“What is its range?”
“Aimed range is a hundred paces, Majesty, but it can loft projectiles up to two hundred paces.”
Tol asked, “Can it throw darts or arrows?”
“With some adjustments, yes.”
At Elicarno’s nod, Tol picked up the hand catapult. It was weighty but well balanced. The engineer explained he should tuck the butt end against his right shoulder and aim by holding the stock level with his eyes.
From his place below the emperor’s wives, Prince Nazramin remarked loudly, “Ingenious. Just the thing for knocking pigeons off the battlements. No more soiled statues!” Some in the crowd greeted this remark with titters.
Elicarno’s black brows knotted, and Tol could see the retort forming on his lips. Nazramin was not the sort to take sharp words from a commoner, so Tol forestalled any reply by quickly asking how the device worked. He grasped both sides of the cord, and pressing the butt into his hip, he tried to draw the bowstring back. However, the skeins were very strong, and he succeeded in pulling the bowstring only halfway toward the catch-hook set in the middle of the stock.
“Allow me, my lord.”
Elicarno looped the string over an iron hook attached to his broad leather belt. Bending forward, until the stirrup on the front of the catapult was resting on the floor, he put his foot in the stirrup. By straightening his back, he pulled the bowstring across the catch, where it held.
Mandes, furious at having lost the emperor’s notice, could remain silent no longer.
“How long are we to listen to this tradesman?” he protested. “Your Majesty, by rights he should not even be here-”
“I will listen as long as I like,” came the mild reply.
Mandes’s gaze flickered toward Nazramin, hoping to find an ally, but the prince was busy downing a large goblet of wine.
Fixing a bland smile on his face, the sorcerer smoothed his blue velvet robe. “As Your Majesty pleases, always,” he said. “We all know what interesting toys Master Elicarno makes.”
“Toys?” the engineer exclaimed. “I’ll show you a toy!”
He took the lead ball from Tol and loaded it into the catapult. Holding the device high, he turned swiftly, searching for a target. A bronze statue of Ackal Dermount II on the palace promenade caught his eye, and he squeezed the release bar under the catapult’s stock. The bowstring hummed, and the small gray ball flashed away. A heartbeat later, the projectile hit the bronze torso with a metallic plunk. The statue rocked from the impact.
“That lead ball just penetrated bronze plate a finger’s width thick,” Elicarno announced. “The target was over sixty paces away. At forty paces, I can pierce iron armor. With the improved version of my hand catapult, projectiles will go through an iron cuirass at two hundred paces!”
“Sacrilege!” Mandes said, pointing dramatically to the ruined statue. “You desecrated an image of the emperor’s ancestor!”
“It was a terrible likeness anyway,” Ackal IV said.
During the polite laughter that greeted his sally, the emperor began to cough. He couldn’t stop. Thura rubbed his back, her round face creasing with worry.
When he finally regained his breath and lifted his head, blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth. Those nearby gasped, the murmurs of concern rippling outward through the ranks of notables. Thura wiped the blood away with a linen napkin.
“Your Majesty!” Mandes said, taking advantage of the silence. “Permit me to say these claptrap machines are not worthy of your attention! Leave such mechanical trivialities to the gnomes. The Emperor of Ergoth can rely upon the swords of his brave warriors and the magic of his loyal sorcerer!”
If Mandes hoped to win the sympathy of the assembled warlords with his remarks, he failed. Even the dullest soldier present could see the value of Elicarno’s invention, and many of them had been on the receiving end of Mandes’s spells and potions. Not a word was spoken in his support. Mandes’s eyes kept darting to Prince Nazramin, but he was engaged in a murmured flirtation with the ladies seated on either side of him.
Elicarno bristled. “Claptrap? Trivialities? Bold words from a weaver of mists and concocter of poisons!”
Pale blue eyes narrowing, Mandes raised a hand, fingers spread, a conjuration forming on his lips. Tol grasped the engineer’s arm, as though to restrain him from further heated words, but in fact to grant him the secret protection of the millstone. However, the agitated expostulations of Chamberlain Valdid reminded Mandes where he was, and he ceased his spellcasting.
Instead, he drew himself up haughtily and stated, “You slander me, Master Elicarno. I demand an apology!”
Elicarno’s reply was brief and pungent. Courtiers gasped to hear profanity spoken in the emperor’s presence, but the warlords guffawed. More heated words would have followed, but Ackal IV, looking wan, called for silence. Although he shivered visibly, sweat had formed a sickly sheen on his forehead.
“Neither of you is a Rider,” he said hoarsely. “Dueling is forbidden to the common born.”
Sorcerer and engineer continued to exchange fulminating looks, but their anger turned to surprise with the emperor’s next words.
“Still, I see no reason why your skills cannot be tested against each other. We shall have a contest, a match of magic versus mechanics.”
Excited whispers buzzed through the assembly. Valdid, hovering at the emperor’s elbow, asked, “Is that wise, sire?”
“Let them test their strength with their creations, not by shedding each other’s blood. The empire needs both magic and machines to be strong. Let the champion of each try conclusions against the other.”
Ackal IV pushed himself to his feet. The assemblage of courtiers and warriors likewise rose.
“The contest shall take place on the Field of Corij, two days hence, at five marks past dawn.”
Elicarno and Mandes bowed their heads, signifying their acceptance.
Leaning heavily on his chief wife, Ackal IV told Valdid the celebration should continue, though he was retiring. Everyone waited in respectful silence as they withdrew.
When Ackal IV reached the top of the palace steps after a slow, painful climb, Tol shouted, “Long live the emperor! Long live Ackal IV!”
Thousands of throats took up his cry. The emperor turned and acknowledged their salute with a brief lift of one hand, then he and Thura vanished into the palace. Tol had hoped to speak with Valaran at some point, but when their ailing husband withdrew, protocol demanded the imperial consorts retire as well. With a swirl of crimson silk, Valaran entered the shadowed palace.
Freed of the presence of imperial dignity, the feast immediately grew louder and more raucous.
Mandes slipped away as Egrin, the Dom-shu sisters, and Tol’s officers came forward to meet Elicarno. Miya in particular seemed quite taken with the hand catapult. She and Elicarno spent the rest of the party talking earnestly together. Tol remarked to Kiya that he’d not known Miya was so interested in machines. Kiya said it wasn’t engines that held Miya’s attention so much as the engineer.
Tol invited Elicarno to stay with them at the villa, citing Mandes’s treachery. He wouldn’t put it past the sorcerer to make an attempt on the engineer’s life before the contest.
Elicarno agreed. He’d long suspected Mandes had been behind the strange, crippling arthritis that had afflicted his old master practically overnight. The illness struck just after Master Wurdgell had argued with a prominent courtier over a fee the courtier refused to pay. The courtier, Elicarno explained, was known to be one of Mandes’s clients.
Midnight had come and gone when Tol and his party finally left the continuing celebration. They recovered their weapons at the Inner City gate while they waited for their horses to be brought. As he and his apprentices had no horses, Elicarno accepted Miya’s offer to ride double with her.