Chasing the Lantern (18 page)

Silence. She felt Fengel beneath her, and dimly spied the shape of his hat crushed against the net. "Improvise," he replied after a moment. "Look for a winch, perhaps."

Lina nodded. She tucked the sheath into her shirt and parted the hole in the net. Taking a breath, she pushed herself through to her waist and twisted to grab at the upper part of the mesh. Slowly, carefully, she pulled herself out to half-stand on her fellows. The whole thing swayed. Lina cursed and closed her eyes, fighting off the vertigo and the sudden awareness that nothing, nothing at all, would keep her from falling.

Below, pirates swore. Sarah Lome loudly retched, Oscar Pleasant complaining immediately. By feel, Lina pulled herself up to where the net hung from the rope. She opened her eyes and stared up that rope, rising into darkness, the hull of the
Copper Queen
even blacker than the night sky above. Lina couldn't tell how far down they dangled, how far she had to climb.
Oh well. Sink or swim.

"Here I go," she said to those below.

Lina started her climb, pushing off from the mesh of the net, grabbing higher with her other hand. Bit by bit she pulled herself up. When the mesh ran out she took the brunt of her weight with her arms, grunting at the strain, while she wrapped her thighs around the rope. Stretching, she grabbed a higher span and pulled up before clamping with her legs again in a jerking inchworm ascension.

The rope spun, a trick of the wind, or the momentum of those below her. The pirates groaned and cursed. Lina put them out of her mind. She climbed, until her arms burned and her legs cramped. Ten feet felt like a hundred. Twenty felt like a thousand. Lina paused for short rests, stopping more and more often.
I can't keep this up
. Cold fear settled in her stomach. She would fall, maybe bouncing off of the heavy net below before splashing down to her death in the wine-dark sea.

After an eternity, Lina reached up again and felt hard wood brush the back of her hand. Peering up, she saw the prow of the ship and let out a relieved gasp. She climbed a little further, just a little higher, until she could grab onto the gunwales. With an undignified shimmy she scrabbled over its edge and collapsed on the bow deck in exhaustion.

Panting, her limbs aching, Lina lay still and recovered from the climb. When she could breathe normally again she put a hand out to the deck and sat upright, fumbling the awkward, uncomfortable knife sheath out from her shirt. Taking a look around the deck, she decided she probably wouldn't need it.

The
Copper Queen
was a ghost ship. The forecastle deck spread out before her, widening until it dropped abruptly down to the main deck. That tier was wide and flat, a single large cargo hatch covering its center with ropes dangling onto it from the gasbag frame above. Along both the port and starboard gunwales were a row of light cannons, notches cut beneath them so that they could be aimed at targets below the ship. To the rear rose the aftcastle deck, a pair of stairs leading to the ship's helm at the top. This vessel was old, the dark wood chipped and scuffed. Equipment lay about the deck carelessly, forgotten in the excitement of the attack. Natasha obviously hadn't taken care of it in the little time she'd been aboard, not the way that either crew had cared for the
Dawnhawk.

Lina picked herself up and stretched.
Well
.
What now?

The rope that dangled her crewmates from the bow was not tied to the prow, or even up here on the bow. Instead, it stretched taut down the length of the ship, running all the way back to the aftcastle deck. There it terminated past the helm and out of her sight.

Lina turned back to the prow. She bent to inspect the rope, rubbing against the prow and the wood of the gunwales. The fibers were tough, and did not seem
too
damaged; they would hold for awhile.

She leaned over the edge. Dimly she spied the crew, still hanging, the net a bulbous outline against the sea.

"I made it up," she yelled.

"Excellent," replied Fengel. Faint, halfhearted cheers echoed him.

"I'm not sure how to get you up," shouted Lina. "There's no winch here I can see. Ship's deserted, though. I'm going to take a look around."

"Right then," Fengel called back. "See if you can find a ladder. If not, then improvise!"

A ladder
.
Right.
She turned back to the ship and made her way over to the edge of the forecastle deck. A small, steep set of steps led down to the deck. Quickly but carefully she descended.

Lina followed the rope supporting the net full of pirates down the length of the deck. Maybe there was a winch in the stern? If she could just see how it terminated, maybe she could figure something out. She certainly wasn't seeing any rolled-up rope ladder anywhere.

She climbed up to the aftcastle deck, and her heart almost fell into her stomach. The rope suspending her crewmates stretched back past the helm to the very stern rails of the ship. There it was tied in a heavy, but simple knot. Already the wood of the rails was splintered and cracked, some of the spindles dangling free. The anchor point was uncertain, and would not last. Natasha
had
meant to kill them.

Lina glanced about for some other way to anchor the rope. Nothing made itself apparent. She ran back down the stair and back up to the bow, cursing under her breath.

"Captain?" she cried, leaning over the gunwales.

"Yes?" came Fengel's reply.

"It would be a really, really good idea if you lot down there could move as little as possible."

Silence greeted her statement.

"We will endeavor not to," said Fengel at last, both in reply to Lina and as an order to the wordless crew.

Lina turned back to the ship. There had to be something she could do.
Improvise, improvise
.
Forget that. There's got to be rope ladders
somewhere
on board.
Or more ropes, at least. If she found one she could anchor it to something properly, buying more time if—when—the railing snapped free.

She descended back to the deck. Where would they keep spare rope or ladders? There weren't anything like the neat equipment lockers aboard the
Dawnhawk
. Lina cursed, stopping as she glanced at the forecastle behind her. Up above was the bow deck, but here below it was open. Once, comparing bedding arrangements with a client in her former line of work, she'd heard that sometimes sailors slept there where they could access ready gear quickly. Lina took a step toward it, when a sound caught at her ear.

It was a sob.

Lina stopped. All around her the airship creaked, groaning and complaining in its dotage. Had she misheard? No. It had been the sound of a grown man crying; she'd heard it far too often to mistake it for anything else.

She drew the loaned knife from its sheath. When she'd thought herself alone, the ship hadn't seemed at all dangerous. Ancient and rattletrap maybe, but not dangerous. Now though she knew better, and her heart raced.

The sound came again, a thick choking sob echoing from the aftcastle deck. There, the door of the captain's cabin was slightly ajar. She had not noticed it until now, too focused on the predicament at hand. Lina crept to the door, knife held at the ready, peered within.

The cabin was a mess. It smelled of old mold and alcohol. The window-hangings above the box-bed at the rear of the room were moth-eaten and pulled shut. A lone figure crouched in the far corner on the floor, a tiny nub of candle his only illumination. It was a young, red-headed man in the rumpled greatcoat of a Mechanist. Several bottles of cheap rum lay at his feet. Lina pushed her way inside. The Mechanist didn't seem to notice. Softly forward she crept until she crouched just before him.

"Who are you?" she whispered, knife held at the ready.

The Mechanist started. He leapt backwards with a yelp and banged his head on the rear timbers of the cabin. "You didn't leave me!" he cried, rubbing at his head. Freckles covered his face. "You came back for—" He looked up at Lina and blinked in confusion. "You're not Miss Blackheart," he said. "Who are you?"

"Lina Stone," she said. "Are you the ship's Mechanist? Are you alone?"

He sniffed, nodding. "They left me on board when they abandoned the
Queen
for their old ship. I tried to come with, but the first mate just kicked me down and laughed. I can't pilot this thing by myself—it's barely aloft as it is! I'm going to die here, just like the others dangling off the bow." The Mechanist covered his face with his hands, weeping again.

Lina sighed, all her wariness gone. This was an oddity, but it didn't change anything. She still had to get Fengel and the others aboard, and needed help to do that. She appraised the youth before her. He really was very young, and didn't seem worth much.
But needs must.
"Hey now," she said, voice soft. "It's going to be all right."

"What?" blubbered the Mechanist. "Wait. Where did you even come from?" His eyes widened and he shrank back. "Please don't hurt me! I didn't have anything to do with what they did!"

You could have helped after they'd left
,
rather than hiding up here and sobbing your guts out.
Lina hid her thoughts behind a smile. "I'm not going to do anything to you. But I want to get my friends up on board, and I can't do that alone." She sat demurely, working to make herself look less threatening. "Why don't you help me out, and then I'll make sure they aren't angry at you, all right? Afterward we can fly back to port, and everything'll be fine."

The Mechanist looked at her like a deer about to bolt. He sniffed, and Lina couldn't help but stare at the bubble of snot that shrank from one nostril. She kept her smile small and placid though, and eventually the young man nodded.

"There," she said. "Not so hard, eh? Come on." Lina stood, grabbing the Mechanist by the hand. He started, reflexively trying to pull from her grip. He couldn't. The Mechanist's hands were soft and un-callused. Lina's could crack walnuts. Acting as sweet as she dared, Lina pulled him to his feet, then tugged him out from the captain's cabin and onto the deck.

The rope holding the pirates off the bow was still taut. Faintly, she heard the sounds of the rail anchoring it strain. Lina looked back at the Mechanist.

"What's your name?" she asked, fighting to keep calm herself.

The youth gawked. "My name? I...I'm Allen," he said. He blanched, as if suddenly remembering he wasn't supposed to have one anymore.

"All right, Allen. Where can we find a ladder?"

"Nowhere," Allen mumbled. "I mean they're all up top. We had to use some of them to replace the ratlines and rigging, and to get the starboard rudders shored up. We could get one down, but it'll take another pair of hands than just us two."

Lina cursed. "All right then. Improvisation it is. Where can we find some rope?"

That, he could provide. The Mechanist led her belowdecks to the engine room he stayed in. It was nothing like the one aboard the
Dawnhawk
, more an equipment locker than a place for proper engineering. A little cast-iron stove squatted in one corner, banked low. A coal-ladder to the store somewhere deeper in the ship opened next to it, but it was largely empty, black dust staining it heavily. Lina grabbed a heavy coil of rope, and with Allen's help hauled it back up to the deck. They anchored it to a heavy steel cleat just below the aft deck, one connecting the gasbag frame above to the ship. Then she ran the other end up to the bow.

"Here," she cried at the pirates below. Fengel looked back up at her, his monocle winking in the moonlight. She threw down her end of the rope, and held it until someone grabbed it from within the net. "Tie that off so's you don't fall in the meantime. And don't move too much. I don't trust my knot-work up here." Without waiting for a reply she turned back to the ship.

Problem One, improvised.
That took care of any immediate mishaps that might occur.
Now to see about Problem Two.
There was still issue of getting the crew back up on board, and she had no idea how to go about it.

"Do you have a winch?" Lina asked. They stood amidships, looking up at the rope. Allen stood beside her, eyes down and subservient.

The young Mechanist flinched. "No," he said with a shake of his head. "We're not even close to being properly supplied. I tried to tell them, but Captain Blackheart just hit me. They were in such a hurry to get aloft! I tried to tell them that the
Copper Queen
wasn't ready yet. We ended up just drifting for a day and a half after we went up. The linkage and turning system wasn't even close to being usable."

Lina frowned.
Well, I'm not going to be able to pull them back up. And with wrists like that, Allen here isn't going to either.

The ship lurched, pushed by a strong wind. A stray belaying pin rolled down the deck toward them, then reversed and rolled the other way as the
Copper Queen
settled. Lina watched it, then looked up at the taut rope above them. An idea occurred to her. "What about something really heavy?"

Allen blinked. "Like what?"

Lina held out her hands. "We need something really heavy. Like, I don't know, a bunch of water barrels or something."

The young Mechanist gave her a funny look. He pointed to the port-side gunwales. "Like those?"

Lina followed his gesture. The light cannons sat upon their mountings, pointing out from the ship. They were carronades, almost solid iron, with handles cast into their thick bodies, one on either side of the barrel. And they were very, very heavy. Lina tapped her lip thoughtfully. "I think they just might, at that."

With Allen's help, Lina unlocked one of the carronades from its wooden mounts. Then they rolled it off onto the deck where it landed with a deafening thump that echoed up and down the length of the ship. Inclined as the ship was, the artillery-piece slid down to a stop against the forecastle. Lina cursed. She hadn't thought this entirely through.

Taking a spare piece of rope, she tied it through the errant weapon and gave one end to Allen. Cursing and swearing, they dragged the thing back up to the aftcastle and tied it in place.