Chasing the Lantern (27 page)

Mordecai glared back at the row of inhuman faces. He kept still, but readied his grip on his blade. Glancing over at Natasha, he wasn't surprised to see that she only looked peeved.
Well, my idiot captain
,
now what?

Natasha held out a hand to him. "Mordecai?" she said in bored tones. "Gun."

He looked at her incredulously. She met his stare when he didn't act immediately, then shook her open hand at him. Her request brooked no refusal. Uncertain, he drew his pistol and passed it over, barrel first. Natasha was unpredictable, vicious, and short-sighted. But surely even she wouldn't be so reckless as to fire into the beasts.

He was wrong.

Natasha gave him a disgusted look and twirled the flintlock around to grip it. The she took a smart step forward, pointed the barrel of the gun right between the eyes of the ape before them, and pulled the trigger.

Smoke erupted from the gun and the report echoed across the hilltop. The ape sagged and fell at their feet, face shattered by the weapon. For a moment everything was frozen. The pirates watched fearfully; Natasha stood with her arm outraised. The apes cringed back from the noise. Then the creatures spied the corpse of their fellow. As one they bellowed, eyes bulging. Those closest above flung themselves from the Copper Queen down at the hilltop, the others behind following suit.

The battle was joined. Mordecai and Natasha tried to hold their ground, swinging their blades and firing shot after shot from the pistols at their belts. Still, they fell back before the charge. For a moment Mordecai thought they were lost; clubbing fists and gaping jaws filled his vision. He felt a sudden, powerful loathing for his captain. Her recklessness had brought them to ruin.

Reaver Jane appeared, a long knife in each hand. She ducked past Mordecai's offhand side to jab her long knives into the face of an ape. His crew joined the fray as well, their cries barely heard over the roar of the jungle creatures.

Mordecai fought like he'd never fought before in his life. He thrust, ducked, and cut. He whirled right, hacking at a neck, slashing at a pair of eyes. Blood flew through the air. The howls of their enemy were deafening. But it wasn't enough. The beasts weighed at least half as much again as a man, and were hideously strong and savage. White-furred limbs crashed down at him, heedless of his blade and how much damage they might take. Mordecai was battered, beaten. Hoary talons tore at his side, his arms, his face. Their nightmare trek through the jungle was nothing compared to this.

Then something changed. The flow of the battle shifted, and the apes were less furious, less numerous. Mordecai sensed the chance for victory and threw himself at it, as a drowning man might grasp at a piece of driftwood just out of reach.

An ape before him reared up. It raised both arms, intending to clobber him into the ground. Mordecai ducked forward and to the side. He lashed out at the creature's inner thigh, felt his blade bite into the thick fur and muscle there. The ape screamed and hammered down as he darted away, blood spraying from a new wound. Mordecai regained his footing, then threw himself at his foe, turning now to face him. He brought his cutlass up and hacked with a two-handed blow at the face of the ape. It bit and the creature screamed.

The struggle ended. The ape before him backed away, clutching at the bleeding ruin of its face, trying to leave. Mordecai let it. Warily, he looked to the rest of the hilltop. The apes were fleeing, nursing wounds, or hooting in pain as they descending down into the tree line. Pirates stood dumbfounded, three-fourths as many as they had reached the hilltop with. The wounded and dying groaned from where they lay on the earth.

Natasha stood nearby. She was bruised and bloody, but alive. Putting one foot on the corpse of a foe, she raised her sword up high and yelled victoriously. Amazingly, the cry carried, the crew roaring after the retreating white apes.

Mordecai staggered over to her. "What," he gasped, "were you
thinking?
"

Natasha did not reply at first, or even look at him. She panted, calmed, and then wiped her blade on the fur of an ape. Only then did she look to her first mate. "I suppose I thought the noise would frighten them off. It appears I was wrong." She shrugged. "No matter."

Mordecai stared incredulously at her. "Look at us! We've just lost a quarter our number!"

Natasha raised an eye at him. "Then those that are still alive had better get aboard, unless they've grown fond of these jungles." She turned away from him and marched up to the
Copper Queen
.

Mordecai spat in frustration and turned back to the crew. The damage wasn't as bad as it seemed. Many nursed broken ribs, sprained limbs. They were battered, cut, and torn. But they would serve, and live to serve another day. Some eight of their number were dead or dying, necks broken or wounded beyond survival. Mordecai ran a tally. All in all, they were still within an acceptable number of losses.

And yet, it had been completely unnecessary.
She didn't have to fire
. They could have waited out the apes, or at least rested before the attack. Mordecai understood Natasha's hurry; should the
Queen
free its tangled rigging from the outcrop, they'd lose their only method of transport. But it had lasted throughout the day; it was likely to hold here a little longer.

He ordered the dead stripped, the dying put down, and then moved the crew onto the airship. Thankfully, they were too tired or injured to feel resentment; Mordecai himself didn't have much left in him to deal with such trifles.

The
Copper Queen
looked just as bad on the inside as it did on the out. The apes hadn't helped. Detritus, tools, and rigging were strung everywhere. Above them the gasbag frame bulged at the stern, and the whole deck slanted dangerously toward the bow.

Natasha was already waiting for them. She stood amidships, clinging to a support line anchoring the deck to the frame. "About time," she said, voice flat but pitched to carry. "Reaver Jane, you alive? Good. Take the Wiley Brothers and Farrel up above. Get the light-air cells in the frame rebalanced. Have a care, I think there's still an ape or two up there. Skinny Tom, get yerself and five others to cleaning up this mess. Toss anything we don't need and won't burn; it's just ballast. Something happened to the cannons. They look melted, I don't know. Get rid of all but one. Keep the powder. Mordecai, get us cut free from this damned rock, and see if you can get that furnace going; we're going to need the propellers."

Their captain turned back and began the climb to the aftcastle deck. Mordecai stared at her, then looked at the others. They stared after Natasha wearily.

He had to retain order. "You heard her," he snapped. "Get moving."

Mordecai waited until the crew were busy, then rushed up the deck after his captain. He found her glaring up at the propeller system. The old propellers had long rusted away to disuse; these had been hurriedly fitted back in Haventown, and only kept going thanks to the bungling Mechanist youth they'd acquired.

"Looks like it should work still," said Natasha. "Have Tom keep anything that'll burn. Attend to it now, though, we haven't a lot of time."

"What," asked Mordecai, "is the hurry? We're aboard now, the apes are gone. The crew are going to mutiny if we keep up at this rate."

Natasha gave him a cold look. "That is what I keep
you
around for. Besides, you exaggerate. They're all so dead tired they can barely get moving. Which isn't enough, damn it. We need to hurry."

"Again, why?"

 "We're going to need to swing back to the
Albatross
wreckage. There's that last bit of treasure, and those canisters of light-air gas we replaced from the
Dawnhawk
. We need the latter, and I am
not
leaving the former behind. There's also some wreckage we can burn for fuel."

Mordecai relaxed a little. That was sound. "Of course not. But we can afford to wait a Goddess-damned bit. We just lost eight crew, ten if you count last night. We've got the ship. This thing is a wreck as it is. Let's take it easy back to Haventown. We cut our losses carefully—"

Natasha broke into wild, angry laughter. Her face was manic when she finished. "Cut our losses?" she said with a smile. "Head back to Haventown? You're confused, Mordecai. We aren't going home. We're going after the
Dawnhawk
."

Mordecai started. He shook his head. "We've lost it already. He's leagues and leagues away by now."

"I don't care," said Natasha, quietly, dangerously. "He's stolen my ship twice now. He's stolen my treasure, made me a laughingstock." She took a step towards Mordecai. "I will hunt Fengel to the ends of the earth, and teach him a lesson he won't soon forget."

She held his gaze. It was terrible. Mordecai turned away first. When he looked back up he saw that she had turned her own attention away, back to the deck to shout orders down to the crew. Mordecai stared at the back of her head, rage and frustration almost overwhelming him.

He suddenly had an epiphany. It washed over him in a moment of crystal clarity.
She's going crazy
.
This whole mess is driving her mad.
He would have to do something about that, he realized. Soon.

And Mordecai was nothing if not a conscientious first mate.

Chapter Sixteen

Lina waved a chunk of hardtack. Runt lurched up in an attempt to snag it from her.

"Beg," she said to it. "Go on. Beg for it."

Early evening sunlight filled the deck. She sat with the scryn in her favorite place, up against the port-side exhaust-pipe. Almost a full day had passed since the retaking of the
Dawnhawk
. Lina preferred not to think about that; they weren't nearly as far away from the wreck of the
Albatross
as she would have liked.

Footsteps approached where she sat. Lina looked up to see Oscar Pleasant moving past her toward the bow with a coil of rope slung over one shoulder. The two of them had been on separate watches ever since she'd dropped him over the side of the ship. They had otherwise avoided each other, but for the frantic times when all hands were needed on deck.

Oscar stopped a few feet away. He sniffed, wriggling his long, ratlike nose. His lip curled in revulsion as he peered down at her. "You're crazy," he said. "That thing is going to kill you. Or someone else."

Lina didn't bother meeting his gaze. "Captain said it was all right," she replied. Runt coiled and stretched for the hard-tack. She'd found that the scryn would eat or drink just about anything, though it still preferred hard liquor. Inspection of its mouth revealed fangs like a snake and a triple row of crushing molars all the way back where its throat began.

"Captain's crazy too," replied Oscar sullenly.

She rolled her eyes. "Nonsense. Look. I've been teaching him tricks. He's really very smart." Lina held up the chunk of ship's biscuit. "Sit!" she commanded. Runt stilled, coiling neatly at her feet. She wiggled the biscuit in the air. "Beg!" Runt lurched up as high as it comfortably could. Then Lina pointed the hardtack at Oscar, and lowered her voice. "Now, Runt.
Kill
."

Her pet turned toward Oscar and hissed. Venomous spittle flew from its open maw to spatter across the deck. It unfolded its wings and mad red light danced across his face. The pirate screamed and backed frantically away. He tripped over an equipment locker halfway across the deck and tumbled into a pile. Other crewmembers looked up at the disturbance. A few laughed.

Lina rubbed Runt along the back of its head. "
Good
monster. Who's a good little monster?"

"
Chirr!
" replied the scryn.

Lina tossed it the biscuit. Runt caught it neatly and coiled down to devour it. Another pair of footsteps sounded an approach, and Lina looked up to where Andrea Holt and Ryan Gae stopped a few feet away. Her friends watched her pet in apprehension.

"Don't worry," Lina said with a smile. "He's safe enough. Have a seat." She gestured.

The two pirates looked at each other, then took up their customary positions to one side. Ryan, she noticed, kept his dagger-hand free.

"What are you getting up to over here?" asked Andrea.

"Waiting," she said. "Shift's on soon."

"We didn't see you down in the mess."

"I ate up here. People were uncomfortable when I came in."

"Now there's an understatement," said Ryan darkly.

Lina shrugged. "They'll get used to it in time. Runt's harmless." She paused. "At least, I think."

Andrea rubbed her forehead. "Your new pet is awful, yes, but that's not what's got everyone upset."

Lina looked up at her friend. "Oh?"

"It's this...detour."

"Oh, that. Yeah, I wanted to see Breachtown, too. I've only ever heard of it. And I wish we'd get farther away from Natasha's Reavers. What if they catch up to us again? Still, we've plenty of coal."

"Lina," said Ryan as he rubbed his forehead. "That's all part of it. But you really mean to tell me you haven't heard of the Lantern? That's why Captain changed course. He thinks these weird fires will lead us to where it is."

"Oh, is that it?" She leaned back against the pipe. It was warm. "Seems a lot of work when we've already got the treasure down below."

"Aren't you worried about the curse?" asked Andrea.

Lina looked over at her friend. She saw the worry there, and it dawned on her what the problem was. "Wait. You're telling me that everyone's worried about a curse?" Lina shook her head. "There's no such thing."

"Of course there is," said Ryan. "This one time I saw Maxim—"

"
Magic
, sure, of course. But a curse? I'm more worried about that bitch wife of the Captain's."

"Anyway," said Andrea. "You're right, curse or no, it's a little silly to linger here when we've got a hold full of loot. And the fires are probably just locals. Ogres or savages or some such. There are all sorts of weird creatures out here, from what I hear." She shook her finger. "Mark my words. Following them is a terrible idea."