Stephen Hunt - Jack Cloudie

‘Does he like it, sir?’ the captain barked.

‘He does not, sir,’ called Jack. ‘But he’s obeying the orders anyway.’

‘He’s quite correct, Mister Keats. Gambling is a terrible sin,’ laughed the captain. The airship’s master sounded like a boy in a sweet shop who had been given a guinea to spend. ‘And now, an order which no captain of the RAN has to m’knowledge ever been required to issue. Pipes, the engine room if you please. Tell Mister Pasco to run up his engines for ramming speed!’

Commodore Black watched the last of the symbols on the door’s transaction-engine lock rotate towards the open position, the little portable transaction engine supplied by the State Protection Board cracking their encryption with smooth efficiency.

‘This is it, lass,’ the commodore said to First Lieutenant Westwick. ‘We’ve followed the trail of locks, and the cipher on our door here is as tough as any I’ve seen inside this dark place.’

Henry Tempest returned down the corridor, having just dragged away the bodies of the womb mages who had the misfortune to challenge the three of them. ‘I stuffed the little perishers in a supply room.’

Westwick nodded. ‘Take a sip more from the red canteen, Henry.’

‘It’s a mortal clever little thing,’ said the commodore, patting the small device. ‘I could have made mischief with this in the old days, I could. When old Blacky was in his prime and the locks of so many vaults and prison doors needed opening. It’s a hard thing to see your mortal genius replaced by a little box of tricks strung together by some engineman in the pay of the board.’

‘Your box still needs people on the ground to take it where the state requires its use,’ said Westwick.

‘That it does, Maya. A poor, creaking old fellow like Jared Black who should be resting in well-earned retirement back in Middlesteel, not sneaking through the empire’s terrible shadows wearing an ill-cut RAN uniform under some stinking robes.’

‘You’re still good for the great game, old man,’ said Westwick.

There was a clack as multiple bolts in the door withdrew. Pushing it open revealed a long dark corridor. Feeling along the wall, the commodore found a switch to activate the lanterns in the ceiling, and as they flared bright, the wall on the right was revealed as a length of smoked glass, and their corridor a viewing gallery for the chamber below. In the middle of the chamber lay a figure covered by a white gown and hooded by a large metal helmet. Coiled around the length of the body was a knot of tubes that seemed to be extracting blood while feeding in liquids and chemicals from dozens of archaic-looking machines that surrounded the figure.

‘Poor devil,’ said the commodore. ‘Like a fly caught up in a cobweb of the womb mages’ dark arts. But one man isn’t acting as the factory for the entire stock of the Imperial Aerial Squadron’s celgas.’

‘It is the Caliph Eternal,’ hissed Westwick. ‘The real caliph. They’re extracting what they need from him to inject into the grand vizier’s pet.’

‘It could be anyone under that helmet, Maya,’ said the commodore. ‘Some poor wretch the grand vizier has taken it into his mind to punish.’

‘It’s the true caliph,’ insisted Westwick, pointing to a door in the glass wall that led to a set of stairs down into the chamber. ‘Crack that lock and get him out of there.’

‘This isn’t our mission,’ said the commodore. ‘We’re here for the source of the empire’s blessed celgas, not the devil that sits on their throne. Are we to expect gratitude from him if we set him free? The gratitude of kings is a poor, beggarly thing, lass. Take it from one who has served a few.’

‘The Caliph Eternal could end the war …’

‘Or he could continue the whole wicked affair,’ said the commodore. ‘Once we break him out we have to get him back to the airship — we’ll have the whole empire after us and no more chance of a quiet infiltration in search of their celgas.’

Their argument was interrupted by the clamour of distant bells.

‘For us?’ asked Henry Tempest.

Commodore Black shook his head. ‘No, big lad. I think our allies have been discovered. But if the grand vizier knows there are rats creeping about his citadel, he’ll surely be sending sentries down here to check in on his prize guest all the same.’

‘Just crack the damn door,’ commanded Westwick. ‘Now! That’s an order.’

Commodore Black began to patch their cracksman’s box of tricks into the door that led down into the chamber, but he had hardly started the work when the floor started to shake. He looked up to find the end of the corridor, filled with huge beyrogs, accompanied by charging, human-sized cousins squeezed into replicas of the guardsmen’s uniforms.

‘Slake your thirst, Henry,’ shouted Westwick, drawing her pistol with one hand and her sword with the other. ‘Drain the red flask. Keep at the lock, Jared!’

She knelt and shot one of the charging beyrogs through the skull as Tempest charged past her. With no time to reload she shoved the pistol back in her belt and drew a knife with her free hand. Somewhere behind the enemy column, a voice was commanding the beasts on.

The commodore urged his box of tricks to its work, cursing it for a charlatan’s lock pick. Focus on the job at hand. Not the thud of Henry Tempest’s fists as they made a drum of the nearest beyrog’s chest, or the wet snick of Westwick’s dancing blades. Not the screams of the dying beasts in guardsmen’s uniforms. Not the captain of marine’s rising rage, his temper tracing the chemical arc of the filthy medical soup he had just downed in a single swig. No time to look at the wild bulging eyes and muscles twisting like snakes under his skin, or listen to the hot-tempered abuse he was hurling at the beasts as they beat at him, trying to overwhelm this wolverine in human form that had unexpectedly flung himself into their ranks.

Finally, the commodore’s desperate work was rewarded by the clunk of the cell door’s locks retracting into the walls. ‘Maya, Henry!’

‘Fall back!’ ordered Westwick.

Their captain of marines had his hand around one beyrog’s throat, smashing it into the corridor’s narrow walls while his boot lashed out at another, the giant beast already doubled up in agony from a previous blow. ‘I’ll hold ’em here, first lieutenant. The little granite-faced goblins will be all over us like bleeding flies if we all fall back at the same time.’

‘That wasn’t a suggestion, captain of marines!’

‘He’s right, lass,’ called the commodore. ‘Circle help us, but he’s right. Run for it and we’ll see how they value their impostor’s milk cow with a knife held to his throat.’

Westwick came running back towards the cell door, while the captain of marines single-handedly fought the beasts’ advance to a halt behind her. Westwick and the commodore had just gained the inside of the caliph’s cell when the front ranks of the advancing beyrogs parted to reveal more of their number bearing the only projectile weapons that would fit their ungainly fists — crossbows the size of brace supports torn out of an airship. They began to loose bolts into Henry Tempest, the first three missiles catching him in the chest and sending him stumbling back, yelling in pain and anger.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’ roared the captain of marines. He pulled two of the projectiles out and charged the front of their ranks, impaling the bolts into a beyrog, even as the next line opened up on him with their crossbows. ‘Who taught you dirty sand-footed abortions to shoot? Your bloody aunt?’ He grabbed a monstrous hand coming at him with an oversized scimitar, twisted it round, and stuck the sharp end into another beyrog as six more bolts thwacked into him. ‘You eat a man’s round of roast beef and drink a quart of beer, then you’ll fight like proper soldiers.’