Chasing the Lantern (15 page)

The sun sat low in the west, below the layer of heavy cloud. It illuminated the deck of the
Dawnhawk
, highlighting the disorder and filth from their recent travails, rendering them stark and apparent. Fengel frowned at the state of the ship. She deserved better.

It was definitely time for a bit of a break. Fengel wondered if he'd pushed too hard to get this far. Their brazen theft had warranted a quick escape, but he had to admit to himself that they'd gotten clean away, and it was simple eagerness that drove him now. No one chased after them. The other airship spied this morning had given him a start; his fear then was pursuit by Natasha. But the other vessel had quickly fallen behind, its course aimed elsewhere. Fengel had put it out of his mind.

He checked the wide expanse all about the ship. Nothing gave him pause. In the distance, leagues ahead, he thought he saw a dark stain on the horizon. That would be the Continent and the Stormwall, still a day's worth of travel at their current rate. He called out to the lookouts at their stations. Their answering cries came back a few moments later. The ocean was free of nearby islets that might harbor more scryn.

As good a place as any
. He looked again to the gearbox, where a brass tube emerged from its top. Earlier, the Mechanist had informed him that it would allow vocal communication down to the furnace-room where he resided. Fengel cleared his throat, leaned forward and spoke clearly. "Cool engines. Full stop."

He waited for acknowledgement. There was no reply. Fengel frowned and leaned in closer, wondering if he'd been heard. The Mechanist would be irritated, having just gotten the furnace fired up again. He opened his mouth to speak again and a shrill cacophony erupted from the tube. Fengel jerked back in startlement, his ears suddenly ringing.

Apparently it worked. The rhythm of the furnace below changed, its constant low vibration slowed. He glanced back to the stern to see the steam-pipe exhaust dwindling, the chain-driven propellers halting in their spin.

Fengel waved down a passing crew-woman, Andrea Holt. He gave her the wheel and told her to keep it steady, then walked up to listen to Lucian's reports on the state of ship and crew. His first mate stood up near the bow. Fengel started to make his way up, but stopped a short distance from the helm. The new girl, Miss Stone, crouched furtively near the port-side gunwales.

Lucky, indeed, to have you along
. The incident with the skysails was embarrassing, but losing them entirely would have been disastrous. Not to mention expensive. As well, though, her quick thinking with the scryn-swarm would have her firmly in the crew's good-books, raising him again in their eyes as well for letting her aboard. Who knew that a Triskelion doxy would prove so useful? "Miss Stone?" he asked. "Are you well?"

Lina whirled in surprise. She clutched a hip flask in one hand, white-knuckled. "Yes!" she cried, over-loud. "I'm fine! Perfectly fine." She smiled, leaning back against the exhaust-pipe. "How are you?"

Fengel paused for a moment to consider the question. He felt tired from the stress and the strain of their recent exertions. Mistakes had just been made, and they were his to own. Abruptly an acute pang of loneliness washed over him. In times past there would have been someone else to prop him up, help check his blind spots and poor decisions. His wife...

He blinked, surprised at the feeling. He shoved it aside as a pointless and treacherous line of thought.
I've been better, but also a lot worse.
Fengel smiled at Lina. "Capital," he said, "thanks in no small part to you." A caustic stench tickled his nose, making him sneeze. Only one thing smelled like that. The flask in her hand must be filled with Cure-all. "Good Goddess above." He waved a hand to disperse the stink. "You're not actually drinking that stuff, are you?"

Lina appeared to notice the flask in her hand for the first time. She jerked it behind her back. "No! No, I—" She quieted, calculation in her eyes. Then she pulled the flask back around, staring at it. "Yes," she continued, voice now deadpan. "Yes, that is what I am doing." She glanced down at the flask, and then back up again at him, as if trying to decide whether to take a swig from it, and really hoping not to.

Fengel frowned. Miss Stone was acting decidedly suspicious. Then it came to him. "It's all right," he said with a smile. "We're pirates, not Perinese sailors, Miss Stone. It's fine, so long as you're not drunk on watch." Everyone dealt with the stress of battle differently. And she had been through a lot today, not including getting reprimanded by Lucian awhile before. "You're not the first to calm their nerves with drink after a bit of a scuff."

"
Chirr
."

Miss Stone went pale as a sheet. Fengel raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry?"

Lina coughed, fist to her mouth. "Um,
hrm
. Excuse me. That was...ah. That was me." She glanced around like a cornered animal. "I may have overdone it? I'm a little drunk?"

Fengel nodded. "Perfectly understandable. But as I said, please remember that your watch is on in several hours." He leaned in. "Personally, if you want some advice, you're going to want something that takes the edge off but doesn't put you under too much. Cure-all is something I would probably stay away from."

Lina stared at him. Then she nodded eagerly. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." She glanced back up the deck toward the bow. "I'd, ah, I'd best get below for a bit. Henry said I should avoid Mr. Thorne for a little while to come."

Fengel looked up to the bow where his first mate stood. "Don't worry yourself overmuch, Miss Stone. You surprised us all at first when we realized what you were doing; we didn't understand. That's forgiven, though. We're not some Navy ship, ready to punish quick thinking. Lucian's just upset now that he didn't catch that detail about our lovely new vessel. Still, maybe you should head down below, if only to find something else to drink."

Lina smiled, bright and brittle. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." The young woman turned back to the gunwales and pulled a hempen sack up and out from between it and the exhaust-pipes. "Chirr," she seemed to say again. Glancing furtively about, she bowed to him and ran for the aft hatch belowdecks.

Fengel watched her go, then shook his head. "Strange girl," he muttered.

He examined the ship as he made his way up to the bow. Blood smeared the boards, most of it the black ichors of the scryn. Fengel swore another curse at the horrible creatures under his breath. They really were vile things, and one of several reasons he didn't fly much in this direction. Though he'd never seen it himself, there were horror stories of scryn-swarms burrowing into the frames of the airship gasbags, attracted to the smell of light-air gas. Inevitably such stricken vessels crashed into the ocean with no survivors. Fengel did have to wonder at that last bit, though. If no one survived, how did anyone know about it?

The crew took notice of him as he passed, calling greetings. Fengel returned the favor, and commended those who'd fought well. His men and women were all skilled and confident in their abilites, he knew, but, like everyone else, they liked it to be noticed. Fengel made sure that he did; it was one of the many carefully orchestrated reasons they all stayed so loyal to him.

 Up near the bow, he finally found Lucian. The first mate was eyeing a stanchion connecting an anchor line to the gas-bag above. "The little vermin will chew on anything," he muttered at Fengel's approach.

"Did they go after anything else?" asked Fengel.

Lucian turned to his captain. "No, thankfully. The new girl got rid of them before they had a chance to really run wild. As for the ship herself; we knew she was a beauty, guess that means she's a bit more delicate than we thought too. I chatted with the Mechanist."

Fengel raised an eyebrow. "Chatted?"

His first mate grimaced. "Was lectured by, rather. These skysails will give us a higher consistent motivation along the aetherlines, apparently. But we can't subject them to the kind of pressure we're used to in places like the Maelstrom." He sighed. "Yet another thing that girl caught that I didn't."

If Lucian had any faults, Fengel knew, it was a tendency towards perfectionism. He was much like his old nemesis Mordecai Wright in that respect. It also meant that Lucian tended to dwell on failure. Both of them knew it, though, and Fengel was careful not to prod at it any further. "And the crew?" he said, changing the subject.

Lucian shook his head. "Could have been a lot worse. Mostly cuts and bruises. A few got stung. That's going to hurt. Scryn-poison is painful stuff, but not usually deadly. We're going do be down a few more on day-watch while they recover."

Fengel rested his hands on the bow railing. "Well, we should be right enough. It's good that it's not any worse." He watched the horizon, then gestured at the distant, dark stain of the sky. "The course was correct. That's the Stormwall, if I guess correctly. And thus, the Yulan Continent." He smiled at his first mate. "Payday is almost here."

Lucian nodded. "We'll have to find the Silverpenny River. I went over the maps, and it should be somewhere south of the Engmann's Run terminus. Not far, but the place was only seen once before by a Perinese survey team. We'll have a day, a day and a half maybe, to get things back in order." He turned to his captain. "Looks like you were right this time."

Fengel grimaced. "I've been wrong enough lately that I think I'm due. It's good to get a break once in awhile."

"Ship ahoy!"

They both turned back down the deck. One of the lookouts, a skinny youth by the name of Jonas, had scrabbled down the ratlines from up above. He pointed out and upwards. "Ship ahoy! Dropping fast on us from above, starboard-side!"

Fengel met Lucian's gaze. Then both of them ran for the starboard gunwales. Reaching it, Fengel leapt up onto the rail and grabbed at the mesh of the ratlines leading up to the gas-bag frame and above.

The dark, bulbous shape of an airship was falling fast on them from up above, using only propellers and steam. She was on a direct bearing; there was no mistaking her intent.

It can't be.
Fengel fumbled in his jacket for his spyglass.
It can't be.
Yet he already knew who it was. He brought out his spyglass and extended it, peering into the sky. The distant skyship resolved into a black-hulled vessel, ancient and makeshift. He let out a soft, but heartfelt, curse.

"What?" asked Lucian. "Who is that?" Fengel said nothing, instead passing the spyglass wordlessly to his mate. Lucian looked through it and uttered an exclamation. "The
Copper Queen
?" he cried. "Euron himself is bearing down on us?"

"No," said Fengel. "Natasha." He knew it to be true. The ship from earlier
had
been her. If she'd moved quickly enough from Haventown she could have just made it to Engmann's Maelstrom. But it would have been close. Fengel had an epiphany. He dropped back down to the deck. "She knew. She
knew
about the skysails. That was her earlier, Lucian. She wasn't chasing because she knew she could lay an ambush here, knew we'd have lost the sails if it hadn't been for Miss Stone. She'd have had to go at full speed to make it. Blast it, how did she know?" he turned to the deck and bellowed through cupped hands. "Everyone to stations! Heft open the weapons lockers! Arm the wounded and call everyone up on deck!"

Fengel raced back to the helm without looking at the crew. Andrea Holt made to relinquish the helm and he waved her back to it. Instead, he leaned in towards the speaking-tube atop the helmsman's gearbox. "Furnace to full!" he cried.

Silence. Fengel felt Andrea's gaze on him and turned back to her. She shrugged, watching him curiously.
Did the Mechanist hear me?
He leaned farther in. "I say, are you down there? Get that furnace stoked up—"

A discordant screech exploded from the tube. Fengel jumped back, cursing and rubbing at his ear. The tube fell silent, only to erupt again in an unintelligible cacophony.

"Dash it all," muttered Fengel. He turned back to the helm. "Andrea, get down to the Mechanist and—"

"No time sir," said the piratess, pointing. She shook her head, dark locks of hair splaying about. Fengel followed her gesture. Up the deck the crew moved frantically, grabbing weapons from hastily opened lockers while others climbed up from the hatches belowdecks. Past them, the black hull of the
Copper Queen
was just visible, descending two hundred feet away to come level alongside.

Sarah Lome clambered up from the aft hatch and took in the situation at a glance. She immediately moved amidships to the weapons locker. Fengel nodded to Andrea and moved up the deck to where the massive piratess stood. His gunnery mistress nodded at him as she picked up a heavy axe and belted on a brace of pistols. Lucian and Henry Smalls joined them.

"Evening, Captain," said Sarah. She turned to Lucian. "Mister Thorne, what have you let happen on your watch? I'm told we got attacked by scryn too."

Lucian glowered. "Well, not all of us can sleep the day away—"

"Belay all that," ordered Fengel. His officers immediately quieted. He gestured them away so that the crew could keep arming themselves. "We're going to be boarded. If things go poorly, though, I'll call for quarter."

Henry frowned at the other airship. "Think she'll use a broadside to soften us up?" Most modern airships had a few cannons along the lowest decks, to bombard seagoing vessels. With it's traditional layout, Old Euron's ship was ironically better suited to attacking the
Dawnhawk
than any modern airship.

Fengel shook his head. "No. She won't want to damage the
Dawnhawk
. Still, if she came all this way in that old wreck..."

He trailed off as the other airship approached. It was close enough that he could pick out the individual crewmen on the other side, all shouting and waiving cutlasses high. A few overeager musket-shots rang out, too far away to be even close to effective, the plumes of gun smoke puffing away on the wind. Natasha stood on the foredeck, blade held in the air. Up on the aftcastle he spied Mordecai, a dark figure standing quietly.