CHAPTER 42
Clay
“You’re certain this will work?” Hilemore asked him.
“I ain’t certain of anything much these days, Captain,” Clay replied. “But I do know there’s no way this fleet’s gonna make it across the Orethic in the state it’s in. But a blood-burner might.”
Hilemore turned away from him and moved to the starboard rail. Clay could almost feel the man’s guilt as his gaze tracked over the burnt and blackened fleet. In addition to the damage done the cost in lives had been heavy, as had the toll in wounded. Every ship still afloat reported sick bays full of burnt and maimed crew. Fully half their stocks of Green had already been expended in keeping the wounded alive.
“Just one battle,” Clay heard Hilemore murmur to himself.
“One battle don’t make a war,” Clay said. “The fleet may be done but the war ain’t.”
“You would have me abandon them?”
“Lutharon’s lost all scent of any Blues. They’re either dead or fled. The fleet can make its way back to Stockcombe.” He steeled himself for what he had to say next, aware of the likely reaction but also knowing it had to be said. “They did what we needed, anyways. If we’d tried to sail alone the Blues would’ve done for us.”
He refused to look away as the captain rounded on him, a dangerous glint in his eye. Since meeting Hilemore Clay had thought him incapable of breaking, a man so bound up in duty and the need to do what was right it was impossible for him to waver. Now he saw just a man like any other. Braver than most to be sure, and expert in fighting at sea, but still just a man who could be borne down by guilt. At another time it might have stirred Clay’s empathy. But today, with so much at stake, it just made him angry.
“If you ain’t gonna do it,” he went on, voice hardening, “give us the Endeavour and me and the Longrifles will sail on alone. You can run on back to Stockcombe and take a nice big bath in your self-pity.”
Hilemore’s fists bunched as he started towards Clay, his face the rigid mask of a man intent on violence.
“Sea-brother,” another voice said. It was softly spoken but still managed to bring Hilemore to a halt. Zenida stood close by, Akina at her side. “He’s right,” Zenida said, casting a sombre glance at the fleet. “They fought bravely but they’re done. Time to send them home. But we still have work to do.”
Evidently the Varestian’s word carried more weight than Clay’s, Hilemore’s aggression leeching away as he straightened, nodding stiffly. “The Endeavour will go with the fleet . . .” he began.
“No,” Zenida broke in. “Two blood-burners stand a better chance than one.” She sighed and turned to her daughter who, Clay saw, had begun scowling again, this time with even more ferocity than usual. “Though I would ask that you request Captain Tidelow find a spare berth.”
Steelfine had to carry Akina across the gangway to the Farlight, kicking and screaming all the way whilst her mother looked on in stern-faced silence. The girl had twisted away when her mother tried to embrace her, spitting curses in Varestian until Steelfine stepped forward to hoist her onto his shoulder.
As Akina was being forcibly disembarked others were coming aboard. Colonel Kulvetch and thirty of her Marines arrived by boat. Another twenty volunteers from amongst the ranks of the Voters were embarking the Endeavour. In addition to the increase in crew each ship was being loaded with extra cannon donated by the other ships. Some captains, the Dalcian pirate woman and Captain Gurkan chief amongst them, had also offered to have their ships towed by the blood-burners but Hilemore forbade it as impractical.
Every ounce of Red remaining to the fleet had been divided equally between the two blood-burners, meaning they would be able to sail on thermoplasmic power all the way to Varestia. A great deal depended on the weather but Hilemore estimated they would reach the Red Tides within ten days. The only issue remaining was the question of what to do with their allies.
“Just Lutharon,” Clay said. “The others will fly home.”
“We have room for two more aboard the Superior,” Hilemore said. The usefulness of the drakes during their battle with the Blues had evidently made a deep impression on his military mind. “And the Endeavour could carry one.”
“Just Lutharon,” Clay insisted. “We only need him.”
He went to the fore-deck to communicate the decision to Lutharon, who proved surprisingly resistant. He still roiled with excitement after the fight with the Blues, the fresh scars on his flanks seemingly doing little to deter his ardour. It’s my belief, Clay thought, laying a hand on the Black’s snout to send a flow of calming images into his mind, your kin have risked enough on our account already. Time to send them home.
Lutharon let out an aggrieved huff, twin smoke-plumes rising from his nostrils as he pulled his head away. He turned about and launched himself from the ship’s prow, climbing into the sky and wheeling about, mouth gaping as he let out a summoning call. It was soon answered by the other Blacks, all rising from the ships to join him in a swirling flock. Clay could feel some of the conflicting emotions leaking from Lutharon and sense the reluctance amongst the other Blacks. Their cries became discordant and the circling flock took on a confused, disordered appearance, some drakes colliding and snapping at each other in apparent disagreement. Eventually Lutharon let out a huge roar that drowned out all other cries and the discord abruptly ceased. They continued to circle in silence for a short while, then began to peel away, flying north to the Isles in a loose formation one by one until Lutharon was left alone in the sky.
He descended in a wide arc, skimming the sea before flaring his wings and coming to rest on the Superior’s prow. He let out a low rumble as Clay came forward to run a hand along his flank. “Sorry, big fella,” he said. “But I’m fast becoming resigned to the notion that there’s only one way to win this war, and when the time comes it’ll just be you and me.”
Hilemore ordered the blood-burner lit once they cleared the Green Cape. The Superior with her larger engine and lack of paddles soon pulled ahead of the Endeavour, though the smaller ship’s comparative lack of weight meant she was able to keep station a hundred yards off the frigate’s bow.
Clay spent much of the first three days pondering every scrap of information he had been able to glean about Catheline Dewsmine. In addition to what Akina could tell him, an appeal to the rest of the fleet for any pertinent information had yielded a number of periodicals, including some copies of Scandal Monthly so beloved by the late Mr. Tottleborn. The details of the woman’s life were so alien to his own that it was hard to find anything to empathise with, something he knew would be important if his scheme was to work. Born rich and kinda nasty with it, was his main conclusion upon reading the various accounts of Catheline’s life. Maybe that’s why the White chose her.
Eventually he was forced to conclude that the most useful aspect of the periodicals lay in the drawings and photostats depicting his subject, albeit with varying levels of accuracy. The drawings were mostly advertorials, a typical example exhorting readers to “Try Daulton’s Skin Cleansing Cream,” above a serene image of Catheline reposing on a couch, perfect profile raised towards the lips of a handsome admirer. Below the drawing was the legend “‘All women deserve to feel special.’—Catheline Dewsmine.”
“She doesn’t look insane,” Kriz commented one evening as they lay together in his bunk. He had previously shared the cabin with Lieutenant Sigoral, who now spent his nights with Loriabeth whilst Kriz spent hers with Clay. There had been no prior discussion of the arrangement, the change taking place in an unspoken atmosphere of inevitability. If Braddon had an opinion about his daughter taking up with a Corvantine Blood-blessed, he had seen fit to keep it quiet, although Clay had perceived a certain frowning disapproval whenever his uncle saw the two of them together.
“Maybe she wasn’t,” Clay replied. “Not then at least. Looks a mite different in this one, though.”
He reached for one of the news-sheets, the front page showing a photostat of Catheline stepping into a carriage outside a large mansion house in Sanorah. “Who Did She Kiss Goodnight?” asked the headline above the photostat. The story beneath related how “Famed society beauty Catheline Dewsmine appears to be keeping late hours these days. Here she is exiting the home of Senior Ironship Manager Rence Cozgrave just after midnight. According to neighbours Mrs. Cozgrave is currently visiting relatives in South Mandinor so perhaps Miss Dewsmine was just making sure Mr. Cozgrave didn’t get too lonely.” It was the expression on Catheline’s face that he found most interesting. In other photostats she was always smiling, in this her slightly blurred features stared into the camera with naked, unabashed hatred.
“I reckon whoever took this was lucky she didn’t have any product on her,” Clay said. “Anyways, whoever she was before, she’s a monster now.”
“Just like Hezkhi,” Kriz said, shifting to rest her head on his chest. “I never knew how much he must have hated Father. In the end, after all those years imprisoned in the Enclave, we all resented him, myself perhaps most of all. But I could never hate him. If I had it might have been me they called to whilst we slept. I wonder if madness isn’t all the White needs to claim us. Maybe it needs hate too.”
Hate, Clay thought, looking at the photostat again and the steady-eyed fury of the woman it depicted. Now that’s something I do know about.