That had been Natasha, he knew. It was just the kind of vindictive, ruthless action she would take. It also meant that she was on the loose. She wouldn’t have done such a crazy thing unless she was already making good her own escape, somehow.
Well, he admitted. Probably.
Fengel moved up from the stern toward the stair at the head of the deck. He kept an eye out for a weapon as he went. Nothing availed itself. Regretfully, he started climbing. When he reached the base—and at each new landing—he stopped to peer up the deck. His hands itched for a sword. If he’d been properly armed, he never would have been captured by the Perinese in the first place. If he ran into anyone now, he’d be forced to surrender.
The interior of the ship was weirdly silent after the clamor outside its hull. The air was dusty and scented with the smells of tar, rum, and just-fired guns. Unwelcome nostalgia washed over him. Fengel hurried his ascent until the hatch that opened onto the deck appeared above, sunlight flooding the stair. He moved to its lip and peered out.
The day crashed into him. High above hung the early-afternoon sun, obscured by billowing columns of smoke that rose from the beach to cast weird shadows upon the deck of the Goliath. A soft wind blew in from the ocean, setting loose sails to flapping overhead. The cries of the wounded mixed with the screams of gulls and the roar of the surf below.
Three figures huddled against the starboard gunwales. Fengel recognized the young midshipman, Paine, a boy of twelve with sandy hair. The second was the shifty sailor Riley Gordon. Both had passed through the berth deck on occasion, saying little, lingering just long enough to listen to the tales and jokes that he spun for Cumbers and others among the crew. Beneath both of them lay a third figure, an older sailor curled up and groaning in a pool of his own blood. This must be Harvey, the ship’s carpenter.
“He needs water,” said Riley Gordon, eyes wide. The young seaman had his shirt off, pressed against the carpenter’s chest. Blood covered his hands up to his wrists.
“Don’t be daft!” cried Paine. His shrill voice threatened to crack. “He’s not pregnant. That pirate woman shot him before she scarpered. We need to get Dawkins an’ his spells.”
Ah, mused Fengel. Natasha’s gone then. He relaxed a little. Neither of the two had seen him yet. Also, he didn’t have to worry about meeting the psychotic hyena he called a wife while unarmed.
A quick glance told him that he was otherwise alone. He could easily make a run for the port side of the ship, either dive off and swim for a distant bit of shore or commandeer a dinghy. His escape would be complete. A hop, a skip, a swim and I’m free again.
Except...that wasn’t good enough anymore.
He’d been making progress. He’d been winning, just like he’d sworn he would. A little bit of polite commiseration had worn down the reservations of his guards. After, they’d been a great source of information, even bringing others in the crew aboard for nightly card games, which Fengel was always careful to lose gracefully. As well, Coppertree seemed on the mend thanks to his advice, putting the hated Sub-Lieutenant Hayes that much farther from any real chance at command. The commander had sent him tea yesterday. Carefully, Fengel had worked the opportunities that came to him, gaining a little ground with every passing hour. He’d been confident that eventual freedom and a mutiny, real or engineered, would give him what he wanted. Then Natasha would learn, once and for all, that he was every bit what he claimed to be.
Ideally, he should have stayed put in his cell. The attack had changed things, though, or so he’d thought. Certainly, he had his chance at freedom now, but wasn’t that just running away? Just another form of giving up? Yet if he did stay, what could he do? How would he succeed now?
By never letting them see you stumble. Fengel squared his monocle, adjusted his hat and climbed up onto the deck. He strode with purpose for the starboard gunwales and the two crewmen hunched there. Focusing on Riley Gordon, he tilted his head to look down his nose at the man.
“You’re both wrong,” he said. “What your fellow needs is a surgeon.”
Both sailors peered up at him. Paine blanched. “It’s the other one!” he cried. “He got out!”
Fengel ignored him. “Fortunately for you,” he continued, “I am a scholar, as well as a gentleman. Now, I know you’ve no physician aboard, but you’ve his tools still, yes?”
“Help!” cried Riley Gordon. The small man scrabbled backward for a belaying pin hanging from the gunwales.
Fengel hardened his voice. “Enough tomfoolery, Riley Gordon. You will get me catgut, needles, carbolic acid, and something to pull the ball out, or this man will die. If he expires for lack of your willing cooperation, I will surely discipline you and it will go hard. Do you want that?”
The sailor stared at him. Fengel narrowed his eyes. A long moment later, Riley Gordon shook his head ever so slightly.
“Capital,” said Fengel, relaxing. He made a dismissive gesture. “Now. Catgut, needles, carbolic acid, and a spoon if need be. Go find some.”
Riley Gordon nodded, eyes downcast. He stood and fled back into the sterncastle. Fengel ignored the silent midshipman and knelt beside the dying carpenter. He rolled up his sleeves and pulled back the shirt covering his hapless new patient. The man groaned senselessly and blood poured afresh from a bullet hole just over his midsection. Fengel frowned as he prodded the wound. Doctoring had never been a talent of his, but he’d watched the resurrectionists back in Haventown on occasion, and anatomy was a part of swordplay. He was certainly willing to give it a go. Besides, the ball hadn’t gone too deeply; he could feel it maybe an inch below the skin. If it hadn’t perforated something vital, the man might even live.
“What happened?” he asked brusquely.
“The o-other pirate,” stammered Paine. “I, ah, I mean your wife, sir. She appeared on the deck while we were watching the battle. Shot old Harvey as soon as we noticed. Then she slipped off the ship somehow.”
“Where’s your aetherite? The man Dawkins.”
“He was with the commander. Them and Hayes were down in the camp when those Salomcani bastards attacked.”
Fengel frowned. For all his bluster and show, a Working would go a long way toward keeping the carpenter alive. Still, he was too far along to back out now.
Paine returned with a bag and a steaming bowl. Breathless, he set them both down next to Fengel. “I brought the old surgeon’s kit. Oh, and hot water.”
“Good,” said Fengel. “Now hold him down.”
He stretched out the groaning carpenter and positioned both young men to either side. Then, with a prayer to the Goddess, he set to work. Thankfully, the task proved less difficult than he feared, though quite messy. Either the carpenter was preternaturally tough or Natasha hadn’t loaded enough powder into her musket. He pulled the lead ball free of the wound with a pair of tweezers and patched up the hole as best he could. When finished, Fengel sat back and regarded his handiwork with not a little pride.
“There,” he said, reaching over to fastidiously wash his hands. “That should keep him from gushing out all over the deck anymore.”
Midshipman Paine stared at him. “What? You can’t be done! He’s still leaking, and the stitching’s all crazy.”
Fengel glared at the youth. “I’m sorry, are you a surgeon? Are you? No? I didn’t think so, midshipman.” He glanced back at the patient. Thankfully, the man was still unconscious. “Still, he might not make it. Someone had best go retrieve your aetherite.”
Paine and Riley looked at each other.
“But, there’s still all that fighting down there,” said the younger man.
“We’ve got to watch over Harvey,” said the other.
From the sounds echoing up from the beach, Fengel doubted that any real fighting was occurring anymore. “Indeed,” he replied. “You watch your fellow. I will go and retrieve Mr. Dawkins.” He stood without looking at either sailor. Fengel grabbed up the surgeon’s kit and moved over to the gunwales.
Beyond, the
Perinese encampment was a ruin. The wounded and dead were everywhere, separated by bomb-blasted craters in the sand gouged out by the Goliath’s cannons and the firing of the powder store. Smoke billowed from burning tents. Marines and sailors stood shell-shocked, yelling at each other and milling about in general. Some fired musket shots into the jungle at the now-gone Salomcani raiders. Fengel did not see the blue coat of Commander Coppertree.
A rope ladder hung from the deck down to the water. Thankfully, one of the longboats was still tied there. Fengel descended quickly and took up the oars, facing the ship as he rowed for the beach. Trepidation mounted and he thought again of just fleeing for some remote part of the isle. What if someone saw him? Recognized him? His back itched at the thought of a bullet fired his way. He was a prisoner, technically, and still an enemy to these people. One that they ultimately wanted dead at the end of a rope.
I can do this, he vowed. Never let them see you stumble.
The bow of the boat scraped onto sand. Fengel took a breath and rolled out of the little ship with as much aplomb as he could muster. He strode up onto the shore, the water crashing at the backs of his legs, trying to knock him off balance.
A Bluecoat marine knelt at the edge of the beach. He was young, with red hair and freckles, a Perinese Northman. The Bluecoat had a cracked-open powder barrel before him, along with several empty horns. He tried to fill them with shaking hands that scattered black powder everywhere.
“Private,” barked Fengel, guessing. “What are you doing down there?”
A half-filled powder horn flew up into the air as the young Bluecoat started. “Sir!” he cried, blinking up at Fengel. “I’m refilling for those on the front line! Sir.”
Fengel made a dismissive gesture. “The battle is done for now. Fall in and follow me.”
The Bluecoat clambered up to his feet and made a salute. Fengel tried not to smile, instead frowning as if displeased. He strode ahead into the rest of the camp.
A crater in the sand came into view just ahead. Water geysered from it, an unexpected natural fountain. Fengel peered over the lip. Within was a shallow depression, only a few feet deeper than the surface of the beach. At the bottom lay several large horizontal pipes, half-buried and brassy in the afternoon sun. One was cracked, the source of the spray.
What’s this? he wondered. The Goliath had run aground on something strange just off-shore as well. Could this be Voornish work? Are there ruins buried under this shoreline?
Fengel glanced up at the draconic monolith upon the mountain. The carving was even older than he’d thought, then. His earlier search for natives would have proven futile. The Voorn were long, long dead.
None of that changed his immediate plans, however. The nameless private staggered to a stop beside him, the powder horns he had filled clutched tightly to his chest.
“Private!” barked Fengel. “Climb down there and see if that water is fresh.”
The Bluecoat hurried to obey. He tried to set the horns down and clumsily dropped them all. Flushing, he slid down into the depression. There he cupped his hands and knelt down low to drink. Then he yelped and staggered back to fall back against the side of the crater.
“S’fresh sir,” said the private, glancing back up. “But hot.”
“Of course,” replied Fengel, as if he hadn’t expected to find it any other way. “Good that it’s fresh, though. Now quit playing around down there and fall back in line.”
He strode past the crater to where a Perinese sailor lay on his back next to a Salomcani corpse. Blood covered the man’s face and he hugged his arm gingerly. Fengel knelt beside him.
“Sailor,” he said, pulling out the surgeon’s kit. “Let’s see that arm.”
“Feel weak,” said the man. “Head hurts.”
“Then we’ll take a look at that too,” replied Fengel calmly.
He snapped his fingers and the nameless private appeared. At Fengel’s direction, they looked the man over. He had an obviously broken arm and a deep gash across his brow. Fengel applied more impromptu first aid, arranging a splint and washing the head wound. Before long the sailor was standing, with the private supporting him. The man didn’t offer a name and Fengel didn’t ask. So far, at least, both appeared to think of him as one of their officers, though more likely they were just responding to someone who appeared to have authority. Which, for now at least, was part of the plan.
Fengel led them through the ruined encampment. Speed was of the essence. The Perinese were divided, confused. But before too much longer they’d organize, and his window of opportunity would vanish. Where he could, he repeated the trick, tending to any wounded Perinese survivors and taking imperious command of any of those milling about. Before long a small knot of ten people followed him around the beach. A few of them he recognized from his time in the brig. Thankfully, his luck still held; no one seemed to realize who he really was yet.
“Hey!” called a voice. “That’s the prisoner! He’s escaped!”
Fengel’s stomach lurched. He looked to the sound of the voice. Two marines clambered over a pile of charred rubble at him. They were his missing gaolers, Sergeant Cumbers and Private Simon. Both men were unkempt and bloodied. Both held smallswords. Fengel suddenly felt his acute lack of armament, and the presence of all the enemy sailors and Bluecoat marines he’d gathered at his back.
Never let them see you stumble.
“Ah,” he said, forcing himself to sound pleased. “Sergeant Cumbers! Glad to see you alive, and perfect timing indeed.” Fengel unshouldered the surgeon’s kit and flung it at Simon. The young marine dropped his sword and grabbed it up awkwardly. “We’re running low on bandages, so you might have to run back to the ship for clean linen, if there’s any to be had.”
Cumbers stared at him, and the crowd at his back. “What? No one’s going anywhere. Except you, I mean. Back to the brig.” The Bluecoat marine recovered by yelling at the nameless private Fengel had first dragooned. “What are you even doing, you lot? We’ve been under attack!”
“I-I thought he was an officer,” stuttered the man.
The rest of the naval crew looked at Fengel anew. He ignored them, raising an eyebrow at the sergeant. “Cumbers, if you haven’t noticed, the Salomcani raid is over. Your worry should be for the brave men who have been wounded in the conflict. If we act quickly and efficiently, we should be able to save many of their lives.”
The man frowned. “But you’re a prisoner! Was probably you who fired the damned cannons at us all.” He faced the assembled crewmen. “Haven’t you lot even thought of that?”
Ugly mutters spread among the crew. Fengel turned to face them as well. “That was a cowardly, dastardly action of which I had no part. Besides, it would have been impossible for me to load all those cannons by myself.”
“They was kept primed,” said Simon. The private looked bewildered at the discussion before him. He held the surgeon’s kit like a shield. When Fengel raised an incredulous eyebrow at him, he looked away. “Sub-Lieutenant Hayes ordered it while the Commander was still caught up sick. In case we all had to fall back to the ship.”
Fengel shook his head. Every single crewmember he had chatted with over these last few days had let him know how little-loved the sub-lieutenant was. Now was a perfect time to remind them of that. “Idiotic. The man is not fit to command a set of tableware.” He let sorrow creep into his voice. “No, lads, we all know who was responsible for that tragedy. It was that hateful harpy of a woman, Natasha Blackheart. I heard her break free of her own bonds during the struggle. Honor demanded that I free myself to go after her in order to prevent whatever tragedy she would brew up. Alas, she must have fired the broadside and shot the poor carpenter before I released myself.”
“Harvey’s been shot?” came a voice from the crowd.
“That he has,” replied Fengel gravely. The crew seemed to quiet a little at this revelation. “I’ve seen to him for the moment, pulled out the ball and patched him up. But he could use more aid.” H
e straightened and clapped his hands together. “Now. There isn’t much time to lose.” He gestured at a trio of the more able-bodied sailors. “You three, find something in which to fetch potable water. I’ve discovered a small fountain of fresh water back near the shore. This private can lead you to it. Simon, Sergeant Cumbers, attend me as we see to others who are injured. The rest of you, clear a place here for the injured. There must be order to this chaos.”
“But you’re a prisoner,” Sergeant Cumbers insisted.
Fengel hardened his voice. “Cumbers. Your people are dying. I am here to help. If you insist on focusing on things of minor importance, then you can accompany me to keep me under guard while we save lives. Is that clear?”
The man held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “Yes. Yes, sir.”
“Capital.” Fengel folded his hands behind his back. “Well then, let’s be about it.”
Well, thought Fengel as he led the organization of the Perinese crew. That could have gone a lot worse. The sergeant had dashed his initial control of the shell-shocked crewmen. Still, he’d known it couldn’t last. And amazingly, he was leading them. Not one of the Goliath’s mates seemed to be used to any kind of command at all aside from Cumbers, and even he looked a little lost. Those he’d already rescued looked at Fengel differently now, but the mutters he overheard named Natasha and Hayes just as much. Excellently, more than a few remarked on how she’d attached herself to the sub-lieutenant during their initial capture.
Good, Fengel thought. I can use that.
They gathered up more of the wounded and brought them back to the spring where Fengel had designated the makeshift infirmary. He did what he could, and before long couldn’t say that things were going poorly. The vast majority of those still living, about twenty in all, were gathered together, with only about a third seriously injured. Sergeant Cumbers followed him, ostensibly “guarding,” but proving an efficient assistant all the same.
On Discord Isle (The Dawnhawk Trilogy) Page 13
