“Cover me!” Stephano told the man.
He ran back to Dag, who was groggily trying to stand up, but not having much luck. Stephano grabbed his arm.
“Good Lord! I never expected that, sir,” Dag said, dazed.
“Are you all right?”
“I can’t hear you, sir. If you’re asking if I’m all right, I will be once my ears stop ringing.”
The man in the hat fired again and yelled for them to hurry. Stephano dragged Dag to his feet and the two made a mad scramble for the door. They ducked inside, and the stranger slammed the door shut just before two bullets slammed into it.
Once his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Stephano saw brooms and mops leaning up against the wall, a couple of buckets, several barrels stacked near the door, a chest, and some tools. He was in a store room. A door on an interior wall must lead to the main living quarters.
“Thank you, sir,” he was about to say to the man with the hat when the man took a good look at Stephano and burst into laughter.
“God bless my soul! If it isn’t Captain de Guichen. Of course! It would be you flying around on a dragon! I am glad to see you managed to escape that island,” the man added, still chuckling.
Stephano blinked and peered into the shadows, waiting for his eyes to adjust. The voice sounded familiar.
“I’ll be damned!” Stephano gasped, amazed. “Sir Henry Wallace!”
The man bowed. “Your servant, sir.”
Stephano could only stare. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you, Captain,” said Sir Henry.
Before he could reply, Dag raised his pistol and aimed at Sir Henry’s head.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot this bastard, Captain! We could have died on that blasted rock!”
“Come now, Sergeant, I had more faith in you and your friends than that. I knew you’d survive,” Sir Henry said, adding with a smile, “Put the gun down. I’m not your enemy—at least not at the moment. I’m here on a diplomatic mission.”
Dag snorted and Stephano eyed Sir Henry skeptically.
“I can prove it to you, Captain. This way.”
Sir Henry opened the door and waited politely for them to precede him. Dag eyed him and didn’t move.
“I don’t trust him, sir. Maybe he’s behind this attack.”
“I don’t trust him for an instant,” said Stephano. “But in this case I think he’s telling the truth about being here as a diplomat. Look at his clothes.”
Sir Henry was wearing a white shirt with lace cuffs, a white cravat trimmed in lace, a blue brocade weskit, a dove-gray dress coat trimmed with silver buttons, and fine leather boots.
Dag’s brow furrowed. “You’ve been around Rigo too long, sir. What do his clothes have to do with it?”
“He looks as if he’s been dining with the queen. Not the way I would dress if I were planning to attack a refinery,” Stephano pointed out. “His coat is torn and stained with blood—”
“And I have gunpowder residue on my cuff,” Sir Henry added, exhibiting his sleeve.
“I guess you’re right, sir,” said Dag reluctantly.
Sir Henry motioned for Stephano to move closer.
“I am here with two officials of the Braffan council,” Sir Henry said in a low voice. “I regret to say the third died in the assault. I was thinking it might be best if we kept our somewhat complicated relationship to ourselves.”
“Why?” Stephano snorted. “Don’t your friends know they’re dealing with a spy, a thief, and an assassin?”
“I am loyal to my country as you are to yours, Captain,” Sir Henry replied coolly. “We have a common goal—to escape from this island alive. Nineteen men and women are dependent on us. We drove off the fiends once, but they’ll be back. Shall we come to terms, Captain? Friends for the duration of the crisis?”
Nineteen people, not counting Sir Henry. Stephano was dismayed. What was he going to do with them? He realized Sir Henry was still waiting for an answer.
“Let’s just say we won’t be enemies.”
Stephano entered the common room where the workers relaxed during their downtime. The long dining tables had been pushed aside to make space for the wounded, who lay on mattresses that had been dragged from the beds and spread out on the floor.
Stephano counted fourteen men and five women. Most of the walking wounded were helping to treat their comrades whose wounds were more serious. Six of these lay on the mattresses. One man’s head was swathed in bloody bandages, leaving only his nose and mouth exposed. One of the women had a broken leg. Almost all the workers had burns that must have been caused by the fiery green bullets. Two bodies were covered with sheets.
The room smelled of blood, gunpowder, and death. These people had only to look out one of the slit windows to see the bodies of their friends lying on the ground, yet the survivors were composed and calm; those not ministering to their wounded fellows keeping watch at the windows for the enemy to return to finish them off.
The building had been constructed with an eye to security. Each side had five windows, narrow, long, and rectangular. The windows were open, not covered with glass. Presumably the climate on these islands was always warm, though heavy with humidity from the junglelike vegetation on the surrounding islands.
Those windows on the refinery side had a view of the Sommerwind. The other windows faced out into the Breath. If the Bottom Dwellers returned to finish what they’d started, they’d fly in from that direction.
The workers must know they could not survive a second major attack, yet they were going about their duties calmly, even the wounded enduring their pain in stoic silence. Stephano was impressed. The life of a refinery worker must not be an easy one, isolated on this barren rock, laboring day and night to produce the Blood that brought wealth to their small nation. These people were tough, resilient. They had endured what must have been a horrific attack, watched friends die, all the while knowing the enemy would return.
Sir Henry introduced Stephano to the workers, speaking in Travian, which was the official language of Braffa.
“My friends, this is Captain de Guichen, formerly of the famed Rosian Dragon Brigade.”
Before Stephano could say a word, a man dressed in fine clothes like Sir Henry lunged forward to seize Stephano by the hand.
“This is Lord Bjorn Westhoven of the Braffan High Council,” said Sir Henry.
Lord Bjorn was about Stephano’s age, in his thirties, with a smile that was charming, ingratiating, and pitifully hopeful. He had a handsome, fleshy face with the sallow complexion of a man who liked his port wine and perhaps other stimulants. He spoke Rosian with such a thick accent Stephano could barely understand him.
“You come in answer to our prayers to rescue us, sir!”
“I fancy rescuing us will prove difficult, Lord Bjorn,” a woman said.
“Frau Madeleine Aalder, also with the Braffan High Council,” said Sir Henry.
Stephano had first seen her down on her knees, tending to the wounded. Now she rose to her feet and walked over to join the conversation.
“What? Why?” Lord Bjorn asked anxiously. “I see a ship out there. The Sommerwind, if I’m not mistaken. We can sail away in that.”
“The docking arm is broken, Lord Bjorn,” said Frau Aalder. “The ship cannot dock. Unless we can fly out on those dragons, we’re still trapped here.”
Frau Aalder was a tall, spare, lanky woman with gray hair tied back in a severe knot, and a frank, direct gaze. Stephano was startled by her brutal candor, though he had to admit she had made an accurate assessment of the situation.
Frau Aalder did not curtsy, but further confounded Stephano by reaching out to shake hands with him like a man. She had an astonishingly powerful grip.
“You are wounded, Captain.”
“A graze,” said Stephano.
“Sit down and let me tend to it,” she said.
“Oh my God, this is not happening!” Lord
Bjorn groaned. He sagged into a chair and put his head in his hands.
Frau Aalder gave him a pat on the shoulder and told him to “Buck up.”
Stephano said the graze was nothing, but Frau Aadler insisted, shooing Lord Bjorn out of the chair and telling Stephano to shut up and sit down.
As she washed the wound and smeared some sort of salve on it that eased the burning, Stephano asked what had happened. Sir Henry gestured to a man in a torn uniform, wearing a bloodstained bandage tied around his head. His right arm was in a sling.
“Sergeant Cuyper,” said Sir Henry. “The sole survivor of the refinery’s mercenary unit.”
The sergeant was Guundaran, built much like Dag, with the same military bearing and stoic demeanor. Like most mercenaries, he spoke excellent Rosian.
“Broken wrist and a bump on the head, sir,” said the sergeant, noticing Stephano regard him with concern. “I was near the powder magazine when it blew. Knocked me senseless for a time. The gentleman”—the sergeant indicated Sir Henry—“saved my life by dragging me inside this building before the fiends could kill me.”
Sir Henry shrugged this off. “Tell Captain de Guichen what happened, Sergeant.”
“We were attacked by fiends from hell, sir. That’s what they looked like, though this gentleman calls them ‘Bottom Dwellers’ and says they are humans like ourselves.”
Stephano regarded Sir Henry with interest. “You know about these Bottom Dwellers? How?”
“As you recall, Captain, they tried to kill me in Westfirth. I don’t much like people who try to kill me and I decided to find out what I could about them.”
“And what did you find out?”
“That their hatred transcends borders, Captain,” said Sir Henry coolly. “We must put aside our differences—for a time.”
“For a time … Ouch!” Stephano winced under Frau Aadler’s ministrations.
“The Bottom Dwellers have captured the other two refineries. They caught the people off guard, took them by surprise. They fell without a fight,” the sergeant continued. “The fiends would have seized this one, too, but we were ready for them. That wrecked tanker you see on the dock managed to escape the assault on the second refinery and sailed here to warn us that we were the next target.”
“How did you and the council members come to be here?” Stephano asked Sir Henry.
“As bad luck would have it, the members of the Braffan council and I happened to be touring the refinery when the captain told us that this place was about to come under attack. There was no time to escape.” Sir Henry smiled and gave a fatalistic shrug. “You can see what’s left of the boat that brought us amidst the ruins of the docking arm.”
Stephano grunted. He didn’t believe for one moment that Sir Henry Wallace had come to the refinery to gape at the vats and admire the scaffolding. But there was no point in confronting him. He would only lie, and at this point his reason for being here probably didn’t matter. Stephano turned back to the sergeant.
“You had time to prepare a defense.”
“Yes, sir. We caught them in an ambush and managed to drive them off, but not before they’d done considerable damage. Most of my unit died when they blew up the powder magazine, including my captain and lieutenant.”
Sergeant Cuyper spoke matter-of-factly about the deaths of his comrades. But when Dag said something sympathetic in Guundaran, the sergeant cast him a grateful glance.
“The Bottom Dwellers didn’t expect a fight, Captain. There were only a few of them. They will be back in greater numbers,” said Sir Henry. “We have no powder, no ammunition. We won’t survive the next assault. As you saw, they’re armed with different weapons than they used in Westfirth.”
“I noticed,” said Stephano drily. He gingerly touched his cheek, now slathered in ointment. “They left sharpshooters behind. How many?”
“Your sergeant blew up one. That leaves one in the laboratory and another one in the building adjacent to the lab.” Sir Henry pointed out the window. “There might be more hiding in those other buildings. We have no way of knowing until they fire on us.”
“Stick your head out the door,” Dag growled. “Let’s see who blows it off.”
“An amusing fellow, your sergeant,” remarked Sir Henry.
Stephano would have grinned, but Frau Aadler had stuck a plaster on the wound, and moving his facial muscles hurt.
“Frau Aalder is right. The Sommerwind can’t land with the docking arm destroyed, so I’m not sure—”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said Dag, interrupting, “I’ve been trying to tell you. Miri says she can fly here in the pinnace. Captain Leydecker wasn’t going to let her. He told her it was too risky. But you know Miri.” Dag shook his head in admiration. “She was ordering the crewmen to start filling the balloon as I was leaving.”
“Excellent idea!” Fran Aalder exclaimed.
She had been listening to their conversaion and now she took charge, bustling about with energy, issuing orders to the other survivors.
“The pinnace will be on its way soon to pick us up. We’ll need to have the wounded ready to transport. I want some of you men to haul in some mattresses—”
She was interrupted by loud roarings and hootings from the dragons.
The next moment one of the lookouts called, “The fiends are out there, Sir Henry! They’re heading this way.”
Another lookout, keeping watch on the opposite side of the building, turned to Stephano.
“Looks like your dragons are leaving, Captain.”
Stephano and Dag exchanged startled glances and hurried to the window.
“Maybe they decided to fly off to guard the Sommerwind,” Dag said hopefully.
Unfortunately, the dragons were heading in the opposite direction, away from the Sommerwind, away from the refinery, away from the enemy. The dragons were fleeing toward a small tree-covered island.
Stephano felt as though he’d taken a punch to the gut.
“Sir, we can’t let them go!” Dag said urgently.
“I’ll call them.” Stephano walked over to the open slit window. He drew out the bosun’s pipe.
“Don’t get yourself shot, sir,” Dag warned.
Stephano had to risk it. He leaned out the window, put to the pipe to his lips and gave the summons call, making it as loud and shrill as he could. Seeing a flash of green fire, he hurriedly ducked back inside. A bullet smashed into the wall.
“I wouldn’t do that again, sir,” said Dag. “Any response?”
Stephano looked out the window. He shook his head. The dragons had landed. He could barely see them, the color of their scales blending with the foliage.
“Maybe they didn’t hear,” said Dag.
“They heard,” said Stephano.
“Captain,” Sir Henry called, “you better come see this.”
He had been looking out his window through a spyglass. He lowered the glass and handed it to Stephano, who looked out and swore beneath his breath. The enemy was approaching and he couldn’t begin to count the swarm of bats and riders. Worse, they had brought with them one of their infernal black ships.
“The same type of ship as the one that sank the Royal Lion,” said Stephano. He handed the spyglass to Dag. “Check on the progress of the pinnace.”
“They’re almost finished filling the balloon on the pinnace, sir. She’ll be ready to launch soon,” Dag reported. “Miri’s on board. I can see her red hair!”
He added in an undertone, “What do you think’s wrong with the dragons, sir?”
“I have no idea,” said Stephano. “And we don’t have time to worry about them. We’ll need to get rid of those sharpshooters before Miri lands. How many pistols do you have, Sir Henry?”
“Two. I managed to retrieve three more from the dead.”
“I have two and Dag has two…”
“Here, sir,” said Sergeant Cuyper, “I won’t be needing this. Not with my busted arm.”
The sergeant held out his weapon.
“By God, sir!” Dag exclaimed, regarding the weapon in admiration. “This is one of those long guns with the rifled bore!”
“Like the one carried by that assassin you sent to kill us,” Stephano muttered in the direction of Sir Henry.
“Harrington acted without orders, Captain,” Sir Henry returned. “Besides, you had your revenge on the wretch. I’m a fair shot, Captain,” he added coolly. “I need powder and ammunition. If you have some to spare…”
Dag cast Stephano a glance, pleading with him not to trust this man. Stephano didn’t have much choice. They would need all the guns they could get.
“I didn’t bring much,” said Stephano, handing over his powder horn and ammunition. “Just what I could carry.”
Sir Henry began loading his pistols. Lord Bjorn, who had been silent until now, touched the rapier he wore at his side. He gave a wan smile.
“I’m rather a good swordsman,” he said.
“Let’s hope we don’t need you, my lord,” said Stephano cheerfully. He went to join Sir Henry and the sergeant at the window.
“God help us if we’re left to depend on Lord Bjorn,” Sir Henry said, loading his pistols.
Stephano smiled and immediately regretted it. He scratched at the stiffening plaster. Frau Aadler shot him a disapproving look and he quickly lowered his hand.
“Where are the sharpshooters again?”
“One is in that building across from us, Captain,” said the lookout, pointing. “That’s the laboratory. The other is in the adjacent building to the north. The fiends haven’t shifted position, at least not that I’ve seen.”
“What goes on in the laboratory?”
“I’ve asked. The workers won’t tell us,” said Sir Henry. “The process for refining the Blood is secret.”
“Secret!” Stephano gave an incredulous laugh. He glanced around at the workers. “You people realize that in a matter of hours, the Bottom Dwellers are going to be running this refinery! Your secret isn’t going to be secret much longer!”
The workers’ expressions darkened. They were clearly unhappy, but they remained stubbornly silent.
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