The officers glanced at one another, then back at Lord Aran, waiting for the command that had not come.
“Be about it,” Lord Aran said, with a slight smile. “Yes, my lord!” The captains saluted and turned away.
But the enemy did not wait for the morrow—in the middle of the afternoon, a loud noise reached the sentries, and they sent for Lord Aran. Seconds later, a foot-thick ball of rock splashed into the lake not far from the drawbridge. A few minutes later, another explosion sounded, and hard on its heels, a ball crashed into the curtain wall. It bounced off with no damage they could see from the inside, but another followed it, and another.
Lord Aran came out into the battlements, saw a fourth ball hurtling through the air as the explosion echoed in the distance, and grunted. “Bombards,” he said. “They are staying in period for the beginning, at least.”
Puzzled frowns answered him, but Magnus knew what he meant. The enemy surely had modern big guns at their disposal, as well as energy projectors.
The ball cracked into the castle’s granite and bounced into the lake.
“The wall will break if they keep that up long enough,” Lord Aran said. He glared off toward the southeast. “Captain Pike, I hope you are as good as your word.”
“Well, it may take me several shots, my lord.” Magnus went over to one of the huge bombards that poked between crenels. “Load, men!”
A serf crew poured in gunpowder and heaved a ball into the cannon’s mouth.
A distant boom sounded again.
Magnus looked up, gazing toward the southeast, then saw the speck of darkness appear against the sky. He gauged its trajectory and called, “Everyone down!”
“Clear the bailey!” a sentry bawled, and other voices took up the cry. Open space appeared in the center of the courtyard as if by magic, as serfs took cover against the walls—but in orderly fashion, with none in danger of being trampled.
Magnus was impressed. Lord Aran had good officers, who saw to it that there was good discipline. The cannonball landed with a flat crack, burying itself in the turf of the parade ground.
Everyone was silent.
“How good of them to send us ammunition,” Lord Aran rumbled.
A howl of laughter answered him, and the old lord smiled.
Grinning, Magnus turned back to his cannon, laying hold of the crank and raising the muzzle a touch, then cranking it around just a few minutes clockwise. It was all for effect, though—he had fired such antique bombards before, and knew they were scarcely precision instruments. He watched the horizon and saw a sudden puff of smoke. “Fire!”
A huge explosion rocked the battlements. The cannon slammed back against its chain, and smoke streamed out over the courtyard. Magnus waited for it to clear, gazing anxiously at the sky, trying to find his cannonball, hoping it hadn’t gone astray.
There it was, diminishing even as he watched. He reached out to touch it with his mind, changing its trajectory just a little, feeling the pressure of wind against it, resisting…
Another puff of smoke appeared on the horizon. Magnus guided the ball straight toward the puff. It sank down right where the smoke had been. Whatever noise it made was too little to be heard from where they were, but Magnus felt the first stab of pain in the minds of the gunners before he managed to turn his attention away.
Lord Aran was staring after the ball. “I do believe you may have hit them.”
“Or come close enough to scare them, at any rate,” another captain said.
“I hit them,” Magnus said, with grim certainty. Another puff of smoke appeared—but quite some distance from the first.
A cheer went up from the battlements. “You hit them, you must have hit them!” The lieutenant slapped Magnus’s shoulder, grinning. “Why else would a new gun answer us?”
The other was, indeed, silent.
The boom of the new gun sounded, and its ball splashed into the lake far from the castle.
“Loaded and ready, sir,” the serf sergeant said. Magnus nodded and cranked the gun around. “Fire!”
Another explosion rocked them, another cloud of smoke hid the climbing ball—but Magnus already had contact with it, was guiding its flight with telekinesis.
A puff of smoke appeared from the new gun, none from the old.
Magnus guided the ball right down on top of the smoke. At the last minute, he felt someone’s relief that the ball would pass over the gun, and dropped it sharply. Again he felt a stab of pain and alarm; and closed off his mind.
“Again!” The lieutenant slapped his shoulder. “Two bombards out, with two shots! What a gunner you are!”
“Aye.” Lord Aran fairly beamed at Magnus. “How do you manage such wonders, Captain Pike?”
“I learned calculus,” Magnus explained—which was true, but really had very little to do with the issue.
The guns were silent for the rest of the day, and Magnus began to worry. What were they cooking up?
So he did a little mental eavesdropping—not unethical, since they were the enemy—and discovered that they were moving their energy projectors up. Yes, the projectors had greater range than the cannon—but they needed a clear line of sight, which the cannon did not, so they, too, had to be brought up to the ridge line. Magnus relaxed—he was fairly confident when it came to dealing with energy in any form.
The infantry pressed onward across the plain. Plumes of smoke began to appear, and the sentries reported it, grim-faced. The word spread to the peasants below, and women wailed and men cursed, for the smoke was that of their villages burning.
As dusk came, the army was only a mile away, and the plumes of smoke turned to the glow of flames. Lord Aran looked out across his ravaged estates and nodded grimly. “Fire the causeway.”
Runners with torches sped out across the causeway to the bank, then came back, lighting the piles of tinder laid ready at the sides of the bridge. Flameflowers blossomed behind them; then the pitch caught with a roar, and the landward drawbridge went up in a blaze. The flames raced toward the castle, a line of fire arrowing out toward the stronghold but stopping short where the drawbridge had been drawn up. Great clouds of greasy smoke filled the air, making the sentries cough and wheeze atop the battlements. Between fits, they stared, their isolation coming home to them at last—and serfs jammed the stairs, striving for a look, then passing word to their fellows below. “ ‘Tis a bridge of flames!”
“ ‘Tis a curtain of fire!”
“ ‘Tis as the Judgement Day itself!”
Then they fell silent, awed and shivering as they realized they were committed more fully than they had ever been.
Magnus knew that other lords might have left half their serfs or more to the mercy of the enemy—certainly the women, children, and old men, so that they would not be a drain on the castle’s supplies—but Lord Aran cared for his people’s welfare, and they cared for him in return.
“Let them make of that what they will, the nobles who beset our lord!” one captain said stoutly. “What do they think, I wonder?” a lieutenant answered.
But Magnus knew. The lords had been sure Aran would burn his bridges, and the gentlemen had suspected it—but the serfs in the ranks were awed and fearful at the sight, so reminiscent of the Hell of which their preachers had told them.
Then lightning struck, horizontal lightning, stabbing out across the plain to score the curtain wall with a huge thunder-crack, echoing for seconds, away to the ridge line.
Women screamed, serfs howled, all dove for cover. “ ‘Tis the anger of God!”
“Or the spite of the lords!” Magnus bellowed in answer, ducking down behind a wall. “Only of the noblemen who would bring down our Lord Aran for his charity!”