They didn’t even need prompting. Everyone rushed for the other ladder, Reaver Jane winning out and nimbly making her way up to and through the hatch onto the roof. Allen the Mechanist came next, wild-eyed and clutching a bloodied knife like it was a lifeline. Then the others followed, fighting to escape. Lina held Omari back from the press by reflex. There wasn’t any way either of them were getting through right now.
Others climbed up from below now. Lina saw a pair of hands that belonged to Elly Minel. Jeremiah Frey’s face appeared, half stove-in and his throat slit. Flickering reflections gave a hellish cast to the visage. The Revenants were climbing after them.
It was Omari who acted first. She pushed past Lina, ran to the vanity, and retrieved a chair. Thrusting it down the opening, she knocked free the first undead corpse, which fell back down into the burning room below. Lina joined her with a broom she’d found in the corner, gorge rising in her throat.
They defended the top of the ladder until the rest of the still-living crew had climbed onto the rooftop. Then Lina threw her broom down and went to make her own escape. Omari joined her, angry tears running down her cheeks.
Lina ascended through the hatch into cool night air. The roof of the Apothecarium was flat, with a decorative crenellation that ran around the edge. Lantern lights illuminated the street, along with soldiers whistling and shouting commands. Above, the Dawnhawk floated, its edges lit by the light of the moon. Ropes and rope ladders dangled from every side, and the surviving crew were already making their escape back aboard the airship.
She made to urge Omari onward, and spied four blue-coated figures rising up into the room below. Lina recognized the sergeant and Admiral Wintermourn among them. The Admiral shouted at the others, who frantically tried to fight off the Revenants climbing up after them. Just as Omari cleared the hatch onto the roof, he glanced up, looking directly at Lina.
“Up there!” he cried, his arrogant features twisted into an ugly snarl. “Get me their heads if you want to keep yours! Neither flames nor these abominations are going to stop me from bringing righteous—”
A fat orange tabby cat flew out from the hatch to land on the admiral’s face. It hissed and spat and fought, and Wintermourn let out a yell as it clawed at him. The sergeant turned back just as Michael Hockton rose up from the ladder from the room below, swinging Runt about him like a flail. The scryn snarled angrily, flapping its manta-ray wings and spitting furiously. Caustic, poisonous spittle caught one soldier full in the face, and then Runt smacked into the sergeant, sending them both crumpling to the floor.
Hockton clambered past, running straight for the other ladder and the rooftop hatch. He grabbed up Runt and threw the dazed scryn around his neck like scarf. As he passed the admiral he snatched Cubbins the tabby cat by the scruff of its neck. Then, one-handed, he clambered up to the rooftop hatch, quicker than Lina would have thought possible.
“Must be going,” said Hockton. The renegade Bluecoat’s face was covered in scryn-bite welts and cat-claw scratches. “I really hope you’ve got a good escape planned up here, because—”
He fell silent as he looked past Lina’s shoulder to the Dawnhawk above. Out of the corner of her eye, Lina spied Omari already climbing the ladder.
“Yeah,” she said, butterflies in her stomach. “The raid was a damned shambles, but we’ve a pretty good escape plan.” She glanced at Runt, worried. The scryn hung limply, chirping to himself, as if addled. “What did you do to my pet?”
Michael Hockton blinked. “What? Him? Nothing. We’ve a rapport, like you said.”
The hatchway frame exploded between them, sending splinters and grit flying up. Admiral Wintermourn was at the foot of the ladder, cursing and calling for a fresh pistol from his sergeant.
“Time to go,” said Lina.
Hockton leapt nimbly out onto the roof, then kicked the hatch shut. He adjusted his grip on the snarling, squirming Cubbins, then drew a dagger with his free hand. This he jammed through the outside handle of the latch, preventing it from opening.
The Dawnhawk was just starting to drift away. Lina scrabbled up the nearest rope ladder, Hockton jumping up just below. The propellers on the airship whirred to life, and steam-cloud contrails belched out between them.
Lina listened to the groans of pain from those still climbing above her toward the gunwales. The sounds only grew louder as the adrenaline in her body faded, bringing to mind all that had been lost on this foolish, wasteful exercise. She thought of all the friends she’d lost tonight, merely the edge of a horrible abyss that fell farther than the drop below her feet.
A low whistle shook her from her introspection. Michael Hockton dangled just beneath her, watching the colony of Breachtown drift past, the hordes of Royal Marines in its streets like an angry colony of ants. He grinned up at her, absent-mindedly fighting with the now-terrified tabby cat in his free hand.
“It’s quite the view that you get from up here,” he said.
Lina thought of the failed raid, her dead crewmates, and the long, ugly day that had preceded it all. I guess it’s not a complete loss, though.
“That we do,” she replied. “Want to come up and see it proper?”
Michael Hockton grinned. Then he let out a yell as both Runt and Cubbins bit him sharply at the same time.
Chapter Eighteen
Natasha tumbled through the moonlit night.
The opening back into the volcano behind her collapsed in a shower of earth and rock. That scree slid beneath her down the slope of the mountain, tumbling and pouring and collecting strength as it went. Vines and bushes disappeared beneath the detritus until the crumbled dirt stilled and found new stasis high above the dark jungles below.
Then Natasha landed upon it. Hard. She sank in the earth and slid, scrabbling desperately for purchase to slow herself. Her fingers brushed a vine and she wrapped both hands around it, digging in with knees and elbows until the scree ceased sliding. Faintly, she felt the bellows-vibrations of the Dray Engine, buried in the ancient Voornish ruins beneath the mountain.
Fengel landed beside her with a curse. He bounced, slid, and grabbed at the slope beneath them both. His grasping hands dug through the dirt and found her vine, stopping him only a few feet below her.
I’ll be damned if I’m sharing this. Natasha gave a growl and kicked down at him. “This is mine,” she hissed. “Get. Off!”
“Ow! I go where I like, wench. Ow! To the Realms Below with both you and your goliath feet!” He grabbed for a rock and then threw it, missing her forehead by only an inch.
Natasha snarled. She lifted her leg for a kick that would take off Fengel’s head. Then the vine snapped, sending the two of them tumbling down again.
The world churned as she rolled end over end. Fine volcanic grit fell through her fingers as she desperately tried to stop. Rocks, roots, and low brush battered her head and stuck in her hair. Then the boots she’d taken from the Salmalin were skidding, sliding over hard rock, before flying out into nothingness. Natasha almost followed her feet as a cracked, irregular stone passed beneath her. She turned and grabbed at it with manic desperation as her legs slid over a ledge toward unseen oblivion.
Natasha realized that she was clutching one of the many strange monoliths dotting the flanks of the volcano that dominated the island. Triangular and oddly metallic, it lay half-buried in the volcano’s silt, yet toppled over to form a small ledge that dropped ten feet to the rest of the slope below.
A loud grunt sounded above her, and a pair of boots landed painfully on her forearms. Fengel scrabbled to keep from falling any farther, causing the whole monolith to shift. He froze, just as she did, until the rain of earth that carried them along gradually stilled.
Natasha didn’t dare move. She didn’t even dare turn her head, and could only stare at the shredded top of Fengel’s boot. All right. If I don’t move, I should be fine. Just…don’t move. There’s got to be a way out of this. Don’t move. Things can’t really get any worse.
Fe
ngel shifted, and Natasha found herself staring at his crotch.
Natasha blinked. Oh, you Servants and Daemons of the Realms Above. You mock me, but I’ll show you. I’ll—
Her husband’s face appeared just within her line of vision. “Well,” he said, as he slowly and carefully wedged the cracked, hateful monocle back into place from where it had dangled on its chain. “That was quite a ride.” Then he glared down at her. “But I don’t think you’re quite finished with yours yet.” He gripped both sides of the strange rock and raised his boot. “Please remember not to write.” Then he kicked out.
Natasha grunted in pain at the blow. As Fengel raised his boot to strike again, she pushed down with both arms against the monolith, lifting herself up just enough to grab his leg around the ankle before slamming back down. The whole thing shifted, and more dirt and rock slid down around them. Fengel cried out in fear and pain as she dangled, his ankle caught on a sharp edge of the stone with all her weight atop it.
“How clever!” she yelled, throwing her weight against his leg. “Remember not to write? You’re such a funny man!”
“Agh! Let go, you madwoman!” Fengel bent at the waist, tried to grab at her fingers. The monolith shifted again.
“Madwoman? That’s so original. Do you see how I’m laughing?” She shouted the last and jerked at the monolith, tugging, doing everything she could to hurt him, to pull him down.
The weird stone broke free of its moorings. Natasha fell ten feet to land hard on her side, and started sliding down the slope again. She’d gone only inches when the monolith landed behind her with Fengel atop it, crying out in pain and shock at the impact. It tumbled past both of them, flinging him aside as it generated another cascade of dirt, rocks, and grit that carried them both away.
Natasha tumbled freely, unable to restrain her fall. Rocks battered her, and the gravel of the mountain tore at her clothing. Fengel was just behind her, easy to find, due to the steady stream of creative invective that he spewed. She kept her own mouth shut; fewer things flew into it that way.
The triangular monolith disappeared up ahead. Natasha prepared herself for another sheer drop. It came suddenly, and she found herself tumbling from a series of stair-step terraces down a stony cliff. Each was thick with greenery that softened her fall but did little to stop it. The monolith was carving a path before them, channeling both her and Fengel down through the trail of destruction and preventing any kind of stop.
Then she was in the air, falling. The final lip of the terraces gave way to a sheer cliff. Natasha had a half-second’s glimpse of the jungle canopy below, and a deep, wide pool of water reflecting the moonlight. Then she slammed hard into a narrow rock ledge with an impact that punched the air from her chest and left her seeing stars.
Natasha dimly felt something land beside her. She ignored it, too stunned to do anything but lie there. Gradually, the stars faded and her lungs drew raspy breath. Sense returned, along with the pain of a thousand scrapes and cuts, and a whole-body ache that ran from the burned, battered skin on her head all the way down to her toes.
Dirt rained lightly down on her face. So did the occasional pebble. Natasha tried to raise her arm to block the debris, and only succeeded in waving at it. She turned her head, trying to take in her surroundings.
The ledge was barely wide enough for a body, but three times that in length. Thick, flowery bushes dotted its surface, clinging to the only flat space around for a hundred feet. It jutted out from a wide cliff that dropped maybe another hundred and fifty feet to the jungle canopy of the island, near a wide pool of water that hugged the base of the volcano. Above, the next terrace was about twenty feet up smooth volcanic rock. Past that she could just spy the plume of the volcano itself, belching thick black smoke into the moonlit sky. What she’d thought to be a ringing in her ears was actually a waterfall, tumbling out of a crevice in the cliff face a dozen yards away to spill into the pool below.
Someone groaned nearby.
Natasha glanced up to see Fengel lying a body’s length away on the far side of the ledge. He lay as she did, head toward hers, feet out over the opposite lip of the ledge. Her husband groaned and twitched, but did not otherwise move.
Now’s my chance! Her father would have agreed. She made to draw the sword at her side, and realized she’d lost it. She went for the dagger she kept at her hip and realized that was missing too. Oh, for the love of….But wait. There was the pistol in her boot and the dagger down her bodice, all taken from the Salmalin. Either one would do.
She grinned and went for the dagger. Natasha rolled up onto one arm and raised the other to fish out the weapon. The brush she lay upon shifted alarmingly. The branches beneath the foliage gave way with a loud snap, and the rock of the ledge beneath her ankles started to crumble. Natasha froze.
Fengel started at the noise. His eyes popped open behind his cracked and broken monocle, which had ironically fallen into place when he landed, and he looked directly at her. Fengel reacted the same way she had, attempting to roll over and bring himself to a fighting position. But the bush under him sagged, and more rock fell away from the ledge beneath his legs. He glanced around, clearly alarmed, then swallowed and stilled.
Great. Just great. He’s right here, and I can’t do a damned thing about it without dooming myself in the process. Natasha pondered. Would it be worth it, just so long as the snooty bastard went first?
Something like the sound of breaking stone and twisting steel erupted over the island. Natasha froze, then grabbed for dear life at the bush beneath her. Of course. This would be the perfect time for an earthquake. She eyed the distance to the pistol in her boot. She would not die without taking him with her.
But the ledge did not shake, nor the cliff to which it was attached. The sound continued, a consistent wrenching noise. Movement in the night caught her eye, around the lip of the cliff off to the south and another part of the island. It was a massive shape that flew haphazardly through the air; a huge boulder, jagged and covered in earth. Another object came after it: a massive, twisted door of Voornish brass. Both of them crashed down through into the jungle. The ruckus stilled, and for a moment Natasha thought the odd sight over.
Then it came; a mechanical roar that seemed to shake the very sky. It sounded like angry thunder trapped in a bottle, holding only the promise of ruin for the world.
The Voornish Dray Engine appeared, head just cresting over a distant cliff, maybe half a mile away. It raised its great maw toward the sky and roared again, then bent low and disappeared out of sight. The rustle and snap of trees breaking like matchsticks echoed over the island.
“Well, that’s just great,” Natasha croaked. Trapped on a crumbling ledge with her asshole husband, no crew to help her, and a horrible Voornish war-machine lose on the island. She closed her eyes and sighed. At least now things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
A fluttering, flapping noise reached her. Natasha opened her eyes to see a hideous, brightly colored bird with a short, round body and a great butter-yellow beak land on a sapling sprouting from the cliff face a dozen feet above her. It twisted its head to peer down with one malevolent eye. Then it opened its beak and screamed. The sound seemed to pierce her eardrums and go straight to her brain.
Natasha started to curse the world with the vilest insults she could think of.
Chapter Nineteen
Fengel watched the sun come up.
There wasn’t much else to do, really. The mass of springy bushes supporting him were only lightly rooted to the narrow ledge he lay upon. All of the things that he really wanted to do, such as escape, or violently murder his harpy wife where she lay a few feet away, would pitch him into a plummet that he could not survive. The only things left to do were converse with said harpy wife, or watch the sun come up. Fengel chose the latter.
It rose out over the ocean to the east, a burning orb of molten gold that seemed to set the few sparse clouds above it on fire. The waters of the Atalian Sea lightened as it blazed,
from dark purple to shifting shades of cerulean blue while gulls pinwheeled above the waves. The seabirds were illuminated and brilliant, falling like winged stars to hook the fish that danced below them.
Yet Isle Almhazlik resisted the dawn. From Fengel’s vantage, the golden sand of the beaches remained hidden, and the thick green canopy refused to reveal its secrets. The curtain of the cliff at his side occluded any further view of the island, save for the peak of the volcano angrily belching ash high above.
Almhazlik was hardly peaceful, however. Fengel’s evening had been interrupted not only by the constant sleep-shredding sensation of sliding off the ledge, but by the riotous noise that the place never seemed to do without. Parrots squawked and gibbons hooted in the jungles below. The volcano at the center of the isle rumbled ominously. The Voornish Dray Engine tore its way through the jungle, cracking trees and periodically pausing to roar a mechanical call that reverberated across the isle. A waterfall nearby thundered into a pool down below, while on a branch above his head, a ridiculous, raucous parrot squawked that Fengel could have sworn he’d seen before. Worst of all was Natasha, who kept up a steady stream of colorful invective, cursing the Goddess, her father, the island, her crew, the parrot, Fengel himself, and really, just anyone she’d ever met. Her voice was quite hoarse now, but she showed no signs of slowing down or granting him anything like peace.
I’d ask what I’ve done to deserve this, but it’s a question I’m beginning to grow weary of. Fengel frowned up at the rising sun, then blinked in surprise as it started to dance.
No, not dance. Sway. And it was he that was rocking, shifting back and forth upon his bed of precariously placed foliage. The whole ledge, the jungle below and the cliff itself, were shaking.
Great. Fengel grabbed with both hands at the bushes near the base of the ledge. There really wasn’t anything else to do. The earthquake continued to rise in ferocity. It added a rumbling roar that rose to drown out all the other sounds of the jungle.
On Discord Isle (The Dawnhawk Trilogy) Page 26
