Gravedigger 01 - Sea Of Ghosts (6 page)

Creedy’s face became illuminated – a battlefield corpse face with its mess of bloody bandages and teeth bared as if in a rictus of death. He held his weapon in one powerful fist, training it on the room behind the doorway. He scanned the room for an instant and then turned back to Granger and placed a finger against his lips. Then he grabbed the sides of the door frame and pulled the canoe through.

They were in a ballroom. Huge windows occupied the southern wall, the panes all broken to provide exits from the building. Long chains fixed to the ceiling supported gem lanterns, but the seawater had risen above them and they now shone underwater. Ripples of light chased each other across faded scenes painted onto the corbelled plaster overhead. There were images of long-dead Unmer kings and queens at court, pale exquisite palaces set among woodlands or ornamental gardens, depictions of ships at sea and then moored at harbour, where human slaves unloaded chests of jewels and strange golden machines. The painted heavens above these scenes contained a great mass of stars joined by interconnected lines and mathematical symbols. Taken as a whole, the artwork seemed to tell the story of the Unmer’s arrival from the East and the subsequent enslavement of the human race.

The ballroom itself was empty, but for a floating platform being used as a mooring for three blood-red dragon-hide skiffs. Upon this makeshift dock lay a man wrapped in a dirty blanket. He appeared to be asleep.

Creedy inclined his head toward the skiffs. Granger nodded. Those vessels were more suited to the open sea. He glanced back to see Tummel manoeuvring the other canoe quietly through the doorway. Banks and Swan had their own weapons out.

Without a sound, they paddled across the room to the dock.

Granger peered down at the ballroom floor two fathoms below. It was littered with rubble, opened cans, snarls of wire and broken nets. He couldn’t see any of the Drowned, but he spotted a pile of bones from at least three more human skeletons. A chain rose from a concrete anchor to the underside of the platform. Shoals of small silver fish glided through the murky water.

The sleeping trover did not stir as Granger slid his canoe alongside. His mouth was open. He was snoring softly. He wore soiled whaleskins, too large for his narrow shoulders, and sported an uneven beard that grew only from the few remaining patches of his jaw not burned by seawater. Sergeant Creedy disembarked silently, then walked over and jammed the barrel of his hand-cannon down over the trover’s mouth.

‘Wakey wakey, son,’ he said.

The man’s eyes flicked open. He would surely have screamed if Creedy’s gun hadn’t entirely obscured his lips. He managed a gasp and tried to get up, but the sergeant just shook his head. ‘Where do you hide your trove?’

Granger stepped onto the platform and dragged his kitbag after him. He inspected the skiffs. One was leaking from holes in the hide, but the remaining two looked sound enough. He helped Banks and Swan out of the other canoe, then reached an arm down to assist Tummel. The old soldier groaned and complained about stiffness in his legs.

‘More brine than blood in my veins,’ he muttered.

‘More whisky, you mean,’ Swan said. ‘Give me hand with that skiff.’

‘Your stash,’ Creedy said, holding the barrel of his weapon firmly over the trover’s mouth. ‘Where d’you keep it?’

The man began to choke.

‘Leave it,’ Granger said. ‘We’re only here for the boats.’

Creedy spat. ‘We’ll need money where we’re going, sir.’

‘We’re not thieves, Sergeant.’

Swan and Tummel had untied the soundest of the skiffs. It was also packed with nets, hooks and lines – larger versions of the equipment in the canoes – along with goggles and whaleskin cloaks to protect the treasure hunters from caustic sea spray. Granger unfastened the other boats and kicked them away from the dock. Then he shoved the two canoes out after them.

The four men clambered into the open-decked craft, leaving Creedy pinning the trover to the dock.

‘Sergeant,’ Granger said.

Creedy leaned his big ugly face closer to his captive. ‘Tell me where it is, you son of a bitch.’

‘Sergeant.’

Creedy gave a growl of frustration, then released the trover and stood up. He kicked the man hard in the ribs and swung back his boot to do it again.

‘We’re leaving, Sergeant,’ Granger said. ‘Right now.’

Creedy stomped over and got into the stern seat beside Tummel, while Swan and Banks slotted oars into the rowlocks midway along the hull. Granger stuffed his kitbag down by his feet and pushed off from the bow.

They crossed the ballroom, leaving the stranded trover gazing after them.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he shouted. ‘You’re not Imperial soldiers.’

Creedy raised his hand-cannon.

‘Lower you weapon, Sergeant,’ Granger said.

They rowed the skiff out through one of the windows.

The street outside was broader, and the sea noticeably rougher, here. Waves washed through the roof spaces of ruined houses. The land below must have fallen away more steeply beyond this point, because the five men reached the edge of the Sunken Quarter after only three blocks. Ahead lay open ocean, silver in the starlight. To the west they could see foam thrashing against the dark ridge of the harbour breakwater. On the landward side stood the cannery, with the Fortress peninsula behind. Lanterns burned on the decks of an old iron dragon-hunter moored at the cannery loading ramp.

The skiff pitched and rolled, but Banks and Swan kept her bow pointed towards the waves. The wind was fresh, but manageable, and they made good progress. Every man aboard had sailed in worse. They wore the trovers’ goggles and whaleskin cloaks to guard against sea spray, and they stuffed scraps of sackcloth into the rowlocks to muffle the sound of the oars. They didn’t speak, lest the wind carry their voices back to the shore. Soon they had cleared the breakwater and were heading back into the harbour.

Unseen in the dark, they slipped past the port side of the dragon-hunter. The silhouettes of her harpoons could be seen overhead, pointing at the stars. Her engines throbbed inside her iron belly. The rich odour of meat filled the air here, mingling with the ever-present shipyard aromas of brine and oil.

Creedy directed them to a ladder beside the cannery loading ramp at the rear of the ship, where the sea was red with blood. Granger held the skiff while his men disembarked, then tied her bow line to the ladder and hefted his kitbag over his shoulder before climbing up the greasy rungs after them.

The sea door at the rear of the dragon-hunter had been lowered onto the loading ramp below, revealing the ship’s cavernous interior. At the top of the ramp, a massive steel winch waited beside an overhead conveyor system of hooks and chains designed to uplift carcasses and carry them through an enormous doorway obscured by flaps of whaleskin.

Three big stevedores worked to unload the vessel. Two of them dragged a pair of hooked chains down the blood-soaked loading ramp below the winch and disappeared with them into the darkness of the ship’s hold. After a moment, one of them called out, ‘Pull.’

The third man had remained at the winch. He clanked a lever forward, whereupon the chains tightened and then slowly began to reel back onto a huge spool. As Granger watched, the carcass of a dragon emerged from the ship’s hold. It was a common red from the Sea of Kings, about eighty feet from snout to tail-tip. The chain hooks had been rammed into the flesh between the scales at the nape of its neck. Its crumpled wings scraped over the bloody concrete as the chain dragged it up the ramp towards the huge factory doorway. The stevedores emerged from the ship again, following a few yards behind. The dragon was still bleeding out from a harpoon wound in its chest. At the top of the ramp, the third man stopped the winch. His two comrades unhooked the carcass from one set of chains and hooked it up to another pair fixed to the conveyor system above.

‘That’s Davy,’ Creedy said, pointing to a fourth man who had just appeared through the factory doorway. He was a lean, hard-faced fellow, draped in bloody oilskins. A cheroot hung from the corner of his mouth. He carried a head-spade like a staff. He glanced at the carcass, then pulled a lever on the wall behind.

Another
clunk
, and the dragon carcass rose from the concrete floor, pulled up onto the overhead conveyor system by hooks in its neck and in the base of its tail. When it was fully off the ground, Davy halted the mechanism and then threw another switch.

The conveyor gave a jerk, a rattle, and then rumbled forward, carrying the suspended carcass through the whale-hide doorway.

‘Davy!’ Creedy called.

The hard-faced man looked up. He frowned and then jerked his head over his shoulder. And then he disappeared back through the doorway into the factory.

‘Come on,’ Creedy said.

Granger and the others followed the sergeant along the edge of the loading ramp, while the two stevedores below returned the chains to the ship to hook up another carcass. Creedy pushed through the whaleskin flaps covering the conveyor doorway.

Davy was waiting for them on the other side. He glared at Creedy and growled, ‘I said two.’

They were in an enormous butchering hall, where dozens of dragon carcasses trundled along the overhead conveyor system. Workers slewed off scales with head-spades and opened bellies to spill out guts and hacked off wings and flesh with heavy machetes. White bones glistened among red meat. Blood ran in runnels across the floor and collected in frothing channels. The smell and heat was overpowering.

‘Two, five, what’s the difference?’ Creedy said.

‘The difference is, I only got two suits,’ Davy replied. ‘The price was for two. We already agreed that.’

Granger stepped between them. ‘What does he mean?’ he said to Creedy. ‘The arrangement was for all five of us.’

Creedy looked at the ground. ‘You couldn’t afford five,’ he said. ‘Those suits aren’t cheap.’

Granger took a deep breath. ‘What did you think was going to happen when we got here?’

Creedy shrugged. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘Maybe whaleskins. Hell, what was I supposed to say? I thought you’d figure something out. You always figure something out.’

Davy laughed. ‘Whaleskins? You’ll be dead in a day.’

Granger turned to him. ‘Show me.’

He led them through the butchering hall and through a set of hangar doors into a cold room. Here, lying among blocks of ice, was an enormous green dragon. It was twice the size of the reds. Its mouth had been propped open with a head-spade, revealing the pink tunnel of its throat. One of its eyes stared glassily at the ceiling, the other had been mangled into red pulp. On the floor beside it lay two bulky brass diving suits. They looked perilously old and rotten.

‘You were lucky,’ Davy said. ‘We’ve not seen a monster like this in months.’ He rested a hand on the dragon’s snout. ‘She sank two ships, dragged them straight to the bottom, before the third put a harpoon through her eye.’

Banks blew through his teeth. ‘That is one phenomenally ugly bitch,’ he said. ‘She reminds me of someone.’ He looked over at Creedy. ‘Can’t think who, though.’

Creedy gave him a grim smile.

‘You aren’t gonna survive in there without a suit,’ Davy said. ‘Not all the way to Ethugra, anyways. These greens have guts like acid. Burn a man alive.’

‘Can you get more suits?’ Granger said.

Davy snorted. ‘Tonight?’ He stared at the dragon for a long moment. ‘Maybe for sixteen thousand, I can get one.’

‘I don’t have that sort of money.’

‘Then you’re screwed, aren’t you? Ship sails at dawn.’

Banks stepped up to Granger. ‘You and Creedy go,’ he said. ‘We’ll follow when we can.’

Granger shook his head.

‘Creedy knows Ethugra,’ Banks said. ‘You’ll need him once you get there.’

‘Makes sense to me,’ Creedy said.

‘No,’ Granger insisted. ‘I’m not leaving anyone behind. Banks and Swan can use the diving suits. The rest of us will have to wrap up in whaleskins. Once the carcass is aboard, we’ll climb out and look for another place to hide.’

Creedy grunted. ‘It’s a goddamn prison ship. Where you going to hide?’

‘We’ll deal with that problem when we have to,’ Granger said.

‘The sergeant’s right for once,’ Swan said. ‘We wouldn’t stand a chance on a ship like that, not outside that big green bastard. You and Creedy take the suits.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘To be honest, I never much liked the idea of Ethugra anyway.’

‘Absolute shit-hole,’ Tummel agreed. ‘Too many jailers and not enough publicans.’

‘Gambling’s illegal in Ethugra,’ Swan muttered.

‘Everything’s illegal in Ethugra,’ Tummel said.

Banks nodded. ‘We’ll take our chances here.’

Creedy had already chosen the better of the two diving suits and began to pull it on.

Granger wouldn’t have ordered them to obey him if he still had the power to do so. They were his men – the last and best of his men – but more than that, they were their own men. He couldn’t order them, but he didn’t have to abandon them either. ‘I’m staying here,’ he said. ‘One of you can have that suit.’

‘I don’t think you understand, sir,’ Banks said. ‘If you don’t go, the suit stays empty.’ He glanced over at Swan and Tummel, and then the three of them turned around and walked away.