by C. L. Werner
From whatever hole he’d found to keep himself hidden during the fighting, Skaggi was back to hear Grokmund’s words. He was quick to seize on them. ‘Little reward for excavating the stinking carcass of a chimera,’ he declared, gazing across the crew. ‘Little reward for risking life and limb fighting these beasts. At least by fighting them here.’ He gave Grokmund a cunning smile. ‘How much do you think could be made by collecting their nests?’
Grokmund was quiet for a moment, pondering the question. ‘Each nest would likely have enough aether-gold in it to be worth two hundred guilder. It is the same high-grade ore as we would find in the strike itself.’
Skaggi saw that Grokmund’s estimation of the profit to be had was not lost on the crew. Any pain or fatigue that held them a moment before vanished in the new ambitious glow that shone in their faces. ‘How much to be had from the vein itself?’ Skaggi asked. ‘How much would each share be worth if we filled the Iron Dragon’s belly with your ore?’
‘Enough!’ Brokrin’s furious roar was nearly as savage as the shrieks of the chimeras. He stormed his way through the press of crewmen, marching straight at Skaggi. ‘I already made my decision clear to you,’ he told the logisticator, his voice dipping down into that dangerously calm tone that his old shipmates knew to fear. ‘Agitating my crew is just going to land you in the brig.’ He turned a glowering eye towards Grokmund. ‘The same holds for you. Until you disembark from my ship, you will follow my rules.’
Skaggi stood his ground, fingers tugging at his beard. ‘Your rules are unreasonable,’ he said, his blunt words shocking many of the spectators. ‘Your decisions are wrong. Tell your crew that we are going to turn our backs on this find.’ He waved his hand at Grokmund. ‘The strike he made will make all our fortunes. Shares won’t be worth hundreds but thousands! And you want to sail off and leave it, just turn away because you are afraid of what will happen.’
‘It is not any normal aether-gold,’ Brokrin reminded Skaggi. He turned and addressed the crew. ‘The Stormbreaker found it but did not want to risk carrying it in her hold, even with all her escorts. I have seen what even a little of this stuff can do in a refined state. I am not going to risk this ship and everyone on here–’
‘You already have,’ a voice from the crowd declared.
Arkanauts and thunderers stepped aside as Gotramm strode towards Brokrin. ‘This voyage has put the ship and everyone on her at risk already. The debts and obligations our misfortune has saddled us with will blight all of our careers. It might take decades to earn enough to be free from our burden. Allowing any ship will take us on. The Iron Dragon herself will go to a scrapyard to compensate your backers, cap’n.’
Brokrin shook his head. ‘Gotramm, think about what you are saying. What you will be putting at risk if you listen to this gold-grubber.’
‘I am, cap’n,’ Gotramm said. ‘I am thinking about what we all have to gain. I am thinking that maybe you cannot see through the gloom of your own bad luck to recognise good fortune when it is right in front of you.’ He pointed at Grokmund, raising his voice so that every duardin on the deck could hear him. ‘You worry about curses and ill omens, but what about providence? What incredible odds to bring us to Kero’s bonfire and learn about the Stormbreaker’s fall. What amazing coincidence that finds Grokmund, alone of all her crew, alive and able to tell us about this incredible strike. Now we have these chimeras, the same beasts that make their nests around that strike, coming upon us as though to give one last sign that we are at the very edge of destiny.’ He clenched his fist and held it above his head. ‘The vein is so close all we have to do is reach out and grab it.’ He opened his hand, splaying the fingers wide. ‘Or we can let it all slip away. For what? To squander years paying off our debts? To spend the next decades as indentured labour for our backers?’
‘Fill the holds with that ore and you will blow this ship to the Nine Hills,’ Brokrin warned.
‘Or fill our pockets with enough wealth to…’ Gotramm stopped, lifting his arms in frustration. ‘What is the use? You refuse to even consider seeing things a different way.’
‘When my ship and the lives of my crew are concerned, you can bet your grandfather’s beard I am not going to put them needlessly at risk.’ Brokrin turned from Gotramm, his eyes roving across the faces of the other duardin. The looks that greeted him ranged from dour to outright hostile. ‘You have heard my decision. Will you abide by it?’
Gotramm licked his lips, something like uncertainty in his eyes. For a moment he looked as though he would relent. Then his finger touched the malachite band around his arm, the vow-ring which bore Helga’s name etched upon its surface. ‘We can’t accept your decision.’
Brokrin nodded his head. It felt as though a heavy weight was dragging at his heart. ‘It will mean mutiny.’
Like a vulture, Skaggi swooped on the word. ‘Mutiny with cause is allowed by the Code,’ he stated, his voice cracking as he strove to project his words far enough for all to hear. ‘When a captain has exhausted the limits of his abilities, when his command has drawn the voyage into the doldrums of unprofitability, then a crew may take it upon themselves to appoint a new captain.’
Gotramm shook his head. ‘It is not your fault things have gone this far,’ he told Brokrin. ‘You have done the best you could until now. But now the only thing that can turn our fortunes around is the decision you refuse to make.’
Brokrin met Gotramm’s gaze. ‘Is it your choice,’ he asked, ‘or his?’ He jabbed his thumb at Skaggi.
‘The choice belongs to all of us,’ Drumark declared, removing his helmet and turning it upside down. ‘Somebody fetch beans and lentils from the galley. Everybody takes one of each. Those voting to keep the cap’n put a lentil in my helm. Anybody voting to make Gotramm captain, toss in a bean.’ He gave Brokrin an apologetic smile. ‘Foolishness should always be democratic, don’t you think, cap’n?’
From Brokrin’s perspective, it took hours for the voting to be over. As a final gesture of deference to his rank and his role as captain of the ship, Drumark gave his helm to Brokrin. One by one he removed the beans and lentils. As he let each one fall to the deck the absurd thought came to him that with the right broth they would make a decent soup when it was over.
One by one Brokrin let the votes slip from his fingers. Sometimes a subdued cheer would issue from the crew as he sent another bean bouncing across the deck. The first few lentils made Skaggi groan, but the logisticator soon lost any sense of anxiety. There were far more beans in the helm. When it was over it was apparent only seven of his crew had voted to keep Brokrin on as captain. By design he didn’t know who they were. Nobody did. Anonymity was the only way the crew could still function after such a contentious vote.
Brokrin turned towards Gotramm. ‘I cannot congratulate you,’ he stated. ‘I cannot wish you well in this endeavour. If you valued anything I could say to you, it would never have come to this. As you are in command now, I ask only that I be allowed to retire to my cabin. Unless of course you intend to assume that as well.’
Gotramm scowled at Brokrin’s hostility. He did not expect the displaced captain to be enthusiastic, but it grated on him to feel the accusation in his words. ‘You are dismissed,’ he told him. ‘It will not be necessary to disturb you. Keep to your cabin. We will discuss the new disposition of shares when you are in a better humour.’
Brokrin again gestured with his thumb at Skaggi. ‘Stop listening to him and maybe we will live long enough to see me in a better humour.’
Brokrin did not wait for any response, but headed for the stair leading below. The last thing he heard before he withdrew was the Iron Dragon’s new captain giving his first orders.
‘All right, boys,’ Gotramm shouted. ‘Let us get things set to rights. Heave this carcass overboard. Patch up that rail! Horgarr, help Arrik’s crew fix the skyhook! Be quick about it! Our next port of call is Grokmund’s fields of go
ld and plenty!’
Gotramm had been captain of the Iron Dragon for less than a day and already he felt out of his element. He did not know the ship the way Brokrin did. He did not know the quirks and peculiarities that governed her. He was not an accomplished skyfarer, not the way Brokrin was. He had not piloted a vessel as large and powerful as the ironclad. Since taking command he had left most of the piloting duties to Vorki, only alternating with the first mate when he needed a rest.
With his hands on the ship’s wheel, Gotramm imagined there was a strange sort of resistance, as though the ship herself resented his assumption of command. The wheel fought him, lagging behind his touch. The ship jerked and juked when he was in the wheelhouse, causing the crew no small measure of annoyance. Drumark had snidely remarked that it usually took three kegs of beer to get him to stagger half as much as the arkanaut’s steering.
Gotramm did not want the job. He knew he did not want it. Somehow he had expected that to make it easier for him to bear. Instead it just made things more difficult. It fed into his inadequacy, his sense of being out of his element. Humility was a luxury only someone of accomplishment could afford. As a fighter, as a privateer, perhaps he had earned that luxury, but as captain of a ship he knew he did not have the experience to justify himself. By refusing to exult in his new position he instead found himself despising it. Despising all the responsibilities bound within it.
Pacing across the deck, Gotramm stopped to watch Mortrimm employing his zephyrscope to detect the optimal currents upon which to sail. The flashes that strobed from its lens flared up into the blue heavens. Minuscule particles caught and reflected the light, their density and flow advising the navigator as to both strength and direction. By the adjustments to their course advised by Mortrimm and consulting the navigator’s charts, Grokmund boasted they had shaved days off their journey. Gotramm thought such an advance to be quite remarkable. All the more because he was certain the old navigator was firmly opposed to this venture and had voted to keep Brokrin in command.
‘Can you feel it yet?’ Skaggi asked as he walked over to join Gotramm. He had been up near the prow with Grokmund but had sauntered back when he spotted Gotramm. ‘I can fairly smell it in the air. Aether-gold!’ He grabbed Gotramm’s shoulder. ‘You will be a legend back in port when you bring this haul in. There will not be a guild in the sky-hold that will not be jumping to offer you a contract. You will have your own ship. By thunder, they might even give you this one if you want it!’
Gotramm plucked Skaggi’s hand away, letting it fall at the logisticator’s side. ‘All I want is to get this voyage over with.’ He nodded at the endrinriggers and crewmen working around the Iron Dragon’s massive endrin. ‘I just want to give them all a fair share. That is all I ask.’
Skaggi shook his head and tugged his beard in annoyance. ‘Here I thought you had some ambition.’ He tapped his finger against Gotramm’s chest. ‘Better find some, lad, or that rinn of yours will find somebody who does. Mark my words, it needs ambition to get things done. Leading a family is like leading a crew.’
‘You have a family, Skaggi?’ Gotramm suddenly asked. When he saw the bewildered look on his face he posed another enquiry. ‘You have captained a ship before?’
‘You know I haven’t,’ Skaggi grumbled.
Gotramm turned from the sharp-faced duardin and started towards the prow. ‘My apologies. I thought you knew what you were talking about.’ He did not turn when he heard Skaggi’s offended mutterings. Something his mother once said to him flashed through his mind. An eagle does not fret over a squawking crow.
Up near the prow Gotramm found Grokmund. The aether-khemist had begged or borrowed a spyglass from some member of the crew and was scouring the skies ahead with it. Such was his eagerness and anxiety that he rocked back and forth, swaying from one foot to the other regardless of Vorki’s stable flying. Every gesture and motion Grokmund made was expressive of a nervous excitement.
‘Are we getting close to your strike?’ Gotramm asked Grokmund.
‘Soon,’ Grokmund promised without moving his attention away from the glass. ‘You might want to have the armed elements of your crew ready. The chimeras we fought were the males. The females will be back in the nests. It is even odds whether they attack us or hunker down in their nests. The last time, they did not bother us, but that is because we went past them straight to the vein. The males must have picked up on my scent when they returned from hunting.’
‘More likely they felt we were intruding on their territory,’ Gotramm suggested. ‘I have heard it said that a chimera pride will claim a certain section of sky as their hunting grounds.’
Grokmund chuckled. ‘Maybe at first,’ he said, ‘but that last one we killed certainly had my scent. When it turned for me, the hate in its eyes was not that of an animal trying to get a meal but an old enemy coming upon its foe.’ The smile broadened on his face. Pulling the glass away from his eye, he handed it over to Gotramm. ‘See for yourself,’ he suggested.
What Gotramm saw magnified in the scope was a stream of shimmering clouds that looked as though they had been wrought from powdered diamond. At lower altitudes, darker spots could be seen, packed with greater solidity than the gossamer mists above. These darker splashes reflected a golden gleam, fairly throbbing with an inner light. It took Gotramm’s eyes a moment to resolve the grotesque shapes perched among the nests. When he did he felt a mix of revulsion and uneasiness. The lower reaches of the cloud bank were populated by a host of chimeras, a rookery of creatures as twisted and monstrous as those that had attacked the ship.
‘I do not want to depend on those beasts being as complacent as before,’ Gotramm said as he handed the glass back to Grokmund. ‘When you were here the last time you had an entire fleet behind you. We are just one ship. The difference might make the chimeras less tolerant of our presence.’ He clapped his hands together as he thought the matter out. Horgarr had another supremacy mine assembled, but the explosive was only practical at much closer range. Set it adrift now and there was no telling how far it would be blown off course. He had seen the havoc the other mine had wrought on the males of the pride. What they needed to do was pull the others away from their nests, anger them enough that they rushed the ship.
‘If we sent a torpedo in there, how much do you think it would upset the vein?’ Gotramm finally asked.
Grokmund thought about the question. ‘If you target the lower altitudes I do not think the blast would be enough to cause the vein itself to drift.’ He shook his head, clucking his tongue in a regretful fashion. ‘You would lose the nests for certain though. They are packed tight and apt to rain earthwards if they are put upon.’
‘You did say the vein would yield far more than the nests,’ Gotramm reminded him.
‘Harder to get. A lot more work. But well worth it,’ Grokmund confirmed. ‘If you got all those nests together you would not even scratch the potential of the vein itself.’
The statement decided Gotramm. He called for Horgarr. He would need the endrinmaster to fiddle with the warheads somewhat to accomplish what he had in mind.
It was the work of only an hour before Horgarr informed Gotramm that the adjustments had been made. The privateer assembled his new crew.
‘Your fight against the chimeras was the bravest I have seen,’ Gotramm told the crew. ‘You repelled the beasts with courage and efficiency that would make any admiral proud.’ He paused, letting his praise sink in before continuing. ‘There is a similar fight ahead of us. The rookery from whence the chimeras came stands between us and our fortune. We must again engage the brutes. With one difference, one crucial difference,’ he declared. ‘When we have won through, it isn’t the open skies we will be taking but a fat vein of aether-gold rich beyond the measure of avarice. Once more into the fray, lads, and our fortunes are assured.’
The speech brought cheers from the crew. Skywardens and endrinriggers ascended t
o their posts above the decks, each duardin tethered to the ship by a stout cable. Drumark assembled his thunderers, calling over Grokmund to render them the aid of his atmospheric anatomiser as he had before. Horgarr supervised the final preparations with the supremacy mine while Mortrimm had his zephyrscope ready to draw down an aetherstorm that would slow the chimeras when they came for the ironclad.
The Kharadron knew their jobs well; everything moved with precision. The only difference was the great skyhook’s absence. Ghazul’s Bane had not been repaired in the interval. Arrik and his hunters were still trying to secure it to the forecastle, reinforcing the planks that had been ripped up in the earlier fight. Somehow it struck Gotramm as strangely fitting the weapon was out of commission. It was something that belonged to Brokrin, stamped with his personality. It would feel in some way wrong to make use of it without Brokrin’s involvement.
Gotramm’s mood darkened as he thought of Brokrin down in his cabin below. It was certain that Brokrin knew of the fight that was coming. All he had to do was say something and Gotramm would welcome his aid. But Brokrin was too proud to offer that help. If he was honest with himself, Gotramm knew he was not without his own hubris, because the arkanaut was too proud to ask for assistance.
‘As Grungni wills it,’ Gotramm whispered before reaching to the speaking tube set into the walls of the wheelhouse. Vorki looked on as the new captain piped orders to the torpedo room. ‘Launch the whelp,’ he commanded.
