The Aeronaut's Windlass (23 page)

“Stay with me, miss,” Ciriaco said in a low tone. “Albion—you, step over by your little friend on the ground. We’re going.”

Benedict narrowed his eyes, but then his nostrils flared, and he nodded as if in understanding. He took several steps until he stood over Gwen.

“Remember,” he said to Bridget, “our first lesson.”

Bridget blinked at him.

The first thing to learn, as he had often repeated while instructing her, was how to fall.

Of course . . . that hadn’t been the first
lesson
, had it?

It seemed rather suicidal, but . . . perhaps Benedict’s judgment in these matters was better than her own. So though it made her heart race with sudden, quivering terror, Bridget moved. She braced her feet and clamped her hands down onto Ciriaco’s right forearm, bending forward with all of her strength, much as she would when tossing a side of beef forward and over her shoulder.

And several things happened very quickly.

First, something like a collar of fire closed around her neck. Ciriaco was no novice of battle—instead of being thrown over her shoulder, he took a smooth pair of steps, circling around her, and as a result he was only lifted a few inches clear of the floor.

As soon as she felt his weight pivoting away from him and onto her own legs, Bridget pushed her body back as hard as she could—and slammed his wounded shoulder between her body and the spirestone wall. He let out a startled snarl of pain, and the deathly grip on her throat loosened.

A crackling lance of etheric energy burned across Bridget’s field of vision and struck one of the Auroran Marines square in the head. He went down in a heap of motionless limbs. The first bolt was followed by three more half a heartbeat later, and though two failed to score, the other struck an Auroran in the thigh, sweeping his leg from beneath him and slamming him to the floor.

Bridget had no chance at all in pitting her muscles against the warriorborn’s stony strength. Both of her arms did not serve to overpower his single limb.

So she kept slamming her body against his wounded shoulder, seized upon a single one of his fingers with both of her capable hands, and bent it back savagely.

Ciriaco screamed a furious word, and then Bridget found herself flying forward though the air, until she struck the far wall of the tunnel. It was a rather startling experience, particularly the sudden stop. Her arms and legs stopped working properly, and as she bounced off the wall she felt herself falling, and she couldn’t breathe.

She wound up on the floor, and then the two crystals the Aurorans had been using for light winked out, leaving nothing but blackness broken only by dazzling flashes of etheric light.

The floor seemed quite cool and comfortable for some reason, and she was content to remain there. The flashes of light ceased their bickering, and a moment later she felt Rowl’s nose gently nuzzling her cheek. She made the effort to move her hand and assure him that she was all right.

Then she heard voices and light sprang up in the tunnel. A great many men with weatherworn clothing, weatherworn faces, and odd, heavy-looking tunics had appeared. They were all armed with gauntlet and blade but for four who carried long guns, their copper coils gleaming, their overheated barrels giving off trickles of steam as they boiled away the water from their little storage tanks.

One man appeared from their midst, and Bridget picked him out immediately as their leader. He was of only average height, his suit was rather mismatched and patchy, and one of his arms was held in a sling, but there were the marks of gauntlet fire on the suit, and he was sprinkled with blood that did not appear to be his own. The man moved with an absolute surety of purpose, with unbroken focus, and the men around him deferred to him with an obvious, silent respect that could not have been expressed in words. He took a quick look around and said, “Excellent shot, Mister Stern.”

A slender little man holding a long gun touched a finger to an imaginary cap. “Baker made the good shot, sir. Legged him. We’ve got a prisoner to talk to.”

“Good work. See to him.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The man turned and approached Bridget.

Rowl immediately stepped up onto Bridget’s chest, sat, and regarded the man with narrow eyes and a low growl.

“Excuse me,” he said to the cat. “But you did wish me to help her, did you not?”

The cat’s eyes narrowed further.

The man extended his hand to Bridget and asked, “Can you rise, miss?”

Bridget made a hushing sound of reassurance to Rowl, took the man’s hand, and slowly rose, gathering Rowl into her other arm as she did. “Yes. Thank you, sir.” It hurt to speak.

The man inclined his head politely. “My name is Grimm.” He looked over to where a tall and very handsome younger man was helping Gwen to her feet. “Mister Creedy, detail a squad to secure those explosives, if you please.”

“Aye, Captain,” said the tall young man.

Bridget suddenly felt a bit dizzy, and then Benedict was at her side, one of his hands beneath her elbow, offering her gentle support.

“The Aurorans,” she asked him. “What happened?”

“They took your advice—minus the part where they abducted you, for which I cannot help but feel grateful,” Benedict replied.

“I was going to lift him and throw him like you told me,” Bridget said, “but it didn’t work. I’m sorry.”

Benedict blinked. “Is
that
what you thought . . . No, no. I caught the scent of Captain Grimm and his men coming once Rowl returned, and thought a cross fire was imminent. I meant for you to
fall
.”

Bridget blinked. “Oh. It’s . . . In retrospect, it’s rather obvious when you phrase it in that manner.”

Benedict lifted her chin gently with a couple of fingers and peered at her neck. “I must admit, though—he certainly didn’t see it coming.” He poked at her throat gently with his fingertips.

“Ow,” Bridget said calmly.

“A physician should look at this,” Benedict said, his voice worried.

Gwen had gone to Barnabus’s side and looked up from the wounded man. “Him, too. He seems to be unconscious.” She rose and went to Grimm. “Captain, can you spare any men to help us with our wounded?”

“Of course, miss,” Grimm said, inclining his head in a little bow. “I’ll have them taken to where my own men are being treated at House Lancaster, if that suits you.”

Gwen arched her eyebrows rather sharply and said, “I suppose that will do.”

“Mister Creedy,” Grimm said. “You will take a squad to get the civilians to safety and the prisoner and confiscated material to a secure location. I will continue the sweep and meet with you back at House Lancaster. Mister Stern, take point again, if you please. . . .”

And as quickly as they had come, most of the aeronauts and their captain departed.

The tall young man saw to the loading of the explosives back onto their stretcher, and men to carry them, and made sure the captured Auroran wasn’t going to bleed to death or bolt. Then he turned to them and said, “Ladies, sir, if you could come with me, please. We shouldn’t linger here until we’re sure it’s clear of more of the enemy.”

Bridget still felt somewhat confused. “Benedict,” she said, “I’m sorry but . . . I don’t understand. Is the fighting over?”

His expression darkened. “No,” he said quietly. “I think it’s just getting started.”

Chapter 17

Spire Albion, Habble Morning, House of Master Ferus

F
olly sat up in her bed in the little loft over the master etherealist’s library, covered in a cold sweat, her heart racing, her breath heavy. She sat there dully for a mute moment. Terror left a sour miasma in the air around a person—not something one could smell, even if she had the sharpest of noses, but she always felt that she could detect its stench, for some reason.

“Teacher,” Folly called. “It would seem I’ve had the dream again.”

“Did you catch it?” the master called back. “If you didn’t, I should say that the dream has had you.”

Folly sat up and looked around her little loft. Her stacks and stacks of jars full of little-used illumination crystals—she would never understand the phrase “burnt out” in reference to the crystals that no longer responded to an average human will—gave the entire place a soft aqua glow. She turned to check her dream catcher.

Between two stacks of glass jars was a funnel web woven of individual strands of ethersilk. Folly checked the web and the small etheric cage at the narrow end of the funnel, built of a neutral crystal in a frame of copper wire.

Really, Folly thought, it was quite a good thing that she was an etherealist’s apprentice, because she would have made a remedial spider. The funnel web had dozens of sagging strands, and several of them had even parted completely, their loose ends floating away from her fingers as she brushed them near. It was lopsided, the curl of the spiral didn’t close in a steady curve, and there were several obvious lumps in the design, where her knots and glue-work had been clumsy.

But, she thought, that didn’t mean that it was necessarily a
bad
web, especially for someone who had never had the same opportunity to learn afforded every spider.

And the little crystal in the etheric cage was glowing with sullen, flame-colored light.

“I am a successful self-taught spider, I think,” she called down to Ferus.

“I always hoped you would grow into one,” Ferus said. His chair scraped on the floor, and footsteps approached the ladder to the loft. The ladder groaned as he came up it and eyed the trap. “By the Builders, Folly. What a marvelous little gnatcatcher you are!”

Folly smiled and bounced a little as he spoke, reaching for the cage.

The small assembly promptly retreated from her outreached hand, and the crystal seemed to strain against its copper cage, buzzing and vibrating against the metal like an angry wasp. She blinked several times and took her fingers away from it, reminded of the unpleasant relationships enjoyed between some spiders and some wasps.

“Ah!” Ferus cackled. “Ah, you
did
it. I thought as much!”

“I just told you that I did it, teacher,” Folly pointed out.

“Not you,” Ferus said in a testy voice. “I was speaking of the Enemy.”

Folly tilted her head and regarded the little copper framework. “There’s an Enemy?”

“God in Heaven, yes,” Ferus said. “I’m sure I told you. I distinctly remember doing so.”

“Perhaps that was tomorrow, teacher.”

“It may be,” Ferus said. “But yes, quite. Enemy, capital E.”

“If one is to have an Enemy, one might as well have a respectable one. And this dream? It is an Enemy sending?”

“I rather suspect it was more of a Folly
taking
,” Ferus replied. “Give it to us; let’s have a look.”

Folly considered the problem for a moment, then carefully reached her hand down on the far side of the copper cage. She moved her hand toward it, and it began to buzz again, moving away. She herded it over to the edge of the loft, and Ferus caught it handily as it leapt away from her.

“Excellent,” he said, his tone pleased. The old etherealist leaned down to peer at the crystal. “Let’s see what’s been on your mind, eh?”

His eyes glittered brightly and then the old man fell silent, staring.

Folly rose from her bed, took off her nightclothes, and put on clothes that felt right for today: a red stocking, a grey stocking with blue speckles, a plain dress of yellow cotton, and a dozen brightly colored scarves that she tied in a row down each arm, using her teeth to finish the knots. Then she strapped on a pistoleer’s gun belt, minus the unreliable weaponry, and filled the holsters with small mesh sacks of dim little etheric crystals instead. They were not used to being carried that way, but it would be a good learning experience for them, she thought. She completed the outfit with several more scarves that went around her neck and wound a long knitted scarf about her head. It was hot, but she thought it suited today, and she felt ever so much better once she had finished dressing.

She had time to dress and to sit down and begin telling all of her little crystals good morning when the master let out a long, slow breath and lowered the etheric cage with its sullen crystal heart. He looked awful. His face was grey, his eyes sunken.