by Devin Hanson
"Someone's head will have to roll for this. Maybe we can posthumously condemn the crew?"
Andrew felt his face flush with rage. He recognized one of the men. A noble, evidently, one of the second watch of the Caerwin! Without the uniform, it had taken Andrew a while to place the face. He stepped forward, noble or no, he wouldn't have the crew of the Caerwin and the other ships dragged through the mud by this coward!
A whip cracked, and Andrew looked to the side just in time to jump out of the way of a horse and carriage. He missed his footing on a wet cobble and sprawled on the ground, just barely out of the path of the carriage.
"Fool boy!" the driver barked down at him.
The carriage passed, and Andrew stared in hatred at the nobles as they laughed over a joke, careless in the face of all the destruction. The carriage driver was right. He was being a fool. The nobles who had signed on with the crew had no intention of placing themselves in danger, they just wanted to ride the coattails of braver men and share in the glory.
He looked down at himself. The only remnants of his uniform were his trousers and boots. The former so soaked in dried mud and ash it was impossible to tell what the original color was and the boots were common in make. Without the shiny polish, they could have belonged to any moderately wealthy commoner.
Sudden tears coursed down the dust and ash on his cheeks. This was the end, then. There would be no second chance at taking the skies back from the dragons. He might have survived the battle in the skies, but his career in the military was over.
Andrew picked himself back up and turned his back on the nobles. Burn them. With a heavy heart, he set his course back to the south gate. He didn't know what he would do. His parents couldn't really afford the price of his commission, and they would be working hard for years to pay it off. If the nobles had their way, and accused all who had been aboard of gross negligence, he would be a criminal in Ardhal, and anywhere else within Salia.
Preoccupied as he was with this train of thought, Andrew wasn't watching where he was walking and it wasn't until a gust of wind blew a cloud of smoke into his face and set him to coughing that he looked up and saw where he was.
The south gate, and the city for blocks around it had been annihilated by the Belathon. The great triple-decked gondola had dropped directly onto the gate and the resulting explosion had flattened the buildings a hundred yards in all directions. The neighborhood where his parents had their apartment was gone. Smoke rose from the debris and small fires still licked at timbers too thick to burn out quickly.
Andrew fell to his knees. The destruction was so complete, he couldn't even pick out where the roads had gone. He knew with a bone-deep certainty that his parents hadn't survived that. Nobody could have.
Tears ran from his eyes, but they were just the reaction from getting a faceful of smoke. He was too tired to feel the grief properly. He hurt all over. All his possessions were gone. He didn't even have a shirt. His claim to manhood from a week earlier seemed empty now, pointless bravado. He would have given anything, right then, to be a child again. But then, that was the nature of being an adult: wishing things were as simple as childhood but knowing the truth about life.
Time passed in a haze of half-formed impressions. Someone shooed him out of the street, and he found himself wandering the city, every step painful, but too afraid to sit down. He if stopped moving, if he let himself think, he would fall into black despair. He had nowhere to go. Nothing to do. He considered turning himself in to the town guard, but if he did that, he might as well just put the noose around his neck himself.
His stomach grumbled angrily, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since the morning. A glance at the sun told him he had an hour or two of daylight left. The scent of food caught his nose and he followed it to an inn. The warmth of the afternoon was leaching out of the air and Andrew let out a sigh when he walked inside. The hearth was going strong and he took a seat at a table near the fire. Sore muscles relaxed in the radiant warmth and he found himself dozing off when a serving girl made her way over to him.
"What'll it be, young master?"
Andrew snapped awake and winced as his rib protested the sudden movement. "Oh, sorry. I was just drifting off there. Whatever is in the pot is fine."
"Got a roast mutton stew, with bread."
"Perfect." Andrew's stomach rumbled. Something hot and thick would be just the thing.
"That will be two commons."
Andrew's eyes widened and his face flushed as he abruptly remembered he had no money. The serving girl saw his reaction and her pleasant smile pinched flat. "We've only room for paying customers."
"Please," Andrew started. He didn't know what he was going to say, what argument he could present that would convince the girl to take pity on him.
"Don't make me call over Ned, he'll have less patience with you than me."
Andrew hung his head, swallowed whatever words he was trying to form and stiffly got up from the bench. "Sorry," he muttered but the girl was already turning away to greet the next customer.
Andrew shivered as he walked out of the inn and stumbled on the doorstep, barely catching himself before he fell on his face. A gusty breeze had picked up and the cold air cut through his bandages, making his wounds smart. The shadows were lengthening, the coming dark hurried by a new storm front being driven in by the wind.
Andrew stumbled away, trying to think of where he could go, what he could do, but his mind seemed muddied. All he could think of was how hungry he felt and how cold it was. A drizzle started. Andrew clung to the eaves of the buildings, walking slowly, his arms wrapped around himself. Shutters were closing over windows, locking away all light in preparation for the night.
He smelled smoke, and went towards it. Where there was smoke, there was fire, and warmth. After a few minutes of walking he came to a burned out area of the city, parts of it still smouldering. There was no welcome to be found here, but there was also no one to drive him away.
Carefully, aware that though the fires may be out, there could still be hot coals buried in the wreckage, Andrew picked his way in. The buildings here had been residential with the odd shop, and it didn't take long before he found a spot where a wall had fallen in but still remained mostly intact. Underneath, he found the remains of a bedroom, enough left intact that Andrew could make a cramped nest of scavenged bedding.
Rain drummed on the lathe overhead. Andrew huddled beneath his collection of half-charred blankets. He was exhausted, hungrier than he'd even been in his life. His wounds ached. But at least he was out of the rain and even a little bit warm.
Sleep came slowly and dreams of dragons and fire haunted him.
The next day, Andrew was up with the dawn and scrounged around in the ruins, eventually coming up with a heel of bread that wasn't wet and a few pieces of bruised fruit that he could wipe the ash from. He combed his hair down using water from a fallen cistern and washed the worst of the dirt and ash from his face and skin.
He had to find work. He could beg, maybe, but he had never had to before, and didn't know where to start. He tried begging at the back door of an inn and had to dodge quick to avoid the bucket of dirty water thrown at him. A fruit seller threatened to call the guards when he asked for a handout and Andrew slunk away, afraid of what would happen if the guards brought him in and started questioning him. It wouldn't take long before his brief tenure as a gunner would come to light, and it would be all over then.
Gradually, Andrew's attempts to find some way to work for his food petered out, and he took to walking slowly about the city, dispirited and hungry. The afternoon light was fading into evening when Andrew wandered into the courtyard outside the north gate. He paused for a moment, watching the familiar bustle of a wagon caravan preparing to leave. They wouldn't ship out until first light tomorrow. No wagonmaster would risk his draft animals in the night.
The wagonmaster, a thick, stumpy man with a bristling beard and a cloth cap jammed onto his balding head paced around the
wagons he was supervising loading. He had a coiled bullwhip in one hand that he used with surgical precision to direct the draft aurochs and goad his workers. Andrew's father used a similar whip, and he could use it to dust the head of a porcelain doll or kill a wolf from five paces with equal ease. Had used it.
The sight of the wagonmaster loading his wagons stirred feelings of nostalgia in Andrew. If he hadn't joined the military to crew the Caerwin, that would have been him in fifteen years.
Abruptly, Andrew knew what he was going to do.
Chapter 3
A second chance
The sun was sinking behind the rooftops and one of the wagon drivers was making the rounds lighting lanterns so the loading could be finished when Andrew made his move.
He had spent the last hour ignoring the grumbling of his stomach and examining the wagons being loaded, and he had a good idea of what the caravan was transporting. Given that Ardhal's primary export was airships, the small crates were likely iron goods, rivets, nails, and the like, useful anywhere, but not the primary cargo. It was filler, rather, a way for the wagonmaster to make a little extra on the side. The barrels could be almost anything, but Andrew would put money on them holding coils of rope. Anyone who wasn't a merchant might scoff at rope being transported in barrels, but they've never tried to wrestle two hundred pounds of loose wet hemp out of a wagonbed.
The larger crates would be cast ironmongery, custom-ordered replacement parts and bulk engine components for new airships. Given the caravan's choice of gate, it was likely they were heading north to Andronath, where artisans from the Alchemical Guild would turn them into airon, light as a feather and harder than the finest steel. The castings destined to be turned into airon would be the primary cargo, and would explain the use of the aurochs as well. Those would be damnably heavy, and normal oxen would have to be in teams of six just to shift it.
It also meant that the cargo was immensely valuable, though of limited worth to brigands. There wasn't any way to get easy money for that many tons of cast iron, and a thief wouldn't be able to bring it to an alchemist in Andronath without the proper contacts and a bill of lading to match. Consequently, the wagonmaster shouldn't be too wary about picking up a new teamster. If the wagon train was coming back from Andronath with a full load of airon, there would be no way fresh crew would even be considered. To much chance of the newcomer being a plant for brigands.
Andrew picked the timing for his initial approach carefully. The wagonmaster had just finished supervising the loading of the wagons and the next step would be to have the aurochs haul the loaded wagons into the warehouse, where they would wait for sunrise. If they waited until the morning to load the wagons, half the day would be wasted and the wagon train wouldn't reach the waystation before nightfall.
Given the state of his ribs and the perfectly unwieldy nature of the cargo, Andrew wouldn't be able to hire on as a cargo handler, but he could work as a driver. Andrew, whatever his other shortcomings might be, was a completely competent wagon driver. He hadn't had much experience driving aurochs, but the few times he worked with them they behaved like any other ox, just nearly twice the size.
He gave one final glance down at himself and sighed. There wasn't anything he could do to fix the first impression he was about to present, but hopefully a display of skill and a little bargaining could get him hired on and maybe even a little pay.
Andrew strode out of the alley, barechested but for the bandage wrappings, his pants in tatters but the boots on his feet quality make and solid. A shirt could be bought and pants replaced, but boots were an investment, and no wagonmaster worth his name would hire on a new hand with shoddy footwear. A man with frostbitten toes couldn't load a wagon.
"Wagonmaster!" he called when he got near, "A word, if you will."
The wagonmaster turned and eyed him coolly. "Ne c'vast?"
Andrew swallowed. His first error. He'd mistook the man's brown skin for a deep tan, when in fact he was a Maar, a desert native hailing from Nas Shahr, far to the south. The Maar didn't often trade this far to the north, maybe the caravan of airship parts were for their own shipyards. More importantly, the title of wagonmaster was an insult, implying the man was only master of his wagons, and didn't have a home or a wife, or wives.
He bowed, face flushing. "My apologies. Do na nramah. I did not expect to see one of the Maar this far from real land." Andrew hesitated, dredging his mind for the proper form of address. His knowledge of the language was spotty, just a few polite phrases, including the ever-useful apology he had already trotted out. Giving the man his true title in his own language was out of the question. Vaguely, Andrew remembered his father speaking with a Maarian trader, and what he had called the man. "It is rare, and a pleasure, to encounter a mogul this far north."
The man's expression softened, and he returned Andrew's bow with a nod of the head. "It rains too much, and the weather is frigid," he agreed. "Real land is far between here."
Andrew gave a sigh of relief. The Maar hadn't taken offense, and even spoke the common tongue. Calling the man a mogul was catering to his ego, implying that he had so much wealth and possessions, he had to leave his home and his many wives to see to their proper disposition. "My wishes on your rapid return, and an end to this soft weather." They were both skirting the issue at hand, namely why Andrew wanted to speak with the mogul while wearing nothing but bandages above his waist.
The mogul walked closer and examined Andrew dispassionately then quirked an eyebrow in question. "You have the look of a man who knows." He gestured broadly, encompassing Ardhal, Andrew, the sporadically rising clouds of smoke to the south. "Perhaps we can have a word, but not out here in this empty night. I must see to my wagons." He began to turn away.
"In fact," Andrew jumped in, knowing he was stretching the bounds of propriety. The Maar could be touchy about things, and the man had clearly dismissed Andrew already. "In fact, it was my intent to offer my services. I know wagons and my-" Andrew's voice clicked shut on an unexpected surge of grief. "I, I see you have a man short for driving the aurochs."
The mogul stood still for a long minute, looking at Andrew from the corner of his eye then grunted, "Third wagon," before stomping off.
Andrew turned, feeling eyes upon him, and saw the other wagon drivers staring at him. He waved, and walked over to the third wagon in line, pretending more confidence than he felt. As he walked, he had plenty of time to review in detail how much of an idiot he was being. Sure, he was an expert driver with his father's oxen, but the Maar harness could be completely different. He didn't know if the aurochs were trained differently than what he was used to.
"When in doubt," Andrew said to himself, quoting his father, "connect with the animal." Most work animals would pretty much do all the work themselves, if they thought they couldn't get away from it. Aurochs weren't dumb animals, most could compete comfortably with horses in their intelligence, and even oxen would do what they were supposed to with only minimal guidance.
Rather than climbing straight up to the driver's bench and picking up the reins, he swung around wide to the front, and slowly approached in direct view of the aurochs. He wished he had a little sugar or an apple or two. The two aurochs eyed him as he approached and Andrew started talking quietly, his voice a gentle croon.
"Easy now, hello there. My, you're large, aren't you. What big feet you have. And such lovely eyes." The words he spoke were meaningless, just stream of consciousness babble, but the tone of his voice calmed the aurochs, told the beasts that Andrew was confident, careful, and kind. He scratched the left auroch behind the ear where his father's oxen always loved it, and the auroch lowed, butting Andrew in the chest, making him wince. He kept the pain from his voice, and slipped his left arm from its sling to caress the other auroch.
While he was up close, the examined the bridle and harness, and was relieved to find them the same kit that was used on oxen, but larger and reinforced with formed steel in places. Whoever had hitched the aurochs had
done a competent job. There was no slack in the leather, no raw skin or sores under the straps. All the ironwork was padded with stitched cotton to keep it clear of the auroch's skin.
After a few minutes of talking and petting, he stepped around to the side, walking slowly, the words tumbling from his mouth never pausing. This was the critical moment. He had let the aurochs smell him and get used to his voice. They associated his voice with the scratches and pets, at least for now. He had to turn that familiarity into control before the aurochs decided he wasn't worth of their obedience.
He swung up onto the driver's bench and unhooked the reins. In front of him, the second wagon driver gave him a nod and called out to his aurochs, "Get up! Up, you lazy bastards. Move! Yah!"
Standard driving commands then, Andrew decided. Without doing much with the reins beyond loosening them, Andrew raised his own voice, replacing a little of the gentle croon with an underlay of iron expectation. The aurochs would do as he commanded. "Yah! Hup now, shift it! Get up now!"
The aurochs lowed and shifted their weight forward. The harness creaked, and Andrew felt the strain on the wagon yoke through the bench he sat on. The wagon inched forward then, as the aurochs overcame the inertia of the wagon, started rolling. "Easy now. Easy. That's it."
As he had expected, the aurochs only required a minimum of control, and he guided them into the warehouse behind the second wagon without incident. "Easy. Easy. Whoa, big fellows." The wagon came to a stop gently in parallel with the first and second wagons. Andrew hooked the reins back on the bench and swung down.
The mogul was waiting for him, face expressionless. "You have done this before." It was a statement, not a question.
"I've driven oxen for years," Andrew explained. "Only a few times with aurochs, though."
The man nodded. "Let the others handle the bourn, the aurochs, as you call them. You and I shall talk."
