Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide (27 page)

Squid materialized beside the portcullis windlass. She took a moment examining the heavy chains and the palls and ratchets, then shot out two arms, suckered one of the wooden gear wheels and ripped it off its pins. The iron gate fell out of control. Iron rang like a bell and the concrete cracked like a gunshot. Shots rang out from the battlements. Squid pushed herself against the portcullis bars and flowed through one of the barely foot-wide iron rectangles like toothpaste out of a tube. “Mount up!” Ryan shouted. “Hold the captain!”

The gelding screamed and bucked as a giant octopus flowed up over his croup. In Squid’s favor, bucking an octopus out of the saddle was a problematic task at best, and Oracle now had a living seven-point safety harness. Ryan kicked his heels into his horse’s sides and it surged forward. The rope between the mare and gelding went taut and the screaming, eye-rolling roan instinctively stopped bucking and ran with the herd. Ryan rode. The men on the wall pumped rapid semi-auto fire at the road. Ryan knew he was already out of sight and broke left for the creek. His mare’s hooves smashed ice and frozen mud along the bank. The mare seemed to know the path, and he gave the horse her head. Behind him he heard the sound of a hand-crank air raid siren winding up and howling into the storm.

The ride by horse to the sea was a matter of minutes, unlike the octo/man walk up to the fortress. Ryan hung a right by the ocean and reached the sea wall in moments. He leaped off and tied off his horse to a bit of rusted rebar.

“Squid, get some air!”

Squid slid off the newly bucking gelding and took Oracle gently to the sand. The octopus stopped short of running and flung herself into the sea. The gelding shuddered and nuzzled up against Ryan’s mare. Ryan checked Oracle’s pulse. He’d been beaten so badly his bones showed through, and now he was freezing. He was also a mutant who had survived being hanged, and he was still breathing.

Ryan turned to the waves. “Squid, are you going to be okay?”

He nearly jumped as Squid spoke right beside him. “I am weary but well. You have saved me again.”

“When you said you would get me to shore and over the wall, I swore to myself I would get you back to the
Glory
.”

Squid shuddered in the shreds of moonlight. “I am only capable of imprinting on one human at a time, but my feelings for you are overwhelming me.”

“Save your heart for Doc.”

“I am an octopus. I have three hearts.”

Ryan’s teeth flashed. “Give all three to Doc, then, and hold him with all eight arms.”

Ryan had seen a working lava lamp once. Mr. Squid’s flesh glowed and glopped and pulsed like she had red and orange blobs of lava flowing in all directions beneath her flesh. “I am dangerously close to a mating frenzy!”

“Best knock that shit off. We aren’t back aboard yet.”

The light show cut off like a light switch had been thrown. “I remain mission oriented.”

“Good, let’s go see what Balls has for us.” They remounted. The gelding shook down to his bones but took up the load of mutant and octopus. They slowly made their way down the sea wall. Ryan pulled up by the warehouse. From horse height he could see Balls’s cottage and all the lights were off. He raised his longblaster as a voice spoke from the closest boathouse. “That you, Ryan?”

“Balls.” Ryan road up to the boathouse. The umiak was a dim, white shape. Balls struck a match from the prow and snuffed it out. In the brief flare Ryan saw the great canoe now had an outboard attached. Balls and the pregnant young woman from the hall were within, as well as six men in foul-weather gear and a whole lot of bundles of goods. “What gives?”

“We’re going with you.”

“You want to take a pregnant girl around the horn?”

“You’ll take a pregnant girl and a useless old man around the horn, along with six sailors who can hand and reef and a significant source of supplies you’ll be grateful for.”

Ryan glanced out into the strait and saw the occasional dull yellow knife of a searchlight. “How do we get past?”

“We paddle along the beach. The strait is a big fat mouth. Once we get out we hit the outboard and go. They’re looking for the
Glory
or her boats coming in, not a canoe sneaking out.”

Ryan spoke low in the dark. “Do they know about Mr. Squid?”

“I’ve told them, but they don’t believe me.”

“Tell them not to scream.”

* * *

“
R
YAN, YOU ARE HEREBY
promoted to officer,” Miles announced. “Mr. Forgiven, mark it in the book.” Everyone above the rank of bosun was in the cabin. Thunderous applause erupted, and it was echoed above deck and in the fo’c’sle. Commander Miles nodded at Big Ian’s saber. “Hold on to that. Gypsyfair?”

The little, blind mutant came forward. Ryan felt his throat tighten as she held out a blue officer’s coat. “I hope it fits.” It did, as Ryan knew it would. He stared at himself in the captain’s mirror wearing an officer’s coat and a sword. Ryan Cawdor was the son of a baron. In this broken world he had, for a short time, been the son of privilege. Everything he had gained on the
Glory
had been earned.

“Hat and breeches to follow, Ryan.”

“Thank you.”

Mildred came out from the partition screening off the captain’s bed. Ryan spoke quietly. “How is he?”

“Still unconscious. No sign of infection.” Mildred had spent hours attending to the whip’s bloody wounds. “Blissfully unconscious.”

Techman Rood burst breathlessly into the cabin and held up a paper covered with translated code. “Commander!”

“More of the Sabbath’s Caesar cipher?”

“Commander, it’s from Dorian to Laird. The
War Pig
is out of coal. She is sailing toward the Falklands with a jury-rigged bowsprit and letting the Westerlies do the work.”

“He still hasn’t figured out we’ve deciphered his code,” Ryan mused.

“Unless he has,” Miles countered. “Then we would be sailing into the teeth of the Westerlies with him having them at his back. He goes to his engines and he can draw his own killing box. All we could do is flee west for the Africas and the unknown.”

“I destroyed their radio set. If Dorian has coal and hears nothing, he’ll turn back for the coast. If he doesn’t, there’s no way he go back tack on tack without a bowsprit. He’ll have to come in for fuel and repairs.”

“A gamble, when we should be sailing for the Horn.”

Oracle’s voice rasped from behind the partition. “I am curious, Mr. Ryan. What is your first inclination?”

“I say we sink the
War Pig
or take her.”

“Commander Miles?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Sink the
War Pig,
or take her.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

South Atlantic

“Ship ahoy, sir!” Ricky called.

“Thank you, Mr. Ricky!” Ryan snapped his longeyes to his eye. It still felt odd being addressed by his friends this way, but he was an officer now. The day was gray and cloudy. The Westerlies blew a bitterly cold forty miles per hour. He didn’t want to contemplate what the weather would be like when the South American continent no long sheltered them. The red and black painted
War Pig
was unmistakable in the murk. Ryan had calculated the most likely course the
War Pig
would take to bring them straight to the Falklands, without engines or a spritsail, and he had plotted the
Glory
’s best course for interception. His calculations were correct almost to the hour, and they had brought his ship nearly exactly behind the crippled behemoth.

A little part of Ryan’s heart that he would not show to officers, crew or his companions glowed. He was good at this. Whether the
War Pig
was truly out of coal or not, at least at the start of the engagement, the
Glory
would have the advantage. “Mr. Manrape! Inform Commander Miles we have the
War Pig
in sight. Douse all fires and beat to quarters!”

“Aye, sir!” Manrape roared. “You heard him!”

Ryan was not the gloating kind, but another part of him enjoyed Manrape calling him “sir.” Yerbua and Nirutam hammered their hand drums. Shouts broke out below and feet instantly pounded wood. Hardly anyone below was sleeping. The entire crew had been waiting for this fight and was eager for it.

Commander Miles limped onto the quarterdeck. He bore a Colt 1911A1, missing just about all of its finish, strapped to his good leg and he’d thrust his Japanese short sword through his blue sash. He raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and grinned at the
War Pig
. “Excellent plotting, Mr. Ryan.” He smiled uncharacteristically at Ryan’s full, blinding white and navy blue uniform. “You wear it well.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

The two officers on deck leaned out over the starboard rail and peered at the
War Pig
. They had spotted the
Glory
descending on them from the stern, and the
Pig
’s sailors swarmed like ants in the rigging, taking up and dropping sail as she desperately tried to maneuver. Fitful pulses of ashy gray smoke and then greasy black came out of her black iron smokestack.

“What do you make of that, Mr. Ryan?”

Ryan knew he guessed right. “Dorian really is out of coal. We’ve caught him flatfooted. He’s throwing wood, oil and anything else that isn’t nailed down into his fireboxes to try and heat his boilers.”

“Aye, I make it so as well.”

“If he can even half turn under power, we’re going to get the hard end of this.”

“Aye,” Miles agreed.

“I say we take him now.”

“We are agreed, Mr. Ryan. Be so kind as to do so.”

Ryan tensed internally. It was under Miles’ watchful eye, but he had just been given command of the ship. Ryan knew this was Oracle’s order. He stepped to the binnacle and Miss Loral at the wheel behind it. He knew what he would find, but he felt goose bumps along his arms as he found the suspended skeletal hand pointing straight at him and then slowly turn to point in judgment for the
War Pig
. They had the weather gauge, and that meant that the
Glory
could choose her maneuvers at will with the wind in her sails, while the
War Pig
would have to wallow and tack against the wind to try to match. It was a priceless advantage in a battle between sailing ships, trumping surprise or weight of shot. If the
War Pig
could get her screws turning even slightly, it would be lost. One maneuver might be all they ever got.

“Miss Loral, straight in for the
Pig
’s tail.” Ryan rolled the dice. “Get us within one hundred meters, then hard to starboard. I want every crewman not needed to sail the ship or fire the cannons stationed to the starboard rail with a blaster.”

Loral’s eyes widened. Ryan was gambling everything on a single broadside. She flashed the wolf grin. “Aye!”

Ryan filled his lungs. “J.B., chasers when we’re in range! The blaster deck is yours! Chasers when we’re in range! When we turn to starboard, be ready to fire as she bears!”

* * *

J
.
B
. LEANED PERILOUSLY
out of the number-one starboard chaser blaster port as the blaster crew reloaded. Spray atomized upward and misted his glasses as the
Glory
cut through the South Atlantic like a knife with the wind behind her. DontGo seized his belt. J.B. accepted the support and took in his opponent. The
War Pig
was an ocean-going horror, a behemoth with modifications that included two blaster decks to the Glory’s one, but the monster was lumbering like a horse half mired in mud. Smoke puffed from the monster’s stern. J.B. saw the gray streak of the cannon ball that rustled past the
Glory
six meters to his left.

The crew missed Gunny, but the artilleryman and weaponsmith had trained his people well and they admired J.B.’s competence and style. The
Pig
had four stern chasers to the
Glory’s
two. The
Pig
was now reduced to one. The battle plan was simple. If the
Glory
exchanged broadsides with the
Pig,
she was most likely doomed. Ryan was attempting to give J.B. a shot at raking fire.

With the weather gauge, Ryan would attempt to turn the
Glory
’s full broadside at the
Pig
’s stern. The stern was less heavily built than the prow or the sides, and there was a chance the cannonballs would rip through the
Pig
from stern to stem. The
Glory
had doused all fires. Dorian was stoking his boiler, which was dangerous in the extreme for a wooden ship. J.B. would attempt to put all eight of his shots up the
Pig’s
ass. The stern was a much smaller target, and that was why Ryan was bringing the
Glory
in dangerously close.

Dorian knew exactly what was happening. His crewmen surged to fill the stern rail and the smashed-out windows of Dorian’s cabin. Blasterfire erupted from the stern of the
Pig
and from the sharpshooters in the tops. DontGo yanked J.B. back inside as bullets hit the
Glory
like hail. “Fucking unfriendly,” Skillet opined.

Ryan roared from the top deck. “Two hundred meters, J.B.!”

“Blaster captains!” J.B. called. “Light fuse!” The blaster captains squatted over the fuse baskets and struck sulfur matches well away from the powder and set the coiled fuses to smolder. The
Glory
had nearly a full complement, but far too many of the crew were still lubbers. They were going to fire from starboard, so J.B. had run the Mapuche, Kelpers and gauchos to port. Veterans would fire the first volley.

“One hundred fifty!”

“Starboard crews!” J.B. bellowed. “Run out the blasters!”

J.B. watched as his crews yanked on the ropes and tackles and the cannons rumbled forward. These were not the narrow, long-range chasers meant to take away spars or rigging. These cannons were squat beasts of short range and large caliber and looked like black iron, hostile beer kegs. They were smashers.