Clash of Empires Read online

  “It would even the odds if both sides had battlesaurs,” Frost says.

  Another long silence as they consider what has just been said.

  “If we are to do this,” Arbuckle says, “then we must do it now without delay.”

  Willem stands and has to put a hand to one wall to steady himself. His head swims.

  “Not Willem,” his mother says. “We go to La Hulpe, to seek refuge from the priest there. You must come with us.”

  “Mother,” he says. “To ride the beasts we must mesmerize the beasts. I am the only one here who can do that.”

  He hears the words coming out of his mouth, and he knows they are right, but he can barely believe he is saying them.

  “Not the only one,” his father says. “I taught you, if you remember.”

  “Then we must both go,” Willem says.

  “You are wounded. You will come with us,” his mother says, and in her voice is the same tone he heard so many times as a child, and that more than anything else is what decides him.

  She is right, and Willem knows what he must face if he goes, and to be honest, he is not even sure if he can go. He can barely stand, let alone walk and crawl through black caves. Yet still he says, “I will go to the caves with the soldiers.”

  “No—” his mother starts, but he cuts her off, politely but firmly.

  “Maman, if I go, then tonight you may be mourning me,” he says. “But if I do not go, then many mothers will be mourning many sons in England and Prussia. And the devil himself will be the conqueror of all Europe, and who knows, soon, the world.”

  “We must all go,” Cosette says.

  “No, Cosette,” Willem says.

  “I heard your fine speech to your mother just now,” Cosette says. “I fling it back in your face. What applies to you applies to me.”

  “I am needed in the caves,” Willem says. “You are not. Go with my mother to La Hulpe.”

  “Do you imagine that the French are not expecting you?” Cosette says. “They anticipate just such an attack and the cavern will be full of guards to prevent it.”

  “And you, a mere girl, can somehow overpower these guards for us?” Arbuckle asks.

  Cosette stares at him with such ferocity that Arbuckle—and Willem knows no braver man—quickly lowers his eyes. Cosette looks away, and when she turns back, her face and demeanor have changed; her voice too, its pitch and her accent are all subtly different. “No, a ‘mere girl’ cannot,” she says. “But Lieutenant Horloge just might be able to.”

  THE WIZARD OF GAILLEMARDE

  Workers in peasant smocks scurry around on the floor of the vast cavern beneath the abbey. Some wheel hay carts or trolleys piled high with the carcasses of goats, sheep, and small saurs. Others push barrows of watery steaming dung, the stench of which hangs thickly in the damp, cold underground air. The barrows buzz with saur-bugs, and moths create frenzied clusters around lanterns hung from the walls.

  Deloque scratches at his beard, holding his musket loosely in the crook of his arm. He would rather be out in his garden, tending his vegetables, but he, along with almost every other available soldier, is on duty guarding the dark and smelly caves. Their commanders are expecting an attack.

  He has been given one of the saur-guns today. A big musket for a big man. Some of the smaller and younger soldiers can barely lift such a gun. He likes it. It is big enough to kill a battlesaur. He almost wishes there would be an attack just so he can see what kind of a hole his gun will put in the chest of an enemy soldier.

  A battlesaur growls nearby and all the eyes around Deloque flicker nervously in that direction. The saur, a greatjaw, is chained to the wall close—too close, Deloque thinks—to where the soldiers stand in rank. It is the only saur in the cavern. All the other sets of shackles are empty, the former occupants over in Calais, or Ireland. The greatjaw seems restless, shifting from one foot to the other and occasionally jerking its head against the heavy chains. Perhaps it is lonely, he thinks. Or perhaps it is frustrated at all the live meat in front of it, but out of its reach. It raises its head and growls again, a long moaning howl, so loud that he can feel it. It lowers its head and eyes the rows of soldiers. For a moment it seems to be looking directly at him. Deloque’s palms start to sweat, despite the cold.

  He thinks of the girl: Cosette. The prisoner, now released. He thinks of her often. He salivates at the thought of what he might do to her if he caught her. But she will be long gone now. To a new city. Perhaps to a new country. Somewhere she can hide. She will have to hide for the rest of her life after what she did to the lieutenant. After what she did to him! Stealing their uniforms and locking them in the prison cells.

  Horloge is a weak, insipid little man. But now he, Deloque, has something to hold over him. Horloge’s simpering cowardice in the prison cell. He will suffer for that. But not now. Later, when it is to Deloque’s greatest advantage.

  There is a murmur in the ranks; heads have turned from the greatjaw toward the darkness in the depths of the cavern. He follows the gaze of the others but can see nothing.

  It takes his mind a few moments to work out what the other soldiers have already realized, what they are looking at. Nothing.

  That is what is strange. The rear of the cave is muffled in darkness. All the lamps have been extinguished. He is mulling this over when it occurs to him that this could be the prelude to an attack.

  “Hold fast,” a voice calls out. It is the sergeant. A rougher, tougher man Deloque has never met, but there is an uneasy tone in his voice. The sergeant feels something, Deloque thinks, because he feels it too. A foreboding.

  Two more lamps flicker out, the creeping blackness from the depths of the earth swallowing their light as it moves toward the soldiers.

  “Make ready,” the sergeant calls.

  Make ready for what?

  Deloque hoists his heavy gun, cradling it in his arms, raising the barrel to aim at the sky. Sky? There is no sky. Only a solid rock roof over their heads, trapping them underground with whatever now comes.

  There is movement in the deepest shadows of the cave. Fading into view as if the blackness itself has swirled and formed and solidified into a living creature. It walks toward them, arms outstretched. Not it. She!

  It is so incomprehensible that his mind cannot at first believe it. It is her. The prisoner. The escapee. Cosette. Or something that has taken her form.

  She (it) walks forward slowly. She still wears the stolen uniform of the lieutenant but over it flows a long, black cape.

  There are murmurs and movement around him, but the sergeant seems uncertain of his next actions.

  Now she is fully in the light of the main cavern, her hair golden, shining like silk in the lamplights. Deloque almost breaks ranks; he wants to rush over to the girl, to wind his fingers through that beautiful hair, to feel the softness of the skin of her neck between his fingers as he snaps it.

  But he fears that it would dissolve back into the blackness. And so would he.

  He can do nothing but watch as she raises her arms slightly. The explosion at her feet is a bright flash and a brief puff of smoke with a sharp crack like musketshot. He blinks at the insult to his eyes and ears, and as the smoke clears, it is no longer the girl who stands before them. It has transformed into a young man, the cape flowing from his shoulders, a cowl shadowing his features. But Deloque does not need to see his face to know who this is. They all know. The Wizard of Gaillemarde.

  “Present!” the sergeant calls, unable to keep a nervous quiver from his voice.

  They all hear him but only a few raise their weapons. The rest stand, petrified at this manifestation of evil.

  There are stories. The wizard is not human. He cannot be killed. They say he was shot in the chest with a pistol and, unharmed, spat the ball out of his mouth. They say he made an entire ship disappear into thin air. Some say that he can transform himself into a battlesaur.

  Deloque does not know whom to believe. He is a simple man and has le
arned to trust what his eyes show him, and little else. He lowers the wide, wide muzzle of his huge saur-gun toward the wizard.

  The robed figure raises his hands and begins to rub them together, faster and faster, until his fingers are no more than a blur. Steam begins to rise from the wizard’s hands, drifting upward. Deloque’s eyes are drawn to the roof of the cave where, miraculously, impossibly, storm clouds start to gather. Roiling, tumbling clouds inside the cave. It is not possible and yet it is real.

  There are gasps from around him. Movement, too, as terrified cave workers run past the soldiers, heading for the surface.

  From somewhere Deloque finds an inner strength. The wizard must be destroyed. He tries to steady his musket on the robed figure.

  The clouds thicken and darken, and Deloque shivers and tightens his finger on the trigger. The wizard stops rubbing his hands and abruptly claps them together. Thunder roars and lightning flashes overhead just as the sergeant screams, “Fire!”

  Deloque’s musket jerks and the shot goes wild, high into the wall of the cave. But the air around him shivers with the sound of musketshots and is smeared with smoke from the gunpowder. The wizard is hit and staggers backward into the shadows. Deloque stares, his mouth open, as the thunder still echoes off the rock walls.

  A cheer starts among the soldiers but it is cut short as the wizard steps forward again into the light. He spits one, two, three musketballs from his mouth and raises his hands again to the roof of the cave.

  It begins to rain.

  Deloque is the first to break ranks, throwing down his musket, pushing other soldiers out of the way as he runs, panic-stricken, toward the ramp that leads out of the cave. There are shouts, some screams around him, and the retreating ranks of the soldiers have become a rout. Deloque barely notices. He runs, pushing some out of the way, trampling over those who fall.

  He is a man. A big, strong, brutal man.

  But no man is a match for such magic.

  TRICORNES

  The simplest of tricks, given the right presentation, can perplex the brightest of minds. Yet even Willem is surprised at how well his illusion has worked.

  The clouds were no more than steam, created by diverting the outlet pipe from the water boiler. The lightning, and its corresponding thunder, were achieved by cutting the thin lead pipe that carried the firedamp gas to the boiler. The firedamp, lighter than air, drifted up to the ceiling of the cavern, where it floated, waiting, until Arbuckle, on cue, ignited it at the pipe end.

  It was as much good luck as good planning. Too much firedamp and the explosion would have annihilated everyone in the cavern. Too little, and it would not have ignited. But it did, with a huge flash that lit the clouds of steam and even to Willem looked just like lightning.

  The rain was a bonus. The clouds of steam, condensing on the cold rock ceiling of the cavern and dripping down.

  It was almost perfect. At that distance, in the darkness, it was always going to be a difficult shot, and he had hoped to unnerve the soldiers enough that they would not fire, or that their shots would go wild. It had worked. Almost. Just one soldier, somewhere in the ranks, had the steadiness of heart and aim, or the sheer good luck, to hit Willem dead in the chest.

  For Willem the impact on the heavily padded metal plate strapped to his torso was like being kicked in the stomach by a mule. His already injured chest had screamed fire, and it took all of his energy to regather himself, to step forward and spit out the three musketballs he had placed in his mouth earlier.

  Cosette helps him remove the metal plate as Arbuckle and Big Joe seal the entrance to the cave, lowering a wooden gate that is suspended from the celing. It is a massive gate for massive creatures, constructed of hefty timber planks buttressed by poles as thick as the mast of a small ship. It is hinged at one end. A heavy chain runs from the bottom of the gate up though a large metal pulley system on the ceiling of the cavern and down to a chain-stay and winch on top of a jagged spur of rock, rising like a huge claw in the center of the floor.

  The gate slams shut with a thud and a cloud of dust.

  “Quickly,” Arbuckle says. “That will hold them, but not for long. Where are the tricornes?”

  “This way,” Héloïse says.

  Willem follows them around a sharp corner at the rear of the cavern, and under a low knuckle of rock into another large cave.

  Here there are tricornes. Four of them. Each is almost twice the height of a man, with two great horns jutting from its head, in front of a large flare of bone. A third, shorter horn is at the end of the snout.

  Despite the horns they seem placid, incurious; they do not look up at the entrance of the humans but continue calmly chewing hay. Their saddles are long with two pommels, for two riders. A rope ladder hangs from the center of each saddle.

  Holsters for three pistols are attached to the rear part of the saddle on each side. Six pistols per animal.

  “Each saur will need a rider and a gunner,” Arbuckle says. “We have five soldiers, enough for only two of the beasts.”

  “I can ride,” Cosette says.

  “I will not allow it,” Willem says.

  “And who are you to say what I may or may not do?” Cosette asks.

  “It is a job for soldiers,” Willem says a little awkwardly. There are not enough soldiers.

  “I do not know how to load or fire a gun,” Cosette says. “But I can ride as well as any man.”

  Arbuckle chuckles and says to Willem, “I think there is no reasoning with your intended.”

  “She is not my—” Willem stops, because she is his intended. As he is hers. He has known this since Gaillemarde. That is why he cannot bear the thought of her riding into battle. Yet he knows he cannot stop her.

  “I will ride also,” he says. For many reasons he cannot let Cosette ride while he remains behind.

  “Then we are short by just one rider,” Arbuckle says.

  Willem looks around the cave, his eyes passing over Frost and settling on Héloïse.

  “I will not ride the great demons,” Héloïse says. She stares at him, unashamed.

  “Then I will,” Frost says. “That will give us eight. Enough for all the tricornes.”

  “How can you ride?” Arbuckle asks.

  “Put me in the saddle and I will show you how,” Frost answers.

  “He has no eyes, but makes use of his other senses in ways that would astound you,” Willem says.

  “Very well.” Arbuckle gestures to the other soldiers. “We will guard the entrance while you prepare the saurs.”

  Cosette walks toward the nearest tricorne as Arbuckle and the other soldiers disappear back into the main cave. She stands in front of the first tricorne, well within range of its horns. Willem wants to cry out to her to be careful, but restrains himself. The tricorne looks up from its food and regards her briefly, then lowers its head again.

  Cosette moves toward the hanging rope ladder.

  “Wait,” Willem says, but she ignores him and takes another step.

  The great animal turns toward her, a low, rumbling growl warning her away.

  “Wait,” Willem says again.

  Cosette remains perfectly still until the animal resumes feeding, then takes another step forward.

  Willem holds his breath. He does not dare speak for fear of alarming the beast.

  He examines the tricorne as Cosette moves closer and closer to the rope ladder.

  Large metal blinders cover the beast’s eyes. They are open, but can be closed by leather cords that lead up behind its neck. His father gave them detailed instructions on how to control the battlesaurs. To steer the great saurs you simply open one eye more than the other. It will turn in that direction. Leather flaps sit above the nostrils. Those too can be opened or shut. To stop, you shut both the blinders and the nostril flaps.

  To get the beast to move requires something else. Something that seems magical, even to Willem. Electricity.

  Cosette grasps the ladder and pulls herelf up
the first step.

  “They neither fear us, nor want to eat us,” she says. “You do not need your sparkle tricks with these saurs.”

  Willem is not convinced, but Cosette skips lightly up the rope ladder without any reaction from the tricorne. She does not try to ride sidesaddle but adjusts her smock so that she can put a leg over the other side. She examines the reins for a moment.

  “There is no battery,” she says.

  “The batteries are in the armory,” Héloïse says. “I will get them.”

  Cosette climbs carefully down, patting the great beast gently on the side of its neck. It stirs, but makes no other movement nor sound.

  Héloïse is quickly back with the battery, a small gray box. She carries four of them and places them at Willem’s feet. “I will get the pistols,” she says, and disappears once again.

  “Let me try,” Willem says.

  Cosette nods.

  Willem takes a battery and moves to the rope ladder, struggling to control his breathing. This is no meat-eater, he knows this, but its sheer size and power are terrifying. It could end his life with a misplaced footstep or a nudge of its head. He places a foot on the ladder, and before he can allow himself to think any further, he climbs.

  The skin is rough and ridged. The beast feels cold to the touch. He reaches the top and slides a leg over the back of the animal, just behind the great bony shield. Here two wires protrude from the skin at the base of the skull, just like the ones he saw on that terrible night in the village.

  The wires clip in to two connectors on the battery, and a small switch is marked ON and OFF. He ensures it is in the off position before connecting the wires.

  Héloïse brings a supply of pre-loaded pistols from the armory, handing them up with one foot on the ladder. Willem slots them into the holsters by the rear saddles. He climbs down as Cosette climbs the ladder of the next tricorne.

  Big Joe and Mogansondram arrive in the rear cavern just as Willem is slotting the last of the pistols into the last of the holsters on the last of the saurs.