The Legion of Flame (The Draconis Memoria)

by Anthony Ryan

  He stepped aside, gesturing for her to go ahead. Lizanne gave a start at the sight of a rat scurrying away from the light, then clutched her blanket tighter and entered the tunnel. They sloshed through an inch of foul-smelling water, rats fleeing ahead of them as the constable kept up an advisory monologue she assumed he had delivered hundreds of times before. “It’ll be dark soon. Best to wait a good couple of hours before you poke your head out though, gives the taverns time to fill up and clears the streets of those who’ve come off the day shift.”

  After a hundred yards or so the tunnel split in two and he pointed her to the opening on the left, advising that it would take her closer to the Miner’s Repose. Fifty paces on Lizanne came to a sturdy iron gate; the bars spanned the tunnel from floor to ceiling and were set deep into the brickwork. Beyond the gate she could see a thin stream of light descending through an opening in the tunnel’s roof.

  “There’s a few dozen entry points for you to choose from,” Darkanis said, stepping forward to unlock the gate. “Just lift the grate and crawl out, but choose carefully cos it’ll lock behind you. Avoid the one near the river, there’s always some mud-slingers hanging around regardless of the hour.”

  He had crouched a little to unlock the gate, turning his exposed neck to her. Even without a drop of product in her veins, rendering him unconscious or dead wasn’t a particularly difficult prospect. His keys and whatever valuables he had in his pockets might well come in handy in the days ahead, and the garrison was hardly likely to scour the whole city for his assailant. The risks are too high, she decided, telling herself the decision had nothing to do with sentiment. Rare to find a decent man in so terrible a place.

  “Best of luck, love,” Constable Darkanis said, swinging the gate open and standing aside.

  Lizanne allowed a few seconds to pass before stepping through the gate, turning to watch as he locked it behind her. “Remember what I said about waiting for a while,” he told her with a wink before turning to go.

  “Thank you,” she said. The constable paused and turned back with a puzzled frown that told her these were words none of his charges had spoken before. “Your . . . compassion does you credit, sir. For which I thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, love,” he said in a flat tone. It was clear to Lizanne he wasn’t accustomed to going off script.

  She nodded and turned to go.

  “Wait.”

  Turning back, she saw him fishing in his trouser pocket for something. “This is against regs,” he muttered. “But sod it, I’m retiring in three months.” He held the object out through the bars, Lizanne recognising it as a penknife perhaps four inches long. “Isn’t much of a weapon, I know,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s something. And”—his sympathetic grimace returned for a second—“as there’s only one way out of Scorazin, it may come in handy if you feel in need of an . . . early release.”

  Lizanne reached out and took the penknife. She began to voice her thanks once more but he had already begun making his way back down the tunnel, humming his jaunty tune as the lamplight faded, leaving her in darkness.

  CHAPTER 14

  Hilemore

  “Battle stations!” Hilemore barked, Steelfine pulling the steam-whistle’s lanyard before the words had fully escaped his lips. Hilemore tore his gaze away from the sight of the huge spine knifing through the waves and turned to Zenida. “To the engine room please, Captain.” She nodded and ran for the ladder. “Mr. Talmant,” Hilemore went on. “Signal Chief Bozware: full ahead at two vials!”

  “Full ahead at two vials, aye, sir!”

  Hilemore fixed his gaze on Scrimshine, who stood with his back to the wheel, staring at the view through the bridge’s rear window in bleach-faced, wide-eyed shock. “To your duty, Mr. Scrimshine,” Hilemore ordered in an even voice.

  “Can’t . . .” Scrimshine gaped at him. “Can’t go in there at full ahead. It’s suicide.”

  “On the contrary.” Hilemore drew his revolver and pressed the muzzle into the centre of Scrimshine’s forehead. “Failing to obey my orders is suicide. Perhaps, if I toss your corpse over the stern, a tasty morsel might slow our friend down a little.”

  Scrimshine’s feverish gaze swung from Hilemore to the approaching monster then back again before he turned and set his hands on the wheel. “He’s too fast for us, even at full ahead,” he said.

  Hilemore felt the deck shudder as Zenida lit the vials Chief Bozware had added to the blood-burner. Within seconds the needle on the speed indicator ticked past twenty knots and continued to climb. “Allow me to worry about that,” Hilemore said. “Mr. Steelfine!”

  “Sir!”

  “Muster the riflemen and toss the Blue carcass over the side. Then run up the stern-chasers. Fire as she bears.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “Mr. Torcreek.” Hilemore turned to the young Blood-blessed, who stood clutching the jar of heart-blood he had harvested from the Blue’s corpse, eyes narrowed as he regarded the huge wake beyond the Superior’s stern. There was none of Scrimshine’s horror on the younger Torcreek’s face, more a sense of indecision.

  “Mr. Torcreek!” Hilemore repeated, finally capturing the fellow’s attention.

  “Captain?”

  “One of Red and one of Black.” Hilemore handed him the wallet of product. “Keep that beast away from my ship. And ask your uncle and that mad cleric to take their rifles aloft.”

  “Surely will.” Clay inclined his head and made for the ladder, sliding down to the deck with a practised ease which said much for his time aboard ship.

  Hilemore focused his attention on the channel between the Shelf and the Chokes as it loomed ever larger in the bridge window. A glance at the speed dial indicated the Superior had now surpassed forty knots and still had more to give. Scrimshine kept muttering to himself as he steered them towards the channel, profanities and sailor’s curses for the most part but with a few Dalcian prayer-spells thrown in for good measure.

  “Steady as she goes, Mr. Scrimshine,” Hilemore told him, holstering his revolver and clasping his hands behind his back. “You’re doing splendidly.”

  “Gonna fucking die . . .” the smuggler intoned, spinning the wheel to align the Superior with the centre of the channel. “May the ancestors bestow their protection upon a fallen son . . .”

  Dual cannon shots sounded from the stern, Hilemore glancing back to see a pair of waterspouts rising from the waves just behind the enormous wake. Perhaps in response, the great spine descended below the surface and the swell faded as the huge body beneath sought the depths. “Perhaps we scared it off, sir,” Lieutenant Talmant suggested, which drew an immediate, near-hysterical cackle from Scrimshine.

  “Scared . . . Stupid little shit,” he muttered before returning to his superstitious pleading. “Great-Grandfathers, Great-Grandmothers, look kindly upon this wayward wretch . . .”

  Despite his terror, Scrimshine still retained enough presence of mind to safely steer the Superior into the channel, the wheel blurring in his hands as he countered the roiling currents. Despite his efforts, Hilemore soon appreciated that the man’s warnings had not been exaggerated. Some fifty yards into the channel, a tall wave surged out of the Chokes to slam into the Superior’s port side. The ship swayed towards the Shelf as the deck tipped at an alarming angle. For a moment it seemed the frozen massif came close enough to reach out and touch before Scrimshine angled the bows to ride the wave rebounding from the ice, bringing them clear.

  “Heavenly cousins show mercy to this dishonoured fool . . .” Scrimshine hauled the tiller to starboard, the Superior swerving away from the rocky shoulder of an islet as the speed indicator nudged forty-five knots.

  A flurry of rifle-shots drew Hilemore’s attention back to the stern. The riflemen were at the rail, firing furiously at the swell building up just fifty yards short of the stern. Steelfine was harrying the gun-crews to reload thei
r pieces but Hilemore judged it likely that the beast would be upon them before the battery was ready. The tall spine was once again jutting above the waves, its height even greater now and he fancied he caught a glimpse of the Blue’s head beneath the water. Perhaps it was a trick of the fading light but he detected a certain reddish glow to the animal’s eyes. The signature crack of a longrifle sounded through the ceiling of the bridgehouse as the elder Torcreek or the mad cleric tried his luck. Hilemore saw the bullet impact just short of the spine but whatever effect it had on the Blue was so negligible that its course didn’t alter in the slightest. Hilemore saw Clay step between two cannon, hand still clutching the jar of heart-blood.

  “Oh, fuck me!”

  Hilemore turned to find Scrimshine spinning the wheel to port. A glance through the bridge window revealed the source of his distress. The uneven but otherwise unbroken line of the Shelf had abruptly altered, a huge, blade-like promontory jutted into the channel leaving a greatly reduced gap.

  “Won’t make it!” Scrimshine shouted, eyes wide and pleading as he turned to Hilemore.

  “You have to,” Hilemore told him, his own gaze focused on where the promontory met the water, noting how it was thinner at the base than the top. He checked the situation at the stern, seeing how the Blue had shortened the distance between them to little over twenty yards; too close for the cannon to depress sufficiently for a shot. Steelfine was busily engaged in getting the gun-crews to move their pieces to the edge of the deck, so their muzzles could be lowered. The drake’s head was clearly visible through the swell now, eyes seeming to glow even brighter.

  “I’m going forward,” Hilemore told Talmant, inclining his head at Scrimshine. “If he removes his hands from the wheel, shoot him and take over.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Hilemore slid down the ladder and sprinted for the pivot-gun on the fore-deck. “Solid shot loaded?” he asked the lead gunner.

  “Loaded and ready, sir.” The man was somewhat pale of face but kept a commendably straight posture as he glanced over Hilemore’s shoulder at the stern. “Need a change of heading if we’re going to get the bugger though.”

  “You have a different target.” Hilemore pointed at the base of the promontory looming ahead. “Just above the water-line where it joins the Shelf, if you please.”

  “Sir?” the gunner asked with a frown.

  “Just do it, man!” Hilemore snapped.

  The gunner nodded and barked out a series of orders to his three-man crew, who swiftly brought the piece on target. The shot impacted on the Shelf a few feet above the waves, sending a cascade of shattered ice into the sea. Hilemore took out his spy-glass and trained it on the promontory, seeing a small fissure where the shell had struck home. Not enough, he mused. Like firing a pistol at a mountain. “Again,” he ordered the gunner. “Same spot. As many as you can whilst she still bears. I’ll be back directly.”

  He ran for the starboard batteries, ordering each gun primed and lowered to the correct elevation. “Fire on my order,” he told the crews. The pivot-gun managed another two rounds before the Superior slipped into the gap between the promontory and the closest islet. The ugly, high-pitched groan of iron on rock sounded from the port side, indicating Scrimshine had slightly misjudged the course. The ship shuddered from bow to stern but kept on, the promontory looming overhead like a poised axe. Let’s hope it’s sharp enough, Hilemore thought before barking out his command to the starboard guns. “Fire!”

  The four cannon fired at once, the range was less than fifteen yards meaning they were obliged to shrink from a hail of shattered ice as the shells slammed home. Hilemore stared up at the great frozen wedge, hoping Scrimshine’s ancestors might hear his prayers for he had no reason to expect this to work. After several seconds of fervent hoping, it had become clear that the scoundrel’s ancestors were indeed deaf today.

  “Hit it again!” Hilemore called to the pivot-gun before switching his gaze to the stern as the chasers fired again. He saw the resultant waterspouts deluge Steelfine and the others, hoping to see the flash of red that would indicate a hit, but it appeared Last Look Jack was either too skilled a pursuer or just too lucky. A vast, ear-piercing screech sounded as the beast finally revealed itself, the great, red-eyed head surging from the waves a few yards short of the stern. It slowed a little as it reared up, falling behind but still staying close enough to cast a jet of flame at its prey. The men at the stern scattered as the flames swept down. Hilemore was unable to contain a shout of frustration at the sight of two men tumbling over the side, both wreathed in flame. A flat crump erupted as an ammunition stack caught light, the explosion sending one of the cannon high in the air.

  “Mr. Torcreek!” Hilemore called, sprinting towards the carnage. He found the Blood-blessed on his knees, coughing in the smoke, and dragged him upright. “I said to keep it back!”

  “He’s too strong,” Clay replied, staring at the beast as it slipped below the waves once more. “Only one chance now.” Clay raised the jar of heart-blood and removed the stopper. “If I die, Captain,” he said, raising it to his lips, “be sure to speak well of me.”

  His words were drowned by the vast, booming crack that filled the air above their heads. Hilemore’s gaze snapped to the promontory, following the line of a fissure that had suddenly appeared in its flank. “That may not be necessary,” he said, putting a restraining hand on Clay’s forearm.

  Last Look Jack had begun to raise himself once more, Hilemore gaining a true impression of the beast’s size for the first time. It towered over them to a height of twenty feet with most of its body still beneath the surface, jaws widening to cavernous dimensions and its red eyes alive with what was unmistakably a deep, unquenchable hatred.

  The promontory detached from the Shelf with another booming crack, the immense blade of ice plunging down so that its edge caught the monster just behind the head. Last Look Jack disappeared in an explosion of spume as the promontory met the water. The Superior rose high as the resultant wave swept along the channel, Hilemore fancying he heard a scream from the bridge as Scrimshine performed miracles to keep them on a true course. Beyond the stern the new-born iceberg sank to two-thirds of its length before grinding to a halt, wedged between the Chokes and the Shelf, firmly blocking the passage for years to come.

  • • •

  Casualties: three dead, four wounded. Hilemore dipped his pen in the inkpot and added a final few lines to the log. The Blue known as Last Look Jack assumed dead, though not confirmed. Expect to clear the Chokes by morning.

  He added his initials to the entry and leaned back from the desk. Surveying the log, two-thirds of which was written in Eutherian and the remainder in Mandinorian, it occurred to him that this ship’s story would provide ample evidence to future historians of the dramatic changes wrought on the world in a short space of time. He was sure the rest of the log would have made for interesting reading if his Eutherian hadn’t been so poor. Half of the entries had been set down in the spidery script of the Superior’s original captain, later replaced by the less accomplished, and often barely legible, penmanship of the ship’s first mate following the Battle of the Strait. A few weeks on and this hand was in turn supplanted by Lieutenant Sigoral’s smooth-flowing calligraphy. Although the commentary was lost on him, the casualty lists were unmistakable. It appeared the Superior had lost over a third of her crew at the Strait and then even more at Carvenport. Sigoral’s description of these calamitous events, set down several days later, was surprisingly brief but Hilemore was able to translate the phrase “entire fleet destroyed.”

  And yet, he mused. Somehow he managed to sail her all the way to Lossermark with a skeleton crew, without suffering another casualty. Hilemore decided a more thorough debrief of the marine was in order when circumstances allowed.

  The cabin door opened and Zenida came in, closing it behind her and slumping into the seat opposite. Such niceties as
knocking or requesting permission to sit were evidently beneath her. She was, after all, a fellow captain even without a ship.

  “You look tired,” he told her, noting the red tinge to her eyes.

  “Took over the wheel from that bilge-scum for a few hours,” she said around a yawn. “He was ready to drop. Navigating this course takes a toll. Mr. Talmant has the wheel. The channel’s far wider now and he’s a sure enough hand.”

  Hilemore saw her press her lips together, her slumped form betraying a slight tension despite her fatigue. “You have something to discuss, Captain?” he enquired.

  “Joining you on this venture was a mistake,” she said. “Even though I knew the risks. We had already survived so much, I couldn’t imagine it might be worse. And I owed you a debt. But I have a daughter to think of.”

  “She may well have been no safer fleeing Lossermark,” he pointed out. “And leaving you both in the hands of Captain Trumane was not acceptable to me.”

  “Even so, that Blue . . . I never suspected such a thing might even exist. It leads me to wonder what else we could find in these climes.”

  “I cannot turn back.”

  “And I would not ask you to.” Zenida averted her gaze and Hilemore realised she saw this conversation as a shameful episode. Admission of fear was never an easy thing for a Varestian. “But,” she added, voice heavy with reluctance, “when we reach Kraghurst Station, I will not be accompanying you across the ice.”

  In fact he had been worrying over how to persuade her to stay behind, fully expecting an outburst of rage at the implied dishonour. “I see,” he said, deciding a tone of sombre acceptance rather than relief was appropriate. “Your skills will be missed.”

  She nodded and got to her feet, moving to the door.