On Discord Isle (41 page)

The surviving Perinese stared at him, incredulous. Then they all set an uproar.

“You bastard!” said Paine.

“We could have had more musket and pistol shot!” said Cumbers

“But, but,” stammered Simon.

“Oh, well done,” murmured Natasha, smiling viciously.

Fengel held up a finger. “Ah!” he said. “Quiet now. Sleeping mechanical dragon, remember?”

The crew quieted, though they were clearly still furious. Thin Jahmal said something quietly to his fellows, and they all shook their heads sadly.

“I still want to kill the thing,” sulked Natasha.

Fengel patted her hand. “Sorry, love. I’m going to have to say no for the moment. It’s just not worth it. Let’s get aboard, gather what we can, and prepare the longboats. Come along now.”

He stood without waiting for a response, then crept along to the edge of the rock, hiding for the moment in the long, soft shadow cast by the moon as he peered around at the beach. The Dray Engine was still sleeping, right atop the patch of burned and broken sand Natasha had originally obliterated. The tip of its tail twitched, carving furrows.

Fengel closed his eyes and took a breath.
Never let them see you stumble
. Then he took a step out onto the beach past the rock.

A hundred yards away lay the longboat, wedged into the sand where the surf met the shore. Wreckage floated on the waves behind it, the leftover legacy of what had once been the Perinese encampment. Dominating the beach was the slumbering Dray Engine. There wasn’t a lot of room left to skirt the machine, and to reach the boat they would have to pass within twenty paces of it.

Fengel crept across the shadowed sand. It gave under his feet, making each step precarious and shorter than it should have been. Fragments of burned wood and the occasional cannonball found themselves beneath his feet, all colored into stark black-and-white by the light of the moon.

He paused to take in the remnants upon the beach and the great metal war machine upon it.
It seems as if all this island has ever known is woe
. The Voornish facility within the volcano certainly hadn’t been for baking cakes, and from what he’d heard, that ancient race had predated the rise of mankind.

A hissing noise made him glance back. It was the rest of the survivors, Natasha at the lead. They’d slipped out onto the beach after him, a conga line of would-be sneaks. All stood still in their tracks now, though, wondering why he’d stopped. His wife glared at him, gesturing violently at the longboat in between nervous glances at the Dray Engine.

Fengel smiled and gestured flippantly. Then he made his way back down to the shore. The longboat seen up close was filthy, coated with ash from the volcanic explosion yesterday. Half a foot of water sloshed along the bottom, muddy and dark. But it appeared otherwise sound. Even the oars were properly shipped within.

The rest of the combined crew reached him, huddling up to the boat and glancing back at the Dray Engine. Fengel caught their attention and gestured at the rim of the longboat.

“Everyone grab a spot,” he stage-whispered. “We’re going to slide her into the water and hop aboard. All right?” He waited for everyone to spread out. “On the count of three, now. One. Two. Thr—”

A clatter and the groan of shifting metal froze them all. Fengel’s heart leapt into his throat. Slowly, he glanced back over his shoulder.

The Dray Engine had one eye open. It wasn’t watching them directly, but they still stood in the corner of its vision. The thing shifted, raising one foreleg up before slamming it down on a lone Perinese tent that Fengel hadn’t seen, standing on the far side of the monster. It ground the canvas into the sand, then the great brazen shutters fell back over its eye-lamps and it stilled again.

Fengel reached a count of fifty, then gestured frantically to the others still frozen beside him. “Go!” he whispered. “Go!”

They slid the longboat into the waves and a little farther beyond. Fengel hopped in with the ease of long practice, followed by Natasha and then all the rest of the surviving crewmen. For all their failings and injuries, both sets of men were professional sailors, and knew their business. They were all aboard and pointed at the
Goliath
with scant trouble, Sergeant Cumbers and big Farouk at the oars and pushing them toward the warship.

Fengel sat in the bow and kept watch on the mechanical titan behind them. Natasha joined him, glaring at it.

“Careful,” he said quietly, playfully. “Your face might stick like that.”

“It did years ago,” she growled. “What I can’t understand is how the damned thing seems to know where we want to go every single damned time. I want to kill it. I want
blood
, Fengel.”

Fengel rubbed his chin. “I know you do,” he replied. “But I don’t think it does. Know where we are, I mean.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him.

“Consider,” he continued. “It destroyed your lean-to—”

“Tent.”

“Lean-to. Out of all the things on that side of the island, it hunted that down. Then it ran straight for the
Salmalin
. I don’t think it’s after us specifically. I think it’s wiping out anything non-Voornish on the island.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” she replied. “Remember how it stepped on that automaton.”

“Well,” conceded Fengel. “It also seems enormously ill-tempered.”

The longboat made it to the hull of the
Goliath
, which had shifted only a little from how he’d left it last. Under cover of dark, they began their ascent up the rope ladder that had been left in place, Fengel holding it still for Natasha.

A scream cut through the night.

Everyone glanced back at the island. The moon gave clear view of the beach and the jungle behind it. Balls of superheated magma shot up from the volcano at the center of the isle, coloring the view like a great holiday firework. A man had run out of the jungle, wearing the tattered jacket of a low-ranking Perinese officer. It was Sub-Lieutenant Hayes.

“Don’t go!” he yelled. “Don’t leave me behind!”

Hayes ran down the beach, right for the shore. To Fengel’s growing horror, he didn’t seem to notice the sleeping Dray Engine, or was just too desperate to care. Hayes ran over the snout of the thing, his boots ringing the maw like a bell before he tripped back down to the sand. He tore off his jacket as he reached the shore and threw it away before diving into the surf.

The Dray Engine shifted.

Oh, by the Goddess’s hairy teats.
Fengel cursed under his breath and shouted to the others. “Up!” he cried. “Up now, all of you!”

The mixed crew of survivors moved like he’d cracked a whip. Natasha went first, then Cumbers, Paine and then rest. Fengel went last, and didn’t bother to keep an eye out for Hayes.

The great red lantern-glass eyes snapped open. They peered about, the Voorn machine lifting its head to look at the figures scurrying over the hull of the
Goliath
. It rumbled—a hollow, echoing noise from somewhere deep within its chassis.

Fengel gave orders as soon as he cleared the deck. “Cumbers, go over to the captain’s cabin and take an inventory. I locked it, but the door fits the frame badly. There should be enough powder for the deck guns, at least. Paine! Check out the mess and see if anything’s worth saving. Simon, you’re on boat-duty.” Fengel eyed the Salomcani, who shifted between watching him carefully and eyeing the rising Dray Engine. “Etarin, Farouk, Jahmal, split up and help the others.”

They didn’t immediately move to obey. Instead they looked to Natasha, who jerked her head and cursed them in their native tongue. Only then did they leap into action.

Fengel walked to the gunwales, watching the island and the Dray Engine. Hayes was barely visible below, a dark speck that coughed and shouted as he swam their way.

“I still want to run,” said Fengel. “But I’m very much afraid that we’re going to have to fight.”

The Dray Engine rose to its feet. It raised its great brazen head and roared in defiance at the sky. As if in response, the island shook, and the volcano vomited a great blast of ash and magma.

Natasha leaned into his arm. “You always say the sweetest things.”

Fengel patted her hand, then reached up to adjust his monocle. He very much wished he had a spare, at that moment. Things were about to get ugly.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lina forced the needle through thick canvas. It poked back out from the surface of the gasbag, a piece of sharp spiral steel as long as her hand. The cord it pulled was thin, but of a heavy gauge that she had yet to snap, no matter how she yanked at it.
I’ll say this for the Mechanists: they make good tools.

That didn’t make her any less tired, or the labor of patching the airship any less irksome. She put her feet up against the torn canvas skin of the gas bag and leaned back in the rope harness suspending her alongside it. The ocean breeze played with her hair and chilled her hands, its usual salt scent tinged by coalsmoke from the Perinese Royal Navy at their backs.

She looked down past the gas bag and the hull of the
Dawnhawk
at the navy warships chasing them. Most were mere specks upon the horizon; Henry Smalls had managed to lose them with a goodly bit of distance. One in particular was proving quite tenacious. It was a massive vessel, modern, with both sails and hull-mounted paddlewheels to port and starboard. The
H.M.S.
Colossus
had kept pace with them through wind and rain, both night and day. It fired on them regularly, managing glancing blows on their hull and gas bag twice more. In clear weather they’d spotted an imperious figure stalking the poop deck. Lina didn’t know how, but she was certain it was the villainous Admiral Wintermourn.

Lina bent back to her task. The light-air cells pushed out against her as she sewed the patch, but it wasn’t too much effort to stuff them back inside the gas bag as she worked. Then she finished the final knot, stowed the tools in her harness, and grabbed the rope at her chest. Kicking her way over to the rigging, she waved at Rastalak, up above, where the little Draykin watched over her and the others as they worked.

She descended back to the deck and found the Mechanist. The taciturn old man directed repairs and adjustments to the airship like a conductor overseeing his orchestra. Pirates moved about the deck, the gas bag, and even alongside the hull with a frenetic energy. After several days of constant pursuit by the most powerful navy in the world, there were quite a few things to fix.

“Starboard patch applied,” Lina said when he turned her way.

The Brother of the Cog pulled a scarred pocketwatch from a pocket of his greatcoat. He nodded once, sharply. “Exactly within the allotted time period. Very well. I require no further assistance from you at the moment, Miss Stone.” He made to move away, then paused. “Miss Stone?”

“Yes, Mechanist?”

“Your work is almost always perfectly satisfactory. Which is more than I can say for most of the drunkards and villains aboard this vessel.”

“Thank you, Mechanist. I think.”

“In fact, you might have made a fine Mechanist, aspiring even to second or third-class Aspirant, if only you were born male. Though never fourth or fifth.”

“Uh. Thank you. Mechanist.”

“I mention this, because it would be a shame to see you consistently squander what little potential you do have by making such colossal mistakes as this…committee…of yours.”

He walked, away and Lina glared at him as he went. Then she sighed, frustrated, before moving across the deck toward her customary spot alongside the exhaust-pipe.

Lina forgot about the mechanist and chided herself.
Coward
. What she should be doing was visiting the injured below. Ryan Gae still hadn’t recovered from the wounds he’d taken in Breachtown. There wasn’t a real physician aboard, but both Henry and the aetherites had some skill at anatomy. All said that her friend could go either way, at this point.

Andrea, her only other close friend, had been devastated. The piratess was angry, furious at first, but more and more she had withdrawn, until now she spent almost all her time with Ryan.

Lina couldn’t face either of them at the moment. Andrea hadn’t said anything, but along with most of the rest of the crew, she had grown cold toward Lina. They all blamed her for their current state of affairs, even Nate Wiley, who was disconsolate after the death of his twin brother. To be fair, she
had
made the original suggestion to mutiny. But even Runt wasn’t around much of late. He haunted the top of the gas bag to avoid the smell of the Revenants being kept in the hold down below.

The only ones not actively avoiding her were the old members of the committee, who were even more miserable than she was. Lucian, Reaver Jane, and Sarah Lome were being obeyed by the crew, but only when acting with the approval of Henry Smalls. When it came to any further socializing, they were outcasts.

But what could we have done?
Natasha and Fengel had been destroying them. Would the Breachtown raid have gone any better if they hadn’t mutinied? Would they have succeeded, despite the odds?

“Gnrrhh.”

The low groan shook her from her thoughts. Tricia the Revenant stood a short distance away, up against the corner of the exhaust pipe. She was not doing well in her new, undead state. The gas leak that killed her had left her physically whole enough, though puffy-skinned and stinking. She seemed even less focused than her fellows, bumping repeatedly against the pipe beside Lina, reaching for an skysail whose chains were cut free from the rest of the assembly.

A wide noose attached to a long pole slipped over the undead abomination. Michael Hockton appeared from where he’d been sneaking up along the gunwales.

“Ha!” he cried as he wrangled the Revenant with his catch-pole. “Gotcha.” His eyes met Lina’s and he blushed abruptly. “Oh. Hello, Lina. Tricia here keeps coming up on the deck, for some reason.”

“Hi,” she replied. Lina looked down at his boots, and found herself wringing her hands. Cursing quietly, she put them behind her back.