by Col Buchanan
This time the captain swung his gaunt features towards him, his long oiled hair blowing in the breeze. Trench was barely thirty years of age yet the war had aged him prematurely. He had seen too much with those eyes.
‘My thanks for getting us this far,’ Ash replied, but the captain wasn’t looking at him any more, was staring over Ash’s shoulder at something in the sky.
A lookout shouted something from the loft above their heads. Something loud and panicky.
Suddenly Trench was bellowing to take cover even as a winged shape swooped out of the night sky and swept past the Falcon with its guns blazing, the sharp percussions pounding Ash’s ears – another Anwi Vulture like the one Juke was flying.
Between himself and the captain a line of splintered wood erupted across the planking of the quarterdeck. Ash stayed on his feet while crewmen dived for cover, shifting his balance as the Falcon’s deck began to tilt. He glanced around to see old Stones the pilot still standing by the wheel and spinning it fast, turning the ship hard to starboard while the attacking Anwi craft banked around their prow. Its shots had chewed up the decking around his feet, taking out the speaking tube mounted next to the wheel, somehow missing him entirely.
Now a second Anwi craft was diving towards them with thrusters roaring, its guns spitting a curling trail of shots at the gas loft of the ship, where men scrambled across the rigging. Skymen fired rifles back at the attacking craft. Teams ran to the small hand cannons mounted on the prow and stern, loading them in haste.
Ash yanked the arm sling over his neck and cast it aside, ignoring the shooting pains from his shoulder. Trench had stationed himself near the wheel and the wrecked speaking tubes, still shouting at the top of his voice. The captain looked about as though for his second-in-command Dalas, but he spotted Ash instead and surged towards him purposefully, something of his old steel returned in those frantic moments of surprise.
‘Get down to the tail!’ he bellowed to Ash. ‘Tell Nelson to give us all the black smoke that he can! Go. Go now!’
*
Down into the lower deck with his sword over his back and his boots clomping hard and fast, Ash staggered past the ship’s hold, where crewmen were trying to calm a pair of zels that had broken loose from their pens, the animals’ hooves flashing over their heads. With the ship suddenly diving he steadied himself against a door frame, feeling the clatter of the zels’ hooves through the decking beneath his feet, and then the deeper shudder of the ship’s cannon blasting from the starboard side.
He carried on into the chaos of the tail room, where men were coughing and yelling at each other through an acrid atmosphere of smoke that was slowly venting itself through ragged fresh holes in the hull. A group of crewmen were shouting down at a bleeding form lying beneath dials large enough to read from across the room, every needle pointed in the red. Other tailmen rolled casks to the great powder feeders on either side of the curving hull, where figures fed the external thruster tubes with their faces bound in leather breathing masks.
Nelson, the Falcon’s chief engineer, was bent over the port feeder like a loving father, listening to the inner workings of the tiq-encased mechanism with a long and narrow-stemmed listening horn; a lean and stiff-backed figure in dirty overalls with his patchy hair sweeping about in a draught from the holes in the hull.
‘The captain wants all the black smoke you can give him,’ Ash shouted into the man’s ear, gripping the feeder casing to hold himself steady.
A tense nod from the sweating chief. A quick bark of orders.
‘How is it up there? I can tell we’re losing gas.’
Ash shook his head for lack of a ready answer.
Not good.
*
Past the mess room that had now become the gun room, the air thick here too with powder smoke, figures struggling through the haze to reload the cannons or to haul them back into their firing positions. The ship had levelled off again and Ash hurried past the scene, stealing a glance through an open port window. They were turning in a tight circle, creating a cloud of black smoke which poured from the rear thrusters. He spotted a starry sky and the sea glimmering far below; a shape glinting in the moonlight as it swept towards the ship, shots from the crew streaking into its path before the smoke engulfed it.
The din of gunfire was deafening as he stopped at the doorway of the infirmary and caught his breath. Nico was already gone from his cot though, and Shin was bent over a wounded man sprawled on her table, working to staunch a wound.
‘I’ve got them!’ shouted a voice and he saw Meer coming along the corridor from his cabin. The monk flapped a large leather tube in triumph. ‘I’ve got the charts, thank Mercy.’
‘Then get above with them, man.’
‘I’ll see you up there!’
With the Falcon pitching over again Ash clung to the door frame and felt an explosion shudder through her wooden bones. For a moment it seemed as though he couldn’t move from there.
Get it together, he told himself sharply, but he couldn’t help how he felt just then. It had just struck him that he was deserting Shin and the rest of the crew to their fate, and the knowledge was a deepening pit in his stomach.
Skymen shouldered past him with another wounded companion, laying the man down unconscious on a cot. Shin told her assistant to take over and moved across to inspect the newcomer. A quick check of his eyes, a moment to feel for his pulse. She shook his head. Told them the man was dead.
He was about to call out when he realized what he would have to say to her, that he was leaving the ship, and in the midst of the action.
Ash turned and strode away quickly. He had made four strides along the corridor before the ship’s nose lurched downwards, sprawling him to the floor. A bucket went clattering past his head. People shrieked throughout the ship. Ash rolled across to the side of the passage with butterflies fluttering in his belly.
The ship was falling.
On all fours he scrambled back to the doorway of the infirmary while the Falcon dropped from the sky. He clung to the bottom of the door frame while he looked inside for Shin, seeing figures writhing about on the floor. He spotted Shin lying motionless near the table, her head bent at an impossible angle, her eyes glazed and lifeless.
There was nothing he could do here for any of them. It was like the revolution all over again, that feeling of dread as you left behind your companions under fire.
His face locked in a grimace, Ash struggled down the slope of the passage towards the steps leading up. In the gun room beyond, the men were yelling in fright and gripping onto whatever they could. Their cries followed him as he crawled up the steps and through the hatchway.
Up on the weatherdeck it was much the same, crewmen sprawling on the deck and shouting through the wind. The timbers of the ship were trembling now against his touch. Hanging there from the hatchway, Ash’s heart almost stopped when he saw the front portion of the ship’s loft gone entirely, and the Falcon’s nose rushing towards the gleaming silver of the sea. Torn silk flapped back along the surviving loft behind. He spotted flashes of flames back there in their smoky wake, the ends of the tattered silk burning.
Not quite free fall then, for all that it felt that way. Falling like a leaf rather than a stone, thanks to the remaining loft.
His head jerked around until he saw Juke still flying alongside the diving ship, and once more his heart skipped in his chest. A simple rope bridge had been strung across from the deck of the Falcon, though the end of it had broken away so that figures clung on to the bridge dangling from the open doorway of the craft.
Ash gritted his teeth and forced himself to move. He made it stumbling to the port rail and gripped it hard, from where he saw Aléas reaching out from the doorway of the winged craft with the cat crying out next to him, trying to haul Nico up from the hanging rope bridge. Below Nico swung Cole, and at the very bottom of the bridge dangled Meer, the monk flailing his legs wildly.
Suddenly the craft swung upwards out of sight,
taking them all with it.
Ash gasped, blinking his eyes clear of sweat. They’re fine, they’re going to make it, he told his thundering heart.
Somehow it felt better this way. To go down with the rest of the crew while the others made it to safety. Spreading his legs wide for balance, Ash leaned out to look back along the hull of the ship. The tail room was partly gone now and debris tumbled out from it. Even as he looked a man toppled out head over feet and plummeted through the darkness.
Ash tore his gaze away and looked ahead. Despite the damage, the smaller forward thrusters were still burning on full and pushing them faster into their dive. They were falling in an arc.
‘Full lift on the fore-sculls!’ screamed Trench up there on the quarterdeck at old Stones the pilot – the grit of them both, trying to wrestle some kind of control even now. ‘Get her nose up!’
Past Ash’s position, Berl the ship’s boy was trying to climb back up the sloping deck with his face set in a determined grimace, using his crutch for purchase. Another skyman staggered towards Ash groping for the rail. It was one of the Caffey brothers who had come with them into the Edge, the man wide-eyed with panic.
Over the man’s shoulder, a scull tore free from the other side of the ship and whipped away into the night. The Falcon dipped over violently, bucking the skyman right into Ash so that they both crashed against the rail, then spilled right over it.
Weightlessness. His burnoose fluttering around him as the old Rōshun snatched the cargo netting hanging from the side, yanking himself to a stop. From his good arm he hung there alone with his feet dangling in the air, like his plight on the Sky Bridge all over again. The Caffey brother was gone.
Without warning the Falcon started to roll upright again and his body pressed against the hull, allowing Ash to get his other arm hooked through the netting – the screams of the crew and the shouted commands of Trench still filling the dying ship with purpose.
When the Falcon carried on rolling over to starboard, Ash placed the soles of his boots squarely against the side and stood up and outwards, squinting ahead along the sleek curve of the hull to see the nearing sea below them, feeling the mighty heft of the ship roll against his feet.
There were worse ways to go, he knew. At least it would be quick.
Ash glanced down past his feet and saw Juke’s craft flying just beneath him, wings flaring as it dropped at the same speed as the Falcon. The Anwi man’s face stared up at him through the forward windscreen.
Juke waved for him to hop on board, as though it was as easy as that.
Maybe it was.
The old Rōshun dropped and landed on the metal wing of the craft with a jolt. His boots slipped from under him and his feet went out over the forward edge of the wing, dragging the rest of him behind them, hands clutching for a purchase that wasn’t there. Ash toppled off the wing, snatching out for whatever he could. He glimpsed Aléas’s fierce expression in the doorway before he tumbled and hit the trailing rope bridge legs first, snaring himself upside down with a wrench of his back.
Pain blinded him for an instant, almost drove him into unconsciousness.
‘Ash!’
Meer’s gleaming face beamed up from the end of the rope bridge, his feet trailing free. Ash dangled just above him.
He shook his head, the blood rushing to it now, the burnoose flowing all around him. His left leg seemed to be tangled in the ropes, and he felt someone press against it, Cole maybe.
Beside them, the Falcon creaked and groaned in her burning descent.
‘I can’t hold on,’ yelled the monk below, his hands gripping a single loop of rung.
‘Climb up!’ Ash called down to him.
Something flapped in the wind between them. It was the leather tube containing the charts – Meer was holding it out to him. ‘Sweet Mercy, will you take the charts, man!’
With a deep exhalation Ash stretched out his body and arm and snatched the heavy tube from the air. A tricky business, though he managed to stuff it safely into his belt, and then he stretched out once more to reach for the monk. ‘I have them. Grab my hand!’
But Meer could only hang there gripping the loop of thin rope with his fingertips, the last of his strength seemingly spent on passing up the tube.
He tossed his head back so he could look up at Ash.
‘No regrets!’ yelled the hedgemonk in triumph, and then his fingertips slipped from the rope and Meer was falling through the dark void of the night towards the sea, his robes billowing up around his tumbling body.
Ash held a hand extended after him and watched his companion disappear from sight.
‘Ash!’
He swept the burnoose clear of his head and looked up at the voice calling from above. Now Cole was shouting down at him. He didn’t catch the longhunter’s words, but he saw Aléas in the doorway struggling to pull up Nico. The boy was clearly still weak.
An awful crackle sounded out from the Falcon. It was the surviving loft of the ship exploding into silk tatters. The ship dropped away from them, falling faster now so that clouds of smoke tumbled up around him.
Choking, near blinded from the smoke, Ash heard another shout above him. He looked up past his own legs to glimpse Nico falling towards him as his tunic slipped from Cole’s grasp.
Ash caught Nico’s arm on the way past so that the young man hung below him where Meer had so recently been. He gripped Nico like a vice. Beyond the young man’s kicking feet, through tears and brief breaks in the smoke, he spotted a startling white splash interrupting the dullness of the sea where the Falcon crashed through its surface.
Smoke engulfed them momentarily. In his grasp, Nico struggled like a bitter prize.
‘Boy!’ Ash yelled down with all his might.
At last the smoke cleared as the winged craft tilted away. Nico was still hanging there, blinking up at him in startled fright.
‘What?’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Damnations
General Mokabi was up at that late hour, as always after the brief time of the little sleep, that first slumber of the night from which people often rose for a short spell to relieve their bladders or read by candlelight, to contemplate the day behind or the day still ahead, to snack or have sex or a quiet conversation with a loved one, before lying down again for the long sleep.
With so much to be done tomorrow, overseeing another day of assaults against the walls, Mokabi had opted to have his hair and beard trimmed tonight in his personal salon while he caught up with the Dreamer’s progress, a man who seldom seemed to sleep at all.
‘More time?’ he asked incredulously of the cloaked man standing by the window of the room, his back turned arrogantly towards him. ‘How much longer do you need?’
‘A few days, at most,’ replied Seech without looking at him.
‘You said that last week, and the week before,’ Mokabi growled with a slap of his chair, and the barber behind him straightened with his scissors, waiting for him to remain still.
‘Yes,’ admitted the Dreamer. ‘I did.’
‘Don’t play games with me, Seech! I’m just about reaching the end of my patience with you, are you comprehending that yet?’
The Dreamer turned sideways, framed by the night’s darkness outside. He looked at him distastefully down his long nose. ‘Listen, you idiot,’ he retorted like the sting of a slap, and Mokabi gasped at the insolence of the man, gripping the arms of his chair to still his trembling hands. ‘You’re asking me to shake loose a wall that’s over a hundred feet in height. Such techniques take time to perfect, techniques which I have now achieved to my satisfaction. What remains is the performance itself. Perhaps, if you try hard enough, you might just sense an inkling of the reserves this task will demand from me. I will need a few days to prepare myself adequately, that is all.’
I should have him killed in his sleep. Those quarters he’s staying in – I should have them blown to smithereens. Let us see how well he is protected against that.
> ‘This has something to do with that Dreamer of theirs, hasn’t it?’ General Mokabi retaliated, and when he caught the sidelong glance from Seech he knew that he was right. Anger shook through his words. ‘You’re waiting until she returns to the city, so you can show off to her with your latest trick!’
‘I’ve told you my reasons. I care not one whit whether you believe me or not.’
Mokabi breathed deeply, red rage nearly firing him from the chair at the Dreamer’s throat. It was all he could do to hold himself where he sat. The impudence of the man, stalling like this for his own personal reasons, now of all times with Sparus and Romano finally pushing hard across the Chilos. Here at the Shield, Mokabi had a hundred thousand men hanging back from the daily action, ready for a major surge against the walls. His suicide ships were ready. All they waited for now was the Dreamer himself, holding up the entire assault.
Never in his entire life had he met such an infuriating individual.
Easy, old boy. You still need him.
General Mokabi, ex-Archgeneral of Mann, bunched his jaw muscles together hard enough that his teeth hurt. ‘The Lord Protector,’ he rasped. ‘Tell me that Creed remains clear of the picture, at least?’
‘Of course. My leech continues to suck him dry. He remains infirm and confined to his chambers.’
That was something, anyway. But keeping the Lord Protector out of the picture was about all the Dreamer had been good for so far. It seemed little enough for the fortune he was paying the man.
It was bright in the small salon with the lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Bright enough to see his own reflection in the window glass that Seech stood beside. Mokabi’s eyes stared back at himself with a dark intensity. Even with regular infusions of Milk, he saw how he was turning to fat around the neck and jowls.
He breathed until his throat had relaxed again, so that he could speak with some dignity, allowing the snips of his barber’s scissors to lull him down from his fury.
In the warm and luxurious setting of the salon it was hard to believe they were within his mammoth warwagon, which was acting as both his command post and personal quarters during the campaign, outfitted with all the rooms of a small fort. Mokabi had ordered it hauled by the giant shaggy-haired mammoots to the northern reaches of Camp Liberty, where he could observe the Shield from a safe distance. At nights, he fell asleep to the soft percussions of the guns.