Stephen Hunt - Jack Cloudie

Something about the hangar appeared to be angering the guardsmen’s commander, Farris Uddin. Jack caught Omar’s eye — the boy just a little too gangly for his purloined marine’s jacket.

Omar indicated the walls of the Cassarabian script engraved across the walls of the hangar. ‘The hundred sects of the Holy Cent have been torn down and replaced by only one — the Sect of Razat. It is blasphemy of the worst kind.’

‘We’ve an old saying in our uplands,’ noted the commodore. ‘Find three Cassarabians and you’ll find two believers and one heretic.’

‘You should not bespeak the hundred faces of the one true god, old man,’ warned Omar.

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t at that, lad. We need all the luck we can get in this terrible place.’

An officer who looked as if he might be the master of the harbour came running past the new arrivals and Farris Uddin grabbed him to halt his rush. ‘I have the officers from the prize vessel here, and the rest of the enemy sailors as prisoners inside.’

‘You are Captain Darwish? In the name of the blessed Ben Issman, get those infidels out of my way. And keep the ones on your transport ship chained up. Can you not hear the city’s call to war?’

‘Who attacks?’ demanded Farris Uddin. ‘Who is foolish enough to attack Mutantarjinn?’

‘The thrice-cursed imperial guardsmen,’ said the harbour master. ‘Our own men, our own draks. The grand vizier has just passed us word that they have rebelled against the Caliph Eternal.’

‘What, the grand vizier is here?’

The officer thrust a finger towards one of the larger pocket airships resting inside the chamber. ‘His vessel arrived before yours. There is plague in the capital. The Citadel of Flowers is the Jahan now — we protect the Caliph Eternal!’

‘Not just one caliph, then,’ the commodore whispered to Jack. ‘A pair of birds in this dark bush, and one of them a cuckoo.’

‘What can we do to assist?’ asked Farris Uddin. ‘What are our orders?’

‘None from me,’ said the harbour master, ‘nor anyone else at the moment, running around like headless chickens. Just keep the filthy Jackelians out of my hair and pray for the guardsmen to be struck blind by the hand of god for their treachery before the fleet arrives.’

Jack felt the ripple of tension running through the party as Farris Uddin’s eyes narrowed. ‘The fleet?’

‘The fleet is returning from the north to defend the Caliph Eternal. We’ll catch these dirty rebels in the scorpion’s pincer — the city walls in front, and the hammer of our airships behind them. Then we’ll teach them the price of their treachery.’

‘A price that is much on my mind,’ said Farris Uddin as the officer ran off, barking orders at the ground crew scattered around the chamber.

Just behind the guardsman commander, Captain Jericho was looking as perturbed as everyone else at the sudden shocking turn of events.

‘You could see the true caliph freed,’ said Jericho, ‘and we can learn the source of the grand vizier’s airship gas. But it’ll avail neither of us if your guardsmen are slaughtered outside and we’re both left stranded here, bottled up by the entire Imperial Aerial Squadron.’

‘It is said that no plan of engagement survives a battle intact, captain,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘Your transport ship, sir, should be left here for the withdrawal of both parties. I will take the Iron Partridge , warn the guardsmen attacking the city, and then proceed to engage the enemy.’

‘One vessel against the bulk of our new fleet,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘How much time can you buy us?’

‘That remains to be seen, commander, but we shall at least have the element of surprise on our side,’ smiled Jericho.

‘I find this war of ours a funny sort,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘For the more I fight, the harder I find it to tell the sides apart. Tell the guardsmen that half the talon wings are to stay and harass the city’s defences, the other half are to accompany you in assaulting the grand vizier’s fleet.’

Jericho nodded, then glanced over at the commodore. ‘And for a ship in action, I will need more than Mister Shaftcrank manning that infernal calculating pit some fool of an airwright saw fit to drop into m’vessel.’

‘The master cardsharp’s skills are required here,’ said First Lieutenant Westwick. She held up the bag of supposedly looted booty from the wardroom she was carrying, silver plate and cups concealing the spies’ small, efficient transaction engine — the same one that Jack and the commodore had used to crack the enemy vessel they had boarded under the skies of Benzaral.

‘Well, there it is then,’ whined the commodore, looking at Jack. ‘The cold, grey wretches of the State Protection Board had their claws sunk into me long before they made me exchange my sea legs for air legs. My business it seems is here, which means, Mister Keats, that yours needs to be on the Iron Partridge .’

‘You haven’t got me killed yet, sir,’ said Jack.

‘I believe we’ll both get ample chances to make a go of that, lad,’ said the commodore. ‘You on the ship, and I here. Poor old Blacky. Alone, always alone. Well, they say that you go out of the world much as you come into it — on your own account.’

‘Don’t worry, old man,’ said Omar. ‘We have blades enough to keep you safe.’

‘Tigers to guard me from hyenas, so it is,’ said the commodore.

‘My place is by your side too, captain,’ the hulking Henry Tempest spoke up from within the party of officers masquerading as prisoners.

‘A captain of marines on board the ship, with all our marines left marooned back in Benzaral by the vice-admiral?’ Jericho shook his head. ‘Your place is here with our mission. Keep our two shadowy servants of the state alive. And Henry …?’

‘Sir?’

‘Try not to get yourself in the stockade again back home. I might not always be around to get you released. You may have your men escort the boy and myself back to the Iron Partridge , Commander Uddin. First Lieutenant Westwick, the command here in the citadel is yours — although I suspect in reality, it probably always was.’

Westwick shrugged almost imperceptibly. ‘Sell yourself dearly, captain.’

‘The Royal Aerostatical Navy knows no other price, m’dear.’

Farris Uddin started shouting commands behind them. Ordering the local ground crew to release the Iron Partridge and let their precious ironclad prize vessel sail to the safety of the landing fields to the south. Demanding that the torturers who had requested the presence of the Jackelian prisoners present themselves and lead the party to whatever hell-damned cutting rooms and cells they had ready.

The commodore waved sadly towards Jack, as Omar and another solider walked Jack and the skipper back down the harbour passageway, towards the vessel’s port walkway hatch. Whether the commodore was more concerned about Jack’s fate or his own was impossible to tell.

‘You and Jack Keats are very brave, captain,’ said Omar. ‘When you engage the grand vizier’s fleet, I believe you might almost be considered as courageous as me.’

Jericho shrugged off the praise. ‘Thank you, guardsman. Although to be that brave, I’d say I might have to mount one of those flying monstrosities you sally about on, d’you see, and if truth be known, I still suffer from air sickness after all these years.’

Omar cranked open the hatch door to the Iron Partridge while he and the other guardsman pushed down Jack and Jericho’s heads to enter, allowing them to slip their wrist knots as they entered the airship.

‘I shall keep my vow to my father’s shade, now, Jack Keats,’ pledged Omar. ‘If the grand vizier is inside the citadel, then so is that beast Salwa. And I will see them both suffer for what they have done to the woman I loved, to my people and my house.’