Faced with all this bad news, he welcomed the interruption when Sagen pushed aside the flap to his tent.
"Sir? May I speak with you?"
"Please come in," said Vulpine. He motioned toward the kettle. "May I offer you a cup of my daily elixir?"
Sagen's nose wrinkled as he contemplated the oily fluid.
"I promise it grows on you," said Vulpine.
"Breakfast can wait. I was awakened with news only moments ago. I felt it was important that I consult with you at once. There's been… activity… at Dragon Forge," said Sagen, sounding hesitant in his choice of words.
"So they've poked their heads out again after yesterday's bombardment?"
The skin around Sagen's eyes bunched up as if he were pondering how to say his next sentence. "There are reports that the blockade has been breached, sir."
Vulpine sighed. "Let me guess. The earth-dragons got so twisted on goom they fell asleep at their posts and let more refugees into the fort."
"No sir," said Sagen. "It was breached by the air. By angels."
Vulpine tilted his head, not quite certain he'd heard this correctly. "Angels," Vulpine said calmly. "Men with wings."
Sagen nodded. "And a pig."
"A pig?"
"Yes sir."
"With wings?"
"Yes sir."
Vulpine closed his eyes and rubbed his brow with his fore-talon. His scales felt especially dry this morning. Sagen, as a product of his bloodline, was designed to be among the most sane and intelligent dragons who'd ever flown above the earth. He was certain his son wasn't deranged. So, angels. And why not? He'd never believed in their reality, but the Ballad of Belpantheron spoke of them, and there had reportedly been an angel who'd come to the defense of the Nest during the recent nastiness with Blasphet. Perhaps that angel still lingered in the area, along with a friend or two.
"How many?" he asked, opening his eyes.
"Counting the pig?"
"I don't see why not."
"Six. The pig, a woman, and four men, ranging in age from a boy to a wizened old man."
Vulpine took a sip of the hot elixir. He swished it around on his tongue for a moment, allowing the heat in his mouth a few extra seconds to warm his brain.
"Who reported the sighting?"
"Arifiel."
"Ah," said Vulpine. He didn't especially like the female, but she'd shown no tendency toward exaggeration or fantasy.
"Her sighting was confirmed by a score of earth-dragons, though given the weakness of their vision I'm not certain we can give much credence there."
"The word of Arifiel is enough," Vulpine said. "It's an odd development, I'll grant you, but we'll manage it. I'm familiar enough with human mythology to know they associate angels with death. Perhaps they're harbingers that the end is near."
"Is the end near, sir?" asked Sagen. "Many of the guard have noticed the lack of activity within the fort in recent days. The walls are practically undefended. We could be at the town center within minutes. Why must we tarry?"
Vulpine started to mention the wheeled-bows and the guns as good reasons, but held his tongue. He looked at the correspondence before him. Had he miscalculated the greater danger? He thought he was keeping chaos from spreading by containing Dragon Forge. But what if, by focusing on the few square miles of earth within the circle of the blockade, he was ignoring the greater danger at his back? What if they won Dragon Forge, but lost the kingdom?
"Summon Arifiel and Sawface," said Vulpine. "Let us hold a council of war."
"Why Sawface? You know his opinion. He will want to charge the walls of the city and rip the limbs from every living thing he encounters."
"True," said Vulpine. "And I'm intrigued to see if I can find any reason to argue against his doing so. Have them here in five minutes. I'm going to take a quick flight to survey the area."
Vulpine sat his tin cup onto the table, gazing at the gray and brown dregs at the bottom. His medicine looked no better than it tasted.
A crowd of at least a thousand men surrounded the well, their eyes fixed upon Burke. Most had rags covering their mouths and noses. The stench of rot and sewage grew as the morning sun climbed above the eastern wall. Steam rose from the skin of a corpse on a nearby roof.
No one said a word. Ragnar, prophet of the lord, was approaching.
Ragnar looked particularly wild this morning. His mane of black hair and chest-length beard clung to his leathery skin in oily, tangled locks. He carried the cross he'd had welded together from swords before him in both hands. The whites of the prophet's eyes glowed in the dark shadows beneath his bushy brow.
The crowd parted as Ragnar stalked forward. Behind him was Stonewall, also armed. He carried a mace and a heavy steel shield that Burke recognized instantly. It was one of the armored plates from the Angry Beetle. The giant wore a vest of chainmail and a steel helmet that covered most of his skull, but left his eyes and mouth exposed. Burke expected to see hate in Stonewall's eyes after their rather abrupt parting of ways. Instead, Stonewall looked more worried than vengeful.
Behind Ragnar were two more Mighty Men, Joab and Adino. They, too, wore chainmail vests and helmets, but carried flintlock shotguns. Burke felt a mixture of pride and consternation when he realized that the guns were both double-barreled and incorporated the back loading design he'd created for the Angry Beetle's weaponry. This meant someone had found and decoded his notes, or else extrapolated cleverly from the plans he'd already shared. His pride came not because the weapons were ones he'd designed, but from the realization that he wasn't the only smart man in the fort. These rebels who surrounded him were good men, brave, and clever. It would be an honor to die by their side in battle.
Of course, dying by their side had never worried him. Dying at their hands was what kept him awake at night.
The crowd drew back even further as Ragnar marched within a yard of the well. He glared up at Burke, studying him closely. The prophet's beefy hands squeezed tightly around the cross.
A thick vein beside the prophet's left eyebrow pulsed strongly enough that Burke could count the big man's heartbeats. Ragnar's mouth opened. Burke braced himself, certain that he was about to be condemned as a witch or a devil.
Instead, the prophet asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper, "Are you dead?"
Thorny glanced up at Burke, his eyebrows raised. The question had taken him by surprise as well.
Before Burke could answer, Ragnar continued, eying Jeremiah. "This was the boy sick with yellow-mouth."
Jeremiah nodded. "I'm not sick anymore," he said.
The hairy man studied Vance's face, then Thorny's.
"These were the men who fled town," he said, quietly. "You perished in the explosion."
Now Jeremiah, Vance, and even Poocher were looking to Burke to see what he would say next. Only Anza didn't look at him; she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the Mighty Men with the guns. For the moment, Burke felt bulletproof.
He shook his head. "We aren't dead," he said, firmly, making certain the crowd heard his words. "I know I could play upon your superstitions and claim we're specters, or angels. I could claim it was God who healed our wounds and gave us wings of silver. But these are all lies. I'm a man who values truth.
"Our presence here has nothing to do with gods or magic. The wings that hold me in the air are machines, better machines than I know how to build. Jeremiah's yellow-mouth was fixed by machines, tiny ones, smaller than I can design. Vance can see because of them; Anza can talk. Thorny had lost most of his teeth over the years. Smile for the crowd, Thorny." Thorny gave a broad grin to the men who stood before him, displaying his restored choppers.