The lad’s eyes flared quickly. “You work for the Prince?”
“I’m the captain of the royal airship,” Captain Ford replied. “This is my boatswain, Knox.”
The lad gave Knox a quick look and nodded at Ford. “I think I saw your ship flying, earlier.”
“Indeed,” Captain Ford said. “We fought a dragon and a wyvern.”
“We hit the wyvern,” Knox added. “We thought it had fallen near here.”
“And we lost a man,” Ford said, “one of my lieutenants. We’re looking for his body.”
“That’s why we dug up the grave,” Knox said, feeling the need for an explanation.
“Oh,” the lad said.
“If we need to talk with you again, who should we ask for?” Captain Ford said.
“Angus,” the lad replied. “My name is Angus Franck.”
“And your master?” Knox asked with a nod toward his captain. “What is his name?”
Angus gave him a sour look. “He’s not to be disturbed, he’s old and the day took too much out of him.”
“Give us his name,” Ford ordered.
“Zebala,” Angus said in a surly tone. “Rabel Zebala. He’s a smith. I’m his apprentice.”
“He works with Ibb, the mechanical, does he not?” Ford asked.
Angus gave a jerky nod in response.
“I know Ibb,” Ford said, his tone half-warning.
“We saw him earlier,” Angus said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got chores.”
“Of course,” Ford said, turning away from the door. “Thank you for your time.”
Angus watched as they walked away and then, when they turned back toward him, hastily shut the upper and lower halves of the split kitchen door.
Ford gestured for Knox to head toward the horses. They mounted and rode down the path back toward the main road. A short while later they pulled up their horses beside an abandoned cart.
Marder sprang up from a clump of underbrush and waved at them.
“What did you learn?” Captain Ford asked the man as they pulled up to a halt.
“There were two sets of tracks led to that farm,” Marder said. “And there’s a forge in the barn —”
“The man’s a smith, works with Ibb,” Ford said.
“— crazy ol’ clanker,” Marder muttered.
“Captain likes him,” Knox warned.
“What else?” Ford prompted, motioning for Knox to leave off.
“I found a shovel, it was dirty, like it had been used to dig sometime today,” Marder said.
“Did only one set of tracks come back?” Knox asked. He glanced at the captain. “Perhaps they buried the girl we found.”
“Then why deny it?” Ford asked. The other two shook their heads in puzzlement.
Marder gave him a sour look. His skin was jaundiced, and eyes bulged from his skull. He had a silver earring in both of ears.
“The tracks of the man, the one that came back, they were heavier than the ones on the way to the field.”
“He was carrying something?” Captain Ford wondered.
“Or someone,” Knox suggested.
“None of this gets us nearer to our missing wyvern,” Ford said.
“It seems like the King ought to look into this,” Marder suggested. The other two looked at him like he was crazy. “Well, aren’t we supposed to get the King’s justice?” He pointed back toward the field of blue flowers. “And doesn’t that poor soul deserve some of it?”
“Are you saying she was murdered?”
“She’s dead,” Marder replied. “That’s all I’m saying.” He chewed his lip for a moment before adding, “And she was injured just like she took our cannonball.”
“We should look for Lieutenant Havenam’s body,” Captain Ford said after a moment’s thoughtful silence. “Maybe we’ll find the wyvern, too.”
“He might be only the next field over,” Marder said hopefully. Captain Ford nodded and turned back to mount his horse.
“Follow us,” Ford ordered Marder as he and Knox set their horses off to a slow walk.
#
They found Lieutenant Havenam’s body two fields over, in a small forest of trees.
“It looks like he landed in the trees, then fell through them to the ground below,” Marder said as they bent over the ruined remains of the handsome officer.
“Mmm,” Captain Ford agreed, moving further into the trees and hoisting himself up. He climbed swiftly and found himself out of the foliage with a good view of the land around.
“What do you see, Captain?” Knox shouted up from the ground below.
“I’ve got a bit of cloth, sir, I can cover Mr. Havenam up and put him in the wagon, if you’d like,” Marder added.
“Do that,” Ford said. “Mr. Knox, please join me.”
“I’ll help Marder first, if that’s okay,” the boatswain replied.
“Of course,” the captain said. “Marder, if you’re in for a climb after all your exertions, you are welcome to join us.”
Marder made a noncommittal noise. From below, Captain Ford could hear the two men lifting the body into the wagon and the sound of harsh fabric being drawn over. He hadn’t the heart to do it himself — or rather, his heart would burst if he had to cover his friend’s ignominiously destroyed body. He and Havenam had been midshipmen together on old Seneer’s Retribution: they were close. So he kept his gaze off to the distance where the scarring of the field beyond showed the destruction of the wyvern’s flowers as a patch of brown in a field of blue. And beyond it he could see trampled flowers leading toward the dark brown of the grave they’d found.
A sound from below alerted him to the ascent of his two crewmen. A moment later, their heads appeared beside him and he gestured silently into the distance. Knox and Marder followed his hand and gazed at the same torn ground he’d been watching while they were busy with the body.
“Whatever fell there was dragged to the grave and buried there,” Marder said.
“Aye, I’d say the same,” Knox agreed.
“So what do we tell the prince?” Captain Ford said. “He’s expecting a wyvern’s body and a triumph.”
The other two shook their heads in silence.
“Mrs. Havenam, should see her first?” Knox asked, dodging the question.
Captain Ford jerked a nod. By unspoken agreement they started back down the tree and to the wagon waiting below.
“We should go then, shouldn’t we?” Marder asked, gesturing toward the town. “It’ll be full dark when we return.”
“Aye,” Ford agreed.
Chapter Six: A Wyvern’s Corpse
“I promised my father a wyvern’s corpse, Mr. Ford!” Crown Prince Nestor roared when Ford met him hours later. “How am I to receive a reward, if I can’t show the body?”
“It’s Captain Ford, Sire,” Ford said. “We looked for the body and found nothing.”
“Except maybe that strange woman,” Knox put in feebly. The boatswain had offered to accompany the captain after they’d paid their respects to Mrs. Havenam.
“I have heard enough about that nonsense!” Nestor snapped. “How can you expect my father to believe that the woman was the wyvern?”
“Sire, I know very little of magic and I haven’t had a chance to talk to Mage Reedis,” Ford replied. “Perhaps one of the court magicians would know something more?”
“If you’d wanted their opinion, why didn’t you bring them the body?” the prince demanded.
“We thought it might not be a good idea to bring a woman’s corpse to the royal palace, Sire,” Ford said.
The prince bit back a violent retort as the image formed in his imagination. “No,” he agreed, “that might not be the best of ideas.”
“We can bring one of your mages back to the site,” the boa
tswain offered.
“First, perhaps, we could just ask?” Ford suggested.
“Not possible,” the prince said, shaking his head violently.
Ford’s brow creased in question.
“They are a bunch of tattering old women,” the prince explained. “If I ask them, you can be certain my father — and the whole kingdom — will know of it in no time.”
“And…” Ford said, reflecting his confusion.
“Could you imagine how it would get out?” Nestor demanded. He changed his voice to something that sounded remarkably like his royal father. “‘The prince killed a woman and wants to say she was a monster!’”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Ford confessed.
“Get Mage Reedis and have him confirm it,” the prince ordered. “I’ll have him brought to father to confirm.”
“That should do, he saw it,” Knox murmured to Ford.
“I don’t expect you back until the morning,” the prince said, waving them away with a look like he was conveying a great favor.
Ford and Knox bowed their way out of the room.
#
Captain Ford sensed trouble even before he pulled his horse to halt beside the Spite. The normal hustle of a ship’s crew, even just a watch crew, was absent.
“Ahoy the ship!” Knox yelled as he jumped down from his horse. He grunted as he shook out his legs and gave Ford a look that mirrored his own. Knox raised his voice and called again, “Ahoy the ship!”
Ford moved quickly toward the gantry, crossing the distance between wharf and ship in scant moments.
A shape appeared on the deck in the darkness. “Did someone call?”
Ford recognized the voice of Newman, the mechanic, his voice coming from the stern of the ship near his steam engine.
The soot covered man was a good head taller than Ford. His thick black hair was tied back, and his red beard had begun to go grey.
“Indeed we did, Mr. Newman,” Ford said. “But we didn’t mean to disturb your labors. We were expecting one of our men to be on watch.”
Newman snorted and shook his head. “They’re all gone!”
“What?” Ford said, glancing around, hoping his eyes would prove the other a liar. “I said that there was to be a watch kept, that only some were to go on leave.”
“Well, sir, it seems they didn’t listen, did they?” Newman said with a sour look. “It’s not just your men, my men scarpered as well.”
“What?” Knox said. “You’re the only one left? What about lieutenant Jens?”
“He was the first to leave,” Newman said, spitting in derision. “Said there was no good staying on a cursed ship with no hope of pay.”
“Pay?” Ford repeated angrily.
“I can’t say I don’t see their point,” Newman said. “The prince promised a guinea and then welshed on it. They said if he couldn’t pay a guinea, why should they believe that he could pay a pound?”
“So where are they?” Knox asked. “Let me find them —”
“Lieutenant Jens has shipped out on the Warrior,” Newman said.
“What? When?” Knox asked. Captain Ford couldn’t speak, he was so dismayed.
“He left first, took four seamen with him,” Newman said. “Then the rest took off.” He added bitterly, “And then my stokers when my back was turned.”
“So there’s no one left?” Knox said.
“Indeed.”
“Where is the mage?” Ford asked.
Newman pointed up the road. “He went for a bite to eat, last I heard. He was gone when all this happened.”
“Let’s find him,” Ford said, turning back toward the gantry.
“Should I stay here, sir?” Knox asked.
“Yes, wait for Marder,” Ford replied.
#
“Reedis?” Ford said, sitting opposite the purple mage.
“Captain?”
“Are you almost done?” Ford said, eyeing the dishes overflowing the table. “The prince has asked me for your opinion on something of import.”
Reedis motioned for him to continue while helping himself to another mouthful of meat.
“We found a body of a woman near where we found where the wyvern must have fallen,” Ford said.
“But no wyvern?”
“No,” Ford said. “But the woman was injured in a manner that seemed to match the wyvern’s injuries.”
“And you’re wondering if the woman was the wyvern and somehow magically transformed?” Reedis guessed, stabbing another forkful of meat.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know much about wyverns. I know they look to Ophidian and I’ve heard that they’re twin-souled,” Reedis said after a moment spent blissfully chewing and swallowing his morsel. Ford wondered how the man could be so thin and eat so much.
“Twin-souled?”
“Indeed,” Reedis said after swallowing once more. “They burn so brightly that two souls are required to create them.”
“How is that possible?”
Reedis shrugged, stabbing carrots and parsnips with his fork and shovelling them into this mouth.
“Could you tell if someone was magically transformed?” Ford asked, waiting for the other man to swallow.
“No,” Reedis said. “But there might be some up in the King’s court who could.”
“The prince prefers not to ask them,” Ford said with a sour look. Would the man never stop eating? Ford had been hungry when he’d entered the tavern but, now, his appetite was quite gone.
“They’re a bunch of old women,” Reedis said after swallowing his next mouthful, “doubtless they’d spout off to everyone in the kingdom, the king included.”
“Doubtless,” Ford agreed, hiding his surprise in finding the mage in agreement with the prince. “But without a body, I’ve got a problem.”
“You mean the prince has a problem,” Reedis said, laying his fork down on his now empty plate.
“Which means that I’ve got a problem,” Ford agreed with a sigh.
“So, where is this body?”
“In a grave not far from where the wyvern fell,” Ford said. “It’s too dark now to look for it.”
“Indeed,” Reedis said, rising from the table. Ford rose with him. “I’m staying here this evening.”
“Shall I call for you in the morning?”
“You may,” Reedis allowed. “But not too early, I’m quite fatigued from all the exertions of the day.”
“The sooner the better,” Ford said.
“I can’t do magic without rest,” Reedis said. He paused to think. Finally, he nodded to himself, saying, “Noon. I should be able then.”
Ford bit back an angry retort and forced himself to say instead, “Very well, I’ll see you then.”
Chapter Seven: Captain of Nothing
Captain Ford spent the night aboard the Spite, alone. He woke shivering the next morning, wishing that the cooks hadn’t deserted along with the rest of the crew. He made his way to the galley, started the fire and warmed himself a cup of tea. When he’d finished that, he went on deck.
A fog had engulfed the airship and for a moment Ford feared that perhaps the ship had lifted skywards in the night but then a gust blew the fog into tatters and he found himself looking at the buildings around him and the gantry amidships.
“Ahoy the ship!” a voice called from a patch still hidden in darkness. It was Knox.
“Come aboard!” Ford called back. The boatswain swarmed over the wooden gantry and knuckled his forehead in a salute to the captain. He glanced around the ship and spit sourly at the lack of men.
“I was hoping some of the lads might have come back,” Knox said.
“I’m afraid that their assessment was too accurate — if the prince would welsh on a guinea, what hope had they of their pay?
”
“Well,” Knox said with a shrug, “they’ll never know now.”
“True,” Ford allowed. He gestured to the street. “I’m supposed to meet mage Reedis at noon and we’ll go see the woman’s body once more.”
“To see if it’s the wyvern?” Knox guessed.
“To see if his magic might tell us if it is,” Ford said.
“Good enough,” Knox said. He glanced around the ship and then added, “Will you need a hand?”
Ford shook his head. “I need you to stay here and guard the ship. See if you can get any of the lads to return.”
“I’ll try, captain,” Knox said, his tone doubtful.
“That’s all I can ask.”
#
Captain Ford found Reedis at the same table, busily ingesting a half dozen eggs and countless slices of bacon. Perhaps he has worms.
“Ah, good morning, captain!” Reedis called, gesturing for the other to join him at the table. “I trust you had a restful sleep?”
“Well enough,” Ford allowed. “And you?”
“The same,” Reedis said, stuffing his mouth with a whole egg.
A maid came by and served Ford with a glass of water, delightfully chilled. Ford eyed it in surprise and Reedis pointed a finger at himself. “I did them a favor with some cold magic, and they let me stay here whenever I want.”
“That’s some magic,” Ford agreed.
Reedis leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “It won’t last, of course. So I’m eating as much as I can before the spell fades.”
Ford raised an eyebrow in surprise. His face creased into a frown as a sudden thought occurred to him but Reedis answered his unspoken question with a dismissive wave of his hand, “It’s not quite the same magic as the balloons, I assure you.”
“Those spells won’t wear off?”
“Oh, no! They’ll wear off, sure enough,” Reedis said with a bark of laughter. “But not while I’m still aboard!”
“So the Spite can’t fly without you?”
“Surely you knew that already, Captain?” Ford said, chasing his egg with a handful of bacon.
“I did,” Ford said. A moment later, he asked, “And does the King?”
“I worked mostly with Her Majesty and the prince,” Reedis said. “The King would have nothing to do with me because he’s sworn to Ametza.”
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