Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) (49 page)

Outnumbered at least three to one, the pirates were holding out.

“Can’t
anything
go right today?” Wintermourn muttered incredulously.

Sergeant Greene glanced his way. “Sir?”

“Grab a squad of men!”

Admiral Wintermourn slid down the slope of rubble for the boardwalk of the Gasworks courtyard. The saber in his hand was heavy, with a comfortable, well-worn heft. Surely he’d held it more in the last twelve hours than in the last twelve years.

He certainly wasn’t as spry as when he was a mere ship’s captain. The aching tear across his ribs and his shortened breath attested to that. Any other high-ranking officer in the fleet would have held back. Realms Below, they wouldn’t even have left their ships! Wintermourn knew they all thought him reckless—or simply bloodthirsty. Well. There was some truth to the latter, he had to admit.

But in this world of buffoons, incompetents, and moral degenerates, the only one he could count on was himself. And he would be damned to the Realms Below before he bore responsibility for any failure today.

A Bluecoat fell back ahead of him, screaming and clutching his nose, bleeding a torrent that soaked his chin and the bright white shirt beneath his jacket. Captain Fengel appeared in the opening, and Wintermourn struck out. It was an overhand swing aimed for his opponent’s crown. Fengel whipped his blade up to block it, just barely. He turned aside as a Bluecoat lunged for his heart with a bayonet-tipped musket, lashing out with the bell guard and breaking the man’s cheekbone. Wintermourn pulled back into a traditional fencing stance, honed from years of dueling and warfare.

“How kind of you to join us, Admiral,” said Fengel. He parried a blow from a Bluecoat beside him, bound the man’s smallsword, twisted it down, and stabbed the man in the thigh.

Wintermourn aimed a cut at the pirate’s head, which Fengel dodged. “If I have to intervene personally to stop you pirates and necromancers from escape, then I will do so gladly.”

Fengel suddenly lashed out at him, skewering his hat and forcing him back. “Ah. You found the Revenants. I never did ask Gunney Lome where she hid those things.”

He hacked a kneecap off a marine, shoved the man away with the bell of his saber, then parried a blade to his left. Another Bluecoat took the opportunity to circle right, only to find Fengel’s blade there, sawing across his face. Wintermourn found himself momentarily alone, and then the pirate captain went on the attack.

Fengel’s saber was everywhere—to the left and aimed at his head, then down in a cut at his thigh as Wintermourn blocked it. He pulled his leg back just enough and raised his saber against the cross-cut now coming for his shoulder before beating back the blade. The pirate captain drew back and raised an eyebrow, though not so much as to dislodge his monocle again.

“You can actually fight,” said Fengel, pausing for breath.

Sergeant Greene arrived at his side with fresh troops. Wintermourn sneered at the pirate. “Of course I can. I’m Lord High Admiral of the Sea, you criminal dog. A member of the Order Gallant. The king doesn’t reward wilting lilies with such an honor.”

“I’ve got it!” cried Imogen from the shackle ahead. She stood and backed away from the fight, from whatever she’d been working on. “It’s ready and armed—get away!”

Captain Fengel either ignored her, or didn’t hear. He knocked away the Bluecoat’s attacks, almost contemptuously, before flicking the tip of his blade at Wintermourn’s eyes. “What you are, Admiral, is
old
. Old-fashioned, worn out—you remind me of my father-in-law, curse his bones.”

Wintermourn tried not to focus on the growing ache in his side from the wound earlier or the burning of his lungs. “And you are tiring, Fengel. I can see it in the sweat on your brow. Let me teach you a trick or two that I’ve picked up over the years.”

A thunderous crash sounded from above them, the thump of a wooden hull on armored plating. Captain Fengel drew back in surprise, glancing up above and behind them, back towards the lagoon and the air above the Waterdocks. Abruptly, he barked out a laugh.

“Ha! It seems that my wife is the one teaching your lot a thing or two.”

Greene and a Bluecoat tried to take advantage of Fengel’s distraction. Wintermourn pulled back to leave them to it, half turning to see what the pirate captain thought so amusing.

It was the
Glory
, floating just near the Craftwright’s Terrace, out above the Waterdocks. Gwydion hadn’t managed to lift off fully before the
Dawnhawk
had taken her from above. The pirate airship was in sad shape and appeared to have just barely managed the attack; her canvas gas bag was torn in several places, and her hull hung weirdly off-center, dinged, scraped, and broken. The delicate skysails were torn and twisted. Gwydion must have had Bluecoats or his royal guard stationed up top, however. Already, Wintermourn spied desperate fighting on the pirate airship, along the gunwales and even up in the rigging connecting the envelope.

Admiral Wintermourn turned back with a vicious smile. “Foolish pirate. The crown prince is already aboard your derelict, see?”

The Mechanist, Imogen, danced and waved her arms at the back of the courtyard near the stair rising up the cliff. “The bomb is armed! We need to flee!”

Wintermourn ignored her. “Give up, Fengel. We’ll have your whore of a wife—”

Something burst through the Gasworks at his back, raining rubble from the wall out among the courtyard as it went. A huge, brazen object sailed through the air to slam into the granite wall of the terrace cliff with a sound like a ringing gong. Imogen darted aside with a yelp as it landed, and all the fighting paused for an involuntary moment.

Wintermourn stared. It was one of Gwydion’s Brass Paladins, smoldering and barely recognizable. The thing still twitched and steamed, flywheels spinning beneath its heavy armor.

A great roar echoed out across Haventown and the lagoon. It rebounded from the cliff walls, triumphant. Wintermourn glanced back at the Gasworks boundary, which had been blasted open to clearly reveal the rooftops of the Waterdocks and the forest of masts made by the warships in the lagoon beyond. The mechanical Voornish dragon stood there, distant, half-atop a collapsed warehouse out in the middle of the lowest terrace, raising its great maw up to the sky. The thing roared out again, bestial and bloodthirsty, for all of its mechanical nature.

The rippling report of a musket volley sounded above. It was the
Glory
, her crew taking shots at the pirates aboard the
Dawnhawk
. The mechanical dragon paused, glancing up at the warring airships. It snorted, and a great fume of steam gushed out. For a moment it stared, as if reminded of something. Then it narrowed the great glass eyes and stomped angrily, crushing a portion of the warehouse it stood upon.

The monster turned away, hunkering low. It seemed to shake and shudder, its interior machinery working furiously. Then it straightened abruptly out, maw open, to breath a lambent bolt of lightning at the
Dawnhawk
above.

Wintermourn stared. The bolt barely missed the armored envelope of the
Glory
. Bluecoats still fell from the rigging, spasming to their doom just from proximity. It hammered up into the hull of the
Dawnhawk
, passing through it and shattering out the deck on top, then up into the gas-bag envelope of the airship before exiting on the opposite side.

Fire exploded out from the
Dawnhawk’s
envelope. It burst out into the sky and washed across its deck in a wave of red-orange flame. Amazingly, the rest of the airship still hung in the sky, though burned and badly crippled. Below, the Voornish dragon gave a satisfied snort.

“No!” cried Fengel.

“Why are you all standing around!” sobbed Imogen.

Then her bomb went off.

Admiral Wintermourn felt pressure, then saw light, and everything became a confused jumble. The world seemed to wink out, then come back in a completely different orientation. Long moments passed as he struggled to set things to order.

He was lying on his side upon the courtyard boardwalk, his back bent at an awkward angle. Bodies lay all about him.
How did I get down here? What happened?

Something was ringing in his ears. He ignored it.
Wait. The fight. Captain Fengel and the airship.

His saber. He had to find his saber and get to his feet before the enemy could finish him off. Something was strange, though. The world—it wouldn’t stop wobbling.

Admiral Wintermourn rolled onto one arm, then gasped as a riotous, shooting pain lanced through his side and his wound from earlier. He forced himself through it with the experience of many long years, looking up past the dead or unconscious Bluecoats just in front of him. Then he stopped, trying to make sense of the scene.

Bodies lay all about, Bluecoats and pirates both. A hole gaped in the middle of the courtyard boards. On the opposite side, the cliff wall was moving.

No, passing. It was falling away. Wintermourn realized that the structure he lay upon was
rising
.

No. No, they won’t succeed.
He tried to force himself to sit up and coughed violently. The taste of blood was thick on his tongue.

Movement caught his eye. It was the Mechanist, Imogen. She pulled at a stunned, bloodied, half-standing Captain Fengel, still holding his blade. The short, bulldog-looking fellow, now covered in blood, helped her. He gestured at the airship landing pad above them, then back out at the lagoon.

No. You won’t get away.

Wintermourn licked raw lips and adjusted his wig. “Greene,” he gasped. “Greene! Attend me!” The man was useless. What had ever happened to his adjutant, Sergeant Lanters?

A shadow covered him. He glanced up to see the
Dawnhawk
on the approach, a madly burning wreck falling straight for the Gasworks. The
Glory of Perinault
was out of his field of vision, escaping catastrophe for the moment, it seemed.

“Sir?” croaked the body before him. It was Sergeant Greene.

“Get on your feet, soldier,” rasped Wintermourn. He grabbed a saber, not his own, and used the blade like a crutch, forcing himself to one knee. Wintermourn glowered down at the Bluecoat. The man said something, but he didn’t catch it this time. The ringing in his ears would just not stop.

Sergeant Greene was an oozy wreck. His eyes were gone; it was obvious he wouldn’t long survive.

Damnation!
Wintermourn glanced at Fengel and his minions, who were slowly climbing the stair away from them, to the landing pad above.

“Everything myself,” he muttered. “Have to do everything myself.”

More movement appeared across the courtyard. A shock of fear shot through him, but no, it wasn’t Revenants. It was a group of still-living Bluecoats, thank the hairy knuckles of the Goddess. Though whether they’d be of any more use than Green was questionable.

“To arms!” he croaked, grabbing up his fallen saber. “Attend me, you whoreson laggards! They’re getting away!”

Slowly, with his lungs burning and black spots dancing in his vision, Admiral Wintermourn straightened his wig. Then he crept after Fengel in pursuit.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Captain Fengel forced himself up the Gasworks stairway. It rang with every step he took, the metal clangor a counterpoint to his own labored breathing.

He
ached
. Each breath was like fire. His ankle was stiff. Blood ran freely from his tattered clothing and the dozen wounds beneath them. That omnipresent ringing in his ears was fading, though the pounding in his skull couldn’t have been worse if his head were placed in a vise.

Henry Smalls was at his side, propping him up and helping him in his climb. His faithful steward was saying something, but Fengel couldn’t make it out. Ahead of them, giddy with excitement and possibly a concussion, Imogen Helmsin raced for the airship platform at the top of the stair. She stopped to point at the rapidly disappearing cliff wall and then up at the Flophouse Terrace floating above before running forward again.

We’ve done it. We’re aloft. They’ll never catch us now.
But how steep the cost? In the courtyard below were dozens of the dead, men and women he’d known for years. Crewmates he’d led to freedom, then victory, and then finally to the skies. Some lived still, he was sure, and he was leaving them even now to the Bluecoats!

Because there wasn’t any time. The
Dawnhawk,
with Natasha, was coming in hard, crippled by the damnable Dray Engine. Where in the Realms Below had it even come from? And breathing lightning? Never on Almhazlik had he seen it do
that
.

Not important. It just wasn’t important right now. He felt shame over his abandonment of those still injured below, Lucian and Sarah and anyone else that was left. But his wife...

Fengel grabbed for the handrail, failing because of the saber still clutched tight in his hand. That was surprising; he hadn’t even realized he still had it. Fengel sheathed the blade roughly, stopping Henry with a mumbled command and looking back out over Haventown’s lagoon. Then he stared, monocle falling away. The
Dawnhawk
loomed hugely just ahead, a falling star awash in flame heading straight for them.

“Brace!” screamed Imogen, all her giddiness gone now.

His airship passed just overhead, so close that Fengel felt the heat from the flames up on her deck. He could have reached out and touched it, had he wanted to lose a finger. She tore railing away as she slammed into the Gasworks platform, skidding across it to ram the central smokestack spire rising up from the structure.

Fengel experienced a horrible moment as the entire world seemed to shake. Steel gave way with the screeching snap of metal pushed just too far. The Gasworks—or was it the unmoored Craftwright’s Terrace itself?—shook with the force of the impact. Orange light washed over them all, cutting through the early evening gloom and illuminating the shattered pieces of steel that fell like clattering rain into the Gasworks interior. The
Dawnhawk
burned up above, a torch for the whole of Haventown.