Finally they reached the end of the developed part of the Compound. The lord marshal spotted an intriguing device a half mile away, across the remaining field. There lay a massive tube, like a huge tree trunk that had been trimmed of all branches and bark. As they drew closer, Jaymes noticed a series of stout metal bands wrapped the tube.
“We’ve made this test barrel out of ironwood,” Dram explained. “After the oak we had been using got shattered in every previous test.”
“And the projectiles?” Jaymes asked.
“We’ve got some boulders, chiseled to fit the exact diameter of the tube. That’s one thing we learned-if the ball is too small, there’s not enough pressure to shoot it out. Too large, of course, and it gets jammed in the pipe. Then we just end up blowing up the whole thing.”
“Oh, hi, Boss. Better stand back if you don’t want to get blowed up.”
The speaker who popped up from behind the huge tree trunk was a gnome female with frizzy hair and a slightly irritated expression. She wore a pair of spectacles-new since the last time Jaymes had seen her-perched on her tiny nose. The lenses were so smudged, the marshal found it hard to imagine they could be any help with seeing.
She blinked up at Jaymes and went back to her work, which involved scrutinizing figures she had written down on a scroll of parchment then comparing the amounts to the black powder being poured into three different casks. Each was about the size of a small beer barrel.
“Thanks for the advice, Sulfie,” Jaymes replied. He watched as the diminutive technician, one of three siblings who were attempting to perfect the black powder for warfare, went back to work. Her brother, Salty Pete, wore a stiff leather apron as he bustled from keg to keg, double-checking the amount of powder in each. If he in any way noticed Jaymes’s arrival, he didn’t let on.
“The kegs are the same size, as you can see,” Dram continued smoothly. “But we’re putting different amounts of the powder in each. We’ll start with the smallest-just three pounds. This will repeat the measure that we tried with our last test, the one that burst the seams of the barrel. This tube we’ve made at nearly twice the strength specifications, however, so we have a greater expectation of success.”
“Test away,” said the marshal. “I’d like to see it in action.”
Jaymes, Dram, and Swig watched as two hill dwarves gently eased the first keg into the mouth of the tube. A third hill dwarf with a long plunger carefully pushed it until it was lodged in the terminus of the shaft, which was about twelve feet long.
“We run a fuse through the little hole here,” Dram indicated as Salty Pete knelt behind the barrel and fed a stiff piece of rope through a small aperture. “We’ve been working on that little problem, too. We use a weaving of string with some of the powder added, so the fire moves down the line at a controlled speed. ’Course, it’s still not too exact; sometimes the danged thing goes out, and other times it races along like you won’t believe.”
“Fuse is ready. Let’s load her up,” Pete declared brusquely.
Two burly hill dwarves hoisted a boulder that, as Dram had described, looked to be the exact diameter to fill the tube. They placed it in the mouth of the shaft then helped the dwarf with the plunger to shove the heavy sphere all the way in, until it was lodged against the keg of powder set in the deepest end of the tube.
“Now’s the time where we should all back up about a hundred paces,” the mountain dwarf said pointedly. Sulfie, Swig, Dram, Jaymes, and all of the hill dwarves withdrew to a safe distance. Only Salty Pete lingered behind. The gnome held a flint and a match up in the air, keeping his eyes on Dram.
“Ready?” asked Dram, his eyes sweeping around.
“Whenever you give the word is fine with me,” Jaymes replied.
“Fire away!” hollered Dram. “Best cover your ears,” he added for the benefit of the novices.
Salty Pete struck a flame and extended the match to the end of the snaking fuse. As soon as the rope began to fizz and crackle, the gnome turned and sprinted for the others, arriving just as the fire advanced to the terminus of the tube. Then it hissed out of sight, and there was a moment of torturous suspense, when nothing seemed to happen. Even the wind seemed to falter, waiting, hesitant and fearful.
The explosion was sudden, incredibly loud, and impressively violent. A boom of sound pulsated in the air, and a cloud of fiery smoke billowed from the mouth of the tube. The round boulder emerged from that cloud, flying lazily for about a hundred paces before it plummeted to the ground, rolled another few dozen feet, and came to a rest.
“Hmm. So far so good,” Dram declared.
“In principle,” Jaymes agreed noncommittally. “But not much use on the battlefield-a good longbowman can fire an arrow three times that distance.”
“Well, that was just for starters, just a warm-up of course,” the mountain dwarf huffed. “Now we’ll try it with some real pop and bang.”
The crew of hill dwarves scurried back to work. First they swabbed out the tube with a wet rag. “We learned the hard way not to put in a keg back in there while there are still glowing sparks inside,” explained the mountain dwarf.
Then they eased the second cask into place, one containing twelve pounds of black powder. “Four times as much blast,” the dwarf noted proudly. “More than we’ve ever used before-but the barrel is four times stronger than any we’ve tried, also. So keep your fingers crossed or say a prayer if you’re the religious type.”
They watched as Pete knelt down and rigged another section of fuse, leaving a generous amount outside the base of the barrel. Finally the dwarves loaded a second stone ball and rolled it into place in the base of the tube. The workers hurried away.
“This blast is going to be louder,” warned Dram.
Jaymes nodded and put his hands over his ears, as did the other observers. Salty Pete waited for the signal from Dram then struck a match, touching the burning end to the fuse. Immediately the fire took hold, racing and sputtering along the line so quickly that, by the time the gnome had hopped to his feet and spun around, it had advanced halfway to the breech.
“Run!” cried Sulfie.
“Damn-it’s a speed burn!” Dram grunted.
By the time Pete had taken two steps, the fire had reached the base of the bombard and vanished into the hole. The explosion was much louder this time, but immediately Jaymes realized that something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of a gout of flame and smoke bursting from the mouth of the tube, the entire structure seemed to swell and redden with heat, then the whole device was obliterated in a blast of shocking violence.
The tube, the mount, and the gnome were gone in a single, massive flash.
“My brother!” cried Sulfie, starting forward.
Dram grabbed her by the scruff of her tunic and pulled her back. “Wait!” demanded the dwarf, ignoring the protests of the struggling, weeping gnome. In a few breaths there was a second flash, followed by a steady rumble as the kegs of powder behind the revetment, showered by sparks from the first blast, also began to explode.
After a few more moments of explosions and fire and light, there was nothing left but stink and smoke.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Even now, with the dome of sparkling stars above him, the moons of red and white both visible at differing ends of the sky, Ankhar could not dispel the appalling sense of isolation and entombment that had pressed so heavily upon him during the sunless quest. He had never expected to miss so much of the world he had always known. Never one to wax poetic over the song of a bird or the fragrance of a lush forest, he had nevertheless found those sensory memories tormenting his dreams, jolting him awake and near despair as he recognized the stone and dark and cold of his subterranean surroundings.