Chapter 293: The Rebirth of the Valley and Garnis 2.0

Kellar looked at him a moment.

"A gift for you?" asked Kellar.

"If it is not for me, I do not know who else," answered Halvard, and began passing the slats one after another. "These three are matrices. The flame is offensive, it burns whatever is put before it. The snowflake is defensive, it seals a door or a chest. The lightning is a trap, it waits and discharges when something steps."

By the third, his thumb had gone black.

"And none of them is armed yet," added Halvard, sucking his finger. "They need stone, blood, and a place."

Kellar looked at the three slats in his hands.

The Bear God had sent him an empty boat upriver and a gift with another man’s name on it. Not his. The name of an old man he had met that same morning.

"How long to copy them?" asked Kellar.

"A year, if I am left in peace," answered Halvard.

"Weeks," said Kellar.

Halvard opened his mouth to argue, met the shaman’s eyes, and shut it.

"Weeks," repeated Halvard.

"Grok," said Kellar. "Find him a quiet place to work. I want no one disturbing him, and give him whatever he asks. Take this boat and everything in it as well. There may be something else hidden, and I believe only Halvard will find it."

"Understood, Great Shaman," said Grok.

Grok directed several guards to lift the boat, and with the same hand he used to point he guided Halvard by the shoulder, with a care no one had ever seen in him.

Kellar remained alone on the bank. He looked at the horizon, where the river lost itself among the trees.

The system is a mystery... thought Kellar. Last time it produced things out of nothing. This time it sent them from two different realms. I wonder what else it has prepared for me.

In three days the valley changed its skin.

There was no harangue and no proclamation. The newcomers simply set to work, and dragged half the village along with them.

Mentz had spent months preparing the paste by eye. On the first afternoon Gustav knocked the trough out of his hands, made him start over from nothing, and taught him the exact proportion, the water’s temperature, and the resting time. By the second afternoon Mentz was turning out blocks that did not split when they fell.

The ovens rose in output the same day. The workshops were ordered by noise and by heat, and tools stopped staying where hands let them drop.

The alchemist shut herself in with the powder keg and did not come out until night. When she did, the mix held wind stone, fire-earth stone, and a new order no one understood.

"With this a wall flies and the magazine stays put," said Ysolde, and wiped the ash from her brow.

The artillerymen did the same with the cannons. They stripped them, measured the chambers, corrected the carriages, and remounted them with a tidiness none of the valley’s founders had ever seen.

Kellar let them work. He only put his hand where he understood.

On the third day the north horn sounded.

Kellar climbed the wall with his stomach tight. Along the tree line came a shadow that blotted out the sun, and the ground began to beat under his boots.

Karkadann.

The turtle crossed the clearing at a speed she had no right to. The shell, before loaded with living rock to the brim, now came almost bare, and the animal moved with a vigor that was frightening.

Below, the people did not run. They knew her already.

At the gate, alone, hand on his hilt, stood Julian.

Kellar descended. Julian did not even turn.

"My lord," said Julian, and his voice came out flat. "Permit me to eliminate the beast approaching our borders."

Kellar stared at him.

He had broken Karkadann in a single day, and even so it had cost him dozens of Garnis shots merely to scratch her. Not even that was enough. Her wounds had closed in minutes, in front of everyone. If the turtle had wished it, there would have been no way to stop her. He had persuaded her with words.

Julian, on the other hand, claimed he could kill her alone.

"Negative, general," said Kellar. "Karkadann is our mobile fortress. You cannot damage her."

Julian released the pommel and threw his cloak back.

"I understand, Great Shaman," said Julian. "It is truly impressive, the beasts at your disposal. The bear is not bad either. Even that white cat that is always stalking about is a little strong."

Kellar said nothing, and something settled behind his eyes.

Freyja was his trump card. He knew the boy outmatched him in attributes by margins he preferred not to calculate. But the cat was no cat. And to Julian she was a cat who did not merit his attention.

He was going to have to watch him closely.

Karkadann halted ten paces off, neck stretched toward Kellar.

"You are faster," said Kellar.

"The mountain is gone, shaman," transmitted Karkadann, and her voice reached him inside his skull, slow and heavy as ever. "Almost all of it. Now I am light."

Julian stepped back, startled. From the turtle he caught only a long growl, and from the shaman, a tongue he did not understand.

"You speak to her?" asked Julian.

Rosalind, who had come down behind him, drew level with her brother.

"It is the blessing of the bear god," said Rosalind. "Do not worry over the details."

The Garnis returned to the workshops at dusk. Brak and Lennis came down off the shell with black hands and the faces of three sleepless days, and dragged the pieces to the workbench.

There stood the fifty cannons of the White Eagle Knights, lined against the wall.

A young artilleryman came over, looked down the barrel of the first Garnis, and laughed.

"Is this a cannon?" asked the youth, and rapped it twice with his knuckle. "It weighs like a dead ox and it loads through the mouth."