The Seventh Sigil (Dragon Brigade Series)

by Margaret Weis

  He stopped to examine the wall, but the glow had vanished and, with all the various constructs covering the stone, he couldn’t tell which had been glowing.

  He walked on, keeping a watch for blue-green flashes, and saw them again, going off seemingly at random, appearing and then disappearing.

  Maybe something to do with that bloody drumming, he thought grimly. It’s playing merry hell with the magic and giving me the most frightful headache.

  Master Tutillo arrived with Calvados and news. “Lookout’s spotted the Cloud Hopper, sir. Sailing this way.”

  “Thank God!” Rodrigo exclaimed. He glanced up at heaven, thinking he should explain. “I’m not really taking Your name in vain, this time. I truly mean it.”

  He drank off the Calvados at a gulp and between the liquor and the return of the Cloud Hopper, he felt better. Half a prayer answered.

  Rodrigo made a dash for the parapet. Standing in the shadow of the bridge, he looked out over the sodden and depressing landscape. “The Cloud Hopper! Where is it? I don’t see her.”

  The lookout was watching through a spyglass. “Caught a glimpse of the boat, sir. Gone now. Lost her in the trees.”

  “Lost!” Rodrigo gasped.

  “Lost sight of her, sir,” said the lookout. “She’s sailing too low. Looks like she’s having difficulty maintaining altitude.”

  “The magic is breaking down,” said Rodrigo unhappily. “Because of the drumming. Could you see who is on board?”

  If Gythe was with them, she could repair the broken magic, at least enough to keep the little boat sailing.

  The lookout shook his head. “No, sir. Sorry. Too far away.”

  Rodrigo heaved a sigh and paced back and forth along the wall. He saw a few more blue flashes from constructs on the walls and one on the ceiling. He was too preoccupied with worrying about his friends to go investigate.

  “There she is, sir!” the lookout reported.

  The Cloud Hopper was back in the air and now that he knew where to look, Rodrigo could see the sturdy little boat trundling along, dipping and bobbing just above tree level. The boat was sailing at an agonizingly slow speed, but at least she was sailing.

  Gythe must be aboard! Rodrigo told himself. Aloud he asked the lookout, “Can you tell what’s happening with the battle? Are we winning or losing?”

  “Hard to see, sir,” the lookout reported. “The smoke is too thick.”

  Rodrigo could do nothing except wait, and he had never been good at waiting. He thought back to the time he had waited for his duel with that Estaran count, knowing with terrible certainty that in a few hours he would be dead. He hadn’t died. The count had died, killed by Sir Henry’s hired assassin. The startling realization came to Rodrigo that the duel and events surrounding it had led them to this moment in time.

  “How extraordinary,” Rodrigo murmured.

  He watched the Cloud Hopper’s faltering advance, willing the boat to keep going. The wizard storm, off in the distance, was crawling closer. He could hear rumbles of thunder. Master Tutillo hovered at his elbow, waiting for news.

  “Four women on board!” reported the lookout.

  “Let me see!” Rodrigo cried eagerly.

  The lookout handed over his spyglass. Rodrigo put it to his eye and after swinging the glass around wildly and making himself dizzy, he eventually found the Cloud Hopper.

  Rodrigo breathed a deep sigh of relief. “They all appear safe! Badly dressed, but safe!”

  The lookout had been watching Rodrigo’s gyrations with alarm. He deftly removed the spyglass from his hand before Rodrigo could drop it.

  “Master Tutillo, we are expecting the arrival of the Countess de Marjolaine and Her Royal Highness, the Princess Sophia—”

  “The royal princess!” Master Tutillo repeated, staggering. “Coming here?”

  “We will want a room made ready for her; refreshments, of course,” Rodrigo continued. “What do we have in the larder? Ordinarily I would suggest champagne, tea cakes, sweetmeats, cucumber sandwiches…”

  “We have salt pork, dried fish, hardtack, and Calvados, sir,” said Master Tutillo. “I can show Her Highness how to knock the hardtack on the table to make the weevils jump out.”

  Rodrigo shuddered.

  “Perhaps soaking the hardtack in Calvados…,” he began, only to find the young man had dashed off. He was wondering if there was some way he could make salt pork taste like duck à l’orange when a soldier shouted, “God’s balls! Look at that!”

  An enormous cloud of dust and smoke, shot through with flame, roiled into the sky over Dunlow, rising higher and higher. The gigantic boom from the blast hit them, sounding like an enormous, extremely close-by thunder clap. The men standing on the parapet began shouting and cheering.

  All Rodrigo noticed was the sudden silence. The drumming. The drumming had stopped.

  “Captain’s done it!” the soldiers were shouting exultantly. “He blew up the temple!”

  Rodrigo breathed a deep sigh. With the temple no longer spewing forth contramagic, the destruction of the magical constructs would cease, and he could start to make repairs. The work would take a long time, perhaps months, but at least there was hope they might someday be able to leave this godforsaken place and return home.

  “What’s all the bloody shouting about?” demanded Gunnery Officer Vega as he emerged from a door onto the parapet.

  The gunnery officer was a short, stolid, humorless Guundaran mercenary who lived, breathed, and perhaps even ate gunpowder, or so Rodrigo believed. Stephano had left Vega in command during his absence. The soldiers told him about the temple. Vega viewed the cloud of dust and debris through a spyglass.

  “Destroying the temple means we’ve won, doesn’t it?” Rodrigo asked, hoping he was right. He nudged Vega’s elbow, much to the man’s ire. “Stephano—that is, Captain de Guichen, and the others will be back soon, won’t they?”

  “Not bloody likely!” Vega snorted.

  “Why? Why not? What’s wrong?” Rodrigo asked, alarmed.

  “Still have the whole bloody invasion fleet to deal with,” Vega muttered.

  Rodrigo looked back to see the Cloud Hopper sailing slowly through the air. He could imagine Gythe nursing the magic, urging the boat to sail just a little farther. She would have an easier time of it now that the contramagic wasn’t breaking down the constructs as fast as she could fix them.

  Feeling a presence at his back, Rodrigo turned to see Master Tutillo, resplendent in his best parade uniform. He had even washed his face.

  “How do I look, sir? I’ve always wanted to meet the princess. I saw her ride past in a carriage once. She smiled and waved at me. Will Her Highness let me kiss her hand?”

  Rodrigo was so preoccupied by his concerns for the Hopper that he let this most unforgiveable breach of etiquette slip past him. He was watching the boat when the mists lifted and several of the lookouts called simultaneously.

  “Enemy ship off the port bow! Closing rapidly!”

  Every man with a spyglass clapped it to his eye. Officer Vega shouted orders and left the parapet in haste to return to his cannons. Men ran to their posts, bumping into Rodrigo. Having never learned his starboard from his port, he wasn’t sure where to look. While he was searching for the enemy, he caught sight of the Cloud Hopper bobbing into the air to clear a stand of trees.

  “Miri!” he gasped and pointed. “The Cloud Hopper! She’s out there alone!”

  The men shifted around to watch the little boat sailing with agonizing slowness toward the safety of the fortress. Rodrigo could see the enemy ship now, heading straight for the fortress. He didn’t know one vessel from another so he had no idea what type of ship this was. All he knew was this ship was extremely large, it was flying a blood-red flag, and it was bearing down on them rapidly.

  “We have to do something to help Miri! She can’t fight back,” Rodrigo cried. “We have to stop that ship!”

  “We can’t, sir,” Master Tutillo said with maddening
calm. “The enemy isn’t in range of our guns yet.”

  “There must be something!” Rodrigo said helplessly.

  Master Tutillo shook his head. “Sorry, sir. Maybe the enemy won’t waste their ammunition shooting at an unarmed boat.”

  The hope seemed a faint one to Rodrigo. He wondered if Miri had seen the danger. His question was answered when he saw the Cloud Hopper began to radiate glowing blue light. Gythe was working her magic, activating the constructs that protected the boat. Her magic had worked the last time the Hopper had come under attack by the Bottom Dwellers, but then they had faced only the green fireballs. This enemy ship undoubtedly was carrying one of the fearsome green beam weapons that had taken out the side of a mountain. Rodrigo doubted if even Gythe’s magic could protect against a direct hit of contramagic.

  The Cloud Hopper lurched and jounced slowly toward safety. The ship with the red flag was rapidly closing in. A rumbling sound beneath Rodrigo’s feet indicated the cannons were being run out. He wondered if this was a good idea. A blast of contramagic hitting the cannons would destroy their protective and strengthening constructs and most likely detonate the powder and cause them to explode.

  Rodrigo had pointed this out to Stephano. “The cannons are as great a danger to us as they are to the enemy.”

  “If all goes as planned,” Stephano had said, “we won’t need the cannons.”

  But nothing had gone as planned.

  He glanced at the seventh sigil, pulsing with a faint bluish green or greenish blue light.

  “God or science, I could use the help of either right now,” Rodrigo muttered.

  “Oh, no, sir!” Master Tutillo gasped, clutching Rodrigo’s arm. “Look!”

  A green beam streaked across the sky and struck the Cloud Hopper amidships. Blue light flared, flashed, and then vanished. The Cloud Hopper dropped like a sparrow hit by a stone and disappeared among a stand of scrubby trees. A flicker of orange flame quickly became a conflagration. Smoke trailed upward.

  Fire spread rapidly across the deck and climbed the masts, devouring the gaily colored balloon and feeding on the sails. For an instant, the Cloud Hopper seemed to be made of bright, blazing fire, with flames for the masts and sails. And then it all collapsed into a blackened heap of cinders and ashes and billowing smoke.

  The Cloud Hopper was gone.

  40

  Blood magic gives us power over life and death, makes us gods.

  —Anonymous

  Several soldiers on the parapet began to fire their rifles at the enemy ship, more out of rage and frustration than with the hope of hitting anything, for the ship was still out of range.

  A wave of nausea washed over Rodrigo. He leaned against the parapet until the spell passed, leaving him shivering with cold. He turned away and walked toward the stairs.

  “Are you all right? Where are you going, sir?” Master Tutillo asked.

  “To help them,” said Rodrigo. “They could be hurt.”

  “Sir! You can’t go out there, sir!” Master Tutillo cried, startled. “You’d be a sitting duck!”

  “I found Stephano on the battlefield,” Rodrigo replied. “He was dying. I can’t leave them to die.”

  “No, sir! I won’t let you!” Master Tutillo flung his arms around Rodrigo and yelled for help.

  The feel of hands being laid roughly on his person brought Rodrigo to his senses. He gazed out at the wide stretch of empty marshland that lay between him and the place where the Cloud Hopper had gone down. The fire was a roaring inferno now, setting several of the nearby trees ablaze.

  Rodrigo pushed away the hands, trying to free himself.

  “I’m not going anywhere. You can release me.”

  The soldier slowly let go of him.

  Master Tutillo still kept hold of his sleeve.

  “Are you sure you’re not going to run off, sir?” he asked, eyeing Rodrigo doubtfully.

  “I’m sure,” said Rodrigo wearily.

  He slid down the wall to sit on the floor and lowered his head to his hands.

  “How will I tell Stephano? How will I tell Dag? I stood here and watched them die!” Rodrigo said in despair.

  “Don’t give up hope, sir,” said Master Tutillo, who was squatting down beside him. “The ship is sailing on by, leaving them be. It’s not shooting at them anymore.”

  That’s because there’s no one left alive to shoot at, Rodrigo thought. He was about to say this to Master Tutillo, when he took a good look at him. The young man was trying to be brave, but his eyes were red rimmed. He was pale, his lip quivered. Rodrigo managed a faint smile and pulled himself up off the floor. He smoothed his hair, adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, and twitched his coat into place.

  “You should find some place to hunker down, sir, keep yourself safe,” said the lookout. “We’re going to be coming under fire soon.”

  He sounded very cool at the prospect.

  “I might be needed,” said Rodrigo. “To repair the magic.”

  “You can’t stay here, sir,” said Master Tutillo. “You should go to the bridge. It’s protected and you can see what’s happening from there.”

  “That’s true,” Rodrigo said. He started off, then realized Master Tutillo wasn’t with him. He turned around. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I have my orders,” said Master Tutillo. “Don’t worry, sir! Our gun crews are the best in the navy. We’ll blast the fiends out of the sky. Send her straight to kingdom come.”

  Rodrigo didn’t like thinking about kingdom come, which might be coming far too soon. He left the parapet and made his way to the bridge. The helmsman wasn’t there. Since the fortress was not sailing, he wasn’t needed and must have duties elsewhere. Rodrigo located the helmsman’s spyglass and put it to his eye. He looked for the Cloud Hopper. All he could see was a charred, burnt-out wreck.

  Rodrigo’s mouth was dry and his hands shook. He had to lower the glass because tears were stinging his eyes.

  He couldn’t find a handkerchief and so he wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve and raised the glass again to see the enemy ship, a big hulking vessel covered in some sort of strange-looking constructs. At first Rodrigo thought they were contramagic, but then he realized that they weren’t, because he recognized them. He looked at the blood-red flag and went cold all over.

  “Blood magic!”

  He was jolted by the unexpected boom of the cannons firing a broadside and the shaking of the building beneath his feet as the twelve cannons went off simultaneously. Smoke drifted past the window and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air.

  He put the glass to his eye again and looked out, hoping to see the ship blow up or fall out of the sky, or do whatever enemy ships did when they were hit. He watched in despair, his hopes dashed. The ship kept coming straight for them. He dimly recalled Officer Vega saying something about having to find their range.

  Unfortunately, the enemy had found his range.

  A brilliant beam of green light flashed through the air and struck the fortress. Rodrigo couldn’t see where it had hit, but he could feel the building shudder like a living thing.

  The seventh sigil on the wall right below the bridge flared brightly—radiating green and blue light. Flashes of blue light flickered on the stone walls, running along the protective constructs that had been built into the stone. Rodrigo was cheered by the sight. The shield was working just as he had planned, protecting the fortress. But when he looked around, his good mood evaporated. The constructs on the walls that had been battered by the drumming were being destroyed by the blast of contramagic. He could see the cracks spreading as he watched. Some of the constructs simply disappeared.

  He reached out to repair them and then let his hand fall. What was the use? Magical constructs were breaking down all over the fort. He could not rush about repairing them all. The next green beam blast or the one after that would bring the fortress down around their ears.

  Rodrigo started to turn away, then he stopped, blinked and rubbed his eye
s. He dropped to his hands and knees to stare intently at the constructs on the wall. He touched them with his fingers, marveling, and then sat back on his heels to consider his discovery.

  The broken part of the constructs were glowing with a blue-green light so faint it was barely visible. He would not have noticed the change if he hadn’t been staring straight at it. He leaped to his feet and looked outside to see the seventh sigil shining blue-green. He looked back at the construct. There was only one explanation. The magic from the seventh sigil was seeping through the broken constructs, rebuilding them, making them whole.

  Rodrigo felt his knees go weak and he sat down rather suddenly in the helmsman’s chair. Father Jacob had made a scientific breakthrough, much like early man’s discovery that sigils could be combined to form a construct. Forces seemingly bent on destroying each other had joined together to nourish and restore.

  Another broadside shook the walls and sent a cascade of dust down on Rodrigo’s head, but he scarcely reacted, other than to irritably brush the dust out of his eyes so he could watch the constructs. The blue-green magic moved slowly, almost a trickle, like water seeping through a hair-thin crack. He wondered if the magical repairs were happening in other parts of the fortress or just on the bridge. He recalled, suddenly, the odd blue-green flashes he had seen on the walls. He had not paid much attention, but now he wondered if those had been signs of the seventh sigil at work.

  Completely forgetting the fortress was under fire, Rodrigo left the bridge, ran down the stairs and into the corridor. He was planning to go to the lower level near the gun emplacements. The magic had been badly damaged there and he wanted to see if the seventh sigil was repairing it.

  A horrific blast shook the fortress, and the next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor with no clear memory of how he’d come to be there. His head hurt abominably, he couldn’t see for the dust and the smoke and he was having trouble breathing as he coughed and retched, which made his head hurt more. Terrible screams of the wounded and dying echoed through the corridor.

  Rodrigo staggered to his feet. The screams tore at his heart. He should go help, but he had no idea which way to go. Nothing looked the same. The corridor was choked with dust. He stumbled off in one direction, only to find his way blocked by a pile of rubble; so he turned around and walked in the other direction.