The Waking Fire

The Blessing remains perhaps the most baffling mystery as yet unsolved by modern science. Even in this new age dominated by the rational pursuit of profit, the answer to this question still eludes our best minds: Why is only one in every thousand born to each generation afforded the ability to make use of the wondrous properties found in the blood of the Arradsian drake? Extensive research, most recently the exhaustive statistical analysis produced by Professor Skylar Blackfold of the Consolidated Research Company, has uncovered no shared physical characteristics between the Blessed. Height, pigmentation, eye-colour and the new science of blood grouping, reveal no commonalities between subjects. The phenomenon is also not hereditary; Blessed parents do not produce Blessed children. Social research has also provided no useful insight as personality amongst the Blessed is as varied as the rest of the population. Depending on their beginning station in life, a Blood-blessed is just as likely to embark upon a career of base criminality as they are to find productive and responsible employment. The Blessing, it appears, is as random as the weather.

From A Lay-person’s Guide to Plasmology by Miss Amorea Findlestack. Ironship Press—Company Year 190 (1579 by the Mandinorian Calendar).

CHAPTER 33

Hilemore

“The northern route is suicide,” Hilemore said. “As the Corvantine attack on the Hive demonstrated. Fast as we are, we can’t out-run every ship likely to bar our path, and enemy patrols will grow ever more numerous as we draw near Feros, assuming we even get that far.”

He was alone with Zenida in the ward-room, having unfurled a map of the eastern Isles on the table. He had given the tiller over to her upon clearing the Hive’s harbour mouth, keeping the Viable at full speed and trusting her to navigate a course through the winding channels to the south. It had been a perilous enterprise, even with her knowledge. Steering a vessel of such size through so many narrow passages was a considerable challenge and they had come close to running aground more than once. However, as the sky grew dark and the way behind remained free of any pursuers, he knew his trust hadn’t been misplaced.

He ordered Bozware to switch to auxiliary power and reduced speed to dead slow. Zenida, face slick with sweat from her exertions at the wheel, guided the ship to the south-side of a tall, rocky islet whereupon she collapsed. Hilemore caught her as she fell, carrying her back to Tottleborn’s old cabin and laying her on the bed next to Akina.

“I wish she’d killed Arshav,” the girl said, pulling a blanket over her mother.

“Killing one of your own blood is not an easy thing,” Hilemore replied, thinking back over the many times he had been tempted to plunge a knife into his father’s back during yet another drunken catastrophe at the dining-table.

“It won’t be for me,” the girl said before none-too-gently pushing him from the cabin and firmly closing the door.

Zenida didn’t re-emerge for a full day, and when she did it appeared the rest had done much to restore both her vitality and facility for caustic observation. “So, we will simply sail around the Isles until the war ends? Forgive me, Captain, but the pleasure of your company is not so alluring and I have pressing family matters in Varestia to attend to. My darling brother will no doubt be doing everything in his power to get there before I do.”

“Assuming he survived the attack.”

“Oh, he survived, you can be sure of that. And the bitch that whelped him.”

“In any case,” he said, forcing a patient tone into his voice, “the southern course offers certain opportunities.” He traced his finger along the eastern edge of the Isles to where they curved towards Arradsia’s south-eastern coast-line. “Hadlock,” he said, tapping the dot at the head of an inlet that stretched into the Coppersole Mountains from the south-eastern coast.

“A Briteshore holding,” she said.

“With an Ironship concession and berthing rights for Protectorate Vessels. Also, we should be able to purchase sufficient product to carry us to Varestia.”

Zenida raised an eyebrow. “You wish to take me home, Captain?”

“I wish to save my ship and, if possible, continue to prosecute this war. Varestia will put us close to the Corvantine home waters and maritime trade-routes, with which I’m sure you are highly familiar. With most of their fleet concentrated around Arradsia, the pickings are likely to be rich, wouldn’t you say?”

Her lips twitched in amusement, though he saw the definite glimmer of interest in her eyes. “I thought I was the pirate here.”

“Privateer,” he reminded her. “And also now contracted crew of an Ironship Protectorate Vessel in time of war.”

“Your entire Protectorate can perish from the black pox for all I care. They did try to kill me, if you recall.”

“Purely a matter of business, I’m sure. And so is this.”

She returned her gaze to the map, sighing and shaking her head. “It’s a very long way.”

“It’s either this or we strike out for Dalcia. Hundreds of miles of open ocean and I doubt we’ll find much welcome at the end of it.”

“It’s not so much the passage through the Isles that concerns me.” Her finger circled the apparently open water between the tail-end of the eastern Isles and the south Arradsian coast. “They call it the Razor Sea for a reason. More hidden reefs than can easily be counted. And there’s nothing between it and the waters off Carvenport. Who’s to say the Corvantine Fleet isn’t already patrolling the region?”

“A risk we’ll have to run. Unless you wish to sit out the war here whilst your brother rebuilds his fortunes in your homeland.”

She glared at him for a second then stood back from the map, folding her arms. “I believe it’s time to renegotiate my contract,” she said. “Equal shares in all prize money. Half for me, half for the ship. Think of it as compensation for your Syndicate’s betrayal.” Seeing his burgeoning anger, she added. “Or perhaps you’d like to fire the engine and navigate both the Isles and the Razor Sea yourself?”

—

It took two days of careful piloting to reach the Razor Sea, Hilemore using the time to return the Viable to some semblance of military readiness. The worst of the damage to her decking and upper works was repaired and Ensign Tollver given the task of overseeing an application of fresh paint which obscured much of the blackening she had received. Hilemore reinstituted daily drills for the gun-crews and riflemen, something that aroused little grumbling now that they had all gained a hard education in the rigours of battle. His principal worry remained their diminished numbers. So far, Dr. Weygrand had returned only two men to active duty and maintained a rigid determination not to release more until sure of their recovery.

“The ship is your charge,” the doctor reminded him during a visit to the sick-bay. “These men are mine.”

Hilemore paused at the bunk where Captain Trumane lay, still insensible after so many days. “No change, then?”

“Actually, he started shouting in his sleep last night,” Weygrand said. “Not for very long, but it’s a good sign.”

Hilemore surveyed the captain’s slack features, wondering whether it would be for the best if he did return from whatever depths had claimed him. Although Hilemore knew Trumane’s handling of the ship during the battle had saved them from destruction, he had severe doubts the man would approve of his accommodations with Zenida, or his chosen course of action. Another worry best set aside, he told himself, turning to the doctor. “We have a copious stock of Green, now. Wouldn’t that speed the recovery of these men?”

“Not everything is cured by Green, sir. If it was, there’d be no need for doctors.”

He checked on the engine room next, finding the Chief in surprisingly cheerful spirits. “Both my babes in fine working order,” he said, grease-black cheeks bunching in a smile as he gestured to the two engines. “After all the punishment they’ve had, it’s a Seer-blessed miracle.”

“If so, you wrought it, Chief,” Hilemore told him, then frowned at the sight of a small figure in much-modified overalls moving about the auxiliary gearing with an oil-can. “What’s she doing here?” he asked.

“Her mother brought her down yesterday, told me to put her to work. Got a sense she’s tired of having her cooped up in that cabin.”

Hilemore briefly considered ordering the girl up top but, seeing the keen animation in her face as she tended the machinery, decided to leave her be. Better this than spending more time with Tottleborn’s collection of filth, he thought. “If we encounter any more action, make sure she’s taken aloft,” he told the Chief.

“Aye, sir.”

They reached the southern tip of the Isles that evening where Zenida insisted they anchor and wait for morning. “Running the Razors in darkness is madness,” she told him.

“I trust your knowledge will see us safely through,” he said, frowning as she replied with only a vague nod. “You are familiar with these waters?”

She didn’t look at him. “I’ve sailed them before.”

“How often?”

He watched her hands twitch on the wheel. “Once, when serving on my father’s ship.”

“You mean you weren’t even in command?”

She rounded on him, eyes flashing. “Have you ever sailed here, Captain?”

He thought about retrieving their reworded contract and burning it in front of her, but instead took a turn about the deck to calm his anger. The fact that he had no alternative but to trust his ship to her knowledge, meagre though it was, did not sit well. No good choices in war, he reminded himself, another of his grandfather’s observations. War is a storm, lad. With a good crew and a good ship, maybe you can ride it out. But there’s never been a ship didn’t take a battering in a storm.

Hilemore ran a hand along the Viable’s scarred timbers, seeking to banish his worries with as much certainty as he could muster. A good ship I have, and a crew to match it.

—

At first glance the Razor Sea seemed like any other stretch of ocean, a little more prone to wayward currents than some, but hardly unusual. It was only when they had covered the first ten miles that Hilemore came to appreciate the dangers lurking beneath the surface. The sea had a tendency to transform from placidity to swirling eddy or frothing swell in a matter of seconds, without any change in weather or wind to provide a warning. Zenida insisted they remain on auxiliary power and kept the Viable at no more than one-third speed throughout the first day, making several dramatic course changes whilst teams of crewmen fore and aft took soundings with lead weight and rope.

“Eight fathoms!” the ensign in charge of the forward team called out, soon echoed by the team at the stern.

“The most shallow stretch yet,” Hilemore commented to Zenida, who barely nodded, her concentration fixed entirely on the course and the bridge instruments. She had spent much of the preceding night engaged in a close study of the Viable’s charts, scribbling down and memorising the series of manoeuvres that would, he hoped, see them safely through this most perilous region.

“Dead slow,” she ordered, maintaining her course. “And tell them to check for sand.”

Hilemore duly relayed the order, watching the sounding teams swing the lead once more, this time with a dab of tallow smeared on the end of the weight. “Six fathoms!” the ensign at the bow reported, checking the fragments sticking to the tallow. “Sand and coral beneath!”

“We’re on top of it,” Zenida commented, correcting course as a sudden current began to push the bows to port.

“On top of what?” Hilemore asked.

“See for yourself,” she replied, nodding towards the side. Hilemore went outside and leaned over the railing to peer down at the sea. The water was unusually clear and he could see a school of fish darting about near the port paddle, and below them the multi-hued, jagged shapes of close-packed coral. She had steered them directly over a reef.

“Four fathoms!” the sounding team called out.

Hilemore returned to the bridge and spoke quietly into Zenida’s ear. “What in the Travail are you doing?”

“It goes on for four hundred miles north and the same distance south,” she said, spinning the wheel once more to compensate for the current. “There’s no way around it if you want to make Hadlock in anything like reasonable time.” She checked the bridge clock then the compass. “Trust me, Captain. If I meant to wreck this ship I could have done so a hundred times in the Isles.”

“Three and one-half fathoms!”

Twenty-one feet of depth, he thought. The Viable’s draught at her current loading was nineteen. “We could off-load some cargo,” he said. “Reduce the weight.”

“Unnecessary,” Zenida replied.

“We have only two feet of clearance.”

She said nothing for some time, her gaze flicking continually between compass and clock. When the sounding team reported again the result was a surprise. “Ten and one-quarter fathoms!”

“Ten,” Zenida repeated, pursing her lips. “It was a good twenty fathoms deep a decade ago. It must have grown back.”

“Grown?” Hilemore asked in bafflement.

“My father had a very robust approach to obstacles,” she said. “If something was in his way, he tended to knock it down. We spent the best part of a summer here lowering explosive charges to blow a hole in this reef. It proved its worth soon enough. Briteshore ships sailing from Hadlock were always a rich prize, and they were poorly armed in those days since what pirate would risk the Razors to get at them? My share was sufficient for me to purchase my own ship, much to Father’s annoyance.”

She gave a weary sigh and relaxed her hold on the wheel, turning to Talmant. “Take her for me, lad. It’s clear water for the next sixty miles.”

—

Hilemore awoke to the hard feel of the cabin deck beneath his cheek, his bleary vision clearing to see a spy-glass rolling towards him across the planking. He tried to get up and realised he was tangled in his bed-clothes, the continual pitching of the deck frustrating his attempts to get free. A quick glance at the port-hole confirmed his suspicion. The rain lashed against the glass and lightning flashed to throw stark shadows onto the wall. Storm.

He stumbled onto the bridge a bare five minutes later, liberally soaked from the water cascading over the rails as tall waves pounded the immobile vessel. They had come to a halt at nightfall as per Zenida’s instruction. She advised they had one more reef-maze to traverse the following day before reaching open water, an impossible task at night. The sea had been relatively placid then, but for a few squalls on the western horizon. As ever, the sea proved an erratic mistress.

“Blew up only a quarter hour ago, sir,” Ensign Tollver said, clinging desperately to the wheel. Talmant had been sent below at change of watch for some much-needed rest.

“And why are we still at anchor?” Hilemore demanded, but the boy could only gape at him in white-faced incomprehension. Hilemore cursed and went to the lanyard, pulling the six long blasts that signified a ship-threatening emergency.

“Look alive down there!” he yelled into the speaking-tube, being rewarded a moment later by the dull voice of one of Bozware’s stokers.

“Sir?”

“Get the Chief out of bed,” Hilemore ordered. “And Captain Okanas. The blood-burner is to be brought on-line with all haste.”

He went outside, receiving an immediate dunking from another pounding wave as he clambered down to the main-deck. “You there!” he called to a pair of crewmen clinging to one of the life-boat hawsers. “Get the stern anchor raised or we’ll be swamped!”

They displayed some initial hesitation but evidently had enough discipline and experience to see the wisdom in following his order and were soon staggering towards the stern. Hilemore made for the fore-deck, finding himself swept from his feet more than once as the waves continued to pound at the Viable. At one point he found himself pressed up against one of the starboard guns, the raging sea only a few feet from his face as the ship wallowed under the pressure. He was trying to regain his feet when he saw it, something out in the storm, something that caught a gleam as lightning flashed again. It was only for an instant and gone too soon to convince him it had been more than just a figment of his excited mind; an impression of speed and fluidity, knifing through the roiling swell. Then it was gone.

It can’t be, he thought, still staring out at the storm. Not in these waters surely.

“Sir?” Steelfine’s meaty hands gripped him and pulled him upright, the Islander’s tattooed face rendered momentarily demonic by a lightning flash as he leaned in to hear Hilemore’s order.

“The forward anchor!”

The Viable gave an abrupt lurch to starboard as they reached the fore-deck, indicating the aft anchor had either been raised or come loose. They struggled on, reaching the winch. The job of raising the anchor was usually done by a team of four sailors, but, thanks to Steelfine’s strength they managed to make the three turns of the winch needed to dislodge the great iron grapnel from the sea-bed. For a few seconds the Viable swung about wildly, at the mercy of wind and wave, but then the paddles jerked into life and the bow settled to something resembling a course.

“Rouse every man not yet awake!” Hilemore yelled to Steelfine as they locked the winch down. The anchor wasn’t fully raised but it couldn’t be helped. “Ensure all hatches are secured and make sure provisions are made ready if we have to take to the boats.”

He made his way to the bridge, a less perilous journey now that they were underway and the danger of swamping had passed. He was relieved to find Talmant at the wheel, Tollver standing at the speaking-tube, head lowered in shame.

“We didn’t sink, lad,” Hilemore said, patting his shoulder. “That’s all that matters.”

Zenida arrived, shaking the water from her hair before taking the wheel from Talmant. “There’s no way to chart a course in this,” she told Hilemore, then spun the wheel to turn the Viable into an on-coming wave, the bow rising and falling in a stomach-churning heave. “We’ll just have to ride it out and hope.”

She stayed at it for over an hour, steering the ship with an expert’s eye for the chaos raging beyond the bridge window. However, the wind defied prediction this night, whipping up waves from all directions, one of which proved too tall and too swift to turn into in time. The Viable took the full force of it on the starboard side, Hilemore hearing the clang of sundered iron as the armour on the paddle casement gave way under the blow and the Viable was shunted to port. The impact threw Zenida off her feet and Hilemore lunged for the now-rapidly-spinning wheel. He caught it and began to spin it to midships but then felt a hard, grinding vibration course through the ship accompanied by the scream of protesting metal.

Zenida regained her feet and retook the wheel as he rushed to the speaking-tube. “All stop!” he shouted. “We’re aground!”

“I know!” came Bozware’s reply. “Got half the bloody sea rushing in down here!”

—

“Plugged up the worst of it,” the Chief said, a feverish hour later. His stokers, in company with a dozen crewmen, were busy pounding timbers into place between the starboard hull and the engine-room deck. They worked in three feet of water, moving with an energy born of survival that negated the water’s chill. The buckled hull plate had been hammered into a rough semblance of its former shape then buttressed with timber before Bozware went about securing it with his steam riveter. Even so water continued to seep in as the repair was far from perfect.

“Luckily the reef seems to have lifted us clear of the worst of it,” the Chief went on. “Otherwise . . .”

“I know, Chief,” Hilemore told him, steadying himself as the ship rocked back and forth. The reef they were perched on was unwilling to let them go, but also didn’t make for a comfortable resting-place as long as the storm raged on.

“Got the pumps working full tilt,” Bozware said. “Should keep the levels from rising too fast. But she’s still taking on way too much.”

“I’ll organise a bailing line,” Hilemore told him, making for the hatch. On the way he spied Akina busily sorting out a box of fresh rivets and scooped her up, carrying her under his arm as he made his way up top. She yelled abuse in Varestian all the way to the bridge, falling silent only when Hilemore deposited her at her mother’s feet. Zenida pointed her to a corner with an expression that promised dire consequences should she move again.

They worked through the night to ward off the sea, the Chief’s crew labouring away to seal every leak whilst a line of crewmen passed buckets of sea-water from engine room to rail. The storm began to ebb with the first glimmer of morning light, and by sunrise had faded into a harsh but blessedly rain-free gale.

“Levels falling, sir,” Bozware reported via the speaking-tube. “Looks as if we might actually float today.”

“Good work, Chief. Get the men and yourself fed then take an hour’s rest.” Hilemore straightened and looked out at the rough seas, pondering the best means to work themselves loose from the reef. Reverse paddles, perhaps. But that’ll use up a good deal of product. Could unship the launches and try hauling her off . . .

“Crow’s nest reporting, sir,” Talmant said, breaking into his thoughts.

Hilemore’s irritated response died as he saw the boy’s pallor shift from pale to grey. “Enemy vessel approaching from the north, at speed.”

—

The Eutherian letters on her side proclaimed her as the INS Imperial, a light cruiser with no paddles and far too many guns for Hilemore’s liking. Blood-burner too, he judged gauging her speed through the spy-glass. Twenty-five knots at least. Even if the Viable hadn’t been shackled to this confounded reef it would have been an unequal contest, though they might have stood a chance of out-running her. He raised his spy-glass to the Corvantine’s masts. The signal contained in her pennants was easily read, it being universally recognised. Strike your colours and prepare to be boarded.

“Mr. Talmant,” he said, lowering the glass.

“Aye, sir.”

“Gather the ship’s books and charts into a weighted bag and throw it over the side.”

The boy hesitated but a glance from Hilemore was enough to see him scurrying off. Hilemore went to the speaking-tube. “Chief?”

“Sir?”

“How long would it take to disconnect the blood-burner?”

“Disconnect, sir?”

Hilemore gritted his teeth and gripped the speaking-tube hard. “I am about to surrender to a Corvantine cruiser and would prefer not to do so with an intact engine.”

There was a long pause, then a weary reply. “She can’t be disconnected, sir. Not without tearing the guts out of the ship, and that’d take the best part of a week.”

Hilemore nodded. “Gather whatever diagrams and blueprints you have and give them to Mr. Talmant for disposal. Then await further orders. Mr. Steelfine will be there directly.” He straightened and turned to Steelfine. “Number One. Proceed to the magazine and transport our gun charges to the engine room. The Chief will rig a fuse with a ten-minute delay. We will abandon ship and destroy the Viable in place.”

Steelfine betrayed no hesitation, though his jaw muscles did give the now-familiar bunch of reluctant anger. “Aye, sir.”

He sent Ensign Tollver to the sick-bay with orders for Dr. Weygrand to prepare his patients for transfer to the life-boats and turned to Zenida. She stood staring at the approaching cruiser in strangely rapt fascination.

“Captain Okanas,” he said. “It seems our contract is destined to remain unfulfilled. It might go better for you if the Corvantines think you’re a prisoner.”

She said nothing, continuing to stare at the Corvantine, though he heard her whisper, “Impossible” in Varestian.

“Captain?” He moved to her side, drawing up short at the sight that confronted him. The sea around the Imperial seemed to be boiling, churned into a white fury by something beneath, something moving swifter than any ship.

Both Hilemore and Zenida gave an involuntary shout as it erupted from the sea directly in front of the cruiser, rising amidst a mountain of spume, blue scales glinting in the sun. It rose to tower over the Imperial, massive jaws gaping and the mane of spines on its neck flared red and angry as it delivered a stream of white fire onto the cruiser’s fore-deck. Hilemore could see the crew running in panic or fear as the fire swept over the ship, catching light wherever there was something to burn. The cruiser slewed to port in an apparent effort to evade the assault but the Blue drake hauled itself free of the water in response, wrapping its massive, snake-like bulk around the ship’s works then lowering its great head to spew more fire into the ship’s guts. A flat boom told of a cannon being fired, the Blue convulsing in response, its coils slackening as it gave a roar of pain and a tide of blood cascaded across the cruiser’s deck. It clung on, however, spitting more fire at its enemy, possessed of a seemingly unreasoning fury.

The Imperial had drawn close enough now for Hilemore to hear the screams of the crew, maddened by pain as the Blue’s blood touched their skin or they fell burning into the sea. Cruiser and passenger passed in front of the Viable’s bows, wreathed in smoke, whereupon an ear-paining roar told Hilemore the flames had found the vessel’s magazine. A tall flower of yellow-orange flame leapt high into the air, accompanied by another roar from the drake. The Imperial’s keel had been shattered by the explosion, the ship held together only by the straining iron of the upper works to which the Blue still clung, thrashing and biting at its hated adversary as the waves rose to claim them both. Within seconds all that remained was a patch of burning oil and a slick of blood, soon faded to nothing by the wind-chopped waves.

“That did happen,” Zenida said in a small voice. Hilemore noted that Akina had emerged from her corner to take her mother’s hand.

“It did,” he replied.

“It wasn’t some imagining or nightmare,” Zenida went on.

“No,” he said. “It surely wasn’t.”

“Mother!” Akina said, clutching Zenida’s hand more tightly and for once sounding like the little girl she appeared to be. The reason for her distress soon became obvious. There were more shapes moving in the sea, more long, blue-scaled forms catching the sun as they knifed through the waves, more than Hilemore found he could count, and all were heading north.

CHAPTER 34

Lizanne

Marshal Morradin launched another assault just after midnight. A short but furious bombardment pounded the defences covering Carvenport’s western approaches followed by another massed ground assault, this time with three full brigades of infantry. The battle raged out of sight of Lizanne’s position but its fury could be gauged by the intensity of rifle and Growler fire, frequently accompanied by the flat crump of a Protectorate cannon. It wore on for more than an hour, flares launched by the artillery spotters illuminating the steady stream of wounded or maddened Corvantines staggering back to their own lines. When the firing finally died down word swept along the line of another Corvantine calamity; five hundred dead or more were piled up in front of the trenches. It seemed the stretch of line Morradin had chosen to attack was held by Protectorate Regulars and, although the Corvantine infantry had managed to fight their way to the third defensive line, the Syndicate troops’ discipline had held in the face of savage hand-to-hand fighting.

“You were right,” Lizanne observed to Arberus after the last sputter of rifle fire had petered out. “Morradin doesn’t appear to have much regard for the lives of his men.”

“Also, I suspect he knew nothing of the Growlers,” the major said, patting the Thumper’s breech. “Or our friend here.”

“If he keeps on like this there won’t be an army for him to command.”

“Don’t under-estimate him. A brute he may be, a fool he is not. We can count on a change of tactics at some point.”

Lizanne looked down at Tekela, curled up next to Jermayah as they slumbered beside the Thumper’s carriage. The need to get herself and the girl away had begun to gnaw at her as the day ground on and the death toll mounted. But every plan that flitted through her mind foundered on the inescapable knowledge that there were but two ways out of this city, and both remained firmly blocked.

“I must say she continues to surprise me,” Arberus commented, smiling a little as he regarded Tekela’s sleeping form. “Always thought she’d grow up to be another version of her mother, but it seems there’s as much Leonis in her too.”

“What was her mother like?” Lizanne asked. “The Burgrave’s servants led me to believe she could be cruel.”

“Cruel? At times. But Tekela was never an easy child, and Leonis dragging them to Morsvale had never been in Salema’s mind when she married the newly ennobled Burgrave with all his medals and, apparently, enjoying the Emperor’s favour. It didn’t make for a harmonious home.”

“Did she know? About the Brotherhood?”

Arberus gave a soft but appalled laugh. “Oh no. Salema was old-money Imperial nobility, but without the money. She used to say the Emperor’s biggest mistake was not depopulating Varestia when he had the chance, and she didn’t say it in jest.”

“She was cover,” Lizanne realised. “What better wife for a man seeking to infiltrate the noble class?”

“You’re judging him according to your own standards. Leonis could be ruthless, for what revolutionary isn’t? But he married Salema because he loved her, despite my strong advice.” His gaze grew more sombre as it returned to Tekela. “Even if he had known of her betrayal, I think he would have forgiven her.”

“Betrayal?”

“Salema’s attitude to marital fidelity mirrored that of her class, in that it was mostly a matter of appearance. It’s how the Corvantine aristocracy while their days away, indulging in affairs and enjoying the associated gossip. I suppose you can’t really blame her for simply following her conditioning.” He caught the calculation in Lizanne’s gaze and shook his head. “She made . . . an approach. When I refused her she looked elsewhere.”

Lizanne looked down at Tekela, recalling the less-than-pleasant meeting at the museum. “Diran,” she said.

“Yes.” Arberus sighed. “Dear old Uncle Diran. Tekela had the misfortune to happen upon them at the wrong moment. Diran came to me in a right old state, worried what it would mean for his friendship with Leonis, not to say access to all his valuable documents and artifacts. I made it very clear to him that this unwise assignation had to end. Salema . . . didn’t take it well.”

Lizanne crouched down at Tekela’s side, drawing the blanket up to better cover her shoulders. The nightmare that woke her that first night, she remembered. I didn’t tell . . .

“I had to pay a sizable bribe to the doctor and the coroner,” Arberus went on. “Leonis was near mad with grief as it was. If he had known it was an opium overdose rather than a lesion of the brain . . .” He shrugged. “What else could I do?”

“But she knew,” Lizanne said, rising from Tekela’s side. “Didn’t she?”

“I expect so. It seems carrying the knowledge did little to improve her temperament.”

He looked up as the last flare guttered and died in the sky, the pink illumination it cast replaced by the steel-blue light of the two moons. “I believe we may be done for the night,” he said. “You’d best get some sleep.”

She felt the denial die on her lips, the strain and exertion of the day suddenly weighing on her with irresistible pressure. “As should you,” she said, sitting down at Tekela’s side and pulling the blanket across them both. The girl mumbled something and shifted, a distressed frown forming on her smooth brow until Lizanne pulled her closer and she subsided into sleep once more.

“I’ll be alright for a while,” Arberus said, turning to run a rag over the Thumper’s breech. “Besides, Bessie here needs some attention.”

“Bessie,” Lizanne repeated, eyelids drooping as her lips formed a smile at the ridiculous notion of naming such a terrible thing. “Bessie . . .”

—

She was woken by what felt like twin hammers being rapidly pounded into both her ears at once. She blinked until her vision cleared, finding herself face-to-face with an equally alarmed Tekela.

“Magazine!”

They looked up to see Arberus and Jermayah at the Thumper, wreathed in smoke rising from the open breech. Lizanne shook the vestiges of sleep from her head and reached for the stock of magazines, handing one to the major as she came to her feet to view the scene beyond the trenches. The vision that greeted her made her suspect she might still be dreaming.

“I think I was over-generous in my estimation of the marshal’s abilities,” Arberus said, adjusting the Thumper’s aim as Jermayah slammed the magazine in place.

“Cavalry!” Lizanne breathed, still unable to quite believe the spectacle before her. They came on at the gallop, more horsemen than could easily be counted, streaming from the trees in a charging mass, sabres and lance-points glinting in the morning sun. Dozens of horses and men already lay dead or dying a good two hundred yards from the outer trench where the contingent of Contractors were maintaining a steady and rapid fire, more horses falling by the second, but still they came on.

“Sending cavalry against an entrenched position.” Arberus’s voice was rich in disgusted bafflement. “He must be mad.”

Jermayah drew back the lever to chamber the first shell and patted the major’s shoulder before turning the Thumper’s handle. Arberus had elevated the weapon so the rain of shells arced down just short of the tree-line, tearing through the ranks of on-coming cavalry in a spectacle of exploding horses and men. An enterprising Protectorate officer had clearly sensed an opportunity by quickly shifting more Growlers to cover this sector, their criss-crossing fire adding further decimation to the Corvantine ranks. Soon a wall of sundered horse-flesh seemed to have formed in a bloody crescent around the trenches. Lizanne could only guess at what threats or promises compelled the cavalry troopers to keep charging, galloping forward to leap the corpses of their comrades only to be cut down, some torn to shreds in mid air.

The Thumper fell silent once more and they began to repeat their well-honed reloading procedure, Lizanne sighing in frustration when Tekela failed to hand her the fresh magazine. “Look lively, if you would, miss.”

Tekela didn’t appear to be listening, standing and staring at something off to the left of their position. “What is that?” she wondered.

Lizanne followed her gaze, grunting in realisation as she saw a small man-shaped figure descending through a cloud of smoke towards the trenches, a leap that could only be accomplished by one thing. As the man neared the ground the air before him shimmered with unleashed heat, a sudden upsurge of flame concealing the sight of his fall, but from the bodies and limbs being cast into the air shortly after his landing, Lizanne deduced he had imbibed a large amount of Green and Black. She could see more of them, at least twenty dark figures leaping their impossible leaps and descending on the defenders in a fury of destruction. Blood Cadre.

“This was just a diversion,” she told Arberus, gesturing at the slaughtered cavalrymen then checking to ensure the Spider was firmly secured to her forearm. “Get word to Madame Bondersil to send every Blood-blessed she can to the eastern sector.”

Tekela clutched at her arm as she started to clamber out of the trench. “Don’t!”

“Stay with the major,” Lizanne told her, the impending violence making her tone harder than she intended and she winced at the hurt she saw in the girl’s face. “Keep your revolver handy,” she added, forcing a smile. “I’ll be back shortly.”

She turned away and injected half-second doses of Black, Green and Red, gritting her teeth against the rush of sensation then vaulting from the trench and sprinting towards the eastern sector. She leapt as she neared the scene of the worst destruction, the trenches littered with the corpses of Contractors and conscripts, those left alive fleeing in panic as flames and carnage raged at their backs. The leap took her high enough to see the havoc wrought by the Blood Cadre in just a few minutes, trenches filled with fire, cannon dismounted and their crews torn apart, the dark-uniformed figures of the empire’s most feared servants busily wreaking yet more destruction as they descended on the few knots of defenders unwise enough to linger.

She saw one in mid-leap just beneath her, flames blossoming beneath him as he unleashed a blast of Red onto a Growler crew. Keen to husband her product, she put two rounds from the Whisper into his back and had the satisfaction of seeing him plummet to the ground. A half-second later her own leap brought her down directly in the path of a trio of Cadre, all clad in insignia-free plain black uniforms. They had been engaged in dismembering a group of conscripts, one tearing the arm from a screaming man whilst his two comrades blasted the others with Black. Their momentary shock at her appearance gave her time to put a Whisper round in two of their foreheads in quick succession. The third dodged as she adjusted her aim, sinking to the ground and scuttling to the right in a crab-like blur. She felt the air around her thicken with heat as he let loose with a surge of Red, but the fire was weak, indicating he was near the end of his ingested product. She leapt again, sailing over his head and slamming down with a hefty release of Black, the force of it enough to crush his spine.

A bullet whisked by her head as she landed, her Green-attuned eyes instantly snapping to the threat. A woman twenty yards away with a revolver, moving with the aid of Green as she leapt, seeking the advantage of height and firing off a rapid salvo. Lizanne whirled away, raising dust in a concealing screen, and replied with a focused blast of Red, the woman twisting and thrashing in the air as her uniform took light. Lizanne sprinted towards her as she fell, writhing in the dust to extinguish the flames. She was clearly a veteran, however, her recovery swift and near fatal as she swept Lizanne from her feet with a concentrated burst of Black, then raised her pistol for a killing shot. Lizanne saw the woman curse as the revolver was jerked from her grip. It hovered in mid air in front of her face for a second then spun around and fired, the woman’s face shattering like glass.

Lizanne tracked the pistol’s flight, watching it descend into the hand of a beefy man some twenty yards away. He wore the garb typical of a stevedore, hardy dun-coloured dungarees and a peaked cap. He caught Lizanne’s gaze, grinned a little and touched a finger to his cap. Behind him she could see a dozen more people in varied garb emerging from the fog of dust and smoke, some with weapons, most not, spreading out as the air around them seemed to shimmer with suppressed power. Carvenport’s Blood-blessed had answered the call.

Lizanne turned, seeing a ragged line of Blood Cadre ahead. For a moment both sides stood regarding each other in silent appraisal, then as if in response to some unspoken command, they all leapt. Lizanne managed to shoot one Corvantine before the two sides collided in an instantaneous release of power. The air itself seemed to have been sundered by the combination of so much Black and Red unleashed at once. Lizanne found herself tumbling through the air, flames licking at the sleeve of her overalls and blood leaking from her nose, seeing a grey haze at the corners of her vision warning of imminent loss of consciousness. She depressed the Spider’s middle button an instant before colliding with the ground, the rush of Green sufficient to suppress most of the pain and prevent serious injury.

She found her feet quickly, the Whisper coming up to dispatch two Corvantines crawling about near by, both evidently nursing broken limbs. She saw the stevedore who had killed the Cadre woman, whirling in a miasma of raised dust as he used Black to swing a dismounted cannon around like a club, swatting a Corvantine out of the air before crushing another into the ground with repeated blows, like a mallet pounding on a splintering peg. A salvo of pistol-shots rang out and the stevedore’s furious pounding ceased abruptly, Lizanne watching him stare unbelieving at the holes in his chest before sinking to the ground.

She could see his killer, a tall hatchet-faced man holding a revolver in each hand. He was older than the other Cadre operatives, eyes narrowed in the determined yet shrewd gaze of the seasoned professional. Lizanne pressed three buttons on the Spider, refreshing her product reserves, then leapt again. The hatchet-faced man was quick to spot the danger, jerking aside as she fired her last two Whisper rounds. He rolled then performed his own Green-assisted leap, pistols blazing. Lizanne twisted in the air, feeling the bullets thrum around her, one plucking at the leg of her overalls but failing to find flesh. She sent a blast of Black at the Cadre agent, throwing his aim wide as he fired again, pistols clicking empty as he drew near. Lizanne twisted again, bringing her leg around in a kick that would have done her instructors proud. She felt it connect hard with the agent’s ribs, feeling the bones give way under the unnatural pressure. She turned to watch him fall as she landed, blood trailing from his mouth, then spouting high in a red fountain as he connected with the earth. Lizanne saw him twitch then lie still.

She reloaded the Whisper, hands moving with accustomed speed as she cast around for another target, finding only corpses and the dazed figures of the surviving Carvenport Blood-blessed wandering the scorched and part-demolished trenches.

“You there,” she said, spying one in a Protectorate uniform, a young man staring at the blackened body of the agent he had killed. He swung towards her, face momentarily pale and uncomprehending with shock, but straightened a little when she identified herself. “Exceptional Initiatives. Find an officer and get some riflemen down here to cover these trenches.”

He nodded and ran off. Through a mixture of jostling and sheer force of personality, Lizanne managed to gather the rest of the survivors into a dense knot around a Growler position, instructing them all to replenish their product as she went about restoring the weapon to working order. It was dented and blackened but fortunately the winding lever and firing mechanism remained undamaged, as did the magazines.

“Uh, miss,” one of the Blood-blessed said, a bespectacled woman of middling years in managerial garb. Lizanne assumed her usual responsibilities consisted of daily trance communications with Home Office. From the way her arm trembled as she pointed at the ground beyond the trenches, the trials of the day were evidently coming close to stripping away her self-control. A long line of Corvantine infantry could be seen advancing through the lingering smoke, their dense ranks indicating that Marshal Morradin still had some tactical lessons to learn.

“Stand ready,” Lizanne said, closing the breech on the Growler.

“Shouldn’t we . . .” another Blood-blessed began, this one a sailor and just as unnerved as the managerial woman. He had probably been recruited from the engine room of a blood-burner and cast into this maelstrom with little understanding of the consequences. He trailed off at Lizanne’s glance, giving a helpless shrug.

“Run?” she finished for him, before training the Growler on the on-coming infantry. “Where to?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, ordering them all to take shelter in the nearest trench and make sure they had gulped down some Black. “Don’t release it until my order,” she said. “We need to hold them.”

She gripped the Growler’s lever and waited until the first rank had closed to within ten yards of the trench, just when their cohesion began to waver as the excitement of seizing an apparently undefended trench took hold. “NOW!” she shouted. She was gratified to see most of the Blood-blessed in the trench respond to the order, though a couple had clearly reached their limit and remained huddled on the duckboards. The others all stood and unleashed their Black as one, the first two ranks of the lead Corvantine battalion coming to a sudden and frozen halt as their collective grip took hold.

Lizanne stared at her hand on the lever, wondering why it hadn’t moved. The thought came unbidden, treacherous and deadly: There are so many. It was the same paralysis that had gripped her in the Burgrave’s office; years of experience and training falling away when confronted with a too-awful reality. It was the memory of Tekela’s face that unfroze her, the knowledge of the girl’s most likely fate if Carvenport fell.

She screamed as she turned the handle, a cry of revulsion swallowed by the growl of multiple barrels sending bullet after bullet into the immobile ranks of infantry. They were held so completely they even failed to twitch as the rounds tore through them, like man-shaped meal-sacks, leaking blood instead of grain, faces unable even to register the pain of death.

She exhausted the Growler’s magazine and quickly slotted in a new one, seeing the first signs that the collective hold was starting to falter. The soldiers in the next ranks were trying to force their way past the statue-like corpses of their comrades, some pushing their rifles through the gaps to fire at the Blood-blessed. Lizanne saw the managerial woman take a bullet in the head before tearing her gaze from the slumping corpse and turning the Growler’s handle. She worked the flaming barrels along the line of infantry, sights raised slightly to lash at the roiling jam of men trying to press forward. The Growler emptied in short order, however, and, from the many screams of rage and pain, the Corvantines had suffered greatly from her attentions. Still they sought to press forward, the line of frozen corpses prised apart like an old fence then giving way completely as the Blood-blessed’s reserves of Black ran out.

The Corvantine infantry surged forward in a howling mob, dead and wounded borne along in the tide, covering the distance to the first trench in a few seconds, fury and blood-lust on every face . . .

The first shell left a thin trail of smoke as it slammed down to destroy the leading company of Corvantines, sundered bodies blown away like rags. Another four shells came down in short order, the great mass of infantry breaking apart under the bombardment. Lizanne glanced back, seeing a newly arrived battery of Protectorate artillery on the rise behind her. The gunners scrambled to reload as what was left of the Corvantine attack milled about just short of the trenches. Still it wasn’t over. Dazed or wounded men were being shoved into a semblance of order by officers and sergeants, exhortations rising for a final effort and bugles pealing out anew.

Lizanne slotted a magazine into the Growler, aimed at the most conspicuous officer and turned the lever until the firing mechanism clicked on an empty chamber. The Protectorate artillery resumed firing as she let her hand fall from the lever. The shells were launched with less frequency now the danger had passed. After a five-minute barrage the guns fell silent.

Lizanne didn’t look when the smoke cleared, instead slumping down next to the Growler as the last dregs of product fled her system. The screams and the appalled exclamations of the surviving Blood-blessed told the tale well enough. A chill shudder ran through her, making her clutch herself tight until it passed, resisting the temptation to inject a drop of Green. I earned this pain.

After a moment, when the shaking had faded, she rose and walked away from the Growler, ignoring the proffered hands and expressions of appreciation from Blood-blessed and soldiers. An officer appeared at her side asking for her name. She muttered “Exceptional Initiatives” then walked on, coming to a halt at the body of the hatchet-faced man she had killed, idly pondering the question of who he had been. She knew searching the body would prove fruitless as no Cadre agent would ever carry anything that might identify them. But looking at his face and the lines of experience around his eyes, she couldn’t help but conclude he must have been a senior figure in the Blood Cadre. Pity, she concluded, he might have had something enlightening to say.

She was about to move on as she noticed something else, a faint glimmer of metal on the man’s wrist. Kneeling, she lifted his sleeve, frowning in baffled surprise until realisation hit home with a jolt.

—

“This is not my work,” Jermayah said, his nimble hands turning the Spider over in careful examination. “The materials are far too flimsy. I make devices that last.”

“The design,” Lizanne said, watching his face intently. “It’s identical, wouldn’t you say?”

Jermayah pursed his lips in consideration. “Pretty much. I’ll have to have a word with Madame, farming out my designs to inferior craftsmen. It’s not on.”

“You showed her the prototype?” Lizanne asked.

“Months ago,” he said. “Everything has to cross her desk these days. Been waiting to hear back about the patent, actually.”

“Just her?” Lizanne pressed. “No-one else?”

Jermayah gave her a quizzical look. She had led him to a secluded corner of the trenches to quiz him on the device she had found on the Cadre agent’s wrist. “No-one else,” he said, tone cautious now. “Where’d you get this?”

“From a dead man who had no business wearing it.” She stood, injecting a drop of Green to banish her lingering fatigue and turning towards the city. “There is about to be a change of management in Carvenport,” she told Jermayah. “It may have unfortunate consequences for the girl and the major.”

“Built myself a shelter under the shop years ago,” Jermayah said. “In case something like this ever happened.” He gave a sheepish grin at her expression. “Only as a last resort. They’re welcome to share it.”

“Go there if it looks like the city is about to fall. I’ll find you.” If I live, she added silently, running for the city gate with a determined stride.

—

“Where is she?”

The young Protectorate officer outside Madame’s office quailed a little under Lizanne’s gaze. She had marched past him to kick the office door open, revealing an empty desk. “Her current whereabouts are classified,” the officer began, then fell to abrupt silence as the tip of the Whisper’s barrel pressed into his nose.

“Where?” Lizanne said, summoning enough Red to make the man sweat as she stared hard into his eyes.

“Th-the harbour,” he stammered. “The Corvantine fleet raised a signal requesting a truce. She’s gone to negotiate a cease-fire.”

Lizanne’s gaze swept over the office and she knew with instinctive certainty that if she ransacked it a very important item would be found missing. “Oh, I’m sure she’s gone to negotiate.”

She rushed outside, eyes roving the makeshift camp until she found a horse. She leapt into the saddle and kicked the animal into a gallop. It was a somewhat lumbering beast, probably a cart-horse pressed into military service. However, it carried her through the city fast enough to prevent her exhausting her supply of Green, something she expected to have need of very soon. The streets were mostly empty, those citizens not called to the trenches no doubt huddled in basements and with good reason. Most of the Corvantine shelling seemed to have come down on residential areas, and with far too much accuracy and quantity to have been accidental. Morradin hoping to spread enough terror to provoke rebellion, she decided. Little did he know all he had to do was wait and the place would be handed to him on a platter.

She reined the horse to a halt at the docks, eyes roving the silent and mostly crewless ships before alighting on the great edifice of the mole where three figures could be seen: Madame and two Protectorate guards. Lizanne galloped for the steps where the mole joined the eastern extremity of the docks, leaping clear of the saddle then injecting enough Green to sprint to the top in the space of a few seconds. She could see them clearly now, Madame flanked by two men, covert operatives from the look of them. Beyond the mole the sea was filled with the Corvantine fleet, frigates and cruisers all at anchor with guns raised and angled towards the city. A small motor-launch was making its way towards the mole, a truce pennant fluttering from its mast and a contingent of Corvantine officers on board. It was a two-moon tide today and the sea was high against the mole, only six feet short of the top, meaning the Corvantines would have a relatively easy time clambering up to receive the city’s surrender.

Lizanne injected nearly all her remaining Red and Black, the burn as it mingled with the Green adding fuel to the unfamiliar mix of emotions raging in her breast. She drew the Whisper, sprinted forward and leapt, a yell of unrestrained fury escaping her as she plummeted down a few yards from Madame, remaining in a predatory crouch as the two guards rounded on her, revolvers levelled. They were both Blood-blessed, and had clearly imbibed almost as much product as she had.

Lizanne ignored them, her gaze fixed entirely on Madame, now regarding her with an incurious glance. “Truelove,” Lizanne said.

The guards both took a step forward, the air beginning to thrum as they summoned their product.

“Enough of that!” Madame ordered sharply, both guards turning to her in surprise. “Lower your weapons,” she ordered. “Miss Lethridge and I have business to discuss.”

She favoured Lizanne with a very slight smile as the guards stood aside. “You look terrible,” she said.

Lizanne rose from her crouch, glancing down at the multiple blood-stains and scorch-marks on her overalls. “I just killed at least a hundred people,” she replied, lowering the Whisper and stepping between the guards to come to Madame’s side. “Of course I look terrible.”

Madame’s face grew sombre and she turned, nodding at the approaching launch. “Fortunately, such extremes will no longer be necessary.”

Lizanne’s eyes went to the canvas bag in Madame’s hand, and the distinctive rectangular bulge of what it contained. “You really think they’ll just sail away and leave us in peace if you give them that?”

Madame shook her head, a thin sigh of exasperation escaping her lips, once again the teacher aggrieved by her pupil’s lack of comprehension. “For all your experience, all your travels, your vision remains so frustratingly narrow. The agreement I am about to negotiate goes far beyond this petty war. We stand on the cusp of something far greater, Lizanne. Something I sincerely hope you will share in.”

“Did they pay you so much then?” Lizanne’s fingers flexed on the Whisper as she felt the product in her veins begin to thin.

“Pay me?” Madame’s sigh was more of a laugh this time. “Do you think I did all this for a bribe? They didn’t buy me, I bought them, and this city into the bargain.” She turned, raising her arm to the docks and the streets beyond. “You are privileged to witness the birth of the Carvenport Free Trade Company.”

“If you think Morradin will just hand this place over to you . . .”

“Morradin is a dog doing his master’s bidding. He’ll come to heel when whipped. My accommodation was never with the dog, but the master. In return for exclusive rights to the White, he’ll give me Carvenport and half the world if I ask.”

Not obsession, Lizanne realised, her mind suddenly flooded with the image of the black web coiling through Madame’s mindscape. Ambition. “All on the promise of something that hasn’t even been found,” she said. “We don’t even know what power lies in its blood, if any.”

“Oh, but we do, Lizanne. Or at least, I do, and now so does the Emperor. It wasn’t so very hard to deduce, once I had pondered the information from Ethelynne’s last trance. Wittler pursued her across the Red Sands, determined to kill her. But why? Was it simple madness, brought on when he breathed in the White’s powdered bone? Or was it more? ‘I ain’t gonna burn,’ he told her, and yet he did. As confirmed by Mr. Torcreek. She burned him, as he knew she would. The future, Lizanne. The ability to discern the future. For that, the Emperor will give me all I ask.”

“And what will he do with it?”

“As long as he leaves me in peace to run my new enterprise, anything he likes. Empires rise and fall, wars come and go. But, without the Board to fetter me, I’m confident we’ll weather the storms and profit in the process. Ironship has stagnated under the weight of its bureaucracy. It’s every bit as corrupt and bloated as the monarchies it displaced. It’s time for a new age, a post-corporate age where we no longer mire ourselves in the minutiae of governance.”

Lizanne nodded at the bag. “You needed that,” she said, “to convince him. That’s why you sent me to Morsvale.”

“At first the Cadre had no notion of who Truelove actually was,” Madame said. “Just that they now had a very useful stream of intelligence tranced to them via a well-paid and well-guarded intermediary firmly positioned in neutral territory. Convincing them to trust me wasn’t so very hard: designs for some of Jermayah’s more effective innovations, the identities of a few Exceptional Initiatives operatives in Corvantine territory, the location of an Ironship-sponsored pirate den in the Isles. Then, as time went on, reports containing subtle indications that the Protectorate had taken a renewed interest in the fabled White Drake. It all stoked the Emperor’s naturally avaricious tendencies to the required pitch. Your little excursion to Morsvale was a tricky thing to engineer, but I trusted your ability to navigate the various difficulties. After the Cadre’s spectacular failure to capture you, and prevent the successful retrieval of the solargraph, my intermediary reported that the Emperor was now much more amenable to negotiation. Especially since Captain Torcreek’s company had successfully negated a Cadre attempt to stop them at Edinsmouth and appeared to be drawing ever closer to their goal. Sadly, I was obliged to allow this military farce to play out for a time until I could trance with my contact. Still, all those infantrymen piling up outside the walls did focus their minds. With a global war to fight, they can’t really afford to prolong their campaign here.”

Lizanne’s gaze returned to the approaching launch, now barely a hundred yards away. “Mr. Redsel?” she asked. “He wasn’t in Corvantine employ, was he?”

“I needed a means of eavesdropping on your trances with Mr. Torcreek, or whatever unregistered ne’er-do-well we managed to scrape from the Blinds. It seemed I over-estimated Mr. Redsel’s abilities and under-estimated yours. Incidentally, is Mr. Torcreek truly dead? I find I can’t suppress the nagging suspicion that your veracity has been somewhat lacking of late.”

The launch was twenty feet away now, a Corvantine sailor at the prow standing ready with a rope as one of Madame’s Protectorate guards moved to catch it. “Mr. Torcreek and I are in agreement regarding what needs to be done with the White,” Lizanne replied, taking a firmer grip on the Whisper.

Madame glanced at her, and blinked.

The Black gripped her instantly, no change of expression in Madame’s face that might have warned her. An effortless display of power and expertise that left Lizanne standing there, limbs flaring with agony as she strained against the invisible vice.

“Yet more narrowness of vision,” Madame said, apparently genuine regret on her face as she came closer to cup Lizanne’s cheek. “I had hoped you might succeed me one day. The Carvenport Free Trade Company will need an intelligence arm, after all. You would have been a co-Director, destined for great things.”

She removed her hand and plucked the Whisper from Lizanne’s frozen fingers, tossing it into the sea. “My finest student, and also my greatest disappointment. Unfortunately, I can’t kill you. My Corvantine associates are keen to speak to you regarding Major Arberus and his revolutionary comrades. I was going to call for you later today, explain that Miss Artonin’s continued good health depended on your agreement with my aims. The major would still have had to be handed over but I might have been able to save the girl. But I see now our positions are too far apart to allow for a workable arrangement.”

She stepped away, her regretful visage transforming into a business-like smile as she turned to greet the Corvantine officers. Lizanne prepared to summon all the Red she could, but Madame’s control was so absolute she couldn’t even move her eyes. It would probably have been futile in any case. The two guards would have crushed her the moment she tried. But there was so much rage inside her and so much fear. They will take Tekela when they take Arberus.

Sweat bathed her as she strained to move her eyes, expending all her remaining Green and managing a slight tick, just enough to catch the edge of Madame’s skirt. Lizanne’s gaze faltered as something flickered amongst the masts of the Corvantine fleet. At first she thought it a flare, but then saw it was fire. A bright stream of white fire. Another flicker, then more fire. It seemed to be streaming from several directions at once, converging somewhere amongst the mass of ships. The flash came first, then the flat, ear-splitting boom of an exploding ship accompanied by the red-black cloud rising from the sea. A chorus of whistles and sirens resounded through the fleet, guns traversing and water churning as engines sprang to life.

Two more explosions followed in quick succession, accompanied by the thunderous boom of multiple cannon. Madame’s control lessened enough for Lizanne to turn her head, her gaze sweeping across the now-chaotic mass of ships then stopping as something caught her eye, something impossible.

The Blue rose from the sea, crest flaring and mouth gaping, sending its fire down at the deck of a Corvantine cruiser. Lizanne had only ever seen dead Blues, and those the steel-net-enmeshed remains hauled from the hold of a Blue-hunter freshly returned from the southern seas. I never knew they grew so big, was her only thought as two more Blues appeared on either side of the cruiser, their collective fire descending with such intensity every crewman on the cruiser’s deck was instantly engulfed. The Blues’ fire died after a moment and they turned in unison, sinking back into the water, the snake-like bodies knifing through the waves towards another victim. The cruiser continued to burn in their wake and Lizanne realised with shock that it was the Regal, the same ship she had inspected in Morsvale harbour. Whatever novel modifications she might have gained wouldn’t save her now. The fires raged unchecked across the Regal’s decks for another minute then she gave a shudder, geysers of fire erupting from her stacks as the flames found her magazine. She blew apart a heart-beat later, the debris raining down all around, fragments of iron and men splashing into the sea and impacting the mole. The launch containing the Corvantine officers took a direct hit from a burning chunk of machinery, its own boiler exploding from the force of the impact, killing all on board along with the Protectorate guard who had caught their rope.

Madame and the other guard shrank back from the destruction. She had never been given to shock but evidently this was a sufficiently close brush with death to slacken her control, just for an instant, but it was enough.

Lizanne focused on the bag in Madame’s hand, lashing out with Black to drag it from her grip. She caught it then used the last dregs of Green in her veins to leap as Madame replied, Black churning the air where Lizanne had been with the force of a hurricane. Lizanne sailed over Madame’s head, unleashing a wave of Red that forced the woman to leap aside. The Protectorate guard hadn’t been as wise, lingering a fraction too long to aim his pistol at Lizanne and taking the full force of the Red. The fire covered him from head to toe in an instant and he whirled, screaming towards the edge of the mole and careering into the sea.

Lizanne landed hard, clutching the bag to her chest and crouching as Madame rose to her feet some twenty yards away. “Give that to me!” she commanded in a rasping cry, all vestige of discipline seemingly having fled now as she advanced towards Lizanne with a face rendered ugly by frustration and malice.

Lizanne depressed the first three buttons on the Spider, using up the small amount of remaining product and instantly unleashing the Black. Madame was ready for her, however, her own Black meeting Lizanne’s and birthing a thunder-clap of displaced air. Lizanne continued to use up her Black, seeking to prise open Madame’s defences, but it was like trying to batter her way through granite.

“Give this up, Madame!” she called out, casting a hand towards the sea where Corvantine ships exploded with every passing moment and ever more Blues rose from the waves. “Look at what’s happening here! Your schemes don’t matter now!”

Madame, however, proved deaf to all entreaties, summoning a blast of Red and forcing Lizanne to roll to the side as the heat-wave rushed past. Madame followed with a surge of Black, presumably all her remaining product released at once as Lizanne felt the blow like a hammer, the force of it sending her sliding across the mole. An involuntary yell escaped her throat as the agony of snapped ribs cut through the effects of the Green with dreadful ease. She could only cast the last of her Red at Madame as she lay there, but it was a feeble thing, just a shimmering passage of air the older woman side-stepped with ease.

Madame came to a halt a few feet away, staring at Lizanne with a certain grim satisfaction on her face as she took a vial from her pocket and gulped it down. “You,” she said, shaking her head sadly as she looked down on Lizanne. “You were . . .”

The Blue moved in a blur, snaking up from below the mole to grasp Madame Bondersil in its jaws. It slowed as it bit down, Lizanne fancying she heard a muffled scream from behind its jagged wall of teeth. The Blue shook its prey briefly then swallowed it down, throat bulging as the meal was conveyed to its stomach with a few convulsive jerks. It gave a satisfied rumble, nostrils flaring then angled its head to stare down at Lizanne.

She didn’t hesitate, rolling towards the harbour as the flames streamed down, feeling the heat and a flaring pain as the fire found her hair, her clothes. A brief sensation of falling then the chill embrace of the harbour waters. Fatigue and pain conspired to prevent her kicking for the surface, though she held tight to Madame’s bag as she sank ever lower, what it contained being so very important.

CHAPTER 35

Clay

He was watching the dolphins when the settlement came into view. These creatures were smaller than those he had seen in the waters off Carvenport harbour, their skin darker on top, but no less playful. Loriabeth gave a delighted laugh as one leapt clear of the lake just ahead of the River Maiden’s bows, spinning in the air before plunging back down. More could be seen shimmering beneath the water as they rode the boat’s wake.

“A freshwater variety,” Scriberson said, adding yet another jotting to his note-book. “Their numbers must be curtailed through predation, but obviously they maintain a viable population. This lake is more well-stocked with marine life than previously suspected.”

“And way too well-stocked with Green for my liking,” Foxbine said, eyeing the surrounding waters with carbine in hand, a habit she had acquired since they found the wreckage of the Briteshore vessel.

“Look there!” Loriabeth called from the prow, pointing at a column of grey smoke rising from the shore-line a few points off the starboard bow. The land beyond the lake-shore rose in a gentle incline of green hills before abruptly transforming into the steep, steel-grey slopes of the northern Coppersoles. Clay had only ever seen pictures of mountains and found the real thing an ominous sight, the vast walls of rock ascending so high their summits were veiled in cloud. The prospect of navigating such a landscape was not a pleasant one.

Braddon ordered the engine slowed then had Scriberson assemble his telescope on the fore-deck, wary of landing without reconnaissance. “It doesn’t look good, Captain,” the astronomer reported upon peering through the eyepiece. “It was a settlement of some kind. Defensive walls and a jetty. But now . . .” He stood back, gesturing Braddon towards the telescope.

“Burned black and half–torn down,” he said after a moment. “Can’t see no Greens about though. No people, either.” He straightened, face drawn in contemplation.

“Could be some ammo in there, Captain,” Foxbine said.

“I’m aware.” Braddon raised his gaze as Lutharon swept low overhead, gliding towards the smoking settlement in a straight and unerring line. “Seems the choice has been made for us,” he said. “Mr. Scriberson, fire her up, if you would.”

The jetty was a wreck of blackened pilings and splintered beams, forcing them to ground the River Maiden on the thin stretch of shingle alongside. “Seems a shame to just leave her here,” Scriberson commented as they clambered over the side to wade ashore.

“What else we gonna do with her?” Skaggerhill said, though there was a faintly wistful note to his voice as he afforded the boat a final glance of farewell. “She served us well, right enough. Got me a mind to come back for her one day. See if we can’t find that treasure ship, eh?” He gave Firpike a nudge though the scholar seemed more interested in clearing the water as quickly as possible, as if a Green might come lunging up at him even in these shallows.

Ethelynne stood beside Lutharon at the gate to the settlement, her face betraying a palpable distress. “I watched them build this place,” she told Clay. “Only a year ago.”

“Briteshore Minerals, sure enough,” Skaggerhill said, nodding to the scorched sign above the gate. The lettering had been burned away but the Briteshore crest could still be made out. “Guess they built it as a port for their surveying ship.”

Ethelynne turned and climbed onto Lutharon’s back. “I’ve no wish to see any more of this. We’ll scout ahead for a time.” With that, rider and drake galloped towards the edge of the lake where Lutharon spread his wings and they took to the air, soaring high in a wide circle before striking out for the south.

“Woulda thought she’d have a stronger constitution,” Loriabeth commented. “Being out here so long.”

“Get the sense this is all new to her,” Clay said, nodding at the smoking settlement. “Drakes ain’t done nothing like this before.” He stole a glance at his uncle who stood regarding the place with an unreadable expression. “Makes you wonder what could’ve forced such a change in them.”

“Clay, Silverpin,” Braddon said, drawing his revolver and stepping towards the gate. “With me. The rest of you, watch the lake.”

The gate had been barred and buttressed but its lower half lay shattered, probably by a flailing drake tail. Clay and Silverpin stooped low as they entered, weapons ready. The scene that confronted them had Clay fighting a convulsive retch. Bodies lay everywhere, part-burnt and savaged, several in pieces. From the tattered remains of clothing he concluded they were a mix of labourers and Contractors. Spent shell casings were liberally scattered about, indicating that at least they went down fighting. The thin smoke still rising from the ruins was evidence that this had all happened recently.

“Greens,” Braddon said, halting beside one of the bodies and eyeing the pattern of bite marks that had torn out the man’s insides from belly to neck. “Guess they dealt with the survey ship then came here. No eating, just killing. Just like the soldiers in the jungle.”

Clay surveyed the settlement, seeing mostly just ruination. It seemed the settlement had featured a couple of bunk-houses and a meal-hall, all torn down and reduced almost to ash. The storehouses and workshops were in a similar condition though he did spy a large structure still standing towards the rear of the enclosure. “Warehouse, maybe?” he asked his uncle.

“Let’s take a look.”

The structure turned out to be another workshop, spared destruction by virtue of its corrugated iron walls and containing something Clay had never seen before. A great, multi-wheeled engine of some kind sitting on a pair of rails. It had another wheeled contraption attached to its rear, a large open-topped tender piled high with coal. The rails on which they sat traced to the rear of the structure and then under a set of twelve-foot-high doors. The engine showed signs of considerable burning, the metal covered in soot and some its workings part-melted. A blackened skeleton lay on a platform just behind the huge iron cylinder that formed the bulk of the engine’s mass.

“Trying to fire her up when the Greens broke in,” Braddon said, eyes roving the engine with considerable interest. “Looks like we got us another job for Mr. Scriberson.”

“What is this thing?” Clay asked.

“A railway-traversing locomotive, if I’m not mistaken. Seems Briteshore put a sizable investment in this place. Must have been expecting to shift a whole lotta ore to the coast.”

“Why not do it by boat?” Clay wondered. “The lake connects to the sea, right?”

“The water-way’s choked with rapids for much of its length. The main reason why this region’s been so sparsely explored till now.” Braddon’s gaze shifted to the rails and he followed them to the doors at the rear of the structure. They were buttressed and barred like the main gate and would clearly take considerable effort to open.

“Go get the others,” Braddon told Clay. “And check the bodies and store-rooms for ammo, plus anything else we can use.”

—

They scavenged another three hundred rounds of ammunition from the settlement, though some of it had to be discarded as it failed to match the calibres of their weapons. Still, Clay took no small measure of comfort from the additional twenty rounds Foxbine handed him. Scriberson spent a good hour going over the locomotive engine before pronouncing it functional but in need of slight repair. “Then don’t dawdle, young man,” Braddon told him. “I aim to be gone from here by nightfall.”

The doors proved to be so well buttressed that Braddon quickly called an end to their attempts to hammer apart the reinforcing beams and resorted to making use of the bounty provided by the lake. “Been a good while since I did this,” he said, carefully cutting an inch-long segment from one of the sticks of explosives. The others had been quick to retreat from the shed but Clay lingered to observe, reasoning this to be knowledge he may have use for when they got to their destination. “First thing to learn is make all your movements real slow,” Braddon told him, slotting the segment into the gap between beam and door. “This stuff don’t take too well to any herky-jerks.”

He repeated the process with the other three beams, using up half a stick in the process, then uncoiled a roll of black wire Skaggerhill had found in one of the storehouses. “This here’s the fuse,” he explained, cutting four equal lengths from the wire and braiding them together at one end. “Makes it go boom.”

“Where’d you learn all this, Uncle?” Clay asked him.

“Once took a job escorting some bone-hunters to the western plains. Ironship and Consolidated Research both pay good money for the bones of long-extinct creatures. There’s a plateau in the plains rich in such things, but you have to blast them out of the rocks.”

“Drake bones?” Clay asked.

“No, like Mr. Scriberson says, you don’t find drake bones that old. Hold this.” He handed Clay the braided length of fuse and then pushed the other ends into each of the segments of explosives. After that he tied the braid to the remaining length of wire and spooled it out as they backed towards the entrance to the shed.

“Everybody best find something to get behind and hunker low,” Braddon told the others as they emerged into the light. “Cover your ears too.” He and Clay took shelter behind a stack of scorched wood where he snipped the fuse from the coil and lowered a match to it. The fuse lit immediately, Clay watching the smoking cluster of sparks trace along it, leaving a trail of ash behind as it disappeared into the shadowed recesses of the shed. The explosion came a heart-beat later, sending a wave of displaced dust through the settlement accompanied by a boom powerful enough to make Clay glad he had jammed his fingers in his ears.

“Briteshore sure has been busy,” Skaggerhill commented as they surveyed the track leading away from the now-shattered doors. The gleaming steel rails made an incongruous contrast to the landscape they traversed, winding across the grassy slopes in a series of gentle inclines before disappearing into a steep-sided valley some three miles away.

“Gives us a path to follow,” Braddon said, then turned to where Scriberson stood atop the engine platform fiddling with a dial. “Young man, time to point the way.”

They had found some Briteshore charts amidst the wreckage but they were badly burnt and only partially complete. Fortunately, Braddon had had the foresight to pack some Ironship charts of the region, though they lacked the more fulsome detail of those produced by the mining concern.

“So we know where we’re at,” he said, pointing to a dot on one of the Briteshore maps, clearly identifiable as the settlement from its position on the lake-shore and the bisected line tracing away from it towards the south. His finger followed the line into the mountains to the point where it ended in a charred edge. “Gives us maybe forty miles of charted country.” He unfurled one of the Ironship maps and pointed to an area circled in pencil. “Best as I can figure this is where we’ll end up when the Briteshore map runs out. Question is, does it take us where we need to be?” He looked expectantly at Scriberson.

For the first time since meeting him, Clay detected a marked reluctance in the astronomer’s demeanour. Before he had tended to exhibit an endearing if unwise confidence, but now, watching him lower his gaze and shift from foot to foot, Clay knew he was looking on a young man suddenly out of his depth. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice.

“I beg your pardon?” Braddon straightened from the map, a hard glint creeping into his gaze. “Say that again, if you please?”

“I don’t know exactly where it is.” Scriberson raised his eyes and quickly lowered them again on catching sight of Braddon’s expression. “Just what it looks like.”

“I see.” Braddon’s voice was way too even and reasonable for Clay’s liking. He took a step closer to the astronomer’s side as his uncle went on, “I seem to recall, however, you telling of a lost map of the region your exceptional memory had captured so well you didn’t require a copy.”

“It wasn’t a map.” Scriberson swallowed. “It was a sketch, of the point where the alignment could be viewed. It’s a very distinctive place. I’m sure if I caught sight of it . . .”

“Caught sight of it?” Skaggerhill said, his voice holding none of Braddon’s deceptive calm. “You thought we were just gonna wander about these mountains for however long it took you to catch sight of it? You any idea the size of this range, boy?”

“The account states that it’s close to the highest peak.” Scriberson gave a hopeful and short-lived grin, adding in a mutter, “Shouldn’t be too hard to find that.”

The silence that followed was long, broken only by Firpike’s dry comment. “And I’m supposed to be the fraud here.”

“We need him to drive the engine,” Clay reminded Braddon, increasingly perturbed by his stillness.

“I can drive the Seer-damn engine,” Skaggerhill stated, levelling a stubby finger at Scriberson. “We had a contract based on honest statements now revealed as false. That ain’t a small matter for folks in our profession.”

Clay’s gaze roamed the other Longrifles, finding disappointment and judgement on every face; even Silverpin’s tattooed brow had taken on an uncharacteristically stern frown. Loriabeth, however, appeared the most crestfallen, folding her arms and refusing to look at the astronomer, her face taking on the sullen, girlish aspect he thought she had lost on the trail. A contract is more than just a piece of paper to them, Clay realised, wondering why it hadn’t occurred to him before. It’s what they live and die by.

“Apologise,” he told Scriberson in a soft but insistent murmur.

Scriberson looked up at them all, blanching visibly under the weight of their collective judgement, all confidence apparently vanished. Now he wasn’t the most educated mind amongst a group of people who had hardly ever lifted a book. Now he was a scared and weaponless youth confronted by five angry and very dangerous people. “It . . . wasn’t my intention to mislead,” he stammered after a moment. “I just . . . need to observe the alignment. It’s all I’ve thought about for the better part of a decade. But, for any offence caused, I offer my sincere apologies.”

“Don’t fix it, son,” Skaggerhill replied before turning to Braddon. “I vote we leave him here, Captain.”

“Seconded,” Loriabeth said, still not looking up.

“Be kinder to put a bullet in him first,” Foxbine put in.

Loriabeth’s eyes flashed at Scriberson for a second. “Got no mood to be kind.”

“Wait.” Clay stepped between them, turning to Scriberson. “This sketch of the viewing point, you recall it well enough to draw it?”

Scriberson gave a wary nod.

“Then,” Clay said, addressing Braddon, “we don’t need a map. We got us a pair of eyes up aloft, remember? The lady can find this place.”

“The range is vast, Clay,” Braddon replied. “Even her pet drake couldn’t cover it all before the alignment.”

“There’s Miss Lethridge also,” Clay ploughed on. “I’ll trance with her tomorrow. See if there’s any fresh pointers from that device she brought back from Morsvale.”

“Device?” Firpike asked.

“Mind your own, Doc,” Skaggerhill told him in a tone sufficiently threatening to make the scholar retreat, though not so far as to stray from earshot.

“It’s your choice, Uncle,” Clay told Braddon, moving to Scriberson’s side. “But I seen enough wrong on this trip. You leave him here, you’re leaving both of us.”

Braddon said nothing for some time, though his previously placid features had taken on a decidedly grim aspect. When he spoke his words were addressed entirely to Clay, and they brooked no discussion. “He’s your charge now. You vouched for him so you’re responsible. Any more misleadings, and I’ll expect you to deal with it.”

Clay glanced at Scriberson, noting the sheen of sweat on his skin, and nodded. “I understand, Uncle.”

Braddon switched his gaze to Scriberson. “Guess you better get drawing.”

—

Scriberson, possibly in a well-reasoned effort to curry favour, proved as capable with the railway engine as he had with the River Maiden’s blood-burner. They were obliged to off-load a good deal of the coal in the tender to accommodate the others, but the astronomer reckoned they still had enough for a good hundred miles’ travel. Clay joined him on the platform, taking on the task of shovelling coal into the flaming maw Scriberson had named a fire-box. After a long vigil spent in close examination of the few undamaged or unmelted dials, during which time a thick pall of smoke had filled the shed to near-choking levels, Scriberson raised the largest lever amongst the bewildering array of controls. The engine issued a great hiss, steam blossoming to mingle with the smoke, as it began a slow exit from the shed. There being no way to turn the thing around, they were obliged to push the coal carriage ahead of them, the engine reversing along the track and away from the ruined settlement.

“Nicely done, Scribes.” Clay complimented the astronomer with a clap to the shoulder.

Scriberson, however, was plainly too tense to do more than nod. “Your words of advice back on the boat,” he said, just loud enough for Clay to hear over the engine’s huffing and clanking. “About taking off. I think I’ve come to see your point.”

“Little late now.” His uncle was engaged in a careful examination of the sketch Scriberson had provided. It showed an expansive, flat ledge protruding from the flank of a tall, conical mountain. Clay had been somewhat disappointed to find it lacking any other distinguishing landmarks and the others remained singularly unimpressed.

“You really intend to shoot me, Clay?” Scriberson had forced a jovial tone but Clay saw the fearful cast to his eyes.

“You heard the captain.” Clay attempted a reassuring grin. “Only if you’re lying again.”

The engine made steady if ponderous progress up the successive inclines towards the valley. Scriberson’s keenness as a driver didn’t prevent him misjudging the speed needed to successfully traverse the repeated bends in the track, seeing them forced into an unwanted backslide or two before they finally came to level ground. Once free of the slopes the engine seemed to leap forward, smoke streaming from its stunted stack and the surrounding landscape becoming a blur of green, soon transformed into grey as they entered the valley. The track formed a straight line as the mountains rose on either side. Clay felt a rush of exhilaration as the engine fairly pelted along, experienced only once before when he had ridden on Lutharon’s back.

They covered over ten miles before the track began to wind once more, following the course of the narrow stream that traced along the valley floor. Braddon waved his hat upon sighting something up ahead, a small cluster of buildings surrounding a squat wooden tower of some kind. Scriberson duly reduced speed and they glided to a gradual halt alongside the tower, Clay recognising it as a water tank from the pivot and spout affixed to its side. A half-dozen sheds and storehouses had been constructed nearby, all revealed as unoccupied after Loriabeth and Skaggerhill conducted a brief reconnaissance.

“No bodies,” the harvester reported. “No burning either. Looks like whoever Briteshore posted here just took to their heels.”

Braddon cast a glance at the dimming sky. “We’ll lay up here tonight. Clay, I’m expecting to hear something of use come the morning.”

—

She wasn’t there. All he could see was his own increasingly detailed rendering of Nelphia’s peaks and valleys. He fought down an unfamiliar sensation, taking a moment to recognise it as panic. The trance, it transpired, could be a scary and lonely place without the company of another mind. His memories stirred in response to the momentary loss of control, dust rising from the moon’s surface to form into the varied images conjured seemingly at random from the recesses of his mind. His father’s head beyond the old pistol’s sights. Derk counting loot. Speeler’s murder at Bewler’s Wharf. And Joya, of course. Joya dancing . . .

He reasserted control with some reluctance, wanting to watch her dance but knowing it an indulgence he couldn’t afford. He had to think of what to tell his uncle. The dust settled and Nelphia’s surface reverted to its usual serene starkness, spoilt only by a passing shadow, expanding and contracting as it traced across the moonscape.

At first Clay assumed it to be some vestige of memory that had escaped his control, Lutharon’s silhouette perhaps, but then saw it to be a formless thing, its shape constantly changing. Also, it was dark. Dark enough to swallow all light wherever it passed.

A faint warning began to sound in Clay’s head as the shadow came closer. Something Miss Lethridge had said back in Carvenport, an answer to a question he raised during their first lesson. A dumb question he realised when she replied in a tone that had been partly amused but mostly dismissive. “It’s in the nature of the trance to give birth to outlandish notions. Please set aside whatever silly stories you have heard from a drunken mouth. There are no portents in the trance, Mr. Torcreek.”

Portent . . .

The shadow grew as it came closer, its edges becoming less diffuse, the shape re-forming, coalescing into something recognisable. It stretched out before him, a human figure, the proportions distorted as if cast by a low evening sun, the shape comprehensible but still vague, his mind fumbling towards recognition as it became more real. It’s holding something, he realised. It’s holding . . .

—

The trance shattered around him as the last of the Blue dwindled to nothing. The abrupt shift in sensation made him convulse and cry out from the shock of it, like being plunged into ice-cold water but much worse.

“Claydon?” He felt his uncle’s hand on his shoulder as he hunched over, drawing in deep ragged breaths. “Something happen in there?”

“Ran out of product sooner than expected is all,” he replied after a moment, forcing a smile.

“What’d she have to say?”

Clay lowered his head farther, groaning as he played for time. He had hoped to linger in the trance whilst he concocted the right lie. “Madame has people working on the device,” he said, sensing Braddon’s growing impatience. “They ain’t got anywhere yet, but she says they may have something by tomorrow. In the meantime we’re to keep going, trust to Scribes’s sketch.”

Braddon gave a grunt of frustration and went to the door of the small shed they had retired to till the morning. Outside Scriberson was replenishing the engine’s reservoir with water from the tower, balancing on the huge cylinder as he held the spigot over the port without any offer of assistance from the others. Ethelynne had returned the previous night, Lutharon finding them with ease as he followed the tracks from the settlement. She looked over Scriberson’s sketch of the viewing point with a careful eye before cheerfully announcing she had never seen it before.

“We’ll scout ahead in the morning,” she promised. “The highest peak isn’t hard to find, but it is a good way off. It’ll be at least a day before we can return to you.”

Clay checked the vial of Blue Ethelynne had given him, finding only a few drops left. Enough for maybe two more trances. “Might be better to wait for her to come back,” he suggested as his uncle continued to linger in the doorway.

“Could be she never comes back,” Braddon replied. “No, we keep going. Stay on this track. It’s gotta lead somewhere.”

—

The track grew ever more winding the farther into the mountains they went and, although Clay hadn’t noticed until they found themselves traversing the edge of a deep ravine, they climbed higher with every mile. The stream they had followed since the settlement had grown into a frothing torrent and the valley walls now rose in sheer cliffs, the heights veiled by the perennial mist that seemed to plague the Coppersoles.

“This is really quite the feat of engineering,” Scriberson commented as they neared the end of the ravine. “The expense of building it must have been enormous.”

“Equal to the reward, I’m guessing,” Clay replied. His gaze lit on something up ahead, a row of posts following the course of the track. The engine moved slow enough for them to gain a full appreciation of the sight as they passed by. Spoiled, Clay realised, eyes flitting from one part-rotted and impaled head to another. He counted over sixty by the time they came to the end of the row.

“A warning,” he explained to a perplexed Scriberson. “Looks like this feat of theirs wasn’t managed without some trouble.”

The ravine grew wider as they moved on, transforming into a canyon whilst the ledge they traversed narrowed considerably. “Best slow it right down, Scribes,” Clay said as his gaze followed the course of the track. Two hundred yards ahead it made a sharp turn to the right where a long cross-beam wooden bridge spanned the canyon. He took the fact that the bridge was still standing as a good sign, however, the blackened state of its woodwork did much to undermine his confidence.

“Can’t be drake fire,” Skaggerhill said. They had come to a halt just short of the bridge, dismounting to assess the damage. “It’d be ashes already.”

Clay saw his reasoning. The burning suffered by the bridge was irregular, dark in one place, lighter in another, speaking of many small fires rather than the continual blast of flame delivered by a drake. “Spoiled,” he said. “Revenge for that horror back there.”

“Seems they made a lousy job of it,” Braddon said before turning to Scriberson. “You’re the closest we got to an engineer. Will this thing make it over?”

Scriberson gave the bridge a long moment’s scrutiny before replying simply, “There’s no way to tell.”

“Whole heap of use you are,” Skaggerhill said, rolling his eyes.

“You’re insistent upon my honesty,” Scriberson pointed out. “And the fact is, I can’t judge if it’ll bear the weight of the engine. The beams seem sturdy and unbowed, which is encouraging. But hardly conclusive.”

“So we leave the engine here,” Clay said.

“Wandering through these mountains on foot ain’t a notion I relish,” Braddon said.

“The risk’s too great, Uncle . . .”

He was interrupted by the boom of a longrifle. They all spun as one, sinking into an instinctive crouch. Preacher stood atop the coal tender, rifle smoking as he jacked another round in the chamber and aimed it back down the track, speaking a single word, “Spoiled.”

At first it seemed to Clay there were only a few dozen of them, a knot of warriors in buckskins charging along the track, bows and spears raised as they vaulted the body of the one Preacher had shot. Then he saw the great mass following behind, so many some were forced over the edge of the cliff and into the canyon. Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to dampen the ardour of their onrushing comrades one bit.

“Seems we’re out of options,” Braddon observed, raising his rifle to fire off a quick shot before rushing to the engine. “Everybody aboard! Young man, all speed if you please!”

Clay scrambled onto the platform alongside Scriberson, shovelling coal into the fire-box as fast as he could whilst the astronomer got the engine in motion. Preacher and Braddon stood tall atop the piled coal in the tender, firing regular aimed shots to conserve ammunition whilst Loriabeth and Foxbine moved to lean from the sides, guns at the ready. Steam blossomed in a thick cloud as Scriberson sought to increase the speed, the engine taking a full agonising minute to reach more than a walking pace, by which time the first of the Spoiled had reached them. One leapt onto the boiler and clawed his way towards the platform, scaled and misaligned features made even more ugly by a snarl of fury. Loriabeth put a bullet through his head before he could get within striking distance, but another two followed, with more sprinting alongside, bows raised to launch their arrows. Foxbine cut them down with a rapid salvo from her carbine, but not before a flint-tipped arrow had thrummed within an inch of Clay’s head.

The two remaining Spoiled on the boiler leapt onto the platform, flint-bladed knives flashing. Clay dodged back as a blade left a nick on his forearm, drawing the Stinger and lashing out with a kick at the same time. The Spoiled recoiled then renewed his attack with barely a pause, Clay still attempting to pull the Stinger clear of its holster and wishing he had had the foresight to swallow some product. A loud clang sounded as the coal shovel came down on the Spoiled’s head, making him stagger. Firpike gave a somewhat hysterical and high-pitched cry as he brought the shovel down again, but this time the Spoiled was quick enough to parry the blow, forearm stopping the shovel blade short of his head and drawing his knife back for a thrust. The Stinger finally came free of Clay’s holster, bucking in his hand as he blasted the Spoiled off the platform.

He turned in time to see Scriberson haul the other Spoiled away from Loriabeth, his arm fixed on the warrior’s throat in a choke hold as he thrashed. Loriabeth put the muzzle of her revolver against the Spoiled’s head then cursed when the hammer fell on an empty chamber. She flipped the revolver, catching hold of the barrel and repeatedly clubbing the Spoiled until he sagged, whereupon she and Scriberson wrestled his limp form off the engine.

A shout dragged Clay’s attention to the coal tender and he whirled to see Braddon grappling with a large Spoiled almost his equal in stature whilst Preacher and Skaggerhill were fully engaged in methodically shooting the archers running alongside. Silverpin leapt towards Braddon, spear-point lancing out to skewer his assailant neatly through the neck. Another clambered over the side at her back, raising a flint-bladed knife for a killing strike then falling dead as Clay put two shots into his back.

He turned back to the engine, Stinger ready as another group of Spoiled attempted to launch themselves on board. However, Scriberson had built enough steam now to out-run them and the Spoiled could only howl in frustration as their arrows clattered against the engine’s iron flanks. The firing died down as they drew away from the pursuing mass, Clay realising they were about halfway along the bridge’s span.

Something flickered in the corner of Clay’s vision and he turned to see a cascade of fire-arrows arcing away from the massed Spoiled at the edge of the canyon. He prepared to duck but quickly realised the arrows were aimed at something else. Following the stream of flaming shafts he saw them streak below the span of the bridge, impacting on something ahead of the engine. After a moment a large wall of smoke began to blossom and Clay leaned out from the platform to peer through the bridge’s beams.

“Stop!” he shouted, seeing the burgeoning flames below. They spread quickly up the bridge’s criss-crossed timbers, unnaturally quickly it seemed to him. “Stop, dammit!” he yelled at Scriberson.

The alarm in his voice clearly held sufficient weight for the astronomer to haul on the brake-lever, sparks flying as the engine began to slow. Watching the flames rise ever higher Clay knew with sickening certainty that they weren’t going to make it.

“Jump!” he cried out, pushing Loriabeth off the platform. Luckily she proved too surprised to combat the hard shove he gave her, falling free with a sudden and profane exclamation. Firpike had evidently already seen the danger and jumped clear without any urging, quickly followed by Silverpin and Scriberson.

Clay was about to jump himself when he saw his uncle and Skaggerhill crouching at the rear of the engine platform. “We gotta get off this thing!” he said, rushing towards them then drawing up short at the sight of Foxbine. She lay on her back, revolver in one hand whilst her other clutched the arrow embedded in her chest. Her face was drained of all colour though some life lingered in her eyes. Skaggerhill and Braddon made ready to lift her but she gave a soft shake of her head, lips moving as they formed a smile. Clay couldn’t hear the words above the growing roar of flames but could read the meaning. “One hundred and twenty of the bastards. Who’d have thought it?”

“Uncle!” Clay said as Braddon and the harvester continued to kneel, even though Foxbine’s eyes had closed.

Braddon glanced up at him before gently disentangling Foxbine’s revolver from her hand and nodding at Skaggerhill. Clay didn’t linger, launching himself from the platform with what proved to be an unwise amount of energy. He skidded over the beams towards the edge of the span, arms windmilling as he gaped at the rushing water far below. Someone grabbed the scruff of his shirt and dragged him back.

“Hope you got some product left,” Braddon said, releasing him and nodding at the engine. It had drifted into the flames now, a barely discernible bulk amidst the roiling smoke. After a few seconds a great cracking noise rose from the bridge, accompanied by a shudder that made the beams tremble beneath their feet. The span beneath the engine gave way with a shriek of rent metal as the rails buckled, locomotive and tender plummeting down into the gap, taking Foxbine with it.

“Must’ve coated the bridge in oil,” Braddon mused, turning to regard the Spoiled who were now standing in a large cluster at the far end of the bridge. “Chased us right into a trap.”

“Never suspected they’d have the brains for a thing like that,” Skaggerhill muttered.

Clay peered through the beams once more, watching the fire leap from timber to timber, building all the while. He looked at the gap left by the engine’s fall, judging the distance as a good twenty feet and then another twenty feet of bridge to reach the other side. Easy for him, not for them. He took the wallet from his pocket, extracting one of the two Green vials and casting a desperate glance at his uncle.

“Loriabeth and Silverpin,” Braddon said, gaze steady and brooking no argument.

Clay nodded and drank a full vial. The others had all come running to stand nearby, the expectation of imminent death writ large on each face. Clay strode towards Loriabeth, grabbing her about the waist without preamble and hoisting her over his shoulder. “What in the . . .” she began, starting to struggle then stopping as he squeezed her tight enough to force the air from her lungs.

“No time, cuz.”

He sprinted for the gap and leapt, covering the distance easily. They landed hard enough to jolt Loriabeth from his shoulder. She lay gasping on the rails, staring up at him in blank amazement. “No lingering, Lori,” he told her, pointing to the edge of the canyon ahead.

“Pa . . .” she began but he had already turned away. Another leap brought him down next to Firpike who babbled a desperate entreaty before Clay ran to Silverpin. He found her face more confused than he could remember, mingling anger and reluctance but his Green-borne speed gave her no time to object. He felt the product ebbing quickly as he landed the second time. He paused only for a second to press a kiss to Silverpin’s cheek before making the return leap, landing amidst a flurry of arrows. The Spoiled had seen what he was about and didn’t like it.

Braddon and Preacher were firing their longrifles at the few Spoiled who had chosen to charge across the bridge, willing to die rather than allow their escape. Clay took Scriberson next, batting away Firpike’s clutching hands before launching himself across once more.

“You don’t have enough, do you?” Scriberson asked, coughing as the flames and smoke rose ever higher.

Clay just pointed him towards the far end of the bridge and drank his last vial of Green. Skaggerhill had to be wrestled into submission before Clay could convey him across whilst Preacher simply shouldered his rifle and stood in expectant silence. On landing he got to his feet and strode wordlessly towards the other side.

“Uncle . . .” Clay began upon his next landing, casting a pointed glance at a now-hunched and weeping Firpike as Braddon fired off another longrifle round. “I don’t have enough left . . .”

“Take him,” Braddon said.

“Uncle . . .”

“On your way, Claydon.” Braddon jacked another round into the chamber and raised the rifle to his shoulder. Clay knew he could over-power him, carry them both over then watch Firpike’s fiery demise as the bridge finally gave way. But he couldn’t. His uncle was the captain after all.

“Get up, you bastard,” he told Firpike, jerking him to his feet. The scholar was all tears and thanks as Clay launched them into the air, choking off as they landed. Flames were licking up through the beams now so he used up the last of the Green by throwing Firpike towards the others, now gathered on hard ground where the bridge met the canyon edge.

He turned back, fumbling for the wallet and peering through the smoke to find Braddon’s shadowy form. His gaze snapped towards the faint report of a rifle-shot and he pulled the vial of Black from the wallet; Auntie’s gift, still almost half-full. He threw it down his throat, grimacing at the burn and casting the force out like a whip. He felt rather than saw it take hold, concentrating hard. He had lifted heavier things than his uncle before but this was still tricky. Blood-blessed rarely used Black on other people unless to do deliberate harm, the force unleashed being so powerful and hard to control. Relief surged through him as Braddon rose clear of the smoke, staring down at his nephew as he passed overhead with the only expression of surprise Clay had ever seen on his face. He guided Braddon over the rest of the span then released him a few feet above the ground.

A wave of nausea made him stagger, sending him to his knees, coughing in the smoke. The shadow, he thought, recalling the trance and feeling the bridge shudder as something vital gave way. Seems some stories ain’t so fanciful . . .

Something looped over his head and drew tight around his chest. He had time to recognise it as a rope before it tightened yet further, drawing an involuntary yell as the cord dug into his flesh. The bridge issued a final, almost plaintive moan accompanied by the matchwood-like cracking of multiple timbers, then he was falling, heat washing over his skin in brief but painful waves before he met the unforgiving embrace of the canyon wall. He hung there for a time, gazing down at the bridge’s remnants, smoking timbers and mangled rails cascading into the white water to be swept away in a cloud of steam.

He passed out as they began to haul him up the rock-face with hard, jolting heaves. Silverpin, he knew. Somehow it could only have been her. What is she . . . ?

CHAPTER 36

Lizanne

Waves. She drifted for a time, lost in the numbing grasp of the harbour depths. She thought she must have died, for there was a memory of darkness, a moment when all sensation fled and she felt the beating of her heart slow to a weak, arrhythmic flutter. But then came hard, insistent jolts and a flaring agony in her chest as something pressed down into her sternum, shoving and shoving. After a while it all went away again and she lost herself in the water’s welcoming chill, and now she could see waves up above, the surface seen from below, catching the light of a fading sun. A pleasing sight to take to wherever she was going . . .

A grating catch caught in Lizanne’s throat, provoking a coughing fit. She convulsed as the cough continued, tears streaming from her eyes and chest aching from the effort. When it faded she lay back, feeling something soft beneath her. The sea-bed, she decided, looking up at the waves once more. She blinked and the waves were abruptly transformed into the wind-ruffled canvas of a tent roof. Further frantic investigation revealed that she was in fact lying on a narrow cot rather than the mud of the harbour floor.

“I’m alive,” she tried to say, but instead the words birthed another round of coughing.

“Easy now, young miss.” Soft but insistent hands on her brow and her back, easing her down onto the cot. Lizanne blinked again, the tears clearing to reveal a kindly face of Old Colonial complexion, a face it took her a moment to recognise.

“Mrs. Torcreek,” she said, the words scraping from her throat like wood on sandpaper.

“Indeed so.” Fredabel stepped away for a second then returned with a cup of water. “And you are Miss Lethridge. Here, drink this.”

The liquid slid down her throat bringing blessed relief, and also a rush of memory. “The Blues!” Lizanne jerked upright, mind filling with the sight of the Corvantine fleet facing destruction. “They were at the mole . . .”

“Still are. Swimming back and forth and roasting anyone fool enough to venture out there.”

“The Corvantines?”

“All their ships are either sunk or fled. And their army ain’t in any better shape. Never been so thankful to live in a city with walls.”

“Their army?”

Fredabel glanced at the tent-flap behind her. “Got folks waiting to tell you all about it. But you need a sight more rest first.”

“The device,” Lizanne said, pushing the woman’s restraining hand away and pulling back the blankets. “I had a device . . .”

“Big Corvantine fella’s got hold of that, don’t you worry. Same one fished you outta the harbour.”

The jolts to her chest . . . He brought me back. “I can’t stay here,” she insisted, but Fredabel quickly dispelled any notions of rising by the ease with which she pressed her back onto the mattress. “Green,” Lizanne said, feeling her vision dim. “Give me a vial of Green.”

“Oh no.” Fredabel shook her head and firmly tucked the blanket around Lizanne’s limp form. “You’ve had enough of that for now. Dealt with the worst of your breaks and burns, but I seen folks die if they partake of too much.”

She gave a tight smile as she smoothed the hair back from Lizanne’s forehead. “Miss, I gotta know. You have anything to tell me about my family?”

“They were alive,” Lizanne said, the words emerging in a murmur as the wall of sleep descended. “When last I looked . . .”

—

“You would have me believe Madame Bondersil was in the employ of the Imperial Cadre?”

Garrison Commander Stavemoor was a bewhiskered man of portly dimensions. Lizanne estimated his age as closer to sixty than fifty and could see the greyness of his skin beneath the voluminous facial hair, the complexion of a man nearing exhaustion. In addition to the commander, the Ironship delegation consisted of a reed-thin woman Lizanne knew to be the Exceptional Initiatives Agent-in-Charge in Carvenport, and two senior managers, one of Accounts, the other Personnel. These last two were both so nondescript and cravenly avoiding of responsibility her mind hadn’t bothered to retain their names.

“What you believe is a matter for you,” Lizanne replied, sinking wearily into the chair behind Madame’s vacant desk. She was barely an hour from her hospital bed, Mrs. Torcreek having released her only after a full day’s rest. The makeshift hospital that now crowded the parks of Colonial Town seemed to have become a personal fiefdom for the Contractor’s wife, a measure of the respect in which her family was held and a reflection of the woman’s formidable organisational talents. Doctors and nurses alike deferred to her in most things and the many wounded soldiers and townsfolk regarded her with a deep affection. Consequently, she had little trouble in forcing what was left of Carvenport’s senior management to wait before allowing Lizanne to be questioned.

“You presume a great deal,” the commander went on, casting a pointed glance at the chair.

“I just need a place to sit.” Lizanne reclined, settling into the leather padding. It was cool against her neck, much of her hair having been shorn away so that she now sported a ragged bob that did little to enhance her appearance, as did the partially laundered overalls she wore. Her education had been rich in lessons on the value of proper attire and personal ablutions but now she found she couldn’t care one whit for such frippery.

The Agent-in-Charge placed a restraining hand on the commander’s arm as he bristled yet further. “Miss Lethridge,” she said in a gentle tone, offering what Lizanne assumed to be an uncharacteristic smile. “You have an overdue report to make, if you recall.”

You’ve been out of the field too long, Lizanne deduced, noting the ill-fitting expression of interested concern on the woman’s face. “I made my report to Madame Bondersil on arrival,” she said. “The fact that she failed to pass it on is telling, wouldn’t you say? As is the fact that since my return to this continent I haven’t set eyes on you until now.”

The woman stood a little straighter, though Lizanne heard the barely suppressed quaver in her voice as she replied, “Madame was given full authority by the Board. Any unfortunate actions on her part were performed without my knowledge . . .”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lizanne interrupted, waving a weary and dismissive hand. “Don’t you understand? None of this matters now. You have seen what transpired outside the harbour, I assume? And, I’m given to understand, a similar calamity has befallen the Corvantine forces beyond our walls. Our time on this continent is coming to a swift end. Its former owner is keen to reclaim possession and evict the current tenants.”

“How could you know that?” Stavemoor demanded. “Certainly recent occurrences have been . . . dramatic and very strange. But we still hold a strong position. And have plentiful supplies.”

Lizanne’s eyes drifted to the solargraph. It sat on the desk where Arberus had placed it before being escorted from the room, gears and cogs gleaming in the dim light offered by this subterranean refuge. What were you trying to tell us? she asked the Mad Artisan’s ghost, the drake memory Clay had shared with her at the forefront of her mind. How to find it? Or how to kill it?

“Can you put a roof over this city?” she asked the Commander. “Because that alone might save us. The mole will keep the Blues out, the walls the Greens. But what about the Reds and the Blacks?”

“We are not defenceless.” Stavemoor’s tone belied his words and Lizanne was appalled to see tears shining in his eyes.

“You have family here, sir?” she asked him.

He took a moment to compose himself before replying, blinking and allowing tears to flow into his whiskers. “My daughter, and two grandsons.”

“I also have family,” she said, Tekela’s face looming large in her head, along with Jermayah’s and, she was surprised to find, that of Major Arberus. She looked at the Agent-in-Charge, finding her in a barely more controlled state than the commander. A realisation came to her as she took in the full measure of their desperation. They haven’t come for answers, but guidance. Madame had exercised control over appointments here for years, and apparently stacked the deck with those she knew would never challenge her.

“I have some suggestions,” Lizanne said, leaning forward and clasping her hands together on the desk. “If you would care to listen.”

—

She toured the walls with the gaggle of managers in tow, finding the trenches all abandoned now. “Ordered everyone back to the walls once it became clear what was happening to the enemy,” Stavemoor explained. “Keeping out drakes is what they were originally built for, after all.”

Lizanne lifted her gaze from the empty trenches to the tree-line and jungle beyond, except much of the jungle seemed to have disappeared. Great swathes were burned to ash and others little more than blackened stumps. The devastation covered at least two square miles and amidst it all the Corvantine dead lay in mounds. Apparently they had clustered together in desperation, only to be surrounded by the swarming Greens and roasted to death.

“Started around the same time as the business at the harbour,” the commander said. “Didn’t know what was happening at first, o’ course. Just a lot of flames leaping up and such. Thought some Corvantine fool had set light to their own ammunition stores. Then came the screams and the runners, hundreds of them streaming towards us. Assumed it was another attack, as anyone would have done. We must’ve cut down about half before we realised they were begging for help. Got about three hundred under guard now. That Corvantine traitor questioned them. Seems the drakes started attacking their perimeter without warning. Great hordes of Greens, plus a Red or two.”

“But they haven’t come for us,” Lizanne said, still peering at the ruined jungle. “Yet.”

“A Red came flying over this morning. Didn’t get low enough for a shot though.”

Lizanne turned and scanned the expanse of Carvenport from end to end. Her gaze roamed over the residential districts damaged by the Corvantine bombardment, the densely packed ships in the harbour, and the untouched majesty of Company Square where the various corporate headquarters still stood tall, Ironship House tallest of all. Can you put a roof over this city . . . ?

“How many Growlers do we have in total?” she asked the commander.

“Fifty or so, but ammunition is down to one-third what it was when the siege began.”

“I would suggest,” she said, choosing to phrase this carefully, “putting half on the roofs in Company square, reinforced by Mr. Tollermine’s Thumper. The rest will be placed on the walls along with every surviving Contractor, since they know best how to deal with Drakes. Mr. Tollermine, in concert with every other artisan and able pair of hands in this city, should be put to work manufacturing more Thumpers and requisite ammunition.”

“You believe we should try to hold them off?” Stavemoor asked.

“For now at least.” She nodded at the harbour. “Taking ship and trying to fight our way through a sea full of enraged Blues is not an inviting prospect, even if we could fit every soul in Carvenport into those vessels.”

“Actually, miss,” the Manager of Accounts spoke up, a corpulent fellow with an unnaturally dark moustache and a shiny bald pate that shimmered as the sun caught the sweat beading his skin. “I have calculated that, if properly organised, the merchant and Protectorate vessels currently at anchor could carry two-thirds of our population.”

Two-thirds. Meaning we would have to choose which third would be left behind. “A measure to be explored only in dire necessity,” Lizanne said, forgetting the pretence of deference for the moment. She was gratified to see the man’s reluctant nod, and the lack of objection from his colleagues. Her short journey to the walls had engendered a peculiar realisation that partly explained the managers’ acceptance of her authority. It appeared her intervention against the Blood Cadre had done much to enhance her standing. It was there in the grave nods of respect from Contractor and soldier alike, in the shouted thanks and the name they murmured as she passed by. Of course, few, if any, even knew her true name. Instead they had crafted a new one; “Miss Blood.”

“Has there been any further communication from the Board?” she asked, turning back to Commander Stavemoor.

“This morning,” he said. “Recent developments have clearly given them much to think on. But they did report the Protectorate Main Battle Fleet continues to muster off Feros and will be at full strength within seven days. An expeditionary force of two full divisions is also being organised, though now it appears they’ll be fighting drakes rather than Corvantines.”

Seven days to muster the fleet, another three weeks to sail here, assuming they make it through the Strait and any Blues that might be waiting. “So,” she said, imbuing her tone with a less-than-sincere note of optimism. “All we need do is hold out for another month.”

There was no agreement on their faces, just numb acceptance shot through with a twitch of suppressed panic. This would have been the core of your new enterprise? she wondered, thinking of Madame’s surety in those final moments on the mole and wondering if ambition, the most cherished trait in this corporate world of theirs, wasn’t itself just another form of madness.

“Perhaps,” she said, pointing them towards the city, “we should get to work?”

—

“It’s not enough,” she told Jermayah as he laboured at the work-bench. At her insistence his tools and equipment had been shifted to a large warehouse near the docks where all the city’s artisan class had been gathered to work under his guidance.

“Enough or not,” Jermayah grunted, tightening a bolt on a part-completed Thumper breech. “You asked how many we can make in a week, and ten is the answer. That’s if you want them to have any shells to fire.”

“If it’s a question of labour, I can draft in more hands,” she said.

“Unskilled hands.” He cast a glance over his shoulder at the two hundred or so artisans labouring in the warehouse. “It’s all I can do to get this lot to understand the basic mechanics of the thing.” He sighed, seeing her expression. “More hands would help with the ammo count. And the rate of Thumper production will increase once they’ve gotten used to the techniques. And we could use more Blood-blessed to shift the raw materials around. You should have thirty by the end of the second week.”

She moved closer, speaking in an earnest whisper. “I have serious doubts we’ll last that long. Please Jermayah. Anything you can do . . .”

He sighed again and she saw how tired he was, his sagging features and too-bright eyes speaking of an over-indulgence in Green. She would have dearly loved to order him to sleep, but dare not with so much depending on his expertise. “It’ll mean stopping production for a day to reorganise,” he warned. “Make this place a proper manufactory, so components are made separately then assembled.”

“But if it works?” she prompted.

“Twenty Thumpers by the end of the week.” He shrugged. “Maybe. The artisans won’t like it though, turning them into piece-workers.”

“I doubt they’ll like the prospect of Blacks and Reds burning the city down around them either. Do whatever you need to do. I’ll have Commander Stavemoor allocate a company to this place. For security purposes, of course. But don’t feel shy about employing their services if the grumbling gets out of hand.”

He nodded then allowed his gaze to drift to Tekela. Lizanne had pressed her into service as an assistant and she followed her everywhere with note-book in hand and a large canvas bag over her shoulder. “Take it no-one else has looked at it?” Jermayah asked, nodding at the tell-tale bulge in the bag.

“No,” Lizanne replied. “And no-one will until we have time for a proper study.”

“I trust you won’t forget me when that time comes.” He gave a wistful grin. “Most wondrous bit of engineering I ever saw.”

—

“He showed me before he died,” the Corvantine woman said in the kind of flowing Eutherian spoken only by those born to the noble class, albeit choked with emotion. She was probably quite a beauty under the grime and soot that covered her face and matted her hair. She’s not Cadre, Lizanne had decided almost instantly, taking in the woman’s impractical attire of pleated riding skirt and intricately embroidered bodice. Whatever her station or prior responsibilities, the woman remained the only Corvantine Blood-blessed taken alive. Arberus had found her amongst the subdued mass of prisoners when a vial of product slipped from her sleeve during interrogation. He had brought her to the basement office where Lizanne allowed a short trance communication with Morsvale, the results of which were not encouraging.

“It was burning,” the woman went on. “The slums atop the sea-wall went first, Blues rising up to torch them from end to end. Then a mass of Reds came screaming out of the sky. He . . .” The woman managed to stifle a sob. “It was happening around him when he tranced with me . . . He could have run but he stayed and tranced at the scheduled time. I felt him burn . . .” Her composure failed and she began to weep, huddling into herself and appearing very young. Lizanne permitted her a few minutes before asking another question.

“What is your name? I understand you refused to give it to Major Arberus.”

The woman wiped her eyes and breathed deeply, some vestige of a no-doubt-customary poise returning as she straightened in her seat. “Electress Dorice Vol Arramyl.”

Electress. The third-highest rank in the Imperial hierarchy. Noble blood indeed. “What are you if you’re not Cadre?” Lizanne asked.

“I am . . . was second cousin by marriage to Grand Marshal Morradin. He asked me to accompany him on this expedition, so as to provide a secure line of communication with Morsvale and the Imperial Command.”

“Don’t the Cadre normally provide such services?”

“The Grand Marshal had little regard for the Cadre. Also, some recent failure of theirs in Morsvale had made him very angry, and somewhat mistrustful. Besides, I was keen to witness his victory.” A faint, grim amusement ghosted across her face. “I thought it might prove a novel and diverting adventure.”

“You can trance to the Imperial Command?” Arberus asked her.

The woman stiffened, her voice taking on an icy tone as she addressed her reply to Lizanne. “As a prisoner of war, must I suffer the indignity of being questioned by a traitor?”

Lizanne leaned closer to her, smiling sweetly, voice soft. “My dear Electress, you will suffer whatever indignity I heap upon your dainty shoulders and ask for more, or I’ll drop you outside the walls and you can go and find your second cousin. Answer the major’s question.”

The woman blanched a little but managed to retain her composure, replying in a clipped voice, “The Blood Imperial and I have a trance connection, yes.”

The Blood Imperial. Lizanne drew back a little, trying to disguise her surprise. The Blood Imperial was the most highly placed Blood-blessed in the empire, answering only to the Emperor himself. At any other time capturing this woman would have outshone all other achievements in Lizanne’s career, but now she was just another fearful soul desperate for protection.

“When is your next scheduled communication with the Blood Imperial?” Lizanne asked.

The Electress glanced at the clock on Madame’s former desk. “In a little over four hours. I realise I am at your mercy, and have already besmirched my honour in speaking so plainly. But I beg you, do not force me into a traitor’s role.” Her hands reached for Lizanne’s, soft fluttering fingers in torn lace gloves. “I beseech you . . .”

“Oh shut up,” Lizanne snapped. “And stop mewling so, it’s extremely aggravating.”

She moved behind the desk and took a seat, reaching for pen and paper. “I will give you a message to memorise,” she told the Electress as she wrote in Eutherian. “You will relate it to the Blood Imperial word for word. You will also show him everything you have seen during your diverting adventure and request that he convey it all to the Emperor with utmost urgency.” She finished writing and blotted the ink dry before tossing the page across the desk to the Electress. “Read it. I’m sure you’ll find it contains nothing that would further besmirch your honour. Major Arberus will provide a vial of Blue at the allotted time. When it’s done, you can make yourself useful in our new manufactory. They need help shifting the steel ingots from the store to the smelter.”

—

“What do you expect this to achieve?” Arberus asked, smoke blossoming as he lit a cigarillo then proffered the case. Realising she hadn’t had a smoke in several weeks Lizanne took one, leaning close as he shared the flame from his match, then savouring the burn of Dalcian leaf on her tongue.

“Probably nothing,” she said, groaning a little as the smoke rushed from her mouth into the cool night air. They had left the Electress under guard in the office and repaired to the walls where a large number of soldiers and Contractors stared out at the ashes in tense expectation. “At the very least,” she went on, taking another deep draw from the cigarillo, “it might persuade the Emperor that his cherished war will be best postponed for the foreseeable future.”

“She says she saw Morradin fall,” he said, his voice possessed of a reflective tone rather than the satisfaction she expected. “Went down fighting, as you’d expect. Blazing away with a revolver as the Greens swarmed all around. Perhaps one day the Emperor will have a picture painted to commemorate such a heroic end.”

Lizanne’s gaze tracked over the copious Corvantine dead still littering the ground beyond the trenches. “No such honours for them, I expect.”

“Of course not. Why waste paint on a mass of dead commoners?” He rested his forearms on the parapet, face grim as he looked down on the bodies of his countrymen. “How many of them even understood what they were dying for, I wonder? Come all this way to face slaughter in pursuit of profit, and it’s all pointless anyway.”

She paused, watching his sorrow for a time and wondering if his irksome fanaticism might have eroded amidst all this fury. He would be so much more interesting without it. “I believe I have been remiss in not thanking you before now,” she said. “Mrs. Torcreek told me it was you who pulled me from the harbour.”

He gave a half smile. “I wondered where you’d gone to after such an intense conversation with Mr. Tollermine. As for pulling you out, I had help from a couple of Blood-blessed stevedores. It seemed they were appreciative of your work in the trenches. To be completely honest, we’d probably both have drowned without them.”

A scream sounded out in the darkness beyond the walls and a ripple of alarm ran through the soldiers and Contractors on either side. The moons were hidden behind a thick blanket of cloud so the night was an unknowable void, pregnant with whatever fears the mind chose to conjure. “Green,” one of the Contractors said, a youthful marksman Lizanne recognised from Captain Flaxknot’s company. “Pack-leader I reckon.”

They listened in silence for several minutes but no more screams came. “What is doing this?” Arberus wondered aloud in Eutherian.

Lizanne hesitated before replying, uncertain how much she should reveal. After a moment’s consideration, however, it occurred to her that circumstances made her deeply habituated secrecy redundant. “The White,” she said. “The White is doing this.”

Seeing his bafflement she sighed and spoke on. “Ironship sent a company of Contractors into the Interior, guided by whatever intelligence I might discover during my mission. It transpires Burgrave Artonin’s suspicions were correct; the White, sadly, is no myth.” She went on to describe Clay’s discovery of Ethelynne Drystone and the drake’s memory she had shared. “The Longrifles are at the Coppersoles now,” she concluded. “Where it seems they may actually have a chance of finding its lair.”

“And then?”

“Mr. Torcreek will attempt to kill it and put an end to this havoc.”

“Is such a thing even possible?”

She gave a short laugh and took a final draw on her cigarillo before flicking the butt out into the darkness. “I am increasingly of the opinion that, when it comes to this continent, the notion of impossibility has little meaning.”

CHAPTER 37

Clay

Clay woke to find himself lying near a camp-fire, the sky dark overhead and the Longrifles all sitting around in grim silence. On seeing him wake, his uncle got to his feet and kicked dust over the fire. “Gotta keep moving. Spoiled might well find a way around that canyon.”

So they marched through the night, Clay stumbling along at the rear of the company as they followed the tracks ever deeper into the mountains. The passage was narrower now, and the walls of rock on either side taller. The absence of cover forced Braddon to set a punishing pace, calling a rest when the channel finally opened out into a broad valley and the track descended to follow the course of the river running through it. They made camp on a low rise a short distance from the track, where Clay sank down to huddle close to the fire. He had only his duster for warmth, most of everything having been lost with the engine.

“You threw the rope, right?” he asked Silverpin as she came to his side. His teeth chattered a little as she wrapped her arms around him. The effects of ingesting such a copious amount of product so quickly were taking a while to fade. Also, inhaling so much smoke left him with a grating cough. “Quite a feat. Wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t seen it.”

She just shrugged and held him closer until sleep claimed him.

—

There were no words said for Foxbine, no ceremony or exchange of reminiscences. In fact the only acknowledgment of her passing came when Braddon handed Loriabeth the gunhand’s revolver. “You’re First Gunhand now. She would’ve wanted you to have this.”

Loriabeth took the weapon with barely a nod, though Clay could see she was fighting tears. No time for grief in the Interior, he realised, seeing how Braddon resisted the urge to reach out a comforting hand to his daughter.

“So what now?” Firpike asked, hunched over and staring at the smoking embers of the camp-fire.

“We keep on the track,” Braddon told him simply.

“I don’t wish to speak out of turn, Captain,” the scholar said, not looking up, though a cautious anger had crept into his tone. “But I can’t help but notice our complete lack of provisions.”

“We could always eat you,” Loriabeth muttered. “Though I’d most likely choke on your bitter flesh.”

“Looks like we won’t have to worry on that score,” Skaggerhill said, standing and nodding to the south where a large winged shape descended through the misty-morning air. Lutharon flared his wings as he approached the camp, talons opening to deposit the carcass of a large-horned goat in their midst before coming to earth a short distance away.

“Quite the mess you made,” Ethelynne said, climbing down from the drake’s back. “I would estimate two thousand Spoiled are now rushing in pursuit. They’re at least a day behind though, so no need for immediate concern.” She paused to survey their diminished company. “The red-haired lady?”

Braddon gave a wordless shake of his head.

“Oh, my condolences. Still, I have news which may brighten the day.” She pulled Scriberson’s sketch from her coat of rags, holding it up with a slightly smug expression. “I found it.”

Braddon had contrived to secure their maps before leaping from the engine and spread them out on the ground so Ethelynne could point out their destination. “There’s a Briteshore settlement at the base of the mountain,” she said. “It looks to have been abandoned, though they left behind a good quantity of mining gear. I assume their surveyors found the place worthy of exploration thanks to the platform carved into the mountain side, it clearly being of artificial construction.”

“Looks like a steep climb,” Skaggerhill commented, tracing the flanks of the mountain with his stubby finger. “Unless your drake’d be willing to carry us all up there one at a time, ma’am.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she said with a cryptic grin. “You’ll see why when we get there.”

“Ten days’ march,” Braddon said, eyes intent on the chart. “Maybe more depending on how rough the country is.”

“Then we’d best be getting on,” Clay said, rising to his feet. A hearty meal of roasted goat had restored a good deal of his strength. Also, his brief trance with Miss Lethridge that morning left little doubt as to the urgency of their situation. He had chosen not to impart the news to the others, unsure how they would react and keen not to allow any distractions from their course. It may well know you’re coming, Miss Lethridge had warned after replaying the memory of Madame Bondersil’s aborted betrayal and the Corvantine fleet’s destruction. I wish I had some guidance to offer . . .

Doubt there’s much you could say right now that could help, he replied. Gotta find this thing and kill it. That’s all there is.

—

They left the track behind two days later, striking out towards the west across a series of hills. Lutharon kept them well supplied with goats come the evenings and Ethelynne provided reports on the progress of their pursuers. “They grow in number every day,” she said on the third night since leaving the track. “Several tribes appear to have joined forces. All very strange since they usually spend as much time fighting each other as they do the Briteshore Headhunters.”

“Maybe they got tired of being hunted,” Clay suggested. “If Briteshore was stepping up its claims here, could be they decided it was time to band together or die.”

“Nah,” Skaggerhill said, slicing a chunk of meat from the flank of the goat he had roasted. “Something’s changed ’em. Like those we saw at Fallsguard and the temple. Like the lake Greens. Can’t help but take note that a lotta things been changing since we started on this course.”

Preacher stiffened a little and Clay knew he was resisting the urge to give voice to some more scripture. However, Firpike clearly had no reluctance in speaking his mind. “I do grow ever more curious as to what exactly your course is,” he said, looking intently at Braddon. “It’s plain to me that you aren’t on any drake-hunting expedition. And no-one has stated explicitly what you expect to find at this mysterious destination.”

Skaggerhill turned towards him, face dark and lips forming a threat, but stopped as Braddon raised a hand. “You’re a clever fella, Doc. I feel sure you can reckon it out.”

Firpike’s gaze flicked over them all, narrowing in calculation. “And if I do you’ll finally have a reason to kill me?”

“Got plenty of those already,” Loriabeth muttered.

“The White,” Scriberson said, favouring Firpike with a humourless smile. “They’re here for the White, on Ironship orders if I’m not mistaken.”

Firpike started a little and Clay realised this particular notion hadn’t factored into his thinking. He watched the scholar’s eyes widen then narrow again. “It’s a myth,” he said finally. “It’s extinct, if it ever truly existed.”

“Really?” Braddon said, raising an eyebrow in Ethelynne’s direction. “Guess that makes you a liar, Miss Drystone.”

Firpike stared at her for some time as she smiled and ate her supper. “Ethelynne Drystone,” he said finally. “The Wittler Expedition.”

“Quite so,” she said.

“And the only living soul to have clapped eyes on a real live White Drake,” Braddon said. “Guess that’ll be something you can write another book about. But it’s the only profit you’re like to make from this enterprise, Doc, ’cause I’ll be Seer-damned if you’re getting a share of my company’s earnings.”

—

The better part of three days’ march brought the mountain into view. In accordance with Scriberson’s description it stood amongst the tallest peaks they had yet seen, its flanks steeper and more forbidding than those around it, rising to a point that resembled a sharpened spike at this distance. “Briteshore chart calls it ‘The Nail,’” Braddon said, checking the map. “Guess you can see why.”

The settlement stood at a short remove from the base of the mountain, smaller than the installation on the lake-shore but similarly protected by a tall defensive wall. Ethelynne’s cryptic response to Skaggerhill’s request that she have Lutharon fly them to the platform was explained by the series of pylons extending away from the settlement to ascend the mountain, dual cables arcing between each pair.

“Hope it’s in working condition,” the harvester said, casting a wary glance at the mist-shrouded peak above.

The settlement proved to be unravaged and well-stocked. The former inhabitants had left without pausing to secure the gate or pack up any of the copious supplies. “Spoiled scared ’em off, maybe?” Loriabeth suggested.

“Or perhaps they didn’t like what they found here,” Scriberson said.

“Check the cable-car wheel-house, if you would, young man,” Braddon told him. “Skaggs, go with him. Everyone else spread out and see what you can find. Not you, Doc,” he added as Firpike took an eager step towards the hut bearing the sign “Site-Manager’s Office.” “You get on up that ladder and keep watch. Be sure to sing out real loud if the Spoiled come along.”

“Take an age to sift through all this,” he said, a short while later after he and Clay had gone through the office, finding desks and cabinets fairly brimming with documents. “Mostly accounts and work schedules, far as I can tell. Can’t see nothing that gives a clear idea of their purpose here.”

Clay noticed a calendar on the back of the door and took it down to flip through the months, finding various notes scribbled here and there. “‘Cable project complete,’” he read, pointing to the 37th of Mortallum. “Near two months ago.” He flipped forward, skimming over brief references to supply runs and pay-days, stopping at the final entry on the 9th of Verester, which read: “First excavation initiated.”

“Nothing after that.” He turned the other pages. “Looks like they started digging then took off soon after. This place has been empty for the best part of a month.”

“Clay,” Braddon said, pulling a sheaf of papers from the desk. “This seem familiar to you?”

“Looks kinda similar to the city,” Clay said, eyes roving over the characters pencilled onto the papers. Line after line of pictograms possessing a faint resemblance to the inscriptions Ethelynne had spent so much time translating in the ruined city. However, that writing had displayed a certain flowing elegance in the way the different characters were shaped and arranged, their meaning unknowable but their form still capable of conveying an impression of poetry. This script was much more ordered and precise, the characters formed with a uniform exactitude. “Copy of something they found in the mountain, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Braddon agreed, frowning at the last sheet in the bundle. “If so, looks like they got awful tired of it.” The characters inscribed on this sheet began like the others, neat and precise at the top, but becoming much more contorted as they proceeded down the page. It looked to Clay as if whoever had scribbled this down had done so in haste or with an increasingly palsied, near-frenzied hand. The final set of symbols had been inscribed with such energy the paper was ripped in several places.

“Miss Ethelynne might be able to read it,” he said. “We’ll show her when she gets back.”

—

A search of the settlement revealed storehouses full of mining gear, complete with a scarily voluminous stock of explosives, and more ammunition and food than they could comfortably carry. “Whoever left all this behind is certain to find their contract cancelled,” Braddon said, hefting a pack laden with tinned rations and longrifle rounds.

“Guess we should take some of that,” Clay said, pointing at the heavily sandbagged storehouse containing the explosives. “If the miners had to blast their way into the mountain, could be they left the job unfinished.”

Braddon nodded. “You and Lori take a barrel each. And be sure to bring plenty of fuse-wire.”

They found Scriberson in the cable-car wheel-house applying a jug of grease to the workings of a massive winch. The car itself was a simple open-sided gondola, the cables that connected it to the pylon above issuing a soft whine as it swayed in the wind. “Think they’d at least have put a roof on it,” Loriabeth said, eyeing the contraption with evident unease.

“She working?” Braddon asked Scriberson, nodding at the coal-burning engine connected to the winch.

“Perfectly, as far as I can tell.” Scriberson emptied the grease jug before moving to the engine. “Just a matter of wiping away the dust and lubricating the moving parts. Her boiler’s chilled to the core, though. It’ll take an hour or two to fire her up.”

“Get the car loaded up with this gear,” Braddon told the rest of them. “Then we’ll eat us some of these rations. Must say, I’m heartily tired of goat.”

They repaired to the settlement’s meal-hall whilst Scriberson tended to the engine. Skaggerhill got the stove lit and made a hash of corned beef, ham and tinned potatoes, washed down with some beer the departed miners had been kind enough to leave behind. “Two apiece only,” Braddon warned, casting a hard glance at Loriabeth, who had already begun reaching for her third bottle.

“Here’s to the Contract,” Skaggerhill said, raising his beer in a salute. “And those lost on the way.”

Braddon mimicked him with a grave solemnity that made Clay realise this was another Contractor’s ritual. “Those lost on the way,” he said in concert with the others as they chinked bottles and drank, even Preacher, who Clay had assumed might have eschewed liquor on religious principle.

“Farthest in I ever travelled,” Skaggerhill said. “Been meaning to mention it, Captain, but this is my last trip. Got me a mind to retire.”

“With the bonus we’ll earn from this, we could all retire.” Braddon laughed, reaching across the table to clap him on the shoulder.

“Where’s Silverpin?” Loriabeth asked, glancing around. “Gonna miss the meal.”

“I’ll get her.” Clay got to his feet, making for the door and wondering if the bladehand might be amenable to a short assignation in one of the store-rooms.

“Might as well get the doc, too,” Braddon told him. “He’s trial enough without an empty belly.”

Clay nodded and went outside, raising his gaze to the parapet above but finding no sign of the aggravating scholar. “Grub time, Doc,” he called, scanning the walls. “It’ll get cold . . .” He trailed off as his eyes found Firpike. He sat near the walkway to the wheel-house, propped against the wall as if taking a rest. Clay, however, knew from the sharp angle of his neck and the emptiness in his eyes that this rest was permanent.

“Uncle!” he yelled, thoughts immediately conjuring images of Spoiled boiling down out of the hills. He drew the Stinger, fixing the stock in place and raising it to his shoulder to track along the top of the wall. Nothing. Then he heard it, the steady clanking rumble of an engine coming to life.

“What?” Braddon said, emerging from the meal-hall with rifle in hand.

“Trouble.” Clay pointed to Firpike’s body and ran for the wheel-house. He found the engine churning away at full power as it turned the belt attached to the great wheel, cables squealing as they were drawn over the iron. The lever that activated the engine lay nearby, sheared off at the root. There was no sign of Scriberson or Silverpin. Also, the car was gone.

Clay rushed to the edge of the wheel-house platform, Stinger raised and thumb clicking back the hammer. He had just enough time to see the car swallowed by cloud. He caught a glimpse of a figure in the car just before the mist closed in, standing and waving a forlorn farewell.

“Seer-damn me for the ages,” Skaggerhill swore, arriving to deliver a hefty kick to the engine. “Lever’s gone, and the controls for the car are smashed. This ain’t something non-Blessed hands could do.”

Clay stood gritting his teeth in impotent rage as he stared at the clouds clinging to the mountain side, Miss Lethridge’s words ringing loud in his head. His appearance at that juncture seems a little convenient . . .

“Scriberson,” he said in a hiss.

—

“He’s Blood-blessed,” Clay said, closing the flap on the pack and tying it tight. He rose and walked briskly to the gate. “Takes a Blood-blessed to fight a Blood-blessed.”

“With no product,” Braddon pointed out.

“Miss Drystone has some left.”

He went outside where Ethelynne waited atop Lutharon’s back. They had arrived only a few minutes after Scriberson stole the cable-car, drawn by the sight of it disappearing into the clouds.

“If he killed Firpike . . .” Braddon went on.

“She’s alive,” Clay cut in, striding towards the drake, though his words carried more conviction than he felt. “I . . . just know it. Maybe he wanted a hostage. Either way, I’m getting her back and killing him when I do.”

He heard Braddon sigh in resigned agreement before he said, “Be sure to send the car back down the moment you get there. Skaggs reckons he can rig something up so we can make use of it.”

Clay climbed up behind Ethelynne, the drake issuing a rumble of welcome and unfolding his wings. “Wait a moment please, ma’am,” he said, touching Ethelynne’s shoulder. He turned to face his uncle, steeling himself against the likely reaction, but some words just had to be said. “I ain’t sending the car back down, Uncle.”

Braddon’s reluctant agreement transformed into a baffled anger and he started forward with a purposeful growl. “You listen to me, boy . . .”

“Madame Bondersil’s dead,” Clay said, Braddon drawing up short at the harshness of his tone. “Your contract ended with her. She died eight days ago when a Blue ate her just as she was about to sell Ironship out to the Corvantines. Something she’d been planning a good long while, just so’s you know. And Carvenport ain’t under siege by the Corvantines no more because a buncha drakes turned up and killed them all. Now everyone’s just waiting for the Reds and Blacks to come down outta the sky and burn the place to cinders. And this is all ’cause of what’s in there.” He pointed at the mountain. “That thing wants everything it used to have, and more besides.”

He settled himself more firmly between the spines on Lutharon’s back, turning away from Braddon. “Once I’ve got Silverpin back, I’m gonna take all the powder in the car and blow the White to the Travail. You’d be wise to be far from here by then. Get to the coast, see if you can find a ship. Once the White’s gone you should be able to sail home through quieter waters.”

“Claydon . . .”

Something in Braddon’s voice made him turn back, the absence of anger mixed with something more. Clay met his gaze and saw it was gone, the compulsion, the desperate hunger for the White. Now there was just a puzzled and scared man knowing he was most likely saying good-bye to his nephew for the last time. What changed? Clay wondered. All this way, now we’re closer to it than ever, and the need has gone.

Braddon started forward again, then stopped as Lutharon voiced a warning huff, smoke rising from his nostrils in twin black plumes. Braddon lifted a hand in placation then unslung his longrifle from his shoulder, holding it out towards Clay. “You might have need of this,” he said.

Clay nodded and held out his hand, grasping the rifle as his uncle came closer. He seemed about to say something, but the words failed to reach his lips. His eyes, however, spoke of deep regret and guilt that might never fade. “Thanks for getting me out of gaol,” Clay told him, settling the longrifle on his back and pulling the strap tight on his chest. “I know you didn’t have to. And be sure to thank Auntie for my gift.”

Lutharon turned about and galloped away from the settlement, building momentum before launching himself into the air, his wings lifting them higher in a series of thunderous beats. They circled the settlement once, Clay looking down to see them staring up at him, Loriabeth, Skaggerhill, Preacher and Braddon, thinking it strange that he would actually miss them. Then Lutharon angled his wings and they began to ascend to the mountain top, the world turning white as they slipped into the clouds.

CHAPTER 38

Lizanne

The first attack came two days after Lizanne had woken from her hospital bed, a dense mass of Reds streaking down out of a hazy mid-morn sky to vomit their fire at the buildings below. Knowing the consequences of allowing people to gather above ground in the event of such an attack, Lizanne had made efforts to introduce a daylong curfew, enforced by patrols of Protectorate constables. But many citizens ignored the strictures and attempted to continue some semblance of their former routine with the result that, when the blow finally fell, a large number were naked before the onslaught.

The managerial district bore the brunt of the flames, two entire streets becoming wreathed in flame in the space of a minute as the drakes swept by in a red blur before ascending and wheeling about for another pass, this time making for the docks. By then the Thumper and Growler crews recovered their wits enough to respond. The batteries on the roof-tops in Corporate Square found the range quickly, a pair of Thumpers and a dozen or so Growlers blazing away in a frenzy. The effectiveness of their fire owed more to its rapidity than any accuracy. Lizanne counted half a dozen Reds falling in a twisted spiral towards the earth as the formation of wheeling drakes broke apart, their shrieks of alarm mingling with the crackle of gun-fire and screams rising from the city below.

She had positioned herself and Tekela on the parapet of the conical tower rising from the roof of the Ironship Central Records Office, a sturdy granite building standing three storeys high. It was defended by a single Thumper augmented by three Growlers and a platoon of freed Corvantine prisoners under command of Major Arberus. Most of the captives had agreed to take part in the defence of the city they had been attempting to destroy barely a week before.

Lizanne tracked the fall of one of the stricken drakes to the park where it came down amidst the flower-beds. Still living despite its wounds the Red, a full-grown male, immediately began to thrash about, blood spraying from a part-severed wing as its flames transformed the precisely ordered rows of roses and crocuses into cinders. As per the prearranged plan she had formulated with Commander Stavemoor, a small group of Contractors soon arrived on horseback to dispatch the beast, its fire guttering as it convulsed under a volley of longrifle rounds.

“Lizanne!” Tekela said urgently, and Lizanne lowered the spy-glass to see a trio of Reds flying straight towards their perch, wings flat and level as they glided into an attack, mouths gaping to shriek challenge and fury.

“Get down!” Lizanne told Tekela, stepping away from her and flexing her fingers over the Spider’s buttons. Black to hold them, she decided, focusing her gaze on the lead drake, an aged veteran of life in the Badlands judging by the many long-healed scars marring its face. In the event she had no need of product, Major Arberus timing the Thumper’s volley perfectly just as fire began to blossom from the mouths of the three Reds. The old veteran took two shells in the chest, falling to earth in a twisted vortex of blood and dwindling flame. The Red on the left was nearly decapitated by the line of shells that tore through its neck whilst the third suffered a prolonged burst of Growler fire before slamming into the edge of the roof. It clung on for a short time, screaming and belching flame as its claws scrabbled at the tiles, before a concentrated volley from the Corvantines sent it tumbling into the street below.

Lizanne turned her attention back to the city. There were still dozens of Reds wheeling amidst the rising columns of smoke, singly or in pairs. They seemed wary of flying lower than a hundred feet now, those that did soon falling victim to the guns. The battle wore on for another hour, claiming at least another dozen Reds by Lizanne’s reckoning, though the defenders suffered too. She saw a Growler battery on a neighbouring roof-top wiped out by suicidal drakes, the beasts flying directly into the stream of bullets to slam into the roof-tops in an explosion of spilled product. The resultant shrieks were even more piercing than that of the drakes and Tekela had clamped her hands over her ears by the time the last Red had wheeled about and disappeared towards the south.

“So many fires,” Tekela murmured, lowering her hands from her ears and gazing at the spectacle before them. Fires raged in every corner of the city, from Colonial Town to Artisan’s Row, but all were being fought by the companies of bucket-wielding citizens Lizanne had organised, and there was no general conflagration. Also, the crumpled bodies of a score or more drakes could be seen through the smoke. Carvenport had suffered a grievous blow, but they had survived.

“Make a note,” Lizanne told Tekela. “The harvesters are to salvage and refine as much product as possible from the drake corpses.”

—

“I am truly sorry, Mrs. Torcreek, but we have no choice. This district is a tinder-box.”

Fredabel Torcreek regarded Lizanne with momentary defiance, lips twitching as she formulated a retort, soon transformed into a sigh of weary acceptance as she nodded. “Half-burnt to the ground already,” she said. “My own house with it.”

“It would help if you would speak to your neighbours,” Lizanne said. “Explain things in terms they’ll understand. So far, my word doesn’t appear to be carrying much weight. There is ample accommodation in the corporate warehouses, and since they’re built from iron these days, they won’t burn.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Fredabel gestured at the small tent city surrounding them. “And the hospital?”

“I’ve ordered all offices in Corporate Square given over to care of the wounded.” She pulled an envelope from her pocket and handed it to the older woman. “You have also been appointed Chief Medical Administrator.”

Fredabel gave a small smile and brushed a wayward lock of hair back under her headscarf. “The grandest title I ever carried, for sure.” She paused for a moment, all vestige of humour fading from her face and she fixed Lizanne with a demanding stare. “What news from the Longrifles?”

Lizanne began a prompt and rehearsed lie, but found the words dying on her tongue. She at least deserves the truth, while she’s still alive to hear it. “I tranced with your nephew today, Mrs. Torcreek. He, your daughter and husband are alive but facing great danger. Beyond that, I cannot say.”

“This danger got anything to do with all this? Fredabel jerked her head at the corpse of a Red across the street and the team of harvesters busily syphoning off its blood. “Seems a mite coincidental otherwise.”

“My company was misled into making a grievous error,” Lizanne said. “It is my belief that we . . . awoke something.”

“And now we’re all gonna pay for it, huh?”

Lizanne straightened, buttressing her tone with the kind of unassailable confidence she had often heard in Madame’s voice. “Morsvale didn’t last out for more than a day,” she said. “Principally because they were an enslaved populace serving a corrupt and incompetent regime. We, on the other hand, are graced by considerably more advantages, not least in the nature of our people.”

Fredabel shook her head and gave a small grin before turning to Tekela. “You be sure and write that down, girl,” she said. “This place’ll have need of a testament soon enough.”

—

The last of the fires was extinguished come nightfall and, in the aftermath, it soon became clear that there would be no more defiance of curfew, every street standing empty save for the occasional Protectorate patrol. This proved to be fortunate, as the drakes were not content to let them rest.

Just after midnight the Greens came streaming out of the jungle by the thousand to assault the walls in a dozen places. Lizanne had given defence of the wall over to Commander Stavemoor, reckoning the relative simplicity of the task would suit his temperament, and it appeared the decision paid considerable dividends. Well-drilled Growler crews took a fearful toll before the screaming mass of Greens reached the walls, whereupon the expertise of the Contractors kept them at bay for a time, the abandoned trenches soon becoming choked with drake corpses as the longrifles maintained a furious and deadly accurate fire.

After hearing the initial reports Lizanne had begun to conclude the attack might merely be an expression of mindless rage, the drakes driven for reasons unknown to sacrifice themselves beneath a barrier they had no means of breaching. Then came the report that the corpses had begun to pile up in certain places, the piles growing higher as more and more drakes clambered up the mounds of fallen kin to launch themselves at the parapet above.

Commander Stavemoor reacted by ordering one of his two Thumpers to fire at the base of the mounds, the explosive shells undermining the pile sufficiently for them to collapse under the weight of climbing Greens. However, the innovation came too late to prevent a pack of Greens gaining a foothold on the most eastern extremity of the wall, killing many defenders and threatening to break through into the streets beyond. Fortunately, Lizanne and the commander had foreseen such an emergency and organised squads of Blood-blessed that could be rushed to plug any breaches in the defences. Through a desperate use of Black and Red they managed to stall the Greens on the parapet long enough for an additional battery of Growlers to be shifted to the sector. The weight of fire proved sufficient to sweep the drakes from the walls and by the first glimmerings of dawn the tide of Greens had receded into the jungle. The cost, however, had not been slight.

“Two hundred and seventy-three killed,” Commander Stavemoor reported at the morning meeting Lizanne convened in her new office in the basement of the Central Records Office. “Plus four hundred wounded. That reduces my command by over a third.”

“Total fatalities for the past two days amount to over a thousand,” the accountancy manager piped up. “As for the loss of property and associated values”—he began to leaf through his papers then stopped under the weight of Lizanne’s stare, adding in a soft mutter—“a matter for another time, perhaps.”

“A thousand dead in less than two days,” Major Arberus said.

“Plus the Seer knows how many Greens and a good number of Reds,” Stavemoor pointed out. “All in all, I’d say we’ve given a damn good account of ourselves.”

“They got plenty more where they came from,” Captain Flaxknot murmured. Lizanne had asked the Contractors to elect someone to speak on their behalf and the leader of the Chainmasters got the job by dint of experience and the breadth of respect she enjoyed. Although, for the sake of morale, Lizanne was beginning to wish they had chosen someone with a less realistic outlook. “Seen more Greens in the last few days than I thought was left in this whole continent. And the Reds, all flying together in one great host like that.” She shook her head in grim wonder. “What’s happening here’s got nothing to do with nature.”

“Evidently,” Lizanne said, adding a brisk note to her voice. “However, pondering the whys and wherefores of our predicament will avail us little. Despite our grievous wounds, this city remains standing and our manufactory continues to produce weapons at an impressive rate. We have suffered greatly, but have learned in the suffering.”

She turned to Stavemoor. “Commander, please organise working parties to clear away the drake corpses and dig a ditch around the wall.”

The commander blinked tired eyes at her but didn’t feel compelled to argue. “How deep?” he asked instead.

“As deep as you can make it before they come again. You will have the assistance of every Blood-blessed in the city.”

“What about the Reds?” Captain Flaxknot asked. “Gotta expect them to return sometime, and I doubt they’ll be dumb enough to do so in daylight. Red’s a cunning beast.”

“Hard to hit them in darkness,” Major Arberus agreed.

“Then we must endeavour to turn night into day,” Lizanne said, her gaze tracking over those present until it alighted on a slim man in the dark blue uniform of a commodore in the Maritime Protectorate. “And, luckily, our harbour is crowded with the means to do just that.”

—

As Captain Flaxknot predicted the Reds waited until nightfall to return. They attacked in smaller groups this time, swooping down at great speed and evidently wary of spending more than a few seconds in range of the growing number of guns now crowding the city’s roof-tops. Cover of darkness did offer some advantages to the drakes, and several Growler and Thumper batteries were destroyed in the initial stages of the attack, the Reds forsaking their usual screams of challenge to glide down without warning and cast forth their flames or rend with tooth and talon. Once the alarm had been raised, however, the order was given to put Lizanne’s innovation to the test.

It had taken much of the day to shift the searchlights from the ships to the chosen vantage sites about the city, each one placed alongside a Thumper position so that they might immediately engage any illuminated targets. At first the blue-white beams seemed to roam the sky at random, shimmering lances dissecting the night to little purpose, but then one alighted on a Red gliding above at close to five hundred feet, two more beams quickly flicking over to fix on the target as every Thumper within range roared into life. The drake twisted and wheeled in the beams, tail snaking and wings folding continually as it sought to escape the betraying light, to no avail. Within seconds it tumbled into the Blinds, its death scream choking off as it connected with the ground.

The contest was far from over, however, the Reds, or whatever unseen hand commanded them, proving unwilling to retreat in the face of this new threat. Time and again they came streaking out of the dark to cast their fires at the defending gun-crews, some deliberately placing themselves in the path of the searchlight beams in order to follow them down and extinguish the hateful light. Most were torn apart by intersecting Thumper and Growler fire before they got within a hundred feet of the lights, but they succeeded in two instances, the unfortunate sailors manning the lights all suffering the appalling fate of the non-Blessed who find themselves drenched in drake blood. Come the dawn, however, there were no more Reds to be seen and they counted another twenty-three drake corpses within the city limits.

“At least we’ll have a surplus of Red to sell when this is over,” Lizanne muttered, looking over the accountancy manager’s reports in her office.

“But no Black,” Arberus noted. “Greens, Reds and Blues only, so far.”

“A detail that hasn’t escaped me,” she replied, recalling Clay’s shared memories of Ethelynne Drystone and her tamed Black. Also, the mosaics from the temple the Longrifles had found in the jungle had all conveyed an impression of the original Arradsians enjoying some form of worshipful symbiosis with the Blacks. “It may be they want no part in this conflict,” she wondered aloud.

“Want?” Arberus’s soot-blackened brows gave an amused twitch.

“They aren’t mindless,” she told him. “That much at least we’ve learned from this debacle, if nothing else.” She cast a critical gaze over his besmirched overalls and unwashed visage. “You need a bath.”

“Don’t we all?” He held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary, provoking a not-altogether-unwelcome pang of intriguing discomfort. No, she told herself, clasping her hands together and averting her gaze. I can no longer afford any indulgence.

“You know we can’t last here,” he said after the silence had stretched for a time. “Not long enough for the Protectorate Fleet to arrive, and that assumes their arrival will in fact bring deliverance and not just more victims for the drakes’ spite. As you said, they aren’t mindless and it’s evident that they learn from every encounter.”

Her thoughts returned to the ships in the harbour, as they often had in recent days. Enough room for two-thirds, and what hope of reaching Feros would they have in any case? If only they were all blood-burners . . .

She straightened, frowning as something began to gel in her mind, something rich in desperation, but this situation demanded extreme solutions.

“That’s a look I’ve come to trust,” Arberus said, smiling again as she rose from the desk.

“I believe your command has received another Thumper,” she told him. “Please deploy it on the roof as you see fit and train your countrymen in its use. I shall be at the manufactory.”

—

“Is it possible?”

Jermayah met her gaze, brows knitting together in an expression that mingled annoyance with consideration. After a long and uncomfortable moment he went to a crate of papers in the corner of the manufactory that served as his makeshift office. She had afforded him the official title of Senior Ordnance Manager but to everyone who laboured here he remained simply Mr. Tollermine. The lack of formality didn’t appear to undermine the authority and respect he enjoyed, however, and there were few who would question the fact that their survival owed much to his ingenuity.

“A patented Ironship Mark II plasmothermic engine,” he said, extracting a large scroll from the crate and spreading it out on his desk to reveal a complex but familiar blueprint. “Twice as efficient as the Mark I and less complex than the Mark III. Plus, with a few alterations, we should be able to source all the materials from existing stocks. However, every one of these in existence has been fashioned in a Syndicate manufactory under expert supervision. Of all the artisans gathered here, I could name no more than a dozen with the skills to begin constructing one from scratch, much less finishing it.”

“But you could,” she said. “I’ve seen you build devices of far greater complexity with no other hands to help you. And we need much more than one.”

He grunted and returned his gaze to the intricate white lines of the diagram. “How many more?”

“Only one-quarter of the ships in the harbour are blood-burners. For this to work, they all need to be converted. You will have the ships’ engineers to help, of course.”

“So, you intend for us to flee?”

“I intend for us to live.”

He sagged, resting his elbows on the blueprint and lowering his face into his hands with a groan of such fatigue she found herself reaching out to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. He started at that, straightening to stare at her as if she might be a stranger wearing a familiar face. “You all right?” he asked.

She smothered a laugh and removed her hand. “Quite all right, thank you.”

“Saying we could do it,” he began after another prolonged study of the blueprint, “and I’m not saying we can, but if so, how are we going to power so many blood-burners? This siege has taken an awful toll on the Blood-blessed already.”

“Don’t concern yourself with that,” she told him. “The matter is in hand.”

—

The assembled girls stood in five neat rows in the Academy gymnasium, the youngest in the front and the oldest at the rear, the same arrangement adopted at every daily assembly. There were fifty-three of them, somewhat fewer than the usual complement but hardly unexpected given the indiscriminate nature of both Corvantine artillery and drake fire. With the sudden departure of Madame Bondersil, management of the establishment had fallen to one Juliza Kandles, a matronly woman of middling years who had previously been Mistress of Languages. Lizanne remembered her as a kindly sort, less severe in her disciplinary practises than the other teachers, and Lizanne therefore entertained serious doubts the woman would have the stomach for what was coming.

“They are children,” Mistress Juliza breathed, eyes widening after Lizanne finished relating her instructions.

“And they will soon be dead children if we cannot contrive a means of escape,” Lizanne told her. “Every precaution will be taken regarding their security . . .”

“What happened to you out there, Lizanne?” the woman asked, eyes wide in mystified dismay. “Was the world so terrible it turned you into this?”

“The world is the world,” Lizanne replied with a weary sigh. “And now it is at our door.” She nodded to Tekela, who came forward to hand the woman a folder. “Each student has been allocated a ship,” Lizanne explained. “You’ll find the list enclosed along with a basic guide to the workings of the thermoplasmic engine. It’s not very complicated but I feel the girls should gain some appreciation for its workings before embarkation.”

Mistress Juliza stared at the folder as if she had been handed a ticking bomb. “Madame would never have countenanced this,” she stated, voice hoarse as she met Lizanne’s eyes.

“Madame would have sold every girl here to a whore-house if it furthered her aims,” Lizanne replied, her patience finally worn through. “A complement of riflemen from the Maritime Protectorate is waiting outside to convey the girls to the docks in readiness. I’ll give you a half-hour to explain the situation and say your good-byes.”

—

They were granted a day’s respite, the skies remaining clear of Reds and the pock-marked, corpse-strewn wasteland outside the walls free of any charging Greens. Lizanne used the time to acquaint the city’s various factions with her design. Now that half the manufactory’s efforts had been given over to construction of blood-burning engines there was no prospect of maintaining secrecy in any case. Also, the hard choices they had to make demanded full and frank discussion.

“One in three,” the lead representative for the Blinds said in a soft, contemplative murmur. He had named himself as Cralmoor, a hulking Islander bearing the elaborate facial tattoos typical of his people, although their pleasing aesthetics were spoilt somewhat by the recently healed scars and misaligned bones that spoke of a savage beating. Reports from Exceptional Initiatives revealed the man as a famed and respected prize-fighter now risen in the slum’s ever-shifting hierarchy by virtue of the demise of the King of Blades and Whores.

“Children and mothers will be granted a place by right,” Lizanne told him. She had been obliged to meet Cralmoor atop a drinking den named the Colonials Rest where a collection of Blinds folk had charge of a battery of Thumpers and Growlers. They were a decidedly mixed lot, varying greatly in age and ethnicity and featuring more women in their ranks than in other districts. They also exhibited considerably less respect in the face of corporate authority.

“Managers’ bitches and their whelps, no doubt,” sneered a woman standing at Cralmoor’s side, a thin-faced but buxom figure clad in a heavily besmirched, low-cut dress. Despite the pressures of recent days, she had somehow contrived to maintain her mask of paint; white foundation, ruby red lips and purple eye-shadow combining to convey a clownish appearance at odds with her otherwise fiercely suspicious demeanour.

“All children and all mothers,” Lizanne assured her. “Regardless of prior station or company allegiance.” She smiled, shifting her attention back to Cralmoor. “I will require a list of such persons within your . . . dominion.”

“What about everyone else?” he asked, unblinking fighter’s eyes steady and making her wish she had agreed to Arberus’s suggestion he bring his Corvantines along as an escort.

“To be chosen by lot,” she said, proud of the fact that she hadn’t allowed her smile to falter. “Also, a number of volunteers will remain as a rear-guard. Myself included.” She had used this tactic at her previous meetings that morning, finding it worked well with the Contractor families from Colonial Town, but made little impression on the representatives of the middle manager’s district.

“We are to be afforded no more respect than the worst scum of this city?” one had demanded, a deep-voiced woman with iron-grey hair and an impeccably tailored, and unstained, business dress. “We who have laboured to make it great?”

“But do scant labour in its defence,” Lizanne had replied, wearied by their petty complaints and assumed privilege. The world falls to ruin around them and still they cling to status and wealth as if they retain the slightest meaning. In the Blinds, however, the issue was one of trust rather than status.

The clown-faced woman gave a dubious cackle in response to Lizanne’s statement, but her mirth soon evaporated at a glare from Cralmoor. “Gotta ask you to forgive Molly Pins her over-sharp tongue, Miss Blood,” he said. “Her experience of company folk ain’t been altogether good. In that, we got a lot in common.”

“It’s perfectly all right, sir,” Lizanne replied, noting that Miss Pins’s expression remained sullen rather than contrite. “And please know I fully understand your reluctance to trust my word. All I can say is that, given our current difficulties, trust is not just a luxury, but a necessity.”

Cralmoor and the woman exchanged glances before retreating a short distance to confer with a cluster of similarly suspicious and mismatched souls. The discussion was brief, if heated. One man became particularly agitated, a stocky fellow of Dalcian heritage who hissed at Cralmoor as he gesticulated towards the docks, Lizanne finding little difficulty in lip-reading his argument: “To the Travail with this Corporate bitch. I say we take the ships and go.”

Cralmoor listened to the Dalcian in silence, stroking his chin and nodding in apparent consideration, then reached out a cobra-swift hand to clamp his fingers around the fellow’s neck. He lifted the Dalcian off his feet single-handed then carried him to the edge of the roof, opening his hand to deposit the dissenter into the alley below. The pealing screams that ascended as Cralmoor strode back to Lizanne spoke of at least one broken limb.

“You’ll have your list by the end of the day,” the Islander told her. “And you can add my name to your rear-guard.”

“My thanks, sir,” she replied. “There is one other matter requiring discussion.” She hesitated at his raised eyebrow but ploughed on. “If there are any unregistered Blood-blessed within this district, I would ask that they make themselves known. They will be sorely needed when the time comes.”

“I’ll see to it.” He gave a polite incline of his head and gestured towards the ladder to the street below. It seemed her period of welcome had come to an end. She nodded and made for the ladder, pausing as her gaze alighted on a slender figure on a neighbouring roof-top. It was a girl, perhaps a couple of years older than Tekela with the dark complexion of Old Colonial stock. Her face was faintly familiar but it was the way she moved that made Lizanne pause. The girl was evidently part of a Growler crew from the bandoliers of ammunition criss-crossing her chest. She was attempting to teach a dance step to a younger comrade, a Dalcian girl barely twelve years old by Lizanne’s reckoning. The older girl smiled as they swayed back and forth, but it was a sad smile and somehow Lizanne doubted she had laughed at all recently. Suddenly the girl spun away from her pupil, performing a series of flawless pirouettes, dark hair flying as she twirled before coming to a rigid halt, posed with arms raised in statuesque perfection. She smiled once more as her comrades clapped, bowing in theatrical gratitude.

“Something else, Miss Blood?”

Lizanne turned to see Molly Pins standing close by, her suspicious squint only marginally less fierce than before. “You been made welcome and all, but it’s best not to linger.”

“That girl,” Lizanne said, pointing to the neighbouring roof-top. “You know her?”

Molly glanced at the girl and gave a short nod. “Sure, used to belong to Keyvine, though only for a day or so till his head took off and left the rest of him behind.”

“Her name?”

The woman’s squint narrowed a little but it seemed she couldn’t find reason to ignore the question and Lizanne whispered along with the name she spoke, “Joya. Her name’s Joya.”

CHAPTER 39

Clay

It took longer to ascend to the mountain top than expected, Lutharon often gaining height only to lose it a few moments later as the wind changed. Clay could feel the air thinning about them, bringing a cutting chill that barely made purchase on his thoughts, filled as they were with near-feverish imaginings of Silverpin’s fate. Could be he killed her already, just pitched her out of the car on the way up. Or broke her neck when he stole it.

Added to that was the burn in his chest, the old heat stoked to a new intensity worse than anything felt in all his years in the Blinds. He only made it this far ’cause of me, he knew, realising he had forgotten one of the hardest lessons learnt in the Blinds: a true friend is like a ten-scrip note lying in the street; you might find one, but only when you ain’t looking.

Finally, after more than an hour of effort, Lutharon ascended above the narrow summit of the Nail, circling until the ledge came into view. At a pat to the neck from Ethelynne the drake shortened his wings, bringing them down in a descent so rapid it might have had Clay yelling in fear a short while before; now there was just the burn and the need to reach his goal.

He held tight to the spine in front of him, eyes fixed on the growing expanse of the ledge. He had agreed with Ethelynne before setting off that no chances would be taken with the treacherous astronomer. Lutharon was to incinerate him on sight or, failing that, he and Ethelynne would gulp down sufficient Black and Red on landing to see him cast down the mountain side in a screaming ball of flame. However, it appeared such designs were destined to be frustrated as he could see the cable-car halted below a pylon erected close to the cliff-edge, but no sign of either Scriberson or Silverpin.

He leapt clear of Lutharon’s back as the drake flared his wings, Stinger coming free of its holster as he landed in a crouch. The ledge was broad and unnaturally flat, the stone smoothed into a level surface with the kind of precision that only came from human hands. Or something inhuman with the same understanding, he thought.

“Over here!” Ethelynne called, her slight form shielded by Lutharon’s bulk. Both he and the Drake moved to find her standing at an opening in the rock-face where the ledge ended. It was clearly new from the rubble piled nearby and the wooden beams buttressing the entrance.

“Briteshore’s work,” Clay said, moving to her side and peering into the absolute gloom of the shaft. Ethelynne drank a sip from one of her vials and sent a pulse of Red-borne fire into the shaft, illuminating a long tunnel of damp, rough-hewn walls, stretching on for at least fifty feet before the flames faded. “It appears they had been fairly industrious before deciding to leave,” she observed.

“Wait here a moment, ma’am.” He went to the cable-car, finding the supplies they had packed mostly intact, including the two barrels of explosive and, he was annoyed to find, Scriberson’s marvellous telescope already assembled and ready to be placed atop its tripod. It seemed the astronomer had fitted the tubes together before placing it in the car so there wouldn’t be any delay in viewing his precious alignment. Clay reached for it with a grunt of anger, ready to throw the damn thing into the void, then paused as something occurred to him. If it was all just a ruse, why would he bother to fix it up at all?

He searched the rest of the car’s contents until he found Scriberson’s pack, tearing it open and spilling out the contents. His notebook was amongst the sundry items, including a number of curios gathered on the way; a drake tooth, a mosaic tile from the temple, a Dalcian sovereign he had done well to keep hidden. Nothing, in fact, that spoke of a Corvantine agent intent on betrayal and murder. Clay opened the note-book, leafing through the pages of jottings and sketches. The astronomer wrote in Mandinorian but his penmanship was poor, Clay finding he could decipher only a portion of it and that was so filled with scholarly jargon he made little sense of it anyway. The sketches were a different matter, all clean, uncluttered lines set down with a clarity and precision that belied the scribbles framing them. Clay stopped leafing at a sketch near the end of the book, the most accomplished so far showing a young woman he knew well. She stood with a revolver on her hip and a quizzical aspect to her face as she smiled out at the viewer, an aspect Clay hadn’t seen in his cousin before but Scriberson evidently had.

He closed the book and stood for a time, lost in thought until Ethelynne called his name. He looked up to see her standing at the cliff-edge and gazing towards the east where the sun had begun to slide towards the jagged horizon. He followed her gaze, blinking at the view. The three moons and the sun . . . The alignment.

He knew they should move on, light lanterns and make their way into the bowels of this mountain and confront whatever secrets it held, but he found he couldn’t look away from the sight unfolding in the sky. The three moons seemed to merge as they neared the centre of the sun, Clay blinking and shielding his eyes as he stole repeated glances at the spectacle. Then as the three moons became one a shadow came rushing at them across the mountains, a black tide sweeping over peaks and valleys in a rush too fast to follow. Clay staggered as it reached them, expecting some great force to sweep him from his feet, but the shadow only brought a chill of new-born evening. He returned his gaze to the sun, finding it replaced by a great ring of white fire surrounding a black void.

“Beautiful,” he heard Ethelynne whisper.

Clay blinked the moisture from his eyes and realised there was something shimmering beyond the sun, three small pin-points of light blinking in the blue-black sky just outside the flickering white fire. Muttering a curse he lifted the telescope onto the tripod and fumbled with the eyepiece until it shimmered into focus and a fourth pin-prick of light stood revealed. Scribes’s extra planet, he thought, watching the light flicker and wondering at the regret he felt in knowing the astronomer had missed this sight. Wonder what he would have named it.

It lasted perhaps half a minute, then the ring of fire began to blaze brighter on its eastern edge. As it did Clay felt something stir beneath his feet, a faint thrum that soon built into something far more violent. He staggered as the mountain shook, then lunged towards Ethelynne as she stumbled towards the cliff. He managed to catch her an inch or two short of the edge and they fell together, huddling as the mountain trembled, the air split by the roar of something vast beneath the stone and the discordant crack of shattered rock. Lutharon gave a piercing squawk of alarm and launched himself from the ledge, wings sending a gale over Clay and Ethelynne as he beat the air and hovered until the tremor finally faded.

“The shaft!” Clay said, surging to his feet and running for the opening. He sagged against the beams at the sight confronting him, despair escaping his lips in a low moan. The shaft was blocked, choked from wall to ceiling with tumbled rock. He fell to his knees, his fury fading under the weight of awful certainty. No amount of Black could shift so much stone, and even Lutharon couldn’t claw his way through. They could try blasting their way in with the explosives in the car, but with only two barrels it would be a wasted effort. Briteshore had evidently taken months to dig their way in and he knew they were running out of time.

“Oh,” Ethelynne said in a whisper. Clay looked up to see her staring at the continuing spectacle of the alignment, eyes wide and fascinated. He followed her gaze, seeing that the shimmering circle surrounding the merged moons had begun to expand on the left, the shadow cast by the eclipse beginning to fade. The sight was undoubtedly beautiful, but nothing could steer his heart from the burden of defeat just now. He began to look away but Ethelynne stopped him, coming to his side and laying a hand on his shoulder as she pointed to the blazing crescent. “Look, Clay. Where the light meets the mountain tops.”

He looked and found himself blinking in confusion, unsure if what he was seeing might be some apparition born of desperation. The sun was low in the sky, so low that the base of the growing crescent dipped below the peaks of the Coppersoles and, in one point, blazed brighter than any other where it was caught in the narrow gap between one of the tallest mountains and the curved outline of a drifting moon.

“This is what the Artisan saw,” Ethelynne said. “Something that can only happen during an alignment, and can only be seen here.”

Light streamed from the gap between mountain and moon, a beam lancing forth across the distance to cut through the lingering shadow and cast its glow on this very mountain. Clay followed the track of the beam, looking up to where it met the rock-face above, a shimmering inverted triangle, like an arrowhead, and it was pointing at something, some previously unseen facet in the mountain side. He moved back from the shaft, eyes fixed on the place where the glowing arrow narrowed to a point. It was perhaps a hundred feet higher than the ledge and would have been invisible in the abstract mass of rock but for the revealing light of the alignment. A crack in the wall of stone, a way in.

“Briteshore sure wasted a lot of time and money,” he murmured. “All they had to do was wait.”

—

The cave mouth was too narrow for Lutharon to deposit them safely within it, but fortunately Skaggerhill had included a good length of rope and a grapnel when loading up the cable-car. Clay climbed up first, finding that skills learned scaling walls in the Blinds were easily adapted to the mountains. Green would have made for a more rapid ascent but their stocks were so low they agreed to husband it for whatever threats they might face within the mountain. It took the better part of an hour to reach the cave, the rock-face proving sheer and tricky, the handholds on offer narrow and dewed with moisture from the drifting clouds. He found the cave larger than expected, a good ten feet high and wide enough to easily accommodate two people walking abreast. Or a half-grown drake, he added, peering into the gloom ahead. It may have been a conjuring of his stressed mind but his eyes detected a faint orange glow deep in the recesses of the cave, a glow that had been absent when he looked into the Briteshore shaft.

From below came Ethelynne’s impatient query so he jammed the grapnel into a crevice in the cave floor and cast the rope down. He hauled the barrels up first, working the rope with careful and unhurried deliberation and wincing every time one of the casks bumped against the rock. Ethelynne had been wary of taking them along but he had insisted. “I’m thinking this thing’s gonna need more than just a longrifle bullet to go down.”

Next he pulled up the long coil of fuse-wire bundled with Uncle’s rifle and a full bandolier of ammunition before leaning out to stare down at Ethelynne. For the first time he appreciated just how small she was, her pale oval of a face rendered childlike at this distance. Lutharon was perched near the cable-car, head tilted at a curious angle as he stared up at Clay, as if reading his intent. He’ll fly her down, she’ll be fine.

“Don’t you dare!”

His gaze snapped back to Ethelynne, seeing her features now bunched into furious warning.

“Enough folk have died on this trip,” he called back, unhooking the grapnel from the rock and tossing it away. “Got no desire to see it happen to you.”

“You have no product,” she said, taking out her wallet of vials and holding it up, a faint note of desperation creeping into her tone. It wasn’t friendship, he knew, or at least not just that. She wanted to see the White again; perhaps that’s all she had wanted in all the years spent lost in study of the Interior’s mysteries.

“Got serious doubts any amount of product will help me in there,” he said, turning away and slinging Uncle’s rifle over his shoulder. After a moment he paused and turned back. Looking down he saw her anger had gone, replaced by an expression of deep hurt and disappointment, like a parent gazing at an ungrateful child. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, reaching down and hefting the barrels with meaningful intent. “Don’t try to follow me.” He turned his gaze to Lutharon, not knowing if the drake would understand his words but speaking them anyway. “Get her away from here.”

—

Clay clutched a barrel under each arm as he made his way along the tunnel, guided by the glow ahead. Uncle’s rifle was strapped across his back, the Stinger sat in its holster against his side and the fuse-wire was looped around his waist. He found himself stumbling more than once over the uneven rock, his heart leaping each time as he clamped his arms tight on the barrels. The air grew warmer the deeper he went, the illuminating glow evidently the result of some heat source. As sweat beaded his skin in ever-greater volume he berated himself for not having the foresight to bring more than a half canteen of water.

Halfway along he set down one of the barrels and removed its stopper before sliding in a length of fuse-wire. He continued along the shaft at a trot, spooling out the wire and knowing Ethelynne would already have drunk her Green and be making her way up the rock-face. He stopped after twenty yards then snipped off the wire and struck a match. Clay turned and ran the moment the fuse caught, exiting the tunnel and jerking to the side just as the barrel exploded. The boom left his ears ringing and he found himself coughing in an outrush of powdered rock.

When the dust cleared he saw that he had stepped out onto a platform, flat-topped and of such precise construction it banished any notion it might be a natural feature. Going to the edge of the platform he peered down, rooted to the spot as he tried to comprehend the sight that greeted him. At first he thought it another mountain, a great cone of rock forming a peak within a peak, but then his eyes began to discern details: windows, doors, balconies and stairs. A city. A city carved from solid rock within this mountain. It rose from depths lit by a fire so bright Clay found he couldn’t gaze at it for more than a few seconds. He fancied he saw something churning in the glow, bulbous globules rising and falling amidst the shimmering fury.

He spent a long while in contemplation of the stone city’s unfamiliar architecture, all straight lines and sharp angles absent any curves, wondering at what ancient science could have crafted such a place. His eyes roved from bridge to balcony to plaza, finding no sign of current habitation. Whoever had lived here was long-gone. But he knew with grim certainty there were at least two new inhabitants.

Casting his gaze about he found a stairway leading down from the platform and into the city in a long, descending zigzag. Just me now, he thought, realising this was the first time he had truly been alone since leaving Carvenport. Come an awful long way to seal myself in a mountain. The notion birthed a laugh as he started down, but it didn’t last very long.

—

He had descended three successive stairways when he drew up short at the sight of a rope ladder ascending into the gloom above. Looking up he could just make out an opening in the slope of rock. Briteshore’s shaft, he decided, eyeing the ladder once more and picking out the scuff marks on the rungs. At least one of them came inside for a look-see. He lingered for a moment, puzzling over the notion that if a Briteshore party had climbed down here, then got so scared by their discovery, why they hadn’t pulled the ladder up after them when they fled? Lacking any clues he could only shake his head and move on.

The descent to the city took a long time, the constant switchback route of the successive stairwells making for a tortuous and often confusing journey. Several times he came close to the city’s massive, intricate edifice, still showing no sign of life, only to find himself moving away from it as the next stairwell took a sharp turn. Eventually the stairs ended in a flat, narrow causeway leading directly into the city. Clay took full measure of its size as he paused to gulp water from his canteen. It was so huge he couldn’t understand the uniformity of its construction, surely a testament to the work of generations and yet the architecture remaining constant throughout. Carvenport had stood for little over two centuries and featured buildings old and new within its walls, varying greatly in size and design. But here it was all one thing, conceived and made as if in accordance to a single plan, almost as if it had been the work of weeks or months rather than years.

He started along the causeway at a steady walk, moving closer to the edge to peer down at the glowing pit below. He caught only a glimpse before retreating in the face of the heat and the glare, but it was enough to make him wonder if the Seer hadn’t conceived of the Travail after seeing this place in one of his visions. White and yellow lava seethed in a vast circular river surrounding the base of the city, scummed in places by partly melted rock that broke apart as the molten mass roiled and swirled. He staggered back from the edge, shaking sweat from his face and moving on.

The entrance to the city was formed by a massive stone rectangle of jarringly perfect dimensions. The pillars and the lintel were inset by writing of some kind, the individual characters standing as tall as he did. Peering closer he saw the clear resemblance to the pictograms from the Briteshore manager’s office, each character formed with the same order and precision. Unable to read whatever message, or warning, the gate contained, Clay could only conclude that whoever had built this place would have made for trying company.

The space beyond the gate consisted of a broad plaza bordered by numerous steps ascending into the various districts of the city in typically sharp-angled fashion. A number of buildings overlooked the plaza, all empty balconies and windows regarding his intrusion with blank indifference. His eyes roved the stairwells, seeking some notion of which would take him to his goal before it occurred to him that it didn’t matter. It’s a mountain, just get to the top.

He drew the Stinger before making for the most central stairway and starting the long climb up.

—

He found the dead man after an hour of climbing, pausing on a landing at the juncture of two intersecting stairways for a well-needed rest. He allowed himself a small sip from his canteen as he mentally flipped a copper scrip to decide which route to take, then fell into an immediate crouch on spotting the pair of boots jutting over the edge of the next landing up on the right. He kept low as he climbed the steps, then rose to full height, fanning the Stinger’s barrel in search of a target. But the landing contained only the dead man. He lay on his back, legs splayed and a large patch of dried blood framing his greying features. His hand lay on his chest clutching a revolver, the barrel of which rested just below his mouth, the lips peeled back in death to favour Clay with a grin he found all too knowing.

Dead by his own hand, Clay decided, eyes roving the partly desiccated features and finding no recognition. Death had a tendency to obscure age but Clay judged him as maybe in his forties. He wore a set of grey overalls and a helmet of some kind was hitched to the thick leather belt about his waist. Miner, Clay thought, turning the helmet over with his boot to reveal the small oil-lamp affixed to the front. Seems not every Briteshore employee took off after all.

He left the dead man undisturbed and resumed his climb, the stairs taking him into a district of buildings featuring numerous courtyards and a multi-tiered park of silent, dry fountains and many sculptures, fashioned from crystal rather than stone. Most were abstract, twisted toruses and spirals conveying meaning or intent beyond him, but some were undeniably human in shape, though all deformed somehow. One appeared to be of a woman crouching as the stubs of wings grew from her back, another of a man holding both arms aloft, his hands narrowed to needle-points.

Clay found he had to force himself through the park, every statue he saw seemingly possessed of an ability to fascinate. It was as he averted his gaze from the sight of two children joining hands, the fingers frozen in the act of melting together, that he found the second body. Another man, this one impaled on the spines of a tree-shaped sculpture. Clay moved closer, finding a pair of revolvers lying on the ground beneath the corpse’s dangling feet. His skin was Old Colonial dark and he wore a string of teeth around his neck. Contracted headhunter, Clay decided. His gaze tracked over the multiple crystal spikes piercing the fellow’s torso, knowing there were few things in this world that could achieve such a result. Black.

The next body wasn’t hard to find, a woman, lying beneath a large crystal monolith directly opposite the tree with its ghastly fruit. Moving to the body, Clay guessed her to have been young. Although, like the miner back on the stairs, her skin was so dried by death it was hard to tell for sure. But unlike the miner she clearly hadn’t taken her own life. A cluster of ragged, dark-stained holes had been blasted into the leather jacket she wore. He found no weapon on her then saw the pale patch discolouring the greying skin on the palm of her hand. Blood-blessed, probably contracted by Briteshore to accompany their expedition. He switched his gaze back to the dead headhunter. Must’ve shot her in mid air . . . They turned on each other.

He crouched at the woman’s side, grimacing as he pulled her jacket aside to explore the pockets. Her vials were contained in a wallet fixed to her belt. It was fairly low-grade product, the liquid cloudy and more viscous than Ironship dilutions, but still all four colours were present. About a quarter-vial of Red and Black, half a vial of Green and, he saw with blossoming relief, nearly a full vial of Blue. If ever he had need of some guidance, it was now. He grunted in frustration on checking his pocket-watch; another five hours until the next scheduled trance with Miss Lethridge. That’s if she’s still around to trance, he reminded himself.

He straightened from the corpse, raising his gaze to the still-unclimbed mass of the city. So many stairs, he thought, then glanced around at the dangerously enrapturing statuary. And so many distractions. Knowing there was nothing else for it he drank two-thirds of the Briteshore woman’s Green, pocketed the wallet, took a firmer grip on the barrel under his arm and started to run.

—

The city blurred as he ascended, scaling successive stairways a few leaps at a time, keeping his gaze focused only on the route ahead, regardless of whatever visual enticements flickered at the corners of his vision. Parks, monuments and ever more statues all ignored in his single-minded quest to get as close to the summit before the Green faded from his veins. Clay reckoned he had covered perhaps two-thirds of the distance by the time the product started to ebb. He forced his body into a faster pace, leaping higher and driving himself on. His body soon began to protest, a grinding ache building in his limbs and chest, transforming into a burning agony as he pushed himself harder. A shout of pain escaped him when the last of the Green fled his system and he collapsed at the top of a particularly long stairwell.

He lay on his back for a time, cradling the barrel in both arms, breath coming in ragged sobs and leaking so much sweat it formed a small pool around him. Feeling the way his heart lurched in his chest, like a trapped animal attempting a frantic escape, he wondered if he might have pushed too hard. It wasn’t unheard of, over-eager Blood-blessed forcing their bodies past tolerable limits whilst lost in the throes of product. After what seemed an age, though, the pounding beast in his chest finally began to slow its labours and clarity returned to his fatigue-dimmed eyes.

He got slowly to his feet, finding he had come to a halt on a broad plaza extending in a semicircle for about a quarter of the radius of this re-formed mountain. There were no statues or fountains here, just bare stone tile surrounding a building. This structure was unique in that, unlike all the other buildings he had seen so far, this one was free-standing. A plain, windowless rectangle of impressive size, bare of the walkways and bridges that interlinked the rest of the city.

Clay drank all the water remaining in his canteen. It provided only a few mouthfuls and proved barely enough to assuage his dreadful thirst before he tossed it aside and started towards the building. He stumbled several times and soon found he had to swallow a drop of Green to keep upright, though the burn of it brought on a now-familiar nausea. When this is done, he told himself, I ain’t touching a drop of product again for at least a year.

He took time to survey the free-standing building, finding it featureless but for a single symbol inscribed above what appeared to be its only entrance: a circle residing between two lateral curves that put him in mind of an eye. A watch-tower? he wondered as he came closer, thinking it unlikely. Home to whatever they called their Protectorate, maybe? He was tempted to bypass it and make for the summit, but something made him pause, a conviction that the singularity of its construction must hold some meaning. Also, if he thought it a place of importance, Scriberson might have formed a similar conclusion.

Clay drew the Stinger and stood with his back to the wall beside the door before jerking his head inside for a quick look. To his surprise the place was less gloomy than expected, being roofless and lit by the reflected glow from the stone far above. A large, perfectly square opening lay in the centre of the floor and a stairwell descended into its depths. He went inside, eyes roving the shadows but finding nothing more of interest. He approached the opening and looked down, following the track of the stairs as they hugged the wall of the shaft to descend for at least a hundred feet. The sight of the shaft and the absent roof put him in mind of the temple where once Blacks had come to be worshipped. This shaft was certainly wide enough to accommodate a full-grown Black, or something twice the size.

His eyes soon registered another glow in the depths of the shaft, a blue-white luminescence jarring with the orange light that played on every surface of this place. But what gave birth to it was lost from view. He swayed a little as the last drop of Green faded, resisted the urge to drink more, then started down.

—

The air grew cooler as he descended, so cool in fact that he started to shiver a little as heat leached from the sweat clamming his skin. After a long climb down lasting more than a quarter hour the walls of the shaft disappeared revealing a huge circular chamber, the first curved structure he had set eyes on in this city. His footsteps birthed a long echo as he came to a halt, taking a good while to fade thanks to the hardly believable size of this space. His attention immediately fixed on the dome in the centre of the chamber, a perfect circle with a roof formed of arcing, interlocked stone slats standing at least two hundred feet in diameter. It was surrounded by four more domes of identical construction but about half its size. Each dome had a small opening in the top, all but one emitting a different-coloured light, red from the one on the right, the next green, then blue. But the large dome in the centre glowed brighter than all the others, providing enough light to illuminate the entire chamber, and it shone white.

Red, Green, Blue . . . and White, he thought, eyes flicking from one dome to another before coming to rest on the only dome not to emit any light. And Black.

He stood still for a time, frowning as he sensed something, not a noise exactly, more a sensation. Like a long-forgotten tune humming in his head, the melody at once both familiar and unknown. He staggered at a sudden, painful flare in his mind, flashing a glimpse of something; the shadow sweeping across Nelphia’s surface in the trance. He grunted, shaking his head as the vision faded. Heart thumping faster at the knowledge of what he had just experienced: The trance. I was in the trance without benefit of Blue.

Fear gripped him then, the kind of all-consuming, inescapable terror he had thought lost in childhood the day the Black got free. His shivering doubled as he stared at the domes below, knowing with absolute certainty that he wanted no part of whatever they contained. What lurked here was so far beyond him he found himself voicing a shrill laugh at his own arrogance. As if some Blinds-born gutter rat has any business even being here, a treacherous voice told him, a voice he knew was born as much from rationality as fear. Go back. Could be another way out. If not, use the barrel to blast a way out. Then get to the Hadlock and find a ship, any ship. Just get far away from here . . .

Silverpin.

The name didn’t quite banish every vestige of terror but it was enough to steady him, quelling his shivers as he stood there panting. She’s down there, he knew, and forced himself to take another step, then another, his pace increasing so that he was running by the time he reached the chamber floor. He made directly for the largest dome, scanning its sloping sides for a way in and increasing his pace, worried any pause might summon the fear once more. He had gone perhaps a dozen feet when another vision hit him.

The pain was enough to send him sprawling, though some fortunate instinct enabled him to keep hold of the barrel. The images invaded his mind with brutal ease; the shadow sweeping across Nelphia’s surface, fear blossoming once more as it came ever closer . . . then a shift in the image, the mindscape misting then re-forming into a face, one he knew. Miss Lethridge, regarding him with grave concern, her lips forming urgent words he couldn’t hear. Another flash, another spasm of pain and she was gone, leaving him gasping on the floor.

His gaze went to the dome with the blue light, seeing how the beam it emitted was pulsing now, flaring and fading in a steady rhythm that seemed to echo his own heart-beat. It’s calling to me, he knew, rising and taking a short tentative step towards the dome before forcing himself to a halt. The White, he told himself, wondering why his own thoughts sounded so faint. You came for the White.

The blue beam’s pulse intensified, now accompanied by a definite thrum whenever it flared, an insistent note that birthed a certainty in his heart. I came for Silverpin too, he answered himself. And she’s in there.

He moved towards the dome in a shuffling stumble, dimly aware that he had left the barrel behind when he got to his feet. It didn’t seem to matter. Now he had but one goal. The blue dome’s surface remained sealed until he stumbled to within a dozen feet, whereupon a section of stone receded and slid aside, revealing an interior of vague shapes occluded by the glow. He continued inside without pause, blinking until the shapes resolved into something he could recognise.

People.

They were arranged in a large circle, all standing and staring at something in the centre of the dome’s floor. He thought there could be sixty or more of them but couldn’t be sure, there being little room in his head for numbers now. He managed to take in some details as he moved towards them, miners’ helmets and dusters, one man in a well-cut suit with the look of a manager. The Briteshore folk, he decided, the thought slowly coalescing in his mind. They didn’t leave . . . They all came here.

They all stood rigid as statues, the fact of their continued survival betrayed only by the most shallow of breaths. But their eyes were empty and unblinking. Peering at their faces he saw something that should have sent him recoiling in shock, but now only made him blink in ponderous bafflement. They were changed, the skin of their faces scaled, ridges growing from foreheads and chins, puckered by nascent spines.

“Not . . . changed,” he realised aloud in a slow slur. “Spoiled . . .”

He groaned and turned to look upon whatever it was that fascinated these people so. It stood in the centre of their circle, pulsing a blue light that filled the dome and seeped through the opening in the roof. It was a crystal of some kind, formed of jagged spines so that it resembled a star, a deep blue star. He had a sense that its pulsing deepened as he drew closer, the rhythm more insistent, the light flaring brighter.

He reached out a hand towards it, gaze lost in the all-consuming light it cast forth. Doubt and fear were gone now, and there was only the light . . .

Another vision tore into his mind, making him cry out and stagger away from the crystal, head filling with unwanted images and sensation. Nelphia . . . The shadow . . . Miss Lethridge, shouting now, desperate even . . . He could hear her, though only just, the words faint and discordant . . . “. . . killed Keyvine . . . Joya . . . alive. She . . . The Island girl . . .”

It all became a jumble as a fresh wave of agony swept through him, making him writhe and clutch at his head, hearing his own screams as a distant wail. Blackness descended quickly, a vast unknowable void, blessedly welcome in its complete lack of sensation. He had no knowledge of how long he remained in the void but when it finally receded he was on the floor, lips leaking drool and head still throbbing in the aftermath of the vision. Something was different. The insistent thrumming pulse of the crystal had stopped, the light now constant; whatever compulsion had forced him here had vanished.

The sound of boot leather on stone drew his gaze and he looked up to see Scriberson standing over him, face scaled and ridged like the others. The astronomer’s features betrayed no emotion at all as he raised the knife in his hand and brought it down.

CHAPTER 40

Lizanne

As was becoming usual, she woke from the latest trance with a severe headache. Tekela passed her a glass of the milky-pale tonic specially mixed for her by the city’s most respected apothecary, an unpleasantly acidic concoction that nonetheless did the trick of banishing her pain with welcome alacrity. The consequent indigestion, however, was less welcome.

“How long?” she asked Tekela, sitting up on the bunk positioned behind her desk. They had both taken to sleeping in her basement office in recent days, for obvious reasons, choosing to eschew the more luxurious accommodations above ground. There had been no more massed attacks since the Reds’ night assault, but neither had they vanished from the skies. In daylight they would fly over by the dozen, circling but never coming low enough for the guns to find the range. At night it was a different story, lone Reds streaking out of the sky without warning to assail Protectorate patrols or the smaller gun-batteries. Such attacks usually meant death for the Reds who made them, but also inevitably entailed the loss of more defenders, as well as straining the already threadbare nerves of the populace.

“Two hours,” Tekela replied in Eutherian, as she tended to do when angry. Her doll’s face wore a severe expression of disapproval Lizanne chose to ignore. “The Accounts manager is waiting,” the girl added in her improving Mandinorian. “Something about . . .” She fumbled for the right words. “Treasure . . . a stock of treasure.”

“The company vault,” Lizanne said, getting to her feet and moving to the desk. “He’s probably come to moan about having to leave all that lovely money behind.”

Her gaze went to the row of Blue vials lined up on her desk, pillaged from the Ironship reserves and probably worth more than she could have hoped to earn in her lifetime. Three trances of two hours each, and still not a sign of him. She had kept to the same routine since hearing the girl Joya’s story, trancing every five hours with the memory of it bundled into a neat vortex and ready for immediate communication. Each time she hoped Clay would be waiting, and each time she had been disappointed. It all rests on him now. If I can’t warn him . . .

She let the thought dwindle, leading as it did to the prospect of fighting their way clear in their fleet of converted ships. Jermayah’s army of artisans and engineers had worked prodigious feats so far, converting a quarter of the required vessels. The harvesters had been similarly industrious, refining enough of their now-copious stocks of Red to ensure every ship could be fuelled all the way to Feros if or when the time came. More when than if, she thought, grimacing as she drank down the remaining tonic, then winced at a rapid pounding on the door.

“Tell that scrip-pinching dullard to wait,” she snapped at Tekela and sank behind her desk, reaching for the latest stack of reports from the manufactory. However, when Tekela opened the door she was confronted by a Protectorate rifleman rather than the portly accountant.

“Commander Stavemoor’s compliments, miss,” the man said in a rush, Lizanne finding the frantic gleam in his eye decidedly ominous. “There’s been a . . . development.”

—

“Started showing up about an hour ago,” Stavemoor said, handing her his binoculars. “About three thousand so far, I’d say. More arriving by the minute.”

She trained the optics on the tree-line, finding the focus after a few seconds. At first it seemed like a ragged band of Contractors straggling out of the jungle after some disastrous expedition, but then she saw their faces. “Spoiled,” she whispered, tracking the glasses along the row of deformed figures. They varied greatly in height and clothing. Some wore hardly anything at all, their scaly skin bared to the sun. Others were clad in armour of hardened leather or full-length garments fashioned from rough-made cloth. But they were all Spoiled, and all armed. Spears, bows, clubs, even a few fire-arms pilfered from the Corvantine dead. Though from the way the Spoiled held them she deduced they had little notion of how they worked. However, Lizanne found their demeanour more worrying than their numbers or armaments. They all stood in unmoving, silent ranks, those continuing to materialise out of the jungle simply taking their place and standing in unspeaking expectation.

“Fought my share of Spoiled over the years, miss,” Captain Flaxknot said. “I count at least six different tribes, and all from far-flung regions. They’ve come a very long way, probably been marching for weeks.”

The same number of weeks since the Longrifles set off, I’d wager, Lizanne thought, handing the binoculars back to Stavemoor. “Recommendations?”

“If they keep arriving at this rate there’ll be more than ten thousand by nightfall,” he said. “I think we can assume they aren’t just going to keep on standing out there. If so, we’ll need reinforcement if we’re going to hold. More Growlers and Thumpers too.”

“The latest batch will be here by this evening,” she promised. “And I’ll order another four batteries onto the surrounding roof-tops.”

“Won’t be enough,” Flaxknot said. “It’s plain we’ll soon have every Spoiled bastard in the northern climes at our door. And you can bet they’ll have a horde of Greens and Reds to help when they decide to charge. We’re just too thin.”

Lizanne was about to offer some rousing words, cast a few empty platitudes at the captain and her comrades to bolster their spirits. But they all died in the face of her undeniable judgement. They could shift every gun in the city to the walls and it still wouldn’t be enough. Lizanne turned away from the sight of the growing mass of Spoiled, eyes tracking over the damaged but still-defiant city until she found the docks. Is it time? she thought. Cram every child we can into the converted ships and send them on their way whilst we fight to our heroic last? She suppressed an angry grunt, hating the sense of helplessness and the responsibility. Would Madame have known what to do? she wondered, but doubted it. What comes for us can’t be bribed, or lied to.

She began to turn away then stopped as her gaze alighted on Colonial Town; the recently abandoned tinder-box of ancient wooden houses. She stared at it for a long time, wheels turning in her head until Stavemoor gave a polite cough. “Gather all your officers,” she said and paused to favour Flaxknot with a smile, “and Contractor captains. We have a great deal of planning to do.”

—

“Edgerhand,” the man in the long and multiply patched coat introduced himself before nodding at his two companions. “This is Red Allice and Burgrave Crovik. Mr. Cralmoor told us to send his regards.”

“You are very welcome,” Lizanne told him with a smile before glancing at his fellow unregistered Blood-blessed: a dark-haired young woman wearing a pair of tinted spectacles despite the lateness of the hour, and a surprisingly well-dressed but squat fellow with a drake-bone cane. “Though I must confess I had hoped there would be more of you.”

“There were.” Edgerhand’s lips gave a slight twitch that might have been a smile. He was at least ten years her senior judging by the grey hair at his temples and the lines on his thin-featured face that nevertheless retained a lean handsomeness. “Things got very interesting in the Blinds after the king’s demise. Surprised the harbour waters didn’t rise more, what with all the fresh bodies tipped into it over the past few weeks.”

“Well, quite.” She turned and offered a hand to the young woman, who stared at it impassively from behind the black discs of her glasses.

“Please forgive my colleague her ill manners, miss,” the squat man said, raising his cane to his forehead as he lowered his portly frame in a bow. “Such niceties are beyond her.” He straightened and offered what she assumed he thought of as a charming smile, but instead resembled the grimace of a dyspeptic toad. “Burgrave Ellustice Crovik, at your service.”

She detected a faint trace of a Corvantine accent in his voice, though certainly not sufficiently cultured to justify his title. “You are a long way from home, sir,” she observed.

“But one of many impoverished exiles who found their way to this haven. I thank the oracles dear Father is no longer alive to see how far I’ve fallen.”

The woman, Red Allice, voiced a small but deeply derisive snort at that, drawing a vicious glare from the supposed Burgrave. The depth of enmity Lizanne saw as their eyes met told her these people had been enemies only a short while before. “Your assistance is greatly appreciated,” she told the three of them, then gestured at the rapidly growing barricade being constructed nearby. “As you can see.”

The barricade ran the length of Caravan Road, all the way from the southern gate to the junction with Queen’s Row where it took a sharp left to close off the northern boundary of Colonial Town. It was being constructed from stone and sundry scrap iron discarded by the manufactory, Lizanne having ordered the demolition of several damaged buildings to provide the requisite materials. All hands that could be spared were hard at work either building this barrier or clearing the ground beyond it for a distance of twenty yards. Every scrap of wood, or anything else likely to catch a flame, was in the process of being torn down and carted off. Blood-blessed were conspicuous amongst the horde of labourers by virtue of the great stacks of stone they guided into place with Black, of which there was now a large, if rapidly dwindling, supply. Recent days had brought numerous reports from the breeding pens about the increasing belligerence of their Red and Green specimens, whilst the few captive Blacks remained relatively quiescent. Nevertheless, unwilling to harbour such a danger within the city, Lizanne had ordered them all slaughtered and the product harvested.

“You’re sectioning off Colonial Town,” Edgerhand observed.

“Indeed,” she said. “There is a surplus of Black if you would care to assist with the construction.”

“Always been more attuned to Green,” he replied, then jerked his head at the other two. “You can guess Allice’s speciality from her name. The Burgrave’s your man if you’re looking for menial labour.”

“Have a care, Edge,” the faux nobleman replied in a soft voice, his part-cultured vowels falling away completely.

Lizanne saw Edgerhand’s mouth twitch again before he addressed her once more, speaking in an oddly formal manner. “Mr. Cralmoor was firm in his instructions regarding our new employment. ‘Take care of Miss Blood,’ he said.” He gave a bow that was markedly more practised than Corvik’s. “It seems you now have a personal bodyguard courtesy of the Blinds.”

—

Come nightfall the barricade stood four feet tall for much of its length. Lizanne would have liked another foot at least but it couldn’t be helped; judging by the burgeoning cacophony of drake screams beyond the wall, time had evidently run out. She had refused suggestions to retire to a safe vantage point, instead placing herself at the barrier’s northern stretch where the weight of fire-power was most thin. She had overridden the numerous objections by simply pointing out that every capable hand was needed to make this work, and there was no longer a safe place in the city in any case.

On being told to stay with Jermayah at the manufactory, Tekela had come close to throwing the kind of tantrum Lizanne assumed was behind her, face flushing red and a dark glower filling her gaze. “I have this,” she said, touching a hand to the revolver on her hip but Lizanne had refused to be swayed, taking the girl by the arm and practically marching her to Jermayah’s side with orders to chain her up if she moved. Lizanne hadn’t told her Jermayah also had instructions to get them both on a ship should this stratagem fail. Those vessels already converted were fully fuelled and crewed, each with an Academy girl aboard, ready to make a run through the blockade of Blues in the event of disaster.

Gun-fire began to crackle on the wall as the last glimmer of light fled the sky, Growlers, Thumpers and rifles cutting through the discordant tumult of massed Greens baying in fury. Keen to occupy herself, Lizanne methodically loaded the twin revolvers holstered under each arm. Solid, reliable .35 Dessingers from the Covert Protectorate armoury, noisier and far less elegant than her lost Whisper, but the time for subtlety had gone. Now she wasn’t a spy, she was a soldier.

She checked the Spider next, ensuring each vial was firmly seated and drawing a curious glance from Edgerhand who, along with his two companions, hadn’t strayed more than ten feet from her side since their first meeting. “Now, that’s an impressive instrument,” he said. “Your father’s work, I assume?”

She shook her head, feeling a familiar pang of annoyance at the recognition. “Mr. Tollermine has ever been my ingenious friend. Not all novelties bear the Lethridge name.”

“Only the great ones. I had the good fortune to hear your father lecture several years ago at the Annual Consolidated Research Conference in Sanorah.” He shrugged at her quizzical glance. “I was not always of such low standing. The Blinds provides a home for all manner of wretched souls.”

Her thoughts immediately went to Clay and the trance she had been forced to forgo tonight. “Not all are wretched,” she said, glancing around at the people enlisted to defend this stretch of wall. She had gathered all the city’s Blood-blessed, reinforced by a full company of dismounted regular cavalry armed with repeating carbines. “Besides,” she added, “events have conspired to make us all of equal standing. If only for tonight.”

Edgerhand began to answer but his words were drowned by a piercing scream from above, accompanied by an immediate chorus of “Reds! Reds!” from the surrounding defenders. Lizanne’s gaze snapped to the sky, seeing a crimson shape streaking down out of the blue-black void, mouth gaping and wings folded. A salvo from the Thumper battery stationed across the street caught the drake just as the flames began to blossom from its mouth. It came down with a crunching thud on the other side of the barricade. For a time it writhed in a spreading pool of blood, still attempting to breathe its fire at them, before a well-placed shot from a cavalryman shattered its skull.

There was the briefest pause then the air became filled with the cries of swarming Reds and the thunderous percussion of what sounded like every Thumper and Growler in the city. Lizanne soon lost count of the number of Reds hacked out of the sky by the interlocking arcs of fire as the searchlights cut through the gloom. It appeared all former caution had been stripped from the drakes and they launched themselves at the defending batteries with unhesitant savagery, Lizanne averting her gaze as she watched the Thumper crew that had saved her torn apart by three mortally wounded Reds. They learn with every attack, she recalled. But mostly they learned the value of sacrifice.

A loud boom drew her gaze back to the wall and she saw a mushroom of flame rising above the roof-tops of Colonial Town. She injected a drop of Green to enhance her sight, boosted vision revealing a pack of Greens boiling over the wall around a ruined gun position, flames still rising from the ashes of their ammunition. It had been part of her plan for the section of wall shielding Colonial Town to give way, but only after exacting a fearful toll on the attackers. Now it all appeared to be happening ahead of schedule.

She watched the Green pack launch themselves from the wall and into the darkened streets below, quickly followed by a dense throng of Spoiled using ropes to haul themselves up onto the parapet. For several frenzied minutes battle raged on the parapet, defenders and Spoiled locked in a savage embrace of bayonet and war-club, before numbers finally told and the mis-shapen horde came streaming over, accompanied by ever more Greens.

Lizanne lowered her gaze to the shadowed maze of Colonial Town, injecting more Green to follow the attackers’ progress. Off to her right there came the sound of a thousand or more rifles firing at once, followed by the ripping tumult of multiple Growlers, the barricade along Caravan Road lighting up from end to end as the defenders let loose at any Spoiled or Green unfortunate enough to emerge from the old district. It’s working, Lizanne thought with some relief, seeing the inhumanly fast, loping shadows of many Greens filling the unlit streets.

She looked round at a shout from one of the cavalry officers, his men all bringing their carbines up in readiness as a dozen or so figures sprinted into the newly fashioned no man’s land between barricade and houses. “STOP!” she shouted before the cavalrymen could fire. “They’re ours!”

The first runner leapt over the barricade in an impressive display of athleticism, spoilt somewhat by his untidy collapse into an exhausted heap upon reaching the other side. “You were supposed to head for the gate,” Lizanne told him.

Arberus gave her a baleful stare, face streaked with soot and blood, fortunately not his own. “War rarely goes according to plan,” he returned evenly. His face softened a little as she offered a hand as he levered himself upright. Another ten men followed him over the barricade, apparently all that was left from his company of turncoat Corvantines. “Best get them in order,” Lizanne told him, knowing this to be the wrong moment for sympathy.

Arberus gave a tired nod before straightening and moving away, casting a tirade of profanity-laden Varsal at his near-spent men. “Stand up, you shit-eaters! This look like a fucking holiday to you, does it? You, pick up that rifle or I’ll find a place for it in your arse!”

Lizanne turned away to be greeted by the sight of at least two dozen Greens charging into the open. At their officer’s shouted command, the cavalrymen delivered a rapid volley with their carbines, most of the Greens tumbling to a halt under the weight of fire before they had covered half the distance to the barricade.

“Drink up!” Lizanne called to the surrounding Blood-blessed, depressing three buttons on the Spider and drawing one of her revolvers. “You all know the plan! None can get through!”

The sound of gun-fire faded as the cavalrymen paused to reload their carbines. A few Greens had survived the initial blast and kept on, though most were limping. Lizanne fixed her enhanced eyes on the most lively one and put a bullet through its head from sixty yards, a second volley from the Protectorate troops accounting for the others. Lizanne turned to watch the Blood-blessed drinking the large vials they had been given, each containing an Ironship-patented dilution of Red, Green and Black, probably the finest and most potent product any of them had ever tasted. Or are ever likely to taste, she thought, then grimaced at her own indulgence. Feel guilty later.

A huge and savage uproar dragged her gaze back to no man’s land to be greeted by the sight of Spoiled and Green charging from the shadows in a dense mass. She drew her second revolver and emptied both weapons in a series of rapid but precisely aimed shots, Spoiled and drake falling to every bullet. With no time to reload she lowered the guns and waited until the on-coming horde came within twenty feet then unleashed her Black, freezing a dozen or more so that they created a dam in the tide of flesh, howling warriors and screaming Greens piling up behind. The process was repeated all along the line as the Blood-blessed followed her example, a great mass of attackers building up as they sought vainly to push past the invisible barrier. Finding her view of Colonial Town obscured by so many thrashing bodies, Lizanne hopped up onto the barricade, peering into the streets and ducking the arrows the Spoiled launched at her. She could see that the number streaming over the wall had thinned to a trickle and the streets below were now choked with attackers. It was time.

She got down and reached for the rocket flare propped against the barricade, a gift from the Maritime Protectorate. She held it aloft and lit the fuse with a burst of Red, sending the flare streaming into the night sky where drakes were still wheeling about amidst the hail of gun-fire. She could only hope the gunners would see the flare amidst the aerial carnage as she watched it explode into a green starburst. For several seconds there was no response. The drakes and the Spoiled continued to throw themselves against the wall of Black, falling by the dozen as the cavalrymen maintained a furious fire with their carbines. But the weight of numbers was beginning to tell and the first signs of diminishing product started to show amongst the Blood-blessed, sweat-soaked faces straining and teeth clenched as they continued to expend their Black. It would only be a moment or more before the barrier failed.

The first artillery shell arced into the mass of Greens and Spoiled with a faint whine, the explosion tossing a fountain of sundered bodies into the air, quickly followed by half a dozen more. The mass of attackers reeled back as the barrage tore through them and the pressure on those in front relaxed, the weight of Black propelling them backwards in a cascade as the shells continued to rain down. Beyond them explosions ripped through Colonial Town from end to end, every Protectorate artillery piece remaining in the city firing a mix of blast and incendiary shells at pre-sighted targets. The incendiaries ignited the coating of oil and kerosene a small army of workers had spread over the buildings, whilst the blast shells fanned the flames and shredded roofs and walls to cast the burning debris far and wide. Greens and Spoiled soon came boiling out of the district from every open street, many on fire. The massed guns along Caravan Road roared into life once more, scything down the attackers en masse so that none made it to within ten feet of the barricade.

Lizanne reloaded her guns and refreshed her Green with the Spider, using her amplified vision to gauge the progress of the fire. At least half of Colonial Town was fully ablaze now, the flames soaring high as they leapt from building to building. The slaughter of the attackers before her was mostly complete, the survivors of the first salvo quickly falling to the guns of the cavalrymen. A few Spoiled, possessed of both astonishing luck and deranged ferocity, came charging out of the carnage, somehow weathering the hail of gun-fire to launch themselves at the barricade. Most were shot down within seconds and the others cast back by the Blood-blessed, thrown high with Black to fall into the inferno that now consumed all of Colonial Town.

All along the barricade the guns fell silent as no more attackers appeared, the roar of the flames failing to obscure the screams as thousands of drakes and Spoiled shrieked their death agonies. Lizanne sagged a little, relief mingling with satisfaction. It actually worked. However, any triumph proved to be short-lived when Edgerhand gently touched her arm and pointed to the city. “I don’t think we’re done yet, miss.”

The Reds. They were streaming out of the sky everywhere she looked, for the most part unhindered by any Thumper or Growler fire, though she could hear a few batteries still firing in the Blinds. Her gaze went from one roof-top position to another, finding each one destroyed, most smothered under the weight of a dead or dying Red. Flames were rising in the city beyond, accompanied by a fresh wave of screams, but these were all too human.

She didn’t bother to issue any orders, instead simply drawing her guns and running towards the source of the loudest screams. She knew the Blood-blessed would follow, for where else could they go?

—

“I regret I have not been able to calculate an exact figure . . .”

“Your best approximation will be sufficient,” Lizanne said.

The Accounts manager, whose name she still hadn’t contrived to remember, ran an unsteady hand through his thinning hair. Like everyone else called to Lizanne’s office, from Arberus to Captain Flaxknot, he wore clothes besmirched by soot and blood though he had evidently found time to wash his face where others hadn’t. Lizanne’s gaze drifted to the space where Commander Stavemoor usually stood, finding his absence more affecting than she might have expected. He had last been seen alive charging headlong into the mass of Spoiled advancing along the top of the wall. One old man charging with sword in hand as his men dithered in fear. The commander’s example had been enough to compel his troops to greater efforts and the wall had been secured against further encroachment. However, the sight of Stavemoor’s body had been enough to convince Lizanne that the notion of glorious death in battle was a pernicious lie.

“We lost over a thousand defending the wall and the barricade,” the accountant said, pausing to swallow before continuing, “and nearly six thousand dead in the city itself. Plus over two thousand wounded.”

Lizanne closed her eyes as a groan of dismay filled the room. She had been entertaining the faint hope that their success in containing the Greens and the Spoiled hadn’t been purchased at the expense of the rest of the city, despite what she had witnessed the night before. She had led the Blood-blessed from one nightmare to another. The first had been the sight of a Red tearing apart a house on Carter’s Walk, digging through roof and walls to tear away the floor-boards and breathe its fire on the family cowering in the cellar, a mother with four children reduced to ash in the space of a heart-beat. Lizanne and her self-appointed Blinds bodyguards held the drake in place with Black whilst the others brought down a torrent of debris to batter it into submission, the rain of bricks eventually sending it lifeless to the cobbles.

Lizanne led them on, through Baldon Park where they killed a pair of Reds chasing fleeing people across burning flower-beds, and into Corporate Square where she organised a defence of the hospital which, so far, remained mercifully untouched. She divided the Blood-blessed into smaller groups and set them in a loose perimeter around the square, then sent runners to the barricades with orders to shift all their Thumpers and Growlers to the roof-tops and get any ruined batteries back into action. Soon the familiar dance of searchlight and drake resumed in the sky, the onslaught abating though the struggle wore on throughout the night. Contractors were released from the wall to roam the city, killing Reds wherever they could, but losing many of their number as the drakes continued to streak out of the sky, killing with talon and flame before the marksmen brought them down. The last Red finally fled with the onset of sunrise, leaving Carvenport to suffer under a pall of thickening smoke.

“My department has also counted over four hundred Red corpses,” the Accounts manager added as the silence lengthened, his voice taking on a desperately hopeful tone.

“Plus who knows how many Spoiled and Green,” Arberus put in. “In terms of numbers, I’d say we’re about even. And we’ll soon have more product than we know what to do with.”

“And fewer Blood-blessed to use it.” Lizanne clasped her hands together to conceal the tremble, born as much from fatigue as worry. She found the expectation on their faces grated on her. Seven thousand dead in a single night and still they look to me.

“There is, perhaps, some crumb of comfort to be gleaned from our misfortune,” the Accounts manager said. “Though I may be considered callous for voicing it.”

“A conclusion formed before now,” Lizanne assured him. “What is it?”

“The fleet,” he said, eyes darting about the room as if worried the entire meeting might turn on him. “Our losses, tragic though they are, mean that we now have sufficient shipping to carry the entire population.”

Lizanne thought it a measure of their situation that the man’s statement was greeted by grim silence rather than an angry outburst. “How much longer?” she asked Jermayah.

“Another two days,” he said. “Once we’ve repaired the damage from last night. And I’ll need every Blood-blessed still standing. Turns out iron forges more easily under blood-fire.”

“Will they allow us another two days?” Arberus wondered. “Even with their losses, patrols report the jungle still thick with Spoiled. And we can bet the Reds aren’t spent either.”

“We can expect at least a day’s respite,” Lizanne said, keeping her gaze on Jermayah. “It all needs to be done before they come again. Take whatever measures you deem necessary, but there is no longer any other option. We will evacuate this city and sail for Feros.”

“The Blues . . .” Flaxknot began but fell silent at Lizanne’s glare.

“We will arm the ships with as many Growlers and Thumpers as we can. The Protectorate vessels will form a vanguard, fight their way through and the rest of the fleet will follow.” She rose from the desk, gesturing at the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

After they had gone she lay on her bunk, Blue vial in hand as she felt her body thrum with fatigue. Is there any point? she wondered, looking at the vial, heavy-lidded eyes watching the contents slosh back and forth. For some reason Madame Bondersil’s face swam into her thoughts, her younger face from that first meeting at the Academy, severe but also kind in her way. Was she planning it all then? Lizanne wondered. Plotting her inevitable rise year after year. All for nothing, her personal fiefdom destined for destruction within a few weeks of her ascension. Her great legacy no more than a pile of ash.

Her gaze returned to the vial, lingering on the product beading the glass. He’s dead, she thought as a parade of faces drifted through her mind. Burgrave Artonin, Madam Meeram, Kalla and Misha, poor lovelorn Sirus, Commander Stavemoor and so many others . . . Surely, by now. He must be dead.

CHAPTER 41

Clay

Clay rolled as the knife came down, hearing the blade shatter on the stone floor, then kicked out as Scriberson drew the stunted weapon back for another try. Clay’s boot caught the astronomer under the chin, sending him staggering back with blood streaming from his partly scaled mouth. Clay got to his feet, drawing the Stinger and levelling it at Scriberson’s forehead. “Where is she?” he demanded.

For a second Scriberson just stood and stared at him, blood leaking from remolded features that betrayed no emotion at all. His eyes, Clay realised, seeing the slits surrounded by yellow. The eyes of a Spoiled, or a drake. Scriberson lunged for him again, jabbing the stump of his knife blade at Clay’s neck. It was a fast move, but also clumsy and obvious. Whatever changes had been wrought in him, the astronomer had not been made into a fighter. Clay side-stepped the thrust, shifted his grip on the Stinger and slammed the butt into Scriberson’s temple, sending him to his knees. Clay put the barrel of the Stinger against his neck and drew back the hammer, speaking in a slow, deliberate tone that left no room for doubt. “Where is she, you son of a bitch?”

Scriberson turned his head to regard Clay with the same blank stare from the same slitted eyes. Scribes is not at home any more, Clay decided, stepping back from him. A slight change in the light caused him to steal a glance at the blue crystal, its pulsing rhythm now replaced by a faint shimmer. The sound of many feet shifting on stone made him turn, finding himself confronted by all the Briteshore folk. Their expressions were as blank as Scriberson’s, but instead of staring in rapt fascination at the crystal, now their identical-slitted eyes were all fixed on him.

Scriberson surged to his feet and charged at Clay, clawed hands reaching out with obvious intent. “Dammit, Scribes!” Clay dodged the charge and delivered a punch to Scriberson’s jaw, trying to dissuade him from any further assaults, but the astronomer seemed to be beyond any pain now. Shrugging off the blow he crouched to charge again. Clay brought up the Stinger, intending to put a bullet in his leg; he was no use dead, after all. His finger halted on the trigger as Scriberson came to an abrupt halt, his transformed eyes widening into a semblance of something human as he staggered, lips wet with blood and gurgling as he turned to display the throwing-knife buried in the base of his skull. He fell to the floor, gurgled some more then lay still.

Clay raised his gaze from the astronomer’s corpse, seeing her straightening from the throw near the entrance to the dome. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said and Silverpin smiled, but it was a smile he hadn’t seen on her face before. As rich in regret as it was in fondness. I ain’t supposed to be here, he realised, returning his gaze to Scriberson’s corpse, Miss Lethridge’s words from the unbidden trance coming back to him. Joya . . . The Island girl . . .

A tumult of footsteps snapped his gaze back to the Briteshore people, seeing them all charging towards him, some brandishing knives or pickaxes, others reaching out with clawed hands. He shot the closest one, the managerial type in the suit, then two more. It didn’t seem to discourage their companions and he back-pedaled on rapid feet, bringing down another two before the Stinger fired empty. Still they came on, his back connecting with the jagged spines of the crystal. He dropped the Stinger as they closed in, his hands fumbling for his vials. He managed to get the Black clear of the wallet, but it was too late, many hands reaching out to restrain him as they pressed in with crushing force. He yelled at the sting of a knife blade jabbing into his cheek, thrashing and kicking as he tried to get the vial to his lips. One sip, just one sip to throw them off . . .

Then the pressure was gone, these new-made Spoiled drawing back as one, retreating into the same crescent formation with an unconscious, near-military precision. Silverpin stood amongst them, bloodied spear in hand and a fresh-killed Spoiled at her feet. She beckoned to Clay as he staggered, untouched vial in hand. He stared at her in blank incomprehension until she repeated the gesture with an urgent flick of her hand before making for the exit. With a final wary glance at the silent figures surrounding him, and a brief look at Scriberson’s unmoving body, he trotted obediently in her wake.

—

The entrance slid closed behind him after he made his way outside. Silverpin stood with the butt of her spear resting on the chamber floor, her smile smaller, but no less regretful. Clay studied her face for a long time, wondering why there was no anger in him now, none of the heat that had gripped him as Lutharon bore him through the clouds.

“Something always made me wonder,” he said. “Just how did you manage to kill Keyvine? Him being such a very dangerous man and all. Couldn’t have been easy, even for you.”

Her smile faded and she shrugged. As ever, he found her meaning easy to interpret. You know how.

He replayed Miss Lethridge’s message, the absent words tumbling into place. Joya’s alive . . . She saw . . . The Island girl is a Blood-blessed . . . “Thank you,” he said. “For letting Joya live.”

Another shrug, a flicker of a smile, gone in an instant. A favour to you.

He glanced back at the now-sealed dome. “Scriberson didn’t take you here. You took him.” A small, bitter laugh bubbled up from inside him, building into something shrill and harsh by the time he forced it down. “Why?”

She gave no response this time, save to lower her head, her face losing all animation. Clay took a step towards her as the anger finally arrived, fighting the impulse to grip her shoulders and shake answers from her. Instead he could only repeat “Why?” in a strained whisper.

Slowly, she raised her face, eyes meeting his, pale and beautiful in her mask of ink. And she blinked.

—

Noise. Voices. The scent of many people. The air abruptly changed from the dry heat of the chamber to the sultriness of Carvenport in early summer. He stood amongst a thick crowd of people in the broad avenue leading to Harvester’s Square, home to the breeding pens. He could see that a platform had been erected alongside a large vat at the far end of the avenue, the thick oak planking that formed its sides shuddering as the thing inside strained against its bonds. A number of adults and children were arranged in an orderly line in front of the platform, the youngsters either squirming in boredom or clutching their parents in fearful response to the noise emanating from the vat. Clay remembered it well, grunting out its pain and rage through the iron muzzle they had secured over its jaws. Hearing it then he had known it to be something terrible, something that wanted badly to kill all the people gathered to celebrate its death.

A tall man of spindly proportions stood on the platform reading aloud from a thick sheaf of papers. He was dressed in out-dated managerial garb and his voice possessed the toneless quality of those who would be better served by short speeches, but evidently he had a lot to say. Clay remembered how the crowd had begun murmuring amongst themselves as the man droned on, the murmur soon building to a babble of unrestrained conversation, though if the speech-maker took any notice of the fact that he had lost his audience, he failed to show it.

“The Corporate Age is . . .” he intoned then paused to turn a page, “. . . an age of wonders. But these wonders are not gifts; they do not spring unbidden from the ether. Instead they are the product of the Corporatist ethos . . .”

“The day of the Blood-lot,” a voice said. It was a clear, confident voice, uncoloured by an accent. Clay turned to find a young woman about his own age at his side, blonde with fine pale features. She wore a plain blue dress that complemented her colouring perfectly, matching as it did the shade of her eyes. Eyes set in a face free of tattoos. Eyes he would know anywhere.

“You can talk,” he said, which made her laugh.

“Obviously. The trance is a place of endless possibility, Clay. Here I can talk. We can finally talk.” She smiled and reached for his hand, face clouding with hurt when he snatched it away.

“I didn’t drink,” he said. “Neither did you.”

“We are in a place where such things are redundant, for me at least. Maybe for you too, in time.”

“How?”

“I truly do not know. There is so much still beyond my understanding. But I was promised wonders if I came here, and so it proved.”

“Promised by who?”

She turned as another woman made her way through the crowd. For a moment Clay thought he was seeing Silverpin’s twin but then saw the lines around the woman’s mouth and eyes. She couldn’t have been more than thirty but those lines told of youth lost to a hard life, as did the threadbare dress and shawl she wore. A little girl had hold of the woman’s hand, a little girl with blonde hair and striking blue eyes. He saw a strange cast to the woman’s face, an emptiness that echoed the blank fascination in Scriberson’s gaze. The little girl was far more animated, eyes fixed on the vat and seeming to shine with excitement.

“He promised me many things,” Silverpin said, standing aside as the pair passed by, smiling down at the little girl. “Ever since I could remember, he whispered to me. In dreams at first but then when I was awake. He called to me, and my journey to his side began here.”

She began to follow the woman and child through the crowd, passing through the assembled townsfolk as if they were mist. Clay stayed at her side, keeping close to catch every baffling word she spoke. “He said I was different. That the great gift I carried inside me had been waiting a very long time to be set free. But it needed to be fed, awoken from its slumber.”

Up ahead, he saw the woman stride past a yawning Protectorate constable without attracting his notice, then walk along the line of those awaiting the Blood-lot. “I had always found Mother very easy to control,” Silverpin went on as they followed. “Easier than any other, in fact. The blood connection, I suppose. Others have a tendency to be more difficult. And you,” she paused to favour Clay with a small grin, “were virtually impossible. It’s often the way with other Blood-blessed. No matter how many seeds I plant in their minds, they rarely take root.”

“Seeds?” Clay asked.

“I told you there was more to the trance than just shared memory. Blue is a remarkable product; your kind understands only the barest fraction of its power.”

He thought back to the Briteshore folk in the dome, staring in rapt fascination at the blue crystal as their bodies became corrupted. Had it somehow planted seeds in their minds as she had planted seeds in Braddon and the others? Perhaps it had called to them over the weeks and months they laboured in the shadow of this mountain. He remembered the pictograms they found in the manager’s office, line after line of neat script eventually becoming a frenzied mish-mash as the planted seed grew and took away the will of the man who scribbled it all down, probably without any understanding of what it meant. So they all came here to get Spoiled, he thought then frowned at another realisation. No, not all. The miner who blew his brains out on the stairs, and the Blood-blessed woman. They resisted it. Just like I resisted her, but not as much as I should have.

The woman and child were at the steps to the platform now, paused as they regarded the two Protectorate guards posted there. They seemed just as bored as their colleagues, one rolling his eyes at the other as the speaker turned yet another page and began a poorly phrased exploration of company ethics. Silverpin came to a halt and the memory froze around them, silence descending as every face and body stopped as if trapped in amber. She pointed at the little girl, still holding her mother’s hand, but turned to look at something. Clay followed her gaze and saw that her attention was returned by a boy in the line. The boy was about her own age, skin as dark as hers was pale. He held the hand of a slender woman in a recently washed dress, cunningly stitched to disguise the many repairs and alterations it had suffered over the years. He knew because he had watched her work on it every night over the preceding week, hours seated at the kitchen-table with needle-and-thread, and that was after a ten-hour shift in the wash-house. “Ain’t nobody looking down on us,” she had said. “Torcreek name means something in this city.”

Clay’s chest tightened as he looked into his mother’s face. She was smiling down at the boy holding her hand and the depth of love he saw was hard to bear. “I remembered you, Clay,” Silverpin said. “In fact I remember every detail of this day and pretty much everything since. Blue is powerful, but it holds a price. It seeps into your mind, changes it. Memory becomes inescapable, and so does guilt.”

The scene returned to life again, all the people unfreezing and the air thickening with their noise. The little girl turned away from the boy as her mother moved on from the bored guards, keeping to the edge of the platform until she came to where it ended at the vat. She bent and lifted the girl up onto the platform before climbing up after, all the time wearing the same empty mask of a face.

“You must have known it would kill her,” Clay said.

Silverpin gave no reply, leading him through the guards to ascend to the platform. They watched the woman and girl climb the final set of steps to the top of the scaffold overlooking the vat where they waited, still, silent and completely unnoticed.

“. . . and so,” the manager said, an air of finality creeping into his otherwise flat tones, “as a demonstration of the regard in which the Ironship Syndicate holds the people of this city, we will proceed with the harvesting.”

Grateful applause rippled through the crowd as he stepped back and all eyes turned to the vat. Silverpin led Clay to the scaffold and they climbed up to stand behind the woman and girl, staring down at the ugly spectacle below. The Black was the largest Clay had seen, a foot or more taller at the shoulder than Lutharon, and he was old. It was clear in the many scars on his hide, and the keenness of his gaze as he tried to thrash in his web of chains. Clay could see both fear and rage in those eyes. The Black understood his fate.

His wings had been hacked off and the stumps sealed with burning pitch, but still they twitched, the muscles working under the aged skin as he tried instinctively to fly clear of this threat. Harsh, guttural rasps came from the iron muzzle clamped over his jaws and Clay knew he was attempting to breathe fire at the man approaching across the floor of the vat. He would be a Master Harvester, Clay knew; only those who spent a lifetime in the pens could be trusted with the task of tapping a full-grown Black. The harvester wore a suit of thick green leather that covered him from head to foot, his face a pale smudge behind the glass visor sewn into his hood. He held a long steel spile in one hand and a hammer in the other. He would leave the drake alive, Clay knew, so the heart would pump as much product clear of his veins before exhaustion and death overtook him.

“I pitied him,” Silverpin said, Clay seeing that her gaze was fixed on the girl as she used a small hand to wipe away the tear tracing down her cheek. “It seemed so unfair. But for me to receive my gift, he had to die.” Her eyes drifted to her mother. “And so did she.”

The harvester positioned the spile at the Black’s neck, just above the juncture with his shoulder where the artery was thickest, and pounded it home with three quick strikes of the hammer. The blood began to flow immediately, spattering onto the floor in thick jets as the Black shuddered in his chains. The woman reached down to gather her daughter into her arms, waiting and watching the blood flow.

“Still,” Silverpin said. “I felt he at least deserved revenge. And I had need of a distraction.”

Some idle eye in the crowd must have finally noticed the woman for a scream pealed out as she hugged her daughter tighter and jumped into the vat. She landed directly in the torrent of blood, her skin blistering immediately wherever it touched her. The agony must have been indescribable but she issued no cries. Instead, she held the little girl out so that the gush of blood flowed over every inch of the child’s skin and into her open mouth. Even for a Blood-blessed, exposure to so much product should have been fatal. Instead she laughed, even as her mother, skin mottled with blisters and part dissolved by the red stream, collapsed into the spreading pool of raw product. The girl didn’t appear to have any interest in her mother’s ghastly fate, jumping and giggling in excitement as the blood covered her. Whilst she didn’t burn, she did change, her already pale skin bleached to alabaster as she continued to rejoice in the red stream.

The harvester, who had until this moment remained rooted in shock at the horror confronting him, rushed towards the child, no doubt intending rescue. She scowled as his leather-clad hands touched her shoulders, and the harvester flew away, his body blurring before it slammed into the side of the vat with a crack that told of a shattered spine. The little girl turned to regard the Black and, for an instant, their eyes met. Clay saw the drake attempt to recoil, its eyes shining with even more fear than when confronted with the inevitability of its own death.

“He heard me,” Silverpin said. “In his head, and he recognised the voice. I didn’t know it would scare him so much.”

The little girl shifted her gaze slightly and every chain binding the drake shattered as one. Then all became a senseless fury of splintered wood as the vat blew apart and the crowd let loose a scream of terror. The memory froze then, leaving them alone in a world of misted blood and air thickened by debris.

“You did this,” Clay said.

Silverpin nodded.

“My mother died here . . . You killed her and hundreds more besides.”

“And gained much in return,” she said. “Everything he promised. There is so much more that can be done with the power stored in drake blood, Clay. Your kind are like children playing with gunpowder.”

“My kind,” he repeated. “We’re so different now?”

“We always were. After this”—she gestured at the surrounding destruction—“I was remade. And still he called to me, offering more. All I had to do was find him.”

It came to him then, a hard, sickening rush of understanding that set his pulse racing. Their hunger for the White. Uncle’s loss of reason whenever it came up. Gone when she stole the car. Seeds . . . Seeds planted and nurtured the farther south we travelled. Seeds planted by her. “You didn’t know,” he said. “You didn’t know where it was. We guided you to it.”

“Some years ago his voice grew dim, like a distant murmur. But still he called to me. I tried several times to find him, venturing into the Interior with different companies, even a mob of Headhunters. When I found your uncle, however, the voice grew louder and I knew all I had to do was wait. I didn’t know I was waiting for you. You were . . . a pleasant and terrible surprise.”

“You needed me to get you here,” Clay said, his anger deepening yet further. “That’s why you killed Keyvine. That why you fucked me too?”

“Actually no. I do have the occasional weakness for spontaneity.” She lowered her gaze and the trance vanished, replaced by the vast chamber and its domes. She stepped closer to him, reaching out a hand to caress his face. Her lips were still when she spoke this time, but the words rang clear in his mind. Why did you come, Clay? You were supposed to flee, get far away just like you wanted. You would have had some time, at least. Perhaps even years.

“Until what?” he grated, forcing himself to remain still as her fingers stroked his jaw.

He called me here for a reason. A very old but very necessary design has been interrupted, and will now be resumed.

Clay’s gaze went to the largest dome, the one with the white light streaming from the apex of its roof. “It’s in there isn’t it?”

Yes. Sleeping safely all these years. He came here after nesting in the Badlands, when he had grown enough to take wing, drawn by an ancient instinct burned into his soul. And all the while he called to me in his dreams.

“Why? What does it need you for?”

I don’t know. She stepped back, gesturing at the dome. Shall we find out?

His eyes flicked to the barrel lying nearby, abandoned when he had been lured into the blue dome.

Don’t be foolish, Silverpin chided and the barrel rose from the floor, hovering for a second before streaking upwards, disappearing through the shaft above too fast to follow. A few seconds later he heard the flat boom of a distant explosion. Come along then. She took his hand and tugged him towards the white dome. Since you are so devoted to me we’ll see if he can be persuaded to share his gifts.

“I don’t want his gifts!” Clay said, tearing his hand away, then freezing as her Black closed on him tight enough to stop the breath in his throat.

The time when the apes scampering about this rock were allowed the illusion of choice is over, she told him and he had the sense that she was reciting a well-rehearsed speech, words she had been expecting to say for a very long time. Your last choice was in following me into this mountain. And like all choices it entailed consequences.

CHAPTER 42

Lizanne

This is pointless. She knew it even as she thumbed the stopper from the vial. A waste of time and effort sorely needed elsewhere.

Lizanne sat slumped behind her desk, casting a weary glance at her soon-to-be-vacated office and finding nothing she wanted to claim as a souvenir. In just over an hour she would make her way to the docks and the fleet would begin its desperate attempt at escape. She should be using this short respite to rest, knowing she and every other Blood-blessed would be sorely needed when they finally put to sea. She had tried twice over the course of the preceding day, taking precious time away from organising the evacuation, and each time finding nothing in the trance beyond her own mindscape and the same inescapable conclusion. He must surely be dead. This is entirely pointless.

With a final glance at the clock she sighed and drank the vial of Blue.

—

Her heart leapt as the trance descended and Nelphia’s peaks and valleys unfolded before her. He’s alive! He’s here!

The blossoming excitement soon died, however, as she realised that although Clay’s mindscape was present, he wasn’t. The valleys and peaks of the great moon remained empty and silent. It was something she had never seen before. Something, in fact, she would have thought impossible. Even when a Blood-blessed slept through a trance, there was still some vestige of them left.

She roamed across the surface calling out for him, ready to unfurl the whirlwind containing her memory of Joya’s tale. Silence was the only answer.

The Island girl! she called out, hoping somehow the words might reach him. If an image conjured by his mind was here then some vestige of him might be too. She killed Keyvine! Joya’s alive. She saw her do it, with Black! The Island girl is a Blood-blessed!

For the briefest instant the mindscape vanished, snapping out of existence, replaced with a blank void . . . No, not a void. There was something there, something shining bright, like a crystal lit from within . . .

Then it was gone and she found herself once again surrounded by her own whirlwinds of memory and not the slightest glimmer of Clay’s mindscape. Now, he was truly gone.

—

The MPV Laudable Intent sat low in the harbour waters as Lizanne strode aboard, followed up the gangplank by Tekela, her three Blinds bodyguards plus Arberus and his handful of surviving Corvantines. She knew the ship to be a Marlin class frigate though extensive modification had rendered her near unrecognisable. In addition to the existing armament of one forward pivot-gun and four old twelve-pounders, she now bristled from end to end with an array of Thumpers and Growlers, all protected by a newly installed covering of armour, the construction of which was so uneven as to resemble the deformed shell of a battered turtle.

“Miss Lethridge.” Vice-Commodore Skarhall delivered a formal salute as she stepped down from the gangplank. As a result of the demise of Commander Stavemoor he was now the most senior Protectorate officer in the city, though at first glance he cut a much-less-impressive figure. Skarhall stood a little over five feet seven inches in height and had a frame that could most generously be described as wiry. He also had a tendency to speak in soft tones, as if pondering thoughts aloud rather than attempting communication. But, however unremarkable his appearance or demeanour, he had proven himself an able and efficient collaborator in Jermayah’s daunting project, ensuring the requisite modifications to his small fleet were carried out without obstruction from truculent crews or recalcitrant engineers.

“Any problems to report, Commodore?” she asked him.

“The Protectorate flotilla stands at full readiness with engines primed,” he reported in tones barely above a murmur. “Some civilian vessels are still loading, but we expect to be ready to sail at the appointed time.” He stood aside, gesturing at a nearby ladder. “If you would care to join me on the bridge.”

The bridge offered a view of the harbour and the city, albeit restricted somewhat by the armour fringing the windows. Lizanne peered out at the dockside then raised her gaze to survey the city beyond. Smoke rose in dense columns from several places, the result of another Red attack the night before. The cost had only been a fraction of the toll exacted the night Colonial Town burned, sparing civilians but claiming yet more defenders amongst the gun-crews. She had ordered the resultant fires left unchecked, there being no time or particular need to quell them now as she harboured profound doubts that any human would be returning to this city in the near future.

She had issued the evacuation order barely twenty hours ago, surely an impossible schedule to complete the emptying of an entire city, but somehow they had managed it. To prevent a panicked rush to the docks, each district had been evacuated in turn, the movement of people being subject to stern and unwavering control by a heavily armed contingent of Protectorate soldiers. The Blinds, thanks to its proximity to the docks and much to the surprise of its inhabitants, had been the first to go, the great horde of ragged and mismatched souls making their way to the ships in surprising quietude. The managerial district, the last to be emptied, proved a marked contrast. There had been an unseemly and ineffectual attempt to break through the Protectorate cordon as the hours wore on and tempers grew frayed. When the besuited and heavily laden denizens had finally been escorted to the ships the scene was marked by many protestations and dire promises of legal redress, their outrage deepening further when forced to cast aside much of their luggage before being allowed to board. The quay-side was now littered with piles of suitcases and sundry valuables, the impressive array of silverware catching the late-morning sun.

The hospital had been the hardest task, conveying so many wounded to the ships taking up considerable time and effort. Despite some suggestions to the contrary Lizanne, to Mrs. Torcreek’s evident relief, refused to countenance leaving behind any but the most hopeless cases. These unfortunates, all either comatose or barely aware of their surroundings, remained in the hands of a small staff of volunteers, elderly nurses and doctors willing to sacrifice their final hours to the care of others. Lizanne had been assiduous in recording their names in detail, though her promises of posthumous awards and pensions for surviving relatives sounded empty even to her own ears.

Two ships had been given over to the wounded, Mrs. Torcreek taking her place on the largest. She had come to Lizanne before going aboard, seeking some word regarding her family, only to be told the unalloyed truth. “I do not know, Mrs. Torcreek. I believe Clay at least was alive as of a few hours ago, but in what state I cannot say.”

The woman’s head lowered, her shoulders slumping in the only sign of frailty Lizanne had seen in her. She righted herself after a moment, smiling as she offered Lizanne her hand. “Call me Fredabel, or Freda if you like.”

“Lizanne.”

“Lizzie?” the older woman suggested as they shook hands.

“No,” she replied in an unambiguous tone. “Lizanne.”

She tried to make out the wall through the haze of smoke but the distance was too great. Captain Flaxknot and the small army of Contractors had undertaken the duty of holding the wall during the evacuation. Their scouts reported ever more Spoiled trekking towards the city from the south and the west, whilst increasing numbers of Greens could be seen prowling the jungle. Fortunately, neither were present in sufficient numbers to mount another assault, though that might change if they happened to notice how thinly the walls were held.

Lizanne spent the remaining time watching the last few civilians being herded onto the ships, stragglers and old folk for the most part. There had inevitably been a few who refused to leave, mainly amongst the old or recently bereaved. The latter had clustered together, armed to the teeth and intent on selling their lives dear when the time came. Lizanne had made a few vain attempts to persuade these vengeful mobs to see reason but soon gave up in the face of more pressing matters, allowing them to take charge of any Growlers and Thumpers left behind when the fleet sailed.

When the last ancient had tottered up the gangplank Commodore Skarhall ordered a fresh signal hoisted and the steam-whistle sounded. The piercing wail was soon joined by that of every siren and whistle in the fleet, the general cacophony augmented by several flares launched by the Protectorate vessels. Lizanne turned her gaze back to the city and was soon rewarded by the sight of the Contractors hurrying towards the docks, many riding double on horseback. They had been left in no doubt that the fleet would wait exactly thirty minutes before setting off and all had clearly taken the warning to heart. As per Lizanne’s orders they made for the civilian ships where she hoped their marksmanship would enhance the defences, most of the heavy weaponry having been allotted to the Protectorate vessels.

Lizanne breathed a small sigh of relief at seeing Captain Flaxknot’s stocky form striding up the gangplank onto the same old steamer where Jermayah had chosen to place himself. “Built her engine myself,” he said by way of explanation. “Every plate and bolt. First one to come off the line. I believe it’s up to me to make sure she runs all the way to Feros.”

She watched the last of the Contractors vacate the quay with five minutes still to spare then turned to Skarhall with a tight smile. “I see little point in further delay, Commodore.”

He replied with a nod then proceeded to make her jump as a rapid and very loud series of orders issued from his mouth. The crew on the bridge responded with automaton-esque alacrity, the helmsman taking a grip on the wheel and the First Mate working the telegraph to the engine room whilst relayed orders chorused from one end of the ship to the other. The decking beneath Lizanne’s feet began an immediate thrum as the blood-burner came to life, soon accompanied by the regular swishing churn of the paddles. She winced a little as Skarhall barked out another tirade of orders and the Laudable Intent pulled away from the dockside. The wheel blurred as the helmsman spun it from port to starboard in a precise and well-practised sequence that soon had them heading directly for the harbour doors. Some of the stay-behinds had volunteered to operate the lifting machinery, a dozen or so dockworkers who had lost their families in the siege. They performed their duty with creditable dedication, the great copper wings rising smoothly as the Laudable approached, speed building all the while.

“All guns stand to!” Skarhall barked, his every word echoing through the decks. “Riflemen to firing holes! Ammunition crews stand ready!”

He turned to Lizanne, his voice dropping into its customary murmur as he gestured to the ladder at the rear of the bridge. “I believe you’ll find things arranged as requested, miss.”

Lizanne nodded and moved to Tekela’s side, clasping her hand. The girl said nothing, remaining with eyes downcast for a second, before enfolding Lizanne in a tight embrace. “Stay here,” Lizanne whispered into her ear. “I believe the commodore is in need of protection.”

Tekela released her and stepped back, moving to Skarhall’s side and checking her revolver. Lizanne nodded at her three bodyguards and started up the ladder.

—

The platform had been constructed atop the bridge, open-topped to afford a clear view all around but with thick armour walls four feet high. Each of the Protectorate ships in the vanguard featured the same arrangement and Lizanne could see their contingents of Blood-blessed climbing up in readiness as they drew near the doors, a minimum of two to each ship. Stocks of product had already been placed in each corner of the platform, Red and Green in plentiful supply, but only a third as much Black.

“Never been this close to such riches,” Red Allice commented, playing a hand along the well-packed row of vials. These were the first words Lizanne had heard her utter and she spoke in an odd accent, mixing native Arradsian tones with a tinge of Varestian.

“Not even as a pirate?” Lizanne asked in Varestian which drew the faintest grin from the woman, but no more words.

“Quite a sight,” Arberus commented, nodding at the ships falling into line behind the Laudable Intent, the warships with their turtle-like armour and the many others now pulling away from the dockside in accordance with the carefully-worked-out plan. The intention was to form an arrow formation with the Protectorate ships at the head. Skarhall had claimed it was well within the capabilities of the merchant fleet, but how long they could maintain it once free of the harbour was another matter.

Lizanne swung her gaze towards the sea beyond the doors, finding it unexpectedly placid. She knew this to be illusory. The Blues had a tendency to disappear beneath the waves for hours or days only to rear up without warning and snatch or roast unwary souls who had ventured onto the mole. The Laudable Intent increased speed as they entered the gap in the wall, Skarhall setting a speed of eighteen knots, well within the range of his engine but still a push for the newly converted warships following. They passed through leaving a frothing wake, all eyes intent on the surrounding water. For a full minute nothing happened and they ploughed on through untroubled waters free of the slightest eddy or betraying splash.

“Do they sleep?” Burgrave Crovik wondered, sweat trickling down his plump face and all trace of his claimed nobility now absent from his voice. “They might be sleeping.”

“No,” Red Allice told him, gaze fixed directly ahead. “They don’t sleep.”

The Blue drake erupted from the sea directly in the ship’s path, moving so fast the forward gun-crew had no time to react before the first blast of flame swept down. They were saved from annihilation by the armour plate that surrounded the position, though from the screams, not all the crew remained unscathed. The gun fired as the Blue heaved itself onto the fore-deck, the shell tearing a chunk from its coiling flesh. It pealed out a screech of pain and rage before fixing its gaze on the exposed humans on the platform above, whereupon it lunged higher, mouth gaping.

Lizanne had injected a mingled burst of product during the drake’s first attack and now unleashed her Black to stop it just short of the platform. Arberus and his men let loose with an immediate volley from their rifles, aiming for the head and eyes as they had been taught. Lizanne saw one bullet strike home on the Blue’s right eye, blood and vitreous humour exploding as its head remained fixed in place, though the rest of it continued to thrash, the elongated body thumping spasmodically onto the Laudable’s armour. Lizanne risked a glance to ensure the three other Blood-blessed had drunk their fill and gave a curt nod of command. As one they unleashed a wave of Black, propelling the beast clear of the ship. It landed in the sea a few yards off the starboard side and immediately began to coil for another strike just as every Thumper and Growler able to bear on it opened fire. The sea roiled red around the drake, the hail of bullets and shells tearing it to pieces in a matter of seconds.

Lizanne didn’t pause to watch the drake sink, instead scanning the surrounding sea, heart sinking as Blue after Blue rose from the waves and began knifing their way through the swell towards them.

“Some moderation, if you don’t mind,” she cautioned Crovik as he guzzled down another vial. “Drink only when they come close. Let the guns do their work.”

She looked to the stern, seeing that all the warships were now clear of the harbour, every gun firing. She tracked the course of one shell from the next ship in line, watching it impact on the water just as the Blue it had been aimed at twisted aside, snaking around the exploding fountain of spume with barely a pause. It submerged upon coming within the last twenty yards of the ship, diving beneath the keel to spring up on the port side, water steaming as it spewed out its flames. It managed to birth some small fires aboard the ship before intersecting Thumper and Growler fire cut it in half, the severed parts still twitching and coiling as they subsided into the waves.

The scene was repeated along the line, Blues rearing up only to be cut down or forced to abandon their attacks by the weight of fire. The Laudable Intent was attacked twice more in quick succession, one Blue launching itself at the port side whilst another cast its flames at the stern. In both cases the guns were able to inflict sufficient injury on the drakes for them to veer away, leaving a red slick on the waves as they plunged into the depths.

“I do believe this is actually working,” Edgerhand commented, pointing at the fleet behind them and the surrounding sea now free of drakes. He turned to Lizanne and offered a florid bow. “May I be the first to offer my heart-felt thanks and congratulations to Miss Blood.” He rose and stepped closer, speaking softly. “I do happen to know a most excellent bistro in Feros . . .”

He was interrupted by the boom of the forward gun. Lizanne turned in time to see the spout of red and white a few hundred yards dead ahead and mentally congratulated the gunner on his aim. To hit a single drake at such a range was quite a feat. Then she noticed the disturbance in the surrounding waters and realised the shot hadn’t been aimed at only one target. The sea swelled, lifted by the combined wakes of Blues moving in a close-packed mass coming straight towards the Laudable at far too great a speed for them to evade.

They learn, Lizanne recalled, emptying the Spider’s reserves of Red, Green and Black into her veins. They always learn.

The forward gun had time for one more shot before the drake pack closed, vapourising the head of a Blue just as it reared out of the water, but it did nothing to discourage the others. For a few seconds everything became a chaos of noise and heat, the frenzied chatter of the Growlers, the slower percussive thud of the Thumpers and the screams, drake and human. Lizanne directed a combined blast of Black and Red at one drake as it lunged for the platform. Despite the numerous wounds leaking blood from its shimmering scales, it continued to thrash against the heat and force she cast at it, seemingly uncaring of its scorched black eyes and shattered teeth. It finally fell back into the sea thanks to a concentrated volley from Arberus’s men, one lucky bullet finding its brain.

“Down!” Red Allice grabbed Lizanne about the waist and bore her to the deck as the air above the platform turned to flame. Lizanne managed to keep the fire at bay with a concentrated wall of Black, soon reinforced by Allice and Edgerhand. However, they had been too slow to save Burgrave Crovik. The flames receded to reveal the pretend nobleman standing in the centre of the platform, his body untouched below the shoulders and his head a smoking cinder. Incredibly, he managed to take a few steps before collapsing to the deck.

Lizanne raised herself to risk a glance over the edge of the armoured walls, seeing Blues latched onto the Laudable from end to end, some clearly in their death throes but still hanging on. Their intent was obvious, and seemed about to be fulfilled from the way the sea was washing over the ship’s upper works. Within moments they would be swamped.

Lizanne snatched a vial of Black from one of the product caches, gulped it down and leapt clear of the platform, Green-boosted strength carrying her to the prow where two drakes were tightly coiled about the hull. She dodged a lunge from one, teeth snapping the air inches from her legs, then leapt onto the beast’s head. She clung to the spine at the base of its skull as it tried to throw her off, screeching all the while. Focusing her gaze on the ridge between its eyes she unleashed half her Black with enough force to shatter the bone shielding the beast’s brain. The Blue’s struggles reached a new pitch of desperation and she found herself in the air once again as it threw her off, though not before she had drawn one of her revolvers. Sailing backwards through the air she fired all six bullets into the exposed red-grey mass and had the satisfaction of watching the Blue slip from the Laudable’s hull before she plunged into the shocking chill of the sea.

She went under for only a few seconds before kicking to the surface with ease thanks to the Green in her system. She spat brine from her mouth and watched the Laudable plough on through the waves, sitting higher in the water now but still part covered in Blues despite the constant blast of the guns. She could see Arberus’s tall form waving desperately from the platform but knew even with the Green she couldn’t hope to swim to them now. She cast about for the nearest ship, instead finding herself confronted by a tall spine cutting the water only twenty yards away. Turning, she saw another behind her and realised she was being circled.

Various plans ran through her mind, all equally hopeless. She could feel her skin numbing as the product seeped from her veins and wondered if the Blues could sense it somehow, perhaps delaying their attack until she no longer posed a threat. Or, she reflected with a cold detachment she thought she might have lost by now, they simply wish to savour the moment.

Whatever the case, the Blues didn’t raise their heads from the water until the last drop of product had faded from her body, three of them rising from the sea to stare down at a small, struggling figure now rendered all too human.

CHAPTER 43

Clay

A door slid open in the wall of the white dome as they approached. The glow that emanated from within was so bright that Clay gave a reflexive shudder despite the grip of Silverpin’s Black. She went inside and pulled him along on stiff, hesitant legs. His stuttering footfalls gave off a curious echo as he staggered in her wake and he knew he was no longer walking on stone. Glass, he saw as his vision started to clear and he made out the dim reflection of his boots on the floor. He blinked as his eyes detected something beneath the glass, some kind of great swirling pattern far below.

Silverpin tugged him again, jerking his head up to regard the huge white crystal in the centre of the dome. Unlike the blue crystal, which had lain on the floor of its dome, this one floated in mid air, held aloft by means unknown and revolving slowly so that the light streaming through its myriad facets varied slightly. It took a moment for him to discern foggy fluctuations in the space surrounding the crystal, patches of various hues forming like gathered mist, shapes coalescing in a shimmering rainbow dance.

White, Silverpin said in his mind as she gazed up at the ever-changing shapes, is every colour combined. Clay followed her gaze as she lowered it to the huge, coiled form residing in a shallow, perfectly circular pit below the crystal. Clay was able to discern its shape thanks only to the shadows cast by the crystal’s glow and the dimmer reflections in the glass on which it lay. He would have taken it for a great marble sculpture but for the gentle swell of its chest accompanied by a rush of air as it breathed in its slumber. It was at least a third again Lutharon’s size, half-covered by the sail-like wings and encircled by its own tail, the jagged spear-point end twitching slightly so that the spines rattled on the glass.

Although the Stinger had been lost in the blue dome his uncle’s longrifle still rested on his back. But all he could do was stand and watch it sleep. The White.

He has slept such a long time, Silverpin said. And dreamt such wonderful dreams.

As if in response to her words the mist-like shapes surrounding the crystal suddenly became more animated, solidifying as they circled the dome’s interior with increased velocity. They reminded Clay of flocking birds in the way they swirled about, clustering together to surround both of them in a thick vortex that recalled Miss Lethridge’s mindscape of whirlwinds. The eye-straining glow dimmed as the vortex spun and he began to make out images amidst the maelstrom of colour, gasping in shock as his own face misted into view. He was blinking in the sun, expression guarded and cheeks unshaven. Me outside the Protectorate gaol, he realised. The first time I saw her.

The vortex shifted again, displaying another image, this time of a Green rearing up out of a darkened field at night, Loriabeth lying wounded nearby. That night at Stockade, he thought, watching the Green freeze in response to some unbidden command before a spear blade jabbed down to skewer its skull. He shot a glance at Silverpin and tried to speak, words slurring over his part-frozen lips. She lessened her control slightly, letting him talk. “Your memories . . . It saw everything you did.”

It appears so. I knew he watched me, but not so closely. Isn’t it wonderful?

Another shift in the vortex, another set of images, the cave in the Badlands, the twisted bones . . . then his face again, drawn in the passion they had shared, the image shot through with an angry red tinge.

It appears we made him jealous. Silverpin’s voice carried a faintly amused tone as the image morphed into the Red Sands at night, transformed into a fiery spectacle as the Spoiled danced their death agonies beneath Lutharon’s fire. They aren’t always so easy to control. I suspect some of his anger must have leached into them.

“The temple,” Clay grunted as the images fragmented then re-formed once more, arrows raining down on the temple as the Greens came swarming up the vines.

Yes, she said. Wondrous as he is, still he remains incomplete, a child in many ways, and children are ever impatient. The closer we came to him the more I realised how much he needs me, how much he still has to grow.

The vortex thinned then receded, dissipating to orbit the crystal in small clusters of memory. The images they contained were still visible, but now seemed bafflingly unfamiliar to Clay. He could catch only short glimpses as they passed by; a city of tall spires rising above the Arradsian jungle, Red drakes wheeling amongst the buildings. Then the earth seen from far above, blue oceans and white-capped mountains, growing in size as whatever had captured this image streaked downwards, heading towards a body of water he recognised as Krystaline Lake. Next a battle, Black and Red drakes filling the sky with flame and blood as they tore at each other, and streaking through the chaos, a White, tearing Black after Black out of the sky with gore-covered talons, despite the many wounds that gashed its flesh.

So much to see, Silverpin said, and he understood she was seeing all this for the first time; these memories belonged to something else. So much to learn.

A low, rumbling sound filled the dome, a sound that seemed to cut into Clay’s being from skin to bone. His eyes snapped to the White, seeing a tendril of smoke rising from the thing’s marble nostrils.

“You wake it up,” he said to Silverpin, spittle flying as his tongue sought to form words against the cage of his teeth, “it’ll kill us all.”

No, she replied. Not all. Just many. It will be a time of great pain, but birth is always painful.

She moved away from him, striding forward until she stood directly beneath the crystal. It began to pulse as she halted, flaring light so intense Clay worried he might be blinded. He saw Silverpin raise her arms as the crystal stopped its revolutions, a beam of light streaking down to bathe her from head to toe. Another rumble sounded from the White, the twitching of its tail transformed into a coiling thrash as a second beam emerged from the crystal to bathe the beast from head to toe. The beam’s colour had changed, taking on a bluish hue. White is all colours combined, he recalled.

So much to see, Silverpin repeated in his mind, her voice dimmer now but the wonder it contained was palpable. The swirling memories had multiplied, full of yet more images of wonder and terror, flashing past at such a speed he could catch only glimpses: a White breathing fire on a group of Spoiled kneeling in obvious supplication. An egg bathed in fire and cracking open to reveal the screaming infant Black inside, the flames fading to reveal an old man in a robe staring down at the fledgling drake with the expression of a proud father. Clay’s eyes latched onto the symbol emblazoned on the man’s chest, an upturned eye, the same eye that adorned the outside of the building above. The last sight he saw before the parade of images became too fast to follow was the most baffling: a field of ice beneath a starlit night sky, small figures labouring across the field towards something jutting from the ice near the horizon, something monumentally large that vaguely resembled a church spire, but twisted with deep rents in its massive sides, as if damaged somehow . . .

He staggered as a tremor ran through the glass floor followed shortly after by a loud boom far above. It was like the explosion of the barrel Silverpin had thrown through the shaft, but ten times louder. He felt Silverpin’s grip slip for an instant before she reasserted control. He could just make out her features through the beam. Her tattoos were fading and a vertical ridge had formed on her forehead. Also her eyes, narrowed in annoyance rather than anger, had taken on a yellow hue. She’s being Spoiled, he knew. Like the Briteshore folk.

“Stop!” Clay yelled at her as best he could through his part-frozen lips. “Please!”

The White moved, tail snaking away from its body and wings flexing as the beams continued to perform whatever process Silverpin had triggered.

“This is crazy!” he called to her, his words more easily formed now as he felt her Black diminish, perhaps in response to the changes being wrought by the beam. He managed to take a step, even partly raise a hand in a desperate entreaty. “Do you want the world to burn?”

Her reply was faint, only a whisper in his mind, and carried such a note of finality he knew somehow this would be the last words he would ever hear from her: It’s not your world any more, Clay. Don’t worry, he’ll let me keep you. His kind always had their pets.

He stared at the increasingly distorted face in the beam, watching the ridge on her forehead grow and the scales cluster about her eyes, which were now like sapphires set in gold. For a second those eyes fixed him with all the force of the Black, though her control had now faded to a fraction of its former strength. She smiled, the same smile she had shown him back in Carvenport, the same smile she wore on the trail, open, kind . . . loving. But it wasn’t her any more; he knew that at his core. She was still beautiful, but it was a terrible beauty.

An ear-splitting boom rent the air above their heads and another tremor shook the glass beneath his feet, sending him sprawling. He looked up to see a thick pall of smoke surrounding the opening at the apex of the dome, fading to reveal a growing crack in the arcing wall. Powdered stone cascaded down onto the crystal and the White. It shifted as if feeling the dust on its hide, tail sweeping across the glass and wings gusting the air. In the beam he saw Silverpin turn to regard the White with a worried frown, and as she did so, her Black faded completely.

Clay didn’t hesitate, ignoring the growing crack in the dome and whatever might have caused it. He unslung the longrifle and brought it to his shoulder in a smooth, single movement that would have made Foxbine proud. He worked the lever, jacking a steel-tip into the chamber and trained the sights on the White’s head, dead between the eyes. The head, always the head. He wasn’t the marksman his uncle was, but even he couldn’t miss at this range.

Something blurred beyond the sights as he squeezed the trigger, the roar of the longrifle filling the dome and the muzzle flash blinding him for a second. When his vision cleared he saw Silverpin on her knees, her sapphire eyes staring at him in frank astonishment as she held a hand to the gushing hole in her chest.

“What . . .” Clay began, choking on the words as their eyes locked together. “What did you do?”

She opened her mouth and a thick torrent of blood cascaded down her chin. She gave a small, convulsive jerk and collapsed onto her back, blood spreading out from her lifeless body, forming a near-symmetrical shape on the glass. Wings, Clay thought, the longrifle suddenly very heavy in his hands. Looks just like wings.

A low, rumbling sound drew his gaze from Silverpin’s corpse and he looked up to find himself staring into the eyes of the White. The very open and awake eyes of the White.

CHAPTER 44

Lizanne

Lizanne reached for her second revolver as the Blue began to dip its head towards her, mouth open and water cascading from its many teeth. She wasn’t sure whether she intended to use it on the drake or herself. She had managed to get it free by the time the beast’s snout had descended to within a yard of her, where it stopped. Lizanne stared into its suddenly frozen eyes, finding only her reflection, a white-faced woman in overalls clutching a tiny pistol as she trod water and waited to die. She found it a singularly unedifying view.

The drake blinked and drew back from her, a strange echoing rattle sounding from within its body, echoed by its two companions. Lizanne bobbed higher in the waves as they coiled together, their rattles mingling, becoming synchronized. She had a sense that they were greeting each other, and from the way their frills and spines twitched, discerned a certain alarm at their circumstances, as if finding themselves in a sea with so many ships and booming guns was a sudden and unexpected occurrence. After a few more seconds of shared rattling they separated, one casting an incurious glance at Lizanne before all three vanished beneath the waves.

She saw the Laudable Intent a few hundred yards away, her hull now unencumbered by drakes, paddles churning in opposite directions as she began to turn about. Suddenly aware of the absence of gun-fire, Lizanne turned her gaze to the rest of the fleet, finding every vessel free of attacking Blues and no sign of them in the surrounding waters. The Laudable completed its turn and began to plough towards her. As it came closer a shrill note sounded from its steam-whistle, a signal soon taken up by the whole fleet. Lizanne thought she heard cheers amongst the wailing sirens but found she couldn’t share in the delusion of victory.

Did he kill it? she wondered, the revolver slipping from her unfeeling hand, the chill of the sea and all-consuming fatigue combining to drag her into unconsciousness. Or is it merely tired of this game?

CHAPTER 45

Clay

He should have felt terror, or let his mind slip into a madness birthed by the certainty that this thing was intent on his death. He could see a definite calculation in its eyes, an awareness that went beyond the keen but limited intelligence he saw in Lutharon’s gaze. And beyond the awareness was hate. It knew what he had done, and it desired a reckoning. But still Clay found he couldn’t feel anything beyond guilt, clawing away at his insides as he lowered his gaze once more to Silverpin’s corpse. Lover, saviour, betrayer . . . monster. She had been all of them, and yet he knew this was a crime he would never escape.

A soft, pattering sound made him lift his gaze once more and he saw a trickle of blood falling onto the glass. He followed the red stream to the wound on the White’s neck, just behind its head where the steel-tip had impacted, presumably deflected by its brief passage through Silverpin’s body. “Seems I missed,” he said, meeting the White’s all-too-knowing gaze once again, feeding the small seed of anger growing inside, hoping it might banish the guilt. He smiled, revealing gritted teeth and jacked another round into the longrifle’s chamber. “Won’t happen twice.”

The White’s tail moved in a blur, cracking the air as it uncoiled. Clay threw himself flat on his back, the tail cutting the air above and one of the jagged spines scoring a cut on his chest, ripping through shirt and skin to leave him writhing in pain and shock. He spewed profanity as he got to his knees, fighting the pain and raising the rifle to his shoulder. Another swipe of the great, white tail, the snap of sundered air accompanied by the sound of shattered metal and wood. The longrifle came apart in Clay’s hands, the two halves leaking bullets and workings onto the glass. He threw the ruined weapon aside and scrambled upright, reaching for the vials on his belt.

The White’s tail blurred beneath him, sweeping him from his feet with enough force to send him somersaulting through the air. He landed hard, agony flaring from the wound in his chest, sapping his strength and leaving him gasping on the glass. A soft hiss made him look up and he found the White’s head poised above, teeth bared and jaw widening. It won’t kill me, Clay knew, yelling with pain whilst his hand still fumbled for his vials. Not for a long time . . .

All thought stilled as he saw that the blood continued to flow from the wound in the White’s neck, trickling over the scales and sending a small cascade of drops straight towards him. Clay tried to clamp his mouth shut, but too late, a single drop making it past his lips and onto his tongue. The pain made the agony in his chest seem no more than a dull ache, his throat working in a convulsive swallow, taking the blood deep inside where it burned and burned . . .

—

. . . cold. A harsh, lacerating cold the depth of which he had never felt before. He realised his eyes were open, no longer bunched shut as he writhed with the White’s blood burning his insides. There was no pain either, just the dreadful cold. He looked upon a field of ice, the same field of ice he had glimpsed in the whirl of memory, except now the sky above was pale blue rather than starlit night. The great twisted spire still jutted from the ice but seemed to have diminished somehow, not standing quite as tall as before. Clay wondered if it had shrunk but then realised the ice had in fact thickened about it, indicating the passage of countless years since the first memory had been captured.

The sound of boots crunching into snow made him turn and he found himself facing a tall man with an impressive breadth of shoulder, clad in a thick fur-lined jacket. The hood of the jacket was raised but Clay could see the glimmer of a Maritime Protectorate cap badge inside it, and the man’s face; blockishly handsome of North Mandinorian complexion. His gaze was direct and focused, making Clay realise he was present in this scene, no longer just an observer of baffling mysteries; he was really here. The man regarded Clay with an expression of shrewd if cautious satisfaction, the face of a man receiving a debt he never expected to be paid. After a second he gave a soft grunt and turned to regard the great spire rising from the ice.

“So,” he said in a voice rich in military gruffness, “this is where we save the world, Mr. Torcreek . . .”

—

. . . the burning returned with a savage intensity and he was back, still writhing on the glass as the White’s head dipped lower. Clay’s fingers finally alighted on his vials and he began to tug them free, intending to drink them all at once, knowing it would be hopeless, knowing the White wouldn’t allow it, but trying anyway. He stopped as his gaze lit on something beyond the White, something small and dark falling through the opening in the dome’s roof. It seemed to fall with incredible slowness so that Clay could make out what it was with relative ease. A barrel, just like the one he had carried down here. A barrel full of wonderful accelerating agent.

The barrel tumbled onto the crystal, bursting apart as one of its jagged points pierced it, blossoming into bright yellow-orange flame with enough force to shake the dome down to its foundations. The White reeled away from Clay, its screech of rage cutting through the echoing boom. It rushed towards the crystal which, Clay saw, was now glowing with far less intensity, its myriad facets shot through with a web of cracks. It continued to revolve in the air for a few seconds, its light flickering like a guttering oil-lamp, then fell heavily onto the glass floor.

The White screamed again, the sound threatening to burst Clay’s ears as it circled the dimmed and cracked crystal, wings flaring and tail thrashing. He sensed something oddly infantile about its reaction, its jerky frustration putting him in mind of a child poking at a broken toy. He is still so young, Silverpin had said, the thought drawing Clay’s eyes to her body, still lying on the glass with its bloody wings spread out, sapphire eyes staring in accusation. Clay tore his gaze away and struggled to his feet, sagging under the pain of the wound in his chest and the residual burn of the White’s blood. He pulled three vials from his wallet, Green, Red and Black, and drank them all in a single gulp. He straightened as the Green took effect, dimming his many agonies, then took a purposeful stride towards the White.

“Come on, you pasty bastard,” he breathed, using Black to snatch one of Silverpin’s blades from her belt. “We ain’t done.”

Hearing him the White whirled, mouth gaping. The calculated cruelty was gone from its eyes. Now there was only blind rage. The air about its mouth began to shimmer as the heat built, preparing to ignite the torrent of gasses summoned from its guts. Clay crouched, ready to dodge the flames, then stopped as a crack sounded from above and a large piece of the dome’s ceiling fell, tumbling straight down to deliver a glancing but heavy blow to the White before slamming onto the glass floor. Clay watched an intricate matrix of cracks spread through the glass from the point of impact, staring with an unwarranted detachment as his Green-enhanced eyes tracked the complex array of fractures until it had covered the floor from end to end. Clay cast a final glance at the White, screeching anew as it struggled free of the tumbled stone, dragging its leg a little. He focused his gaze at the glass beneath it and unleashed a burst of Black. The floor shattered and the White fell through a cloud of glittering powder, voicing a plaintive scream as it tumbled into whatever waited below.

Hearing an ominous cacophony of cracks building about his feet Clay turned and ran for the dome wall. This time an exit stubbornly refused to appear at his approach so he let loose with all the remaining Black, blowing a small but accessible hole through it. The glass gave way beneath him just as he reached the new-made exit, his hand reaching out with Green-boosted speed and strength to grip the edge just in time. He began to haul himself up then paused at a new sound from below, the roar of drake-born flames. Looking down he saw the White, flames jetting from its mouth in a powerful stream. But this fire was not cast at him. The White wheeled about amidst the spiral array Clay had glimpsed on entering the dome, now revealed as row after row of small round objects. They were arranged in a series of vast curving terraces, like the centre of a sunflower, extending far beyond the diameter of the dome’s floor.

He hung there, watching the White breathe its flames and every round object they touched turn black, but not entirely. In each one he could see a glow, small at first but building fast, something he had seen before in the breeding pens. Eggs, he realised as the White continued its task, each gout of flame accompanied by an unmistakable squawk of triumph. The waking fire.

Feeling his Green start to ebb he pulled himself up, running free of the dome then drawing up short at the sight of the Briteshore folk. They stood clutching their knives and pickaxes, every face an echo of the White’s fury, and now there was no Silverpin to hold them back. Clay fixed his gaze on the centre of their line and started to summon his Red, intending to sprint forward and burn his way through, using Silverpin’s knife to deal with any who came too close. In the event, it proved unnecessary.

Lutharon roared as he descended through the shaft, casting a blast of flame down on the Spoiled, roasting about half before landing amidst the others, tail whipping and claws rending. Ethelynne clung to his back as he did his deadly dance, the Spoiled soon cast away like red-stained chaff.

Clay sank to his knees as the last of the Green faded, kept from fainting only by the pain in his chest. Lutharon trotted to him, claws leaving red stains on the stone, and Ethelynne slid from the drake’s back to crouch at Clay’s side. “How?” he asked in a strained mutter.

“Mr. Skaggerhill was able to repair the cable-car machinery,” she said, smiling then wincing as she leaned closer to peer at the wound in his chest. “It took a lot of powder to blast a channel big enough for Lutharon to enter.”

“Told them to leave,” Clay groaned, slumping forward. “You all need to get out of here.”

“Now, now, none of that.” She hooked her arms under his and lifted him up with the kind of strength that only came from Green. “This is a terribly interesting place you’ve found,” she observed as she dragged him towards Lutharon. “Worthy of extensive study.”

“Can’t stay.” Clay turned his lolling head towards the ruined dome. “Eggs . . .”

“Eggs?”

A savage roar sounded from the dome, the part-demolished ceiling bursting apart as the White came crashing through from below. It descended amidst a cloud of debris to land barely twenty feet away, head and body lowered as it screeched a challenge at Lutharon. The Black drake responded with a bellow of his own, hopping clear of Ethelynne and Clay to confront the White, tail coiling and wings spread wide.

“Stop!” Ethelynne pulled away from Clay and rushed to stand between the two drakes, holding her hand out to Lutharon, freezing him in place. “No! This . . .” She faltered and turned to face the White, voice soft so that Clay had to strain to hear her. “This is my mistake to fix, old friend.”

The White seemed to lose some of its fury as it looked upon her, head angled slightly as its eyes narrowed in a clear display of recognition. After a moment it issued a soft growl of consternation, lips curling back from dagger-like teeth in an irritated snarl.

“Yes,” Ethelynne told it, “I regret not killing you too.”

The White’s snarl widened into a roar and it lunged forward, forelegs raised and talons extending . . . then stopped as Ethelynne unleashed her Black. Clay could feel the force of it, even though it was directed elsewhere, a more powerful demonstration of the Blessing than he had ever witnessed. He could see the White straining against her control, nostrils flaring and leaking smoke as it let out a continual, rage-filled rumble.

“Clay.” He switched his gaze to Ethelynne, finding her glancing over her shoulder, a sad smile on her lips. It was so similar to Silverpin’s smile that he almost found it sickening and he knew the bladehand hadn’t been the only one to use him. “Thank you,” Ethelynne said. “I needed to end this. You have to go now, they’re waiting for you.”

She turned to Lutharon, meeting the drake’s eyes and Clay felt something pass between them. Lutharon shuddered as she looked away, a faint, keening sounding from him as he turned and scooped Clay from the floor, wings spreading in readiness.

“No!” Clay struggled as the drake’s grip tightened, but it was a feeble attempt and he felt more of his blood spill as Lutharon sprinted away then launched himself into the air. Clay managed to twist in his grip as the wings beat the air to carry them away. He saw Ethelynne focus her full attention on the White, throwing it back with a savage burst of Black then lifting a large piece of fallen masonry to bring it down on the beast’s head with a bone-smashing crunch. Still it lived, however, shrugging off the blow and replying with a blast of flame. Ethelynne became a blur, leaping clear and replying with flames of her own as she unleashed her Red, the White howling as the raw flesh of its wounds steamed in the heat.

For a moment it seemed she might prevail, the White shrinking back as she cast more debris at it in between blasts of heat, but then a strange ripping sound rose from the ruined dome. In seconds it built into a crescendo as a flock of juvenile drakes erupted from the dome, the ripping sound revealed as the air being rent by so many wings. They swirled about the chamber for a short time, transforming into a two-coloured cloud as Lutharon gained height. Red, Clay saw, vision dimming. And White . . . but no Black . . .

The last he saw before the blackness claimed him was the cloud descending on Ethelynne’s now-tiny form. They covered her in a dense swarm that thrashed and pulsed for a short time before breaking apart, leaving no sign of her behind. And the White roared out its victory.

CHAPTER 46

Lizanne

Looks different, he said, and she sensed his scrutiny of her whirlwinds. Not so tidy.

I have a glut of new memories, she said. And haven’t had much opportunity for housekeeping recently.

She noted that his own mindscape had changed markedly, Nelphia’s surface rendered in darker hues than before with many dust-devils drifting across the valleys and peaks. She had watched him craft the memory of his encounter with the White, raising moon-dust and shaping it into a coherent narrative, or as coherent as his grieving mind would allow. The sight of Ethelynne Drystone’s demise was particularly fractured, reflecting his reluctance to relive the event. Even so, she had been impressed by his fortitude, keeping control throughout the images of betrayal and loss even as she sensed his pain.

The last set of memories had been the most confused, shot through as they were by the effects of his injuries. She watched as the Black drake carried him away from the White, still roaring its triumph, up and through the channel that had been blasted in the mountain. The memories then became a hazy collage of captured images as Clay slipped in and out of consciousness; his uncle’s face, drawn in worry . . . the other Contractors carrying him to the cable-car . . . a final view of the spike-shaped mountain before it all went dark.

So, she said, it lives.

Yes. A pulse of deep regret sent a shiver through the moon-dust. Sorry about that.

Lizanne felt a resurgence of the sensation that had dogged her since Red Allice and Edgerhand had plucked her from the sea. The feeling that gripped her as they settled her on the deck and banished her bone-deep chill with a gentle blanket of Red-heated air; the unfamiliar and deeply unwelcome sense of being dwarfed by circumstance.

Well, she went on, forcing a brisk note into her thoughts she hoped would mask the underlying unease. At least now we have confirmation. There had been some talk amongst the fleet of turning back to Carvenport. This should put paid to such notions. She paused, watching his face closely, seeing only the tired features of a young man burdened with a vast responsibility. The only living soul to have drunk the blood of the White, she thought, doubting he found it the wondrous and profitable gift Madame had imagined it to be.

Do you know what it might mean? she asked, summoning a whirlwind to form the image of the great twisted spike in the ice. Your . . . vision.

His face gave the smallest tic of amusement. I think it means I still got a long ways to go, miss.

Where are you now?

Just a few days from Hadlock, Uncle says. Can only hope there’s somebody left when we get there. We keep finding dead miners on the trail. The Spoiled have been plenty busy in these mountains. Lucky Lutharon decided to stay with us. Guess he’s scaring them away for now. Caught sight of a large war-party yesterday. Thought they might come for us but they just kept on trekking north. I reckon they had another place to be.

The mountain . . . The White’s calling them home.

I expect so.

Trance with me when you get to Hadlock. If there are no ships to be had I’ll have the Board send one when we reach Feros.

You seem pretty sure they’ll dance to your tune.

If they want to regain their holdings in Arradsia, they’ll have little choice. Without product, what are they?

I got a feeling the whole world’s gonna have to get used to going without for a very long time, if not forever. You saw it, miss. It ain’t done, and now it’s got brothers and sisters to play with.

You wounded it. I saw that too. It needed the Island girl for something. Without that I suspect it will be incomplete, stunted somehow.

There was a pause and one of his dust-devils drifted closer, transforming into the familiar image of a girl dancing in a ballroom.

She’s well, Lizanne assured him. I wanted to bring her under my protection but she refused to be parted from her gun-crew. She has care of a pair of Dalcian orphans, a brother and sister.

Derk?

She summoned the whirlwind containing Joya’s description of Keyvine’s death, and her brother’s demise; shielding her with his body as he carried her from the burning church only to be greeted by Keyvine’s sword-cane. I’m sorry, she said when it had played out.

Tell her . . . She watched Nelphia’s surface tremble a little under the weight of his guilt. Tell her I’m glad she finally got to sail in a blood-burner.

I will.

His mindscape faded a little, indicating he was nearing the end of his product. He managed to hang on for a few seconds, however, his thoughts conveying a sincerity that warmed her. Lotta people died on account of our contract, miss. All in all, I’m glad you weren’t one of them.

—

The trance faded and she was back in the small cabin she shared with Tekela. The girl lay on the opposite bunk, sleeping more soundly than Lizanne would have expected. She winced at the sight of the burns on Tekela’s hands, the result of flames breathed into the bridge at the height of the battle. Tekela had pushed her revolver through the slit in the armour and shot at the Blue as it drew breath for a blast. The burns were the only reward for her bravery, though she swore she had put a bullet down the drake’s throat. Heavy doses of Green had done much to heal the scars and prevent any impairment, but the discolouration remained, making it appear as if she wore a pair of patchwork gloves.

Lizanne rose from her bunk and reached for the large carpet-bag resting in the corner, opening it to regard the device inside. You told us so much and also so little, she said to the thing’s long-lost inventor. Did you know what you were leading us to, I wonder? Were you like Silverpin? Compelled to undertake deadly expeditions and craft inventions by some mysterious voice. Or were you, like the rest of us, just another greedy fool?

For a brief second she entertained the notion of taking it aloft and casting it over the side, suspicious of any more secrets that might lurk in its baffling mechanicals. Then, with a sigh she closed the bag and placed it back in the corner. She couldn’t truly decipher it, and neither, for all his technical wizardry, could Jermayah. But in Feros, there lived a man who might.

“This will be the only gift I ever brought home for you, Father,” she whispered. “Perhaps you’ll finally be glad to see me.”

—

She found Arberus on the platform where they had battled the Blues, arms resting on the iron wall as he stared out at the sea, smoke rising from the cigarillo between his fingers and reminding her of someone she had killed not so long ago. The memory summoned a flare of anger, connected as it was to Madame’s traitorous scheming, and also a recognition that such things were behind her. I will never be a spy again, she knew, and found the prospect far more agreeable than expected.

“Do you ever wonder,” she began, moving to Arberus’s side, “what your grandmother would have had to say about all this?”

He gave a small shrug, keeping his eyes on the sky. It was a three-moon night and the sea shimmered like molten silver under the light cast by the three heavenly sisters. “I like to think she would have understood,” he said. “For an idealist, she had a surprisingly pragmatic nature.”

“Would she really have been so forgiving?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Here you are allied with the forces of corporatist greed whilst the global economy stands on the brink of disaster.”

He gave a short laugh and began to quote in Eutherian, “‘The concept of stability in markets is perhaps the worst lie ever perpetrated by the corporate elite. In transforming a description into an ideology they blinded themselves to the inescapable flaw of any society built on greed . . .’”

The flow of invective stopped as she kissed him, finding his lips rough and chafed by so many days at sea, his breath also rich in cigarillo smoke. Neither proved sufficient reason to stop, however.

After a while she drew back, plucking the cigarillo from his fingers and taking a deep draw as she enjoyed the surprise on his face. “My father,” she said, then paused to blow a thin stream of smoke into the air, “is truly going to hate you.”

CHAPTER 47

Hilemore

The Viable Opportunity came free of the reef with only a few additional scrapes to her hull, aided by a stiff easterly wind that whipped up waves of sufficient height to lift the keel from the coral. Hilemore ordered the paddles to full ahead and they rode the swell into open water, Zenida immediately steering a southern course. Like most of the crew she remained largely silent, her eyes constantly roving the waves for any sign of the drakes’ return. It had been two full days since they witnessed the sinking of the Corvantine ship and the great Blue migration into northern waters. The crew had been left in a decidedly jittery state ever since and Hilemore found he couldn’t blame them, although he had been quick to quash any suggestion they prolong their stay on the reef.

“They’re cold-water beasts,” Zenida said in Varestian, more to herself than him he suspected. “Live by hunting whales and walrus amidst the ice. Never seen in northern climes. Never.”

“Well now they are,” was all he could think to say. He found himself cursing Mr. Tottleborn for having such fatally bad luck. A trance communication with the Sea Board, or anyone else for that matter, would be very welcome just now. Before the migration the war had dominated his thoughts, but now a suspicion had begun to build that it might not be the most important event to transpire in this region after all. There were so many of them, he recalled, picturing the mass of snake-like forms cutting through the waves.

He had briefly considered following in their wake, debating whether duty required he make some effort to discover their ultimate destination. However, his ingrained adherence to the service did not include suicidal urges, and he had serious doubts the men would have stood for it in any case. Habitually superstitious, many amongst the crew had taken on a decidedly haunted aspect, given to muttering archaic warding words or singing ominous shanties as they went about their duties; “Beneath the Spectral Sea” being a particular favourite.

So, lacking any other course, he had opted to stick with his original plan. The Viable would make for Hadlock where they would reprovision and, with any luck, the Ironship concession would have a Blood-blessed who could explain just what in the Travail was going on.

—

Another storm blew up two days later, forcing a diversion to the south-west which would add well over a week to their sailing time to Hadlock. Hilemore maintained a close observance of routine throughout the voyage, keeping up the gun drills and making sure the men didn’t slacken in the myriad tasks that kept a ship from transforming into an unseemly hulk. The mood lightened a little as the days passed and the sea remained free of Blues, the crew regaining a modicum of sprightliness as it became apparent that their doom was not in fact imminent. That all changed when they found the life-boat.

The crow’s nest spied it five days after they had freed the Viable from the reef. They had resumed course for Hadlock by now, keeping due west through a sea thankfully becalmed after the storm. In response to the call from the tube Hilemore trained his glass on the distant speck below the horizon. A boat, covered over with tarp, but no sail. Also, no sign of any crew.

“Dead slow,” he ordered Talmant before turning to Steelfine. “See to the recovery of that boat, if you would, Number One.”

“Aye, sir.”

Unwilling to take any chances, Hilemore had the full complement of riflemen arrayed along the rail and all guns loaded and manned. He signalled all stop as the boat came within twenty yards of the stern and Zenida altered the angle of the Viable’s bows to bring the craft alongside. Steelfine, stripped to the waist and shoeless, fastened a line on the boat by the simple expedient of diving over the side and swimming to it. Upon tying the rope to the boat’s rudder Steelfine’s face bunched in an expression of profound disgust. Hilemore discovered the reason a second later as the stench wafted up over the rail. A murmur of unease ran through the crew for it was a smell they all knew well by now.

Steelfine climbed onto the boat and took hold of the tarp before glancing up at Hilemore with a questioning glance. He replied with a nod and the Islander pulled the tarp aside, unleashing yet more stench and the sight of six bodies. They were all burnt to some degree, one so badly half his face was a mask of charcoal. They had been dead for several days and the rictus had contorted their faces into smiles.

“Eastern Conglomerate sailors, Captain,” Steelfine called to him, holding up an empty sack with stencilled lettering. “The ECT Endeavour, looks like.”

“I know her, sir,” one of the men piped up. “Works the route twixt Hadlock and Carvenport.”

“Not any more she don’t,” another man said in a grim mutter. “State they’re in, couldn’t have lasted more’n a day once they took to the boat.”

“Alright!” Hilemore barked, snapping them all to attention. “Riflemen dismissed. Return to your allotted duties.” He moved to the rail and called down to Steelfine. “See them on their way, Number One. The King of the Deep will expect his due.”

—

The approach to Hadlock was guarded by a lighthouse of ingenious construction, the base curved so as to deflect the steep seas which were common in this region. It transpired that they were fortunate to come upon it in daylight, as Hilemore doubted it would ever shine out a warning again. The iron-and-glass housing which should have sat atop the great column was gone, the stonework beneath blackened and scorched over much of its surface. Whatever had befallen the light-keepers was probably best left to the imagination. The channel beyond the lighthouse proved even more foreboding, the crow’s nest reporting no less than four wrecked vessels. The tide was high so all they could see of them were the masts, sticking out of the waves like leafless trees after a flood.

“Doesn’t bode well for Hadlock,” Zenida commented.

Hilemore ordered the engines slowed as they neared the port, using his glass to scan the buildings and finding Zenida’s prediction all too accurate. There didn’t appear to be a single building still standing, the streets transformed into irregular lines of blackened brick with not a living soul in sight. Lowering the angle of the glass he found the harbour choked with sunk vessels, and also a not-inconsiderable number of bloated corpses littering the wreckage.

“All stop,” he ordered, annoyed at the grating choke of his voice. He took a moment to clear his throat before continuing, thankful that those present gave no sign of having registered his moment of frailty. “Number One, assemble a squad of riflemen and prepare a launch. We’re going ashore. Mr. Talmant, you have the ship.”

—

“Is this altogether wise?” Zenida murmured at his shoulder as the launch made its way into the harbour, those men not at the oars keeping watch on the ruins with rifles at the ready.

“We need supplies,” Hilemore muttered in response. “Food, ammunition and product if there’s any to be had.”

“There’s only death to be had here.” She took a firmer grip on her Corvantine revolver, keen eyes scanning the surrounding wreckage.

They were obliged to row their way through several bodies before reaching the quay, the cadavers becoming so densely packed at one point that Steelfine was obliged to push them aside with an oar, unleashing a miasma of foul gasses as some burst under the prodding. Several men had heaved their breakfasts over the side by the time they tied up to the wharf. Hilemore left two men with the launch and led the others into what remained of Hadlock. He had called here a few times in the course of his career and grown to appreciate the mostly trouble-free port, especially for the hearty if unrefined quality of the local cuisine. His men, however, had clearly pursued other interests.

“That was Old Brass Belle’s whore-house,” said one, voice thick with emotion as he pointed his rifle at a pile of bricks. “Generous sort, she was. Let y’have a handy if you were a scrip short for a tumble.”

“Captain,” Steelfine said in a soft voice. Hilemore saw that he had sunk into a crouch, rifle pointing up at the sky. Following the Islander’s gaze Hilemore saw a dark, winged shape glide through the clouds barely a hundred feet up. He had never seen one in the flesh before, but knew without any doubt that he now looked upon a Black drake.

“Rifles up!” he barked, and every weapon was immediately trained on the dark silhouette above.

“That’s what did this!” one of the men hissed, his voice betraying the onset of panic. “We should kill the fucker and get gone from here.”

“Shut your yap,” Steelfine warned in a low growl, rifle tracking the drake across the sky. It banked and wheeled about, long neck coiling and Hilemore knew it had seen them.

“Can you get it from here?” he asked Steelfine.

“I’ll hit it sure enough,” the Islander replied. “Can’t say if I’ll kill it.”

“You won’t,” said a new voice.

Hilemore whirled, levelling his revolver at a figure standing only a few yards away; a young man in a green-leather duster. The young man stared at him for a moment, head angled slightly, Hilemore seeing him to be of South Mandinorian heritage and, if his accent was anything to go by, Carvenport birth. The shirt beneath his duster was ripped and Hilemore could see a stained bandage beneath it. He appeared to be weaponless but for a knife on his belt. Something that couldn’t be said for the people who quickly appeared at his side. Four men and a young woman, all bearing fire-arms.

“You won’t kill him,” the young man said, coming closer. “Not with that popgun. And he’ll be sure to take exception to the attempt.”

The young man stopped as Hilemore drew back the hammer on his revolver. He was struck by the expression on the young man’s face, both weary and sad, but with a faintly amused twist to his lips.

“Who are you?” Hilemore demanded.

“Claydon Torcreek, Captain,” the young man replied, raising his hands. He laughed a little, eyes roving over Hilemore’s face in obvious recognition. “And you really don’t want to shoot me. Not if we’re going to save the world.”