Duty Bound

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Are those… explosives?” Jev turned a slow circle, taking in the cables linking devices affixed to the sides of the boilers. “Because they look a lot more complicated than kegs of black powder.”

  The strange pulsing noise was louder in here than it had been anywhere else. It seemed to originate with the devices themselves.

  “Are they magical?” Zenia asked, the question as much for her dragon tear as for the others.

  It emanated a sense of uncertainty, something she’d rarely felt from it.

  Jev looked at Lornysh.

  “I sense magic,” Lornysh said, “but I can’t tell if it comes from the devices themselves or if it is a protection that was placed to enshroud them.”

  “I think those are mundane explosives,” Cutter said. “Dwarven explosives. We have sophisticated ways to blow big holes in mountains to open up new areas for mining, and those look like ones I’ve seen before. These slag-faced trolls were shopping in everybody’s stores before coming out here. Or stealing from stores, more like.”

  “Blowing holes in mountains?” Jev asked. “What about in ships?”

  Zenia stared at him, imagining the devices igniting while they all stood there within the bowels of the steamship.

  “I’m a gem cutter, not a miner, but yes, I think there’s enough explosive power there to take out the ship and maybe every other ship in the harbor. Maybe a few city blocks. I don’t know. The boilers blowing up in addition is going to amplify the power of the explosives. And I agree with Lornysh. I sense some magic, maybe protecting them from meddlers.”

  Jev cursed. “City blocks? Do you know how to disarm them? If we can nullify the magic somehow?” He looked bleakly at Zenia—no, at her dragon tear.

  She didn’t share with him the uncertainty she felt from it.

  Cutter limped toward one of the devices, but he was shaking his head, his expression bleaker than death. “I don’t think so, Jev. This isn’t anything I ever studied. I can tell you that if we try to simply remove them without knowing what we’re doing, we may set them off prematurely.”

  “How long do we have until they go off maturely?” Jev demanded.

  “I think…” Cutter lifted the lid on the side of one of the devices, and Zenia gulped. After what he’d said, she couldn’t imagine even touching them was a good idea. “Twenty minutes.”

  Jev thumped his fist against his thigh. “We’ve got to get this ship away from the pier. And—four founders—we’ve got to get all the dwarves that are sleeping off it.” He spun toward Lornysh and Zenia. “You two, figure out a way to get the dwarves out of here. Wake them up, lift them, throw them over the side, I don’t care. I just want everyone off this ship. Now.”

  Jev had never presumed to give Zenia an order before, but she didn’t object. She ran out with Lornysh, hoping she could use her dragon tear to wake the dwarves. Maybe one of the crew would know how to disarm the devices.

  With a surge of regret, she realized they shouldn’t have killed all the trolls. They should have kept them alive to question, or to force them to disarm what they had armed. But it might not have mattered. The two trolls who’d likely set this all up had been dead before her team arrived.

  As Zenia followed Lornysh into the stairwell, she heard Jev tell Cutter, “Show me to navigation. We’ve got to get this ship out of the harbor.”

  19

  Jev followed Cutter through the passageways and up several stairwells, wanting to pick him up and carry him. Cutter was moving admirably quickly, given the extent of his injuries, but not quickly enough with that clock counting down.

  They never did come out on the upper deck. Cutter led him to the bow of the ship, into a large navigation room with huge glass windows looking out over the waterfront and Korvann. Jev scowled at the reminder of just how close they were to the city.

  A panel under the windows held a wheel not dissimilar to those for steering kingdom ships, but that was where the similarities ended. A confusing array of levers and switches stretched out to either side of it. Some of them even glowed yellow or blue. With magic? It had to be.

  Three dwarves lay sleeping on the metal deck under the control panel.

  “Cutter, you know how to steer this thing?” Jev stared at the panel. Was there a reverse lever? The ship would have to go backward to leave the dock. He couldn’t imagine turning the bulky thing around otherwise.

  “Sorry, Jev. I spent most of my life underground. I’ve been a passenger on one of these ships once, but that’s it.”

  Jev stepped over one of the dwarves and up to the panel. If he could get the ship backed out and turned toward open water, maybe he could find something to tie the wheel in place to keep it on course. Then he could run up on deck and help the others get the dwarves off. Were there lifeboats somewhere? He hoped so.

  When he touched the wheel’s cool bronze rim, a dome embedded in the center flared to life, and a yellow glow illuminated the switches and levers to either side. Startled, Jev jumped back. The glow disappeared.

  “I was afraid of that.” Cutter limped up beside him.

  “What?”

  “I think the ship requires someone to be manning the helm in order to move.”

  “Why would that be required?”

  Cutter shrugged. “So someone won’t be tempted to leave it steaming forward without supervision. This was a huge investment for my people. You wouldn’t want it smashing into rocks or icebergs.”

  “But you’d want it blowing up because some saboteurs rigged the boiler room to explode?”

  “No, that wouldn’t be ideal either.”

  Jev threw him an exasperated look as he gripped the wheel again. “Why didn’t your people take measures to ensure that wouldn’t happen?”

  The wheel flared to life again, highlighting Cutter’s weary face, his eyes tight with pain, and Jev regretted yelling at him. “I’m sorry. I’ll figure it out. I’ll get the ship backed out of here and away from the city. Go find Zenia and Lornysh, will you? Help them get everyone woken up and off the ship.”

  How they were going to do that in what had to be down to fifteen minutes, Jev had no idea. Judging by the way Cutter shook his head, he didn’t either. But he bent and grabbed one of the dwarves on the deck, gasping in pain as he pulled the unconscious female toward the exit.

  Jev hunted on the panel for the engine controls, glad he could at least read the Preskabroton labels. He tried not to think about how crazy this was, about how they wouldn’t have enough time.

  “There’s Grindmor,” Lornysh said as soon as he and Zenia reached the open upper deck, the salty night air a contrast to the hot, stuffy passageways below. “And a lot of other dwarves.”

  “Still sleeping.” Zenia cursed and ran to the familiar bearded form surrounded by a couple dozen other dwarves, all crumpled where they’d fallen unconscious. She spotted others up and down the deck but not anywhere near the five hundred that were supposed to be aboard. “Any idea how to wake them? Or how we get them all out before…” Zenia tugged at her ponytail. Had she been right to follow Jev’s order without questioning it? Was it possible the explosives could be disabled somehow? What if—

  “Use the dragon tear,” Lornysh said.

  “How?”

  “Find everyone living on this ship and levitate them down to the docks.” He gazed at her intently and expectantly, as if that wasn’t the most ridiculous thing Zenia had heard that week.

  “Levitate? Like float? Is that possible?”

  “A dragon could do it.”

  “I’m not a dragon.”

  “That is.” Lornysh stabbed a finger at her glowing gem, then ran to pick up Master Grindmor. “At the least, it’s linked to one and drawing upon its power.”

  “I don’t understand how that could be pos—”

  “If you can’t get them off that way, I’m going to start throwing dwarves overboard and hope the cold water wakes them up before they drown.”

  He shook Grindmor, but she didn’t stir. A
nearby dwarf only snored like a foghorn when Lornysh shoved him toward the railing.

  Zenia was skeptical that her dragon tear could lift people—or dwarves—but it had done many things she wouldn’t have guessed it could. She concentrated on Grindmor, imagining her rising off the deck, over the railing, and gently down to the pier below.

  A chipper image popped into Zenia’s head of the world from above. Far above. For a dizzying moment, she felt as if she were looking down at the land from a mountaintop. A moving mountaintop. Trees and bushes and trails passed below, and even cattle came into view for a moment. It was like she was a bird. Or… a dragon?

  She fought down the dizziness and urged the dragon tear to focus on the dwarves. But Grindmor was already hovering off the deck. As Zenia watched—gaped—the dwarf master floated over the railing.

  Terrified Grindmor would fall, Zenia focused on keeping her concentration and willing her to safety. She ran to the railing to keep her target in sight. Grindmor, arms and legs dangling limply, floated downward and landed on the pier near the boat.

  Zenia spotted someone sitting up near the boardwalk, one of the unconscious sailors they’d passed on the way out to the ship. Four founders, she hoped that meant everyone would wake soon. She spun back toward the deck. Hundreds more dwarves needed to be floated off the ship.

  Her dragon tear vibrated with power and warmed in her hand. All the dwarves in sight on the deck were lifted into the air. Zenia willed them over the railing, in awe that it was working, and that Targyon had given her something so powerful. He couldn’t possibly have known.

  “Worry about that later,” she whispered to herself.

  She caught Lornysh staring at her as the dwarves floated down to the pier, landing near Grindmor. His eyes were narrowed, his face hard to read, but he was definitely studying her. Or the dragon tear. Or both.

  One dwarf stirred as he landed on the pier, lifting his head and looking around in confusion.

  “They’re waking up,” she called to Lornysh, hoping to distract him from scrutinizing her. He was the one who’d asked her to do this.

  “Good.” Lornysh looked toward the hatchway they’d come out of earlier.

  Cutter was backing out, dragging an unconscious dwarf by the armpits. Lornysh ran to help him with the load. Zenia, aware of the minutes ticking past, focused on getting the rest of the dwarves off the deck. How she would find all the ones below and get them off in time, she didn’t know.

  She also didn’t know if simply laying the dwarves on the pier down there would keep them safe. If Jev couldn’t figure out how to move the ship—

  A thrum went through the deck, startling her. The group of dwarves that had been floating toward the railing faltered. She swallowed and concentrated, reminded that the power came from the dragon tear, but she was directing it.

  “Jev’s got the propellers going,” Cutter yelled. “Zenia, can you snap the ropes tying the ship to the pier?”

  Zenia lifted a hand to acknowledge the request, but she had to get her batch of dwarves to safety first. They floated downward with a few waking and lifting their heads while en route. A startled cry came from one airborne dwarf, and Zenia’s concentration faltered again. The group of them plunged several feet before she regained her focus.

  She swore and gripped the railing with one hand, the other tightening around her dragon tear. The heat emanating from it had grown so intense it almost burned her palm.

  The dwarves landed safely, a couple of them springing to their feet and looking in all directions.

  “Run to safety,” she yelled down to them, assuming they would have no idea what was going on. “Into the city!”

  She didn’t know if they heard her way down there. She shifted her focus to the two thick ropes attaching the steamship to the pier cleats.

  “I know you can do fire,” she whispered, envisioning flames licking at the ropes.

  The dragon tear once again responded with a sensation of enthusiasm. Flames appeared on both ropes, burning them to ash within seconds.

  Zenia turned away from the railing to look for more dwarves to float away, but weakness stole over her, and her knees almost buckled. She lurched back and grabbed the railing again for support. Her role was minimal, but drawing upon the dragon tear and channeling its power affected her. Could she possibly get all the dwarves off the ship in time? How many minutes were left?

  The deck thrummed again, and a shout came from below. Zenia peered over the railing in time to see two dwarves running down the gangplank. They waved their arms and shouted, pointing back at the ship. Did they know about the explosives? If enough of them woke up, would someone know how to disarm them?

  A hand gripped her arm. Lornysh.

  “Come. Cutter said most of the remaining dwarves are in a big passenger area down by the gangplank. We just missed them when we came in. He thinks they were being queued up to disembark when the trolls arrived with the artifacts—and Master Grindmor.”

  He was running as he shared this, and Zenia had to force her wobbly legs to run after him. If most of the dwarves were in one place, maybe she could get them off, even if they didn’t wake up in time. She still felt there ought to be a way to defeat the explosives down there, to keep the ship from blowing up, but she had to focus on this.

  Another thrum rumbled through the vessel, and it lurched slightly.

  “Wait, we have to stop and tell Jev to hold on, not to move the ship yet, or all those dwarves—”

  “He can’t wait, or he risks your harbor and part of your city being destroyed in the explosion. Come. You’ll have to fling the dwarves into the water if the ship moves from the pier.”

  Though Zenia wanted to disobey, she raced down the stairs after him. There were too many lives at stake to do anything else.

  Steering the ship from so high above the water was a mind-boggling experience.

  Jev had never even sailed a normal kingdom steamship. Fortunately, nothing but open water lay behind the dwarven vessel, and he’d found the reverse lever. The ship was rumbling slowly away from the pier. As soon as he cleared it, he would turn the engines to full power. With luck, his friends were getting all the dwarves into lifeboats, and there would be a spot left for him. If he could get the ship a mile or two out to sea, that ought to be far enough to ensure the explosion wouldn’t affect the harbor.

  A shadow stirred in the corner of Jev’s eye. He spun away from the control panel as a troll lunged at him, a dagger in hand.

  Jev ducked and flung himself out of the way, rolling across the hard deck as the glow from the wheel winked out. He rammed against one of the sleeping dwarves, eliciting a groan.

  Hoping they would wake up and help him, Jev jumped up and yanked his pistol out of his holster. The troll had already turned, and it lunged at him again, catching his wrist before he could aim the weapon. Long, powerful fingers tightened, and pain flashed up Jev’s arm.

  He snarled, refusing to release his pistol. The troll raised his dagger with his other hand. Jev kneed him in the groin and lunged forward, catching his foe’s wrist. The knee barely had any effect. The troll only growled and squeezed harder, trying to twist Jev’s pistol from his grip.

  Jev glimpsed a clock on the wall, and his heart almost stopped when he saw how few minutes were left. Where had the cursed time gone? He couldn’t spare even a minute for this.

  He pushed with all his might, using his legs as well as his arms, and ducked his chin before ramming his head into his adversary. The troll tried to dodge, but Jev caught him under the chin. The grip on his wrist lessened, and Jev yanked his hand away. Fingernails like claws raked down his arm.

  Jev kicked out, trying to push his foe back so he could aim and shoot. But his foot caught on the sleeping dwarf, and he stumbled. The troll sprang for him.

  Once again, Jev flung himself to the side, twisting in the air and firing. It was a wild shot, but he caught the troll in the shoulder. A yowl of pain came from those blue lips.

  Thou
gh Jev hit the deck hard, he turned the fall into a roll again and came up several feet away, his back to a wall. His attacker had to be in pain, but he lunged after Jev. This time, Jev took a split second to aim. His bullet slammed into the troll’s cheek.

  The troll’s momentum kept him coming. Jev scooted aside, but not fast enough. The troll clipped his shoulder as he hit the wall. Jev snarled and shoved him away, ready to shoot again. But his enemy pitched to the deck and didn’t move again.

  Jev leaped over him, wincing as he glanced at the clock, and returned to the wheel. The yellow glow flared, and the propeller started again. As Cutter had warned him, the ship had halted as soon as he let go of the wheel. Its momentum had been negligible, and it hadn’t yet cleared the pier.

  Jev pushed levers, hoping the labels were as simple and direct as they seemed. They needed to move faster. If he broke the pier in his attempt to depart swiftly, he would pay Targyon for it later.

  Footsteps rang on the deck outside the navigation room. Now what?

  Careful to keep his hand on the wheel, Jev pointed his pistol at the hatchway.

  Zenia and Lornysh raced inside, and he jerked his weapon down.

  “We’ve got all the dwarves off the ship,” Zenia panted, sweat streaming down her face. “Except these. Lornysh?”

  “On it.” Lornysh waved at someone in the passageway outside. “Cutter, three more.”

  Zenia leaned forward, gripping her knees with her hands, and Jev wanted to grab her and offer her support, but she wasn’t close enough. He couldn’t risk taking his hand from the wheel for even a second. Not when there were only— He glanced at the clock.

  “Four minutes left,” he said. “Get out of here. All of you.”

  They had finally cleared the pier. Jev pushed the lever to full speed. But the surge of power he expected didn’t come. The ship barely picked up speed.