Charles persisted. "Not until I have my answer, Lady."
Arabella took him gently by the arm and pulled him up. "Then yes, Charles," she whispered in his ear, "you darling fool. Now give me that ring."
She waited patiently as he pushed the engagement ring onto her finger. Then she kissed him on the lips, patted his bald pate, and turned to stride away.
He watched her clack down the deck and over the rail to the tug waiting below, feeling happier than he had since a child.
Shortly after a signal-bell tolled from the Regent's forecastle, and the bow shifted, bringing them into line with the whole of the fleet, spread out but aligned for their first strafing run at West. He watched Arabella climb into the tug that would bear her to the Huntswoman, the ring flashing on her finger, then himself turned away.
Even as Minister for Trade, he had a role to play in the battle to come. He strode sharply down the deck, joined the other Ministers in their boardroom, and began the orchestration of triage arrangements.
Within the hour, all 86 vessels of the fleet, boasting some 300 cannon between them, lay within range of West, muzzles trained on his flanks. The titan slowed in the act of hurling his next rock as they pulled close, his great grey eyes rolling to study the fleet. Through his telescope the Minister sighted the Huntswoman nearing the island, even as the order was given for the first cannonade to fire.
The air boomed with the roaring of iron mouths, as up and down the line ship after ship decanted its projectile greeting to West's stony shins. The thunderous barrage lasted long moments, until like recalcitrant popping corns in a hot-tin tray, the last delinquent cannon fired. Saltpeter smoke fogged the air, stinging the Minister's exposed eye as he stood with telescope pressed fast to the other.
At first there was no response. The great beast West merely stood, a missile-rock held out in mid-lob, as the last of the cannonballs rang off his lower leg. Then his face transformed, curdling in shock and pain. Great wrinkles the size of river-beds creased around his wide-open eyes, his mouth yawed open like a sinkhole, and the roar that issued forth seemed the thunder of a ten-piston train at full gallop mere inches away.
"Incoming shot!" came the call from a neighboring ship. The cry was spread up and down the line. The Minister trained his telescope upwards, to West's arm with its rock upheld, and saw the angle change. The giant's arm swung around like a galleon's boom catching the wind, snapped to release, and the missile hurtled towards the fleet.
* * *
Arabella was halfway up West's robes when the first boulder fell. She spun to watch over her shoulder, and saw a ship crushed instantly in a foaming geyser filled with jetsam wood. The sound of it washed over her, as tsunami waves washed outwards like ripples in a lake, rocking the surrounding five ships and perturbing any nearby like paper-boats in a squall. For this reason they had spaced the fleet widely.
She said a prayer for Charles, then turned her mind back to the jagged clefts of West's clothing. Up was all she could afford to think about, as West's every move trembled the cliff-face of his shin that she clung to, transforming the layout of hand and foot-holds as his skin flexed and compacted.
Already her muscles were stiff and sore, despite the long hours she'd spent limbering over the past months, every day at sea a preparation for this moment. She was 20 years older than when she last climbed East and her body felt it. The dynamite tamped securely upon her back weighed her down.
At the overhang of his knees, she leapt from his calf to rest momentarily in the lee of his throne, panting, slick with sweat. Through the gun-smoke wall obscuring the fleet, she glimpsed the tinder flashes of cannon like fire-flowers burst over Londinium Bay, and heard the faint cries of orders, along with the clockwork crashing of each rock striking ships like some vast meteorite.
Were those Charles' cries? She couldn't know.
The throne's backrest was easy, a sheer wall cracked with age. She scaled to its foot-battered armrests, then up to the high back, where she waited as West revolved. When his midriff bared in the back-coil of his hurling motion, she dived at his hip. Her hands caught at the pores in his skin, and she hung on desperately as he hurled his next missile.
Then she was climbing again, punching her feet into West's pores like a jockey spurring its horse, up his long and flexing back, over his shoulder, into the musky jungle of his hair. She seized upon a thick strand and shimmied up as though it were the Huntswoman's rigging, her breathing coming heavy, until at last the great seashell of his ear opened like a cave-mouth before her. She swung, leaped, and landed cat-like within the soft bowl of his auditory canal.
Hoisting the pack on her back, she sprinted in.
* * *
They had lost perhaps some fifth of the fleet, and the Minister for Trade was in constant motion, scribbling orders on paper that sailors endlessly ran to collect, transfer, pass on. It was the management of an Empire's worth of supplies by the second, and he could not help exult in the intensity of it. Every ship downed meant tugs were to be dispatched, men rescued, salvage operations begun.
Explosions burst all around, as the order of cannon-shot fell apart and ships fired at will, peppering the island. West's boulders continued to blow gaps in the fleet, but the fleet had laid in enough ordnance to continue firing for hours. He looked around at his fellow Ministers, saw Geomancy trembling under his desk, muttering prayers, and even the Prime Minister had bit his lower lip so fiercely blood ran down his chin.
Charles stood and barked orders as the seas bucked and thrashed beneath them, as foamy seawater lapped over the deck, as another boulder fell from the sky.
* * *
Arabella stood in the darkness of West's inner ear, her musket tamping-rod held firmly across both hands, slick now with vitriolic fluid from the barrage of cuts she had made. The sack of dynamite lay forgotten behind her, spilling out its contents to the wax-slick flooring of his auditory corridor. The heaving motions underfoot had settled since she had begun, and finally the giant West was listening.
"Hurl even one more rock, sir," she intoned, her voice as clear and hard as steel, "and I shall skewer you through the tympanum itself, and from there enter your brain and lay it waste. Do you understand me? Incline your head only the slightest if you do."
West did so, rolling the spongy ground under Arabella's feet.
"Seat yourself," she commanded, and moments later the giant did, with a slow and grinding rumble. Gradually the distant sound of cannon fire faded. "Now do not move." The rumbling stopped, and Arabella stood in the pulse-thumping silence for a time. "You are now a subject of the Empire," she commanded. "You will do no thing without its permission, and certainly you will kill no more cardinals."
The giant's head shifted, perhaps with surprise, and Arabella recognized the low rumble in her feet before it began to speak.
"Silence!" she commanded, and the rumble dimmed. "Yes, I knew East. I know you as a murderer, and you should know that I would murder you now for what you did, were your death not more painful to me than your life."
Silence, as the great beast listened, considered.
Arabella strode to the tympanum and sliced the sensitive frills of skin at its either side. She cut them until the giant screamed and its thick gloopy blood ran round her knees and she had to stab her tamping rod through the corridor wall to hold on. At least the screaming stopped, and the flow diminished.
"I will not kill you," Arabella went on, "but I shall make you suffer, if I must. For your every disobedience, you will suffer. Do you understand? Incline your head slightly if you do."
The giant head tipped.
"Obey me, and you shall be fed. You shall be treated with respect, as the third-ranking cardinal in this world ought deserve. But you will obey. Are we at an understanding? Incline your head if this is so."
The head inclined. In the hot sour darkness of West's ear, Arabella smiled.
At the entrance to the corridor/canal, she flashed a signal to the ships below via a silvered
glass in her pocket. The fleet was a wreckage, perhaps one third of it sunk, a third more smoking with fire or leering awkwardly on the waves. She scanned their ranks back and forth, but could not make out the black-clad Regent. The thought of Charles dead amongst the wreckage made her queasy, but there was still work to be done, and she tamped the sickness aside.
In moments her mirror signal received a response, coming from a ship that was not the Regent. Moments later a smattering of ships broke from the formation and made for the isle of West. She watched as they beached at the cardinal's motionless feet and began to unload their cargoes- miles of enormous iron links forged while they sped over the Pacifac.
So West would be chained.
* * *
By the end of the week, the first stage of their work was done. Arabella stood at the railing of the Huntswoman, turning Charles' engagement ring on her finger. It was near dusk, and the remnants of the fleet were awaiting her command.
She looked out at the vast figure of West on the bloody horizon, wound about like an iron cocoon. By his feet was the latest sub-station of the Empire, with a network of rigging and ropes running up to the titan's ear, where two men would be stood at watch, signal lamps blazing.
There they would remain, ever-ready to torment West should it become necessary. The rotation was yet to be fully settled, but the duty would likely be far less onerous than any colonial work done in Abindia.
At last, she slipped off the ring, kissed it, and nestled it carefully in a pocket of her leathern skirts. Dear, brave Charles. Back in Londinium it would take pride of place on her trophy wall.
She stalked back along the cutter's deck, musket-rod clacking beside her, and climbed down to the banquet hall where crowds of the remaining medicians, philosophers, and mathematicians, many newly elected to a makeshift Cabinet, were waiting expectantly.
She stood before them and gave her answer. "I will be your Prime Minister."
The cheering began. Even West was able to hear the chants of 'Steel Lady' that rang out over the Arrantic, as the Huntswoman pulled away from the Empire's newest outpost, and the fleet followed in its wake.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Thank you for reading Death of East! I hope you enjoyed these stories, and I'd love to get your thoughts. Would you consider reviewing the collection on the shop site where you bought it? Reviews from readers like you are the lifeblood of indie authors.
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I'd also like to offer you my free Starter Library of 2 best-selling post-apocalypse thriller books- one of them is Mr. Ruin, about a broken ex-marine being hunted through the hellish fires of the mind, and the other is The Last, and tells the story of the last man alive in New York, after the zombie apocalypse devastates the world.
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Now, read on for the first chapter of The Last, Book 1 of the Zombie Ocean.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael John Grist is a bestselling British writer who lived in Tokyo, Japan for 11 years and now lives in London, England.
He writes science fiction and fantasy thrillers, and used to explore and photograph abandoned places in Japan, such as ruined theme parks, military bases and underground bunkers. These explorations have drawn millions of visitors to his website michaeljohngrist.com, and often provide inspiration for his fiction.
OTHER WORKS
Zombie Ocean (zombie apocalypse)
1. The Last
2. The Lost
3. The Least
1-3 Box Set 1
4. The Loss
5. The List
6. The Laws
4-6 Box Set 2
7. The Lash
Ruin War (science fiction thriller)
1. Mr. Ruin
2. King Ruin
3. God of Ruin
Ignifer Cycle (epic fantasy)
1. Ignifer's Rise
2. Ignifer's War
0. Ignifer's Tales - short stories
Short fiction
Cullsman #9 - 9 science fiction stories
Death of East - 9 weird tales
Non-fiction
Ruins of the Rising Sun - Adventures in Abandoned Japan
THE LAST – ZOMBIE OCEAN BOOK 1
Would you survive if you were the last person alive?
THE LAST (EXCERPT)
One day and two nights before the zombie apocalypse kills every person I ever knew, I become mayor of Sir Clowdesley.
Sir Clowdesley is a cozy little independent coffee shop in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, on 23rd street and 2nd Avenue, decked out with soothing shades of teal and raw wood shelving. I come here every day to make storyboards, drink decaf lattes, and perpetuate the routines that have kept me alive this long. Now I've become mayor, which is dangerously exciting.
I lean back from my laptop in the mezzanine area of the shop, called the 'library' for all the donated books lining the walls, and watch the little twinkling Jeo badge revolving on my phone's screen.
MAYOR
I feel flush with pride. Baby steps they said, when I was finally released from the hospital. This feels like a baby victory.
I survey the low bustle of hipsters I have come to rule, spread out on mismatching vintage sofas and benches. They wear skinny jeans and neck beards and plaited ponytails, all clutching phones like the sawn-off hilts of swords in a war. I suppose I look much like them, a 28-year old artist with dreams of becoming relevant, though I'm now their leader.
I sip my decaf latte and shuffle through the Jeo option screens. It seems Sir Clowdesley have made a few mayor's rewards available, so I can bestow such favors as free coffee, reserved seating, and double-speed Wi-Fi upon whomever I please.
I don't know anyone here though. I've avoided the Clowdesley chat room so far, to keep the headaches at bay.
Who wants a free coffee? I have five to give away. Make your case.
I type and send the message, geo-locked to the Clowdesley coordinates. Across the room I hear a few low chimes jingle as my decree arrives. The first answer comes within moments.
I'm pregnant. Baby needs caffeine.
I reward this bold soul with a cup of decaf. I watch out for someone to rise, a pregnant lady perhaps, but MichelleGondry42 doesn't seem to want to claim his/her prize just yet. No problem, I slap a sixty-second countdown on it to flush them out.
A skinny guy by the window springs up out of his bucket leather seat and hurries over to the counter, holding up his phone like the Olympic torch. I get a kick out of that.
God wants me for his messiah. Coffee will fuel his second coming. His wrath will rain down on the unjust.
Double espresso. I do the timer again and now a portly girl in skinny black jeans makes her dash to the counter. This is probably too much fun.
"So you're the new mayor, huh?"
I look to the side.
Shit.
It's the gorgeous auburn-skinned waitress, standing there looking down at my phone. Immediately my heart starts to race. She's some kind of coffee-nut blend as rich as hazelnut cream, Afro-Caribbean with a French touch to her eyes, with these lovely dark ringlets of hair that circle down her cheeks. I've noticed her many times. I've been coming here every day for months.
Shit.
"We haven't had one for a while," she goes on. "The spec is set pretty high."
I put the phone down and smile, belying the terror I'm feeling. "It's the culmination of all my plans."
She snorts. "You are in here a lot. It would probably be me, for all the shifts I do, but they don't let staff on Jeo."
I shrug. "I'll bring it up with a committee."
She laughs. Her eye-whites are truly sparklingly white. "So what are you doing here every day, writing a novel?"
I follow her eye-line to my laptop computer on the table, open on a page full of text.
"Ah,
yeah," I say, "it's not a novel, actually. It's storyboards for a graphic novel. I make them here then I do the art at home."
Her eyes light up a shade brighter. "Really? I'm into comics. What's it about?"
My smile goes wry. "Zombies."
"Ha. That’s cool. Do they run?"
I laugh, then rein it in. This is the closest I’ve come to flirting since the incident, and my head is already starting to twinge with the pressure. "They do. Do you want to see some panels?"
"Panels is like pages? Sure."
I lean to the laptop, swizzing the word processor screen away and bringing up my latest work. I full-screen it and angle the display so she can better see.
Her jaw drops a little. This and mayor makes it a great day.
"You are kidding me?"
I go all bashful. "No, it's mine. It's the penultimate panel, actually, I'm brainstorming what to do with the last one."
She leans over my shoulder and studies the screen closer. It's a view of New York from high up, around the 30th floor of the Chrysler building, but everything is destructed fitting the post-apocalypse; all cracks and weeds and toppled skyscrapers with leathery corpses strung on telephone wires.
The zombies are there too, but they're heaped in the middle at the Times Square intersection, in a tower of contorting limbs reaching up many stories high. They look a bit like they did in World War Z, climbing up to pull down a helicopter, but in my image they're climbing toward nothing we can see.
Drawing it laid me up in bed for a day. I could barely move for migraine-twinges and thinking I was going to die. It's worth it though.
"This is amazing. But what's going on?" Her breath touches my neck as she leans closer. My pulse starts to race. Not good, really, but I can't slam the laptop and run off now. "What are they trying to get at?"
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