Painkiller

by Aeryn Leigh

  A familiar figure was perched on top of it, swathed in black fabric, looking at a piece of linen in its hands in the bright moonlight.

  Ella made her way around the swinging hammocks, and climbed up the pile of barrels, crates, and sacks.

  "When did you come over?" said Ella, sitting next to the hooded figure.

  "Not long ago," said Merrion. "At the beginning of last watch, when shifts rotated." He caught the direction of her gaze, and spread out the brown and white linen square over his legs, and they both looked at it.

  The map.

  "I always keep expecting to see a dragon," said Ella. "It doesn't seem right without a sea serpent."

  There was a chuckle underneath the hood. "There's no need to draw them on this map. We know they are there."

  "The black sea monsters, the ones that look like giant armoured killer whales?" Her low voice dropped even more. "Everyone else has seen one but me."

  "Well you are not alone. Until this last year, no one had. And if it makes you feel any better, neither have I."

  The black sewn lines on the map, the shapes of known continents, of which there were two, contrasted against the grey dotted outline of the third land mass. It was this grey outline they were ultimately heading for, passing by a good section of it, to make the long roundabout way to the Inquisition mountain stronghold.

  "I am curious about the pirate freeholds," she said, tapping her long index finger on the section of cloth, right where the black lines ended and the grey dots began. "Why haven't the pirate freeholds fallen into the Inquisition?"

  Merrion drew back his hood, and turned to her. "They very well might have. Although I doubt it." He lifted a skin of water from his side, drank it and offered it to her. She accepted, and took a small mouthful. Ella handed it back. The freshwater was like gold. Everything out here seemed to have an aftertaste of salt.

  "The freeholds have existed almost as long as people have been brought here." He pulled out of piece of beef jerky, snapped it in half, and handed a piece to her. He tore off a section, chewing thoughtfully. Ella ate the dried beef, waiting for him to finish his mouthful. For all his nefarious qualities, speaking with a full mouth wasn't one of them.

  "We don't know how many people are brought through, even though it does seem to happen only once in a generation. Even though the Inquisition has found a great many of those in the last two or so centuries, a fair number don't. Some are found by the Republic, or make their way to us. Probably several ships don't survive the first week, let alone the first day. How you weren't killed by poisonous insects or snakes where you crash-landed I'll never know.

  Then some discover the lawless freeholds. They find their tribe. Which rarely settles down in one location long enough to present a viable target. They make a fair living raiding what used to be Republic and former kingdom's supply routes. Trade routes."

  He tapped the area of cloth. "Hundreds and hundreds of square miles of island chains, coves, and tropical paradise."

  "And that's a major supply stop?"

  "A wretched hive of scum and villainy? Yes. That is our stop. Another three weeks of this, and we can begin hugging the coastline to their approach."

  Ella opened her mouth to ask him, as to why he knew so much about the pirate freeholds, or had such intimate knowledge of the Emperor's stronghold, but decided against it. His brown eyes were hard, dangerous-looking.

  Merrion reached down between his legs, stuck his hand into a large sack, pulled out a grey blanket. He handed it to her.

  "Go get some sleep, we'll need it. I have a suspicion this wind will turn and we'll be pulling oars all day."

  Ella gave her thanks, tiptoed back through the ship around to her hammock, then a little while later, dreamt of Amelia leading a merry band of pirates, thoroughly enjoying herself.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Republic Air Force

  The hand-cranked siren split the night.

  Again.

  The Republic Air Force scrambled, its remaining pilots came rushing, already fully dressed, to the machines parked on the cratered runway.

  Again.

  The Battle of Fairholm.

  Lucius had called it that, partly as a joke, about a small island besieged by a numerically superior air force, only four years ago on Earth, the Battle of Britain.

  The name had stuck.

  The Battle of Fairholm seemed apt. The Phony War had ended, and as Lucius looked over his pilots climbing into the rickety aeroplanes, he wished it was only papers the Inquisition forces dropped.

  On the first day the Inquisition bombs dropped, targeting the city centre, their objectives changed. For three weeks now, the Inquisition bombers flew two or three sorties a day, targeting civilian structures only. And every few days, a half-hearted attack upon the airfield runway.

  The pole with the mounted aircraft had soon been pulled down, and relocated to a decoy site.

  They can easily cripple us, thought Lucius. If they had a mind to.

  One by one, the Republic Air Force fighters started up, and began taxiing down the runway to try, once more, to intercept the incoming enemy aircraft.

  Lucius felt bone-tired, along with his pilots and the groundcrews. The Inquisition aircraft now roamed at will, at random over the island, that routine of same place, same time, same direction, now a thing of the past.

  They entered the Republic from any point of the island's perimeter, making their way for objectives that made admittedly military sense.

  They didn't attack the oilfield, nor the docks, nor the industrial output of the Republic. Just the civilian centres, and even that seem to be highly focused, bombing buildings on major roads already damaged by the twenty-pound explosives dropped daily from thousands of feet above.

  Inger Rucker waved to her commander as she taxied past, now leader of the squadron. Loki was in hospital, after yesterday's air crash, returning from a sortie. They're turning into remarkable pilots, thought Lucius. That's if they survive long enough. Only Loki and Inger remained of the original pilots a month ago, the butcher's bill horrific.

  Loki got his third Inquisition bomber kill, as they modified their tactics, which still amounted to closing to point-blank range and pulling the firing string connected to six long-barrelled M3 machine guns on the wings, diving in a single swooping diving pass from above before returning to the aerodrome, guns empty.

  At Ella's direction before she’d left, they'd abandoned the gun synchronisation, and just mounted more guns along the wings. Simpler, and tripling the firepower.

  Rob walked up and stood by Lucius's side, and the pair waved to Inger and the others who now roared up into the black overcast skies.

  Chapter Thirty

  Odinsgate

  Snorri fought hard to keep his composure, the closer they came to Odinsgate, and more details became clearer. There had to be hundreds of Inquisition warships encircling the island city made from stone and wood.

  The enemy warships separated, on their approach to the northern mouth of tributaries, to a distance of about half a mile away, and stayed there, as they passed by concentric circles of forts, on the dozens of little islands surrounding the main city, hundreds of yards off their bows.

  They had fallen.

  Each ringfort had taken a pounding from artillery fire, their walls now shattered masonry, tumbled around like children's toys, toppling into the shallow ocean nearby. The bodies of their kin laid where they had fallen, the Inquisition forces making no attempt to retrieve or give their people a proper burial.

  Snorri clenched his fist so tight fingernails began cutting into his palms.

  What the Inquisition had done however, was set up their own artillery, of cannons and siege mortars, firing at will into the city three-quarters of a mile away. They were also using their own captured artillery against them; cannons that had not been sabotaged by dying Vikings. And around each surviving ringfort, around its four compass gates at least five to six warships per fort, anchored a
nd giving supporting fire.

  Several had been successfully denied the enemy, large craters now where a whole ring fort once had been, its gunpowder stores deliberately blown.

  "We will see many warriors in Valhalla," said Snorri.

  "We will. Do they not fear us, Snorri?" said Kyle Riverloch. "They stand there, ignoring us."

  "You are right," said Snorri. It was as if their five ships did not exist. The south by south-west wind carried them forward, and a brief gust of wind blew part of the smoke away. The two-mile-wide island city burned, and what parts didn't were now black charcoal. The outer shoreline wall, made of thick stouter stones, now resembled a colander. The inner wall was faring not much better, and with what they could see between gaps in the billowing smoke, not a single guard tower spaced at one-hundred-yard intervals remained intact.

  The Outer Northern Gate had also fallen, lying twisted and mangled where it had been blown off its mammoth hinges by concentrated artillery fire.

  The ships proceeded single file up the canal entrance, through an also smashed Inner Gate, and the normally talkative Viking said nothing, as they rowed into the hell pit that used to be their city.

  Every man, woman, and child stood in bucket-chain lines, passing water from canals from person to person, to be thrown on the raging fires.

  A devilish shriek whistled overhead and exploded on an already gutted nearby house lying next to the canal. A rain of blackened wooden splinters fell upon Snorri's longship.

  "Odin, save us," said Snorri, as the third and final ring wall came into view, in a break of billowing smoke.

  The castle was gone.

  Three storeys of wooden construction, now burnt matchsticks.

  Snorri shouted to his crew, urging them onward, as they entered the centre port lake, from where all the canals ended. And began.

  The port lake was chaotic. Jammed. Every war longship and transport vessel in it bumped upon one another, timbers creaking as they rubbed.

  "There," pointed Snorri, at a small gap on the eastern edge. "Quickly." The longship made its way, the rest following, and the last space in the port was plugged.

  Snorri leapt onto the jetty, and ran toward the tunnel that led to the castle past a broken crane.

  No one seemed to be giving orders. Kin ran hither and thither, trying to either put out fires or helping to pull bodies out of rubble. He grabbed a passing warrior, bloodied and harried. The red-haired man stopped. "The castle. Where's Jerland?"

  "Jerland hasn't been seen since yesterday, when the castle was smote. He refused to leave the throne room."

  "The throne room?"

  The Viking sighed. "Jerland appointed himself King over a week ago, when the siege commenced."

  "Promoted himself, did he. Well." Snorri rubbed his temples. "Who's in command now?"

  The Viking laughed, a hollow sound that Snorri knew all too well, the sound of barely contained panic and fear.

  "The King was taking counsel with the Chief Captains. All of them."

  Snorri followed the man's gaze up to where the castle's War Room once stood three-storey’s high above, now just swirling empty air. A vice clamped around his gut, and dragged it down into the abyss.

  "I don't believe in coincidences," said Snorri, at last. The man nodded. The Inquisition somehow found out the entire Viking command structure was in the one place, at the one time, and rendered it to dust.

  "Nor," said the Viking, "the fact that the port area has largely been ignored, and no ships have sunk, at least the ones who haven't attacked first. The few ships that have left, without firing back, have departed without incident."

  A further salvo of shells whistled overhead, detonating with a muffled thump, thump, thump, on the far side of the city.

  "Your name, kin?" said Snorri.

  "Silvestras Nicholhaysen." Silvestras saw Snorri's eyebrow raise just a smidgen. "It's a long story."

  "Well, Silvestras, you can tell me all about it when we survive. But for now, pass on this message." He stopped, and waited for his crewmen to join him, and took a battle horn. He leapt up onto the broken crane, and raised it to his lips.

  He blew long, hard, and slow as the great horn echoed and rolled around the port, and people stopped to listen. A small crowd formed around the crane.

  "Attention, my kin. I have been sent here by the authority of King Beowulf Hffylson, who contrary to what Jerland Rothgar led you to believe, is alive and well." I hope. "As such, I am now assuming command of Odinsgate in his name."

  He waited for the hubbub to abate, then continued. "For now, there is only one thing we can do." Another set of explosions rocked the city. "Staying here is untenable. Gather your families. Your kin. Warhounds. Food for travelling. As many weapons as possible. We leave at dawn for Fairholm. All of us."

  For Odinsgate has fallen.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Dogfight

  Inger led her flight up into the skies, climbing hard to the east in the cold, dark air, the direction the incoming bombers were spotted approaching from. Over her right shoulder, parts of the city were still alight from the enemy bombs twelve hours ago. Twelve hours since her second kill, she thought, bringing the total of downed Inka aircraft to seven.

  All seven wrecks had barely produced anything worth salvaging.

  At last they were getting a handle on the enemy bombers. Climb hard to a few thousand feet higher than the enemy, and begin a diving attack from the stern, from an angle the forward gunner of the pusher type aircraft could not return fire.

  She ground her teeth. It's like they don't care, she thought. Flies buzzing around a buffalo. Oblivious. We are losing the war of attrition. The four pilots behind her barely had any flight time, and only a handful of spare aircraft, or airframes, remained.

  There you are. The usual ten bombers, but coming over the eastern side of the Bay. Inger pushed the throttle just a little further open, and the rickety plane climbed faster. They climbed into the night sky, full of clouds, save for an occasional gap here and there where the moon shone down like beams.

  Inger waggled her wingtips three times, and with the others following her, began their attack run.

  The wind rushed past, as she fought to keep the airframe steady. The enemy flight once more flew in a flat V-formation, and she picked her target, the last aircraft on the left. Fifteen-hundred yards, fourteen-hundred yards. Almost, almost. Her right hand on the control stick, her left hand now found the firing string and held it with her index finger.

  Hairs prickled on the back of her neck. By instinct and hard-found experience, she kicked the left rudder and pulled the control stick hard right into her stomach. The awful ripping sound of machine-gun fire shot past, as she pulled up hard out of the dive.

  Inger's head whipped around, trying to find what it was that had fired upon her. Her stomach fell into a pit. Something new flew past, much smaller and nimbler. Realisation dawned. Inquisition fighters. And she'd led her flight like lambs to the slaughter, right into the Inquisition trap, their fighters waiting high above, just for them.

  The dogfight became hard and furious.

  Two RAF aircraft were already spiralling toward the earth below, trailing thick, black smoke, she saw from a quick glance as she tried to shake the Inquisition fighters hard on her tail.

  Inger tried everything she could, every trick she'd learned, but still bullets ripped into her plane. The new Inquisition fighters were faster, more agile, and could turn tighter, she realised as the fighter behind her slowly gained a better firing angle on her, her aircraft in the tightest circling turn she could manage, using the rotary engine's torque to maximum effect.

  Still not enough.

  In a few more circuits, they'd have a clean shot.

  Below, a third Gruder Mark IV burst into flame, and she realised there was only one thing she could do.

  Run.

  She pushed the control stick forward as far as it would go, and slammed the throttle open, aiming straight down f
or the forest a few thousand feet below, spinning like a top.

  More bullets slammed into her. Over her left shoulder, a piece of her tailplane was missing. The engine faltered, then resumed an eternity later. Her aircraft became harder to control, the responsiveness sloppy. Four hundred feet from the ground, Inger pulled the stick into her gut once more, and levelled out fifty feet above the treetops, over the back areas of the Pit.

  Two enemy fighters were still with her. She hugged the treetops, zigzagging wildly, could smell nothing but castor oil and burnt fuel, and waited for them to finish her, as she raced back toward the aerodrome.

  Nothing happened. She looked over her right shoulder, saw the leader waggle its own wingtips, three times, just like she had.

  Realisation dawned. They'd been watching her flight the entire time.

  Shit. As she passed over the Pit's perimeter fence, the pair of aircraft broke off their attack, heading back to the bombers releasing their bombs at will over Fairholm.

  The engine coughed, spluttered, and died.

  Without any time to think, Inger crash-landed in the middle of the Republic's firing range.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Calloused Hands

  In the cover of ash, the ships left, every longship deep in the waterline, laden with the living — humans, dogs, and equine breeding stock alike, onto the last remaining city in Elysium, and behind them, Odinsgate a burning funeral pyre. Snorri clutched tight the iron key in his hand, as they went by the Inquisition fleet, unmolested, then the deep ocean waters were beneath, and only when the entire refugee fleet passed safely by, and the enemy were over the horizon, did Snorri relax his grip, and look upon the six-foot long ironwood chest, locked with the key in his hand, the sole surviving font of all known Viking lore.