Goddess Worldweaver

4
The Prussian

Though his death had occurred more than forty years ago, Fritzi Koeppler stood on his command deck and remembered the moment as if it had been just last week. Circumstances could not have been more different: then, he fought on a horse; now on a boat. Then he had joined a great army battle, part of a clash between two prideful and nationalist leaders; now he raced toward a sea fight, battling for the destiny of all creation.

Nevertheless, as he led his flotilla of more than three hundred druid boats, his mind inevitably turned to that other fight, his last battle-indeed, his last experience of any kind-upon the world of his birth.

He had been a minor leader in the hierarchy of a mighty army, his command a battalion of crack Prussian cavalry troops. Together with hundreds of thousands of men and hundreds of lethal cannons, he had gone to make war upon France.

He had enjoyed heady success during the start of the campaign, in the summer of 1870. Under the command of King Wilhelm I and the able leadership of General Moltke and his modern, efficient general staff, the Prussians and their Germanic allies chased the hapless French back from the border with dazzling attacks through Strasbourg, Nancy, and Metz. Finally the invaders trapped the enemy force, more than 200,000 strong, within a bend of the river Meuse, at Sedan. There would be no escape for the army of Napoleon III: even a humiliating crossing into neutral Belgium would be the equivalent of unconditional surrender. So the French would stand; the Germans, attack.

The heavy Krupp guns pounded relentlessly, lethal shells plunging into packed ranks. Fritzi could still feel, smell, hear his own mare, the big horse prancing and snorting under the noise of the bombardment, eager to charge. She was a powerful creature, black and sleek and vibrant, and he longed to unleash that power. He watched shells whistle overhead, witnessed the obliteration of breastworks, fortifications, and men.

The French fought with courage, the thumping cadence of their heavy, primitive machine guns, called mitrailleuses, chattering in the background of the barrage. These innovative devices were mounted upon two-wheeled frames, like light artillery pieces, and fired a rapid fusillade of bullets through a series of rotating barrels. Many Prussians had fallen to the deadly fire, but the weapons were mostly useful for harassing skirmishers; they seemed to have little place on the field of an epic battle. Truly, the new weapons were no match for crunching, well-organized artillery.

But guns alone would not decide this battle, and so the cavalry moved up in the time-honored fashion. The French formations were badly battered, clearly weakened and ready to break. Closing his fist around the hilt of his saber, Fritzi looked at the ragged lines, the infantry battalions torn and gashed by the fire, and his heart pounded with excitement. The horses would cut through those ranks, the enemy army would break, and the war could be won-all with one epic charge. After a lifetime in the saddle, he knew there could be no better way to decide the affair.

His mare shared his excitement, snorting and kicking, restless in the close formation. All along the battalion’s lines equine nostrils flared, hooves stomped, and manes blew in the wind. Then came the signals: pennants up, horns braying, the huge animals advancing at a walk, a trot, surging into a canter. The ground itself seemed to tremble under the impact of many thousands of hooves. Finally the steeds broke into a gallop, thundering across the field, the surge of attack drowning out all other sensations. French cannons fired sporadically, shells that screamed past or, occasionally, exploded among the lines of men and steeds. The bloody gaps in the cavalry ranks quickly filled, elite troops merging to tighten ranks, still maintaining the frenzied momentum of the charge. Already some of the enemy troops fled, panicking in the face of death; Fritzi’s lip curled in disdain of this shameful cowardice.

Now the French troops stood visible before them, in line formation-they had not even formed the squares that were the traditional defense against such a charge. Fritzi leaned low, murmuring words of encouragement into the mare’s laid-back ear. A few small guns stuttered here and there, the squat and toylike mitraillueses opening up as the charging cavalry came closer.

And then a strange thing happened. Those little chattering guns began to sweep their fire-streams of mere bullets, not the explosive shells of true artillery-across the front of the Prussian horsemen. Men and mounts fell in gory tangles, bodies forming an instant breastwork, breaking the tight ranks. Some of the trailing horses leaped the fleshy rampart, only to perish in the continuing volleys; others tripped and stumbled through the chaos of suffering, thrashing flesh. Still those pesky little guns fired, barrels smoking as they spun through their rotating cylinders. Everywhere horses were rearing and kicking, men were falling, and both mounts and riders were dying.

The charge was not merely broken but utterly shattered. The realization came to Fritzi as he lay on the ground, his broken leg pinned by the weight of his dead horse: warfare had changed, changed fundamentally and forever. He was saddened and ashamed, for it seemed that all glory had been taken from this most glorious of pursuits. It was not long before the French infantry came forward, bayonets glittering, and Fritzi lacked the strength or the will to reach to his belt and draw his side arm. Everything was sad and wasted, and for what kind of world?

At the last, when a razor-sharp bayonet plunged through his throat, he was ready to die.

“You were thinking of that day again, Sedan? Were you not?” Reza asked the question directly, his brow furrowed with concern. The big Persian sat at the tiller, the wooden bowl in his lap as he effortlessly rotated the windspoon with his free hand. The gust he cast swirled upward, filled the sail, propelled the boat with all the power-and none of the noise or smoke or heat-of a good-sized steam engine.

“Yes,” Fritzi answered, shaking his head as if to physically break free from the reverie. He could see the white sails, the blue sky, the sun-dappled water. Ahead, on the horizon, the darkness of the armada lay like a stormy murk. With that glance, and the smell of the fresh, salty air, he returned to all the truths of this place and this day. “You know, that was my last battle… until now. When Gretchen summoned me to Nayve, I allowed myself to believe that my days of war were over. But now…” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the dark, stormy fleet.

Reza nodded, his dark skin growing smooth as his expression became more peaceful. “Today looks to be a battle that will make them all, from Salamnis to Traflagar, seem but skirmishes.”

Fritzi clapped the druid on the shoulder, feeling the familiar camaraderie of the warriors’ brotherhood. It made little difference that now his comrades were sailors, not horseman, that they came from all over Earth and Nayve instead of just the Germanic states… and that he in fact counted very many sisters among that brotherhood. He looked over the gunwale, across the span of white sails fluffed with wind, and he thought of the brave druids, sailors, and soldiers on the small vessels. Every one of them was ready to fight, and he realized with a sense of surprise that he, himself, was ready to die again, if it came to that. In this place, for this cause, he would allow himself no regrets.

“You will need to spin me a tornado, my friend, in order to catch up to my boats,” he remarked dryly.

“And I am ready for that, warrior,” said Reza. “Shall we go after them, a mother hen chasing her chicks?”

“Aye. And no need to strain either your arm or our canvas. I think that the armada will be waiting for us, whenever we arrive.”

The sea was shrouded in darkness, though full daylight reigned over the world of Nayve. The armada extended in all directions, individual sails blending into smoky cloud at the farthest distance. They spanned the breadth of an entire sea, sweeping toward the shore, darkening the waters and sky with a murk half real and half imagined. The ebony sails were smoky clouds wafting above polluted wave crests, and a stench of carrion was borne by the breeze, creeping toward the shore.

If there was any sense of formation to the mass of ships, it was not made clear by observation. Instead, they came as a swarm, neither in rank nor file, simply dark-timbered hulls churning through waters that seemed to recoil from the planks as if in revulsion. The fleet was at least as wide as it was deep, with a few sleek vessels drawing away from the vanguard in an undeniable hurry to reach the virgin shore.

The armada was propelled by a storm that seemed to swell in fury as the vessels moved closer to the trembling shores of Nayve. Imagined clouds grew real, and illusory darkness fell like a cloak of twilight as the sun, even in the midst of day, failed to penetrate the escorting vapor of murk. Harpies flew out from the land in great, shrieking clouds, to swirl and cavort through the plumes of smoky befoulment.

In contrast to the shapeless, natural force of the armada, the Metalfleet of Nayve sallied forth in three distinct wings. Each numbered more than three hundred vessels and advanced under full sail in a series of squadrons, twenty or thirty vessels strong. They made a great force in their own right but seemed impossibly small when measured against the vastness of the armada.

The first wing of Nayve’s boats, commanded by the Prussian Fritzi Koeppler, took the lead and stayed the closest to shore. The second, under the Englishman Rudolph, trailed the first by only a short distance, forming up within sight of Koeppler’s sails off the port quarter, somewhat farther out to sea. The third wing was commanded by the Sioux warrior Crazy Horse, and it held farther back and took a course that carried it beyond the sight of land.

Natac could see them all as he once again rode the natural saddle on the back of the great dragon. He could see the Worldfall, more than a hundred miles away in the direction of null, still plunging downward, and he couldn’t help but fear the many vast forces arrayed against his small, green world. From high above they watched the deadly dance of war. They would not remain observers: Regillix Avatar had already consumed the incendiary pellet of saltpeter and limestone that would allow him to belch forth great gouts of fire. Natac was cloaked in a suit of supple leather, including gauntlets over his hands and a mask that concealed most of his face. The material had been imbued with a magical protection by the sage-enchantress Quilene, so that it would protect his flesh from the fiery assaults of the harpies, whose recent arrival over the armada had not come as a complete surprise.

But neither would the lofty pair commit themselves in the first skirmish. Instead, they would watch and wait and strike where they could do the greatest good. For fifty years they had been patient, planning and learning and preparing for this. Natac reflected on that time, on the evolution of this plan, and he still wished they had more time-that the armada had never turned toward Nayve at all.

For decades, the Fourth Circle’s reconnaissance of the enemy fleet had been remote, conducted by sage-enchantresses using Globes of Seeing to watch the black ships. Eventually Regillix Avatar had flown forth, without a rider, for a direct look. The great serpent had swept close above the ghostly ships, learning that the vessels were made of timbers that could snap and buckle just like normal wood. The decks were crowded with ghost warriors who had fired arrows that proved to be real enough to prick skin and pierce flesh. The crewmen were garbed as legionnaires or Vikings, Zulu warriors or veterans of the American Civil War; lately their numbers had been swelled by great corps of Germans, French, Russians, British, and others slain in the Great War that racked the European continent.

As the armada moved closer to the Nayvian coast in later years, Natac-protected as now by a suit of enhanced leather-flew with the giant dragon, observing firsthand the armada he was determined to defeat. They swept close past the ships, enduring volleys of arrows shot from bows and crossbows. They also saw ranks of pikes, swords, and shields, but, thankfully, encountered no firearms among the invaders, nor even any spring-powered weapons comparable to the designs invented by the dwarf, Karkald. Nevertheless, the sheer number of the black ships and the utter lack of fear displayed by the ghost crewmen, were proof enough that the campaign, when it began, would be a desperate affair.

On land, that numberless horde would be like a tide, and Natac doubted that any army in the history of the Seven Circles would be able to effectively resist the attack. Therefore, the greatest hope of success meant that they would have to destroy much of the attacking force while it was still at sea. Violent experiments had shown that the ghost warriors could be wounded, could burn, and could drown just as mortal men. For decades that fleet had remained far from Nayve’s shores, out of reach of the land’s defenders. But for all that time, Natac had known beyond any doubt that this attack was inevitable; he had only lacked knowledge of the place and the time of the onslaught. Now, with the great turn toward land, the Deathlord at last had revealed his hand.

It took all of Natac’s patience to hold his position, leaning outward to peer past the great, scaly shoulder, observing the closing of the mighty fleets. The waiting was over, and he knew that he watched the commencement of the greatest naval battle the Seven Circles had ever known.

Ivan Dzrystyn was born a Cossack, raised to ride across the steppes of the Ukraine. Only two years earlier he had led a band of howling warriors against the Germanic barbarians who had invaded his homeland. Loyal to his czar and courageous beyond all reason, he had led a charge against entrenched machine guns. His shock, when he had found himself in Nayve, subjected to the sensual ministrations of a beautiful, brown-skinned druid named Sari, had quickly been replaced by a fervent enthusiasm to wage war for this new cause-a cause that rendered all of Earth’s wars, by comparison, into trivial squabbles.

Sari was with him now, spinning a powerful wind in the cockpit of their sleek sailboat, the Kiev pulling them slightly forward of the rest of Fritzi Koeppler’s wing, leading all the vessels of Nayve as the immense battle was joined. The Cossack smiled, a fierce grin splitting his flowing black beard as he realized that he would have the honor of striking the first blow in the defense of his new homeland. He crouched in the bow behind the weapon that looked like a large, primitive crossbow, but it was not at all primitive, as Ivan had discovered in mock combat.

“Faster, Sari!” he shouted. “Don’t let the bastards get in front of us!”

Wind exploded past as she heeded his call, and the Kiev leapt forward, a flying fish seeking to gain purchase in the air. They coursed past the bows of the first death ships, with those black sails looming high, still a mile away to port. Black clouds rose above those ships like tactical thunderheads, while a froth of brown water churned ahead of the enemy vanguard, a small tsunami surging in escort of the befoulment. In the opposite direction, just a fringe on the starboard horizon, the coastline of Nayve lay in wait.

“That one,” muttered Ivan, seeing one of the black-hulled ships surging into the lead, marking a course that would take it across his bow. Turbulence frothed in a wide V from the prow, and the small sailboat rose up as it struck the foaming crest. Ivan felt the boat rock up and over the wave, then lurch violently in the rough waters beyond. A thick miasma choked his nostrils, like the stink of a charnel house, but he fought the instinct to gag as he held on to the weapon and tried to draw a bead. He crouched behind the steel battery, hand on the trigger as he aimed at the enemy vessel’s broadside.

The Cossack glanced at the missile in the slot of his weapon, the metal shaft shining with a silvery glint, though Ivan’s reflection looked dark and murky in the strange twilight. The steel head was sharp and barbed, like a monstrous harpoon, while the tail of the shaft was feathered with bright plumes to insure the accuracy of its flight. Most unusual of all were the four vanes, thin triggers of aluminum, which jutted perpendicularly from different locations on the shaft. These were the burners-at least, that’s what the dwarf had called them-and when they were bent by impact, the shaft of the missile would supposedly ignite into a dramatic fireball. It had been tested on targets with satisfying results but never before used in war.

It pleased Ivan that he would be the first to discover if the device really worked.

The death ship before him was tall and wide in his sights, perhaps a half mile away now. He noted that the craft had three masts, each with three or four black sails aloft; in shape, it was not very different from the largest sailing vessels that he had seen on the Black Sea or making way up the Bug toward the city that was his sailboat’s namesake.

His introspection quickly gave way to the need for action, as the target seemed to grow to vast proportions before him. He pulled the trigger, felt the metallic twang as the powerful spring sent the steely arrow hurtling forward. The missile flew gracefully, and it seemed as though time slowed enough for him to enjoy every detail: the bristling vanes, sparkling wickedly in the pale sunlight, rotated smoothly as the feathered tail kept it on a true course. Climbing slightly-he had aimed high to adjust for the long range-the steel shaft curved gently through the top of an arc and angled downward, striking the death ship exactly in the center of the hull.

The arrow disappeared through the planks, and Ivan blinked in astonishment, unable to discern whether or not it had even made a hole in the black surface. Had it failed? In the next instant, he was rewarded by a flash, white light outlining the middle of the ship. Smoke puffed upward, followed by a blossom of orange flame roiling outward, followed by pieces of hull and deck erupting into the air, propelled by the violence of the explosion. There was a moment of eerie silence, and then Ivan flinched under the guttural impact of a loud boom. Crackling flames engulfed the entire center of the death ship, and the mainmast toppled away, dragging rigging and sails to the water in a tangle.

Ivan heard Sari’s triumphant shout mingling with his own hoarse cry, but there was no time for celebration. Immediately he set about reloading the mighty bow. Choppy seas made the task difficult, but he was aided by a small crane as he lifted another shaft from the hold and finally laid it in the firing track. Before him the stricken death ship careened to the side, fire spreading rapidly until the entire deck was alight, sails still aloft going up like crackling torches. By the time the Kiev swept past, the burning ship was listing, and black shapes, some of them afire, were spilling off the deck, dropping to the water, where they disappeared into the depths.

“It’s true what the Mexican said: even ghosts can drown,” the Cossack observed with satisfaction and a certain amount of surprise. A look behind showed him that the rest of the First Wing came on in full sail. Many other druid ships were launching their missiles, and other vessels in the armada erupted into flame before him and to port. Ivan picked out another target, closer this time, and fired a lethal shot into the belly of the black hull. Arrows darted toward him, hissing through the air and thumping into Kiev’s deck. The smell of carrion was even thicker now, making it very difficult to breathe.

Seeing three or four death ships surging before and aft, Ivan loaded his next shot as a canister, two dozen spheres filled with incendiary explosives nestling in the breech. With smooth gestures he cranked back the spring and launched the spray of metal balls, many of the weapons striking along the side of a hull looming barely a hundred yards away. As Sari steered him past, that ship reeled and groaned under the onset of six or eight small fires, blazes that quickly spread to engulf the entire hull.

But now they were in the midst of the enemy fleet. The druid steered with consummate skill, spinning her wind and guiding the tiller at the same time, pushing Kiev through a narrow gap between two looming black ships. More arrows whistled toward Ivan, and he grunted in pain as one of the missiles bit into his shoulder. There was a third death ship beyond, and they could not get past; instead, the little sailboat bumped hard into the ebony hull. Sari fell, pierced by a dozen barbed arrows as she cried out his name.

Hit by another black shaft, Ivan stumbled but still managed to draw his sword as he saw the ghosts coming down at him, mouths gaping but silent. One, in the garb of a Roman legionnaire, fell to the deck following a single slashing blow, Ivan’s blade cutting ghostly substance just as it would have carved into human flesh. But he could not recover in time to block the next attack, delivered by a bayonet on the end of a long, rifled musket by a shrouded warrior who wore a tattered uniform of an American army of the 1860s. The shadowy blade pierced the Cossack’s guts, and he fell, grunting in agony. The last sound he heard was Sari’s scream as a pair of swarthy Mongols set upon her with smoking, lethal blades.

“The First Wing is meeting with some success,” said Regillix Avatar, curling his neck around to cast a glance at Natac.

“Yes,” the warrior agreed, looking down in awe. The murk over the armada was darkened further by plumes of thick smoke spewing up from spots of bright orange flames. A hundred or more of the sinister ships had been wrecked in the first clash. “Better success than I could ever have hoped. Look at those black hulls burn!”

“It is time for us to attack, as well,” the dragon murmured, and Natac could only slap the hard scales in agreement.

“Be careful,” he whispered, as Regillix tucked his wings. The great body plummeted through the air, angling toward the front of the armada, beyond the leading boats of Fritzi’s wing. Natac saw one of the white-sailed boats smash into a death ship’s hull, wincing as tiny ghost warriors scrambled across the doomed Nayvian vessel. How many would die today? He couldn’t even try to imagine.

The clouds were thick and swelling to all sides, obscuring Natac’s view of the sky. The dragon leaned forward, sweeping under the thick smear of smoke. Then the air was filled with shrieks, and harpies by the dozens swarmed out of the murk above the armada. The dragon belched a great fireball, incinerating a score of the hateful flyers, but many more swept past, spitting gobs of oily fire that spattered on Natac’s leather armor and seared the dragon’s tender wings.

“Look out-to the right!” called the man, as a hundred or more of the haglike attackers dived from the concealment of a neighboring cloud. Still more of the creatures were swarming ahead of them, swirling through tight spirals, waiting for the proper time to attack.

The dragon twisted in the air, and Natac held on with both hands. He felt the heat as another great fireball erupted from the crocodilian jaws. Then the serpent banked away, veering around to leave the harpies behind, pulling for altitude and the clean air beyond the armada.

Their attack would have to wait.

Fritzi Koeppler stood upon the observation deck, a narrow platform raised ten or twelve feet over the deck of his sailboat, the Kaiser. He had admired the Cossack’s attack and noted the effectiveness of the fire weapons against the death ships. Now his responsibilities afforded him no time to grieve for the warrior or his druid as their impetuous rush carried them to doom within the armada.

“Raise the flag for a line formation-we’ll give them a volley!” he shouted down to the deck. His signaler, an elfmaid from Barantha named Faerwind, swiftly ran the appropriate banner, a long, slender pennant of silver and blue, up the post.

As the commander’s flagship, Kaiser was a bit larger than the standard druid boat. For one thing, she bore two batteries, one facing off either quarter of the bow, and in addition to Reza, who so resolutely spun the wind in the cockpit, she was crewed by a dozen elves to aid with communication as well as man the batteries.

Now the druids throughout the First Wing took note of the formation. The ranks of the sailboats changed shape smoothly, the squadrons merging line abreast to cut across the front of the shoreward-bound armada. The Kaiser, as well as a few dozen straggler vessels, sailed behind the line, but more than 250 batteries were arrayed in a row, each sighted upon one of the dark, looming death ships.

“Send up the order for a volley!” cried Fritzi. Faerwind was ready with the prearranged signal, and with a touch of a torch sent a sputtering rocket shooting straight up into the sky. Red smoke spumed from the tail, and throughout the wing the warriors took note of the order.

The sailboats lurched all along the line, recoiling as they launched their steely bolts into the black ships. One of the dark vessels veered as its masts were clipped off, while another turned to evade the shot and collided with its neighbor. Fires started instantly, a few smoldering hulls quickly consumed, more and more of the ships smoking and burning as the incendiary missiles exploded and began to burn within their bowels.

Within half a minute the entire front of the armada was a mass of flaming wreckage. Some of the black ships, borne by momentum and the strong ocean wind, collided with the burning hulls, and hungry flames leapt from deck to hull to sail with crackling eagerness. Here and there a dark prow burst through the line, shaking off the scraps of burning debris, until a dozen death ships forged ahead toward the sailboats arrayed in such a tenuous line. The rest of the armada’s vessels roiled and came about behind the line of fire, resulting in dozens of collisions, hundreds of ghost warriors toppling from their decks, vanishing under the wave-tossed waters.

Overhead, black clouds seethed and churned, thundering loudly, sparking with bright flashes of lightning. Monstrous thunderheads billowed magically, rising into the sky, then erupting. Rain pounded downward, drumming on the decks of many of the burning ships, dousing some of the fires but steaming away from the worst of the blazes.

Like a great charge! Fritzi couldn’t help but make the comparison, even fleetingly wishing he had a bugle. “Go, my warriors!” he shouted. “Take the battle to them!”

Now the druids sighted on individual targets, the ships that had pushed their way through the wrecked vanguard. Several of these advancing vessels burst into flames, one struck by a half dozen of the fire-bolts at once, exploding violently in a cascade of burning timbers, sails, and crewmen.

Fritzi looked along the line, three or four miles long, and took heart from the damage the enemy had suffered. Many ships were sinking, while others burned to the waterline or spumed black smoke from unseen blazes deep within the hulls. Beyond the druid fleet, however, hundreds of dark ships surged around the fires, strong winds bearing them toward shore.

The Prussian looked back, knew that the enemy had much more strength in this armada, thousands of ships that could eventually work around the other side of the firewall to trap his wing against the shore. He remembered his last day on Earth, the great charge on the Meuse-and that was nothing compared to this fight for the future of the cosmos.

The targets were clear before him now, and he didn’t hesitate. He had lived in Nayve for forty-five years, and he understood that the stakes of this war were far higher than any battle waged in Flanders, Europe, or anywhere upon the Seventh Circle.

“Faerwind,” he called down from the tower, his voice calm. “Send up the flag for a general attack.”