Glasswrights' Progress (35 page)

Preparations for the journey to Liantine had moved much more rapidly after Monny had demonstrated his ability to operate the flying machine. The adult soldiers had swept through the stockade on the plain outside of Sin Hazar's city. The children had been given a few minutes to gather their belongings, and then their tents had been struck, their portable city destroyed.

The children had been assigned to the boats randomly. Mair was supposed to be on the other craft, but she had darted across the divide on the docks, squirming her way into the crowd of children surrounding Rani before the guards could react. The soldiers had not been happy at her disobedience, but they were powerless to act – they could never have picked out one child from another. To Sin Hazar's adult soldiers, the children were all interchangeable parts in one of Davin's war machines.

So, Rani and Mair were on one boat, along with Crestman and Monny and dozens of other soldiers. Tain and Serena, the girls from Shea's cottage, had been assigned to the other craft. Rani had watched Shea's face crumple as she realized that Crestman could not watch over her daughters.

In fact, the old sun-woman had begun to scream at the grown soldiers, to fight her way to the front ranks of the children. She had been ordered back, the threatening words reinforced by a soldier's heavy hand on his sword. When Shea had still refused to comply, the adult captain had ordered her bound and gagged.

That action had stirred up all the children, but the little swangirl, Serena, was particularly rebellious. She had planted her hands on her narrow hips and ordered the grown soldiers to release her mother. The men had laughed and looped a few lengths of rope around the child's shoulders, securing her arms to her sides. They had tossed her onto the other boat with a nod and a laugh, threatening to gag her when she shrieked to all the Thousand Gods.

Those threats stuck with Rani as the Amanthian ships cut through the ocean. She heard them, over and over, as she braced herself against the railing, and she shivered at the words that had not been spoken, at the story behind the threats. The Little Army might give itself a proud name, it might proclaim itself one of King Sin Hazar's strongest tools on the eve of war, but it still consisted of children. Children who could be silenced at a grown soldier's whim. Another shiver convulsed Rani's shoulders.

“You're not dressed for the cold.”

“Crestman.” Rani turned to face the captain. “We girls weren't issued cloaks by the quartermaster.”

“Ah, you're supposed to find your comfort in a soldier's arms.” Crestman laughed as he undid the clasp on his own garment, settling it around Rani's shoulders.

“Precisely.” Rani wanted to sneer and give back the gift, but it was too warm across her shoulders. She managed to stop her teeth from chattering.

“If you're that cold, Rani Trader, you should go below deck.”

“It's worse below.”

“It's warmer.”

“If you can stand the stench. I'd rather shiver in the cold than be warm in a stinking sickroom.” As if to test her point, the ship lurched into a particularly deep trough, sending up a freezing spray. Rani swore under her breath. She did not want to be sick in front of Crestman, did not want to see the mixture of revulsion and pity on his face. And she did not want to soil his fine cloak. When she thought that she had mastered her rebellious belly, she turned to face him and said, “You know that we don't stand a chance against the Liantines.”

“Don't stand a chance? What do you mean? You saw my men at the Swancastle! You saw how we undermined the walls. Once we meet up with the other Amanthian troops already in Liantine, there will be no stopping us. Besides, we have the flying machine.”

“Aye, the flying machine. And Monny. A little boy for you to manipulate in your battles.”

“He's a soldier, Rani Trader.”

“He's a tool that you used, like your sword or your dagger. You don't care that he'll risk his life at your command! You don't care that he'll be strapped in with willow withes and strands of rope!”

“Davin says the machine is safe.”

“Davin doesn't care if it's safe or not! He only wanted to prove that he could build a flying machine! He just wanted to make one of his drawings come to life! Why do you think he chose you and Mair to call the count?”

“Our voices are different. He chose us because Monny could hear which of us was calling.”

“Did he? Or did he choose you because the pair of you have become Monny's captains? Monny would succeed for you and Mair, or die trying! Davin
used
you, Crestman. He used you, and he'll continue to do so, as long as you let him.”

Crestman started to protest, but his words caught in his throat, choking him as if he'd swallowed a fish bone. Rani let her challenge freeze on the air between them, and she started to turn back to the ocean water, to the open, endless plain of salt waves.

Out of the corner of her eye, though, Rani caught a flash of movement on the raised forecastle at the front of the ship. She knew that Teleos, the ship's captain, kept his quarters there. The children had been told on the first day that they were forbidden to mount the short ladder to the upper deck. Nevertheless, a furtive flicker registered in the grey light. No sailor would move that rapidly or harness the foggy patches of shadow that effectively. Without consciously realizing the fact, Rani knew that she had glimpsed Mair, had just made out the Touched girl darting from the captain's cabin.

It was important that no one else see Rani's companion. No other children were on deck, and the sailors were occupied with the business of driving their vessel through the tossing seas. That left Crestman as the only threat, Crestman as the only person who could alert the Amanthians to Mair's presence where the Touched girl had no business.

Rani forced an earnest smile across her face and pitched her voice low enough that the boys' captain had to step closer to hear her question. “What are your orders, Crestman? How are you supposed to use the flying machine? What are the boys going to do when we arrive in Liantine?”

“We'll follow the rest of the Little Army. We'll do whatever they tell us to.”

With a shiver, Rani thought of the training she had witnessed on the grounds of the Swancastle, Monny's brutal torture. At the same time, she remembered Crestman's urgent words when he'd spoken to her the following day, on the edge of the castle clearing, his description of his indoctrination in the Little Army. Without intending to, Rani remembered Crestman's lips on hers, and her belly clenched, but she did not know if she was reacting to the nearness of the captain, or the memory of his kiss, or the sudden toss of the ship on the ocean. “The rest of the Little Army?” she forced herself to ask, remembering Mair, remembering that she had to keep Crestman's attention engaged. “How many of you have already been shipped to Liantine? How many do we expect to meet in the port?”

“I don't know for certain.”

“I'm not asking for the king's recruiting rolls!” Rani let a little acid slip into her
words. Why did Crestman insist on misunderstanding everything she said? “I meant in general.
Approximately how many children has Sin Hazar shipped overseas to fight for his cause on foreign
soil?”

Crestman waited for long enough that Rani thought he would not answer. His hands tightened on the wooden railing, and he braced himself against a particularly high wave, ducking his clouted head as the spray broke over the side. Rani longed to look over her shoulder, to see if Mair was still on the forecastle, but she restrained herself, managing instead to splutter against the salt spray.

When the ship had righted itself, Crestman turned to Rani and sighed as if he were preparing for a winter storm. “There have been at least five score ships, in the past two years.”

Five score.… Their own vessel held one hundred and fifty children, could have held more if they'd been forced into even closer quarters below decks. Rani's mind boggled at the notion. Fifteen thousand soldiers? Fifteen
thousand
children sent to Liantine?

“But that must be all the children in Amanthia!”

Crestman shrugged. “Most of the boys.”

“And how has the Little Army fared?” Crestman did not respond, gazing out at the ocean, and Rani thought he must not have caught her question above the crash of the waves. “What has the Little Army accomplished in the east?” she pushed. “What battles has it fought?
What do they expect us to do
?”

For a moment, she thought that he did not answer because he did not trust her. She saw him start to form words, start to phrase a reply, but then he swallowed hard and clenched his hands on the ship's railing. “I do not know.”

“What?” His admission surprised her enough that she forgot she'd started this conversation just to distract him. She didn't know what she'd expected to hear – that Crestman had been ordered to lead his boys into certain death? That they were expected to storm the Liantine port like rats off a ship? That they were supposed to run with torches into the city, spreading chaos and mayhem? But to hear him admit ignorance.… “How can you not know?”

“I'm a captain, Rani Trader, a captain in the Little Army. I'm a soldier. I follow orders. I doubt you can understand what that means.”

Rani's thoughts raced back to her own life in the City, to the time she'd spent jumping from caste to caste before she'd been dragged north to Amanthia. She remembered living in the Soldiers' Quarter and following orders issued by the King's Guard. And she remembered believing herself a member of the Brotherhood of Justice, following the commands of a shadowy hierarchy, when she did not know the reason, did not know the meaning behind the battles that were fought around her.

For just an instant, Rani could see a Zarithian blade, her own prized dagger. The knife had been a gift from her father, one of the few treasures that she had carried with her when she'd journeyed from the safety of her family's shop. She had valued the dagger almost more than her own life, and she had been proud to use it, to defend herself when she'd thought that she was threatened. Even now, she could see crimson blood coating the Zarithian blade; she could hear the labored breathing of the soldier she had executed,
murdered
because she'd been ordered to do so.

Now, standing beside the Little Army's scornful captain, Rani looked down to see her hands clenched into fists, her nails digging into her palms. Half-crescents of blood seeped through her flesh, and she forced herself to meet Crestman's eyes. “I understand orders. I understand following the commands of a superior. And I know that those orders can be wrong, Crestman. I know that orders can be deadly.”

Before he could offer up some protest, Rani caught the glimmer she'd been waiting for, a glimpse of a lithe shadow slipping down the ladder to the hold. Mair had finally finished her Touched prowling on the forecastle.

Rani turned her attention back to Crestman, saw him weighing her solemn words, but suddenly she was sickened by their discourse. She did not want to hear a soldier talk further of blood and war. She did not want to remember her life in the Soldiers' Quarter, the mistakes she had made. Rani darted under a startled Crestman's arm and scrambled for the ladder that led down into the hold, down into the darkness and the stench where the Little Army waited.

She was gasping, taking care to breathe through her mouth, by the time she reached the bottom. There were only two torches that burned beneath the deck, guttering in iron-shielded frames so that they could not kindle the entire craft. Rani squinted in the dim light, willing her vision to adjust. She was fumbling for the cloak clasp at her throat, desperate to remove Crestman's garment in the overheated hold, when someone closed a hand around her wrist. Rani gasped.

“Calm yerself, Rai. It's only me.” Mair loomed out of the darkness, her face looking like a cadaver's in the flickering shadows and the blue light that crept down the rickety ladder.

“What were you doing, Mair!”

“Doing? What do you mean?” The Touched girl was striving for a light tone, but Rani could hear a catch in her voice.

“I
saw
you! I saw you leave Teleos' quarters!”

“Hush!” Mair hissed the command and dragged Rani into a darker patch of shadow, as far as possible from the ladder, from the fresh air, from spying ears. Rani longed for some pungent, cleansing aroma – ladanum, anything! – to block the stench of the hold. “Watch yer tongue, Rai!” Mair's voice was tight.

“Mair, what were you doing?

“Nothing more than creeping the Nobles' Quarter, like back home in the City,” she said, but her breeziness was strained across her words. “I was seeing if there was anything we needed to know about our ship's captain, anything that will help us.”

“And what could you possibly have learned that was worth the risk? Do you
know
what Teleos would do if he caught you spying?”

Mair ignored the latter question, but she answered, “I learned that Teleos is supposed to collect gold bullion for his delivery of the Little Army.”

“What?” Rani struggled to process the words, to make sense of Mair's whisper.

“Teleos is supposed to hand us over to the Liantines, and they will
pay
him with bars of gold. He gets to keep four bars, and the rest he must return to Sin Hazar.”

“But we're supposed to
fight
the Liantines!” Rani's stomach lunged upward, even as the ship rolled over another enormous swell. She forced herself to take deep breaths, settling her panic before she forced out words. “We're being sold. We're slaves.”

“That's the way it looks,” Mair confirmed grimly. “This isn't the first shipment Teleos has made. He's become a wealthy man ferrying children across the sea.”

“Fifteen thousand children.…” Rani breathed. Slavery. Bondage. The Little Army was nothing but a sham, then, designed to enrich Sin Hazar so that he could further whatever nefarious plans he had crafted. All the talk of the Little Army and child soldiers.… All of that was a carefully crafted screen. Rani was heading toward Liantine, a slave trapped in the hold of a ship. “Mair, we've got to do something! We'll get the girls to rise up with us. They'll help us escape.”