Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) (26 page)

Gareth grinned at the war chief’s toothy smile and quickening breath. Flay would be a most fearful opponent on the battlefield; he doubted he could best her in even combat. But she had been alone so long it was a simple task to twist her and bind her with tiny little words like
we
and
our
.

“S
IGNAL FROM
B
OLIVAR
, sir. They are ready to commence bombardment.”

Senator Clark saluted the ensign. The massive USS
Bolivar
cruised alongside the senator’s relatively small frigate,
Ranger
. Unlike the frigate,
Bolivar
was a “steamnaught.” It was a dirigible-shaped steel colossus with its buoyancy elements enclosed inside armor and one hundred guns bristling from six rows of gun ports along both flanks, as well as heavy turrets on the dorsal and ventral. This airship was the pinnacle of American military engineering, a new era in air firepower.

Senator Clark was the master of this grand armada. He was a tall man, muscular and powerful. His weathered face sported a heavy black beard, and his eyes shone with nearly manic clarity of purpose. He wore a blue officer’s tunic with brass buttons and gold piping. He adjusted the heavy Fahrenheit saber dangling from his leather gun belt. White gaiters glowed stark against the dark uniform. His usual white Stetson hat was missing, and his collar-length wavy black hair tousled in the wind.

He put a brass spyglass to his eye to scan the ragged little city below him. Wilmington. It sat beside the Cape Fear River, close to the Atlantic. Not perfect, but the best harbor between Charleston and the Chesapeake. And he intended to have it as his rear base for the campaign against Richmond.

He saw vampires swirling low over the city.

He sensed someone at his shoulder: Major Stoddard, his ever-present adjutant. “It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it, Major?”

“Wilmington?”

“
Bolivar
. The steamnaught may lack the charm of sail, but there’s a brutal loveliness in that steel hulk.”

The major nodded. He was thin and not quite so tall as the senator. His dark face was still and observant. His eyes moved frequently, but his expression rarely changed. Stoddard’s thoughtful stillness was the corollary to the boisterous flamboyance that the senator invested in his every move.

Stoddard found no great delight in the massive battleship that blotted out the sky on
Ranger
’s port beam. Its aluminum-burst engines boiled rancid smoke from multiple stacks. She wasn’t maneuverable and took ages to bring her boilers up to top speed, but she packed more firepower than the entire sailing airship fleet that darted around her.

Clark must have taken Stoddard’s silence for dissension rather than thoughtful consideration. He said with a pointed guffaw, “Ah. You’ve become argumentative on this campaign, Major. You’re old-fashioned. If I had a fleet of steamnaughts, I’d conquer the Earth. After we take care of these monsters, we’ll have a go at South America, eh? Fancy a house in Buenos Aires?”

Stoddard thought it best to give a brief chuckle, then asked, “You think they’ll come when we open up?”

Clark swiveled his telescope back to the black specks flitting over Wilmington. “Oh, they’ll come. Surprised they’re not here already. They know we took Savannah and Charleston. Hell, half these things came from there. They’ll fight.”

“Not so sure, Senator. Southern clans tend to be itinerant. Move with the season. They’re smaller and don’t have much love of territory.”

“No. This is the place. They’ll try to hold Cape Fear. From here north is real vampire territory.” Clark growled with anticipation, then shouted over his shoulder to the quarterdeck, “Captain, you may signal the fleet to commence operations!”

“Aye, sir!” Within seconds, colored flags ran out along the yards on
Ranger
. The frigate and the other escorting airships peeled away from the battleship’s
mighty flanks to clear the gun ports.
Ranger
surged forward and below the goliath, like a slim shark guiding a whale.
Bolivar
shifted its course slightly.

“
Bolivar
may fire when ready!” Clark laughed. New signal flags ran out, and the frigate fired two loud deck guns, but they seemed loud only for a second.

Bolivar
opened fire. Massive deep booms vibrated the air. Stoddard felt them roll over him as if they would crush his chest, and they drew a great rush of adrenaline from him. Smoke blasted out of
Bolivar
as the cannons on the port side roared. Nearly fifty steel monsters belched volcanic smoke in concert. The belly turrets fore and aft opened up too, throwing tongues of fire into the sky. The sound and power were unbelievable. The ship was an awesome sight.

Stoddard and Clark turned as one from the thundering
Bolivar
to the unsuspecting little town below. The whistling shells ended in explosions of flame. In addition to fire, oily green smoke puffed up around the city, and emerald clouds slowly rose and spread.

Small black shapes lifted into the air above the green haze. They rode the wind toward the fleet cruising over the jagged coastline. Soldiers on board
Ranger
crowded the side with rifles ready. Men stood at heavy machine guns mounted on the rails and in the tops.

Stoddard’s pulse throbbed in his head as he watched the drifting horde close. The vampires shifted in the air like summer insects, making it nearly impossible to draw a bead on them. Most of the creatures made for
Bolivar
until the escort ships peppered the sky with small-arms fire and shrapnel shells from their cannons. Stoddard felt the deck vibrate as
Ranger
’s guns opened up. The weapons fire drew the attention of the vampires.

Soon the air around
Ranger
and her sister ships was thick with vampires. Machine guns chattered. Bullets cut through the creatures tumbling in the air, who then maneuvered and righted themselves. It never failed to surprise humans to see vampires absorb massive damage and keep coming as if nothing had happened. It was easy for humans to panic and break if they were unfamiliar with it. The creatures seemed supernatural and undefeatable.

“Keep firing!” Clark shouted. “Keep at ’em!”

Stoddard pulled his long-barreled Colt Army revolver and shot into the masts, where vampires landed and crawled among the sails and spars like horrible lizards. The faces of the creatures were horrific. The vampires came ever closer, seizing the railings, crawling down the masts, and over the surface of the metal cage enclosing the dirigible.

“Shriekers!” Stoddard yelled, unsure if he could be heard over the thick gunfire. “Shriekers!”

He swung his glowing Fahrenheit saber at a creature as it tried to push through the line of troopers who were already being pressed back from the rail by savage claws and teeth. Some soldiers drew short swords and pistols for bloody close action. Others fired their rifles up into the yards to keep the creatures from dropping behind them.

“Keep them back!” the senator commanded with amazing composure. If the vampires broke the line and got to the center of the deck, they would create a terrible melee and throw the humans into chaos.

A high-pitched scream started across the length of the ship. Stoddard saw an airman standing at a pedestal, turning a handle attached to a simple brass box contraption with an amplifier horn on one side. The shrieker’s terrible whine felt like a knife in Stoddard’s head, and the vampires, whose hearing was far more sensitive, staggered and even drew back. The soldiers pressed the advantage with guns and blades, hacking and shooting the creatures, gaining back precious feet of deck space.

The victory was short-lived. Two vampires dropped onto the sailor at the shrieker and bore him to the deck. In seconds, they eviscerated him and then tried to damage the metal gears of the shrieker.

Stoddard leapt to them, firing his pistol and delivering a solid saber blow to one vampire’s neck. The thing jerked and fell. Stoddard fired again, and then the hammer fell on an empty cylinder. A bloody smile appeared before him.

The grinning vampire’s face exploded. Senator Clark kicked the flailing thing to the deck and shot it several more times. Dripping with gore, Stoddard reloaded his revolver and, without comment, stepped onto the shrieker’s platform. He tugged the handle slowly at first, but then it caught and the noise began to rise, cutting through his head. Clark turned away to rejoin the smoke and blood around them.

Creatures moved overhead like monkeys in a tropical forest. Stoddard shot upward when he could see a target, and ducked wildly when he couldn’t. The wail of the shrieker became a dull thud in his head. He could no longer hear the sounds of gunfire or soldiers screaming. It seemed like hours that he stood turning that handle while pale arms reached for him. Razor blades raked his head and face. Warm blood drizzled down and fell onto his hands and the wooden planks. Soldiers protecting him fell bloody at his feet. Vampires dropped twitching, heads smashed by rifle butts, chests opened by swords and axes.

Stoddard saw Senator Clark draw a hand across his throat in a signal to stop. The major released the shrieker handle and let it wind down on its own. Only when he let go did he realize he was too weak to stand and stumbled to the deck on top of bodies, both human and vampire. Hands grabbed him and he saw faces mouthing words he couldn’t hear. They pressed him back against the shrieker pedestal and he stared at the underside of the dirigible, watching the tattered lines and flapping sails.

Fabric rustled overhead, backlit by the sun. Sails.

Stoddard had to report to Senator Clark. He struggled to stand, but his feet were trapped by cloth. Perhaps one of the yardarms had fallen on the deck. Oddly enough, his boots were gone. He was barefooted. He reached down to pull himself free of the entanglement. The deck was strangely soft and spongy; it was difficult to stand. Still he pushed up until something gave way and he tumbled hard to the ground.

Voices shouted. Fingers seized his arms, pulling him to his feet. He tried to shove them away. He had to find the senator. He recognized the face of Dr. Lo, the ship’s surgeon on
Ranger
. The doctor stared at him and spoke softly with unintelligible words. Stoddard was pushed down onto a cot. He felt the edge of the makeshift bed, the hard wooden slats and the rough canvas.

This wasn’t the deck of
Ranger
. He turned to each side and saw rows of cots filled with men. They were all injured. The canvas around him wasn’t a sail. It was a tent.

He was in a camp hospital. He wondered why.

“Can you hear me, Major?”

Stoddard looked at Dr. Lo, who smiled with obvious relief.

“Excellent,” the doctor said in an oddly muffled voice.

“Where is Senator Clark?” Stoddard asked slowly.

Dr. Lo laughed. “Don’t worry about him. He’s fine. Not a scratch, as usual. You, on the other hand, took a beating. They say you stood at the shrieker while vampires clawed you to pieces. And since I put every one of five hundred stitches in you, I’d say they’re right.” He took Stoddard’s wrist and felt his forehead. “You can hear, at least. Pulse is strong enough. No fever that I can tell. Lucky your wounds haven’t gone septic. Vampires are filthy things.”

“Where am I?”

“Wilmington.”

“We took the city?”

“Yes. The vampires fled.”

“How long has it been?”

The doctor thought. “Four days? Something like that. I’ve lost track of time with all the casualties.”

“Four days.” Stoddard started to rise. “I’ve got to get back to duty.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Major. Just lie still.”

Stoddard grimaced and fell back, exhausted. His head was splitting, and there was a sharp buzzing in his ears. He smelled a nauseating stench.

Apparently he made a face at the stink because Dr. Lo said, “We tried to move the hospital far enough out, but you can still smell it.”

“What is it?”

“They’re burning the herds. Or burying them as fast as we can. Thank goodness it’s still cold or I’d be a lot more worried about cholera. I don’t look forward to spring and summer assaults.”

Stoddard asked groggily, “How many did we kill?”

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you. The vampires fought for a few hours, then took off to the north.”

“No. How many humans?”

“Last figure I saw, across the fleet, we lost six hundred and fifty killed in battle. Over five thousand wounded, and nearly twenty-five hundred seriously. And a thousand of those will die soon enough from infection.”