Gaslight Magick

by Teel James Glenn

  The pirates could only enter the doorway two at a time and the improvised rampart did its job in keeping them from being able to spread to either side. Thus they were funnelled forward where Eztl and Nenetl met them with lightning slashes in perfect coordination.

  The two defenders were fearless and skillful and their defense against the concerted attack from the pirates. It was disciplined and practiced and was awesome to behold. The male jaguar would meet a pirate, dodge an attack and wound the man with a quick, painful slash then move on to the next attacker. Behind him the female would swoop in and finish the work, dispatching the fallen buccaneer.

  The first wave of bandits dropped with barely any effort on the part of the Jaguars but others pushed in over their fallen comrades in what seemed a never-ending rush.

  The boarders seemed to be as fearless as the jaguars in the ferocity of their attack and skilled enough that the defenders could not contain them all. In very few moments each jaguar was working independently in meeting and felling the attackers in well rehearsed, savage moves. It was both beautiful and terrifying to see.

  Soon the deck was covered with entrails and bodies, the flooring slick with death. The jaguar’s precautions of removing their shoes now proved to be useful as even the pirates were having difficulty staying upright in the gore.

  Several of the brigands made it past the occupied jaguars and, sighting our little group in the alcove, came for us.

  That was when the skills I learned from Aunt Mini’s old Choctaw friend Tall Eagle came in handy.

  The steak knives were not weighted exactly as I would like a throwing knife to be but flew true enough with the energy I put behind them. The knives felled the first three marauders but the fourth dodged my throw and was upon me, cutlass in hand.

  I came out of our alcove fortress to meet the pirate in the centre of the salon. He was a broad fellow wearing ragged buckskins and with long, blond, braided hair that gave him the aspect of a charging lion.

  He ran directly at me with a snarled challenge.

  The ‘lion’ got about two steps before something flew past my right shoulder and bounced off his forehead hard enough to send him flying off his feet to his the deck.

  The chair arm ‘hatchet’ of Aunt Mini clattered to the ground.

  “I can do this, myself, Mini.”

  “Can’t hog all the fun, nephew.”

  A second buccaneer leapt over his fallen comrade and charged with a cutlass raised for a slash.

  I dodged a vicious slice at my head that over extended the attacker then I slide in to deliver a solid English right cross that made a hard enough contact to sound like a gunshot above the screams of combat near the door.

  The punch felled the blighter who was snoring before he hit the deck next to the ‘lion’.

  I recovered the fallen pirate’s sword and raced across the space to join the jaguars at their improvised rampart.

  Eztl was covered in gore, his two obsidian knives whirring almost faster than the eye could follow, his body dodging and spinning into the oncoming attackers. He was a savage god of war, growling like a great cat as he gutted and slashed pirate after pirate.

  Nenetl was engaged with two intruders at the same time, one a tall black and the second a mixed blood native. Both men had boarding hatchets and swung them wildly. The warrior woman dodged the flailing hatchets and spun as if in an exotic dance, her twin blades flicking out to wound each of the attackers on the forearms before they could avoid her.

  It was mesmerizing to see, with a wild grace that, as I watched was lethal. Nenetl ducked under one axe swing and drove her right hand blade up under the jaw of one attacker so that he dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

  At the same time the second attacker moved on her but she sprang up and kicked hard with her right heel, the foot slipping past his guard and connecting with his jaw. His head snapped back so violently it was clear he was dead even before he dropped to the deck.

  My admiration for her skill had to stop there as a machete-wielding buccaneer charged at me flailing his blade wildly. I parried hard to my left, twisted my wrist and drove the cutlass in a thrust into the attacker’s throat. My slash tore a gory gash that sprayed blood into my face.

  I wiped my eyes of the spray just as Nenetl took a serious cut to her right leg from a long bladed knife and she went down at the same time twisting to kill her attacker with double slashes of her own knives.

  “May I be of assistance, m’lady?” I said as I sprang to her defence. A second pirate leapt at the fallen woman but I parried the downward cut and dispatched the pirate with a single riposte of my cutlass.

  The fallen Jaguar said nothing at my action but continued to slash with her knife from her prone position at the lower limbs of attackers while I stood astride her and cut and slashed at them up top. When there was a momentary lag I shifted to her left side while she snatched up a boarding axe to use as a cane and pulled herself partially to her knees to continue dodging and cutting with a single knife.

  Eztl was bleeding from a dozen minor wounds by this time but his vigour was not diminished as what seemed an endless number of pirates continued to swarm through the bulkhead. I moved up to help him block he and I fought side by side. All the while the marauders continued to pour in the portal with a renewed ferocity.

  There was no more time for thought as I hacked and parried, falling into a rhythm with Nenetl and Eztl. We three seemed to sense each other’s movements, as many warriors though the ages had when fighting in concert. Eztl shot me a quick glance to acknowledge my presence, with, I think some approval, but Nenetl was focused entirely on the business of killing pirates.

  And we did kill most of the pirates that streamed through the doorway. They were fighting men, driven by greed and savagery, but not disciplined as regular army and not as skilled as we three who were now one, united fighting force.

  Gradually I became aware that there was no longer any sound of combat in the rest of the ship; it was then that I realized the ten pirates we were fighting were most likely the last of the raiders.

  I was in hot engagement, sword to sword with a buccaneer but thought, “We might just win!” and that thought was my undoing; it distracted me so that I took the flat of a deflected blade to my temple.

  I dropped, dazed, to stagger into and land on Nenetl but the pirate advanced on me. I had just enough sense left in me to try and protect the jaguar from the fatal blow I was sure would come next to kill us both.

  Contrary to the myths, my misspent youth did not flash across the canvas of my mind, instead I was concerned that I had failed Aunt Minerva. I felt most terribly sad about that.

  Chapter Ten

  Masks off!

  I need not have worried about Mini.

  Before the image of her ‘helpless’ before an onslaught of filibusters had occurred to me there was a series of explosions, nine of them, coming one upon the other so quickly that it seemed like thunder in the small space of the lounge.

  Simultaneously nine of the pirates did grotesque dances then dropped to the deck with neat bullet holes in each of their foreheads.

  Eztl finished the tenth brigand with two quick slashes of his obsidian blade. Suddenly there was only the distant throb of the airship engines, the moans of dying men and the click of a hammer on an empty cylinder of my aunt’s New Orleans made pistol.

  “Lady Camden!” the ambassador exclaimed.

  “Aunt Mini!” I gasped as I stumbled to my feet and helped Nenetl up. “You brought Little Ruckus!”

  Little Ruckus was the name my aunt gave to her favorite pistol, the one she had been using in the wild west show when she met my Uncle Tolliver.

  “’Course I did, nephew,” she said as she revealed a holster strapped scandalously to her right thigh. “A girl ain’t safe no where these days.”

  “Heavens, Frau Lady Camden,” the Baron rose from behind a pile of tables and blubbered, “why did you wait to use you weapon?”

  “Weren
’t no reason to,” she said as I limped over to her with the lady Jaguar hugged tightly to me, a feeling I found quite pleasant. My aunt made a point of looking at my temple then ripped off a strip of her own petticoat for a bandage for Nentl “Lest there ’weren’t no reason to till Athelstan decided to lay down on the job.” She fussed over the jaguar’s shapely thigh and smiled up at the woman “This little lady here and handsome fella there were doing just fine.”

  Eztl came slowly over to our group now, his two gore soaked daggers held down at his side as if all strength had fled his arms and he could not raise them. His features were grim in the extreme, his black eyes shining with fatal fury. With his body covered in blood, there was a sheen of madness in those dark orbs. He looked like a pagan war god come to life.

  “You have honoured your ancestors,” Chichua said with awe. “Huitzlopochtli, God of war lives in your breath and bone.” The nobleman bowed his head and touched his heart. “I praise you; there will be songs about you, Nentl, Baronet Grey and this battle. Warriors will sing it for many ages.”

  I watched the interchange, made in English, I am sure for my benefit, with an odd detachment. My energy, as I had found many times after combat, had fled me and I was light headed. I leaned against a cabinet to steady myself.

  My aunt had staunched the blood on the lady warrior’s thigh, having cut open the woman’s pant leg, exposing an attractive limb. I looked over and Nentl saw my glance. Her copper skin had faded to be a little ashen, but she gave me a radiant, if weak smile. I returned it, noting that her eyes seemed bottomless.

  We had a bond now that few who have not been in battle ever knew. And now that the fray was done I found myself looking at her with new eyes. What I saw made my blood heat in a different way than combat had. Her open and inviting smile told me she was thinking much the same thing.

  The nobleman moved to place a hand on Eztl’s shoulder in a gesture of respect.

  Some instinct in me, some premonition, caused me to turn from Nenetl. I saw something in the other jaguar’s posture as the nobleman reached to congratulate him that alarmed me.

  I grabbed Chichua to yank him back just as the obsidian knife in the jaguar’s right hand flashed up to miss the ambassador’s throat by an inch.

  Lady Tozi, the ambassador’s wife, screamed, drawing everyone’s attention.

  Baron Von Burton, who had extracted himself from the alcove, stepped toward the warrior and held up a hand to cry, “See here, are you insane Herr?”

  The jaguar spun and slashed at the Austrian, cutting him across the arm and outstretched hand. This caused the rotund man to fall backward with a scream of pain.

  Aunt Mini jumped up but I stepped between her and the jaguar while still keeping my body on an angle to the ambassador.

  “Eztl!” Nenetl screamed from the ground, trying to push herself up to a sitting position. “Are you mad?”

  “I and the Tiacopan faction are the sane ones, Nenetl,” the jaguar said as he advanced toward Chichua again. “It is the idea of opening our land to white colonizers that is insane.”

  “Then if you believe that you are a traitor,” Nenetl hissed. She hopped in front of the ambassador next to Mini, who had picked up another broken chair to use as a club.

  “It is Chichua who is the traitor,” the male Jaguar screamed, “to our people, our gods! He would allow pale-skins to bring their military might to our shores. Did we not drive off the conquistadors and their pale god? Did the jaguars not stop the Yankqui when they tried to invade and held them to the Texican territory? We jaguars protect the empire of the sun, we are mighty and we need no help from anyone to fight sea pirates or anyone else.”

  His angular face split in a grim sneer as he held up a blood-covered knife that he pointed at the ambassador. “When the damage I did to the ship did not delay us enough –- when you learned of this airship that would get you to meet the pale-skin prince I new I had to stop you.”

  “So you hired these thugs,” I said stepping fully in front of the ambassador. I did my best to draw the jaguar’s attention from the cluster of the others, including my aunt. “You would not have had more than a few moments alone before you departed, so you must have had something like this set as a backup plan.”

  I physically moved slowly away from the others, knowing his knives would not throw well and if I could keep him focused on me, perhaps I could find some way to tackle him. I doubted Mini had any more bullets for Little Ruckus, but if she could find a steak knife she was as good as I was throwing them. To be truthful, probably better.

  “Did you plan to let some of these pirates past you to kill the ambassador, and then heroically save the rest of us? I assume they did not know you hired them.” I saw that my accusation struck home by the flicker of acknowledgement in the dark depth of his eyes. “Did their mysterious employer give them orders to leave Tozi and the rest of us alive? My aunt at least, I hope?”

  Etzl moved in a wide circle, attempting to get past me. I had set my cutlass down near the battle area after I thought the fight was over and was now completely unarmed. Out of respect for what Etzl had seen me do he kept his eyes on me and was trying to get to the ambassador without having to face me directly.

  “You would have saved some of us, eh?” I said. “And been hailed a hero? And made sure any of the pirates who could connect you to this were dead. You were pretty confident in your ability.”

  “You have to stop this, Eztl,” Nenetl said. She had surmised what I was doing and leaned against me, blocking direct attack to the ambassador. I caught her eye and realized she was prepared to throw herself on her fellow jaguar in a sacrifice to stop him. I realized it was the only thing either of us could do to save the Mexhican nobleman. Unarmed either one of us would be cut to ribbons, but together we might entangle him enough for whichever of us survived to strike a fatal blow.

  All this passed between us in a glance in a sort of warrior’s telepathy. I could only hope that Eztl did not have the same thought.

  “Now you will all have to die,” the jaguar warrior said in quiet voice that was almost regretful. “And I will accept the shame of failure in this one act of protection as a small price to keep the honor of my clan intact in not having to deal with the colonizer’s incursions.”

  He lunged to move past us and Nenetl flung herself at her former companion. He had anticipated it, however and turned back suddenly, his muscles tensed to spring at the ambassador over her. The woman could not compensate with her wounded leg.

  I could, however and I tackled him in midair getting my arms around his mid-waist. The two of us slammed onto one of the tables that had not been torn up for the barricade. Our combined weight crashed through it and we both hit the deck hard.

  I was on the bottom and the wind was knocked out of me by his bodyweight.

  Eztl lost one of his knives in the fall but the other he used to stab me in the leg at the same time he elbowed me to the side of the head. I saw stars and loosened my grip on him.

  That gave the jaguar enough space to roll off me and get to his feet. He spun to face his lord but my aunt had stepped in front of Chichua. She raised Little Ruckas to point it directly at Eztl. He gave a cold laugh.

  “You can not frighten me with your empty paleskin weapon,” he said. “I heard the click of the hammer on the empty chamber before and you have not had time to reload.”

  “True enough,” Aunt Mini said. “The .36 slugs are gone, but this here is a LeMat Special.” With that she pulled the trigger that discharged the shotgun shell in the chamber under the barrel.

  The buckshot that was expelled caught Eztl squarely in the face, blowing most of his head off. The force of the gun rocked my aunt back so violently that she fell on her bum.

  “Damn, cryin’ shame,” my aunt said as I helped her to her feet, “such a waste of a handsome face.”

  We all stood there staring at all the death around us for a long moment while Aunt Mini re-holstered the thirty-year old gun. Then she looked u
p at me, reached out and smacked me on the arm.

  “Don’t stare at my leg, nephew—get over there and help that pretty jaguar lady with hers, then we gotta figure how to steer this dang floating hotel!”

  They don’t make them like my Aunt Minerva anymore.

  And I suppose, for many miscreants in this wide world that is a very fortunate thing!

  Chapter Eleven

  Adrift

  Auntie got a bandage on my leg wound and then turned her attention to Baron Von Burton’s wounds.

  Nenetl did not want to stay put, but I convinced her that she had to keep an eye on the ambassador and his wife while I searched the ship for any more buccaneers.

  “You watch yourself, nephew!” My aunt called as I made my way through the piles of dead pirates to exit the salon.

  “Will do, Mini!” My leg ached, but I did my best to ignore it and moved out through the hallway toward the control gondola.

  I had a cutlass in hand and a boarding axe in my belt but moves slowly, not from pain but out of caution. It was entirely possible that the more intelligent of the filibusters had hung back or hidden in the bowels of the ship.

  The corridors of the airship were eerily quiet and it wasn’t long before I came across the first body of a crewman. His throat had been slit.

  There was no sound but the throb of the great airship’s engines and my own breathing. None of the hundred normal sounds one would hear in ‘living’ ship- no footsteps or voices or distant laughter. Just the mechanical ‘breathing’ of the ship itself.

  My own blood pounded in my ears and the longer the silence the more I imagined a pirate round every corner. It gave me far too much time to think.

  I confess that I had missed the action with my time in London. Though I was on the edge of death again I was a little guilty that it felt good.

  As I approached the control gondola’s access there were more bodies, both pirate and crewmen. All locked in grotesque tableaus of death, some physically with hands round each other’s throats.