On Discord Isle (The Dawnhawk Trilogy)

by Burgess, Jonathon

  Fengel felt himself flush. “I am not in denial. You’re the one whose been so Goddess-damned obnoxious that you’ve been pitched by a crew. This is the second time this has happened this year!”

  “That was Mordecai,” Natasha growled.

  “Oh,” said Fengel with a false lightness. “You’re right. It was the fault of your nasty first mate. You were perfectly innocent.” He hardened his voice. “Probably because you were drunk on a raging four-day bender that left half the men back in port crazed or blind from the pox.”

  Natasha glared at him. “You pompous, insufferable bag of wind.”

  “Floozy.”

  “Jackass.”

  “Slattern.”

  Natasha smiled suddenly.

  “Mock me all you want,” she said. “Use that creatively bankrupt brain of yours to come up with all the high-sounding insults you can. Do whatever you have to in order to keep looking away from the truth; that Lucian, Henry, and all the rest didn’t want you anymore.”

  Fengel froze. He found it hard to breathe. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint tunnel, with Natasha’s mocking smile at the center. She was infuriating. Obnoxious. Dreadful.

  And right.

  Past the excuses, past his irritation with her, he knew what she said was true. They’ve turned on me. She’s right. And after all that I’ve done for them. His stomach seemed to drop into an abyss. The sky threatened to smother him. He should have known better. They were pirates, after all.

  Fengel’s irritation ignited into a burning ball of anger. His face flushed. His monocle fell free. Calmly, he wedged it back into place, deciding to set rationality aside and give an output to this growing rage. It was the only sensible thing to do, after all. He reached out and snatched the bottle of rum from his wife. Flipping it, he caught it by the neck and whipped it down hard at the crate. The glass shattered into dozens of pieces, soaking the wooden box and the pale white sands with rum.

  Natasha stared at him in unbelieving startlement. “What’d you do that for?” she cried.

  “Because I didn’t want you to have it anymore,” he said smugly.

  Natasha screamed and threw herself at him.

  Her fingers, and nails, were aimed for his eyes. Fengel threw up his hands to grab her wrists, succeeding only in being hit with her whole weight in a full-body tackle. They went rolling off the net and onto the sand of the beach, sending her bandana flying free and his monocle to dangle from its chain. Coming to a stop, Fengel found himself on his back, Natasha astride him. She yanked one wrist free, balled up her hand, and lashed out. The blow connected across his cheekbone, jarring and painful. He swept his free hand out and slapped her, not a stinging tap, but a full open-handed blow. Natasha grunted and rolled with it, climbing off of him.

  Fengel looked for a weapon. Something, anything that he could use to get the upper hand. The crate was too large and mostly still in one piece. His eyes alighted on the packet of hardtack, shaped like a brick wrapped in cheap paper. He grabbed it up in both hands, shifting back just in time to see Natasha with a sheaf of dried beef jerky held like a dagger. She lashed out and caught him just under the eye. The thinly sliced meat was as hard and sharp as a wooden blade. Fengel felt pain, and then something hot and wet as he threw himself back out of her reach.

  He staggered quickly to his feet, the packet held out before him like a shield. Natasha did as well, weaving the beef back and forth like the experienced knife fighter she was. She leapt out in a feint, but Fengel spied the trick and pulled aside. He thrust out a leg as she overextended. Natasha tripped and rolled down the beach. Fengel made to follow.

  Natasha came to a stop at the shoreline and leapt back up to one leg. She looked for him, just in time for the packet to come crashing down on her forehead. The bundle of hardtack split, exploding out in rock-hard crumbles that splashed down into the ocean spray. Natasha groaned, her eyes crossed, and she collapsed backwards. As she went, some instinct, some trained killer skill made her lash out at him. The jerky jabbed deeply into his thigh. Fengel gave a cry and fell to the damp sand.

  Accursed witch! He looked down at his leg, at the hunk of beef sticking out at a right angle from his trousers. Fengel pulled it free and tossed it away, blood staining the tip. The wound and the salt from the meat worked together, turning a dull ache into sharp agony.

  Her shadow gave him half a moment’s warning. He wheeled on the sand as Natasha fell at him, fists clasped together in a blow that missed and sent sand spraying. Fengel reacted, grabbing at her throat and wrapping his hands around it. She corrected, grabbed his.

  They struggled, rolling back down into the waves. His vision blurred, from lack of air and from the chop of the water. The tide sucked at him and tried to pull him out to sea, but the weight of his wife kept him pinned against damp sand and tidal water. All he could see was her face, beautiful even now, grimacing and wide-eyed with her own efforts.

  Black spots sprung out through his vision. His strength failed him. In moments it was gone, his hands now like that of a puppet without its strings. They slacked and fell with a splash onto the sand and foamy water swirling around him. Amazingly, Natasha slackened her grip as well. She fell away to one side. Breath returned, painfully. Fengel reflexively sucked in a great chestful of air, not caring how much it hurt. Dimly he heard Natasha do the same.

  He recovered slowly, too weak to do her further harm, but knowing that she was spent as well. As soon as he could, Fengel flopped over and crawled up from the surf, then unsteadily up onto his knees. Fengel glanced back to where Natasha was feebly laying, glaring hatefully up at him.

  His anger was dulled. He stared down at his wife and grimaced. “I’ll show you,” he said, “and I’ll show them too.” In his ears his own voice was small and tinny.

  Natasha raised one hand, made a fist, and extended a single finger.

  Fengel staggered away and up the beach. The provisions that his crew had left were ruined, stamped into the sand and scattered. The tinderbox was missing, as were the other packets of hardtack. A few larger pieces looked mostly unbroken. He retrieved two, as well as his hat. Then he stalked down the beach without looking back, sun overhead, the jungle to his right, and the traitor ocean on his left.

  The commentary of that surf was unrelenting. It mocked his outrage, overshadowing the call of the jungle birds and the sighing passage of the breeze. Beginning slowly, quietly, it swelled to a muted roar as it toppled forward onto the sand, only to pull back into the ocean with a hiss, starting the process all over again. It was consistent, yet irregular. Fengel could not find a rhythm with which to match his steps. Before long the divisions between one moment and the next seemed to slide away.

  Fengel could not maintain his anger. He paused after awhile to take stock of his surroundings. Glancing around, he realized that his steps had taken him significantly closer to the ridge of rough cliffs near this end of the beach. Looking back, he couldn’t even see Natasha anymore, or where they had landed. The curve of the island hid it completely. Out over the ocean, the sky was a clear blue that seemed to go on forever, only the clouds and the almost-gone speck of the Dawnhawk marring it.

  Wild desperation took him. Fengel dashed out from the sand and into the water, chasing his wayward crew.

  “Fellows!” he cried. “Come back! I’m sure you had a perfectly good reason for what you did, I just can’t think of it!” He pushed against the surf, now thigh-high, his boots completely soaked. “Please, now, lads,” he called. “I’m sure we can come to an accord. D’you want more grog? I can do that! More time ashore? Done!”

  Fengel waded until the water was at his chest. “All right, you were right, I can see that now. Whatever it was we, I mean I, did, I can change that. Just come back, lads. Please? Don’t leave me here. Lucian? Henry? Lina?”

  His voice echoed across the waves. The ocean laughed at him, smothering it with the incessant pounding of the surf around him. The distant speck of his airship, his command, disappeared, winking a
way as if it had never been. All the energy and drive in Fengel drained away, replaced with a hollowness in his stomach. He gave up struggling and floated on his back, letting the ocean carry him ashore. When it could push him no farther inland, he sat up and stared at his trouser legs and the water lapping about him. They were covered with wet sand.

  They left me here. They really meant it. Fengel reached up to cover his face with a hand. What’s the point? Why go on? I’m stuck here. They really and truly meant to leave me here. He kicked at the sand petulantly. I guess I’ll just have to make a go of it, then. Exile on a deserted island. Things could be worse, I suppose.

  Fengel felt very tired, but this exile made certain things necessary. The first was shelter. He glanced around at the beach, the jungle, and the cliff wall. The beach offered nothing to protect him from the wind and the rain. Likewise, the ridgeline was without cave or cranny. The jungle, though....

  Jutting out from the foliage and onto the sand was an enormous banyan tree. Its central trunk was massive and sprawling, spreading branches like a many-fingered hand outward, where they bent again to put down thick root-columns of their own. The upper branches were covered in thick banks of green leaves that gave shade and shelter to everything below them.

  That could work. Fengel could almost see it now, a cozy cottage situated up above, rooms on each trunk connected by whimsical rope bridges. He rolled the image over in his mind, and was pleased by it. It wouldn’t be that hard to implement. If my crew ever come back, won’t they be sorry to see what a splendid life I’ve made for myself here.

  Fengel nodded to himself and walked up to the trunk of the banyan. First things first: he needed to get atop the structure in order to properly survey it. Fengel removed his coat and set it aside, then tried to climb up the tree. The task was easier said than done, however. His boots were suited to walking the deck of a ship, not clambering up a surprisingly slick tree trunk. Also, his wounded leg protested every time he bent it too far. He fell. Then tried again, with similar results. After the fifth collapse back down to the ground, Fengel gathered his coat and glared at the tree.

  Fine, then. More moderate means of shelter will have to suffice. At least for now.

  An image came to mind of a simpler dwelling at the base of the tree. A cottage formed of branches and carved lumber. Fengel nodded to himself and started gathering deadfall.

  There was surprisingly little free wood, however. After a span of minutes he only had three small branches in hand. And there was another setback, one he hadn’t counted upon; he needed something sharp with which to shape the wood. His crew had taken his sword, dagger and emergency knife. There might have been one in the supply crate, but either Natasha had it, or it was buried now somewhere under the sand. Which came to the same thing in the end.

  Fengel sighed deeply. Well. If I can’t have a house just yet, I can at least have a fire. He returned to the tree line with his branches and knelt before the sand. Lucian Thorne, traitor though he was, was an accomplished survivalist. He’d tried to show Fengel the trick of fire more than once. Thinking back, it seemed easy enough.

  Place one branch upon the ground like so. Then, sharpen the end of the other branch, stick it on the first, and spin. Hmm. He hadn’t any knife to cut the branch with, but it was just friction between the two sticks. How hard could that be?

  A few minutes later Fengel threw the two branches away in frustration. They landed in the sand, one sailing so far as to land at the tide line. The surf pulled it into the waves, then deposited it back up higher than it had landed, mocking him.

  Fengel closed his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair.

  His “loyal” crew had stuck him here. He and Natasha. But they’d said it was only temporary. Perhaps in his shock he’d forgotten that. How long is the trip to Breachtown from here? This place is near the equator, so likely three days by aetherline and steam. Then the same for the trip back. He just had to last that long.

  He moved to sit cross-legged where the tree line cast shade over the beach and pulled a piece of the rock-like biscuit from jacket. “What am I worried about?” he said aloud to no one in particular. “Things are probably falling apart without me there.”

  Chapter Five

  Things were going surprisingly well.

  Lina shifted in her crouch over the canister while Rastalak adjusted his rubber hose. She scanned the interior of the gas-bag envelope. It always made her nervous, coming up here. Seen from the outside, the balloon keeping the Dawnhawk aloft was a great ridged spindle. Once inside, though, things were altogether different. Diffuse daylight revealed a hollow yet cluttered space, with a long central strut running down the middle of the envelope. Wires and armatures branched out along its length, stretching to the metal poles that kept the canvas skin rigid, so that the whole arrangement put Lina in mind of a winter-deadened tree lying on its side.

  Between the wires and struts hung the gas cells, small oblong sacks of treated cloth. The contents of the cells were an open secret, a light-air gas capable of lifting the heavy wooden hull of an airship off into the sky. The precise nature of the gas was guarded jealously by the Mechanist Brotherhood, but working around it every day, Lina and the other sky pirates knew just enough to be afraid. The stuff was both poisonous to breath and insanely flammable. Outside, she could forget these details. Stuck within the gas bag, that became rather more difficult.

  Lina shifted again in her crouch and adjusted her gas mask. The catwalk she hunched upon led from the gas bag entrance behind her to the larger walkway balanced upon the central strut. The old Mechanist stood farther along it, shrouded in his heavy leather greatcoat and gas mask. He held a long metal wand in one hand and swept it back and forth, checking for gas leaks.

  The older Mechanist was clearly everything Allen aspired to be. Responsible for maintenance aboard the airship, he focused on his duties with a kind of cold fanaticism. Where Allen was nervous and annoying, the Mechanist was stoic and secretive. Lina didn’t even know his name.

  Lina had been lounging near the stern deck with Rastalak when the Mechanist had appeared to dragoon them both. This wasn’t uncommon. Tradition held that the work of a ship’s Mechanist was more important than almost anything else. Right now that meant hunting down a gas leak. Thankfully, it had only been the one cell, and quickly tended by the two of them. At the old man’s direction, they’d ripped out the leaky cell, put in the new, and were now charging it up.

  Lina turned back to her friend. “He’s finished looking over the stern,” she said, voice muffled by the mask. “Is that done yet? I want to get this over with.”

  Rastalak blinked up at her, his nictitating membrane slightly slower to clear away. Shorter even than she was, Rastalak wore only a pair of trousers with a hole cut in them for his tail. He prodded the bag carefully with the back of one talon, then nodded and closed the locking valve on the gas cell. Rastalak worked slowly and deliberately. The bandages swathing his hands obviously made the movements difficult.

  “Full,” he said. His voice was raspy still from the smoke he’d inhaled aboard the Minnow.

  “Let’s pack up then,” said Lina. She bent to help him seal up the canister and unplug the hose.

  “You are twitchy,” he said when they were done. “Nervous.”

  “These cells are just waiting for a stray spark,” she grunted.

  The reptilian pirate shook his head. “It is just as dangerous, when we are down below.”

  Lina frowned. “Yes, but it’s different, standing here and looking at the things.”

  He hissed in amusement.

  Lina stood and stretched, ignoring him. She walked over to the Mechanist, boots clanging on the catwalk. He looked down at her approach.

  “Is the task complete?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir,” said Lina. “Topped up and good to go.”

  “We shall see,” said the Mechanist. He stalked over to wave his wand around the replacement cell. The Mechanist examined a small box on h
is belt and then nodded. Bending past Rastalak, he then prodded the cell with a finger and checked its seal. “Sufficient, for now,” he said. “I shall finish up here myself. You are free to return to your duties below.”

  And not even a thank you. “Yes, sir,” she said, trying to sound chipper.

  When she’d been new to this life, the Mechanist had been as much a mystery to her as everything else. He’d been one of the few people to treat her decently back then, ignoring her past in favor of her natural proficiency with the airship’s machinery. Fengel had consistently sent her to assist the man because of this, hoping to have someone on his crew who knew how the Dawnhawk really worked. Familiarity had ended up breeding contempt though, and in the end she realized that the Brother of the Cog saw her the way he did everyone else; as tools of lesser or greater quality. He was all right in the end, and it was never wise to cross him, but now she found him largely overbearing and tedious.

  Lina ducked past the Mechanist for the hatch back outside. She unlocked it and pushed it wide, letting bright daylight and fresh air flood the gas bag interior. Lina scurried through, putting hands and feet to the now-familiar rigging. Outside, the canvas skin of the gas bag was a dun wall stretching in every direction, a net-wrapped counterpoint to the vast expanse of the sky. Grey-winged seagulls wheeled up near the top of the airship. Down below lay the ocean, waves churning the warm blue-green water into foam. The sun hung stark and brilliant just above the horizon and set the skysails along the hull to shining.

  A cold wind pushed at her clothing and played with the tufts of her hair not pinned down by the gas mask straps. She descended until the deck of the airship came into view beneath the curve of the envelope and paused there, looking back up for her friend. Rastalak peered out from the doorway down at her. Climbing was a slow and tedious process with his burned hands.