A large brown boot, filthy with muck, slammed down onto the rung by his fingers, stopping the motion of the ladder. Stonewall stood above him, frowning as he looked down. Stonewall muttered something Burke didn't quite catch, then leaned down and grabbed Burke's wrist. Before Burke could protest, the giant lifted him, moving him through the air with no more effort than lifting a house cat.
Stonewall brought Burke even with his eyes. Despite his great size, Stonewall possessed youthful, even boyish features. His cheeks and chin were smooth, with no hint of beard, and the skin around his eyes was free of wrinkles or blemishes. His eyes were a piercing gray, the color of freshly cooled pig iron. His ebony hair framed his face in curly locks.
"You should be more careful," Stonewall said, his voice deep as a sun-dragons, yet also gentle.
Burke nodded. "You can put me down now." Stonewall sat Burke down. Burke hopped over to the wall and balanced against it while Stonewall handed him his crutch.
"Should you be up yet?" asked Stonewall. "You've only had a few days to recover from your surgery."
"I can't rest anymore," said Burke, wrestling the spy-owl case from his shoulder. "There's too much to be done. I'm tired of running this fort from a bed."
Stonewall crossed his massive arms. His chainmail shirt rattled as he moved. "I was unaware you were running anything," he said. "Ragnar commands this fort by God's grace. You merely advise him."
Burke didn't want to argue with this oversized farm boy. He'd known the moment he'd signed up for this revolution that he'd do all the work and Ragnar would get all the glory. To be honest, he wanted things this way. He'd been one of the leaders of the Southern Rebellion twenty years ago, and in his dreams he still heard the screams of the men he'd led as the sun-dragon army tore them to shreds. This new rebellion may have been following his plans, but Ragnar's fire and brimstone speeches were what motivated the men. Plus, Burke was blameless if these men chose to die for Ragnar's glory.
Ignoring Stonewall, Burke flipped the brass clasps of the heavy case. Three legs dropped down, creating a tripod that the case balanced on. The panels of the case folded away revealing a brass statue of an owl almost two feet high. The owl's glass eyes reflected his image in the soft morning light. He leaned, as if wiping away a smudge from the eye-lenses, but in reality it was some faint trace of vanity that drew his eye. He'd bathed this morning for the first time in weeks. His hair was clean and shining, with three crimson feather-scales woven into the braid that draped over his shoulder. His spare spectacles made his brown eyes look oddly small, but for the first time in weeks the whites of his eyes were truly white, untainted by illness. Three parallel scars ran down his right cheek, testament to his first encounter with Charkon twenty years prior. Yet despite the scars and wrinkles, despite the gray that streaked his hair, he looked pretty good for a man who'd been at the gates of death only a few days before. He straightened up and spun the spy owl around to face the western road. It was two hours after sun-rise. Normally a stream of refugees, volunteers, and traders would gather around the city walls during the night. This morning, they were absent.
He leaned down and looked into the window in the back of the spy-owl's head. An elaborate set of mirrors and lenses caught the light from two miles down the road and brought it crisply to his eyes.
It didn't take him long to understand what he was looking at. A platoon of earth-dragons were lashing human corpses to poles set along the road-side. From the look of things, these weren't fresh bodies. A trio of sky-dragons stood nearby, supervising. From their armor, Burke recognized them as members of the Aerial Guard.
"It took them long enough," he said.
"It took who long enough for what?" asked Stonewall.
"A blockade. Earth-dragons and sky-dragons. We've had an easy couple of weeks since Shandrazel's army collapsed. With two kings dying back to back, the second with no heir, there's been no one to seize control of the earth-dragons and guide them into the rather obvious strategy of a blockade. They've been randomly running around the countryside killing people in an unfocused rage. They've made life miserable for people directly in their path, but as a strategy for retaking Dragon Forge, it has obvious shortcomings."
"You shouldn't speak so lightly of the people who've died due to the dragons' rampage," said Stonewall. "I've spoken to many of the refugees. They've seen horrible things."
"I know," said Burke, rising up from the spy-owl. "I told Ragnar what he was unleashing before we took this fort."
"Can I look?" asked Stonewall, pointing to the owl.
"Be my guest," said Burke, hopping backwards to make room, keeping his balance with a hand on the battlements.
Stonewall dropped down on one knee and brought his eyes tentatively to the window on the back of the owl's head.
"You may need to adjust the focus," said Burke. "There's a dial-"
Before he finished speaking, Stonewall raised his beefy fingers to the dial on the back of the bird's head and began to fiddle with it.
"Amazing," he said softly. "It's like I'm standing right next to them. I can count the fringes on the back of that sky-dragon's head." He turned and looked at Burke with something approaching awe. "You designed this?"
"Yes," said Burke.
"How did you grind the lenses so precisely?"
Burke lifted an eyebrow. "I'm glad you know it's done with lenses," he said. "Ragnar thought it was magic."
"I'm originally from the Drifting Islands," said Stonewall. "Many of the sailors use spyglasses."
"Back at the tavern, I had special instruments that would let me shape glass to almost any specification."
Stonewall stood up. "You're a man of many talents, Machinist." He sounded almost respectful. "I should go tell Ragnar. He'll know what to do to break this siege."
"Respectfully, he won't," said Burke. "For the moment, we don't need it broken." Stonewall frowned. "We've had three weeks to load in coal and supplies. We've got more pig iron stacked in the foundries than I can use in a year. We have a good, deep well, and, if my orders have been carried out in regards to upgrading the sewers, our sanitation practices have beaten back the threat of disease. We're in no immediate danger. If someone has taken control of the renegade earth-dragons, then things should calm down in the countryside. The fact the sky-dragons are involved is a good sign. They're smart fighters. They'll take as long as they need to build up their forces and establish order."
"We should strike before they can consolidate power," said Stonewall.
"No. I've not had enough time to explore the possibilities of gunpowder. You've seen the shotguns. I've got mortars and cannons coming out of the forge this week. We have a technological advantage they don't know about. They're building their blockade out of the range of the sky-wall bows. They have no idea of the hell we're going to unleash if I have time to build half of the inventions that are in my mind."
Stonewall looked out toward the western road, at the tiny figures in the distance. From here, it was almost impossible to tell these were dragons. Stonewall said, without looking directly at Burke, "They say you don't believe in God."
Burke shrugged. "I've never been a man of faith."
Stonewall straightened his back, adding inches to his towering frame. "Yet you ask us to have faith in you. You keep these inventions in your head, keeping your master plans secret while workmen labor on the individual parts. You won't even share the secret of the gunpowder you ask us all to trust our lives to. Have you no faith in your fellow men, Burke?"
Burke was surprised by the bluntness of the question. He was more surprised by the bluntness of his answer. "No." He sighed. "I… as bad as I've seen dragons treat humans, I've seen men do worse to each other."