“They’ve taken the piers! What happened to our ships?”
“Look at all th’ Bluecoats!”
“Ha! I ain’t paying that bar tab back now.”
“So!” shouted Fengel. He waited until the others turned reluctantly back before continuing on, and he stabbed the air for emphasis. “What we’re going to do is protect this stair! Shannon MacKinnon—take some people and grab some of those Mechanist barricades I see poking out that alley. Set them up right where you’re standing. Martin Pool, you and your friends break into that cooper’s place across the square and grab his tools. Realms Below, grab him if he’s still in there and cut the damned stair apart—we don’t need it anymore, and our enemies do. The rest of you lot, gather up all the powder and shot you’ve got and keep the Perinese off this terrace!”
“What are you going to do, Captain Fengel?” asked a grizzled old woman with a pike.
Fengel plucked free his monocle, wiped it on his sleeve, and replaced it. “I’m glad you asked that. I’m just going to step over to the Gasworks and make sure that everything’s going smoothly.”
“Everything’s gone wrong!”
A squat figure wearing a scorched greatcoat and a gas mask ran into the square from the northeast entrance. It was Imogen, judging by the muffled tone. And she was deeply, deeply upset.
“What’s that?” asked someone from the crowd.
Fengel made a curt gesture at his gunnery mistress. Fortunately, Sarah was paying attention. As the frantic Mechanist ran past, she reached out and grabbed her up in a bearhug, wrapping her powerful hands around the ventilator of Imogen’s mask.
“Just what I’ve been waiting for,” said Fengel to the crowd, his tone overloud and cheerful. “Now get a move on, you lot, while I tend to things.”
He didn’t wait to see the results. Instead, he hopped down from the base of the heavy statue and hurried over to where Sarah held the writhing apprentice Mechanist. Henry Smalls joined them as Fengel gestured across Pillager’s Square to the street she’d emerged from.
Once away from the crowd, they found a stretch of shadowed wall on the path leading up to the Gasworks. Sarah released the flailing Mechanist, who dropped to her knees.
“Hello again, Imogen,” said Fengel.
The Mechanist-Aspirant ripped off her gas mask and took a great, gasping breath. “What did you do that for?” she demanded, staring accusingly up at him. Her eyes were bleary and red from weeping.
“Because you were about to panic the only people left who can buy us enough time to save this town,” snapped Fengel. “Now, what’s happened? Why hasn’t this terrace taken off? And where’s my cat?”
“It’s the Gasworks,” said Imogen. “That Perinese airship flew past and just started shooting at us while we were setting the shackle charges outside. They hit Gas Reservoir Number Four and ruptured it. The safety valves kicked on, but they created a back-pressure build—”
“Imogen!” snapped Fengel. “Get to the point. Also, cat?”
The Mechanist-Aspirant flung her hands out. “I don’t know what happened to that flea-bitten furball! There was an explosion! Graye and Barlett kept it from setting off the whole system, but then one of the walls collapsed. I...I think everyone of the Gasworks crew is dead but me, even Mechanist Second Class Harland, who came down to oversee! And there’s worse: the Craftwright’s Terrace shackle is buried now!”
Fengel felt cold. He glanced to Henry and Sarah, whose worried expressions made clear their thoughts. Without any Mechanists around and the terrace shackle buried, there wouldn’t be any kind of escape for Haventown.
Never let them see you stumble.
“Very well,” said Fengel. He removed his monocle and buffed it, replacing it slowly. “Then we’ll just have to do the work ourselves. Pity we haven’t Lucian and the others on hand. And I’m sure Cubbins is fine.”
Imogen, Henry, and Sarah all looked to him. “But we can’t,” said Imogen. “There’s collapsed machinery everywhere and light-air leaks and—”
“Come now, Miss Helmsin. Failure provides us the stepping-stone to success, after all.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Imogen, still distraught. “Failure by definition implies an attempt that can no longer succeed due to unreachable objectives.”
Beside him, Gunney Lome gave an approving nod.
Fengel frowned, nonplussed. “It’s a figure of speech,” he snapped. “Anyway, I am the captain of this pseudoaerial city, and I’m far from ready to abandon ship—er, town.” He gestured up the street towards the towering smokestacks of the Gasworks. “Whatever. Lead on, young apprentice Mechanist.”
“It’s Mechanist-Aspirant. And what—”
A piercing whistle from down below in the Waterdocks echoed up to Pillager’s Square. Fengel glanced back to see the pirates there all freeze. One looked over the rails and turned back in alarm. “They’re coming!” she cried. “Those clockwork monsters are coming for the stair!”
Past him, out beyond the rooftops of the Waterdocks, the great pale gas bag of the Glory shifted, beginning to rise. Fengel cursed under his breath and turned back to Imogen. “To the Gasworks. Now!”
The young Mechanist-Aspirant swallowed and gave a nod. Then she turned and jogged down the street. Fengel gave one last look at Pillager’s Square, then followed, his officers in tow.
Empty boardwalk streets rumbled beneath their feet as they ran, their boot steps echoing from the structures around them and the rubble they strode across. The shops and shanties there, pressed shoulder to shoulder, cast the early-evening shadows of Haventown that Fengel knew so well. The shacks had been made into jagged, sinister things, marked by happenstance bombardments that had torn rooftops and toppled walls. Townsfolk hid within those buildings even now, clearly, as their casements were cracked just enough to reveal an ancient blunderbuss or outdated crossbow poking out in front of worried eyes.
For the hundredth time today, Fengel wanted to despair. We needed you. We still need you now. You should all be out here fighting. If only Euron had ever given a damn. If only they’d had more time. If only...if only Haventown wasn’t full of pirates.
The Mechanist’s Gasworks appeared ahead. A mad tangle of brass pipe and arcane machinery, its exhaust stacks and struts towered above the nearest rooftops, rising up to support the airship platform sitting almost level with the now-empty cliff the Flophouse Terrace had been built upon. Something was obviously wrong with the place. Smoke and steam billowed up from it, and a great broken pipe belched jets of flame into the air.
“We’re almost there!” shouted Imogen. “Careful—the air isn’t clean.”
Fengel grimaced as the young Mechanist-Aspirant donned her gas mask again. Hopefully, there would be spares inside the structure.
She dove into an alley as the street twisted away, leading them between a pair of well-built workshops. For all the haphazard civic planning of Haventown, the Mechanists didn’t brook shoddy construction near their own enclaves. Fengel sucked in his gut to pass a rain barrel, then stepped out into the street beyond.
He ran into Imogen, who had abruptly stopped on the boardwalk beyond. Just across the street rose the Gasworks. It was a strange structure, even for Haventown. Ten-foot-high walls hid most of the place, just like the Brotherhood Yards up above on Nob Terrace. A towering mass of brass pipes and gantry walkways climbed up from behind the wall, winding around a central stack of chimneys. At the peak of the structure spread a platform landing pad, moored to the rising columns and a frail-looking network of stairways that looked for all the world like cobwebs attached to an upthrust branch. In the middle of the wall, a massive double gate provided entrance. One of the doors sagged in place, now only barely connected by a hinge.
Unlike the Brotherhood Yards, Fengel had never been inside the Gasworks before. “All right, then,” he said. “Where are we going, Imogen?”
Henry Smalls appeared beside him, panting. Behind them in the alley, Sarah Lome gave a curse as she collide
d with the rain barrel. Water rushed out into the street as the young Mechanist-Aspirant turned back to him.
“There is a small hall just past the gate,” she said. “That’s where most of the...damage...is. If we follow it through to the other side, there will be an open courtyard with the shackle and the stairway up to the airship pad. It’s usually hidden from sight by the wall that fell in. But even if we get back there, what can we do? The shackle is probably buried!”
Henry Smalls sniffed beside him. “I smell light-air gas too, sir.”
“Wait,” said Fengel. “Probably buried?”
“I...I didn’t go back there. But the wall collapsed, and the explosion—”
Fengel felt a glimmer of hope. “Probably isn’t certainly. And I’ve a plan,” he lied. “Henry? There should be gas masks inside. So lead on, Imogen. Every second—”
The pop of gunfire echoed over from the southern part of the terrace. Fengel glanced back down the alley behind them, but Haventown’s confines prevented any sight of its contents.
“Every second brings our enemies closer to victory,” he finished. “Now move.”
Imogen gave a nod and led the four of them across the street to the gate. There was an opening where it hung askew, not tall, but just high enough for a grown man to crawl through. Imogen did so easily, followed by a frowning Henry Smalls. Fengel ducked down onto his hands and knees to crawl behind his steward.
The gates opened onto a small yard layered with brass pipe and ovoid gas canisters, so thick that Fengel couldn’t see where it all ended or began. Valves, levers, and gauges sprung from it all, their functions opaque. Steam shot out from cracked pipes, lending the whole edifice a misty, mysterious air. Faintly, Fengel smelled the old-milk stink of light-air gas.
Imogen ran down the only opening in the mess, a simple path between two huge pipes, shrouded by a jet of hissing steam. Fengel made to follow, one arm up to hide his nose, when the gate rattled behind him. Glancing back, he saw Sarah Lome half-crammed through the opening. The boards had her tight, though the whole gate rattled and shook as she bucked it.
“Gunney Lome?” he asked, his voice muffled from behind his sleeve.
Sarah paused to look up at him. “Sir?”
“This really isn’t the time for games.”
“I’m stuck, sir.”
“Go on, sir,” said Henry. His steward knelt down to help the huge woman. “I’ll get her free; you go on ahead. And, sir! Careful—I smell a gas leak here.”
Fengel rolled his eyes. “I’ve a working sense of smell as well,” he replied. Then he turned to follow the now-missing Mechanist-Aspirant.
The interior of the Gasworks wasn’t much clearer on the inside. It was quite a bit darker, in fact. A single path wound itself beneath the omnipresent forest of hoses and ducting clear enough, though myriad secondary trails branched off only Goddess knew where. What ceiling there was shifted in accordance with a logic Fengel knew he wouldn’t understand. Just enough early-evening sun reflected down through the brilliant brass piping to impart the fog of steam all around him with a pale, sourceless glow.
This is just perfect. The Mechanists can build a flying city, but they can’t keep adequate illumination or any damned maps up on where to go. Which wasn’t charitable, he realized. There had been an explosion or some sort of mishap here, after all. Then he ran into a bit of low-hanging pipe.
Fengel decided the architecture was wholly their fault. As he turned a corner and the curdled stink of light-air gas washed over him, panic shot through him—he crushed his sleeve to his nose and tried not to breath. Then he took a step back and surveyed the devastated room he’d stepped into.
The Gasworks here opened into a wide chamber, which must have been the heart of the facility. Shafts of faded twilight illuminated the space, tumbling in through a collapsed section of the left-most wall to reveal instrumentation dancing madly among the twisted wreckage. Crumpled figures in leather greatcoats lay about the space, some half-buried by burned and misshapen metal—the Mechanists. One of them knelt just ahead over one of her colleagues. Imogen, by her size.
This is going to be the death of me. Fengel held his breath and dove forward, trying not to think about what light-air poisoning would feel like.
A fallen section of pipework lay atop two of Imogen’s fellow Mechanists. The first was trapped from the waist down. Imogen had him propped up in her lap, both of her hands pressed over a jagged tear in his greatcoat. Blood pooled beneath the fellow, and his breath rasped beneath his mask. The second was just an arm and a head sticking out from beneath the wreckage.
“How is he?” asked Fengel through his sleeve as he knelt down beside them. His throat burned, and everything stank of spoiled milk.
Imogen turned to look at him in surprise. Tears choked her voice, muffled by her mask though it was. “I was wrong! He’s still alive, but badly inj—”
“I’m dying,” rasped the Mechanist wearily.
Fengel paused. His voice sounded familiar. “Hold on. Do I know you?”
The dying man rolled his head in exasperation. “Of course...you know me, Fengel. You tit. I’m the reason...you’re back in Haventown at all. It’s me, Mechanist Second Class...Harland.”
Blank spots kept appearing in front of Fengel’s eyes. He tried blinking them away. “I’m sorry, who? You just all look so similar in those masks.”
“I’m Mechanist Second Class—”
“Clangfoot,” sobbed Imogen. “You called him Clangfoot.”
Now his lips were numb. “Oh.” Fengel blinked again, then pointed with his free hand at the other Mechanist lying still beside them. “I’m sorry, is this other fellow dead?”
“Mechanist Third Class Terence,” rasped Harland. “Yes.”
“One moment, then.”
Fengel tore off his hat and monocle even as he bent over the dead man at their feet. The gas mask came off only grudgingly, but desperation led to success quickly enough. Fengel slid his head into the mask and pulled it tight, even as he started to choke.
His lungs burned. His face felt numb. Slowly, though, through his gasping and retching, the mask went to work. Breathable air replaced the toxic gas. Fengel realized he wasn’t going to die. Probably.
“There,” he croaked after a moment. “That’s done it.”
“You didn’t properly tie the straps,” said Imogen, her voice a flat monotone. “Proper mask-donning procedure requires you to completely untie—”
“Well, I’m sorry that I was too busy choking to death on this stinking gas!” snapped Fengel. The mask made his voice sounded tinny and muffled.
Mechanist Harland gestured sharply between them. “Enough. None of us...have much time.”
Fengel nodded, then put up a hand to hold his mask in place as it shifted. “The terrace shackled here in the Gasworks—you didn’t blow it free.”
“Pressure back-build cascade,” gasped Mechanist Harland. “Graye...was out setting the charges...when it happened. Everything should be in place but the primer. I saw...the wall fall. The shackle is still...reachable. “
He coughed wetly. Imogen bent over him, pressing tighter on the wound in his side. Then she looked back to Fengel. “We have the primer in here still,” she said, jerking her head towards the wreckage. “It’s buried now. We’ll never get to it.”
“What’s the primer?” asked Fengel. “Just an explosive?”
“Yes,” gasped Harland. “But there’s nothing left in the facility with enough power to set them off.”
“My bomb!” shouted Imogen.
“What?” asked Harland. “Those ridiculous munitions...I expressly forbade you from experimenting with?”
“No—I mean, yes. Fengel, you’ve still got my bomb!”
Captain Fengel blinked, then he peered through the glass lenses of the mask at the satchel he still wore. “Oh. Right. What about it?”
“We can use it to blast the shackle free! Now give it here!”
Fengel put a protective
hand to the satchel. “No. Harland, where is the shackle?”
The Mechanist Second Class pointed feebly at the opening blown through the wall above them as Imogen complained. “Courtyard...just outside. Hidden before, until the incident. Should be free of gas.”
“Right, then.” Fengel stood and made to climb atop the wreckage. “Harland, I apologize for calling you Clangfoot, though not overmuch. Imogen, leave him and get some of these masks here. Bring them back out to the front of the facility for Henry and Sarah Lome and anyone else who shows up.”
“What? No! Give me back my bomb. You don’t even know how to set it! And I’m not leaving Mechanist Second Class Harland here. We could still go get help!”
“Mechanist...Sixth Class...Imogen Helmsin,” said the dying man. “Do as Captain Fengel says.”
Imogen jerked her head down to stare at him. “What? Why? And why did you call me Mechanist Sixth Class?”
Harland lay back with a sigh. “Because I’ve just promoted you.”
“But what about the tests?”
“You’ve the skill...and we all know it. The tests would be a...formality.”
“But I’ve been preparing for them for months now.”
“Then you can take them...for fun...later!” snapped Harland. “Right now, do what you’re told...Mechanist.”
“But why?” asked Imogen, her voice thick.
“Because Captain Fengel is in charge of the city,” he replied. “And he’s putting you where he needs you to be. Obey my orders, Mechanist. And Fengel!”
Fengel paused in his climb, exasperated. “Yes?”
“Once you’ve escaped...with Haventown...find Atherion Helmsin. Find...the First Mechanist…and bring him home safely!”
Mechanist Harland spasmed, gasped, then fell still. Fengel gave the corpse a hurried nod. “Of course. Imogen? He’s dead now. Please obey his last wishes and get moving.”
He didn’t wait to see what she’d do. They’d already wasted enough time. It was harsh to act so callously, but there were more important things to worry about at the moment. And his mask still didn’t quite fit right.
Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) Page 34