Responsibility of the Crown

by G Scott Huggins

  Every instinct screamed at her to fly. To flee. Haraad rose like a mountain of muscle and flesh, the roof sagging beneath his weight, but whatever else he was, he was a sailor, and his feet were sure on the roof-spars. He rose above her, steel in his hand.

  Azriyqam drew her airswords and faced him.

  Haraad laughed. Smoke and sparks from the growing fire inside billowed behind him. Azriyqam could already feel the heat beneath her feet. Never taking his eyes from her, he switched the dirk to his left hand and drew his cutlass with his right.

  “So, the freak wants to face me with her sewing needles, does she?”

  All she had to do was fly away. Fly away from this nightmare. But then Haraad and his men would extinguish the flames and even this slender hope would gutter out. He would win. She looked into his eyes and saw the certainty that he would kill her this time.

  Yet she held swords between her fingers.

  The moment froze in a question she had not dared ask herself: What if I killed him?

  In an instant of insight, she saw how fragile Haraad’s power was. It all depended upon him. The whole might of the Ship against them, it all turned upon him and the fear and brute strength he had rallied to himself and the tradition that you do not mutiny against the high captain.

  She studied him then. Studied him like she had studied Ambassador Celaeno. Like her, he stood with measureless confidence. But not, she thought, with such measureless skill. Not anymore. She had fought since then and survived. How many real duels had Haraad ever fought?

  Just as she had done on the training floor, she slid into a defensive stance, rising on her toes on the rushes.

  Haraad pointed to his neck with his dirk. “Time to repay an old debt.”

  He raised his sword for an overhand blow. Azriyqam lunged. Haraad’s eyes widened at her sudden attack. He parried her right sword with the dirk, sending it wide, but he had again underestimated her reach. Her left airsword buried its point in his exposed shoulder.

  He screamed, more in rage than pain. The cut wasn’t deep, but he hadn’t expected to be hurt. “Die, freak!” He cut left and right.

  Azriyqam gave back to the edge of the roof. She couldn’t parry his heavier blades with strength, and if she could have, her lighter blades would have broken. She circled away from him, feeling pain shoot up her wounded calf.

  “I am going to pull out your guts and hang you by them,” Haraad grunted. “Throw you to the sharks, like my father should have.” He attacked again, and Azriyqam caught his side cut in her crossed blades, then flicked her right sword at his face. He flinched aside and it sped past his ear. He snarled in frustration and pushed her back with his sheer strength.

  Azriyqam was already tired from her long flight, and now she realized that Haraad had another advantage. His boots. The thatch was beginning to catch fire around the edge and Haraad was pushing her toward the flames.

  She took two steps up toward the higher center of the roof, parrying a cut at her knees. Following her, he charged ahead, and she forced him up short with a stop-thrust that nearly skewered him through the ribcage. He snarled and batted her blade aside with his dirk, forcing her back down.

  “Last chance, freak. Fly away! Fly away and enjoy your last few hours before the Consortium picks us up and burns you all together. It’s all you have left. If you ask very nicely, I might even leave you a boat if your little wings won’t take you to land.”

  In a cold place that she could never have imagined, Azriyqam felt Haraad’s insults slide off her as though she were encased in diamond. “It ends here, Haraad. I’m going to kill you.”

  “You? Kill me?” Haraad spat. “I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands.” He reared back for a chop, and Azriyqam charged up the slope of the roof, light blades flashing for his knees. Roaring rage, he gave ground, and slashed at her ankles. With a wingbeat, she took to the air, leaping over his heavy blade. She stabbed down. The change in perspective fooled him, and she pinked his other shoulder.

  The flames scorched her feet through the roof as she landed. Bellowing, he charged her, forcing her from the peaked roof. She dropped and backed wing into the thickening smoke, eluding him. His eyes lit up at her retreat, and he charged forward in earnest, seeing her swords spread apart, her chest wide open as her wings spread, beating backward.

  Snarling in triumph, he followed faster, slashing at her. He had only an instant to see her, hanging in the air, supported only by the wind and a moment of wing-strength above the void below. He had no time to see that there was no more roof beneath her.

  Or beneath him.

  Haraad fell through a hundred feet of empty air. Azriyqam’s wings snapped taut and sent her into a spiraling dive. Haraad’s bellow turned into a scream that lasted all the way down to the unyielding deck.

  * * *

  Azriyqam didn’t know how long she wheeled there, staring at the gathering crowd around Haraad’s fallen corpse. She banked forward, weariness pouring through her body. She staggered to a landing and stumbled to her knees. Elazar ran to her, and behind him was Zhad. They bore her up between them.

  “Dead and absent gods, what have you done?” asked Elazar.

  In words that were barely coherent, she stuttered out her account of her defeat of Haraad.

  “Well, that explains it. Come, we have someplace to be.”

  She staggered between them, and as she walked, the Century Ship looked like chaos. Burning scraps of cloth from her fires rained down. Two masts were engulfed, and fire teams up the masts frantically tried to keep the flames from spreading. But on the deck, knots of men and women milled, aimlessly. Some came forward as they realized what was happening.

  On the edge of the foredeck, Tselah, flanked by her lieutenants, stood before a tall man with a bruised face. It took Azriyqam some time to recognize Sailing Master Elam.

  Tselah saluted him.

  “Captain Tselah,” he said.

  “High Captain Elam,” Tselah replied.

  “It would appear so.” He studied her for a long moment. “Garden-Captain, you appear to be the only one capable of altering this Ship’s course. Will you do so, at my command?”

  Tselah looked around and found Elazar and Azriyqam coming to meet her.

  “May I beg the high captain’s indulgence?” Tselah’s voice was brittle. It was obvious she knew Elam had the power to sustain Haraad’s claim that she and all her followers were mutineers.

  Elam’s mouth was set in a hard line. “I don’t have much time to indulge, now, Tselah. Especially not with this Ship sailing for pirate waters. What did they offer you?” His eyes flicked toward the two halfdragons.

  “Please, listen to them, Elam. They offered the truth; I’ll swear it is. Just listen to them before you give the orders. Then we’ll follow. We will.”

  High Captain Elam turned his attention on Azriyqam. “Responsibility.” He sighed. He looked behind him. “Half the Ship’s Complement lived in the superstitious dread that your mother would burn this Ship when you left us. I don’t think any of us expected you to return to do it yourself. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Sir, I say the fires I set are nothing compared to what Haraad had planned for all of us. The Ship is still in danger, and we are running from it. Please do not order us to change course.”

  “You are a pirate, one of our ancient enemies who have hunted Century Ships for time out of mind. Tselah is a bright officer, but also a young lady who has been under far too much strain over the past few days. You have no love for us.” He held up a hand at her intake of breath. “I don’t suppose I can blame you for that, but you don’t. Why should I believe you?”

  “Because Water-Captain Tairen did,” said Elazar. “Captain Haraad was so afraid of his belief that he ordered him killed rather than allow him to speak what he had heard from us.”

  Slowly, Elam nodded. “All right. Captain Tselah, get your crews fighting these fires. By this night’s end, I doubt we’ll be able to tell who’s been
where the past few days, eh?”

  Tselah swayed on her feet with relief. “Yes, sir!” She began bellowing orders.

  “Come with me,” Elam said to Azriyqam and Elazar. “We need to talk.”

  * * *

  It took little time to convince Captain Elam of Haraad’s treachery, seeing how he and the other captains had been treated. He grudgingly accepted their reasoning for running toward Stormness and ordered beacons to be lit atop the masts. “Or what’s left of them,” he muttered darkly. Upon hearing what the Consortium planned, he agreed to let Elazar take charge of the Century Ship’s defense.

  At some point Azriyqam remembered sitting down in a more comfortable seat, away from the babble of orders and questions. She woke briefly with pains in her neck and legs, and wings that felt as if they were on fire but was too tired to rise. She drifted off into a sea of fitful dreams that were at least free of flames.

  When she woke fully, Azriyqam was stiffer than she would have believed possible. Someone had bound her wounded leg; she didn’t remember it happening. It was a superficial cut, but painful. She limped out to the foredeck.

  The fires blazed atop the masts in the pale light of dawn. The center foremainmast and foremizzen had burned down to the topgallants. Their blackened, bare lengths pierced the thin, morning mists. All the sails were furled, yet beneath the pressure of her converted winddrivers, Ekkaia lunged into the wind, faster than she had ever traveled before. Behind her, the pillar of smoke again stretched through the mists and into the sky.

  The Ocean was as bare as it ever had been, gray and calm, but the ominous drone of the Consortium’s flying boat remained. Flying just under the low overcast, it circled, a harbinger of the unseen hunter.

  As Azriyqam limped forward, she could feel every eye upon her. Hear the muttering, and feel the stares. Despite all that had happened, nothing had changed. She was still an object of suspicion and fear to the Ship’s Complement.

  She asked for the high captain at the greatcastle. They led her around the enormous structure where a work gang was busily wrestling with enormous barrels under Elazar’s direction. High Captain Elam was holding conference with his captains, Tselah among them. They were poring over a fragment of chart Azriyqam recognized as having been one of those she had stolen.

  Tselah looked up at her. “You are awake. I hope you’re feeling better.”

  “Yes,” Azriyqam husked.

  Tselah’s eyes narrowed, and she called a man with well-watered wine. “You spent yourself hard last night. I think you need more rest than you got.”

  “Don’t we all,” growled Tree-Captain Mitan. He held Azriyqam’s eye. “So, Responsibility, you’re the one who killed Haraad.” He spat. “Good riddance to him. It seems we all owe you our thanks.”

  Azriyqam stood stunned. She hadn’t expected any praise, but the others in the circle nodded. Is this what respect looks like?

  Captain Elam gestured at the map. “We’re closer than I would have thought possible. By midday, we should be in your home waters.”

  “That’s not going to make us instantly safe,” Azriyqam said.

  Tselah’s eyes drew down. “But your man Elazar said—”

  Azriyqam, who had grown used to the precise ways in which Elazar spoke, called the older halfdragon over. “Elazar, what exactly did you say about us making it to our home waters?”

  “I said that once we were there, the Consortium would no longer have an advantage to sinking us, kyria.”

  “That doesn’t mean they won’t, though, does it?”

  “No.”

  “And in any case, it’s not quite dawn yet.”

  “Why does that matter?” asked Tselah.

  “Because that’s when Avnai said they would make their attack, if they can. As soon as they can see plainly to fire. Elazar, how are you doing?”

  Elazar grimaced. “As well as we could expect, kyria. They don’t have much powder on a Century Ship, and I’ve no idea how effective their guns would be even in the best of circumstances.”

  There was nothing to do but wait.

  Captain Elam called for a meal.

  The mizzen lookout cried out almost at the moment dawn broke. The disbelief in the young sailor’s voice was palpable. “Ship! Ship astern!” Even from far below, Azriyqam could see his frantic gestures and the panic in his voice. Along with everyone else, she rushed to the aft rail.

  The Aulicus was surfacing.

  Azriyqam had never seen a submarine before, but it looked like the rest of the Consortium’s craft: knife-slender and dull gray. Now it grew taller in the water, a single tower of steel rising from the waves, water pouring from its platforms as though a master sorcerer had summoned a fortress from the deep. All around her, the captains pointed and shot questions at one another. Without sails or winddrivers, it came on, effortlessly pacing them, and the exclamations of the Complement grew as hatches sprang open on its smooth surface and men leapt for the tower and the two blunt guns on the submarine’s deck.

  Elazar’s shout cut through the babble. “Roll the barrels! Roll them! Now! We won’t get a better chance!”

  The sailors rolled the huge barrels of gunpowder into position on the aft rail, where ragged holes had been cut. Elazar stepped forward and lit the waxed fuses. With a heave, they pushed each massive barrel into the water, where they bobbed in Ekkaia’s huge wake.

  Azriyqam looked over at Elazar and knew he was wondering the same thing she was: How many of those fuses will stay lit?

  The submarine cut through the water. There were about twenty men on its deck, manning the guns and that strange tower amidships. Slowly, they closed the distance. The men on its deck moved about unhurriedly.

  Elazar gazed at them dispassionately. “They’ll keep coming until they can burn us. They won’t want to spoil their illusion more than necessary.” As if in answer to his observation, the men swiveled their turret to port. From one of its gun-barrels, a stream of liquid fire arced over the side of the vessel, a hundred yards or more, igniting a pool of fire in the midst of the sea.

  Shouts and screams of terror rose from the decks of the Century Ship. Captain Elam clenched his jaw. “Belay that! Stay at your battle stations! Treat them like any other pirates. You all know how! Now, fire chasers!” Under his breath, he muttered, “Arrogant bastards.”

  The Ekkaia was equipped with four light cannons in its stern deck. They spoke in a high-pitched crackle of fire. The solid shot splashed around the submarine.

  Only one of them hit close enough to spray the men on deck. They bent to their turret and swiveled it back around.

  “Down! Everybody down!” cried Elazar.

  From her position flat on the deck, Azriyqam felt the deck shudder beneath her. Four times in twelve seconds it shook, and each impact was punctuated by a flat crack over the water and the screams of men and women below. When she finally got to her feet, she saw the second barrel of the submarine’s gun turret was smoking, and shock was written on every face except Elazar’s.

  They have never seen what the Consortium can do, she thought.

  Captain Elam looked stunned. “Get some help down there!” he yelled hoarsely.

  A rending crash echoed over the water, and all eyes turned astern. A plume of spray with fire in its core leapt skyward. One of the mines had exploded, but far to starboard and ahead of the approaching submarine. Azriyqam had time to notice that even the Consortium sailors looked stunned. A ragged cheer rose around her. The submarine heeled over, trying desperately to avoid another of the huge barrels. It began to fall astern of them.

  Azriyqam found herself pleading, to what she did not know, as the barrel floated closer to the gray hull. Please work. Oh, please…

  The barrel detonated, obscuring the Consortium submarine in a flash of light and spray. Another cheer rang out, this one high and triumphant.

  The Aulicus slid out of the dying waterspout.

  There was a dent in its steel-gray hull, forward of the guns. The guns see
med to be missing some of their crews. Although the gap between the submarine and the Century Ship was widening, it began to pick up speed once more. It hit the third barrel square on.

  Azriyqam’s heart leapt.

  The impact smashed the barrel into splinters and it sank harmlessly. The submarine heeled effortlessly wide of the fourth barrel, which floated astern as though it contained nothing more harmful than its own wood.

  Azriyqam had only an instant for her heart to sink before the intensifying drone of the flying boat made her look up. A ratcheting series of impacts struck all around her, and Elazar bore her to the ground. Rolling under the shelter of the greatcastle wall, Azriyqam saw the circling flying boat pouring fire from one of its machine guns into the afterdeck. It broke off, readying itself for another pass.

  In the distance, Azriyqam saw motes of blackness flying toward them. It had to be more airplanes. The Talion’s found us and is close enough to launch its fighters.

  Hauling herself to her feet, Azriyqam saw that three men lay dead at the rail. Captain Elam helped Elazar to his feet. “Dead and absent gods, what is that thing?” he cried, pointing skyward. He stared in disbelief at the dead men on his deck.

  Elazar shook his head. “You’ve heard the rumors of what the Consortium can do, Captain. The reality is greater.”

  “Ships that sail under the ocean, guns that reload themselves faster than a man can blink. We have to surrender,” he said.

  “They don’t want your surrender; they want you dead.” Elazar looked astern. The submarine was falling behind.

  “Did we hurt them worse than I thought?” asked Captain Elam.

  For a moment, Azriyqam allowed herself to hope, as well.

  “No,” said Elazar, with grim certainty. “They’ve just decided to make sure of us.” He turned back to Elam. “Order your people into lifeboats. Zhad has been equipping as many as he can with winddrivers.” Elazar gently turned the man’s face to meet his eyes. “Captain Elam, get your family into one of those. It’s the only chance they have.”