She'd told Horatio to give her two bells, which was what she'd worked out to be the minimum safe time to finish loading Ebon's cargo and get the Tantamount ready for flight. Ebon was meant to have taken care of their docking issues, everything bought and paid for, though by now their original cargo was on its way back to his warehouse, a security deposit holding up their end of the bargain.
Once those two bells were up the Tantamount would set sail. If Quill wasn't back aboard by then, it would be Scarlett doing the piloting. The port authorities would help with the launching, but once the Tantamount was airborne a single navigator could manage the traversing of frictionless space. They only had until then. The halfway mark had already been and gone.
Sharpe grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her bicep painfully. “There.” He pointed towards an intersection below them. The guards had been positioned regularly; Quill was the last to make his presence known, bringing up the rear of the column.
“He looks edgy,” Sharpe muttered. “Going to give us away.”
“Quill always looks like that,” Nel replied, relieved to see Quill for once. “Damned Kelpie can't sit still. Nervous habit. You're sure Violet's down there?”
“We saw her,” Sharpe said.
“That was then,” Nel hissed.
“And this is now. I'll head down and clue Quill in on the plan, you just be ready with your part.”
“Trust me,” Nel said dryly, catching Sharpe's eye as he started to make his way down. He paused, but only briefly. Pity.
She watched Sharpe unobtrusively join the line of guards, keeping pace with the slave train. He moved as if he had every right to be there, quietly and confidently, not hurrying nor taking his time. Few of the guards gave him a second look—chances were they'd seen him earlier when Quill and Sharpe were ingratiating themselves into the organisation.
What was his game, she wondered. There was too much cloak and dagger here. He was going to an awful lot of effort just to secure himself a ride. True, he'd seemed fond of Violet, but that didn't seem enough. And the way he'd talked before, he seemed almost disappointed in her unwillingness to act heroically stupid.
Sharpe made his way ahead of the line to where Quill was stationed, again moving as if he was supposed to be there. He leaned easily against a convenient wall, making what looked like small talk with the Kelpie. Quill didn't appear to react much to what Sharpe was telling him, but Nel could spot the telltale lashing of his tail. He got it under control soon enough but it was there to be seen.
Now they needed Violet. They couldn't rescue her if she didn't put in an appearance. And maybe it was because of Quill that Nel was watching, but she saw one of the prisoners in a second upcoming train dragging something behind them. Seconds later she realised it was a tail, ragged and dirty, but a bushy foxtail nonetheless, and the tail was very much still attached to her cabin girl.
Looking to see if Quill and Sharpe had noticed Violet yet, Nel found Sharpe had done his disappearing act again. Quill was still manning his post for a change, she thought ruefully, and Violet was approaching his position.
And that was where the problems started. In the time since she'd been taken Violet had been traumatised. The girl became hysterical, shrieking and running towards Quill as if she were actually happy to see him. Quill looked every bit as shocked as Nel felt, unsure how to deal with the situation. Violet was yelling his name, desperately trying to get his attention. She succeeded in getting everyone else's.
This stage of the plan had called for Sharpe to be the one to get Violet free and away from her captors. That was all torn now. Nel grabbed her wand and started to make her way down towards the ruckus. She saw weapons appearing among the guards: clubs, naked steel, a few wands. Quill backed up helplessly as the slaver guards converged on him. But Quill wasn't helpless—Nel could see the moment when Quill made his decision. Never the pacifist and more than content to settle his affairs with violence, Quill acted, his tail stopping to a slow wave and one clawed hand coming up. The first of the guards went flying, thrown bodily from the scene by whatever loose debris Quill had latched onto.
That settled it for Nel too. She leaned out as far as she dared over the precipice above the streets and rained fire down on the people who had kidnapped Violet.
From that distance the charges from her wand had mostly dissipated by the time they struck their targets, kicking up dirt and dust, singeing skin and hair but not doing any real damage. One man took a charge to the shoulder and spun, tripping over his own feet and falling. But the assault had the desired effect. More than half the guards turned in reaction, convinced they were under some sort of coordinated attack. Wand charges flew towards Nel's position, forcing her to duck back into cover. The people out there had a much bigger punch than Nel's lonely wand. They'd work that out and come for her soon. She leaned out to fire off another quick barrage before bolting for the stairs.
Her flight took her down to the first floor above street level. Cauldron's lean towards sprawling growth worked to her advantage—a running leap took her into the next building at the cost of just a few bruises. She worked her way to the window, to where she thought she should have a view over the intersection.
A shootout was in progress. Quill had thrown loose rubble around, giving himself some meagre protection in addition to the doorway that sheltered him. He was steadily depleting his protection as he pitched rocks at anyone he got more than a look at. The slave train, with Violet in the middle of it, cowered on the far side of the street, opposite Nel's vantage. She couldn't do much for them from here, so where the hells was Sharpe?
She got her answer when one of the slavers went down, wand requisitioned and comrades set upon. Thaumatically charged static flew, kicking up more dust, and another slaver went down. Sharpe stood a dozen feet from the train. Somehow in the confusion of the fire fight he caught Nel's eye, gesturing with familiar signs toward the slavers down the street from him. Before she realised what she was doing, her wrist flicked out, sending charge after charge down the line. Rocks fell from the sky as Quill added his own ammunition. Their position gave them a three point covering, a standard Alliance tactic for attacking a concentrated position. The enemy had three targets to split their fire on, they had just one. It was a tactic Nel hadn't thought about in a long time.
Sharpe had Violet free now. She clung to him as he pushed her along ahead of him, bent low and keeping close to the edge of the street. They reached Quill and kept going, the Kelpie pitching one final rock at the slavers before following them. Quill didn't run well, his backwards folding legs and tail meant he had to stoop low to make up any speed, something he found humiliating, but he still managed to trail the other two.
Nel almost emptied her wand at the slavers, trying to keep their attention from focusing too closely on the escapee. With any luck they wouldn't be that eager to pursue. With any luck they'd stay still and count their losses first. There were reasons Nel didn't believe in luck. The wand felt light in her hand, the charge almost depleted. She eyed the slave train with something gnawing at the pit of her stomach. Sharpe had gotten Violet out of her shackles. She could see them either broken or picked, lying in the torn up street. The chain that kept all the remaining slaves tied together still ran the length of the train. Knowing she was wasting time she took careful aim. The last of her wand's charge made the distance, hitting the chain with a shower of sparks.
She was distracted before she could see if it had made any difference. Someone had made it into her redoubt. She heard the impact of their feet hitting the ground after the jump, heard someone else storming the stairs behind her, felt the air pressure as they charged towards her.
Nel dropped her shoulder, shifting her weight and driving up with her legs. The man who had been looking to crush her against the wall ending up going over her head and out the window, a shriek followed by a thud as he hit the street below. Between those two sounds Nel saw a familiar face. This time she recognised the oiled hair and pale eyes,
though they struck her as odd, upside down and falling as they were. The petty mouth was open wide, meaningless sound gushing out of it. If Nel had had any more charge left in her wand she would have emptied it again straight into that mouth.
But before Brawn hit the ground though, she had already moved to deal with his friend, ducking under outstretched arms and turning back to forcefully introduce him to the wall, the same way Brawn would have done to her. Another body slid limply to the floor—a Kelpie this time, she noted. Some of its teeth had chipped against the wall, crumbling white fragments littered the floor.
No one else seemed to be coming for her yet. She ran, out another window and through the close-knit streets, the route she and Sharpe had worked out ahead of time. How long had it been now? Too soon or too late and this could all fall through.
She found the others at a place she and Sharpe had agreed on. They wouldn't have waited for her had she been late, not that she expected either Sharpe or Quill to have considered the notion. The Kelpie at least seemed in a good mood. Violet, wide-eyed, clung to Nel at first sight. Sharpe was silent, calm. Nel didn't care for that.
“I'm out,” she said, holding up her wand, gently extracting herself from Violet's clutches.
Sharpe held up the wand he'd liberated earlier. “Never did like these things.” He gave it a tentative shake. Nothing. Not a spark. “Can't rely on them.”
“Discuss your affections later,” Quill said. “If my ship . . .”
“Your ship?” Nel interrupted.
“You let someone else . . . ?”
“If you didn't keep leaving your damned post!”
“Hey!” Sharpe called. They both turned to look at him. He pointed. “Company.”
“We need to move,” Nel said, taking Violet's arm. She stopped suddenly. “Violet?”
Violet gave a helpless little shrug, glancing over her shoulder. Where there had been one, there were now two tails. “It's not my fault.”
“Later,” Nel said firmly. “Move.”
They hustled further towards their target. Old Smoky leaned tall against a black pincushion backdrop. The closer they got to the peak the hotter the air became. By the time they reached the base they were drenched in sweat. Nel could feel rivers running down her arms. Only Quill seemed to find it easy going. Damned cold-blooded Kelpie was all she could think. With the sounds of their pursuers approaching she didn't take the time to voice her thoughts.
“Now what?” Violet asked shrilly.
“Up,” Sharpe told her. This close to Old Smoky the air was filled with ash and soot. It stuck to his skin, leaving trails of black where it met sweat. Caked in ash, Sharpe took on the appearance of a tribal savage, something he wore well. Nel pushed Violet ahead of them and they started climbing.
“Rock,” Nel yelled to Quill as he clambered along beside her. “We need a rock.” The air was burning in her throat and lungs. She had to spit out a mouthful of soot every few feet.
Quill hissed. A rock bigger than Nel lifted up into the air just in front of them. Quill took a step and the rock sailed back down the way they'd come. There were cries of alarm and pain from within the smoke.
“What'd you do that for?” Nel turned furiously to Quill.
“It was in the way,” he said. “So were they.”
“You weren't supposed to throw it, you stupid lizard. We needed that rock!”
Quill blinked, once, twice, both sets of eyelids. “Why?”
“You didn't tell him?” she demanded of Sharpe.
Sharpe was helping Violet gain another few feet. “I was busy!”
“Find another one,” Nel snapped at Quill.
He looked around the craggy landscape. “How challenging.”
They hit the summit, a narrow lip abreast of the billowing crater. It was almost impossible to see with the smoke so thick. Nel could still hear wands discharging below them. It was just pot-shots now, they couldn't possibly have a clear line on. If this worked it wouldn't matter anymore, and if it didn't, then likely it wouldn't matter for long anyway.
“And now what?” Quill rasped. Seemed the heat and the grimy air were getting to him now as well.
Nel held up a hand. “Listen.”
“For what?” the navigator cried. He flinched as a stray discharge shattered a rock, showering them all with stone chips.
“Listen!” Nel repeated angrily.
And there it was: ship's bells, chiming away like nobody's business, loud and clear in the smoky air of an otherwise barren rock.
“That's our ship, Skipper!” Violet cried out, her voice chiming like the bells.
“She's flying!” Quill said indignantly. “Without us! Without me!”
“Get over it, Loveland,” Nel said.
“Now what do we do?” Quill demanded.
“We get back on board,” Nel said.
“How?” Quil spat soot out of his mouth. “They can't lower a bubble inside this envelope!”
The forces present in an actual atmosphere and the turbulence around Old Smoky would smash a fragile bubble to glass splinters. They'd never find a rope or a ladder in all the smoke. But Nel had nothing so impractical in mind.
She grinned. “You're going to fly us out of here, Loveland.”
The Kelpie and the Kitsune both turned to stare at her with wide-eyed sooty faces.
“Fly?” Violet said.
“Pick a rock, any rock,” Nel told Quill. Then almost as quickly, “A bigger rock!” when he floated a rock about the size of her head into the air.
Quill found a bigger rock, roughly the size of a cart, honeycombed from magma bubbles. He frowned when Nel and Sharpe both jumped atop it.
“Climb up here, Violet,” Nel said. Sharpe reached down and pulled the girl up with them. The three of them looked down at Quill from their floating platform.
“I fly the three of you up, yes,” Quill concluded. “And what? You throw me a rope?”
Nel shook her head. “Just get on the damned rock, Quill, the Tantamount's not leaving without her navigator.”
Awkwardly, trying to keep his concentration focused, Quill put one foot on the floating rock.
“Lower it, Quill,” Violet suggested. The Kelpie gave her a dark look for the practical suggestion but let the rock drop a few inches. He stepped on, his clawed feet finding purchase, and Nel and Sharpe pulled him up.
“What's the matter?” Sharpe asked him. “Not stable enough for you?”
Quill bared his teeth, clenched tight against each other. He dropped, clutching at the rock with clawed hands.
“It's different,” he managed to say. “Not used to . . . not from here.”
“Can you do it?” Nel asked him, feeling a moment of anxiety. If Quill couldn't do this . . . she hadn't thought about that.
“Of course I can do it!” Quill snapped. “Just . . . a moment!”
“There.” Sharpe pointed to a dark shadow emerging from the cloud of ash hanging over the cone. “Now or never, Quill. I suggest now!”
“Be quiet!” the Kelpie snapped.
The rock lifted off, faster, erratically. The underside of the Tantamount loomed above them, maybe a hundred feet. Then fifty. Thirty.
Nel staggered, a feeling of light headedness striking her. The air was getting thinner—they were nearing the edge of the envelope. Cauldron's air was only truly breathable near the ground, up here it was thin and cut with smoke. A hand steadied her, making sure she didn't tumble off the rock. Sharpe again. He was holding onto her and Violet, feet planted wide to ground himself.
“Hurry, Quill,” Nel said, waving Sharpe off and crouching down beside her navigator. He didn't answer but the rock closed in on the Tantamount. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. Eight. Five.
Nel looked at Sharpe. He had a good grip on Violet and signalled that he was ready. She took a hold of Quill, shaking him. He started in surprise, his concentration broken. The rock slowed. If they'd timed this better it would have been a simple jump and step onto the deck of the ship. Th
ey hadn't. The smooth underside of the hull was barely within reach, without a single handhold in sight. Seizing Quill under the arms, Nel threw both of them at it, pushing against the rock with every ounce of strength in her legs. She felt gravity grab the makeshift platform and start to pull it back down to Cauldron.
For that moment she and Quill hung in the air, it felt like they would be caught between Cauldron and the Tantamount. There was nothing below them now but open air and a certain death fall to the ground below. She could almost reach out and touch the ship, her arm outstretched, tips of her fingers scratching at the curved wood, searching for anything to hold onto. There was nothing.
Until the ship's envelope caught her, pulling her against the underside of the ship. Quill grunted as he smacked into the ship beside her. Sharpe and Violet arrived a moment later. The girl grinned over at her, the smile nearly splitting her face in half.
There was another thump. Nel rolled over onto her back, a bizarre experience to now be looking down at Cauldron, with nothing between her and it to keep her from falling. Except the ship's own envelope.
The thump was Piper, looking like a mountaineer with a rope tied around his waist and Bandit perched on his shoulder. He walked across the hull towards them, at an almost right angle to all of them.
He ducked his head at Nel. “Skipper.”
“Quill.”
The Kelpie was slow in facing her, carefully finishing whatever calculations he'd been making over a chart before he acknowledged her. Professional, still annoying. The Kelpie hadn't been happy at all to find someone else flying his ship. He'd insisted vehemently on taking over the navigation to their next port of call. Scarlett hadn't cared, Nel suspected. She was still on the bridge. Nel had persuaded Quill to let the handover bide until Quill had completed his planning. Nel made a mental note to track the woman down later, to thank her. They were going to be stuck on the same ship for a while. It wouldn't hurt to keep things civil, and technically Nel owed the other woman.
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