Chapter Thirty-Seven
VINCE NEEDN’T HAVE worried about finding the siege engine. He simply had to follow the thunderous booms and screaming. A good many buildings had been set alight. Burning embers wafted past and Vince tasted the familiar tang of smoke on his tongue.
When they drew close to Trivia Place, Vince ordered Merlin to scout ahead.
Celeste nodded her agreement, sending Merlin on her way. “I’m not thrilled about you using my people as bait.”
“Not my intention,” Vince said.
“Is this how it’s going to be in your new Watch? Using young people as grist for your mill?”
Vince stared at her. “Hadn’t planned on it.”
“I suspect you haven’t planned much at all.”
“Wrong, there. Was thinking this time you might prefer to have a say in how things are done.”
Celeste raised an eyebrow.
“Going to need lieutenants of my own,” Vince said.
“I thought the Watch had been officially disbanded?”
“Rabbit once told me anyone with the means can set up a Watch.”
Celeste smiled at him with a wicked glint in her eye. “Fine. I’ll be your lieutenant. For now. But I’ll be commander one day. Just you watch me.”
Merlin returned quickly, her eyes wide and face pale. “The engine will be round the corner in a minute or two. It’s so… Celeste, I’ve never seen…”
“I know, I know,” Celeste said, squeezing her elbow.
“We don’t have to do this,” Merlin said. “This isn’t our fight. There are greencoats lying dead in the road. Let the C.T.C. take care of it.”
“Lambshead tried to kill you,” Celeste said. “I’m not letting him away with that. Get to the back. Everyone, get in position.”
Vince divvied the Watch into teams and ordered them to hide at the crossroads and Entries.
The siege engine rumbled into view.
James peered around the corner. “Damn.” On top of the recharging cabin were two rifle-toting Gunbrides. “They weren’t there before.”
The six-wheeled siege engine blasted volley after volley into the town. Brick dust gathered like clouds and wooden beams became no more than matchsticks. Whole buildings shook from the force of the assault. Vince’s jaw dropped. This was the project Dick had told him about in the Star We Sail By. This was what the greencoats had been working on in secret. A way to bring about wanton, rampant destruction. His stomach turned at the thought of dozens of these machines trundling through towns and cities, at the horror they’d bring.
“It’s the only one of its kind,” James said.
“Better be,” Vince said quietly. He ordered everyone to take their positions.
As the engine blasted its way along the road, it reached the Entries where new Watch members were hidden. A volley of musket fire rang out, toppling several of the guards walking alongside the engine. The rest returned fire, holding their position as the engine rumbled on.
Walter bounced about on his feet. “I don’t know about this…”
Sorcha put her hand on his shoulder and smiled. “You can do it. Go on.”
He ran along an Entry and, keeping his head low, darted into the road. He crept under the front of the carriage and in seconds he’d pulled the bolt. He rolled back into the road, slapping the nearest horse as he went.
The horse reared and kicked, throwing the guards from the carriage roof. Vince pounced on the nearest one in a flash, smashing the man’s head against the ground. Ruth and her mace made short work of the other. Still tethered together, all four horses galloped forward, leaving the siege engine behind.
However, before the Watch could swarm onto the engine, one of the remaining Gunbrides pulled a lever and great metal plates embossed with the seal of the C.T.C. slid from the canopy and down over the sides, protecting its crew. It could no longer move but nor could the Watch get at the people inside.
“Back,” James said. “Back, go, go!”
The Watch returned to their hiding places as the crew of the siege engine fired from slits in the armour. One round struck Merlin in the back, shredding her claret-and-black coat. She cried out and fell hard on the cobbled road. Frank hesitated before running for cover. He caught Vince’s eye and shook his head.
Celeste screamed at the Gunbrides every obscenity under the sun. She thumped Vince’s arm, his head, his back. “She didn’t trust you. She didn’t trust you!” She sat with her back to the wall and wept.
Vince breathed heavily, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“It’s sitting there like a damn metal turtle,” James said. “I’ve heard about a pirate stronghold that had something similar.”
The great cannon batteries fell silent, one pointing forward, one still docked in the recharging cabin.
“They’re stuck in place,” James said.
Clive and Flowers arrived from a nearby Entry. “We got the ones who were chasing us. Now what do we do? We don’t have anything strong enough to get through their amour. What’s the plan now? Vince?”
Vince pounded the brick wall with the side of his fist. “Need a damn minute to think!”
“I might have an idea,” Sorcha said.
JAMES HURRIED AFTER them, struggling to keep pace with the youngsters.
Sorcha kept looking to Flowers. “I’m sorry about Merlin.”
Flowers frowned and turned away. He led her through the deserted roads.
James started to struggle for breath. “Vince said she’d be safe under his care.”
Sorcha glanced at him over her shoulder. “Be fair. He can’t stop musket balls.”
James side-stepped around some broken glass. “It’s a good reason for Celeste to hate Vince.”
“She doesn’t need another reason,” Flowers said.
“He’s taking quite a gamble putting a musket in her hand.”
Flowers slowed to a stop. “Celeste isn’t stupid. She can see that whatever else he may be, Vince is our best hope of surviving the coming days. And of staying out of the gaolhouse.”
“And after that?” James asked.
Flowers pushed open the ruined door of the Wheal Boon engine house. “Who can say? I never thought I’d see the day those two worked side by side. I never thought I’d be helping a greencoat. I never thought I’d be on the Watch. None of us can see the future.” He stood aside to let Sorcha in.
James insisted Flowers go first. “Mmm, well, if I were him, I wouldn’t turn my back on any one of you.”
“How many of them do you have?” Sorcha asked.
Flowers tore down the sheets separating one sleeping area from another. “Four that are definitely working. I was repairing two more but they’re not ready.” He lay the sheets on the ground. “We can put them in here. He can carry them.” He pointed to James.
“I’m not a damn mule!”
“You’re bigger than we are,” Flowers said. “You want us to drag these through the streets? These are delicate machines. One wrong bump and they’re ruined.”
James grumbled under his breath. When they were ready, they tied a knot in the sheets.
James heaved the sack over his shoulder. One lock of his auburn hair tumbled over his eye, the most dishevelled Sorcha had even seen him. “If my back gives way, I shall be very annoyed.”
“How will we know the difference?” Sorcha asked. “Right, you head back to Vince and wait for us.”
“What? Where are you two going?”
“Me and Flowers have some work to do.”
THE STALEMATE IN town continued. Every now and then, one of the Gunbrides would fire out from their armoured engine at nothing in particular. Water gushed from broken pipes. Shattered glass lay in the road like glittering frost.
Against Vince’s better judgement, Frank Rundle and Clive Hext had risked themselves retrieving the body of Merlin. Together with Celeste, they laid her inside a ruined shop. Celeste gently kissed Merlin’s forehead before returning to Vince’s side in time for James’s arrival at the crossroads, red-faced and sweating.
He set the sack gently on the ground and sat on a windowsill, trying to catch his breath. “Blasted roads twist like snakes.”
Celeste untied the sheet. “Where is Flowers? What have you done with him?”
“He’s here, he’s here,” Sorcha said, running up the road towards her with Flowers in tow. “I didn’t think you’d miss him that much.”
“How are we supposed to stop them from shooting us?” Celeste asked.
“Those slits in the armour were designed for rifles, not the Gunbrides pepper-box muskets,” Sorcha said. “They don’t have a good range of angles. Once we’re up close, they can’t hit us. We just need you to distract them. Me and Flowers will do the rest.”
Celeste looked to Flowers for confirmation. He nodded his approval. Vince led the Watch through an Entry and in through the back door of a butcher’s shop facing the engine. With its windows already shot out, it made the perfect spot to draw the Gunbride’s fire.
The Watch fired their muskets, knowing full well they wouldn’t cause any damage to the engine’s armour, but it upset the Gunbrides within enough to get them to shoot back.
Exactly what Sorcha had hoped for. “Go, go!”
She and Flowers each took one side of the sheet and scrambled down the path to the other side of the engine. They deployed a number of Ticking Ginnys where the engine armour met the uneven cobbled road. They flicked the lever on each device. Long, thin prongs poked out, working their way easily underneath the armour. Then they started to lift. Another set of prongs pushed against the ground, balancing the devices.
Inside, one of the Gunbrides realised what was happening. He began shooting wildly from the slit above their heads. Sorcha and Flowers ducked, even knowing they couldn’t be shot from that angle. The devices whirred and clicked as they worked. The Gunbrides tried to shoot the Ticking Ginnys from under the armour but couldn’t get their barrels to aim that way.
The heavy armour caused the prongs to buckle but not before they’d done their job. Sorcha signalled to Flowers. They each pulled a tube from their claret coat pockets and lit the ends with a striker.
Sorcha shouted as she worked. “Please work, please work, please work…”
They each rolled their tubes under the armour—then another and then another. Thick pillows of smoke billowed out, filling the engine. Sorcha and Flowers ran for cover, keeping their heads low.
The Gunbrides kicked one of the smoke tubes from under the armour but within seconds, the plates had been retracted. Three Gunbrides fell out of the machine in a haze of smoke, coughing and hacking.
The Watch were on them in an instant. The smallest of the three quivered as James grabbed him by the arm.
“Where’s Lambshead? Where is he?”
“He’s not here!” the man said between coughs. “He went to Littletar’s Emporium.”
“Why would he go there?” James asked. “For reinforcements?”
“No,” Vince said. “All this? Just a distraction. Come on. Might already be too late.”