CHAPTER 7
Lizanne
She exhausted most of her Green rowing to the aerostat, the oars blurring like paddles as they propelled the launch through the choppy sea. By the time they reached the craft it had settled on the waves, the boat-like gondola bobbing on the swell and sinking ever lower as water lapped over its shallow sides. Above, the elongated gas-filled balloon swayed in the wind, threatening to twist the ropes that bound it into a tangle that would no doubt see it fall and the whole craft subside along with it into the ocean. It appeared to have been fashioned from overlapping panels of silk, which fluttered as the gas inside grew thinner by the second. There were three people in the gondola and the sight of them flooded Lizanne with a relief that made her pause in her labour, though it was shot through with an awful realisation. Father, Jermayah, Tekela . . . No Aunt Pendilla.
“Get a rope over there,” she commanded the two burly sailors at the front of the launch. They duly cast a weighted rope to the gondola as the ensign at the tiller steered them alongside. The last of Lizanne’s Green gave out as she closed the distance between the two craft. She slumped in her seat, chest heaving thanks to the effects of burning so much product so quickly. So she barely heard the thump and clatter of feet on the boards, sitting with her aching head bowed and chest thumping like a drum.
“Lizanne.”
She raised her head as a pair of soft hands met her cheeks, looking up to find herself confronted by a familiar, doll-like countenance, albeit one that seemed to have suddenly become much more womanly in expression if not form. “It is very good to see you again, miss,” Lizanne said with a tired smile.
Tekela’s face blossomed into a smile of her own, tears welling in her eyes, and she pressed a kiss to Lizanne’s forehead before pulling her into a tight embrace. Lizanne swallowed, her throat hard and tight. “My aunt?”
Tekela drew back, tears falling as she shook her head. “I’m sorry. It was horrible . . .” She trailed off, face clouded with confusion and unwanted memories. “Sirus . . . Sirus was there.”
“What?”
“He was there. Changed, Spoiled. But it was him. He saved me.”
The resurrection of a youth Lizanne had last seen strapped into a chair and apparently dead in a Corvantine torture-chamber was a singular mystery, but one that would have to wait. As would her grief.
“The box,” Lizanne said. “Do you still have the box?”
Tekela had deposited two bulky objects on the deck of the launch. One was wrapped in waxed canvas against the damp but Lizanne could make out a familiar if much-reduced shape under the covering. Jermayah’s been busy, I see. She turned to the other object, also concealed in canvas. Tekela crouched and pulled the wrapping away to reveal a familiar, shiny, box-shaped device of numerous cogs and gears.
“Good,” Lizanne said. “Keep it close.”
Tekela’s eyes widened in surprise. “You want me to look after it?”
“You seem to have done a fair job so far. I assume that thing works,” she added, nudging the other object with her toe.
“Six hundred rounds a minute on the slowest setting,” Tekela replied, face suddenly grim with no doubt ugly remembrance. “It works very well.”
“No, young man, I will not abandon this craft.” Her father’s voice tore her gaze from Tekela. Jermayah had already clambered onto the launch but the esteemed Professor Graysen Lethridge stood resolute on the rapidly descending deck of his latest invention. “Do you have any notion of the import of this device?” he demanded of the ensign. “I insist you see to its salvage.”
Lizanne stood, moving on unsteady legs to slump against the side of the boat, staring at her father until he met her gaze, not without some reluctance. She saw his resolve falter, but not completely. “It’s important,” he said, a faint pleading note in his voice. “Surely you can see that.”
Lizanne gave an involuntary roll of her eyes which she knew must have made her resemble a sulky adolescent, but found herself too weary to care. “He’s right,” she told the ensign. “Lash the launch to it then use your flags to signal the Profitable for more boats.” He began to protest but she waved a dismissive hand. “Exceptional Initiatives. Just get on with it, unless you’d like to be posted to a research station in the northern polar region.”
She assumed either Verricks put a great deal more weight on her authority than she really deserved or Director Thriftmor intervened again. In either case the Profitable Venture soon came to an almost complete stop, raising flags and blasting her sirens to order the rest of the convoy to follow suit. Within minutes the cruiser’s twenty-foot steam-powered pinnace had been lowered over the side and was making a steady progress towards the floundering aerostat.
Her father and Jermayah used a valve on the balloon’s underside to vent the remaining gas, provoking a worried question from Lizanne as the pinnace drew alongside. “Isn’t it flammable?”
“Helium,” Jermayah said. “Take more than a spark to set it off. Tried a few experiments with hydrogen but they nearly burned the shop down.”
“Helium is more plentiful in any case,” her father added. “And cheaper.”
Soon the balloon was just a flaccid sprawl of wet silk on the water. Professor Lethridge ordered it gathered up whilst Jermayah oversaw the recovery of the gondola. “Not so much the carriage we need,” he said, slapping a hand to a bulky cylindrical apparatus at the rear of the gondola, “it’s the engine.”
“Thermoplasmic?” Lizanne asked, recognising the tell-tale pipe-work visible through a gap in the engine’s carapace.
“It’s a hybrid,” Jermayah replied and she saw the glimmer of professional pride in his eyes. “Kerosene or blood. Both burn in the same combustion chamber. She’ll give out more power if you feed her Red, of course, but kerosene is fine for basic manoeuvring.”
“Speed?” Lizanne enquired receiving a reply from an unexpected source.
“I had her up to thirty miles per hour using kerosene,” Tekela said. “We hadn’t yet managed to conduct a trial with blood.”
Lizanne scowled at Jermayah. “You let her fly this thing?”
“She’s our test pilot,” he answered with a grin far too lacking in contrition for Lizanne’s liking. “We weren’t too sure about the lifting properties at first, needed someone who wouldn’t weigh her down. Tekela volunteered. Got a right good feel for the controls too.”
Lizanne shifted her baleful gaze to her father. “I told you to find her a decent school, not subject her to your experiments.”
“We did,” Professor Lethridge replied. “Miss Hisselwyck’s Finishing Academy. She wouldn’t go. Your aunt tried to march her there but she fought her off, then threatened to run off and live in the refugee camp.”
Lizanne rounded on Tekela, who met her angry visage with a shrug and a purse of her lips. “I’m too old for school anyway.”
“And too young to be careening around the sky in one of his mad contraptions.”
“Well, you gave him the plans.” A small vestige of the old Tekela appeared then, pouty and defiant in the face of legitimate concern. At this juncture Lizanne wasn’t sure if she preferred that Tekela to this one. At least the brat had been predictable, up to a point.
Lizanne took a calming breath and turned back to her father as he helped drag the last of the depleted balloon onto the fore-deck of the pinnace. “If you’re quite finished we need to return,” she said. “You’ll also have to provide a full account of Feros’s fall to Captain Verricks and Director Thriftmor. It seems we have some more hard decisions to make.”
Soon the pinnace had closed to within about a hundred yards of the Profitable. The helmsman steered hard to port to bring the craft alongside as a group of sailors gathered at the lower-deck rail, ready to cast off their securing lines. It was then that Lizanne felt a small hand clutch at her arm and turned to see Tekela, face pale and eyes wide as she pointed at something in the sky.
The drake was high enough to be out of range of the Profitable’s guns, but the angle of the sun drew a faint red glitter from its scales as it banked and turned for the east. Lizanne went to the junior lieutenant commanding the pinnace and demanded his spy-glass before training it on the eastern horizon. An “enemy in sight” signal was already blasting from the Profitable’s sirens by the time she picked out the tell-tale silhouettes resolving through the morning mist. Warships. There were five of them, all either frigate or sloop class. She saw what at first appeared to be a thick pall of smoke rising from each of the ships then realised it to be a swarm of drakes.
“Change of orders,” Lizanne said, returning the spy-glass to the lieutenant. “Make for the Viable Opportunity. Tell Captain Trumane to head east at best possible speed and signal the rest of the fleet to follow. He is not to linger for any reason.”
She stared at his blanched, near-panicked features until he gave a nod of assent. “What are you doing?” her father asked as she moved to the prow of the pinnace.
“I left something behind.”
Lizanne climbed onto the prow and took out her wallet, extracting a vial of Green and exchanging it for the exhausted one in the Spider before injecting all of it along with a quarter vial of Red. She would need it to ward off the chill. She glanced back, seeing Tekela struggling in Jermayah’s grip as she sought to follow. “Take care of her,” Lizanne said before diving into the sea.
The Profitable’s main batteries were firing as she scaled the stern anchor mounting and vaulted onto the lower deck. The cruiser’s guns fired according to a pre-set sequence so as not to buckle the ship’s structure with the release of so much energy at once. The resultant roar was therefore continuous and deafening, drowning out the cacophony of shouted orders as the crew scrambled to their battle stations. The Profitable’s blood-burners came on-line when she made her way onto the mid-deck, the ship lurching into accelerated motion as Mr. and Mrs. Griffan lit the product in her dual engines. Apart from their brief and distressing sojourn through the revolution-torn streets of Corvus, neither of the Griffans had been in battle before and Lizanne had to suppress a pang of sympathy for what they were about to experience. They are not your mission.
She was obliged to struggle past a throng of rushing sailors to get to the officers’ quarters, opening the door of Tinkerer’s cabin to find him lying on the deck just as she had instructed. He stared up at her with bright eyes, though his face was typically lacking in animation. She noticed he also had a small bottle clutched in his hand. “I stole it from the ship’s medical bay,” he explained, following her gaze. “Potassium chloride. You said to seek out the most efficient means.”
“Best hold on to it for now,” she said. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
She led him to Makario’s cabin where she found the musician playing a surprisingly jaunty tune on his flute. “Thought I’d prefer my death to be accompanied by something cheerful,” he said.
“It’ll have to wait. Follow me, and don’t dawdle.”
She led them both to the corridor leading to the middle of the ship where they could scale a ladder all the way to the lower deck. They were halfway down the ladder when the ship gave a sudden, violent shudder. A loud high-pitched groan of protesting metal echoed all around.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Makario observed, holding on to the ladder with a white-knuckled grip.
“She’s been hit,” Lizanne said, continuing to climb down. “And it won’t be for the last time. Keep going.”
On descending to the lower deck she started for the stern, dodging around sailors laden with equipment and ammunition. The ship heaved several times as they made their way aft, Lizanne deducing that Captain Verricks had thrown the Profitable into a series of evasive manoeuvres. Even through the thick iron bulkheads and continuing roar of the main batteries she could hear a familiar rapid percussive thump and growl. Secondary armament, she realised. The drakes must be close.
The pale rectangle of an open hatch appeared ahead and she started forward at a run, then came to a sudden halt as the ceiling buckled, the metal tearing open to flood the corridor with smoke and flame. Thanks to the Green in her veins Lizanne recovered quickly, the ringing in her ears and blurred vision subsiding after only seconds. Makario and Tinkerer were not so lucky. The musician required several hard slaps before he regained enough sensibility to stand whilst Tinkerer remained unconscious, though mercifully free of injury.
“Did you have to bring him?” Makario enquired as Lizanne hauled the artificer’s slight form onto her shoulders.
“Just be grateful I brought you.”
She was obliged to step over the mangled remains of several sailors before reaching the hatch, stepping out into the open air to find the stern of the Profitable Venture in shambles. It appeared the cruiser had been hit by at least four shells from a salvo of five. One of the rear batteries was a complete wreck, the armoured housing shattered and the gun-crew transformed into charred lumps of flesh. Two large holes had been punched into the deck from which smoke issued forth in copious amounts. The surrounding ironwork glowed a deep red as the inferno beneath raged unchecked. It was clear that her original plan to make for the aft life-boats was now out of the question.
“By the souls of all the emperors,” Makario breathed as a large winged form soared through the smoke. The Red gave a brief squawk before opening its talons, allowing something to tumble free of its grip, a man-sized, man-shaped something.
The Spoiled landed directly in front of Lizanne, no more than three feet away. Time seemed to slow then, thanks to the Green, which had a tendency to increase perception in times of great stress. Therefore, Lizanne was able to discern a great deal about the Spoiled in the space of the next few heart-beats. She saw that it was male, stood an inch or two over six feet in height and appeared to be wearing a greatly modified version of a uniform normally worn by Protectorate infantry. Various trinkets had been sewn into the uniform’s tunic, cap badges from Protectorate and Corvantine regiments along with what were unmistakably human teeth and other more fleshy tokens. It also carried a .35 Dessinger long-barrel service revolver in one clawed hand and a tribal war-club of some kind in the other. She even had time to look into its eyes and be left with absolutely no doubt that it was about to do its best to kill her.
“Catch,” Lizanne told the Spoiled and threw Tinkerer’s unconscious body at it. Doing the utterly unexpected was a tactic that had worked for her in the past and so it proved now. The Spoiled nimbly caught Tinkerer in its arms then wasted a few precious seconds staring at Lizanne, its spined brow creasing in bafflement. She drew her revolver from her skirt pocket and shot it in the eye.
At least they die like a human, she thought, bending to retrieve Tinkerer’s body. “Take that,” she told Makario, nodding at the Spoiled’s fallen revolver.
“I . . .” Makario was blinking rapidly, face white with shock. It seemed even the depredations of Scorazin hadn’t prepared him for this. “I don’t like guns.”
“Just pick it up.”
She turned and carried Tinkerer towards midships, keeping to the walkway that fringed the lower starboard deck. She passed several Thumper and Growler batteries, the crews casting a flaming torrent of tracer into the sky at the Reds that now seemed to be everywhere. She had the satisfaction of seeing one drake torn apart by a concentrated blast from a Thumper before it could deposit the two Spoiled in its claws on the deck. Sadly, the Thumper crew’s cheers were short-lived as another much larger Red swooped down through the cloud of gore left by its fallen brother and doused the jubilant sailors in a thick stream of fire. Lizanne closed her ears to the screams and ran on.
On reaching the ladder that led to the starboard life-boat derricks they were confronted by the sight of a vicious hand-to-hand mêlée between sailors and Spoiled. At least twenty were assailing each other, rifle-butts and bayonets against war-clubs and hatchets. Lizanne was struck by the unnaturally coordinated movements of the Spoiled as they fought, one ducking a swinging rifle-butt whilst its comrade stepped forward to dispatch the sailor who had delivered it, whereupon they both stepped aside in unison to dodge a bayonet charge. It was like some form of dreadful murderous dance and proved dishearteningly effective. Within what seemed like seconds all the sailors lay dead or dying whilst the Spoiled had only lost three of their number.
Lizanne heard Makario let out a shocked gasp as the Spoiled all turned to regard the pair of them. There were a dozen, uniform in their silence if not their appearance, but betraying slight head movements that indicated inner thoughts. Not thoughts, Lizanne decided, seeing the Spoiled suddenly take on a more purposeful stance as if some unspoken decision had been reached. Communication.
“What do we do now?” Makario asked as the Spoiled started forward.
“Fight. What else?” Lizanne shrugged Tinkerer from her shoulder and pushed him into Makario’s arms. “Guard him.”
She had time to inject half a vial of Red and Black before the Spoiled closed, fanning out with pistols raised. Lizanne released most of her Black at once, blasting the Spoiled off their feet, then rushed forward to methodically shoot five of them in the head in quick succession as they lay on the deck. The remaining seven were up quickly and immediately began their deadly dance, circling her with frustrating speed and loosing off shots with their revolvers that forced her into a leap. She tumbled in mid air over the head of one of the Spoiled, unleashing Red as she did so. The Spoiled’s mismatched garb of Corvantine uniform and Island tribal gear caught light immediately, though his scaly hide proved more resistant to the flames. He swung his war-club at her as she landed, forcing her to back-pedal and use all her remaining Black to propel his flaming body over the side and into the sea.
Another Spoiled loomed out of the smoke left by his comrade’s departure, pistol levelled at her head, too close to dodge. Something boomed behind Lizanne and a hole appeared between the Spoiled’s eyes as a crimson plume exploded from the back of his skull. Lizanne darted forward to retrieve the fallen Spoiled’s revolver, then turned to see Makario hunched against the bulkhead, flaming pistol in hand. The musician held Tinkerer’s inert form to his chest in the manner of a human shield, meeting Lizanne’s gaze with a tremulous grin.
“I said I didn’t like them,” he told her. “Not that I couldn’t use them.”
Lizanne whirled away, feeling the whoosh of a war-club as it passed close to her head. Sending her assailant reeling with a blast of Red at his eyes, she followed up with a quick shot to his chest then leapt again. Bullets buzzed around her as she twisted in mid air, Green-enhanced reflexes given full rein as she targeted each of the remaining Spoiled, felling them all with single shots to the head before her feet met the deck.
She crouched, shuddering as the last of the Green faded from her veins, then looked up at the thump of several large bodies hitting the walkway. She let out a tired groan at the sight of what now confronted her. It appeared the Reds’ cargo didn’t just consist of Spoiled. The trio of Greens spent a brief moment sniffing the smokey air before fixing their gaze on her and immediately charging, jaws gaping wide as they summoned their flames. If there had been any Green left she might have been able to leap over the drakes at the last moment. But there was no Green so all she could do was inject her remaining Red and Black, hoping to match their flames with her own but knowing it wouldn’t be enough.
Flames began to blossom from the mouth of the leading Green as it closed to within a dozen feet, whereupon it was lifted off its claws and propelled into a near by iron support beam with enough force to break its spine. Flames engulfed the two remaining Greens as they whirled to the left to meet the new threat, Lizanne turning to see a slender, soot-covered figure emerge from a hatchway.
Sofiya Griffan seemed to have suddenly acquired a demonic aspect, her face like a mask of white and black and her unbound red hair flowing as she advanced on the Greens, the air around her shimmering with unleashed heat. Lizanne marvelled at the amount of Red she must have ingested, far more than was normally considered safe judging by the intensity of the fire she cast at the Greens. The heat was sufficient to blacken even their fire-resistant hides, causing both to scamper back, squealing in distress in a manner that was almost piteous. Mrs. Griffan, however, appeared to have lost all capacity for pity.
Having forced the pair of Greens to the edge of the walkway she unleashed her Black, tearing the limbs from their torsos, their screams multiplying as the unabated flames met exposed flesh. Even then she wasn’t done, advancing to stand over the writhing creatures as she tore ever more flesh from their bones until the screams finally fell silent and they were no more than blackened, twitching husks on the deck.
Sofiya collapsed as Lizanne rushed to her side. She was saying something, lips moving in a faint whisper as she sang a soft tune Lizanne recognised as an old Mandinorian nursery rhyme. “Eat, eat, eat it all up, or you’ll get no pudding today . . .”
“Mrs. Griffan,” Lizanne said, shaking the woman’s shoulder.
There was no response save the continual repetition of the same whispered words. “Eat, eat, eat it all up, or—”
“Sofiya!” Lizanne shook her again, hard enough to force the other woman to turn. Sofiya Griffan blinked at her blankly for several long seconds until recognition dawned.
“Miss Lethridge,” Sofiya said, her voice possessed of a calm that seemed completely out of keeping with their present circumstance. “They ate my husband. Ate him all up.”
Lizanne glanced back at the hatch from which Sofiya had emerged. It led to the engines, but from the thickness of the smoke billowing from below Lizanne had serious doubts anyone would still be alive down there. She rose, peering through the acrid, billowing fog at the sea beyond the walkway. She could see one of the enemy ships burning, a frigate drifting in a lazy circle as tall flames consumed her superstructure. From the speed at which the wreck passed by the Profitable’s starboard beam it was clear that whatever conflagration raged beneath the cruiser’s decks, her blood-burners were still operating at full power.
Lizanne went to the rail and leaned out, squinting at the sea beyond the bows. Through the haze she could see two more warships, bright flashes on the fore-decks and the whine of approaching shot indicating they were still very much in this fight. The fact that the Profitable was heading straight for the ships told her the cruiser was still answering the helm and Captain Verricks was resolved to see this through to the end.
He’s buying time, she realised, turning about and shielding her eyes to scan the eastern horizon. The refugee fleet were dim shapes in the haze now, growing dimmer as they piled on the steam to complete their escape. Time for them but none for us.
“Come with me,” she said, moving to grasp Sofiya by the arm, pulling her upright and tugging her along. Lizanne found Makario propping Tinkerer up against the bulkhead. “I think he’s coming round,” he said, catching sight of Lizanne.
“Let’s see.” She delivered a hard slap to Tinkerer’s jaw, provoking a groan and a vague blink of his eyes. Several more slaps were sufficient to return him to consciousness.
“Please stop that,” he said as Lizanne drew her hand back for another blow.
“We can’t carry you any farther,” she said. “Follow and stay close.”
Fortunately, Sofiya seemed to have subsided into a state of dumb compliance which made it easy to lead her to the ladder and down to the life-boat derricks. “Oh bother!” Lizanne exclaimed, viewing the shattered and blackened remnants of the boats she had hoped to find.
“There!” Makario said, pointing to the end of the row where a single boat, smaller than the others, lay apparently unscathed if somewhat charred. They rushed to it and climbed in, Lizanne checking to ensure it was equipped with oars before turning her attention to the lowering mechanism.
“Won’t someone have to get out and wind it?” Makario asked, his tone indicating a marked reluctance to volunteer.
From above came the grinding whistle of an approaching shell followed by a deafening explosion. “I doubt we have the leisure for that,” Lizanne said, pulling Sofiya into a protective huddle as debris rained down about them. When the cascade stopped she focused her gaze on the ropes from which the life-boat was suspended. “Hold on!” she said and used the last vestiges of her Red to burn the ropes away. The life-boat plummeted ten feet to the water, impacting with sufficient force to tip Tinkerer over the side, though Makario was quick to catch hold of his flailing arms.
“Do you have any Green?” Lizanne asked Sofiya after she and Makario had hauled the sputtering artificer back on board. Mrs. Griffan offered a blank stare in response before shrugging her slim shoulders. “Never mind.” Lizanne turned to Makario and Tinkerer. “Take the oars. I’ll steer.”
Their two male companions proved to be inexpert but enthusiastic rowers, their efforts spurred on by a series of explosions that wracked the Profitable from end to end as they drew away. Lizanne set the tiller to an easterly course then turned to watch the Profitable as it closed on the two enemy frigates.
The huge cruiser’s forward guns kept up a steady barrage as she charged on, Lizanne estimating her speed at close to forty knots. Shell after shell tore into her upper works, transforming much of the superstructure into a mangled mass of twisted smoking metal. Judging from the bodies littering the sea the ship’s Growlers and Thumpers had taken a fearful toll on the attacking Reds, and only half a dozen remained to torment her, swooping down to cast their flames at the sailors who fought back with rifle fire to little effect. Still the Profitable came on, her return fire becoming more accurate as the range diminished. One of the frigates took a full salvo amidships, birthing an instantaneous explosion that tore the warship in two. The stern section sank almost immediately whilst the bows rolled over and lingered on the surface for a short time, Lizanne seeing the ant-like figures of men clinging to the hull.
Not men, she reminded herself, watching the wreck sink beneath the waves amidst a roiling froth of foam and hoping every single member of her inhuman crew drowned along with her.
The Profitable changed course, angling her stern towards the sole remaining enemy ship, sirens blaring a salute to what Lizanne knew would be her final act.