The Broken Bell Read Online Free PDF Page B

bellowed, “fire.”
    The Corpsemaster clicked his stopwatch.
    The cannon cried thunder, and heaved a great gout of smoke, and the blast hit me in the chest with sufficient force to knock the fool breath right out of me.
    On the far wall of the Corpsemaster’s young valley, something struck and exploded, sending up a vast plume of shattered earth and leaving behind a smoking crater large enough to hide wagons.
    “Twenty-six seconds,” said the Corpsemaster.
    “What?”
    The Corpsemaster repeated himself. Rafe heard it that time, and started bellowing at his crew, who were by then halfway ready to fire the awful thing again.
    The thing—the cannon—needed only a crew of six stalwart young men. No years of sorcerous schooling. No decades of perfecting spells that themselves took years to create.
    Just six men, a cannon and whatever bits of iron and powder they stuffed into the thing.
    “Heaven help us.”
    I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud.
    “That, gentleman, was a Howler. Firing an explosive ten-pound round fused to detonate a half of a second after firing. Its effectiveness as a projectile weapon is formidable, especially considering it can be fired twice a minute until the barrel begins to soften.”
    “That’s twenty-two rounds with this barrel,” shouted Rafe. “Then we have to douse it with water and wait twenty minutes. The newer ones will go twenty-seven rounds.”
    “Indeed.” The Corpsemaster smiled. “I trust you gentlemen are favorably impressed. I shall never again be caught lacking appropriate firepower.”
    “It’s a big chunk of Hell put on cute little wheels.” I couldn’t force a smile. “And I gather this is a small one, at that.”
    “It is the smallest of the mobile units. Designed for use against infantry and enemy guns in a changing battlefield environment.”
    “And just when do you foresee this battlefield being joined?”
    “Fire,” bellowed Rafe, and again the cannon belched fire and raised a rain of shattered rocks on the far side of the valley.
    “Thank you, Rafe. That was three seconds faster. Return the weapon to the armory.”
    Rafe nodded and barked out the orders.
    Within moments, Evis and the Corpsemaster and I were alone on the flat-topped hill.
    I surveyed the far side of the valley. It was blasted and scarred down to the bedrock, and that too was shattered and pitted. I thought of Rannit’s old walls. Centuries to build.
    Hours to be felled.
    The Corpsemaster sighed. Even for a dead man, he looked suddenly tired and sad.
    “What I am about to tell you is unknown, outside the High House. I trust you will keep it so. Because, gentleman, war is coming to Rannit.”
    Smoke from the cannon drifted over us. In the distance, Rafe’s powder kegs burst, one after another, with the sound of infant thunder.
    Evis spat a cuss word.
    The Corpsemaster smiled through pale lips. “Don’t despair, gentlemen. This time, you’ll both be officers. With rather handsome pay.”
    I groaned, plopped my ass down in the red sand, and narrowly avoided crying like a fresh-spanked baby.
     
    The ride back to Rannit was mercifully brief.
    Evis and I awoke at the same time. The Corpsemaster’s black carriage was just crossing the Brown, heading up to the Heights and Evis’s digs. The bridge clowns gave us wide berth. There are still stories circulating about the last bridge clown that dared caper at the Corpsemaster’s carriage.
    Rannit’s sun shone bright and cheery, a sentiment neither Evis nor I shared. I judged it to be mid-day, which was plainly impossible since we’d been gone for hours and hours, but you can’t argue with the sun.
    Or the Corpsemaster.
    “I own a small estate in the south, by the Sea,” said Evis, softly. “I’m told it’s lovely. And peaceful. Very peaceful.”
    I grunted. I didn’t own any estates, in the south or elsewhere, but heading for the Sea was looking better by the moment.
    “You could change your name to Smith,” I said. “Claim to be