Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) (34 page)

But they weren’t coming to the aid of their dead fellow. They wouldn’t be helping anyone ever again. Mechanist Barlett knelt over their crumpled corpses, leaning on a heavy two-handed wrench. Molly Mayhap stood beside him, blood on her doll’s-head stiletto shining wetly in the light from Imogen’s galvanic lantern.

Cubbins trotted over to butt his head up against Fengel’s leg. Fengel wearily reached over and petted him.

“We got the gas reserves engaged,” said Imogen. “Everything’s pumping up to the Gasworks. Our brothers stationed there should be seeing it right this second.”

“That’s...that’s good,” said Fengel. He felt tired, and his lips were swelling up. Still petting the cat, he reached up and wiped the blood away from his face with his sleeve. Then he gingerly felt at his teeth. “We should look at getting out of here now.”

“The entrance...is being watched,” gasped Brother Barlett. “Can’t go back out that way.”

Fengel frowned. His head hurt. He’d had worse beatings in his time, but not
that
many. “We’re trapped, then. That’s the only other exit, isn’t it? The other isn’t finished yet. We can’t get through.”

The light shifted as Imogen wrestled with something. Then it steadied as she lifted a heavy black bomb in her other hand.

“I beg to differ,” she said.

The mask muffled her voice, but Fengel was absolutely certain that she had spoken with eager glee. Beside him Cubbins purred, oblivious, yet happy as could be.

Chapter Sixteen

Lina watched the earth burn.

She stood in the mouth of the pyramid tunnel, peering at the devastation outside. The ground was scorched and blackened, and all nearby vegetation had been obliterated by the blast they’d triggered. Smoke rose up in lazy streamers stinking of char to occlude her view. Through them she could just make out the spreading banyans and tall green palm trees of the distant jungle. Not everything had been destroyed, then.

Runt chirruped unhappily, squirming in her arms as she leaned out the tunnel entryway to get a better look. Her scalp prickled suddenly, and the air felt greasy on her face. There was a charge in the air. Lina ignored it, looking instead to the enormous broken spire that had toppled who knew how long ago from the peak of the pyramid. Apparently, it was still somewhat attached. Or at least enough to be a functional part of the installation. It had done more than just cook everything outside the pyramid; Lina spied a line of devastation running out straight from the broken spire along the ground, stretching beyond the clearing to carve a burning path all the way to the distant cliffs at the edge of the island.

Lina whistled, long and low. The Stormhammer had certainly packed a bit of a punch, and then some. Through the smoke-streamers Lina spied the flash-cooked corpses of gulls and other flying things littering the earth. The blast had reached into the sky as well, then.

An ear-shattering screech echoed out from inside the pyramid, startling her.
If only you’d been outside too, Butterbeak.

“Well?” yelled Natasha. “What happened out there? Is it dead?”

Lina turned back and jogged down the tunnel. For all the devastation it had wrought, the pyramid’s interior was safe enough. Her crewmates still resided within. Reaver Jane, Paine, Farouk, and Etarin all rested against the machinery the Castaways had been working on, battered but otherwise all right, eying the structure about them suspiciously. Captain Natasha stood on the steps of the central dais, thumbs hooked into her sword belt, with Butterbeak hunkering on her shoulder. Behind her, Allen and Rastalak examined the shimmering, brazen machinery of the Stormhammer. The little Draykin touched it with reverence, while the apprentice Mechanist poked and prodded in a decidedly careless manner. Michael Hockton stood off to one side of the tunnel, waiting for her to return, a helpful expression on his face.

The ancient machine was an enigma. Between Natasha, Rastalak, Allen, and Lina herself, they all had varying degrees of experience with Voorn relics. But the Stormhammer proved resistant to their meddling. They’d spent almost an hour trying to figure it out before Natasha leaned back against a lever by accident. Then everything was pumping and hissing and the crystal sphere floating at the center of it all shot a beam of crackling, scintillating light up at the ceiling. The thunderclap that followed outside had been titanic.

“Everything’s cooked, Captain,” said Lina, jogging past Michael and the others to come to a stop just below the dais. Runt chirruped unhappily, and Lina turned her attention back to her pet, cooing and rubbing the smooth scales around her swollen middle.

“Stone? Hey.” Natasha snapped her fingers. “Look at me. What do you mean by ‘everything?’ Did we get it? Did I kill the Dray Engine?”

Lina looked up at her captain, surprised. “Oh, sorry, Captain. Looks like everything in the clearing surrounding the pyramid. The blast only touched a small piece of the jungle, though it scorched a path straight up to the ridgeline. I couldn’t see the Dray Engine anywhere. So...maybe?”

 “It must be a focusing device of some sort,” said Allen. He tromped over sulkily to stand just above Natasha. “With the spire broken, I don’t think this installation is going to work.”

Rastalak rose from his crouch near a series of sputtering glass vials. “Indeed. The artifact of the Great Masters can be triggered, but we have yet to find a way to aim it. It may not be possible, damaged as it is.”

Allen wheeled on him. “I just said that!” he cried.

The little Draykin jerked back in surprise. Even Lina was taken aback. Allen
never
raised his voice.

“What’s your problem?” asked Natasha. She turned away to stare outside, smacking one fist into her palm. “Of course it’s still alive. But I
will
kill that thing. I swear it by the paunchy gut of the Goddess herself.”

“My hand hurts!” said the apprentice Mechanist. He held it up, swathed in makeshift bandages. “I lost a finger back on the ship, and all anyone’s done is bind it up, and by the Realms Below, it
hurts,
and I’ll never play the piano now and I’m stuck on
another
damned island with a bunch of monsters and cutthroats, and Runt is just downright awful!”

He stopped to pant. Lina cradled her writhing pet and glared up at Allen. She was going to have a talk with him, later, about the feelings of others.

Natasha blinked in surprise, having evidently forgotten the apprentice Mechanist. “Oh, quit
whining
,” she said. “Stone’s pet has always been awful. And I lost a damned nipple once, but you don’t hear me squalling like some brat who dropped her favorite musket.”

Allen blinked at her. Even Lina was taken aback. The chamber was quiet for a moment, save only the hiss and hum of the Stormhammer.

“How did you...” Michael Hockton quieted, appearing to consider for a moment. “Did...did you play with loaded muskets as a child?”

Natasha was nonplussed. “What? Of course. Look, I didn’t come all this way to get stuck on an island with a giant clockwork lizard.” She shook a fist at the pyramid entrance vigorously, forcing Butterbeak to flap for his balance on her shoulder. “Fengel said you geniuses could get this thing working, so do it! There’s a whole damned invasion going on to the south, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Captain.”

Lina glanced back to where Reaver Jane was climbing wearily to her feet. The older woman looked battered and bruised, covered as she was with numerous scabbed-over cuts. But she seemed ready for a fight, as always. “Captain, we can’t make it work.”

Natasha looked affronted. “What? Of course we can.”

Reaver Jane shook her head. “Captain, we don’t even know what this thing was meant to do, way back when. The pirate king said it’s a weapon, but we don’t even know that for sure. And it’s
broken
. We could spend a month here and never get it working right.”

Runt let out a hiss, then bit Lina on the arm. She yelped and barely managed not to drop her pet. The fat scryn writhed, and Lina felt her heart go out to the little mother. “Shh,” she cooed.
Yowch, that stings.
The spittle was already raising an angry rash on her skin.

She looked back up to see that the others weren’t even looking at her. Well, Michael was, with a faint smile. She returned it, then noticed Allen glaring down at them both. The rest of the crew, though, was watching their captain. Natasha was uncharacteristically silent, weighing the options.

Oh no
. Lina wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being stuck inside the Stormhammer, but at least in here they were safe. And Runt would give birth any day now. The fight to the south would be a
terrible
place for that to happen.

“But Captain Fengel said you should listen to your father,” she said, not thinking.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Lina realized her mistake. Natasha Blackheart glared down at her, eyes suddenly furious. “You’re right, Jane. To the Realms Below with this crazy scheme. We’re going back to Haventown! We’re going to win this fight, and then we’re going to haul every damned cannon back up here that I can lay my hands on and pummel that clockwork monster until it’s scrap!”

She stalked down the stair, pushing past them all, and crossed the floor of the chamber to the entryway tunnel. Lina shared a look with Reaver Jane, then scurried after.

Their captain came to a stop at the exit mouth of the tunnel, staring out at the charred earth and the jungle beyond. Lina stopped just behind her as the rest of the crew tromped after them. Michael Hockton pushed through to stand next to Lina. Runt abruptly spat, forcing him to dodge aside.

Somewhere distant, the Dray Engine roared. Natasha bared her teeth angrily. “I knew it,” she muttered.

“Kalyon?” asked Farouk. “How do we get past it to reach the ship?”

“It’s not going to be easy,” she admitted. “That dumb mechanical lizard is fast, and so far unstoppable. It sleeps, sort of. But we can’t count on that. We’ll have to be quick—and quiet. We’ll have to avoid its notice with all the low cunning we possess.”

A great crack echoed out from the distant jungle, as of trees being uprooted and snapped in half. Lina heard a faint manlike scream, which was followed by the roar of the Dray Engine on the hunt. The sun flashed through the canopy, reflecting against ancient Voornish bronze. The Dray Engine was moving quickly, directly away from the southern part of the island, where the
Dawnhawk
was moored above the village of the Castaways.

“Or we could just run for it,” said Natasha flatly. She turned to face the crew and gestured violently outside. “What are you waiting for? Go! Go like yer arses are on fire!”

Lina opened her mouth to protest. Didn’t anyone remember that her lovely pet was
pregnant?
But Reaver Jane pushed past, followed by the others. Then there wasn’t anything to do but move or get run over.

Her boots jarred against the charred earth outside the pyramid. It was baked hard, and running on it was like running across broken pottery. The stinking air was hot and greasy, and it prickled her scalp and skin. Lina tried to keep from jostling Runt too much, letting Farouk and Etarin take the lead as she fell back to the middle of the pack. Her pet still chirped unhappily, and Lina felt a pang of worry.

“Look at all this!” cried Michael Hockton. “Everything’s cooked for a thousand feet in any direction!”

“Less yapping and more running!” snapped Natasha.

The jungle ahead grew closer. Lina focused on running and not jostling Runt, but a small part of her still had to marvel. The blast from the Stormhammer stopped cleanly at the tree line. Everything up to that point had been reduced to charred cinders, but the old-growth palms and banyans hadn’t lost anything more than a stray vine.

Midafternoon sunlight turned to shade as they passed beneath the canopy. The stink of char and ozone faded, replaced by humid jungle air. Amazingly, they’d reached the trail that they’d forged earlier, and Farouk’s hurried passing this time had only widened it. Still, Lina cursed to herself as the clear ground became a tangle of ferns, vines, and mazelike banyan roots. She hopped and skipped along, trying desperately not to fall.

The race back to the
Dawnhawk
proved a frantic mirror of their earlier trip. Leafy vegetation pressed in on all sides as she ran, illuminated by shafts of brilliant sunlight spearing down into the gloom from above. Save for the panting of her crewmates, it was eerily silent. No gibbons hooted in the distance. The only parrot squawking in the branches above was Butterbeak, flapping and falling forward in his own unique, ungainly way.

Runt let out a strange groan and writhed in Lina’s arms. She looked down at her pet in alarm, catching a bent-back branch that almost knocked her over. Lina kept her balance, spitting out leaves, and continued to run. Her pet was swollen about the middle, distended enough now that she could see the skin in between the scales, stretched tighter than a drum.

“Shhh,” she soothed.
We’re almost back to the ship. Just a little farther.

She didn’t think about what they’d do then. Lina had thought her pet sick for weeks now. But pregnant? It was a wonderful thing, and frightening. Could Runt hold out long enough for them to get back to Haventown? Could she find that horse-doctor with all the fighting going on to deliver the scrynlings?

I’ve got to calm Runt down
. Maybe the others could help with that. She looked up again at her crewmates, almost tripping as she did so. Lina had fallen even farther behind now. Michael Hockton ran just a little ahead. And Allen was right beside her and a little off.

“Michael!” she panted. “Michael, I need you to help calm Runt!”

He glanced back at her, caught a branch in the face, then stumbled. Michael Hockton staggered but found his balance and ran on. “It’s gotta wait!” he called back over his shoulder. “We’ve got to get to the airship, love.”

Lina blinked. She opened her mouth to snap at him, then closed it to avoid a low-hanging vine.
But I need you now!