him until he gave up and got back to work.
If he'd been in a better mood, or a cooler building, Draya might have smiled at that. He had discovered a strange kind of respect for Rill over the past couple of days, and seeing the fearless way he was directing Faxon, not to mention the five other men at the workbench, had only increased his regard.
Every new addition to the Royal Engineers had an initial interview with the captain before they were accepted into the ranks, but Draya couldn't honestly say he'd have been able to pick Rill out of a formation a week ago. Now, he found he was coming to rely on the kid as much he did his own hands. This sludge, this fiery weapon that had sprung from Rill's mind, was something truly amazing. Draya had tried, in his younger days, to create something similar, but he hadn't had the necessary knowledge of the fire element to make it work.
Since that fateful day, when he'd taken the sludge to the Keep-Marshal, and the Keep-Marshal had taken it to the prince, his every waking thought had been about production, about how to create enough of the stuff to make a real difference in the inevitable defense of the city. Draya had heard how hard it was to burn these creatures, these krealites, so he had decided that "enough" would mean producing quite a lot of sludge.
Rill, of course, had been in charge of teaching others how to create the substance. Draya handled logistics, providing the men and resources they would need in order to complete the task in its entirety. They had started by teaching the five lieutenants how to prepare the mixture, three days ago. Since that time, four of the students had graduated to the point that they were able to teach others, and had been replaced with new faces.
Faxon was the only officer who had, so far, failed to grasp the concepts involved. Draya was at the point where he was considering finding something more productive for the man to do.
Draya sighed, staring at the clay jug that stood upright in the middle of the long workbench. It was filling at a depressingly slow pace, and he wondered if it would even be full enough to bother with when the guards arrived. The Keep-Marshal had left orders for daily pickups, the idea being to bring the material to a safer, less volatile place for safe storage until it was actually needed. The guards were due to come and gather today's batch in just a couple of hours.
They'd only filled two other jugs, so far.
"I don't like how slowly this is going, Rill," he said as he watched Faxon work. The lieutenant was making his skin itch, still mixing the material far too quickly.
"I know, Sir," Rill said. He looked up with an expression that was mostly of irritation, but also of some of the same concern that Draya was feeling. "I just don't know of a way to do it faster."
"At this rate," Draya said, "even if everything goes to plan and we get as many men trained as we want, we're going to end up with maybe two dozen jugs of sludge by the time Black Moon gets here."
Rill didn't say anything for a moment, instead turning his eyes back to the fumbling hands of the lieutenant. Draya felt a bit sorry for the lad. He knew Rill was aware that things weren't going very well, but the system was set now, the variables accounted for. There wasn't very much they could do now to alter the path they were on.
"The process is delicate," Rill said. His tone was more matter-of-fact than Draya particularly liked. "If we push the production too hard, we'll just end up burning down the Gearhouse, maybe the whole east wall of the Keep." He turned and raised an eyebrow at Draya. "I think you know that, Captain."
Draya considered reminding Rill whom he was talking to, but kept his tongue still. He knew Rill was right. He was just frustrated, and his concern for his responsibilities to the prince's army was beginning to take its toll on his patience.
He tried to count the minutes of sleep he'd managed to steal over the last three days. He figured the sum came to somewhere between four and five full hours, with countless interruptions in-between.
As he opened his mouth to offer an apology, he found himself flinching from a short, yet sharp blaze of light at the corner of the room. A moment later, one of the engineers—Draya thought the man's name was Edgar, or possibly Roger—banged his hands on the table and swore out loud.
Draya sighed quietly as he approached. This was the man's third attempt, and third failure, today, and it was about time he was replaced with somebody who wouldn't use up their scarce resources learning how to use them. He was a seasoned engineer, Draya knew, but his hands were obviously better suited to machinery than alchemy. As he stepped closer, the man raised his head, a pained expression on his face.
"I dunno what went wrong, Sir," he said, "honest, I don't." He waved a hand over the ingredients in front of him. "I did it just like Mister Rill told us, put the ingredients in just so, and mixed it together real slow-like." He raised his hands in supplication. "It just keeps going up like that, just before I get to adding that there white stuff."
Draya looked over the man's workspace, looking for obvious faults. He'd had Rill teach him how to make fire sludge on that first day, and had succeeded in making a small batch on his first try, so he had a good idea of what could go wrong during the process. He did not, however see any major issues with the evidence in front of the man.
He was about to ask the man a few questions about his process when the door to the Gearhouse opened, letting blinding sunlight and a chilly, refreshing breeze into the building. A thin, gravelly voice said, "I am seeking Captain Draya of the Royal Engineers."
Draya, recognizing the official garb, inhaled sharply, trying to mask his frustration. He'd been expecting this visit for three days already. He turned to Rill, who was, by now, standing on the other side of the frustrated engineer. "Figure out what happened here," he said, pointing to the man's workstation.
Rill didn't speak, nod, or otherwise acknowledge the request; he was already picking through the ingredients before the sentence was out. Draya got the distinct impression the young man had forgotten his captain was in the room. Nearly smiling, he stepped away, leaving the kid to his duties.
It was time to meet the inquisitor.
Judging the man's exact age was difficult: he was somewhere between fifty and one hundred years old. His face seemed to be too wrinkled in some places and too smooth in others. His dark, sunken eyes gave Draya the impression that he hadn't slept in over a month. He wore the long, black cloak of a royal inquisitor, complete with the silver key pendant on the chain around his neck. The key, Draya knew, was meant to symbolize the opening of locks, the dispelling of secrets, the finding of truths.
Draya approached the figure who had, by now, closed the door behind him, and who was now standing a foot or so inside, quietly surveying the work going on in the building. "You must be the inquisitor I was promised."
The
shriveled gaze glanced briefly in Draya's direction, then went back to its inspection of the workings of the engineers. The man's eyes, at least, seemed alert and vibrant. "Inquisitor Dalphin," the man said. The voice sounded dry and pinched, as though it had struggled to find its way out of the man's chest. "You are Captain Draya?"
Draya nodded. "I am."
"Good," said Dalphin, still not looking at him. "I have been told that you have a problem to do with sabotage. I am here to correct that problem." The shadowy eyes drifted to the sludge jug. "I am also tasked with collecting whatever your men have produced this day. Is that it over there?"
"It is." Draya already didn't like this man. He'd only encountered one other inquisitor in his life, and it had been an altogether unpleasant experience. The royal inquisitors were employed by the dukes to seek out the truth in various matters, most of which had to do with investigations of criminal acts. The men were soulless, ruthless, and seemed to carry no compassion in their hearts. Draya's particular case had concerned the suspicious death of his superior officer. Draya had been a lieutenant at the time, and his captain had been found dead in the officers' galley. He remembered each of the seven interrogations he'd had to endure under the uncaring eyes of the inquisitor. The man's methods hadn't quite extended to torture, but they had come close.
In the end, the captain's death had been declared accidental, the result of one of the first-stationers having been careless with a vial of powdered seeproot. The vial, left in the kitchen after the engineer had visited a friend there, had somehow gotten mixed into the captain's soup and had stopped his heart after a few swallows. The discovery, however, hadn't undone the hours of intense inquisition Draya had endured.
"It took you quite awhile to get around to us," Draya said, using as level a tone as he could muster. "I had requested your assistance some days ago."
"The royal inquisitors have many obligations," Dalphin replied. It was not an apology, merely a statement of fact. "We cannot simply put them aside when new cases come up." He stepped further into the room, inspecting each man individually. "However, now that I am on your case, you can be certain you have my full attention." He halted his circuit around the room and began looking at the various tools and mechanical parts strewn about the walls of the Gearhouse. "Please explain your problem with this saboteur, in as much detail as possible."
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