An image came to mind then: a string of sailors torn apart, falling dead to the deck but still moving, awfully. Clawing and moaning and reaching as they rose again.
Wintermourn turned away with a snarl, forcing his useless officers to clear out of his way. Normally, their haste would have mollified him a little. But not now. His mood was too foul, he had to admit. And it was growing blacker by the minute.
The offensive was...stuck. Both of the vanguard ships had failed to take the Graveway Lagoon, and the rest of the invasion force was stopped behind them. The Juggernaut had let herself be boarded, of all damnable things, failing to fight off the pirates before they’d fired her powder magazine. Captain Chesterly had been spotted in the waters near the ravine, having somehow survived. Her sister ship, the Behemoth, had survived the few hours since then, but now she was being pounded piecemeal into a slowly sinking wreck, the pirate airships darting in and out of range from the cliff battery above. Worse, while the guns there had the angle and distance, the shells they fired were too damned light to do more than irritate the old Salomcani fort across the lagoon. As well, the Colossus was too distant to give any aid to the fight, though protected enough by the cliffs that only the odd enemy cannonball proved threatening.
Wintermourn put a hand to the stern railing, looking at the ships stationed back along the channel to the rear. All considered, things were in stalemate. Any advantage they’d had with numbers and equipment was countered by the ridiculous terrain of the Copper Isles. Pushing in might still have been possible, if the crown prince hadn’t taken their air cover with him on whatever ill-considered errand he’d sought out.
No, any progress they were to make now would be along the clifftops around the lagoon. It would have to be made slowly. On foot. But if there was one resource the assembled fleet possessed, it was men. Inch by inch they could take these isles, for king and country, and to the Realms Below with the cost in marines.
The thought made him want to smile.
That’s how things are done. With pride and courage and the spilled blood of stalwart soldiers.
He would go above shortly. To make sure that a proper beachhead was being built, with an eye on an advance to the Salomcani fort. Once enough marines had been off-loaded from the warships, they could pursue assault along that route.
Someone coughed for his attention. Admiral Wintermourn turned, raising an eyebrow fiercely. It was Sergeant Adjutant Lanters, standing at attention with Lebam and the other officers behind him, who looked thankful that someone else had presented himself as a target for their admiral’s ire.
“Sir,” said the burly sergeant. “Captain Chesterly has been recovered from the waters below. And a launch has just arrived bearing the captains of the Titan, Ogre, and the Giantess.”
The ships so named were those most immediately behind the Colossus. As such, their captains were some of the most senior in the fleet. Wintermourn was modestly pleased; he’d expected them to make their way over a goodly bit later.
Not that it would do to let that be seen. “About time,” he growled. Wintermourn turned away and descended to the lower deck. There the commanders were just coming aboard, a cluster of embroidered blue jackets and golden epaulets. All of them wore wigs, a habit of the older, more distinguished gentleman—one didn’t advance in the fleet without the requisite amount of years or connections, after all. The crown prince might look at them and see a bunch of conservative stuffed shirts, but Wintermourn saw them for what they were: paragons of tradition and service. A collection of long years of experience hammered into the only worthwhile class of men, commanding the most powerful vessels of the greatest kingdom alive.
And they’re mine.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said condescendingly. “If you’re done taking your leisure, please join me in my cabin.”
Sergeant Adjutant Lanters was already standing by, holding the door. Which was pleasing. Fellow is worth more than half of my own officers. Not that he’d ever progress any farther than his current, temporary station. Lanters was noncommissioned—and lowborn to boot. Wintermourn had hinted at the promise of a real navy promotion after the pirates were crushed, but it would never happen. Marines weren’t capable of any real initiative; they were only weapons. Even their ranks were mostly honorary, after all.
The ship’s carpenter had replaced the setting of the previous evening. Gone were the extra chairs and the credenza. Wooden paneling had been put back into place, giving the room a small, closed-in feeling. His bunk and chest had been put away, leaving only the heavy table to dominate the space. Atop it were numerous charts and maps, along with a Worked bucket chilling a bottle of wine, because he wasn’t a savage. Through the stern windows could be seen the prow of the Ogre, frenetic with repairs.
Wintermourn took his customary place behind the table, at the only chair. “This has rather turned into a pig’s ear now,” he said. Lanters came around with wine, serving him first. “Not my plan, of course. But we do what we must. Chesterly! Do I see you lurking in the rear there?”
The ex-captain of the Juggernaut looked up at him from the rear of the assembly, numb with shock. He was still sopping wet and covered in numerous small injuries. His jacket was tattered and torn. Appropriately, he’d lost his epaulets. Still, the fellow seemed to have some sense of propriety about him, because he gave a sharp salute. “Sir,” he replied, voice hollow.
“Dashed luck,” said Wintermourn, warming to the topic. A captain without a ship lost his commission and was reduced to a mere first lieutenant again. Only the admiralty were safe from such an eventuality; they controlled the disbursement of new vessels, after all. Not that he would have ever let his ship get blown out from under him. “Losing your ship. Whatever happened?”
Chesterly stared past Wintermourn, looking haunted. “It was the pirate king himself. Dropped down on us like a bolt from the blue. Just old men, we thought at first, but by the Goddess, they were mad. They lit off our powder stores, for Her sake. Blew me overboard when it went. I...I don’t know why I’m alive...”
Wintermourn raised an eyebrow at him. “Captain Euron Blackheart? In the flesh? That fellow has to be pushing seventy, if he’s even really still alive. You mean to tell me your ship was taken by a bunch of geriatric old criminals?” He shook his head. “That’s the saddest excuse for losing one’s command I have ever heard. I should just hang you, you incompetent.” He snorted disdainfully, then turned away. “Now, Captain Thomasen, the Ogre seems to be a bit out of sorts. How go her repairs?”
The burly, muttonchopped Thomasen sneered contemptuously at Chesterly, who was served last, as Wintermourn had intended. “Had a dashed bad blow,” he said, shaking his head and setting the curls of his wig to swaying. “I’m ashamed to say. That pirate airship—Moonchaser, I think it was—dropped a whole load of bombs upon us before the cliff guns drove her off. I’ve lost most of my mainsail and starboard deck cannon.” He paused to make a flippant gesture. “Oh. Quite a few dead crewmen too. Lookout got smeared all over the inside of the crow’s nest, I think I heard. These are tough new vessels, though—no one builds a ship better than the Darrenway Yard boys. We’ll be back on our feet before too long.”
Wintermourn nodded in commiseration. “Well, see what you can do about the guns. I—”
The cry of the Colossus’s bosun and the tromp of assembling boots cut him short. Wintermourn looked to the cabin door in confusion. What in the Realms Below?
The door banged open as Crown Prince Gwydion strode through, and his royal guards took up position just outside. Bruises colored his features, and he walked with a limp. His clothing was torn, and he had lost his hat somewhere. He smiled, though, and his eyes were like that of a young child on his birthing-day. Wintermourn rose and bent the knee, as did the rest of the room.
“Oh, get up, get up,” said Gwydion, gesturing dismissively. The sable glove he wore was torn, missing two of the fingers. He shrugged upon noticing this, pulled it off, and threw it over his shoulder. �
��By the Goddess! You’ve all got wine—where is a glass?”
Panic at the impropriety checked all the irritated things that Wintermourn wanted to shout at him. “Of course, Your Highness—”
But Chesterly was there, passing his own glass over. The crown prince took it with a nod and drained it in one go. “Ah, that’s the stuff. My thanks...Chesterly, wasn’t it? Juggernaut was your ship?”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness.”
“Ha! Saw what happened down there in the lagoon. Bad bit of luck, that.”
A pained look crept over the ex-captain. He opened his mouth to reply, but Gwydion had turned away already. “Now, I expected to find my good admiral so cloistered, but what are the rest of you old fossils doing in here?”
Wintermourn felt all his irritation at the crown prince rising again. “We were convening over the aftermath of this morning’s action.” He shook his head. “Quite a pity. Two ships lost and a third severely damaged.”
“Those damned pirates made a run at us after the Juggernaut blew,” said Thomasen irritably. “Bypassed the Behemoth entirely. We’d no proper air cover at that point.” He looked pointedly at the crown prince.
Wintermourn blinked in surprise. Thomasen was an old hand at politicking, and needling Gwydion was far from a rational move for such an old soldier. He must have been more upset than he appeared. Not that our princeling doesn’t deserve it. It was possible for a man to serve another and not respect him personally. So far, that seemed like it would be the case with most of the fleet’s commanders and the heir apparent.
“Oho,” laughed Gwydion. “Found your spine now, have you?” He shook his head. “Yes, yes. My apologies for leaving you all in the lurch. I just got so sick of you lot getting all the glory. And with such an opportunity presenting itself, how could I resist?”
Wintermourn frowned. He looked to the rest of the assembled captains, who appeared just as confused.
“What opportunity was that, sir?” asked Chesterly.
Gwydion gestured dismissively with his wineglass. “Oh, I spied an airship out of formation just north of the lagoon. The Dawnhawk, under Natasha Blackheart. All on her own, she was. Which meant that I just had to have Captain Broadlow try to chase her down. I’d have tried to pick off one of the other pirate vessels earlier, but numbers do still matter, alas.”
A dropped pin could have been heard in the cabin. The assembled officers, even boot-licking Chesterly, all stared at the Crown Prince of the Kingdom in astonished horror. Wintermourn himself was appalled.
“You hared off away from the conflict here on nothing more than a whim?” Wintermourn all but shouted. He felt his wig hanging acutely askew. “You could have been killed!”
“Oh, I do certainly hope so,” replied Gwydion dryly. “Otherwise, it would somewhat have defeated the point of risking life and limb.”
Wintermourn felt a red rage rise up, eradicating caution. “You little fool!” he shouted. “You exposed the fleet for some doomed errand that you couldn’t even bring to completion!”
The crown prince met his outrage coolly. “Have a care with how you speak, my good admiral.”
The room fell silent then, with everyone present trying very hard to become invisible. Wintermourn realized the precipice he stood on and forced himself to calm. Abruptly Gwydion gave a sigh.
“In this instance, however,” he said, “you may be correct. I’ve little enough to show for my adventure but sore ribs and a limp, in spite of all these expensive, arcane accoutrements I carry. Someone take a note: those boarding harnesses are a terrible idea. Cost me my victory and hampered my platoon of marines. Who are mostly dead now. We’ll do without them in the future. The harnesses, that is.”
He held out his empty glass, which Lanters raced to fill, and then he made an apologetic shrug to the room at large. “Natasha Blackheart is made of sterner stuff than I thought,” he continued. “And she mentioned a husband.” He looked around the room. “I hadn’t read of that. Has anyone else?”
A chorus of coughed negatives echoed about the cabin, until Chesterly raised a tentative hand. “Captain Fengel, of the Flittergrasp,” he said quietly. “Or so I’ve heard it said.”
Gwydion frowned. “Really? The traitor and mutineer?” He tapped his chin with his free hand and smiled. “The man is supposed to be a master with a blade; I’ll look forward to finding him. But wherever did you hear he was married to her? I’ve made extensive study of all the dossiers and reports.”
The sodden ex-captain coughed in embarrassment. “Ah. I...ah, one of my crewmen picked up a few of those penny-papers they publish in Triskelion about the pirates. Silly stuff,” he continued, flushing red, “boys’ stories and whatnot.”
“Well,” said Gwydion. “I’ll have to consider going over those. I do so hate to be uninformed.”
“Be that as it may,” said Wintermourn, fixing Chesterly with a fierce glare, “it is beside the point. We are in a costly, untenable, damnable position. The Ogre has taken severe damage, with those pirates ready to bomb us again if we should relax our vigilance for even a moment. We’re sitting ducks here in this ravine, just like you’d wanted to avoid. I see no other alternative now than to take the fort by committing the marines to an overland assault.”
Crown Prince Gwydion laughed. “What? Why, that’s ridiculous. I mean, do you realize how many of those men we’ll lose to such an action?” He shook his head. “No, no. We’ll do no such thing.”
“That is what they’re for—”
Gwydion cut him off with a glance. “Do not forget who is in charge here, Admiral. I made a misstep, ’tis true. But our larger action is going just fine. And we’re not going to waste our resources on some grand assault.”
Wintermourn opened his mouth to reply again, but Gwydion cut him off. “Fast and efficient, gentleman. Speed, as I said last evening. New days are upon us, and that’s the name of the game. Now. I’ll be returning aloft shortly, and you’ll have your orders. But first. Chesterly? You’ve lost your commission?”
“Yes,” replied the man, miserable.
“Good. You’re with me then, as royal adjutant. At least for the duration of this invasion.”
Chesterly looked up in surprise as everyone else in the room made cries of consternation. Wintermourn stared. The upstart youth he’d sought to destroy had just gained a royal posting, something he’d not accomplished in fifty years at sea.
“But Your Highness,” he protested, “Chesterly just got kicked off his own damned ship—and has barely a decade at the post!”
“I don’t care, overmuch,” replied the crown prince. “I don’t especially care how things have been done, but I do care how they will be going forward. Haven’t I mentioned that enough by now? New days, gentlemen. New days. Fellow here has experience fighting these pirates and saw the pirate king in the flesh. I want to wring it all from him. Also, he’s quick with a wineglass and a chair when needed.”
Gwydion drained his glass and passed it to his new adjutant, who handed it to Lanters in turn. Then the prince turned to the door. “The key is the pirate captains,” he said, less conversational now. “They’re only a loose coalition. That makes them vulnerable. We can pull them away from the pack. And if we take the right ones, the defense here will fall.”
Wintermourn was unable to choke down the retort. “You already tried that,” he said, voice bitter.
Gwydion raised an eyebrow. “It’s still a viable tactic. And it’s going to get us out of this ‘damnable position’ that you’re so worried over, my good admiral. Enough. I return to the Glory. I have a plan to win the Graveway. If we’re lucky, we’ll get Euron Blackheart with it. If not, it’ll do for at least one of these reaving bastards. Remember, though: I want any Mechanists we come across captured—do not kill them.”
Harsh daylight and the stink of fired powder flooded the cabin as the crown prince left, accompanied by his new adjutant. Wintermourn watched them leave, feeling like there was very little under his control at a
ll.
Chapter Nine
Fengel kept glancing at the Mechanist as they waited to depart Solrun’s Hammer.
Short and stocky, she’d removed her mask during the flight back to Haventown, revealing plain features and quick, intelligent eyes. Fengel thought her young, in her midteens. An apprentice still, he surmised, though she’d said little beyond the summons to speak with the Mechanist Cabal.
He wanted to be back at the Graveway. The fight there needed his attention. A summons by the Brotherhood of the Cog was not to be ignored, though, even if their timing could be better. Why now, of all possible moments, did they feel the need to chat with him?
The question rattled around inside his head as Brunehilde’s crew ran out the boarding ramp to the Skydocks. Was it a new weapon? Something they’d whipped up to help thwart the invaders? If so, why me? Brunehilde is the one taking everything to the Graveway.
He’d meant to further interrogate the young Mechanist, an enigma herself—as he understood it, there were no women in the Brotherhood of the Cog. That plan had been forgotten as soon as they’d passed the Dawnhawk on their way back to Haventown. His ship was flying west, straight for the Graveway battle. Just as a small part of him feared, Natasha had rebelled and come to join the fight. He’d ranted and cursed and run about the deck until Khalid Al-Murdawzi threatened to pitch him overboard, calming only once the Dawnhawk turned herself northward again. The rest of the journey had been split between worrying over his wife’s crazy antics and why the Mechanist Cabal wanted to see him.
Fengel disembarked as Solrun’s Hammer finished docking. It can’t be about my bills, can it? I mean, there’s a war on at the moment. And my tab isn’t...that big. Not really. He forced the thought aside. No. It was ridiculous. Unless...unless they want to make sure I’m settled up before we all die. Fengel scowled and left the airship.
Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) Page 14