series 01 05 A Prince of Mars Page 7

  “You might have warned me,” he said in English, but he chuckled as he did so, enjoying the joke despite his discomfort.

  “Why? Are they too tart for you?” she asked innocently. “What do you have all bundled up?”

  “What?” Nathanial said and looked at the package in his left arm as if noticing it for the first time. “Oh this. Well, something for you to try out once we stop for our afternoon break, which should be any time. Ah, there’s the horn now.”

  The ruumet breehr, never very fast to begin with, slowed even more and the driver turned it left, toward the small stream in the middle of the dry canal. The animals would water while the humans rested and took their meal.

  “Goodby, Annabellanna,” her musketeers called and she waved to them as they left to join their messmates for their meal.

  “Something for me to try?” she asked, intrigued.

  “For your exercises,” Nathanial explained, and she felt her heart drop a little.

  She was finally getting used to her exercises, was able to do them without assistance. Now were they to become more difficult? But she forced a smile. “Very well, let me see these new devices with which I shall be tortured.”

  Nathanial unwrapped his bundle. He held a stiff leather sack, about six inches across and a bit more than that deep, open at the top and slightly rounded at the bottom. It had a long strap run through loops around the top, and a small metal buckle. It took her a moment to recognise it for what it was: a leather cover for her stump. For a moment she felt a wave of nausea. She found it far easier to contemplate what was missing from her leg than what was left. She felt a far more intimate connection to her vanished foot and shin and knee than she did to the scarred and puckered stump which remained.

  Despite her best efforts at self-control, some of her feelings must have shown in her face.

  “It is only temporary,” Nathanial hastened to explain. “It will take a while for you to get used to the cup, and the size of your…”

  “My stump. You can say it, Nathanial. The word will not injure me further.”

  “Of course. The size and shape of your stump will change as the swelling goes down and the muscles become better developed. This is a crude cup, I know, but once we have returned to civilisation, I shall make one from rubber, with such a good fit you will not need this strap and buckle. This is just—ˮ

  “To toughen my stump and get me used to it. Yes, I see. I notice there is a socket to accept a peg. Do we have one?”

  Kak’hamish stepped forward and offered his own long, thin bundle to her. She took it and unwrapped it, quickly at first, but then she slowed when she caught sight of what was within.

  The peg was not round in cross section, but square, or at least angular, and it was carved from what the musketeers called blackwood, the stubby trees with drooping branches which grew at intervals along the waterways. The wood was well-named. The peg had been lightly oiled to make it gleam, but the natural colour was a deep, warm grey, like lightly rusted iron. How odd, she thought, that the wood bore the same name as the book which had taken her leg, but undoubtedly saved her life.

  Kak’hamish had carved it so that it appeared to be a complex mechanical construct, with seams, raised plates, the suggestion of gears and pistons, and even rivets at regular intervals. The rivets were a different texture and she realised each one had been carved separately as a peg and sunk into the wooden leg, fixed with glue. On one of the panels, high up near where it would enter the socket in the cup, were two words, carved in an angular, blocky alphabet Annabelle did not recognise. She ran her fingers across them. They felt as if they had been stamped in steel instead of carved into wood.

  “Kak’hamish, it is…beautiful. What do the words mean?”

  “They mean Annabelle’s Spirit in my native tongue.”

  She looked up at him. “You think my spirit is iron?”

  Clack-clack. “As strong as iron, but the leg is from a living thing, not metal.”

  She embraced him, held him very close for several long seconds until she trusted herself not to weep. “No person could ask for finer friends than I have in you two,” she said when the lump in her throat had gone down. “I shall work very hard with the leather cup you have made, Nathanial, and I shall always treasure this leg.”

  “I am working on a more involved one, you know,” Nathanial said. “I promised you a knee and you shall have one, although it will take some time and a proper workshop. I have some drawings if you would like to see.”

  “Yes, very much,” Annabelle said, while she hugged the carved leg to her bosom. Nathanial drew out a paper and unfolded it.

  “It is quite advanced in design, I believe, although I do not understand why this has not been done before. It draws on the same principle as the artificial hand made by the German mercenary Götz von Berlichingen, in the sixteenth century.”

  “Götz von Berlichingen?” she said.

  “Yes. Chap had his right forearm taken off—by a cannonball, as I recall—and yet he carried on as a warrior knight for another thirty or forty years. He made a spring-operated mechanical iron hand which could open and close, hold anything from a sword to a quill pen. It turns out those iron fists the Germans like to plaster all over the place started with him.”

  “He fought as a knight with an artificial hand?”

  “Yes, one he and his blacksmith cobbled together over three hundred years ago. I cannot imagine why artificial limbs have not become more advanced in the interim, but it is high time they did. You see, I’ve been doing a deal of walking this last week, and I’ve paid attention to what happens as I do—the physics of it, if you will. Fascinating, actually, the way the different parts of the leg act in concert.”

  She looked at the diagram he held. For all of its mechanical internal complexity, externally it looked very like a real leg. That pleased her.

  “This leg design uses a series of opposed springs which store and discharge energy at different points in the leg’s motion,” he went on. “You see, as you lean forward in your stride, your ankle bends, but provides resistance, then unbends to propel you forward. Opposed springs in the artificial ankle will produce a similar effect. And see here, this pressure rod attached to the heel? As you put your weight on your leg this rod compresses the spring in the knee, which provides the energy to unbend the leg in the back stride.”

  “I want a secret compartment,” Annabelle said.

  Nathanial paused in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Here,” she said, pointing to the thick part of the calf. “Your pressure rods run through the front of the leg, where the bones would be, yes? This back part seems largely decorative. You could make a secret compartment for me there, something long and thin.”

  “I…well, yes, I suppose so. Long and thin you say?”

  “Ah, for a stiletto,” Kak’hamish said.

  She beamed. “Yes! A lady never knows when a stiletto might be an essential accessory. Do you really think the leg will work this well, Nathanial? Are you that much more clever than this Götz von Berlichingen?”

  “Well of course I am!” he said with mock wounded pride. “Really, Annabelle, how could you think otherwise? The fellow was German.”

  3.

  nathanial felt splendid riding on the gashant. It was only his second time, and the animal’s gait was difficult to get used to, but he felt splendid nevertheless. Kak’hamish told him the two gashants they rode were old and tired, and so fit only for children and old women, but Nathanial did not care. He felt as free and alive as he could ever remember.

  The day was clear, as every day on Mars had been so far, and as cool as he could remember at midday. To either side of them the dark brown and black escarpments of the dead canal bank marched in perfect parallel formation to the horizon. Sand had drifted over the scarp and lined the base of the cliff. Beyond that the ground gave way to a bed of rocks polished round and flat by long-vanished water, then a broad stretch of scrub, and finally lush g
rass and wildflowers in the centre of the old basin. Nathanial saw no free-standing water on this stretch of the gardenway, but he knew it was there under the surface, the plants sending down deep, thin roots to find its sweetness.

  God in heaven, what a glorious day!

  “Kak’hamish, I believe I shall grow a moustache.”

  “All English men do,” the Martian answered from his own saddle mount.

  “That’s not true! Actors and barristers cannot, by law. But I mean a real moustache, a wild jungle of a moustache, not some tame little ornamental shrub, some…potted daisy of a moustache. I believe I shall grow it thick and long, and curl the ends up. I may grow a goatee as well.”

  Kak’hamish chuckled. “If it brings you pleasure, my friend, you must do it.”

  “You think I’ve a cracked plate, don’t you? That I’ve gone off my nut out here. Well I don’t care; I’m doing it regardless of what anyone thinks.”

  “I do not think you have lost your senses, Friend Nathanial. People find themselves in the desert, they do not lose themselves. Sometimes that discovery brings despair. Other times it brings freedom.”

  Freedom. Yes, that was exactly how he felt—free. He wondered now if he had ever truly felt free before.

  “The desert seems to have brought freedom to the mounted guards as well,” Kak’hamish said, the banter gone from his voice. “The two outriders to the north wander further and further from the caravan. If the Sword Master paid more attention to his men and less to his toy rockets, the world would be a happier place.”

  They did seem to have strayed even farther than usual, Nathanial noticed. “We are due in Abak’hn the day after tomorrow. Perhaps there is less need for vigilance here,” he suggested. The look Kak’hamish gave him said otherwise. “Yes, very well. Someone had better give old Onxym Haat a nudge, I suppose. He won’t pay any attention to you, so it’s up to me. You stay back here while I ride ahead. Ha git-git-git!” he called as he put his heels to the flanks of the gashant, coaxing it into a half-hearted trot.

  After twenty or thirty paces it slowed to a walk again. “Ha git-git-git!” he repeated, the command taught them by one of Jed-An’s personal mounted guards. Now those four were real cavalry troopers! You could see it just looking at the well-maintained carbines resting in their saddle holsters, how they sat their mounts, how their eyes were always moving, always alert for danger. Not like these other sad bastards playing at caravan guard. “HAAA git-git-git!” he tried again, and this time his mount resumed its trot. He passed four lumbering ruumet breehr before he came to Onxym Haat’s beast second from the front.

  “Ho, there! Hello the howdah! Haat, you old desert thief, it is I, Moustache Nate the desperado! HALLOO!” The words meant nothing to Haat, of course, but the shouts attracted his attention.

  The porcine caravan master peered angrily over the side of the howdah and down at Nathanial, who in turn pointed north toward the two outriders, now riding slowly through the belt of scrub. Haat looked that way, shading his eyes from the sun, his face betraying boredom and irritation. Then he stood up straight and screamed the alarm. Nathanial turned to his right where perhaps a quarter mile away more than a score of gashant-mounted men seemingly boiled up from the ground like an eruption of lava and thundered toward the caravan.

  Again the caravan seemed to explode into motion, but less organised this time, more desperate Nathanial thought. The ruumet breehr turned toward the raiders in a straggling, uneven line, but there was no time for them to close up. Nathanial pulled his mount’s reins hard to the left and kicked his heels into the beast’s flanks.

  “HAAA git-git-git!”

  This time the animal took the command to heart and stretched out into a long-striding run, head down and tail extended directly out to the rear for balance. Nathanial clung desperately to the saddle to stay on his bouncing, swaying mount. He flashed between the flanks of two ruumet breehr and through a scattering crowd of men on foot, then into the grass belt beyond. Ahead of him he saw two more outriders in animated conversation, but who did not ride toward the caravan.

  Nathanial’s mount came to the shallow dry ravine through the centre of the grass belt and leaped into the air to hurdle it. Nathanial became completely airborne, connected only by his death grip on the saddle. When the animal hit ground, Nathanial came down off-centre, lost his hold, and fell into the tall grass, tumbling over and over.

  The fall dazed him and for a moment he lay in the grass recovering his wits. The sound of a musket shot, and then another, brought him back to the present. He sat up and looked north over the brush. Just sitting up made him dizzy. The caravan had stopped and was now a swirl of confused activity. There had been no time for the musketeers to climb into the howdahs. Knots of men on foot clustered by wagons—a musketeer here and there but mostly labourers. Most cowered in panic or scrambled under the wagon beds while a few stalwarts pulled long pikes from the wagons.

  Nathanial located Annabelle’s wagon, the fifth one to the right from Onxym Haat’s. He saw no sign of Kak’hamish. Nathanial crawled on hands and knees through the tall grass toward the wagon but came to the gully immediately, slid down into it, crossed to the far bank, and paused as his head spun.

  The gully was little more than three feet deep, but the grass to either side was nearly as tall. From here he could see nothing, which meant no one could see him. The riders were interested in plundering the caravan, not murdering some lone straggler, and so were unlikely to venture this way. He was unarmed, while Annabelle had her four musketeers and Kak’hamish to defend her. Could he contribute anything important to that defence? Surely not. Better to wait here until things sorted themselves out.

  Nathanial stood still in the gulley and heard the war cries of mounted raiders, the shouts of fear and pain of men from the caravan, scattered musket shots, the collective sounds of a desperate battle where people he knew struggled for their lives, and some of them perhaps lost that struggle. As he listened, his head cleared. A ruumet breehr bellowed in pain, another answered in fear, wood splintered, men cried out in terror or rage.

  No. This would not do. He could not simply stand here and listen. He was not sure what to do, but inaction was not an option. He might need a weapon, he supposed. He knelt and pried a grapefruit-sized round rock from the muddy bed of the stream. He made his way down the gulley until he judged himself opposite Annabelle’s wagon, where he scrambled up on the bank of the gully for a better view.

  The look of the battle had changed in just the few moments he had been in the gully. Several riderless gashants ran free in the area but Nathanial could not tell if they were the mounts of raiders or caravan guards, or perhaps a mix of the two. One ruumet breehr was down on its side, coughing blood but still kicking, trying vainly to regain its feet. The beasts to either side shied away, overturning a wagon and spreading more confusion. Another animal further down the line had bolted—if the lumbering waddle of the animal could be thus described—to the north, dragging behind it a wagon which had already lost a wheel and which leaked an irregular stream of bales and boxes of goods in its wake.

  A large knot of defenders, pikes bristling, clustered around the base of Onxym Haat’s animal and wagon, and similar groups formed two or three other defensive hedgehogs further back. The pikes held the riders at bay while a few musketeers stood between them, fired at a rider, and then fell back behind the pikes to reload. Solitary raiders wheeled and charged the pikes, threw javelins when close, then galloped back away from the deadly points.

  No similar cluster of pikes stood near Annabelle’s wagon, only four musketeers in a tight semicircle around the back and one tall pikeman dressed in rags—Kak’hamish. The riders probably sought a weak point, and they would find it soon enough, right there.

  Nathanial pushed forward on hands and knees into the tall grass. A rider looking directly at him might see but he imagined they had more pressing demands on their attention. He dropped to his belly as he approached the area already trampled do
wn by the earlier path of the caravan, pushing himself forward with his knees and elbows. Three mounted raiders now trotted at a cautious distance from the four musketeers. A fourth rider, closer to Nathanial, had halted his mount and was occupied in wrapping a bloody rag about his left forearm. Someone had at least drawn blood. Nathanial saw movement among the musketeers but no fire issued from them.

  “Shoot the rascals,” Nathanial heard himself say softly. “Go on, what are you waiting for? Just shoot the lot of them!”

  Unaware he had stood up, he found himself on his feet and the heavy rock in his hand. He ran toward the wounded raider, whose attention remained on his own arm and the cluster of men around the wagon. The rider never heard him coming and after a dozen strides Nathanial leaped into the air and seized the rider around the waist, pulling him awkwardly from the saddle as his mount squawked in alarm and bolted.

  The two fell to the ground and the stone slipped from Nathanial’s hand before he had a chance to brain his opponent. The Martian was stronger than Nathanial but had little use of his left arm. That might have made the contest even, if Nathanial had any idea what he was doing, but he did not. Once on the ground he found himself flailing at the raider, landing ineffective blows on his shoulders and head. They rolled onto the clutch of javelins which had fallen from the rider’s hip quiver when they had tumbled. Nathanial felt several shafts snap under their weight and the broken wood tear into his shoulder.

  The Martian pushed back away from Nathanial, sat up, and shook his head to clear it. Nathanial rolled away from him and searched frantically in the grass for his lost rock. The Martian drew the knife from his belt and with a cry leaped forward and Nathanial grabbed the first thing which came to hand, a stick, and held it up to stave off the attack.

  He had not seized a stick, but rather one of the scattered javelins. Unfortunately, the end the Martian ran onto was the blunt one. The warrior fell back with a grunt of pain, rubbing his ribcage with his free hand. Nathanial, now frantic with fear and anger, rose to his knees and began beating his opponent with the javelin, using it as a rod. One of the blows landed full on the side of the man’s head and stunned him and another knocked the knife from his hand. Nathanial struck him again and the javelin splintered and broke in half.