Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) (37 page)

“Ready!” barked Sergeant Greene.

The marines finished loading and raised their weapons.

“Take aim!”

The marines lifted their muskets to their shoulders.

“Please,” begged the young woman with the wild-dyed hair. Wintermourn ignored her, watching instead the frozen grimaces of each soldier waiting to fire. They might as well have been carved from stone. He approved.

“Fire!”

A rippling pop rang out along the street. The women jerked, and the wooden front of the brothel splintered as the musket balls tore through them. Mixed wails of anguish rose from those still standing. “Reload,” said Sergeant Greene, voice suddenly soft.

Wintermourn raised an eyebrow at him. The man was pale.
Is that weakness I see?
It would have made him despair if he hadn’t decided to end the fellow already.

“Get the rest of them up there,” said Wintermourn, already bored. “I want to clear this street in the next half a glass.”

His soldiers shoved the remaining captives up against their brothel. They swore and fought and wailed helplessly. The ugly older woman just glared at him, murder in her eyes.

“I’m no aetherite, but I curse ye all the same,” she spat.

“That reminds me,” said Wintermourn. “Sergeant, make sure to cut off their heads before we leave. No need to give more resources to the filthy necromancers that hide here.”

The older whore blinked. “What?”

“Of course, sir,” said Sergeant Greene. “Ranks ready!”

The soldiers put away their powder horns and hefted their muskets again.

“Take aim!”

They raised the weapons to their shoulders.

“Avast, ye scallywags!”

Wintermourn blinked in surprise and turned at the shout, which echoed to him from down the street. Then he stared.

A small knot of pirates stood a good fifty paces away. Wintermourn knew in an instant that they were real pirates: a red-haired woman in a half cloak, another with a belt of jangling seashells and a bandage upon her head, even more men and women bearing cutlasses and pistols and assorted mismatched weaponry. At their head stood a bent-backed old reaver with a greying beard and fierce eyes. He held up a much-worn cutlass while leaning on the sheath with this other hand for balance.

Admiral Wintermourn recognized him from description. “Pirate King Euron Blackheart,” he said. “So you finally decided to show your face, eh? About time you found your spine.”

“Ye dogs! How dare ye set foot in me kingdom? The people here be mine! No matter what that blasted popinjay says. Th’ airships be aloft again, so to the Realms Below wit’ him an’ his!”

Admiral Wintermourn blinked in confusion at the rant. Behind him, Sergeant Greene ordered the men to form ranks.

“Sir,” said Bryant. “What about the whores?”

“Shoot the damned whores and then form ranks!” snapped Wintermourn back over his shoulder.

“Yer fight be wit’ me, ye bluecoated bastards!”

“Yes, yes,” said Wintermourn, waving nonchalantly at him. “We’ll crush you insects in a moment. I’m not going to chase a bunch of escapees through all the ground I’ve already covered today.”

“Danica,” said the red-haired pirate woman in a half cloak. “Now.”

The bandaged woman in the seashell belt lifted her hands up high and cupped them together. Oily darkness bloomed between her palms, swelling and streaking towards the Bluecoats. It moved strangely through the air, like ink poured into a mug of water.

Then it fell on them. It was like the aetherite had given birth to night itself. Wintermourn couldn’t see his own hands in front of his face; he was blind. Hoarse shouts of alarm echoed from the men about him, along with the pop of muskets fired in panic.

“It’s sorcery!” Wintermourn yelled. He had a horrible epiphany. “It’s damned aetherite sorcery! Beware the corpses, she’s calling up Revenants. Beware the Goddess-damned corpses!”

They were coming for him—he could feel it. The dead women would already be clambering to their feet as they sought him out of the crowd for revenge. Something brushed up against him, and Wintermourn yelled. He drew his saber and swung, eliciting a shriek of pain from what only could have been a Bluecoat soldier. 

It didn’t matter. Wintermourn cursed the man for getting in the way, ruining a good swing. They could be behind him now, reaching for him with their rotting claws...

The darkness lifted. It evaporated like smoke blown on the wind. Wintermourn once again saw the street, the brothel, and the Bluecoat marines frantic with panic. No one was seriously injured—they weren’t under attack. He looked to the brothel wall. The corpses were there, still and unmoving. Wintermourn breathed a sigh of relief.

But the other whores were gone.

The pirates!
He whirled to face Euron, shoving aside Private Bryant, who gasped and clutched at a saber slash on one arm.

The pirate king wasn’t bearing down on them, though. He wasn’t even on the street anymore. The pirates were disappearing down a side alley, a pair of coattails and a flashing boot the only sign of them.

Wintermourn snarled. “They’re getting away! After them! Get the damned pirate king!”

A trio of Bluecoats responded by running down the street. Wintermourn grabbed the useless Sergeant Greene and shoved him forward. He yelled for the Bluecoats to follow, then ran for the alley as the other marines shook off their confusion. Wintermourn let a few pass by, glancing back one last time at the corpses lying in the street.

The alleyway was narrow, more a coincidental crack between the bordello and an adjacent warehouse. Bryant, Greene, and the others crammed themselves down it, and Wintermourn cursed their slowness. Finally, he too wedged himself within it, panting and gasping at the exertion.

“Up ahead!” yelled a marine.

Wintermourn shoved himself along, prodding his useless sergeant. A jagged board caught his sleeve, and he cursed, shoving past and forcing away the pain of an inch-long splinter in his wrist. The tip of his saber caught the low-hanging gutter, causing old tiles and debris to rain down on them. Then Admiral Wintermourn pushed out of the alley into the street beyond.

It was narrow, like everything else in the pirate town. Buildings leaned in on either side, racing each other to collapse. Behind his marines the street trailed away, disappearing into darkness like the tail of a lazy snake. Ahead, the pirates stood in a group at the far end of the street.

Clustered around a cannon.

“To the ground!” shrieked Wintermourn.

Euron Blackheart slashed at them with his cutlass. “That usurping peacock thinks he’ll be the one savin’ the day?” he shouted. “Him an’ his clever plans? I’ll show him. Fire!”

A pirate lowered a long match to the touchhole at the rear of the weapon. Fire bloomed from it in a thunderous eruption, shattering windows along the street. Wintermourn glimpsed black iron death hurtling towards them before a marine was picked up off his feet by the cannonball and thrown back, killed in a heartbeat along with three other men.

The pirates fled down an alley, though a few hung back long enough to make obscene gestures. Wintermourn closed his eyes and wiped blood from his face. He fought aside visions of blood dripping from a Revenant’s rotting jaws and gestured with the saber in his other hand. “After them!” he cried. “Get those damned pirates!”

Bluecoats poured from the alley behind him, angrily rushing to obey. Wintermourn paused to catch his breath before joining them, only to find himself stuck in yet another tight alley leading Goddess knew where. The walls to either side groaned as he shoved himself through, making him uncomfortably aware of his gut. Even with the brief rest, his wind was all but gone as well.

Damn these unholy pirates and their tricks! Damn their deathtrap construction! And damn all those rich dinners!

The alley disgorged him onto another boardwalk street, this one wide and airy and opening on the docks at the far end. Euron Blackheart and his pirates were out in the open, heading for another alleyway. Past them, on the water, everything was a fog of gun smoke and magically conjured mist. Bombs burst and muskets flashed in the gloom while the spars and rigging of at least a dozen masts drifted by.

“Get them!” snarled Admiral Wintermourn.

The pirate king turned to face them, only fifty feet away. “That treasonous dog thinks he can steal me daughter—and me town to boot? Well, I’ve a lesson or two left, just as soon as I wipe ye mangy curs from me boots!”

Six marines raced forward eagerly with blades in hand. Wintermourn followed, but abruptly fell back as the boardwalk gave way with a great splintering crash that swallowed the men whole. Euron belted out a hearty laugh, then disappeared down another alley.

Rage washed over Wintermourn. It swelled up in his throat like a black ball so large he couldn’t breath. He shouted a wordless command at the marines who were already in pursuit, gingerly traversing the part of the boardwalk that hadn’t been sawn completely through.

Hands reached down to help him up. Admiral Wintermourn fought Sergeant Greene off with a snarl, pointing weakly at the escaping pirates.

Ambushes, traps, necromancy! You wretches don’t deserve the clean death of battle! I’ll see you hung from the wreckage of your own airships!

He gasped his way forward, shoving himself into the alley and quickly running into the backs of the hesitantly advancing Bluecoats. Black spots appeared in his vision, and the close air was hard to breath. Anger and spite and decades of training pushed him on, until the soldiers stumbled out into another street. Feeling lightheaded, Wintermourn followed.

Another street. Behind him it curved out of view, but ahead, it terminated in a dead-end cluster of three low buildings. A makeshift barricade rose up before them, walling off the end of the street with overturned carts, old crates, and ratty furniture. There was nowhere else to run. On the next street over rose the stair to the Craftwright’s Terrace. Wintermourn could just see the top half of a large brass statue beyond the clifftop.

Pirate King Euron Blackheart stood behind the barricade, his thieves and cutthroats arrayed out beside him with weapons in hand. Wintermourn noted a huge, red-haired piratess as well as the woman in the half cloak.

“Come forward, ye men of Perinault!” he cried. Euron paused to gasp a breath before lifting his cutlass up with one wavering hand. “No more tricks! I be here, ready to send ye off to the Goddess!”

Wintermourn gasped for air. He half knelt, supporting himself with one hand on his knee, the other gesturing violently with his now too-heavy saber. The words wouldn’t come. His side burned. Somewhere, he had lost his hat.

More Bluecoats poured into the street. They formed ranks, angry but wary of approaching the barricade after so many traps. Sergeant Greene appeared, seeming torn between the threat ahead and his gasping admiral.

“Get...get...” tried Wintermourn.

“Come forward, ye dogs!” snarled Euron. “I’ll have the measure of real men before I hunt down that peacock popinjay!”

A tremor shook the boardwalk, giving everyone pause. Wintermourn struggled to look up as it came again, followed by a metallic, mechanical rhythm from down the street behind him. A Brass Paladin rounded the corner, brilliant even in the muted sunlight shining down through the haze above the town.

Cries of dismay came from behind the barricade. Wintermourn stared at the automaton, confused.

“But...how are they here?” asked Sergeant Greene.

A pair of Brass Paladins appeared behind the first, followed by two more. They marched onto the street in a column, a score in all, looking only mildly scuffed and dinged. A single figure followed behind. He wore a ragged navy officer’s jacket, though without the golden epaulets that denoted a command.

“Column halt!” ordered Royal Adjutant Chesterly. The Brass Paladins stopped abruptly, shaking the whole boardwalk street.

“What’s this?” called Euron Blackheart. “You bring yer wind-up toys again to do the job of flesh an’ blood men? Come forward, I say, an’ I’ll make quick work o’ ye!”

Adjutant Chesterly strolled up beside the column. He stopped at its head, reviewing Wintermourn’s forces as well as those of the pirate king beyond his barricade. Though his clothing was torn and rumpled, he stood with confidence.

“Chesterly?” gasped Wintermourn. “What in the Realms Below are you doing here?”

The royal adjutant looked at him in surprise. “Admiral Wintermourn. There you are.” A slow smile spread across the lips of the younger man. “Dash it all, fellow. You’re looking rather rough.”

You’re dead, Chesterly. You think yourself beyond my reach? Royal appointment or no, I’ll see you dead and dishonored for that.
Wintermourn pushed the thought aside. “What are you doing here?” he demanded again.

“Checking up on you,” replied Chesterly. “The crown prince left you his Paladins but then spied them sticking out of a bunch of rubble a few streets back.” He gestured towards the lagoon and the roiling battle there. “
That’s
a mess. Confounded pirates are giving us a spot of trouble from above now, and we can’t approach with proper reinforcements. They sank the
Titan
and the
Gargantua
when they tried to come ashore. His Highness dares not leave the
Glory
unattended, though he’s having a right good time. At any rate, he sent me here to recover his clockwork troopers and to find out just what you’ve been up to all afternoon.”

The ex-officer stared down at him, waiting in amusement for a reply that he knew wouldn’t be coming quickly. Wintermourn panted. It seemed his wind just wouldn’t come back.

“Are ye having a damned tea party?” shouted Euron. “Have yer stones all fallen off? Quit yer hidin’ behind yer metal men! I’ll have the measure of ye before I send ye off to meet the Goddess!”

“And who the daemon are you?” demanded Chesterly.

Euron drew himself up. The pirate woman in the half cloak beside him tried to shush him, unsuccessfully. “What? Ye come into my town, assail me men an’ ships, and ye don’t even recognize the pirate king o’ these isles? I be Euron Blackheart, ye knave!”