Chapter Six - "On Silken Wing"

Chapter Six

“On Silken Wing”

THE sun painted Lady Zumaat orange and yellow as the wind-wing rose up to meet it. Kak’hamish smiled, as he almost always smiled, to feel its warmth on his face. To feel the morning sun on one’s face after the chill of night was one of life’s special pleasures. It promised a day of happiness, achievement, and plenty. The promise was seldom fulfilled, and less so with each passing year, but the promise itself was a beautiful thing.

“Trimsman, full lift!” the captain barked an order down the open hatchway above the trim station. Kak’hamish imagined the lifting vanes under the fore and aft hull rotating, presenting their broad, flat surfaces to the ground below, and the wind-wing seemed to leap upward. Annabelle gasped in surprise and Nathanial steadied her with one hand while tightening his grasp on the rail with the other. Annabelle’s face immediately broke into a broad smile, however.

“This is fun!” she exclaimed, and Kak’hamish nodded his agreement, although Nathanial did not seem to share the sentiment.

Kak’hamish turned back to the southern sky. After a few minutes he saw the rising figure of the skrill and rider. The animal turned toward the city and the climbing wind-wing and Kak’hamish lifted his bundle onto the rail. The cover came away to expose the cage beneath, and the two coronapes blinked in the sudden light and protested their interrupted sleep with shrill clucks.

He opened the cage door, carefully pulled out one of the coronapes, checked to make sure it had not pulled the red streamer free, and released it to dive away and then soar into the sky above them. He waited a minute, made sure the rider was flying in their direction, and released the second flyer. A mile distant the skrill turned west, paralleling their course, made a shallow dive and then soared up again, now climbing with them.

“Two flyers today?” Annabelle asked.

“To make sure she saw. She is used to a flyer at noon.”

Annabelle and Nathanial both looked at him, clearly intrigued by his use of the female pronoun, but both too polite to inquire further. That was something he liked about Earth people: they might not always mind their own business, but at least they had a sense they ought to.

“Sidemen to the rigging!” the captain bellowed, and crewmen boiled from the forward hatch and scrambled out onto the canvas-wrapped outriggers. “Make Wing!”

The sidemen removed the lines wrapped around the canvas covers, then gathered in the canvas weather covers and passed them inboard to the main deck. Younger, less-experienced crew rolled and secured them on the deck and carried them below into the cargo hold. On the outriggers the sidemen shook loose the fine linen wing panels. The men on the forward outrigger made their way back to the main deck, then aft, and finally out onto the aft outrigger, which held no furled fabric. All hands drew on the lines attached to the inboard and outboard ends of each wing panel and stretched them back to the next outrigger, where the sidemen secured them at half a dozen points. Within minutes a broad horizontal surface of wind-rippled linen stretched to each side, reaching fifty feet out in the centre but narrowing sharply toward the front and less dramatically to the rear, like an arrowhead.

Nathanial and Annabelle both watched in fascination, but Nathanial looked puzzled as the sidemen climbed back aboard to the main deck. “It’s quite impressive,” he said, “but I still don’t really see how the thing works. It seems to me that so far we are simply drifting with the wind, and as that is out of the west, it seems to be carrying us in the wrong direction. Doesn’t a sail have to be perpendicular to the wind to harness it?”

“It is not a sail,” Kak’hamish said.

The captain looked with satisfaction on the stretched wings, took another look over the side to make sure of their altitude, and walked to the open hatch above the trim station.

“Hold on,” Kak’hamish ordered.

“Trimsman, five points down nose and give this pig some weight!” the captain shouted.

The deck tilted forward and suddenly the ship seemed to drop from under them, although not so completely that they left their feet. The linen wings stretched taught with air and the massive merchant ship suddenly dove forward, gaining speed as it lost altitude, racing down toward the Martian desert below. Annabelle lost her balance and fell onto her seat, then slid down to the forward railing of the quarterdeck. Nathanial and Kak’hamish both dashed forward to her side, Nathanial ending on his hands and knees, but when they got to her, her face was red with excitement and pleasure.

She cried out, exhilarated, her hair having come loose in the wind and blowing back behind her like the streamers on the coronapes. “This must be what it feels like to ski!”

Then the nose rose and the ship soared like a bird, rising and losing some speed, but still racing forward.

“Helm, come right to due west,” the captain ordered, and the ship responded with a gentle bank to the right, then levelled again, continuing its gradual descent.

Nathanial knelt at the quarterdeck rail, eyes glued to the taught linen wings. “A glider!’ he said. “Why didn’t I think of this before? Why, it’s so obvious! Gliders are nothing much more than toys back on Earth, of course, because dynamic lift can only sustain a very light craft for a limited time. But with a large enough wing and liftwood for buoyancy—why, it’s genius! And when the ship loses enough altitude for concern, the captain simply adds lift, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, of course,” Kak’hamish said. “The ship will lose a little speed in the climb, but only through drag, and then gain it back as soon as it again begins its dive.”

He found it odd that Nathanial, who worked with the design of aerial vessels on Earth, was so unfamiliar with the principles of a wind-wing. Were Earth humans so addicted to their iron and steel technologies, to steam and propellers, that they had ignored what Mars had discovered so long ago? Even when wind-wings regularly visited British colonies and trading stations? If so, that indicated a dangerous arrogance indeed.

“this ship is fascinating, I must say!” Nathanial declared. “I spent all afternoon with the trimsman. Why, I feel as if I could almost fly this vessel myself, or at least maintain its trim and altitude. But according to my calculations, the voyage from Abak’hn to Thoth should take no more than thirty hours. Why is our transit time listed as three days?”

Annabelle thought that an excellent question, but had no answer of her own. “Are you sure your numbers are correct?” she asked. “Thirty hours seems very swift for a passage of eight hundred miles.”

“More like eight hundred and fifty, but this wind-wing is clearly capable of thirty knots, which is near enough to thirty-three miles per hour. That puts us at only twenty-six hours of flight time, so thirty hours allows for considerable margin of error.”

Why would Haat lie about such a thing, Annabelle wondered. What profit was there in it?

“Come in,” she said in response to a soft knock, and Kak’hamish slipped through the doorway into her already cramped stateroom. She sat on her bed while Nathanial occupied the only chair. He rose to offer it to Kak’hamish, but the Martian waved him back down.

“What have you learned?”

“Nathanial, your concerns about travel time do not seem well-founded. The ship seldom reaches its best speed, in part due to a desire to avoid wear on the rigging. Beyond that, it coasts at night due to the possibility of unseen hazards to navigation. It stays at high altitude and barely makes way against the wind. If we had the wind at our backs, we would make better time, but as you noticed this morning, it is in our face. We are scheduled to arrive the morning of the third day, so it is still a flight time not much more than fifty hours total.”

Nathanial frowned in doubt.

“However, all is not as it seems,” Kak’hamish continued. “I spoke with the ship’s cook. The clergymen took their evening meal in the cargo hold, with their relics, which I would expect. But they asked for the normal ship’s fare. Tonight, like most nights, it was a stew made of dried vegetables and preserved meat, along with shipsbread, and they ate everything.”

“Why does that excite your suspicion?” Annabelle asked.

“These men wear the robes of the Fishers of Thoth, a small sect generally not seen east of the Grand Canal, and so its practices are not well-known.”

“But you know of them, of course,” Nathanial said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“I travelled to Thoth a number of years ago, and did so with my eyes open; it is not a great accomplishment by itself. The significant point is that, while cleansed, the clergy of the Fishers never eat flesh. These men are not who they claim to be.”

Annabelle thought that over for a moment. Men with secrets were generally up to no good, but whoever their secret friend was, or had been, had had a secret as well. Much like Dolan on Peregrine. She shuddered at the memory; it seemed so long ago now, but her arm still ached in part from his treatment of her, and her leg… Well, it was a direct consequence of the secrets men kept.

“There is a second thing,” Kak’hamish said. “I stopped at Nathanial’s stateroom first to see if he was there. He was not, obviously, as he was here instead, but this was left on his bed.”

Kak’hamish opened his hand to show a small, seamed piece of browned paper. Annabelle took it and Nathanial crowded by her shoulder to look at it.

“BEWAYR”

“Well, his spelling hasn’t got much better, but the intent is clear enough,” Nathanial said, and Annabelle agreed. The spidery hand writing was clearly the same as that of the author of the original note.

“So, our mysterious friend—if he truly is a friend—remains with us,” Annabelle said. “This narrows the possibilities for his identity considerably.”

“Yes, but before we explore that, there is a third thing, the most damning of all. Once night fell, the ship changed course to the south. I know this from years of navigating by the stars. We are headed not for Thoth, but for Siruahn.”

That final damning evidence made up Annabelle’s mind. “We can delay no longer with idle speculation. We must take what information we have to whatever authority is at hand, which I believe to be the six judges of Aetheria. While they may have no authority here, they will know what action to take. In any case, their journey is interrupted as well, and they at least deserve to know the facts facing us.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Nathanial said. Kak’hamish seemed less certain, but after a moment nodded his assent as well. “Will you come, Annabelle?” Nathanial asked.

“No, I have already taken off my artificial leg and I think we have little time to lose. You two must go to them, and quickly.”

nathanial led the way aft down the narrow wooden passageway along the port side of the quarters’ deck. The senior crew and owner, or charter-holder, slept in the quarters on the starboard side while the more common paying passenger slept to port. Nathanial and Annabelle’s cabins were forward so the judges had to be aft. The first cabin was silent and when Nathanial knocked softly, no one answered. Kak’hamish gestured down the passageway and Nathanial heard voices ahead, indistinct but clearly raised in some sort of heated discussion.

The deck felt odd beneath his feet, rising and falling slightly with the breeze. It felt somehow insubstantial, despite the solid sturdiness of the planed wood plank floor and the heavy timber bracings spaced along the passageway wall like flying buttresses. Perhaps it was that feeling of insubstantiality, of insecurity, which made Nathanial proceed aft more slowly, and with care not to make loud clumping noises on the deck as he did so. Or perhaps it was all the things they had learned so recently, even though none of them by themselves proved anything, and all of them might have perfectly reasonable and harmless explanations. Might have.

He walked slowly down the hall, his blood pounding in his ears, the sound of arguing voices growing louder. Onxym Haat shouted at someone—no, not shouted exactly. Protested to, reasoned with, pleaded with, but not shouted at. Although the words made no sense to Nathanial, the tone was clear; this was a subordinate who disputed the decision of his superior, but stopped short of questioning his authority.

To whom did Onxym Haat consider himself a subordinate? He had chartered the ship, which, as Nathanial understood the arrangement, made him de facto master of the vessel, with even the captain bound by his orders, within reason. Within reason. What did that mean in this mad place?

Nathanial jumped at the touch on his shoulder, but turned to see Kak’hamish tap his lips with the flat of his palm two or three times—obviously meaning for him to keep silent. Nathanial nodded and the Martian gestured for him to follow him back down the passage.

When they had gone almost its entire length back to Annabelle’s door, however, the hatch to the main deck opened and a grey-robed figure entered, started at the appearance of Kak’hamish and Nathanial virtually in front of him, and then with a snarl drew his knife and leaped on Kak’hamish.

Kak’hamish fell back against Nathanial, who in turn fell against a timber support, but kept his footing. The two Martians struggled, their hands locked and Kak’hamish holding the knife away from his throat. The passage was so narrow, however, Nathanial could not get past Kak’hamish to help. He searched for some weapon which he could use to reach past his friend and strike the false priest down, or at least distract him. Instead he saw the door to his own room. He dashed to it, threw it open, and went in.

“Kak’hamish, give ground!” Nathanial shouted, slammed the door closed, and hoped the false priest did not understand English. Nathanial opened the chest on the floor which contained his meagre possessions, took out the knife he had taken from the steppe raider, returned to the door, and listened. His heart raced and blood pounded in his ears, almost deafening him.

The scuffle in the hall grew louder, then passed by. Nathanial threw open the door, rushed out, and before he had time to think, or contemplate the enormity of his action, he plunged the knife into the grey-robed assassin’s back.

The man let out a piercing scream and fell against Kak’hamish. His friend’s face, still twisted in the grimace of the life-and-death struggle, looked past Nathanial and called out a warning. Nathanial spun to see two more robed false priests stride through the open hatch, draw their knives, and advance on him.

“Dash this! We need help.”

Nathanial pushed past Kak’hamish and ran for the door at the end of the passage. Before he reached it, however, the door sprang open and a Martian in black emerged, tall and powerfully built. He no longer wore the silver mask of a judge, and his face seemed vaguely familiar.

“I know you can’t understand me, but we’re being attacked and you have to help. You understand? Help!”

The man’s expression didn’t change as with both hands he seized Nathanial by the front of his shirt and slammed him back against the wooded wall. His head hit the wall with a solid crack and the world turned white. As he slid down the wall to the deck, his consciousness twinkling out, his vision cleared for a moment and he saw, as if from a very great distance, another face appear at the doorway, another man in black—the ambassador, Kaleen Jed-An.

Ah, yes! That is what was odd about the six judges. They were magistrates for Hill Martian tribes, and yet they all seemed so tall.

Kak’hamish clung to consciousness despite the repeated blows from his captors as they dragged him across the main deck. The two crewmen on duty stared at the procession of four robed priests, six black-clad judges, and two prisoners, but Jed-An’s voice rang with authority.

“Mind your duties and leave justice to your betters!”

The crewmen turned away and became suddenly busy coiling lines on the deck.

The veneer of unanimity disappeared as soon as the party made its way below deck into the cargo hold forward.

“This is madness!” Jed-An barked to the priest who seemed in charge of the cultists. “Take the ugly one if you wish, but we can use the English. He has value.”

“More value to the Worm than to your schemes, Jed-An. The ugly one will serve, but not suffice. The Old Ones have never tasted the eyes of an off-worlder.”

“The woman, then,” Jed-An said. “Let the Old Ones have her.”

“Fool!” the priest leader spat, turning on the would-be prince. “If I make a useless, crippled body their temple, they will eat my soul!”

Kak’hamish felt his stomach turn cold at these words. For as long as people remembered, naughty children had been threatened with visitations by the Old Ones, the ghosts of the mighty and terrible architects of the canals who screamed from beyond the grave for vengeance against those who had allowed their work to crumble. But these were grown men speaking as if the Old Ones were real, had substance in this world, and could walk among men. And what did the priest mean by tasted the eyes?

They came to the lowest level of the cargo hold, unevenly lit by swaying lanterns which cast monstrous, creeping shadows across the uneven walls. The wind blew from the open hatchway which led to the loading platform, beyond which loomed the yawning blackness of the night sky. In the open space at the centre of the hold the servant of the priests laboured, pulling the sarcophagi from their wicker protective cases. Something in the way the servant touched the sarcophagi, reluctant with both revulsion and fear, made Kak’hamish shudder.

“Those two,” the head priest commanded, pointing at two of the sarcophagi, “stand them upright. Let the unbelievers confront the Worm face to face, eye to eye.”

“Shistomo will join us soon enough,” Jed-An protested. “Will you at least wait for your superior’s orders?”

“No! If he orders the sacrifice, the Old Ones will love him, not me. If he forbids it, the Old Ones, in their slumbers, will wonder why I did not act when I could, will ask me this when we meet, and what will I say to them? That I waited? That I took careful counsel of a worldly prince? Stay and watch this miracle or, if you have no stomach for it, go now.”

Jed-An turned wordlessly and left, followed by four of the judges who Kak’hamish recognised as the four bodyguards from the caravan. The sixth black-clad figure, the stooped and shuffling translator, lingered, and his eyes glowed with anticipation.

“I…I would like to see the miracle, Revered One,” he said.

“Watch the prisoners while we prepare the Old Ones,” the head priest snapped and then summoned the other priests with a gesture.

The servant backed hastily away from the sarcophagi as the four priests moved to them, two priests for each sarcophagus. They carefully broke the clay seals to either side and then ran their knives down the seams between the lid and body of the containers. About half-way down, Kak’hamish heard a sigh of air, realised they were cutting a wax seal on the containers, and within moments he caught a scent of rotting corruption and immediately vomited, as did the translator behind him. Nathanial, still lying senseless on the deck where the priests had dropped him, now stirred, rolled over on his side, and vomited as well.

Kak’hamish had crawled through sewers, through the rotting garbage and excrement of ten thousand people, had almost passed out and died from the stench and lack of oxygen. He had seen and smelled a hundred bodies thrown over a city wall and left to rot in the sunlight, had hidden under them for days while they swelled taut like inflated bladders, then split and spilled their vile fluids over him. He had experienced all that and even worse, but none of it approached this smell.

Kak’hamish took a step back away from the sarcophagus, but stopped when he felt the point of a knife in the small of his back.

“You’d leave your British friend to his fate? Shame on you!” the translator hissed in his ear, and pricked him again with the point of his blade. The head priest turned, saw the situation, and nodded.

“You watch the English,” the priest said to his own servant, who crossed the hold to stand over Nathanial’s prone figure, staying as far away from the sarcophagi as he could.

The priests carefully lifted the lids of the sarcophagi and moved them to the side, and Kak’hamish found himself staring straight at the empty eye sockets of a blackened and rotting corpse, the flesh dripping and in places sliding off the bones. The odour became almost overpowering, but it was more than just rotting flesh, and as he stared he realised the eye sockets were not completely empty, that something moved inside.

“The vessel is consumed,” the head priest said.

“The vessel is consumed,” the others chanted in unison.

“The Old One hungers,” he said.

“The Old One hungers.”

“Come forth and live,” the priest said, and held his hands up, as if in supplication, in front of the corpse’s face.

“Come forth and live.”

“Come forth and feed!”

Kak’hamish again saw a flicker of movement in the eye socket as the priests continued their chant, and then the entire corpse seemed to tremble. A shape took form, emerging from the eye socket, a twisting, writhing shape with a dozen or more tiny pointed teeth surrounding a circular maw, which opened and closed as if in hunger. The body behind it was tubular, but segmented rather than smooth, with countless quivering appendages, dripping with the black decay fluids of the corpse.

As it emerged from the eye socket, first six inches long, then a foot, the corpse seemed to shrug, to pull in upon itself, as if turning itself inside out through the eye. Then the animal seemed to reach a limit, could emerge no further, and it suddenly coiled back upon itself, twisted and bit its own body where it met the eye socket, tore at itself until the forward eighteen inches fell into the hands of the head priest, severed from the part still in the corpse. The corpse itself sagged in the sarcophagus and nearly came apart, as if some supporting member had been removed, then slid down into the bottom of the container until it was nothing but a tangled mess of bones and sinews and greasy black sludge.

The creature, whatever it was, twisted and writhed in the priest’s arms, but he held it firmly, one hand immediately behind the first large segment which contained the mouth, the other hand well back on the body. He turned and looked at Kak’hamish.

“This one is yours,” the priest said, and advanced on Kak’hamish, holding the creature out ahead of him, its hungry mouth extended, open, searching for the soft tissue of Kak’hamish’s eye. Behind him, the blade moved down his back, hesitated, and then in one quick slice severed the leather strap binding his hands.

nathanial trembled in uncontrolled terror and revulsion as the priest thrust the writhing creature toward Kak’hamish’s face. Suddenly Kak’hamish leaped forward, his hands unexplainably free, and grappled with the priest.

“Oh! Oh! The prisoner is free!” the stooped translator shouted, and he scurried toward the other priests in alarm, colliding with them in his clumsiness and driving two of them back toward the sarcophagi. One fell against the second casket, the one still containing an intact corpse, and it began to tip backwards.

For a moment, the scene seemed to freeze in Nathanial’s view. Kak’hamish stood locked in struggle with the head priest, his hands upon the priest’s wrists, forcing back the terrible creature. The other priests stood frozen in indecision, torn between helping the head priest or preventing the tumble of the precious sarcophagus. The translator crouched, well-balanced and alert, taking in the entire scene. The priest’s servant stepped back in horror. He turned and dashed for the ladder to the main deck as the tableau again came to violent life, but hit his head on an overhead support beam, knocking himself senseless.

Kak’hamish pushed the priest’s arms back on themselves and the priest screamed as the creature lunged and tore into his own eye socket.

Two priests threw themselves at the tumbling casket, but too late to arrest its fall, and they sprawled among it broken shards and disintegrating corpse.

The remaining priest leaped to the assistance of his chief, but after only a single step he faltered and then collapsed, the black-clad translator pulling his knife from the priest’s ribcage and stepping easily back to avoid his fall.

The head priest, still screaming in pain, broke away from Kak’hamish and clawed at the creature now burrowing into his skull, but he took only a step or two before collapsing to the deck. He began shaking violently, uncontrollably, the spasms wracking his body. Kak’hamish watched for a moment, then stooped to pick up the knife of the priest killed by the translator.

The two remaining priests by the broken sarcophagus found their feet, drew their knives, and carefully circled the translator and Kak’hamish, ignoring Nathanial. If he rose up they would surely turn on him, and in any case his hands were still bound. Still, it didn’t feel right simply waiting to see who won, as if watching a steeplechase.

The nearest priest was no more than six feet away and nearly had his back to him. Nathanial made up his mind, took a deep breath, and began rolling across the floor toward him, intending to knock him from his feet. The priest was too quick for that, but as he turned to Nathanial and raised his knife, another knife seemed to sprout from his neck. The priest staggered in surprise, and then blood coursed from the wound, spraying a yard distant, spattering Nathanial. He kept rolling, tangled the fellow’s feet, and the two of them ended up in a heap. The priest stabbed at Nathanial, but it was a weak effort and Nathanial managed to duck to the side. The blade caught in the sleeve of his coat, sliced through and cut the flesh of his bicep, but not deeply. When the priest pulled back for another blow, his eyes turned glassy and rolled back up into his head, the dagger fell from his limp fingers, and he collapsed.

For a moment Nathanial lay panting, all but spent by his ordeal. Then he felt a knife cut his bonds. He sat up and faced Kak’hamish, who knelt by him.

“You are all over blood, Nathanial. Are you injured?”

“No, thanks to you. That was well-thrown. You saved my life,” he said, and offered his hand.

“Or you mine,” Kak’hamish said, moving his knife to his left hand to shake Nathanial’s. “Who knows how an even fight might have turned out?”

Nathanial heard a shuffle and turned to see the translator heaving the corpse of the head priest over the rail of the boarding platform. He turned and walked toward them, smiling. “We had better either tie up the servant or pitch him over the rail. He’ll come to soon enough,” he said in English.

“You are our secret ally?” Nathanial asked, scarcely believing it. “Who the devil are you?”

The translator came to rigid attention, the first time Nathanial had seen him stand straight, and he snapped a salute so perfect, so crisp, his rigid hand vibrated at the end. “Mahaan Tolni. Corporal, Queen’s Own Parhoon Rifles, seconded to the Intelligence Branch on special duty.”

“What are you doing here?’ Nathanial asked, but Kak’hamish interrupted before the translator could answer.

“Time enough for that later. What is your plan, Corporal Tolni?”

Tolni’s eyebrows went up slightly and he shook his head. “Plan? I have no plan; everything happened too quickly. I couldn’t let them kill you, but beyond that…”

“Oh, I see. Very well. Who stands against us?” Kak’hamish asked.

“Jed-An and his four bodyguards. Onxym Haat, the caravan master, knew of the plan in outline, but had not known the Worm was part of the conspiracy, and now he grows reluctant, but he is still with Jed-An. The ship’s captain follows Haat’s orders, and the crew follow his.”

“Yes,” Kak’hamish said, “but I wonder how they feel about carrying a hold full of monsters.”

Clack-clack.

“What are you thinking, my friend?” Nathanial asked.

“First, Jed-An thinks us dead, so we have surprise. Second, we must use this to recover Annabelle, if they have her, so they cannot use her as hostage against our actions. Third, we must take this ship.”

Just the three of us? Again? Nathanial thought, remembering events on Venus that seemed so distant now.

“We must do so quickly,” Corporal Tolni added. “Within an hour we are to meet a warship carrying Shistomo, the Black Circle High Priest of the Worm, along with the rest of the conspirators, or at least those outside Siruahn. Most of the insurgents are in the city, but the leaders are here and on the other ship.”

“Insurgents?” Kak’hamish asked. “Insurgents against what?”

“Against Siruahn. Jed-An and his worm priest allies, and the disgruntled royalist faction within the city, intend to overthrow the citizen council and establish Jed-An as Prince of Siruahn. The princes of the four cities of Charon have promised to recognise his rule, and send military support to back that recognition, once he is established on the throne. He gains the mantle of nobility, the Charoni princes gain an end to this revolutionary example of self-rule, the Worm gains a friendly haven from which to support their underground covens in British territory, and for his trouble Onxym Haat gains a monopoly on the through-transport of ereban spice.”

Kak’hamish let escape a groan of dismay which surprised Nathanial. He had the impression his Martian friend cared little for Siruahn and less for its squabbling citizen council. Apparently that belief was mistaken.

“Surely the Army did not send only one enlisted soldier to thwart a plot of this magnitude,” Nathanial asked Tolni

“Bloody hell no, sir!” he answered.

Well, at least he swears like a soldier, Nathanial thought.

“Truth is,” Tolni continued, “no one in the Crown territory had a whiff of this. They sent me to find out what was what with the Russkie arms trade—breach-loading rifles for the Charoni princes, that sort of thing. Jed-An seemed the likely villain to attach myself to for that business, and all this other argy-bargy just came up out of nowhere. I’m afraid we’re on our own, sir.”

Kak’hamish shook his head, but Nathanial put his hand on his shoulder. “Come, my friend. What these scoundrels plan and what comes to pass are not necessarily the same, and the odds against us on this ship are no worse than they were two minutes ago. But if what this man says is true, there is no time to lose, so help me to my feet.”

Kak’hamish nodded and rose with stony determination in his eyes. They climbed to the main deck and found half a dozen crewmen there, milling about and muttering nervously. More appeared at the hatchway to the crew’s quarters, obviously roused by the bloodthirsty screams of the dying head worm priest.

Corporal Tolni barked a sharp order in Koline, the exact meaning of which Nathanial did not understand, but the crew hastened to make way for them all the same. The black garments of a steppe judge, and the cracking voice-of-command of a British-trained non-commissioned officer, proved a potent combination.

Tolni led the way into the berthing deck. If any of his erstwhile comrades waited, his appearance would not arouse their suspicions. He waved them in behind him and they made their way down the empty passage to Annabelle’s quarters. Nathanial knocked softly on the door and whispered her name, but only silence answered him. He pushed open the door slowly and looked in—empty.

“She’s been taken,” he said, but Kak’hamish shook his head after a quick inspection.

“Not unless they also took her artificial leg and her crutch.”

A shot rang out from the stern of the ship.

the door to the stern cabin burst open but Annabelle looked away from her prisoners only long enough to see that Kak’hamish and Nathanial had come, with Jed-An’s servant an apparent prisoner. Nathanial was covered with blood, but his actions were lively and his eyes bright. The flood of relief which accompanied their appearance brought tears to her eyes, but she swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and coughed.

“Nathanial, are you hurt?”

“Oh, no!” he said, and rubbed the blood on his face around as if to wipe it away. “This is someone else’s entirely.”

“I am pleased to hear that, although you certainly took your time getting here,” she said with more courage than she felt.

Nathanial and Kak’hamish surveyed the room and Kak’hamish shook his head in apparent wonder. Onxym Haat, pale and sweating, sat in a chair holding his wounded right arm, from which the carved skrill horn Kak’hamish had given her still protruded, The point of the horn was driven completely through his bicep and the sleeve of his robe glistened, saturated with blood. Jed-An and three of his bodyguards stood with their hands up and the other guard lay prone on the deck in a spreading pool of blood, gasping in pain and gripping his stomach. Annabelle stood for support and balance with her back in a corner of the room, legs spread, holding Nathanial’s old derringer in both hands. The pistol, smoking from its recent discharge, trembled noticeably, but her prisoners seemed to view that with alarm rather than encouragement, which suited her perfectly.

“Look at me!” she said. “I am shaking so hard it is a wonder I have not shot all of them. Have you dealt with those other villains?”

“We have, my dear,” Nathanial said. “I am quite pleased to see you have things under control here. I imagine there is quite a story as to how this rather unusual scene came to be arranged.”

“No, it was quite ordinary,” she answered, although it had been anything but that. She noticed Jed-An’s servant staring at her, and also noticed he did not seem to be a prisoner. “Has this one come over to us? Unless he is in truth the servant of Jed-An, which I now doubt, I don’t believe we have been introduced.”

“Oh, right! Terribly sorry,” Nathanial said. “Miss Annabelle Somerset of Arizona Territory, USA, may I introduce Corporal Tolni of the Parhoon Rifles? He, it turns out, is our secret friend.”

“Oh, how nice! Very pleasant to meet you at last. We appreciated your letters ever so much, although you might want to work on your spelling.”

Tolni smiled and nodded, although he seemed a bit confused by the exchange.

Kak’hamish gently took the pistol from her trembling hands and covered the prisoners. “You did very well, Annabelle,” he said softly, and put his arm around her shoulder.

She covered her face with her hands to hide her emotions, which were so confused she could not have put a name to them in any case. After a moment she regained her composure. “Thank you, Kak’hamish. If we have them all, is the adventure over?”

Clack-clack.

“I am afraid not.”