by Anthony Ryan
“They’ll be in range of our cannon come morning,” Lizanne pointed out. “A sustained barrage should impede their progress.”
“It should,” Arberus admitted. “But every shell we fire can no longer be replaced. And something tells me Sirus is too clever to simply dig his way into our sights.”
He was proven correct come first light, the rising sun revealing that the forward progress of the enemy trenches had halted. Instead they were now digging laterally, new trenches branching out from the terminus of the three already dug. By late afternoon the White’s army had a trench network of its own, whereupon all activity apparently ceased.
“I’d wager a sack of gold that Morradin no longer has a say over this campaign,” Arberus noted with grudging respect. “Sirus has spared his troops a good two hundred yards of open ground. Even at extreme range our cannon would have taken a fearful toll when they advanced. Plus we would have had ample warning of the moment they decided to attack.”
Arberus ordered a few of the more powerful cannon in the Redoubt to try their luck at the enemy trenches, scoring a few hits. However, most of the shells went wide and the damage inflicted was minimal. There was no answering fire from the Spoiled; in fact most sat in their trenches in placid quietude. Tekela made several offers to attack in the Typhoon, arguing that it would be a simple matter to rake the trenches from end to end with Growler fire. Lizanne forbade it, unwilling to risk an aerostat in the massed Red assault that would inevitably follow.
Arberus had the army stand on full alert throughout the night. Rocket flares supplied by the fleet were prepared all along the Redoubt, ready to bathe the battlefield in artificial light when the attack came, except it didn’t.
“What are they waiting for?” Arberus wondered aloud come the morning as he and Lizanne looked out at the Spoiled still sitting quietly in the trenches.
“As long as they keep waiting,” Lizanne said, “I shall consider myself satisfied.”
“We can’t become complacent. There must be a strategy at work here. Something we’re missing. Just like the Jet Sands.”
Noting the tension in his unshaven jaws, Lizanne saw for the first time how deep the sting of defeat had wounded him. Pride, she thought, reaching out to grasp his forearm, the disease of generals and revolutionaries alike. “Get some rest,” she told him. “I’ll be sure to wake you should anything happen.”
* * *
• • •
Got hit by a storm last night, Clay told her. Lost sight of the Endeavour till morning. The captain had to take the blood-burner off-line. He reckons it’ll be another two days sailing.
Lizanne replied with a pulse of acknowledgment, momentarily distracted by the clarity of the shared trance. Before his new-found ability Clay’s mindscape had been somewhat basic in construction, Nelphia’s surface a uniform grey and the black sky above lacking a rendition of the planet they called home. Now it hung above them in majestic, blue-and-green glory against an endless spectacle of stars.
Kriz helped me with it, he explained, sensing her curiosity. Ain’t had much else to do during the voyage.
Somehow I doubt that, she replied, enjoying the momentary thrum of embarrassment that ran through the dust.
Is there a secret in my head you don’t know? he asked.
Thousands, I’m sure. It’s not your thoughts that betray you, but your feelings. Something they used to drill into us in the Academy.
She gave a final glance at the planet filling the sky above, resisting the urge to lose herself in the beauty of it, even for a short time. I have to go, she told him. Our Blue stocks are low. Please reiterate the need for urgency to Captain Hilemore.
I do that one more time he’s like to shoot me . . . Clay trailed off, his gaze drawn to something beyond her. Who’s she?
Lizanne turned, seeing a sailing-ship approaching across the mindscape, the moon-dust parting like a wave before the bows. Morva was perched on the figure-head below the prow, hands cupped around her mouth as she called to Lizanne: You have to come! It’s started!
CHAPTER 47
Sirus
Light the fuses.
Sirus watched through Forest Spear’s eyes as he touched a match to the tip of the fuse wire, igniting a ball of sparks, then tracked its fiery dance into the depths of the tunnel. He checked to ensure the fuses laid in the other two tunnels had also been lit then returned to his own eyes, peering down from Katarias’s back at the enemy trench works below.
The captives they had taken at the Jet Sands had confirmed the identity of his opponent and Sirus would very much have liked to see Arberus’s face at the instant he realised his efforts had all been for nothing. He had never particularly cared for the major, finding his attitude to Tekela disconcertingly opposite to his own. Though she called him “Uncle,” at her father’s insistence, Sirus had long perceived a lack of warmth between the two. The fact that Arberus was half a foot taller and much admired by the female nobility of Morsvale hadn’t done much to endear him to Sirus either.
Such adolescent notions you cling to, General, Catheline’s thought popped into his head, amused and judgemental in equal measure. Sometimes I forget how young you were.
As do I, Sirus admitted. It all seems so far away. Like a dream of someone else’s life.
As it should. We all have new lives now, for which we should be grateful.
The first mine exploded directly beneath the first line of Varestian trenches, bathing the darkened plain in yellow-orange light, Sirus watching the debris and bodies tumble in the rising ball of flame. The size of the crater was as Veilmist had predicted, leaving a hole thirty feet wide. It had taken the Spoiled a total of sixty hours to dig the three tunnels and pack them with explosives. Arberus had presumably expected a massed night-time assault, which he would shortly receive, but only after the mines had done their work in piercing the outer defences.
The next two mines exploded barely two seconds later, with similarly gratifying results, the glow revealing ten battalions of Spoiled rising from their own trenches and advancing across the plain at the run. A dozen rocket flares streamed into the sky from the fortified ridge-line above the trenches, banishing the dark and heralding a barrage from the guns along the walls. Shells tore into the ranks of the attacking Spoiled, felling dozens at a time. Casualties increased as a few repeating guns opened fire from the undamaged sections of the enemy trench, inflicting heavy losses, but none of it was enough to stop the tide.
The Spoiled boiled over the outer trench, Sirus feeling the pain, joy and death of close-quarters combat as they battled the human defenders. Glimpsing the struggle through Forest Spear’s eyes, he was struck by the savagery of the Varestians, most of them eschewing fire-arms to fight with swords and knives, seemingly without any regard for their own survival.
Pirate scum, Catheline surmised, taking the measure of the Varestians’ clothing.
Pirate scum with an inconvenient amount of courage, Sirus replied, noting the continued fighting all along the trench. Frenzied mêlées were raging in each of the craters and the trench itself was choked with Spoiled and humans locked in desperate combat. As yet, he could see no evidence of the hoped-for flight to the second trench line. The fiercest resistance came wherever the enemy had placed a Blood-blessed, the Varestians clustering around them as they blasted the attackers with Red and Black. Some leading desperate countercharges with sword or clubbed rifle in hand, the Green in their veins making them more than a match for any Spoiled.
A swift survey of minds revealed a spot close to where the first mine had exploded which appeared to be free of Blood-blessed. Sirus immediately ordered another four battalions into the attack, aiming them at this point. They streamed across the plain, covering the distance with a speed no human could match, but that didn’t spare them the attentions of the Varestian gunners or their fleet.
The cannon on the Redoubt kept up a steady fir
e but the most damaging barrage came from the ships off shore. Shells arced down in a continuous torrent, aimed with expert precision to explode above rather than amongst the advancing Spoiled. The lead battalion was cut to pieces in the barrage, only about a fifth of them managing to press home their attack, whilst the battalions following behind fared little better. However, the sudden arrival of additional numbers at the crucial point finally told and soon Spoiled were spilling through into the flat ground beyond the trench.
A plethora of bugle calls and shouted orders ran the length of the trench, evidently the signal for the defenders to withdraw. In an obviously pre-rehearsed manoeuvre the humans abandoned the struggle and immediately sprinted towards the second line whilst the Varestian ships lowered their sights to rake the conquered trench in shell-fire. The Spoiled who had broken through on the left pelted towards the second line only to be met by a hail of fire from well-positioned repeating guns. None of them managed to get within twenty yards of the trench and Sirus ordered the survivors to withdraw to the first line.
The ship-borne fire continued, Sirus feeling the death or maiming of multiple Spoiled with every exploding shell. It petered out as the flares guttered and died, leaving the battlefield mostly in darkness save for Nelphia’s glow. Small-arms fire continued to crackle as sharpshooters in the second trench and the Redoubt trained their longrifles on the first trench, though they scored only a few hits.
A good start, don’t you think? Catheline asked.
I had hoped to take the second trench in the first assault, Sirus replied. We need to do something about those ships.
* * *
• • •
A singular paradox of being in proximity to the White was that he didn’t need to engage with the increasingly difficult task of summoning fear to mask his thoughts. Being close enough to smell the sulphurous breath of the beast, and see the awful, knowing gleam of its eyes, birthed all the terror he could ever need. As before he felt the communication between Catheline and the White rather than heard it as thought-speech. The deep lust for vengeance that had characterised its thoughts ever since the loss of the infants at the Grand Cut was still present in full force, but the intervening time had also seen a resurgence of the beast’s innate cunning.
It responded with a disconcerting rumble as Catheline communicated the essence of Sirus’s plan. Whilst it never balked at casualties amongst the Spoiled, risking the lives of so many drakes was another matter. Smoke streamed from the White’s nostrils as it turned about, pacing back and forth. It had established itself on the summit of a hill-top, the only high ground to be found on the plain. It offered an uninterrupted view of the fortified isthmus a mile away where its quarry waited. The two surviving infants were at work close by on one of their bone towers, squawking in apparent contentment as they fused the remains together with regurgitated bile. Sirus assumed the bones had been supplied by the other drakes, fruits of their labour at the Jet Sands.
Necessity, Catheline emoted, receiving a pulse of angry reluctance in response as the White turned its baleful gaze on them, Sirus noting the small sparks amidst the smoke rising from his nostrils.
He had never before sought to intervene in a communication between Catheline and the White, but did so now. Summoning all the memories he could of Lizanne Lethridge, he entwined them with the image of the dead infant Whites, condensing it all into a dark ball of sensation before offering it to Catheline.
Revenge, she thought, accepting Sirus’s gift, breaking the ball of memory apart so it expanded in the White’s mind. For the briefest moment Sirus was able to share the link between them, experiencing it as an image of a dark roiling sea of fire shot through with veins of light. Wherever the light touched the fire the flames calmed, became placid, taking on a semblance of order.
That’s what he needs her for, he realised. She calms the storm of his mind, allowing true intelligence to blossom.
The White gave a grunt of annoyance at the intrusion and Sirus found himself shut out. The jarring sense of disconnection was accompanied by a bolt of punishing agony that sent him to his knees, teeth clenched. The pain lingered for a time, preventing him from following the rest of the communication. When it faded he felt Catheline’s hands on his face, fingers wiping the pain-induced tears from his scaled skin. She smiled and pressed a kiss to his forehead, speaking softly, “He said yes.”
CHAPTER 48
Hilemore
“Land in sight, sir. Dead ahead.”
“Thank you, Mr. Talmant. Tell the Chief to take the Blood-burner off-line and signal the Endeavour to follow suit.”
“Aye, sir.”
Hilemore went outside and trained his glass to westward, making out the misted slopes of an island cresting the horizon. If his calculations were correct this was the most easterly islet of the Sabiras chain. Navigating the channel through the islands to the Red Tides was not a task that could be performed at speed, necessitating another delay. The storm that had swept across their path three days before had been mild by the standards of the Orethic but the seas it produced were sufficiently steep to force a reduction in speed. Since then Hilemore found his mood veering between frustration at the lack of progress and a small, barely acknowledged kernel of relief he knew stemmed from the battle off the Green Cape.
Steelfine insisted on recording the engagement as a victory in the ship’s log, one the rest of the crew seemed to consider the equal of anything won by Hilemore’s grandfather. He knew differently. No admiral who loses his fleet can be counted a victor of anything. If the Superior didn’t reach Gadara’s Redoubt in time for Clay to attempt his plan, a plan Hilemore still didn’t fully understand, he might well consider it a reprieve rather than a failure. He had already studied the charts of the northern Orethic in preparation for a voyage to Sanorah, where he felt sure Free Woman Tythencroft would offer refuge to the valiant crew of the Superior.
And then what? he asked himself. Sit and wait for the White’s army to appear, however long it takes, all the time knowing yourself to be a miserable coward.
He closed his spy-glass with a hard snap and returned to the bridgehouse. “Ever sail the Red Tides, Mr. Scrimshine?” he enquired of the helmsman.
“A few times, Skipper.” The former smuggler gave a small, wary smile. “Didn’t find it the friendliest place, truth be told. Varestians love to steal but hate to be stolen from. Kind’ve hypocritical of them, if you ask me.”
“Indeed so. I’ll trust you to choose the best approach to the channel. I require a swift but safe navigation to the Red Tides. Mr. Talmant, ask Chief Bozware to join me in the hold. You have the bridge.”
* * *
• • •
“Don’t seem big enough to do much damage,” Clay said, squinting at the apple-sized object the chief placed on the work-bench.
“Got enough of a charge to kill a drake of any size,” Bozware replied, his oily brows forming a piqued frown. “Gun-cotton laced with lamp oil around a core of black powder. Made the casing deliberately brittle so’s it’ll shatter into sharp pieces when it goes off. Jagged iron’ll cut through anything if it’s travelling fast enough.”
“What are these?” Kriz asked, extending a finger to one of the blunt spikes protruding from the device’s casing.
“Contact points,” the chief said. “Got the notion from those mines the captain had us make. Sets it off the instant they touch anything. Don’t worry, missy,” he added as Kriz swiftly withdrew her finger, “won’t do nothing until you arm it.” He pointed to a metal ring in the top of the device. “Yank this out before you throw the bomb, just make sure anything you chuck it at is at least twenty yards off.”
“Excellent,” Lieutenant Sigoral said, giving the chief a nod of respectful approval. “It’s certainly preferable to trying to get a bead on a drake’s head in the midst of a battle.”
“Long as you’ve got Black in your veins,” Clay said. “
Don’t relish the prospect of throwing one of these by hand.”
“We only had sufficient materials to construct forty in total,” Hilemore said, addressing himself to Clay. “How many do you think you’ll need?”
“Hard to say. I’ll take ten, I guess. You can share the rest out amongst the others.”
“Very well. We’ll relight the blood-burner upon clearing the Sabiras Islands, which means we should reach our objective shortly after first light tomorrow. I suggest you get what rest you can in the meantime.” Hilemore watched them leave, all but Jillett whose gaze lingered on the grenade, face even paler than usual.
“I’ll require you to remain in the engine room,” he told her. “Your job is to fire the blood-burner.”
“Guess you weren’t impressed, huh?” she said with a faint grin. “By my fighting skills, I mean. Can’t say I blame you.”
“You fought bravely and well. What happened at Stockcombe was not your fault.”
She moved her slim shoulders in a shrug. “They were a bunch’ve rotten bastards, y’know. The Wash Lane Bully Boys was their real name before the revolt. When I was little, my ma used to give me a fresh piece of fruit every day to take to school. An apple usually, even an orange sometimes, though it must’ve cost her plenty. And every day those Wash Lane fuckers’d corner me and steal it, till I realised what I was. Scrounged up enough scrip to buy just a smidge of Black.” Her grin broadened. “They didn’t steal from me after that.”
