Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) (14 page)

A shadow passed over the fort. It was Duvale’s airship, the
Windhaunter
, lowering itself down behind the fort.

Finally
. Cannons would give the old fort some teeth—and might make all the difference.

 Fengel crossed through the fort and ran back outside, where the
Windhaunter
was just running out its boarding ramp. “About time, Duvale!” he called. “I’ve got teams sorted and waiting to run those guns you’ve brought.”

“Of course ye’d be up here, arranging such nonsense!”

Euron Blackheart stepped into view against the gunwales, strangely small and hunched in the daylight. He glared down at Fengel, his bushy grey eyebrows coming together in disapproval. “If’n ye were any kind o’ man at all, ye’d be down there fightin’!”

Fengel stumbled, his surprise transmuting into anger as if by magic.
Damnable relic! Contrarian old fool!
A hundred and one retorts came to mind, and he opened his mouth to give voice to them, but Euron wasn’t even looking at him anymore, gesturing instead to someone just out of sight.

“Get it all off-loaded! Can’t be goin’ into battle weighed down like a pregnant sow.”

Three of his old crew appeared atop the ramp. They were dressed for a fight but looked older than ever. Grunting, swearing, and creaking, they manhandled a light six-pound cannon complete with carriage, rolling it down to the ground before heading back aboard. Three more appeared, their task the same. Fengel watched as cannon after cannon was hastily unloaded and left in a pile at the bottom of the ramp. A pair of powder kegs were dropped in a hurry, followed by a man with an armload of swabs, wadding, and fuses. Fengel cursed under his breath and gestured sharply to Gunney Lome, who rushed over with a number of Haventowners. “You could at least move these things inside!”

“Whyfor?” replied Euron. “Going to be damned useless until Brunehilde arrives with the rest o’ the powder and shot.”

Fengel stared at the lone pair of kegs. “What? This is all you brought?”

“Aye!” said Euron, watching the work eagerly. “This be the last of it? Good!” He turned to face the stern of the airship. “Let’s be off, damn the Goddess’s eyes fer making me wait!”

Wait, what?
Fengel took a step towards the ramp, but Duvale’s crewmen pulled it back aboard. “Hold on now! Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

Euron glared back down at Fengel like he were a yapping puppy. “Because there’s fightin’ to be had! Hairy armpits of the Goddess above, are ye senseless as well as cowardly?” He looked out past Fengel and the fort to the lagoon beyond. “Oh, I’m going to teach them a lesson, these Perinese bastards. Personally! Enough o’ this bombing and sniping with muskets that can’t hit a damned thing. Waste of powder! No, we’ll do it th’ old way, with sword an’ fire an’ blood.” He drew his cutlass, raised it high on a shaking, unsteady arm. “It’ll be glorious! Just like the time I vanquished Red Margaret Cray!” He glared down at Fengel. “So cower up here while I show ye how things be done.”

The old pirate turned away, his strident demands echoing down to where Fengel stood. He realized he was shaking, but whether it was from rage or exasperation he did not know.
Cowardly? You old fart, you hide there in your too-hot tavern and live vicariously through the glories your
daughter
accumulates!

“You’re going to be the death of us all,” he said as the
Windhaunter
lifted off, twisting to face the lagoon.

It hit him then, what the old pirate had been saying. Euron was taking the fight straight to the Perinese. He was going to
board
one of the warships down in the lagoon.

“Oh, for the love of the Goddess,” whispered Fengel. A boarding action in such close confines, with experienced soldiers on the defense? Madness. It would be a bloodbath on both sides. And Euron was the only one who commanded enough respect to bind together all the fractious people of Haventown with any kind of speed. If he fell now...

Fengel twisted violently about. “Sarah! Drop that thing and get more of the men from inside! We need these cannons placed! Grab up all the fuses and swabs! Hurry, damn it, hurry!”

He knelt and grabbed the barrel of a twelve-pounder still in its original frame. He pushed it towards the fort, growling in effort. On a deck of wooden planks, it would have slid easily. Here, though, each foot it was pushed cut deep furrows into the earth.

Two pairs of hands appeared to assist: Phred’s and Cumbers’s. Between the three of them they shoved the cannon to the rear of the fort, hauling, grunting, and swearing. Before long they had it set into the midmost port overlooking the lagoon. Others arrived with their own cannons, directed by Sarah.

“That’s right, lads,” he cried over the sound of musket shot and bomb blast. “Get these things positioned! I want an even spread, to cover the lagoon. Who has that powder? Get it up here!” He glanced at the stack of old cannonballs, each a different size. “Where’re my loaders? Get those balls over here!

Fengel turned his attention to the lagoon below, ignoring his officers as they executed his wishes. The
Windhaunter
was already below the lip of the cliff, falling towards its prey. The enemy warship
Juggernaut
sat squarely in the middle of the lagoon while its sister ship circled about, paddlewheels churning as it tried to bring a broadside to bear on the fort. Captain Duvale, likely under Euron’s strident direction, aimed dead for it. From the far end of the lagoon—where Bluecoats climbed and the Perinese vessel
Colossus
was anchored in the waterway mouth—came shouts of surprise. Floating serenely above them was the strange Perinese airship, the golden sunburst on her envelope bright and clear.

The other Haventown captains adjusted to Euron’s mad charge. Their airships frantically turned aside, ceasing bombardment as they moved through a haze of stinking gunsmoke that obscured the blue morning skies above.

Captain Duvale’s vessel came in low, boarding tethers flung out with expert skill to land in the masts and rigging of the
Juggernaut
. They snagged ahold and stretched taut, the airship’s inertia pitching the
Juggernaut
violently and jerking her through the water. The
Windhaunter
shook with the strain, herself suspended at an odd angle, but ropes were dropped and pirates with them, while those still aboard up above fired muskets to keep pressure on the startled defenders.

Fengel pressed his lips together. One way or another, the glory-mad old fool was committed now.

Well. I’ll have to do what I can.
Fengel looked to the other cannons. Only five of the nine weapons inside were ready for the fight. They had teams of four men and women at the ready, lighting slow-burning matches and cleaning long-handled swabs.

“Gunnery crews!” Fengel shouted. “Aim for the
Behemoth
as she comes into range. We need to keep her from assisting the
Juggernaut
! Load—and be ready to fire on my mark.”

Sarah had done just as he’d asked. Pairs of pirates tottered over to each gun, hauling rusty cannonballs from the stack inside. Henry Smalls and Lucian appeared at each with a keg of powder. The cannons seemed to swallow the powder, poured like shining black sand down a bottomless throat. There was going to be barely enough for a handfull of volleys.

Fengel glanced back at the lagoon. The
Behemoth
was coming around, moving to help her sister ship. Of Euron’s attack, he could make out nothing; the shadow of the
Windhaunter
hung too deep. All he could see was the flashing of blades and the flare of pistol-shot.

The cannon beside him slammed forward into the brick wall. Phred had a long match lit, and Cumbers stood to one side, visage troubled.

Fengel recalled the first time he’d fired on a Perinese ship.
He’ll live. I certainly did.

A quick look around told him that the other crews were similarly ready, that their timing would never be better. Fengel drew his saber, stepped back, and hacked down through the air.

“Fire!”

The pirates obeyed. As matches lit to touch holes, the cannons leaped back, erupting in a blast of staggered thunder. Fengel rushed to the wall and peered out at the warship below.

Three waterspouts burst from the lagoon near the
Behemoth
. The last two shots were more on target. Fengel watched the starboard railing explode into splinters as a ball struck it, the foresail stretching taut and tearing away, taking the spars connecting it to the mast. He laughed and rang the pommel of his saber against the low brick wall before turning back.

“Again!” he cried, sheathing his blade. Fengel grabbed up a long-handled swab and rammed it down the barrel of Phred’s cannon. Gunney Lome appeared with the powder. Cumbers wasn’t far behind, an iron ball in his hands and tears on his cheeks.

The
Behemoth
tried to return fire, but its angle was off. Cannon fire dug holes in the cliff below, harmlessly. Twice more the cannons atop the fort sounded in response, wreaking increasingly accurate damage upon the warship.

Henry Smalls appeared beside Fengel, his fingers in his ears. “We’re dry, sir!” shouted the steward. “Powder’s all gone!”

Fengel made a fist and slammed it against the crenellations. They’d been doing so well! He gazed down into the lagoon, where the
Behemoth
was floundering her way towards the far end of the channel. The
Moonchaser
and the
Powderheart
were already moving in to bombard her from above. To his surprise, the
Windhaunter
was already lifting away from the
Juggernaut
. As her shadow shrank, Fengel saw no movement on the Perinese decks—and much blood.

“It’s no matter,” he said to those nearby. “We’ve done our job, even with what little we had. And Euron actually won, somehow.”

An idea occurred to him then. He brightened and turned to his steward. “Henry, get a rough crew together. As soon as Duvale touches back down, let’s get them ferried to the
Juggernaut
; we can use it as a forward defense of the lagoon. Why Euron hasn’t done it already, I don’t pretend to—”

A cataclysmic report ripped up from the lagoon below. Fengel ducked reflexively, then turned back to stare over the crenellations. The Perinese warship in the water below had exploded, sending shards of her ruptured hull and rigging across the Graveway. Fengel could only stare as bits of ship rained down about them.

“That psychopathic old fool!” he howled. “He lit off the powder magazine! We could have used that!”

The pirates only cheered and applauded the devastation. As the
Windhaunter
approached the fort, Fengel glared black hatred at it.

By the time the airship touched down on the landing field, he was waiting, a small crowd of Haventown defenders behind him. Past the airship, over the treetops,
Solrun’s Hammer
was returning from their home port with more supplies. Fengel realized he didn’t care. Instead, he waited for Euron to appear atop the
Windhaunter’
s
boarding ramp. The pirate king leaned on his sheathed cutlass like a cane as he descended, but in his other hand held a severed head up by the hair. Behind him came a number of his old crew, in far worse shape than the pirate king himself.

“Ha!” cried Euron at the foot of the ramp. “Let this be a warnin’ to any who dare stand in me—”

“What did you
do
down there?” shouted Fengel.

Euron stopped in surprise. A sneer worked its way across his features as he focused on Fengel. “I brought death to our foes, popinjay. Even someone with yer eyesight should see that. Captain fell overboard, but I slew the crew, cut off her lieutenant’s head, an’ fired her magazine!”

“Exactly!” replied Fengel, gesticulating violently. “You went through all that trouble and fired the powder magazine! We could have used that ship to fend off the rest of the navy! And my eyesight is fine!”

“Don’t get yer knickers all bunched up. We’ll kill that other ship an’ get close enough to bomb the rest. They’re sittin’ ducks in that channel right, Grant?” He elbowed one of his men in the side. Grant grimaced, then smiled weakly.

“That’s not the point,” snapped Fengel. “It was something we could have used. We’re so damned outnumbered and outclassed here—”

The pirate king curled his lip and stepped up to Fengel. Once he’d been tall, but now he barely came to Fengel’s chin. “Glory be everythin,’ popinjay. A real pirate would know that.”

Euron shoved the bloodied head at him, forcing Fengel to grab it. Then the pirate king pushed past him into the crowd. An unsteady line of his old crewmen trailed along after.

Fengel threw the head hard at the ground and glared death after the pirate king.
If the Perinese don’t kill him, I just might myself
.
Natasha wouldn’t blame me.

Someone touched him on the arm. Fengel whirled, ready to chew the fellow’s face off with his teeth. “What?” he snarled before stopping in surprise.

A Mechanist stood before him. Even stranger, it was a young woman. She was squat and short, with shoulder-length hair, her gender barely noticeable under the leather greatcoat and goggles. Behind her, beside the
Windhaunter
, sat Brunehilde’s airship, anchored and unloading.

“Captain Fengel?” she asked in a muffled voice.

“Aye?” he replied.

“You are wanted in Haventown. Please return with me aboard
Solrun’s Hammer
. The Mechanist Cabal would speak with you, and you alone.”

Fengel frowned, uncertain. Behind him, the battle in the lagoon began again.

Chapter Seven

The irregular blast of cannon fire grew louder with every passing moment.

Lina struggled with the
Dawnhawk’
s wheel. It had mechanisms to ease steering of the airship, though a certain degree of sheer brawn was still required—something she very much lacked. Runt coiled around her neck, heavy and irritable, which certainly didn’t help.