by A. C. Cobble
“What happened to the man?” asked the girl — the lady, Oliver reminded himself, as she’d recently come of age. In Enhover, she would have been properly presented two years ago, but things were different in the colonies.
“He was killed,” said the duke. “He was stabbed to death.”
“Was it painful?” asked Isisandra.
“Yes, m’lady,” replied Oliver. “I think it was likely very painful.”
“That is good, at least,” murmured the girl. “Can you tell me why this man murdered my mother?”
Oliver winced. “I must admit, m’lady, we are not sure. The circumstances were unusual. It appeared your mother knew the man who was responsible and conducted some, ah, some business with him. Why he killed her, we cannot say. By the time we located him, he was already dead.”
“There must be some idea, some clue?” pressed Isisandra.
Oliver shifted in his seat.
“That is why you are really here, isn’t it?” guessed the girl. “Do not worry, Duke Wellesley. I am not offended. If there is some clue that led you to the tropics, I want you to follow it. No one wants justice for my mother more than I do. I understand it is not pleasant for you, and you’re also faced with the difficult duty of informing us, but you have my support. Find who killed my mother, Duke Wellesley.”
“You do not seem surprised there is a clue that leads to the atoll,” murmured Oliver. “Is there someone here you have reason to suspect?”
“The killer was probably one of these corsairs or at least financed by them, the ones who are taking the ships,” suggested the lady. “I know my father has asked Commander Ostrander to stamp them out, but the commander has refused. These men, these awful men, would stop at nothing. They know my father is their enemy, and my mother and I are his weakness. Those bloodthirsty men will continue until something is done to stop them! Do you think…”
“Your father mentioned the same to me,” replied Oliver. “I’m looking into the situation.”
“If they followed my mother to Enhover, Duke Wellesley, these men will do anything to strike at my family.”
Oliver frowned, consciously avoiding the sensitive fact that, with little doubt, the girl’s mother had been involved in sorcery. Someday, Isisandra would learn the truth, but he hoped it was only after they’d had a chance to complete their investigation. If she knew, then anyone connected to the matter in Archtan Atoll might overhear and go into hiding. No, until they had the truth, Isisandra would have to be kept in the dark.
“I-I’m not sure the timing…” he stammered, “ah, the circumstances of the scene… I-I’m not sure that was the reason your mother was killed, m’lady.”
“If you are not sure, then you agree these corsairs might have been behind the murder?” pressed the girl, her green eyes hard like emeralds. “You do not have any other leads, do you? My mother feared these men, and it seems she was right to do so. I fear for myself, Duke Wellesley. I hope the same fate does not befall me.”
“It will not,” assured Oliver, his palms sweating against the cotton of his trousers. “I am addressing the situation with the corsairs and you have nothing to fear from them. I promise you that, m’lady.”
“I should retire and be with my father,” murmured Lady Dalyrimple, standing abruptly. “You said you are here to support us. If that is so, then deal with these pirates that plague us so, Duke Wellesley. Crush them. Punish them for what they may have done to my mother and for what we know they’ve done to so many innocent sailors in these waters. Every day we delay, Duke Wellesley, more lives are at risk. Do this, and you and the Crown will have the gratitude of the Dalyrimples.”
“I understand,” mumbled Oliver, standing and offering the girl a short bow.
“What do you mean she hasn’t been around all day?” snapped Oliver, glaring at the timid man in the doorway.
“I-I don’t know where she is m’lord,” mumbled the servant, his eyes on the floor. “She left shortly before you woke and went down to the walls to watch the sunrise. After that… Do you want me to alert the household guard, m’lord?”
Oliver waved his hand. “No, no. We’ll see if she turns up in the morning.”
“Very well, m’lord.”
The servant backed out, and Oliver returned to his dinner and his maps. Sam was supposed to check in before dark. That had been two hours ago, and there was still no word of her. The girl was more than capable of handling herself in any of the scraps and rough behavior that was common in colony settlements, except… except they were tracking a sorcerer, maybe. A murderer, certainly.
He forced down his worry and let his eyes pick out details on the maps in front of him — Archtan Atoll, the landmasses around it, and the small island of Farawk where the corsairs were reported to berth. He’d gathered every map of the surrounding area he’d been able to get his hands on and he was studying them, looking for opportunities. Unfortunately, he was coming up empty-handed.
The island where the corsairs had established their base had been well chosen. It wasn’t large, but it was sufficient to support several hundred men. It lay fifty leagues southeast of Archtan Atoll, outside of any established shipping channel and far away from any other significant settlements. There were several smaller landmasses nearby which would barely be enough to tie a sizable ship to, but he had no doubt they would make great locations to station a lookout. Long before any ship on sea would be able to approach the heart of the pirate lair, they’d get warning and be able to make whatever preparations they could.
For a parlay, there was no neutral location between their territory and the Company’s. It was a scenario that didn’t invite diplomatic solutions. Oliver was no admiral, but even he could read the situation well enough to know that any action would need to be authoritative. No tentative thrusts would be worth attempting. When they moved, they needed to move hard.
He sat back, frowning at the maps and forcing down another thought of Sam. She was fine. He was sure. He just wasn’t sure he was sure.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and he grimaced when Commander Ostrander stuck his head in the room.
“I apologize for interrupting your supper, m’lord.”
“It’s just me in here, Ostrander. Come on in. Pour yourself some of the governor’s wine, and tell me what you’ve got.”
The commander came and stood across the table but didn’t make a move toward the wine. “Another attack, m’lord, this one against a small community known as the Eyies. It’s an island on the northwest of the atoll formation. It houses the Company’s nutmeg plantation. It’s just twenty-five leagues from here, m’lord.”
“A Company settlement… That’s a first, yes?” asked Oliver. “What was the damage?”
“Two cutters taken as prizes, maybe twenty men,” answered Commander Ostrander. “The women and children had already been removed from the plantation, but we hadn’t completely shut down the operation. The men were out loading cargo and didn’t know the approaching vessel was hostile until it was too late.”
“How many from Enhover, and how many natives?” Oliver inquired.
“Six from Enhover, m’lord.”
Oliver rubbed a hand across his face.
“Your orders?”
“Convene a war council in the morning,” instructed the duke. “Yourself, your senior officers, one turn of the clock past dawn. Commander, invite the governor as well.”
Ostrander’s jaw clenched.
“Commander, the pirates attacked an Enhoverian settlement. They had to know what they were doing. It is a direct challenge to our authority and an act of war against our nation. If they think to ransom the captives, they will be sorely disappointed. Enhover does not negotiate in war. We fight. If we delay, how many more ships will be taken as prize? How many more captives will these rogues accumulate? We gamble the lives of those captives, and I know they likely won’t survive our assault, but it’s not a gamble we can afford to delay any longer. Prepare your men, Comma
nder. We have no choice but to sail.”
“I’m glad you are here, m’lord,” said Ostrander before sketching a quick bow and departing, leaving Oliver to wonder what exactly the man meant by that. Glad because they had a bold call to action, or glad because Ostrander wouldn’t have the blood on his own hands?
The next morning, Oliver cracked open the door to Sam’s room, dreading that it’d be empty. Instead, he saw her sprawled out on the bed, still fully clothed. He breathed a sigh of relief then squeaked when she stirred.
“Spying on me?” she croaked, one eye opening and blinking blearily.
“I was worried,” he admitted. “We made a plan to check in each evening, remember? I’m glad to see you’re all right. Go back to sleep. You’ve got until afternoon. Then, I need you ready to move. We can catch up on the flight out.”
“Flight out? We don’t have time for that,” she grumbled, pushing herself into a sitting position. “We have to move against the corsairs. It’s… We have to move quickly.” She tumbled out of bed, barely keeping her feet and standing unsteadily. She looked around, flicking her tongue over dry lips then asking, “Is there water in this room?”
“Move against the corsairs?” questioned Oliver. “You heard about the attack?”
“Attack?” she asked, spying the washbasin and stumbling toward it. She stood in front of it, eyeing it dubiously.
“There’s a pitcher of water out in the sitting room,” he suggested. “I think that will go down a bit better, and I’m certain it wasn’t used last night.”
Sam lurched across the room and out the door, calling behind her, “Sorry. I don’t think I slept more than two turns of the clock. It was a busy night.”
“The attack on Eyies,” said Oliver. “Is that why you think we need to face the corsairs? You’re in luck if so. I’ve already called a council to discuss plans, and Commander Ostrander is assembling his men. If all goes as I plan, we fly this afternoon. A few turns of the clock before dawn tomorrow, we’ll be in place to strike. We have people there, and I hope we can get them out, but—”
“You don’t have people there,” said Sam, drinking straight from the pitcher. “Not for long.”
“What?” exclaimed Oliver. “Why?”
“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” mumbled Sam. “You need to know what I know before you begin your council, and then… then, I need to rest. It will be another long night.”
The sun set behind them as they sailed a thousand yards above the sea. Oliver stood on the forecastle of the Cloud Serpent, the airship representing the Company’s interests in eradicating the corsairs. Ahead of them, flying in a tight formation, were three airships of the royal marines. Commander Ostrander had efficiently organized his men, and in addition to the formidable munitions on the airships, he was carrying half the contingent of soldiers stationed on Archtan Atoll — six hundred men and women in total, well-armed and ready.
The plan was to swoop in quickly and lay a field of bombardment over the pirate lair. They’d carpet the place with fire and the concussive force of red saltpetre-mixed munitions. Once they demolished the structures and any gun emplacements, they would drop the marines, who would sweep over the area, rooting out any targets who survived the aerial assault.
“If we leave even one of these bastards alive, it will be too many,” growled Governor Dalyrimple.
Oliver looked at the man out of the corner of his eye. The governor was leaning on the gunwale, his elbows on the wood, his hands clenched into fists.
“Some of our people are down there, too,” reminded the duke.
“They could be,” acknowledged the governor. “Sailors, laborers, a writer or two from the nutmeg plantation… no one of any consequence.”
Frowning, Oliver responded, “They’re citizens of Enhover. Even on this side of the world, they’re of consequence. They deserve the same protections as any citizen of our nation.”
“Do they?” asked the governor. “Would you travel to the other side of the world to tell a junior writer that his wife died? Would your father go to the same lengths to rescue or avenge them as he would you? Come on, Oliver. You know better than that.”
“What the Crown is able to give isn’t always what the people deserve,” he acknowledged. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
Dalyrimple snorted. “We’ll give them vengeance, if nothing else.”
“Vengeance,” whispered Oliver. “We’ll give them that.”
The Priestess VIII
Dawn was still two hours away when the watch called the first sighting of land. Ahead of them, the royal marines had seen it as well. Sam saw a succession of blinking lights from the backs of the ships. Hooded lanterns flashed in sequence, communicating the attack pattern.
No signal was returned from Captain Haines’ airship, as they were in the rear of the formation, and any lights flashed forward could be detected by their foes. Instead, at the first of the signaling, the orders went out to douse all lights on the deck. Total darkness.
The airships would come in low, three hundred yards above the sea where they wouldn’t drift between any outlying scouts and the stars in the sky. At that height, at night with no lights, they’d be near invisible. With the crashing sea and the wind through the trees on the islands, they’d be impossible to hear as well. It wouldn’t be until they were overhead that the corsairs would have a chance of spotting the approaching airships. By then, it’d be too late for any alarm to be effective. They hoped to catch the bulk of the men sleeping in their dormitories or homes, inside structures that would be easy to spot in the moonlight… and easy to destroy.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” remarked Sam.
Duke offered her a wry grin. “You want to go down there on the ground and settle things face to face?”
“I don’t want to,” said Sam. “I’m not any more keen to put myself at risk than you are. You have to admit, though, this isn’t sporting.”
“No,” agreed Duke. “It is not.”
“You know, we will have to go down,” added Sam.
“After the marines clear the place out,” replied Duke. “Once Ostrander’s men signal it is safe — as safe as it can get — then we’ll drop in.”
Sam shook her head. “If what Madam Winrod described is true, I need to be in the first wave. The royal marines will have no protection against… against what may be waiting.”
“What, exactly, will be waiting?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Sam, “and that’s what scares me.”
“Enhover hasn’t faced sorcery in a conflict like this since the Coldlands War,” murmured Duke, peering nervously into the dark. “We know how that ended.”
Sam studied him, noting his hand gripping the basket-hilt of his broadsword, the determined set of his shoulders. He, better than almost anyone, knew the possibilities, the devastation, that could be wrought by a powerful connection between sorcerer and spirit. If it had survived the conflict with the Coldlands, Oliver Wellesley would be ruling the province of Northundon now. Instead, it was a realm of the dead.
Spirits, called from the underworld, had swept over the city in a wave. Tens of thousands of souls had perished within the first few moments. She’d heard an estimate that over one hundred thousand had fallen in the province before the raiders were pushed back. It wasn’t until the royal marines arrived, with Edward Wellesley’s new airships, that the advance of the Coldlands raiders had turned. Not even sorcery could withstand the bombardment of new Enhoverian technology. Airships dropping bombs mixed with red saltpetre had incinerated the raiders, but not the dead.
The raiders had been pushed back across the sea to the Coldlands, and the Wellesleys had pursued them. The spirits that the Coldlands sorcerers had bound remained in Northundon, though, still haunting its land and the structures that had survived. Duke’s province was ruled by the dead.
She’d been there, too, the last time Enhover’s airships had faced sorcery, a child accompanying her mentor Thotham. The
y’d watched as the royal marines had spent days raining bombs across the landscape. Fire and explosives had fallen until everything living north of the Sheetsand Mountains had been reduced to shattered bone and ash.
Parts of the city of Northundon still stood, untouched in the last twenty years, but no one had the wherewithal to go there. The spirits were invested in the place, locked into the walls of the city. There was nothing in Northundon for the living.
Looking at Duke, she realized that despite that, it was still his land. Duke of Northundon wasn’t merely a title that his father had neglected to remove. It was his responsibility to the land, even though it no longer held his people. Yes, Duke of all people knew what horrors sorcery could call, and he knew the devastation their impending attack would cause as well. Farawk, another place on his maps that would soon be filled only with the dead.
As the outlying islands passed below them, Sam hung over the rail, peering down, trying to see if there was movement, light, anything to signify a scout alerting the base of the approaching airships. She saw nothing directly below, but ahead of them, she spied what must be the corsair’s lair. In the moonlight, she could see a dozen vessels floating at anchor. There was a tiny village hugging a sandy beach, dotted with a handful of lights, but it was quiet just a turn of the clock before dawn. Pirates were not early risers, it seemed. Perhaps that would have saved a few of them.
The first of the airships sailed silently over the pirate enclave, swooping lower as it drew close until they were a mere two hundred yards above the sea. She didn’t see it drop, but she saw the impact of the first red saltpetre munition. It landed squarely in the center of a small dock area and ignited in a giant ball of flame.
She gasped, witnessing the concussive power of the explosive.
Ships rocked at anchor, and three small huts near the drop were blown into kindling. It was as if the bomb kicked an anthill, but it was too late for the corsairs. Bomb after bomb dropped from the chutes on the airship, and a wide swath of flame and destruction followed in its wake. From a distance, she could see buildings and people pounded by the force of the blasts. What remained of the simple wooden structures of the village glowed bright with red flame.