by C. L. Werner
A single torpedo went shimmering away from the prow of the ship. It looked like a silver lightning bolt as it clove through the clouds. Just like lightning, it grounded itself in a flash of violence and a thunderous roar. The missile exploded at the centre of the chimeras’ rookery. Horgarr had reduced the charge in the warhead, bleeding off aetheric energy to minimise the torpedo’s impact. Even so, several of the chimeras were savaged in the blast. Gotramm could see a few of them plummeting from their nests, while others had smoke billowing from their singed hides, blood coursing from their torn flesh. Wounded or whole, the survivors of the blast took to the air, rising in a vengeful swarm that soared towards the Iron Dragon.
‘Launch,’ Gotramm piped to the torpedo room once more. There was no need to clarify this time. Only one of the warheads had been tampered with. The rest of the torpedoes were at full charge.
The second torpedo snaked away from the ship, racing to meet the oncoming swarm. It flew past the foremost of the chimeras before exploding in the midst of those that followed. The roar this time was not that of lightning but rather of some volcanic discharge. A great ball of gold-tinged fire expanded to engulf most of the chimeras. Black smoke rolled through the air. Charred, torn carcasses dropped away from that cloud of smoke, dead and mangled monsters falling towards their final dissolution.
Out from the conflagration, a greatly reduced pride came rushing for the ship. Too close now for another torpedo, the crew of the Iron Dragon reverted to their earlier tactics. Mortrimm’s aetherstorm slowed the beasts while Drumark’s thunderers shot them up with their rifles and mortar. As the brutes won clear of the fusillade, they were caught in the detonation of the supremacy mine. Again the ironclad’s decks were assailed by a shower of organic debris. This time, however, no beasts pushed through to press the attack. The chimeras had had enough. A few injured specimens fled across the sky, wanting no further contact with the duardin who had decimated their pride.
A victorious cheer rang out across the decks. The plates shook as the Kharadron stamped their heavy boots against the floor. Gotramm felt colour rush to his face when he heard his name being toasted by the jubilant duardin. He stepped out from the wheelhouse, waving to his comrades to quiet themselves.
‘Save your energies, lads,’ he admonished them. ‘The fighting is done but the work is just starting.’ He pointed to the shimmering clouds of powdered diamond. ‘That is where the vein is. That is where our fortune’s to be made. It will not come easy, but when has any duardin worth his ancestry shirked from honest labour?’
‘We are with you, cap’n,’ a voice from the crowd called out.
Gotramm paused, feeling awkward to hear himself addressed in such a way. Suppressing his uneasiness, he issued new orders to the crew. ‘Get the sifting nets ready! Pumps and bellows brought up. Get the hoses secured. We are going to fill this ship from stern to bow with every puff of aether-gold the sky has to offer.’
Again the crew cheered him. This time Gotramm suppressed his misgivings and basked in the adulation. Soon they would all be rich. Even Brokrin.
As he closed his eyes and basked in the cheers of his crew, the Iron Dragon’s new captain was unaware of the dark, rope-like thing that watched him through a gap in the deck where the skyhook had been mounted. He didn’t see the unblinking eye that peered at him, studying him. Every image the remnant saw was conveyed back to its master.
Khoram cautiously made his way through the nine rings of sigils drawn across the floor of his sanctum. He scratched at the feathered head of his homunculus as he watched the duardin celebrate their triumph.
‘The Kharadron are not the only ones delighted by their victory,’ Khoram told the tretchlet. ‘Despite Tamuzz’s fears, the duardin are conforming to my expectations. They act in accordance with my plan.’
The sorcerer stepped into the innermost of the circles. As he did he brought from a pouch on his belt a pinch of chalky dust. Exactingly, he began to close the wards he had crossed by sifting the dust through his fingers.
‘Why use force to compel an enemy?’ Khoram mused. ‘All it needs is the slightest push and they can be moved to do what is needed. Not by command but by their own desires. Tamuzz fails to appreciate that there is no slave so dependable as the one that believes himself free.’
The tretchlet squawked in agreement, its feathered bulk rippling with amusement.
Khoram’s attention turned to the Orb of Zobras. He studied the scenes caught within its facets, letting the gibbering of his tretchlet guide his attention to those images that showed futures with the greatest potential of coming to pass. One of those visions caught him cold. It was the image of a ramshackle sky-ship, a claptrap construction of raw timber and plundered resources. That it could keep itself aloft seemed an act of greater magic than even he’d care to risk. Yet there was a threat here, a threat to all his carefully laid schemes.
Across the decks of the scrap-ship swarms of diminutive creatures blundered about in a confusion of bullying antics that could only with the greatest charity be considered as labour. The creatures were half the height of a man, with wizened faces and long, gangly arms. Their skins were green and leathery, their faces long and malicious with wide mouths and hooked noses. They were arrayed in a wild costume of bright cloth and grubby armour. Short swords and broad daggers were tucked into their belts, bandoliers of pistols dripped across the chests of the largest.
‘I know these creatures,’ Khoram snarled. ‘Grots. Malicious kin of the orruks. They look absurd but the weedy little monsters have a vindictive cunning and a murderous sort of humour. Even for me their intentions are difficult to predict with any great accuracy. Their minds are moved by strange whims. At once they are capable of ferocious aggression and abject cowardice. I have even seen them squander a victory because they were too busy fighting among themselves.’
The image in the orb showed the motley array of weaponry that littered the scrap-ship. Things that looked like crude bolt-throwers, others that might be cannons, still other contraptions that looked like nothing so much as the over-sized slingshot of a shepherd. Together it made for a considerable if crude arsenal. The stacks of plunder carelessly strewn about the decks left little question how the grots used that arsenal. The green-skinned creatures were pirates.
Pirates that had heard the explosive battle with the chimeras and now turned their vessel towards the Iron Dragon. If the duardin were braced for a fight, Khoram was certain they would blast the grot ship into splinters. At the moment, that was not the situation. They had started drawing gas from the sky-veins. Their ship was at its most vulnerable, their crew least prepared for an unexpected attack.
Khoram studied the scene in the orb. He had learned long ago that it was doubtful to factor grots into any scheme. ‘This will not do,’ he declared. ‘This uncertainty is too great an obstacle to compensate for. They must be eliminated before they can meddle in my affairs.’
From beneath his robes, the sorcerer withdrew a dragon scale of prodigious size. Setting its shape clearly in his mind, Khoram closed his eyes. His lips murmured a series of hissing incantations, the sounds crawling through the floors of his sanctum. As the spell took shape, he felt his awareness creeping into another brain and another body. He poured his commands into that brain, impulses and urges it would be incapable of resisting.
Powerful magics and debased rituals had given him a hold upon the great reptile the scale had once belonged to. Fell enchantments that had put a fragment of Khoram’s own essence inside the mighty wyrm. An arcane link that could be broken only in death. A bond that recognised no distance or impediment.
The sorcerer’s body grew hot, the clothes beginning to smoulder against his skin. The pained whimpers of his tretchlet pulled at him, drawing him out from the being into which he had so briefly projected himself. As he returned to his own body he ran to a ewer of water, its contents enchanted against just the sort of effects he now suffered. Imbibing
the liquid, he soon felt the fiery sensation abate.
Looking back into the orb, Khoram saw a different scene. The grots were scrambling about in terror, frantically loading weapons, training them against the enemy that had so impossibly appeared in the sky above them. In prodding his beast to the attack, Khoram had stripped away the dragon’s veil of invisibility, restoring it completely to the time-place it should occupy.
The wyrm hurtled down at the scrap-ship like a vengeful meteor. For a beast that had decimated an entire Kharadron fleet, the grot pirates would be nothing. They would be obliterated before the Iron Dragon even knew they existed. Once they were gone, Khoram would once more use his sorcery to put the dragon out of phase with the substance of Chamon.
Once more it would become the duardin’s invisible guardian, ready to act should any peril threaten the ironclad.
Ready to strike should the duardin stray from the course Khoram had plotted for them.
Chapter X
The Iron Dragon’s holds were filled with aether-gold after a few days of arduous work. Despite the hardship, Gotramm was stunned by the size of the yield. Every prospector claimed his strike was just waiting to be collected, ready to just flow into the hands of those who but reached out to take it. It had always been an exaggeration, a lie fed by excitement. In the case of Grokmund’s strike, however, the claims were as near to being true as Gotramm had ever encountered. Yes, the duardin had to work to get at the vein, but once it had been tapped the yield exceeded even the most optimistic expectations.
‘If they were with us, we could have filled the Dron-Duraz and Grom-Makar with aether-gold,’ Drumark observed as he watched the pumps feeding gas into the expandable tanks in the aft hold. ‘It will be rough leaving some of it behind.’
Gotramm nodded. He was feeling some of the burden Brokrin must have felt: responsibility for the ship and her crew, abhorrence towards anything that smacked of recklessness. He gave Drumark a wary look. ‘Are you suggesting we load up barrels and pile them on deck?’ If the sergeant were, he would not be the first. Skaggi took that distinction, broaching the subject as soon as it was confirmed that the vein had more aether-gold than they could store in the holds.
‘I do not pretend to be wise and long in the beard,’ Drumark answered, ‘but I am not a complete fool either. We are taking a risk filling the holds the way we are. Having even more piled up and exposed on the deck is tempting things too far.’ He scratched at his beard, picking a few crumbs out and flicking them overboard with his thumb. ‘Leastwise that is the way I see it.’
‘We are in agreement then,’ Gotramm said. ‘It comes down to weighing the chances and deciding what risks to take and which ones to avoid.’ He sighed and turned to watch the duardin working the pumps. ‘I am not as sceptical as Brokrin, but I am starting to see his point of view.’
Drumark caught Gotramm’s arm and pulled the new captain close. The smell of his beer-soaked breath spilled across the arkanaut’s face as the sergeant whispered into his ear. ‘You might see things even more like Brokrin,’ he warned.
‘What do you mean?’ Gotramm asked.
Drumark glanced across the deck to where Skaggi was observing the collection process. He had a copper tablet in his hand, etching away at it with an acid-dipped needle. ‘Skaggi has been talking to the crew, working on them the way he did before. Those tabulations he is making – he is figuring out exactly how much everyone’s share will be worth. He is also calculating how much they would get if every pot and pan on this ship was filled with aether-gold.’
The sergeant leaned back, tucking his thumbs under his belt. ‘A crew that has already mutinied against one captain won’t hesitate to mutiny against another.’
Gotramm knew the sergeant was right. Skaggi had whipped up the crew to unseat Brokrin, so he would have even less problem moving them against him. The only chance he had was to cut the logisticator off before he could bring things to a boil.
‘Be careful how you do it,’ Gotramm told Drumark, ‘but tell Horgarr I want to see him. I want to discuss an idea with him. Skaggi is busy telling everybody what they have to gain. I think they need to be reminded of what they stand to lose.’
The signal that blared from the Iron Dragon’s whistle was the most imperious of the many commands Kharadron crews learned. ‘All hands on deck’ it shrieked in its aetheric voice of steam. Wherever they were, the duardin left their duties and rushed to answer the summons. Endrinriggers let their aether-endrins sink towards the deck, gold-gatherers shut off their pumps and sealed off their hoses as they scrambled to answer the summons. Only the lookout high atop the great endrin and Vorki manning the ship’s wheel were exempted from the call, their duties too crucial to be cast aside, even for a moment.
The duardin muttered anxiously among themselves, looking about for some hint as to the emergency that had provoked the signal. Many eyes stared at the deck under their feet, picturing the holds below filled with gaseous aether-gold. More than a few brows began to form beads of sweat.
Gotramm stood up on the forecastle and shouted down to the assembled crew. ‘I applaud your quickness to attend the signal,’ he declared. ‘I will apologise for any alarm you’ve been given. Let me assure you that the ship is in no danger.’ He raised his hand as a visible wave of relief swept through the crew. ‘The ship is in no danger… yet,’ he elaborated. His gaze settled for a moment on Brokrin. His expression had some sympathy about it, but also a kind of righteous satisfaction that cut at Gotramm’s pride. Yes, he thought, you were right.
Unsurprisingly it was Skaggi who demanded an explanation from Gotramm. ‘A poor prank to be pulling, cap’n,’ he grumbled. ‘Unbecoming of your command.’ His hard stare made it clear he understood the purpose of Gotramm’s summons. From the first, he intended to undermine the privateer’s authority and make whatever argument he put to the crew less convincing.
Gotramm resisted the urge to smile. He had a trick up his sleeve he did not think Skaggi would expect. ‘It is no jest,’ he said, sweeping his eyes across the crew. ‘I would not jest about a cargo of aether-gold. We have a fortune in our holds already, but some among us aren’t satisfied. They are more worried about what they do not have than what they do. That is the kind of greed this voyage can ill afford.’
‘You are sounding like Captain Brokrin now,’ Skaggi challenged, throwing his words among the crew like seeds. ‘I imagine we still have beans and lentils in the galley.’ The remark brought some harsh laughs from the gathered duardin.
Gotramm drew his pistol and fired it away from the ship. The crack of the shot quieted the crew. ‘The situation is different now,’ he declared. ‘When we voted against Captain Brokrin, it was because we were a crew without prospects with nothing waiting for us back in port except debt and disgrace. Now things are different. Now we have a cargo that will bring us plenty when we get back to port. There is a time to take risks and a time to be prudent.’ He looked down at Brokrin, bowing his head in respect. ‘Captain Brokrin worried about the stability of this cargo. That was why he refused to take it aboard. He had the safety and welfare of the ship in mind. All of you know this, but I wonder how many of you have considered precisely what it means.’
A wave of his hand signalled Drumark and Horgarr to step away from the wheelhouse. Between them, the two duardin carried a small iron-banded keg. They walked over to where an idle aether-endrin was lying. While Drumark held the keg, Horgarr strapped it into the aether-endrin’s harness. Around them, the crew watched in bewilderment.
‘That keg is filled with aether-gold,’ Gotramm announced. ‘You need not fret; it has been deducted from my share.’ He felt a sense of triumph when he saw the shock on Skaggi’s face. Sharp and conniving, the logisticator was ready to work any angle but he hadn’t considered that someone would throw away their own money. Skaggi knew what was coming now. Maybe not the exact method, but he knew the message Gotramm was going to send to
the crew. The logisticator looked again at the keg being fitted to the aether-endrin and began to twist his beard in a fit of nervousness.
‘There is not a lot in there,’ Gotramm elaborated. ‘As I said, it is coming out of my share.’ The comment brought laughter from the assembled duardin. The privateer looked over at Brokrin, saw the knowing look in his eyes. Like Skaggi, Brokrin knew what was coming.
‘We made a test with an even smaller amount down in the cap’n’s cabin,’ Gotramm said. ‘You did not see that. What you did see was what happened when Horgarr used the larger ingot to destroy that sky-horror that brought down the frigates. In the heat of battle, that seemed more boon than threat. I think all of you could benefit from a clearer demonstration of the danger this ore represents.’
Horgarr turned away from the aether-endrin and nodded to Gotramm. He made a gesture with his hand. Together, Horgarr and Drumark sent the keg over the side of the ship. Suspended by the aether-endrin it was soon caught by the wind current and carried away. Gotramm waited until it was a hundred yards away. He gave another signal with his hand. Drumark took up the aethershot rifle that was leaning against the wheelhouse.
‘Remember,’ Gotramm enjoined the watching crew, ‘there is only a little of the aether-gold in that keg.’
Drumark snapped the rifle up to his shoulder and fired. The shot cracked against the airborne keg. The next instant there was a tremendous explosion, its shockwave such that the Iron Dragon rolled from side to side. When the ringing in their ears abated, the duardin looked at the faint wisps of smoke that were the only remains of the keg. Gasps of wonder spread amongst the crowd.
Gotramm folded his arms across his chest. He knew he had made his point.
‘I do not think you’ll have much trouble defusing Skaggi now,’ Grokmund stated quietly as he walked over to join Gotramm. Alone of the crew, he was unfazed by the explosive spectacle.
