by A. C. Cobble
The Cloud Serpent hung a thousand yards above the surface of the harbor, twice the height of the royal marine airships. Those that had air spirits strong enough to float so high would keep their stones wet. Regulations stated a specific height in harbor, after all.
“We got their attention,” remarked Pettybone, peering over the edge at the activity below them.
Moments later, a rocket came screaming up from one of the royal marine airships. It burst four hundred yards aft, a hundred yards below them. The billow of flame might have been enough to reflect on the bottom of their hull, though.
“Time to go!” shouted Captain Ainsley. “Look sharp, boys. We’ve got about half a league, and then we’ll lose the extra push the duke is giving us. That’s half a league to build a lead on these fellows, or we’ll sorely regret not having it.”
Pettybone began calling instructions, driving the men to hoist the sails, to catch the stronger breeze at elevation before they dropped, before the chase began in earnest. They would need every advantage they could muster before they sank down to the height of the other airships.
Below, they heard the high-pitched shriek of another rocket flying up from the decks of the royal fleet. It thumped three hundred yards off the starboard side.
Air filled their sails, and they began to move.
With their bombardment stopped, the shouts below them grew focused, and the pursuit was started. Rockets still flew at them, but only one exploded near enough to rock the airship. At night, with five hundred yards of extra elevation, it was more luck than skill which guided the attacks from below.
As they moved, imperceptible at first, but then quickly, they began to drop as they exceeded the duke’s range to communicate with the spirits that lifted them. He was giving them all that he could, Ainsley could tell, but it wouldn’t last forever. It was time for some old-fashioned sailing.
“Come on, you air dogs!” screamed Ainsley to her crew. “You want to survive a life of privateering in the tropics? Then you’d best learn to evade the royal marines. Get the rest of the canvass aloft, and down below, bend your spirit-forsaken backs on those sweeps. They’re coming after us, boys. If they catch us, we die, but if we escape, we’ll be the richest damn aircrew in the history of the empire!”
She moved back to the rear of the airship and looked below where a dozen royal marine vessels were scrambling to fall into their wake. Unused to attacks from above, or any attacks at all for that matter, they were disorganized. Their confusion was buying the Cloud Serpent extra seconds as the fleet struggled to untangle themselves and find open air.
She’d claimed her aircrew could out sail anyone. She was about to find out.
“Would have been easier if we’d let some of those bombs land on their decks,” advised Pettybone. “We could have knocked three or four of them out of the chase before it started, and it would have given the others something to think about before they got too close to us.”
“Aye, but we’re still working for the duke,” said Ainsley. “The loyalty we show him will be repaid when the crew shows it to us. Soon, First Mate, soon we’ll sail this thing however and wherever we please, but until then, we work for the man, and he asked us not to kill anyone, unless we have to, of course.”
First Mate Pettybone grunted. His eyes were fixed on the airships that were finally getting their acts together and starting after them. “Whether or not we pull this off, I’ve been proud to serve under you, Captain Ainsley.”
“Get to work, First Mate,” she growled.
The Cartographer XXIV
Above them, the clouds flashed, reflecting the red and orange blasts of bombs and rockets. Even from below, on the waters outside the harbor, the confusion amongst the royal marine airships was evident. They’d never faced an attack, never battled air to air. They had never imagined an opponent who could sail above them.
Oliver thought that the slow reaction to the Cloud Serpent’s bombardment did not bode well for the planned foray into the Darklands, but if all went well, perhaps the marines wouldn’t be making that journey.
He and Sam waited quietly while he cast his mind above, encouraging the spirits living within the Cloud Serpent’s stones, hurrying them on their journey. He strained, reaching as far as he could, watching as the rockets chased Ainsley into the distance. Finally, his connection began to slip, and they could follow the arc of the rockets as the Cloud Serpent descended.
“I hope that’s enough of a lead,” he muttered.
Beside him, Sam nodded. “Ainsley is a good captain. They’ll be all right. Time to row?”
“Time to row,” he agreed, and as one, they bent forward, dug their oars into the choppy waters, and leaned back, propelling their tiny boat forward.
Like a leaf on the surface of a stream, they floated across heavy swells, darting silently through the harbor break, past the guards there. From two hundred yards away, Oliver could see that the men stationed on those remote posts were uniformly staring up at the sky where the airships were launching rockets and scrambling after the Cloud Serpent. All two dozen of the vessels, uncoordinated, were attempting the pursuit.
Grinning, Oliver felt a bit reassured that at least the first part of his plan was working. He’d known that Admiral Brach’s marines had no contingency for an attack from above, particularly in the safe confines of Southundon’s skies. Who would be mad enough to attack an airship above the capital?
It meant that each captain was on their own on how to respond, and if there was one thing about Enhover’s royal marines everyone knew, it was that they feared no one. They thought themselves the most potent force on the planet and could not conceive of a threat they couldn’t meet.
They hadn’t seen what Oliver had, and it made them overconfident. It made them blind to the idea that the Cloud Serpent was merely a ruse, a way to draw the eyes from the water where he and Sam were slipping in silently upon a rowboat.
The Cloud Serpent would circle the city of Southundon to the west, launching half a dozen rockets toward the palace to truly garner everyone’s attention, and then it would race north, charting a course over central Enhover, hopefully out sailing the pursuit.
Over the river that disgorged beside Southundon, Ainsley would drop two bundles from the sides of the airship. Two bundles wrapped tightly around simulacra made to represent he and Sam. The bundles had been invested with traces of their hair, their blood, and other fluids that had been a bit more pleasant to collect. They’d been bound to the simulacra with designs that Sam had spent hours fashioning.
With any luck, King Edward would be drawn to the dummies, and he and his shades would be watching as the decoys floated harmlessly down the sluggish river.
Oliver and Sam would approach, partially hidden by the tattoos Kalbeth had inked on the priestess and that Sam had extended through ritual. It had worked before. The plan had gotten them into the ancient druid keep and past William’s watchers. Of course, his uncle had been waiting when Sam had leapt out of hiding.
Oliver kept pulling on the oars, trying not to poke holes in their plan while they were in the throes of executing it. Whether or worked or not, they were committed. It was time to bring down the empire.
“You’re sure this will be unguarded?” asked Sam.
Oliver shook his head. “It will be guarded but not by my father. Years ago, I constantly snuck in and out of the palace. If they couldn’t figure it out then, I doubt my father has found my secret ways since.”
Sam grunted and fingered the hilts of her sinuous kris daggers.
Leading the way, Oliver climbed out of their rowboat onto the narrow fishing pier. It was open to the public, but the slender fish that populated Southundon’s harbor were bottom feeders, only rising toward the surface during bright daylight. At night, the pier was deserted. In a crouch, Oliver scampered down the pier, passing its open gate and scurrying into the city.
At his side, he clutched the hilt of his broadsword, and under his arms, he felt the hard stee
l of the two katars Sam had given him. The punch daggers would be effective against shades, imbued with the power to banish them back to the underworld, but the longer steel of his broadsword felt comfortable. The katars were close weapons, intimate. Tonight, he hoped he wouldn’t need them.
Several hundred yards away, the commercial wharfs were busy, ships loading or unloading, their masters hoping to finish the task in time for the turn of the tide. The shouts of the workmen were loud enough that they covered the sound of Oliver and Sam’s footsteps as they entered the city. Off the harbor, the buildings were warehouses, some lit to receive or discharge their goods, most dark and silent.
None of the workmen paid them any mind as they scuttled by, sticking to the shadows. The goods that moved on the sea-going vessels were bulk commodities, and two individuals couldn’t steal enough of it to make it worth bothering to closely guard. There were a handful of watchmen walking in pairs on patrol in the district, but when they saw them, he and Sam strode by like they belonged there. The sentries let them pass unmolested, either unable to see their faces in the darkness, or maybe they hadn’t been given their descriptions.
Southundon was a relatively safe city, and as long as they didn’t appear to be up to something nefarious, the night patrols would pay them little mind. Oliver suspected it would be that way until they reached the inner walls, where his father could have alerted the guards to watch for them. If not guards, the old man would have his shades clustered thickly.
Still, it gave Oliver a sense of relief to step off the cobblestoned streets into a narrow, dirt alleyway, out of view of any prying eyes. They’d made assumptions that parts of their plan would work, but there was no certainty. If the wrong person saw and recognized them, then his planning would be for naught.
“You snuck through here as a boy?” asked Sam, her lips twisted in distaste.
He winked at her. “A young man, I would say.”
“Doesn’t seem a place the king would appreciate finding his son,” remarked Sam.
“Didn’t you tell me you were sent to Glanhow’s gaol as a young girl?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “A young woman, and I don’t recall telling you that.”
“You did tell me,” he insisted. He paused. “What did you do at such a tender age to be locked up in a gaol?”
“Probably a bit of what they’re doing in there,” she said, gesturing to the narrow house that blocked the end of the alley.
A roar of cheers poured out of the doorway.
Oliver started ahead. “Best if we can slip inside while everyone is distracted.”
At the door, a man waited, taking up half the width of the alley. He stood beneath the solitary lantern that illuminated the entry, the mist curling about him in the early summer air. His head was bald, crisscrossed with a network of impressive scars, and beaded with moisture from the fog coming off of the sea. He wore a padded leather vest, loose trousers, and heavy leather bracers studded with steel spikes. His fingers were covered in brass knuckle-guards.
A former fighter from the pits inside, guessed Oliver. Skilled enough to have caught the interest of the masters of the place and strong enough he’d survived the bouts it took to earn such a set of scars.
With the brass guards on his knuckles and the steel spikes on his bracers, Oliver had little doubt the man could handily beat him to death in a matter of moments. The guard had probably done it before, when hapless drunks tried to force their way inside. The watchmen, their purses lined with silver, knew to avoid the narrow little house. The families of those who went missing inside never asked questions, or if they did, they didn’t ask for long until someone paid them a visit.
“Password?” asked the hulking guard, his voice surprisingly high-pitched.
“Pickles,” replied Oliver confidently.
The guard frowned at him.
“Pickles,” repeated Oliver.
“That’s not the password,” said the guard. He shifted, clearly positioning himself to block the doorway.
“Silver, then?” asked Oliver, and he pulled a small pouch from within his jacket and shook it. A fistful of coins clinked at the motion.
“Silver doesn’t do me a lot of good if I let a watchman inside of here,” responded the guard.
“I’ve got a tip on a fight coming up tonight,” said Oliver. “I’ll have this much again on the way out.”
The guard snorted. “How many times you think I’ve heard that, chap? If you don’t know the password, do yourself a favor and turn around. You don’t have enough silver for me to risk my neck. Word of advice, chap? If you don’t belong here, then it’s best you never get in.”
Another wave of noise crashed out the door from behind the guard, but the man ignored it. He was used to the boisterous yelling, and he kept his eyes fixed on Oliver and Sam.
“Let’s go,” said Sam, looking behind them nervously. “We can find another way.”
Oliver shook his head. The Filthy Beggar was one of the city’s oldest illegal establishments. It had an entrance near the harbor, where they were trying to gain admission, but it sprawled in a network of underground rooms and passageways, twisting around the tunnels that had been bored for the rail lines, snaking beneath the inner walls of Southundon.
Avoiding the portals that led through the gates on the surface was how he’d first discovered the illicit fighting parlour, and it was the only way he knew to slip through undetected now.
Southundon’s inner walls were manned constantly with guards, and now that Admiral Brach was raising additional militias, they would be thick with new men who would be eager to prove themselves and gain a position in a forward unit where the plunder would be richest. Those men would have their eyes open, not yet bored to slumber by tedious guard duty. Not to mention the fireworks show Ainsley had put on above the city. His father would have alerted spies at the inner wall and possibly set sorcerous snares as well. There would be no way they could pass through undetected. The Filthy Beggar, though, would take them underneath all of that.
“You know a retired fighter named Jack?” asked Oliver.
The guard frowned at him.
“He would have been fighting about the same time as you. He had a good record,” continued Oliver. “One of the legends in this place, I was told. You don’t know him?”
“Chap, the only thing people do more often than try to bribe me is to bring up some old fighter and pretend they know ‘em,” rumbled the guard. “Aye, I know a Jack. I know a few men named Jack. But that don’t mean we know the same Jack, and even if we did, I still ain’t letting you in.”
Oliver shook his head. “I’ve only met the man once. That sure thing I told you about? They whipped him in the space of a dozen heartbeats. Someone who could do that, you think they’d be a good bet?”
The guard laughed. “I doubt that’s true, but if it is, the Jack I know ain’t fought for years. He’s bound to be rusty. It’s a fool’s bet you’re talking about, and there’s no shortage of those.”
Grinning, Oliver shook his head. “The fighter that beat Jack isn’t inside. She’s right here.” He hooked a thumb at Sam.
The guard laughed, looking her up and down then tilting his head forward and licking his lips. “Well, if I was Jack, I’d let you beat me too, girl. What say we meet up after my shift and give it a go?”
Sam looked at the man and then back to Oliver. “You want me to knock this lug out? I suspect I’d have to kill him, and I don’t know where we’d hide a body that big.”
The guard grunted and raised a fist. “You’ve got a pretty mouth, girl. Best not let any more stupid words come out of it. Boss’ll have my hide if I let you in, but he won’t blink if I bloody you some.”
“I don’t want anyone to fight,” assured Oliver. “Not out here. Not when there’s no coin to be made from it.”
“What you gettin’ at, chap?” asked the guard.
“This girl beat your friend Jack fair and square,” said Oliver. “Maybe you heard
about that? He took a pounding while in Baron Child’s service up in Westundon. It was her. I aim to put her in some bouts tonight.”
“No one is going to fight her,” growled the guard. “Ain’t no fights between women.”
“She’ll fight the men,” insisted Oliver.
“They won’t—”
Oliver shook his bag of silver. “I got twenty times this in a credit note. They’ll fight her for that. And when they do, there’s not a man in the house that’ll bet on her ‘cept for me. What kind of odds you think they’ll put against her? Twenty to one? Hundred to one?” He shook the purse of silver again.
The guard looked suspicious.
“Look, mate,” said Oliver. “I’m not asking for your silver. I’m just asking for you to let us in. I’ll give you a cut if we win, and if we lose, it’s no loss to you.”
“How much a cut you offering?” questioned the guard.
“Five percent,” said Oliver.
“Ten,” said the guard.
“Seven,” countered Oliver.
The guard frowned, shaking his head slowly.
“Ten, then,” agreed Oliver, “but in an hour when your shift is over, you come in and play the other side. Help talk to management and get her into the pits against someone formidable. Place some bets to get the silver flowing. Talk it up around the pit. Get people interested. Do that, and you’ve earned your ten.”
“How do I know she’ll win?” asked the guard.
Sam attacked in a flash, grabbing the collar of the man’s leather vest and jerking him forward onto her knee. The big man coughed as a blast of air was knocked from his lungs. Sam put fingers under his chin and raised it so that he was looking into her eyes. She wiggled her fingers. “This could be my fist in your neck.”
The guard stepped back, drawing a deep breath and raising his hands in front of himself. “Inside, they’ll be ready for you. Dirty tricks won’t work, girl.”