Stephen Hunt - The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

He sent the flex command to his arm and the limb went rigid, snapping the cords binding him to the chair. She was diving for the door even as her whippers outside were piling back inside. But Cornelius wasn’t planning on leaving by the grand entrance. One of the double nozzles that had emerged from his artificial wrist sprayed the porthole with a circle of blow-barrel sap and he ducked as a squirt of ignition chamber liquid left his arm. The explosion scythed out above Cornelius, knocking the Catgibbon’s thugs back into the corridor while he flopped sideways out of the torn hull, the cold waters of the Gambleflowers slapping into his face as the Catgibbon’s scream of rage chased him down.

Lead balls bubbled past him, the pistol shots’ velocity broken by the black river waters. He swum downwards, watching the crown of thorns carried away towards the darkness of the river bottom, chased to the deeps by the flash mob’s volley. A gutta-percha tube snaked out of his arm and Cornelius took a greedy gulp of air as his feet beat him down deeper into the grasp of old mother Gambleflowers. The tidal flow quickly sucked him out west, the jinn house nowhere to be seen when he finally broke the surface. He must have been carried a mile downriver at least. Cornelius’s life would be far more dangerous now that the head of the flash mob knew he was alive and living in Middlesteel. But there was nothing to connect his old life to his solitary existence on Dolorous Isle. Nothing to connect a ghost-like thief that had made fools out of Ham Yard with the demon of vengeance stalking Quatershift.

The man had won without the mask.

‘ You were lucky tonight ,’ the words drifted down the river from Dolorous Isle.

‘I let myself be captured to find out more about their plans.’

‘ Keep telling yourself that ,’ whispered the mask.

Hotter each day, the Sprite of the Lake followed the Shedarkshe southeast. The hull of the u-boat seemed to sweat tears of coolant, the creak and crack of the heat exchangers the expedition’s constant companion. Nerves were on edge now — fights and squabbles a daily affair — as they charted waters that had never been inked on any explorer’s map. The commodore marked their progress with a compass and cartographer’s nib, the blank expanse on the neatly lined roll of paper a reminder of how deep into the unknown they were sailing.

‘No sign of any seed ships yet,’ said Commodore Black. ‘We’ll be running into their borderlands soon. I hope our blessed steamman knows what he is about.’

Amelia stood behind the two pilot seats and gritted her teeth. If the mercurial Ironflanks didn’t know where they were going then the whole expedition was in trouble.

‘The Daggish are out there,’ said Bull Kammerlan. ‘If they’re not patrolling this far west, it’s a measure of their strength, not weakness.’

‘I thought it was only Ironflanks who had ventured this far out?’ said Amelia. ‘What do you know about it?’

Bull grinned. ‘The craynarbians around the fringes of the greenmesh worship the Daggish. When you think the gods protect you, you tend to get careless. Easy pickings.’

‘You really are disgusting,’ said Amelia. ‘How many thousands of lives did your slavers ruin in Liongeli?’

‘The way I see it, girl, we were giving them a step up. You’ve only seen a taste of what it takes to survive out in the jungle. Life on a Cassarabian slave block looks pretty sweet after you’ve survived out in this hell for a few years.’

‘That must be why you had to gas their village,’ said Amelia, ‘rather than selling the tribes a passage downriver.’

‘You may be sniffy now, dimples, but it’s my crew’s knowledge of the Shedarkshe that’s kept your skull connected to your neck so far, rather than shrunk down to the size of an apple on some war chief’s necklace.’

‘That’s enough, Bull,’ said the commodore. ‘Your river lore’s got you and your rascals out of a water sentence back in Bonegate, so be thankful for that.’

‘Aye aye, sir ,’ said Bull. ‘The water is where we both belong, one way or another, eh?’

‘Old time’s sake only goes so far,’ warned the commodore.

‘Yes, I do seem to remember you saying that at my court martial.’

‘Channel is splitting up ahead, skipper,’ called Billy from his station. ‘Three courses.’

‘Stop, full,’ ordered the commodore. He pulled a speaking tube out of the wall and dialled Ironflanks’ quarters on the panel. ‘Up to the bridge with you, old steamer. You never said anything about a choice of tributaries in the river.’

Commodore Black looked puzzled. There was no answer from the speaking tube.

‘I’ll find him,’ said Amelia, swinging out of the pilot room.

Find him she did, lying in a pool of dark oil that had vomited out between the seal joins around his boiler, the smell of magnesium in the air as his legs jerked and twitched in the delusion of his quicksilver dreams. His trip did not look like a good one. For a moment she didn’t know whether she should feel pity or revulsion for the creature of the metal. She called the master of arms on the room’s speaker tube and Veryann turned up with two of her fighters fast behind her.

‘By the blood of Forman Thawnight,’ swore Veryann, seeing the half-comatose steamman lying on the floor. ‘I thought we had confiscated his stash of quicksilver.’

‘He must have had some more hidden away,’ said Amelia. She ran her finger along the tell-tale trail of white-veined coal dust that lay on a folding table in the corner of the cabin. A terrible thought occurred to her. ‘The quicksilver you confiscated from Ironflanks after he boarded, what did you do with it?’

‘Master of arms gallery,’ said Veryann, ‘locked inside one of the rifle lockers. The armoury is guarded by my people, day and night both.’

‘Let’s go.’

Veryann led Amelia past a sentry and through the u-boat’s narrow training range. A second sentry stood guard over the ship’s small arms store, but despite the Catosian’s vigilance, Amelia’s heart sank when she saw the empty locker that was opened for her.

‘This is not possible,’ said Veryann. ‘The sentries are rotated. There is no shift when this room is not locked and guarded.’

‘Maybe a ghost stole it,’ said Amelia. Damn the traitor’s eyes. The turncoat in their midst had done it again, wrecking their chances as surely as they had burnt out the gas scrubbers. ‘Oh, Ironflanks, why did you have to pick now to be weak?’

‘I should have flushed the narcotic overboard,’ said Veryann. ‘But I thought it might come in useful as an inducement if our steamman scout started becoming uncooperative.’

Amelia checked the grille on the air vent in the ceiling. It was loose. If someone knew the Sprite’s layout well enough … ‘Yes, you should have flushed that filth down the head.’

‘The steamman may not have known there was quicksilver in his coke supply,’ said Veryann. ‘The traitor might have poisoned his coal bins.’

Amelia shook her head. ‘No, Ironflanks knew what he was doing. I don’t know what he’s trying to escape from, but whatever it is, he didn’t need to be fooled into taking quicksilver. Just leaving it on his table would have been enough.’

Veryann looked at her two soldiers. ‘Lie the steamman in his bunk. His dream-state could last for days.’

‘Put a double guard on Ironflanks’ room,’ said Amelia. ‘Nobody to be left alone with him. Two at all times.’

‘Does that include you, professor?’

‘Me, Commodore Black, every jack in this crew.’

‘I didn’t bring nearly enough free company fighters for this expedition,’ said Veryann. ‘There’s not a cabin or hull plate in this underwater antique we’re not guarding now.’