BY SCHISM RENT ASUNDER – snippet 107:
"Whystlyr, you goddamned idiot!" Allayn Dekyn bellowed. "I told you no shooting, damn it!"
"But the heretic bitch was going to –" the trooper began to protest.
"I don't give a fuck what she was going to do! We're not out here to kill goddamned women who're only –"
* * * * * * * * * *
Greyghor reached his mother. Life aboard a square-rigged sailing ship was seldom easy, and never truly safe. Greyghor had seen men killed in accidents and in falls from aloft, seen at least one man lost overboard and drowned. And, as he looked at his mother, lying in the spreading pool of blood with the terrible wound in her chest, he knew death when he saw it once more.
He didn't call her again. Didn't shout for his father. He didn't even think. He only leapt to the rail where his father had ordered the swivel-mounted wolf loaded after the galleon Diamond's crewmen had been beaten in on of Ferayd's alleys.
The light guns Charisians called "wolves" came in several bores and weights of shot. The one mounted on the swivel on Wave's bulwark had an inch-and-a-half bore and threw a round shot that weighed just under half a pound. At the moment, however, it had been loaded with an entire bag of musket balls, instead, and Greyghor Walkyr's eyes blazed as he yanked it around, trained it on the men starting up the gangway, and snatched up the slowmatch whose glow had been hidden from dockside by the bulwark.
He touched that glowing match to the wolf's priming, and a lightning-bolt muzzle flash shredded the night.
* * * * * * * * * *
Allayn Dekyn never really registered the muzzle flash. There was no time before the charge of musket balls, like buckshot from an enormous shotgun, streaked straight down the gangway and ripped him, the trooper who'd fired the fatal shot, and three more of his platoon into bloody rags.
The inquisitor who'd attached himself to the sergeant's platoon bellowed in shock as Dekyn's blood splashed over him in a hot, salty wave. For an instant, he couldn't move, could hardly even breathe. But then the poisonous power of his own panic touched his hatred for the "heretics" of Charis, and he whipped his head around to glare at the platoon's surviving twenty men.
"What are you waiting for!?" he shrieked in a voice sharp-edged with terror-born fury. "Kill the heretics! Holy Langhorne and no quarter!"
* * * * * * * * * *
"Damn it!" Tohmys Kairmyn swore savagely as the flash of Wave's wolf lit the entire waterfront like the rakurai of Langhorne. "What the hell –?"
He chopped himself off abruptly, remembering the upper-priest standing at his side, but the question continued furiously through his brain. So much for Sir Vyk's orders to do this quietly!
"It had to be the heretics," Father Styvyn grated. Kairmyn looked at him, and the Intendant shrugged angrily. "That was no arbalest, Captain! I may not be a soldier, but even I know that much. And that means it came from the accursed heretics. Of course their very first response is to resort to the cowardly murder of men serving God's will! What else should you expect from Shan-wei's murderous get?"
Kairmyn couldn't fault the Schuelerite's analysis of who'd fired that shot, although he might have quibbled with the last couple of sentences. Which, unfortunately, did nothing to stop what was about to happen out there in the darkness.
* * * * * * * * * *
All along the harbor's piers, Delfarahkan soldiers and sailors who'd been quietly approaching their assigned objectives heard and saw the wolf's discharge. So did the harbor watches aboard the Charisian ships they'd come to seize, and the Delfarahkans heard shouts from aboard those vessels, heard ships' bells clanging the alarm, heard bare feet beginning to run across deck planking as the the rest of the galleons' crewmen responded to the duty watch's shouts.
For a moment, the boarding parties hesitated. But only for a moment. Then the orders of their own sergeants, the passionate shouts of the inquisitors who'd attached themselves to the boarders, sent them charging forward, rushing the gangways in an effort to get aboard before more resistance could be organized.
Startled merchant seamen, still running towards the rails of their own ships while they tried to figure out what was happening, found themselves face-to-face with armed soldiers, charging up the gangways to their ships. Quite a few of those seamen turned and ran, but Charisian sailors weren't noted for their timidity. Storm, shipwreck, and pirates tended to weed out the weaklings ruthlessly, and like Lyzbet Walkyr, defiance and a fierce defense were their natural response to any threat to their ships.
Men snatched up belaying pins and marlinespikes. Others, whose captains, like Edymynd Walkyr, had felt the tension building, grabbed the cutlasses which had been quietly broken out, instead, and and here and there along the waterfront, other loaded wolves flashed and thundered.
* * * * * * * * * *
"Langhorne!" Kevyn Edwyrds exclaimed.
He and Harys Fyshyr found themselves side by side at Kraken's after rail, staring towards the dockside. Kraken hadn't been able to find room alongside one of the piers when she arrived, and she was anchored a good fifteen hundred yards out into the harbor. Which was close enough to see and hear even light artillery being fired in the middle of the night.
"Those bastards!" Fyshyr snapped an instant later. "They're trying to seize our ships!"
"You're right about that, Sir. And look there!"
Fyshyr followed Edwyrds's pointing finger, and his lips drew back in a snarl as he saw the pair of launches pulling towards Kraken. The rowers had clearly been surprised by the sudden tumult from the port. Even as he watched, their stroke redoubled, but they obviously hadn't expected the alarm to be raised this soon, and they were still at least ten minutes away from Kraken.
And ten minutes will be more than long enough, he thought viciously.
"All hands!" he bellowed. "All hands, repel boarders!"
And it begins,
Something tells me the snippets will soon stop. They are milking this chapter way too much. The snippets for previous scenes were about 3 times bigger.
Yes it begins indeed
It seems likely that woman will become quite famous, in a martyr-ish way.
The warning that her son gave with that “wolf” should allow at least a portion of the Charisian ships to escape. Especially with the limited number of galleys attempting to blockade the port exit. I predict at least a third, and likely two thirds, will escape.
I think the church will be a bit upset with the way their ill-advised attack panned out.
Excellent.
Get away? Not likely they more likely to sack that town. They got the weapon advantage if not the town that waterfront is gone.
No they will try to escape, I think.
I have a bad feeling about this… I second the feeling that the end of the snippets is near.
Eric’s very consistant about the snippets not running out until the book is on the shelf. I don’t think there’s any risk of them running out soon. More likely he’s just enjoying himself by dragging this scene out.
I agree. The church is clearly found to have fired the first shot, and to have killed a woman in the doing, which will make great propoganda. There will be cries of, “Remember Lyzbet Walkyr.”, in the coming battles.
Nice touch off to the powder trail.
J
Actually I am not sure that any witnesses to what actually happened will survive the night. The son who fired the wolf will likely be the first killed by the enraged attackers and it is likely that the entire ship’s crew will be massacred. The soldier who fired the first shot, the sergeant and the soldiers near them are dead and the ones behind them are not likely to see what really happened (or remember it correctly).
Both sides will claim that the other fired the first shot and started things up.
Actually, I think it has the making of each side being *SURE* the other guy shot first…I’m not sure any of the boarding party that shot lyzbet are going to survive…and even if they do, I very much doubt they’ll be forthcoming with the information that they shot an unarmed woman first.
They were already spinning it that it was Charis that started it with, “That was no arbalest, Captain! I may not be a soldier, but even I know that much. And that means it came from the accursed heretics. Of course their very first response is to resort to the cowardly murder of men serving God’s will! What else should you expect from Shan-wei’s murderous get?”
The book is due out on 22 July. If it were snippeted right up to the bitter end – that’s only another 17 snippets total at the current rate of 3 per week. I think we may end up getting snippets through then end of this month and maybe another week – would make sense to keep all of use with our hands on our credit cards waiting for the release.
I hope we get snippets from By Heresies Distressed soon after the release.
To change the topic a little while we wait for the next snippet what do people think of Merlin and his use of the snarcs?
Is he using them in the most efficient way considering that there is only one of him and he has the night time hours only to check up on them? (I know Owl helps a lot)
I was wondering if there was not a better way of keeping track of all the info that was coming in.
My initial thoughts (If I was in Merlins shoes)would be to slowly increase the number of people in the intelligence community privy to at least some of Merlins “visions” at that point you could simply give to this select group of people who would live in a guarded place of the palace the raw info direct dropped in in safe hold writing on to there desk so to speak. Yes they would be highly curious has to how merlin got this so would need to be told some things but it could be only some info on a “need to know basis”
If you got 10-20 people studying full time 6 days a week all the info people who were in the intelligence community with that sort of intuition and skills they might beat OWL and merlin going solo as is what is happening now.
In effect you would have an CIA/FBI center set up in the late middle ages! with all the advantages (and problems) that would cause.
Anyway just a thought while I am waiting.
wow … i 2 am afraid the snippets will stop …bt oh well ….certainly …remember “Remember Lyzbet Walkyr.â€, will be a great battle cry …
I’ve proposed much the same thing Alistair. I think eventually it will *have* to happen, but I have to admit it will probably take some time before it can be done.
Oh and don’t forget that in this series the “week” is only five days long. So really it would be full-time work FOUR days a week. Pity that we can’t have a four-day work week out of the seven days in real life! :)
I think even 5 people who are both smart enough to handle this job and intellectually flexible enough to handle the truth would be a big boon. But eventually you’d likely need something like 200+ just to handle the current amount that Merlin already handles. And you must plan for the future — eventually Merlin will go away, whether to death/disablement or to a new character we don’t know, but Merlin can’t just hang around forever without aging. So they have to plan on replacing his contributions as well, at least in the long term.
We also don’t know for sure (yet) that the “council” from St. Zhernau’s is ready to handle the process of bringing more people into the facts of the matter. I’d be surprised if they aren’t, but I’d also be unsurprised if they are still “getting up to speed” so to speak. And even if they aren’t, processing even one person has to take time. Processing (eventually) a few hundred will no doubt take years.
Plus then they really need to build a compound that can be guarded (and secure against both outsiders sneaking in and traitors sneaking out), probably on an island somewhere, and if at all possible completely without anybody who isn’t cleared for the facts knowing about it. Preferably with a guard force that’s also aware of the facts so they know how critical it is that they NEVER let down their guard for one second. Then you have to have some way for the output of the “intelligence enclave” to get transmitted to those who need it without giving away that the enclave exists. It’s an extremely nasty and complicated business to get set up.
I am still a big proponent of starting as soon as possible and increasing as you can. But either Weber doesn’t agree or just hasn’t bothered to tell us about their progress yet.
RH
“Pity that we can’t have a four-day work week out of the seven days in real life! ”
some empoyers will let you work four 10s instead of five 8s
Merlin can age his PICA.
Ideas:
Scotland Yard Equivalent.
Methods of Law (Miranda Rights equivalent, etc)
General initiatives for forensics in police forces.
“Church Wing” of intelligence network.
Advances in mailing systems.
Development of Morse code equivalent.
Ciphers.
Specialization of Military Training – Engineers, Demolitions, Urban warfare, SEAL Equivalents, Ranger Equivalents, (Hot air balloons = Paratroopers?), Secret Corps of advanced tech soldiers under Merlin.
A good place to put something ultra secret would probably be near or on Armegeddon Reef – ‘normal’ people don’t like to go there and from some of the descriptions, the land is still blasted. Difficult to travel overland so you control travel via the sea. Even better, one of the islands just off Armegeddon.
I think it’s way to early to expand the people who know the whole truth yet. Better would be to start teaching kids at grade school level in critical thinking and science. Expand the base of people who are asking questions.
One thing that I wonder about is that it sounds as if they have spy glasses and a printing press. Two items I would have thought would have been forbidden since when the 1st is turned to the stars it can start debunking the Writ and the 2nd because it leads to rapid disemination of information and synergistic discoveries.
Sorry, E, I that didn’t come out quite right. Obviously he can age his PICA, but there comes a point where he now looks 150… yet is still alive, healthy, and still moving like a 20-year old? I’d have a hard time buying that if I were an uninitiated Charisian, and even if everybody would buy it Merlin would probably be unwilling to take the chance. Weber has said that the series is going to last for awhile, so there is a distinct possibility that eventually (should she survive the dangerous stunts Merlin keeps pulling) Nimue will be advising King Cayleb IV or somesuch… and we don’t know yet whether the world will by that point be fully free of the CoGA’s deceptions or not. So odds are good he/she will need to be in another character by that point.
Plus, as I was careful to point out, even though he can age his PICA body, there is no guarantee he will survive that long either. He could die heroically leading some critical assault on a hidden control room under the Temple or somesuch, or the PICA counter could start up again and he runs out of time, or something else could go wrong. It’s a very good idea to START trying to plan for the need to replace him eventually.
RH