Stephen Hunt - Jack Cloudie

Westwick’s eyes flashed angrily at the vice-admiral’s indiscretion. So, the Jackelian secret police were behind their voyage into Cassarabia. Does that explain a first lieutenant who seems to think she is the vessel’s commander, helped by a master cardsharp who swaps uniforms as easily as he produces the credentials to have me released from custody and press-ganged into the navy?

‘The nature of our mission is sealed as secret and this vessel is still operating under independent command,’ said the first lieutenant.

‘As inconvenient as it must be for you, I’m afraid a state of war trumps even the favours your board called in across parliament,’ said the vice-admiral. ‘I carry orders for the Iron Partridge to rejoin the Fleet of the South along the Southwest Frontier.’

‘This mission is vital,’ insisted the first lieutenant.

Captain Jericho nodded in agreement.

‘Your mission has been superseded by events, captain. Admiralty House doesn’t care two figs where the Cassarabians are finding the celgas to float their vessels. It is enough that they have it, and the point will be rendered moot when we take their fleet on and pound them out of the clouds.’ He raised his fingers archly to indicate the boat bay. ‘If this clanking carbuncle of a vessel and your crew of press-ganged misfits managed to bring down two of their airships, wholly unsupported, I don’t think the entire high fleet will have too much trouble seeing off this Imperial Aerial Squadron of the caliph’s.’

‘Even Admiralty House can’t be so blind,’ said Jericho. ‘We need to know if they’ve found a natural vein of celgas to mine or if they’ve synthesized it, d’you see. At the very least, we need to know if the caliph has enough gas to sell to other enemy nations in an attempt to open up a second front against us.’

‘Irrelevant, irrelevant. Superior skymanship, captain, will always win out. We’ll certainly discover where they’re getting their celgas from the wretches we drag out from the empire’s crashed, burning hulls. Finding an airship that can float is one thing; finding hundreds of years of fighting tradition in the men that serve in her is quite another.’

‘Only an admiral can countermand my orders for independent action,’ said Jericho.

‘I’m sure your loyalty to the first lieutenant’s paymasters on the board is quite commensurate with the amount they paid to buy you out of debtors’ prison,’ sneered the vice-admiral. ‘And as ironic as I find the sight of a maverick of your notoriety pettifogging on regulations, I took the precaution of making sure I was carrying the admiral’s written orders with me.’ He flourished a wax-sealed envelope. ‘Besides,’ he raised a thumb at the two armed sentries posted on the boat bay, ‘I am sure that the members of your crew who aren’t mercenaries or scraped out from gutters, prison cells and stockades would relish the chance to pick up enemy vessels that are left intact enough to earn prize money. There should be enough of those in the next week or so to keep the poorest of your Jack Cloudies in rum and beer until next winter sets in.’

‘And if we join the Fleet of the South,’ said Jericho, ‘the first two kills of the war go against the admiral’s name; I take it our engagement was the opening action of the war?’

‘And I was told you could only be relied on to ignore admiralty politics,’ smiled the vice-admiral. He looked at the first lieutenant. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, you’ll be able to get back to the normal run of bribery, assassination and skulking around in the shadows soon enough. We’ll slip the Iron Partridge in the rear of the line of battle and you’ll get your chance to see what a direct action looks like. A hard pounding or two and the empire will soon fall back to their natural boundaries. A clean pair of heels, that’s what we’ll see from the caliph’s sand-trotting lackeys.’

Jack watched the look on First Lieutenant Westwick’s face as the vice-admiral stalked out with Jericho in tow. She was clearly thinking about putting that hidden sleeve dagger of hers in the vice-admiral’s back, and calculating the chances that she would be able to get away with rolling his corpse off the ship and claiming him lost overboard in a storm. But that wouldn’t wear now. Not when the sailors in the boat bay started spreading word of what the vice-admiral had offered. Which the vice-admiral had obviously intended. The chance to ride into battle in their armour-protected tortoise at the back of a squadron. The chance to take the fleet’s share of the prize money and sail back to the Kingdom as rich men.

And to be honest, the prospect of such a deal was lifting Jack’s heart as much as any man in the boat bay. A quick victory and back to Jackals. Alive, pardoned and with enough money to take his two brothers out of the poorhouse and pay for a new start for the three of them. Only the nagging words of the master cardsharp sounded a warning deep within his mind. I’ve never been privy to an easy victory. No, indeed, I don’t think I know what one of those even looks like.

Jack soon dismissed the words. In that, he was wrong.

It was cool and shaded in the grand vizier’s inner pavilion, full of shadows in which Omar could hide, avoiding contact with any courtier or servant who might question his presence. Well, the caliph’s law knew no bounds, and Omar was meant to be its hand inside the palace. Murder, even of a slave, was against the laws laid down by the Caliph Eternal.

Eventually the shadows of the passages gave way to the light of a central courtyard, and Omar found himself on the first terrace of the hanging gardens the old slave Nudar had sent him towards. A maze of paths wound through trellised walks bounded by orchids as tall as Omar himself, vines and creepers hanging like a curtain over the side of the terrace. Flicking away a bright blue dragonfly that had drifted in front of his face and peering upwards, Omar counted five more terraces laddering up to the open sky above. On the central courtyard below was a slab of marble the size of a bed. The mist of water from the nozzles at its four corners partially enveloped Shadisa’s green silk-robed form. Her wrists and her ankles were tied to each of the nozzles and she was lying soaking like a human starfish fixed to the slab’s centre. Her eyes were shut and her face peaceful, as if she had chosen to sleep in the middle of this garden fountain. But she is alive — she has to be. Beyond being tied down there were no signs of violence upon her beautiful body. Surely nothing that looked so serene could be dead? He extended out his senses towards her. The same senses that had served him so well back in Haffa. Yes, she was alive, but the differences within her he had sensed under the palace were heightened — a drug? Perhaps, but it was more than that. Deeper. Her soul felt wrong. What had that devil Immed Zahharl done to her? What can change a soul? He begged the heavens that it wasn’t love. Not for the grand vizier.

Omar grabbed one of the thicker creepers and, using it as a rope, shinned down towards the courtyard. He stopped, hidden in the tree, as the sound of boots on one of the marble paths grew audible, two columns of men emerging, their faces completely covered by golden masks except for their eyes and mouths.

Omar would have recognized the man at their head by his malicious hooded eyes, even without the robes of the high keeper of the Sect of Razat. Leaving the grand vizier standing above Shadisa’s head, the two lines of men split off in opposite directions and slowly surrounded the slab where their victim was bound. The caliph’s law would be enforced as they were engaged upon their crime, with no excuses possible as Omar leapt down among them and slashed apart the first man to try to take Shadisa’s honour and her life. He would run his steel through as many as he could before they fled like rats and the grand vizier would run away, not daring to tell anyone that he had been part of this evil gathering.