Nightlord: Shadows (15 page)

Thursday, April 22
nd

It was morning before I had everything in the regrowth spell ironed out and balanced. The spell looked as though it would work with her body, rather than kill her to reform a foot. Living things are such a delicate balance of processes!

“Basically,” I explained, as Pilea brought us both breakfast, “your body now has a map to follow and an urge to fill in the missing bits. My flesh-welding spell—you know, the one that causes tissues to flow together?”

“Everybody knows that spell,” Tort replied, around a mouthful of scrambled egg. “Anyone capable of casting it has learned it. It is, arguably, the greatest gift you have ever given your people, my angel.”

“Oh? I had no idea it would be so popular.”

“Warriors use it on themselves, or on their wounded comrades. Mothers use it on their injured children. Fishermen use it when a line whips, or when a hook buries itself in a hand. It keeps life and limb together, but is not so useful for restoring lost portions—teeth, noses, fingers, eyes. It also leaves scars, of course, but there is little to complain about when it has undone a mortal wound.” She shrugged. “I suppose it is one of the reasons anyone studies magic at all.”

“I see.” At least something materially useful came out of all my efforts. “Well, uh, the thing I’ve got on your short leg does something like that. It’s a map of what your leg should look like, and it keeps pulling—
very
slowly—flesh and bone from the rest of your body. It’ll still take a while to grow, but it should grow into the map, and it should be a lot faster than normal healing would be, if normal healing would do it at all. We’ll want to monitor it pretty closely, too. It may still be too fast, or maybe we can speed it up. I’m not sure, since I’ve never done this before. But I’m confident we’re on the right track, here.”

“Then I shall eat another breakfast.” Tort nodded to Pilea. Pilea put down a plate and nodded in reply before heading back toward the kitchen. The food was heavy on the fish and the beef—well, I say beef;
dazhu
can be prepared in many ways—as well as cereals and vegetables. I noted a lack of wine, but a heavily diluted form of corn whiskey seemed to take its place. I can’t say I really enjoyed it; my sense of smell and taste are as keen as my vision—too much so for comfort. Still, food delays the inevitable bloodthirst.

“I’ll need another, too,” I called after her. I added, to Tort, “Well, I have a long day planned.”

“So I am given to understand, my angel.”

“How does the new foot feel?”

“The stump feels… itchy. Tingly. It is working; I know that much. It does not hurt, if that is what you ask.”

“Good. If it does, feel free to dial it down a bit. Now that we’re finally getting you a foot, I don’t want you to risk dying in the process. We’ll take it slow and easy, right?”

“As you say, my angel,” she said, and inclined her head in agreement.

Pilea brought us more of everything and we ate well. During this, the guys came down the stairs and joined us. Tort gestured them to the table. When they looked at me, I nodded. They sat down and Pilea started shuttling back and forth more quickly.

Teenagers. They ate like I did, but with less concern for niceties. I made it a point to use the cloth napkin regularly, even fastidiously.

I realized even more fully that I have to be a good example. I’m not sure I know how to do that.

When we reached the burping stage, I pushed the plate away and folded my hands on the table.

“Now, gentlemen… do you own armor?” They shook their heads. “Pity. You’ll need to get used to wearing it. We’ll just have to make do for now. Do you have any duties, aside from attending me?”

“I have an apprenticeship with Lobar, the healer,” Seldar said. “He will expect me this afternoon.”

“I thought everyone knew how to close wounds?” I asked, looking at Tort.

“Some are more artful than others, my angel. Lobar is quite the sculptor in flesh. He leaves little in the way of scars.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense. What about you two? Torvil? Kammen?”

“Our fathers will be expecting us,” Torvil said. He hesitated before adding, “I think.”

“You think?”

“We stood against ’em last night,” Kammen pointed out.

“Do you need to go talk to them about that? Or would that be wise? I don’t know how they’ll react, of course, so I’m asking for your opinions.”

The three glanced at each other.

“I believe it would be best not to confront them directly on this matter,” Seldar said, “until they have had a chance to decide for themselves whether or not we were right to do so.”

“Fair enough. If I can impose on your hospitality, Tort?”

“You may all remain here for as long as you require, my angel.”

“Thank you.”

Seldar lifted a hand, slightly. I nodded at him to speak.

“We… that is, we’re new to being a…”

“You’re new to being knights,” I supplied. “We’ve gone over this.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. What… well, what do you wish us to do?”

I thought about that one for a moment. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from them, if anything. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be staying on this planet. On the other hand, I could easily think of a dozen things to teach them—physical exercise, weapons training, some hand-to-hand skills, some offensive and defensive spells… and, if it’s not
too
hypocritical of me, some chivalric ideals. Noble service cheerfully rendered and all that.

“What I want,” I said, slowly, and stopped. “What I want is for you to be men. Something better than beasts or barbarians. No, I want more than that. I want you to be
good
men. Men that people will look up to and respect. So, to make that happen, you need to be worthy of respect.”

“I’m already pretty good,” Torvil offered. Kammen and Seldar sighed in unison.

“Good,” I told him. “Now let’s make you better.”

Never exercise right after a meal. I learned that, somewhere. So I didn’t exercise them immediately. Instead, we went for a walk around the city wall. This gave them a chance to digest before getting into a serious workout. It also gave me a chance to see what Mochara was like.

While the wall had a few places where it could be manned—notably, a watchpost on either side of each gate—it wasn’t really much of a fortification. It would keep out cattle—excuse me, keep out
dazhu
—and give pause to any roaming band of outlaws, but against anyone with siege weapons… well, it would slow them down. That told me a lot about the level of threats in the region.

Walking around the city wall attracted a fair amount of attention, more than I thought it would. People stared openly, but dropped their eyes when I looked at them. No one made eye contact, aside from one blue-eyed baby that seemed fascinated with my face. Well, babies sometimes do that.

During my walk, I came across a large, open space just inside the seaward wall. In it, someone had built, or was in the process of building, a ballista. Well, I say a ballista; it didn’t have any twisted fiber for the lever arms. Instead, it was mostly a giant crossbow, with a long, wooden bow for the launcher. There was a geared crank at the rear and a length of heavy chain with hooks for cocking the thing. I did like the setup for releasing it, though; a foot-pedal allowed the firer to release a heavy spring, which jerked the real holding pin down through the “stock” of the crossbow. Of course, that meant you had to wind up the trigger mechanism as well as the crossbow.

I looked it over and saw why it wasn’t working. The wood was a single piece, carved to shape, and it was cracking. Worse, the “bowstring” was a chain, and it looked as though a link had parted.

I wondered if the misfire had killed anyone. I didn’t see anyone around to ask. Well, maybe later.

The seaward side of Mochara had a somewhat more formidable defense than the other sides. The southern cliffs were nearly vertical and descended over twenty feet to a pebbly beach. The wall atop it was only about six feet high, just enough to provide protection for defenders. Access up or down was through one main gate, then along an odd double stairway, built up apart from the cliff face.

The gate itself was a drawbridge that, when up, covered an archway in the wall; there was no real door. When lowered, it spanned a ten or twelve-foot gap from the clifftop to a brick construction that rose from the beach. This construction had a twenty-foot square pillar as the center, with a long, sloping stairway extending left and right, parallel to the cliff, down to the beach—sort of a cross-section of a truncated pyramid. It was very long, and therefore not very steep at all. If absolutely necessary, a horse could probably pull a cart up, step by step, but it would be an unpleasant chore.

Judging from the furrows in the beach and the boats out on the water, the fishermen pulled their boats up at night and fastened them to metal rings set into the cliff face. I doubted they enjoyed hauling their catch up those steps.

As I faced south, through the cliff gate, I could look left, to the east, and, by shading my eyes against the morning sun, see the point where the canal poured water out onto the beach and into the sea. Nobody had thought to build a water wheel, probably because the water flow was so low. There’s almost no current in the canal, so a standard water wheel in the canal would be useless. However, an overshot water wheel uses the weight of the water, not the force of the current. A little gearing could make a simple bucket lift, or even a mill…

Later. Possibly much later.

There were a dozen things I disliked about the place and wanted to upgrade. Stone streets, for one. Underground sewers, for another. The open gutters reminded me of Horrible Smells I Have Known, a group of memories I would like to leave alone. Add a couple of Archimedes’ Screw devices to lift water from the canal so it could be used to flush out the underground sewers, and for irrigating the farms…

I turned my attention away from the future and looked around some more. People were still watching us—well, me—but no one bothered us. A few of them seemed familiar. At a guess, some of them were following us to keep an eye on us. Who they worked for and what they hoped to discover were mysteries for another time, as well.

Down at the beach, there was no dock; no large ships could make port here. Large vessels would have to stand off in deep water and send everything in or out via smaller boats. Good, I suppose, if you don’t want a warship to kiss your walls; not so good if you want trading volume. Still, it was probably better than taking a caravan all the way north to the Eastgate, going through the pass, and then hoofing it overland to wherever you wanted to go. Sailing to Rethven would be a shorter distance, faster, and there was probably a navigable river to get you closer to your trade center.

Again, thinking ahead too much, maybe. It’s not really my town, after all.

I’m king. Ouch. It
is
my town. Maybe that’s what all the observers are worried about; they don’t know what I have planned for Mochara, and they want to. Or they just want to make sure I’m not whipping up the mob into a frenzy and calling for the overthrow of the present government. Or, more likely, the present religious order; I have something of a reputation. Hopefully, I can survive whatever political and religious maneuverings there may be.

And I have three young knights that want to be trained. Maybe I should get on that. Mortals hanging around with me can suddenly discover their mortality, especially in a world where cutting someone’s throat is considered a good end to an argument.

I sat down on the edge of the canal and watched people out in the fields. A few of my silent observers were just heads watching me over the town wall. I gestured my three shadows to sit.

“Tell me,” I said, “what sort of training you’ve already had.” With a little encouragement, they explained. Their fathers trained them in most weapons, at least well enough to get by. Most of their practice was with swords, obviously, but they were at least introduced to pretty much everything.

“But your major practice has been fighting with your fathers and each other?” I pressed. That seemed to be the case.

“Right, then. We’ll need something to practice with.”

“We have swords,” Kammen pointed out.

“Those,” I countered, “are highly-enchanted weapons of supernatural sharpness, and have a line of hunger buried inside the steel. Those are not for practice. When you draw one of those, it’s for killing, because those tools are made for just that purpose. What we need are some bits of armor and some wooden swords.”

“My father bought armor from Wethel,” Torvil offered, “when my brother came of age.”

The smith Torvil led us to, Wethel, was not terribly open to some custom work. I didn’t want whole suits of armor, just some safety gear; he wasn’t too interested. He continued to hammer while his apprentice pumped the bellows. They were still using the over-and-under double bellows design. Looking at it, I realized there was an even better way… and forcibly refocused myself on the task at hand.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked, without looking up.