Lyrna turned as Murel tugged insistently on her arm, gesturing at the door to her cabin where Iltis stood, drenched from head to toe and wearing an expression of pointed impatience.
“I strongly suggest you take shelter, Highness,” the Shield said, hauling on the tiller anew as another wave lifted the prow towards the sky. “Storms have no respect for rank.”
• • •
As he had predicted the weather calmed over the succeeding days, allowing Lady Alornis an opportunity to demonstrate her new device. “Brother Harlick was kind enough to provide a few inspiring examples from history,” she said, fitting a large set of bellows onto a copper tube protruding from the contraption’s underside. The engine had been placed on the
“There were no images to work from,” Alornis went on, running a cloth over some kind of circular lever on the contraption’s bulbous end. “But an Alpiran text from some six hundred years ago did provide a fulsome description of the machinery. The greatest difficulty was in establishing the correct mix for the fuel.”
“This is an Alpiran device?” Lyrna asked her.
“Indeed, Highness. Used in a sea battle during one of their civil wars. It seems the emperor of the day witnessed its first use and promptly outlawed it, fearing the gods might judge him needlessly cruel. They called it Rhevena’s Lance.”
Rhevena, Lyrna knew, was a principal goddess in the Alpiran pantheon, guardian of the dark paths that must be traversed by every soul upon death. But Rhevena was a kindly goddess and lit the paths with fire so that no good souls lost their way. However, the fire was a living thing, possessed of wisdom and insight, and would flare to engulf an unworthy soul. Lyrna’s heart began to beat faster as she noted the way Furelah completed her task and moved back from the engine with ill-concealed haste, the lamp she had fitted to the spout now lit with a bright yellow flame.
“Lamp oil is too thin,” Alornis continued, working a spigot on the side of the barrel, “and burns away too quickly. So I was obliged to use base oil. Even then it required thickening with pine resin.” She stood back, giving her invention a final look of appraisal before turning to Iltis and Benten. “My lords, the bellows if you would.”
The two lords moved to the bellows, standing side by side to grip the large iron rod fixed to it, both raising a questioning glance at Lyrna. She tried to still the rising pitch of her heartbeat and inclined her head to set them to work. It took several heaves before anything happened but when it did Lyrna was grateful for the shout of alarm that sounded the length of the ship as it concealed her own fearful gasp. A stream of bright yellow fire erupted from the machine’s spout, arcing fully thirty feet from the ship to cascade into the sea amidst a cloud of steam. The becalmed seas had allowed much of the fleet to resume their formation and a chorus of excited shouting could be heard from the nearby ships as the arc of fire continued to flow.
“Aiming is fairly straightforward,” Alornis said, manoeuvring the lance about so the arc wafted the air like a flaming fan. She signalled for Benten and Iltis to stop and turned to Lyrna, the last dregs of burning oil falling behind her, smiling in expectation of royal praise.
Lyrna resisted the urge to wipe the sweat from her brow and kept her hands clasped together beneath her cloak, fearing so many eyes witnessing how badly they trembled.
She felt a gentle touch on her arm and turned to find the Shield at her side, favouring Alornis with his broadest grin. “A remarkable feat, my lady,” he said. “A weapon to win a war if ever I saw one. Wouldn’t you agree, Highness?”
Lyrna took a breath, feeling the tremble abate as the warmth spread from his touch. “My Lady Artificer exceeds all expectations,” she said to Alornis. “Do you have more of these?”
