On Discord Isle (The Dawnhawk Trilogy)

by Burgess, Jonathon

  Simon put a hand on the youth’s shoulder. Then he glanced back up at Fengel. “We’re all that’s left. When we got away, we thought we’d go to the Salmalin and see what they had. We found these rats”—he gestured to Etarin—“already tearing things apart.”

  “Then they attacked us!” said the man. He glared at the Perinese private. “That monster killed all our fellows as well, and still you attacked us, stealing from the less fortunate like the dogs that you are.”

  “You stole those supplies from honest Perinese merchantmen!” cried Cumbers.

  “Honest Perinese?” snorted Jahmal. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Gentleman,” said Fengel. He held his hands out until everyone looked his way, then pointed significantly at the ravine outside. Faintly, they could all hear the Dray Engine, still pacing about, looking for its prey.

  The group quieted. “Anyway,” said Hayes after a moment. “They fled—”

  “No, you fled!”

  “You both fled,” interrupted Fengel. “The Dray Engine, right? You heard the Dray Engine coming out from the interior of the island, hid down here, and were just about to leave when we came in, yes?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Well, why not just say so?” Fengel shook his head. Now that they’d all been talked down, it was time to try the next step.

  He eyed the stack of crates behind the sailors. There were only a few, stamped with both Kingdom and Sheikdom insignia. It was easy enough to make out the contents.

  “Let’s see...some dried fish, hardtack, of course, a satchel of onions, and some goat meat jerky.” He raised an eyebrow. “This is what you’ve been fighting over?

  “We’re going to need it,” said Hayes. “At least until we can find a way to avoid that beast outside. Once next season comes, we should have it all figured out, and then the mango trees will be fruiting.”

  Fengel gave them a piteous look. “Oh, lads,” he said. “You’re thinking of staying here?”

  “Well, what else are we going to do?” asked Paine. “We can’t sail away. Both the ships are ruined.”

  “I mean to do exactly that,” said Fengel. “And I’ll even take you along, though the way be perilous hard.” He almost felt Natasha’s glare at the back of his head; there wasn’t nearly enough food for two people in the cave, let alone ten.

  Hayes leaned forward. “S’not going to work,” he said snidely. “We all know what you’re both really like.”

  Sergeant Cumbers held up a hand. “Hold on, now. How are you going to leave the island?”

  The sub-lieutenant rounded on Cumbers in surprise. “What? No!”

  Etarin stepped forward from the Salomcani side of the cave. “I would hear this as well.”

  “It’s not going to be easy,” said Fengel, cutting in before Hayes could speak up. “But there’s enough material on the Goliath. We can build a raft of longboats, and head back to the open ocean. It’ll take all we’ve got, and more than a few of us won’t survive, but it’s the best chance we have.” He met each pair of eyes. “We’ll have to work together on this, no Salomcani, no Perinese. Just us.”

  The cave grew silent. Hayes worked his jaw, obviously fighting to find the words to express his outrage. Farouk stepped forward, looking past Fengel to Natasha. “Kalyon,” he said. “Does he mean this? Can you both do this?”

  Natasha gave a bitter shrug. “I guess,” she said, rolling her eyes at Fengel.

  “I don’t want to die here,” said Paine. The youth lowered the dagger he held. “I want to go back to the Kingdom.”

  And just like that, they were his. Capital. There still wasn’t enough food...but they’d figure something out. “Excellent. Now—”

  “No. No! No!” Hayes pushed violently past Cumbers and the Salomcani, past Fengel and Natasha and out the cave mouth into the stream beyond. “I won’t follow you!” he screamed back at them all. “I won’t be party to this again!”

  Then he ran off.

  The Dray Engine gave a thundering roar. It pounded through the jungle, growing closer and closer until the great brazen claws passed by, leaving a cloud of steam in its wake. Hayes screamed somewhere outside, the sound falling fainter as he ran farther away. The Dray Engine gave chase.

  Fengel looked sharply back at the rest of his crew. “Hayes has inadvertently given us a chance. Grab the crates and follow me. We make for the Goliath. Go!”

  Natasha was already outside, the ridiculous parrot still clutched in her hands. She scrabbled up the embankment they’d been hidden beneath. Fengel climbed after her, but only halfway up before turning back to watch as the others appeared. They followed him up the slope and into the jungle beyond.

  They ran. The jungle seemed to fight Fengel as never before. Fern bushes tangled his feet and green vines snaked around his head. The darkness of the jungle canopy occluded vision, causing missteps and collisions with hidden palm trees. Even when they broke free into a clearing things were dark; the sun hid its face behind the volcanic cloud streaming up from the mountaintop.

  The Dray Engine remained hidden, but it could still be heard. Thunderous footfalls shook the ground they ran upon and set the trees to shaking. Once or twice he spied its reptilian form distantly through the undergrowth. To his surprise he still caught the echo of faint screams; Sub-Lieutenant Hayes still lived.

  His wife drew close as they neared the southern shore of the island. She appeared battered, but defiant, filled with tenacity as usual. The gaudy parrot she had held was gone, at the moment.

  “Where’s your bird?” he asked.

  She made a disgusted sound. “That thing. Pfagh. Threw it away.”

  “Oh?”

  “I shoved it down a burrow of some sort. Looked like a badger’s den, or something.”

  “Ah.”

  They focused on moving through the underbrush for a moment. The rest of the crew still trailed along behind them. As he stopped to get his bearings, Natasha reached out and grabbed his arm, forcing him face her.

  “Fengel. How in the Realms Below are we going to survive with these worms dragging us down?”

  He smiled sheepishly. Both of them knew that this was his doing, what he really wanted rather than what she did. “Well. I’m sure that something will come up.” He shrugged. “Besides. It’s very, very likely that most of us are going to be dead before we can even leave the island. That’ll balance the equation a little.”

  She sighed and looked away before giving him a wry smile. “Whatever. I have to admit I’m impressed, though. I’d have just started killing them until I got my way.”

  Fengel blinked. Neither of them had any weapons anymore. “What, with that bird?”

  “Just so.”

  They both broke out into laughter at the same time. He patted her shoulder and they moved on again.

  The sun had set when the jungle parted to reveal the southern beach. Fengel gave a sigh of relief and gathered the others around. Miraculously, they hadn’t lost anyone. There were a few close calls, but the Dray Engine remained elsewhere on the island. Equally miraculously, Fengel was sure he’d heard the sound of Hayes’s screams whenever they caught sight of the Voornish monster. It had been hours since there’d been any hint of either of them, though.

  Paine gave a shout and pointed. Fengel followed his finger along with everyone else, and breathed a sigh of relief as he spied the tall, thin masts of the Goliath rising beyond a spit of jungle to the east. He smiled at the assembled crew and led them down to the beach.

  A ridge of rock stretched out from the jungle into the sand. Fengel recognized it as the same one from earlier, where the Salomcani had launched their raid upon the Perinese. And now I’m helping what’s left of them to take the Goliath. Ironic.

  He led the way, focusing on the immediate future. Natasha was right; there wasn’t any way he could keep ten people alive. Fengel was going to have enough trouble with just the two of them. Am I? Stranger things have happened. And if we can hit a shipping lane somehow. Sti
ll, it’s going to be obvious to them too—

  He ascended the top of the rock and cursed, throwing himself down flat.

  The Dray Engine lay on the beach before the Goliath a hundred feet away. It was prostrate, belly down and arrow-straight from the tip of the tail all the way up to the jaws, the moonlight shining from its brazen hide. The great fire-lamp eyes were shuttered, and its foreclaws were folded neatly beneath the chest. Fengel could see that it wasn’t dead, though. Brass flywheels spun beneath the armored carapace and clockwork gears twitched along. For all the world though, the machine appeared to be sleeping.

  Fengel held his hands out at the sailors and made shushing noises as the tall Salomcani, Farouk, climbed the ridge, followed by Natasha, and then Sergeant Cumbers. They paused a moment to stare in surprise and horror. Then Natasha swore.

  “You overbuilt piece of trash!” she cried. “You wind-up joke! No! No! I refuse to believe that you can just show up wherever I—”

  Fengel and the others moved as one. He leapt up to clap hands over her mouth, while Cumbers and Farouk tackled her to the rock. The three of them carried her back down behind the ridge, where the rest of the crew stared up at them in surprise.

  Natasha kicked, fought, and bit, but Fengel and the others held her still. He gestured with his head back up the rock, and Farouk moved to obey. Only when the big sailor nodded back down at them did Fengel relax his grip. His wife fought her way free, furious. Fengel only held a bite-mark-covered finger to his lips for silence.

  “I would really rather not wake the thing up, if you don’t mind,” he whispered.

  Natasha only glared at him. Farouk slid back down the slope and leaned in close. “It shifted,” he said in thick Perinese. “But it hasn’t woken up.”

  Fengel sighed. “How can such a monstrosity move so quickly? How did we not hear it on this side of the island?”

  Paine went white. “Here? Is that machine-dragon here?”

  “Yes, now sit down and be quiet while I think on this.”

  Fengel rubbed his beard while he ran through ideas. The monster was obviously quite formidable, but if it hadn’t heard Natasha’s squalling, then they might slip past it. Fortunately, he had caught a glimpse of one of the Goliath’s longboats beached past it upon the shore.

  The rest of the crew, Natasha included, were watching him somberly, waiting to see what he would come up with. Fengel gave them a smile. “All right. Best bet is still to reach the ship. there’s another boat or two along the starboard side that never got used. We can use those for our escape. Might still be a provision or two aboard as well. The Dray Engine is asleep or...something. We can slip past it, I think, then quietly, quietly use the longboat on the shore to row out to the Goliath.”

  Natasha slammed a fist down into the sand. “I’ve had enough of that thing. I want to kill it.”

  “Well,” continued Fengel. “It occurs to me that taking more time to prepare for the open ocean would be very possible, if we could kill the beast. But I don’t think it’s worth the risk. It’d take cannon fire, at the very least, and there isn’t very much powder left aboard the ship.”

  The Perinese sailors all exchanged looks. “But you said the Goliath was all out,” replied Sergeant Cumbers. “There was barely enough for half the men to take muskets!”

  “So did you!” said Etarin with a pointed look at Natasha.

  “Oh,” replied Fengel, waving them off. “I lied, of course. There was some left in the magazine that I hid back in the captain’s cabin. You people were just never going to attack the Salmalin if you could have kept holding up aboard the ship.”

  The surviving Perinese stared at him, incredulous. Then they all set an uproar.

  “You bastard!” said Paine.

  “We could have had more musket and pistol shot!” said Cumbers

  “But, but,” stammered Simon.

  “Oh, well done,” murmured Natasha, smiling viciously.

  Fengel held up a finger. “Ah!” he said. “Quiet now. Sleeping mechanical dragon, remember?”

  The crew quieted, though they were clearly still furious. Thin Jahmal said something quietly to his fellows, and they all shook their heads sadly.

  “I still want to kill the thing,” sulked Natasha.

  Fengel patted her hand. “Sorry, love. I’m going to have to say no for the moment. It’s just not worth it. Let’s get aboard, gather what we can, and prepare the longboats. Come along now.”

  He stood without waiting for a response, then crept along to the edge of the rock, hiding for the moment in the long, soft shadow cast by the moon as he peered around at the beach. The Dray Engine was still sleeping, right atop the patch of burned and broken sand Natasha had originally obliterated. The tip of its tail twitched, carving furrows.

  Fengel closed his eyes and took a breath. Never let them see you stumble. Then he took a step out onto the beach past the rock.

  A hundred yards away lay the longboat, wedged into the sand where the surf met the shore. Wreckage floated on the waves behind it, the leftover legacy of what had once been the Perinese encampment. Dominating the beach was the slumbering Dray Engine. There wasn’t a lot of room left to skirt the machine, and to reach the boat they would have to pass within twenty paces of it.

  Fengel crept across the shadowed sand. It gave under his feet, making each step precarious and shorter than it should have been. Fragments of burned wood and the occasional cannonball found themselves beneath his feet, all colored into stark black-and-white by the light of the moon.

  He paused to take in the remnants upon the beach and the great metal war machine upon it. It seems as if all this island has ever known is woe. The Voornish facility within the volcano certainly hadn’t been for baking cakes, and from what he’d heard, that ancient race had predated the rise of mankind.

  A hissing noise made him glance back. It was the rest of the survivors, Natasha at the lead. They’d slipped out onto the beach after him, a conga line of would-be sneaks. All stood still in their tracks now, though, wondering why he’d stopped. His wife glared at him, gesturing violently at the longboat in between nervous glances at the Dray Engine.

  Fengel smiled and gestured flippantly. Then he made his way back down to the shore. The longboat seen up close was filthy, coated with ash from the volcanic explosion yesterday. Half a foot of water sloshed along the bottom, muddy and dark. But it appeared otherwise sound. Even the oars were properly shipped within.

  The rest of the combined crew reached him, huddling up to the boat and glancing back at the Dray Engine. Fengel caught their attention and gestured at the rim of the longboat.

  “Everyone grab a spot,” he stage-whispered. “We’re going to slide her into the water and hop aboard. All right?” He waited for everyone to spread out. “On the count of three, now. One. Two. Thr—”

  A clatter and the groan of shifting metal froze them all. Fengel’s heart leapt into his throat. Slowly, he glanced back over his shoulder.

  The Dray Engine had one eye open. It wasn’t watching them directly, but they still stood in the corner of its vision. The thing shifted, raising one foreleg up before slamming it down on a lone Perinese tent that Fengel hadn’t seen, standing on the far side of the monster. It ground the canvas into the sand, then the great brazen shutters fell back over its eye-lamps and it stilled again.

  Fengel reached a count of fifty, then gestured frantically to the others still frozen beside him. “Go!” he whispered. “Go!”

  They slid the longboat into the waves and a little farther beyond. Fengel hopped in with the ease of long practice, followed by Natasha and then all the rest of the surviving crewmen. For all their failings and injuries, both sets of men were professional sailors, and knew their business. They were all aboard and pointed at the Goliath with scant trouble, Sergeant Cumbers and big Farouk at the oars and pushing them toward the warship.

  Fengel sat in the bow and kept watch on the mechanical titan behind them. Natasha joined him, glaring at it.


  “Careful,” he said quietly, playfully. “Your face might stick like that.”

  “It did years ago,” she growled. “What I can’t understand is how the damned thing seems to know where we want to go every single damned time. I want to kill it. I want blood, Fengel.”

  Fengel rubbed his chin. “I know you do,” he replied. “But I don’t think it does. Know where we are, I mean.”

  Natasha raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Consider,” he continued. “It destroyed your lean-to—”

  “Tent.”

  “Lean-to. Out of all the things on that side of the island, it hunted that down. Then it ran straight for the Salmalin. I don’t think it’s after us specifically. I think it’s wiping out anything non-Voornish on the island.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she replied. “Remember how it stepped on that automaton.”

  “Well,” conceded Fengel. “It also seems enormously ill-tempered.”

  The longboat made it to the hull of the Goliath, which had shifted only a little from how he’d left it last. Under cover of dark, they began their ascent up the rope ladder that had been left in place, Fengel holding it still for Natasha.

  A scream cut through the night.

  Everyone glanced back at the island. The moon gave clear view of the beach and the jungle behind it. Balls of superheated magma shot up from the volcano at the center of the isle, coloring the view like a great holiday firework. A man had run out of the jungle, wearing the tattered jacket of a low-ranking Perinese officer. It was Sub-Lieutenant Hayes.

  “Don’t go!” he yelled. “Don’t leave me behind!”

  Hayes ran down the beach, right for the shore. To Fengel’s growing horror, he didn’t seem to notice the sleeping Dray Engine, or was just too desperate to care. Hayes ran over the snout of the thing, his boots ringing the maw like a bell before he tripped back down to the sand. He tore off his jacket as he reached the shore and threw it away before diving into the surf.

  The Dray Engine shifted.