The Gospel According to Verdu (a Steampunk Novel) (The Brofman Series) (29 page)

“I did,” he said. “Did it say how soon?”

“Tomorrow. Afternoon. I tink ve may not be ones to help vid dis. I tink dat ve cannot fight de crowds and de guard to make escape for her.”

“It’s a tall order to get out of that box of a market.” Fenimore gnashed his teeth. “I wish we had more than a day and a half to plan. We need to get back to Pranav Erato and the others in the resistance and see what we can come up with. I saw Verdu in the marketplace and—”

“
Vhat?
” Ahy-Me shouted, and dashed back toward the marketplace.

Fenimore caught her before she could clear the end of the alley. “Ahy-Me! Stop!” He turned the girl around and gave her a light shake. “We don’t know what we are dealing with. He’s shopping in the market like he’s happy and secure. He’s been brainwashed or something. He was buying fruit and didn’t look like a man trying to escape and rejoin the resistance, if you understand me.” Fenimore looked into Ahy-Me’s horrified eyes and shook his head. He then did what felt right; he pulled her close to his chest and whispered, “I’m not sure he’s on our side right now. We can’t go running back there and show ourselves to him. It’s not prudent.”

Ahy-Me stood with her mouth open, staring at Fenimore’s shirt. “I can no believe dis,” she said, more to herself than to Fenimore. “No, I say. Verdu—I have read his heart in his vords. He ees . . . pure in his vay. He is forever on de side of us in de resistance. Ve must go to heem.”

She bit her lip as she thought for a moment, then reached up and slapped Fenimore on the cheek. Her face registered the excitement of a new idea. “Ah! I tink I see, ya! He makes a show to be dees good Tugrulian. I think eet ees a show. He must be having a plan. Du are right. Ve not go back. Only reason to act ees if somevon vatches. He ees vatched, so ve will not come to him just so. Ve vait.”

Ahy-Me was now the one tugging Fenimore down the dark side street. They turned a corner and disappeared into an abandoned building, where they slipped into a crevice that opened into an underground tunnel, which led them out of the city and toward the gathering resistance.

chapter 18

Strategic shift

Ollim and Rainor could be convincing when they teamed up. After putting most of their families onto Ollim’s ship—including a crying, biting, and spitting Afham, who would rather have been eaten by a giant fish than leave his new best friend Chenda or his father—the brothers and Chenda gathered around a map of the Tugrulian coast and began to debate the best places for breaking the patrol line and where to make landfall. Given the time Chenda had left before the scheduled execution of her dearest friend, there were only a few options.

The bare minimums of crew and cargo were left on the
Tao-Tallis
. Rainor knew as he kissed his wife and son tenderly at their parting that the odds were good they might never meet again, but no one dared speak about it. The sorrow between them nearly broke Chenda’s heart. Tugrulian patrols cared little for the lives of their own people, let alone Mae-Lyn. Rainor reasoned that if they got caught in the patrol zone, no trace of him or his ship would ever be found. Ollim figured that with all the rumors of the Pramuc’s return, the patrols would be doubled. Tripled, Rainor guessed. Chenda cared little.

She had resolved herself to walking through the front door of the empire in a big way. Anything obstructing her path—soldiers, sailors, rocky coastlines, fences, wild dogs, foul weather, or anything else—would be no trouble at all. She was resolved. The time for practicing with her powers was over. Verdu had told her to run and hide, to learn to use her gifts, to make them dance. No more dress rehearsals; it was time for a show.

Despite the warm weather, Chenda buckled her flight coat around herself, and pulled on her soft aeronaut boots. The coat, a wedding gift from Fenimore, had once been pristine and white. When Captain Endicott pronounced them “husband and wife,” Fenimore had grabbed her by those fluffy white lapels and kissed her with such triumphant bliss that she lost contact with her knees and feet. His grip on her coat had been all that kept her standing. That night, the coat had been her blanket in the tiny “honeymoon cabin” aboard her new airship home, the tickle of the lambskin on her own bare flesh added to the tender memories. Her time on the
Brofman
had turned the suede leather over the elbows and the tops of her thighs shiny and smooth, and the time she spent bobbing in the sea after being pitched off
The Poor Man’s Bounty
had stiffened and cracked what had once been supple and flawless. The wear did not bother her as every abuse reminded her of how the coat had protected her. It wrapped her in Fenimore’s love like armor and gave her strength to do what must be done to find him. To find all of her companions.

The
Tao-Tallis
had been sweeping southward at maximum sail for several hours. The sun was well past its zenith in the sky. It was getting harder and harder to keep her gaze trained on the horizon with the sparkling glare on the water. She closed her eyes and instead called on her power to feel out the presence of any other ships.

“You don’t worry about them. I
will
take care of it. You just aim me toward the pier. I can handle the rest.”

She looked up to see Rainor above her, frowning his doubt. “Make the turn. The patrols won’t be there when you go through the line. I promise.”

He shrugged. “As you wish, Pramuc,” he said, casual now that the details had been settled. Rainor slid down a rope and dropped to the deck near the helm and relieved his brother. He shouted orders to his skeleton crew as he spun the wheel. Sails shifted and the ship came about, slacking their fullness for the briefest of moments, then refilling with a snap of canvas biting into the gusting air.

Eyes still closed, Chenda felt the sun pass from her right cheek to shining full on her back. She focused on the three patrol boats in the area, which were now getting closer by the minute. They would have the advantage, able to see the
Tao-Tallis
’s silhouette long before the
Tao-Tallis
could make out their position against the glare of the afternoonsun. Chenda had a decision to make.

The
Tao-Tallis
needed a clear path to the pier at Ce-Gren. There were several ways that Chenda could plow the road—some more cruel than others. Some that could look like accidents and some that would announce that the Pramuc had returned to Tugrulia. It would take her little to no effort to simply pop the rivets on the hulls of the small patrol boats. The ships would simply break apart and sink. As far from shore as they were, there would be no survivors. Their disappearance would be a mystery. On the other hand, she could use considerably more of her power to capsize the ships. A wall of water rising up and swamping the patrols would be rather dramatic, and there was a chance that the sailors could cling to the upturned craft for a time and be rescued. That way, they could tell the tale, if they dared. She discarded the idea quickly. It would strip her of too much of her reserves, and, on land, she was going to need all of her energy to make it to the imperial palace. She couldn’t afford to wear herself out or run out her gifts.

Then it came to her. Not water, not earth. What she needed was fire. She had often demonstrated with fire as her power of choice when she first revealed herself to leaders in the Tugrulian resistance, and she had marked many a wall with a carving of a hand—her hand—holding a flaming dagger. It had become an unofficial symbol of the resistance. Fire was the way to go if she wanted her victims to survive with tales of what they saw.

In order not to exhaust herself, she would have to be very close, but that served her purpose well; she wanted the crews of those ships to see her and what she could do. She was ready.

“
What?
If we get too close, those patrols can take us apart like an osprey eats an eel. They have chemical cannons, you know. They can sink us before we can flinch.”

“You heard me. It won’t be a problem. I promise!”

Rainor sucked air through his clenched his teeth and make the course adjustment. The patrol boat was just a glimmer on the horizon at first, but quickly grew larger and began to take shape. Clearly it had seen the
Tao-Tallis
and was moving to intercept. Chenda concentrated, scanning the air, the way it moved through the patrol vessel’s tight sails, the way it was broken with the spray of saltwater cut from the sea by the racing bow, the men who stalked on the deck. With her focus on the element of air, all these things appeared in her mind as silhouetted voids. It was like looking through a telescope and seeing in negatives.

Suddenly, a spray of thousands of droplets arched from the patrol boat’s silhouette and came racing toward the
Tao-Tallis.
Chenda shifted her concentration from air to water, and clearly saw that the spray was liquid—likely an acid—and meant to cripple her ship. She smirked. What would have sunk any other vessel would not touch the
Tao-Tallis.
She simply commanded the water in the spray to change direction and drop into the sea. Effortless.

Chenda climbed onto a box she had positioned at the very bow of the ship and looked out at the patrol boat and the row of angry and puzzled faces there. The blast of acid should have seriously damaged her ship, but it had not. She could see the crew loading the blasting cannon to try again, but it was no use. She saw what she needed and knew they would not have enough time to load and fire another round before she had them in chaos.

She focused her attention on a young sailor behind the acid cannon on the patrol boat—more specifically, on the sparking slow fuse of his slow match. She grinned again. The poor lad, trained to touch off the acid cannon with his wick, had no idea what was about to happen to his ship.

A trickle of power spilled out of Chenda and raced to the spark at the end of the rod in the boy’s hand. A ribbon of fire shot up from there. The boy dropped the slow match, which bounced off the deck and into the sea, but it was too late: the fire was now Chenda’s to command.

The ribbon of flames swirled around in the air, bowed to the lad who had provided it birth, and then snaked its way to the red-striped sails of the patrol boat.

It was petty, she knew, but putting on a show was part of her plan. She burned letters into the fluttering sails, letting the fire fade as quickly as she could after marking them:

C H E N D A

and

T H E P R A M U C R E T U R N S.

Just for fun she finished with a frivolous flourish at the end. After putting her signature to the mainsail, she directed her ribbon of flame to the topmast, where the fire splintered into a dozen small, burning snakes, each twisting and consuming all the ropes on the ship. In moments, all of the sails were effectively cut free and slumped in piles on the deck. Without sails and with its crew too shocked to fire another blast of acid spray, the patrol boat sat helpless. The
Tao-Tallis
passed directly in front of it and did not slow for a moment.

The effort had left Chenda only slightly winded. She had hardly used up any of her power at all. She waved at the sailors on the patrol boat, some of whom were literally hopping mad at their idle state. She pulled a copy of Verdu’s little book out of her belt pouch, kissed the cover, and threw it into the air. Under her control, the wind carried it across the space between the two ships and into the chest of the most fearsome-looking man snarling in the bow. She held the wind against the book until the man clutched at it, then she released it and gave a small bow of her head.

Message sent
, she thought to herself as she focused on where the next threatening patrol boat was.

Pranav Erato shook his head.
NO! Faces of the gods! There is no strategic advantage for us in that market! They’re going to have to move the execution, or we’re never going to be able to help Candice.

Fenimore frowned at the skinny mystic. “So, you just think we need to send the emperor a note and politely ask him if he would be so kind as to relocate the good professor’s beheading? Not likely. I understand what you’re saying: getting resistance members in any number into the marketplace, with so many soldiers checking for weapons at the gates, is not going to be easy.”

But what can we do?
Pranav Erato folded his long limbs around himself as he squatted on the hard-packed dirt at the mouth of a cave overlooking the city. The tall spires of the palace were casting long shadows across the marketplace where Candice was scheduled to be executed the following afternoon.

Ahy-Me brought a bowl full of moss bread and mushrooms to the two men frowning at the view. “Ve could fill dis market vith many, many of our men and vomen. So many dat dey vill see de clamor for blood. If dey vant to have more and more eyes to see dis power of de emperor, perhaps dey vill move de execution to de ruins of de Dia Orella, no? Beeger space.”