Shadowrise (48 page)

“I must beg your pardon,” Vansen told the others. “I simply cannot accustom myself to the way you talk—
upwise, thwart, sluiced, scarped, stubbed
—I cannot understand it, not swiftly enough to lead men into battle. I am used to fighting on solid ground that spreads like a blanket before me, but here I find the blanket is wrapped around my head. I think you should give this task of leadership to someone like Cinnabar or Copper.”

“I do not like to fill my head with details.” Malachite Copper spoke lazily, as though it was almost too much effort to finish what he was saying. “I will have enough to do with leading my own scrapesmen. No, not me.”

Cinnabar also shook his head. “As for me, I have not the knowledge of fighting, Captain Vansen, but I will do my best to help you to think as we think.”

“But how can I learn all your people know? These drumstones, Stormstone’s tunnels—I do not have time to become a scholar, even had I the wit for it!”

“Likely none of us is fit to perform the job entire,” Chaven said. “If we want to survive we must work together and try to forge a single martial leader from among our disparate parts—a patchwork soldier, as in the old tale of King Kreas.”

“Still,” said Copper, “even if the mighty Stone Lord himself were to come out of the deeps to lead us, we would need more men than we have. Cinnabar, my dear, you must send a message to the Guild telling them to send every able-bodied fellow who can be spared to fight—sadly, we cannot pull the workers from the few jobs Hendon Tolly has given us without causing suspicion. That may bring us as many as a thousand. Until then we have less than two hundred all told, four pentecount at the outside, and only a few of those capable fighters. How many Qar wait on the far side of the bay?”

Vansen shook his head. “We never knew when we fought them—that was part of the hardship, that they could make their numbers and positions so confusing. But judging by what I saw of them marching, long ago, I guess they still muster several times our numbers.”

“And from what you say, we could not hope to outfight them even if we matched them man for man,” Cinnabar said.

“The March Kingdoms could not defeat them with many thousands, including hundreds of veteran fighters, cannon, and armored cavalry. But we were overconfident.” He smiled sadly. “We will never be so again.”

“Is there any chance the upgrounders—I mean your people, Captain Vansen—might help us? Surely Hendon Tolly does not want the Qar roaming free beneath his castle!”

“No, but first you would have to convince him,” Vansen said thoughtfully. “That might be done . . . but then even if he agreed to help you he would never simply give you back Funderling Town afterward. Once he knew of the Stormstone tunnels and everything else belowground, he and his soldiers would be here to stay.”

Malachite Copper broke the long, morose silence. “But the fairy creatures must fight us down here,” he pointed out. “Surely that should be to our advantage, if we can only improve our numbers.”

“Don’t forget they have Funderlings of a sort among them,” said Cinnabar. “And other creatures of the deeps as well, like ettins, some of which we only know from old stories . . .”

“So it is hopeless. Is that what you are saying?” Nickel stood up. “Then we must all prepare to meet our maker. The Lord of the Hot Wet Stone will save us if he sees fit—if we have pleased him—but if not, then he will do with us as he wishes. All this warlike posturing is for nothing. The Nine Cities of the Funderlings will be emptied but for dust and shadows.”

“We do not need that kind of talk,” Cinnabar said angrily. “Would you terrify our people into recklessness? At the very least, Nickel, think of our wives and children. Ah, but I forgot—you Metamorphic Brothers do not have time for such trivialities!”

“We do holy work!” Nickel shouted and the argument began in earnest, even Copper joining in, but Ferras Vansen was no longer listening.

“Enough,” he said. When they did not heed him, he raised his voice, deeper and stronger than any of theirs. “
Enough!
Shut your mouths, all of you!” Everyone in the room turned to stare at him in surprise. “For the sake of the wives and children you mentioned—for all of our sakes—stop this squabbling. Brother Nickel, I heard you say ‘the Nine Cities of the Funderlings’—what does that mean?”

Nickel waved a dismissive hand. “It is only an expression—it means all the Funderlings together, not just those here in Funderling Town.”

“So there are other Funderlings? Where? Magister Cinnabar, you said something to me earlier about towns and cities, but I thought you meant ordinary towns, Firstford and Oscastle and the like.”

Cinnabar shook his head. “I understand your interest, Captain Vansen, but if you are envisioning thousands of Funderlings sweeping in to save us from all over Eion, I’m afraid I must disappoint you. Some of the so-called cities are long gone, and little remains of most of the others—those that are in reach, that is. Two of them are behind the Shadowline and one is on the southern continent Xand.”

“But are there still Funderlings who live outside of Southmarch?”

“Some, of course. Even long after our days of glory there have been Funderlings living in most of the biggest cities, working in stone and forging metal for the Big Folk, but their numbers have grown smaller and smaller. Here too. Just a hundred years back we were nearly twice as many as now.” Cinnabar shrugged. “There is still a good-sized settlement in Tessis and another in the quarry mountains of Syan—between them they might have as many Funderlings as here. And I’ve heard some still live in our old city of Westcliff in Settland, although it is scarcely more than a village now. Perhaps another thousand of us are scattered around the other cities of Eion. At year’s end we usually come together for the great festival called the Guild Market, but I do not think we will survive here long enough to be able recruit any help at market.” He shrugged. “Have I anticipated your idea incorrectly, Captain?”

“No, you have hit it squarely, Magister.” Vansen frowned. “But I would still like to know if these drumstones will speak as far as Syan.”

“They used to,” said Malachite Copper. “But the stones have long since fallen silent between here and there.”

“You said there are as many Funderlings in Syan as here,” Vansen said to Cinnabar. “Perhaps they will help us. Doubling our numbers would certainly keep us alive a good deal longer.”

Cinnabar nodded slowly. “I suppose we can’t afford to overlook even so unlikely a chance. In the old days there was a train of drumstones between here and what the Big Folk call Underbridge, the Funderling settlement in Syan. Unless the ground has shifted badly I see no reason they shouldn’t still suffice.”

“Forgive me,” said Malachite Copper, “but I really must ask a question. What good is it if we could even bring five times the numbers we have now from somewhere else? We still would have too few to defeat the Qar, if everything I’ve heard today is true. What then is the point? It will take weeks for help to come from Underbridge—until Midsummer at least, even if they choose to send it, which I doubt. But even if they come, what real difference could it make?”

“You’re right,” Vansen told him. He had been thinking, in his slow, careful way, and he could see no other road forward. “It is true—we cannot defeat the Qar. They are fierce fighters, but they also have a terror and madness on their side like nothing I have ever seen or felt. But I do not intend to beat them.”

Brother Nickel snorted in disgust. “Then why do we not simply surrender now? At least then we will be choosing the manner of our deaths.”

Copper scowled at him. “Be quiet, you burrowing, slithering priest! I for one would gladly choose to die with a war hammer in my hand, not slapping my head and begging the Earth Elders for forgiveness!”

“Gentlemen . . . brothers,” said Cinnabar, spreading his arms. “This is not right . . .”

“Stop. You did not let me finish, Brother Nickel,” Vansen said loudly. He wished that convincing the others, as difficult as it would be, was the hardest part of what he envisioned. “I do not intend to defeat the Qar because, as I said, we
cannot
defeat them. We cannot even hope to hold them back for very long. But I know a little of what they want here, and I may know some things even their leader does not yet know—important things.” Still, even the mere thought of the Qar’s dark lady made him weak with fear—he had seen her in so many of his nightmares, visions left in his head by Gyir’s thoughts like shadows cast on the wall of a cave. He was terrified to face her, but what else could he do? He was a soldier, and he had given his loyalty to these folk as completely as he had to the Eddon family and their throne when he first became a royal guard. “Here is my plan,” he announced as the others at last fell silent. “I intend to make peace.”

“Peace!” barked Copper. “With the Twilight People? With ettins and skinshifters? That is madness.”

Vansen’s smile was grim. “If so, then madness is the only thing that can save us.”

An isolated sliver of moon hung in the sky as they crept out the side door of Chaven’s observatory beside the old walls. Chert had not smelled open air for weeks and for a moment the sharpness of it was almost overwhelming. He took a couple of reeling steps, light-headed, before finding his balance. The night seemed . . . so
big!

Flint did not seem to notice. He looked briefly to either side and then trotted down the steps. At the bottom of the stairwell he turned to follow the road beside the wall, headed directly toward Skimmer’s Lagoon as though he could see it. Chert could not suppress a shiver of fear. How did the boy
know
things like this? It made no sense—in fact, it refuted good sense entirely.

Still, sensible or not, if Chert lost the boy he would catch the rough side of Opal’s tongue for certain. He hurried after him.

 

“Where are we going?” he whispered as Flint led them along Sheeps Hill Road at the base of the New Walls, past what seemed like a single endless encampment of refugees huddled around miserable little fires. A few of these looked up to watch the pair go past—Chert could only hope they thought he was a child, too. He grabbed Flint’s arm. “Get back in the shadows, boy!”

Citizens of Funderling Town were banned from being aboveground in Southmarch by night, in large part because of Chert himself, so not only did he have a price on his head, the mere fact of him being a Funderling would be enough to get him dragged to a cell in the stronghold. Either way, if the guards got hold of him, he was doomed.

What am I doing? How did I let myself get talked into this? Opal would have my skin if she knew.
He had a sudden moment of terror—what if his wife came back to the temple while he was gone? What would he tell her? She would scorch him!
But I suppose if I’m alive at that point for her to scorch, I’ll already have my joists in,
he thought glumly.
Might as well not borrow trouble.
“Flint, where are we going?” he asked again.

“Across Market Road Bridge, turn toward the guard tower, then stop at the fifth lantern.”

“And how do you know that? Who told you?”

The child looked at him as though Chert had asked him why he kept filling his lungs with air. “Nobody told me, Father. I saw it.”

As they approached the bridge Chert did his best to hide his face from everyone who passed. Market Road Bridge was a short, high-arching span that crossed the canal between the outer keep’s two lagoons. Where the canal crossed a muddy field to join with the North Lagoon it made a small estuary, usually the home of many birds, but in this time of privations and with so many hungry folk packed into the castle, most of the birds had long since been caught and eaten. The torch on the bridge had gone out; the little patch of water and grass and sand lay silent and almost invisible on either side, even to the Funderling’s keen eyes, as though they passed through a void between stars.

On the far side of the bridge they stepped off the road and onto a small, almost invisible path of rough logs along the edge of the water. They proceeded along this dark track until they reached the dim glow of a fish-skin lantern hung from a pillar at the canal’s edge. Continuing on and passing four more lights brought them to a largely empty section of Skimmer’s Lagoon, but the last light, the fifth lantern, shone on more than just black water and the dockside path: a rickety gangway made of boards and rope stretched out from the pool of lantern light onto the dark lagoon and toward a dark, uneven shape pricked with a few smaller, reddish lights, like a campfire that had burned to embers. Small waves patted at the edge of the walkway near their feet.

“What are we doing here?” Chert whispered. “How do you know this place? I will go no farther without some answers, boy.”

Flint looked at him, face pale in the fish-skin glow. Chert was suddenly frightened, not by the boy himself but by what he might say, what changes it might bring. But Flint only shook his head.