Henry Neff - The Maelstrom

At last they arrived at the smithing shop owned by the brothers Aurvangr and Ginnarr. The upper windows were dark and shuttered, but Max saw a gleam of light peeping from beneath the door. Swinging out of his saddle, he ran up the front steps and knocked urgently. Something crashed within and he heard someone curse before another angry voice cried out, “Closed!”

“It’s Max McDaniels!”

The door opened and Max looked down to see the dvergar—a dusky, dwarflike creature with pale eyes and beard—half dressed in armor of overlapping scales.

“It’s in the workroom,” muttered Aurvangr, waving Max toward the back. “By the quenching tubs. Not pretty yet, but it works. There’s something else on the table. We decided your need is greater. Close the door behind you. We’re due at Westgate.”

Ducking inside, Max hurried into the back room where the dvergar kept their forge and anvil. Max found what he was looking for propped against the wall next to a trio of water barrels. It was a spear shaft some seven feet long, fashioned of roughened steel and devised so that Max could use it with the gae bolga . He’d commissioned it from the brothers after his first day supervising the battalion from atop YaYa. The gae bolga ’s limited reach was poorly suited for mounted combat and was impractical to wield on a horse, much less a ki-rin standing eight feet at her shoulder.

Keeping the blade sheathed, Max pressed its pommel to the top of the spear shaft. Like a ravenous snake, the shaft swallowed up the hilt, clamping tight at the cross-guard so that the short sword was transformed into a long-bladed spear. Hefting it, Max tested its weight and balance before turning to the object folded neatly on the neighboring table. It was an exquisite corselet of fine gray mail, the very armor Max had bartered to the dvergar in exchange for the Ormenheid . The shirt had once belonged to Antonio de Lorca, Max’s predecessor in the Red Branch, and no ordinary weapon could pierce it. Quickly, Max stripped off his tunic and hauberk, swapping the heavy, cumbersome rings for a garment more supple than linen. Pulling the tunic back over his head, Max checked that Lugh’s brooch was in place, took up the gae bolga , and hurried out of the shop.

As YaYa picked her way through the winding lanes back to the main avenue, Max witnessed the very best and worst of humanity. Many companies of troops and militia were hurrying to their posts, but there also were brawls, untold looters, and some who chose to greet Prusias’s arrival with doomed, drunken revelry. Rounding a corner, Max stopped as he saw a half-dozen Trench Rats carousing with a group that had broken into the Pot and Kettle and were rolling its wine barrels up the cellar ramp to break them open in the street. Upon seeing their commander, one promptly retched while the others snapped to some semblance of bleary, blinking attention.

Max glared down at them. “It’s a thirty-minute march to Trench Nineteen from here. If you’re not there in twenty, I’m going to find each and every one of you.”

“We were on leave,” said the one, sullenly wiping his mouth. “You got no right to judge!”

“When does leave give you the right to loot and steal?” Max growled. “Stay and sit in your filth. You’re discharged. Rip off his patch.”

The man’s companions did so, tearing the patch off his shoulder while he swore and protested. Seconds later, the other five were running as fast as they could toward the Sanctuary tunnel and their distant post.

“Bravo, bravo!” called a voice from the restaurant’s elevated porch.

Madam Petra was lounging between the industrialist and Katarina. She was sipping a glass of wine without an apparent care in the world. Around her neck, she wore the coppery torque made from Nick’s quills.

“Oh, don’t worry about us,” she said, swirling her wine. “We’re not looters. We paid for our drinks. You look very dashing, by the way.”

“Going to sit things out here?” said Max, gazing at the smuggler with unfeigned disgust.

“Yes, I am,” she said, smiling sweetly. “That’s the nice thing about having friends on both sides. You don’t really care who wins.”

“You think Prusias will just leave you be?”

“I don’t see why not.” She shrugged, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I’ve been invited to many parties at the royal palace. Why should he be angry with a Rowan hostage? In any case, I hope the Zenuvian iron serves you well. You certainly paid for the privilege.”

Max stared hard at the woman. “You had better pray that we win,” he said quietly. “Because if Rowan falls, there will be no one left to forgive you. And if that happens, you’ll have to live with this shame forever.”

“Well, I’ve heard that good wine can drown sorrow and shame,” she replied lightly, checking the bottle’s label. “And if that fails, I’m sure this torque can buy whatever forgiveness I might require. Run along now and keep us safe.”

Swallowing his loathing, Max wheeled YaYa away and rode south. Once back at Old College, the ki-rin set a slow, steady pace as she wove through the mass of soldiers and civilians. Passing the Manse, Max rode toward the cliffs so that he could see what might be happening at sea.

The waters of Rowan Harbor were choppy as those assigned to the beaches and cliffs were busy preparing their defenses. Far to the north, Max could make out a few points of light hugging the coast, probably warships with witch-fires burning at their prow. The night sky had been clear, but the weather was changing. Most apparent was the wind, which was now howling in off the ocean as Rowan’s Mystics summoned and gathered it to them.

Max and YaYa rode north along the cliffs, past Maggie and Old Tom, past the refugee camps and over the windswept tussocks until he reached the massive Northgate archway. The archway was forty feet from cobble to keystone and still dwarfed by the walls, which rose a hundred feet above even the tallest trees. Max could see hundreds of figures hurrying to man the towers and anchored trebuchets that could rain heavy projectiles upon an approaching enemy.

YaYa cantered through the arch, her shadow huge upon curving walls that tunneled through eighty feet of solid stone. It was teeming with soldiers and carts bringing supplies out to the trenches and outposts that would sorely need them. The crowds cheered when they caught sight of YaYa and made a lane so that she and her rider could pass.

They exited the other side, over the moat’s causeway and into the dark, open country that lay between the citadel that sheltered Old College and the outer curtain that protected outlying farms.

Torches were moving urgently about the countryside, carried by messengers on errands to the trenches or outer defenses. Above Old Tom’s ringing, Max heard the low boom of signal drums and saw a distant flare arc like a tiny red star.

YaYa made for a cluster of fires burning at intervals along Trench Nineteen. There, at the base of their fluttering standard, the Trench Rats were gathering and grouping into their platoons. Some grinned as Max rode up, but most looked frightened. Many were frantically putting on pieces of armor or rummaging through packs whose contents had been gathered in haste. Scanning the group, Max saw that only a third of the battalion had already reported. There was not yet any sign of Lucia or Cynthia or many of the officers who had presumably been at Crofter’s Hill when the alarm was raised. Ajax was there, however, sitting astride a heavy bay stallion and berating several boys who had cracked a water barrel while unloading a supply cart.

Max called him over. “Assemble the companies and keep them here,” he said over the wind and distant horns. “Don’t let them rush or forget something they need. Once we’re settled in, we won’t be moving, so send riders to fetch anything that’s missing—food, medicine. They won’t close Northgate unless the Enemy advances within a mile. I’m riding to the outer walls to see what’s happening.”