“Get to the engine room,” Hilemore told Zenida, who was already running for the hatch. “Full power to the blood-burner!” he called after her before turning to Steelfine. “Take charge of the pivot-gun. Fire as she bears.”
Hilemore sprinted for the bridge, hauling himself up the ladder in a rapid scramble. The order he was about to give Scrimshine proved unnecessary as the ship lurched into forward motion and the helmsman spun the wheel to aim her at the opening Jack had torn in the cordon of Greens.
“Thought the bastard was a coward,” he said as Hilemore moved to his side.
“Not today it seems.”
Flames rose again as they sped forward, Jack casting the jet of fire all around him. The death cries of the Greens rose to ear-piercing levels as the Superior charged into the remnants of their barrier. A stream of fire flashed over the fore-deck, blinding Hilemore for a second. He blinked and wiped at his eyes, looking again to see Jack’s head rising to port with a pair of struggling Greens clamped in his jaws. The Blue bit down and shook his head, the Greens coming apart in an explosion of blood and shredded flesh. Jack opened his mouth wide, sword-length teeth gleaming red and white as he dived down in search of fresh prey.
Flames licked at the Superior’s flanks as she exited the mouth of the Cut, a last desperate attempt by the drakes to bar their escape that did little damage. Only one Green appeared on the fore-deck, a burnt, ragged thing that struggled over the rail to stagger about, coughing flame in all directions until a blast of cannister from the pivot-gun tore it to pieces. Then they were through, the smoke and billowing steam clearing to reveal the welcome sight of the Lower Torquil.
“Maintain speed and heading,” Hilemore said before going out onto the walkway and turning to the stern. He could see Jack still assailing the Greens but now they were fighting back, dozens of them leaping clear of the water to belch fire at his head whilst others clamped themselves onto his coils, biting furiously at his scales. The great Blue let out a roar of pain and rage, his flames incinerating a half-dozen Greens as he thrashed his massive body, but there were more boiling out of the sea. Within moments Jack was covered in them, clinging like leeches to his hide. The weight of so much flesh inevitably began to bear him down, though he fought and bit and roasted his enemies to the end. Hilemore closed his eyes as Jack’s head disappeared beneath the surface in a cloud of steam, his last roar swallowed by a sea stained dark with drake blood.
“Report from the crow’s nest, sir,” Talmant called from the bridge. “More Greens to the east.”
Hilemore tore his gaze from the scene of Jack’s demise, training his glass on the eastern horizon. The Green pack was a good way off, four miles or more, even larger than those they had already encountered and approaching fast. Every aquatic Green in the Torquils, he thought, returning to the bridge. Defeat was not a pleasant sensation but to deny it would make him a poor excuse for a captain.
“Mr. Scrimshine,” he said, “steer due south. We’re quitting the Torquils.”
CHAPTER 19
Lizanne
“I can see where it got its name,” Tekela commented, pulling back on the control lever so the Firefly ascended into a bank of cloud, the tall spike of the High Wall fading from view beneath.
The Okanas family had chosen to construct its seat in the crater of a long-extinct volcano. The narrow peak rose from the sea to a height of well over two hundred feet. The entire south-facing slope appeared to either have been shorn away by the elements or deliberately removed to be replaced by a wall of smooth granite. A massive iron door lay at the base of the wall, presumably to allow for the comings and goings of the family’s ships. Before the cloud closed in Lizanne had used a spy-glass to survey the cluster of buildings nestling in the volcano’s crater, marking the largest as a possible barracks and the more narrow but taller structure opposite as the Okanas mansion.
There was no sign of alarm in the crater or any indication they had been seen. Lizanne had ordered Tekela to stay as high as possible during the approach and make full use of the fortuitously plentiful cloud-cover. Also, the hour was late and the gathering gloom would make them harder still to spot, especially by look-outs accustomed to scanning the sea for likely enemies.
“The island three miles west,” Lizanne said, pointing at a stretch of sea visible through a gap in the cloud. “It’s flat enough for a landing. Wait until . . .”
“. . . dawn tomorrow before picking you up,” Tekela finished. “I know.”
“Steer north,” Lizanne said, reasoning there might be fewer sentries facing away from the most likely seaward approach. “Circle until it gets dark.”
The cloud-cover thinned as evening slipped into night, the two moons casting a long shadow from the High Wall and scattering glitter over the sea. “Are you sure this is the best idea?” Tekela asked, not for the first time. “It’s a tricky piece of flying.”
Lizanne rose from her seat, crouching to open the hatch in the floor of the gondola. “I have every confidence in your abilities,” she said, pulling on a harness. It was constructed from strong, heavily stitched leather with two additional straps above her shoulders that were joined by a steel ring. Once she had buckled the harness into place Lizanne reached for a twenty-yard-long coil of steel cable. One end of the cable was a standard eye hook whilst the other was something Jermayah had quickly put together before they set off. She buckled this device onto the harness’s steel ring before leaning down to reach outside and attach the other end to the half-ring on the gondola’s underside.
“Ready,” she told Tekela, swinging her legs into the opening and using the Spider to inject a large dose of Green.
“Engine off,” Tekela said, closing the throttle then taking a firmer hold of the central control lever. “Descending now.”
Lizanne jumped as Tekela put the aerostat into a steep dive, the force of the wind instantly whipping her back as the cable extended. The Green limited the effect of the jarring impact when the cable reached its limit, Lizanne feeling her vertebrae strain with the jolting instant deceleration. The cable scraped over the engine mounting as she swung behind the plummeting Firefly, and would have fouled the propellers if they hadn’t had the foresight to kill the power.
The aerostat continued to dive for about thirty seconds whereupon Tekela pulled back on the control lever and it came to a stop, the Firefly rearing backwards. Lizanne continued to plummet, the cable tightening to swing her beneath the gondola at near-terminal velocity. The High Wall loomed before her as she neared the apex of the swing, the fortified edge of the crater no more than fifty yards away.
Lizanne reached up and hit the catch on Jermayah’s hook, detaching herself from the cable. The momentum was sufficient to carry her across the edge of the crater and the parapet beyond. As she passed over it she could see only one sentry, face lit by a glow as he touched a match to his cigarillo, completely oblivious to anything that might be happening above.
She landed on the roof of the barracks, displacing several tiles in the process, then sliding to the edge of the roof. Lizanne twisted about and caught hold of the gutter, hanging there in rigid silence. She heard a few raised voices and the rapid tread of boots on cobbles, no doubt drawn by the cascade of falling tiles. Her Green-enhanced ears caught much of the subsequent conversation.