Dead Men's Tales (Tales of the Brass Griffin Book 5) (50 page)

Outside the war machine’s hulk, the tattooed Fomorian glanced over at Peter Bauer, who had just scaled the wreck of the iron beast. Bauer shook his head and waved his accomplice aside.

“He ist mein!” Bauer snapped. “There is a young mädchen, ein werewolf. She is constantly near him. Watch for her! I wish to kill this Tuathan slowly with mein own hands, and I do not wish to be interrupted, ja?”

“Aye, Cap’n,” the brute replied, taking
a step away to keep watch.

Thorias perched on one of the insulated pilot’s seats in the ruined interior thick with the smell of charred meat. The doctor clutched to the frayed, sparking cable as if his life depended upon it.

Bauer licked his lips with a sneer, slowly stepping menacingly into the opening. His bulk filled the available space, casting a shadow over the interior.

“My people should have exterminated yours. If they had, so much trouble would have been averted,” he growled in a low tone.

Thorias chuckled, which quickly turned into a laugh. It caught Bauer off guard; he was used to causing terror, confusion, not mirth. An edge of uncertainty crept up on him. He instinctively glanced around for … what, he was not sure. The German Fomorian scowled at the doctor.

“What are you laughing at?” he demanded.

“You,” Thorias replied smartly. “All your talk of ‘history’ and ‘your people’ and ‘my people’. If you were a true Fomorian, an actual Fomorian, you would not be stupid enough to fall for this pathetic trap! I see your invented ‘Mythology’, and raise you proper, logical science!” Abruptly, he grabbed a ground wire leading to the generator. He slammed the exposed end of the cable against the metal frame of the Ironclad. The war machine’s capacitor exploded with a deafening pop
 
as it released every farad of electricity it housed in one single discharge!

Light and sound collided with a thunderous roar. Screaming, Bauer was illuminated like the lead in an arc lantern, electricity writhing over his body. Both Fomorians were hurled from the machine as if by a giant hand, throwing them across the dark hillside. The first Fomorian – the one watching for Angela – landed head and shoulder first against the remains of a rock wall with a sickening crunch.

Captain Peter Bauer – self-proclaimed leader of the Fomorians – pitched high then fell headlong into the dark earth, twisted and burnt, his body convulsing with uncontrolled spasms. Twitching, his still smoldering body slid over the sloping grass towards the waiting pit of fire that was all that remained of his Fomorian port of call.

Thorias tossed the cable away from him as the indicator light on the capacitor dimmed, showing it had spent its full charge. With great effort, he released his death grip on the grounding wire, and leaned forward in agony, a ghastly pale color. The doctor clutched the back of the pilot’s chair desperately while darkness swam at the edge of his vision.

“No, confound it! Not now!” he croaked hoarsely, “I have to warn Anthony about the gas artillery aboard the
Revenge
before he walks into the teeth of it!”

The doctor gritted his own
 
teeth against the pain and turned in the seat. He searched the unfamiliar cabin for any means of communication that might have survived. Finally he located the cracked and battered housing of an opti-telegraphic. The keys were askew, and two were even missing entirely. Thorias worried whether or not the device still functioned.

He reached over and turned the crank, nearly passing out in the process. His breathing ragged, Thorias covered his mouth and coughed sharply. Pulling his hand away from his mouth, he sighed heavily at the spot of blood on his hand.

“Doctor!” Angela shouted from the hole in the side of the war machine.

“Here,” Thorias grunted in reply, wiping his hand on his already stained vest. “Here, child. Quickly, help me.”

The werewolf rushed over to his side, wary of the exposed cable on the floor. Her eyes went large when she saw the doctor. “Oh, Doctor,” she said horrified at his deathly
pallor.

“Shush, did you get the bag?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, and when I didn’t see you, I bandaged Moira as best I knew how. Did I do the right thing?”

“For now,” Thorias replied weakly. “We’ll check on her in a moment. Right now you’re going to help me send a message to Captain Hunter.”

Angela reached for the damaged keyboard but Dr. Llwellyn brushed her hands away. “No, I doubt they work. Hit the keys I tell you and speak into the device.”

“Speak to it?” the girl replied, her werewolf countenance pinched together in a confused look.

“Yes, speak to it. An opti can relay voice but only at a short range. The
Griffin
should be, hopefully, close enough to lie within that range.” the doctor explained. “Now do precisely what I tell you. Lives depend upon it. Understand?”

The girl nodded quickly, a furiously determined look on her face. “Yes, Doctor.”

The doctor smiled, patting her on the shoulder. “Brilliant. Here we go.”

H
igh above the battlefield, William Falke ran his hands through his constantly tousled brown hair in frustration while he puzzled rapidly over a set of medical recipes written in Dr. Llwellyn’s spidery handwriting.

“What? Use whiskey?” the young man said to the weather-beaten leather journal, giving it a perplexed frown.

Abruptly, a loud bang – like that of a giant hammer striking wood – erupted right before the
Brass
Griffin
pitched hard to starboard. In that moment, everything in the small closet of a room was tossed about - from the smallest piece of paper to items as large as an empty chair. William yelped in alarm as he, too, careened into the far wall!

The young man managed to turn in mid-air before he struck, ramming his left side against the wall and adding another bruise to his already growing collection. With a grunt, he collapsed to the floor. Parchments and books of various kinds - formerly stored in a neat rows on the shelves above - rained down on him.

“Bugger me!” William swore aloud; using his left arm to shield his face, he batted the falling books aside with his other hand while scurrying to safety a few feet away. Free of the avalanche, he sat heavily on the floor
and leaned back against a wall with a loud sigh.

Five feet from him, the ship’s opti-telegraphic came to life in a burst of mechanical static
 
interspersed with the broken fragments of conversation! William jumped with a start.

“Emergency Call to
Brass Griffin
. Come in
Brass Griffin
,” Angela Von Patterson’s voice finally emerged from beneath the static
.

William lunged for the device, turning the crank instinctively, even though it obviously had enough stored power to receive messages since it was attached to the ship’s boiler-fed generators. He tapped a pair of keys used to indicate ‘message received’ and ‘incoming reply’.

“Angela? Ya all right? Are ya hurt? Has the Doc made it to ya?” the young man asked earnestly.

“Sirrah Falke!” Angela replied; relief and a touch of anxious stress fueled her jumble of words. “Mother would say we’re ‘managing’. It’s very bad, though. Everything seems on fire. Mother is hurt but still keeping everyone in line. I hurt, but not badly. Mostly I’m very tired. Oh! Doctor Llwellyn! Yes! He is here with me.”

“Brilliant! Put him on!” William asked quickly. “The battle up here - with what I’ve heard is the
Revenge
– it’s a right proper scrap. The Cap’n had us duck down to the trees, then
we came about and stung the
Revenge
smart along her underside. Several are hurt from flying debris, though. I need ta find a recipe for a type of poultice the Doc makes. It’s for infection. I can’t make good sense of his notes.”

“I … I would,” Angela stammered, “but he’d rather I spoke. He’s hurt ever so badly, though he’s far too stubborn to admit it. Moira’s wrecked, too,” the girl’s voice caught in her throat a moment before she could enunciate her thoughts, “she’s burned pretty bad. The Fomorians have been given a sound beating down here; but we've all paid dearly for it.”

“What?” William replied in alarm.

“Wait, wait! Just listen!” Angela blurted out before the young man could say anything more. “The Doctor wanted me to say: ‘the
Revenge
is fully loaded with gas munitions. They thinned the mix of the gas. Trust nothing that does not explode. Make sure the Captain knows.’ ” Angela hesitated before she asked, “Mr. Falke, the Doctor won’t explain it and right now he’s not coherent. What does it mean ‘they thinned the mix’? Does it mean it’s weaker?”

William Falke shuddered involuntarily; he suspected what Dr. Llwellyn meant. He had seen the effects of the gas first hand at the emergency hospice on Port Signal. William had likewise heard what this ‘mustard gas’ actually did to its victims, and had heard the doctor’s theory about how a thinner amount was not less deadly, just more difficult to detect.

He swallowed nervously at the thought of a gas-filled artillery shell landing mid-deck aboard the
Griffin
; worse yet was the thought of it missing the ship and plummeting to land among the wounded on the ground below. The
Griffin
shuddered around him once again from another volley of cannon-fire,
almost as if it shared his thought.

“No,” the young man said with a tight voice, “no, it doesn’t. Ya just may not know if ya walk into a cloud of it - until it eats ya from the inside-out later.”

“Oh,” Angela replied in a small voice.

“Angela, I’ve got to warn the Cap’n,” William said quickly, “find some cool water and gently run it over Moira’s burns. Then wrap ‘em loose in some bandage cloth. Loose, do ya understand?”

“I understand,” Angela replied while explosions echoed in the background somewhere near her, “I think I know where I can get some water.”

“Good, other than that, help Doc Llwellyn,” William instructed, as the
Griffin
shook violently
from another impact. “We’ll be down to get ya as best we can.”

Only static replied.

Panic-stricken, William tapped madly at the receive keys. There was no response. He shook the device until the gears rattled faintly.
 

“Bloody hell, work!” William snarled. He frantically tapped the polished black wooden keys, sending the telegraph device into a fit of clicking. “Angela?” William said desperately. “Angela?”

Suddenly, the room shook again, knocking more cans and rope from the shelves. The young man blinked in surprise; there had been
no crackle or thunder this time.

“That wasn’t a lightnin’ cannon,” Will mused aloud. “Something solid hit us!”

“Looks like a shell didn’t go off, Cap’n!” a muffled voice shouted over the din of combat outside.

“Shove it over the side,” William heard Captain Hunter reply. “We don’t need the dead weight.”

He leaped to his feet, ignored the shooting pains that radiated out from his bruises, and raced to the cabin door to yank it open. Outside a fire blazed bright, searing the air in front of him. William covered his face with one arm, instinctively shielding himself from the flames before he took a step back.

“I gotta warn them!” William muttered, staring into the blazing wall in front of him. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Letting it out slowly, William fixed his eyes ahead, and
leaped into the flames!

C
aptain Anthony Hunter kept a death grip on the ship’s railing. A few feet to his right, wood exploded in a burnt cloud of charred splinters that rained down across the quarterdeck. Hunter glared at the dented and scorched shape of the
Revenge
off the
Griffin’s
port side. The Fomorian ship – clad in sturdy steel and a long, reinforced gas bag – bled smoke and fire in her wake despite her protections. Beyond the Fomorian, flying a bit higher, was the
Whirling Strumpet
, just recently arrived. She fared no better than her opponent, as she, too, bled smoke tinged with orange flames from her deck.

Cannons at the ready, the
Griffin
and
Strumpet
circled the
Revenge
like a pair of tired wolves, searching for a weakness in their prey’s formidable defense.

Anthony hammered his mechanical left fist against the
Griffin’s
railing in frustration. As if to punctuate his mood, his ship’s weapons thundered a volley towards its nemesis. Highly pressurized electrified water scoured the hull of the
Revenge
; lightning coursed over her surface, stunning a few of the Fomorian crew who were caught on deck unprepared. Black scars marked each hit, however the
Revenge
doggedly remained aloft.

The
Griffin
shook as if hit by a giant fist.

“Captain, unexploded shell embedded in one of the starboard lightning cannon,” Krumer called out over the storm of artillery fire. “O’Fallon has a crew clearing it out.”

Hunter glanced back at the ship’s wheel, where Krumer had braced himself against its frame.

“Have a fire crew there! It might still explode, no matter how gentle O’Fallon is,” Hunter shouted. “Where is William? We’ll need him there!”

Suddenly, a commotion rose from the main deck! Conrad O’Fallon, who had just reached the unexploded shell that sat buried in the ruined lightning cannon, was bodily knocked to the deck by a figure on fire: William Falke! The quartermaster rolled, slightly dazed more from the surprise attack from a flaming man than any sort of damage from being thrown down. Behind the burning figure, a sailor with a firefighting pack dashed over
to extinguish the flames. Conrad joined them a moment later and quickly stripped the still-smoldering coat from William’s back. Immediately, William grabbed the quartermaster by the arm, hastily relaying what he had been told by Angela.

Hunter ran over to stand next to Krumer and Noel at the ship’s wheel. A sharp crackle filled the air as the
Griffin
roared another volley at the
Revenge
. “What the devil?” Hunter bellowed, his deep voice echoing over the noise and distance.