The Greens seemed to vanish when the rest of the fleet resumed fire with their cannon, those attempting to haul themselves up the hulls slipping back into the water. Hilemore could see numerous drake corpses bobbing on the surface and knew that in daylight the entire harbour would now be stained a deep crimson. It would probably burn to the touch too, he thought, pondering the grimly amusing notion that, with product now so scarce, he had inadvertently created a vast pool of wealth.
“Sir,” Talmant called from the tower, Hilemore looking up to see him pointing to the eastern rim of the crater. “Some sort of commotion.”
Hilemore raised his glass, blinking in alarm as a bright plume of flame occluded the eyepiece. When he looked again he was confronted with the sight of a Red drake clambering down from the ruined wall. It launched itself forward and landed amidst a group of defenders on a near by roof-top, jaw snapping and tail lashing as it cut them to pieces in a matter of seconds. Flames flooded the view once more and Hilemore lowered the glass to see dozens of dark shapes crawling down from the wall and into the town, fire erupting every time one reached the outer houses.
They were supposed to attack from the air, he thought, a hard ball of guilt-ridden despair building in his gut, fed by the certain knowledge of being outgeneralled. The Greens were just a distraction.
“Mr. Talmant!” he called up to the tower. “Get to the Superior and tell Mr. Steelfine to load standard shell and concentrate fire on the eastern rim of the crater. Spread the word to the other ships to do the same.”
“Aye, sir!” Talmant snapped off a salute and swiftly descended the tower steps before sprinting off along the battlement.
Hilemore drew his pistol, casting his gaze around at the Wash Lane Volunteers before it fell on Jillett. “I believe, miss,” he said, “it’s time for you to drink some product.”
CHAPTER 36
Lizanne
There is no such thing as a fair fight, one of Lizanne’s instructors had told her years ago. Just the fight you win and the fight you lose.
Given that he hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity to tie her up or maim her whilst in the trance Mr. Lockbar, she assumed for reasons of professional pride, had apparently decided he wanted a fair fight. It was a singular miscalculation.
She side-stepped his blade, ducking as she did so and feeling the sting of its edge nick her ear. She stiffened the fingers of her left hand into a spear-point and jabbed it into his wrist before he could draw the knife back, hitting the nerve required to loosen his grip and allow the weapon to fall. The momentary distraction would have been enough to dodge away, perhaps make it to the window, but the image of Makario slumped over the pianola’s dripping keys banished such considerations. Instead she pressed herself to him, wrapping her legs about his waist and one arm around his neck in a strange parody of a lover’s passionate embrace. But she had no love to offer Mr. Lockbar.
He tried to choke down his scream as she drew back her free arm and jammed her thumb into his eye, digging deep whilst simultaneously clamping her teeth onto his nose. She worried at it with terrier-like energy, blood flooding her mouth, her thumb digging ever deeper. They careened about the room in a mad waltz, Lockbar’s scream finally escaping his throat. He hammered at her, fists like balls of iron as they pummelled her back and head. Lizanne barely felt it, putting all her strength into her limbs and her jaw, feeling a fierce exultant satisfaction as her teeth met and her thumb made a wet pop as it sank deeper into his eye-socket.
Lockbar howled in mingled rage and pain, charging forward to slam her into the wall, once then twice. With Green in her veins she might have been able to withstand it, but not now. Her legs lost their grip with the third slam, Lockbar tearing himself free of her. Too stunned to stand she could only slide down the wall and watch him stagger about, clutching his ruined face.
“Bitch,” he cursed in a high-pitched gasp, sounding like a child nursing a playground injury. The notion made Lizanne laugh, something to which Mr. Lockbar took understandable exception. “Dead . . .” he gasped, casting about with his one good eye until it alighted on his knife. “Fucking kill you . . .” He snatched the weapon from the floor, turning back to Lizanne. “Make you eat your own guts . . .”
Lizanne tried to get up but found her limbs unwilling to co-operate. Things might have gone very badly if Tinkerer hadn’t sat up in bed, unhooked himself from his saline bottle and thrown it at Lockbar. It was a well-aimed throw, the bottle shattering on the side of Lockbar’s head and making him stagger in confusion as blood seeped into his remaining eye. Lizanne willed all the strength she could into her limbs, bracing her back against the wall as she pushed herself upright. Seeing Lockbar scrape the blood from his eye she dived onto Tinkerer, grasping him tight and rolling both of them clear of the bed just before Lockbar’s knife sank into the mattress.
“Fucking kill you!” he roared, heaving the bed aside as they scrambled away. He lowered himself in preparation for a final, murderous charge, then the door exploded.
Lockbar whirled amidst a shower of shattered wood, lashing out with his knife as he shielded his face, but the knife met only air as he continued to slash . . . then froze. He stood there in mid-slash, pierced all over with splinters and blood streaming from his vanished nose and empty eye-socket.
“What do you want done?” Morva asked Lizanne, stepping through the remnants of the shattered door.
Lizanne disentangled herself from Tinkerer, helping him to his feet before turning her attention to Makario. The musician’s head lay on the pianola’s keyboard at an angle, almost as if he were resting. His eyes were open and Lizanne found his skin icy as she reached out to lay a hand on his cheek. The cut to his neck was deep and even now blood was still dripping onto the keys.
“Don’t kill him,” she told Morva, turning and moving to stand close to Mr. Lockbar. She peered into his remaining eye, wide and wet. “We still have a great deal to talk about.”
She didn’t ask questions, lacking the inclination and the skills for a proper interrogation which was a task best left in expert hands. Instead she had the iron works cleared, giving the workers a much-needed morning off, whilst Mr. Lockbar was suspended in chains above the huge smelting bowl filled with ingots which in turn sat above the sliding doors on top of the furnace.
Morva had offered to help but Lizanne sent her away, stoking the furnace herself, taking her time as she shovelled coke into the oven and ignited the kerosene-fuelled engine that worked the bellows. Lockbar hung in silence for the first ten minutes, blood leaking through the bandages on his face, applied none too gently by one of Dr. Weygrand’s orderlies. Lizanne was keen to ensure he didn’t bleed to death.
After a quarter of an hour Lockbar began to fidget, chains jangling as he jerked his body, but still refused to speak. Lizanne checked the temperature on the smelter’s gauge, and, finding it at the required level, opened the furnace doors. Lockbar’s fidgeting turned into desperate struggles at the sudden blast of heat, the first words emerging from his bandaged face as Lizanne climbed the scaffold to watch the smoke rising from the ingots in the bowl.
“We . . .” he said in his strange nasal rasp. “We are in the same business.”