On Discord Isle (14 page)

Lina sighed. “What in the Realms Below are you two on about?” The Wiley twins weren’t her favorites. They were thuggish, crude, and violent. When Natasha wasn’t around, though, they seemed all right.

Nate Wiley turned around. “Heyo, Lina.”

“Miss Stone!” said Jonas. “Come on up here and give us a kiss, eh?” The big pirate’s face was flushed with all the blood running to his head.

“Not if you were the last man in the sky,” she replied.

“Jonas,” warned his brother. “She’s on the committee.”

“So? What’s that matter?”

Lina felt uncomfortable. She technically was, which had her feeling a lot more responsible of late. Unreasonably so, in her opinion.
That’s probably why I’m over here right now.
She shook her head. “Never mind that. What in the Realms Below are you doing?”

“Oh, just showing my brother here something he can’t do,” said Jonas. “Watch.”

He pushed up and let go, performing another handstand before dropping a few feet more down the rigging. Jonas caught himself again, but the rigging bounced violently with his movements.

“Eh?” he said. “How’s that?”

Lina stared. “That’s really, really stupid Jonas. You want to go for a midnight swim?”

“Oh, come off it, Lina. I know what I’m on about.”

He pushed up again as a gust of wind whipped past them all. Jonas flailed for the rigging, and missed. Lina watched in surprise as her crewmate plummeted out of sight.

“Jonas!” cried his brother.

Lina leapt up the exhaust pipe and to the gunwales. She pushed past Nate Wiley and grabbed the rigging, leaning out over the ship. Jonas Wiley wasn’t lost, just quite yet. The thuggish twin dangled from the airship, gripping one of the brass skysails folded up against the hull. The winglike armature stretched and bent as she watched. Far below churned the Atalian Sea, moonlight reflecting unsteadily from its waters.

Lina swallowed. Once, Andrea had told her that a fall from this high up into the ocean would be like hitting cobblestones.

“Help!” howled Jonas Wiley. “I’m slipping!”

Nate stared at Lina in a panic. “My hands! I can’t get him, my hands still don’t work right!”

Allen peered past her shoulder, blanched, then pulled back. Lina ignored him, focusing her attention on the problem.
All right. Think. He’s got to weigh eighteen stone or more.
The Wiley twins were big boys. She certainly wasn’t. If Sarah Lome were here she would have just pulled the idiot back aboard. Yet she had disappeared shortly after the watch change belowdecks, probably for the stupid committee meeting. By the time Lina ran and brought help, Jonas Wiley would be lost.

The skysail bent again with a metallic wail. A spring somewhere close to the hull of the airship snapped with a twang. Lina stepped back from the gunwales. “Okay. We need a rope. Allen, give me—”

The young Mechanist was on the rigging up above her. He dropped the coiled end of a rope to Lina, a boarding grapnel tied to one end. Then he ascended to where the gas bag met the rigging and started threading the rope through a stanchion moored to the underside of the gasbag. “Make sure he grabs this,” the young Mechanist called down. “Then help me pull.”

Lina left him to it. She crawled back over the gunwales, one hand on the rigging. Jonas let loose a loud cry as the skysail bent again. “Jonas!” she called. “Here, grab this with your free hand.” She lowered the hook until it was right next to his shoulder.

“I’m gonna fall!” he cried.

“Not if you grab the hook,” Lina replied.

The big pirate looked at the bobbing grapnel next to him with wild eyes. Tentatively he reached out to it. Then the armature snapped. Jonas flailed, just grabbing on with his free hand as the skysail cloth tore loudly. The rope went taut, his weight yanking it from Lina’s hands. Allen gave a cry from up above and she glanced up to see him dangling from the other end of the rope. The stanchion was acting as a pulley, with the heavier pirate on one end, and the young Mechanist on the other, his weight and grip the only thing keeping Jonas Wiley from falling into the sea below.

Andrea appeared suddenly, along with Maxim in tow. They grabbed for the rope below Allen. Maxim wrapped its length around his arm while Andrea hollered up the deck to where Tricia and the others were dicing. “Get over here!” she shouted. “We’ve got a man overboard!”

Lina leapt back to help. She took ahold of the rope as her crewmates hauled it down. Bit by bit it came, until Allen could finally reach the deck. Back over the gunwales, Nate Wiley stood ready. When his brother rose into view, he wrapped his arms around the man in a bear hug and pulled him back aboard. The two twins toppled back off the gunwales and the exhaust-pipe to land upon the deck. Lina, Andrea, and Maxim all ran over to check him over as the others arrived.

“Oh Goddess,” sobbed Jonas Wiley.

Nate looked up at them, holding his brother in his lap. “He’s all right,” he said.

“What were you thinking?” yelled Lina, throwing her arms wide. “That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen!”

Allen scrabbled past her. He climbed up the steam pipe and peered over the gunwales, then gave a low groan. Lina blinked and shared a glance with Andrea. She pushed past the idiot twins and moved up to Allen’s side.

“Look,” said the young Mechanist. Lina followed his arm out to the skysail armature. It was a bent and ruined wreck. The shimmering gold cloth fluttered in the wind, torn. “That’s going to take forever to fix,” he said.

Lina’s heart leapt into her throat. She gave a groan of her own.
Oh good Goddess in the Realms Above.
A ruined skysail. The Mechanist was going to have kittens.

Right.
Jonas Wiley was safe, there weren’t any immediate dangers. She’d been called down to the committee, who really needed to know what had just happened anyway. If she moved fast enough, she could escape before the Mechanist arrived. The man almost seemed to have a sixth sense about the machines aboard the airship. She did
not
want to be around when he saw this.

Lina hopped back down to the deck. “I’ve got to go let the committee know about this,” she said to no one in particular. She pushed through the small crowd and made a beeline for the hatch. Just as she reached the stair going belowdecks, something occurred to her. Lina sighed, stopped, and turned back. “Hey, Allen,” she called. “Good job.”

The young Mechanist glanced at her from his perch atop the gunwales. She winked at him, then descended through the hatch before he could say anything that would embarrass them both.

The hatchway stair led down past the captain’s cabin to the quarterdeck. At the far end of the hammock-filled room lay the ship’s galley. Lina paused at the foot of the stair before crossing through the hall. The space was dark, only illuminated by pale spears of moonlight shining through the portholes in the hull. It was far from empty, however. Each hammock was filled with sleeping crewmen, with a few of the crew drinking or playing dice in the corners.

Lina frowned. She recognized more than a few faces that should have been up above on deck.
So that’s where all you lazy bastards got to
. None of them seemed to have heard the commotion up above.

She shook her head and moved through the door into the galley. Unlike the berth hall, several oil lanterns lit this space, an extravagance for the four people occupying the room. The three members of the Ship’s Committee sat together at one of the big benches in the center of the galley. Henry Smalls was here as well, sitting off to one side by himself, busily wiping down several knickknacks with a rag and a jar of polish. Everyone looked up as she entered.

Lucian Thorne looked tired. “Miss Stone,” he said. “How goes the watch?”

She took a breath.
Best be out with it.
“Jonas Wiley almost went overboard. He and his brother were clowning around. Caught him back up, but one of the skysail armatures is bent, and the cloth torn. It’s pretty badly damaged.”

Sarah Lome cursed and started to stand. The big piratess wore tiny spectacles and her huge fingers were stained with ink.

Lucian put out a hand. “Wait, Sarah.” He looked back at Lina. “Is anyone still in danger?”

She shook her head. “Only once the Mechanist finds out. That’s going to be ugly. Worse than when he caught Oscar Pleasant using the propeller assembly to sharpen his knives. Allen’s seeing to it as best he can. And Andrea’s got the crew in line. Those that are up on deck, at least.”

Sarah Lome colored an ugly shade of red and started to move again. Lucian grabbed her wrist. “Wait, Sarah. Let it lie a moment. We’ve
got
to go over these matters before tomorrow. Nothing’s on fire, it’ll all keep.”

“Those sod’s are slacking off again!” she snarled. “I’ll tan their hides! Not to mention the damned Wiley twins. The Mechanist is going to throw a fit.”

“It can wait.” Lucian’s voice took on a hard edge.

The huge piratess frowned mightily, but sat back down a little farther away from the papers spread before her. The first mate gestured Lina to a spot beside Reaver Jane. Lina moved over and sat down. The woman glanced at her dismissively. Lina was still uncomfortable around her, but since their fight on the
Kingfisher,
things had been a little easier between them.

Lina frowned. There was a tension in the air, something other than the news she’d brought. Papers were scattered over the table, along with ink and quills. A few plates of food lay about, along with half-empty mugs. Lucian looked focused, Jane bored, and Sarah Lome confused and irritated. Lina glanced over at Henry Smalls. The older pirate had a hip flask and a set of monocles out on a cloth before him.

“Henry,” she asked. “What are you doing?”

He flushed in embarrassment. “Oh, nothing, nothing. Just...keeping busy. Thought I’d get things ready for the captains, when we’re ready to go pick them up.” He bent down over the hip flask, avoiding her eyes.

“More like he don’t know what to do with himself,” said Reaver Jane dryly. “Now that His Lordship is gnawing on coconuts.”

“Enough,” said Lucian. “Let’s get back to business.” He took up one of the papers before them. “We’ve got to get through this list. Now...ah. Here. I think we should promote the white ape to Head Lookout. It spotted that last freighter before Gabley did, and we should reward that.”

“Seems reasonable,” said Reaver Jane, almost instantly.

“Sure,” said Sarah Lome. “Whatever.” The huge woman glanced at Jane, Lucian, and Lina in turn, glowering.

Lucian made a mark on a piece of paper. “All right, that’s that. Next item. Sarah, have you gone over those light-air reports from the Mechanist?”

The usually fearless gunnery mistress flinched. She glanced guiltily at the papers before her and picked up a quill. “Uh. Let’s come back to that.”

Reaver Jane rolled her eyes. “Still? You
can
do arithmetic, can’t you?”

Sarah Lome ground her teeth. “You want to do this then?” she asked. “Eh? You want to do this?”

The other woman held up her hands in mock submission. Sarah Lome glared at her a moment before looking again to her paperwork. Her posture changed, become hunched, almost intimidated. Lina blinked when the huge woman chewed nervously on the nib of her quill.

“Right,” sighed Lucian. “I’ll put that on the list of things to come back to. Next thing though...ah. Oscar Pleasant is missing. Only noticed it this evening. Looks like we might have left him down on one of the freighters we pillaged. Or he might have gotten gutted.”

He’s gone?
Lina perked up. Oscar was easily the most obnoxious member of the crew. He’d made her first few days aboard the
Dawnhawk
a miserable experience. They’d eventually come to an accord, violently, avoiding each other ever since. If he was really gone, she wouldn’t shed any tears.

“Should we go back?” asked Sarah Lome.

Lucian mused. “Hmm. I’ve never been particularly fond of the fellow. You, Jane?”

“Who?” The dark-haired woman was picking at her fingernails with a dagger.

“Right, then. Let’s put that off for later. Next task is something far more important.” He sketched some numbers on the sheet of paper before him. “Now, the original plan was to ride the aetherlines up to Breachtown, hit it hard, then burn coal to get away. But we’ve used up a lot of fuel going off after those last two merchants. With the added weight as well, I don’t know that we have enough coal to rely on for the return trip to Almhazlik and then back to Haventown.”

“That’s easy,” said Jane. “We burn coal to get to Breachtown, then ride the aetherlines out of the colony.”

“What?” replied Sarah Lome. Jane’s suggestion seemed to cut through her unease. “No. We should use as little as possible to reach the nearest aetherline, then ride that to Breachtown. After, we burn coal to get away. That’ll be a more reliable route out, and faster. People are going to be after us if we pull this off.”

“Hmm,” mused Lucian. “I think we should take a mixed approach, myself. Get back on course, ride the ’lines, and do the same after we hit the colony.”

Reaver Jane stopped picking at her fingernails to raise an eyebrow at him. “Every day we float up here is another day we’re down provisions. And the crew is ready. Get us to Breachtown fast, I say.”

“We need to be cautious,” said Sarah Lome. “We can’t afford to botch this up.”

“To the Realms Below with caution.”

Lina listened to them argue.
Why am I even here?
It was obvious that they didn’t want her opinion. She glanced at the scattered papers, the ink and quills, the old, cold food. It hit her then that the three ship’s officers had been at this for
hours
. She sighed.
This is pointless. Someone should just make a decision. What about the skysail?

“Well, the two of you just think about it,” said Lucian. “I’ll put it back on the list, though we’re almost out of new things that need discussion. Jane, what’s the status of our powder stores?”

Lina glanced away from the discussion. Henry Smalls caught her eye. He gave a small, sad smile, then went back to polishing one of Fengel’s monocles.