In all, Chief Bozware advised that some eighteen vessels out of a total of twenty-two were in a sufficient state of repair to make an ocean voyage to Varestia. Unfortunately, the parlous state of the combined fuel stocks meant they had only enough coal for a dozen vessels.
“Twelve’s better than one, Chief,” Hilemore said.
“Turns out there’s a jewel in the dung pile,” Bozware went on, handing Hilemore one of the manifests. The name ECT Endeavour was scrawled at the top of the sheet in laboured Mandinorian above a crew list of only six names and a cargo schedule containing mostly worthless sundries but one item of considerable importance.
“One full flask of Red,” Hilemore read.
“She’s a blood-burner,” the chief confirmed. “Fast Eastern Conglomerate Mail Packet working the route between Dalcia and Arradsia. Crew told me all about their misfortunes when I went to look her over. Turns out a Blue gave them a terrible mauling south of the Razor Sea, lost their skipper, company Blood-blessed and most of their mates. Somehow they managed to sail her all the way here. The upper works are a mess but the hull and the mechanicals are sound.”
“She’ll need crew,” Hilemore said. “A Blood-blessed . . . and a captain.”
“What do you think?” he asked Zenida a short while later. They had taken a boat to the Endeavour, the sparse crew welcoming them aboard with a refreshing display of relief and gratitude.
“Thought we was gonna just rot here,” the bosun said, apparently the only senior sailor left on board. He was a burly fellow but young for his rank, Hilemore suspecting he had earned it mostly through physical strength and, judging by the way the other crewmen avoided his eye, no small amount of intimidation. Still, he had managed to salvage his ship and sail it for hundreds of miles to a safe harbour, which indicated at least some facility for leadership.
“Nothing some decent carpentry and a lick of paint wouldn’t fix,” Zenida said, voice rich in irony as she surveyed the scorched and partly shattered wheel-house.
“I’ll assign you a work crew,” Hilemore told her.
“Me?” She stared at him in bafflement for a second, then frowned as realisation dawned. “A new command,” she mused, a mix of wariness and anticipation playing over her features as she once again looked the ship over. “Who will fire the Viable’s engine?”
“Lieutenant Sigoral, or Mr. Torcreek.”
“Assuming either of them actually survives to make it here.”
“There is at least one other Blood-blessed in this port. In extremis, I’m sure I can persuade her to join us.”
“Persuade or kidnap?”
“I did say, in extremis.”
“You always were a ruthless man, Captain.” She let out a soft laugh as she scanned the ugly mess of the vessel’s upper deck. The Endeavour was a one-stack, two-paddle ship with a narrow hull. Built for speed not comfort, Hilemore’s grandfather would have said.
“I had such fine hopes for my next ship,” Zenida commented. “I even had the plans drawn up. She would have been called the Flameheart, fastest ship afloat, and one day Akina would have been her captain.”
“That can all still happen,” Hilemore said. “When this war’s over.”
“Perhaps.” Zenida gave a wistful laugh. “The plans would need to be redone. I suspect all future ships will be propeller-driven like the Superior. We stand at the dawn of a new age, Captain. Let’s hope we live to see it, eh?”
“We will,” Hilemore said, voice flat with a certainty they both knew to be false.
Zenida nodded and cast a final glance over the ship. “I accept my new commission,” she said. “But with one condition.”
“I am not staying here!”
Hilemore ducked to let the spanner Akina had thrown sail over his head, making a loud clang as it collided with the engine-room bulkhead. The girl’s grease-besmirched face was bunched in fury as she reached into her tool-box for another missile.
“Akina!” Zenida said, voice hard with a rarely used parental authority. She stepped between her daughter and Hilemore, snaring the girl’s wrist in a tight grip as she drew her arm back for another throw. “This is my wish, not his,” she said in quietly spoken Varestian. “Are you my daughter?” She tugged Akina’s arm, the wrench in her grasp falling to the deck. “Are you my crew?”
Akina stared up at her mother, the fury vanished from her face to be replaced with naked fear. “I should be with you,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t leave me here, please, Mama.”
Zenida released Akina’s arm, Hilemore seeing how she resisted the impulse to pull her close. “Daughters obey their mothers,” she said. “Crew obey their captains. You are ordered to stay here and follow our sea-brother’s instructions. You are his crew now.”
Akina pressed herself to her mother, arms enclosing her waist, the only sob Hilemore had ever heard from her escaping her lips and she clung on tight. Feeling like an intruder, he turned away, moving to the hatchway then pausing as a low whistle sounded from the speaking-tube.
“Signal from the crow’s nest, sir,” Talmant’s tinny voice reported. “Drake in sight overhead.”
“It’s definitely a Red, sir,” Steelfine said, spy-glass raised high as he tracked the winged silhouette across the sky. “Just one, though.”
“That’ll change soon enough,” Hilemore heard Scrimshine mutter at his back.
He scanned the surrounding ships, seeing the multitude of sailors crowding the decks, faces all turned skyward.
“It’s just out of rifle-range,” Steelfine went on. “That mad Contractor marksman might’ve been able to take it down. The rest of us would just be wasting ammunition. We could try a shot with the pivot-gun.”
“Also a waste of ammunition, Number One,” Hilemore said. “It’s already seen us in any case.” From his conversations with Clay he was well aware that what one drake saw, so did the White. It knows this ship, he thought. And now it knows where we are.
“Signal lamp, sir,” Talmant said, pointing to a blinking light on one of the neighbouring ships. It was a broad-beamed one-paddle freighter with Dalcian lettering on the hull. Hilemore could see the diminutive pirate captain at the lamp, signalling in plain code: I changed my mind.
Within minutes more lamps began blinking on other ships and soon it appeared every vessel in the harbour was sending out variations of the same message. “It appears,” Hilemore said, “we have a fleet after all.”
CHAPTER 31
Clay
He pulled Kriz close, trying to cover them both with his duster. A blast of heat prickled his skin as the Black’s flames swept over the Green leather. Then the heat abruptly vanished and the ground shuddered as something heavy came to earth near by, Clay grimacing as a drake’s roar filled his ears. It was different from the challenging screech of the Black that had just tried to roast them. This was the deep, throaty roar of a mature male, and he had heard it before.
He drew the duster back to find himself bathed in shadow. A large claw scraped the earth close to his head and a glance upwards revealed a massive scaled rib-cage that swelled and contracted as the beast above let out another roar. It was answered by a chorus of screeches from the other drakes, the huge shape shifting above Clay and Kriz, the air whooshing as its tail whipped and its wings flared. Clay saw the other two Blacks spread their own wings, but in obvious supplication rather than challenge. They lowered their heads and backed away, emitting small, low-pitched grunts as they retreated. The third Black, however, was not so easily cowed.