On Discord Isle (7 page)

That could work.
Fengel could almost see it now, a cozy cottage situated up above, rooms on each trunk connected by whimsical rope bridges. He rolled the image over in his mind, and was pleased by it. It wouldn’t be
that
hard to implement.
If my crew ever come back, won’t they be sorry to see what a splendid life I’ve made for myself here.

Fengel nodded to himself and walked up to the trunk of the banyan. First things first: he needed to get atop the structure in order to properly survey it. Fengel removed his coat and set it aside, then tried to climb up the tree. The task was easier said than done, however. His boots were suited to walking the deck of a ship, not clambering up a surprisingly slick tree trunk. Also, his wounded leg protested every time he bent it too far. He fell. Then tried again, with similar results. After the fifth collapse back down to the ground, Fengel gathered his coat and glared at the tree.

Fine, then. More moderate means of shelter will have to suffice. At least for now.

An image came to mind of a simpler dwelling at the base of the tree. A cottage formed of branches and carved lumber. Fengel nodded to himself and started gathering deadfall.

There was surprisingly little free wood, however. After a span of minutes he only had three small branches in hand. And there was another setback, one he hadn’t counted upon; he needed something sharp with which to shape the wood. His crew had taken his sword, dagger and emergency knife. There might have been one in the supply crate, but either Natasha had it, or it was buried now somewhere under the sand. Which came to the same thing in the end.

Fengel sighed deeply.
Well. If I can’t have a house just yet, I can at least have a fire.
He returned to the tree line with his branches and knelt before the sand. Lucian Thorne, traitor though he was, was an accomplished survivalist. He’d tried to show Fengel the trick of fire more than once. Thinking back, it seemed easy enough.

Place one branch upon the ground like so. Then, sharpen the end of the other branch, stick it on the first, and spin. Hmm.
He hadn’t any knife to cut the branch with, but it was just friction between the two sticks. How hard could that be?

A few minutes later Fengel threw the two branches away in frustration. They landed in the sand, one sailing so far as to land at the tide line. The surf pulled it into the waves, then deposited it back up higher than it had landed, mocking him.

Fengel closed his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair.

His “loyal” crew had stuck him here. He and Natasha. But they’d said it was only temporary. Perhaps in his shock he’d forgotten that.
How long is the trip to Breachtown from here? This place is near the equator, so likely three days by aetherline and steam. Then the same for the trip back.
He just had to last that long.

He moved to sit cross-legged where the tree line cast shade over the beach and pulled a piece of the rock-like biscuit from jacket. “What am I worried about?” he said aloud to no one in particular. “Things are probably falling apart without me there.”

Chapter Five

Things were going surprisingly well.

Lina shifted in her crouch over the canister while Rastalak adjusted his rubber hose. She scanned the interior of the gas-bag envelope. It always made her nervous, coming up here. Seen from the outside, the balloon keeping the
Dawnhawk
aloft was a great ridged spindle. Once inside, though, things were altogether different. Diffuse daylight revealed a hollow yet cluttered space, with a long central strut running down the middle of the envelope. Wires and armatures branched out along its length, stretching to the metal poles that kept the canvas skin rigid, so that the whole arrangement put Lina in mind of a winter-deadened tree lying on its side.

Between the wires and struts hung the gas cells, small oblong sacks of treated cloth. The contents of the cells were an open secret, a light-air gas capable of lifting the heavy wooden hull of an airship off into the sky. The precise nature of the gas was guarded jealously by the Mechanist Brotherhood, but working around it every day, Lina and the other sky pirates knew just enough to be afraid. The stuff was both poisonous to breath and insanely flammable. Outside, she could forget these details. Stuck within the gas bag, that became rather more difficult.

Lina shifted again in her crouch and adjusted her gas mask. The catwalk she hunched upon led from the gas bag entrance behind her to the larger walkway balanced upon the central strut. The old Mechanist stood farther along it, shrouded in his heavy leather greatcoat and gas mask. He held a long metal wand in one hand and swept it back and forth, checking for gas leaks.

The older Mechanist was clearly everything Allen aspired to be. Responsible for maintenance aboard the airship, he focused on his duties with a kind of cold fanaticism. Where Allen was nervous and annoying, the Mechanist was stoic and secretive. Lina didn’t even know his name.

Lina had been lounging near the stern deck with Rastalak when the Mechanist had appeared to dragoon them both. This wasn’t uncommon. Tradition held that the work of a ship’s Mechanist was more important than almost anything else. Right now that meant hunting down a gas leak. Thankfully, it had only been the one cell, and quickly tended by the two of them. At the old man’s direction, they’d ripped out the leaky cell, put in the new, and were now charging it up.  

Lina turned back to her friend. “He’s finished looking over the stern,” she said, voice muffled by the mask. “Is that done yet? I want to get this over with.”

Rastalak blinked up at her, his nictitating membrane slightly slower to clear away. Shorter even than she was, Rastalak wore only a pair of trousers with a hole cut in them for his tail. He prodded the bag carefully with the back of one talon, then nodded and closed the locking valve on the gas cell. Rastalak worked slowly and deliberately. The bandages swathing his hands obviously made the movements difficult.

“Full,” he said. His voice was raspy still from the smoke he’d inhaled aboard the
Minnow
.

“Let’s pack up then,” said Lina. She bent to help him seal up the canister and unplug the hose.

“You are twitchy,” he said when they were done. “Nervous.”

“These cells are just waiting for a stray spark,” she grunted.

The reptilian pirate shook his head. “It is just as dangerous, when we are down below.”

Lina frowned. “Yes, but it’s different, standing here and
looking
at the things.”

He hissed in amusement.

Lina stood and stretched, ignoring him. She walked over to the Mechanist, boots clanging on the catwalk. He looked down at her approach.

“Is the task complete?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” said Lina. “Topped up and good to go.”

“We shall see,” said the Mechanist. He stalked over to wave his wand around the replacement cell. The Mechanist examined a small box on his belt and then nodded. Bending past Rastalak, he then prodded the cell with a finger and checked its seal. “Sufficient, for now,” he said. “I shall finish up here myself. You are free to return to your duties below.”

And not even a thank you.
“Yes, sir,” she said, trying to sound chipper.

When she’d been new to this life, the Mechanist had been as much a mystery to her as everything else. He’d been one of the few people to treat her decently back then, ignoring her past in favor of her natural proficiency with the airship’s machinery. Fengel had consistently sent her to assist the man because of this, hoping to have someone on his crew who knew how the
Dawnhawk
really worked. Familiarity had ended up breeding contempt though, and in the end she realized that the Brother of the Cog saw her the way he did everyone else; as tools of lesser or greater quality. He was all right in the end, and it was never wise to cross him, but now she found him largely overbearing and tedious.

Lina ducked past the Mechanist for the hatch back outside. She unlocked it and pushed it wide, letting bright daylight and fresh air flood the gas bag interior. Lina scurried through, putting hands and feet to the now-familiar rigging. Outside, the canvas skin of the gas bag was a dun wall stretching in every direction, a net-wrapped counterpoint to the vast expanse of the sky. Grey-winged seagulls wheeled up near the top of the airship. Down below lay the ocean, waves churning the warm blue-green water into foam. The sun hung stark and brilliant just above the horizon and set the skysails along the hull to shining.

A cold wind pushed at her clothing and played with the tufts of her hair not pinned down by the gas mask straps. She descended until the deck of the airship came into view beneath the curve of the envelope and paused there, looking back up for her friend. Rastalak peered out from the doorway down at her. Climbing was a slow and tedious process with his burned hands.

Lina hooked one arm through the rigging. She pulled the gas mask down around her neck and instantly felt better. The air was fresh and tinged by the sea, a welcome change from the recycled leather stink of the mask.

“Come on!” she called. “I’ll stay here in case you need help.”

Rastalak nodded. He slowly made his way outside, shut the door, then began his descent.

Lina relaxed while she waited. She glanced down at the ocean, hundreds of feet below.
I guess it doesn’t make much sense
, she conceded. She could just as likely die from some stupid accident, a slip and a fall, as get blown up by a stray spark in the gas bag.

Beneath her, the day crew went about their business. Lucian stood up on the bow, peering through a spyglass. Tricia worked with Ryan Gae on oiling the skysail armatures in preparation for an upcoming ride on an aetherline. Runt lay curled up on the starboard exhaust pipe, out of the way. Everywhere she looked her crewmates worked quietly and efficiently. Things were...remarkably peaceful. Even the crazy aetherite helmsmen, Konrad and Maxim, weren’t fighting, though each still kept an untrusting hand on the ship’s wheel.

It had been a full day since they’d left Natasha and Fengel on Almhazlik Isle, and things were going well. Astonishingly so. When she’d first told the crew her plan, she’d half-expected to get tossed overboard herself. Yet everyone had gone along with it, and so far they hadn’t managed to crash the airship or burst into flames.

She gazed out at the ocean, bemused.
I wonder if every pirate ship could do this. Realms Below, go even further. Maybe we don’t need leaders. Maybe all those kingdoms back on Edrus and all sea-going ships could just pitch their captains, kings, and sheiks, get along like we are.

A speck of color down on the water below caught her eye. Lina blinked in surprise. It was a ship. Not quite beneath them, but close enough, obviously trying to stay hidden in the
Dawnhawk’s
shadow. It was only dumb luck that the vessel hadn’t been noticed before now.
That, or Gabley is slacking again.
She’d have to have a word with the white ape.

Lina scrabbled a little lower, peering down at the vessel. Months as a pirate had taught her what to look for. The ship’s hull was low in the water, meaning she sailed with a full hold. She also lacked paddlewheels and the exhaust stacks of the new naval steam-frigates. Her home port could have been anywhere on the continent of Edrus; Salomca, Perinault, or Greisheim. Lina didn’t know and didn’t really care. She wasn’t a navy ship and she had cargo, and that meant there was only one other thing she could be.

Prey.

Lina descended the rigging until she hung halfway between the deck and the gasbag. “Ship ahoy!” she cried. “Off the port-side bow!”

Heads popped up from various tasks as the crew all looked about in surprise. Almost as one they moved to the gunwales. She pointed out the ship and they bent low to look at it, exclaiming in surprise. Lucian Thorne and Sarah Lome pushed through to stand beside Reaver Jane. The first mate pulled out a spyglass and peered downward. Everyone fell quiet.

“That’s a ship, all right,” he said after a moment. “Perinese, I think. Barkentine. Too small to be Merchant Navy. They’ve seen us, obviously. Odd that they’re not running full out; it’s a miracle that we haven’t noticed them until now. Someone remind me to have a bit of a chat with Gabley’s ape soon.”

He trailed off as he continued his inspection. Lina glanced back at the crew. Everyone was looking at each other, the same unspoken question obvious on each face. They were all feeling poor at the moment. Twice now they’d been back to port since the Yulan adventure six months ago, with nothing to show for it, thanks to Fengel and Natasha’s constant fighting.

Lucian still hadn’t spoken up.
Sod it
. Lina cleared her throat. “Well?” she asked. “Aren’t we going to get them?”

The crew spoke up all at once.

“Can we?” asked Jonas Wiley.

“Why in the Realms Below wouldn’t we?” asked his brother Nate, hands still swathed in bandages.

“They’re running already,” said Sarah Lome. “We’d have to fight the wind.”

“That just means burning fuel, which we’re doing already,” replied Reaver Jane.

“We haven’t taken a real prize in months,” lamented Henry Smalls.

“But can we?” asked Elly Minel.

Lina glared down at them. “Well, why not?” she demanded, raising her gaze to the others. “I know what we’re all thinking; the captains are gone. But that was the point. We got rid of them. It’s not like we need to ask
permission,
for Her sake.”

“But who’s gonna lead us?” whined Oscar Pleasant.

“The Breachtown heist is one thing,” said Andrea Holt. “We already know what we’re about there. Someone’s got to make the big moment-to-moment decisions, though. Do we...elect someone else captain?”

Uneasiness washed across the faces of everyone present. Lina knew how they felt. They didn’t hate Fengel and Natasha. It was just impossible to get anything done with the two of them around. Kicking them off the ship hadn’t been undertaken lightly.