Water Sleeps

63

I had the men encircle the little fort. We carried torches and made no effort to sneak. Per instructions, Vigan carried the heaviest piece of bamboo. It had an interior diameter of three inches. He told me, "There's supposed to be only a couple, three balls left in this one."

"That ought to be enough. Right here should be fine." A good archer with a strong bow might cause us trouble but those were exceeding rare in modern Taglian armies. Mogaba was a warrior. He believed real men got in close, where they could get splattered with each other's blood when they fought. It was a blind spot we had exploited more than once during the Kiaulune wars and would exploit again until he figured it out.

Goblin shuffled into position behind us. Tobo did, too. They said nothing, which must have been a trial for the boy. He talked in his sleep.

"What do I do?" Vigan asked.

"Let them have one. Through the stonework right above the gate." Louder, I said, "Stand fast. Nobody do anything until I tell you."

The first two times Vigan turned his hand release crank, nothing happened.

"Is it empty?" I asked.

"It's not supposed to be."

Goblin advised, "Try again, then. It's been over ten years since it was used. Maybe it just needs to be loosened up."

I mused, "I'll bet nobody's bothered to keep the mechanism clean. And you folks wondered why I wanted to hire an armorer. Go ahead. Crank it again. Carefully, so you don't lose your aim."

Whack! Crackle-crackle-crackle-sizzle! into the distance. The fireball ripped right through the little fortification's two outside walls and whatever lay between them. Stone steamed and ran. The scarlet ball wobbled through the air for several miles more, gave up the last of its momentum, gradually darkened as it drifted to earth beyond the ruins of Overlook.

"Move to the left a few yards, drop your aiming point five feet, then do it again."

Vigan was having fun now. There was a bounce to his step as he moved to his new position. This time it took only one extra turn of the crank to get the fireball launched.

A blistering, lime-colored ball ripped through the fortification. It hit something significant inside. It had almost no energy left when it appeared on the far side.

A gout of steam blew out the top of the tower. "Must've gotten a water barrel," I said. Water and the fireballs made a wicked combination resulting in storms of superheated steam. "Suvrin, where are you?" Two fireballs should have gotten their attention inside, should have gotten the survivors to thinking. Now I could begin placing my shots. "Suvrin! Have you ever been inside that rockpile?"

The fat man came forward reluctantly. When he was close by me, his face was in the light. The garrison inside would remember him. He wanted to lie to me, too, I could see. But he did not have the courage. "Yes."

"What's the layout? It doesn't look like it could be that complicated."

"It isn't. Animals and storage on the ground floor. They can pile up stuff behind the gate so you can't knock it in. They live on the second floor. It's just one big room. There's a stove for cooking and pallets for sleeping and racks of weapons and that's about it."

"And the roof is basically just a fighting platform, right? Wait a minute, Vigan. Don't spend any more fireballs than we have to. Let them think for a while now. Maybe they'll give up. They know I didn't hurt Suvrin's men. Tobo, circle around and tell all the men that if they have to launch a fireball, we need it to go through the second level. Preferably low. They'll probably get down on the floor when death starts coming through."

"Can I shoot one of those things, Sleepy?"

"Get the message out first." I watched him scoot off. He did not expose himself unnecessarily. Faces could be seen occasionally behind the archers' embrasures over yonder. A couple of arrows had come out and fallen harmlessly. I told Goblin, "If anybody had been paying attention, we'd have the place mapped down to the last cot and table and we'd know exactly where to aim every fireball to get the best effect."

"You're absolutely right again. Just as you always are. Be quiet for a second. There's something going on here. Those men aren't as scared as they should be."

As he spoke, I glimpsed a face peeking over the parapet. A moment later the white crow plummeted out of the night. It knocked the leather helmet off the soldier.

I yelled, "Everybody wake up! They're about to pull something!"

Goblin had started muttering already. He was doing something odd with his fingers.

Men jumped up atop the little fort. Each had something in hand, ready to throw. A half-dozen fireballs squirted their way without my approval. One grenadier went down but not before he launched his missile.

Glass, I saw. Same type One-Eye had used to make firebombs, years ago. We still had a few of those, too. But throwing firebombs at us out here would be pointless. We were too far away to be reached.

"Aim low!" I yelled. "Shadows coming!" That was not a shout that had been heard for an age but it was one the veterans remembered and could respond to without ever thinking.

Goblin was already wobbling across the slope in as near a sprint as his old bones could manage, still muttering and wiggling his fingers. Pink sparks leaped between his fingers and slithered around amongst his few remaining hairs. He grabbed a skinny little bamboo pole from one of the men. It had been painted with black stripes, meaning that its dedicated purpose was use against shadows.

Fireballs flew. Some peppered the fortress. Some dove after the shadows that spilled out of the breaking glass containers. Suvrin began whimpering behind me. I told him, "Don't run. They'll get you for sure. They love a fleeing victim."

There was a lot of screaming inside the fortress. Fireballs streaking through had found human targets. In their way, the fireballs were almost as bad as the killing shadows.

One of my men began shrieking when a shadow found him. But he was the only one. Goblin's spell helped some. The quick use of fireballs helped more.

Goblin began loosing fireballs from the pole he had snagged but sent them racing northward instead of toward the stubborn little fort. He quit after only a few tries. He came back to me. "They've done their job, those brave boys in there. They got their warning away." He was as sour as a lemon slice under the tongue.

"So I take it Soulcatcher didn't die when she hit the water." I had heard the news from Taglios only up to the part where the Protector's carpet had fallen apart in midair, with her streaking along four hundred feet above the river. The break coming at that point had not been because anyone was trying to make things particularly dramatic, it was just because there was too much going on to have a lot of time left for catching up. Especially where Murgen was concerned. Murgen seemed to be employed full time easing Sahra's frights and concerns.

"She was one of the Ten Who Were Taken, Sleepy. Those people don't hurt easy. Hell, she survived having her head cut off. She carried it around in a box for about fifteen years."

I grunted. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Soulcatcher was much more than just an unpleasant, distant senior official. "They likely to have any more surprises in there?" I meant the question for Suvrin but Goblin answered.

"If they did, they would've used them. You thinking about going in after them?"

"Oh, heck no! Somebody might get hurt. Somebody besides them. Suvrin, go over there and tell them if they surrender in the next half hour, I'll let them go. If they don't, I'll kill them all before the hour is up."

The fat man started to protest. Vigan poked his behind with the tip of a dagger. I told Suvrin, "If they do anything to you, I'll avenge you."

"That's a big weight off my heart."

Goblin asked, "How are you going to avenge anybody? Considering you're not going to go in there after them."

"That's what we have wizards for. This looks like a wonderful opportunity for you to give Tobo some on-the-job training."

"Am I surprised? Not hardly. For a hundred years it's been, ‘What do we do now?' ‘I don't know. Let's let Goblin handle it.' I oughta just take a hike and let you figure it out for yourself."

"I'm tired. I'm going to sit down here and rest my eyes until Suvrin gets back."

I heard Goblin tell Vigan to put another heavyweight fireball into the corner of the fortification, along the length of the wall so all its energy would be spent devouring the pale limestone. There was a solid thump! swiftly followed by the smell of superheated limestone. As I drifted away, Goblin muttered something about burning them out.