Tinker's Justice (35 page)

K’k’rt cleared his throat. Rynn briefly confused it for the goblin muttering to himself in his own language, before he continued in Korrish. “You don’t suppose it might be time to evacuate ourselves, now, do you?”

“And leave whoever is left to their fates? We can’t save everyone in time, even with the help from our other base.”

“I’m not sure we can save ourselves, if he comes for us,” K’k’rt replied.

Rynn nodded. Maybe they couldn’t save themselves. She didn’t pray often, but if not at a time like this, then when? “Holy Eziel, defender of my people, lend me strength in my time of need. I am technically about to violate your tenet about not killing my own kind, but I would submit to you that Danilaesis Solaran is an inhuman monster, and thus exempt. So if we could both look the other way this once, I think everything will work out for the better. Thank you.”

“Nice god you’ve got there,” K’k’rt remarked. “Does he ever show up to help?”

“Nope, not yet,” Rynn replied. “But he’s never tried to eat me, either, so I’m still scoring him a goal up on your dragon.”

K’k’rt snorted. “If we had a dragon here, this warlock would be dead already. One fiery breath would be all it would take.”

One fiery breath. If only he knew
.

Rynn rechecked the count of ball bearings in her coil gun. Six. Same as the last time she counted. If she needed more than six shots—if she needed more than one or two—it wouldn’t matter whether she had any more than that.

The ship shook. There was a long, agonized groan of steel being stretched in directions it was not meant to go. Rynn put her hands out to steady herself as the floor shifted, tilting at a new, steeper angle.

“And what if he drops us from the sky instead of coming to us?” K’k’rt asked. “How many runes do you think still hold us up?”

“Enough,” Rynn replied, thought she wasn’t so sure of that. They were in a room with no windows to the outside. It was possible that they were drifting down already. It wouldn’t take anything as dramatic as freefall to kill them. The
Jennai
would likely break apart even hitting the water at a moderate speed.

The main dining hall had once played host to the wealthiest kuduks in Korr. They ate pastries dusted with powdered gemstones and drank from crystal that cost more than a human at auction. During the rebel’s custodianship, it had seen plundered coin passed back and forth over games of chance. Humans who had never put twenty tenar together in the same place drank exotic liquors from another world. Now, it had become a battlefield.

Hayfield hunkered down behind the bar along with four of his fellow soldiers. They’d had luck, but their supplies of ball bearings had run out. Eight Veydrans and a pair of daruu in fancy armor sprawled out on the dining hall floor, along with a dozen rebels. Not everyone carried coil guns aboard ship. Only a few officers and raid leaders made a habit of it. No one wore their assault armor except squads on assignment. Who could have guessed that the worst battle in the rebellion’s brief history would be fought on the defensive, aboard their own ship?

The wind whistled through the broken windows, letting the cold outside air into the ship. The clouds in view beyond the glass were rising, or at least it looked that way.

“This is it, boys,” Hayfield said, despite one of his soldiers being conspicuously female. “We’re down to cutlery. Stick to loading kitchenware. Most of the spoons and forks are brightsteel and won’t shoot worth piss.”

“Want me to go scrounging?” one of the soldiers asked, hooking a thumb at the scattered bodies throughout the room.

“Ain’t gonna find much,” Hayfield replied. “Those steel balls don’t stop for much. Most of ‘em probably gone clean through the ship and out to sea.”

“Piss.”

There were murmurs of agreement with the sentiment. Hayfield wished he had better news to share, but truth was truth. He could lie to his superiors when the situation called for it. He could lie to a kuduk without blinking. But he couldn’t lie to men (and a woman) about to die with him.

A shockwave tore through the room, ending idle conversation. Hayfield’s makeshift squad was sheltered from the blast by the bar, but every bit of glassware in the room shattered, from the chandelier, to the drinking glasses, to the bottles behind the bar. The squad was doused in liquor amid a rain of broken glass.

“Fire what you got,” Hayfield ordered. He followed his own command and stuck his coil gun over the bar, peeking just enough to catch a glimpse of the crazy young Veydran with the black sword. Pulling the trigger, he fired a paring knife across the room and ducked back behind cover. Peeking again to see if he had done any damage, he found the Veydran still coming. His squad mates fared no better, and there was a moment’s panic when the Veydran giggled.

Whoosh
.

A plume of flame rolled across the bar, forcing those stealing glances across at their foe to duck down. But there was no safety in that. The liquor caught fire, and being soaked in it, so did Hayfield and his comrades.

Frantically, Hayfield tried to tear off his clothing, but he was soaked to the skin and alcohol burned quickly. He had heard that alcohol fires burned cool, but when it came to being aflame, fire was still fire. The giggling laughter turned to cackling and faded. The Veydran had left them to die.

As soon as their foe was gone, a world-hole opened. Hayfield was screaming when the bucket of water hit him, followed by others for his companions.

“Get them through, quick!” Jamile ordered. Rough hands grabbed him, but Hayfield didn’t care. He was dimly aware of being hauled through the world-hole to someplace that wasn’t on fire. That was good enough to let go and let his mind drift into unconsciousness.

It was time to go. Actually, it was well past time to go. Tanner slunk along the corridors of the
Jennai
, avoiding both sides in the conflict. He was in less danger than perhaps anyone on board the ship, but that would only last so long as neither side saw him consorting with the other. His destination was the liftwing hangar, which he could only hope had survived the airship’s violent jolts and shudders as Danilaesis snipped the strings that suspended it from the heavens.

Keeping a bloody sword in hand was an excellent way to avoid confrontations with either side. A nice, clean, shining sword might mean you were still looking around for someone to stab with it. A man with a clean sword was prone to get orders shouted at him from the first green-eared sergeant that crossed his path. Drench one in someone’s blood, and you took on the look of someone engaged in serious business. In Tanner’s experience, that told most people you were fine on your own.

Of course, few people seemed to carry swords in Korr. It was sad. Tanner had purloined a coil gun from a fallen rebel, and he could see the appeal. Punching holes in brick walls with the tug of a finger had its charm. But Tanner had grown up with a blade in his hand—in two different worlds. There were few in his own world who could match his skill, and he doubted that Korr had anyone worthy of crossing blades with him, let alone besting him. He was a relic in a world where guns ruled the battlefield, and every hole-riddled corpse he passed reminded him of why he didn’t belong in Korr.

The liftwing hangar was a shambles. The tilting deck had let the individual airships slide into a pile at one side of the room. Tanner couldn’t let that stop him, since he had no other plan at the moment, and Danilaesis’s plan seemed likely to get him killed if he didn’t do something soon. The young warlock had every confidence that his father would get them both out before it was too late, but Danilaesis had a habit of thinking of himself first and last, and if there was time after things were settled, then maybe someone else. Tanner wasn’t in the mood for a maybe. He climbed into the pilot’s seat of the least entangled craft and buckled himself in.

Rynn’s people had never let him actually fly one of the liftwing airships, but he had talked to the pilots at length about how they worked. Pilots were like sailors; get them started talking about their livelihood and you could hardly shut them up. Tanner had everything he needed to know that didn’t come from practical experience. He pressed the switch and grinned when the engine roared to life, twirling the propeller into a blur at the nose of the liftwing. For a moment, he forgot the war going on throughout the ship and basked in the childish glee of commanding something big and powerful.

The noise in the hangar was horrific. Normally, the liftwings were towed into the plaza with a winch, but there was no time or manpower for that. The engine’s echo reached deafening levels as Tanner threw the throttle to full power and the liftwing forced its way free of the tangle of wings and chassis. His airship lurched and tugged, finally pulling completely free. It shot forward, and Tanner jerked the control stick back and forth, oversteering in both directions until he managed to aim it through the hangar door.

The plaza was deserted but cluttered. Supplies that had been stowed along the outskirts of the massive strip of steel had spilled across the runway. Tanner throttled back, steering drunkenly around the worst of the debris, hitting some of the boxes and a pile of rope. Someone at a window in one of the converted vacuum tanks shouted down, asking where he thought he was going. It seemed a stupid question:
anywhere but here
.

Tanner hit the end of the plaza runway well below the speed the pilots recommended, tumbling over the edge rather than lifting gracefully by virtue of Korrish science. As he fell nose-first toward the sea, Tanner hammered the throttle to full once more and pulled back on the control stick. The little liftwing pulled out of its dive and flew level.

Tanner left the throttle at full, not caring about his heading. Danilaesis could send someone for him later, but he wasn’t going to risk his life on waiting.

“He’s coming,” K’k’rt said in a hushed tone. “I can see him in the aether. Last chance. We can turn on your machine and be gone before he gets here.”

“We’re staying,” Rynn replied. She crouched behind a corner of the control console and took aim at the doorway.

“Turn it on anyway,” K’k’rt said. “It glows in the aether. We’ll be harder to see for him.”

Rynn nodded. “Go ahead. Do it.” She never took her eyes or her aim from the doorway.

This is it. It’s him or me.

When Danilaesis appeared in the doorway, Rynn pulled the trigger. He was already ducking for cover, but the shot traveled too fast to avoid. It caught him in the shoulder and spun the warlock to the ground out of sight of the doorway.

“Well, hello Rynn,” Danilaesis called out from the hallway. She could hear in his voice that his teeth were gritted as he spoke. Her shot had hurt him. “You’re a better aim than most of your men, but then again, most of them were pissing themselves at the time. Must be a real distraction. The problem all of you keep running into is that none of you can take a punch.”