by A. C. Cobble
“Do they?” asked the governor. “Would you travel to the other side of the world to tell a junior writer that his wife died? Would your father go to the same lengths to rescue or avenge them as he would you? Come on, Oliver. You know better than that.”
“What the Crown is able to give isn’t always what the people deserve,” he acknowledged. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
Dalyrimple snorted. “We’ll give them vengeance, if nothing else.”
“Vengeance,” whispered Oliver. “We’ll give them that.”
The Priestess VIII
Dawn was still two hours away when the watch called the first sighting of land. Ahead of them, the royal marines had seen it as well. Sam saw a succession of blinking lights from the backs of the ships. Hooded lanterns flashed in sequence, communicating the attack pattern.
No signal was returned from Captain Haines’ airship, as they were in the rear of the formation, and any lights flashed forward could be detected by their foes. Instead, at the first of the signaling, the orders went out to douse all lights on the deck. Total darkness.
The airships would come in low, three hundred yards above the sea where they wouldn’t drift between any outlying scouts and the stars in the sky. At that height, at night with no lights, they’d be near invisible. With the crashing sea and the wind through the trees on the islands, they’d be impossible to hear as well. It wouldn’t be until they were overhead that the corsairs would have a chance of spotting the approaching airships. By then, it’d be too late for any alarm to be effective. They hoped to catch the bulk of the men sleeping in their dormitories or homes, inside structures that would be easy to spot in the moonlight… and easy to destroy.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” remarked Sam.
Duke offered her a wry grin. “You want to go down there on the ground and settle things face to face?”
“I don’t want to,” said Sam. “I’m not any more keen to put myself at risk than you are. You have to admit, though, this isn’t sporting.”
“No,” agreed Duke. “It is not.”
“You know, we will have to go down,” added Sam.
“After the marines clear the place out,” replied Duke. “Once Ostrander’s men signal it is safe — as safe as it can get — then we’ll drop in.”
Sam shook her head. “If what Madam Winrod described is true, I need to be in the first wave. The royal marines will have no protection against… against what may be waiting.”
“What, exactly, will be waiting?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Sam, “and that’s what scares me.”
“Enhover hasn’t faced sorcery in a conflict like this since the Coldlands War,” murmured Duke, peering nervously into the dark. “We know how that ended.”
Sam studied him, noting his hand gripping the basket-hilt of his broadsword, the determined set of his shoulders. He, better than almost anyone, knew the possibilities, the devastation, that could be wrought by a powerful connection between sorcerer and spirit. If it had survived the conflict with the Coldlands, Oliver Wellesley would be ruling the province of Northundon now. Instead, it was a realm of the dead.
Spirits, called from the underworld, had swept over the city in a wave. Tens of thousands of souls had perished within the first few moments. She’d heard an estimate that over one hundred thousand had fallen in the province before the raiders were pushed back. It wasn’t until the royal marines arrived, with Edward Wellesley’s new airships, that the advance of the Coldlands raiders had turned. Not even sorcery could withstand the bombardment of new Enhoverian technology. Airships dropping bombs mixed with red saltpetre had incinerated the raiders, but not the dead.
The raiders had been pushed back across the sea to the Coldlands, and the Wellesleys had pursued them. The spirits that the Coldlands sorcerers had bound remained in Northundon, though, still haunting its land and the structures that had survived. Duke’s province was ruled by the dead.
She’d been there, too, the last time Enhover’s airships had faced sorcery, a child accompanying her mentor Thotham. They’d watched as the royal marines had spent days raining bombs across the landscape. Fire and explosives had fallen until everything living north of the Sheetsand Mountains had been reduced to shattered bone and ash.
Parts of the city of Northundon still stood, untouched in the last twenty years, but no one had the wherewithal to go there. The spirits were invested in the place, locked into the walls of the city. There was nothing in Northundon for the living.
Looking at Duke, she realized that despite that, it was still his land. Duke of Northundon wasn’t merely a title that his father had neglected to remove. It was his responsibility to the land, even though it no longer held his people. Yes, Duke of all people knew what horrors sorcery could call, and he knew the devastation their impending attack would cause as well. Farawk, another place on his maps that would soon be filled only with the dead.
As the outlying islands passed below them, Sam hung over the rail, peering down, trying to see if there was movement, light, anything to signify a scout alerting the base of the approaching airships. She saw nothing directly below, but ahead of them, she spied what must be the corsair’s lair. In the moonlight, she could see a dozen vessels floating at anchor. There was a tiny village hugging a sandy beach, dotted with a handful of lights, but it was quiet just a turn of the clock before dawn. Pirates were not early risers, it seemed. Perhaps that would have saved a few of them.
The first of the airships sailed silently over the pirate enclave, swooping lower as it drew close until they were a mere two hundred yards above the sea. She didn’t see it drop, but she saw the impact of the first red saltpetre munition. It landed squarely in the center of a small dock area and ignited in a giant ball of flame.
She gasped, witnessing the concussive power of the explosive.
Ships rocked at anchor, and three small huts near the drop were blown into kindling. It was as if the bomb kicked an anthill, but it was too late for the corsairs. Bomb after bomb dropped from the chutes on the airship, and a wide swath of flame and destruction followed in its wake. From a distance, she could see buildings and people pounded by the force of the blasts. What remained of the simple wooden structures of the village glowed bright with red flame.
Then, the second airship began its run, fifty yards to the right of the original path, and it laid its own trail of devastation. The few people who’d survived the initial sweep were scrambling out of the way and were caught in the new wave of fire and power. Like fireworks at the new year, she saw the bright flashes of light and then a moment later heard and felt the concussive blasts.
“Small arms fire!” cried a lookout from the rigging above her.
Captain Haines’ airship lurched, and their course shifted.
She saw flashes atop a peninsula that stuck out from the main island. A dozen sentries were discharging their weapons at the stalking airships. Hundreds of yards below them, the shooters had little hope of an accurate shot, but Duke pulled her back from the railing anyway.
“They’d have to get lucky,” he said, “but no sense in giving them the opportunity.”
From several steps back, she watched as they closed on the emplacement.
Below, there was a sharp crack and a high-pitched whistle.
Beside them, a sailor laughed. “They’re trying to hit us with their shore guns. These fools don’t know the first thing about facing an airship.”
The sailor shouldered a long-barreled rifle and peered down the sight. He squeezed the trigger, and Sam covered her ears a moment too late.
“Sorry,” mumbled the man, setting the butt of the rifle on the deck and opening an ammunition pouch at his belt.
The firearm was similar to the blunderbusses that were common in Westundon, but the barrel was longer and instead of a pouch of pellets, the man loaded it with a single metal ball. It was an expensive weapon, but like the fae lights, she supposed it was worth the Company’s sterling to
provide accurate weapons for their men. A blunderbuss would be worthless from the deck of an airship, and the next best option was a bow and arrow.
“I think you missed,” responded Sam, looking down where several figures were scrambling atop a cleared space, attempting to adjust their big shore gun. “Shouldn’t you save it for when you’ve got a better shot?”
“Not going to get one,” said the sailor with a grin.
They drifted closer, and on the other side of the deck, she saw a pair of men toss a clay container over the edge. Running along the railing and looking down, she gasped when the container landed half a dozen paces away from the cannon. It burst with an impact she could feel from far above. The small figures of the men were blasted into the foliage of the jungle, and even the heavy gun was flipped on its side like it had been kicked by the foot of an angry giant.
“If the sailing master is on point, you don’t get a lot of chances to shoot from an airship,” said the sailor standing beside her, no longer bothering to reload his rifle. “Combat aboard these things is about how clean a line the sailing master can hold. It ain’t about what we can do with rifle or sharpened steel anymore.”
The four airships completed their passes and began the slow, onerous process of turning around and tacking back to the pirate’s lair, taking a ponderous zig-zag course into the wind. All the while, Sam stared down at the destruction — flickering fires where buildings once stood, shattered trees, broken bodies.
The third airship had bombarded the ships at anchor. It appeared two of them had escaped without crippling damage. In the pre-dawn gloom, Sam could see men scrambling aboard, trying to repair damaged rigging and get the boats underway.
“It’s not going to be easy to bomb them on the move,” she mumbled.
“Watch,” said a voice, and she looked to see Governor Dalyrimple standing three paces down the railing from her.
She watched, and when they got back within range, she saw the lead airship pivot like a dancer on the ice. She heard a concussive rumble, and the airship lurched. On the far side of it, its cannon had opened fire, and a dozen barrels spat heavy iron balls into the sky, raining down on the vessels below. The second and third royal marine airships swept in and continued the fusillade, peppering the vessels below with dozens of heavy iron shot. They didn’t need to reload. The two ketches below had taken more than they could handle, and in moments, they were listing, already taking on water.
“Time to go down,” said the governor, turning to find Captain Haines at the helm.
“You’ll disembark, m’lord?” questioned Sam.
“Of course,” growled the governor. “I aim to see this is done right. These corsairs will never again plague Archtan Atoll, or anywhere else, ever again. I’ll be on the ground until we’re certain the last one of these bastards is dead.”
Sam frowned at the man’s back as he stomped up the stairs to address Captain Haines. She looked around and found Duke. “You know the governor is going down with us?”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” he replied.
“What if he’s killed?” she asked. “He’s an earl and the governor of Archtan Atoll… That’s a high-profile target to put into reach of desperate men.”
“You haven’t complained about me going down,” remarked Duke.
“Well—”
“Let’s get ready to drop,” interrupted Duke. “It’s too dangerous to put the ships on the ground here, so they’ll float a score of paces above the turf, and we’ll shimmy down on ropes or get lowered by a rope, I suppose, for those who cannot shimmy.”
She followed his gaze to where Governor Dalyrimple was being strapped into a makeshift harness. The governor had a thin rapier on his belt, a dagger more suited to the dinner table than battle, and he was clutching a short blunderbuss in his meaty hands.
“You think he knows how to use any of that?” asked Sam.
“I’m certain that he doesn’t,” replied Duke sardonically. Quietly, he added, “There’s something he wants to find down there, though, and it’s not just dead pirates.”
“What?” whispered Sam. “You don’t think he’s the… the one who the crone warned me of? She said sorceress, as in female, and that the person had left the islands. That has to be the countess.”
“Agreed,” responded Duke, “but there’s something I realized while you were sleeping today. Commander Ostrander said the governor changed his tune on the pirates about three weeks past.”
“Three weeks…” murmured Sam. “That’s when… that’s when Countess Dalyrimple was killed. You don’t think… He must have! He must have learned of her passing somehow.”
“Is it possible through sorcery?” questioned Duke.
She shrugged. “It could be. If the spirit enters the underworld, a sorcerer would be able to communicate with it. Should we…”
“Not now,” replied Duke. “Let’s give him a long enough leash we can figure out what he’s up to and what’s really happening. Perhaps he’s a sorcerer like his wife, or perhaps he’s only vaguely aware of her activities, but I’m convinced the man knows something. He’s not going to tell us, so we’ll find out by following him.”
She forced her hand off the hilt of her kris dagger and nodded curtly. Madam Winrod claimed the sorceress had departed, but her husband could still lead them to an explanation, a clue. If Countess Dalyrimple had brought some artifact tainted by Ca-Mi-He to Enhover… She shuddered and tore her gaze from the governor’s back. They had the scent now. They couldn’t let the man know they suspected him.
“When we’re on the ground, keep an eye on him discreetly,” advised Duke. “He’s not acting the way he is because he’s crazy. He knew his wife was gone. Maybe he knew exactly when she died. Everything the man has told us was a lie, a ruse, to get him here.”
“If he did know when his wife passed into the underworld, you know what that means, right?” questioned Sam. “She wasn’t the only one practicing…”
Grim-faced, Duke nodded. “Don’t lose sight of him.”
Sam shifted and checked her weapons.
A sailor was passing out thick leather gloves, and more of the men were securing ropes to the masts and then arranging them beside the railing.
Captain Haines came striding up and informed Duke, “As soon as the royal marines make their drop, we’ll come in behind. I cannot guarantee your safety, m’lord.”
“Understood,” replied Duke.
“The governor wanted to drop first, but… I can’t do that, m’lord. The risk is too great that one of these bandits is still lurking in hiding and would jump out and take themselves a hostage.”
“You have my support, Captain,” assured Duke. “Let the marines get on the ground and form a perimeter. Then, we’ll go in.”
Nodding, Haines turned and began issuing his last instructions.
Sam could see that one of the other airships was already deploying, and the other two were drifting, sails down, right behind. Shaking herself, she pulled on her gloves and prepared to go in.
Knee-high leather boots thumped down on the sandy soil and Sam stepped away from the rope, tugging off her gloves and drawing her two kris daggers.
Duke landed beside her and drew his broadsword, nervous eyes glancing around the edge of the ravaged village.
Behind them, they heard Governor Dalyrimple cursing. She turned to see some of the marines helping the man out of his harness. The governor gripped his blunderbuss and scowled at a pulped corpse a dozen paces away.
All around them, the royal marines moved through the ruins of the village and walked along the edge of the jungle. They were armed with a collection of short swords, halberds, and blunderbusses. Commander Ostrander was standing at the center of the activity, shouting orders and listening to reports from his men.
Sam and Duke meandered toward the wreckage of the village, watching the governor out of the corner of their eyes.
She swallowed as they stepped over charred bodies of fallen men or saw those
who’d avoided the fire but had been crushed by the concussive force of the explosions. The soil was littered with flesh the consistency of jelly, shattered bones, and deep pools of blood that hadn’t yet soaked into the sand.
“Let’s hope they’re all pirates,” mumbled Duke.
A shout and a scream of pain. Men scrambled and cursed.
One hundred paces from them, a trio of rough-looking men had burst from underneath a flimsy, fallen wall and were charging into the blue-coated royal marines around them. At least one marine was down, but the corsairs were helplessly outnumbered.
A thunderous clap erupted as a marine fired his blunderbuss, but the scattered pellets didn’t seem to slow the attackers. Grunts and screams sounded as the men engaged with sharp steel. Over the tumult, Sam heard shouted orders — take no prisoners.
She grimaced, turning to Duke. She broke into a string of curses, her eyes darting around the wrecked village.
“Damnit!” snapped Duke, following her look. “Where did he go?”
She slipped her daggers into their sheaths and closed her eyes, pinching her wrists with two fingers from the opposite hand. Her fingers pressed into her flesh where the lines of her tattoos ended. She drew a deep breath and released it slowly, feeling…
“There,” said Sam, opening her eyes and pointing to a wall of vegetation.
“Where?” asked Duke.
“There’s… there’s something back there,” she said. She couldn’t explain it to the nobleman, but she knew that whatever the governor was looking for, whatever the crone had warned about, was hidden behind the wall of jungle.
Whatever it was, it made the old woman’s small rituals feel like a fishing shack beneath a castle. Even from hundreds of yards away, even after releasing her supernatural sense, Sam could still feel the cold burn of the underworld. She’d barely felt Madam Winrod’s conjurings just outside of the old woman’s shack. That she could sense whatever lay within the jungle from so far away…
