Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) (23 page)

Her ex-soldier grimaced. Then he deflated. He and Allen shared another look before Michael reached for the flask like a man going towards the gallows.

The next few minutes were unpleasant. But at the end of it, Runt was calm again, chirping in an unhappy, drunken daze against her shoulders. Allen had black-and-blue bruises along his face and good hand, and the side of Michael’s neck was swelling from a near-miss of poison spittle. The ex-soldier also shook his hand, covered in red, angry scryn bites.

“There, there,” Lina cooed, patting Runt along his scaled, wormy coils.

“Why is he so cantankerous?” asked Michael. “Is he...backed up? Your pet is fat, Lina.”

“I’ve never seen him like this before,” said Allen. “Well, except that one time he tried to eat my face. And the time he poisoned my food. And that time you threw him at me.”

Lina turned to Michael. Even with a red splotchy mark on his neck, he looked gallant. “
Thank
you,” she said to him, heartfelt. “Poor little Runtie appreciates it too, even if he doesn’t show it. But we both know you care. You’ve got a special rapport with him, after all.” She winked at him.

Michael blushed. He gave an embarrassed shrug. “Well,” he said. “Well.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Allen stand a little prouder, as if waiting for a compliment in turn. Lina wasn’t sure why—it was only Allen, after all. Right now Runt was what was important, and she had to say something to Michael while she remembered. He was just
so
dashing. He’d let himself get bitten no less than three times in calming Runt down, after all.

Allen seemed to freeze suddenly. Then he blinked at Lina, standing there with Runt. He looked odd. Angry. Something changed with the apprentice Mechanist.

What’s your problem?
Lina ignored him. “Who’s a sweet thing? Is it my Runtie? Is it?” She turned to the others. “Oh, I hope he isn’t getting sick.”

“Chirr,” muttered her pet.

“He’s fat,” said Allen sharply. “Probably got a seagull lodged sideways in there.”

Michael Hockton sighed. “We should move on. We’re still in a strange place, and the others have gone up ahead.”

“Whatever,” said Allen. He stared at his bandaged hand with a grimace.

“Yes,” said Lina. “We’d best catch up.”

The others hadn’t gotten far. Natasha glared at them when they arrived, but Farouk was still cutting a trail through the undergrowth. As the minutes passed, though, it thinned out, as palm fronds and creeping vines were replaced by open patches of green, growing grass.

Farouk paused at a particularly thick fern and reared back. He swung, parting the plant with ease, and the follow-through pitched him forward through it. After the others pushed through, Lina followed, stepping out into warm sunlight and blue skies.

They’d reached the edge of the jungle, about halfway to the center of the isle. The underbrush and trees faded away, becoming sparse after only a few hundred feet, replaced by open land covered in green grass. The midafternoon sun shone brightly, reflecting from the golden pyramid squatting at the center of the island, alien and strange.

“Well,” said Natasha, stepping aside as Rastalak moved to help Farouk up. “This’ll make the going easier—”

A monstrous roar cut her short. It echoed out from somewhere else on the island, bestial and strangely tinny.

Everyone drew weapons, peering around warily. Lina eyed the jungle past the pyramid, where it sounded like it had come from. “I think it came—”

She stopped short, though, at seeing her captain’s face. Natasha stood rigid, stone-like. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her cutlass, and her face was a mask of enraged hostility. On her shoulder, Butterbeak peered around with frightened eyes, looking as if it might take flight at any moment. Etarin and Farouk shared an incredulous look. Young Paine looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

“No,” she hissed. “Impossible.”

“What is it, Captain?” asked Ryan Gae.

“Nothing,” she said. “Probably just a...jaguar. Or something.” She gestured with her cutlass at the pyramid. “Get over there now,” she said. “And run.”

Warily, Lina did as she was told. The crew of the
Dawnhawk
moved at a jog across the grassy plain, dodging the occasional fern or short palm tree. It felt good to have the sun on her face and the wind in her hair, even though Natasha hissed at them to go faster.

The golden pyramid containing the Stormhammer grew as they approached. It was Voornish, certainly, a stair-step structure rising a hundred feet above the ground. Etchings and bas-reliefs dotted its sides. She was still too far away to make them out clearly, but Lina knew they would represent a strange, long-limbed people. Beside her, Rastalak hissed in familiar wonder. His people inhabited ruins such as these, still standing after uncounted millennia.

The pyramid was not completely immune to the ravages of time, however. A great golden spire had once stood at its peak, rising up even higher above the crater. It had fallen now, snapped free from its mooring, though the base of it was still propped up across the top of the pyramid. The rest of the spire ran down to the ground, its tip buried beneath the surface of the earth like a needle stuck in a seamstress’s thumb.

More details became apparent as they ran towards the building. A rectangular opening appeared in its nearest face. Only eight feet tall or so, it was wide enough for the entire crew to enter its darkened interior abreast. Before the entrance, on the ground, lay a mess of components, both Voornish relics and primitive tools, along with rough-hewn planks and hempen rope. Something very much like a canoe caught Lina’s eye, which appeared to be made from cobbled-together pieces of Voornish brass.

The pirate crew slowed as they reached the entryway to the pyramid. “What is all this?” asked Farouk, gesturing with his cutlass.

“Must be the work of Euron’s crewmen,” said Reaver Jane.

The monstrous roar sounded again, closer this time, as if just around the pyramid. Everyone stilled, raising their weapons and looking about.

“That is no jaguar,” said Rastalak.

Lina heard something else now too: heavy footfalls and a mechanical hiss, as of steam escaping. The ground shook.

Etarin turned to Natasha. “Captain,” he said, “Goddess strike me down, but that sounds like—”

“No,” she replied. “It’s just not possible.” She turned to the others. “Get inside.
Now!
”

They rushed into the darkened entryway, going about fifty feet before reaching a much greater space, which smelled of ozone and unwashed bodies.

Standing just inside that main chamber was a small group of maybe a dozen people, all somewhat elderly. They were greying, their skin wrinkled and suntanned. Some had long, scraggly beards. A mix of Perinese and Salomcani, it was obvious by the rags they wore and the swords at their sides that they had all been pirates at one time. They looked wary—and more than a little crazed.

Runt hissed drunkenly at them from Lina’s shoulder. Her other crewmates spread out, wary. Natasha pushed forward, sheathing her blade. “Hello there, then. Who are you lot?”

They looked uneasily at each other. One man, with a long grey beard and an eye patch made of ancient leather stepped forward to meet her. “We be the Castaways,” he said, voice thick with the old Haventown accent. “Euron Blackheart’s crew, left behind on this accursed isle. How did ye get here? And how did ye escape the beast?”

Lina relaxed. This was the group they were looking for.

Natasha turned her attention back to the Castaways. She breathed a sigh of relief. The rest of the
Dawnhawk
’s crew lowered their weapons, following her lead. “I got here on an airship,” she said. “And you’re just the ones I’ve been looking for.”

Outside, the tread of something enormous shook the earth.

Chapter Eleven

Admiral Wintermourn glanced at the bomb falling towards him.

A grapefruit-sized sphere of black iron with a fuse fizzing merrily away at one end, it was close enough to touch, one of several thrown from the pirate airship
Solrun’s Hammer
flying above. He slapped at the thing, sending it bouncing off the forward railing and tumbling down to the main deck of the
Colossus
below.

“Load faster,” he roared, turning his attention back to his gunner’s mate and the starboard gun crew below. Their firing angles were too sharp here in the Graveway Lagoon. There was only a tiny window when they could hit the old fort above them, even with grapeshot and the elevated cannons.
We need to fire, and it needs to be now!
“Load faster, Goddess damn you—”

The bomb exploded below him. Its blast shivered the stern cabin deck he stood upon and sent lethal metal shards whipping up past his outstretched hand, missing by only inches. The flash of light lit the rear of the warship in a moment of stark illumination, highlighting nearby sailors and the other falling bombs.

Their blasts seemed fiercer, eager to outdo their companion. Two burst up near the bow while the third detonated in the rigging amidships, directly above the port-side gunnery crews. What remained of the pirate salvo splashed into the lagoon off to port between his ship and Captain Caldwell’s
Titan
. The damned foolish pirates had let loose too early.

Wintermourn shook his head to clear away the afterimages of the bombs from his vision. Victory was at hand, here in the Graveway Lagoon. His
Colossus
worked together with the
Titan
to rake the Salomcani fort as best they could with cannon fire, circling the burning wreck of the
Ogre
and the
Powderheart,
where what remained of both vessels slowly sank in the middle of the lagoon. Along the southern cliff wall, Captain Roderick’s
Giantess
sat anchored firmly, his company of Bluecoat marines ascending with the support of their compatriots who had already made the climb.

A few pirates remained at the walls of the fort, firing irregular musket volleys. They did little more than blunt the advance, though. Most of the ruffians were in full retreat, and all their airships save
Solrun’s Hammer
lumbered behind the fort down low to the jungle. Dozens of lines and rope ladders dangled from each airship, each thick with pirates desperate to escape.

Crown Prince Gwydion’s plan to win the Graveway had been an audacious gamble. Wintermourn had to admit that it had worked, though he still raged at the cost. All repairs had been ceased upon the
Ogre
, and instead Captain Thomasen’s beleaguered warship was loaded with as much ordnance as could be spared. Sufficiently full, she was sent to the Graveway alone with a timed fuse in her powder magazine and her sails half-furled to hide the deck from above.

One of the pirates had taken the bait, just as hoped. The
Powderheart
fell on the
Ogre,
ignoring both the cliff guns and the airship’s own allies in its eagerness to duplicate Euron Blackheart’s earlier success. Then the fuse lit off, killing the pirates and the
Ogre
both. The blast had been apocalyptic, igniting the airship’s gas bag and sending a fireball raging up into the sky. Even Wintermourn found himself impressed by the explosion.

Other pirate vessels moved to assist their fallen, but the cliff guns and the score of Brass Paladins aboard the
Glory
pounded them fiercely, causing severe damage and driving them back off. Wintermourn had then ordered the charge. While angered by loss of the navy ship, it would have been foolish not to capitalize on what the sacrifice had bought them.

Of the pirate airships, only
Solrun’s Hammer
had tried to drive them back. Now she tried to escape, turning ponderously as shells from the cliff guns burst across her gas bag. The pirate vessel would pay dearly for bombing the
Colossus
.

“Sir!”

Wintermourn glanced over his shoulder. It was Lieutenant Lebam, taking a half step from the helm and reaching out to him.

“Sir!” he repeated. “That blast...are you all right?

Wintermourn rounded on the man. “Take your other hand away from that wheel, and I’ll chop it off myself,” he snarled. “Slow us down and keep on heading. I want that round of shots at the fort before we turn aside.”

His lieutenant drew back, chastened. Beside him, ex-captain Thomasen stood, stone-faced and angry. The man hadn’t been required to captain his ship on its suicide run, though maybe it would have been a kinder fate. Even with his decades of service, he was unlikely to gain another commission. Now he lingered about, just another officer without a ship on which to serve. A small part of Wintermourn recognized the unfairness of it, and perhaps something might be done after the invasion—a small sloop or some such. Still, he felt the ingrained disdain any career naval officer would have of a man who’d been demoted, whatever the reason behind it.

The gunner’s mate shouted from the deck below. His guns thundered in response, rocking back, almost toppling completely over from their elevated positions as they spit fire and thunder along the railing. Their shots hammered the old Salomcani fort, the grapeshot gouging into the native stone, collapsing a section of wall, and even skipping up off the roof, past which the majority of the pirates were ascending to their airships. Wintermourn saw a ball sever one rope line completely. The pirates dangling from it screamed as they fell down into the jungle. The shot had been one in a million. Still, he would take it.

Those crewmen not too injured gave a raucous cheer at the volley. Admiral Wintermourn approved of their spirits. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to join in or do something so vulgar as pound his fist against the rail. Instead, he pursed his lips, not quite allowing himself to smile.

There wasn’t time or room enough to fire again. It did not matter—the guns had done their work. The Bluecoats above were charging, their yells echoing down to the water as the defenders recovered from the cannon volley. Some of them managed to rally, but the answering shots were inadequate, felling just a single marine before his brothers leaped over the walls and into the interior. In minutes it would be over. The Graveway Lagoon belonged to the Kingdom now.