Grey raised the trapdoor all the way and climbed out. There was a single beam running the length of the barn, with the rest of the roof sloping sharply down on either side. The beam was ten inches wide. One slip and he would plummet from the barn.
“So, don’t slip,” he muttered in a voice too quiet for anyone but himself to hear.
He stood up, and despite his confident words his body swayed with fatigue and injury. Even so, he drew his Bowie knife and stepped onto the beam. It wasn’t quite like walking a tightrope, but with the wind and rain it was a foolish and dangerous thing to do. He did it anyway.
Below the barn, the fight raged. He could see Jenny and Looks Away leading the fight, but it was impossible to tell who was winning. Or if “victory” was even possible with so many people already dead.
Deray had his back to him and he was nearly finished repairing the damage from the Kingdom cannon. The necromancer had a thin saber strapped to his waist but no gun. Grey saw only a few of the undead aboard. One lay on the deck, eyes glazed as he stared at the ragged red stumps where his legs had been. A second felt his way blindly along the rail; his face was a charred mask without eyes, lips, or nose.
Only the third was whole and seemed in command of himself. He stood at the wheel of the big frigate, wrestling with it to keep the ship steady in the storm winds.
“That’s done it!” cried Deray as he flung down the mop. “Hard to starboard. Bring her up and around. We’ll land on the far side, load as many troops as we can, and then bring them over here to finish this.”
“Aye aye,” said the dead man as he threw his weight against the wheel.
Neither of the men saw Grey coming. Neither heard him until he leaped from the end of the beam, across the shattered rail and landed with a thump on the deck. Then they both whirled.
The helmsman was closest, so Grey jumped at him and buried the point of the Bowie knife deep into his chest. The point struck the chunk of ghost rock and burst it into fragments of glittering black. There was a screeching sound from the stone and a louder scream from the undead as he staggered backward. As he fell, Grey tore the knife free and faced Deray.
The necromancer stood there, remarkably calm despite this invasion.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Who are you to come aboard my ship? Who are you to try and turn my own servant against me? Who are you to stand in the way of the natural order of things?”
“Natural?” said Grey. “Now that’s a funny damn word coming from you.”
The frigate began to move sideways, shoved by the hands of the storm winds. The sudden shift of the deck forced both men to take steps to keep their balance.
“Who are you?” repeated Deray. “Are you one of Saint’s colleagues? Are you a government agent?”
“Me?” said Grey with a smile, “I’m nobody at all.”
Rain dripped from the brim of Deray’s hat and ran down the length of his sheathed sword. The necromancer studied him with cold and calculating eyes. “Then what is any of this to you? Are you a mercenary? Is that it? Did these pathetic fools hire you? Did Saint or his pet savage hire you?”
“If you mean Thomas Looks Away, then yes. I work for him. He hired me to help protect this town from you and Nolan Chesterfield.”
Deray snorted. “You’re not very good at your job, are you?”
“No? Ask those poor sons of bitches who were on the bridge.”
Deray began pacing across the deck, his head turned so that he watched Grey out of the corner of his eyes. He was a handsome man with intelligent eyes and a smile that was almost charming. In another time and place Grey would have guessed that he was a doctor. Or maybe a stage actor. Even a politician. He had presence and charm, despite the harshness of his words.
“What is your name?” asked the necromancer.
“Grey Torrance. You won’t have heard of me.”
“No, and nor will anyone hereafter. History will not record your name either.”
Grey shrugged and turned in place so that he continued to face the man even as Deray walked in a wide circle around him. The ship shifted around now, orienting itself so that the bow pointed away from the wind. The heavy gusts pushed it toward the chasm and the rest of Deray’s army. Below the keel, the sounds of screams and gunfire continued unabated. Deray waved an arm toward the rail, indicating the battle.
“Listen to them,” he said. “Your employer, his friends, the rest of the town… it’s all going to perish. Soon this town will not even be a footnote in anyone’s register. There will be no trace of it on any map because I will redraw the maps of this world. I will wash it clean of people like this.” He spat the word “people” as if it was bile on his tongue. “This world has become chaotic and disordered. It no longer makes sense and at the rate it is going it will tear itself apart. When I look into the future I see more and greater wars. Not of conquest, not wars to build something that will last. Petty wars without purpose. Wars that do nothing but leave scars upon the earth and empower fools. This country — just look at what has happened to your America. After it broke away from England it showed such promise. It could have become a superior power, it should have become a new empire. One greater than Britain, greater even than Rome. And now it is fractured and divided and everyone here has gone mad.” Deray shook his head. “That is such a waste. I will create a new world and a new world order. Something nobler, better. Something—”
Grey held up a hand. “Listen, Mr. Deray, I’m sure you have a whole soliloquy rehearsed for moments like this. Shakespeare would be jealous, I have no doubt. But can we skip the rest? I don’t give a hairy rat’s ass about your plans. I don’t care why you want to conquer the world or why you think you’re entitled. On the way up here I thought I wanted to ask you those questions, but now that we’re up to it, I just want to slit your goddamn throat.”
The necromancer stopped pacing, and in a much less pretentious tone said, “You are no fun at all, are you? You have no sense of drama, no appreciation for the importance of a moment like this.”
“No, I don’t. As you said, I’m a nobody.” Grey raised the knife and showed it to Deray. The blade was still slick with the dark blood of the dead man he’d stabbed. “All I care about is what happens next.”
“Very well,” said Deray, and with a movement faster than the eye could see, he drew his sword. “Then let us proceed from conversation to murder.”
Chapter Eighty-Eight
The necromancer was fast.
So damned fast. He lunged forward with a thrust that drove straight toward Grey’s heart. It was a beautifully timed movement, expertly delivered, and executed with power and speed. But Grey was waiting for it. He saw the shift of weight, the telltale alignment of posture and movement. Grey believed what he’d said when he told Deray that he was a nobody, but there was a lie even in his own admission.
He was somebody. He was a soldier. A fighter.
A warrior.
He had spent a life in combat and the slanting deck of this airship was not his first battlefield. Not even his hundredth. Grey twisted nimbly away as the saber’s tip sheared through the air where his heart had been. Grey turned his left side along the blade, feeling the cold edge of it trace a burning line along his arm and back as he turned. But at the end of the turn he swung the Bowie knife around in a terrible arc and slashed the blade across Aleksander Deray’s chest.