Clockwork Secrets

by Dru Pagliassotti

  Amcathra had wordlessly offered it to her when she came aboard, and she’d accepted it with the same bleak silence. As an icarus, she was forbidden to carry weapons, but she’d shattered that law months ago. She wouldn’t use the bomb unless she had to; she already had too much blood on her hands from bombs just like it. But she would rather blow up another dirigible — even one carrying an innocent justiciar — than watch Amcathra destroy himself and the Firebrand trying to do the same thing.

  She might be sacrificing her happiness in the next life, but Taya knew she couldn’t be happy in this life if she didn’t do everything she could to save the people she loved.

  The Cabisi had laid out a line of bright red buoys and small boats to divert water traffic and retrieve any combatants who fell into the ocean and were still afloat by the fight’s end. Numerous Cabisi had volunteered for zone duty, and more had gathered on Os Cansai’s docks with spyglasses and telescopes, eager to watch the fight.

  The night before, the Firebrand’s crew had unloaded the ship’s excess cargo and furniture into the mooring tower and taken on more water as ballast. The ship’s load currently consisted of crew, coal, weapons, ammunition, and just enough material for emergency repairs. Taya had bundled a number of cork floats by the quarterdeck rail, but their weight was negligible.

  Now the Firebrand dumped part of its ballast and pulled ahead, its great wings sweeping it forward and upward. Despite her misgivings, Taya felt a thrill of excitement. She glanced at Ra and saw a smile playing around his lips as he inspected the Alzanan ship through his field glasses. She lifted her own. The Indomitable was struggling to catch up, but the Firebrand would reach the combat zone first.

  They crossed the line and continued gaining altitude. Amcathra was putting the Firebrand between the rising sun and the Alzanan ship to blind the Indomitable’s gunners. He ordered Ondinium’s crimson war flag run out, replacing the peacetime flag they had flown over Os Cansai.

  Behind them the Indomitable veered south, putting itself out of firing range as it sought a more advantageous position. Taya heard the lictors cheer as the Alzanan ship crossed the red line.

  The duel had begun.

  The Firebrand circled southwest, its deck tilting as its port wing and demiwing caught the wind in an aggressive swoop. Taya held the rail and the deck gunners braced, waiting for the Indomitable to come into sight and range. Below them the Firebrand’s gun deck opened with a mechanical rumble and cannon were rolled forward.

  The Alzanans had put four soldiers on the Indomitable’s topmost firing platform. The two heavy, tripod-mounted guns would deter the Firebrand from flying directly over the dirigible. The rest of the Alzanans were inside the dirigible’s engine and command gondolas.

  “I think they’ve upgraded their weapons,” Taya muttered uneasily.

  “The Indomitable carries several steam-powered cannon,” Ra said in Alzanan next to her. “It is likely the Alzanans are loading our thunderclap shot.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A specially prepared hollow ball that contains gunpowder and iron scraps. It explodes upon impact.”

  “Does Captain Amcathra know about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of being hit by your own weapons?”

  Ra smiled, lowering his field glasses to look at her.

  “If death is the price I must pay to fly like a bird, then so be it. Cabiel has hot-air balloons, but no dirigibles and certainly no ornithopters. Our engineers develop and sell many aerostat plans to continental traders, but aerostats are too resource-intensive to manufacture ourselves.”

  “Wouldn’t aerial ships be more useful than naval ships?”

  “For what?”

  Taya considered and discarded several responses. At last she shrugged and raised her glasses.

  Steam cannon could propel shot faster and over greater distances than powder cannon, but they were bulkier and louder. Ondinium mounted its steam cannon in bunkers at key strategic points throughout the country and in the signal stations along its border, but the Firebrand carried only powder cannon.

  No wonder Amcathra wanted to stay high. The Firebrand was significantly outgunned.

  As she was thinking that, the cannon below her feet fired their first deafening volley. Taya watched for a strike, but nothing happened.

  “They are finding their range,” Ra said conversationally. “I am impressed that the Firebrand’s cannon cause so little roll.”

  “You’ve fired cannon before?”

  “I am a retired naval officer. The scent of gunpowder is an old friend.”

  “Who did you fight? Was Cabiel at war?”

  “No, but there are many pirates in our waters.”

  The Indomitable was still rising and keeping its distance. The Firebrand’s approach, riding the wind in a gyre, was causing it to lose altitude. It fired again and Taya saw part of the Indomitable’s engine gondola splinter.

  “A little low,” Ra reported. A series of sharp cracks sounded from the Indomitable.

  The explosive battering of the Alzanans’ thunderclap shot shoved the Firebrand sideways, kicking up its starboard side and causing it to broach to. The wind caught the ship’s hull and Taya’s gloved fingertips slipped off the rail as she lost her footing. She slammed against the ondium-plated deck and rolled onto her stomach to protect her wings. Her armature dug into her flesh and she hit something hard that checked her slide. Around her, the crew was shouting and the Firebrand groaned and protested.

  She’d landed against the secondary helm. She clutched it and stood. Professor Dautry was bound to the helm with leather safety straps and was bracing herself against the steeply tilting deck as she worked.

  “Can I help?” Taya shouted.

  “I have it.”

  Taya propped a foot against the helm to steady herself as she pulled down her goggles and thrust her arms between the armature’s wingstruts. She unlocked her wings and kicked away, run-scrambling several feet down the steeply sloping deck before propelling herself off the ship’s rail.

  The Firebrand had been hit in the middle of a turn and thrown leeward. In the belly of the ship, two lictors were dragging another back onto the open gunnery platform. Taya began a circling descent, searching the ocean for anyone less fortunate. There— a dark figure flailed on the surface of the water, one hand waving wildly. She locked her wings in a glide and slipped her arms free to drop a cork rescue ring.

  “Hold on and wait,” she shouted as the lictor swam toward it. He grabbed it and she flew back toward the ornithopter.

  The sound of repeating gunfire made her swerve. The Indomitable was closing on the Firebrand and its platform crew had fired a warning shot at her. She changed direction, keeping the ornithopter between herself and the Alzanan ship as she reached the deck. She landed hard and stumbled.

  The Firebrand’s cannon roared. Taya locked her wings high and ran to Ra Tafar.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Excellent!” he replied cheerfully. “And you?”

  “I saved someone,” she said, allowing herself a moment of satisfaction. She pulled another cork ring off the bundle and tied it to her belt.

  The Indomitable returned fire. Taya ducked as thunderclap shot struck the ornithopter, sending it rocking back and forth in a barrage of metal plates and wooden splinters. Bits of detritus gouged Ra Tafar’s unprotected arms, leaving red streaks running down his dark skin. He remained standing, watching the Alzanan ship through his field glasses. Gunfire raked the far side of the Firebrand’s deck, plowing furrows into the ornithopter’s gorgeously etched ondium plating. Taya stayed low, disinclined to join Ra in his bold defiance of death. She’d been shot once in the past, and that had been more than enough for her.

  The Firebrand’s volley guns raked the Indomitable’s front gondola in retaliation, tearing off chunks of
wood and ripping through its open windows. She hoped the Indomitable’s crew was as busy as the Firebrand’s. Any lictor who wasn’t steering the ship or manning a weapon was checking wing mounts, screwing down loosened ondium plates, and assisting the injured. Captain Amcathra stood close to the fore helm, snapping orders.

  The Firebrand’s attempt to cut off the Indomitable had been thwarted by the Alzanans’ first explosive volley, and it had been forced to adjust its direction to stabilize itself. The Indomitable had gained on it during its maneuvering, and now the two ships flew nearly parallel as they ran with the wind, firing broadsides. Dautry shouted a warning: “Hold fast!”

  Taya grabbed the rail as the Firebrand’s wings tilted and swept back. The ornithopter’s prow sliced through the air as the ship simultaneously cut southeast and climbed, breaking across the Alzanans’ nose. The gunners on top of the Alzanan ship swiveled their weapons and opened fire. Taya cringed as she saw lictors stagger back, hit. The Firebrand’s cannon boomed, pounding the dirigible’s gondola, struts, and envelope.

  Then they were over and across the Indomitable, making a wide turn for another high pass as the Firebrand’s volley guns pounded. One of the Alzanan platform gunners dropped.

  “Do you have a first-aid kit?” Ra Tafar asked. Taya turned and saw that the justiciar had sat down, his back to the railing, and was clutching his side.

  “Oh, Lady! Were you hit?”

  “Perhaps wearing red on a ship full of black uniforms is unwise.” His smile was strained.

  “The surgeon’s in the cockpit. Come on.” She wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him to the nearest hatch. A lictor on maintenance-and-medic duty took him down the ladder.

  Meanwhile, the Firebrand had completed its turn, dropping to give its gun deck a clearer shot at the Indomitable’s engine. The Indomitable’s steam cannon and the Firebrand’s powder cannon roared at the same time.

  Taya was thrown off her feet again as the Firebrand pitched and yawed, something mechanical giving off a chilling screech. The Firebrand’s movement made it hard to focus on the Alzanan ship ahead, but she saw smoke rising from the Indomitable’s gondola. Half of the gondola’s wooden skin had been torn away, revealing its naked frame and the weapons and men inside.

  The ornithopter’s jerking was making her nauseous. Taya struggled to her feet, stumbled, and threw herself toward the nearest railing. The Firebrand’s crew was shouting panicked orders as flame licked one of the wingmounts. She straddled the rail and looked over the side. Plenty of room to fall. She slipped her arms into her wings, unlocked them, and jumped overboard.

  Unidirectional freefall was a relief after the Firebrand’s sickening lurches. Taya dived between the ships and spotted a black shape on the water. She swept around in a circle. A lictor was floating face-down in a spreading pool of red. Taya shouted, but the woman remained motionless.

  Dismayed, Taya flew on. Something large whistled past her and struck the ocean to her left, startling her into a wild swerve. Steam rose in a hissing cloud— it was one of the Alzanans’ steam-cannon, cast overboard and sinking in a white rush of bubbles. Taya gained altitude to see what was happening above her.

  The Indomitable had taken grievous damage and its crew was hurling fiery chunks of machinery and furnishings out of the ripped-open gondola in an attempt to avoid an explosive conflagration. The dirigible had turned its nose east, away from Os Cansai and the crippled Firebrand. Taya was about to fly back to the ornithopter when she heard a loud scream. Two figures plummeted from the Indomitable, twisting as they grappled in midair.

  They hit the water just as Taya recognized the red robes of the young justiciar who’d flown with the Indomitable. She swept back down. Both bodies bobbed back up to the surface, motionless. The Alzanan’s neck was bent at a fatal angle. The Cabisi floated on her back.

  Taya locked her wings and untied the cork ring from her belt.

  “Tu! Wake up! Tu!” She dropped the ring next to the young woman’s face, searching for some sign of life. The justiciar didn’t move.

  Taya thrust her arms back into her wings. Could she get help? The Indomitable was flying away, its crew busy firefighting. The Firebrand listed and spun in slow, wide circles, one wing frozen at an awkward angle.

  No assistance there. The justiciar was sinking again— and bubbles were rising from her mouth.

  “Oh, scrap.” Taya realized what she had to do. “Cris is going to kill me.” She flew straight up, lifted her wings over her head, and plunged feet-first into the water.

  The ocean was a lot colder than the air. Taya freed her arms and grabbed Tu’s robes, her ondium wings and armature providing plenty of buoyancy. She thrashed her way to the cork ring, grabbed it, and shifted her grip to keep Tu’s head out of the water. Then she grabbed the Alzanan.

  Dead. With regret, she shoved the body away.

  “Tu! Tu, wake up! Tu Jinian!”

  The woman groaned and gagged. Taya held the justiciar’s head up as she convulsed with a hacking series of coughs.

  “Careful, easy! Grab the ring.”

  Tu threw her arms over the cork ring, shooting a dark look up at the fleeing Alzanan ship. “They threw me overboard!”

  “You took one of them with you.” Taya pointed at the body, which hadn’t slipped beneath the surface yet. “He’s dead.”

  “Good!” Tu spat a Cabisi word that Taya hadn’t learned yet. Above them, the ships were drawing further and further apart, the Firebrand struggling in midair and the Indomitable steadily heading east.

  “I don’t think they’re going back to Os Cansai,” Taya muttered. “Did they tell you anything about their plans?”

  “No, but the captain’s order to have me thrown overboard is not the behavior of a man who intends to return to the Impeccable Justiciary to claim his victory.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.”

  Tu glared at the retreating ship.

  “I think I am alive only to distract you and your ship from giving pursuit,” she growled. She tossed her long rows of braided hair over her shoulder. “Captain Fiore owes me for this insult.”

  Taya looked up. The only good thing about this, she thought, watching the ornithopter’s wing shudder, move, and then freeze again, is that Captain Amcathra can’t make a last-ditch suicide run. But that was the only bright spot in what was otherwise a complete disaster. The Alzanans had escaped with the serpentfire cannon, and the Firebrand was damaged again, worse than ever.

  “Can you fly?” Tu asked, after a long moment.

  “No— I’m not counterweighted enough to take off from the water. And before you ask, no, I don’t know how to swim, either. I’m afraid we’re stuck here until someone picks us up.”

  “Then can you signal your ship? Sharks live in these waters, and the dead body will attract them.”

  “Sharks— aren’t those the fish on your national flag?”

  “Yes.” Tu gave her a grave look across the cork ring. “Very big fish with very sharp teeth for tearing into fresh meat.”

  Taya swallowed. “Let me see what I can do.” She slipped her arms into her wings and began waving them back and forth to catch the morning sun.

  * * *

  Two Cabisi fishermen on rescue duty pulled them into a small boat with the other surviving lictor, who thanked Taya for the ring she’d dropped to him. The Ondinium corpse had been lost, but the Alzanan corpse was pulled aboard.

  * * *

  By the time they reached the harbor, the Firebrand was tacking back to its mooring tower, one wing frozen.

  After thanking the fishermen and arranging for the body to be taken to the Os Cansai morgue, Taya, Tu Jinian, and the lictor walked across the harbor. Taya’s clothes and armature were covered in dried salt and she was getting blisters where her armature had rubbed through the Cabisi garments in flight. Tu and the lictor seemed sim
ilarly uncomfortable, plucking at their salt-stiffened garments with distaste.

  As they approached the Firebrand’s mooring tower, they saw that the observation party was already there. A young justiciar hurried to them, bowing.

  “Icarus,” he said in heavily accented Alzanan, “the ambassador waits for you.” He indicated an enclosure made of curtains draped between several quadracycles.

  “Thank you.” She turned to Tu. “When will we hear the Impeccable Justiciary’s verdict? Should we meet you someplace later today?”

  “Does the ambassador prefer we deliver our decision here or in the Great Hall?”

  “Will your deliberations take long?”

  “I think no more than an hour. Perhaps less.”

  “Then we’ll wait here. But if we could get some fresh water….?”

  “Of course.” Tu translated her request for the younger man, bowed to Taya, and entered the mooring tower with the Firebrand’s rescued lictor.

  Taya headed toward the ’cycles.

  “Cris, it’s me.” She pushed aside a curtain.

  “Taya!” Her husband grabbed her hands, squinting as he scanned her from head to toe. “What happened? The Firebrand signaled that you needed to be picked up— were you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine. I had to jump into the water to save Tu Jinian. The Alzanans threw her overboard.”

  “Bastards.” He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her and her armature. She rested her forehead against his shoulder, satisfied to lean against him and feel his long hair tickle her cheek.

  “So,” he murmured after a long, contented silence. “You saved the justiciar you were so worried about. I’m glad.”

  “And a lictor, too.” She reluctantly pushed away. “But at least one other lictor died, and the Indomitable escaped.”

  “We’ll deal with it.” He brushed her salt-stiffened hair away from her face. “I’m happy you were able to help. I’m sorry that I keep forgetting how important that is to you.”