The Clockill and the Thief

by Gareth Ward

  “She’s coming about,” said Velvet. “Still no props and no rudder movement. She’s drifting, Captain.”

  The airship swung slowly sideways and Velvet gasped. Sin adjusted the focus ring on the telescope. Draped down the side of the Swordfish’s envelope was a massive flag quartered into yellow and black squares. “They’re flying the quarantine flag,” said Sin. “And there’s something else. It’s . . .” His voice tapered off. Hanging from a noose, below the flag, was a body.

  The Aether-Mare cut her engines to dead slow, keeping pace some three hundred yards from the drifting Swordfish. The injuries to the hanging body were gruesome. Congealed blood surrounded a hole in its chest where it looked like it had been hit with a cannonball, and the lower half of its left arm was missing.

  “This could still be a trap. Prepare for a crash dive in case of enemy engagement!” Hawk barked. Across the bridge the crew scrambled.

  Sin panned the telescope over the airship, looking for any signs of life. A glimmer on the orbital catwalk caught his attention. Deep gashes scarred the handrail, the freshly ravaged metal glinting in the sun. The bulkhead door that provided access to the catwalk sprang open. Sin started. His pulse spiked, then slowed. It was only the wind causing the Swordfish to list. He peered into the gloom of the passageway beyond. Another corpse lay prostrate on the floor, one leg twisted unnaturally. Something giant and spider-like skittered over the body.

  The Swordfish rocked in the wind and the catwalk door swung closed again. Sin scanned left and right with the telescope. What had he seen? Could it have just been the shadows moving in the murk of the corridor? Or perhaps it was some piece of equipment rolling about as the airship drifted? He tried to convince himself that was the truth of it, but the cold creeping itch that ran along his spine suggested otherwise. Flexing his shoulders against his flight suit, he listened in as Velvet and the Captain argued behind him.

  “I should go. Von Darques don’t get sick. If the quarantine is genuine, I’ll be fine,” said Velvet.

  “And what if it isn’t genuine? What if it’s all a ruse? Then what?” countered Hawk.

  Velvet flicked her hair dismissively. “I’ll come back.”

  “No, you’ll be a hostage that they will torture in an attempt to force us away.”

  Sin lowered the telescope. “I’ll go with her.” He’d had no luck finding Jasper or his missing medicine, and the mission would afford him an opportunity to retrieve the injection case from his trunk aboard the Swordfish.

  Hawk shook her head. “You’re not immune to whatever plague they’re carrying.”

  “Actually,” Sin fixed his eyes on Velvet, “since I was infected on a previous mission, I think I probably am.”

  “It makes no difference; you’ll just be another hostage,” said Hawk.

  Why was the captain being so stubborn? She seemed almost frightened. Sin pointed through the ironglass dome at the Swordfish. “We came all this way to get your ship back. Someone’s got to go over, and I’m the best fighter on the ship.”

  The Captain’s hand went to her cutlass.

  “Fine, the second-best,” said Sin, “but there’s no way you’re boarding the Swordfish until we know it’s safe.”

  Velvet ran her hand over her hair. “You blamed us for losing your ship. Give us a chance to redeem ourselves and get her back.”

  The Captain moved next to Sin at the brassanium rail. She took back her telescope and held it to one eye. There was a long pause, then she said, “I’ll manoeuvre the Aether-Mare above the Swordfish, out of range of her razor-fin. You two will skydrop down and enter through the top hatch. Once you’ve established the situation you can semaphore it to us.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” said Sin.

  “If you need rescuing, fire a red flare. We’ll drop beneath and you can abseil to us. Any questions?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Well, jump to it,” barked Hawk. “Prepare to board.”

  The Aether-Mare’s cargo bay was a cavernous space amidships the envelope. Girders arched like the ribcage of some giant prehistoric metal beast, above which bulged Litanium Lattice Aerogel gas cells filled with quarkoneium.

  Sin waited with Velvet while the landing crew busily checked cables, pressure pipes and the equipment required for their descent. He wished he could get involved, do something to take his mind off their drop into danger, but everyone had their task, and his was to stay out of the way until they were ready to enter the drop-carriage.

  Constructed from thick litanium bars with a chain connected to its domed roof, the drop-carriage looked akin to a giant birdcage. At its centre, a circular arrangement of high-backed padded leather seats pointed outwards. Hinged above the seats, steam-pressure harnesses waited to secure the riders in place, as if it were a fun-fair ride. Except there was nothing fun or fair about what they were about to do.

  Sin scanned the cargo bay looking for the flash of Zonda’s blonde pigtails. When she’d given him his last injection, she’d seen how much he was suffering, and that he needed someone he could confide in. If she managed to sneak away from her other duties and say goodbye, Sin reckoned it would mean they were friends again.

  “She’s not here,” said Velvet.

  “I weren’t looking.”

  Velvet raised her eyebrows. “And yet you immediately knew who I meant.”

  Maybe Velvet was the reason Zonda was staying away. Things had happened so quickly, he’d not had a chance to explain why he’d volunteered to go with Velvet. Could it be that he’d thrown another spanner into the gears of their friendship?

  “Open cargo bay doors,” instructed Hawk over the vocifertrump.

  Jimmy removed the red canvas safety bag from a giant lever. Depressing the lock release, he heaved the lever downwards. Steam vented, hissing from the massive riveted hatch in the cargo bay’s floor. Red chemlights flashed and a klaxon sounded, then gears turned, and the hatch slid from beneath the ship.

  White peaks crested on waves eight hundred yards below and a chill, salty wind sliced through the cargo hold. Sin saw Velvet shudder. “You good?” he asked.

  Velvet’s head snapped up. “Of course. I’m a Von Darque.” She strode unnecessarily close to the edge of the open cargo bay hatch and took a seat in the drop-carriage.

  The waiting was over, they were ready to go. Sin took his position next to Velvet, the padded leather surprisingly soft. The harness descended, pistons pressing it down, securing him in place. He pushed away the claustrophobic terror that clawed at his insides. The pressure gauge on the bar across his thighs glowed red; he wasn’t going anywhere until they were down, so he might as well accept it. A winch took up the tension in the chain above the cage, then the metal base scraped the deck and the drop-carriage began to move.

  “Wait!” Zonda marched across the cargo hold, a steamrifle nestled in her arms.

  She stepped onboard and the drop-carriage swayed.

  “What are you doing?” asked Sin, his voice raised to counter the hiss of Zonda’s harness closing.

  “The Captain wants me to act as top-cover.”

  “She didn’t tell us,” challenged Velvet.

  Zonda locked her rifle into a clamp on the harness. “It was kind of a last minutearooney thing.”

  Sin tapped the rifle. “You good with this now?”

  “I think so. You’ve got to get back on the horse or give up riding for good.”

  “What changed your mind?” he asked.

  “I looked at you and what you sacrificed for COG – what you’re continuing to sacrifice – and I realised that trying to stop the next Great War is too important for any of us to just walk away.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here.” Sin gave her gloved hand a squeeze.

  “Me too,” said Velvet.

  Zonda’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

  “Indeed. If I was going to pick someone to accompany me on a death-defying plunge out of an airship into the middle of a nest of murderous pirat
es where the chances of dying horribly are considerable, it would be you.”

  “I think that’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Zonda fitted her goggles over her eyes. “Although I’m not actually going with you. Once you’re on the envelope I’ll be winched clear and cover your entry from above.”

  The cage jerked upwards, silencing any reply Velvet might have made. Gears clunked in the crane arm and they swung over the void. Thirty yards below drifted the Swordfish, and far below that churned the dirty, grey sea.

  Next to the cage, Esra leaned out of the hatch. Secured by a safety line, he stared through a “bombsight”, waiting for the airships to align.

  “Two degrees to port,” commanded Esra into a speaking tube to the bridge. “Slow. Slow. Riders away.”

  A sickening weightlessness buoyed Sin’s stomach. The cargo bay disappeared above him. Surrounded by endless sky, he found it impossible to breathe, the freezing air ripping past his face somehow unobtainable.

  “Woooo-hoooo-erroooney,” shouted Zonda with glee.

  The carriage jerked, rapidly decelerating until its bottom bumped into the Swordfish’s envelope, jolting Sin’s lungs back to life. The harnesses sprang upwards and Sin sucked in the sharp, briny sea air. He stepped from the carriage and attached his rigair boots to the ratlines criss-crossing the airship. Adjacent to him, Velvet did the same. He sensed the cage rise behind him, a ripple bouncing through the envelope. Their connection with the Aether-Mare was gone. They were stranded on the Swordfish. He glanced at Velvet, who strode, head down, towards the aft hatch. The last mission he’d been on with her hadn’t ended well. Would this one be better? He took the pressure off one of his toe switches, disconnected his rigair boot and set off after her.

  A sudden squall caught the Swordfish and it listed heavily to starboard. Sin bent his knees, pressing hard with his toes to keep his rigair boots clamped on. Behind him he heard the grating of metal, and a scream. The Swordfish’s razor-fin, now canted at an angle, sliced into the drop-carriage’s hawser. The sharpened metal shredded the steel cable like a knife through string.

  “Zonda! Jump!” shouted Sin.

  Ten yards above him, Zonda teetered on the edge of the carriage. She looked down, her emerald eyes full of fear.

  Sin paced nearer. “Trust me!” he yelled.

  Zonda jumped.

  Time slowed. Zonda drifted towards Sin’s outstretched arms. His hands connected with her waist, keeping her upright and arresting her momentum. Time snapped back. Her feet slammed into the envelope, sinking into the rubberised skin before rebounding upwards. Sin tightened his grip on Zonda, keeping her from falling. Overhead, the last few hawser strands parted with a twang, and the drop-carriage plummeted towards them. There was no chance to run, not unless he left Zonda. He pulled her to him and hugged her close, waiting for the bone-splintering crash of metal.

  The airship listed further, and the drop-carriage slammed into the envelope a yard to their starboard. The impact’s shockwave rippled beneath Sin’s feet. The carriage spiralled over the side, plunging into the sea far below.

  A moment’s nausea sickened Sin and his vision blurred. He’d nearly lost Zonda. It seemed he was forever putting the people he cared about in danger. How would he feel if he got one of them killed? How must the Major feel about Jasper’s father and all the others he’d led to their deaths?

  “I lost my rifle,” said Zonda in a quiet voice.

  “Stuff your rifle, you nearly lost your life.”

  Zonda unzipped a pouch on her flight suit’s harness and pulled out a squashed currant bun. “Post dodged-death cake is the best type of cake.” She took a bite then broke a corner off and handed it to Sin.

  He popped it into his mouth and chewed. The tart currants and sweet pastry tingled his tongue. “Good cake. I think you might be right.”

  From across the envelope, Velvet shouted, “When you two have finished picnicking, we’ve got a job to do.”

  Still chewing, they made their way along the ratlines to join Velvet at what little remained of the top hatch. The ironglass dome was missing, the hinges once securing it now buckled and bent. Deep gouges scored the rungs of the ladder that disappeared into the gloom. Far below, the passageway was dark, the chemlights dead. The fetid smell of decay wafted up from the murk. Sin unclipped the leather retention strap on his steampistol’s holster, readying it for a quick draw. He gestured to the ladder. “Ladies first?”

  Zonda and Velvet stared at him, unmoving.

  “Worth a try.” He rotated a brass lever on the chemlamp strapped to his harness and stepped onto the ladder. The jaws of his rigair boots clanged on the rungs, the sound sucked up by the dark below.

  “You’ve decided to let everybody know we’re coming, then?” Velvet said wryly.

  “Reckon if anyone was interested, the drop-carriage bouncing off the envelope would have alerted them.” Sin directed his light onto a bloated corpse festering on the passageway floor. “This fella certainly ain’t bothered.” The skin on the cadaver’s battered face was marbled in blotchy, purple tones. The body was missing its right leg. The tattered scarlet leather flight suit marked the man as one of Eldritch’s crew.

  “I guess we know what that smell is,” said Sin, prodding the body with the toe of his boot.

  “I find that less than entirely comforting.” Velvet dropped onto the deck next to him.

  One hand clutching her nose, Zonda joined them. “Pong-erooney.”

  Velvet drew her pistol. “Come on. Let’s get to the bridge.”

  With a nasal twang, Zonda said, “I’m not sure the pistol’s necessary. I have a horrid feeling they’re all going to be like him.”

  “I’m worried about who the hell did it to them,” answered Velvet.

  “Or what,” said Sin, drawing his pistol too.

  They stole through the ship, their chemlamps casting a dim glow over morbid scenes of carnage. Sin wanted to head for the crew quarters and look for his injections, but he couldn’t leave the others. There would be time enough later for his own little mission. He kicked aside a smashed steamrifle, abandoned on the chequer-plate floor at the entrance to the bridge. Spent nails lay scattered and stray rounds protruded from the bridge’s wood panelling. Dark splatters stained the walls and deck.

  “Looks like there was an epic battle.” Sin lifted a scarlet coat that was draped over the ship’s wheel. There was no doubt it had once belonged to Eldritch. Now slashed and tattered, the leather was perforated with a profusion of nail holes. What had happened to the traitor? They were supposed to be capturing him, but it seemed someone had beaten them to it.

  “Could it be a mutiny?” asked Velvet. “No honour among thieves. No offence.”

  “You still see me as a thieving urchin?” Sin asked, his voice rough.

  Velvet checked the coat’s pockets. “It’s how you still see yourself.”

  “No I don’t”

  “You and Stanley, always on about it. If you can’t leave it behind, no one else will.”

  Sin rummaged through the charts scattered across the navigator’s desk. “It’s what made me. It’s who I am.”

  “Proving my point exactly,” said Velvet.

  Zonda pulled a battered journal from where it had fallen below the ship’s wheel. “I’ve found the Captain’s log.” She flicked it open to a bloodstained page lined with angular italic writing. “You need to read this.”

  7 November

  10.45 We have navigated the storm and are now making good time again.

  12.10 Officer of the Watch reports twin black smoke trails on the horizon.

  12.25 It is the Deadnaught. Why has she steamed north of Gibraltar to meet us?

  12.30 Something is wrong. The Deadnaught does not respond to our semaphore.

  12.40 We are preparing to repel boarders.

  12.55 The hull is breached. The men topside slaughtered or worse. We cannot outrun them.

  13.10 All remaining crew now defend the bri
dge. We will die here, if we are lucky.

  “Well I suppose that explains what happened,” said Sin.

  “Does it? What is the Deadnaught?” Zonda lowered the log, her hands shaking.

  Velvet wiped smudges of blood from a set of binoculars. “And where are all the bodies?”

  “They probably chucked them overboard,” said Sin, picking a nail from the wall.

  Placing the log back on the map table, Zonda surveyed the bridge. “It doesn’t make sense. Why leave some and not others?”

  “Slavers, maybe? Whatever the reason, it’s saved us the bother. We’ll hook a line to the Aether-Mare and she can tow us back to the palace,” said Sin.

  Velvet gazed through the binoculars into the distance. “Oh, heck.”

  Sin grabbed the binoculars from her and lifted them to his eyes. On the horizon, getting closer, rose twin black smoke trails.

  Sin sprinted along the passageway, in his hands a set of semaphore flags he’d taken from the bridge. If the timings in the Captain’s log held true, they had less than thirty minutes before the Deadnaught was upon them. Grabbing the handrails of a ladder and placing his boots outside the rungs, he slid to the deck below. Something spider-like skittered out of the range of his chemlight, retreating into the darkness. He froze.

  “What’s wrong?” Velvet dropped down the ladder behind him.

  “I don’t know. There’s something along the passageway.”

  “Yes, our escape,” said Zonda, stepping off the bottom rung.

  Sin panned his chemlight left and right. The weak glow failed to penetrate the gloom. “When I was on the Aether-Mare, I thought I saw something in here . . . something unnatural. I’d convinced myself it was shadows, or a reflection in the binoculars, but I just saw it again.”

  “Well, unless it’s going to kill us, we’ve got bigger problems,” said Velvet.

  Sin didn’t move.

  Zonda drew closer. “Is it going to kill us?”