“A Soulbound gunsmith should be the best,” Calder said. “Why haven’t I ever heard of you?”
Andel made a point of rolling his eyes. That was unusual for Andel; usually he understated his criticisms. And kept them less childish. Calder must have said something really stupid, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Be that as it may,” Andel said, “I think we’ve strayed from the main point. Marten?”
“Good point. I’ll get us out of the door. Duster, you’ll take us to your tools. From there, we’ll fight our way out.”
Duster peered at him as though examining a jewel. “That’s your plan, is it? Fight to my tools with an empty pistol, load it, and then fight the way out with one shot?”
“I wouldn’t consider planning my strongest suit, but my plans have worked so far.”
The gunsmith looked around, taking in the room where they were held prisoner. “Have they?”
Andel sighed, awkwardly lurching to his feet with his ankles tied together. “I hate to encourage him, but he’s almost right. At least he’s proactive, which I prefer to sitting here waiting to die.”
Calder pointed to Andel. “See? He’s onboard.”
“I said following your lead was preferable to being eaten alive by Elderspawn. Don’t let it go to your head.”
But it was too late. Calder knew a compliment when he heard one, and he couldn’t stop a slow smile. At this rate, Andel would trust him before the year was out. Then maybe he could work toward skipping out on his debt.
Duster reached down and pulled his ankle restraints off. They parted as easily as the bonds around his wrists. “Might as well face death like a man instead of lying here.”
“The measure of a man is his attitude,” Calder said brightly. Then he held out his bound hands to Andel. “Pistol, please.”
With visible reluctance, Andel handed over the gun.
Andel Petronus gave Calder the gun on what one might call a whim.
While Andel didn’t trust Calder Marten’s character, he was starting to trust a few other things about the man. For one, Calder kept trying. Persistence was an admirable trait on the Aion, even when it resulted in the man trying the most ridiculous, least likely plans.
To get past the door, the Navigator took the pistol and hammered with the butt on the door. He pounded away in a rhythmic pattern, as though trying to tap out a code. Finally, when a robed man opened the door with a sword in hand, ready to subdue the prisoner, Calder broke his nose with the pistol.
It was quite possibly the worst plan Andel had ever seen in action.
What if the man opening the door had carried a pistol of his own? What if they hadn’t opened the door at all? What if the Elderspawn had entered the room and simply eviscerated them all, unafraid of Calder’s empty pistol?
But it had worked, and now—somehow—he and Calder and ‘Duster’ were crammed inside a dingy closet at the back of the house while cultists pounded on the door and shouted dire promises. Calder set his newly acquired cutlass down and pressed his untied hands against the door. “Everything coming along back there, Duster?”
The old gunsmith grumbled, his hands blurring over the upturned traveling trunk they were using as a table. He’d first loaded the pistol, faster than Andel had seen it done, and put it into Andel’s hands only seconds after he’d received it. Now he was working on a more delicate project.
Duster—Andel already suspected the man’s real name, though he couldn’t be entirely certain—had a wide leather belt buckled around his middle. Every inch of the belt was covered in pockets and straps, and in each position, there rested a tiny handheld tool. If Andel didn’t know differently, the belt would have convinced him that Duster was a leatherworker.
But now, knowing what he did, he understood that he was looking at the Vessel of a Soulbound craftsman. Even when Duster wasn’t actively using his tools, their presence hung with dark gravity in Andel’s mind. Soulbound made him uneasy.
Not that he would show it.
Duster continued rolling powder into tight cylinders, tying each end off so that a single cowlick of paper stuck out. As he placed one cylinder into a pile, his other hand was already rolling another.
“Make something that explodes,” Calder had told him, and the gunsmith didn’t question it. He’d simply begun wrapping powder in paper—it looked like a mixture of ordinary black powder and something else, a bluish dust that had doubtless come straight from an alchemist.
“How many?” Duster finally asked, now that he had a healthy pile of ten or so miniature explosives.
“As many as you can make,” Calder said, just as a jagged pincer splintered through the door. The Elderspawn had arrived.
“…which is however many you have now,” Andel continued. “We’re out of time.”
“Point taken,” Calder responded. He released the door and steadied his hand on the hilt of his cutlass. “Duster, when this door collapses, light one of those things and throw it. Then…keep doing that.”
Duster held one up, though Andel was the only one to see it. Calder was facing the door, which was steadily being shredded under the Inquisitor’s assault. “Won’t get much out of these, just a flash and a loud bang. Might light a fire, if we get lucky.”
“That’s all we need,” Calder said, and at that moment the door burst inward.
The Navigator had to brace himself as a piece of the door slapped him, holding one arm to cover his face, but Andel was prepared. He was far enough back that none of the bigger debris hit him, and his eyes were narrowed to slits. When the Elderspawn scuttled inside the closet, Andel fired.
On the deck of a ship, a pistol was loud. Inside a closet, it was deafening.
A cloud of powder-smoke stole his vision even as the gun stole his hearing. His right ear felt as though a Watchman had driven one of those foot-long iron stakes through it, and his left was hardly better. But the ball had taken the lead Inquisitor in the head, popping one of its eyes. It flailed its ten spider-legs, backing up into the Elderspawn behind it. So the round had done its work.
Calder shouted something, probably trying to make himself heard over his own ringing ears, but a second explosion cut him off. It was the tiny bomb that Duster lobbed from the back, and it went off in a startling bloom of orange-white flame.
There were a number of Sleepless cultists behind the Inquisitors, but as soon as Andel had pulled his trigger, they’d gotten out of the way. Now the Elderspawn were fighting one another to back out of the doorway, flailing their spear-sharp legs as if they were blinded. They might have been screaming, though it would be impossible for Andel to tell.
Once the explosive had gone off, Calder charged forward. His lips were moving, which amused Andel in some small way. He can’t even hear himself, and he’s still talking.
Andel had decades of experience in combat, including several small skirmishes with Elderspawn. Never with Ach’magut’s Inquisitors, unfortunately, but he had an idea how this should play out. Calder would strike quickly, hopefully drawing some blood or taking a leg from the Inquisitor, and then back up to avoid the counter-thrust. If he could disable the Elderspawn in the few seconds before the Sleepless regained their courage, then he would be able to regroup with Andel and Duster. The three of them would overpower one of the cultists, taking the man’s weapon and turning it against the rest. In that way, they should be able to fight their way through the house. The narrow hallways helped them, preventing them from facing more than two or three at a time.
He was so convinced of this version of events, so absolutely swallowed by his vision, that he almost didn’t notice when reality played out differently.