Avast, Ye Airships Anthology Page 15

  We flew on.

  #

  Seven of the crew were dead. Two more would die unless we made port by the next day, which was unlikely. The remaining lookout would always walk with a limp, and my back was a mass of cuts from where the railing had splintered behind me. But we were alive…mostly.

  I left the ship’s cook, Gerolt, dealing with the wounded and walked up towards the poop deck. Both sets of stairs were a splintered mess, almost completely destroyed. Some of the supply crates on the deck had come loose, making an ugly pile that was just high enough to clamber on. My back screamed in agony as I climbed over the—miraculously—intact railing.

  “Captain Roth,” I said, breathing heavily. He gestured me over with a jerk of his head. He was tense, hunched over the wheel like it was the only thing supporting him, and I saw how white his knuckles were.

  “How bad is it?”

  He listened gravely while I gave the report, never taking his eyes from the storm.

  “Damn it, Ben,” he said when I was done. “Worst I’ve seen. Is the Stone still safe?”

  I nodded. “Still in the cargo hold, battened down. Why were we targeted, Captain? You paid the Guild fees.”

  He was silent for a moment, thinking. “I reckon someone’s sold us out. Someone who knows we was after the Stone of Kilnarnock, someone who knows that if we’re in these clouds, we’re prob’ly on our way back with it.” He tutted, and added, “Or if we’ve not got it, just plain don’t want to see us again.”

  “But a clockwork dragon, Captain? Those things are for pirates and smugglers, not honest—”

  “Bah, the Guild’s watchdogs are easy to repurpose,” he growled. “Doesn’t take much tinkerin’ once you’ve caught one of the brass beasties. Done it meself a few times.”

  “Can’t be anyone on the crew,” I said, moving to stand next to the captain. “They’d have gone down with the ship. And anyone on the ship when we get back stands to receive a share of the profits anyway.”

  “Could be,” the captain said. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” He cleared his throat and maneuvered us around a low cloud bank. Lightning crackled deep in the gray-black depths. “That was a quick bit of thinkin’ of yours with the lightnin’-thrower.”

  “More luck than judgment, Captain.”

  He nodded. “Happens that way more often than not. Been in a few scrapes, haven’t we, laddo? Like that time over Spain. You remember?”

  “I remember. The Armada thought they had us pinned between their flanks, ships coming up from underneath to board us.” I smiled at the memory. “If you hadn’t told us to throw the cannons down onto them over the side, we’d never have made it.”

  “Aye. Destroyed their props, holed their hulls and lightened our load all in one go.” The captain smiled grimly. “I knew we weren’t shootin’ our way out of that one, though. You questioned me, then. Tol’ me it wouldn’t work, crazy idea.”

  “That’s my job, Captain.”

  “Among other things. You were right, though. Crazy idea.” He paused and cocked his head, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Lifeboats all attached still?”

  “Aye, Captain,” I said. The lifeboats, small single-prop airships really, were moored on the side of the boat. They weren’t safe, but they were safer than jumping overboard.

  “Start them. All of them. I want the speed boost with that mast gone. Time we got back.”

  I stared at the captain for a moment, and he turned to face me fully. I could see the pain and loss in his eyes; a crew sundered, his ship damaged and his life in danger. All of our lives. I nodded, shrinking in the face of that bottled rage, and vaulted back over the railing.

  The lifeboats chugged into life, their front-facing propellers sluggishly responding, and each time I felt a little tug from the deck beneath me as we gained speed. The rain was lessening now, and the deck was clearing as the healthy took the wounded below. I moved fore and inspected the damage.

  The wooden decking was burned and blackened; there was a hole eaten clear through the deck into the galley, even melting some of the cast iron range. Gerolt would raise hell for that. The mast had left a broken stub, like a rotten tooth, and taken most of the railing on the port side with it, but we were lucky it had gone straight over. I’d heard more than one story of a collapsed mast fouling the other props, or even crushing the control cabin.

  I heard a shout from behind me, and turned to see a figure running out of the cargo-hold, something clutched in his hands. Captain Roth charged out of his cabin, and I vaulted over the railing to land with a splash next to the stairs below. It was Gerolt, and in his hands something glimmered, clear against the gray of his apron. The Stone of Kilnarnock.

  The captain got to him first, pistol out, grabbing hold of Gerolt’s arm as he put one foot inside the nearest lifeboat. I nimbly skirted the remaining mast and skidded to a halt.

  “Mutiny!” I shouted. “You were right, Captain. Someone sold us out.” I grabbed Gerolt’s shoulder and spun him round, snatching the stone out of his hands. It was a diamond bigger than my fist, throwing rainbows around even in the dim light of the gaslights on deck.

  “Aye, lad,” the captain said, and I frowned at the note of sadness in his voice. I looked at him, and the pistol was pointed at me. “Someone sold ye out. Now just give us the stone and be done.”

  “Captain, what is this?” I clutched the stone closer to myself, noticing as I did so that the hilt of a knife was sticking out of Gerolt’s apron pocket. The rough facets of the diamond bit into my palm.

  “You had the right of it. The guild dragons only go for pirates and smugglers,” the captain said. “I din’t pay their fees. I’m done with them, going back to the life I left ten years ago.” His eyes narrowed. “I was hopin’ the dragon would do for more of you, to be honest. Well, now I’m puttin’ that right.”

  I heard the pistol fire, saw the muzzle flash, and felt an intense burning pain in my gut, more real than anything else. I sank to my knees, clutching at the hot wound just above my belt, blood seeping out between my fingers. The Stone clattered to the deck.

  “Sorry, lad,” the captain said, his voice echoing as my vision blurred. “Yer just too damned good at yer job…”

  I was chased down into darkness by the sound of their lifeboat buzzing away into the clouds.

  #

  “And yet you survived.”

  “I did, Your Honor,” I said, leaning heavily on my cane. “One of the lads heard the shot and came up to find me bleeding out. They managed to get me below, patch up the wound. Bullet was still in me, y’see.”

  Chief Justice Rutherford leaned back in his chair. His powdered wig had slipped slightly in the heat, sweat beading his brow, and he shifted uncomfortably in his black gown.

  “Your former, ah, captain, Captain William Roth...he was a pirate. Caught ten years ago, turned King’s evidence and had his sentence reduced from, ah, death.” He picked up a piece of paper and consulted it. “The Guild saw fit to give him back his license and install him as a junior crewman, where he performed admirably, and after years of good service they gave him a ship, a crew, and a mission.” The chief justice peered over his spectacles. “Perhaps, ah, foolishly, it would seem.”

  “Old habits die hard, Your Honor.”

  “Indeed.”

  There was a pause, the sounds of London from the street below wandering in through the open window.

  “You want to find them, I’m sure,” Chief Justice Rutherford said quietly.

  “Aye.”

  The fat man leaned down and pulled open a drawer in his desk. He pulled something out and threw it at me. A scroll. I caught it, snapped open the seal and skimmed the contents.

  “A ship of my own, Your Honor?”

  “It’s as your former captain told you.” The chief justice leaned forward and smiled, crooked teeth barely holding in rancid breath. “You’re damned good at your job. Find him. Find him and end him.”

  #

  My
crew were young, but capable, and it was with a certain wry satisfaction that I christened our ship The Clockwork Dragon. We made for the skies over Ireland first, making port in Dublin.

  A deckhand there didn’t know anything about Captain Roth, but for the price of a pint he did hear tell of a lifeboat matching the description found abandoned in a field thirty miles north, near Drogheda. We followed his directions, glorious green countryside rolling by below us, until we arrived at a field with a few cows in it. There was also a clear scar, a long line of churned-up mud in the grass; the lifeboat hadn’t landed cleanly. The farmer who owned the field pointed us in the direction of Dundalk, stating that the men who’d landed had sold him the lifeboat for scrap in exchange for food, and we moved again.

  In Craigavon, we found a crime-scene, just a few hours old; two men had stolen a gunship that was in for repairs and flown off to the north-east. We took up the chase, our propellers greedily eating up the miles.

  Over the skies of Belfast, we had our first stroke of luck.

  “Ship off the starboard bow!”

  I fumbled for my telescope and scanned the horizon. Sure enough, there was a small craft, its smooth profile marred by the long barrel of its main cannon.

  “There you are,” I murmured. The crew looked at me expectantly. “Best speed! Grease those props! Man the cannons!”

  There was no way to mask our approach. If I could see them, I could be sure that Captain Roth had seen me. The gunship’s single propeller seemed to be having trouble keeping its rhythm, and I brought us alongside with grim satisfaction.

  “Ready cannons!” I shouted.

  “Aye, Captain,” came the reply, and I looked over to the deck of the gunship. I could see Gerolt staring over the railing at me, while the captain stood ramrod straight at the helm.

  “Fire!”

  All four cannons roared, and the gunship seemed to lurch backwards in the air for a moment as Captain Roth cut the power. Three of the shots missed their mark, but the fourth tore through part of the engine housing. Instantly, thick black smoke began to billow from the gunship’s exhaust.

  Then the lookout’s voice rang clear over the sound of the engines. “Captain! Port security!”

  Almost before he’d finished speaking, the gunship was peeling off as a heavily-armed cutter interposed itself between us. I could only watch in frustration as Captain Roth’s little craft began to spiral down for a landing.

  The cutter’s loudspeaker crackled into life. “Combat is prohibited in Belfast’s airspace,” an officious-sounding voice boomed. “You will land or prepare to be boarded.” Several cannons pushed their way out of the side of the cutter’s hull, and I narrowed my eyes as I saw the bulk of a clockwork dragon crouched at the center of the ship.

  “What do we do, captain?” the first mate asked.

  I pounded the rail in frustration. “We land, and try to pick up their scent from there. Fates preserve us from idiotic bureaucracy.”

  The harbor-master was unsympathetic, but yielded when he saw the bounty documents, and we were back on the trail with only a day’s loss in time. The damaged gunship lay abandoned in a berth at the harbor, but—for more gold than most of us would see in a year—we found out that two men answering Captain Roth and Gerolt’s descriptions had chartered a private airship bound for Edinburgh. The Guild was displeased, but they paid the bribe, and we continued.

  #

  It was in a dingy backstreet tavern—the Whipper’s Napper—that we finally caught up to them. I had instructed the crew to stay with the Dragon, tethered in Leith Basin, not two miles away. The bar itself was suitably scummy, the floor clinging to my boots as I shouldered my way past the worst of Edinburgh’s dock workers. The beer was weak, like brown water, but it took the edge off.

  The captain and Gerolt sat at a corner table, discussing something. A single lamp, hung on the wall above them, was enough to see that they were both heavily into their cups, with hooded eyes and rosy cheeks. The captain was dressed as neatly as ever I saw him, blue long-coat, shirt, and waistcoat immaculate as usual in sharp comparison to the cook’s sweaty bulk. I primed my pistol, took my mug of ale, and went over to their table.

  As soon as they saw me, their talk stopped. I sat down on the only available chair and placed my mug on the table. As loud as it was in the tavern with the dull roar of conversation and laughter, for the moment, we inhabited a little pocket of quiet.

  “Good evening, Captain Roth, Gerolt,” I said.

  Gerolt stared at me, and then at the captain. “What the—kill him. Kill him now!”

  Captain Roth locked eyes with me and drained his pint. He set his mug down and wiped his mouth. I could see both hands, neither armed.

  “No,” he said. “I want to hear him say why he’s here.”

  I rested my cane against the table. “See this, Captain?”

  He nodded.

  “I can’t walk without it now. The bullet went in, did a lot of damage. Rattled around some. I’ll regret this ale tomorrow. Can’t stomach it anymore. Sugar, the same, when I can get it.” I sat back. “Pain in my legs. Pain in my knees. Physicians reckon there’s damage to my spine somewhere along the way.” I shrugged. “That’s life.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve tracked you all over the Emerald Isle and back, Captain. I’ve got a ship to call my own, a beaut she is. I’ve got guild money on board, and men who’ll follow orders without question. All to find you. And the Stone, of course.”

  “Sold it,” the captain said, waving his hand. “Last night. Got a good price for it. Gold’s hidden away, somewhere no-one’d ever look.” He leaned forward again. “You haven’t said why you’re here yet. You here to kill us?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You want revenge?”

  I shook my head. “Revenge is empty. I could kill you, Captain, but that wouldn’t be revenge. I’d still wake up at three in the morning needing to piss, regular as clockwork.”

  “You were the best I ever had, laddo.”

  Was that regret I could hear in his voice?

  “I know, Captain. They were good times.”

  I could see Gerolt staring back and forth between us. I could sense his nerve eroding with every word we spoke, sweat beading his flabby face.

  “This is stupid,” he hissed, accent thicker than ever. “Kill the little worm and have done with it.”

  “Alright,” Captain Roth said. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a pistol—the same one he’d shot me with. He stared at me, and I stared back.

  I felt the room behind me swim in and out of existence as the click of the gun cocking sounded, sweet and metallic, and then the gun fired.

  Gerolt fell dead onto the table, face downward. There was a sudden silence in the tavern. Still staring into my eyes, the captain pocketed the pistol and pulled out a few gold pieces. The sound of the heavy metal clinking onto the wood seemed to let the noise of the crowd back in, like floodgates opening.

  “Coming here was another crazy idea,” the captain said.

  “Either way, it was closure. How did you know I wasn’t just going to kill you?”

  He smiled then, all the warmth I had ever seen him show filtered into that one expression. “You still called me Captain.”

  He leaned forward. “Join me.” The gleam of gold was in his eyes now, and his grin was pure avarice. “Together, you and me, we could scrape the skies clean of the Guild that robbed us of service and health, and for what? For nothing.”

  I found myself nodding along with him.

  “You and I, between us, we know their routes. We know where they’ll be.” He squeezed his fist and shook it. “Let them try to send their dragons after us. We would be unstoppable!”

  I allowed myself only a moment’s pause before I matched his smile.

  Adventures of a Would-Be Gentleman of the Skies

  by Jim Reader

  Andrew Augustus McKinney, Andy to his few friends, just knew this was going to be the score,
the Big Score. It would be the one that let him pay off some very insistent debt-collectors, repair and improve his airship, the Lilly Mae, maybe even buy his way into one of the big pirate gangs, like the Sky Stealers, or Cloud-Borne Scourge.

  He stood beside his ship, the great sky-blue dirigible’s body above him, as he and his slave Trajan checked every last detail. It wasn’t as if he was even going to fly that day; it was a daily ritual ever since he’d finished building it: Check everything, every day. Check everything twice on a day he was going to take her up...although sometimes he was so excited by the prospect of piracy he forgot the second check.

  “She looks to be in tip-top shape,” Trajan said. “As always.”

  “She is,” Andy replied, “and yet—”

  “—Something is bound to break on her, no matter what,” Trajan finished.

  The two grinned at each other. Trajan had been a slave of his grandfather’s...with Andy he was more of a co-worker and partner, albeit one who couldn’t leave to seek work elsewhere. Andy even paid him for his efforts...when he had any money at all.

  Andy left Trajan touching up a bit of paint on the gondola, and returned to the tiny shack the two of them lived in for the moment. He spread out his calculations on the table, these all involved with weight. After his attempt to hijack a load of exotic hardwoods making their way from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, he’d realized how important weight could be. He’d almost lost the ship, and his own life, and had barely gotten his ship back into the air with five of the long, rough-hewn logs, even after dumping all of the ballast bags he kept aboard—they helped to keep her on her keel in high winds.

  The gold heist was a simple plan—he didn’t bother to reflect all his failures had been simple plans as well…

  Wells Fargo was transporting a load of gold, all secretive-like. Not many guards, not an obviously armored wagon. The route was Galveston to Fort Worth by a round-about route...lots of empty miles with not many places to hide. He couldn’t get too close to either city—air pirates could get their ships shot out of the sky easier than not—but that left a whole lot of country he could ambush them in.