Smith was roused from his jolting nap by Burnbright signaling with her trumpet. He leaned up on his elbow to peer along the road, and sought in his memory for the signal codes. As she trumpeted again he identified the message: another caravan sighted. In the next few seconds he sighted it too, racing along the floor of the valley into which they were just descending.
It was immense, fully sixty carts long, coming on with speed and power. The runner pacing before it was a sleek muscular goddess, the steel hats of the keymen (and there were dozens of keymen) were polished, the carts were freshly painted with a flying dragon logo and loaded with cargo of every kind. Even the passengers looked prosperous, gazing out from blank dust-goggled eyes with cool indifference.
They came charging smoothly up the hill toward Smith’s caravan seemingly without the least effort! And there was their caravan master, sitting tall in the foremost cart, arms folded on the front of his long duster. No pistolbows for him; a long-range bow was displayed in its own rack on the side of his high seat, and a quiver just visible over his shoulder showed the red feathers of professional-quality hunting arrows. Smith gaped, and the caravan master acknowledged him with a majestic bow of the head as they came up on him and sped by.
The Smith children shrieked with excitement and waved. Even Mr. Amook turned his head to watch. Nobody could take their eyes off the grand spectacle, it seemed; and so everybody saw the last cart hurtling toward them with its outsize load, construction beams bound athwart the cart, protruding outward over its side just far enough to catch the protruding cargo net full of violet eggs on their last cart.
“Hey—” said Smith, watching in horror over his shoulder, and then it happened.
With a sound like a bowstring snapping the net was yanked away, the cart was jerked completely out of its ruts and came down at an angle so it toppled over, dragged along on its side after the rest of the caravan flaring sparks, and the eggs it had held went spilling, bouncing, tumbling out and down the embankment.
“STOP!” howled Smith, but the keymen had already seen and were manfully braking. The other caravan, meanwhile, had cleared the top of the hill and gone racing on all unmindful. The cargo net fluttered after it like a handkerchief waving good-bye.
As soon as the carts had ground to a halt, Smith slid down from his couch and staggered, groaning as he saw the extent of the damage. Lady Seven Butterflies’s holistic containers were bobbing end over end down the hill into the bushes. The cart lay on its side, still disgorging eggs at a slow trickle. Under its wheels one egg had smashed, and lay flattened on the road. Smith hobbled over and picked it up. Fragments of bright glass sifted out, bits of iridescent wing fragile as a dry leaf, colored like a rainbow.
Smith said something unprintable. He slumped against the cart and stared at the wreckage.
Crucible and the other keymen leaped from their seats and came running back to inspect the cart, hauling it upright.
“Watch out for the eggs, you lot!” shouted Mrs. Smith, making her way along the line. “Oh, no, did they break? Bloody hell.”
“That’s it,” muttered Smith. “We broke goods in transit. My cousin will lose Seven Butterflies Studios as a client. Two passengers gone and a client lost! So much for this job.”
“Now, now, young Smith, this sort of thing happens all the time,” Mrs. Smith told him, but there was a certain awe in her face as she looked around at the devastation. She took out a small flask, uncapped it, helped herself to a good shot of its contents, and passed it to Smith. “Drink up, dear. Despicable Flying Dragon Lines! I saw the way they had those beams loaded. Rampant heedlessness.”
“Don’t hang yourself yet, Caravan Master,” Lord Ermenwyr told him, approaching in a cloud of purple weedsmoke.
“You’ll find yourself another job in no time.”
“Thanks,” said Smith numbly, taking a drink from the flask. The liquor burned his throat pleasantly, with a faint perfume of honey and herbs.
“Let’s just get this mess collected, shall we?” said Lord Ermenwyr, peeling off his tailcoat. He draped it over the next-to-last cart and started down the embankment, then turned to look balefully up at the passenger carts. “You! Horrible little children. Get off your infant bottoms and