Sea Of Ghosts

CHAPTER 13
A CANNON BATTLE AT SEA

Granger had been standing at the wheel for most of the night, and yet he hadn’t spotted the lights he’d been hoping to see. Dawn had come and gone, and still nothing. He was red-eyed and edgy with exhaustion, but nothing could tempt him to sleep now. The Whispering Valley lay nor’-nor’-west of Scythe Island, and Briana Marks’s vessel, Irillian Herald, had been steaming out of Ethugra in that general direction when he’d had last seen it, which meant that it seemed likely the Haurstaf witch had received some intelligence about Ianthe’s position. Granger’s detour to Scythe Island had cost him valuable time. Now he wasn’t just chasing Maskelyne, but Marks herself.

There were two sextants and two chronometers on the bridge. An elaborate gold- and platinum-plated sextant sat in a special mount on the navigation console beside a matching chronograph. Both bore the Imperial seal along with the engraving: Excelsior, His Majesty Emperor Jilak Hu. But Granger found an old brass Valcinder-made set of instruments in a metal box behind the pipe-housing hatch. He took noon sight with these latter devices. From the worn look of them, this particular set had been much favoured by the Excelsior’s own navigator.

Granger located the almanacs, sight tables and charts in a drawer under the console. He calculated his position. He drew a pencil line across the map, stared at it and then rechecked his figures. The Excelsior had covered more distance than he would have believed possible. At this rate of knots he certainly faced no danger from the pursuing Ethugran fleet. Furthermore, he would reach the Whispering Valley in another six days, half the time it would have taken Maskelyne in his heavy dredger. But was he moving fast enough to overtake the Herald?

Just how many ships would he encounter?

And how could he hope to meet them in battle?

Granger leaned back against the navigation console, thinking. He couldn’t ram another vessel. The dragon-hunter’s sleek, lightweight hull would not fare well against an iron dredger or a scale-plated man-o’-war. If he encountered his enemy at night, he might try a drift-and-jump or even a raft flank in order to board the other ship unseen. But then Maskelyne and Banks both maintained full crews, while Granger was alone. The Excelsior had enough broadside to represent a serious threat, but he couldn’t effectively man her cannons single-handedly. That was the root of his problem. Hu’s imperial yacht had not been designed to be sailed by a single man. She required forty-eight men on her gun deck to operate her cannons alone, with another twenty or so to carry up powder and shot.

There had to be a way.

He set his heading, and locked down the wheel before scanning the horizon with the navigator’s telescope. Satisfied that he wasn’t about to collide with anything, he set off for the gun deck.

The stairs down aggravated his joints, but the pain wasn’t enough to worry him. He’d found that, by simply working his muscles from time to time, he could loosen up his limbs. A few moments of agony was better than seizing up altogether. Eventually the stiffness would diminish. The burning sensations had almost gone from his toughened flesh, although he hadn’t yet become accustomed to the feel of his rough grey skin under his own fingers. It felt as if he’d been boiled in a suit of leathers. He wondered briefly if he was arrow-proof, before dismissing the thought. The important thing was that his wits remained intact, for he had a problem to solve.

Amber reflections played across the bone arches in the gun deck. The emperor’s cannons gleamed as if they had been forged yesterday. Granger found the smell of warm metal relaxing. He’d spent many years on many such decks, if not on one as fine as this. Twenty-four cannons: Imperial Ferredales retrofitted with flintlock mechanisms. He could load them all by hand, although it might take him a couple of hours to do so, and he could use the lanyards to fire them one after another, but if he was down here in the gun deck, then he couldn’t be at the helm. And fire-power was nothing without tactics.

Granger paced the deck. Given the time available to him, it seemed unlikely that he could devise and build a mechanical method for pulling the lanyards from the bridge. What if he simply removed them altogether, replacing the ropes with fuse cord running directly into the flintlocks? He’d seen spools of cord down in the powder deck. That was certainly much simpler. Fuse cord could burn at up to ten feet a second, depending on its composition. It would be simple enough to run a length of it from the bridge, down through the pipe ducts, and use a cigar to light it.

Just like in Kol Gu, ’’38.

He smiled at the memory of that campaign. Three hundred enemy goldtooths coming up the hill towards our camp, a hundred fuse cords and three chemical matches. Hu had sent them to eliminate a Kol Gu Archipelago warlord, just the latest in a line of pirates who had fought each other over that shrinking island group. Granger could no longer remember his name. Creedy had used two of the matches to light his cigar, before Banks pointed out that the enemy was still at least an hour away. That had been almost four years before Weaverbrook, before Imperial Infiltration Unit 7 became known as the Gravediggers. Banks, Springer, Lombeck, Swan, Tummel, Longacre. So many faces that existed only in his memories.

Fuse cord.

The spools in the powder deck turned out to be a disappointment. Most of the cord was the cheap, low-grade stuff used in mining, with a burn rate of perhaps half a foot per second. The distance from the bridge down through the pipe ducts to the gun deck had to be at least a hundred and twenty feet. One twenty feet at half a foot per second gave him four minutes between the time he ignited the fuse and the cannon’s detonation, which was hardly ideal for a pitched battle. What’s more, he’d have to figure out a way of insulating one cord from another within the pipe ducts, while allowing them each enough oxygen to burn.

Only three hundred feet of the fuse cord was of higher fast-burn grade, which would allow him to rig two cannons to fire with a twelve-second delay between ignition and detonation.

It wasn’t good enough.

Granger carried the spools of quick cord back up to the gun room. There had to be better solution. He began the heavy work of loading and tamping each of the cannons. He had hours ahead to figure it out.

Briana Marks drew her hair out of the collar of her white woollen tunic, and let it fall over her shoulders. She was standing at the back of the Irillian Herald’s wheelhouse, quietly watching the crew at work. Her captain, Erasmus Howlish, was leaning over the map table, speaking quietly to the navigator about their course. A former Losotan privateer, Howlish still bore the raised white lines across the back of his hands where a Guild torturer had once applied his lash. He wore his black hair in a long plait in defiance of protocol, but Briana allowed him this small conceit. One had to be flexible when employing one’s former enemies.

The helmsman stood rigidly at the wheel, his eyes fixed on the horizon beyond the Herald’s foredeck. She was an old Valcinder man-o’-war, refitted in Awl to provide the sort of luxury accommodation expected by the Guild, but Briana cared little for the silks and silver and teak down in the staterooms. She preferred the simple functionality of the wheelhouse. Its position high on the quarterdeck gave her an uninterrupted view of the surrounding sea. This hemisphere of Unmer duskglass contained nothing but the ship’s wheel console, a navigation station and a curved steel bench, over which Briana had placed her whaleskin cloak. The Unmer glass served to filter out much of the late-afternoon sun, along with most of the fury of the wind and sea. Through the glass dome she could see the rise and plunge of copper-coloured waves as gales whipped across the Mare Lux, driving amber breakers. Spume battered the Herald’s bow, but here in the dome it remained warm and peaceful.

Two telepaths, one on each of the Herald’s sister men-o’-war, had been relaying information to her throughout their search for Maskelyne. Briana knew her distant compatriots only as Pascal and Windflower, both young Losotan yellow-grade psychics who had been attached to the Guild navy since completion of their training. She had probably seen them numerous times at the school in Awl, but for now they remained disembodied voices to her. She had no desire to learn more about them than their names and rank. En route to the Whispering Valley, they had happened upon a strange ironclad vessel a few minutes south of the Border Waters. It was an Unmer deadship of archaic design using a makeshift spinnaker to tack south – and it was being captained by the very man they had been looking for.

Briana’s own ship was still three leagues to the south-east, and it frustrated her that she couldn’t see the pair of red-hulled Haurstaf craft converging on the ironclad.

An Unmer deadship.

They informed her that it looked like an icebreaker – perhaps one of the very ships sent south from Pertica to join the Unmer fleet at the battle at Awl. If so, nobody had seen its type at sea for almost three hundred years. Briana reached out with her mind, feeling for the presence of Unmer consciousness.

She heard her companions psytalking in hushed tones, but she didn’t bother to listen in. She felt for the ship, searching for any psychic presence aboard. And then she noticed something odd. An echo? Not quite. It was almost a reverberation, like the resonant silence an Unmer tuning fork makes when its tone is below human hearing.

Are either of you sensing this?

Sensing what? Windflower said.

There are no Unmer aboard, Pascal added. I’ve already checked.

Briana sent her thoughts back across the sea. Follow the ironclad, but hold off until I arrive.

Yes, sister, Windflower said.

She’s not going anywhere against these winds, Pascal remarked impatiently. How long will you be?

Briana shot back her reply, As long as it takes to get there.

Driven forward by the same strong southerlies that were impeding the deadship’s progress, the Irillian Herald sped across the Mare Lux. Her mainsail and spinnaker billowed; the rigging creaked. Fine metallic spray blew across her top deck. At noon the ship’s navigator struggled to take sight on the pitching boards. The afternoon remained bright, but blustery. A pod of nomios broke the surface of the waters to port and followed the Haurstaf ship for over an hour, flashing through the waves like chrome shuttles. Briana stood on the foredeck, scanning the northern horizon. She remained in contact with her Guild sisters, but there was little more to report. Maskelyne had retreated below decks and seemed content to remain out of sight. The deadship continued her creeping zigzag progress south, while her crew made no attempt to contact their pursuers. Finally, as the sun sank towards the edge of the world and the western sea turned a coppery-red, the Herald’s lookout gave a shout.

At first, Briana could see nothing, and then in the distance she spotted the yellow-white glow of sailcloth bobbing in the slanting sunlight. The two Haurstaf ships were coming about, following the darker iron vessel as she tacked to the south-east. There was a sudden commotion around Briana as the Herald’s crew turned the ship to intercept.

They came upon the deadship at dusk. Briana stood on the bridge, coordinating between Howlish and the captains of the other two Haurstaf vessels. As the Herald ran from the south, the rearmost Guild vessel, Trumpet, passed Maskelyne’s stern, on a broad reach that caused her to lift and crash through the wave tops, while her sister, Radiant Song beat hard to cover the western flank. At Briana’s orders, Trumpet fired a warning shot down the ironclad’s port side, but the deadship merely continued on her present course and speed.

‘We’ll have to turn about, ma’am,’ Howlish said. ‘Or run the length of her guns at close range.’

Are those guns likely to be operational?

He made no reply.

‘Are those guns likely to be operational?’ she repeated, aloud this time. ‘That ship doesn’t look like much.’

‘I’d rather not find out, ma’am,’ Howlish replied.

‘What do you suggest?’

The captain thought for a moment. ‘She can’t outrun us. With that spinnaker, it’s amazing she’s making any progress at all. So she’ll need to barge a path between us. I imagine she’ll probably snap tack to put her stern against the Song and her broadside to the Trumpet’s bow. That would keep two of the three cannon batteries out of line.’ He scratched his nose. ‘That’s what I would do, ma’am.’

‘And how should we respond?’

‘The fact that Maskelyne is using that spinnaker suggests that his engines are dead. It might be advisable to have the Song haul off to starboard and chainshot the ironclad’s sail. That will take away what little manoeuvrability she has left.’ He nodded to himself. ‘It would give the captain a good reason to cooperate with us.’ He inclined his head towards the waves. ‘Using the corvus will be risky in these seas.’

Briana nodded. ‘All right.’ She sent the orders to the psychics aboard the other two vessels.

After a moment, the Song began to turn, bringing her cannons to bear on Maskelyne’s ironclad. A series of flashes ran along the side of the Haurstaf vessel, followed a heartbeat later by the crackling boom of artillery fire. The Haurstaf shot tore through the ironclad’s sail, reducing it to ribbons.

Smoke drifted over the waters.

‘She’s trying to turn now,’ Captain Howlish remarked. ‘We’ll see.’

The remains of the Unmer ship’s spinnaker began to luff and snap. Briana could see Maskelyne’s crew rushing about on deck, trying to pinch their rudely rigged sail, but it was hopeless. The ironclad had stalled mid-way through her turn.

‘She’s in irons,’ Howlish said. ‘Shall we haul close?’

‘What about her guns?’

‘She’s dead in the water,’ Howlish said. ‘Maskelyne’s only hope now is rescue.’

‘Very well, let’s board her.’

‘He might try to board us,’ the captain added. ‘You might want to let the Song or the Trumpet approach first.’

‘We have the largest force here, Captain,’ Briana replied. ‘Have them stand at arms.’

‘As you say, ma’am.’

Howlish did as Briana ordered; he sailed the Herald around the stern of the deadship and then hauled her in close to the wind. He ordered her crew to lower their own spinnaker and then to ready themselves to repel boarders. The Unmer vessel did not fire her strange cannons. Indeed, as the distance between the two ships closed it became apparent that those weapons were little more than pillars of slag. Maskelyne’s crew had no means with with to defend themselves against the Haurstaf men-o’-war. Howlish’s long experience as a privateer became apparent, for he managed to heave to within three yards of the stricken ship.

The deadship did not appear to have sustained any additional damage from the attack, but Maskelyne’s crew, under the shadow of that scorched metal tower, were nevertheless eager to secure the grapples thrown over by the Guild mariners. Briana joined Howlish amidships just as the Haurstaf vessel dropped her corvus, the iron spikes clanging against the derelict’s metal-plated deck. No shots were fired; indeed, not one of Maskelyne’s crew was even armed.

The metaphysicist himself appeared on deck. He took one look at the tattered sail, then turned to the Haurstaf vessel and vaulted up onto the boarding ramp. He strode over to the Herald without a care in the world, forcing the Guild mariners already on the ramp to retreat.

Briana had seen him once before, many years ago at Hu’s court. Although they’d never spoken, back then she’d been struck by the confidence and vigour in his stride. He’d been a scholar of wide renown among the Losotan privileged classes, a man of considerable means and an Unmer expert who had advised the emperor himself on several occasions. Yet this creature standing before her now was a shade of that former man. He was dirty, unshaven, stooped and painfully gaunt. His dark eyes glanced everywhere, as though his former arrogance had been replaced by a nervous and unsettled energy.

‘Thank you for coming to our aid,’ he said. ‘Please pass my regards on to your cannoneers.’

‘You did not seem inclined to stop,’ Briana remarked.

Maskelyne stepped aside as Kevin Lum, the Irillian Herald’s first officer, led a cohort of armed men across the corvus onto the stricken deadship. Most of the Guild sailors began rounding up Maskelyne’s crew, while others threw open the fore, midship and sterncastle hatches and began their search of the vessel. Maskelyne turned back to Briana. ‘You evidently want something from us,’ he said. ‘If I’d offered to parley, you might have taken advantage of our unfortunate position. However, Guild maritime law prohibits you from abandoning us on a powerless ship. I believe that would be seen as murder.’

‘He’s right,’ Howlish said. ‘The moment we shredded their sail, we made them enemy combatants. As long as they don’t resist our boarding party, we have to take them with us.’

Briana cursed under her breath. Ethan Maskelyne hadn’t changed at all.

Just then there was a commotion on the deadship’s deck, as two Guild sailors dragged a young woman through the sterncastle hatch. She was about fifteen, olive-skinned, with a mess of black hair. She kicked and screamed at them, ‘Let me go, you idiots, I need to get back… you don’t… understand.’

Briana smiled. ‘Does that look like resistance to you, Captain Howlish?’

‘Very much so, ma’am.’

Maskelyne’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the girl with marked distaste. ‘This young lady,’ he said, ‘is not part of my crew.’

Out of the hatch behind her stepped a woman with a small child in her arms. She was bruised and bleeding and walked with a limp. One of the Guild sailors helped her towards the corvus, but she hesitated before stepping aboard.

Maskelyne’s expression softened. ‘My wife and son,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid this voyage has been hard on them both.’

Briana turned to Howlish. ‘Just get them all aboard.’

‘Very good, ma’am.’

‘May I ask where you’re heading?’ Maskelyne said.

‘Awl,’ Briana replied.

Maskelyne frowned. ‘I don’t suppose you could drop us off at Scythe Island? I’d make it worth your while.’

She gave him a thin smile.

‘That’s what I thought.’

Evacuation of the deadship continued until after dark. Three of the Herald’s crew escorted the metaphysicist and his family to a stateroom, where their needs were to be attended to under armed guard. Maskelyne’s wife Lucille began to sob. Her relief at departing that derelict vessel was palpable. The boy, Jontney, simply watched everything with quiet wonder. Maskelyne’s crewmen were herded into the brig, although they seemed much less dissatisfied with their new accommodation than any of its former occupants. Howlish ordered his mariners to strip the ironclad of anything valuable and stow it in their own hold.

Ianthe was a problem. The girl seemed determined to remain on the deadship. She struggled against her two captors, scratching and trying to bite them until they restrained her thoroughly. Even then she wouldn’t stop screaming.

Briana fired a mental blast directly at the girl, a wordless surge of anger that should have stunned a trained psychic. It was enough to stress the entire Haurstaf telepathic network, eliciting moans of pain and fright from every corner of the empire. Ianthe, however, did not appear to notice it. Briana stood and watched the girl for a long moment, this furious crow-haired child. Have I made a mistake? She reached out with her mind again, more tentatively this time, hoping to sense the source of the girl’s anguish. At first she perceived nothing at all, just the featureless plane of human consciousness around her – a place known to Guild witches as the Harmonic Reservoir, where ripples of Haurstaf thought could resonate undetected by the great mass of humanity in the depths below. And then she noticed a glitch, an almost imperceptible fracture in the surface of these perfect waters. The reservoir was cracked. Curious, Briana pushed her thoughts towards that tiny imperfection…

Suddenly she was on the brink of falling. There was nothing to grab hold of – no emotions, no thoughts at all, just a dark and bottomless void below the sea, a vacuum that seemed to want to drag the Haurstaf witch inside.

Briana recoiled.

She found herself standing on the Herald’s deck once more, clutching Howlish’s arm to steady herself. She had never sensed anything like that before. It was like a force of nature, a storm, but without wind or substance – an abyss.

‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ Howlish asked.

Briana couldn’t answer. She was still fumbling to locate her own wits. What had just happened? She raised her head to find Ianthe gazing at her with a curiously detached look in her eyes.

‘Did you just do something?’ the girl said.

Briana swallowed, then took a deep breath. Her thoughts still spun. That break in the reservoir had been so tiny she might easily have overlooked it, and yet it had contained a space so vast it had overwhelmed her. ‘We’re not trying to harm you,’ she said.

‘Then let me go,’ Ianthe said. ‘Get these idiots off me!’

Briana nodded to the Guild sailors, who released the girl.

Ianthe bolted immediately. She ran back across the boarding ramp onto the Unmer ship. Briana watched her go with mute incomprehension, before she realized what was happening. She cursed and raced after the girl.

‘Ianthe, wait!’

The girl reached the sterncastle hatch, threw it open and plunged inside.

Moments behind, Briana hurried down the steps after the girl. She found herself in a narrow wooden space with doors leading off both sides. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom – and then she spotted Ianthe stumbling along the passageway ahead, her hands held out like those of a blind woman trying to feel her way. The girl reached a door at the end of the passageway and burst through it.

This door led to the captain’s cabin, and here Briana found Ianthe fumbling about on her hands and knees, searching for something.

‘You can’t stay here,’ Briana said quietly.

‘Help me find them.’

‘Find what?’

‘The lenses, the spectacles.’

‘What?’

Ianthe gave a shriek of frustration. ‘Spectacles! Unmer spectacles!’

Briana glanced around her. There was a bed, a wardrobe, a chest and a large workbench under the stern windows that held an amazing assortment of telescopes, boxes, prisms, magnets and wires. Among all these objects she spotted a slender silver-frame pair of spectacles.

‘That’s them!’ Ianthe cried. She got to her feet, snatched the spectacles from the table and put them on with shaking hands. Then she stared at Briana. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Now we can go.’

Night was encroaching by the time they sailed away. Clouds covered the stars, and the Mare Lux glimmered faintly like old brass in last rays of dusk. Briana stood on the Herald’s sterncastle and watched the icebreaker recede into the distance. It seemed to her that the abandoned ship was turning in the wind, its melted figurehead coming about to watch them depart. She smelled rain and lifted her face to the skies. Banks of thundercloud moved overhead, as dense and massive as continents. Lightning pulsed soundlessly across the far northern horizon and again, dimly, in the west. When she lowered her gaze again, the deadship had disappeared.

A few of the Herald’s crew were busy setting out basins and pots to collect rainwater from the expected storm. As she crossed the deck, Briana acknowledged their greetings with a few sullen nods. She didn’t stop to talk. What did she have to say to these people? She went below deck to the galley, where she filled a bowl with thrice-boiled shrimp and land kelp and poured two mugs of coffee. She put the lot on a tray and took it to Ianthe’s cabin.

The girl was lying on her bunk, still wearing her spectacles. She turned round as Briana came in.

‘Hungry?’ Briana said.

Ianthe ignored her.

Briana set the tray down on a small table beside the bunk, then sat down on the stool opposite. Steam rose from the bowl of shrimp, filling the cabin with the vaguely unpleasant aroma of detoxified seafood. The room was large and airy with freshly painted white clapboarding and a floor of crushed pearl. On the wall beside the wardrobe hung a painting of the Guild Palace at Awl – its black and pyrite towers and minarets in striking contrast to the deep greens of the surrounding forest. In the background rose the mountains that formed the spine of Irillia, their layered peaks blurring into a gaseous blue haze. Briana looked at the girl. ‘Must you wear those things?’

‘What do you care?’

‘Actually I do care. They’re Unmer, so they’re probably dangerous. I don’t want you running to me when your brain starts trickling out through your nose.’

Ianthe grunted.

Briana took a sip of her coffee. Gently, she reached out with her mind again, gliding across the abstract plane of the Harmonic Reservoir until she found the same glitch she’d discovered earlier. This time she approached more cautiously, stopping when she felt the pull of the void beyond. It wasn’t like touching the mind of another psychic, but more like exposing herself to a crack in the substance of perception itself. Beyond lay powerful forces, and yet they seemed raw and utterly mindless. It was like standing on the edge of an abyss with the wind howling at her back; another step and she’d lose herself completely. She backed away quickly, afraid to go further. Ianthe gave no sign that she’d even noticed Briana’s presence in that other realm. But she had noticed before, Briana recalled. Did you just do something?

‘Your father told me you’re good at finding trove,’ she said.

‘He’s not my father.’

‘He seemed to think he was.’

‘I don’t care what he thinks.’

Briana set her coffee down again. ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Ianthe said. ‘I can’t read minds.’

‘Very few psychics are born with any demonstrable ability,’ Briana said. ‘It takes years of training to develop the skill. But we always find some indication of potential in raw recruits, some quirk of personality that gives them away.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Have you ever guessed what someone was going to say before they said it, or been thinking about someone you haven’t seen in a while, and then suddenly bumped into them in the street?’

Ianthe turned away and folded her arms. ‘No.’

‘So finding trove is just a lucky guess?’

The girl continued to stare at the wall through those etched Unmer lenses.

‘An odd little talent like that could be indicative of a greater sensitivity,’ Briana said. ‘I mean, I’m not mocking you. A gift for treasure-hunting is always going to make you useful to people like Maskelyne and your father. You might even make a good living from it yourself one day. But I think that with the proper training you could be capable of so much more. Wouldn’t you like the opportunity to develop your abilities more thoroughly, in comfortable surroundings, with girls of your own age?’

Ianthe snorted. ‘You don’t know anything.’

‘That’s true,’ Briana said. ‘But what do you know about the Haurstaf?’

Ianthe shrugged.

‘We provide various services,’ Briana said, ‘intelligence gathering, communications, containment and security. Our clients range from humble merchants to emperors.’

‘Containment?’ Ianthe said. ‘You mean oppression?’

‘We contain the Unmer humanely,’ Briana said, ‘without the need for walls. Our psychics simply monitor their movements and punish them if they step outside their allocated territory. We certainly don’t kill them unless we have to.’ She looked at Ianthe. ‘Would you rather we allowed them to wander free?’

Ianthe’s arms tightened around herself. ‘You brought war to Evensraum.’

‘Hu brought war to Evensraum-’

‘But you helped him,’ Ianthe retorted. ‘You make it possible.’

‘We facilitate the implementation of our clients’ strategies, if that’s what you mean,’ Briana said. ‘But we never start wars. In fact, our presence in a conflict situation usually saves lives. The bombardment at Weaverbrook happened because Hu chose not to use a Guild psychic. He didn’t make that mistake a second time.’

The girl snorted. ‘I didn’t see any psychics on the Evensraum side.’

Briana was silent for a while. Finally she said, ‘The Guild protects itself, first and foremost. If that means adopting a mercenary attitude at times, then that is what we must do. Any other race of people would do the same.’ She finished her coffee and set down the cup. ‘I’m not your enemy, Ianthe. I’m trying to help you.’

Ianthe gazed at the painting on the wall. ‘We’re going to Awl, aren’t we?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What about Maskelyne?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want him near me.’

‘That can be arranged,’ Briana said. ‘If it turns out he held a psychic against her will, he’ll be punished accordingly.’

Ianthe turned to face her. ‘Executed?’

‘Would you like that?’

Ianthe didn’t answer. She looked at the painting again. ‘But what if you discover I’m not psychic?’

Briana laid a hand on Ianthe’s arm. ‘Eat your supper before it gets cold.’

Briana woke to the sound of rain pattering against the windows and the ever-present chatter of Haurstaf conversation:… warlord Pria Ramad seeks to advocate his rights in Chal over… six thousand nomio on the twenty-first… state that any aggressors will be dealt with using the utmost… seven units hiding in the Fryling Bay… bring to 254 degrees 20 minutes… Briana tuned it out as best she could, then got out of bed and padded naked across the carpet to the window. The ship rolled heavily under her bare feet. It was a dull, blustery morning outside. Rain streaked the window panes. The sea bucked and frothed under a leaden ceiling of cloud.

Her stateroom stretched across the breadth of the ship’s stern from port to starboard, with duskglass windows on three sides. Normally light and spacious, today the chamber seemed as gloomy as a cave. Briana opened the shutters of her gem lanterns, brightening the room. From her wardrobe she chose a pair of white linen breeches, a spider-silk blouse and her padded woollen jacket from Losoto. She looked at herself in the mirror for a long time, counting every tiny wrinkle and imperfection on her skin. With every year that passed she felt more and more compelled to chart the process of age. It was like watching an enemy’s every manoeuvre: necessary, but depressing. She thought about Ianthe’s perfect skin and deeply lustrous hair and allowed herself a single, luxurious moment of hate.

Then she sat down and poured herself a glass of water, sharpened with a drop of poppy oil and a pinch of anemone.

… borakai nineteen six eleven passing through from… administer the final payments through an intermediary… would not be welcome… are you awake…? mark two two four, listening. .. out with his jurisdiction on the first…

Shut up!

The chatter stopped. Briana found herself shivering, suddenly afraid that her outburst would be recognized for what it was. A reaction prompted by the anguish of too many foreign thoughts passing through her head. The others would think that she was breaking down. Am I breaking down? Briana kept that thought to herself. She counted to five, slowly, trying to relax her thumping heart. Communication across the entire empire had momentarily ceased, and Briana could feel the Haurstaf network trembling with uncertainty. She swallowed hard and sent out another message:

Keep all communication on a peer-to-peer basis until further notice. The next voice I hear is going to find herself cleaning Port Awl horses with her tongue. She could almost hear a thousand groans reverberating through the ensuing silence. Yellow- and amber-grade psychics would be unable to maintain such intense concentration for long.

The lookouts have spotted a ship to the south.

Briana was about to lash out in anger, when she recognized the voice in her head. It was Pascal, aboard her companion ship, Trumpet.

It’s Hu’s steam yacht, the young psychic added. And it’s following us.

Granger?

Briana pulled on her boots, gloves and storm mask, wrapped her whaleskin cloak around her shoulders and hurried above deck. Freezing rain lashed her cloak, and the wind snapped at the sails above her. Howlish had trimmed the mainsail and taken down the spinnaker. Even so, the storm was forcing him to luff. The rigging thrummed like plucked wire; the masts groaned. Masked crewmen were busy tying down the spinnaker and securing the fore jib. Under the heavy clouds the Mare Lux looked as dark and angry as she had ever seen it, a great shuddering cauldron of brine. She could smell it through the filters of her mask. The Herald’s sister ships, Trumpet and Radiant Song, lay some distance off the starboard side, their red hulls rising and then crashing down through the waves. Briana grabbed a rail and scanned the southern horizon. There! A single plume of smoke.

Howlish was in a jovial mood. After Briana had removed her mask and dumped it on the wheelhouse bench, he said. ‘Good morning, ma’am. Fine day for it, don’t you think?’

Briana shucked off her cloak. ‘A fine day for what?’

‘For sinking the emperor’s flagship, ma’am.’ The captain exchanged a glance with the navigation officer.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ she replied.

‘We could always claim he attacked us.’

She smiled thinly. ‘Not even Hu’s going to believe that one man operated the Excelsior’s cannon arsenal. Are there any other vessels in sight?’

‘The horizon’s clear, ma’am.’

‘Can we run ahead of her?’

Howlish shook his head. ‘Not in this wind, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We’d only tear the Herald to pieces. The Excelsior’s engines give her a huge power advantage over us.’ He glanced at his pocket watch. ‘At her present speed she’ll be alongside in about ninety minutes.’

Briana peeled off her gloves and threw them down on top of her cloak. Dealing with an angry father was the last thing she needed right now, especially one who didn’t appear to be the sort to give up and go away quietly. How would Ianthe react? Briana sighed. Sinking her old man might be the best solution after all.

‘Ready the ship for battle,’ she said to Howlish. ‘And signal the Trumpet and Song to do likewise.’

‘Signal?’ Howlish asked. ‘You want us to use the signal lantern?’

Briana nodded. ‘I don’t want these orders passing through the Haurstaf network,’ she said. ‘Pascal and Windflower are to maintain telepathic silence. We need to be able to deny all knowledge. And not a word of this to Ianthe.’

‘Very good, ma’am.’

Howlish ordered full munitions crews to the gun decks and the Herald’s sails trimmed further, sacrificing speed for increased manoeuvrability in these high winds. Guild riflemen took up positions fore and aft, while the rest of the crew battened down in readiness. Signal lanterns flashed between the three Haurstaf vessels.

They were ready long before the Excelsior drew near.

Briana watched the steam yacht approach through the stern-castle telescope. She was two-thirds the length of the Haurstaf men-o’-war, but much lower and sleeker, with a single mast and three funnels behind the bridge. Judging by the amount of smoke she was disgorging, Granger was driving her engines hard. Her copper-clad bow cut through the waves like a dagger. Her cannon hatches were open, and the breeches of those antique guns gleamed along both sides of her hull. The sight of those guns unsettled Briana, but she tried to dismiss her nerves. Granger couldn’t possibly have found a crew to man them.

She returned to the hush of the wheelhouse to find Howlish in quiet conversation with the helmsman, signal officer and navigator. Howlish looked up at her arrival. ‘The Trumpet and Song are about to engage,’ he said. ‘They’ll fall back and signal a warning while we maintain our speed and heading. With any luck we can draw him between their guns. I don’t expect the Excelsior to give us much trouble.’

Briana nodded, but the uneasy feeling remained in her gut.

‘There they go now,’ Howlish said.

The two Haurstaf men-o’-war dropped behind, the Song maintaining her present heading while the Trumpet close-hauled westward across the Herald’s stern. Granger’s steam yacht did not deviate from its heading. It came thundering on, smoke pouring from its three funnels as it cleaved through the waves towards the waiting men-o’-war.

‘The Trumpet will start to signal now,’ Howlish said.

Briana saw the Trumpet’s signal lantern flashing repeatedly upon her quarterdeck. Granger made no reply but kept to his same steady course. He was going to pass between the two warships. ‘Why would he do that?’ Briana said. ‘Why expose himself to danger?’ She watched the steam yacht draw level with the Trumpet.

Howlish nodded to the signal officer. ‘Tell them to open fire.’

Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack.

The sound of cannon blasts rattled the dome’s duskglass panes. Flashes of firelight lit the waters between Granger’s yacht and the Haurstaf man-o’-war. A heartbeat passed before Briana realized that the flashes had come from the wrong ship. Granger’s vessel had opened fire on the warship.

‘The Excelsior just fired on the Trumpet,’ the signal officer said.

Howlish looked aghast. ‘He has a crew aboard?’

‘He’s blown a hole in her gun deck.’

‘Why isn’t she responding?’ Howlish said.

‘I see fires, captain.’

Crack, crack, crack, crack.

The steam yacht fired on the Trumpet again. Through the drifting smoke, Briana glimpsed fires blooming amidst the warship’s shattered gun deck. And then an explosion blew out the man-o’-war’s entire port side, throwing a cloud of wood splinters and dragon scales across the dark waters.

Boom, boom, boom.

‘The Song is responding, Captain.’

By now the second Haurstaf warship had closed on the yacht and opened fire. A score of artillery shells tore through the yacht’s port bulwark and bowsprit, shredding her foredeck and the upper corner of her wheelhouse. Scraps of wood puffed skywards, but the shots had been too high to do any real damage.

Crack, crack, crack, crack…

‘Port-side guns.’

The steam yacht’s cannons fired with a series of yellow flashes. Six, eight, then ten Valcinder cannons pummelled the Song’s hull in a full broadside attack. And still the shots kept coming, twelve, fifteen guns, the cannonballs smashing the warship’s armour to dust.

‘The bastard has a full gun crew in there,’ Howlish said.

The Trumpet was fully ablaze now and going down fast. Smoke engulfed the Song, but Briana thought she spied flames there too. The second warship was turning now, attempting to take herself out of the path of Granger’s guns while bringing her remaining cannons to bear on the yacht’s stern.

Briana heard Pascal’s voice burst into her head: We need assistance. I’m calling the Guild.

Do not contact the Guild, Briana replied. Maintain silence.

We’re on fire, Pascal exclaimed. Going down fast.

Maintain silence, Briana insisted. She broadcast the order to both women on the two men-o’-war. We’re coming to help. She turned to Captain Howlish and said, ‘Do something, help them.’

‘Two seventy degrees,’ Howlish growled to the helmsman. ‘Guns to bear on the enemy’s bow.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

We’re safe enough. Briana told herself. However mad Granger was, he wasn’t likely to kill his own daughter.

GD -DENY -REQ/VERIFY -CONFIRM – REQ/ASSIST

Granger punched the commands into the comspool and depressed the release valve. The orders would be meaningless to any crewman, but Granger didn’t have any crewmen aboard. What he did have was a comspool on the gun deck retrofitted with the flintlocks he’d removed from forty-eight Valcinder Ferredales and attached to the breech vents of those same cannons via a web of rapid-burning fuse cord. For good measure, he’d dipped the ends of each fuse in a concoction of sulphur, glue and yellow phosphorus.

It seemed to be doing the trick.

A few seconds later he heard the concussions from below deck as the cannons fired. Four more rounds of heavy iron shot smashed into the Haurstaf warship on his port side. She was trying to reach now, which was fine by Granger. Evidently the warship’s captain did not know the state of his own gun deck.

Granger’s real target lay ahead of him. The Irillian Herald was turning about now, bringing her guns to bear on his bow. And Granger had every intention of letting her do so. He picked up one of the maps lying on the console and wrote across it in big bold letters:

THIS IS YOUR FATHER, IANTHE.

I’M TAKING YOU HOME.

‘Ethan Maskelyne wishes to speak to you, ma’am.’

Briana turned to find one of the men she’d left guarding Maske-lyne’s stateroom standing in the wheelhouse doorway. ‘What?’

‘He says it is extremely important.’

‘Not now.’ She dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand. Everything seemed to be happening at once. Howlish was bringing the ship into battle. The signal officer was flashing the Song, trying to ascertain the extent of her damage.

The guard glanced around him, then spoke in a low voice. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, but he says the captain is an idiot and is doing exactly what Colonel Granger wants him to.’

‘How the hell does Maskelyne know what’s going on?’

The guard shrugged. ‘I don’t know, ma’am. He was the one who told me.’

‘And now you believe he knows how to get us out of this?’

‘He’s Ethan Maskelyne, ma’am.’

Briana sighed. She turned to Howlish. ‘How long till we’re in range?’

‘Minutes, ma’am.’

‘Then I don’t have time,’ she said to the guard. ‘If it’s so important, he can write me a note.’ She sent the guard away.

By now Howlish had turned the Haurstaf warship into the wind. The deck pitched as the Herald’s sails took up the strain. Rain lashed the wheelhouse glass. Spume burst against the bulwark and showered the Guild mariners fighting to control the boom. To starboard, Granger’s yacht bore down on them at tremendous speed, her funnels steaming, her bow rising and then crashing down through the dark and frothing waters.

‘Range shot,’ Howlish said.

First officer Lum rang the bell pipe, then waited for a heartbeat and rang it again. The comspool on the navigation console began to chatter in response. He scanned the tape. ‘Confirmed. Ranging to starboard now, sir.’

Moments later, one of the Herald’s cannon fired. A single shell flew out across the sea, but landed short of Granger’s yacht.

‘Range is good,’ Howlish said. ‘One through twenty, red stations.’

The first officer rang the bell pipe again, then paused before making three more rings in rapid succession. The comspool began chattering almost immediately. ‘Red stations one through twenty firing now, sir. Confirmed.’

This time twenty of the Herald’s cannons fired at once. The combined noise of the concussions rattled the duskglass panes. A great burst of smoke erupted from the side of the warship as twenty artillery shells arced across the space between the two ships. Most of the missiles flew wide, but two of them found their target. The uppermost section of the steam yacht’s bow imploded as the heavy shells tore through.

‘Strike confirmed,’ the first officer said. ‘Upper bow.’

The bell pipe rang twice.

‘Re-range for six knots and scatter,’ Howlish said. ‘Twenty through forty, red stations.’

‘Twenty through forty. Re-range and scatter. Aye, sir.’

The second barrage tore part of the roof off the steam yacht’s wheelhouse and blew a funnel cleat and cable away, but the Haurstaf gunners missed the bow entirely. The other ship came steaming straight towards them, faster than ever.

Howlish yawned. ‘Bear away,’ he said. ‘Ready chasers. Port guns one through twenty, red stations. Fire crews to stand by.’

‘She’s not deviating, sir,’ the first officer said.

‘She’ll deviate. Ring the commands, Officer Lum.’

Bells sounded outside. The helmsman spun the wheel. Out on the storm-blown deck Guild mariners began hauling in the mainsail. Slowly, the warship turned her stern towards the approaching yacht.

The first officer frowned. ‘She’s still not deviating, sir,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘She going to hit us.’

Howlish’s eyes narrowed. ‘What is the madman doing? He’ll sink us both. Fire the chasers.’

The first officer began madly ringing the bell pipe.

But Briana could see that it was too late. Granger’s ship was going to crash into them.

‘Broad reach,’ Howlish cried.

The comspool began to chatter out tape.

‘Chasers ready, sir.’

‘Leave the chasers. Put us on a broad reach now.’

The helmsman spun the wheel back.

Through the driving rain Briana saw the steam yacht bearing down on them, waves crashing against its thunderbolt-wielding figurehead. A solitary figure stood at the wheel amidst the shattered bridge. The Herald’s stern was now inching away, but not fast enough. Briana tensed for the impact.

‘He’s turning,’ Howlish said. ‘Too late, too late.’

At the last instant, the other vessel began to turn aside, but it was a futile manoeuvre.

The yacht struck the stern of the warship with an impact that almost knocked Briana off her feet. From the rear came a great crash of timbers and groan of metal. Men stumbled and fell across the rain-swept deck. The Haurstaf ship yawed wildly, her hull actually rising a few feet out of the water. The yacht kept coming, her vast momentum carrying her along as she scraped along the side of the warship with a juddering shriek. For an instant the two vessels were almost side by side. They began to part.

And then a second concussion thudded through the warship’s timbers. Granger’s yacht broke away, turning downwind as the man-o’-war rocked heavily and righted itself. In the Haurstaf wheelhouse, the helmsman fought against the wheel. The first officer steadied himself and rushed over to the comspool.

‘Port-side guns,’ Howlish said. ‘All of them.’

‘We’re still turning, sir.’

Howlish scowled at the helmsman. ‘Close haul.’

The helmsman was still struggling with the wheel. ‘I can’t… I think we’ve lost our rudder, captain.’

The captain snorted. ‘Then how can we possibly be turning into the wind?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

But it was true. The man-o’-war continued to pivot, as some unseen force pushed it into the very face of the gale, turning their broadside away from the departing yacht. The mainsail and jib began to luff. They were losing control.

The whole warship gave a sudden, violent jerk.

Captain Howlish fell against the navigation console. Briana grabbed the first officer’s arm to steady herself. From somewhere aft came a long, low groan.

The man-o’-war began to move backwards.

Shouts came from outside. Howlish threw open the wheel-house door to better hear his crewmen, admitting a blast of rain and wind. Briana lifted the hood of her whaleskin cloak and moved over beside him. ‘Trouble?’ she asked.

Three crewmen clung to the poop deck, leaning over the taffarell as they examined the wrecked stern by the light of a gem lantern. One of them was shouting something, but the wind stole his voice.

Howlish waved a fourth crewman over. ‘What is going on?’

The man looked up and said, ‘We’ve been harpooned, sir.’

‘What?’

‘A dragon harpoon, captain. Biggest one I’ve ever seen. It’s buried deep in the stern post, down at the waterline. She’s using it to tow us.’

‘Tow us?’

‘Aye, Captain. The steam yacht is towing us behind her.’