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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

  Originally published in hardcover in 2005 by Pocket Books

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-4871-3

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-4871-8

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  Cast of Characters

  Tep’s Town Basin

  LORD REGAPISK: Sandry’s cousin, assigned to Fire Watch

  LORD SANDRY: Chief of the Fire Watch

  PEACEVOICE FULLERMAN: Lordsman assigned to Fire Watch

  YANGIN-ATEP: the fire god, now gone mythical

  STRAFREERIT: a Lordkin of Serpent’s Walk

  WANSHIG: Lordkin chieftain, “Lord” of Serpent’s Walk, and brother of Whandall Feathersnake

  LORD WITNESS QIRAMA: a judge

  GLEGRON: Lordkin Fireman killed by fire

  BONWESS: Chieftain of the band of Lordkin called Bull Pizzles

  SHANDA: Sandry’s aunt, First Lady of Lordshills

  RONI: Shanda’s daughter

  QUINTANA: Lord Chief Witness of Lordshills, Lord’s Town, and Tep’s Town

  CHALKER: Sandry’s valet, a retired Peacevoice of the Lordsmen

  YOUNGLORD MAYDREO: an officer cadet

  TORONEXTI: a Lordkin band; formerly tax collectors

  BORDERMASTER (once MASTER PEACEVOICE) WATERMAN: Lordsman

  DIBANTOT Lordkin of Serpent’s Walk, guardian of the Fire Sale Inn

  LORDSMAN YILER: spearman

  SECKLERS: a Lordkin of Serpent’s Walk

  EGMATEL THE SAGE: a Wizard hired by the Lords Witness

  WALE: apprentice to the Sage Egmatel

  LADY WHALANI: Lord Sandry’s mother

  HENRY: a Lordsman guard

  Bison Tribe and the Wagon Train

  BURNING TOWER OF BISON TRIBE: daughter of Whandall Feathersnake and Willow

  GREEN STONE: wagonmaster of the lesser Feathersnake Bison Tribe wagon train; younger son of Whandall Feathersnake and Willow; Burning Tower’s older brother

  NOTHING WAS SEEN (LURK): a bandit’s child now adopted into Bison Tribe and a scout in the Feathersnake wagon train

  TWISTED CLOUD OF BISON TRIBE: wagon train shaman; daughter of Hickamore, deceased, once shaman of the Bison Tribe wagon train

  CLEVER SQUIRREL (SQUIRRELY): daughter of Twisted Cloud and the god Coyote

  MOUSE WARRIOR OF BISON TRIBE: A wagon train guard officer

  WHANDALL FEATHERSNAKE: master trader; born a Lordkin in Tep’s Town, now a merchant prince of Bison Tribe; owner of the wagon train

  WILLOW FEATHERSNAKE: born a kinless of Tep’s Town, now Whandall’s wife and mother of Green Stone and Burning Tower

  Avalon

  WHEEREEZZ: a mer wizard schoolmaster

  CONAL: a wizard of Avalon

  MORTH OF ATLANTIS: Atlantean wizard; refugee, formerly of Tep’s Town and now resident in Carlem Marcle, a sea town far north of Tep’s Town

  COYOTE: a god

  The Wagon Expedition

  TREBATY, a Lordkin of Serpent’s Walk

  SECKLERS, a Lordkin of Serpent’s Walk

  YOUNGLORD MAYDREO

  YOUNGLORD WHANE

  FALLEN WOLF: of Bison Tribe

  LEFT-HANDED HUMMINGBIRD: a god

  SPIKE: a one-horn born as a kinless pony

  Condigeo

  PERGAMMON: Commodore of Condigeo

  GRANTON: First Captain of Condigeo

  PEARL, wife of First Captain Granton

  GRANDIN: wife of Captain Wartin

  LORD WITNESS QU’YUMA: Lady Shanda’s husband and Roni’s father; ambassador from Lordshills to Condige

  BETTING MASTER CALAFI: of Bell’s of Condigeo

  TRAS PREETROR: a teller; onetime friend of Whandall Feathersnake

  ARSHUR THE MAGNIFICENT: a Northern Barbarian

  SPOTTED LIZARD OF THE HIGH TRAIL: a guide

  JUNIOR WARMAN GUNDRIN of the Condigeo Marines: an officer cadet

  LORDSMAN BANE

  The Angie Queen

  SAZIFF: captain

  THE OARMASTER

  FETHIWONG and THE GHOST: oarsmen

  RAILILIEE: first mate

  Crescent City

  ZEPHANS MISHAGNOS: an Atlantean wizard

  BUZZARD AT PLAY: Mayor of Crescent City; onetime shaman of the Road Runner wagon train

  FUR SLIPPER: a shaman

  JADE COIN: a money changer

  RUSER OF LOW STREET: a jeweler

  ERN: Wagonmaster of the Road Runner wagon train

  BLACK STONE: proprietor of Black Stone Inn

  LAUGHING ROCK: his daughter

  Sunfall Crater

  GREAT MISTRESS HAZEL SKY: Governor

  CAPTAIN SAREG: of the Imperial Guard

  REGLY: Chief of the Office
of Imperial Gifts

  THUNDERCLOUD: Chief of the Office of Rain

  JARAVISK: Chief Apprentice in the Office of Rain

  MANROOT: an Imperial Officer

  Aztlan

  FLENSEVAN THE JEWELER: brother and partner of Ruser of Low Street

  Archpriests:

  COYOTE

  ROAD RUNNER

  JAGUAR

  PRIEST MANY NAMES

  LEFT-HANDED HUMMINGBIRD

  BIGHORN SHEEP

  BISON WOMAN

  MAMMOTH

  PRAIRIE DOG

  THE EMPEROR: the Almighty one, Son of the Sun

  LADY ANNALUN: a talented courtesan

  MOUNTAIN CAT: of Bison Tribe (resident at New Castle, present by sand painting)

  DOENTIVAR: the Grandson of the Sun, heir to the Emperor

  PINK RABBIT: son of Flensevan

  EGRET: the stronger son of Flensevan

  Book One

  Terror

  Birds

  Chapter One

  Devil Wind

  The hot wind was rising. Kinless called it a Devil Wind. Lord Regapisk had his doubts about devils, but any devil might have invented that wind. It was hot and dry and gusty and it was whipping fire into a frenzy. A dozen houses had already burned. They were only Bull Pizzle houses, not in the territory Regapisk was guarding, so they weren’t his business. Five houses on the other side of the Darkman’s Cup gorge were part of Serpent’s Walk, but there was no way to save them. Regapisk’s Firemen had tried, but no one would blame him for losing those houses.

  They’d been able to loot the occupied houses before the fire got them. Gather, Regapisk thought, grinning. His Lordkin Firemen would call that “gathering.” And if the Lords’ Council asked him, Regapisk would say “salvage,” but it was looting all the same.

  Lord Regapisk coughed. The smoke was blowing across the canyon, thicker now, and the wind grew hotter. The fire was coming.

  A chariot clattered up the road along the edge of the canyon. Regapisk turned with what he hoped was well disguised contempt. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his second cousin. Sandry was a likable boy. But he was younger than Regapisk, so recently a Younglord that he still answered to the lesser title, and yet he was put in charge here, while Lord Regapisk, fully a Lord for three years now, was assisting his young cousin.

  He got lucky, Regapisk thought. I was busy at the Harbor when the Congregation of Lords Witness decided to organize these Lordkin as Firemen. Cousin Sandry was available and I had other work. One day it would be different; the Council would put Lord Regapisk in charge of all the fire brigades. Until then, Lord Regapisk nominally worked for his younger cousin—

  “Hail, Cousin.”

  “Hail, Lord Regapisk,” Sandry said formally.

  His cousin always did that, used formal titles, when their Lordkin Firemen were around. Sometimes it drove Regapisk to distraction. What was the need for all that? But you had to admit, Sandry made a handsome figure, standing tall in his chariot, the reins held so loosely that it looked as if Sandry could guide the big horses by talking to them. Whatever else you thought about Lord Sandry, he knew horses. Loved them more than he did people.

  The chariot was one of the larger war chariots, with room for two spearmen and the driver. It held only Sandry and a small kinless boy.

  “Hail, Firemen,” Sandry said. He waved to the four Lordkin who worked with Regapisk. The Firemen got to their feet and acknowledged Sandry’s greeting with waves and a few muttered words. Sandry was popular with the Lordkin Firemen of Serpent’s Walk, and this was wild enthusiasm compared with the way Lordkin usually acted around someone they worked for.

  With, Lord Regapisk reminded himself. Lordkin worked with you. Even though both you and they knew that they were working for you. Lord Regapisk could understand that.

  “I see we lost the houses on the other side of the Cup,” Sandry said. “Too bad the wind came up like that.”

  “Yeah, we tried, but there just wasn’t any way,” Regapisk said.

  Sandry nodded. “No use crying about it. But we have to stop the fire here,” he said. “At this gorge, before the wind whips up and drives it across this road. We need a firebreak just here, and I can’t spare you any more men.” Sandry dismounted and looked across the canyon to the wall of flames. The wind was blowing it toward them, along with smoke and hot ashes. The fire hadn’t gone down into the canyon yet, but that was a matter of minutes.

  Lord Regapisk knew what a firebreak was. Peacevoice Fullerman had explained it when the Council put Regapisk into the fire brigade. It was one of the things fire brigade officers had to learn. “Won’t have time with just four men,” Regapisk said. He pointed to the rising flames. “Once it gets down into the canyon, it will be up here in moments.”

  Lord Sandry nodded. “I know, Lord Regapisk. We’ll use a backfire.”

  Regapisk frowned. “You sure about that?”

  “It’s chancy, but it’s the only thing we can do.” Sandry inspected the gorge, then stooped down and picked up a handful of dust. He released the dust and watched it blow. “With this wind, I’d say about four paces, wouldn’t you?”

  “Four paces,” Regapisk said. “Sounds about right.”

  “Good. Get torches and go four paces down the canyon. Light fires. When the fire burns here to the road, get through the ashes and go four more paces down and do it again. I doubt you’ll have time to do it again after that, but if you can, do four more paces. I’m pretty sure an eight-pace firebreak will stop that fire, and I know a twelve-pace break will do it.”

  “Yeah, twelve paces will do it,” Regapisk said. He looked down into the canyon, then across. The fire would start down into the canyon pretty soon. “This is going to be tricky—”

  “Yes, so get started now. You understand—four paces, set fires and let it burn off, then four more. Start the second fire as soon as the first one burns off. And be careful; you don’t want to get trapped between fires. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Good. I have to go. We’ve got more fires to the south. They’ll be harder to stop because there’s nothing like the canyon there. We’re tearing down houses to build a firebreak. After this fire season, we’re going to have to plan more firebreaks—”

  “Sure.”

  “Good luck, then,” Sandry said. He leaped into the chariot and twitched the reins in one motion. The horses turned sharp left, turning the chariot around in its track on the road. “Git,” Sandry said. The chariot clattered off, the kinless apprentice boy hanging on for life, but Sandry stood balanced in the chariot, just swaying with its motion.

  He sure can drive, Lord Regapisk thought. He looked up. The fire was already closer to the canyon lip.

  This was how the land lay:

  Fire held the valley. The wind was blowing the fire uphill toward this road. The road was wide; it must have been a mammoth trail once. If the fire jumped the road, it might take a hundred houses before it burned out.

  A year ago, fire would not burn indoors. An adobe exterior wouldn’t burn either, then or now. Fighting a fire was easier when houses wouldn’t burn.

  But the fire god was dead, was myth, for most of a year now. Lord Regapisk felt he understood fire, fire under the new rules.

  “Let’s do it,” Lord Regapisk said.

  Lordkin Strafreerit asked, “Why do twice the work? Lord, let’s just go eight paces down and light it off there.”

  Lord Regapisk thought about it. Later he remembered the way the other three were grinning. Now he didn’t notice. “Good,” he said.

  Strafreerit measured off eight paces…odd paces, stepping long here, shorter here. What was he doing? He’d picked his place and was making his paces match, Lord Regapisk thought, but he didn’t quite have the nerve to speak.

  They spread out in a line through the brush. All together, they set off the fires, then stepped back in case the wind changed. But the wind held steady; the fire leaped upward in a great roar. Lord Regapisk
waited until the flames died down and then followed the fire up the hill, stepping over the still-burning roots. The stalks and dried grass burned hot, but they burned out quickly—

  The fire had jumped the road. Brush was burning on the other side.

  Lord Regapisk yelled. “Help! It’s jumped the gap!” He whirled off his cloak and began beating at the flames. Only when he’d clearly lost the battle did he wonder why he had no help.

  Then he looked down across a ten-pace gap of black ash and saw his four Lordkin searching where the brush had burned away. They barely looked up at his yells. Then fire swept around them, and that got their attention. They ran.

  Four houses were burning now. The fifth and sixth were just catching. Where was that misbegotten Lord? Regapisk was supposed to have backfired to make a firebreak! Sandry, moving at a careful run with a bucket in both arms, looked about him through smoke and red-and-yellow light.

  Wanshig’s Lordkin Firemen ran with buckets, splashing water all over themselves. One was caught in a sudden gust of flame; he doused himself with the bucket and ran with it still on his head. Good move, Sandry thought. Wanshig was yelling his head off. A few did hear: they converged on the eighth house and hurled their half-bucketsful at the roof.

  No sign of Lord Regapisk.

  He was torn between rage and fear for the do-nothing Lord and his men. Fire can sweep around and have you surrounded. Fire can take your mind. Fire can burn indoors—

  But men did not obey Regapisk. If it was a talent, Regapisk didn’t have it. Or it might be that the Lord expected too little of himself, and men saw that.

  The wizard Morth of Atlantis had sunk Yangin-Atep the fire god into the tar. He was myth now, a myth that lived under the Black Pit: children were told to fear the fire god as well as the tar. You’d think Yangin-Atep’s town would have fewer problems with fire!

  And the Lordkin were holding it.

  Take a moment, savor that: these were Lordkin. You couldn’t make Lordkin work. They wouldn’t be anywhere on time; they wouldn’t get up if they were sleepy; wouldn’t hoe grapes even to get wine, wouldn’t carry anything but loot. But under attack, they’d be awake and sober in an instant.