Franni squinted and shrugged. “I never could tell them all apart. You don’t suppose he’s going to make a speech, do you?” Now he sounded nervous.
“Why don’t you engage the Siege Engine?” Sorter suggested hastily.
Franni clambered up the lashed timbers of the Siege Engine. On the topmost platform, fastened in place with a panoply of rivets, grommets, staples and tabs, was a huge blood-red button. The plans called for manual controls.
Franni looked at the breathless crowd. He waved his hand at Sorter, who stood off to one side and prepared to take notes. The kender raised his fist and punched the button.
There came a strong smell of hot metal. A motor whined. Seconds later, the siege engine, its bows bending and its arrows loading, rolled and rumbled toward the test fortifications. According to the plan, the engine would stop in front of the walls, fire its arrows and strew about a few flowers.
Franni leaped clear of the platform, landed on the rolling ram, and pulled back on the stick that freed the flywheel.
Now Sorter was nervous. The siege engine was supposed to be rolling to a stop about now. Instead it was picking up speed, rumbling toward the fortress. Something was very wrong.
Sorter ran alongside. “Did you override the safety cutouts?” he hollered.
“Who needs ‘em?” Franni shouted back happily, and spun a crank. The air filled with a high-pitched whine, and the rolling ram rolled on.
“Yaaaah!” Franni screeched, as he leaped to the dangling starter pull of the mallet.
The sledgehammer engine turned over with a roar. As the great tripod legs strode forward, the mighty hammer swung down with a threatening whoosh. The crowd sighed expectantly.
At that point, the starter-pull tried to rewind, swinging the kender to one side. He dropped down to land on one foot of the walking sledgehammer tripod. Off balance, he steadied himself using his hoopak, which, unfortunately, happened to jam in between the toes of the tripod foot.
The tripod turned on the stuck foot. The mallet, slicing down, knocked the rolling ram sideways. The rolling ram hit a corner of the siege engine, which spun around one hundred and eighty degrees.
The Automated Siege Engine with the remarkable Catling Ballista and Flower Vase shifted away from the fake village of Gormar and Dormar and rolled, walked, and crawled inexorably toward the real village of Mormar.
The assembled villagers stared, stunned, at the technology that was headed straight for them. They scattered for the high ground, leaving behind a few musical instruments and the elder’s notes for a speech. The children, shouting gleefully, cheered the machine.
Suddenly Sorter saw that one of the children, Lila, had fallen down. The siege engine was headed straight for her.
“No!” Sorter cried, and dashed toward her as fast as he could.
A shadow fell on Lila. She looked up, frozen, at the mallet head swinging forward, prepared to crush her against the city wall.
Sorter threw himself on top of her. His last thought was, “It’s been fun-”
“Hop on!” cried a voice.
Sorter looked up, saw that Franni had managed to regain control of the machine. It jumped over both of them, as the whizzing mallet head smashed a chunk out of the city wall.
Sorter and Lila jumped onto the machine. Sorter shouted over the sound of falling stone, “So you’ve got the manual controls working again?”
“Yes. Sort of. Well, no,” Franni answered, hunched over the ropes. “I can’t untie them.” He tugged at a loop and a tiller spun to the left. The ram swung toward the city wall. “I think we all better hop back off now.”
The three of them hopped. The ram smashed into the wall and kept going. The walking sledgehammer, with monumental unconcern, stepped over the wall and began hammering public buildings. The siege engine rolled through the new gap in the wall, firing flaming arrows into thatch and wood, but it was clear that the machine was winding down. The great warehouse stood unharmed.
Sorter breathed a sigh of relief.
Franni chewed his lip. “You know, I thought that all of this would go better.”
“We need to put out the fires,” said Sorter. “Before they reach the warehouse.” He pointed to the dam above the city. “If we can send some of that water down here-”
“What a wonderful idea!” Franni cried, and leaped to his feet. “Come with me.”
He scampered toward the rolling ram. Sorter and Lila followed.
The ram hit a cobblestone and spun toward them. Franni used his hoopak to vault onto the ram. He leaned down, hand extended, and hauled Sorter and the excited Lila onboard the ram. Franni pulled at the half-tied rope on the manual controls, and the rolling ram changed direction, careened madly uphill.
“We’re here!” shouted Franni, adding gleefully, “I can’t stop it!”
Sorter grabbed Franni with one hand and Lila with the other and jumped for their lives.
The rolling ram plowed straight into the center of the earthen dam. A few drops of water leaked through the dirt. The drops became a trickle. The trickle became a stream, then two streams.
Sorter grabbed Lila’s hand and Franni’s hand and said briefly and succinctly, “Run. For the high ground.”
“And miss this?” cried Franni.
Before Sorter could stop him, the kender was gone, dashing downhill and keeping three steps ahead of the mud.
Sorter and Lila sprinted uphill. Franni and the malfunctioning siege engine thundered down.
Turning around, Sorter was astonished to see how quickly the dirt had mixed with the mud, forming a slurry that bore down on the village like the blade of a shovel. The streets backed up with water, as if a sewer had overflowed. Sorter tried to keep sight of Franni. Water rose to the kender’s knees, then his waist, then Franni vanished altogether, as did the warehouse.
The villagers stood on top of the hill and watched, dumbfounded.
The mudslide ceased. The water level stablized. Furniture and crates filled with trade goods floated past.
“What a mess,” said Lila, awed.
Sorter paid no attention. “Franni?” He cupped his hands and bellowed. “Franni!”
“Over here!” Franni shouted, climbing on the tottering remains of the siege engine that was still staggering about the village, thumping and malleting whatever was still standing.
At that moment, the siege engine, its joints popping bolts right and left, collapsed with a groan and a crash directly on top of the kender.
“No!” Sorter cried and ran forward, heedless of the water that was knee deep. “Please, no.”
Arriving at the twisted wreck of the tower, he heaved at broken beams and joists.
“Franni!” he cried desperately.
A hoopak rose to meet him.
Sorter grabbed it. His hand was muddy and the hoopak slid out of his grasp. The hoopak was braced against a cog and a beam, working as a lever and fulcrum.
This was technology. Sorter understood it. He seized a disconnected drive rod and braced against the beam, pushing to dislodge it. Lila came running up to join him, helping him lift with all the strength given to her by years of toting trade.
The beam shifted. Franni popped out, muddy but unharmed, and tugged his hoopak free. He glanced around at the wrecked machinery.
“Isn’t this great?” he said happily. “We did it.” He gestured at the ruined walls and warehouses.
Lila looked back at the town and said again with frank disapproval, “It’s a mess.”
“It sure is,” Franni said, and added with a grin, “but I’ll bet you don’t have to work for weeks. Months maybe.” He looked around at the destruction, thoroughly satisfied. “Fire and water. This is even better than the other two.”
“Other two what?” Sorter asked, a horrible suspicion forming in his mind. “You don’t mean-”
Franni shrugged and looked Sorter in the eye. “Children should have time to play.”
“What’s ‘play?’ “ Lila asked.
