Stephen Hunt - The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

‘You know the route back to Rapalaw Junction from here?’ asked T’ricola.

‘We are not going back,’ said Veryann. ‘My company is on the Sprite and my mission is at the source of this river.’

‘Your mission is over,’ said Gabriel McCabe. ‘Your people are slaves that haven’t been sold yet, and even if we caught up with the Sprite , the six of us are not going to be able to storm the boat and take her back.’

‘Gabriel is right,’ said the commodore. ‘I would walk to the end of the Shedarkshe if I thought I would get my precious Sprite back and free our friends, but Bull’s rascals would raise lances and fry us like eels in a frying pan if they saw us clambering over her hull. Our best hope is to make it back to the Junction and send word to Quest. With his resources we can lay an ambush downriver, wait for the Sprite to return and net her on Jackelian territory.’

‘You may be correct,’ said Ironflanks. ‘But you are missing one thing, my softbody friends. I am not going back to Rapalaw Junction. I am taking myself and any of you that want to accompany me to Lake Ataa Naa Nyongmo. Quest will not pay me for a missing u-boat and a failed expedition.’

‘It was difficult enough sneaking up the river in the safety of my lovely boat. What chance do the six of us have on foot, against an empire? What will you be doing with Abraham Quest’s blessed coins?’ demanded the commodore. ‘Melting them down to make yourself a set of gold-plated arms?’

‘If you only knew,’ said Ironflanks. ‘You are welcome to try to return to Rapalaw Junction by yourself. Follow the river northwest, walking along the west bank — avoid any and all villages you come across. In fact, avoid anything that is bigger than you.’

‘Quest’s money cannot be that important to you,’ said Gabriel McCabe.

‘As I said, you have no idea,’ replied Ironflanks.

Veryann picked up one of the water canteens and looked meaningfully at the group.

‘We should go with them,’ said Billy. ‘See our mission through. Let’s face it, the chances are we’re going to die either way, and I’d rather have it said that I passed along the Circle running towards danger than running away from it.’

‘Is that it, then?’ said the commodore. ‘I am to finish as a pile of bleached bones hidden in the jungle, used as a nest for snakes while my friends back home in Tock House raise a glass to poor old missing Blacky each Midwinter, his genius as lost to the world as the temples of ancient Camlantis.’

‘The free companies have a saying,’ said Veryann. ‘You are not dead until you have taken a hundred with you.’

‘Ah, lass, I’ll follow you to the heart of the dark territory of the Daggish. For you and my blessed Sprite I’ll go. But I’ve killed a hundred or more in duels when I was young and had a temper as red as the blood that runs through my veins. So don’t be surprised if poor old Blacky gets carried off by a petrodactyl or trampled by a tauntoraptor; I’ve got my hundred lined up in the halls of the dead waiting for me to fall into their dreadful clutches.’

Billy Snow got up, leaning on his old cane which the Sprite’s new masters had contemptuously tossed into the raft before casting them off. ‘Sometimes I’m glad I can’t see what we’re getting ourselves into.’

They set off and the jungle closed around them. Something like a snake crawled out of the bush, its metal carapace scraping along the floor, turning a single jewel-sized eye towards the trail left by the departing officers from the u-boat. Normally the gas would have been enough to finish the intruders off. How foolish of these creatures to forsake the safety of their craft for the embrace of deepest Liongeli.

Switching its sight to heat vision, the metal scout slithered silently after them.

Cornelius pushed open the door to the banqueting room of Dolorous Hall, largely empty except for the rows of mirrored suits of armour, Damson Beeton’s reflection distorted in the breastplates as she busied about, sorting the day’s delivery of victuals from Gattie and Pierce. She noticed Cornelius’s entry into the room. ‘Don’t even bother turning up for breakfast, you and that old bird both.’

‘I was out late last night,’ explained Cornelius. ‘The final evening of the House of Quest’s big function. I thought you would be pleased I had accepted one of the society invites at last.’

‘If you accepted a few more, perhaps you would develop your manners enough to come down in time to see the now-cold fare I cooked for you when the sun was coming up.’

‘Thank you, but I am not hungry. Have you seen Septimoth this morning?’

‘Pah.’ Damson Beeton dismissed his inquiry with a cursory wave. ‘No. And I have to sort through these boxes. They’ve either forgotten to send the salt, or that crooked delivery boy has cheated us out of it. Next time he rows this way, I’ll give him what for. How can you cook without salt?’

‘How indeed?’ Realizing he wasn’t going to get any sense out of the housekeeper, Cornelius beat a retreat to the lifting room and rode the chamber up to the aerie. Septimoth was waiting inside, resting his back with both wings unfolded against a y-shaped wooden frame that had been built in facsimile of the lashlites’ simple pine furniture.

‘If you were my coachman, I would release you from my service,’ said Cornelius.

‘If I were your coachman I would ask for danger money,’ said Septimoth.

‘Where did you get to yesterday evening?’

‘Our friends in the flash mob were at Quest’s residence,’ said Septimoth, lifting himself from the frame and pulling his massive leathery wings in. ‘They left with a cargo of eviscerated steammen.’

‘That would explain why I didn’t find anything at the mansion,’ said Cornelius. ‘You followed the thugs from the flash mob?’

‘I did,’ said Septimoth, ‘until my wings ached from it. They switched horses at staging posts twice and rode across two counties. They finished their journey at the airship works at Ruxley Waters, and waiting for them was the same mouse I scooped up for you by the cursewall in Quatershift.’

‘Robur!’ Cornelius swore under his breath. ‘So, Quest’s money is paying for the grave robbing. It was our handsomely moneyed friend who set Furnace-breath Nick up to grab Robur from the Commonshare, too. I came across Robur’s so-called daughter at Quest’s house, nicely fitted out in the cherry uniform of one of his fencibles.’

‘The woman in the jinn house?’

‘The same,’ said Cornelius. ‘Good for more than making fools out of us, too; they earn their keep, those ladies of his. An assassin paid an uninvited visit to Quest’s reception last night, broke a skylight and came sailing down a cord like a spider. I thought the topper was after me for a moment, but he’d come for Quest — who’s been suspiciously well trained in the art of combat, by the way. His Catosian fighters were on the assassin like a hunt falling on a fox. Fast enough that I wager they were expecting trouble. So then, what mischief do you think that Quest and Robur are up to at the airship works?’

‘I know only two people guaranteed to have the answers to that. We should snatch the merchant,’ said Septimoth. ‘If he is an agent of the Commonshare I shall enjoy myself finding ways to make him talk.’

‘Quest is too well protected,’ said Cornelius. ‘I saw some of his set-up at Whittington Manor. He has an army salted away up there, with blood machines at sentry points inside. I can change my face and body within limits, but I can’t mimic flesh at a fundamental enough level to fool a blood machine.’

‘Whatever his plans, there is a sure way to stop them. If we can’t get close enough to seize Quest, we can get close enough to kill him,’ said Septimoth. ‘I can drop you past his close-quarter protection — he travels in the open, he has commercial concerns to run, he can’t stay inside that fortress of his forever.’