The Broken Bell (19 page)

“We’ll ask her how she did it when she gets back.”

Evis shook his head and sagged a bit. “Yes. Yes, we will. And you know damned well she’ll just cackle and spit in our eyes.”

“Probably. But if you bring a House wand-waver or two into the room, and have them ask her, politely, how she pulled one over on them, she might spill it. As long as they are appropriately awed by her obvious skills.”

Evis looked at me, his eyes still glowing in the cigar’s crimson light.

“You think that would work?”

“An appeal to Mama’s ego? Seriously? How could it fail?”

A ghost of a grin crossed his pale face.

“You just earned another cigar, Captain.”

I grimaced. “Finder. I’m not in uniform. Won’t ever be, hopefully.”

Evis returned to his chair.

“Speaking of the Army—”

“Let’s not.”

“Oh, but we must. I did something yesterday, you see. I think you’ll be interested to hear about it.”

“Unless it involves desertion, probably not.”

Evis chuckled and fished another cigar from the case and clipped the end off with a silver clipper before handing it to me. I snuffed my old one out and took one of the fancy matches from the box and lit it, first try, on the scratching-stone beside the box.

I sucked and puffed until it was well and truly alight. Evis waited until then before speaking.

“I rode down to the Old Wall. Same place you did, I understand. Busy place. Soldiers milling around. Officers thicker than flies at a funeral. Do you know what I did, Markhat?”

“Ran over the first lieutenant you saw?”

“I walked right up to the man in charge. I identified myself only as Evis Prestley of House Avalante. I ordered the man to assign fifty of the troops guarding the street onto the scaffolds so they could lay bricks. I ordered another twenty-five to assist with the mixing of mortar.” Evis took a long draw. “Can you guess what happened next?”

“Before or after he ordered you beaten to a bloody mess?”

Evis shook his head.

“He complied. With each and every instruction. Without question. Without hesitation.”

“You’re joking.”

“I am not. Un-uniformed, un-credentialed and outranked, I gave a series of orders. Orders which were immediately followed. I suspect you could do the same.”

“What the Hell?”

Evis waved his cigar. “Why were we drafted into the Corpsemaster’s army?”

“Because she’s a capricious monster who thought it was funny?”

“Possibly. Or partly. But consider this. We have apparently been given authority far in excess of our assigned rank. We were inducted, but not deployed. Indeed, we have been given no orders of any kind—is that so?”

“So far, that’s true. What are you thinking?”

“Politics. Finder. Even the Corpsemaster has obligations. Allegiances to maintain. New alliances to forge. Enemies to quell. Friends to placate.”

“Victims to torture. Corpses to steal. I get that. She’s a busy old spook.”

“The cannons. The gunpowder. Developed in secret. The war, kept secret thus far. What does that suggest?”

I took a puff and longed for beer. “I just assumed she was keeping the cannons to herself. Wand-wavers don’t like to share their toys. Especially the toys that make magic obsolete.”

“True. But what if one or more of Rannit’s other wand-wavers is working with Prince? What if the Corpsemaster is working alone because she is the Regent’s last ally?”

I took that in.

“Beer would be nice.”

Evis pressed the thing behind his desk that summoned a servant and a bucket of ice-cold beer.

“That would put us on the wrong side of some very nasty people.”

Evis nodded in the dark. “Indeed.”

The beer came. We cradled our bottles and drank in silence for a bit.

“So why bring us in? The Corpsemaster hardly lacks for bodies, warm and otherwise.”

“I wondered that too. Until last night. Now it seems obvious.”

“I’m afraid it’s not obvious to half the room,” I said. “Take pity on the unschooled finder, and spell things out for him, will you?”

Evis drained his beer. “It’s like this. She hasn’t given us orders because she doesn’t want to know what we’re doing. Because if she knows, maybe somebody else does too. We’re dealing with wand-wavers here. You and I know there’s no telling what kinds of things they get up to.”

“So we’re to operate outside her camp because, despite all the precautions she’s taken, you think someone on the inside is working for Prince?”

“Working for Prince. Working against the Regent. Working for the highest bidder. Doesn’t matter to us. We’ve been given the means to upset everyone’s apple-cart, at least once, and I think she expects us to do something so clever that even she’s surprised by our wit.”

I drained my beer. “And what, pray tell, would that mighty feat be?”

“No idea whatsoever. I figured all that out. It’s your turn to stop the war.”

“Going to need more beer.”

“Cutting you off after that one. Military decorum, you know. Can’t have our
esprit de corps
coming out of a bottle.”

I blinked.

“You’re serious.”

Evis nodded. “I am.”

“You think the Corpsemaster wants us to win the war. Us. You and me. All by ourselves.”

“I think she wants us to do whatever it is she can’t do.”

“Which is?”

“That’s what we’ve got to figure out. Here. Look at this.”

He reached into the shadows at the end of his desk and twisted the neck of a lamp. Light flared, revealing the map spread over the entire right-hand side of his enormous oak desk.

Rannit was at the south end of the map. The Brown River bisected Rannit and ran the length of the map, all the way up to Prince.

Evis stabbed Prince with his bony fingertip.

“Word is they’re sending four hundred barges. Each loaded with twenty-two cannon, seven man crews, and enough ammunition for five hundred volleys.”

“That’s eight thousand, eight hundred cannon.” I frowned as I multiplied. “Fired four and a half million times.”

“Give or take, yes. With forty thousand infantry marching along the Brown as escort, who are in turn supported by at least three wand-wavers. If my information is correct, that would be the Storm, the Quiet Man, and Mother.”

I knew the names. They were Hisvin’s equals, if not her betters.

“How good is your information?”

“Very good. The House has been watching this situation for some time.”

“Forget their cannons. Does the Corpsemaster have a chance against those three?”

Evis shrugged. “Hard to say. Storm is getting on in years. We hear the Quiet Man went daft after the Truce. We know Mother nearly bought it during the War when Hisvin dropped a mountain on her. And there’s always the chance the wand-wavers will only stick together until they see a weakness in one another. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went at each others’ throats on the march here.”

“We can hope.”

“We’d better do more than hope.” Evis leaned over the map. I did the same. “You know anything about barges, finder?”

“Worked a couple of summers on the docks as a kid. Barges are slow. They don’t steer worth a damn. They stink. Any of that help?”

“Four hundred barges, finder. I’ve never been up north. How wide is the Brown, most of the way?”

“Wide and shallow. You’ll see barge masters run five or six abreast, some places. Single file, others. ” I frowned. “Are these Gantish barges, Evis? Or the ones they use up above Prince?”

“They’re not Gantish. We checked. They spent last year building them about twenty miles north of Prince.”

“Then you can’t sink the damned things, Evis. Gantish barges, maybe, because they have hulls and decks. But not these northern barges. Most of them are nothing but three layers of logs planed down and banded together with iron and chain. They don’t sink, and they won’t burn.”

Evis nodded, his white eyes distant.

I rose. I knew Evis’s office well enough to pace it in the dark.

“And they’re flanked by an army.” Something in a display case flashed at me. “With arcane support.”

“Some would call that unassailable.”

“Which is why the Corpsemaster isn’t attacking the barges.”

“Possibly. Or perhaps she knows there isn’t time to move men and material to a suitable ambush location.”

I halted close enough to see the map.

“They’ve got one shot at this, don’t they?”

“One, and one only. If they don’t take Rannit quickly, they’ll be bankrupt and unable to pay their troops or resupply their cannon. The principals have each committed their personal fortunes to this, as well as emptying Prince’s coffers. I suspect the Regent and the Corpsemaster are in similar straits. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. But maybe we’re thinking too big. We can’t sink the barges, or burn them out, or take a whack at the troops. You agree with that?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“But maybe we can delay them. Keep them hemmed up. Make them bleed money. How long can they pay the troops?”

“I’ll have to inquire as to the specifics. I suspect no more than a matter of weeks. What are you thinking?”

“The Battery. Remember where Hisvin showed us her toys?”

“I do. What of it?”

“Those big holes in the ground? The ones that used to be buildings?”

“I believe she said those sites were the result of accidents. Accidents involving the gunpowder, which is unstable during production.”

“We can’t get enough cannon up there soon enough to just blast away at them. Even if we did, the wand-wavers would knock them down. I see that. But Evis. This place.” I put my finger on a squiggle in the River, about two-thirds of the way from Prince to Rannit. “Sheer high bluffs. The River narrows to a spot barely wide enough for two barges to pass. I know we can’t get cannon up there—but what if we just dumped a couple of wagons of the gunpowder on the bluffs and lit it and ran like Hell? If we could knock the top off the bluffs, we might make the River impassable, at least until they spent a month hauling rocks out of the mud.”

Evis pondered that.

“Merely dumping powder onto the bluffs wouldn’t work,” he said. “But powder inserted into shafts drilled into the bluff-faces…”

A nagging thought struck me. “Of course, if that was such a good idea, Hisvin would have already done it.”

Evis lifted an eyebrow. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Because if her plans to block the bluffs became known, our foes might take steps to secure the bluffs before we arrive.”

“Looks like they’d do that anyway.”

“Not if they believe Rannit is drawing all its efforts toward a confrontation at the city walls. And not if by some miracle they are oblivious to the extent to which the Corpsemaster has mastered the art of explosive manufacture.”

“That’s a lot of ifs.”

“And not enough beers.” He produced another pair of bottles from the bucket, and glared at his map as though he could force it to surrender and save us all a world of trouble. “Tell me more about these bluffs. Are they limestone or granite?”

By midnight, the bucket was empty.

But our map was covered in scribbles and scrawls.

It was late when Evis kicked me out so he could run downstairs and convince his bosses that spending a fortune now to blow up a pair of cliff faces might save them several fortunes in the days to come. So late that I didn’t bother asking to see Gertriss, who I hoped was asleep in a big soft bed.

I went home, once again in a shiny black Avalante carriage. Curfew had fallen hours before, leaving the streets quiet and the windows dark. A crescent moon peeped between high, fast-moving wisps of clouds, not quite bright enough to cast any shadows.

I heard the sound of hammers in the distance, and knew why they were falling, why the men were working. I wondered how many hammer-blows of hard work would be undone by a single cannon firing. Then I imagined eight thousand cannons firing upon Rannit, and I envied the Moon her station so far above our troubles.

I had the carriage drop me five blocks from home. I waited until it was gone before I broke from my place in a deep well of shadows and began to walk.

On foot, the street was not nearly as silent. I heard the odd voice raised inside the shuttered buildings about me. Somewhere near, a trio of drunken Curfew-breaking revelers hooted and barked in song. A lonesome tomcat cried out, and went unanswered, and I wondered if Three-leg was ever coming home.

Two blocks from home, I stopped, watching and listening. If anyone was following me they were wearing felt-soled boots. I let the silence linger, and then I crossed the empty street and ducked into another pool of shadow.

Ahead was old man Eaton’s barber pole. The red spiral was long gone, wiped away by the sun and the rain and Eaton’s legendary miser’s fist.

The wind shifted. On it rode the stink of Mama’s hex-brew.

I’d dabbed the barber’s pole earlier. Which meant someone with murder in his heart had passed this way since then, headed for my door.

I took a moment to rearrange certain accoutrements. Toadsticker found his way into my right hand. The brass knuckles slipped around the knuckles of my left. My knife moved from my boot to Sticker’s empty scabbard. I buttoned up my dark coat and pushed my hat down and worked my way from shadow to shadow, heading home.

I finally hit Cambrit. I peered around a corner long enough to see my door. It wasn’t aflame. There was no one on the street, no one lurking in any spot I would’ve chosen to lurk.

But I smelled the stink, strong and steady, and I knew damned well he was out there.

So I waited.

You’d be surprised how hard just waiting can be. Especially when you’re waiting for trouble. After a while, the urge to charge in and do something, do anything, becomes almost unbearable.

I’d seen that urge get too many men killed during the War.

I made myself comfortable. I shifted my weight from knee to knee. I concentrated on my breathing. I let time pass, let it act as my silent ally.

An hour passed.

Another.

Finally, right after the tired moon set, my hidden friend gave in to impatience.

He’d been hiding in the narrow alley beside Mr. Bull’s place. That alone showed he wasn’t bright. That’s a dead end, a shallow three-walled coffin with no way out.