here in five minutes. I'm going to take a quick flight to survey the area.'
Vulpine sat his tin cup onto the table, gazing at the gray and brown dregs at the bottom. His medicine looked no better than it tasted.
A CROWD OF at least a thousand men surrounded the well, their eyes fixed upon Burke. Most had rags covering their mouths and noses. The stench of rot and sewage grew as the morning sun climbed above the eastern wall. Steam rose from the skin of a corpse on a nearby roof.
No one said a word. Ragnar, prophet of the lord, was approaching.
Ragnar looked particularly wild this morning. His mane of black hair and chest-length beard clung to his leathery skin in oily, tangled locks. He carried the cross he'd had welded together from swords before him in both hands. The whites of the prophet's eyes glowed in the dark shadows beneath his bushy brow.
The crowd parted as Ragnar stalked forward. Behind him was Stonewall, also armed. He carried a mace and a heavy steel shield that Burke recognized instantly. It was one of the armored plates from the Angry Beetle. The giant wore a vest of chainmail and a steel helmet that covered most of his skull, but left his eyes and mouth exposed. Burke expected to see hate in Stonewall's eyes after their rather abrupt parting of ways. Instead, Stonewall looked more worried than vengeful.
Behind Ragnar were two more Mighty Men, Joab and Adino. They, too, wore chainmail vests and helmets, but carried flintlock shotguns. Burke felt a mixture of pride and consternation when he realized that the guns were both double-barreled and incorporated the back loading design he'd created for the Angry Beetle's weaponry. This meant someone had found and decoded his notes, or else extrapolated cleverly from the plans he'd already shared. His pride came not because the weapons were ones he'd designed, but from the realization that he wasn't the only smart man in the fort. These rebels who surrounded him were good men, brave, and clever. It would be an honor to die by their side in battle.
Of course, dying by their side had never worried him. Dying at their hands was what kept him awake at night.
The crowd drew back even further as Ragnar marched within a yard of the well. He glared up at Burke, studying him closely. The prophet's beefy hands squeezed tightly around the cross.
A thick vein beside the prophet's left eyebrow pulsed strongly enough that Burke could count the big man's heartbeats. Ragnar's mouth opened. Burke braced himself, certain that he was about to be condemned as a witch or a devil.
Instead, the prophet asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper, 'Are you dead?'
Thorny glanced up at Burke, his eyebrows raised. The question had taken him by surprise as well.
Before Burke could answer, Ragnar continued, eying Jeremiah. 'This was the boy sick with yellow-mouth.'
Jeremiah nodded. 'I'm not sick anymore,' he said.
The hairy man studied Vance's face, then Thorny's.
'These were the men who fled town,' he said, quietly. 'You perished in the explosion.'
Now Jeremiah, Vance, and even Poocher were looking to Burke to see what he would say next. Only Anza didn't look at him; she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the Mighty Men with the guns. For the moment, Burke felt bulletproof.
He shook his head. 'We aren't dead,' he said, firmly, making certain the crowd heard his words. 'I know I could play upon your superstitions and claim we're specters, or angels. I could claim it was God who healed our wounds and gave us wings of silver. But these are all lies. I'm a man who values truth.
'Our presence here has nothing to do with gods or magic. The wings that hold me in the air are machines, better machines than I know how to build. Jeremiah's yellow-mouth was fixed by machines, tiny ones, smaller than I can design. Vance can see because of them; Anza can talk. Thorny had lost most of his teeth over the years. Smile for the crowd, Thorny.' Thorny gave a broad grin to the men who stood before him, displaying his restored choppers.
Ragnar's face twisted into a snarl. 'Witchcraft explains all these things.'
'Witchcraft explains a lot of things,' said Burke, again speaking loudly enough for the crowd to hear. 'It can explain how black powder ignites and pushes lead balls from an iron tube. You can explain how fire changes some rocks into metals by chalking it up as magic. And if you need to understand why crops sometimes fail, or why some men die in battle and others don't, or why plague besieges a city, it doesn't take a lot of thought. You can explain it all as the will of God.'
He swept his gaze across the crowd, at the countless eyes fixed upon him. 'All of these explanations have one thing in common,' he said. 'They're wrong.'
'Blasphemer!' Ragnar barked. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his cross more tightly. He looked coiled to spring.
Anza shifted her stance, maintaining her look of casual readiness. Ragnar glared at her. 'I do not fear your daughter,' the prophet growled.
Joab and Adino lifted their guns to their shoulders, taking aim. Burke crossed his arms and patiently waited for Ragnar to make his move.
The prophet's eyes smoldered like droplets of molten steel. 'Fly away,' Ragnar said. 'You are five against thousands.'
Burke wondered who he wasn't counting. The pig? Jeremiah? It was time to find out if the prophet's math was fundamentally flawed.
'Perhaps it's the four of you against thousands,' said Burke.
The prophet's mouth twitched.
Burked looked at the crowd. 'I'm not here to take command of this fort by violence. I didn't come here for revenge against Ragnar, or to inspire you with wonderful words of how your struggle is part of God's plan. I'm here to offer to lead you in a struggle that's far more selfish in nature. I want to one day plant a garden on land I've plowed without some dragon king claiming the harvest. I want my grandchildren to live in a world where they won't be sold as slaves or hunted as prey. I want freedom. I'm willing to die by your side to earn it.'
Ragnar looked at the crowd. His voice boomed like thunder: 'Do not listen to this devil! Freedom is not the cause! We do not make war for land or riches! We fight for a greater glory! We are created in God's image, and the wrath of God is great and righteous! We struggle against serpents! We are the light in a world of darkness! Together, we will drive the dragons into the sea! Remember the Free City! Remember the Free City!'
As always, the utterance of these words was followed immediately by their repetition. Yet, it wasn't the crowd that cried out the words: it was the echo of Ragnar's own voice bouncing from the stone wall of the foundry behind Burke.
The crowd was silent. Some men watched Ragnar carefully, even fearfully. Some looked at Burke with the same fearful eyes. Others looked at the ground, as if they wished they were someplace else.
'You heard the man. He offers you wrath. He offers you a holy struggle. He offers you the promise of a wise and knowing God who will bring you victory in battle.' Burke slowly shook his head. 'If you follow me, no higher power will guide us. If we have a hope of winning, it will be because we go to war with better weapons and better tactics than our enemies. I was miserly with my knowledge before. Now, I vow to teach all I know to anyone who listens. I cannot offer you a god. I can only give you machines. The choice is yours.'
'This isn't a democracy!' Ragnar snapped.
Stonewall placed his hand on the prophet's hairy shoulder. The holy man jerked his head toward his bodyguard. 'Respectfully, sir,' said Stonewall, his voice calm, almost gentle, 'why isn't it?'
VULPINE HIMSELF HAD surveyed the fort and witnessed the winged men who stood near the well. He even spotted the pig. Though he kept his distance, he was certain the boy with wings was Jeremiah. He didn't know what to make of this. The timing was right; the boy could be dead by now. But he wasn't quite ready to accept the validity of human mythology regarding the afterlife. He was certain there was a logical explanation for the newcomers' wings. He was confident he could solve the mystery if he could examine their corpses.
It looked as if the entire population of the rebels had massed around the central square. They were, he thought, a wretched looking lot, standing around with hunched shoulders and sagging heads. No doubt few men wanted to look up when the roofs were thick with corpses.
Thus, when the council of war was called, there was little time wasted in debate.
These men were bent. It was time to break them.
He stood by Sagen at the northern catapults as the sun inched higher in the sky. There was a pile of human
