by Robyn Bennis
Airmen strained their lungs to be heard from so high above, to outshout the steamjack and the cacophony of battle. For all their effort, Bernat could hardly imagine the cheer arriving at the ears below as more than a faint yowl, and yet it seemed to buoy the spirits of the defenders, for they returned it with gusto. Bernat had his rifle loaded now, and was seeking targets in the columns when their front ranks hesitated again. He looked down to see a Garnian reserve regiment, its courage bolstered perhaps by the airship above it, dash into the line and fill the gaps. A band began to play the Garnian national anthem, which Bernat had never before cared for, but which now roused pride and steel in his heart.
The reinforced Garnian line fired a volley, and under that withering fire, the crisp cohesion of the Vin columns showed the first sign of wavering. As men fell, those behind had to slow to step over them, but the effect was not equal across the fronts of the columns. Where the casualties were few, the men ran on, as fast as the boot-sucking mud would allow. Where the casualties were high, the men behind were brought to a standstill as they picked their way across the tangled mass of the dead. Men who found themselves ahead of their comrades instinctively veered in the direction of their regimental standards, and so turned their neatly dressed ranks into a disordered blob. But even in disorder, the columns advanced. Quick or slow, they marched together across that killing ground, with their sergeants and corporals prodding them back into formation on the move.
The most advanced column reached the stream, and only had to charge through the water and smoke to break the Garnian line. But the front ranks stopped at the water’s edge, as if confused by it, and in that moment the Garnians unleashed another devastating volley. Even through obscuring smoke, the range was under ten yards, and they could hardly miss.
The column’s front ranks were flayed alive. The men who stepped up to replace them did not march on, but stopped to aim their muskets and return fire. Bernat saw the sergeant he’d missed earlier, screaming and pushing at his men from behind, urging them to charge. He took careful aim at the screaming man, steadied himself, and fired. This time there was nothing to distract him, for the Vin guns had shifted their fire to avoid hitting their own columns.
The smoke cleared to reveal the sergeant alive, but crawling through the mud and leaving blood behind him. His men, who’d advanced only a few paces under his coaxing, now stopped mid-stream to reload. They were jostled by the men behind, but fear had rippled back through the ranks, and the attack stalled in open ground.
The Garnian batteries made them pay for it, pouring hot iron and lead into their flanks. The small artillery batteries, spread out along the line in a manner that until now had struck Bernat as inefficient, were now perfectly positioned to fire slantwise into the columns. Canister and round shot, fired at point-blank range, tore furrows across the Vinzhalian ranks.
Yet the sight did not give him hope, for the column could stand amid this punishment for a quarter of an hour and still have enough men left to overpower the Garnian line, if they only charged across the few remaining yards.
So why didn’t they charge? If they only charged, the cannons couldn’t fire on them, and the volleys would stop, and the clash of cold steel would send the Garnians running. In a charge, they would find not just victory but safety. But they only stood there, paralyzed by fear.
“Break,” Josette said. “Break, you bastards, break.”
And they broke. It started in the column’s rearmost ranks, which had taken the most punishment from the brisk Garnian cannon fire. For a time, the surviving sergeants had pushed all the harder, urging their men forward. But now even they seemed to despair of ever advancing out of this hellscape, and if the column was not to advance, where was there to go but back? So they stopped pushing, and when the men felt the pressure on their backs ease, and looked back to see their once-stalwart sergeants contemplating retreat, they gave up hope and decided the matter for themselves. The rout moved forward through the column in a wave.
Only one column had broken, and it was the smallest one at that, but to see even the least of those unstoppable beasts running away was enough to raise a victory cry aboard the airships. The enthusiasm spread to the defenders on the ground, who surely couldn’t see a damn thing through the smoke, but who knew from the cheering above them that something had changed.
Ibis flashed a report to the command tent, and another message came back. Bernat didn’t know what it was, but the men below fired one more volley before fixing bayonets. The defenders, not just inspired but ebullient, splashed forward through the stream. As they emerged from the smoke of their last volley, every Vin column but one broke.
Bernat stared in disbelief. It didn’t seem possible that this pathetic, thin line of Garnians could charge at the unstoppable columns, much less send them running.
The single remaining Vin column delivered a devastating volley of its own and stood firm to receive the charge, but as the Garnians wrapped around the column and hit it from the flanks, and the airships concentrated all their fire on it, even this last, most courageous formation turned to flee the field.
They’d done it. God damn it, they’d done it. The rifleman next to Bernat grabbed him by the sides of the head, bellowed a triumphant whoop, and kissed him squarely on the mouth. Some of the gun crew were dancing a little jig between their still-steaming cannons. Another was twirling a rammer over his head, hitting every man within arm’s reach.
Josette’s voice cut through the celebration. “Steamjack to emergency power! Elevators up full!”
Bernat looked forward. With the columns retreating, the Vin grand battery had renewed its fire. The first of the round shot shrieked past below.
* * *
THEY WERE COMING back.
Despite their losses, the Vins still outnumbered the Garnians by a wide margin. Their infantry was shaken, yes, but their fears would calm and they would be sent back out, reinforced and more determined than ever.
And when they came back again, they’d take the time to deploy properly, and they’d advance with Vin airships over their heads. The Vins hadn’t risked their fragile, expensive ships in the first assault, when they were confident of an easy victory, but this time would be different. She scanned the cloud ceiling with her spyglass, looking for signs of them.
“Sir, can’t we ascend into cloud cover?” Kember asked, her voice a whisper. The ensign was just coming down the companionway ladder.
Their orders said otherwise. “I believe I asked for a damage report, Ensign, not advice.”
“Yes, sir,” Kember said, swallowing. “That last shell cut a piece out of the steamjack housing, but it’s still spinning. There are slow leaks in several of the bags, probably from musket balls, but the riggers haven’t found all the holes. And … sir? It looks like Private Chase will live. Chips is getting pretty good with legs. But, ummm, Private Allard was bleeding out so fast when I saw him … I think he’s, uh, probably gone by now, sir. And there are plenty of minor wounds to go around.”
“Thank you, Ensign.”
“Ibis signaling,” a crewman at the rail said. “We’re to come alongside her and receive relayed orders.”
They maneuvered alongside and Captain Emery looked across the gap, his expression dark. He called through a speaking trumpet, “Doing all right?”
“We’re holding together, sir,” Josette called back. “But I’m worried they’ll throw their chasseurs into the next attack.”
Emery nodded. “To bomb our cannon batteries, I expect. The cannons are all that stopped the bastards last time. If they can knock a few batteries out from the air, or even just tie them up…” He trailed off, with the speaking trumpet still at his mouth.
“I’d like to take Mistral forward to join the pickets, sir.” It was what Emery had been about to tell her, anyway. She’d just saved him the trouble of working up to it.
“Granted,” he said, “and I’ll send Lapwing to keep you company.”
“Thank you, sir.” Sh
e saluted.
Emery returned the salute. “Good hunting.”
16
BERNAT PEERED INTO the soup of cloud, seeking signs of the enemy. He pointed to a darker area in front of the bow and asked Kember, “Is that one?”
“That’s a cloud, my lord,” the ensign said.
He looked into the solid cloud cover, blinked several times, and said, “Aren’t they all?”
Ensign Kember was listening intently to another dark area in the clouds. “Not all. I think we’ll make contact with Nowhere Express in a minute or two.”
They soon made contact, but with Swamp Hen rather than Nowhere Express.
Kember looked disappointed in herself. “My ears must be a bit dull from standing so near the cannons.”
Bernat attempted consolation by saying, “Not your fault. The two blimps sound identical, do they not?”
This elicited a roll of the eyes from not just Kember, but also Josette and half the deck crew.
Mistral came alongside Swamp Hen and, when the hurricane deck was even with their gondola, Josette called across, “Any sign of enemy chasseurs?”
“No, sir,” the junior lieutenant in charge of Swamp Hen said, cupping his hands around his mouth. He had no speaking trumpet. The little blimp apparently didn’t merit one.
“Well, they’re coming,” Josette said. “Go silent and keep a good lookout. If you see anything, run first and drop a flare when you can.”
“We all have muskets, sir,” the commander of Swamp Hen said.
“Good,” Josette answered. “You can drop them along with the rest of your ballast. It’ll help you gain altitude.”
“Sir,” he began.
“You understand your orders, Lieutenant?”
After a few seconds of gritting his teeth, the man nodded.
Mistral came around in a sweeping turn that only ended when she was pointed back toward the Garnian lines, and took station so far from Swamp Hen that Bernat could see no sign of the blimp through the clouds. Josette then ordered the steamjack to be shut down.
“Now we just wait for a ship to go past,” she said to Bernat, “spin up the steamjack, come in behind them, and put two in their stern.”
The steamjack shut down with a shuddering rattle. The airscrews creaked to a halt. The boiler issued a last whistle. The artillery still thundered somewhere below, but that battle seemed to belong to a different world now. The only sounds that felt real in Mistral’s world of impenetrable cloud were the creaks in the suspension cables and the sharp, staccato plinking of the bref guns as they cooled.
Bernat jumped in fright as Josette broke the spell, saying, “Now’s a good time to get a drink of water, if you’re thirsty.”
He was thirsty. Parched, in fact, though he hadn’t noticed until that moment. He began to wonder what else might be wrong with him that he wasn’t aware of, but decided it was better not to think about it. He nodded to her and went up the companionway, where Jutes motioned for him to stop.
“If you’ll just hold up here, my lord, it’ll only be a minute. We have to mind the trim when we’re free-ballooning.”
Bernat nodded. “Of course, of course.” He searched desperately for some topic on which to make small talk. “So, how’re we holding up?”
Jutes gave a skewed grin and punched an overhead girder, disturbing sawdust all along its length. “Beautifully, my lord. She’s a bitch, but she’s a tough bitch.”
Bernat glanced surreptitiously down at the hurricane deck. “Are we talking about the ship?” he asked.
The sergeant’s grin grew. “Yes and no, my lord. Yes and no. Ah, there we are.” He raised his voice. “Ballast coming aft!”
“Ballast coming forward!” Martel called from the stern.
“There you go, my lord,” Jutes said.
Bernat started along the catwalk, past a gaggle of riggers working to patch a gaping, burnt-out hole in the envelope. He took the left fork around the gearbox, because he saw Grey working on the other side. He kept his eyes forward as he passed her, but when he spotted a ragged, two-foot gash in the steamjack housing, he couldn’t help but stop and stare.
“Don’t worry, my lord,” Private Grey said, her head popping up behind the steamjack as if she were spring-loaded. “These things are built to take a beating.” She gave the top of the steamjack a reassuring thump, which must have caused something to pop out inside the housing. Grey’s face froze as some bit of metal tinkled down through the turbine blades, bouncing from one to the next, hitting a dozen on its way down, until after several long seconds it finally reached the bottom of the housing and began rolling back and forth inside. “Shit,” she said.
Bernat walked on without saying a word, passing crewmen coming forward. In the sleeping quarters, he passed a recent amputee whose name he couldn’t remember, and a bunk with a blood-soaked blanket spread over its unmoving burden.
Farther aft, crewmen were already lined up and slurping from the drinking reservoirs. As Bernat waited his turn, he gave a polite nod to Lieutenant Martel in the first officer’s station near the auxiliary controls. “How goes the action?” he asked.
“Took a beating from that artillery,” Martel said, “but we’re in fine shape. With the stern reinforced, she’s sturdy as an ox.” Martel cocked his fist, aiming it at a girder.
Bernat held up his hands to stop him. “Pray do not punch the ship. I cannot imagine why the habit is suddenly so popular, but you’d be shocked at how little reassurance it has inspired up to now. I don’t suppose, though, that you know how long we’ll be waiting here?”
“Depends on how long it takes the Vins to organize their next attack. Might be as much as an hour.”
“That long?” He frowned. “You should really think of having some food prepared, then. It’s getting on lunchtime.”
“You’d have to talk to the captain about that, my lord.”
It was Bernat’s turn at the reservoir. He drank his fill and then waited to go forward. He didn’t have to wait long, for the deck crew had formed a line at the companionway, waiting to come aft and drink.
He stopped at his bunk to retrieve something to eat, but the man coming aft to counterbalance him didn’t know that. He continued on, until the imbalance of weight brought the ship low by the tail, and the catwalk tilted at a noticeable angle.
A chorus of annoyed shouts drove Bernat to haste, and he grabbed the first foods he found in his baggage: a tin of date cookies and a jar of olives. He rushed forward with his pickings.
As he passed the steamjack, Grey held a bolt triumphantly toward him. “Found it!” she said in a cheerful tone. Her smile crumpled when she looked at the steamjack. “Now if I can just figure out where it came from.” He left her with her eyes twitching back and forth across the engine.
On deck, Josette was at the taffrail, staring into the clouds. Her goggles were pulled up to her forehead, leaving clean circles around her eyes that, against the sweat-streaked soot covering the rest of her face, gave her a fixed appearance of surprise.
“Would you bring me the speaking trumpet?” she asked before Bernat could get a word in. He delivered it and stood by while Josette put it to her ear and listened.
He munched on his cookies and olives, waiting patiently for her to finish. But she only went from rail to rail, pointing it into the depths of those strange orange clouds and listening in every direction. When she came back around to his spot on the starboard rail, he leaned out and spoke into the end of the trumpet. “Would you like a cookie and an olive?”
She lowered the trumpet and looked at him, then at the food. “You nobles have the strangest culinary habits,” she said, and went back to pointing her trumpet at clouds.
“I’ll have an olive, my lord,” Kember said, coming over from her station at the forward rail.
He gave her one and, after she’d eaten it, she spit the pit into her hand and slid it into a pocket of her uniform jacket. “Pray tell,” he asked, “why don’t you toss that pit over the side?”
The girl looked at him as if he were suggesting a homicide. “You can’t do that, my lord. Oh, tell me you haven’t been doing that.”
Bernat did his best to look innocent.
“That’s ballast, my lord. You should never drop ballast over the side, unless the captain orders it. That’s … that’s … that’s as bad as venting luftgas, for that’s what we might have to do to make up the difference in weight. Do you know what an olive pit’s weight of luftgas costs, my lord?”
Bernat spread his hands. “Is it a lot?”
“Might as well throw dinars over the side.”
“Oh my,” he said. “Well, I’ve never been any good with money.”
Kember went back to her station, shaking her head all the way.
Bernat finished his olives, taking care to spit the remaining pits into his handkerchief. He wondered about all the times Josette had threatened to throw him overboard, and considered whether his value as ballast might have saved him.
With his olives gone, he ate his cookies. Then, with nothing left to occupy his time, he sat down at the rail and leaned his head against it. Looking out at the orange-red sky, he found it strangely peaceful. The cannons were still firing below, but they seemed to belong to an entirely different world, and had been firing for so long in any event that he hardly noticed them anymore. The only real reminder of danger was Josette, going from rail to rail with that absurd trumpet to her ear.
“I think I’ll just rest my eyes,” he said. “Let me know if we’re all going to die.”
Presently, he woke to a boot prodding his posterior. He gave a final snort and his eyes shot open to find the situation much the same as when he’d closed them. He blinked several times.
“Damn,” he said, “and I was having the most wonderfully erotic dream.”
The boot prodded him harder, this time in the ribs. It was attached to Josette, who shot him an irritated look.
“No one you know was in it,” he lied.
“Everyone, back to your stations,” she said. “Quietly.”
