Illumination came in the form of a lurid red glow. It filled the space, emanating from ten tall, fat, transparent cylinders. Glass or translucent crystal, Natasha didn’t know. But within flowed something viscous that resembled nothing so much as red-hot magma, rising up from below the floor to disappear past the half-seen gearworks that covered the ceiling. Chains dangled down at regular intervals, suspending heavy metal blocks above the floor. These were taller than a man, perfectly square and formed of the same material as the rest of the room, with odd transparent panels adorning their surfaces. One of the blocks did not dangle, resting instead on the causeway to the right; the chain connecting it ran slack to the far end of the room.
Farouk and Etarin ran into her, followed by the rest of the Salomcani. Bloodthirsty yells quieted as Natasha’s crew stared about in confusion.
“By the Goddess,” muttered Etarin, wiping away more blood from the cut on his forehead. “Where are we?”
“Voornish ruin,” said Natasha with a smile. She’d been surprised at first, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out. Her father had seen enough of them, and she wasn’t unfamiliar with the places either. “Ha. We’ll loot this place down to the bone once we take care of business. There’s more than a few nobles back on Edrus who’ll pay their eyeteeth for Voorn leftovers, and I know just the fences to reach them.” She raised her scimitar. “Congratulations, me hearties. We’re all richer than pig shit!” Her new crew gave a ragged cheer, not entirely seeming to understand.
Jahmal grabbed at her arm. Natasha opened her mouth to snarl at the man, then stopped. With his other hand, the thin sailor pointed down the platform stair at the center of the room. “Kalyon,” he said. “Look.”
Natasha jerked her arm away, then peered through the gloom. A figure stood there, wavering slightly. Human-shaped, though it reflected the light of the magma as if it were wearing armor.
“Hara hailo!” it called out, in a tinny voice that just reached up to her on the platform.
She didn’t recognize the language. Natasha exchanged a look with Jahmal, then faced the rest of the crew. “Forward, all of you. And have your weapons at the ready. Fengel, I mean, the Perinese, are in here somewhere.”
Cautiously, she led the way down to the floor of the great room. No one jumped out at her. No one triggered any clever traps.
When Natasha reached the figure, she stopped. It was a metallic armature, almost a skeleton, formed out of the same Voornish brass as everything else here. The torso, head, and forearms were like a child’s suit of armor, covered in alien scrollwork. Two great glass eyes peered at her. It tottered on skeletal feet, its arms bound around its midsection by coils of well-tied rope.
“Hara hailo?” it asked. “Korstachi? Or this one? Can you understand this dialect?”
The last had come in clear, though weirdly accented, Perinese. Natasha frowned.
“This one is reasonably certain that this dialect is correct,” continued the machine. “Earlier speech samples indicate a 95 percent chance of success, with only a 5 percent chance of failure.” It struggled unsuccessfully against the ropes that bound it. Whoever had tied it up had done a thorough job. It wiggled back and forth, threatening to tip over entirely.
“What is it, Kalyon?” asked Farouk. He peered past Natasha, worry and fascination playing out on his face, the swollen bruise twisting it ghastly in the reddish glow. The other crewmen stared at the thing as well, keeping well at her back.
“It’s an automaton,” muttered Natasha in Perinese. “An actual Voornish automaton.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the machine. “The calculations were correct. Please, you must not be here. Take yourselves from this facility, all of you! It is very dangerous, and recent external activity has damaged the cooling pumps—”
Jahmal raised his long knife and took a half-step back. “It’s some trap. The thing speaks Perinese!”
“Shut up,” replied Natasha in irritation. “I think it speaks many languages. I’ve heard of these. It’s a working Voornish machine. Probably priceless. But who tied it up? It’s Fengel. It had to be Fengel...but why?” She straightened, peering around at the cavernous room.
“Do you know the other humans?” asked the machine. “Oh, please. You must ask them to leave. They did not listen to this one, though this one is certain that the appropriate dialect was used, especially in light of recent evidence. But! The machineries here are very delicate, especially after an unknown violent event on the exterior of the facility—”
Natasha looked back at the rambling automaton. “Where did these others go?”
“Oh,” said the automaton. “They never left.”
A screeching cacophony echoed from up above. Natasha glanced up to see the block resting upon the causeway up above slide over and fall off. The chains anchoring it to the machineries in the ceiling went taut, and the thing swung down at the gathered Salomcani.
The raiders yelled and scrabbled to get out of the way. Natasha’s instincts kicked in and she dropped, throwing herself flat. Farouk landed beside her, covering her head and torso protectively. She opened her mouth to yell at him, but then the block swung overhead with just inches to spare. It connected with the Voornish automaton, and both went flying past.
Natasha glanced back up. The block continued on, the attached chains guiding it in a long arc toward the translucent tubes on the far left wall. As it reached the apex of its swing, the chains suspending it from the ceiling snapped, letting the thing fly through the air. It slammed violently into the tubes with a resounding clang. The metal block and the Voornish automaton fell away, the latter with a distressed wail. Natasha spied several long, glowing cracks that the impact had left in the glass. She winced as the block slammed into the ground, clattering out of sight.
“Hayes!” called a familiar voice. “You idiot!”
Natasha would know Fengel’s holler anywhere. She looked up to see him standing on the far platform, where he’d risen from hiding behind the low wall there. He shook his saber at the causeway, where a panting, disheveled figure stood. Natasha recognized the sub-lieutenant of the Goliath, looking a little worse for wear.
“You’ve missed them all completely!” continued her husband. “And that automaton was a priceless artifact, probably.”
Natasha glanced around. It was true. Her new crew lay all wherever they had thrown themselves. By some miracle the trap had managed to miss them all.
Now I’ve got you. Natasha grinned and climbed to her feet. Or tried to. Farouk still had her clasped protectively tight. “Off,” she hissed at him. “Get off, fool!” She slapped with her free hand until he let go and then scrabbled upwards. She raised her scimitar, resting the blade against one shoulder. “There you are,” she said. “I figured that you’d have tried to set an ambush, but I didn’t expect it would be anything worth worrying over. Looks like I was right.”
Fengel rapped the pommel of his saber against the metal wall. “Well, you would have, if that idiot up on the causeway could follow orders!” The last he obviously shouted so that Hayes would hear.
The Salomcani climbed to their feet behind her, muttering curses and angry threats. Fengel blinked down at them. Then he gave a whistle. The rest of the men of the Goliath rose up from behind the wall where they’d been likewise hiding.
Natasha cheered. She hadn’t stopped to check casualties after the fight in the gully outside, but there were fewer Perinese than she remembered. “I seem to recall someone saying that the crew was only as good as the captain,” she sneered.
Fengel’s eyes widened in outrage, his eyepiece falling away to dangle from its chain. He started in alarm and carefully replaced it, wiping the monocle against his jacket first. When he looked back to her, it was focused through the crazed glass of a cracked lens.
A warm, fuzzy feeling grew in Natasha’s belly. Finally. He’d finally failed to beat her in wordplay. Oh, she was sure he’d had a clever response, but it was ruined by his ridiculous affectation.
; “You make a very good point,” said Fengel.
Natasha blinked. “I do?”
“Yes. I take full responsibility for this trap’s failure to crush you. Even if the hands that set it in motion belonged to my moderately treacherous, and increasingly incompetent sub-lieutenant,” Fengel projected his voice toward the causeway. “I was still the one who placed him in charge, and thus it’s my fault.”
Fengel examined the nails of his free hand. The room was momentarily silent, save for the clanking whirr of the machineries overhead.
“What?” exclaimed Natasha. “No. You don’t get to do that!”
Her husband raised an eyebrow. Somehow, the monocle stayed in place. “I’m sorry?”
“You don’t get to win by giving in. I got you that time. Admit it!”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about. I’ve already said that you had a point—”
“There!” Natasha pointed her scimitar at him. “That! You’re doing it again.”
Fengel sighed. “As always, you’re being irrational. Not to mention childish. Not that I expect anything else of you.”
Natasha realized that he’d turned the conversation around on her. Again.
“You. Ass.” She gritted her teeth. “You smug, condescending pig. How you conned your way atop that sad sack of low-tide leavings beside you is mystifying.”
“There was a need,” replied Fengel. “I filled it.” He swept his arms wide to encompass the Perinese sailors to either side. “You see, a real leader doesn’t just command. He lifts his people up and shows them the way to victory. He listens. Which I’m guessing isn’t something you’ve ever done. How much bullying did you have to do in order to get that pack of feral animals to follow you?”
“Feral animals?” Rage and pride filled her voice. Natasha stood up straighter and slashed out with the tip of her blade. “My men are Salomcani! The people of the Sheikdom are fiercer fighters and better sailors by far than those sheep-loving peacocks you’ve got following you.”
Fengel slammed his free hand against the brass wall before him. “Fierce fighters? Hardly. Any intensity they show is only to make up for their lack of skill. And the Perinese consistently sail circles around them on the open water. The Salmalin was running from the Goliath, I seem to recall.”
“The only reason your sots can even sail is because they can’t wait to escape the Kingdom!”
“How dare you, you pox-ridden harlot. The people of the Kingdom are men of breeding and—”
“Breeding with sheep!” snarled Natasha. “With the odd nag of a horse thrown in for variety.”
“Perinese horses are the finest in the world,” growled Fengel. “I recall that the Salomcani used to have some decent lines, until they all got eaten!”
“You bastard!”
“Bitch!”
Natasha pointed her sword at Fengel. “I’m going to wipe that smirk off your face with the bottom of my boot!”
“You and what army?” asked Fengel
A figure appeared at Natasha’s side. “Kalyon,” cried Etarin. “Enough prattle! Let us end these filthy mongrels.”
She looked back at the rest of her crew. Bloodlust twisted their faces into ugly masks. Not all of them understood Fengel’s insults. But no one could mistake his intent.
Natasha faced her husband. “With this one,” she said, smiling wickedly.
A loud crack echoed throughout the room. Natasha glanced up, along with everyone else, at the massive crystal pipes along the west wall. The fracture left by Fengel’s mis-aimed trap was stretching. She watched as several spiderweb fissures crawled madly across the glass.
“Oh?” said Fengel. He smiled smugly back at the men of the Goliath. “That pipe is going to break open any moment,” said Fengel, “dumping hundreds of gallons of lava, or whatever is in there, all over the floor. We will be perfectly safe up here on the platform. We don’t need to come down and meet you, if we just keep you at bay on these stairs. And there isn’t a single thing you can say to change that.”
Natasha shifted her gaze to the assembled crew of the Goliath. They glared at her and her men, muttering their own threats and curses. “Fengel’s first name,” she said loudly and clearly, “is Ashley.”
Fengel howled in anger. He charged down the stair with his saber raised above his head. The men of the Goliath looked to each other in surprise before following with a wordless cry. Her own crewmen roared their response. Both sides rushed forward, crashing into each other like a pair of opposing waves. The battle was on.
Natasha itched to meet her husband. She’d ambushed him, driven him off, and then provoked him again into a fight. But if she crossed blades with him now she knew she would lose. Fengel was better with a blade by far, and while facing him down directly would be satisfying, it wouldn’t work. No. She couldn’t let herself be beaten again. Just like outside, she had to orchestrate this just right if she wanted to win.
Her father always said to cheat, if you couldn’t win a fair fight. She retreated, letting the crew of the Salmalin flow past her to face her enraged husband. While Fengel was a skilled swordsman, he had other weaknesses. And she’d hit those where they hurt.
She picked several faces out of the melee, those of the hated Perinese. Natasha grinned and reached out as both Farouk and Jahmal went past. “With me!” she cried. “This way!”
The two sailors looked at her in confusion, but followed as she pulled them alongside the fight out toward its edges. There she found a small cluster of Bluecoat marines led by her former gaolers, Sergeant Cumbers and Private Simon. Good. She’d made a note of who stood closest to Fengel during his tirade on the platform; they were sure to be his followers, the ones he used to keep everyone in line. Fengel wasn’t strong enough to rule his crew directly by force. He loved to delegate. Removing the sergeant would deal him, and the Perinese, a serious blow.
But she had to be quick about it. Natasha threw herself at the smaller, less-experienced Simon, aiming a punch with the hilt of her scimitar at his freckled face. The blow connected with a thud. Simon cried out and fell back, spitting teeth and flailing his gangly limbs in a blue blur. Cumbers yelled in alarm, just as Farouk bulled forward with a two-handed chop, breaking through the blade of the marine and biting into the man’s shoulder. The sergeant fell back into the knot of Bluecoats. Farouk kept up the assault as the Perinese defense along this side of the battle folded.
A resounding crack reached Natasha through the noise. She glanced up to see another spiderweb crack flaring out up high on the crystal pipe.
Time was running out, but she could still win this. Next was the aetherite, Dawkins. As an aetherite, he was a potent tool for Fengel. As Natasha moved back through the melee, she spied Fengel. He was fending off three of her Salomcani, keeping them at bay with a skillful blur of parries and ripostes. Though close to being overwhelmed, he still lashed out at any opportunities that presented themselves.
Natasha saw Dawkins on the other flank. Fortunately the man was drained of any real Workings; that much she’d learned while in captivity. However, he still had a few tricks left, it seemed. Any blade directed at him jerked away, almost as if alive. Though the aetherite was unarmed, his hands were wreathed in a cool glowing nimbus. Whenever he touched one of her men, they would shriek in pain and collapse to the floor.
Most folk knew very little about Worked aetherite magic. Fortunately, she’d had Konrad on retainer for years now, and knew how to tell the various spells apart. Dawkins’s Bladeward Working was useful, but it had limits. Natasha sheathed her scimitar and cracked the knuckles of both hands. Then she threw herself at him.
The aetherite saw her out of the corner of his eye. He spun about to meet her and raised both hands, smiling grimly in recognition. Natasha didn’t bother returning the gesture. As he swung out with aether-charged hands, Natasha ducked low, coming up past and along his side, almost as if she’d tried to tackle him and decided against it at the last second. Her fist found his s
ternum just beneath the breastbone, knocking the air out of the magician in a loud gasp. His concentration faltered, and along with it, the spell he held. Natasha grabbed him by the coat and held on as she landed blow upon blow against the side of his head. Feebly, he tried to fend her off. Only when he wasn’t moving anymore did she relent.
As her men moved forward, Natasha released the aetherite, and another loud crack sounded from the great tube on the western wall. Its surface was a fine spiderweb now, ready to give way at any moment. Below, the Perinese were folding. Without Cumbers and Dawkins to hold the flanks and reissue Fengel’s orders, her men were driving them back. They’d almost won.
Time to drive this home. Natasha pressed back into the melee, drawing her scimitar as she went.
Fengel still stood at the center of the fight. He was almost surrounded now. Still, though, he refused to give up. By himself now, he held the line of battle for his men, but he was at his limits. Sweat poured down his features and he bled from a number of minor cuts.
Natasha grinned and threw herself at his blind side, right where he wore that idiotic monocle. Her blade licked out, but his saber appeared to block it. He glared at her just long enough to make his point before dodging a dagger-thrust by Jahmal.
“I may not have your skill,” purred Natasha, “but there’s only so much you can handle, and we both know it.”
“I’ll hold...my own...as long as I have to,” muttered Fengel. He tried a cut at her thighs.
Natasha danced away with a laugh. “That’ll be a long wait, then. I’ve taken care of both your sergeant and your aetherite. Your people are failing. No one’s coming to help you.”
Fengel rammed the pommel of his saber into Jahmal’s forehead, dropping the man. He cut at the throat of a Salomcani sailor beside him, forcing him back with a yelp. Then, quicker than she would have thought possible, his blade was there, singing down for her face.
On Discord Isle (The Dawnhawk Trilogy) Page 21