“Sir!”
Hilemore turned at Steelfine’s shout, finding him pointing to a familiar shape resolving out of the fog, the Viable coming on at full auxiliary speed. “Man the guns, sir?” Steelfine asked as Hilemore started for the bridge.
“I thought there wasn’t a man aboard with the heart to fire on us?” Hilemore asked.
“Captain Trumane’s a forcefully persuasive fellow,” Steelfine replied. “And, to be honest, sir, there’s a few lads left aboard who’d gladly see us both dead.”
“A lie, Number One?”
“Thought you needed a little prod, sir.”
Hilemore sighed and shook his head. “I won’t fire on my own ship, not that Trumane knows that. Load powder only, give us a smoke-screen.”
“Aye, sir.”
The Superior had already begun to move by the time he got to the bridge, finding Talmant working the wheel with accustomed hands. “She’s a real beauty to handle, sir,” he said.
“Good to know, Lieutenant. Keep her straight and true, if you please.” Hilemore went to the starboard gangway, watching the Viable close to within a hundred yards, her signal lamp blinking furiously: “‘Heave to. Prepare to be boarded.’”
He saw with dismay that the forward pivot-gun was manned and in the process of being loaded, though not with the kind of urgency he would have expected. Perhaps the remaining crew liked him more than Steelfine thought. Nevertheless, the time for subtlety was over.
He returned to the bridge, scanning the various instruments before he found the engine telegraph, though the lettering on its dial was completely indecipherable. “The red one for full ahead, sir,” Talmant said.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” He pushed the lever to the red dial and waited. Ahead the door was at least ten yards short of being fully raised and the Viable was closing by the second. Come on, Chief, Hilemore prayed inwardly. It can’t be all that different.
From outside came the flat boom of a cannon followed by the instantaneous whine of a shell slicing the air. The shot impacted a few yards to the right of the bow, a trifle too close for a warning shot. Either the pivot-gun crew had missed on purpose or they were worse shots than he remembered. Steelfine didn’t wait for the order, the Superior’s three starboard guns barking out a response in quick succession, the resultant smoke mingling with the lingering mist to craft an impenetrable fog.
A shrill bell sounded from the engine telegraph, the dial swinging away and then back to the red portion of the dial. The Superior gave a now-familiar lurch, not as violent as that produced when the Viable’s blood-burner came on-line, but still enough to make him stagger. The Superior surged forward, sweeping through mist and cannon-smoke thick enough to momentarily obscure the door, but luckily Talmant proved capable of holding the course. They exited the harbour at fifteen knots, rapidly rising to twenty as Talmant steered them through the channel to the open sea.
“Steer true south, Mr. Talmant,” Hilemore said. “Keep her at full ahead until further notice.”
“Aye, sir.”
Hilemore went outside and slipped down the ladder to the deck, making his way aft where the Longrifles stood in vigilant expectation. They didn’t have long to wait. The great shadow of the Black rose from the misted channel and closed the distance to the ship with a few lazy beats of its wings. Hilemore heard a few near-hysterical shouts from the Corvantines and a hushed Dalcian prayer from Scrimshine as the drake flew closer. Lutharon spread his wings and landed on the aft deck with a skittering thump as his claws found the boards, folding his wings and crouching to allow Clay to climb down from his back.
“Well,” he said, glancing around, “this tub’s hardly an improvement on the last one.”
CHAPTER 6
Sirus
It killed Simleon first, reaching out to enclose the boy in one of its claws before tearing him in half with a quick snap of its massive jaws. It tossed the pieces to the squalling clutch of infants scrabbling about near by. Their Spoiled captors had dragged Simleon from the ranks of prisoners and pushed him towards the White, using comparatively little force due to the boy’s placidity. He just trotted along obediently, shoulders slumped and head lowered. It seemed to Sirus as if Simleon had lost the last vestiges of himself in the sewers and all that remained was an empty shell awaiting execution. Sirus wanted him to scream and struggle, at least then there may be some scrap of sanity amongst all this horror. But Simleon hadn’t screamed. He just stood, not even looking up as the legendary beast dipped down to sniff him, issuing a faintly satisfied rumble. Katrya, unlike Simleon, had plenty of screams left in her. Sirus tried to shush her, fearing a silencing blow from their captors, but she kept wailing on. The Spoiled, however, seemed content to let her scream, Majack’s deformed features barely glancing down at them before returning his yellow-eyed gaze to the impossible beast that now ruled this city.
The White had coiled itself around the statue of the Emperor Voranis occupying the centre of the plaza at the heart of the Imperial Ring. It should have been majestic in its size and evident power, like something stepped from the pages of myth. But the inescapable realness of the beast made it dreadful rather than awe-inspiring. There were scars on its hide in several places, and red veins could be seen pulsing in its wings as it wrapped them around the bronze effigy of long-dead Voranis. He had been the first of the Arakelin line to sit the throne, his bronze effigy now partly unrecognisable thanks to recent melting. The cause of the vandalism became apparent when Sirus saw the infant drakes casting their flames at it, wings fluttering and tails whipping as if engaged in a delightful new game. Those not preoccupied with turning the statue into slag were busy gathering up the many bones that littered the plaza, jaws laden with blackened sticks that had once been limbs and balls that had once been skulls. They appeared to be fashioning a stack from this ghastly detritus, fusing the bones in place with some kind of steaming bile heaved up from their stomachs. Sirus’s gaze swept the plaza, counting five completed stacks arranged in a circle around the White. Before vomiting, Sirus noticed most of the bones were too small to have been adult remains.
There were about forty other captives in their party, presumably the last survivors to have been scoured from the ruins of Morsvale. Sirus was surprised to find so many, but the city had been large and its antiquated architecture provided many nooks and crannies where desperate souls might conceal themselves, but not, apparently, forever. The captives were greatly outnumbered by their captors, Sirus estimating that at least three thousand drakes had gathered in this plaza. As the captives were dragged through the silent crowd, arms bound, expecting death at any second, he noticed that many of the Spoiled were clad in the clothes of the townsfolk: soldiers, constables, servants and shopkeepers. Like Majack their faces were not so deformed as those clad in tribal garb, although they all shared the same expression of faintly interested scrutiny.
The White spent a few moments watching the infants squabble over Simleon’s quickly diminishing remains then turned its gaze to the ragged line of kneeling captives. Katrya’s screams finally stopped as the beast’s eyes swept over them, choking into a final terrorised exhalation. Sirus wanted to look away but found himself captured by the White’s gaze. Its eyes were narrowed and its brows bunched in calculation and Sirus realised he had a yet deeper well of fear in him as the realisation hit home: This animal can think!