The girl grabbed the head of her doll and pulled it free, revealing a stiletto’s blade with a plushy handle. This she jammed into the arm of Bryant, who cried out and fell back. The other pirates took advantage as well, biting, kicking, and fighting their way free.
Wintermourn stared in horror as the bomb hit the boardwalk and bounced towards him. No! He stepped back and reached for a Bluecoat standing to his right, then pulled the man in front of him.
The blast was a surge of force that slammed into his living shield and bowled the both of them over. Wintermourn fell to the boardwalk, stunned. For what seemed an eternity he struggled to recover; this way was up, these were his limbs, and that was his own saber he was lying uncomfortably atop of. Hearing was a loss, for the moment.
He thrust the soldier atop him aside. The fellow was dead, a ruined and bloody mess who had served with distinction at the end, even if he hadn’t meant to.
The Bluecoats lay about the street, similarly thrown back. Windows were shattered and the boardwalk splintered where the blast had gone off. Those closest had been likewise killed, but the bomb had stunned more men than it had done real damage. Sergeant Lanters was climbing to his feet, slapping his ear in confusion, one of his eyes red and bloody. The young girl had survived, along with the Mechanist, amazingly. Both of them ran away down the street, past the tavern and warehouse, headed perplexingly for the cliff wall.
“After them!” roared Wintermourn. His voice sounded weak and tinny in his ears, more felt than heard. “Get those bloody pirates!”
Sergeant Lanters looked to him, then followed his outstretched arm. He roared a command of his own and took off in pursuit. After a moment, a few of the less injured Bluecoats staggered after.
Rough hands helped Wintermourn up. He shoved the marines aside as soon as he could stand, drawing his saber with one hand and straightening his wig with the other. “On your feet!” he snarled at the marines all about him. “Get on your damned feet and get after them. And if any one of you kills that Mechanist before I get to him, you’ll hang for high treason!”
He led the remnants of his force down the street. It didn’t take long to catch up to the other marines. They clustered at the back of the warehouse, where a number of the thick brass pipes emerged from the solid rock, climbing up to the Craftwright’s Terrace and beyond, cleverly hidden by the shadows.
“What are you doing?” demanded Wintermourn.
Lanters turned back, revealing a stack of crates between the warehouse and the wall. The Bluecoats were prying at them with their muskets and smallswords. “There’s a hidden door here, sir,” he said. “They slipped right through before we could nab ’em”
“Then get it—”
The Bluecoats heaved, and something snapped with a metallic ping. The stack of crates slid out on oiled hinges, all of a cunningly crafted piece. An opening wide enough for two men was revealed, leading down a passage that descended into the bare rock of the terrace wall.
“Hmm,” muttered Wintermourn. Lanters and his Bluecoats looked back, awaiting his orders. The opening could lead anywhere, really. Some sort of mine? The Mechanists could have any number of nasty surprises waiting. I’m certainly not exposing myself to another of those screaming contraptions.
But he’d be damned to the Realms Below if he’d let those two escape.
“Sergeant Adjutant,” he said. “Take a pair of men and go down there. Find the Mechanist. Find out where this goes.”
Sergeant Lanters raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Sir? What about the rest of the Waterdocks?”
“I am the ranking navy field officer here,” replied Wintermourn in tones of iron. “I will lead the company. Who is your second?”
“The platoon sergeant,” said Lanters. “Greene! Get over here!”
Wintermourn glanced back at a marine with a bloodied coat and a battered hat, one of the bomb-battered others running hurriedly over to join them. He stopped to make a salute, and Wintermourn curled his lip. He had little use for tardiness.
Well, any port in a storm, as they say. Though the fellow certainly wouldn’t get a promotion out of this.
“Good enough,” he said to his adjutant. “Now get below and do your duty. We’ll have control of these Waterdocks soon enough.”
“Sir!” Lanters made his salute, grabbed two men, and entered the hidden passage with his blade drawn.
Wintermourn watched him disappear. Then he turned to Sergeant Greene and the marines standing nearby. “Back to the intersection!” he barked, sheathing his saber. “Form up and move out. We’ve still got a job to do!”
Technically, Greene probably should have given the command. Wintermourn was in a hurry, though; there was a lot of ground still to cover. And the man was a marine officer, after all not even possessing a real rank.
The company moved away from the Rusty Cutlass, continuing on to another series of warehouses. He had eighty-some troops left in fighting shape, more or less. It would be enough, if they kept up the momentum. Soon they marched along again, the very picture of efficient conquest.
Progress came slowly, though. The next few buildings were excellently situated for ambush. Under Wintermourn’s eye, Sergeant Greene led the men to secure each one, just waiting for a pistol shot or battle cry, followed by a rush of blades. Most were empty. It did prove tedious, nerve-racking work, though.
Still, the men did what they were told. Any reticence had been quashed by the Mechanist’s bomb. Anger stiffened their spines. Bit by bit they marched, conquering this ridiculous pirate town, even if the rest of the fleet floundered about in the lagoon just beyond it.
The final warehouse in the area was small, in an out-of-the-way corner of the Waterdocks. It was short and padlocked from the outside. The lock was heavy and well made, better protection than Wintermourn had seen so far on any of the other warehouses. And quizzically, while it seemed that the pirates didn’t want anyone getting inside, several brand-new crates were haphazardly stacked up against the wall near the door, as if put there in a hurry. Sergeant Greene and a trio of men moved cautiously over to examine it and listen carefully at the door. They whispered in hushed tones to each other before Wintermourn’s new second returned to him.
“Sir,” said Greene, snapping a salute. “There’re people inside this one. Not saying anything, but there’s plenty of shuffling around.”
Wintermourn raised a condescending eyebrow at the man. “So? Break the door down, then, and kill them.” He didn’t care if it was a whole pirate orphanage this time. The men and women inside would die.
Greene licked his lips nervously. “Beg pardon, sir. But those crates are marked. I think the pirates are storing tea in there.”
Admiral Wintermourn paused. “Tea, you say?”
The Bluecoat nodded. “Aye, sir. Marks are from Greisheim, Zhong-hei, Capricanto. From all over. They must have hauled a bunch of crates outside to make room, though they had to be in a hurry. Rest of the warehouse has to be filled with it. Can’t imagine why it’s locked from outside, though.”
A whole warehouse full of ill-gotten tea, eh? This was valuable cargo. And it had been positively ages since he’d had a good cup. Wintermourn considered a moment.
“Hmm,” he mused. “Let us try to minimize the damage, then. Line the men up in a semicircle around that door, muskets at the ready. Then hack off that lock. Let’s give these poor fools a chance to surrender.”
Greene nodded, then looked back to him in shock. “Sir? We’re taking captives?”
Out the corner of his eye, he saw the marine, Private Bryant, sigh in relief. The man would be dealt with summarily, once this task was finished. “No, of course not. As you were, Sergeant Greene.”
The Bluecoat ducked his head and gave the order. As his marines took their places, Wintermourn strode forward with his hands behind his back, just far enough away that he could be heard clearly. Greene moved past, coming up to the door with a drawn pistol before firing at the lock. There was a pop and a flash, and
it fell to the boardwalk with a clatter. Green stepped aside, ready to grab the door handle, and nodded to Wintermourn.
“Ruffians and scurrilous knaves!” he began. “I know that you’re in there. Come out with your hands up, and you will be treated fairly.”
He smirked, turning to share the jest with the rest of the Bluecoats. They joined in with a chorus of snickers, as they well should have.
A long moment passed with no reply. Wintermourn frowned. Surely the pirates heard him? He could hear their rustling now and the shifting of many feet. “Have a care,” he continued. “My patience grows very thin, you scallywags. It will not last forever.”
Silence, and the distant boom of battle. Near the door Sergeant Greene jerked his head aside and covered his nose with the back of his hand. Wintermourn smelled it too: the faint whiff of old meat. Was someone keeping a dead cow in there?
This is what I get for trying to be reasonable. “Very well, then,” he said. Wintermourn turned and marched back behind the first rank of Bluecoats. “None will say that I gave you less than every chance in the world,” he said frostily. “Sergeant Greene!”
The Bluecoat nodded. He reached out and grabbed the handle to the warehouse door, then hauled it back, opening it out into the street and taking cover behind it from the muskets of his fellows. No one fired, though. Instead, cries of shock and horror rang out among the marines. Wintermourn himself only stared.
Corpses stood in tight ranks within the warehouse. They were locals, pirates and townsfolk both, all hideously wounded and in varying stages of decay. But they still moved. They shuffled back and forth and bumped into one another, a constantly rustling pack of the living dead. As one, they looked out onto Admiral Wintermourn and the Bluecoats.
Wintermourn smelled phantom smoke. An image flashed in his mind’s eye, of flames and dead hands reaching for him. “Goddess of the Realms Above,” he yelled in sudden panic. “Fire! Fire, damn you!”
His marines obeyed instantly. They cut loose in a hasty volley, and musket balls slammed into rotting shoulders, sunken chests, and oozing cheeks. Splinters from the wood of the warehouse joined flying offal to fill the air with foul confetti.
The Revenants did not fall. They groaned, arms coming up, talons out and seeking. The living dead surged forth from the warehouse in a wave.
Horror washed over Admiral Wintermourn. He drew his saber and backed farther away. “Fire! Fire again! Fire everything! Kill those damnable monstrosities!”
Discipline held the Bluecoats in front, who dropped to one knee and tried to reload with shaking hands. The second rank stepped up, took aim, and unleashed another volley. Again the air filled with lead shot, and again it failed to stop the oncoming horde. The Revenants groaned angrily, their voices mixing with the panicked shouts of marines to fill the street with unholy song.
More shots rang out. Smallswords were drawn. Wintermourn shouted commands and dire curses. The dead ignored him, however. They came on, unstoppable, until their rotting claws fell on living men, punctuated by the desperate flash of bright Perinese steel.
Chapter Fifteen
Picking a lock was never quite as easy as everyone seemed to think.
Fengel sat back in his crouch, taking a breath and shifting his grip on the screwdriver. The door before him was massive, an armored portal in a bulwark of steel that stretched across the tunnel from one rough-hewn rock wall to the other. A bundle of wires poked out from the keyhole, his impromptu picks. Beside him stood young Imogen with a Mechanist’s galvanic lantern. The light it shed was stark and overbright in the close space.
“Two doors!” he exclaimed. “Two doors behind your secret, hidden mine entrance. Really, now. Who does that?”
“The machinery down here is quite dangerous,” said Imogen, voice muffled behind her gas mask. She stepped warily aside as Cubbins trotted over from the wall he had spent the last few minutes staring at. “And it was deemed prudent by the Brotherhood, since the most important element for aerial flight happened to be discovered beneath a town full of pirates.”
Cubbins butted up against Fengel’s leg, purring loudly. Fengel sighed. The cat had apparently followed them down to the Waterdocks, having appeared just as they slipped inside this tunnel. “Whatever. Time is wasting. Don’t you have a key?”
“I’m only a Mechanist-Aspirant!” replied Imogen. “The Cabal must have forgotten about that. I told you this not ten minutes ago, at the last door. Really, if you’re that forgetful, then it isn’t any wonder that you have to share your airship with Captain Blackheart. You should carry a journal around and keep notes.”
Fengel glared at her witheringly. “Look. Just use that other bomb of yours and blast this thing open.”
Imogen stared at him like he was an uneducated simpleton. “You really have no idea of the basic principles behind physics and mineralogy, do you?”
“Of course not,” said Fengel, his voice frosty. “I’m a pirate, as you pointed out. Which means I do have a grasp on aether-science and flight dynamics.”
“It’s not just because this is Haventown!” Imogen gesticulated, the light from her lantern whirling wildly. “These bulwarks are here because light-air gas is insanely flammable! An explosion down here would collapse the tunnel, at the least, and could possibly blow up the whole town!”
Fengel glared at her a moment. Then he turned pointedly back to the door. “Light, if you please, Miss Imogen.” He bent back to the lock with his makeshift picks. “Though we’re wasting precious time while good men and women—”
Tumblers twisted within the door. Something screeched like bending metal, then clicked loudly. “Oh,” said Fengel. “Never mind. Got it now.”
“You didn’t break this lock too, did you?”
“Of course not,” Fengel lied. “And anyway, we’re in a hurry.”
He reached up and pulled at the handle, which twisted satisfyingly. The door didn’t budge at first, and Fengel stood to get a proper grip. Imogen leaned over to help him, and together they swung the portal slowly open. It was a foot of solid steel all the way through.
Darkness reigned in the chamber beyond. Through the gloom came the rumbling, hissing, thumping rhythm of great mechanisms hard at work. Imogen aimed her galvanic lantern and strode ahead into the gloom, with reflected light glinting from shining brass and steel. An orange blur rushed past her feet: Cubbins, giving a short trill as he went.
Fengel rose from his feet with a frown. Where’s that flea-bitten thing off to, in such a hurry?
He recovered his makeshift locksmith’s tools—they were Imogen’s, but one never knew when such things would be needed. Then he stood and stretched. A choir of bruises, aches, and pains all sang at him, a legacy of today’s fighting and the long night before. Fengel wanted little more than rest. There was still much to be done, however. Besides which, Imogen was right there. Never let them see you stumble. Wearily, Fengel took a step towards the next part of the Mechanist’s mine.
Something echoed down the passage from behind. He paused at the sound, his hand going automatically to the grip of his saber as he glanced back over his shoulder.
The dark at his back deepened as Imogen moved farther away with the lantern. Still Fengel stood, rooted and still as a statue, straining his ears if not his eyes. The sound had been like the clang of metal upon metal, single and sonorous. Or...had it? Am I just hearing things? Ahead, the many assembled machines beat to their own stagger-step rhythm. Sound was strange, down here in the mine.
Nothing came screaming out of the gloom at him. Fengel shrugged, then turned to catch up with his young Mechanist guide.
She was waiting a short distance inside, one boot tapping impatiently against diamond-plate metal flooring. Fengel made his way over, staring at the chamber illuminated by her light.
Far from a simple passage of hewn stone roofed by brass pipe, they stood in a great chamber whose borders lay like mist-born phantoms at the edges of the light. Huge iron beams supported the ceiling and the wa
lls, making it seem as if they stood inside the gullet of a great mechanical leviathan. The floor was covered in steel, save great sections bored out of the ground to allow room for fat, riveted pipes to rise up out of them. Egg-shaped rows of metal cylinders sat in between. Steam engines rumbled along beneath them, occasionally venting thick white clouds across the floor.
“Crusty toenails of the Goddess Above,” muttered Fengel. “This place has been under Haventown all this time?”
“Oh yes,” said Imogen. “And none of you ever knew about it.” She frowned. “Until now, that is.”
Fengel nodded. “Well. We’re not going to make the town fly just by standing around. How do we...turn everything on?” He glanced at a row of pressure gauges, all their needles dancing madly behind the glass.
Imogen shook her head. “Not here. Controls are in the last chamber past this one. We need to release the gas there, then all these pumps will push everything up to the Gasworks on the Craftwright’s Terrace. My brothers there will send it on and alert the other teams to unmoor the terraces.”
Fengel sighed in exasperation. “Another door.” He shook his head. “Fine. Let’s get—wait.” He glanced around, realizing something was amiss. “Where’s Cubbins?”
Imogen looked left, then right. “What? The cat?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. And aren’t we in a hurry?”
“Yes, but...” Fengel frowned. He found himself mildly surprised. “I just...hope he doesn’t get crushed under all this machinery.”
“That would be absolutely awful,” agreed Imogen. It was hard to tell beneath her muffling gas mask, but he could swear she sounded pleased.
“Just...” he shook his head. “You’re right. We need to get moving.”
Something echoed faintly behind them—a single loud clang, as of metal on metal. Fengel whirled, hand to his saber. He stared into the dark.
“What—” began Imogen.
“Shh!” He hissed, holding up his free hand. “Shine your lantern back towards the door.”
Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) Page 24