by Max Irons
"Indecisive?" Lonni asked.
"No," Galeron said, not averting his gaze from another shield wall. "Just nothing that suits me."
She snorted. "Don't be so picky."
"A soldier needs to feel comfortable with his equipment," Galeron said. He turned around, "Besides..."
His voice trailed away as he took in her appearance. Lonni stood before him in the strangest battle garments he'd ever seen. Her brown dress, divided for riding, looked to be made of the same cloth as his arming doublet, though not quite as padded. Black leather brigandines wrapped around the vital areas of her chest, forearms, and legs. A small war hammer hung through a loop in her belt, and two pistolettes rested securely in holsters, one at her right hip and another under her left arm. She'd tied her long hair up in a severe bun, and the butt of another firelock strapped to her back protruded above her shoulder.
"What's the matter?" Lonni asked. "You've never seen a woman dress for war?"
That wasn't it. The Delktian women did it all the time, but he hadn't thought Lonni could pull it off. The way she stood, hips slightly thrust out and a fiery gleam in her eyes, screamed of confidence, of a warrior's heart. Maybe she would hold her own after all.
"You look..." He paused. What should he say? "Interesting." He winced as he said it. That didn't sound demeaning at all.
Her eyes narrowed. "Thanks." She drew one of the pistolettes and stuck her finger in the barrel, twisting it around.
"Isn't that dangerous?" asked Galeron.
"I haven't loaded it yet, and I've already cleared it," Lonni said. "I finished my modifications, and I wanted to make sure I grabbed the right weapon."
"Still..." His voice trailed off. She might look the part, but maybe Lonni still had a few things to learn about weapons.
She scowled at him. "At least I didn't try to peer down the barrel. I'd rather lose a finger than my life. Where's your helmet?"
Fair enough, and there really wasn't time to argue. "I haven't found one I like," he said.
Lonni sighed. "We're going to battle, not a ball."
Galeron grunted and picked up a kettle-shaped helm. "I thought I'd be telling you that." He tried it on and shook his head. "Nope."
"What was wrong with that one?" asked Lonni as he put it back on its stand.
"Too small."
She tossed him another one. "How about this?"
Galeron turned it over in his hands. A strange contraption. It was a steel helm with a metal tail that swept over the back of his neck. A decent-sized slit provided vision, but the helmet ended at about mouth level, leaving the chin and front of the neck exposed. He tried it on. The helmet fit, but his throat itched. There was supposed to be another piece that covered the front.
"Is it missing something?" he asked.
Lonni looked back to the table she procured it from and shook her head. "There's nothing else there." She looked around the armory, which was by now almost empty. "It looks like you either pick that one or go without."
Galeron sighed and tucked it under one arm. "Better than nothing." He picked up a round wooden shield with a leather covering. "Also better than nothing, but I don't think it'll do so well against fire."
He slung it over his back, but Lonni pulled it close to her face, and him with it. "Dip it in seawater before we arrive. The leather will hold the wetness and make it harder to burn. It's not foolproof, but it'll do."
A marine wearing one of the kettle helmets poked his head through the door. "Commander Frontino wants the two of you in the Steelheart as soon as you can."
Galeron nodded. "We'll be along."
They exited the armory and into a driving rain. Galeron closed one eye as water pounded him, nearly falling sideways in the stiff, gusty wind. His nice dry clothes and armor were soon soaked through, rain streaming along the metal rings of chain mail.
Lonni brushed rainwater from her own eyes and pointed to one of the smaller ships moored nearby. "That's ours."
The one she pointed out was a two-leveled vessel with a single mast. It sported a large triangular sail, currently furled, and rounded ribbing over the quarterdeck. A set of retracted oars lined the sides of the lower deck, and the entire vessel, save for the bronze drake figurehead, had a dark and brooding look to it, an effect of the tar that made it watertight. A fairly standard coastal vessel for Soren's navy.
Lightning flickered overhead as they stepped from the docks onto the deck of the ship. Lieutenant Mason stood on the main deck, chatting with one of the fifty marines gathered there, and another officer stepped forward and shook Galeron's hand.
"Deathstalker, it's a pleasure to have you aboard," he said. "Maslin's the name, captain of the Steelheart. We'll be getting underway once the commander issues the order."
Galeron traded grips. "Most people call me Galeron, captain."
Maslin grinned. "Galeron'll do." He pointed to the stern. "Best place for you two is the quarterdeck with the lieutenant. Once the battle starts, you don't want to be anywhere near the bow."
"Why is that, captain?" asked Galeron.
"She'll roast you alive," Maslin said. He turned to one of the marines. "Get her ready to cast off. It won't be long now."
True to his word, the echoing clank of the naval yard's great chain rang out over the storm as Galeron and Lonni reached their appointed position. One of the ships, a similar size and model to the Steelheart, drifted away from the docks before her oarsmen pointed her bow in the right direction. A red and green striped flag, slightly obscured by the howling storm, rose at the stern.
"Follow her out, lads," said Maslin, pacing up and down the deck. "Officer Cuvier, get on the wheel."
The sail dropped, the oars extended, and the Steelheart drifted her way to the mouth of the harbor, four other ships following behind. The wind, without the walls of the naval yard to break up the gale, struck the ship's sail hard. The Steelheart lurched to the left on a collision course with merchants at a nearby pier. Galeron grabbed the railing. Someone had better do something fast, or this was going to be a really quick trip.
"Fold sail." Maslin's order drifted out over the gale. Sailors wrenched at the rigging knots and brought the canvas down. "Hard to starboard."
Officer Cuvier spun the wheel, and the ship swerved away from the merchant port.
"Oars only until we're out of the harbor," said Maslin.
Galeron blinked water from his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Lonni laughed at him.
"Still don't like sailing?" she asked.
Galeron grunted. His stomach wasn't threatening to divulge everything, this time. Maybe the Steelheart's greater size helped with the pitching and rolling. "It's not my favorite way to travel."
Lonni shrugged, swaying with the deck and seemingly unaffected by the storm around them. Galeron shivered. Rain and ocean spray soaked him to the bone. What he wouldn't give for a warm fire about now.
"How are you so calm?" he asked.
"This isn't the hard part," Lonni said. "There's nothing to be afraid of, yet."
His gut twisted into a knot, and his limbs, already aching from the cold, further throbbed as his thoughts turned to Iven and his fate. Was he still alive? He'd moved as fast as possible, given the distances. His abdomen shivered. They had to make it in time. They just had to.
Hold on a little longer.
Thunder growled at them, and the rain blew sideways in the wind. The marines hunkered down on the ship's deck, hiding their faces in their cowls from the elements. The oarsmen, wretched lives though they had, were actually the driest of all of them, sitting below decks and only facing sea spray through their oars' inlets. The irony was probably lost on them, but it dragged a wry smile across Galeron's face anyway.
"Lovely, isn't it," Lonni said. "How far out are we?"
Galeron cast his gaze over the port side of the ship, but the storm obscured the beach from view. "I don't know. I can't see a thing." He suppressed a laugh. "I guess we'll know when they start throwing things at us."
He sat down after a while, leaning his back against the railing, and strapped his helmet on. His ears and scalp were now safe from the storm, but his lower cheeks and chin still stuck out in the open. The raindrops pattered off his helmet, plinking and making such a racket that his ears rang. He scowled and took it off for the moment. It was like wearing a nobleman's tin roof on his head.
Lonni sat down next to him. "At least you won't have to worry about dipping your shield in the sea."
Galeron gave her a half-smile. "I suppose not."
"Do we have a plan?" she asked.
He was about to say that he did, that he knew how to get to the map room, but he clamped his mouth shut before he did so. He could get there, but only from the sentry entrances at the top of the cliff. "No, I'm afraid not. We're going in through the bottom, and I've never been down there." He shivered. "We're just going to have to guess which tunnels to take. With my luck, we'll pick the one filled with Drakes."
Lonni elbowed him in the ribs, eliciting a sharp stab of pain. He gasped.
"What?" she asked.
He shifted and took shallow breaths. "Pretty sure I've got a cracked rib in there somewhere."
She shook her head. "Ever since I've known you, you have had some sort of injury. I think it's just a way to get sympathy." Lonni smirked. "Did you use that one on Melia?"
Galeron scowled but softened his face after a moment. She didn't usually joke that much. He could play along. "No, I didn't. I'm starting to regret that now. I didn't show her my scars, either."
"Well that's how you lost her," Lonni said. "A man without scars is a man without courage."
"Or he picks his battles really carefully," Galeron said.
"That man only fights when victory is a certain." She snorted. "Some things can't be won, but they're worth bleeding for."
"Is there a story behind that?" asked Galeron.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Lonni raised her eyebrows but refused to elaborate further.
Orange and red light lit up the storm-tossed sea between the Steelheart and the vessel sailing along next to her. Galeron stood up. Flames inexplicably burned on the water and crept outward, reaching for both ships.
He looked at Lonni. "We're here."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Hard to port," bellowed Captain Maslin. "Get the sand ready, lads. They've got magefire."
The Steelheart veered away from the approaching flames, and several sailors stood at the starboard side with buckets at the ready.
"Magefire?" Galeron asked. "Atreus is attacking?"
"No." Lonni walked to the side of the ship and watched the fire slowly burn out. "It's a mixture of pine resin and a few other things. It makes fire sticky and it can burn on anything, even water."
Galeron looked toward the bow of the ship. The cave and the cliff were still hidden by the storm. "How can you put it out, then?"
Lonni pointed to the sailors. "Sand. It smothers the fire and helps prevent it from spreading, but if one of the ships takes a direct hit, it won't matter." She shuddered. "No amount is going to help then."
Further bursts of flame pierced the gale briefly before fading from view.
"We're close, lads." Maslin patrolled the deck, checking the marines' equipment. "If they can shoot at us, we've almost made it."
Another eruption of flame, this time much closer, roared to life and stuck to the bow of the Steelheart's neighbor. The flames raced over the drake masthead and consumed the ship, bow to stern, in only a few short minutes. The sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh drifted over, as well as the frantic screams of the marines and sailors trapped on board. Several jumped into the sea to put out their seared flesh, but they only resurfaced to find themselves still burning.
Galeron turned away, clamping his jaw shut and determined not to vomit. Shift the distance a little to the right, and that would have been the Steelheart. Lonni's face soured as she watched.
"I can think of thousands of ways I would rather die," she said.
The cliff loomed out of the storm, dozens of fires twinkling in pockets on its face.
"Cuvier, adjust course," Maslin ordered. "Make for the cave."
Galeron grabbed the railing again as the ship cut through the surf, smashing into breakers, and charged for the cave mouth. Another vessel emerged from the cave, sail up and oars sloshing. It was half the size of the Steelheart and carried maybe twenty Drakes clad in some form of scaled leather armor.
"They've sent a flea out to stop us," Maslin yelled. "Ramming speed, and ready the drake. If you aren't holding on to something, brace yourself now."
The Steelheart stopped dead in the water for a moment, reversed course and adjusted the heading, and then hurtled forward as the oarsmen rowed at double time. Galeron clenched his jaw and wrapped his arms around the rear railing. Lonni did the same. The seconds dragged by as they grew closer to impact. Thunder rumbled. The Drake ship grew larger in front of them. Officer Cuvier's muscles tightened, but he held the wheel steady.
The Steelheart slammed into the Drake ship with a mighty groan of splintering and crunching wood. The bronze figurehead roared, and a jet of flame rushed out of the mouth and splattered the enemy vessel.
"Back her up," called Maslin.
The ship dislodged herself and moved backward as fire consumed the enemy vessel. The rebel's bow dipped low in the water, and the fierce waves slammed it against the side of the cave. Timbers cracked and snapped, and the front half of the ship, still consumed with fire, broke away and slowly sank beneath the waves. The stern portion soon followed, carrying the still-burning rebels to the bottom of the sea.
The Steelheart proceeded forward, though at a much slower pace this time. They entered the cave, the driving rain turning into a dull roar in the background. A small channel led them into a larger open bay where several ships like the one they just crushed sat moored and being prepared for combat. Rebels scrambled over a vast wagon-wheel-like setup of docks and piers, wrestling with mooring lines and knots.
"Thirty degrees starboard," said Maslin. "Fire crew, release on my mark."
The ship slowed further and started to turn to the right, putting them face to face with a pier and smaller rowing vessel.
"Release."
Flames shot forth again, gushing over the vessel and the pier. Screams and shouts followed the attack, but Maslin directed the Steelheart on to two other ships and piers before bringing her up to an empty dock. Galeron unslung his shield as bolts thudded into the ships structure around them. Lonni ducked behind him.
"Marines, off the boat," said Lieutenant Mason. "Form up on me at the end of the pier."
"My crew, half of you stay behind, the other get up to those heights and dislodge the archers," said Maslin.
Galeron put his helmet on, awkwardly strapping it under his chin with one hand, and followed the marines own the gangplank on the starboard side of the ship. He joined Mason and the other marines at the end of the pier. Galeron looked around. Several tunnels led into the cavernous port, but which one was the right one? Other ships with their marine detachments sailed into the makeshift harbor, pulling off maneuvers similar to the Steelheart's. The cave echoed with the screams of the dying and the scent of burning flesh.
"Which way, Deathstalker?" asked Mason.
Galeron drew his mace. "It's a maze in here, lieutenant. We'll have to do the best we can." He pointed at the nearest opening. "That one."
Mason nodded. "You're going first. We'll put your lady friend in the middle, and I'll be up there with you."
Lonni shouldered her small warhammer. "I'm no one's lady friend."
Galeron sighed. "Tell him that."
Despite her protests, she fell back in the middle of their ranks. Galeron walked ahead, shield up and guts feeling like they had just turned to liquid. Iven had to be in here somewhere. They entered the tunnel, which sloped upward. Hopeful sign, at least. They took the rising path, and incoherent screaming and bellowing met their ears. Galeron stop
ped and braced himself just as a band of rebels rounded the corner and slammed into him. He lashed out with his mace and crushed a skull before being shoved into the marines standing behind him.
"Surge. Surge," ordered Mason.
Boots stomped on the floor, and the marines pressed forward, driving Galeron in front of them. He pressed on himself to avoid getting trampled, batting away several more rebel soldiers with his shield. The marines behind him stabbed over his shoulder with their spears and pikes. As soon as the attack had started, they had run over or mauled the enemy band.
"Casualty check," said Mason.
A brief bout of muttering among the marines, and then one said, "Scratches, sir. All marines ready to continue."
"Forward, then." They continued on, and deep rumblings and shaking came from above their heads. Mason laughed. "Look at that. Captain Arno really can hit a cliff face."
The marines chuckled and walked up into a long flat corridor filled with twice their number of rebels. Galeron froze. They hadn't been noticed yet. Maybe they were too preoccupied with the naval attacks to hear footsteps. Mason noticed the inattention and motioned three marines forward. One of them carried the bronze canister on his back that was nearly half his height. The rest of the marines retreated around the corner and out of sight.
The canister man unraveled a canvas hose and affixed a bronze nozzle to the end. The other two produced wooden sticks and slid them quietly into slots at the top of the canister. Galeron blinked. It was a pump, but a pump for what? The canister marine struck the nozzle against the side of the tunnel. Sparks flew, a small flame blossomed at nozzle's end, and several rebels turned around.
"King's men!"
They flooded down the passageway. The marines churned the pump furiously. The device coughed and spluttered as its contents were forced through.