As Carnelian led the Lepers out, his body ached all over from the riding on the previous day. He nominated Krow to be his liaison with Lily and Fern. As he gave the youth instructions, he took time to reassure him that Poppy was safe with him. Krow was clearly relieved. ‘I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but you know what she’s like.’
Carnelian wished his mask did not stop Krow seeing that he too was grinning. ‘Yes, I know what she’s like.’
After that, in spite of being on either side of the mask, they were easy with each other. With the help of Krow, Fern and Lily, Carnelian divided the Lepers into two wings. Fern was to command one, Lily the other. Riding with a wing on either hand, Carnelian began the weary process of making them battle-ready.
He had to be content with slow progress. He came to understand that, even had he been able to find an aquar for every one of them, they would never become an effective mounted force. Not enough of them were natural riders. One day, in discussion with Fern and Lily, it occurred to him that perhaps their focus was all wrong. He asked the others if they felt that the Lepers would be happier fighting on foot. Lily said, with some emotion, that her people would be much happier. That evening Carnelian explained his idea to Osidian, who reluctantly agreed. The following day he had the Lepers modify their saddle-chairs so that they were more like those of the Plainsmen. The most important addition was a crossbar, but longer than a Plainsman one. As well as its rider, each aquar could now carry two more Lepers, hanging from either end of its crossbar. These pairs were matched closely in weight so that they would not unbalance their aquar. It took some practice, but soon, for the first time, the Leper force was able to move in a body without leaving stragglers. It was only then that Carnelian began to train them to fight in hornwalls. They improvised spears and shields by tearing apart abandoned sartlar kraals. To his satisfaction, the Lepers took to the new training well. Soon they were forming solid, bristling walls.
One afternoon he returned to the watch-tower well satisfied. That day the Lepers had swept forward in their two wings; at his signal, they had dismounted and, with almost no problems, had formed up into hornwall rings. These were not perfect and were of different sizes as each contained a single settlement contingent, but their shields had locked in an overlapping wall over which their rough spears had bristled, a hedge of fire-hardened points.
Poppy was waiting for him with a smile. These days even the homunculus smiled. Gradually, he and Poppy had lost their wariness of each other. Sometimes, they seemed almost to be friends. With his help, Poppy had transformed their cell. It smelled sweeter. Each day she and the homunculus brought up water with which they could wash a little. She prepared food for them both. Sometimes she would spend the night with Fern and Krow, and Carnelian would miss her. The homunculus perhaps did too. Certainly, one time, he had asked Carnelian when the ‘mistress’ was going to return. Often Carnelian found himself smiling at his strange new ‘family’.
That night when, as usual, he ate with Osidian beside the heliograph, Carnelian told him he thought the Lepers ready to be combined with his huimur. Osidian raised a brow. Carnelian had been resisting his urging for this for quite some time. Osidian gave a nod. Carnelian had some idea of how the training of the dragons had been going. The crews and the new commanders had settled in well enough for Osidian to begin exploring ways in which he could combine the flame-pipes. Carnelian was not certain what it was Osidian was attempting to achieve, but he seemed focused on some particular goal. Sometimes, while with the Lepers, he had noticed some smoke smearing against the heat-white sky. Osidian had been sparing with his naphtha and had made sure to use different dragons for his experiments. It was unlikely that they would have enough time to take them back to Makar to replenish their tanks.
So it was that Carnelian brought the Lepers to join Osidian’s dragons. The Lepers formed in their wings on either end of the dragon line. Day after day he and Osidian laboured to coordinate them, the Lepers learning to respond to simple mirror signals from the towers. Each night the Lepers returned coated red with dust. The dragons too, so that sometimes they seemed carved from sandstone, only their towers remaining pale upon their backs.
One day Carnelian noticed that Morunasa and the Oracles had all disappeared. That night, frowning, Osidian confessed they had retired into the stables to birth their maggots. With a shudder, Carnelian remembered them emerging from Osidian’s wounds. Even high in his cell, Carnelian felt too close to the filthy thing that was going on down in the bowels of the watch-tower.
The manoeuvres had long ago driven the sartlar from a great swathe of land to the west of the watch-tower. Without their labour, the fields were not watered. The hri had yellowed, then dried brown. The constant passage of aquar and dragons had broken its dead grip on the land. Every movement churned up great choking clouds of dust. At first these had drifted slowly into the south-west, but more recently the breeze had failed. After that every day was spent navigating through red mist. From the watch-tower each morning, the land looked like a sea. Carnelian tried not to see in this the sea of blood that inundated his dreams.
Craning forward in his command chair, Carnelian was watching with pride as the Lepers’ line kept pace with Earth-is-Strong. Through the murk he could see its blade curving away with only some nicks along its edge.
His Lefthand spoke. ‘From Heart-of-Thunder. Now.’
At Carnelian’s nod, the man spoke through his voice fork to the mirrorman on the roof. Carnelian imagined how, to Fern down on the ground, the flashing must appear like a star. The blade began dissolving, frothing like a wave reaching a shore. Carnelian watched breathlessly as the Lepers coalesced into rings around their aquar. His cheeks pushed up into his mask as he smiled. The pattern of rings held neatly to the same curve as before. Then they slipped out of view as Earth-is-Strong continued her inexorable advance. Carnelian was about to give the command to bring her to a halt, when his Lefthand spoke again. ‘An urgent message, Master.’
‘From Heart-of-Thunder?’
The man shook his head. ‘The watch-tower, Master.’ He paused, staring.
‘Well?’ Carnelian demanded.
‘Dragons have been sighted, Master, advancing from the north.’
Carnelian’s first thought was of Poppy. She was there, defenceless. ‘Are you sure that’s what it said?’
The Lefthand was half listening to him, half listening to some voice in his helmet. ‘That’s what our mirrorman says.’
‘Send a message to-’
Carnelian broke off, seeing the Lefthand pressing his earpiece into his ear. ‘Battleline.’
Carnelian did not need to ask if that was from Heart-of-Thunder. He had been hearing that command from Osidian for so many days that, whenever it came, it was as if Osidian himself were in the cabin issuing the order. Automatically, he sent his instructions to Fern and was soon receiving more from Osidian as they slowed the dragon line to give the Lepers time to mount up and catch them. He was so busy with this it was a while before the realization dawned. They were actually going into battle. Though they had been practising for this for more than a month, it still came as a shock. It was as if he had never really believed there was going to be a battle. He could no longer hide from the reality of what might happen to Fern and the others on the ground.
The road was there in front of them, the wall carrying the leftway forming a pale foundation to the heat-grey sky. Upon that road dragons were marching in a column three abreast. A mass of saurian flesh bearing at least two dozen towers. The monsters filled the road, driving the travellers with their wagons and chariots off into the fields. Carnelian felt a twinge of pity that those innocents were now likely to find themselves in the middle of fire and carnage. His pounding heart seemed to be shaking him. He glanced to starboard to make sure Fern and his Lepers were maintaining their position. The enemy flank was still exposed to them. Carnelian’s anxiety became exasperation. What were they doing? The battleline was churning up a duststorm that must for some while have been visible from the road, never mind from the dragon towers, but the monsters were marching on as if crewed by the blind. More incongruities forced their way through his confusion. If they did not find a ramp soon to get off the road, he and Osidian would catch them, unable to manoeuvre. Their pipes did not even appear to be lit.