“I call,” said Lucian. “Four knaves.”
He threw down his hand as the other two groaned in disgust. The white ape bared its fangs at him.
“Well, it’s not my fault you ate the first hand we gave you,” Lucian told it. The first mate was blond, dashing, and handsome; everything that a pirate straight out of the penny-plays was meant to be. “It was a good one, too.”
The ape growled low in its throat, then bent to pick at the fleas in its fur. Lina didn’t know quite where it had come from, or how it had even gotten up here. The thing subsisted on morning dew, rainwater, and the seabirds that frequently perched atop the gas bag. It had proven almost impossible to remove, far more vicious and adept at moving around the top of the gas bag than anyone else so far. Fortunately, it seemed fond of Gabley, and the nervous young man had thus been put permanently on lookout duty.
“Chirr,” said Runt. Lina’s pet did not get along with the ape. After consulting a disgraced animal doctor back in Haventown, she’d learned that not only was Runt male, but that fighting with other members of his sex was common among the scryn. The white-furred beast looked up at the noise and bared its teeth in unhappy surprise.
Lucian stopped gathering up the ship’s biscuits they were playing for and glanced at Lina. “Miss Stone,” he said in greeting. “Hallo. What brings you up here?”
“Cargo’s a lost cause,” said Lina, voice flat. She felt tired. “Sorry, Henry; you got burned for nothing. What are you two doing up here?”
The steward sighed. His hands were covered by bandages, with another wrapped around his head. Henry Smalls, Nate Wiley, and Rastalak had all been in the hold when the fire started. Natasha’s flung lantern had come perilously close to crippling or killing them all.
“The captains,” said Lucian, “are having a spat. As their second in command, I decided it was prudent to hide for awhile.” Lucian shook his head, then started shuffling the cards together. “Feel free to join us for a game.”
Lina stayed where she was. “Counting house raid’s going to be a fiasco,” she said.
Lucian paused. Then he went back to cutting the cards. “Probably so,” he said with a rueful smile. “I think it just might be the end of us all.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Henry Smalls.
The first mate stacked the deck and set it aside. The white ape promptly picked it up and put it in its mouth, letting out a happy ook.
Lucian frowned. “Gabley, get those back for me.” He turned to the steward. “Henry, we’re supposed to be working together. A divided crew can’t fly an airship, and a divided crew sure as spit won’t be able to make a raid on the largest Perinese colony on this side of the world.”
The steward frowned. He looked down at the bandages swathing his hands, at a loss for words. The wind whistled about them. Lina did not shiver. This far south, the weather was warm even at night.
“It’s Natasha’s fault,” said Henry after a moment. “When she shows up, Captain Fengel can’t think straight, can’t help but fight her.”
“It’s not just her, old stick,” said Lucian gently. “It’s the both of them. And we’re all of us too much a part of their crew to walk away. It’ll be the end of us, like as not.”
Henry nodded slowly. Gabley gave a muffled cry for help. The white ape was gnawing distractedly on his head.
It’s their fault though, not ours. Lina’s indignation and frustration mounted again. There has to be a way out. But what? Jump ship? No! This is my home! But what can I do? Damnation! Fengel and Natasha; if only they could work together, or even better, just weren’t in the damned way anymore.
She started as it came to her.
“I’ve a suggestion,” Lina said aloud. “I think it’ll solve all of our problems too, the counting house raid and everything else. But it’s something that everyone needs to hear. Lucian, let’s all go back down below, and you can stop Sarah and Jane from killing each other. Then I’ll tell you what I think.”
The two officers looked at her, then at each other. Lucian shrugged. “All right. I probably shouldn’t be up here anyway.”
They all stood and left the cupola, ignoring Gabley’s terrified cries. Lina scratched the back of Runt’s head, her stomach sinking. What she was about to suggest could get her strung up. But we can’t keep going on like this. She moved to clamber down the rigging.
Chapter Three
Natasha clawed her way back to consciousness.
The bitter details of half-remembered dreams washed against her thoughts like coastal flotsam after a storm. She pushed them aside, uninterested in the gibberingly insistent feeling that there was some sense to be had, that if she’d just focus a little harder, some fog-logic truth would be recalled. It was never worth the effort.
A fine coating of fur covered her teeth. Her tongue was thick in her mouth. Worse than either was the horrible taste filling the back of her throat and crawling up into her sinuses, the aftermath of too much rum.
She smacked her lips and grimaced, reached down for the bottle that should be just within her grasp. Her fingers brushed only the wood of the deck and the drawers built into her bunk. Natasha turned her head to look and saw nothing.
Ye Goddess. I’ve finally done it. I’ve drunk myself blind. A bitter thought crossed her mind. Fengel always said I’d do it one day.
The thought of her co-captain was like an iron nail across a chalkboard. She pushed his criticism away and considered her predicament. This makes things difficult, but there’s no reason I couldn’t still command. Hmm. My fighting days are done, and maintaining crew discipline will be troublesome. I could just fire off a pistol now and again at random. Pretend that whoever I hit I’ve been displeased with. Yes. That should suffice. Now, where’s that bottle?
Belatedly she realized that she wasn’t blind; her eyelids were simply closed, and would not open. Quick testing with her fingers revealed them to be glued shut by tears, fine grit, and kohl. A bit of work removed the offending debris, and Natasha opened her eyes.
She immediately regretted the act. Daylight streamed in from the windows directly above the captain’s bunk. It filled the room, skull-splittingly over-bright. Natasha groaned and threw an arm over her face.
The world refused to leave her be. The taste in her mouth, the light in the room and a suddenly insistent need to use the privy all pressed in upon her. Natasha considered going back to sleep, but she could almost hear her father’s voice, chiding her for rising late. Grumbling to no one in particular, Natasha narrowed her eyes and pulled herself slowly into a sitting position.
The captain’s cabin of the Dawnhawk was sumptuously spaced for an airship. A holdover from their nautical forebears, Natasha had expanded the design of the room when she’d commissioned the vessel. A wide bunk, big enough for two, sat just beneath the stern windows. Tasteful cabinetry lined the walls, holding clothing, weapons, and other such sundries. A large table dominated the middle of the cabin, nailed in place.
There was surprisingly little clutter about the room, a sign of Fengel’s influence. The man could not abide disorder, fussy old maid that he was. What was home without a little mess? Only a few things hinted that anyone lived here; her boots, sword belt, the pillows near the door where she’d apparently thrown them, and a pile of the errant rum bottles laying on their sides in a corner, where they must have rolled away from her bunk in the night.
Natasha brightened. She stalked over and grabbed up one of the latter. It was sadly empty. A quick check revealed the same for the others.
“Fengel,” she croaked, “hoist yer ass from that bed and go get me a drink. Whatever time it is, I need breakfast.” Her stomach rumbled. “And some food wouldn’t go amiss either.”
He did not respond.
Natasha whirled back to the bunk. “Didn’t you hear me? I said—”
The bunk was empty. The blankets and pillows were all tangled up on his side into a mass that she’d dimly, groggily mistook for her oh-so-obnoxious husband. She glanced over a
t the pile of gear near the door and it came back to her, yesterday’s raid and their hours-long fight afterwards. How that fight had ended was buried in a haze of rum, but it was obvious that he’d given up and gone to sleep somewhere else.
The thought was vaguely infuriating.
Her mood plunged. Snarling, Natasha grabbed up her boots, belt and a pair of pistols from a cabinet. She unlatched the door to the cabin and stalked out into the hall beyond.
Right, then. As usual, there’s only one person on this damned boat that I can count upon, and that’s me. Things have probably gone to the Realms Below while I’ve been asleep. Time to get to work. Breakfast, then to put some order into those sots and wastrels that I let crew this vessel. First, though....
She passed three store-room doors and reached the privy. The door was shut and rattled when she tried to open it.
“Occupied,” came a voice.
Natasha drew a pistol, placed its barrel against the door where the latch would be, and fired. Thunder erupted in the space, echoing up and down the corridor. Splinters flew from the wood of the door and its frame, showering her slightly, their tiny pinpricks angering her further. Natasha grabbed the wooden handle of the door and yanked it open.
One of Fengel’s flunkies sat on the wooden toilet, the ratty little man, Oscar Pleasant. His trousers were down and his hands were clasped over his ears. He looked up at her, eyes wide in shock.
“Blood of the Goddess!” he yelled.
Natasha reached in and yanked him by his hair out into the corridor. The sky pirate toppled to the floor of the deck. She stepped into the privy, closed the door, and tended to her business. A few moments later, Natasha left the small closet and stalked down toward the mess in search of food, while a terrified Oscar was still sobbing on the floor.
The stern stairwell led down to the quarterdeck and the mess hall. Natasha stalked into the former, where the night-watch was sleeping in their hammocks. Or at least, should have been. She paused as she realized that the room was almost empty, with only a few people currently unconscious within. Probably dicing when they should be resting. She frowned and made a note to be particularly harsh today. The counting house raid was coming up soon, and there wasn’t any room for slack on that job. Natasha tromped up to the door to the mess, not caring a whit for the noise she made.
The benches of the mess weren’t quite empty. A lone figure sat at a table near a porthole, several large tomes open before him, along with paper and charcoal. Natasha vaguely recognized the younger of the two Mechanists, the one she’d effectively impressed into service upon the old Copper Queen. For the life of her she couldn’t remember his name.
He’d have to do.
“You,” she growled.
The youth started. He looked up at her, face covered in coal dust. “Ma’am?” he said.
“What’s your name?”
“Al-Allen, ma’am.”
“Well, Allen, get back in the kitchen and get me something to eat.”
Allen the Mechanist looked at her, then back at the kitchens, then back to her again. “Ma’am, I think Geoffrey Lords just stepped out for a smoke. He’ll be back in a minute—”
“You’re here, he’s not. Go cook me something.”
“But ma’am, I’m just the Mechanist, and the younger one at that. I can’t cook—”
Natasha leveled a gaze that shut him up. “Look,” she said sweetly. “It’s morning—”
“Midafternoon, ma’am.”
“Midafternoon, then. I require drink. Failing that, food. Since I’m apparently out of drink, I need food. Now, since I can’t be arsed to cook it myself, that means someone else has to, and today that someone is you. I’ve used up one pistol by going to the head. The other’s still loaded. Do you understand?”
She held Allen’s frightened eyes. He nodded nervously, and she twitched her head toward the kitchen. The younger Mechanist slid from his bench, stumbled, hit the deck, climbed to his feet, and then ran through the portal into the kitchen.
With nothing else to do, Natasha walked over to where he’d left his books and drawing equipment. The texts were written in Perinese, and concerned the arcane subjects of physics, construction, and aether science. Natasha paged through them, bored. The books weren’t entirely beyond her, sky piracy required a certain understanding of such subjects, but they weren’t exactly interesting.
Loud cursing and a clatter erupted from the kitchen. She ignored it, taking up both Allen’s charcoal-stick and his copy of The Mechanics of Aeronautical Flight, and amused herself by writing obscene jokes in the margin of the text, complete with illustrations. Minutes passed and the activity quickly paled; she found herself taking multiple pages worth of borders to draw a particularly complex scene she’d once been part of in a Salomcan brothel. Natasha snorted at the memory and paused in fond, somewhat incredulous, remembrance.
Thick dark smoke started to flow into the mess hall. Natasha shut the book and rested her chin on one hand, drumming the fingers of the other on the table. He’s taking forever in there. She was hungry, but now that she was awake and sober she wanted to be up, she wanted to be moving. Objects at rest tended to stay at rest, and any time she wasn’t visible to the crew was time that they could slack, could forget themselves and their purpose, could even forget her.
I’ll eat later. Natasha stood and left the mess hall, just as a flickering red-orange glow appeared in the kitchen, accompanied by soft weeping and the smell of something burning. She made her way to the stern stairwell, then up through the aft hatch and onto the outer deck of the Dawnhawk.
Bright afternoon sunlight greeted her, the wind a soft breeze playing with her hair. Today was sunny and warm. Around her the airship hummed, nothing seemingly amiss. The exhaust pipes puffed steam up to join the clouds while the propellers spun lazily. The current watch went about their duties.
Natasha nodded to herself. Then she stopped as one small detail of the scene caught her attention; the propellers. Last night they’d been on course for a northeastern-running aetherline. They should have reached it hours ago, negating the need for powered flight.
That’s odd. There was something else as well. Something intangible. She glanced about the deck, where the current watch tended to their tasks, both halves of the crew working in harmony.
Natasha blinked. No one was fighting, even passively. The propellers were strange, but she felt pleasantly surprised at the change in the crew. Good. Maybe Fengel’s worthless lackeys are finally coming around. Fengel’s crew were competent, more or less, but slow and weak. When she had agreed to work with her husband, she’d also vowed silently that they’d do things the proper way, or not at all. It appeared that they were finally taking the hint.
Still, why are we running on the engines?
She glanced around for any obvious answer. Nothing seemed out of order, but she did spy Lucian Thorne up near the bow. He’d do. Natasha stalked up to talk to the airship’s first mate.
The man irritated her. He was competent, capable, and loyal; at least to Fengel. To her he was merely polite, though he always seemed to execute the orders she gave. But Natasha was positive that he worked actively to undermine her command.
Lucian was watching something out beyond the ship while several crewmen coiled ropes and hammered a small wooden crate shut. Natasha strode up to the first mate with her mouth open, prepared to deliver a withering stream of demands. As she came up beside him, she stopped.
There was an island off the bow in the light blue waters below. The Dawnhawk’s course would take them right past it. It wasn’t terribly large, just a ring of jungle around an oddly shaped low mountain peak, further ringed by broad sands and the occasional hill.
“Where in the seas are we?” she demanded, wheeling on the first mate. “Why are we running on propellers?”
The first mate smiled. There was something, an edge to it, that Natasha didn’t like. “The Atalian Sea, still,” said Lucian. “Fairly close to the equator. We aren�
�t very close to any aetherlines here.” He gave a nod to the men and women working nearby.
Only one of them belonged to her old crew, though she couldn’t remember his name. The others all belonged to Fengel. They looked to Natasha, then each other. Then they stood and left. She was pleased. They’re finally learning their place when I’m around. Good.
“I’m not terribly familiar with the area,” continued Lucian. “The maps call it Almhazlik, or ‘Discord,’ if you speak Salomcani. Isolated, but with plenty of fresh water and fruit and whatnot.”
Natasha glared at him, hand resting on the pommel of her cutlass. “Of course I speak Salomcani, you idiot. Why in the Realms Below have you changed our course? We should be more than halfway to Breachtown by now.”
Lucian sighed. He looked away, then back, eyes serious and holding her gaze. “Captain Blackheart, I’ve meant to talk with you about that. The crew isn’t happy. We’re nowhere ready for this raid yet. If we pursue that plan now, a lot of people are going to die. Don’t you think it’s a bit too soon?”
Natasha snorted. “Breachtown is a ruin after that uprising of theirs. That counting house will never know what hit it.” She did feel a little mollified. Lucian had finally used her proper name and title, at least.
Lucian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Captain, yesterday’s raid was a disaster. Four people almost died, and that was all our own doing. We’re not working well together, and there are constant conflicting orders—”
“That was Fengel’s fault,” snarled Natasha. “If he hadn’t gone all soft-hearted on everything then it would have worked out just fine. Now, answer my damned question. Why in the Realms Below are we here, of all places?”
Lucian gave her a long look. Then he glanced away. “Not certain, Captain. But I believe your husband gave the order to the helmsmen directly.”
A bolt of irritation flashed through her. “Of course he did. Apparently he doesn’t trust even you, of all people, and you’ve always been his dog. A proper captain goes through her first mate! That’s what you are for.” She whirled on her heel and stalked down the deck without even looking to see if he’d heard her.
On Discord Isle (The Dawnhawk Trilogy) Page 3
