not send it to your brethren who were dying every day by the hands of Nilliam. Twice we sent a command to aid us. Twice we were denied.”
This was about the seafire? Argoth had unlocked the secret to a fire that burned on water. He’d seen it used before in battles with the Rajan of the east. They cast it in pots like many other armies cast pots of living snakes or scorpions. In the end the pots of fire were not enough to hold back his army. But they had caused havoc, and Argoth had captured one who knew the lore of its making.
Before the captor died, Argoth learned part of it was firewater distilled from the substance that came out of black springs. But he didn’t know what else had been mixed with it to make it into a semiliquid. He’d experimented with various mixtures until he mixed it with pitch from pines and terebinth trees and sulfur. He did not re-create their fire pots, he went beyond it, for his substance burned and would not be extinguished except by vinegar, urine, or earth.
But that wasn’t what had turned the clan gally into fire ships. Fire pots of various kinds were used by all armies. No, Argoth had dreamed one night of a brass tube that hissed and spat fire on the ships of the Bone Faces.
Argoth’s smiths had forged four brass tubes the length of a man. On one end of each tube was a nozzle fashioned to look like the head of an animal or person with its mouth open wide. Argoth’s favorite was of the beautiful woman looking like she was about to kiss her lover. The other end of the tube was connected to a flexible leather hose, which led to a barrel of seafire. Midway from the tube to the barrel was a pump. A five-man team operating the tube, pump, and barrel could spray a thick stream of the fiery liquid almost sixty yards. More if the wind was at their backs. One tube was placed on each of four ships.
The violent sound and large quantities of brown and yellow smoke was enough to shock any man. But when the Bone Faces saw that it burned on water, clung like tar, and could not be extinguished, they surely must have prayed to their bloody gods for deliverance.
Being able to force the fire out in a stream turned fire into a weapon that, instead of merely harrying an enemy, could turn the course of a battle.
His men had sent five of the raider’s ships to the depths that way, spearing those that survived the flames in the water like so many carp. Then they’d burned the Bone Face secret island port.
His fire, Argoth’s Fire, had saved the Nine Clans last year.
The Prime inclined his head in respect. “Great One, we did not deny your request, but sent, asking the Glory to provide a ship of dreadmen so that we might convey the fire lances. We dared not send them forth only to be lost into the hands of the enemy.”
“You should have supplied your own dreadmen.”
“But we had only a handful, Great One.”
“You had enough for the battles last year.”
“But the winter storms were too severe; besides, sending them would have left us defenseless. We—”
“Do you argue with the Glory’s envoy?”
“No, Great One. I merely explain that we delayed not from indifference or traitorous alliance, but from the greatest concern that this weapon would fall into the hands of those who would use them against you.”
“And when you fell, when your weaves failed, and the enemy overran you, what then?”
But their weaves shouldn’t have failed. Mokad should have sent a replacement.
“We were foolish, Great One,” said the Prime. He prostrated himself on the floor. “Please show us how we may repent.”
“Who cast the lances? Who devised the liquid?”
“The lances were cast by a smith of the Fir-Noy, Great One. As for the liquid,” the Prime pointed at Argoth, “the Glory’s servant who created it stands there.”
Argoth deepened his bow, but he saw that the Skir Master did not turn.
“A Shoka,” the Skir Master said, still facing the Prime. “Hard to believe a Shoka could devise this. Besides, wasn’t it a Shoka who spied for the old widow of Cath so many years ago?”
Decades ago there had been one family of Shoka who had spied for the widow Glory of Cathay. But their perfidy had been discovered and the family destroyed decades ago. The