Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset (3 page)

BOOK: Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset
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“I’ll take the starboard hatches,” said Maiath to Thebulin. “You go around portside. We’ll meet up at the stern.” Thebulin nodded and they split up.

Gilderam
had eight hatches on her main deck, which was a wooden walkway encircling the whole ship. There was one at the fore end, one aft, and three spaced along each side. At its narrowest, the deck was about half an
entil
wide, but it fattened out at its cardinal points. The fore was roughly three
entilum
at its zenith, the aft about two, and either side just one. Altogether, the ship was almost twenty-nine
entilum
long.

Thebulin cinched his coat up tight and crossed his arms for warmth, walking with a quickened gait to the next hatch. The
baethes voth
bit at his ears and nose.

He locked the first door as fast as he could and continued around the ship. As the deck began to widen out along the port side, Thebulin eyed the deckgun mounted there. He was about to lock the door behind it when he stopped abruptly, taken aback by what he saw. He whipped out his pistol, but didn’t move. For a moment he was perfectly still, staring at the back of the gun.

The ammunition case was unlatched, and its lid hung open slightly.

Then he heard footsteps coming from his left, astern.

“Maiath!” he called out. “Come here! This deckgun looks like it’s been unloaded!”

Thebulin came to the gun and opened the ammunition case. It was completely empty. It should’ve been stacked with shells. Thebulin saw the form approaching from the aft.

“Look at this, Maiath,” he said to the oncoming figure. “Someone’s unloaded the gun. Why would Maeriod order that? Unless….”

When the approaching man entered the light of a nearby lamp, Thebulin could see that it was not Maiath. It was a stranger in a dark suit.

Thebulin swung his pistol toward him.

“Hey, how did you get out here? No one’s allowed on deck. You’ll have to go back to the ballroom.”

“I’m sorry,” said the man, walking up to Thebulin, “but I know what happened to the ammunition.”

“You… what?”

“You see,” he said, stopping in front of him, “I’ve thrown it overboard.”

Before Thebulin could say another word, the man drove a knife into his neck. He stabbed him several more times under the jaw until Thebulin’s body slumped lifelessly to the deck.

After procuring his gun, the man in the suit dragged Thebulin’s corpse to the rail and hefted it over. He watched it disappear soundlessly into airy darkness below, then made his way back to the stern.

At the rear of the ship, two gigantic, ducted propellers roared underneath the deck, pushing
Gilderam
along at cruising speed. Leaning on another disarmed deckgun, another dark-suited saboteur waited for him.

“Did you take care of him?” he asked over the din of the propellers.

“Of course.”

“I’ve discarded the last of the ammunition. Signal the ships.”

Thebulin’s killer dug in his pockets for a particular bullet and loaded it into the pistol. He aimed the gun skyward and fired. It launched a bright red flare, which streaked across the sky in a blinding arc that faded away as fast at it had come.

Just before it winked out, at the tail end of its descent, the flare briefly illuminated the ghostly prows of two ships following close behind.

Chapter Two:
Disaster Strikes

 

 

 

“Everyone inside please,” Shazahd urged a few guests still ambling in the corridor. The guards ushered them into the ballroom and closed the doors behind. The general murmuring of the guests was beginning to crescendo into a nervous racket.

“I say, Mistress Ranaloc,” said one very tired looking guest in his night robe. “What’s the meaning of this? Don’t I have time to dress myself properly? Let me get back to my room and I’ll –”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she replied. “Please, just bear with us for a short while.”

“Well, what in the blazes is going on?!”

Shazahd ignored him and went over to the orchestra, which had stopped playing when the guests became disquieted.

“Please, play something,” she said to the conductor. “Something light, like a waltz.”

“Very good, Mistress Ranaloc,” said the conductor, and instructed his players. A moment later and they were strumming again, though their jaunty tune did little to ease the anxiety growing in the ballroom.

Shazahd moved swiftly back to the doors guarded by Fulo and Gor’m, making every attempt along the way to remain as polite as possible to her guests without actually answering any of their questions.

“What’s going on, here?” “Where’s Mentrat?!” “Why must we all stay in the ballroom?” “Where do you think you’re going?! I’m talking to you!” “My Lady! Please!”

“I’m not a
mlec
lady,” Shazahd hissed through her teeth. She gave up trying to address anyone and pushed and shoved her way to the door.

“Don’t let anyone leave,” she said to Fulo as she reached for the handle, but he put himself in her way.

“I’m sorry, Miss Ranaloc. But I’m afraid you’re not to leave either. Maeriod’s orders.”

She scorched him with a caustic glare. “Just who the
mlec
do you think you’re talking to?!” she demanded. “I’m the one who’s paying you!”

She reached for the door again, and this time Fulo grabbed her hand.

“That’s exactly why you can’t leave.”

 

 

Captain Breld returned to the bridge and knocked four times on the door. He heard indistinct voices from within, but no footsteps. No one came to the door. He knocked again and said, “This is Captain Adan Breld. You can open the door, Mec.”

The lock unlatched and the door swung open. Two unfamiliar and unfriendly faces greeted him on the other side. The taller one grabbed the captain by the lapel, yanked him inside and threw him onto the floor. The shorter man kicked Breld hard in the gut – knocking the air out of him. As he coughed and wheezed, struggling to get his diaphragm working again, the captain’s head was wrenched back and a bloodstained knife came to his throat.

“No, wait!” said the tall man. His counterpart froze, holding Breld by his white hair. “Don’t kill him… yet. We can use him.”

“Use him for what?”

“The Captain ought to make a good hostage. If anyone comes to the door.”

The short man on top of Breld pondered this for a second, looking down at his victim. Then he relaxed his knife a bit.

“Fine,” he said. “But you tie him up.”

As he did, the shorter man came to controls at the front of the bridge and found the engine order dial at the center of the console. He took the lever in his hand, squeezed it, and brought it all the way down, ringing a bell. Then he slid it up to the position marked “All Stop.” After a moment, a fainter bell rang in reply and a marker on the opposite side of the dial readjusted itself to meet the lever at “All Stop.” The ambient hum of the engines diminuendoed and the ship began to slow down, gently lurching to a halt.

 

 

In the ballroom, the guests noticed the change in speed immediately, and it ignited even more nervous chatter. Their host, pacing hotly by the main doors, perked up when she sensed it.

A nearby woman in an ornate purple gown said, “What was that, Miss Ranaloc? Are we stopping?” She fanned herself and smiled sweetly, but her smile melted away when she saw Shazahd’s expression change. Without answering, Shazahd sped off toward the bar where Galif sat nursing a drink. The stout Chief Engineer saw her coming.

“About
mlec
time,” he grumbled.

“We need to find out what’s going on with my ship, Galif. Come on.” He drained the remainder of his drink and the pair strolled casually behind the bar and into the storeroom beyond it. Fulo eyed them warily from the doors.

The storeroom was a simple closet filled with crates of alcohol. Galif slid a couple boxes out of one corner and uncovered a hatch in the floor. He pulled it up by a ring and waited for Shazahd to descend into it, then followed her down.

The staircase led to a narrow, unlit passageway, but Shazahd’s necklace provided enough green light for them to see. Galif was so short he could stand upright in the meager passage, but Shazahd’s half-elvish height meant she had to stoop.

“Where to?” he asked.

“The bridge,” she said. “This way.”

 

 

Ulrath and Dez came to the door marked “Engine Room,” and discovered a pair of murdered bodies on the floor outside it.

“By the gods…” said Ulrath, bending over to examine the victims. The feel of cool, dead skin sent a shiver down his spine. He exchanged a glance with Dez, and the two of them cocked their pistols. Carefully –
quietly
– they crept through the doors.

Several stories below, on the floor, they saw two men in dark suits. One with a thick mustache was dragging a body across the floor, and the other unloaded a satchel beside a turbine. Ulrath and Dez treaded softly across the grated catwalk, bringing their pistols to bear down on them.

“Hold it right there!” Dez shouted. “Don’t move or we’ll shoot!”

The men on the floor below stopped what they were doing and looked up to see the newcomers.

“Freeze! Both of you!” Ulrath shouted. “We’re coming down!”

Without another moment’s hesitation, both men on the floor raised their guns and fired. Twin cracks sent fat, iron slugs whizzing into the air. Ulrath and Dez ducked reflexively, and fled to dodge the rounds.

A pipe blew open on the ceiling overhead, and white-hot steam poured onto the catwalk. Ulrath was crouching right underneath it, and the superheated steam seared his flesh upon contact. He screamed and tore off blindly down the catwalk, stumbling into the railing as he went.

Dez dove for cover behind a horizontal column of tubes and pipes running the length of the engine room. As the men on the floor took cover and reloaded, Dez peered over the heap of piping and fired off a shot.

The blast was enormously loud – deafening – and the slug bounced off a turbine, narrowly missing the head of one of the fleeing hijackers. Hiding behind the pipes again, Dez unlatched his pistol, dumped out the smoking, empty shell and fumbled to insert a fresh one. He could hear Ulrath cursing his burns on the other side of the engine room.

A poorly aimed blast from the floor ricocheted off something durable. Dez heard Ulrath cry out – it must have been close – and fire back. A second blast from the floor punctured the horizontal column of pipes blocking Dez and flew straight through it, only about an arm’s length away from him.

Seizing the opportunity while his enemies reloaded, Dez carefully leaned out over the top of his cover again. He could see the partial profile of one of the dark-suited men reloading, barely visible past the edge of a turbine. Dez took careful aim, but was distracted by something rolling on the ground. It was a little black iron ball, spilt from the satchel beside the turbine.

Dez fired.

The slug veered to one side and glanced off the surface of the turbine. The hijacker had finished reloading, and was just flicking his pistol’s barrel closed when the bullet bounced off the turbine and collided into his skull, blasting away the side of his head.

Dead in an instant, the saboteur’s body spun around as it fell, propelled by the force of impact. The loaded pistol dropped from his limp hand and landed upside-down in the open satchel. It fired upon landing, and detonated all five of the bombs still inside it.

 

 

Owein knocked again on the door.

“Master Ranaloc,” he said again. “Please come out. We need to know you’re safe.”

They waited, but again there was no reply.

“Is
he
a lord?” Owein asked his men. They shrugged. “Okay,
Lord
Ranaloc, please come out –”

They heard a deep, distant explosion from the rear of the ship. Then they felt a tremor as the hallway quaked beneath their feet. Everyone froze; their eyes locked on Owein.

“What the
mlec
was that?”

“All right, men,” said Owein. “This is no longer routine. Let’s go.” Owein led his men running down the corridor.

A second later and the door he had been knocking on flew open. A wild-eyed old man, unshaven for days, and with a flowing mess of white hair, gripped the doorframe for balance. He wore a silk banyan over his underclothes. 

“What the
gweith
was that?!” he bellowed hoarsely. Then he ran in the opposite direction Owein had gone.

 

 

The bellowing
boom
silenced the ballroom instantly. The great shuddering of the ship that followed, however, let loose a symphony of communal screaming. Fulo, Gor’m and the security guards manning the other doors were suddenly confronted with a riotous mob.

A few women fainted, and guests began to shout at the guardsmen, demanding to know what was going on. Some tried storming the doors and were alarmed to find them all locked. Panicked hysteria infected the guests as they became collectively convinced that this voyage would be their last.

Fulo wrestled with one guest who was trying to take his gun. Gor’m grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him into a table. Fulo popped a shell into his gun, cocked it, and fired it into the ceiling. The ear-shattering
bang
got everyone’s attention.

“Lords and Ladies!” he shouted, purposefully leaving a twinge of barely-controlled rage in his voice. “Please, remain calm….”

 

 

Galif shuffled uneasily behind Shazahd in the passageway. She led with the necklace held aloft in her hand. The green light rose and fell in intensity, beating with the heart of Divar, but gave only enough light to see a short distance ahead. The rest was obscured in the murk. 

“Up here,” said Galif, “we’ll need to turn left and then we’re almost –”

But he was interrupted by the explosion. The tunnel shook violently side-to-side, and banged them against the narrow walls.

“What was that?!” Shazahd said as she picked herself off the floor. Galif pressed his ear to the ground.

“That came from the engine room! What have they done?!” The short man sprang to his feet and ran back the way they had come.

“Galif! Wait!” Shazahd called after him. “Where are you going?” He escaped the meager light of the heartroot and vanished into the shadows of the passage.

“I’ve got to get to the engine room!” his voice called back.

“But how will you find it? You can’t see!”

“Shazahd, I drafted this passage. I know every twist and t–”

Smack!

“Galif…?!”

“…Ow.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Your
mlec
father keeps making his own additions. You keep going. Left up ahead, and then just a bit further down.” His voice was getting distant. “I’ll see you on the other side!”

 

 

Gilderam’s
observation deck was a round room with a glass dome for a ceiling at the very top of the ship. A young midshipman named Gantas was stationed there, alone, and paced around the quiet, empty room. When the explosion went off, it rumbled the floor beneath him so suddenly he had to grab onto a railing to keep from falling. He paused, braced for another explosion, but none came.

Gantas ran up the stairs encircling the round room, to the top of the observatory, and searched out the windowed dome for an attacking ship. He saw nothing, but noticed the hum of the engines had disappeared.

He ran around the circumference of the observatory intent on finding the attacking ship. He encircled it completely without finding a thing. Frustrated, Gantas arrived back at the aft end where he had started.

There was nothing out there.

That’s when it hit Gantas. He didn’t see the escort ship either. Something must be very wrong.

And then, behind
Gilderam
, he saw the bows of two airships emerge from a cloud, entering the light of the night sky on a gentle approach. They flew identical brown flags, each with the image of a white tricorn in the center. The sight dropped his heart to the floor.

BOOK: Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset
3.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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