Peacemaker

by Lindsay Buroker

  Another door opened, this one behind her. Kali spun, weapon at the ready. This time, she recognized the huge man who ducked to poke his head into the corridor. Sparwood. His beard and hair stuck out in all directions, and a knife in his hand dripped blood. His button-down shirt was open, showing black mats of chest hair as tangled as the snarled locks on his head.

  Like a bear, Kali thought. An animal. Not a human being.

  She held her finger on the trigger, but didn’t pull it yet, not when he might easily duck back inside for cover. He smirked, eyes gleaming as he watched her. There was no fear in them. The cotton-for-brains lummox didn’t even look at her weapon.

  He stepped into the corridor and raised his free hand, beckoning her with his fingers. He held the knife loosely in the other, like he didn’t think he’d need it. If her weapon failed her, he wouldn’t. But, no, she couldn’t think like that. It had worked before; it would work again.

  As if in response to her thoughts, the converted shotgun hummed in her hands. In the back of her mind, she acknowledged that that was strange—she hadn’t pulled the trigger to turn the weapon on yet—but she had to stay focused on Sparwood.

  Kali walked closer, slowly, steadily. A soft sob came from within the beast’s quarters, but she didn’t let herself feel any relief at hearing the girl alive. She might well be beyond help at this point. Kali forced herself not to think, not to feel anything.

  Then the bear leaped for her, his massive bulk filling the entire corridor. Kali pulled the trigger, even as she realized there’d be no evading him. He’d crash into her anyway.

  Flames burst forth, a massive inferno that lit the corridor like a sun. She didn’t aim for his chest, but for his prick. Even if he survived the burns—and she hoped he didn’t—she’d make sure he didn’t rape anyone else again.

  The fire flowed into him, engulfing him, wrapping about him and bathing him fully. He didn’t scream, but he roared, all pain and rage.

  Though Kali had thought to stand her ground, to brace herself for his weight tumbling into her, she found herself backpedaling as his huge form filled her vision. She wasn’t fast enough, and he slammed into her legs, sending her tumbling backward. She hit the deck hard, the shotgun flying from her grip. The flames winked out, and Sparwood was on top of her.

  His roar filled her ears. He thrashed about, and she thought he was grabbing her, that his knife would come in and eviscerate her any second, but he had dropped the blade. He was clutching at himself, at horrible burns that had seared through flesh and muscle, all the way to the bone. He found his feet and jumped off of Kali to pound up the stairs, yelling strangled cries for water.

  A shot fired on the deck above, and Kali cursed. She doubted she could hope that was one of the pirates, accidentally shooting at their own comrade. She’d probably have men pouring down the stairs in a second.

  Trying to ignore the sick stench of charred flesh, Kali grabbed her weapon and charged into Sparwood’s vacated cabin. Her first thought was to find the girl and get out of there, but footsteps thundered on the deck above. Kali shut the door quickly. The tiny cabin seemed a pathetic place to make a stand, but she couldn’t take the time to open the rest of the doors in the corridor to see if any hid better spots, and she wasn’t about to go back down into the boiler room, where she’d left the angry, wounded pirates.

  The cabin was dim, lit only by a single candle in a storm glass lamp, and it took Kali a moment to pick out the figure huddled in the corner. She was naked, clothes torn off and dumped in a pile. Blood darkened the floor around her, and Kali held her breath, afraid to approach. What if…. What if she was too late?

  She couldn’t help but feel she owed this girl a debt, if only for being a distraction for Sparwood. Otherwise, it might have been Kali in there. She never could have fought off Sparwood one on one, and she wouldn’t have had time to make her weapon.

  A sob escaped the woman, and Kali released her breath. Still alive.

  “He’s gone,” she said, wishing she had something more comforting to say, but there wasn’t time for anything but the practical. “Can you stand? We’re going to have to run if we’re going to have a chance of escaping.” Though Kali hadn’t quite figured out how to make that happen yet.

  The girl didn’t respond. Kali flexed her fingers, wondering if she should creep forward and touch her on the shoulder or leave her alone. Being touched might send her over the edge. Kali looked around the cabin for inspiration, but the place only made her stomach churn.

  Different colored patches of hair were nailed to the walls. Clumps cut free from the man’s victims? Mounted above them, a strange glove with long brass claws gleamed in the candlelight—the tool he’d used to make people think an animal had killed the women.

  “Deranged beast,” Kali muttered.

  Shouts came from above decks. Sparwood rousing his comrades to fight? Kali was surprised men hadn’t rushed down the stairs already. Her dream of commandeering the ship seemed destined to fail unless something up there was distracting the pirates. Maybe that was why they hadn’t charged down yet. Hope started to sprout, hope that Cedar might be up there, but she squashed it. Because she’d run off without telling him her destination, he wouldn’t know where she was, and, even if he did know, the airship was likely flying high enough that nobody could board it. No, she’d be better off finding some rope, sneaking up to a railing on the main deck, or maybe into that cargo area with the trapdoor—wherever that was. Of course, she didn’t know if her new ally was in a condition to hold onto a rope and climb down what might be dozens of feet or more.

  Kali cursed again, wishing she had a better idea.

  Though she didn’t lift her head, the girl stirred at Kali’s cursing. Strange. It had been in Hän, not English. Was it possible she understood? Kali didn’t think any of the dancers were from her mother’s tribe, but the northern languages did have a lot of similarities.

  “Do you understand me?” she asked in Hän. “I’m…Kali. Tsul Gäh,” she corrected, using the name her mother had given her.

  Finally the girl looked up. And stared. “Tsul Gäh?”

  Kali almost stumbled. Though blood smeared the side of the girl’s face, and her lip and cheek were swollen, Kali recognized her, not just as a Hän, but as someone from the tribe she had grown up in. Kéitlyudee, the name came to her, a girl that had been a couple of years older than she. They hadn’t been friends, exactly, but Kéitlyudee hadn’t been cruel either. She surely didn’t deserve this fate. She—

  The cabin door slammed open.

  Kali jumped, whirling in the air to land with her flame weapon pointing at the man in the corridor. Cedar.

  “What’re you…” Kali started, but stopped and grinned. She couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten up there—she wasn’t even sure where the ship was in relation to the city and the saloon any more—but she was relieved to see him.

  “I’m here to rescue you,” Cedar said, raising an eyebrow at her modified shotgun. “Though it seems that, as usual, you don’t need my help.”

  Kali didn’t know about that—she had locked herself in a tiny room with no escape after all—but Cedar’s attention shifted before she could think of a good response. His eyes grew grim, his face somber, as he looked around the cabin. He noticed the girl, who was still huddled in the corner. She had buried her head in her arms and wasn’t moving.

  Cedar winced. “Is she…?”

  “She’s alive,” Kali said.

  Shouts and heavy footfalls sounded from the direction of the stairs. Cedar lunged into the cabin and spun to lean back out into the corridor, a six-shooter in his hand. Kali skittered back. In his other hand, Cedar gripped his sword, and rivulets of blood ran down the long blade to drip on the wooden floorboards.

  “Problem?” Kali asked.

  Cedar fired the revolver twice. A salvo of return gunshots thundered through the corridor. He ducked back into the cabin a split second before a bullet hammered into the doorjamb, sending shards of w
ood flying.

  He slammed the door shut. “I thought shooting that giant burned man and decapitating a couple of others would make them pause. Not long enough it seems.”

  “You killed Sparwood?” Kali asked.

  “Is that who that was? I wondered. Yes, shot him square between the eyes.”

  “Good,” Kali said grimly.

  Cedar took a closer look at the modified shotgun in her hands. “Are you the one who…”

  Kali swallowed and forced herself to nod and acknowledge her actions. Admittedly, she didn’t feel that bad about causing Sparwood such pain. The other pirate…. She hoped he had committed heinous crimes of his own, so there might be some justification for torching him. Her insides still twisted at the memory of that flesh, seared and melted like candle wax.

  “Good work,” Cedar said.

  Kali winced, not wanting praise for mutilating people, but Cedar had turned toward the corridor and didn’t see her face. He yanked the door open, leaned out for a heartbeat, fired twice, and ducked back inside. A scream and a string of curses bombarded the corridor. Return fire came, but too late. Cedar was already back inside, though he left the door open this time. He fished bullets out of his ammo pouch and reloaded the six-shooter.

  “They’re on the stairs,” he whispered. “I think I can hold them at bay, but only if there’s not another way down here and they can’t come at us from both sides.”

  At that moment, clangs came from the hatch in the corridor floor. Eyes wide, Cedar started to lean out, but Kali caught him before he could risk his head.

  “After I escaped from the boiler room, I left a couple of men down there,” Kali said, “but the hatch is locked. I don’t think they’ll be breaking out any time soon.”

  “Ah. Excellent.” Cedar grinned and grabbed her for a one-armed hug made awkward by the weapons in his hands. He planted a kiss on her temple, surprising her, mostly because that was the last thing on her mind, but he had an adventurous gleam in his eye again, like he was having a good time. Crazy man.

  “There’s a pirate in his cabin a couple of doors down though. I convinced him to go back inside—” Kali twitched her flame weapon, “—but he might decide to check on things at some point. I suppose there could be others cowering too.”

  “Understood.”

  In the corner of the cabin, Kéitlyudee stirred, peeking over her shoulder to look at them. Cedar lifted his hand, as if to tip his hat, but seemed to remember he had a sword in it. He lowered his arm and simply said, “Ma’am.”

  The girl shrank back into herself. Kali couldn’t imagine that she’d want anything to do with a man for a long time. “That’s Kéitlyudee. She’s Hän. I want to drop her off at Moosehide after we take over the ship.” Kali glanced at the girl, but she had her head buried again. “I reckon her kin will take best care of her.”

  “Take over the ship?” Cedar asked. “When did that become the plan?”

  “Recently. I was thinking I’d just grab her, and we’d escape, but then the reinforcements burst in.”

  Cedar’s eyebrows rose. “Should the word reinforcements be plural when there’s just the one of me?”

  “There’s you, the six-shooter, and the sword,” Kali said. “If you and your team of weapons there managed to cut off the captain’s pants, then taking over the ship should be a simple matter.”

  “I see. What do you need me to do?”

  Something in the corridor drew Cedar’s attention, and he went down on one knee and leaned out to shoot twice. The return fire came instantaneously, but it pounded into the jamb where his head had been the first time. He’d thrown them off by firing from a lower position, and he withdrew before they could hit him.

  Gasps of pain followed the gunshots along with the sound of someone tumbling down the stairs.

  “Is there any chance I can get to navigation without being shot?” Kali said.

  “It’s out in the open, in a little room with windows on all sides.” Cedar leaned out and fired again.

  “Oh, so even if I could get inside up there, I’d be target practice for pirates on account of all the windows.”

  “Essentially.”

  Kali drummed her fingers on the barrel of her weapon. If not navigation, maybe she could take control from the engine room. If she could manually control those fans, the pirates would be at her whim. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to see where they were going, but—

  “Can you do anything from that machine closet at the end of the hall?” Cedar asked.

  “The what?”

  He waved toward the corridor, at the end opposite from the stairs. “I took a wrong turn during my previous visit and ended up in there. Had to fight my way out. There were a bunch of pipes and controls.”

  “What’d they say?” Kali asked.

  “There was a passel of people shooting at me. Perusing the wall literature wasn’t foremost in my mind.” Cedar leaned back out, pistol at the ready, to check on the situation.

  Kali chewed on her lip. Pipes leading from the bowels of the ship to somewhere up above. Could they be hydrogen and pressurized air lines that fed the balloon? If so, she might be able to force the ship to land.

  “He’s just one man,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. “If you don’t get your blighted asses down there to shoot him, I’ll have you walk the plank on top of Mountie Headquarters.”

  “He’s got a gun,” a dissenter cried.

  “You’ve all got guns. He’ll run out of ammo eventually.”

  “I have plenty of ammunition,” Cedar called back. “I came prepared. Show your heads down here only if you want them blown off.”

  He ducked back inside before the answering shots were fired.

  “Are we still above the city?” Kali asked.

  “Yes, above the Trapline Hotel when I came up. I ran into Lockhart and almost didn’t make it. I was busy looking for you, and he caught me by surprise.” Cedar gave her a significant stare, and Kali lifted a hand in apology.

  “Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have gone off without telling you, but I was hoping I could explain things to Lockhart and that he’d realize you weren’t responsible for those murders.”

  “Yes, and how’d that go?” Cedar asked sarcastically.

  “Poorly. He waved his gun at me and told me only your death would bring peace to those who were murdered.”

  Guns fired, though they sounded far away. Down below them somewhere. Cedar cocked his head but dismissed the noise. It filled Kali with hope. Maybe Mounties were even now trying to figure out a way to eliminate the pirates. If she could bring the craft down, there might be an armed force waiting to take on the criminals that had been plaguing the claims along the Yukon River. Of course, landing in the city would be a problem, especially if she was steering from a closet. The citizens might not be happy with her if she crashed the ship into one of the popular saloons.

  “Wait until you see what’s in the closet before making plans,” Kali told herself.

  “What?” Cedar asked. He was checking the corridor again.

  “Nothing. Just thinking. How’d you get from the hotel onto the ship?” Kali didn’t see any special climbing gear on Cedar.

  “After I evaded Lockhart, I circled back to the saloon, grilled some of the patrons, learned about the kidnapping and that you’d been there. I saw the ship and had a hunch you’d be up here too. I made a grappling hook, ran across the rooftops until I could get close enough, threw it over the railing, and climbed up.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work. I appreciate you coming.”

  “I figured you could use me for…. What’s the plan again?” Cedar pressed his ear to the door. “They’re being quiet. That can’t be good.”

  “I’d like to check that closet you mentioned, see if I can give the pirates some trouble to deal with. Can you distract them long enough for me to run to the end of the corridor and shut myself in?”

  Cedar frowned at her. “That door won’t stop bullets. I don’t w
ant you running for it if they’re still shooting in this direction.” He thunked the tip of his sword onto the floorboards thoughtfully. “Though if you had some of your smoke nuts or some such, I reckon I could charge on up there and keep them from looking down here for a while.”

  Kali deposited her lone smoke nut in his hand, then handed him her flame weapon. “I expect you can make a lot of smoke with that. Just don’t burn anything important. I still aim to claim this ship for my own.”

  Cedar frowned. “As much as I’d be tickled to put your latest invention to use, I don’t want to leave you without a weapon.”

  There wasn’t time to go into why she didn’t particularly want to use the deadly flame-maker again herself, so she simply said, “I’m sure we can find something here.” Kali gave him a quick demonstration on how to use the weapon. Between it, the sword, and the blood spattering his clothing, he would look like some hell-spawned demon bursting into that group of pirates. If they were smart, they’d jump overboard while they could.

  A concerned furrow crinkled Cedar’s brow, but Kali gave him a firm it’s-settled wave, then pulled open a sea chest and threw out clothing that stank of sweat and blood. She shoved candles and matches out of the way and, at the bottom, found a pair of six-shooters and ammunition. She stuffed one revolver into her overalls and held the other out. “Kéitlyudee, can you shoot?”

  The girl lifted her head and stared at the weapon without answering.

  “Look,” Kali said, switching to Hän, “if we don’t get out of here, you’re going to suffer more torment at the hands of these pirates. We all will. I need your help.”

  Kéitlyudee closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stood up. She turned her back to Cedar and wrapped her arms around herself. “I understand,” she whispered, also in Hän, though she surely had to understand English if she’d been on the road with that dancing troupe.

  Kali gave her the gun.

  “I need…” With a shaking hand, Kéitlyudee waved to encompass her naked state.

  Kali looked away from the welts and blood. Seeing what Sparwood had done made her want to fry him again. “Lots of clothes to pick from.” She kicked the heap of shirts on the floor.