by Rob J. Hayes
Isabel nodded. “Nothing we can do about that now, Jacques. Here, surely you would like to give piloting an airship a go?”
Jacques grinned from ear to ear, the possible cost of life due to his plan momentarily forgotten. “I thought you would never ask!”
Chapter 25 – A Life-Ending Fall
Blue skies and easy flying. Jacques pulled his coat closer around him as he stepped out onto the foredeck once again and quickly decided his manly pride was not above buttoning the garment. It was beyond chilly and bordering on frosty so high up. They had been rising steadily and were approaching a height with which strut management became intrinsic to their continuing survival. He had some time though.
Jacques leapt down onto the main deck with the easy grace of an acrobat and crossed to the starboard railing to look down upon the world. Unfortunately they had recently passed through the cloud cover and all he could see was glimpses of the land below in between gaps of gassy white water. He was truly amazed by how fast they were moving. Never before had he seen an airship cut its way through the sky with such haste. It was entirely possible they would have to slow the thrusters before leaving The Northern Sunrise just to ensure the navy eventually caught up with the airship.
Jacques rubbed his hands together for warmth and wished he’d possessed enough foresight to bring gloves as well as a warm coat. He decided to walk along beside the railing, looking down at the miniature world beneath him obscured by cloud. Eventually he came to the ladder leading to the quarterdeck and mounted it. From the railing he could just about make out the rear starboard Vinet crystal far below him.
A gap in the cloud below showed green fields the colour of emeralds. In what was possibly the most ungentlemanly act Jacques had committed in recent memory he spat over the side of The Northern Sunrise and watched the spittle disappear into the clouds below. It brought a strange sense of satisfaction.
One thing the past six months had taught Jacques was the sound of a pistol being primed and the noise that came from behind him now had a definite ‘hammer-cocking’ ring to it. A large part of him didn’t want to turn, knowing there was only one other person on board the ship meant there was only one person it could be and he wasn’t entirely certain his heart could take the betrayal. However Jacques’ curiosity would not be denied and he just had to know why Isabel was about to shoot him.
In a method very much akin to the art of pulling off a plaster rapidly Jacques span around on the spot to shout at…
“Amaury?” the surprise was a little more than Jacques could fathom and he stumbled backwards against the railing. Some part of him both recognised and appreciated the railing’s stoic existence in that moment. “Wha… I mean, um, how the Ruiner are you here?”
The rock-jawed enforcer for Seigneur Daron didn’t move an inch but kept his pistol trained upon Jacques’ chest. Another pistol tucked into the man’s belt and a sabre sheathed at his side convinced Jacques of the fruitlessness of fighting back. Of course the fact that Amaury Roache could likely kill Jacques ten times over with his over-sized bare hands served much the same purpose.
“You really think you’re the smartest fool ever to wake up and draw breath, don’t you?”
It didn’t truly seem as though Amaury wanted an answer to the question and, as any answer Jacques might give would only serve to antagonise the man, he decided silence was the best course of action.
“The Seigneur has been one step ahead of you every… um, step of the way.”
“Eloquently put,” Jacques said with his hands held up in what he hoped was a placating manner.
“He knew you would steal the ship so he sent me here ahead of you. I’ve been hiding down in the hold since yesterday evening. All worth it now.”
“If the Seigneur sent you on ahead of us and you didn’t ambush us on the road to Frenvale I can only presume he does not want us dead,” Jacques said gesturing to the pistol in Roache’s hand.
A cruel grin spread across Roache’s face. “You always were a presumptuous little merde. The Seigneur wants you on the ship, never said he wanted you alive.”
“Well then,” Jacques said with a sigh. “I suppose this is it. Allow me one last final chance to thwart the Seigneur’s scheme.”
Jacques threw himself backwards over the railing just as Amaury pulled the trigger on his pistol.
Amaury Roache stood as motionless as stone, even his breath froze in his lungs. He was no stranger to death, not even a stranger to killing, nor murder, but somehow this one was different. He didn’t feel bad. There was a strange energy building within his chest, anticipation mixed with a nervous fear. He had been wanting to kill Revou for so long he could barely remember a time before.
With a forced casualness Amaury resumed his body’s natural processes starting with a deep breath of cold air. He looked around the deserted deck of the airship and allowed himself a smile. Eventually he wandered over to the railing. A splash of blood pooled upon the wood, the last remnants of Jacques-bloody-Revou. Amaury looked over the side of the railing almost hoping to see Revou’s dead body hanging from a conveniently placed rope but there was nothing below but clouds.
Amaury’s vision swam and he hurried back from the railing as his heart beat began to race. He hated heights. “Good riddens,” he said and spat upon the deck before turning to go off in search of Isabel de Rosier.
Now that she had the controls well and truly figured out, Isabel was really quite enjoying flying The Northern Sunrise. The freedom to move not only back and forth but also up and down left her feeling truly in control of her own life for the first time in a long time. Living under Seigneur Daron’s boot had been stifling and infuriating but finally she was free. They were free.
She adjusted the altitude stick and watched as the altimeter needle rose another fifty points. They were now six hundred feet off the ground and it was still only a fraction of how high the airship could theoretically go. Isabel checked her course to find it was remaining true. Jacques had warned her about air-pockets of lighter or heavier air that could cause turbulence but they had yet to encounter any. Soon she would have to to drop their altitude and set off the steering lock while they made their escape by parachute but for now she was happy to retain control.
The door to the bridge opened letting in a blast of chilly air that sent a shiver up Isabel’s spine. She didn’t bother turning to look.
“Shut the door, Jacques,” she said frowning at the cloudscape bathed in morning sun. “I thought we had another thirty minutes of flying at least.”
“Plans have changed,” said a voice that was most certainly not Jacques. “Isabel looked over her shoulder to find Amaury Roache closing the door behind him. He had a pistol pointed her way.
“Amaury?” Isabel asked in a voice that portrayed only a small modicum of her actual surprise.
“Isabel,” the man said with a warm smile. It occurred to Isabel then that Amaury had never once used her first name which made two unprecedented events, the first being that he was still pointing a gun at her.
“I’m glad we have this chance to talk, Isabel,” Amaury continued as he moved over to the navigation charts. He was wearing a dark brown suit and a similarly coloured overcoat that did very little to hide his weaponry or his obvious physical prowess. “There are some things I would like to discuss with you.”
Isabel quickly ran through all the manoeuvres she knew that she could put the ship through. Sadly there were not many of them and she could see no way that any of them would throw Amaury Roache off guard enough for her to rush over and disarm him. Not that she was certain she would be able to disarm him even if he was blind and only had the one arm.
Amaury looked down at the charts but the barrel of his pistol never wavered. “Change to compass point three hundred and twenty two and drop to one hundred and fifty feet please.”
“What?” Isabel asked dumbfounded.
“Now,” Amaury said taking his eyes from the maps and waving the pistol at Isabel.
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br /> She started following his directions. “You aren’t going to shoot me, Amaury,” she said turning back to the console to watch the ship’s altitude and course. She could feel the airship shudder beneath her as it adjusted its heading.
“The Seigneur wants you dead,” Amaury said slowly. “He says the ship needs a couple of corpses aboard. I don’t want to kill you.”
“So don’t,” Isabel replied. “Say we escaped or you never found us.”
“Us…” Amaury repeated and Isabel realised her mistake. Amaury believed he’d be able to woo her away from Jacques simply by NOT killing her.
“What does that thing do?” Amaury asked pointing at the steering lock.
“Prevents the ship from changing course,” Isabel said, seeing no reason to lie.
Amaury moved around the table that housed the navigation charts towards Isabel. “Step away from the controls, please,” he said.
“Just what is going on here, Amaury?” Isabel asked as she stepped away.
He flicked the switch on the steering lock and a fizzing noise filled the bridge for a few moments. Isabel could smell a whiff of electrical fire as the wires that facilitated the ship’s control fused to lock out commands from the bridge.
“There,” said Amaury with a smile before turning back to Isabel and holstering his pistol. “I want you to come with me, Isabel,” he continued with a look akin to a starving puppy. “I love you!”
Isabel had definitely not expected such an open declaration of his feelings and it was a little more than she could take currently; as such she let out a rather undignified snort and quickly clasped her hand over her mouth.
Amaury’s face went bright red and his expression stony. It was a foolish mistake on Isabel’s part really, she knew all too well just how easy it was to upset men. They all believe they are masters of their emotions until that claim is put to the test and now Amaury, whose affections had never been anything but unrequited, believed Isabel had slighted him somehow. It was enough to make even Isabel sigh with frustration.
“I’m sorry, Amaury.” She wasn’t. “We have been over this before though, have we not? I appreciate your feelings for me but I love Jacques.” It was at this point Isabel realised she was making a valid and convincing argument for Amaury to shoot her rather than let her go.
“Revou,” Amaury spat and thumped the console before storming into the centre of the bridge and letting out a wordless shout that was all rage. “That little sanglante-merde. Well I hate to be the one to inform you but there isn’t much left to love.”
Isabel felt her blood go cold and her eyes grow moist all in one heartbeat. “What do you mean, Amaury?” she asked in a shaky voice.
Amaury smiled then, a smile full of malice and bitter victory. “He’s dead!”
Jacques rolled awkwardly off of the strut down a good three feet to the metal walkway below just managing to twist mid-air so that he landed on his left side. The landing hurt but not nearly as badly as the bullet hole in his right arm so he counted it as a victory. Rolling onto his back and clutching his right arm to his chest Jacques decided a prolonged lying down complete with wordless moaning was in order and set about doing just that.
Landing on the strut had been pure luck, painful pure luck that had kept him alive. The twenty feet crawl across cold metal while being whipped at by colder winds and doused with wet cloud all while trying to forget about his bullet riddled arm had been less painful than the fall and subsequent landing but far more draining and now he was safely back inside The Northern Sunrise Jacques found he had little to no energy left to give. In fact he was fairly certain he would already be asleep if it was not for the nagging knowledge in the back of his mind that Amaury was still loose somewhere aboard the ship and Isabel was completely unaware of his presence.
With an effort that any of the three Gods would have considered heroic Jacques forced his eyes open to take in his surroundings. The strut sat above him to his left and he was undoubtedly in the aft engineering section of the ship. The clunk of pistons and whir of gears was an omnipresent sound that he was familiar with but the dull roar from the thrusters was less so.
Jacques pulled his left hand away from his right arm and held it up before his eyes. Blood dripped down onto his cheek. His arm would need dressing if he was to continue and somehow find and stop Roache. He had never considered how difficult it might be to tear off a strip of shirt with one arm bordering on useless, nor how much of a problem tying said strip of shirt around the wounded arm would prove to be but after a long period of time, complete with inhuman grunts and curses that would turn the head of even the most veteran sailor, Jacques had tied a tight strip of makeshift bandage across the bullet wound which, and he thanked both the Maker and the Creator for this, turned out to be little more than a graze. Jacques decided there and then that should he manage to survive his predicament and tell this story to others, the wound would be far more severe and life-threatening.
Regaining his feet was yet another act of monumental effort but he did so with the help of the railing that accompanied the metal walkway. Close by he saw an electrical panel that housed a couple of dials; one showed the current position of the strut and the other showed the current altitude of the airship which appeared to be set at one hundred and fifty feet. Quite why Isabel would have lowered the altitude Jacques could not fathom unless Amaury had already found her.
With new vigour pulled from reserves Jacques was certain he didn’t actually possess; he hurried through the engineering section passing all manner of machinery that whirred, hissed and occasionally blew steam at him. Eventually the walkway opened out into the larger area that held the generator for the aft Vinet crystals. Jacques was just about to head for the ladder that led all the way up to the main deck when he heard that familiar click of a hammer being drawn back on a pistol.
No longer able to control himself Jacques let out a dramatic sigh and rounded on his tormentor. “Damnit, Roache just leave me…”
Franseza Goy was perched cross-legged on a small tool cabinet with a pistol pointed his way and a curious grin on her face.
“Revou,” she said by way of greeting. “I take it you’ve already run into Roache then?”
Jacques stumbled backwards into the generator housing and let it support his weight. The metal casing was warm against his back and for that he was grateful. “No, I actually jumped off the side of the ship by my own volition. Oh and this,” he pointed at his right arm. “I shot myself just to see how it would feel.”
Franseza laughed. “I’m going to miss you, Revou.”
“You could always not kill me,” Jacques suggested.
Franseza sucked in a breath through her teeth and shrugged. “Job is to kill you.”
“You could at least tell me why you had to wait until we had already stolen the airship and believed we were away. My curiosity simply will not accept death with that little puzzle left unsolved.”
“You haven’t figured it out yet?” she asked with a maddening smile. “With that genius brain of yours.”
“Of course I haven’t!”
“You must have felt the ship drop down and change course.”
Jacques groaned. “I had a very clear view of it as it happens.”
“That means Roache is already on the bridge. Soon The Northern Sunrise will crash straight into the royal retreat on lac de la Caché.”
“Um… why?”
“Did you really think it would be enough for the Seigneur to simply frame that poncey little Duc? He wants more control than that. He wants the King to grant him special powers to subject the nobility to the same suspicion and treatment as us common folk. He wants to be able to pull them in for interrogation, and probably readjustment knowing him, at a whim but the problem is the King would never allow it. Not without proof that there was a conspiracy and not while the Queen is whispering in his ear.”
“The Queen…”
“Mmmm,” Franseza agreed with a smile. “Oh so pregnant and
about to explode with a half-Turlain royal brat. Another thing the Seigneur could never allow. He figured kill two birds with one sunrise.” Franseza seemed more than a little pleased with the idiom. “So the Bonvillains, known friends and supporters of Duc Lavouré, steal The Northern Sunrise, the prototype of the only airship that could possibly be ignition to start another war with a Kingdom we have already lost to once, crash it into the royal retreat killing both Queen and the heir to the throne.
“Afterwards the Seigneur will no doubt go to the King and suggest he could have prevented such a tragedy if only he had more power, more liberties. The King, being the pompous little self-obsessed pute that he is, will grant the Seigneur said power and likely drown himself in booze. The Seigneur eventually puts the government in full control of the Kingdom with him at its head.” Franseza paused as if trying to remember something else. “I think that’s about it. I’m impressed with the scope.”
“So am I,” Jacques admitted. “But Franseza you can’t let this happen. It isn’t just… I mean it’s not… It’s regicide!”
Again the woman shrugged. “If you want to appeal to conscience you really should have tried Roache with his fluffy feelings for your woman. I’m a stone-cold killer, little man.”
“You are,” Jacques agreed deciding an instant change of tack was in order. “A stone-cold killer who works for the highest bidder. So what does Seigneur Daron have over you?”
“What?” The smile dropped from Franseza’s face. “He doesn’t have anything over me.”
“Oh come now.” One of the most successful ways to con a person was to simply tell them what they knew, or more truthfully, tell them they already knew what you were selling. “We both know Seigneur Renard Daron doesn’t so much hire people as he does manipulate them. Do you really expect me to believe that after all this is done he will allow you, self-confessed stone-cold killer and mercenary for hire, to walk free as one of only two, once myself and Isabel are dead of course, people in the entire world who can testify to the Seigneur being not only culpable, but also the mastermind behind the most heinous, atrocious crime ever committed in the Kingdom of Sassaille?”