The shelf tilted back and then slammed to the ground, spilling trove everywhere. Scores of relics fell and smashed. Brine coursed and bubbled across the floor between them. The four soldiers were raking through the treasure, kicking and flinging it aside. ‘Here we are,’ the colonel said, reaching down.
Ida felt a gust of wind batter her face. She looked up to see the dragon take to the air. Conquillas and the child had disappeared. With its wings shimmering, the beast seemed vague, illusory. Its crystal claws flashed. It roared.
‘Wings!’ Banks cried.
‘Thank you, Private.’ The colonel already had his hand-cannon trained on the dragon. In his other hand he held up the bottle. Gallons of brine continued to bubble and froth out of the tiny container, soaking his gloved fist. He forced his thumb down on to the open neck to try and stem the flow, but the pressure was too great. Jets of green liquid sprayed across the fallen treasure. ‘I’ll need that stopper, Private Swan,’ he said. ‘As soon as you can.’
‘Here, Colonel!’ One of the crows had located the stopper.
The great serpent spread out its wings and then fell upon the sharkskin woman lying on the ground sixty paces from the soldiers. Ida turned away just as its open jaws darted down. The woman’s scream was cut short by the sound of crunching bones.
By now the colonel had sealed the Unmer bottle. He wiped it dry on the edge of his whaleskin boot and then slipped it into a pocket on the front of his uniform.
The dragon raised its head, blood and brine dripping from its maw. Nothing remained of the sharkskin woman’s corpse but a few scraps of meat. It snapped its teeth; its neck reared back like a viper about to strike.
The colonel walked towards it, his hand-cannon levelled at its head, and spoke in that same guttural language the serpent had used. ‘Yva feroo raka. Onolam nagir.’
‘Onolam?’ the dragon replied. A prolonged booming noise, perhaps a laugh, came from its throat. ‘Nash, nagir seen awar. Bones and blood, little mortal. The laws of men mean nothing to me.’
‘Conquillas was right,’ the colonel said. ‘You are ashamed of your addiction.’
The dragon lowered its long neck, hunched its body behind its forelegs and hissed. Ida could smell the sea upon its breath – the heady stench of salt and metals. Red eyes burned malevolently in the gloom.
And then it pounced.
The sheer power and speed of the creature was astonishing. It shot forward, a blaze of white armour and crystal, its bloody maw open wide.
The colonel fired his hand-cannon into the creature’s mouth. To the sound of an enormous detonation, the dragon’s head blew apart and spattered across the vaulted ceiling. Chunks of meat rained down far across the marketplace. The massive jaws slid to a stop against the colonel’s boot.
He turned to face his men. ‘How is Creedy?’
Banks was cradling the sergeant’s shoulders. ‘He’s lost his looks, but he’ll live. The pair of them were covered from head to foot in dragon blood. Banks looked around at the mess and grinned. ‘Supper’s on you then,’ he said.
The colonel shook his head. ‘I never much liked the taste of dragon.’
CHAPTER 1
HU
An aide held up the bottle for Emperor Hu’s inspection. Sweat trails ran down his powdered blue cheeks and through the rouge around his eyes, and he clutched the Unmer container in both trembling hands, clearly terrified of dropping it. The emperor, for his part, looked just as uncomfortable. From a distance of five feet away, Hu leaned his long white face towards the cause of this morning’s woes.
‘A sea-bottle,’ he remarked, rubbing his pointed chin. ‘It never ceases to amaze me how such tiny things can cause so much trouble. What do the Unmer call them?’
‘Ichusae, your Majesty,’ the aide said.
The emperor’s hall contained a great expanse of air so pungent with clashing perfumes that one wondered if it was safe to breathe. Sunlight slanted down through high windows in the opposite walls and baked wedges of pink marble floor. Several hundred courtiers had gathered to see the Unmer bottle: a score of the emperor’s aides bedecked in jewels and silk kamarbands, legislators huddled together like great red bears in their fur-lined robes, administrators in white wool wigs and grey sacking, shipping magnates from Valcinder, and assorted noblemen and women, favoured artisans, poets and fools, military officers and concubines wearing little but beads. Sworn-blood representatives of at least three enemy warlords were also present, each heavily adorned with gold clasps and chains that had doubtlessly been stolen from Hu’s own ships. Their crooked grins suggested mouths full of other men’s teeth. Two lines of blind Samarol bodyguard stood between the emperor and his guests, clad in silver mail and eyeless silver helms forged into the likeness of snarling wolves and clutching Unmer seeing knives
‘Which means what exactly?’ Hu retorted.
The aide looked uncertain.
‘It means a doorway.’ This answer came from the Haurstaf witch standing nearby. Sister Briana Marks was fair-skinned and flushed with youth. A great tumble of golden hair gathered in the sinuous hollow at the back of her white frock, flashing with sunlight whenever she moved.
Granger’s right shoulder was still burning from its exposure to the brine. The weird ichor was gnawing on his nerve-endings like an army of ants as it worked its spell on him, and it took a supreme effort of will to maintain his composure. He did not wish to show weakness in front of Banks, Tummel and Swan. The three privates waited six paces behind him. Sergeant Creedy had remained with the barrack surgeon.
‘Doorway,’ the emperor muttered. ‘What strange creatures the Unmer are.’
A general mutter of agreement passed through the assembled crowd. Fans waved and heads nodded. Strange creatures indeed.
‘One sea-bottle hardly matters when thousands more remain scattered across the ocean floors,’ Sister Marks said. She gave the emperor a perfect smile, her blue eyes gleaming with impudence, and strolled across the dais to the throne. For a moment Granger thought she was actually going to sit in it. But she simply hovered there, one slender hand resting on the gilded arm rest.
‘My navy is occupied,’ the emperor retorted.
‘If your navy was less intent on expanding your empire and more focused on finding these ichusae,’ the witch replied, ‘there would be no further need for expansion. But you’d have them respond to the symptoms rather than cure the disease.’
Emperor Hu dismissed his aide and fixed a look of disdain on the witch. ‘Where would the Haurstaf have me search?’
‘Why, everywhere, of course.’
A fresh jolt of pain stabbed Granger’s damaged shoulder. His collar bone felt like hot iron, and his nerves screamed. Three more days. Three more days before it healed or turned to sharkskin. He’d washed the wound thoroughly in clean water, but not soon enough after exposure to be certain it wouldn’t alter his flesh for good. Either way, he’d probably lose a great deal of flexibility in the right arm. And that would mean retraining to bring his fencing skills up to par.
The emperor snorted. He raised his voice for the benefit everyone present. ‘The Haurstaf would have me leave my empire unguarded while I hunt the seabed for little green bottles.’
A nervous laugh swept through the crowd.
Sister Marks only smiled. ‘Without the Haurstaf,’ she said carefully, ‘you would not have an empire to guard.’
Hu was turning red. ‘I could afford a hundred dredgers for what you charge for your services,’ he said through his teeth. ‘If you would only kill the last of the Unmer and take your witches back to Awl, I would have the resources with which to search the seas.’