There came a rattling of chains then a splash as the huge ship weighed anchor, positioned some twenty yards to the rear of the three ships with their slumbering giants. A single flaming arrow arced up from the deck of the great ship, trailing smoke as it fell into the water, and the giants spoke, the stubby arms springing forward with a great thrum, the stones they cast at first too fast to follow as they ascended high enough to make them appear like pebbles thrown by an angry child. They seemed to hang there against the sky for an age, as if frozen by the World Father in answer to the thousand prayers now ascending from the walls. But if so, His hand reached down for no more than an instant.
The first stone fell short, impacting on the bank with sufficient force to shake the wall beneath her feet and raising a waterspout high enough to bring rain to the battlements. The second flew over the wall, gouging some stonework from the inner battlement before crashing into the houses beyond, raising screams and the sound of hundreds of bricks falling onto cobbled streets.
The engineers servicing the third giant, however, clearly knew their business all too well. The massive stone sphere struck just below the rim of the west-facing wall, the force of it sending her reeling as rubble exploded from the impact. The stone rolled down the outer wall to thump into the bank below. Reva stared at the point of impact, expecting the cracks she could see in the stone to immediately widen and the whole section collapse. Instead the dust settled and the wall held.
She got to her feet, watching the giants pulling their arms back in readiness for the next throw, engineers busy around the contraptions as they adjusted their aim. Well, she thought. They have to go.
◆ ◆ ◆
This time she stood firm against Antesh’s threats of resignation, and also Veliss’s damp-eyed imprecations. “It has to be me,” she said simply, leaving the reason unsaid. No-one else can do it. He didn’t send anyone else against the Alpiran engines during the desert war—neither will I.
The boats were readied in the narrow channel through the north wall that provided access to river traffic. Fifty picked men in ten boats, piled high with oil pots and fire arrows. Like her, all were dressed in black with soot smeared over every inch of exposed skin and all blades tarnished to conceal their gleam. She found Arken at the prow of her own boat, sitting silently with his axe clamped in a two-handed grip. From the set of his shoulders it was clear removing him from the boat would require some considerable force.
“Hope you’ve kept it sharp,” Reva said, sitting down next to him and nodding at his axe.
“Doesn’t seem to matter,” he said. “Hit them hard enough and they fall over regardless.”
She pressed a kiss to his cheek, finding she couldn’t help but enjoy the flush that crept over his skin despite a pang of guilt. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. “Stay close to me.”
The boats were launched a short while after midnight. The sky was cloudy, sparing them any betraying moonlight as they struggled against the current, working the oars in heavily greased cleats to conceal the sound. They ploughed downriver for a hundred yards before angling towards the west and shipping the oars, letting the current do the work as they hunkered low in the boats. The engines continued their bombardment even at night, well lit with torches to allow the engineers to service their monsters. The low crump of stone striking stone a slow drumbeat as the helmsmen brought them ever closer.
Reva stood as the nearest ship came within range, arrow notched as she sought a target, finding a stocky man on the port side, pounding a mallet into some fixture on the engine. It was a poor attempt, the bob of the current and the forward movement of the boat throwing off her aim, but she did manage to sink the arrow into the engineer’s thigh. He gave a shout, falling to the deck as his comrades straightened from their work, frozen in surprise and easily made out in the torchlight.
“Up!” Reva shouted, notching and loosing once again. The other archers rose and loosed as one, the volley sweeping the engineers from the deck in an instant. The helmsman steered the boat to the ship’s side, three more crowding alongside as Reva gripped a rope and hauled herself aboard. The deck was covered in corpses and wounded, some severely, others not.
“Finish them all!” she barked, pointing the men with oil towards the engine. “Burn it!”
They got to work as she went to the starboard rail to watch the other boats assail the remaining engines. The archers were standing with bows drawn when the blasts of multiple horns arose from the surrounding water. The great shadow of the Volarian warship suddenly blazed with light, torches sparking to life from bow to stern, revealing a dense mass of archers crowding the deck and the rigging.
“Down!” she shouted, reaching for Arken. He gaped at the swarm of arrows now rising from the warship’s deck then dived to mask her with his greater bulk. The Volarian shafts sounded like a hailstorm as they covered the ship, Arken giving a shout of pain and collapsing onto her, bearing her down to the deck. She stared out from beneath his elbow to see four of her men pinned to the boards, pierced from head to toe. Arken grunted and tried to rise.
“The river!” Reva hissed.
Arken gripped her tight and rolled them both towards the port rail. He tumbled over as another volley descended, plunging straight into the river but she held on, wincing as the arrows smacked into the woodwork around her, one less than an inch from her left hand as it held to the rail. She paused to survey the deck, seeing no survivors amongst the men who had followed her to this ship, or the engineers they had come to kill. The engine, however, stood undamaged, gleaming from the oil with which it had been liberally spattered before the arrows fell.
Reva glanced down at the bow in her right hand, her thumb briefly tracing over the fine carvings. Sorry, Master Arren. She dropped it into the Coldiron and vaulted back onto the deck, snatched a torch from a stanchion and tossed it onto the engine, the lamp oil flaring immediately. She turned and dived over the rail, ears filled with the buzz of multiple arrows before the river’s chill claimed her. She kept under as long as she dared, feeling the warmth of her body seeping away as she struggled towards the city, surfacing to gulp air then diving under again. It seemed an age before she felt the reeds close around her, gripping the stems to haul herself from the water. She lay gasping on the bank for a long time, raising her head to watch the ship and the engine burning, its two brothers, however, stood undamaged. She could see bodies floating in the water, borne upstream by the current.
“Arken!” She forced herself to her feet, stumbling along the bank. “Arken!”
As if in mockery the two surviving engines both launched at once, their stones sailing out of the black void to crash into the wall above her head, forcing her to dodge the falling masonry. It fell onto the pile of rubble below the increasingly deep rent in the wall. It was not a huge barrier, but now it seemed like a mountain.
“She’s here!” came a shout from above. “Blessed Lady Reva lives!”
She looked up to see numerous pale faces staring down at her from the battlements, a growing chorus of adulation rising from the walls as word of her survival spread.
They think it a victory, she realised, casting her gaze at the river once more. The lights on the warship were blinking out one by one, the flaming engine still burning, but not so brightly, a phrase from the Book of Wisdom looming large in her mind: War makes fools of us all.
◆ ◆ ◆
Arken had been found close to the causeway, an arrow jutting from his back and senseless from cold and blood loss. She rushed to the healing house on being hauled onto the battlement by means of a long rope. The defenders had crowded round, voicing awed appreciation, sinking to their knees, some praying openly to the Father, most just staring. Suddenly she hated them, finding their desperate belief a disgusting betrayal of the sacrifice she had just witnessed. The Father did nothing! she wanted to rail at them. I am preserved by dumb luck. I hold no blessing. Look at the corpses floating in the river, I did that.
None of it could be voiced of course. They needed her to be blessed, needed to know the Father’s sight rested on this city.
Brother Harin was washing the blood from his hands when she got to the healing house. Arken lay face down on a table, his bare flesh bone-white save for the red rivulets streaming from the partly bandaged wound on his back. His eyes were closed, but she could see a soft flutter beneath his eyelids.
“Will he live?” she asked the healer.
“I expect so,” Harin replied. “Being young and strong as an ox.”
Reva collapsed in relief, slumping against the wall and sinking to the floor. No more tears, she reminded herself as she felt them welling.
Harin came to her with a blanket, gently pulling her upright and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Not good, my lady,” he commented, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Not good at all.”
He sat her by the fire, blanket about her shoulders, clutching a cup of something dark and steaming as he stitched Arken’s wound. “The city’s all abuzz with it,” he said, eyes fixed on his work. “Bringing the Father’s fiery justice to the heretics’ dread engines.”
“I doubt such sentiments are shared by you, brother,” she replied and sipped her drink, face wrinkling with instant distaste. “What is this?”