“Cannon?” Leonardo asks.
“The tower is still outside of range,” the blonde man on artillery says.
“Inject it at next bombardment without waiting for my command.”
“Yes, Captain.” Kelligh raises a cover on the control panel, exposing a shining metal valve.
“Bring me perpendicular to the entrance, I can launch myself. Can any of your men follow me?” Silla asks.
Leonardo looks at her sideways. “Perhaps. However I would like to avoid launching my men in the middle of volleys of gunfire. First, we should disarm that tower and drive off the airship. Then we will disembark.”
“Torpedo!” they shout on the bridge.
Kelligh pushes the valve with the palm of his hand and Silla feels herself nailed to the back of her chair. The airship, with a concert of creaking, accelerates at a frightening velocity skimming the treetops. The torpedo explodes in their wake, far from them.
A few seconds later the thrust is exhausted, but the ship maintains its elevated speed.
“One hundred fourteen East on my mark. Aim at the targets according to the new course.”
The officers feverishly calculate the trajectories, while the white tower emerges from the forest covering the mountain. It’s little more than a hut but part of the roof has been removed to leave room for a military gunner from which flurries of fire burst forth. The whiz of the projectiles can be clearly heard, but still too far to trouble them.
After a bit, however, three shots reach their target on the planks producing dull crackles.
Whoever’s shooting from down there knows their craft, Silla thinks.
The airship heels over once again, emerging powerfully beyond the treetops.
“Cannon, fire!”
A blast shakes the bridge. Silla anxiously follows the projectile, which misses the hut by several yards, setting fire to the forest behind it. The machine gun resumes its song, and this time their broadside’s exposed; various bullets reach the airship.
“Ascend four hundred feet. Again sixteen North. Mark, mark!” Guarischi yells. A windshield is shattered, struck by a ricocheted blow.
“Torpedo!”
This time there are no different maneuvers to carry out; the airship is already fleeing the machine gun. Silla clutches the arms of her chair, preparing for impact. A thunderous roar shakes the cabin, but the airship continues to rise.
“Damage?” Leonardo asks, tidying his ruffled hair.
“The frame is intact. The third quarter rudder is stuck. I’ll send a team to examine it,” Kelligh answers.
“Machine gun?” the Captain asks.
“Out of range. It’s almost directly on top of us, the bastard.”
“Let’s fall back. Fifty South, on my mark.”
“Captain” Silla interrupts, undoing her belt. “Bring me up; I’ll leap out.”
Leonardo furrows his bushy eyebrows. “And then? We aren’t able to enter into the gorge. We can try again with a second shot, but we’ll be running too great a risk. I can’t lose my airship, with forty people on board, to save Alina.”
“I’ll jump, even if it’s alone. You retreat to Novograd. I’ll get myself out of this.”
“It’s suicide, Silla, the machine gun can’t miss you. I cannot authorize it.”
“I’m not asking for your authorization, Captain.” The witch rises, a bit stiff. “I am asking you to keep this damned airship on target for two more minutes.”
Leonardo shakes his head, but gives in with a groan. “The parachutes are in the hold. Two minutes from now. Cancel previous course. Turn again to fourteen North, ascend to altitude four thousand feet. Mark.”
Silla falters on the bridge while the airship maneuvers, and then heads toward the lower decks. She quickens her pace until she reaches her cabin, which she enters like a fury.
One hundred nine, one hundred eight, she counts in her head.
She opens the carry-all bag and frees herself of her cape and jacket. She fastens a double bandolier to her shoulders, filled with magazine chargers and hooks two Korth assault pistols to the holsters. She slips the sawed-off arquebus into the shoulder strap and a four-inch blade in her boot. The military knife is still strapped under her shirt on her back.
Ninety-one, ninety, she grabs her jacket and dives out of the room. The airship is stable now, and she can run to the cargo hold. The few sailors she encounters move out of the way of her haste. She enters the hold and heads toward the hatch. A young sailor on lookout, behind a telescope, stares down at her through the porthole. Sixty-six, sixty-five. “I need to jump. Where are the parachutes?”
He looks at her as if she asked when dinner will be served.
“Quickly!” Silla shakes one of his shoulders.
The boy puffs up his chubby cheeks and bends down to open a wooden locker, pulling out a military parachute.
Silla grips the crank that controls the opening of the cargo door. After a few turns the cold air hits them. She yanks the dark backpack from his hands, putting in on with expert movements. “Finish opening the door.”
Thirty, twenty-nine, and she fastens the final clasp.
“Look,” shouts the soldier between icy gusts, pointing down. “You can’t jump here.”
The day is fair, and the sun still needs to set. Plainly visible on the ground, she sees the outline of the tower. Their airship is at the edge of their range; they’re saving their rounds, but without a doubt all the binoculars and eyes of the men down below are pointed at their ship. And on such a clear afternoon they can’t help but see her while she jumps.
Silla fusses with her blonde coif at the mercy of the whirlwind that’s invaded the hold.
I promised you, Captain. But this mission doesn’t have the slightest possibility of success.
She pulls out the brass goggles from the pocket of the parachute and fixes them on her head.
“No! No!” the boy shrieks, pointing again at the tower as if she didn’t know how deadly that post was.
Eleven, ten. Silla grabs the edge of the opening with both hands. She feels her legs turn to jelly and her mouth dry up as if she swallowed a spoonful of sand.
This is your last jump, recruit, the drill sergeant whispers into her ear. In my opinion, you don’t have the courage to launch yourself. The gun can’t miss you, you know. You’re weak, Silla.
Six, five. The young man has moved to the back of the cargo hold and he is still shouting something at her, but she disengages her mind, trying to concentrate. Her only chance is to plunge in a ball, and then change orientation as soon as she hears the machine gun’s blasts, to slow her descent and allow her to open the parachute and hopefully arrive safe on the ground. Just one second’s delay would transform the launch into a useless witch frittata.
“What a shit plan,” she mumbles and grimaces. She hurries to throw herself out, but the sailor falls on top of her holding her with a clumsy, but iron-fast embrace.
The airship tilts to maneuver; there’s no more time. Silla and the man roll on the bridge off balance and clinging to each other. Silla jerks her head backward, butting the sailor square in the nose. He shouts in pain and loosens his grip the little bit she needs wriggle free. The hatch is there, spread open before her, she can still do it. She plants her feet and springs forward, but she tumbles to the deck. The sailor has seized her by the ankle.
“Wait,” the boy shouts, with a hand in front of his face, in the middle of a fountain of blood that’s copiously flowing from his nostrils. “There’s another airship! We have reinforcements!”
“Huh?”
“Another airship,” he screams, amid the clamor of the wind and indicates the communication panel at the back of the hold where she sees a red switch.
Silla gets up and runs to the transmitter. “Cargo here, what’s happening?” she shouts into the metal horn, pressing the headphone against her ear.
“Silla,” Leonardo’s voice crackles from the earpiece. “Thank goodness you haven’t jumped! Com
e to the bridge, there are new developments. An airship is headed here at full speed, it’s already engaged the enemy vessel, forcing it to retreat.”
“Kasia?” Silla asks, full of hope.
“No. As strange as it may seem to you, it’s the East Wind, the Cerriwdens.”
***
Silla lands with a hop onto the grey stone of those crude piers. The Loafer used an abandoned quarry to construct a hidden dock for his airships, which come and go from the depots to smuggle merchandise and people. Fifteen sailors of the Mala Avis come down behind her, armed to the nines, and young Hansi, with a holster strapped to his thigh. The Russian criminal won’t allow them free rein, given this shelter holds all his goods; they’ll have to fight tooth and nail to enter.
Another airship has docked and just one girl walks down the gangway. She has black hair like a lake of petroleum and a nimble stride. An arquebus rests listlessly on her shoulder, a true pirate.
“Good day, sister,” Silla salutes her. “So you must be Gabriela Cerriwden?”
“Greetings to you, Silla of the Blue Mountains. We’ve met already at the solstice dinner, several years ago now, when I was still a little baby.”
“Who is in command of your vessel?”
“My aunt,” Gabriela answers, planting her feet on the ground, wide apart.
“Are you the captain of the Wind or your aunt? Earlier on the radio, you said you were in charge.”
“Earlier I was, now it’s my aunt. Do you have a problem with that?”
Silla raises her hands. “It’s your airship, your business. On the other hand, if you want to come home with your skin intact, stay close to me and follow my orders. Men!” she raises her voice turning to the sailors. “See the openings on the mountain? There are four, according to what the Frenchman told us. Two of you will station yourself at the exit of the one closest to us, and the other two at the one further up, near that big dark tree. Approach with caution, without letting yourselves be noticed and position yourself in the vicinity. If you see someone come out, fire. Who will volunteer?”
Four men raise their hands and, silently, head to where they were directed.
“We’ll separate into two groups: the first with five people and the other nine, the diversion and the battering ram. First, the group of five will attack the main entrance, in between those boulders up there. You don’t need to force your way in, so long as you make a bit of a ruckus. Indeed, be prudent, if you manage to get in it should only be a few yards, then turn around. You need to attract as many men as possible. The other nine will come with me. We’ll attack a few minutes after the diversion; we must break through their line and infiltrate the mountain. Everything clear? Good, let’s split up.”
“I’m coming with you,” Gabriela says right away, surly. Hansi doesn’t say anything; Silla only needs a glance to understand he’ll be going in no matter what.
After a few minutes, they find themselves on the rocky slope dotted with many low shrubs, which hide them from view, using to their advantage that which normally helps the smugglers conceal themselves. Silla raises a fist and crouches down, assembling her squad.
“The opening is up there, inside that hollow. We can’t go any further without being seen,” she whispers.
The men nervously tighten their hands around their muskets. Silla studies them in silence; both her life and Alina’s depends on this handful of sailors. Greenhorns, who have never experienced war, just the odd skirmish and military exercise. They have so many firearms on them they could have kept half of them unloaded and they still would have looked fearsome. She’ll be leaving her voyage on board the Mala Avis with few certainties, but one of these is that Guarischi isn’t an innocent merchant. Now she better understands what Kasia sees in him. He’s undoubtedly an agent of the highest tier, given important mandates and discretion, and a crew of mercenaries. One just needs to hope he is truly on their side and isn’t leading them in a dance with a final twist.
“Everything okay?” she asks Cerriwden. The young sorceress’s self-assurance seems to melt like a candle in the fire, as they gradually draw close to action.
The other nods, but Silla notes a trembling in her jaw. On one hand, she despises her for having sold herself to the Germans, however this return to save the little Santuini girl does her honor. It’s true, there were times when any witch would have thrown herself into the flames to save a sister; but these days it seems those good customs have gone out of fashion. The young German has already drawn his small weapon and seems restless to run toward the cave. In his eyes she reads fear, but also determination and urgency.
A roar blasts forth from the Mala Avis. The torpedo whistles and crashes right into the mouth of the main opening, eliciting a column of smoke and flames. The airship’s high-caliber machine gun showers fire down on the portal, quickly followed by the shouts of the five sailors.
“Run toward the entrance,” Silla says to her squad. “You should proceed in silence until they discover us, then start shooting—everything you’ve got. You can’t stop to take cover, reload or aid a wounded comrade, otherwise we’ll never manage to get in. Charge as if you have the devil on your tail, don’t slow down for any reason. Stay ready.”
Silla closes her eyes to find concentration. Higher up, the machine gun has stopped its hammering and the distraction team has begun to put pressure on their defense posts, as if they want to enter from there. The sound of gunfire and the smell of black powder quicken her heartbeat. She buries a hand into the moist terrain, sensing the earth’s magnetic force.
A shudder runs along her legs and halts at her groin. The heat rises up to the center of her chest, where, from the cosmic shadows, the comet emerges loaded with flames and anguish.
Silla opens her eyes. “Forward.”
She starts to run keeping her head low, while she draws the two revolvers. She’s sighted the first sentinel through the branches, but he hasn’t seen them yet; he’s watching the action higher up at the other entrance. Silla lengthens her stride, driven by her demon who devours thousands of miles an hour in the bottomless darkness of her heart. It increases its rhythm once more and, as always happens when battle draws near, the world starts to break down before her eyes into slowed down photographic frames. The man at the door turns toward her. She must be thirty yards from the entrance now and each step brings her closer.
The guard opens his mouth wide to scream. Without slowing down Silla raises her weapon and lines it up with her eye. She sees the criminal prop the rifle on his shoulder and, before he can fire, she empties three blasts into him in quick succession. Two miss their target, but the third hits the center of his kneecap.
Another goon looks out with weapons in his fists raining projectiles down the descent. Whistles and bangs blossom around her, she raises the other pistol and explodes three cartridges. She misses but forces him to withdraw a moment to take cover, while she continues to bolt across the landscape; she must be ten yards from them now.
The man with the wounded knee fires down the slope without looking, and she hears the slug whiz a hand’s width above her head. She raises both guns and, at the moment in which she sees the other guard expose himself discharges four blasts. From her back, other friendly shots accompany hers and the body falls to the ground, up ahead, riddled with dark holes.
Five yards separate her from the opening. Two gunshots from below open the path. Silla dives forward, and rolls onto her side keeping the pistols aimed straight at his head. She empties the last two cartridges and the man shot in the leg stumbles backward, collapsing onto his back.
It seems to be all clear; there are no more guards. The first of her group arrive behind her, including Gabriela and Hansi.
Silla loads two new magazines into her firearms. “Look alive; let’s go in. Eyes on the side doors. Don’t lose sight of the side passages, otherwise they’ll fuck us like pussycats in heat.”
She leads the way, venturing into the dark underground. These are the old tunnels o
f the quarry, dimly lit by torches planted in cracks in the wall. After rounding two corners, they hear shouts behind them quickly followed by the whizzing of bullets. A couple of sailors in the rearguard stop to return fire, but Silla decides to push on. Every few meters the passage opens into a hall containing wooden crates, casks of liquor, rare animal hides and any type of goods under heaven that can be illegally trafficked.
“I hear her,” Gabriela says. “She’s close by.”
“Guide me, Sister,” Silla urges her.
The girl massages her temples, using all her telepathic gifts. She decisively enters a narrow corridor, which descends into the deep. After going down a crude flight of stairs hewn into the rock, they find themselves in a dark, dank cave. Silla grabs the last of the burning torches and moves ahead to try to find a bit of light. A cavern at least forty yards long disappears into an excavated cavity, studded by small dark doors. There are at least twenty of them on either side: all the same and all closed.
“What is this place?” a sailor, nervous asks.
“They must be the cells where the miners slept.” Silla approaches the first one and tries to open it, but it’s barred.
“We’ll never find her,” another Swiss man remarks, behind his blonde beard.
“You surely won’t,” quips Gabriela. “Rather, I will find her.”
“Two of you stay on the stairs; keep the escape route open,” Silla orders.
“She’s… here!” the young sorceress heads towards the fifth portal on the left and places her palm over it, nodding vigorously. “She’s tied up, near the wall opposite the entryway.”
“Out of my way.” Silla readies herself a few yards from the door and aims her weapons. She fires off two shots hitting the lock dead center, making wood splinters fly in every direction.
While the echo of the explosion is still reverberating through the cavern, the witch takes two steps at top speed and hurls the full weight of her body against the barrier, busting it open with a kick. She lands inside the cell, amid the wood planks of the door, raising up a cloud of dust.
The Codex of the Witch: Fantasy Novel Page 30
