Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

by Larry Correia

  “Harkeness,” Sullivan answered. “Why?”

  “The name’s familiar. I think he was one of the European Grimnoir that argued with Black Jack when he wanted to just break the cursed thing and be done with it. There were a bunch of them. They were one of the founding families. Leave it to them to be too proud to listen to reason, thinking that they were smart enough to use Tesla’s mad device.”

  “How about we go smash the damn thing right now then,” Sullivan suggested. “Everybody wins.”

  Southunder smiled. “Because I don’t know if I believe you yet. For all I know you’re an Imp spy, trying to get me to take you to it, so you can cut my throat and take it back to your master.”

  He wasn’t the easily offended type. “Fair ’nuff.” Sullivan looked around the crowded room. There were a few Japs within earshot, and he had no doubt the Chairman would pay a fortune to anybody who ratted them out. “You want to talk about this alone?”

  Southunder chuckled. “This is my crew. We’ve been through hell together. I trust these men much more than I trust you, stranger.” He turned in his chair, looking for someone. “Ken, come here, please.”

  A young Jap leaning against the far wall set his food on the windowsill and came over. His face was creased with scars and half of one ear was missing. “Captain,” he answered gruffly.

  “Show Mr. Sullivan here how much love you’ve got for the Imperium.”

  The Jap bowed his head a bit and unbuttoned his shirt. When he opened it, even as hardened as Sullivan was, he still cringed. Despite all the things he’d seen, he hadn’t seen anything like this before. Every inch of his chest and stomach had been burned or cut, and was now covered in twisting black and grey scars.

  “That’ll be all,” Southunder said.

  “Yes, Captain,” the Jap said as he pulled his shirt back on and returned to his lunch.

  “Ken was one of the lucky ones we freed from a slave transport. See, his family didn’t like the way the Chairman was running things, so he was volunteered. They started working on him when he was a little boy, but the kanji just wouldn’t take, and they kept on burning until they ran out of skin. He was lucky he was born Nipponese, so failing out of school didn’t get him turned over to Unit 731. If he had been a Chinaman or anything else, they’d still be experimenting on him. Mr. Parker?”

  “Captain?” the muscular man responded from a few spaces away.

  “Tell our guest what happens to the gaijin prisoners.”

  “I was on a ship running guns up the Malaccan Straights to the rebels fighting in Siam. We were boarded and taken inland.” His accent reminded Sullivan of his time on the New Orleans docks, that cross between French and English that he’d never gotten used to. “There was a 731 camp there. The Cogs were doing surgery, cutting pieces off of people’s insides, just to see how long it took them to die, givin’ them diseases to see how fast different plagues killed different colored folks. They’d build whole little towns in the camps, fill them with folks, whole families, and then turn containers of plague fleas loose on them, just to count how many got sick. I was lucky, ’cause I was strong, so they used me to move the bodies to the pits where they fed them to the things they’d created. That’s where I was when Captain Southunder and the Marauder bombed them bastards to hell.”

  The young one named Barns laughed. “He never gets tired of telling those stories. Scares the piss out of the new guys, so they make extra sure not to get captured.”

  “How’d you get here, kid?” Sullivan asked.

  It was obvious he didn’t like being called “kid.” “I’m a pilot. Barns is short for Barnstormer. I like shooting down Jap planes.”

  “Everybody needs a hobby.”

  “Pays good too.” Barns grinned and took a swig from a bottle of mystery booze.

  Southunder shook his head at Barns, giving an exasperated look that told him that the kid had a story, and that he wasn’t helping make the point. The old pirate turned back to Sullivan. “I could keep these men talking all day. Most of us have been wronged by the Chairman somehow, so don’t you worry about my men’s loyalty.”

  “That how you do most of your recruiting? Men who hate the Imperium?”

  “Some. Any man who’s willing to stand against the Imperium is welcome here. I don’t care if they do it for the money, revenge, or just because they like to burn things. I’ve got a gang of misfits, deserters, and outcasts. I split anything we capture evenly with my men and we sell it in the remaining Free Cities or wherever people are buying. Don’t get me wrong. There’s money to be made but it’s more satisfying when you pry it from scum. Any Imperium ship on the water or the sky that goes anywhere without heavy escort is mine for the taking, anywhere along their frontier. They’ve hunted us for years, but we’re too smart, and we’ve given them a few black eyes.”

  Sullivan glanced around the room. “You’ve got, what? Thirty men? What do you expect to accomplish?”

  “Oh, we won’t quit until we’re dead or we’ve killed them all, Mr. Sullivan.” Southunder was a soft-spoken man, but Sullivan could tell that there was steel beneath those quiet words. “Every last one.”

  “EVERY LAST ONE!” the entire room bellowed in unison, banging their cups, stamping their feet, or hitting their rifle butts on the floor.

  Sullivan decided that these pirates were okay with him.

  Imperium flagship Tokugwa

  Though the Tokugawa could certainly defend itself, it was not a warship. It was more like a floating palace. Madi had been amazed by the sheer opulence of the craft when he’d first come aboard and even after a couple of days he was still finding new things. Much of it was still bare, since the Chairman would use his personal favorite artisans to place the finishing touches, but the rooms and open spaces were majestic. There were paths lined with black soil where plants and even trees would be lovingly placed. It would be an appropriate vessel for the greatest man alive.

  There was no other airship like it. All three giant hulls were mostly covered in structure and buildings. The top of the Tokugawa looked almost like a traditional ship, flat, and interspaced with structures, some as large as four-story buildings. The first and second hulls were side by side, with all of the engine and power-plant sections between them, and the third hull was evenly spaced below them. All three were angled, and the bags nearly touched at the front, so that the craft was shaped like a wedge, while the rear was mostly open and covered in powerful propellers. It was the greatest vessel ever created.

  There was only a skeleton crew of three hundred men, sent specifically to Michigan to pick up the Tokugawa and bring it home. Once they reached Japan the crew would be brought up to full strength, and the Chairman would make this his new mobile command center.

  The training dojo was in the very bottom of the ship, suspended alone beneath the third hull, so that nothing would impede its view. The wood floor had been polished until it gleamed and he could still smell varnish and sawdust. With the armored shutters open, the glass walls let in all of the sun and it seemed like he could see across the entire Pacific from here. The ceiling was thirty feet tall, and the dojo was a hundred feet long and eighty feet wide.

  Twenty men had gathered to watch him practice. It was a great honor to spar with an Iron Guard. It was even rumored amongst the troops that if you could hurt one, the Chairman would give you a personal blessing. Rule number one, respect strength.

  Madi’s stance was wide, the wooden sword at his side hung loose and ready in his hands. “Again,” he commanded.

  He was sparring against six of the crew at one time. All were volunteers, hoping to impress the Iron Guard. Four were Imperial Marines, wearing a single kanji, but hardy fighters anyway. Two were Actives, a Torch from the damage control team, and the lieutenant in charge of security was a Massive, like his old master, Rokusaburo. He was really the only one Madi was concerned with.

  The Marines charged while the Torch circled, looking for a shot. Madi took the first two down with sin
gle clean strikes, quicker than the eye could follow, driving one to the ground so hard that he felt bones break. One almost caught him with the edge of a sword, but he hit that one with a quick surge of Power and now down for the Marine became straight into the air. The Massive swung, but Madi dodged back with the speed of a man a fraction of his size, and before the sword could come back, he threw several extra gravities on it. The lieutenant grunted, trying to lift the katana that now seemed to weigh a hundred pounds, and Madi hit him with a slash that would have cleaved even his superdense body nearly in half.

  The one he’d put into the air landed flat just as the Torch engulfed him in fire. Madi dove and rolled through the heat, feeling it prickle his skin as the magic kanji protected him. The Torch scrambled back as Madi rose, but the Iron Guard was too quick, and the crack of his bokken against the Torch’s shin might have been heard at the opposite end of the ship. He hit the ground and Madi kicked the Active across the floor with his bare foot. He pulled it, since he didn’t want to kill any of the damage control crew on a vessel filled with hydrogen, but the man still slid ten feet.

  Madi spun the sword and surveyed the damage. It had taken five seconds. All of his opponents were down, but most were game enough to struggle back to their feet to bow. The Torch was hobbling on a broken ankle, trying to hold back tears, and he even managed a deep bow, only to fall over on his face. The only one who didn’t was the one with the broken collarbone, and even Madi couldn’t rightly fault that.

  “Healer!” he barked. The blonde Grimnoir was shoved forward onto the hardwood by one of the watching soldiers. They’d cleaned her up, fed her, and put her in a white kimono. At least she was easy on the eyes. Asian women were good and all, but too skinny for his tastes. “Fix ’em.” She hesitated, until one of the men guarding her gave her a good smack on the back of the head. She lowered her tired eyes and went to work. That’s better. He turned back to the crowd. “Eight men this time!”

  The wounded were helped off the floor to make room for their replacements. The Marines picked up the dropped bokkens and two drew bo staffs from the rack. Good. Now they’re using strategy. “Again!”

  Ten seconds later they were all down. One man actually hit him in the lip hard enough to draw blood with the end of a staff before he broke his arm and Powered him across the room. He’d been distracted by the tremor in the airship’s frame. They were changing course. The sun was shifting in the glass. They were turning south.

  “Good shot,” he told the young man who was being picked off the floor by his companions. Madi bowed, and the smile on the Marine’s face told him that he’d remember the honor for a lifetime. A blue-uniformed flight crew member arrived a moment later with a message. He read it as he licked the blood from his teeth. The final piece of the Geo-Tel had been revealed. Naval units were closing in on the island now. It had been right under their noses, just like those slimy Grimmys. A submarine with Shadow Guard was ready to move as soon as the Finders pinpointed the exact location. Madi swore under his breath. It figured. He’d personally recovered every other piece. The last should be his honor to claim, not some candy-ass Shadow Guard.

  But as he continued reading, his mood improved. The Tokugawa was to rendezvous with the Kaga carrying . . . the Chairman! The device would be reassembled aboard the new flagship. His lips parted in an unconscious bloody smile. He might not be the one to claim the last piece, but he’d be present for its firing. He would be there, at the Chairman’s side, for the birth of a whole new world. A world ruled by strength and wisdom instead of weakness and corruption. Perfect.

  “This time all of you who can stand.” Madi turned back to the troops and raised his sword. “Again!”

  Chapter 22

  Billy Clanton and Frank McLowry commenced to draw their pistols at the same time Tom McLowry jumped behind a horse. I had my pistol in my overcoat pocket where I had put it. When I saw Billy and Frank draw their pistols I drew my pistol, I knew that the McLowry brothers had the reputation of having wizard’s magic and I aimed at Frank McLowry. The two first shots which were fired were fired by Billy Clanton and myself. He shot at me, and I shot at Frank McLowry. I do not know which shot was first; we fired almost together. Morgan then shot Billy Clanton. The fight then became general. After several shots were fired Ike Clanton ran up and grabbed my arm. I could see no weapon in his hand and thought at the time he had none, and so I said to him, “The fight has now commenced. Go to fighting or get away.” At the same time I pushed him off with my left hand. He started and ran down the side of the building and disappeared between the lodging house and the photograph gallery. My next shot struck Frank McLowry in the belly. He staggered off on the sidewalk but was still able to pick up a horse to throw at us. Virgil was struck by the flying horse before Holliday, who had the shotgun, fired at and killed Frank McLowry. Tom McLowry was unarmed. It made no difference, for his kind does not need a pistol to kill, and I shot him in the head.

  —Testimony of Wyatt Earp,

  Tombstone Epitaph, 1881

  UBF Tempest

  “Captain, I’ve found them again,” the teleradioscope operator said.

  I wish they’d quit calling me that. Francis walked over and looked over the UBF employee’s shoulder. All he could see were green lights moving up and down, some fast, some slow, and some not at all. They’d tried to explain to him how the machine worked, but it was all about electrical resonance against metallic objects and the frequency and speed of return and traversing whatnots and so forth, and it just made him want a drink really bad. “Where?”

  “About a hundred miles further south than we expected. They’ve changed course. I think they’re heading for the Marianas.”

  That didn’t make any sense, but at least they weren’t getting any closer to Japan. That had been making him really nervous. “Driver!”

  “Uh . . . It’s Helm, sir,” replied the man stationed at the very front of the glass bubble cockpit. Francis was still trying to learn the volunteers’ names.

  “Very well, Mr. Helm,” he said, and couldn’t figure out why that caused Lance to snicker. “Follow that blimp.”

  Lance was sitting in one of the vacant chairs in the command center, with his boots up on a bank of sensitive electronics. “You’ve really got no idea what you’re doing, do you?” At least he was decent enough to lower his voice so the men wouldn’t be able to hear them over the engines.

  “Frankly, not even the slightest.” He took a seat at the empty communications station. Most of the seats were empty in the command center. Less than a quarter of the Tempest’s crew had volunteered to stay, and that was only after he’d promised some very hefty bonuses.

  Two security men had stuck around, and one was a Brute. Grandfather’s Healer had told him politely to go to hell, but at least he’d convinced the man to stick around San Francisco long enough to help Mr. Browning once his Power had recovered. The only other functionary who’d stayed was, surprisingly enough, Mr. Chandler, Grandfather’s accountant. All the rest had assured him that they would see to company business, and he had no doubt that they were currently maneuvering to get the UBF board to somehow get rid of him before Grandfather’s body was even cold.

  So he had a handful of barely-mended Grimnoir knights, a drastically undermanned and unarmed prototype ship, and no clue what he was doing. He’d broken a direct order from a Grimnoir elder and would probably be cast out of the Society he’d devoted his life to, if he lived that long. And he still hadn’t even really come to terms with the fact that he was now, theoretically, the richest man in the world.

  “Mind if I make a suggestion?” Lance didn’t bother to wait for the reply. “If we’re going to try this, then we need every advantage we can get. The Tokugawa is probably still running a skeleton crew, but that means they’ll have five times as many men, and at least one mean son of a bitch of an Iron Guard. They won’t be expecting this, but they will have men on watch, and they’ll probably be doing it from behind mounted guns, which we
don’t happen to have. So how about we use that radio bouncer to keep track of ’em, and not get into visual range until dark?”

  Francis sighed. “How about I just make you captain?”

  The grizzled knight thought about it. “Do I get to wear the fancy hat?”

  “You figure out how to get Jane off the Tokugawa alive, I’ll have your old cowboy hat gold-plated.”

  Banish Island, Micronesia

  Pirate Bob Southunder, Scourge of the South Seas, Terror of the Marianas, killer of men, sinker of ships, and general pain in the Imperium’s rear took the time to pass out treats to all the village children like some sort of kindly South Pacific Santa Claus before joining his men on a mission.

  “Where’d you get Mr. Goodbars?” Sullivan asked, as Southunder gave a candy bar to a kid, patted him on the head, and sent him on his way.

  “They were on an Imperium cargo ship, believe it or not. Why? You want one?”

  “Sure.” As a general rule, Jake Sullivan never turned down anything free. The two of them walked up the forest path toward the remains of what had once been a mighty volcano. There were five heavily armed pirates right behind, and he was sure that was no accident. He’d not yet earned Southunder’s trust.

  The pirate had refused to talk further about the Geo-Tel yesterday. He’d slept in the village as a guest, but he’d seen the occasional flashes of cigarettes glowing in the jungle from the men assigned to watch him all night.