That’s what he needs her for, he realised. She calms the storm of his mind, allowing true intelligence to blossom.
The White gave a grunt of annoyance at the intrusion and Sirus found himself shut out. The jarring sense of disconnection was accompanied by a bolt of punishing agony that sent him to his knees, teeth clenched. The pain lingered for a time, preventing him from following the rest of the communication. When it faded he felt Catheline’s hands on his face, fingers wiping the pain-induced tears from his scaled skin. She smiled and pressed a kiss to his forehead, speaking softly, “He said yes.”
CHAPTER 48
Hilemore
“Land in sight, sir. Dead ahead.”
“Thank you, Mr. Talmant. Tell the Chief to take the Blood-burner off-line and signal the Endeavour to follow suit.”
“Aye, sir.”
Hilemore went outside and trained his glass to westward, making out the misted slopes of an island cresting the horizon. If his calculations were correct this was the most easterly islet of the Sabiras chain. Navigating the channel through the islands to the Red Tides was not a task that could be performed at speed, necessitating another delay. The storm that had swept across their path three days before had been mild by the standards of the Orethic but the seas it produced were sufficiently steep to force a reduction in speed. Since then Hilemore found his mood veering between frustration at the lack of progress and a small, barely acknowledged kernel of relief he knew stemmed from the battle off the Green Cape.
Steelfine insisted on recording the engagement as a victory in the ship’s log, one the rest of the crew seemed to consider the equal of anything won by Hilemore’s grandfather. He knew differently. No admiral who loses his fleet can be counted a victor of anything. If the Superior didn’t reach Gadara’s Redoubt in time for Clay to attempt his plan, a plan Hilemore still didn’t fully understand, he might well consider it a reprieve rather than a failure. He had already studied the charts of the northern Orethic in preparation for a voyage to Sanorah, where he felt sure Free Woman Tythencroft would offer refuge to the valiant crew of the Superior.
And then what? he asked himself. Sit and wait for the White’s army to appear, however long it takes, all the time knowing yourself to be a miserable coward.
He closed his spy-glass with a hard snap and returned to the bridgehouse. “Ever sail the Red Tides, Mr. Scrimshine?” he enquired of the helmsman.
“A few times, Skipper.” The former smuggler gave a small, wary smile. “Didn’t find it the friendliest place, truth be told. Varestians love to steal but hate to be stolen from. Kind’ve hypocritical of them, if you ask me.”
“Indeed so. I’ll trust you to choose the best approach to the channel. I require a swift but safe navigation to the Red Tides. Mr. Talmant, ask Chief Bozware to join me in the hold. You have the bridge.”
“Don’t seem big enough to do much damage,” Clay said, squinting at the apple-sized object the chief placed on the work-bench.
“Got enough of a charge to kill a drake of any size,” Bozware replied, his oily brows forming a piqued frown. “Gun-cotton laced with lamp oil around a core of black powder. Made the casing deliberately brittle so’s it’ll shatter into sharp pieces when it goes off. Jagged iron’ll cut through anything if it’s travelling fast enough.”
“What are these?” Kriz asked, extending a finger to one of the blunt spikes protruding from the device’s casing.
“Contact points,” the chief said. “Got the notion from those mines the captain had us make. Sets it off the instant they touch anything. Don’t worry, missy,” he added as Kriz swiftly withdrew her finger, “won’t do nothing until you arm it.” He pointed to a metal ring in the top of the device. “Yank this out before you throw the bomb, just make sure anything you chuck it at is at least twenty yards off.”
“Excellent,” Lieutenant Sigoral said, giving the chief a nod of respectful approval. “It’s certainly preferable to trying to get a bead on a drake’s head in the midst of a battle.”
“Long as you’ve got Black in your veins,” Clay said. “Don’t relish the prospect of throwing one of these by hand.”
“We only had sufficient materials to construct forty in total,” Hilemore said, addressing himself to Clay. “How many do you think you’ll need?”
“Hard to say. I’ll take ten, I guess. You can share the rest out amongst the others.”
“Very well. We’ll relight the blood-burner upon clearing the Sabiras Islands, which means we should reach our objective shortly after first light tomorrow. I suggest you get what rest you can in the meantime.” Hilemore watched them leave, all but Jillett whose gaze lingered on the grenade, face even paler than usual.
“I’ll require you to remain in the engine room,” he told her. “Your job is to fire the blood-burner.”
“Guess you weren’t impressed, huh?” she said with a faint grin. “By my fighting skills, I mean. Can’t say I blame you.”
“You fought bravely and well. What happened at Stockcombe was not your fault.”
She moved her slim shoulders in a shrug. “They were a bunch’ve rotten bastards, y’know. The Wash Lane Bully Boys was their real name before the revolt. When I was little, my ma used to give me a fresh piece of fruit every day to take to school. An apple usually, even an orange sometimes, though it must’ve cost her plenty. And every day those Wash Lane fuckers’d corner me and steal it, till I realised what I was. Scrounged up enough scrip to buy just a smidge of Black.” Her grin broadened. “They didn’t steal from me after that.”
She reached out to the bomb, fingers playing tentatively over the contact points before picking it up. “I’ll take this one, if you don’t mind,” she said. “Just in case.”
They passed the first ship shortly after Scrimshine steered the Superior through the islands and into the Red Tides. An aged one-stack clipper steamed by a mile off the starboard bow, sails raised to augment her paddles. She sat low in the water, a crowd of close-packed people thronging her deck fore and aft. The crow’s nest related a signal that had been rapidly hauled to the top of her mainmast: Turn back. No safe harbour ahead.
Hilemore ordered the signaller to reply via the lamp, advising the clipper to make for the east Corvantine coast, but the Superior was moving too fast to catch any reply. They saw four more ships before nightfall, all heavily laden with refugees and steaming towards different points of the compass. One, a broad-beamed freighter, altered course to approach the Superior, her signal pennants displaying a request for medical assistance. Hilemore had the battle flag raised to warn them off, maintaining their speed and heading until the freighter was far to their rear.
When night fell he had the blood-burner taken off-line briefly to allow the Endeavour to draw alongside then ordered the ship to battle stations. Steelfine mustered the riflemen and had cannister stacked alongside the gun-crews. Braddon Torcreek and Preacher climbed the mast to the crow’s nest, rifles strapped across their backs. Kriz took up station with Clay and Lutharon on the fore-deck whilst Sigoral and the few remaining Corvantines from the original crew stationed themselves aft. Hilemore had Colonel Kulvetch position her Marines on the upper works, each squad supplied with full water buckets and sandbags to combat the inevitable fires.