World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (33 page)

“Good. You’re awake,” K’k’rt’s voice came from beside her. The old tinker settled himself in the dirt next to her, looking out at the battle. “Best view you’re likely to get.”

Madlin caught herself just before she corrected the goblin tinker. Rynn had the best view anyone could get; Cadmus very likely had one to match. But there was nothing to be gained telling K’k’rt that. “Yeah, well, pretty as it is, I’d like to see those little blue splashes
stop
.”

K’k’rt sighed. “Indeed. Both our lives here are at an end if those devices of yours don’t work.”

“They’ll work,” said Madlin.
Rusted little ingrates!
She scolded the guns.
Blast down that wall!

“It’s not working,” Cadmus said, pointing at the starlit wall of Raynesdark. Here and there, collections of goblins went up in flame as the sorcerers high atop the wall alternately cowered and lobbed destruction down into the mass of goblin flesh that swarmed up the road below them.

“Give them time,” said Jamile. “It looks like it’s weakening.” The blue ripples reverberated wherever one of the coil gun shots hit.

“Bah, you’re just imagining what you want to see,” Cadmus snapped. He adjusted the view frequently, shifting their vantage all around the battlefield, keeping a close watch on the integrity of the wall.

“This is incredible,” said Kaia, staring into the viewframe. She sat with Kupe and Greuder at a side table, sharing a bowl of candied chocolates.

“Sure are a pissload of them little buggers,” Kupe observed sagely, drawing a snort from Greuder.

Cadmus shook his head. “We need that wall to come down.  I’d rather the dragon be impressed over false pretenses than try to argue with it over production quotas and delivery schedules. Time for the backup plan. Battle stations!”

Jamile’s eyes shot wide. “What?”

Kupe, Kaia, and Greuder looked to one another with no hint of a clue among them.

Cadmus stood from the controls and stalked across to the controls for the other world-rippers, the ones that bracketed the ends of the room, beginning and ending the tiny chunk of tropical river that flowed through Korr’s moon. “Kaia, take the controls. Keep a sharp eye in case things go wrong. Greuder, put a hand on that lever … yes, that one right there,” Cadmus said, pointing. “Be ready to pull it when I give the signal.”

“Cadmus, what are we doing?” Greuder asked.

“Jamile, get on the controls of that machine,” Cadmus ordered, ignoring Greuder’s question. “Once we shut down the river, I want eyes on that wall from your viewframe.” He waited for Greuder to get into position. “All right … NOW.”

Cadmus and Greuder shut down their world-rippers simultaneously. The river sloshed in its artificial banks and turned into a shallow pond. There was no longer a flow into or out of the lunar headquarters.

“Ain’t we going to suffocate?” Kupe asked. “I thought we needed air from those.”

“Don’t worry,” Kaia told him. “We have enough air for a while.”

Cadmus was already spinning dials, sending the view in his world-ripper’s viewframe blurring past. There was no visual aim; he was working entirely by memorized coordinates, entering them as quickly as his hands allowed. When it stopped, most of the other occupants of the chamber were busy with other tasks. But not everyone.

“Lord Eziel, preserve us,” Greuder said, his voice hollow. There in the center of Cadmus’s viewframe, twitching around as the Mad Tinker fine-tuned the angle, was the cannon. They were staring down the three-foot diameter barrel of the World Ender Cannon, Version 1, as Rynn had dubbed it.

Jamile looked over her shoulder. “Cadmus! What are you doing?”

The Mad Tinker hopped down from the control console with a spyglass and a plumb line in hand. He hustled across to Jamile’s world-ripper, where she had paused somewhere over the western Kadrin Empire as she gaped across the chamber. “What does it look like we’re doing? Providing artillery support. Kupe, in that cabinet over there, get goggles and earmuffs for everyone.”

“Is that thing loaded?” Jamile shouted.

“Of course,” Cadmus said. “Where were you when the crane was filling the hopper?” He began taking measurements, sighting down the length of the barrel, which was lit by reflected moonlight from the Sea of Kerum. “Status, Kaia.”

“Nothing yet,” Kaia reported. “Still just splashing blue magic puddles against the side of the wall.”

“Cadmus,” Jamile said. “What if that thing misses? I’m not twelve feet from this viewframe.”

“It won’t miss.” He peered around to the front side of the viewframe, checking where Jamile had brought them. The view showed the battle from overhead, somewhere above the goblin encampment. “Good. Good. Now just move it into the wall, lined up and down the length.”

“Um, Cadmus,” Greuder said. “Are you sure this is the best idea?”

“Thank you, Kaia. I’ll take over from here,” Cadmus said as he jogged over to the primary world-ripper. “You go take the controls of the one opening onto the barrel.”

Kaia nodded, eyes wide, chest heaving. She was a good soldier though and did as she was ordered.

In moments, Cadmus had reoriented his own world-ripper to the other end of the World Ender Cannon. There was a console there, much simpler than the ones for the world-rippers. It was dominated by a large lever with a bright red grip. Cadmus opened the world-ripper, and the Korrish night air rushed into the lunar headquarters.

Kupe came back, arms piled with goggles and earmuffs. He scurried among the residents, handing them out to each of them. “Just, um, how loud’s this gonna be? We talking thunderail whistle? Pistol shot by your ear? What?”

Cadmus had his goggles on before he answered. “I have no idea.” He turned to Kaia and Jamile. “On my mark, open those world-holes.”

Cadmus stepped into Korr, to the console on the scaffolding below the
Jennai
, and flipped one of the smaller switches.

Klaxons blared, shattering the relative peace of the night aboard the
Jennai
. Rynn jumped in her seat, and Sosha hunched down and covered her ears at the sudden, deafening noise. The battle scene in the viewframe was momentarily forgotten.

“What the rusted, bloody bolts is going on?” Rynn shouted over the noise.

“Your father,” Sosha replied. “You might want to hold onto something.”

Rynn didn’t ask; she just grabbed hold of the control console with both hands. Just then, the ship lurched. There were groans and screams of tortured metal, and the floor tilted beneath their feet. A moment later, the sound stopped and the ship slowly righted itself.

“What just happened?” Rynn asked.

Sosha pointed to the viewframe. “Look.”

The wall of Raynesdark, which had been repelling everything Rynn’s coil guns had thrown at it, burst at the base like split wood. Splinters of rock blasted out into the ranks of onrushing goblins, and a furrow appeared along the wall’s base. It looked for all the world like some gigantic creature—or perhaps a three-foot diameter steel ball—had burrowed beneath its surface.

On a hilltop, west of the plains just below the Kadrin city of Raynesdark, and the old goblin’s heart skipped a beat. The ancient gods themselves had returned and had struck down the wall of the Kadrin city, the blow hammering like the thunderclap. He felt it in his chest, in his guts; it passed through him as it must have passed through everyone on the battlefield, human and goblin alike.

The pretty little echoes of aether, rippling out from where the walls rune-enhanced strength was tested, were no more. K’k’rt did not doubt that the shots were still being fired. The wall just had no more strength to resist them. The remnants of the wall hung together for some time, superior masonry causing the undamaged sections to function as a sort of arch, supporting the section whose base had been gutted. Under withering fire from the goblins below, that section—along with the rest of the wall, and the defenders beyond—fell not long after.

“What was that?” he asked.

Madlin shrugged. “We won.”

Cadmus stepped through the world-hole and back into the lunar headquarters. Pulling the switch, he shut them off from Korr once more. The chamber was filled with a cloud of Veydran rock dust, and the trough of water was littered with shards of granite, but the World Ender Cannon had blown most of the debris ahead of it.

“What … just … happened?” Greuder asked, coughing on the dust.

“Kaia, Jamile, get that river flowing again,” Cadmus ordered. “Then check back in on the battle and make sure there are no surprises.”

“No surprises, he says,” Kupe muttered.

Cadmus found a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and cleared himself a spot on the side table, pushing aside a dish of candied chocolates. He had revisions to make to the cannon.

Chapter 24

“Wars keep things interesting.” –Rashan Solaran

Servants bowed and stepped aside to remove themselves from Axterion’s way. The green-veined black marble halls depopulated ahead of him as rumor spread that he was in a stomping mood. Unfortunately for the aged High Sorcerer, the thick carpets ruined the effect of a proper stomp. The object of today’s stomp was oblivious enough that the he needed all the help he could get.

When he reached his destination, the halls were deserted. A moment’s view in the aether showed him a strong but slovenly ward protecting the door. Danilaesis’s handiwork, for certain. It was not, however, Danilaesis’s bedroom. Axterion was down in the servants’ wing of the palace, a place that was unused to guests of his importance. Guests of Danilaesis’s caliber appeared to be more common.

Undoing the ward was a trifling matter for someone who had been making and breaking them for over a hundred winters. A moment later, Axterion was pounding a fist on the door.

A startled yelp and hushed words, muted by the intervening door, were his only reply. Axterion could have peered into the aether, now that the ward was gone, and taken a quick count of the occupants of the door beyond. But the voices and his initial suspicions agreed that there were but two, and he left it at that.

“Get out here, you halfwit Seventh Rank,” Axterion shouted through the door. “There is a meeting in the Inner Sanctum, and against my better judgment, your presence is required.”

Axterion stepped back. Experience told him that there would be no response before the door opened. It was just the way this sort of thing went. He waited.

When the door peeked open, one of the younger gardeners emerged, a girl not much older than Danilaesis. She was barefoot, and her dress was crooked across her shoulders. As she tried to slip past, she looked to the floor, not even in the direction of Axterion’s feet. He caught her by the chin and stopped her, turning her face toward him and up.

“Look me in the eyes,” he ordered. The girl hesitated, but complied. “Wider.” She blinked, but forced herself to look at him with eyes wide as a doe’s. He let her go. “You’re fine. Go on and dress yourself properly. Whatever duties he relieved you of, consider yourself unrelieved.” Whatever means Danilaesis had used to bed her, he had not compelled her with magic.

The girl bowed and scurried away. Axterion watched for a moment, wondering how long it had been since he’d chased girls so young. A lifetime. Maybe two.

“So what’s the commotion that’s got you fetching me yourself like some messenger?” Danilaesis asked, pulling on a pair of trousers. “We weren’t done, you know.”

Axterion harrumphed. “I can only keep telling myself that you’ll grow out of it.” He pointed to one of the two bunk beds that took up most of the servants’ room. “Those things are sleeping quarters, not a training yard.”

“Why would I ever want to grow out of it?” Danilaesis asked with a grin. “I’m going to have to track her down later and make good on a few promises. I can’t go around sullying my name.”

Axterion sighed and looked up to the ceiling, if nothing else, to avoid watching his grandson dress himself. “You know, your father was much the same, and he grew out of it. Took a few wives, but they finally broke him of the habit. I’d blame him for the way you are, but the impudent drunkard would just blame me in turn.”

Danilaesis gave his grandfather a knowing look.
Dull as a spear tip, that one. Blast me, was I ever this much trouble?

“Come on,” Axterion grumbled as Danilaesis finished donning his proper attire.

“So, you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Yes. In the Inner Sanctum, along with everyone else. I might have more breath in these lungs than I did a season ago, but I don’t intend to waste it repeating myself to every wayward sorcerer who has to get himself fetched out of the servants’ wing.”

Axterion strode the palace halls without looking back. He knew Danilaesis followed him. The boy had many faults, but a lack of curiosity was not among them. They made their way to the Tower of Contemplation, at the northwest corner of the palace. Older than the rest of the structure, it was a habitat all to itself, with its own staff separate from the main palace, and bustling with sorcerers administrating the empire’s magical assets. A long, spiral set of stairs wound around the interior or the tower, stopping at landings that led off into libraries, laboratories, and lounges. A levitating platform was provided for the elderly and infirm among the tower’s visitors; Axterion used to be its primary rider. Now, reinvigorated with youth, he took pride in setting a punishing pace for his grandson up the stairs.

“You’re not going to make me fall behind, you know,” Danilaesis told him from a few stairs below.

“This isn’t a race,” Axterion replied without turning back. “There is work to be done, and important matters to discuss.”

“When was the last time the Inner Circle met for anything that mattered?” Dan asked. Axterion could picture the insipid smirk on the boy’s face.

“About an hour ago.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, a pair of tower guardsmen pulled back their halberds to allow Axterion and his grandson passage into the Inner Sanctum. It was all very formal and highly unnecessary. Had Axterion been a reformist, he would have done away with the guards, and shipped them off to one of the army battalions. But there was little enough continuity in the Kadrin Empire these days, so he left them in place.

The rest of the Inner Circle was already present. Danilaesis took a spot normally reserved for petitioners, at the center of the chamber, where the surrounding sorcerers, behind their elevated desks, could look down on him. He was joined by General Varnus and Empress Celia. The Inner Sanctum was the only place in the empire where she did not rule.

“Good,” said Axterion as he took his seat at the head of the circle of desks, opposite the door. “Dispensing with the pleasantries, let me be blunt … We are at war.”

“You think I didn’t know about Warlock Danilaesis and his raids?” Empress Celia asked, holding her chin high, trying to appear dignified from eight feet below the Inner Circle’s sorcerers.

“Of course,” replied Axterion. “We’ve been goading them. Everyone here knows it. But this is another matter entirely. The goblins have taken Raynesdark.”

“What?” several sorcerers of the Inner Circle cried out. There was chaos as a dozen questions flew around the room. One sorcerer tried to talk over the next, and even Empress Celia’s shrieking demands to be heard were drowned out.

One sound, discordant among the outrage, the confusion, and the fear, finally managed to draw the attention of the squabbling sorcerers. Danilaesis, Warlock of the Kadrin Empire, was laughing.

“Oh, you poor, unlucky bastards,” Danilaesis said when he gained enough control of himself to speak. “Forced to rely on your favorite target of torments to save you all. From now on, no more classes, no more getting dragged out of bed, no more rules about when and where I can keep my sword with me. I’m going to win your two wars; don’t fret yourselves stupid. This is going to be fun.”

Draksgollow sat around the table with a few of his new generals. They weren’t the rabble he’d hired, or former machinery operators who had been elevated out of loyalty instead of skill. The men who shared his meal were loyal to his new cause. Quotes in the newspapers, rumors in the right sort of public houses, Draksgollow had dredged up the malcontents among the militaries of Korr. Some had been dismissed for brutality; others were deserters from active duty. They shared one trait in common: they hated humans, and rebel humans most of all.

“To another successful purge,” Draksgollow toasted, raising his mug. Few kuduks had developed a taste for alcohol; it was a predominantly human vice. But when they were stolen from human scum, recently dead by their rifles, the taste was not the point. “May many more follow.”

“I gotta hand it to you, Drak old boy,” said General Bradet, a snarl-bearded former artillery sergeant with the 81
st
division of the Ruttanian army. “That contraption of yours is gonna make mushing these rebels to crack-fill a whistle in the tunnels.”

General Knorlen nodded from behind his mug. “Almost makes this vinegar drinkable.”

“You sure this ain’t piss?” asked General Yurgenn. “If I’d have been about to get rolled up under a tank’s wheels, I might piss in the barrels.”

One step above animals. Half a step above humans.
Draksgollow chuckled into his own mug, but not because he found Yurgenn amusing.
Still … right size wrench turns the bolt. Can’t be picky when hiring exterminators. Nice, polite fellas won’t take the work.

Draksgollow had spent his life among grimy men, men who didn’t let a little grease on their sleeves stop them from doing their jobs. Now he was moving on to a time where he needed men who felt the same way about blood: wash it off at the end of the day and put your feet up.

“Excuse me, sir,” one of the world-ripper technicians poked his head into the room, drawing scowls from the generals. He handed a clipboard to Draksgollow, piled with pages of scribbled notes. “Today’s reports.”

Draksgollow brushed it aside, refusing to take hold of it with his non-mug hand. Normally he’d have leafed through it himself, right then and there, but he had an image to craft. “Give me the short version.”

The technician shook his head. “Still no sign of him.”

The generals chortled at Draksgollow’s expense. “That daruu done stuck a rat in your pipes, ain’t he?” General Knorlen said.

“Can’t blame a fella,” Yurgenn replied. “I’d be steamed, too, if some old statue of a daruu nicked a machine like that. Surprised one of them relics knew how to turn the spark on.”

There was a laugh around the table at the daruu’s expense, and a few crude jests added in amidst the mirth. Draksgollow kept up his smile and played along. “There won’t be stone enough to hide behind once I find that rusted thief. I want my machine back before Kezudkan Graniteson makes it public and claims he invented it.”

King Dekulon stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a gesture Kezudkan hadn’t possessed the flexibility for in over a century. The elder daruu stood leaning on his cane, overseeing the installation of the pillaged world-ripper. The chamber was an oddity in the daruu kingdom—it was brand new. Freshly excavated and purpose-built to house the machine, it was the cozy stone hideaway that all Kezudkan’s other bases of operation had failed to become. It wasn’t just the workmanship of the octagonal chamber and its domed ceiling—though its form was flawless. It wasn’t the attention to detail, the minor embellishments in the stone, or the subtle flow of one feature to the next. No, it was the
feel
of the stone, the ancient, beloved companion of a civilization that knew it for what it truly was: the flesh of the world. The stone here knew Kezudkan accepted him as one of its children.

The world-ripper looked at home as well. The complex spark routing was hidden within steel cabinets, but the jumble of wires was hidden from view, run beneath the stone, which the artisans flowed over and around the conductive wires, insulating them more securely than anything Draksgollow’s kuduk workmen could have managed. The viewframe sat nestled in a stone cradle that fit it as close as paint. At the console, which was set into one of the walls, a stone chair melded with the floor, allowing the feeling of being tucked in the world’s embrace. It was sized to Kezudkan’s exact measurements, as a sign of respect for the device’s creator.