else she had to say she conveyed with her eyes.
She nodded toward the spy-owl as she reached him. He stepped back to let her look inside. She turned the owl toward a new target and stepped back, motioning for him to look inside. He did so, and found his vision focused on the city gates. He quickly saw what she had noticed without the aid of the spy-owl. The gates were sunk into the dirt. Or rather, over the centuries, the grime and dust of the city had built up and covered the lower parts of the gates. Burke guessed the bottom two feet of the doors were buried.
'I'm not surprised those gates haven't closed in centuries. Walls around towns lost some of their defensive value once the winged dragons took over the world,' Burke said. He moved the spy-owl around, studying further details of the walls. 'This place was built by humans before the ninth plague, when the biggest threat was still other people. That plague gave the dragons their opening; they flourished as mankind withered. Human numbers have built back up, but we've never truly thrived again. As you can imagine, this doesn't sit well with folks like Ragnar, who believe they were given dominion of this world by God.'
Anza gave him a curious look.
'Don't worry that you don't know. I deliberately haven't told you much about God, the Great Spirit, or whatever. I felt there were other educational priorities for you than the study of invisible men who live in the sky.'
She frowned slightly. She glanced toward the horizon, to the exact spot where the moon would be rising in a few hours.
'No, it's nothing like that,' said Burke. 'The men on the moon are real. Even if they weren't, people aren't going out and launching wars to please them. No one has ever been killed because of the moon men.'
Anza pursed her lips. She made a stabbing motion, like she was driving an invisible dagger into someone's belly, then tilted her head, inviting further explanation.
'No,' said Burke. 'I'm not saying it's wrong to kill, if you've got a good reason: Self-defense, financial gain, political advantage, or even just to stay in practice. Killing for a rational purpose is fine. Killing because you think it will make an invisible man in the sky treat you kindly when you're dead is deranged.'
Anza nodded, finally clear on his point. Then she looked down the hills and gave a disgusted wrinkle of her nose. Her eyes said, 'Look who's coming.' Her nose said, 'Ragnar.'
'Speaking of deranged,' Burke mumbled.
A chill wind rushed over the hill as Ragnar, prophet of the Lord, walked toward them. A whistling moan rose from the rust heaps in the valley below. Burke shivered within the folds of his heavy woolen duster. Ragnar, clothed only by his sunburned, leathery skin and a mane of wild hair looked blissfully insensate to the cold. Bliss was perhaps exactly the right word, thought Burke. Ragnar's eyes were permanently narrowed in an angry expression, yet Burke was slowly starting to see the man underneath this mask of rage. The true dominant quality of the prophet wasn't his anger but his serenity, a calm, faithful confidence that came from his absolute certainty that every breath he breathed had been waved across his lips by the fingers of God. It wasn't that Ragnar wasn't angry, boiling with vengeance and wrath-he was simply at peace with this rage.
'What have you learned with your magic bird?' Ragnar asked as he drew near.
Anza moved to Burke's left side then retreated several yards, so that she was no longer directly downwind from the prophet.
'The first thing I've learned is that earth-dragons are uniformly near-sighted,' said Burke. 'If they see anything more than shadows and shapes past fifty yards, I've found no evidence of it.'
'How can you tell?' Ragnar asked.
'For one thing, I've been up here two hours without anyone but the human gleaners glancing my way.'
'My spies are moving among the gleaners,' said Ragnar. 'I want to learn how loyal they are to the dragons.'
'I don't think loyalty is a virtue gleaners hold in high regard,' said Burke. 'They make their living destroying relics that could teach us much about the days when humans ruled the world. I personally don't trust them.'
'Do you fear they will betray our presence?' Ragnar asked.
'Maybe,' said Burke. 'We are going to mess with their livelihood. Fortunately, gleaners aren't noted for their bravery. I can't imagine they'll take up arms against us. Once we control the forge, they won't care who they're selling their junk to. Not that we'll be needing to buy much from them. We can pour for weeks just by melting down all the armor and weapons cluttering up the place.'
'My men need those weapons,' said Ragnar.
'The armor doesn't fit right, and swords and axes are poor weapons to fight the winged dragons. If you want to win, let me outfit your army properly. We need bows more than swords.'
'Many of my men already have bows,' said Ragnar.
'At Conyers, longbows weren't enough,' said Burke. 'The sun-dragons can fly above their range. From that height, anything a dragon drops turns into a weapon. At Conyers, they'd fly overhead and drop bucket-loads of steel darts, only a few inches long, weighing barely an ounce. You couldn't really see the darts as they fell, only a dark shadow released by the dragon's claws as they zoomed over you. One minute, the walls are full of archers, vainly firing arrows at dragons out of reach. The next minute, half your archers are dead, ripped to shreds by the dart swarm.'
'Now you admit to being at Conyers,' said Ragnar.
Burke placed a hand on Anza's shoulder. 'Go back to camp,' he said.
Anza gave him a worried glance. She detected something in his tone, perhaps.
'I'll be fine,' he said.
Anza walked away, slowly at first, then breaking into a sprint. He was envious of her energy, the way her body seemed so light. She bounded down the hill with the grace and speed of a doe.
'You shouldn't have brought your daughter,' Ragnar said. 'War is no place for a woman.'
'Anza is better trained than any of those farmers you've pressed into service. With a hundred like her, I could take this fortress and hold it against every dragon in the world.'
'You wouldn't succeed unless it was the will of the Lord,' said Ragnar. 'He cannot look kindly upon the fact you allow your daughter to dress in such tight clothing. Did the ancient race of the Cherokee always permit its women to dress like whores?'
Burke flicked his wrist, triggering the spring-loaded knife he had in his sleeve. In a flash, he buried the razor tip in the prophet's beard, stopping the second he felt the blade graze flesh.
'You call yourself a prophet,' said Burke, his voice trembling. 'Can you see what I'm going to do if you insult my daughter again?'
Ragnar's lips curved into a smile. His eyes kept the look of frustrating serenity that tempted Burke to give his blade one last push.
'You've brought bad times upon us, prophet,' Burke said, trying not to shout. 'You're about to unleash a war. A lot of people are going to die. Cities will be burned. No crops are going to be planted in the spring and by next winter men everywhere will starve. We might see the dawn of the tenth plague, thanks to you. This is a tremendous burden of misery I could spare the world right now by slitting your damned throat.'
Ragnar's expression changed from serenity to outright glee. 'War!' he said. 'Plague! Famine! Death! These things you fear are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Kill me if you wish; you cannot halt their ride!'
The blade Burke held was among the finest he'd ever machined. It was sharp enough to shave with. The prophet's leathery hide wouldn't even slow it. Burke saw madness in Ragnar's eyes, horrible visions dancing in their black centers. Looking into this darkness, Burke remembered the battle of Conyers with perfect clarity. The deadly rain of darts had been nothing compared to what had happened next. The sun-dragons had dropped onto the fleeing and broken survivors and tore them, simply tore them, ripping flesh from bones with as little effort as a man might use to tear the husk from an ear of corn. Did he want to witness that nightmare again?
No.
And Ragnar was his best hope of never seeing it replayed.
His hand trembled as he pulled the knife away.
'I don't like you,' said Burke. 'I don't believe in your God. I don't believe in your prophecies. But you have an army. In a few days, you'll have a foundry. I need both of these things if I'm ever going to show the dragons why humans once ruled this world. Twenty years of nightmares have given me a very strong incentive to plan the right way to fight an army of dragons. I know the weapons we'll need; I know the training we'll require; I know the tactics and strategies we'll follow. I can win this war, but only if you obey me.'
