CHAPTER 53
Hilemore
The revolver jerked in his fist, sending a bullet into the head of the Green drake charging towards him. It didn’t die, however, falling onto its side and continuing to scrabble towards him, claws skittering on the deckboards until Steelfine stepped forward to bring a fire axe down on the beast’s neck, the blow sufficiently powerful to sever the head from the body. The Islander reeled back from the explosion of drake blood, teeth gritted in pain as he wiped it from his hands and neck.
A challenging hiss snapped Hilemore’s gaze to the left in time to see another Green charging towards him across the aft deck. He raised his revolver, finger repeatedly squeezing the trigger only to hear the dry click of the hammer on an empty chamber. A flurry of shots came from his right, scoring hits on the drake’s forelegs and shoulders, sending it into a thrashing halt. Loriabeth stepped past Hilemore, stamping a boot to the back of the Green’s neck, pressing it to the boards before putting her last bullet through its head.
A shout of triumph came from the stern where Lieutenant Sigoral was casting the bodies of two more Greens into the sea with the aid of Black, his Corvantine shipmates raising their weapons in celebration.
“Reckon that’s the last of them, Captain,” Loriabeth said, glancing up from reloading her revolvers. The Superior’s decks and upper works were liberally spattered with blood, most of it drake but they had suffered casualties of their own. Three of Colonel Kulvetch’s Marines had been roasted in the first Red assault and one of the gun-crews had fallen victim to the Greens dropped into their midst. Looking up at the many Reds still wheeling about the sky, Hilemore deduced their troubles were far from over.
“Mr. Steelfine,” he said.
Steelfine paused in the task of dousing his blood burns with water from a canteen and snapped to attention. “Sir?”
“Get any wounded below and remuster the riflemen. Have additional ammunition brought up for the guns. I’ll be on the bridge.”
“Very good, sir.”
Loriabeth followed him as he made his way to the bridgehouse, finding Skaggerhill and two of the riflemen carefully man-handling a Green corpse over the walkway railing. “Whatever else happens, Captain,” the harvester grunted as they heaved the beast over, “all the product soaked into this ship today is sure to make you a wealthy man.”
“Everyone will get equal shares in any prize money, Mr. Skaggerhill,” Hilemore assured him, extending his glass and training it on the shore-line. They were only two miles off but the amount of smoke from so many burning ships made it difficult to gauge the progress of the battle. He could make out numerous flashes indicating a sustained artillery barrage and even from this distance the shouts of thousands of people engaged in combat were audible. As to who might be winning he had no notion at all.
“Drakes ahead, sir!” Talmant called out. Hilemore found them an instant later, a pack of a dozen or more Reds swooping low out of a smoke bank to skim across the waves, heading for the Superior’s prow.
“Hard a-starboard!” he barked, Scrimshine spinning the wheel in response. The forward pivot-gun fired as the ship heaved to the right, cutting the lead Red out of the air with a well-aimed cannister shell. The remaining Reds split into two groups, wheeling about to assault the Superior from two sides. Hilemore saw the head of one drake jerk as it banked towards the port bow, the beast raising a curtain of water as it tumbled into the sea.
“That’s another one for the Preacher, I reckon,” Skaggerhill said. He slotted shells into his shotgun and snapped the breech closed before moving to stand ready in the hatch. Loriabeth took up position at the opposite hatch as the riflemen on the upper works commenced firing. The tactic of aiming at the wings paid dividends, two drakes plunging down with shredded wings before they could come close enough to cast their flames at the ship. The cannon on both sides accounted for three more, leaving four who managed to close the distance.
Hilemore saw the pivot-gun crew run for cover as a Red fanned its wing to hover over the fore-deck, fire jetting from its mouth. It managed to send one crewman over the rail in flames before a dark blur streaked into its chest and exploded. Hilemore saw Kriz crouched amidst the smoking debris, another grenade clutched in her hand should she need it. But the drake was unmistakably dead, its open chest cavity leaking gore as it lay across the prow. Hilemore saw Kriz cast the body away, then look up and dive to the side just before a wall of flame covered the bridgehouse windows. Glass shattered and fire momentarily filled the bridge, leaving Hilemore on the deck coughing smoke. He heard the double blast of Skaggerhill’s shotgun followed by a chorus of pain-filled profanity.
Hilemore wafted smoke and got to his feet, finding Scrimshine frantically beating out the flames on Talmant’s jacket. “Stand aside,” Hilemore ordered, hefting a full water bucket and dousing the lieutenant with the contents. “Get back on the wheel.”
Hilemore turned to find Loriabeth covering Skaggerhill’s broad torso with her duster, smoke seeping from beneath the garment as she pressed it down. Hilemore fought down a rising gorge at the stink of charred flesh. The harvester’s face was mostly untouched but, as Loriabeth drew the duster away, it became clear those parts of his chest not covered by green leather had received a bone-deep burn. It extended in a ghastly line from his collar to his belly, blackened flesh leaking blood amongst the rising smoke.
“Got . . .” he breathed, voice pitched high with suppressed pain, “the fucker.” He made a vague, jerky gesture with the shotgun still clasped in his hands. Hilemore’s gaze went to the head of the Red dangling in the hatchway, leaking copious blood onto the deck, its body lying atop the bridgehouse roof.
“Get that thing over the side,” Hilemore called out, sending the riflemen of the captain’s guard hurrying to comply. He then instructed two of the South Seas Maritime Marines to take Skaggerhill below and administer a full dose of Green. He began to suggest Loriabeth go with him and oversee his care but one glance at her part-stricken, part-furious visage convinced him to still his tongue.
He went out onto the walkway, drawing up short at the sight of a body lying across the railing. Preacher’s tall form was bent like a bow, his upturned face staring up at Hilemore, as blank in death as it had been in life. Hilemore could see no burns on the marksman’s body but the blood seeping in a thick torrent from his torso indicated he had fallen victim to a tail strike.
“Preacher.”
Hilemore turned to see Braddon Torcreek climbing down from the mainmast. Together he and Hilemore lifted Preacher’s body from the railing, laying him down on the walkway. “It was coming for me,” the Contractor captain said, crouching at Preacher’s side and staring into his empty eyes. “He stepped in front of me . . .” He shook his head, touching a hand to Preacher’s bloody chest. “Crazy old bastard. Guess he really wanted it to come true.”
“Wanted what?” Hilemore asked.
“The Seven Penitents,” Braddon said. “The Seer wrote that the most faithful would be the first to die in the Travail.” He shifted his gaze to Preacher’s longrifle, which lay on the walkway close by. “If you’ll excuse me, Captain,” he said, moving to retrieve the weapon and jerking the lever to chamber a round. He slung the rifle over his shoulder, went to the ladder and began to climb. “I got business up top.”
Hilemore gave Preacher’s corpse a final glance then descended to the main deck, calling for reports. All the Reds had been accounted for and the fires they birthed contained, though the attack had cost them another five casualties besides Preacher, three fatal and two wounded along with Skaggerhill. One consolation was that the Superior had now drawn close enough to shore for him to gain an appreciation of the course of the battle. He could see cannon and repeating guns firing all along the length of the Redoubt, providing cover for a large number of defenders retreating through the main gates close to the beach. The trenches appeared to be completely in the hands of the White’s army, Spoiled and Greens continuing to advance in the face of the intense fire from the walls. In places they were only yards from the retreating humans, some of whom were fighting a valiant rear-guard action. Blood-blessed, Hilemore concluded, seeing how the Greens and Spoiled were cast into the air or blasted with heat as they charged at these knots of resistance. Despite their courage it was clear to him they were about to be overrun. Sheer weight of numbers would tell before long.
“Ship approaching off the starboard bow, sir,” Talmant reported.
Hilemore looked to the north, seeing the smoke part to reveal a familiar shape. The Viable Opportunity steamed to their front, paddles churning at full auxiliary power, her signal lamp blinking a message in standard Protectorate code. “Fall in astern,” Hilemore read, quickly recognising the author’s hand in what followed. “All guns fire to shore. Report for court martial at close of hostilities.”
“So time hasn’t improved his temperament,” Hilemore muttered to himself before returning to the bridge. “Signal the engine room, ahead full auxiliary power. Mr. Scrimshine, follow that ship.”
Under Scrimshine’s deft handling the Superior took up position twenty yards to the stern of the Viable. Hilemore descended to the deck and directed the transfer of guns from the port rail to starboard, he and Steelfine man-handling one of the pieces into position before hearing an eruption of repeating gun-fire from the Viable. The Reds had evidently noticed their approach and determined to prevent it, descending in a dense stream straight for the lead ship. Her repeating guns were putting up a hail of fire, concentrated so that the tracer converged on the leading Reds, blasting drake after drake out of the sky.
“Load explosive shells!” Hilemore ordered the gunners, tearing his gaze from the unfolding spectacle in the sky. Their mission was to save the army on shore and the Viable was buying them the time to do it. “Fuses set for air-burst.”
He focused his gaze on the Redoubt, seeing the rear guards breaking in the face of overwhelming odds, the defenders streaming for the gates which were now in the process of closing. “Aim at the base of the ridge,” he told the gunners, glancing left and right to ensure all guns were loaded and lanyards ready to be pulled. “Fire at will!”
The cannons fired almost as one, all eight guns arrayed on the starboard rail and the forward pivot-gun. They were close enough to the shore for Hilemore to judge the fall of shot without use of a glass. Most of the shells were on target, exploding in a line along the steep lower slopes of the ridge to send their deadly rain down on the Spoiled and Greens now charging towards the Redoubt gates. The effect was immediate, the enemy so close-packed that Hilemore estimated a hundred at least had been felled by the first broadside.
“Keep firing!” he called out. “Pour it on, lads!”
A loud screech from the direction of the fore-deck drew his gaze in time to see Kriz send another grenade into the midst of a trio of attacking Reds. Two were killed outright and the third landed on the prow, managing to cough out some flames before Kriz snapped its neck with Black. Hilemore raised his gaze to the Viable, blinking in shock at the sight of her upper works being mobbed by drakes. They latched themselves onto the railing and superstructure, snapping at the crew or spewing flame into the hatchways. Many of the Viable’s fittings were alight and she began to fall out of line as a loud boom sounded within her hull, a tall column of dark smoke shooting from her stacks a second later.
He started forward, intending to order the pivot-gun to rake the Viable’s deck with cannister, but forced himself to a halt. Not my mission, he told himself, teeth gritted as he tore his gaze away, turning it to the shore. The Superior fired three more broadsides as they passed by the Redoubt, each one seeming to cut down more drakes and Spoiled than the one before. They lay in mounds beneath the walls and the gates, which Hilemore noted in relief were now firmly shut. Only when satisfied that the attack had been stemmed did he turn his attention back to the Viable.
She was listing badly now, one paddle turning feebly whilst the other churned the sea white. Fires raged across her decks and Hilemore was treated to the dreadful sight of a crewman being torn apart by Reds, three of the beasts rending the screaming figure into pieces which they then cast into the sea, squawking in triumph. Above the screeching drakes and roaring flames he could hear the crackle of rifle fire and the growl of at least one repeating gun. They’re still fighting, he realised.
His mission was clear. He should turn the Superior about and conduct another barrage of the shore-line to prevent the enemy massing at the gates. But they’re still fighting!
For one of the very few instances in his life Hilemore was seized by an unwelcome and very palpable sense of indecision. The Viable Opportunity, the ship he had commanded from the Battle of the Strait through all the many travails that led them to Lossermark, was dying before his eyes, and he found he simply couldn’t allow it.
“Mr. Steelfine!” he called out. “Ask Lieutenant Sigoral to join us on the fore-deck and be sure to bring his grenades. Tell all guns to load cannister, and prepare a boarding party.”
“Aye, sir!”
The Islander turned and began to shout out the requisite orders, then fell silent when Hilemore, seeing a new shape resolving through the smoke a quarter-mile off the port bow, said, “Belay that, Number One.”
“Sir?”
The Endeavour emerged from the haze on full blood-burner power, her prow knifing through the sea as she steamed towards the Viable. The two guns on the Endeavour’s bows blasted out cannister as she closed the distance, Hilemore seeing several Reds fall from the stricken ship as the metal hail struck home. When she was less than a hundred yards off, the Endeavour halted then reversed her paddles, the sea seeming to boil about her hull as she slowed. It was a manoeuvre that no sane captain would usually contemplate, but this day was far from usual. Shattered and splintered wood emerged in a cloud from the Endeavour’s paddle casements as the force of the water fought the power of the blood-burner. In seconds the paddles were in tatters, capable of making only about a third of their normal purchase on the sea, but that was more than enough for her captain to perform a rapid turn, presenting her port-side guns to the Viable. They fired in quick succession, raking the other ship’s upper works with cannister and sweeping away at least half the Reds still tormenting her. The surviving drakes on the far side of the Viable rose as one to meet the new threat, wings blurring as they sought the sky.
Hilemore barked out a rapid series of orders to the pivot-gun crew. Within seconds they had loaded cannister and trained the gun on the space between the Viable and the Endeavour. “Fire!” Hilemore ordered as the first Reds began to sweep towards the smaller ship, blasting several out of the air. By then the Endeavour had completed another full turn, bringing to bear the as yet unfired guns on her starboard side. Water rose in tall spouts as drakes careened into the sea, cut down by the broadside, but a dozen or more remained to press home the attack on the Endeavour.
“Twenty degrees to port!” Hilemore shouted towards the bridge, pointing frantically towards the Endeavour. Scrimshine had apparently anticipated the order given the speed with which the Superior altered course. A pall of smoke had already blossomed around the Endeavour, though Hilemore could hear a cacophony of small-arms fire and drake cries. Kriz ran towards the prow, her satchel of grenades over her shoulder. At Hilemore’s call Sigoral soon joined her and the two Blood-blessed waited, grenades in hand.
The smoke cleared as the Superior closed on the Endeavour’s position, revealing a ship bathed in fire from stern to bow. Reds were still hovering over her, casting their flames down to add to the inferno. Kriz and Sigoral let fly with their grenades, launching them with Black so fast that they blurred. Within moments the Reds had been blasted out of the air, leaving the Endeavour a flaming wreck.
“Hoses to the port rail!” Hilemore ordered, though he could see it was pointless. The fires had begun to merge, forming one great conflagration that completely covered the Endeavour above the water-line. Within seconds the inevitable happened and her ammunition exploded, tearing her in two. Steam rose as the divided hull capsized, the two sections slipping beneath the roiling sea before the Superior’s prow cut through the scene of her demise.
Sea-sister . . . He stared at the flotsam passing by the hull, flames still licking at some of it, hearing a distant voice call to him but suddenly finding himself too weary to respond.
“Captain!” Steelfine’s large hand gripped his shoulder, the Islander pointing to something off the port beam. Assuming they were about to face another onslaught of Reds, Hilemore straightened his back and raised his gaze. A cluster of figures were struggling in the water twenty yards away, Zenida easily recognisable in the midst of them by virtue of her voice, loud enough to reach his ears, “Are you just going to let us drown?”
Unwilling to stop the ship unless in absolute necessity, Hilemore had Kriz and Sigoral haul the survivors aboard, plucking them from the sea with Black and depositing them on the fore-deck.
“Clever,” he said as Zenida shook the salt water from her hair. “Abandoning ship the moment they pressed home their attack. Lost your ship but saved your crew.”
“Not all,” she said, face grim. “Left ten behind to burn.”
“Victory demands a blood price,” he told her in Varestian. It was an old saying, one he knew to be beloved of pirates, and was gratified to see it bring a faint smile to her lips.
“I would like to make a statement,” she said.
“And that is?”
She moved close, pressing a kiss to his lips, brief but far from chaste. “I need to find some product,” she said, moving away. “I trust you have some left.”
Hilemore cast a brief glance around the deck, but it seemed the crew were too preoccupied with hosing away the copious amounts of drake blood from the boards to have noticed. He proceeded swiftly to the bridge, ordering the engines to dead slow and instructing Scrimshine to bring them about. He had the deck-hands play their hoses over the Viable as they passed by, although a good portion of the fires seemed to have already been extinguished. Despite this it was evident the ship was out of this fight, smoke leaking in a dense black cloud from her stacks and her paddles idled in the water. Seeing a signal lamp blinking atop her bridge Hilemore recognised the rigid form of Captain Trumane, working the lamp with one hand whilst pointing to the shore with the other. “See to your duty,” the message read.
“Send an acknowledgment, Mr. Talmant,” Hilemore said. “Then signal the engine room to increase speed to one-third.”
His briefly uplifted spirits plummeted upon clearing the wallowing hulk of the Viable and it was a struggle to keep the dismay from his features as the situation ashore stood revealed. The White’s army were boiling up the slopes of the ridge, resembling a huge swarm of ants as they clambered over one another, the bodies forming together to create a ladder of flesh. They fell by the hundred to the defenders on the walls above, massed rifle and repeating guns reaping a terrible toll, but the tide of drake and Spoiled continued to rise inexorably.
Hilemore called down to Steelfine to rig the shells to detonate on impact and have the guns fire into the base of the massed bodies. Their first pass succeeded in reducing the height of the mass by several yards, blasting grisly red holes into it that seemed to be healed almost instantly. The Superior circled around for another pass, achieving less impressive results. The shells evidently killed a large number of Spoiled and Greens, but the mound continued to grow. Raising his spy-glass, he soon saw why. The Spoiled were gathering up the bodies and parts of those killed by the barrage and pushing them back into the mass. They were using the flesh of their fallen as building material.
Raising his glass higher, he saw that the top of the mass was now only yards away from cresting the Redoubt walls. In desperation he brought the Superior round again, moving at dead slow to allow a maximum number of broadsides, the guns this time ordered to aim at the top of the mass. This succeeded in reducing its height in some places, but not all, forcing Hilemore to an unwelcome conclusion. We are only one ship, and the ammunition won’t last forever.
Their stocks of explosive shells were already down to six rounds per gun, although they did have copious stocks of cannister but the range was too great for it to be effective. He had only one more manoeuvre to try and, although the consequences were obvious, it was either this or just sail away.
“Mr. Scrimshine,” he said, “prepare to steer hard a-starboard on my command. Mr. Talmant, spread the word to the crew. Load cannister and stand ready to run aground.”
He saw in annoyance that Talmant wasn’t listening, instead the lieutenant had his ear pressed to the crow’s nest speaking-tube, eyes wide in shock. “Mr. Talmant!” Hilemore snapped, causing the young officer to snap to attention.
“Sorry, sir,” he said. “It’s just . . . crow’s nest reports ships to the north.”
“There are ships all over this particular stretch of sea, Lieutenant. Sadly, none of them seem to be in a position to assist us at present.”
“Beg pardon, sir. Not Varestian ships . . .”
Talmant’s voice was drowned out by a loud whooshing sound that filled the bridge as something very large passed overhead at considerable speed. He managed to catch sight of the point of impact, the explosion dwarfing the Superior’s efforts with a blast that exceeded all the shells they had fired that day. The detonation turned the world white and sent the ship reeling back from the shore, Hilemore feeling a hard, stinging impact to the back of his head before the whiteness turned to black.