The Legion of Flame

by Anthony Ryan

  “Aye, sir.” Steelfine saluted again. “There was just one other thing, sir. Something you should see, in the hold.”

  Hilemore saw Scrimshine straighten immediately, eyes suddenly agleam with interest. “Don’t be telling me you found the treasure, Mr. Steelfine.”

  The Islander turned to the former smuggler and Hilemore saw the corners of his mouth twitch just a little. “Oh, it’s treasure to be sure. And plenty of it.”

  • • •

  “I estimate three tons altogether.”

  The cargo filled approximately half the hold and Hilemore quickly intuited the contents from the construction of the barrels. Wooden braces and pegs, no metal of any kind. “Three tons of powder,” he said.

  “Not quite, sir.” Steelfine went to the nearest barrel, the lid of which he had already levered open. Hilemore moved closer, seeing that the contents were concealed within in a tight oilskin wrapping. Steelfine pulled the covering aside to reveal what appeared at first glance to be a dense mass of fragile, fibrous linen.

  “Whassat stuff?” Scrimshine enquired, leaning closer with his lantern raised then stepping back as Steelfine placed a firm hand on his chest.

  “Gun-cotton,” Hilemore said. “An accelerating agent possessing six times the blasting power of black powder.”

  “Not used on a Protectorate ship for near twenty years,” Steelfine added. “Since the unfortunate incident in Feros harbour.”

  “Is it still potent?” Hilemore asked.

  “Seems likely, sir. The wrapping will have kept out the moisture and the cold’ll kill any corrupting agents in the air.”

  “Best sling it all over the side, Skipper,” Scrimshine said, taking another step back holding his lantern out behind him. “One spark’ll tear this whole ship to splinters.”

  Hilemore ignored him and turned to Steelfine. “The state of the ship’s guns, Number One?”

  “A dozen eight-pounders on the upper deck, sir, all undamaged with twenty iron round shot each. The firing mechanisms are archaic and unfamiliar but I’m pretty sure I could reckon out how to get them working.”

  “See to it once we’re underway. I shouldn’t like to run into any Blues without guns.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  • • •

  It took another day to get the sails rigged. The task was prolonged by the need to thaw out the dense, frozen mounds of rope required to affix the sheets to the masts. The stove in the galley, fortuitously stocked with a decent supply of coal, was duly fired up and the cordage piled around it. By morning they were able to start the rigging. At Steelfine’s insistence the mainmast received the bulk of the sails, with the fore and mizzen afforded the remaining canvas. Hilemore had some familiarity with sailing-ships, the basics were still taught to cadets at the Maritime Protectorate Academy, but it was clear that Steelfine’s knowledge of this fast-disappearing art far outstripped that of every man on board. Consequently, Hilemore felt it prudent to leave the handling of the ship to the Islander whilst he busied himself with an inspection of the charts bequeathed him by the unfortunate Captain Bledthorne. They had consigned the pirate’s remains to the deep following a brief ceremony the previous evening, mainly to allay the perennial superstitions of the men. It went against custom to deny the King of the Deep his due.

  Hilemore’s study of Bledthorne’s charts swiftly led him to the conclusion that, whatever the man’s failings as both pirate and human being, his navigational skills had been of a very high order. The charts were all of the finest draughtsmanship and each of the Dreadfire’s course changes carefully plotted to within the nearest fifty yards. Bledthorne had also been scrupulous in annotating his charts with items of navigational interest, such as previously unrecorded reefs or dangerously swift currents. It was therefore a simple matter for Hilemore to track the course of the ship all the way from its luckless encounter off the south-western Arradsian coast, across the Myrdin Ocean and into these frozen wastes where she found her temporary grave.

  He was surprised to find that the final position plotted by Bledthorne put the Dreadfire over one hundred miles to the north-east of her current situation. Hilemore’s finger traced along the dotted pencil-line through a blank section of chart. In Bledthorne’s day the southern polar region had received only minimal exploration and it was common practice for cartographers to leave large tracts of the southern reaches empty save for the words “Unknown—Navigate at Own Risk.”

  Got her through the bergs in high summer, he mused, tapping the black circle at the terminus of the dotted line. But didn’t have the hands to sail her out again. Winter came and the ice closed in to claim its prize, dragging her ever farther south. Bledthorne had kept hold of the vessel’s original registration documents which revealed her to be an armed merchant trader named the Pure of Heart, apparently one of the first vessels beyond the Royal Mandinorian Fleet to be built with an iron-clad hull. The pirate was right about one thing, Hilemore thought, running a hand over one of the ship’s thick oak beams. Tough old bird like you deserved a better name.

  They got underway around midday, Steelfine’s shouted order to unfurl the sails easily carrying the length of the ship. In response the men in the rigging undid the bindings and the sails fell free to billow in the stiff breeze blowing from the south-west. “Won’t be able to keep true north at this gauge, Skipper,” Scrimshine warned, steadying the Dreadfire’s massive wheel with practised ease.

  “As long as you keep us pointing away from the south and clear of any bergs I shall be well satisfied, Mr. Scrimshine.” Hilemore’s gaze tracked over the sails. The breeze was sufficient to put them in motion but he doubted the Dreadfire would manage more than two knots with such meagre canvas aloft.

  “Could throw all unnecessaries overboard, sir,” Scrimshine suggested, reading Hilemore’s expression. “Lighten the load. That blasted cotton stuff would do for a start.”

  “I’d sooner throw you over the side,” Hilemore told him with a brisk smile before moving to where Steelfine tended to an eight-pounder gun on the starboard mid-deck. “Reckoned it out then, Number One?”

  “Not a lot to reckon, sir,” the Islander replied. He used a small penknife to scrape frost from the weapon’s touch-hole then leaned down to blow the powder away. “Pack in a measure of gun-cotton, ram the shot home on top of it, fill the touch-hole with powder then set it off. It’ll go bang for certain, just not sure what state the gun will be in afterwards. So many years in the freezing air can’t have been good for the metal.”

  “We’ll undertake a test-fire when she’s ready, use only a small amount of propellant.”

  “Aye, sir.” Steelfine glanced up at the partially rigged masts above, lowering his voice, “Permission to speak in candid terms, sir?”

  “Of course, Number One.”

  “Barring a miracle we’re more likely to starve before we see another Blue. At this speed we’ll need three weeks to reach open water, and we only have food enough for one.”

  “I saw food barrels in the hold.”

  Steelfine nodded. “Corn meal and salt-beef. But after so many years I find it hard to credit it could still be edible.”

  Hilemore made a show of inspecting the cannon’s wheeled carriage for the benefit of any men who might be watching. “As far as the crew are concerned,” he said. “It’s all edible thanks to the miraculous preserving properties of the polar climate. But we’ll stick to our own supplies for now. Might as well use it up, eh?”

  “Very good, sir.”

  • • •

  After two days’ sailing Hilemore estimated they had moved a little under ten miles in a generally northern direction. Only five miles south of where we found the spire, he mused, studying the chart he had kept since starting this voyage. In addition to the lack of sail and anaemic winds, progress was further slowed by the need for Scrimshine to navigate around the bergs drifting continually i
nto their path. The ice, fragmented by the mysterious forces that had warmed the region’s waters, was an unpredictable foe. The air was often riven by the thunderous sound of bergs colliding or collapsing under their own weight and more than once Scrimshine was obliged to spin the wheel into a blur to counter the effect of the resultant waves.

  “Report from the crow’s nest, sir,” Steelfine’s voice called from beyond the cabin door. Hilemore went out onto the deck, looking up to see Braddon Torcreek pointing to the north. The Contractor captain had been an almost entirely silent presence since they found the Dreadfire, the grief etched deep into the lines around his increasingly hollow gaze. Consequently Hilemore felt a certain guilty relief when the man joined Preacher in the nest on the first day, opting to remain aloft ever since.

  Hilemore strained to hear Braddon’s shouted report, grimacing in frustration at the vagueness of it, “Think you’d best see this yourself, Captain.” He went to the mainmast and began the arduous journey up the rigging to the crow’s nest, a task he hadn’t been obliged to undertake since his days as a junior lieutenant. Diminished rations had left him in a poor state for such exertions and he found himself concealing an embarrassing wheeze as he hauled himself into the nest.

  “A few points west of due north,” Braddon said, handing him a spy-glass and pointing towards the horizon. Hilemore found it quickly, his heart leaping at the sight of what first appeared to be the tell-tale plume of smoke rising from the stack of a ship. This delusion was quickly dispelled, however, when he gauged the size of the ascending column and its overly dark colour. It rose from a position just within the curve of the horizon and he didn’t need his chart to discern the source.

  “Mount Reygnar,” Hilemore said. “Come back to life. Which would explain a great deal.” He lowered the glass, taking in the sight of the fractured ice-shelf surrounding the smoking mountain. The sea was clear at the peak’s base, forming a wide circular lake free of bergs. Tracing southwards in a zigzag course, a comparatively clear channel wound its way to the Dreadfire’s current position. “There must be a fissure running along the sea-bed,” he mused aloud. “The mountain is but a part of it. Beneath us a great deal of molten rock is leaking through the earth’s crust.”

  “Seems awful coincidental it would start leaking so when it did,” Braddon said. Hilemore took some gratification from the slight animation to the man’s voice, a sign that perhaps he might not succumb completely to grief after all. “Clay . . .” Braddon faltered for a moment, then swallowed and carried on. “Clay said the city he found beneath that mountain in the Coppersoles was built atop a lake of molten rock. If the same folks built the spire, could be it was connected to this fissure in some way.”

  “It could,” Hilemore conceded, once again experiencing the uncomfortable sensation of being dwarfed by the enigma of their discoveries. “In any case, at least we know the way ahead is clear, perhaps all the way to the Chokes.”

  “Where your lady-love will be waiting with the Superior.”

  “Captain Okanas is not my lady-love.” Hilemore’s tone was curt and he bridled a little until he saw the faint glimmer of humour in Braddon’s eye. Hilemore coughed and raised the spy-glass once more. “I shall need to sketch this,” he said. “Plot a more efficient course.”

  “So we don’t starve to death in the meantime, you mean?”

  “We have provisions in the hold . . .”

  “Which raises the question as to why we’re still on rations,” Braddon interrupted. “Perhaps it’s time to break open a few of those casks. I’m willing to risk my guts on a bite or two. Something I learned in the Interior; even the most reliable folk are unwilling to follow sound orders when true hunger sets in.”

  Hilemore spent a moment studying the winding channel through the ice. Even with the benefit of a tightly plotted course their existing supplies would be exhausted long before they came in sight of the Chokes. Over the last two days he had been increasingly preoccupied with Scrimshine’s tale of his previous journey across the ice. You’ll be surprised how fast a man starts to resemble a side of pork . . . Although his own career had yet to bring Hilemore to such extremes, seafaring history was rich in similar tales of marooned or becalmed crews pushed to bestial measures by hunger. That men under his command would ever find themselves so far removed from humanity was an uncomfortable notion, but as his own hunger grew he began to see an unpalatable truth in the smuggler’s story.

  “I believe you’re right, Captain Torcreek,” he said, handing him the spy-glass before leaning over the rope cage ringing the nest and calling down to the deck below. “Number One! Lay anchor, if you please! All crew to report to the galley!”

  • • •

  The crew looked on with stomachs growling at varying intensities of volume as Skaggerhill did the cooking. The harvester mixed a measure of cornmeal into a thin gruel, seasoning the concoction with some salt from the large jar the Dreadfire’s long-vanished cook had seen fit to leave behind. Once spooned onto a tin plate the result had a grey, watery appearance but Hilemore found he had never seen or smelled anything so appetising in his life. Steelfine had all but forbidden him from taking the first meal, volunteering himself instead. “I think Mr. Scrimshine is more deserving of the honour, Number One,” Hilemore told him, a sentiment which met with the helmsman’s immediate enthusiasm.

  “It’ll do for me, alright,” Scrimshine said, having wolfed down the entire plate in a few scrapes of the spoon. He held his plate out to Skaggerhill in expectation then scowled when Hilemore told him to wait awhile. After a somewhat tense fifteen-minute interval, during which the helmsman signally failed to keel over with stomach pains or display any other sign of an unfortunate reaction, the crew gave a relieved groan when Hilemore ordered Skaggerhill to dole out the rest of the gruel.

  “What about the meat, Skipper?” Scrimshine asked Hilemore after his third helping.

  Steelfine immediately started to rise, face darkening but stopped as Hilemore shook his head. He was learning that too tight a leash might not be the best option for a crew in crisis. “Best left be, at least for now,” Hilemore told Scrimshine. “The corn should suffice until we rendezvous with the Superior.”

  In truth, he had serious doubts the Superior would still be waiting. Faced with the break-up of the ice, Zenida may well have opted to haul anchor and head north at the best possible speed. Not that I would blame her, he thought. The crew, however, didn’t need to hear him voice his suspicions. Artifice was also valuable in a crisis.

  He watched the crew eat, taking heart from the instant lift in their spirits brought on by something as basic as a decent meal. A hum of quiet conversation soon filled the galley, the men sitting straighter as previously gaunt faces took on new colour, even breaking into a smile or two, all of which came to an abrupt end as the sharp crack of a rifle-shot sounded through the decking above their heads.

  “Preacher,” Braddon said as the crew surged to their feet and made for the ladders. The marksman had opted to stay in the crow’s nest as they ate, fortuitously as it transpired. Hilemore could see him outlined against the pale sky, standing with his rifle aimed towards the east. A yellow flame erupted from the rifle’s muzzle as Preacher fired again, Hilemore following the line of shot in time to see water cascading down some two hundred paces off the starboard bow. He could find no target for the marksman’s bullet and was about to call up to him when he saw a swell around the point of impact. The water frothed briefly as a set of spines broke the surface, Hilemore glimpsing a speck of blue before the drake dived deeper.

  “Is it him?” Scrimshine asked in a panicked rasp.

  “No,” Hilemore said, taking out his spy-glass and training it on the spot where the Blue had broken the surface. “Spines were too small.”

  He lowered the glass and barked out a series of orders. Soon the crew were all armed and lining the rails, both port and starboard as there was no telling whe
re the beast might appear. They waited for several very long minutes, the surrounding waters remaining placid all the while.

  “Maybe he’s just swam off,” Skaggerhill suggested. “Didn’t take kindly to being shot at.”

  “The guns, Number One?” Hilemore asked Steelfine.

  “One prepared, sir. Got a packet of gun-cotton ready for the test firing.”

  Hilemore’s jaw clenched as he rebuked himself. Should have seen to this earlier. “It appears we’ll be undertaking a battle-field test. Make it ready, if you please.”

  “Aye, sir.” Steelfine saluted and ran to the eight-pounder, calling a pair of men to assist as he began to drag the gun-carriage back from the port.

  “Wait!” Scrimshine said. “Quiet for a moment.” Hilemore turned to find him standing with his head cocked, a frown of deep concentration on his face. “Y’hear that, Skipper?”

  Hilemore motioned for Steelfine to halt his preparations and called for silence. He felt it rather than heard it, a faint tremor thrumming the deck timbers beneath his boots. He had to strain to hear the actual sound, a faint rhythmic keening from under the ship that put him in mind of whale-song, though the pitch was much more shrill.

  “Blue-hunters call it the Gathering Song,” Scrimshine said, his face losing much of the colour gained during the meal. “That’s how they hunt ’em sometimes, capture a young ’un and torment it so it’ll call out to its pack. The ocean carries sound a far greater distance than the air. The big ’uns come running to answer the call from miles away, smack into the nets strung betwixt the ships.” He gave Hilemore a weak smile. “Don’t s’pose we got any nets aboard?”

  “No,” Hilemore said, moving to the rail and staring out at the drifting bergs beyond. “No we do not.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Lizanne

  Arberus found her at first light, smiling despite the scowl she turned on him as Makario stitched the cut to her forearm. The bodies of the last valiant Watchmen lay around them, burnt or blasted into a near-unrecognisable state. Hyran sat near by, knees drawn up to his chest and an unfocused cast to his eyes.