Fall of Angels

XIX

THE RAIN STILL fell the next morning, but the droplets were fine and sharp, carried by the winterlike wind out of the ice-covered heights to the west. Low clouds obscured Freyja and all the mountains, except for the ridges closest to the landers. Even the partly built tower seemed to touch the misty gray underside of the clouds.

Nylan paused in the door of the lander, looking down at the gooey mess below. After a moment, he stepped into the mist-filled air, and his boots squushed in the mud. Some of the clumps of grass-even the yellow flowers-bore a snowy slush, and he looked back at Ryba. “This is one of the better reasons to get the tower finished. We’re not going to have dry and sunny weather all the time.”

His eyes dropped to the mud underfoot, and he frowned. “We need clay.”

“Clay? What does that have to do with rain and weather?” Ryba stepped into the gusting rain.

“I should have thought of it sooner. We’ll need bricks, and maybe I can make some clay pipes for water and the furnace. The right kind, and I can make a big stove so people won’t have to keep cooking over fires.”

“You’re still hung up on that furnace, aren’t you?”

“The main hall will have a big hearth and fireplace in case it doesn’t work.” He shrugged. “We also need to get water from the springs to the tower, and that means pipes.”

Ryba laughed. “You’d think you’d been born doing this sort of thing.”

“Hardly. I hope I don’t make too many mistakes. I’m overlooking a lot of things, except”-he snorted-“I don’t know what they are because I’ve overlooked them.”

They stopped before reaching the cook fires, and Rybastudied the fields, wiping the water from the ongoing drizzle from her face. A long, boot-deep trench crossed one corner of the potato field, and one hill had been undercut by the running water. Two marines were reclaiming it, while a third was digging a diversion trench across the uphill side of the field.

“Denalle, would you finish that demon-damned diversion so we’re not fighting water and the frigging mud?” demanded one of the two trying to keep the potato hill from collapsing into the narrow stream of cold water.

“Stow it, Rienadre. You want to fight through these plants, you do it. They got roots tougher than synthcord. I’ll be happy to change places with you.”

“Shiiittt …”

The two marines in the field stood up as the gooey mass of soil collapsed into the still-widening trench.

“We’re going to help you, Denalle, before we lose more.” Rienadre and the other marine trudged toward the edge of the field.

“This really isn’t that good a locale for crops,” Nylan said.

“I know, but until we can develop more trade and maybe find some animal that does well up here …”

“Sheep or winter deer or something. Even chickens or some sort of domesticated fowl.”

“None of which we’ve seen,” Ryba answered curtly. “Not chickens, and the goats scatter into the rocks if they so much as hear a hoof click.”

They walked through the drizzle to the cook-fire area, where Nylan got a slab of bread that Kyseen had tried to bake in a makeshift oven and some purple food concentrate. He looked at the off-white center and nearly black crust of the bread, so flat that it looked more like a pancake. He supposed that was because Kyseen had no yeast or whatever made bread rise. After another look at the black-edged mass, he broke off a section and chewed. The bread was only halfcooked and soggy in the middle, but-if he avoided the carbonized outside-it tasted better than the purple concentrate.

Nylan frowned. Some of the partitions in the landers were thin metal. Perhaps he could unbolt them, and without too much power usage, turn them into baking sheets for the oven he hadn’t built. After a laugh, he took another mouthful of the soggy bread. He was thinking about making items to fit in things he wasn’t sure he could build, and that assumed that he found something like clay, that he could turn it into brick, and that the laser held out-just to begin with.

He finished the last bit of the heavy slab of bread and the slice of the pungent yellow cheese, rinsed his wooden plate, and set it back with the others, and went to find Ryba.

He found her talking with Fierral at the far side of the cook fires.

“Rain or no rain, we need some sentries. The locals are tough, and I don’t want someone lofting arrows into us. Or whatever.”

No bowman was going to risk ruining good strings in the rain, Nylan felt, but he said nothing.

“Yes, ser,” Fierral answered, then looked toward Nylan, her red hair plastered against her skull by the dampness.

“I wanted to talk to Istril about where I might find some clay.” Nylan brushed the water off his forehead to keep it from running into his eyes.

“You’re not going to work on the tower?” asked Ryba.

“I’m not about to take out the lasers in this weather. The timbers will have to dry anyway before they’re mortared and wedged in place.”

“What about the clay you’re using in the mortar?”

“That’s not quite the same. Without the ash …” Nylan shook his head. “Besides, I’m hoping to find something that’s easier to use and fire. Istril said that she’d seen some spots that might be clay, somewhere down below.”

“Wouldn’t the locals already be using it?”

“Large deposits, yes. I just want enough for bricks to build some inside walls, maybe a stove, and some water pipes.”

Ryba shrugged and turned to Fierral. “Can you spare Istril?”

“That won’t be a problem, Captain. Or should we start calling you marshal?”

Ryba grinned. “Whatever works.”

Istril was still sleeping in the third lander, and, while Nylan washed up and went to find out something about the horse situation, she ate.

When Istril arrived, the slim marine vaulted into her saddle. Nylan climbed into his, banging himself with the blade he had forged and still barely knew how to swing without hitting himself.

Thankfully, Istril let her horse walk uphill toward the tip of the ridge that seemed almost into the mist that hung below the clouds. Nylan let his beast follow.

“I don’t know as what I saw, ser, is what you want, and it’s down a little ways. It wasn’t like dirt, and it was almost slimy.”

“All we can do is look. That sounds promising. Even if it is clay, it will take some experimenting to see if we can fire it.”

“Fire it?”

“Turn it into things-pipes for water, bricks, maybe things like plates or pots. That means building a kiln or an oven of sorts.” He grabbed the horse’s mane as the beast lurched downhill.

They rode in silence until they reached the exposed section of the ridge, little more than a narrow way bordered on each side by rocks that dropped sharply away. Most of the rocks on the north side were still covered with ice left from the winter that held some of the night’s snow above it.

Nylan looked down toward the forests that began well below the bottom of the ridge. They would have to circle back along the bottom of the ridge on the north. In the distance, kays below, he could see and sense a narrow stream emerging from the rock pile. He massaged his back. “How long will this take? Isn’t there a shorter way?”

Istril led the way down the ridge line, keeping her mount close to the windswept hard rock near the center. “Be awhile, ser, but you don’t want to take the short way down there.”

“What short way?” Nylan’s words came out as he bounced in the unfamiliar saddle, reflecting that any saddle would have been unfamiliar.

The silver-haired marine laughed. “Over the cliff. Where we’re headed is really just below the landers. A long way straight down.”

“Oh.” Nylan readjusted his weight in the saddle.

By the time they reached the bottom of the ridge and crossed the cold narrow stream, Nylan felt the tightness in his legs. The rain had dropped off more to a soft mist, and the clouds above appeared a lighter featureless gray.

“Sometimes we see those scouts in purple, but lately they’ve pulled back. Don’t see any travelers, but Narliat says that we won’t until it gets warmer, toward midsummer. People don’t cross the Westhorns that much.”

“That’s what they call these mountains?” asked Nylan. “The Easthorns are the other big range, then.”

“Guess so.” Istril drew her blade and ran through a set of what looked like blade exercises as the horses paralleled the small stream. When she finished, she wiped the blade on a scrap of something tucked in her belt and sheathed it. “Good blade, ser.”

“Thank you. I wish I could use one the way you and Ryba do.”

“Practice. Never thought I’d have a real use for it.” She laughed softly and leaned forward in the saddle. “There! Look up on the hill.”

Nylan looked. A tawny catlike creature vanished behind a bushy pine.

“Those are the big cats. They don’t like us much. I think there are something like bears, too, but I’ve only seen tracks.”

Nylan glanced up at the nearly sheer rock wall that began on the far side of the stream. “Hard to believe we’re up there.” He looked back toward the thick trunks of the evergreens where the big cat had vanished. Would it have beenbetter to bring everything down the ridge?

“It’s less than a kay ahead, in and out, just above where the other little stream joins,” explained Istril.

The two streams joined below a reddish-brown mound that held some bushes Nylan didn’t recognize, and only clumps of grass. Just above where the two streams joined, a narrow log, a fallen fir limb, lay half in and half out of the water. A brownish green frog smaller than Nylan’s fist squatted on the water-peeled limb, then plopped into the stream and vanished.

After dismounting and tying the horse to an evergreen branch, he jumped across the stream, nearly plunging back into it when his worn shipboots skidded on the slippery ground. He grabbed a bush and steadied himself, then bent down and scooped up some of the clay, almost as plastic as dough. The consistency seemed right, but how could he tell?

“Can we start a small fire here?”

“I can probably find some sticks.” Istril brushed a lock of silver hair back over her ear and dismounted.

While the marine gathered brush and some small branches, Nylan experimented with the protoclay. It looked right, felt right, but would it fire right? He rolled out several small balls with his hands, then some flat sections, and one small crude potlike shape, then another.

His striker, when he had finally used Istril’s knife to scrape some thin dry shavings, worked in getting the fire started. They added drier branches and waited until there was a small bed of coals, on which Nylan, after wetting his hands in the chill water, placed his test items.

Then he washed the reddish clay off his hands in the water that chilled all the way up his arms. While the clay balls and flat sections baked on the coals, coals that occasionally hissed in the few drops of water falling from the gray sky or nearby trees, Nylan slowly trudged up the narrow gorge, looking up to his right as he went. Up there, somewhere, was the plateau where the landers rested.

Istril trudged beside him, looking more to the sides as she did. “Doesn’t look like many people have been here.”

“Probably not. You saw how cold those traders looked-and we were sweating.” Nylan stopped and looked up the cliff. If they had rope … perhaps they could get some rope the next time-if there were a next time … if the traders had rope. He studied the cliff. The vertical was still more than four hundred cubits, and probably treacherous at the top. Plus … the fired clay wouldn’t be that strong and that meant any sustained banging against the rocks would probably crack it unless it were heavily padded-and that meant even more rope and equipment.

If he built the firing hearth up the branch of the creek, which would be dry most of the time-He pulled at his chin. Either the clay went up on horses, or the finished bricks and pipe did.

There was enough wood nearby. He hoped the two-person saw they had bought from Skiodra would help in cutting wood for the firing. Or would it be needed for planks and timbers? Could they use one of the smaller saws on the deadwood to get firewood? Why did he think things would be simple?

Finally, he turned and started back down to the coals.

“Be a long trip to bring things up,” observed Istril.

“Very long. But there’s a lot of wood here, and not nearly so much up there.”

“That makes sense, ser.”

Nylan hoped so.

He used a stick to ease one of the balls out of the coals. While the ball had cracked in two, the half coated with ash seemed hard enough. The other side was still damp in parts.

While he could feel that the clay was right, he decided to wait a while longer for the other pieces. He had the feeling that, so far as the clay and brick works were concerned, he-or someone-was going to be doing a lot of experimenting, and a lot of waiting.