Queen of Fire by Anthony Ryan
“Sadly this new device requires more work.” Alornis gave a transparently forced laugh and crouched to inspect the machine’s supporting legs. “I can’t possibly let it sail in such condition, Highness.”
Lyrna went to her side, speaking in soft tones. “I gave your brother the most solemn promise that I would keep you safe. Now, remove yourself to the shore or I’ll have Lord Iltis do it for you…”
“They killed Alucius!” Alornis whirled towards her, the hammer flying across the deck as she tossed it aside, face livid, her shout heralding a frigid stillness on the deck. “You promise justice.” Alornis’s voice had taken on a strangled tone though she forced the words out, her gaze tearful but unwavering. “I have travelled the length of this Realm recording murder and destruction with every mile, and laboured without sleep for months to provide you these deadly instruments. All without request for reward or expectation of favour, because you promised justice, and I want mine.”
He will never forgive this, Lyrna knew. Even if she lives.
“Fleet Lord Ell-Nestra,” she said, turning away. “Please get us under way.”
The first few days were hard, the seas high enough to rob the fleet of any appearance of cohesion, many of the ships lost to sight in the near-constant rain. At the Shield’s orders, every vessel had experienced navigators on board, most of them Meldeneans who could be trusted to keep an eastward bearing regardless of the weather. Even so there were times when Lyrna looked out on the shifting grey wall that surrounded them and had to suppress the feeling they were sailing alone.
Belowdecks Lord Nortah’s regiment suffered continually with sea-sickness and the confines of shipboard life. They had to be ferried to the top deck in relays for fresh air and exercise, most stumbling through their drills, moving with perfunctory lethargy, though Lyrna’s presence seemed to provide some stimulus to extra effort. The slight woman with the daggers she remembered from Alltor greeted her with a grave bow upon ascending into the daylight the third morning out from Varinshold, proceeding to throw herself into a series of sword drills with zealous energy before collapsing in a sudden convulsion. Her bleached white face looked up at Lyrna stricken with mortification as she strode forward to help her up.
“I beg forgiveness, Highness,” she stammered. “Though my wretched weakness deserves no pardon…”
She fell silent when Lyrna pressed a hand to her forehead, finding it far too chilled and clammy. “Guardswoman Furelah,” she said, “you are unwell.”
Furelah blinked in surprise at being addressed by name then drew herself up to her not-considerable full height. “No more than anyone else, Highness.” She staggered as the ship’s hull crested another steep wave, Lyrna feeling how she trembled as she reached out to steady her by the arm.
“What did you do?” she asked. “Before the war.”
“My father owned a mill, Highness. I worked it with him.”
“Then you are familiar with gears and machinery?”
“Had to be, Highness. After that worthless fu— … My daughter’s father was not a dutiful man, forcing us to seek refuge with my father. After a while his hands got too gnarled for fixing things.”
“Come with me.”
She led her to the stern where Alornis was rigging a tarpaulin over one of the ship’s four ballistae. The constant rain and spume were a source of great consternation as she sought to keep her precious engines free of rust and the salt that played havoc with her various mechanical novelties. “Lady Alornis,” Lyrna called to her, gesturing at Furelah. “I am appointing this guardswoman as your assistant. Please instruct her in the operation of your engine.”
Alornis greeted Furelah with a bemused smile. “Thank you, Highness, but I need no assistance.”
“Battle will be upon us soon, my lady,” Lyrna replied. “And it plays no favourites. Should you fall it is important your knowledge not perish with you.”
Alornis winced a little at the harshness of her tone then offered her hand to Furelah who, despite her evident nausea, stood regarding the ballista with deep fascination. “You built this, my lady?”
“I had help.” Alornis took her hand and led her towards the contraption. “Come, best if we start with the gearing.”
The evening of the tenth day brought the first storm, a howling northerly gale slamming a series of ever-taller waves against the Queen Lyrna’s port side, eventually forcing the Shield to order a turn to the south. Lyrna had expected some expression of reproach as she watched him take the tiller, his hands moving with expert efficiency to steady the great vessel, but instead he seemed oddly content, casting occasional glances at the sky and frowning in apparent satisfaction.
“It seems my calculations may have been optimistic,” Lyrna offered, having to shout above the wind as she moved to his side.
“You mean this?” A spectre of his once-continual grin played over his lips as he jerked his head at the roiling sky overhead. “This is a gentle breeze compared to the Boraelin’s usual winter fury. It’ll have blown itself out come the morning.”
She lingered, seeing his reluctance to look at her, the stiffness of his shoulders. “Why did you stay?” she asked. “I know you wanted no part of this.”
“Despite my misgivings I can’t deny the wisdom in your words. If we don’t finish them, they’ll come again. Better one long war than a dozen short ones, bleeding the Isles white with every generation called to fight them. Besides, I made a commitment, as you may recall.”
She remembered that night after the Teeth, his offer of another life and the promise made beneath the stars. “If it’s any comfort,” she told him, “we would never have sailed the western ocean together. Regardless of any other … developments.”
He didn’t turn but she saw his shoulders slump a little. “No,” he replied, his tone sombre rather than bitter. “That day at Alltor, the way you looked at Al Sorna … And I thought there was nothing else he could take from me. And your face. The face of a stranger.”
“I had hoped you might see the face of a friend.”
She heard him utter a faint laugh above the wind. “Is that what you imagine the future holds for us? Friendship? When this war is won you think I’ll still command your fleet? Stay at your side for all the long years of your reign? Your faithful former pirate? Your muzzled dog?” He glanced over his shoulder at her, rain coursing down his face, all vestige of his smile gone. “I let you put me in a cage, Lyrna. Don’t ask me to live in it forever.”
Lyrna turned as Murel tugged insistently on her arm, gesturing at the door to her cabin where Iltis stood, drenched from head to toe and wearing an expression of pointed impatience.
“I strongly suggest you take shelter, Highness,” the Shield said, hauling on the tiller anew as another wave lifted the prow towards the sky. “Storms have no respect for rank.”
As he had predicted the weather calmed over the succeeding days, allowing Lady Alornis an opportunity to demonstrate her new device. “Brother Harlick was kind enough to provide a few inspiring examples from history,” she said, fitting a large set of bellows onto a copper tube protruding from the contraption’s underside. The engine had been placed on the Queen Lyrna’s port bow and was even odder in appearance than the ballista; a brass-and-iron tube some twelve feet long, bulbous at one end tapering to a narrow spout. A large barrel sat atop it halfway along its length and it rested on an identical base to the ballista, meaning even someone of Alornis’s diminutive proportions had little difficulty adjusting its angle. Furelah stood at the thing’s narrow end, fixing what appeared to be an elongated oil lamp to the spout. From the way she stood, working with arms fully extended and eyes continually straying to the barrel fixed to the device, Lyrna divined her Lady Artificer’s latest novelty harboured considerable potential.
“There were no images to work from,” Alornis went on, running a cloth over some kind of circular lever on the contraption’s bulbous end. “But an Alpiran text from some six hundred years ago did provide a fulsome d
“This is an Alpiran device?” Lyrna asked her.
“Indeed, Highness. Used in a sea battle during one of their civil wars. It seems the emperor of the day witnessed its first use and promptly outlawed it, fearing the gods might judge him needlessly cruel. They called it Rhevena’s Lance.”
Rhevena, Lyrna knew, was a principal goddess in the Alpiran pantheon, guardian of the dark paths that must be traversed by every soul upon death. But Rhevena was a kindly goddess and lit the paths with fire so that no good souls lost their way. However, the fire was a living thing, possessed of wisdom and insight, and would flare to engulf an unworthy soul. Lyrna’s heart began to beat faster as she noted the way Furelah completed her task and moved back from the engine with ill-concealed haste, the lamp she had fitted to the spout now lit with a bright yellow flame.
“Lamp oil is too thin,” Alornis continued, working a spigot on the side of the barrel, “and burns away too quickly. So I was obliged to use base oil. Even then it required thickening with pine resin.” She stood back, giving her invention a final look of appraisal before turning to Iltis and Benten. “My lords, the bellows if you would.”
The two lords moved to the bellows, standing side by side to grip the large iron rod fixed to it, both raising a questioning glance at Lyrna. She tried to still the rising pitch of her heartbeat and inclined her head to set them to work. It took several heaves before anything happened but when it did Lyrna was grateful for the shout of alarm that sounded the length of the ship as it concealed her own fearful gasp. A stream of bright yellow fire erupted from the machine’s spout, arcing fully thirty feet from the ship to cascade into the sea amidst a cloud of steam. The becalmed seas had allowed much of the fleet to resume their formation and a chorus of excited shouting could be heard from the nearby ships as the arc of fire continued to flow.
“Aiming is fairly straightforward,” Alornis said, manoeuvring the lance about so the arc wafted the air like a flaming fan. She signalled for Benten and Iltis to stop and turned to Lyrna, the last dregs of burning oil falling behind her, smiling in expectation of royal praise.
Lyrna resisted the urge to wipe the sweat from her brow and kept her hands clasped together beneath her cloak, fearing so many eyes witnessing how badly they trembled. The smell of her hair burning … The searing lick of the flames as they ate her flesh … The tremble in her hands increased, threatening to spread to her arms as she continued to stare at Alornis’s prideful visage. What have I made in you?
She felt a gentle touch on her arm and turned to find the Shield at her side, favouring Alornis with his broadest grin. “A remarkable feat, my lady,” he said. “A weapon to win a war if ever I saw one. Wouldn’t you agree, Highness?”
Lyrna took a breath, feeling the tremble abate as the warmth spread from his touch. “My Lady Artificer exceeds all expectations,” she said to Alornis. “Do you have more of these?”
“I brought sufficient components for only another two, Highness. Perhaps, when we reach our destination I can fashion more if the right materials could be found.”
More? I’m not sure I want one. “Please proceed with construction. Fleet Lord Ell-Nestra will decide which vessels will benefit from your mighty gift.”
She tried to sleep but found herself unable to settle, squirming in her bunk and trying to force the image of the flaming arc from her mind. Finally she abandoned the attempt and went to seek out Alornis, Iltis rousing himself and following without need of any instruction. The Queen’s Artificer was hard at work in the corner of the hold given over to her various novelties. Furelah lay in a hammock nearby, her sleep untroubled by the gentle sway of the ship. “Her stomach seems to have adjusted to ship life,” Alornis said, looking up from a length of copper tubing. “Sleep comes easier to her now.”
“She is fortunate,” Lyrna replied. “You find her work satisfactory, I trust?”
“She’s very deft and clever, Highness. Given enough time I’m sure she’ll craft some devices of her own.”
Lyrna sat on the bench opposite Alornis, watching her work, nimble hands shaping the copper tube as she held it over a flame to soften the metal. “You should get some rest yourself,” Lyrna told her.
A faint tic of discomfort passed across Alornis’s brow, though she remained intent on her task. “I find sleep often eludes me these days, Highness.”
“You miss your brother, and Alucius.”
She saw Alornis smother a sigh and put the tube aside. “Is there something you require, Highness?”
“Don’t you wonder what he would have made of this? If he would have been as fierce in his devotion to this cause as you are?”
“Alucius was a peaceful man. It didn’t save him.”
“He was also a spy in service to a foreign power. Did you know that?”
“Not until recently. The slave soldier, the one set to guard him, came to me before he left with Brother Frentis. Alucius gave him a message for me before he died. So yes, I know all about his … unfortunate allegiances, and I find it does not lessen my opinion of him one whit.”
“What else did the message say?”
“Words for my ears alone, Highness.”
Lyrna felt she could discern the contents of the freed Kuritai’s message clearly enough from the guarded look in Alornis’s eyes. Did you love him back? she wanted to ask, but stopped herself. “War has changed us all,” she said instead. “And I know Alucius would not have relished seeing the change in you.”
Alornis’s gaze became a hard glower. “Or in you, Highness.”
“You have a choice, I was robbed of such luxury the day they took my face and came to ruin our nation. But you can still turn away. How do you imagine you’ll feel when that monstrous device of yours turns men into living torches? The cries of a burning man are not an easy thing to hear.”
“You have asked all of us to bear many burdens. I’ll not shirk mine.”
I will send you back the moment we land, Lyrna decided as Alornis returned to her work. I should never have brought you, the Realm has no need of one more twisted soul, however skilled.
She raised her head as a shout sounded through the decking above, soon followed by a tumult of booted feet and the rapid pounding of the bosun’s drum calling all hands to arms.
“What is it?” Alornis asked.
“An enemy ship.” Lyrna rose and made for the steps to the upper deck. “Perhaps we’ll have an early opportunity to see your novelties at work.”
Crewmen ran to their stations, weapons in hand, whilst archers climbed the rigging with bows on their backs. The deck below her feet thrummed with the din of Lord Nortah’s regiment readying itself for battle. She found the Shield at the starboard rail, eyeglass trained on something to the south.
“How many?” Lyrna asked, moving to his side and peering into the gloom, finding only the faintest smudge some miles distant. The sky had brightened somewhat, still dim and thick with cloud but there was enough light to reveal the horizon.
“One,” he replied and pointed to a smaller Meldenean vessel a half mile away, sails full and wake bright about her hull as she ploughed towards the newcomer. “I’ve signalled the Orca to investigate.”
Lyrna glanced at the prow where Alornis and Furelah were busy readying the ballista and resisted the urge to order her below. “A patrol ship?” she asked Ell-Nestra.
“Most probably, though they’re too far out for this time of year.”
It took perhaps a half hour’s tense waiting as the Orca faded into the misted horizon before the Shield gave a satisfied grunt and lowered his spyglass. “The Orca hoists the signal for a captured prize and requests we come alongside.”
“Then do so.”
The Shield’s orders sent men hurrying to haul sail and it wasn’t long before the Orca came into sight, her sails lowered as she wallowed next to a dark hulled Volarian freighter, held close by numerous line
“Have that one brought aboard,” she told the Shield, pointing to the red-clad who she now saw was of somewhat ragged appearance, his robes dishevelled and face grey with stubble and fatigue. Peering closer she found a familiarity to his features, a resemblance to another red-clad who had the misfortune to find himself in Meldenean hands. “And signal the ship carrying Aspect Caenis,” she added. “I have need of one of his brothers.”
“How old are you?”
The red-clad stared back at her with dull eyes, features slack with fatigue. She had ordered him taken to her cabin where he sat slumped in a chair with Iltis standing at his back. Brother Verin of the Seventh Order stood near the door, a thin young man with a nervous smile who had only managed the barest mumble of acknowledgment at Lyrna’s greeting before bowing with such haste he nearly fell over. She could only hope his awe didn’t affect his gift.
As the red-clad continued to stare silently Iltis put a large hand on his shoulder, leaning down to speak softly in his ear. “Answer the queen or I’ll skin your hide before the pirates throw you to the sharks.”
From the red-clad’s spasm of anger Lyrna deduced his understanding of Realm Tongue to be more than adequate, though he spoke in Volarian. “Older than you can imagine,” he said, his voice the cultured vowels of the Volarian ruling class.
“Oh I think not,” Lyrna replied in Realm Tongue. “And speak in my language, if you please. As to your age, from what your sister told me, I estimate you to be somewhere over three hundred years old.”
His gaze regained some spark of life at the mention of his sister, though he gave no reply.
“Honoured Citizen Fornella Av Entril Av Tokrev,” Lyrna went on. “She is your sister is she not? And you are Council-man Arklev Entril.” Whose son I had the pleasure to kill some months ago, she added silently.