by Devon Monk
“You clear?” Cedar yelled.
“I got it!” Hink yelled. Cedar let go of Hink’s hand.
The trawling arms were lifting, which meant the nets were billowing out beneath them, and the speed of the wind at this angle holding them all tight to the ropes.
Hink didn’t try climbing. Once the nets reached horizontal, he knew he could mostly crawl his way in.
Bullets cracked through the smoke and fire, and another set of cannon blasts broke the mountain into echoes. Hink held on, waiting for the nets to go horizontal, smoke digging tears out of his eyes.
Then the Swift shook like a wet dog. She’d been hit. Hink could feel the pain of it in his chest as clearly as if he had been shot. So clearly that he looked down at his shirt to make sure he hadn’t taken a bullet.
He was whole, but the Swift was not. The Devil’s Nine must have doused the fire Seldom had started in her. And now her cannons were about to blast the Swift into brittle bits.
A voice yelled out over the noise of fans and winds. “Cage!” the voice boomed. Not one of his crew, and not coming from the Swift. No, that voice was coming from somewhere below them.
Hink looked down.
He hadn’t expected an angel. He didn’t get one. Nope, all he got was a demon.
The Devil’s Nine hovered beneath them, every damn gun, cannon, and harpoon on that ship aimed their way.
“Marshal Cage. Come aboard, or we’ll fire.”
They wanted him.
They didn’t want his ship. They didn’t want his crew or Cedar Hunt and his brother. They didn’t want Rose. And if they gunned the Swift out of the sky they’d all die.
He had to buy them time. He had to buy Rose a chance at seeing the skies again with her own wings.
“Take care of her,” he whispered to the Swift.
“Marshal Cage!” the amplified voice from below yelled out again. “Surrender!”
Hink didn’t intend to surrender. Not his ship. Not his crew and passengers. Not Rose.
He twisted his head and looked down at the Devil’s Nine. He’d hit her nets if he dropped now.
“Captain!” Cedar yelled.
Hink looked up at him. “Get them the hell out of here!”
Then he pushed off of the net and spread wide so he could catch at the Devil’s ropes and rigging.
He hit her envelope with all the grace of a drunk knocked sprawling to a barroom floor. Instinct curled his hands, arms, legs around anything he could catch hold to.
A long, sickening slide made him wish he’d taken up a god to pray to, and then he stopped, the ropes pulling taut.
He was still on the Devil’s Nine, though he’d slid down the envelope so that he was dangling by both arms off the side. No graceful way out of this. He figured he had about a minute and a half before the captain tipped the Nine and he spilled brains all over the hills.
Of all the places he’d thought he would breathe his last, it certainly wasn’t on these damn rocks or on somebody else’s damn ship.
Hot, sharp pain cut through his arm, bad enough that he was sure the bone had broken.
But the Swift shot into the sky, barely clearing the mountain range, pulling up with a beautiful scream. He couldn’t make out anyone on board, but he was glad they’d had the sense in their skulls to get his ship out of danger while they had the chance.
The ropes tugged. And four men came scrambling over the netting like spiders over webs. Fast. On hands and feet. Hungry for the kill.
Death or capture? Hink held on. So long as there was a chance of breathing left to him, he intended to take it.
The men caught up to him at once. One of them pressed a cloth over his face, while the two others caught his arms. The last one punched a fist in his bleeding leg.
Hink yelled, but never heard the end of it, what with the passing out he was intent upon.
He came in and out of consciousness as he was harnessed, carried, lowered, then dropped to a solid surface. Just glimpses of moments in which he should have been fighting, or planning an escape, and instead couldn’t do much more than take in a lungful of air before going black again.
But when someone slapped him around and stuck smelling salts up his nose, he came right on up out of his terrifying slumber.
Swinging a punch.
But his arms were tied up over his head. His feet were spread wide and tied up too. Mouth gagged. Chest strapped down. Trussed like a pig, but on his feet, which wasn’t much good, as the pain of being unable to take the weight off his bad leg was enough to drench him in a hard sweat.
He was inside a ship. Not the Swift. From the smoke and the grind of the engine, he knew it was the Devil’s Nine.
Which probably meant Alabaster Saint was nearby.
What he couldn’t figure was why the Saint hadn’t already skinned and roasted him.
“Awake, Mr. Cage?” a man’s cultured voice asked. Not Alabaster. “You will be pleased to know your ship is out of range. We could have decimated her, but she is of very little interest to us.”
Hink knew that voice. But the pain, and whatever extra breaks and contusions the crew had decided to treat him to while he was unconscious, teased the memory from him.
On top of that, the pain in his chest he’d felt when the Swift got hit was still gnawing away, burning hard as if his skin were on fire. His broken arm throbbed dully.
No use trying to talk. The gag held his tongue in place. So he waited.
Finally, the speaker strolled out in front of him.
Neat, thin, dark hair combed back and not a wrinkle in his sharp uniform. Lieutenant Foster, Alabaster’s right hand.
“We both knew this day would come, Mr. Cage. My apologies for the limited degree of my hospitality. If it were up to me, I’d be breaking your bones, one by one. But the general has given me strict orders to bring you to him whole. So he can give you a…proper welcome. And you know I am a man who always follows orders.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cedar hauled himself into the Swift. He had watched Captain Hink drop to the ship below. The captain hadn’t let go expecting to die, nor had he been shaken off. No, the captain had jumped.
Fool. The ship was filled with strangework—Cedar could smell it, could taste the oil and sour of their sweat on the back of his tongue.
Hink may have thought he’d survive the fall, but he had to have known he’d never survive if they captured him.
The crew was struggling to pull the Swift up and over the edge of the mountain. The ship had taken a hit from the other airship and was listing, struggling to hold a true heading. Coupled with the angle and the speed, the mountain range was coming up so close that Cedar would be able to reach out a hand and touch the stones in a minute or two. That is if they didn’t just plow into it.
“Up, damn you, up, up!” Guffin yelled.
Seldom, at the wheel, never flinched or hesitated. He angled that ship up the edge of the peaks, cutting so close that the netting where Hink had just been clinging a moment before caught on the outcropping of brush and rocks.
“Net hung!” Cedar yelled.
Seldom didn’t change course. The trawling arm snapped in two, as the Swift screamed to the sky.
Leaving the captain. Leaving the Devil’s Nine behind.
“Did he make it?” Guffin yelled out. “Captain. Did you make it?”
Cedar stood in the door and turned, one hand clamped tight on the overhead bar.
“He jumped.” Then Cedar saw Wil curled in the corner, wedged between some crates that were strapped down so he wouldn’t slide across the floor. He looked sick.
“What the blazes?” Guffin rushed to the window and looked down. Cedar wasn’t sure he could see anything through the smoke and the speed of their ascent.
“Did you see him land?” Guffin asked. “Did you see him hit?”
“He landed on the other ship. Grabbed hold of the rope.” Cedar crossed to Wil, knelt, and ran his hands over him. No blood. He wasn’t hurt.
>
Wil lifted his head, held Cedar’s gaze for a moment, then dropped his head to his paws again.
“Then the captain is still alive?” Miss Dupuis said. “Are we going to leave him behind?”
“He told me to get you all out of here,” Cedar said, pulling a blanket from overhead and tucking it around Wil.
“Like hell we leave him behind,” Guffin said.
“He’d want the ship safe,” Ansell said.
Seldom reached up and pulled the line that set a bell ringing back in the boiler room.
Molly came stomping out just a moment later, her coat thrown off, in nothing but her breeches and short sleeves. “Can’t believe we pulled out of that one, boys!” she said with a huge grin. “Can this lady fly, or can she fly?”
Then, “Where’s the captain?”
“Jumped,” Seldom said. “We save the ship and save these people, or we go save his skin.”
“Why can’t we do both?” Mr. Theobald asked. “We can fight with you. We won’t be a detriment to your efforts, as you’ve seen.”
“There isn’t enough time for both,” Cedar said. “We don’t know where they’re taking him. Rose doesn’t have much time left. Neither does Mae, and the ship is damaged.”
“I’m not leaving the captain behind,” Molly said. “Rose is a lot tougher than you think she is, Mr. Hunt. She’ll weather a little longer.”
“You don’t know that,” Cedar said.
“Why don’t we ask her?” Molly said. “Let her choose.”
Cedar didn’t even know if Rose had come up to conscious thought since he’d carried her onto the ship.
“Now,” Seldom said. “While the Nine is still in range.”
“Ask a woman on the edge of death how long she can endure?” Cedar said. “There’s no reason in that statement. We take her and Mae to Kansas. Now. And pray we reach our destination while both women are still breathing.”
“No,” Rose said.
Even over the rush of wind outside, her soft voice carried.
Cedar moved to stand above her. He held his breath against the sound of surprise that choked his throat.
Rose’s skin had turned a pale silvery tone, like the satin shine of tin. Her lips were blue-gray with just a hint of blush to them, and her eyes, once blue and soft as summer, were dark as winter clouds.
It was the Holder; must be that bit of tin inside her causing the change.
But when she turned her gaze on Cedar, her eyes were very clear. Very sane. “I know I’m going to die, Mr. Hunt,” she said. “And I know Mae’s near out of her mind. But I won’t turn this crew from their captain on account of me.”
“Rose—” he started.
“I might live the day, or another. Or none. But Lee has years ahead of him. If we can find him.”
Cedar bit back his argument. He could overpower her. For a wild moment he considered overpowering every person on board, tying them up, and flying the ship to Kansas himself.
But going to Kansas wouldn’t be the same as finding the Holder. And if he didn’t find the Holder, Rose would die.
Rose gave him half a smile. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it, Mr. Hunt. You don’t have to look after me anymore. Please promise me you’ll look after Captain Cage. He risked his life to save us all. He risked his ship. More than once. It’s time we take a risk for him.”
Cedar put his hand around hers. She might look like she was slowly turning into cool metal, but her hand was warm, soft, and very human. “I will never stop looking after you.”
“We don’t know where the Holder is, do we?” she asked.
It pained him, but Cedar answered her true. “No.”
Rose knew, they all knew, that only the Holder would be able to remove the little tin key that was killing her. And they didn’t even know that for certain. But the Madders had said it would work.
With a world of maybes between them and finding the Holder, and still not knowing if it would do any good if they found it…he knew it made sense for Rose to accept she had little time left.
Cedar, however, wasn’t always a logical man.
“Can you find him?” Cedar asked Seldom.
“The captain?”
“General Alabaster Saint.”
“I can find him,” Mae said quietly.
“The general?” Cedar asked.
Mae cleared her throat and wiped her hands over her dress before grabbing on to the wall of the ship for support. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, but her voice was strong. “Captain Hink. His heartbeat is in this wood, in this ship, in the binding I cast on him and cast on the ship. The Swift knows where Captain Hink is, and I can guide her to him.”
No one said anything. Too shocked at her admission, maybe not even believing that she had cast a spell and bound a man to a ship. Or maybe not believing that Mae was anything more than a woman gone mad.
But Cedar had seen the strength of her magic. He knew what she could do. Knew that though she might be losing hold of her sanity, she had not lost hold of what her magic had done to Hink. She wasn’t lying. If anyone could track the captain, it would be Mae.
“We’ll find him, Rose,” Mae said, though she was staring straight ahead, staring blankly at the middle distance. “You’ll see him again. I promise.”
“Perhaps you should sit yourself down, Mae,” Molly said.
“She can do it,” Cedar said.
“No one can do that,” Molly said.
Cedar gave her a look. The beast shifted just beneath his skin, its hatred and hunger threatening to swallow his reason. There was no time to argue with her. Rose was dying. And Mae was hurting.
“Yes,” Cedar said, knowing the raw power of the beast hovering just behind his eyes, just beneath his words. “She can. Follow, or get out of my way.”
Molly’s hand slipped down to the gun at her hip.
Cedar didn’t move. If he had the breath in him, the reason in him, he’d tell her Mae was a witch and damn good at magic. But it was all he could do to keep the urge for blood in his control.
“Stand down, Molly,” Seldom said. “If she can find our captain, we follow.”
Molly shook her head, switching her gaze from Cedar to Seldom and finally to Mae.
“Then let’s find the captain,” she said. “Before Alabaster hangs him up by his guts.”
Molly stomped back into the boiler room and shut the blast door.
“Ansell, see to the repairs,” Seldom said.
“Aye, Mr. Seldom.” Ansell picked up a toolbox and scrambled up the ladder to see what he could do above.
“Heading?” Seldom called out.
Mae didn’t say anything. Just stood, swaying slightly, breathing a little raggedly as if she kept forgetting how often she should be filling her lungs.
Cedar ducked under the line that held Rose’s hammock from swinging too hard. He stepped up to Mae, stopping just short of touching her.
He could smell the scent of the herbs she’d been using on Rose’s shoulder, a watered honey and green odor that blended with the fragrance that was all her own. A fragrance that stirred him to his bones.
“Mae,” he said, holding his own desires firmly in check, “we need a direction. Where is Captain Cage?”
“Flying.”
That wasn’t going to help much.
“Which direction is he headed?”
There was a long pause. Finally. “Southwest. Running fast. Above the ridge.”
“Southwest,” Cedar called to Seldom.
Mr. Seldom corrected course and brought the Swift around.
“A compass direction won’t be enough,” Guffin said.
“More west,” Mae said.
“More to the west, Mr. Seldom,” Cedar relayed.
Seldom corrected course again.
“Yes,” Mae said. “Steady.”
“Hold that heading steady,” Cedar called.
“Aye,” Seldom said.
Guffin took a reading of the compass. “Ain’t noth
ing but mountains and Indian territory that way. She know how far?”
“She’s following the captain,” Cedar said. “As far as he goes is as far as we go.”
“Aye that,” Guffin said.
“And what,” Mr. Theobald asked, “is our plan once we catch up with this ship?”
“You find out what weapons we have at our disposal,” Cedar said. “Then we’ll talk plan.”
“Aye, sir,” he said with a slight smile. “Miss Dupuis, Miss Wright. Would you help me take inventory? Captain Seldom, permission to check the stores?”
“It’s first mate,” Seldom said. “Granted.”
Mr. Theobald and his companions got busy counting the munitions they had on hand. All Cedar wanted to do was pace, but he was afraid he’d miss some whispered change of direction from Mae.
He finally leaned one shoulder against the wall of the ship and simply watched people do their jobs.
To his surprise, Mae’s hand slipped down between them and caught at his fingers. Her hand was trembling, cold.
He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into the heat of his body as she shuddered. It was almost as if the frigid wind beyond the ship was wrapped around her.
Cedar quickly unbuttoned his coat and shrugged out of it, put it around her, and then drew her close to him again.
Mae leaned into him and doggedly kept hold of the ship with one hand too.
“We can’t lose him,” Mae said.
“I won’t,” he said. “I won’t lose anyone.”
He held her tight as the airship scorched the sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hink measured time by how long he could hold out against the pain before he cussed or moaned.
Lieutenant Foster’s men made it easy by coming past him every once in a while and hitting him in the face, the stomach, or his bad leg. He’d hoped one of them might have the guts or the hate to knock him clean out, just so he could slip the pain unconscious, but they were good soldiers.
They knew exactly how much he could endure. And doled it out.
Mr. Foster didn’t have a lot to say, which was fine with Hink, since he’d always thought the man to be a piss-proud lick finger who couldn’t blow his own nose without asking Alabaster Saint to hold the hanky.