Dead Men's Tales (Tales of the Brass Griffin Book 5)

by C. B. Ash

  “Aye!” Moira shouted back from the far end of the deck. “Even if I have ta get out an' push!”

  “William!” Hunter shouted to the lookout on the rigging above, “what’s facing us?”

  William Falke, standing in one of the basket-like crow’s nests that dotted the edge of the gas bags, adjusted the focus on his spyglass. “Two groups Cap’n! One’s large, gotta be Fomorian! The other … Cap’n! I’m seein’ a werewolf down there! Angela Von Patterson!”

  Hunter glared into the darkness, as if he could will the gloom from his view. “What of Mr. Wilkerson?”

  “No sign, Cap’n,” William replied. “I am seein’ Angela tearin’ into Fomorians a’plenty! That might be her mum nearby. She’s givin’ them monsters what for, too!” William’s voice caught in his throat. “Cap’n … from the pit. Some kinda large machines!”

  “So’s the Griffin, lad, be specific!” Hunter snapped.

  “Aye, Cap’n, beggin’ yer pardon. Just caught in the moment,” the scout replied, then re-adjusted the focus on his spyglass. “Large, Cap’n. Bigger than a wagon. Shaped like spiders they are, belchin’ steam and smoke like a factory. They’re covered head to leg in metal, and there’s somethin’ atop them I can’t quite make sight of.”

  Suddenly the night’s gloom was split with the bright flash of lightning, followed by a thunderous crack! Krumer spun around to face towards the flash; even Hunter took a startled step backwards. Above them in the crow’s nest William blinked, shook his head, then instinctively rubbed his flash-affected eye. “Cap’n they’re usin’ … “

  “Lightning cannons,” Hunter finished sternly for the young man above. “Well, I’ve a few of my own. Mr. Whitehorse, give those Ironclads a proper answer! Fire on my word!”

  “Aye,” Krumer said with a small but savage grin. He turned back towards the main deck. He snatched the end of a black speaking-tube attached to a ship’s opti-telegraphic. “Cannons at the ready! Prime the pumps! Charge the capacitors! Time to show these Fomorians what they’re dealing with!”

  Along the deck, gunnery crews leaped into action. A sharp hum rose from the far end of the vessel while the artillery quickly primed; soon the air was filled with the sound much like a swarm of angry bees. Gunnery crews locked the cannon into their metal rails and raised the artillery ports.

  Conrad O’Fallon stalked among the artillery crews, glaring at the nightmarish targets. “They be at long range, be watchin’ the wind! Mind ye aim!” The Scotsman glanced around at the crews, then turned the crank on his own opti-telegraphic. “Ready!” he said into the device.

  Krumer glanced to Anthony. “Captain?”

  Hunter remained where he was, fixed like a tree rooted to the rolling deck, hands now clasped behind him. The captain’s eyes glittered while his mind worked feverishly. More of the Fomorian war machines appeared. There were four in total. Hunter frowned. It was a small number in general consideration, but a single Ironclad could be deadly to anyone caught on foot in the open. Hunter waited, tense, willing the metal beasts to make the mistake of grouping close.

  “Wait for it, Mr. Whitehorse,” Hunter said with a cold, brittle voice. “I want their undivided attention.”

  Then, the spider-like Ironclads lumbered together in a staggered two by two formation. The captain smiled.

  “Send them to hell, Mr. Whitehorse,” Hunter barked, “with my compliments! Fire at will!”

  “Aye!” Krumer replied with a curt nod, then turned back and locked eyes with O’Fallon. The first mate visibly clenched a fist; his voice boomed into the opti’s tube. “Fire! Full broadside! Shake the halls of Heaven, Mr. O’Fallon!”

  Cannons instantly replied with rolling thunder and blinding white flashes of light. Lightning, wild and free, split the night apart while it rode the metal-laced water jets downward. Shrapnel slammed into the ground, hammering the Arachnae war machines as the massive bolts of electricity reached their target. Explosions ripped the ground, instantly heating the metal of the Ironclads. The front of the war machines took the brunt of the force. Overwhelmed with more power than it was meant to handle, its capacitors exploded! The spider-shaped Ironclad burst open from the inside out, like an overripe melon, its interior blackened and charred.

  Quickly recovering, two of the Arachnae Ironclads walked away a short distance, making it harder to hit all of them at once. A third, belching smoke from a hole in its side, limped forward. The remaining three Ironclads locked their legs into position, raised their twin cannon skyward, and returned fire!

  The Griffin shuddered with the impact, and smoke boiled off a set of ragged, burnt wounds near her bow. A quartet of crew rushed forward to extinguish the fire. The artillery crews were already adjusting the aim of their cannon for a second shot.

  “Dead mark on, Cap’n!” William said from overhead. “Looks like there’s a gap openin’ up behind in the clearin’ just north of the people from the Fair Winds.”

  “Good place for the longskiffs,” Krumer said. “They’ll have the high ground if the Fomorians try to rush them.”

  Hunter nodded, his eyes scanning the battlefield with a cold, calculating glare. “Also more difficult if they try and turn those behemoths that way. Lightning cannons are best for direct fire. They’ll need traditional artillery for something indirect. Despite that, if we’re fortunate, they’ll try – they’ll make prime targets for us at that point. Launch the ‘skiffs, Mr. Whitehorse, we’ve no time to waste.”

  Krumer turned the crank on the ship’s opti again before barking into the black rubber speaking-tube. “Longskiffs, cast off! Make for the clearing to the north! Moira, have your lightning packs – or whatever you’re calling them – at the ready. The Fomorians are sure to see you.”

  “Launching now,” Dr. Llwellyn’s voice came back. “Moira has her small crew scattered between the longskiffs to guard us.”

  “Godspeed, Doctor,” Krumer said with a smile.

  “Spirits willing, Mr. Whitehorse,” came the reply before the opti clicked off again.

  Immediately, the only two longskiffs leaped out into the night, then dove for the maelstrom below like angels coming to nurture the fallen.

  In the sky, again the Griffin roared, her cannon raining bright white death and pain on the Fomorians below. Already, Fomorian riflemen took up positions of cover at the edge of the burning pit to fire upwards, desperate to protect their few Ironclads. The Griffin, having to remain at almost a thousand yards for the lightning cannons to fire, felt the sting of bullets. Crew screamed in pain, falling when the occasional shot struck home.

  Hunter turned away from the railing. Splinters and the rare bullet flew by him while the captain walked briskly through the smoke for a better view of the main deck of his ship. Most of his crew were intact; some were wounded but had crawled, or been pulled, to a moderately safer location out of the line of fire.

  “William!” Hunter quickly called out.

  The young man slid down the rope from the crow’s nest above, then dropped to the deck near the captain and Mr. Whitehorse. “Aye, Cap’n! Already headin’ for me medical bag now! I’ll have the wounded patched and right as rain in no time.”

  “Good lad,” Hunter said as the scout raced down the ladder to the main deck. “I need every man-jack who can turn a crank or pull a trigger able to move.”

  “Longskiffs are below our waterline, mon Capitaine,” Noel St. Clarie announced from where he stood at the ship’s wheel.

  “Brilliant,” Hunter replied, coming to a stop near the African. “Down ten degrees from the bubble, Mr. St. Claire. Bank to starboard, we’re putting ourselves between those ‘Spider Ironclads’ and our ‘skiffs.”

  “Aye, mon Capitaine,” Noel replied with a bright, white smile. He reached for a tall lever next to the ship’s wheel that ended in a large, toothed brass gear covered in measurements. “I will be like a mother goose guarding her goslings from the fox!” The broad-shouldered man from the Ivory coast laughed merrily while he pulled back on
the lever.

  Instantly, the Griffin pitched to one side! Explosions shook her from bow to stern. Noel clutched desperately to the ship’s wheel, fighting to keep control of the ship, while Krumer and Hunter were thrown across the quarterdeck. The first mate hauled himself out of the remains of a now shattered wooden chest with which he had collided. Hunter had slammed against the railing, injuring his sore shoulder even more.

  “Something hit us!” Krumer exclaimed.

  Captain Hunter quickly struggled to his feet with an angry glare and a grimace. “That was from the far side! Watch! Report!”

  A young crewman in the lookout above wiped blood from his nose and pulled himself upright. “A ship, Cap’n! A good two hundred an forty feet long! Steel plated on her sides!”

  Hunter scrambled to the rail and looked out. Smoke belched from two new holes in the Griffin: one above the waterline, another not far from the port side water storage. Any deeper, and the blast would have flooded the lower decks with spare water for the lightning cannons. It hurt, enough that he almost felt the pain himself, but it wasn’t crippling. Anthony looked about for the longskiffs.

  It only took a moment to locate them. Below the Griffin, the twin vessels turned and weaved while clawed bolts of lightning arced down, followed by hot artillery shells: both fire from the other ship. Fortunately, that volley missed the smaller craft. Already one of the longskiffs bled flame and smoke, a hole ripped in her stern.

  Hunter spit out a trickle of blood from his split lip. “It’s the Revenge. She’s above us, off to our port side.”

  Which is where I would have been, he thought angrily to himself. She must have been up there on station waiting for someone to arrive. Bauer set a trap, and I let my ego walk right into it! That can’t be helped now. The Revenge is a larger girl with more guns, but not nearly as nimble. Her hull type has a few ports on her bottom along the keel ... however, Anthony mused silently to himself, she has a blind spot.

  “Orders, Cap’n?” Krumer asked, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision.

  The Captain looked up, then at the Arachnae war machines far below. “Down! Towards the Ironclads! Then hard to port!”

  Noel and Krumer exchanged a glance. “Capitaine …” Noel started to say hesitantly.

  Hunter waved a hand to cut off anything more the pilot had to say. “We outgun the Ironclads, but not the Revenge. We can handle those war machines with one more pass, once we are closer.”

  “Will not the Revenge follow?” Noel asked while he fought with the wheel.

  “I’m counting on it!” Hunter replied.

  Chapter 52

  Far below the Griffin, electrified water jets scraped the ground. Where they touched, bright flashes ripped the air and dirt erupted upwards like geysers! Angela nimbly dodged around these, still in her were-form, ragged dress whipping around her. She bounded through the smoke rising off the savaged ground, ignoring the ringing in her ears and the flash-spots in her eyes from the ruthless blasts.

  “Get away!” she shrieked, half in fear, half in anger, while she tore across the night-shrouded Scottish hillside. Her heart pounded in her chest; ignoring the aches and bruises that screamed for relief, she raced onward, desperately clutching three tan canvas medical bags to her chest.

  Two steps behind her a Fomorian, fully transformed, rushed after her with a bloody glint in his eye. The smoke and fog curled off his monstrous eight foot tall form like steam from a hot coal. Bloody claw-marks streaked his arms and chest, his shirt and vest thoroughly shredded as if he had been mauled by an animal – not that the Fomorian noticed.

  “Oi, ya still wants ta play, then?” he replied with a guttural laugh, which he followed by licking his lips. “I loves me a good chase, girly!”

  The Fomorian jerked a massive Bowie knife from his belt. Catching the weapon by the blade, he hurled it at the girl.

  Angela glanced over her shoulder just as the knife was seconds from reaching her. Immediately, the werewolf pounced to her right; the knife whipped past, narrowly missing her arm by inches! Its blade burying point-first into the dark green, damp soil. Exhausted, Angela tripped over a stone and tumbled face first. Her precious treasures – the three medical bags – spilled out of her grasp onto the ground. The Fomorian reached her in an instant.

  Frantically, the girl scrambled to her feet in a confused panic. She instinctively ducked under the man’s massive grasp, then snatched up the bags. With a quick spin, she swiped out with her claws. The girl was rewarded with an immediate roar of pain. The Fomorian instinctively grabbed the bloody gash in his thigh while Angela bounded off across the dark, damp heather.

  “That’s it!” the monster roared, his voice like a rumbling of boulders down a slope, “I’ma gonna bleed ya slow! Yer mine, girly!”

  Angela bounded off a rock, then over a forgotten moss-covered stone wall. The Fomorian ripped the Bowie knife out of the soil and charged after her in a limping run. He threw himself headlong at the wall, lumbering over it with a hiss of pain for his wounds.

  His anger melted like snow in the sun with the ominous staccato sounds of rifles and revolvers – ten in all – brought to the ready in front of him.

  “I think not!” Dr. Maria Von Patterson said with a brittle voice, her own revolver also aimed at the Fomorian.

  The weapons barked, and the Fomorian, riddled with bullets, collapsed to the dark grass in a heap. Immediately, the riflemen rushed towards the wall to look for any others. Maria wiped a trickle of blood that ran from the cut on her forehead, then quickly grabbed up her daughter in a close hug.

  “What in the name of Heaven were you thinking?” the doctor demanded. “You could have been killed, or worse!”

  “Mother …” Angela replied, her voice muffled against her mother’s soot and blood-stained blouse. She wiggled herself slightly free, then held up the three medical bags. “You said we needed bandages and medicine. I thought the monsters wouldn’t miss any,” she replied, pleading her case. Quickly she added, “It’s what Cap’n Hunter would’ve done.”

  Her mother raised an eyebrow, then began to carefully scrutinize her daughter for any debilitating wounds. “The captain is not the best role model for you, young lady. Also, that’s ‘Captain’ … don’t slur your words.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Angela replied glumly, eyes downcast. She glanced at her mother in surprise when she was hugged again.

  “Nonetheless, you were amazingly brave,” Maria said, giving her daughter a proud smile. “Next time, tell me before you run off on one of these adventures, yes?”

  Angela beamed. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Enough of this standing about. Dr. Hardy is waiting down the line. Take the bags over to –” Maria’s words vanished instantly as a bullet slammed into her! Jerking to her left, she spun around and fell face-first to the ground. The doctor’s revolver tumbled out of her grasp.

  “Mother!” Angela shrieked, diving to the doctor’s side.

  “Put a knife ta me, will ya?” Dr. Selina O’Flynn raged; she clutched a single-action revolver in her bloody grip.

  Maria moaned in pain, then rolled over and clutched the wound on her arm. Blood oozed between her fingers while her eyelids flew open at the sound of Dr. O’Flynn’s nasally voice.

  The scientist’s clothes were torn and blood-smeared, giving her a nightmarish appearance. Rope burns scored her wrists where she had been tied. At her feet lay a sailor, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest; a knife and the severed rope lay next to the body. “Ya don’t look all full of blood and thunder now, do ya?” Selina snarled.

  Dr. Von Patteron’s eyes blazed in fury. Angela crouched low, shielding her mother from the crazed scientist. A dim, yellowish fire erupted for a moment in the distance over Dr. O’Flynn’s shoulder, completing her demonic silhouette.

  One of the sailors – a young ensign from the Fair Winds – noticed the danger behind him. Quickly, he spun around with his rifle. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but a snap shot from Dr. O’Flyn
n silenced him permanently. The young ensign was dead before he collapsed onto the dark grass. O’Flynn lowered the revolver towards Angela and her mother.

  “Looks like I’ve done overstayed me welcome,” Dr. O’Flynn said with a smirk; a rabid, insane light flickered in her eyes. She backed away from the defenders, and the battle itself, towards a stone wall and the concealing black night.

  Around the trio, chaos erupted. On seeing someone firing at the gunmen from behind, the emboldened Fomorians broke into a charge! The defenders from the Fair Winds fired, their aim low towards the legs of the attackers to stop them from advancing. The roar of rifles barked in the night; a few of the Fomorians in the lead collapsed, however, more filled the hole in their ranks from behind!

  Dr. O’Flynn smirked as the Fomorian charge grew closer by the second. “Seems yer about ta be busy with them Fomorians, and them with ya. So, I’ll be movin’ on. London perhaps, such lovely samples walkin’ around waitin’ for me there! But before I’ll be off, I’ll leave ya somethin’ ta remember me by,” O’Flynn raised the pistol. “Mum and daughter, dead together. A bullet for ya each!”

  Her finger never closed on the trigger, as suddenly she was engulfed in white light! Her scream caught in her throat while her body was pitched forward, crackling with electricity and doused with a high pressure water stream.

  “Trigger’s still workin’,” Moira Wycliffe declared, appearing out of the darkness. Over the wall, sailors from the Brass Griffin swarmed around the prone form of Dr. O’Flynn and rushed to aid the defenders! Guns shouted in reply to the Fomorian charge, then Moira rushed forward, water sloshing in her backpack and Lucas Gregory at her heels. The Griffin’s lady blacksmith planted her feet, taking aim at the surge of Fomorians running towards them.

  “Wait fer it!” Moira called out as Lucas and another sailor took position on either side of her; each readied their own modified lightning-pack. She glanced quickly to her comrades, then at the astonished – and relieved – faces of the exhausted survivors from the Fair Winds. Her eyes locked onto the Fomorians with a hard gaze.