Private Simon stalked up to them. “Mr. Fengel, Sergeant Cumbers, sirs,” he said. “That’s all the crew we could account for, save for those out at the tree line.”
It was time to push things a little more. “Call me ‘Captain,’ if you don’t mind,” said Fengel. “I am still master of my own ship, even if it’s not here.” He shoved the thought of the Dawnhawk away. This move could go poorly. The more the crew of the Goliath used his title, the more used to it they would become. Yet it might be an unwelcome reminder of his status as a pirate. He frowned at the marine. “And what do you mean, those at the tree line?”
Simon looked uncomfortable. “I found Hayes. Sub-Lieutenant ordered some men to set a perimeter to watch for the enemy. Dawkins is with him. They’re arguing. Ah, you’d best come see...Captain.”
Fengel nodded. “Take me to him. Sergeant Cumbers, you and a few others should come along as well. Ah, after all, until we find the Commander, Hayes is next down the chain of command, yes? Best keep him safe.”
Unhappy looks flashed across the faces of every man within hearing distance. Perfect.
The young private led the company up the beach toward the tree-line ridge where Fengel and Natasha had first been captured. Sub-Lieutenant Hayes stood there, arguing angrily with the aetherite, Mr. Dawkins. Five Bluecoats stood nearby, facing the jungle and looking awkward. At their feet was one of the heavy work tables. It had been blown farther up the beach by one of the explosions during the fight. Now it lay upside down, and oddly, as if it were laying atop something.
“We’re going after the damned Salomcani, and you’re going to assist us,” shouted Hayes as they approached. “I am ranking commander and you will do what I say, Mr. Dawkins!”
“I’m not part of your little pony show,” hissed Dawkins. “I’m a civilian, thank you very much.”
“A civilian in a time of war, Mr. Dawkins!” Hayes jabbed a finger into the other man’s chest. “I could have you flogged, you know! I’m sure that the bite of the cat would make you more willing.”
“I should like to see you try it,” replied the aetherite. He made a fist of one hand, and the light around it dimmed. The stink of burned milk filled the air.
The group of Bluecoats and sailors with Fengel took a step back. Hayes’ eyes widened and his mouth gaped in outrage. Fengel stepped smartly forward and held up both hands.
“Hold now, hold. What’s all this fuss then?” He gestured past the picket at the jungle. “The enemy is out there, yes? There’s no need for rancor amongst the ranks.”
Both men glanced at him.
“Who the devil are you?” asked Dawkins.
“That’s the damned pirate!” snarled Hayes. “That Captain Fengel. What is he doing out here? Cumbers, you idiot, you were supposed to watch him. Couldn’t you do that right, at least?”
Beside Fengel, the marine sergeant stiffened. “Don’t you talk to me like that, you greasy peacock. Who died and made you ruler o’ the roost?”
“He did!” Hayes pointed at the table.
Fengel glanced down along with everyone else. Up close now, he saw an arm, clad in the blue sleeve of an officer’s coat, sticking out from under one edge. The hand was curled into a claw, thrust up at the sky.
“Is that the commander?” asked one sailor quietly.
“When the cannons aboard the ship went off,” said Hayes, “this landed on him. He’s crushed flat, Goddess rest his soul.” He glared at the rest of the crew. “Which puts me in charge, and I’ll discipline any man who dares say otherwise!”
Ugly muttering spread amongst the crew. Fengel glanced back to see that the few people behind him had grown to a crowd. Everyone who could stand had made their way over, once they’d heard the shouting.
“He is the only officer we’ve got left,” said one sailor at the back.
“Bollocks to that,” said another. “I’m not following him.”
“But that’s treason!”
“To the Realms Below with it!” snarled Sergeant Cumbers. He stepped forward and shook his fist at Hayes. “I don’t care if it is mutiny, I’m not taking orders from you!”
Fengel glanced at the chaos. He couldn’t have planned it any better himself. Here we go, then.
He stepped forward so that everyone could see him. “Gentleman,” he said, raising up his hands. “Gentleman. It appears you are in a crisis. As a completely neutral observer, let me be the first to offer up a solution.” He paused for effect. “What if I were to take a temporary stewardship of the Goliath, until your enemies are removed and the ship is sufficiently repaired to get us all home?”
Dead silence met his statement.
“What,” asked one sailor. “You want to take the captaincy?”
Fengel blinked. “Temporarily, yes.”
“That’s outrageous!” shouted Hayes.
“He’s a pirate!” cried one sailor.
“He saved my life, though,” said a Bluecoat. “Or at least bandaged me up.”
“He could have run when he broke free,” mused Dawkins. He peered at Fengel. “Why didn’t you?”
Fengel raised an eyebrow at the aetherite. “Because I am a patriot,” he lied. “And because I could not stand idly by while good Perinese men bled out their lives onto the sand. I would never propose to replace your commander, but as I am familiar with command, and as you seem to be in a bit of a pickle, I would consider it my duty to help steer you all out of the difficulties in which you find yourselves. To help you heal your hurts, repair the ship, and to take bloody vengeance upon those Salomcani cowards who ambushed you all so.”
“No!” screamed Hayes. “Absolutely not! He’s a pirate! And all of you who can stand and hold a gun are coming with me to avenge ourselves upon the Salmalin!”
Fengel could have kissed the man. Even those who were uncomfortable with the idea of mutiny muttered angrily at the sub-lieutenant now.
Sergeant Cumbers nodded. “Y’know what? I like it.” He glared once at Hayes and then faced the rest of his crewmen. “I think the captain here has a good idea. He obviously knows what he’s about, and cares a good deal more about us than this arsehole.” He jammed a thumb towards Hayes. “Besides, what kind of damned fool orders powder kegs placed next to a forge?”
The rest of the crew muttered to themselves. Hayes stared at them, stunned and apoplectic.
Fengel whispered an aside to the sub-lieutenant. “Don’t be foolish,” he said. “Continue on like this and they’ll lynch you.” Hayes glared daggers at him. Fengel ignored the man and looked to the crew. “There’s a simple tradition where I come from, that we use to resolve questions like this. The Crewman’s Vote. Everyone who thinks it a good idea to allow me to captain the crew of the Goliath, albeit in a temporary fashion, raise a hand.”
A smattering of hands, those who most hated Hayes, sprung up. After a moment, a majority could be counted among the crowd.
“And those who are willing to submit to the rule of Sub-Lieutenant Hayes, raise a hand.”
Hayes’s hand shot up. No one else’s did.
Fengel clapped his hands. “Capital. Well, no time to waste. Sergeant Cumbers, Mr. Dawkins, if you could attend me, I could use your skills. Lads, come away from the tree line. Those Salomcani devils are long gone by now. Now, you three, see if you can find any food among the wreckage, and salvageable cloth....”
He continued to give commands, providing order to the chaos. Hayes glared at him, then stalked off toward the jungle. Fengel let him go. When the men were sufficiently organized, and his two new officers were appropriately distracted by their tasks, he looked to the jungle and the burning mountain.
“Let’s see you do that, you horrible witch.”
The volcano rumbled in response.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh, by the Goddess’s teats,” swore Lina Stone.
“That’s an appropriate sentiment,” muttered Ryan Gae.
They stood at the bow rails of the Dawnhawk, along with every other member of
the crew. Below the airship spread Breachtown harbor, ships filling its inky water from one end to the other. Lina spied schooners, frigates, and ships-of-the-line. Most were of older construction, incorporating three masts and thick hulls dotted with gun ports for the cannon broadsides hidden within. A few were newer, with tall paddlewheels built to either side of the hull. All were made for war. There were so many of the ships that the lanterns glowing on their decks made the fleet seem a second city, one burning brighter in the moonless night than the colony did itself. This could only be the Perinese Royal Navy, the most powerful fleet in the world.
Behind the harbor lay Breachtown itself. Along the rest of the coastline, the Stormwall raged, a nigh-impenetrable barrier of shifting clouds, crackling lightning, and tempestuous winds. Above the colony, however, the Stormwall failed, as if some giant had carved a wedge from the perpetual storm, leaving the skies above clear and open to the pinprick light of the stars.
Breachtown colony sat on a curved swath of land that protruded out into the harbor. On its northern-most side rose a small hill, ideally placed to overlook the harbor and the rest of the colony. A large and stately building sprawled there, likely the governor’s manor. From the hill the colony spread out, filling the safe space between the walls of the storm with homes, warehouses, and shops built in the Perinese style, wood and brick with shingled roofs of slate or tile. Aside from the governor’s house, only three other buildings stood out from above; the turreted armory, the domed counting house, and a keep-like partial construction of heavy stone situated at the near end of the wharf, where it could watch both the harbor and the colony proper.
A surprised hiss sounded to her left. Lina glanced up to see Rastalak peering over the gunwales with widened eyes. She looked at his unbandaged hands. The skin there was soft and green, without scales. Rastalak had healed from his burns remarkably quickly over the last few days.
“So many vessels,” said the little Draykin.
“Look there,” said Reaver Jane. She pointed at the half-finished edifice. “Are they building a fort?”
Sarah Lome grunted. “It can’t be anything else,” she said sourly. The big woman’s face was stained with ink, especially around her forehead and eyes.
A wet noise sounded behind Lina. Allen stood there with a rockfruit clutched in both hands. He gnawed at it in frustration, trying to crack the thing with his teeth. The fruit’s red shell glistened wetly.
Allen froze at her gaze. He held out the rockfruit shyly. “I thought we could share,” he said.
Lina narrowed her eyes at him. “I do not want any of your slobbery fruit,” she replied. Allen’s unexpected competence the other night hadn’t changed anything, ultimately. He still mooned after her like a lonely puppy.
Lina forced Runt to lay down and looked back at the colony and the assembled ships of the navy floating before it. Of all the problems she’d considered for the raid, this had not been one of them. Now what do we do? she wondered. We can’t pull this off with half the Perinese military in town. Can we? It’s a miracle we haven’t been seen already.
“This,” said Lucian, “presents a quandary.” He drummed his fingers against the gunwales. The committee-member was looking a little more ragged around the edges these days. His clothing wasn’t as fastidious as usual, and dark circles hung beneath his eyes. “Original plan was to hang out at sea until nightfall, then swoop in atop the counting house and dispatch half the crew down to send up the loot just like any merchant frigate we’ve taken. The night covers us for now, but we’re sure to be seen if we dally off the coast during the day. We won’t be able to stay near the counting house for nearly long enough if that happens.”
“We are not turning back?” asked Konrad. Both he and Maxim stood shoulder to shoulder.
Lina half hoped that they would. The crew had not gotten any more disciplined these last few days, even after Jonas Wiley almost fell to his death. The Mechanist and Lucian had argued loudly last night, and now the older man was in reclusion in his engine room warrens, sending Allen out for anything needed on deck. The committee spent more and more time down in the mess, arguing over minutiae.
She glanced around at the faces of her crewmembers. Half muttered and griped, angry at the very suggestion of leaving now. But a few others appeared almost relieved that someone had brought up the subject.
Lucian started. “What? No, of course not. We’ll just have to make it up as we go along.”
Lina frowned. Her stomach knotted. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“Dawn’s almost here,” said Sarah Lome. “We need anchorage, or somewhere high so we won’t get sucked into the Stormwall. Where can we go without being seen?”
“Let me think.” Lucian rubbed his forehead for a long moment before snapping his fingers. “Ah! I’ve got it.” He raised his hands over his head for attention. “Everyone to your stations. You, Mechanist. Allen, right? Go tell that old goat to get the boilers stoked. Sarah, take the deck, please. Douse any lights and be quiet about things. Konrad and Maxim, can you whistle up a cloud? Something to obfuscate us? Like we did after punching through the Stormwall in the Copper Queen?”
The crowd around them dispersed. Maxim frowned sourly as Konrad shot him a questioning glance.
“That was how we got the drop on you near the Silverpenny six months ago,” said Maxim. He gave a shrug.
“Madness,” replied Konrad. The big aetherite looked impressed.
“It was not fun,” agreed Maxim. He faced Lucian again. “That was not ‘whistling up a cloud.’ It was cooling of a large mass of aether. I could do it again, perhaps. It’s going to stink, though, the convection ratio—”
Lucian waved him to quiet. “You just had to say ‘yes,’ Maxim. I’ve no need for the details. Work it out with Konrad. So long as we can fool a few tired lookouts, that’s good enough.”
The aetherites shared a look. Maxim then tried to catch Lucian’s gaze. “We would have to pool everything we have. And you really should know how this would work. It will leave us largely without any remaining Workings. Amassing enough moisture via Thorp’s Interroluction—”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Reaver Jane. “Enough aetherite gibberish.” She gave Lucian a pointed look as Maxim lapsed into irritated silence. “Where are we going to actually go?”
Lucian pointed out at the city, past it, to the thick jungles of the Yulan Interior. “We are going to some nice, out-of-the way anchorage for the day. Some place the townies never go unless they have to.”
Lina stared at the dark horizon past the Stormwall. The jungle lay there, full of strangeness and hostility. Her unease deepened. Turning, she slipped away from knot of committee-members before Lucian give some weird, arbitrary order to her. She moved down the deck to her normal station along the starboard gunwales, where the exhaust pipe to the steam boiler emerged. Runt lay coiled there as usual, napping. The scryn opened one black eye as he heard her bootsteps. She held out one arm and Runt unwound, springing up to land roughly on her shoulder. Lina grunted and tried to find her balance as the creature crawled his accustomed way around her scrawny frame.
Maybe we shouldn’t have left them there. Lina was beginning to regret her original suggestion to strand the captains while they made this trip. Finding the whole damned Perinese Navy waiting in port should have alarmed the committee, not to mention the rest of the crew. Instead, only a few had seemed even a little put off. Lucian had barely given any thought before just ordering them ahead, preparing to dive right into the mess without even knowing what was really going on down in the colony.
But what can I do? Lina sighed aloud to herself and scratched Runt along his neck. The scryn chirped happily and wriggled, an uncomfortable, wormy sensation across her neck and shoulders that she still hadn’t gotten used to.
Sarah Lome ordered the few lights on deck doused. Loose chains, or anything else that could have made noise, were tightened and secured. Lina watched in trepidation as the Dawnhawk prepared to pass ov
er the city. A low, steady vibration started below the deck as the steam engine hidden there was stoked back into action. The skysails were pulled in, and a gentle whirr started as the propellers at the back of the ship began to spin.
Up at the bow of the ship, the aetherites worked their magic. Konrad and Maxim stood up at the bow with arms spread wide. Maxim exhaled, and a frosty white vapor spilled down and out over the bow, billowing as it went. Konrad did the same. Presumably, this would shroud the hull of the Dawnhawk. Lina didn’t really trust it. She probably should have known more about aetherite magic by now, but like the rest of the crew, had little care to. She knew it was potent, knew there were ‘rules,’ and most importantly, knew that it tended to make the aetherite using it crazy. Though both Maxim and Konrad did seem unusually mellow of late.
Lina wrinkled her nose as the scent of the arcane mists reached her. Why did aetherite magic always have to stink so?
The harbor grew as the Dawnhawk approached. They lost altitude, dropping from a thousand feet above the fleet to a mere hundred. The move was unfortunate, though Lina knew why they were doing this, at least. The Stormwall could be climbed and even passed through, but it had only been Captain Fengel’s quick thinking and a heaping dose of good luck that they’d survived the one time it had been tried. Even then, the airship they’d flown on had been damaged beyond repair. Down this low, the Dawnhawk could slip past the raging winds without any fear of getting sucked into them. Though this did put them uncomfortably within musket range to anyone on the ground. They’d be safe from that, though, so long as everyone kept their heads down.
Not that this is a great idea. Someone was bound to see them. And then the alarm would raise, and they wouldn’t be able to raid the counting house successfully, and this whole trip would be a colossal waste of time.
Rastalak gave a small hiss of wonder from his post up the deck. Someone shushed him and Lina glanced over the side. Reefed topsails poked up at her, and a crow’s nest went by so close that she could almost reach out and touch it. The Dawnhawk was passing directly over the warships in the harbor.
On Discord Isle (The Dawnhawk Trilogy) Page 14
