And that was the last I listened to anything other than the sounds of nature until another light came into view. The flashes of war accompanied by the roars of gunfire and cannon fire.
We had arrived at the end of what would become known as The Final Battle of Cadigan. And my stomach tightened as I realized that we’d arrived too late.
But still, there’d hopefully at least be someone there to rescue. So, I clenched my teeth and flew Velos into our fate.
CHAPTER 23
I DIDN’T HAVE TO TRAVEL much further to taste the death on the collective unconscious. And then closer still, I caught sight of the husks of the sinking dragon carriers, and the floating corpses of dragons on the water, and The Saye Explorer still floating yet battered. All this I saw in speckled green after taking a swig of secicao oil from my hipflask.
We’d arrived just after the battle and all was calm. But it didn’t seem that the Saye Explorer had been raided yet. Because I could see General Sako and Admiral Sandao standing in the centre of the lower deck, their backs to each other.
“We haven’t got a chance,” Faso said. Because of the heat signatures I couldn’t quite see his facial features or the expression on his face.
“We’ve been through worse,” I said.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “Have you even seen those things?”
On closer examination, I noticed Faso was holding a telescope to his eye. I turned back and squinted into the distance to try and make out what he was looking at. Lo and behold, amidst the dying wall of shrapnel flak, massive Hummingbird carriers, airships, and swarms of Hummingbirds there was something else.
Yet not one but three of them…
Automatons large enough to be mammoths. Except they weren’t on the land or floating on the water, yet flying in the sky, lifted up by slow beating wings with a span three times the length of their body. They had huge long beaks with sharp ends that looked like they could pierce an ironclad’s hull. And even from this distance, it wasn’t hard to make out their evil glowing eyes — green in my augmented vision, but which I’m sure would have been red otherwise. And behind those eyes, the rest of their bulk also emitted a faint green glow.
“How much secicao is left in the armour?” I asked Faso.
“Why, I only brought enough for one resupply, and we used that. I hadn’t expected us to have many chances to refuel.”
I shook my head. So it was just Velos against what the king probably saw as his finest technology. Though we did have allies. I looked back at the black dragons who were taking a backseat. I could use them. I could reach out Finesia and call them into battle.
No Auntie, Taka said in the collective unconscious as if reading my intent. You said we mustn’t. There’s surely a better way.
But what else can we do? And it seemed for a moment I wasn’t talking to a young boy, but Sukina inside his head.
We fly up to them and find out what the king wants, he replied.
But Faso had other ideas. “We have to surrender,” he said. “This is it. King Cini has won.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself screaming at him for his negativity. I’d had quite enough of it. I could see the situation myself and there was no way we were going to go down without a fight, not after everything we’d been through. “What are those things?” I asked, making sure we focused on the important stuff.
“Beasts of the sky,” Faso replied. “I had no idea the king had completed them. Years ago, I gave him the blueprints for an automaton I called the Roc. If he’s created them to my specifications, they’ll have more armour than a Mammoth and enough weaponry to sink three battleships at once.”
Fortunately, nothing seemed to have noticed us yet, or at least regarded us as dangerous. Then it occurred to me, they were probably all there waiting for us to land on the Saye Explorer so they could finally come in and claim their prize. Hell, they probably had an automaton on deck somewhere with a gun pointed at General Sako’s and Admiral Sandao’s head.
And indeed, as we got closer, I noticed that General Sako and Admiral Sandao in fetters that had been welded into the floor of the ship. Their hands were free, and they were throwing them up in the air and gesturing towards the front of the ship. But they remained silent, presumably because they didn’t want to wake any guards.
I looked over the the prow of the Saye Explorer, and I didn’t notice anything unusual, other than a bowsprit with a white flag handing off it, that I could swear hadn’t been there before.
“The cannon,” Faso said. “Dragonheats, I’d forgotten about it. Maybe after all, we’ll stand a chance of taking one of the Rocs down.”
“Keep it down Faso,” I snapped. We were still fortunately far enough away from the ship that nothing would be able to hear us. But we wouldn’t be for long. “And where’s the cannon? I can’t see it.”
“That’s because they disguised it as a flagpole,” Faso said a little quieter this time. “Whoever’s idea it was, I’ll have to commend them for their quick thinking.”
Indeed, now Faso had mentioned it, I recognised it. Our crew had simply pushed the trolley right to the front of the ship, angled the cannon upwards a little, and hung a white surrender flag off the gun to make it look as if it was part of the construction.
I saluted General Sako and Admiral Sandao and pointed to the cannon to let them know we’d noticed it. Once they realised, they’d got the message across, they stopped flailing their arms about and stood stock still on the deck as if nothing was there. I couldn’t see any sign of any other guards, neither ours nor King Cini’s. But as we got closer still, I noticed war automatons sitting dormant by the ship’s railing, as well as a crisscross latticework of green lines of light that stretched across the floor of the deck.
Probably, these were infrared, and I could only see them because of my augmented vision. And, no doubt, if we landed on them, we’d trigger an alarm, waking up the war automatons, then King Cini would reclaim Taka and order the public execution of Faso and myself. So we had no choice but to get the cannon. And a while back someone had told me that this could be equipped from the air.
Then I smiled, because I remembered something. “Faso… Last time we were facing off against the king’s fleet, you told me Velos has a reserve tank. Have we used that yet?”
He paused a moment.
“Faso?”
“No,” he said. “But we might need it. And it only gives us five minutes.”
“Do it,” I said. “Faso use the reserve tank and then Velos can use the secicao to help him fly with utmost accuracy. Then we pick up the cannon, shoot down one of those fabled Roc automatons, and after we’ve scared the king a little, we find out exactly what he wants.”
“And then what?” Faso said.
I looked down at the Saye Explorer and Admiral Sandao and General Sako onboard. They would already know that they had nothing left, and both men would want us to take Taka to safety. I swallowed hard. “We’ll leave them if we have to.”
“Grandpa,” Taka said…
“He’ll be okay,” I said. And I immediately hated those words. I’d also told him that about Sukina just before she’d died. If I were Taka, I wouldn’t trust Pontopa Wells right now.
“Very well,” Faso said. “You’re the boss, but after this we have absolutely no secicao left to power Velos.”
I nodded. “Faso, I want you to use everything.”
“Everything?”
“Down to the last drop. We mustn’t fail at this.”
And so, he reached down to the spigot on Velos’ flank and turned it. The armour suddenly ghosted green and I felt a little strength return to Velos. “Don’t roar,” I told him. And I sang a song to make sure he stayed calm. I flew him around in a circle and readied him to fly into the faux flagpole at the Saye Explorer’s prow.
“We’ll need speed for this,” Faso said. “It takes a good bit of oomph to get that cannon on Velos.”
Good thing he’s augmented, I thought. And I took
another swig from my hip flask as the see-in-the-dark effect had begun to fade a little. We only had one chance at this, and I could feel the power surging through my veins, a side-effect of my connection to Velos. I pushed down on his steering fin and urged him to edge him a little closer to the ship. Meanwhile, I kept my eye on the cannon, or should I say bowsprit, in front of us. I didn’t want to attempt equipping it yet. Rather, I wanted to fly over the ship and see what we were up against.
As we passed overhead, I saw the worried expression on General Sako’s face as he looked up at me. It was as if he was saying, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” but of course he didn’t utter a word. I don’t know if he even saw Taka then, but hopefully he’d at least catch a glance of him to know he was safe.
As well as the war automatons hiding behind the railings, guards had been posted on deck. They were also propped up against the railings and all of them were asleep. The buffoons — they were so reliant on the technology that they didn’t even think to put a single man on watch.
Now I’d had time to scan the deck, I decided to take Velos around for one more pass. We flew around in a circle once more and then I pushed down on Velos’ steering fin to take him towards the ship. He hurtled downwards at intense speed, fueled by the secicao in his armour. Wind rushed passed us, and I wanted to scream out and relish the joy of flying. But, of course, I didn’t want to attract attention to ourselves.
“Easy,” Faso said. “You need to be a little off to the left.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I said. This time, I hadn’t been hit by Alsie’s glamour spell or whatever she’d thrown at me all those days back in the Southlands. I could see perfectly. Plus, the secicao that I’d augmented with allowed me to compress time in my own mind.
Soon enough, we connected with the cannon, and I heard the clanking of machinery. If Velos’ claws even scraped across the deck, then the war automatons would wake up and King Cini would be alerted to our presence. A guard would probably be awoken by the noise, but by the time they came to and saw what was happening, we’d be long gone.
I pulled up as soon as Velos’ armour bucked, praying that he didn’t touch a single line of light the crisscrossed the floor. One swept ever so close to Velos’ feet, but he missed it by inches.
Then, we were up and back into the cool night. I looked over my shoulder, half expecting that the cannon would still be on the ship. We’d have failed and Velos wouldn’t have enough secicao left in his armour to have any chance of another successful pass.
“You did it,” Faso shouted out. “First time, I’d never have expected.”
I snorted. “Well, I guess it’s time to go and deliver our message to King Cini.” He probably would expect us to emerge bruised and battered, and not in any state at all to fight back.
“That’s right,” Faso said. “And remember, we only have three shots.”
I shook my head. Three shots. Three Roc automatons. Hopefully I’d only have to use one before we made our escape. They’d try and stop us with shrapnel flak, of course. But hopefully, by that time, we’d be long on our way to the Southlands. And we were so far from the volcano and the dangerous currents it had created, I could probably try taking Velos underneath the ships. Although last time we’d tried that it had almost killed us.
I pulled Velos over to the side and we flew towards the line of airships that I saw in the distance. They had their searchlights ready, watching the water. No doubt keeping watch if any of the captive crew of the Saye Explorer tried to escape in a lifeboat.
I could now see the flying automatons’ massive heads, turning from side to side and scanning the horizon. Their beaks were the most monstrous thing I’d ever seen on any kind of bird or anything that resembled one. Their upper and lower beak formed a sharp line flecked with razors that looked like they would dash apart anything that got in their way.
Ratter now sat on Faso’s shoulder watching what I imagined the ferret automaton regarded as his nemeses. Now we’d destroyed the panthers on Colas’ island, these automatons were perhaps the most impressive automaton known to mankind. Although Faso would claim they weren’t as intelligent as Ratter, I’m sure. And who knows what the inventor had in mind for his dragon automaton.
One of the Rocs turned its head to us as we approached. It let out a caw to the sky, just like a crow’s but a thousand times the volume. So loud, in fact, it seemed to rock the waves in front of it.
All of a sudden, the airship propellers started up in unison and a searchlight swung around to focus on us from the airship behind the Roc. Not long after that, King Cini’s voice emanated out of a loudspeaker. “Well, I never. Pontopa Wells, and indeed Alsie was right, you brought the boy. Taka… Long time no see, aye.”
“Dragonheats,” I said back to Faso. “I wish you’d brought along a loudspeaker so I could tell that idiot king to stuff his felt crown up his behind.”
“Pontopa… There’s a child present.”
“Yes, you’re right,” I said. “Taka don’t try that at home…”
And he smiled as if getting my joke. This boy in many ways was years past his age.
“Is the cannon ready,” I asked him. “We have a better way of showing him our contempt. I glanced over my shoulder at the two great hulking aerial automatons now following us. Under each wing, they had three massive guns all lined up next to each other, again with that faint secicao gleam running across the length of each one. While we flew ahead, the automatons tracked us with remarkable precision, their wings adjusting automatically to match any change in direction. Despite their size, they seemed quite mobile, although I guessed they weren’t quite equipped for aerobatics like Velos was capable of.
“Ready,” Faso said. “You won’t miss this time, will you?”
“Of course not,” I said. And I took another swig of my secicao oil just to make sure.
Ratter launched itself off Faso’s shoulder and onto the side of Velos where the special control panel was. I felt the armour thrum again, but this time it didn’t glow or emit heat. It wasn’t being powered by secicao, but rather the cannon beneath was gaining power. Meanwhile, I kept Velos steady and on course. We had about thirty seconds now before we’d pass the Roc, which I could see clearly now. It had a Gatling cannon on the top of its head, pointed right at us. Then, there was another much larger machine gun on its underbelly, connected to a long bandolier that coiled around its chest and long tail, from where it hung at the end.
“Fire,” I said.
“Aye aye,” Faso said.
For a moment nothing happened. And I worried that we’d either pass the bird automaton or it would fire on us before we’d even had a chance.
“Faso?” I asked.
“Give it time.”
And just as we were almost upon the Roc automaton, a great white beam of light erupted from Velos’ underbelly. It passed right through the Roc, searing through the metal. It lasted only a moment and then fizzled out. And we were about to collide with the thing.
“Dragonheats,” I said. And I pushed down hard on Velos’ steering fin. The dragon entered a sharp dive, and this time the sudden effect of the gravity made me almost want to throw up.
And then, I levelled Velos out and everything was silent for a moment. I turned back to see a trail of smoke in my green augmented vision coming up off the Roc. Then, the great beast plummeted to the ground. It hit the water sending up a huge wave out in all directions, rocking the Saye Explorer.
“Dragonheats, Faso Gordoni,” the voice came out from King Cini’s airship. “I didn’t know you had those tricks up your sleeve and you now will pay. This time, I’m not even going to give you the option of surrender. Oh, and before you think of going under Lady Wells, I’ll have to know that I’ve modified my entire fleet to also eject shrapnel flak into the water. And I don’t care about any of your passengers, including the boy. Now I’ve sacked my consort, my single objective is to take you down.”
You know this king liked the sound of hi
s voice far too much. His father would have just shot us down by now and had done with it. But sacked his consort, or in other words Alsie Fioreletta? Now that was news. Which meant that Alsie and King Cini probably weren’t allied when I bumped into her at the volcano. Which meant…
I didn’t have much time to think about it, because almost immediately after he cut off from the loudspeaker systems, the Roc automatons behind us decided to fire on us. Green smoke erupted from the three long launchers on their wings, and then out screamed three missiles. They were heading straight towards us and so I pulled Velos upwards in a loop the loop. But then, I grimaced as soon as I saw the missiles start to follow us.
“Homing missiles,” Faso said. “Be careful.”
“You what?” I asked. But my voice was cut off by the scream of the wind cutting against my face.
Faso shouted out something else, but I couldn’t hear a word of what he was saying.
Auntie, Taka said. They’re secicao powered, I can use my scream.
No, I said. Don’t listen to Finesia. Velos can get through this one with sheer agility.
And no doubt Faso was probably screaming out how crazy he thought I was. I was now upside down in the air and I looked at the ocean below us to see the missiles heading upwards towards us. Taka was certainly right – they had a green trail to them. Although, admittedly with my augmented vision, everything was green.
If I could just get in front of them, then Velos could shoot them down with fire. That gave me an idea. Fire. If they sought heat, maybe we could redirect them.
I quickly sang a staccato-tipped song and Velos latched on and spewed out a column of flame. While the missiles had been heading towards our heads, they suddenly began to veer off in a new direction. Right into Velos’ flight path. Not good.
I turned Velos sharply to the right and entered him into a half barrel roll so we could get upright again. Meanwhile, the explosion rocked us in the air, and I felt the heat prickle against my arm. I pushed downwards to get Velos as far away from the fires as possible. Faso would have the worst of it, but then he had Ratter to immediately administer first aid. I looked over my shoulder to check that Faso and Taka were okay. They looked a little shocked but not injured. Behind them, Velos’ flame had now mixed with the explosions to create a blossoming magnificent display of light.
Dragonseers and Bloodlines: The Steampunk Fantasy Adventure Continues (Secicao Blight Book 2) Page 27