With each league we crossed, the gap between Strahl and the Iron Rose only lengthened.
Though we cleared the blackened skies of Morgause in record time, Syrene’s agitation grew more and more palpable. We pushed the Rose to her conceivable limits, leaving that wretched pustule of a city far behind us—but still, Strahl outpaced us.
Given the sheer speed with which my bosun was travelling, he had to be on Wraithwood’s smaller, sleeker ship. The Conflagration was too big and bulky to move with that sort of haste. That meant Wraithwood and Strahl were going to make it to Galtir before we did. Odds were high that the Conflagration was sailing after them, which put that monstrous vessel directly between us. And if we did run into the Conflagration… what would we do? Even on our best day, we could never match that ship in combat.
That reality crashed down upon me as the first stars kindled in the sky. The adrenaline that had fuelled me since leaving Morgause ebbed away, leaving me weak and tired and despondent. I caught myself just as my thoughts started tending towards hopeless resignation.
I needed sleep. I didn’t want sleep—but I wasn’t going to be much use to anyone if I didn’t get it.
I relinquished the helm and stumbled to my cabin, collapsing into bed. Despite my reluctance, I fell asleep nearly as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I dreamed of grinning skulls; of silver swords and scarlet blood; of a sea of echoes, and the thunder of guns.
That last rumbling sound woke me abruptly. It was real.
I bolted upright in my bed. My skin glistened with sweat, and my shirt stuck uncomfortably to the small of my back.
The rumbling around me slowly faded. Nothing else immediately called for my attention; no klaxons rang, no screams split the air. The ship creaked softly as it struggled against the wind.
The air smelled like rain and fury.
A storm, I thought dimly. The thought relaxed me somewhat. I tried to go back to sleep, but that initial surge of alertness refused to retreat. I checked my timepiece. I’d managed about five hours of sleep, which meant the sun was currently rising with me.
I dragged myself out of bed and headed for the basin in my cabin, wiping the sweat from my skin. I daubed my throat with a touch of rose oil—a soothing luxury I kept around for hard mornings—and dressed myself for the part of captain.
I was surprised by the sunlight that greeted me as I stepped out of my cabin to survey our new horizon. Fluffy white clouds floated across a blue sky, on our port side. Beneath them was a gently curving bay with white cliffs. Whitecaps danced upon the sea where it crashed against those cliffs, forming into playful humanoid shapes which might have been nereids.
Further inland beyond the cliffs, emerald fields stretched out in all directions. Long-ruined warships rusted in those fields like giant beached whales, with their iron skeletons reaching up for the sky. Birds flocked above the old battlefields in massive throngs, and I found myself wondering whether there were any strahls among them.
Some of the birds had settled onto half-submerged shipwrecks in the bay itself. Red iron scraps pierced the surface of the water where the nereids danced. Sharp, tower-like islands peppered the bay, rising even taller than the iron debris. Sailors called them ‘Tiirdan’s talons’, after the many-winged South Wind.
On our starboard side raged an angry, sunless storm.
The roiling black clouds there were utterly impenetrable. Every so often, forks of lightning jolted through them, lighting up the inside of the clouds with emerald, gold, and blinding white. The storm swirled in place—huge and hungry, crouched upon the bay like a giant predator. That great dervish of bruised clouds could have easily swallowed Morgause whole.
I had seen that storm once before, a very long time ago. The HMS Caliban had skimmed the edge of those clouds on its way to Galtir. Somewhere within that tempest roosted one of the great lords of the Seelie Court—Tiirdan, the South Wind.
Twenty years ago, the Coalition had sent two fleets to Galtir. Only one of them ever arrived. Stories claimed that Emperor Lohengrin had prayed to the Seelie for aid—and the herald of Death Victorious had answered. Tiirdan met the Coalition ships above the bay, tearing them from the sky with the greatest storm that Avalon had ever seen. Rather than dispersing, however, the tempest remained. Some people believed that Tiirdan remained with it, nesting at the centre of the storm.
Several of my crew stood gawking at the great wall of thunder above the bay. Little stared out from the rigging nearby with an unnaturally calm expression, and I knew he was remembering our last journey past the South Wind.
“Never thought I’d see him again,” I said softly.
Little glanced down at me as I spoke. He slid slowly down the rigging to land on the deck.
I thought my memories had exaggerated, Little signed at me. But the storm is even bigger than I remember.
I adjusted my coat and pulled on my goggles before joining Little at the railing. “Any sign of our quarry?” I asked him, with a bleary yawn.
None yet, Little signed. He motioned towards the helm, which currently steered the ship on its own. We’re still losing ground. Syrene has been on edge all night.
“There has to be a way to close that gap,” I muttered. “If we arrive too late…”
I trailed off, rather than finishing the statement. We both knew how poorly we’d fare against an entire army of echoes.
Syrene had taken the swiftest course possible; she’d even coaxed us favourable winds. Short of dumping excess weight, I wasn’t sure what else we could do. The heaviest things aboard were the guns and the munitions—but the Conflagration would make even shorter work of us if we disarmed ourselves.
“Captain,” Syrene’s voice whispered on the breeze. “Come and speak with us.” The faerie melted up from the wood like water, solidifying into a tall, swaying figure draped in golden tulips-by-the-sea. The skin of her fingers had taken on the whitewashed colour of driftwood, where they clutched at the helm.
Syrene still emanated a sullen, frustrated anger that set my teeth on edge. But I crossed the distance between us anyway, forcing myself to ignore it.
“The winds speak,” Syrene murmured. “Enemies wait for us ahead.”
I frowned. “The Conflagration?” I asked her.
“No,” Syrene said. “Smaller birds than that one.” She canted her head, as though listening. “We do not know how many. Tiirdan’s screeching is too loud.”
I nodded slowly. “Probably outflyers,” I said. “The Conflagration had six on board, back in Morgause. They’ve seen us following them.” I drew my spyglass and set it against my eye, scanning the horizon for interlopers. I wasn’t disappointed.
A glimmer of metal caught my gaze near the rolling hillocks beyond the cliff side, partially obscured by cloud cover. I focussed in closer and picked out a pair of bulky outflyers flying in tandem, doing their best to avoid detection as they crept closer to us. Without Syrene’s warning, they probably would have succeeded.
“All hands, to your stations!” I called out. “Bandits inbound off the port side! I want rifles at the ready!”
The deck erupted with shouts and movement as crew rushed to grab heavier weapons from the armoury. I hurried to the longhorn and rang the gunnery deck.
“Tell me we get to blow something up this time,” Lenore’s voice addressed me.
I cracked a smile, despite the situation. “You get to blow two somethings up,” I informed her. “We’ve got two enemy outflyers hiding off the port side. I’m hoping to lure them out. I’ll bring us out into the open and pretend we haven’t seen them.”
“They’ll use those big fluffy clouds for cover,” Lenore mused.
“They surely will,” I agreed. “Do we still have flakshot for the cannons?”
“Plenty of it, Cap’n.” I heard a vicious smile in her voice, even over the longhorn.
“Let’s give them a taste of it, then,” I said. “Flakshot and turrets, Miss Brighton. After we finish our broadside, though, I want you to load our guns for heavier armour.”
“Expecting the Conflagration?” Lenore guessed.
“I hope not,” I answered ruefully. “But it can’t be that far ahead of its outflyers. If the Conflagration turns around to assist them, we won’t have much choice but to run.” Lenore made a soft noise of distaste over the longhorn, and I added: “Hold your fire until I give the mark. Then I want you to give those outflyers what-for, Miss Brighton.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” Lenore replied smartly. She pulled away from the longhorn then, and I heard her call out to the other gunnery ladies in a faintly muffled voice: “Check your dance cards, ladies! We’ve got partners!”
I hung up the longhorn and returned to the helm, murmuring to the faerie that had melted back into the wood. “Slow us down near the cliff,” I told Syrene. “Make like we’re going to turn. If they use the cloud cover to come at us, they’ll be flying blind. We’ll have just enough time to position ourselves for a broadside.”
Syrene didn’t respond. But the wheel moved of its own accord, turning us towards the cliffs, and I knew that she had heard me all the same.
I checked behind us with my spyglass and caught a better glimpse of one of the brigands, skimming through the clouds behind us. It was a Timberjack model—the sort of heavy fighter meant to engage large vessels. Assuming the fighter hadn’t been altered, it would have some heavy forward-mounted guns, loaded with bullets and not aether.
As we reached the cliff and began to slow, the flyer sped up, disappearing back into the clouds… but not before I caught sight of a scorched wolf burned into the side of its fuselage.
“Cinderwolf bandits confirmed!” I bellowed. To Syrene, more quietly, I said: “Get us in position. Once we fire our broadside, turn us for Tiirdan’s Talons and use the rocks for cover.”
Tiirdan’s Fury rumbled in the distance, flashing with fresh lightning. Somewhere beneath the constant noise, I heard the throaty growl of the Cinderwolves’ engines approaching through the clouds. Syrene turned the Rose lazily, resettling it to aim our starboard cannons directly towards the oncoming flyers.
I grabbed the longhorn’s chatterbox, waiting patiently for company.
The two outflyers burst from cloud cover all at once, darting towards us like a pair of bolting wolves. My pulse jumped as though I’d been hit with an electric jolt, and I opened the line on the longhorn to address the gunnery ladies.
“Fire!” I yelled.
The Rose’s cannons boomed, rocking the entire boat beneath my feet. Several loud pops followed, splitting the air like harsh whip cracks. Lenore’s flakshot was too small to make out, but it made for spectacular results: one of the outflyers listed abruptly to the side, as its right wing burst apart and pockmarks blossomed along its hull. An instant later, its engine exploded in a riot of cerulean flames. Cheers erupted from the crew as the ship plummeted into the bay, adding its wreckage to Tiirdan’s already-impressive collection.
The other outflyer had been quicker on the draw, and less directly in our line of fire. It banked away sharply, trailing only a small bit of smoke from one clipped wing. Our starboard turrets fired next, but the pilot danced deftly out of the way, and I knew we were dealing with someone who’d been in their fair share of dogfights.
“Get us some cover, Syrene!” I yelled at the empty helm. I needn’t have bothered—the Rose was already turning for Tiirdan’s Talons, picking up speed as the outflyer worked to reorient itself. By the time it regained its bearings, we had already reached a pair of towering rocky outcroppings.
Even an expert pilot would have trouble angling to attack us within Tiirdan’s Talons; I would have hesitated to take us through myself, if not for our supernatural navigator. Sure enough, the one remaining outflyer hesitated briefly, before swinging wide and peeling away to disappear back into the clouds.
I let out a long, shaky breath, trying to calm down my body. Even as I did, Syrene’s tall whipcord form melted up out of the deck with an air of foreboding.
“More birds fly this way,” Syrene told me gravely. “The flock will come upon us all at once.”
I set my jaw and stifled a curse. Of course. The moment those two outflyers had first seen us, they’d probably signalled for backup. “How many?” I asked.
Syrene cocked her head, as though listening. “Two more ahead,” she murmured.
Three outflyers. I didn’t like those odds at all, even if one of them was already damaged.
“Ladies,” I called over the chatterbox, “Syrene confirms two more bandits inbound. Keep your eyes peeled.”
Confirmations echoed over the longhorn amidst the sound of chattering turret-fire before I hung up the device to repeat the warning across the main deck. Part of me half expected Strahl to reprise the words in his booming voice… but of course, Strahl wasn’t there. The reminder left an uneasy knot in my stomach.
Syrene dipped the Rose downwards, diving between the large crumbling pillars that made up Tiirdan’s Talons. The sound of the crashing waves below grew louder, mingling with the wind’s roar. I steadied myself against the railing and drew my telescope, searching the horizon for the outflyers we knew to be out there.
This time, however, the outflyers found us before we found them.
“Above!” Syrene warned me sharply. One driftwood finger pointed up towards a stretch of blue sky in between the clouds, where the sun glared down at us. Though I couldn’t see past the blinding light, I knew what I would have seen if I could—the outflyers had used the sun to mask their dive.
It was a split second too late for me to alert the gunnery deck. The Timberjacks opened fire before our turrets could react, raking deadly bullets across the main deck. Splinters, blood, and screams blended together, as rigging snapped beneath the assault. A few of the sailors on the Rose panicked and fired their rifles at the outflyers, to little meaningful effect.
As the outflyers swept past, I saw that all three had descended upon us at once. They split apart in opposite directions, weaving back through Tiirdan’s Talons with wary care. I knew they’d soon be back around for another run at our deck, though they’d be hard-pressed to coordinate another simultaneous attack within the Talons.
In the brief pause, I saw people rushing to grab our injured crew. To my right, Little shimmied down the rigging to haul one woman over his shoulder, dragging her to the main deck and passing her off to waiting hands. She soon disappeared below deck, on her way to the infirmary.
I couldn’t afford to dwell. Already, one of the Cinderwolves had managed to wheel about.
“Port bow!” I called into the chatterbox. “One outflyer!”
The Cinderwolf opened fire—but this time, our turret on that side fired back and struck. The turret’s shot clipped the Timberjack’s wing and landed several hits on the cockpit’s glass dome. Sparks flew, and for a second, I wondered if the pilot was dead—but the outflyer soon banked sharply, aborting its run on the Rose in order to seek out temporary safety.
One of the other outflyers dared an approach from beneath us, kicking up a trail of water as it skimmed the bay. Guns barked, and one of our propellers made a distinctly unpleasant sound.
“Syrene!” I called. “Damage report!”
Our faerie navigator was hip-deep in the deck now, half-submerged in the wood. The petals of her hair scattered behind her in the wind. “Aft props are damaged!” she called back calmly. “One of them has been sheared off, Captain.”
I was suddenly, painfully aware that the starboard turret had gone silent. Navi’s turret.
“What about the starboard turret?” I yelled at Syrene.
“The starboard turret is operational, Captain!” the faerie replied evenly.
I clawed for the chatterbox again. “Captain to gunnery deck!” I gasped. “Is Navi all right?”
The line crackled chaotically for a moment, before someone replied.
“She’s hurt,” Lenore’s voice sounded. “Just splinters in her arm. I’ve sent her to see the sawbones.”
My shoulders untensed with relief, and I let out a breath. It was a small relief, though. I was just starting to realise how much worse our situation was than I’d originally anticipated. These Cinderwolves weren’t pirates—they were disciplined, battle-hardened professionals.
The winds picked up around us, beating at the rigging, as Syrene took us deeper into the Talons. This close to the storm, the rocks had formed a howling wind tunnel. The outflyers struggled against gusts of air, at times wavering as they tried to clear an angle of attack.
Suddenly, I saw Little handsigning urgently at me from the main deck. I turned quickly, but not in time to catch the message. “Repeat!” I yelled at him, as I signed the word back several times. Between the bustling crew, the clouds, and the sea spray, however, visibility on the ship was becoming difficult, and Evie vaulted over to translate for me as he sometimes did in such situations.
“Another outflyer, Captain!” Evie called across the deck. “Coming in low behind us!”
I cursed. The winds couldn’t tell Syrene what they didn’t yet know—somehow, another outflyer had manoeuvred downwind of us, avoiding her detection. Four outflyers. The idea dropped into my gut like a stone. This was beginning to seem impossible.
“Captain to gunnery deck,” I said into the chatterbox. “We have a fourth outflyer out there, coming in behind us. Can anyone confirm?”
One of the Timberjacks appeared abruptly ahead of us, weaving past a great, jutting tower of rock. Bullets showered the deck; splinters burst from the railing just behind me, and I dived for cover.
Gunfire replied in kind, tearing the Timberjack’s wing clean off. Its engine detonated in a plume of violent blue flame. The ship slammed into the waves below, bouncing frenetically as it tore itself apart.
I whooped into the chatterbox. “Good shot, ladies!” I shouted.
The response from the longhorn was faintly garbled in the wind. I craned closer to the speaker. “What?” I asked. “I didn’t copy that!”
“—not us, Cap’n,” Lenore’s voice crackled over. “It’s the fourth outflyer. It’s not a Timberjack, sir.”
A small ship darted past us in the Talons, dancing on the edge of the wind. It was a mismatched junker of an outflyer, cobbled together from old parts. A faded band of Coalition yellow still stood out upon its hull.
Another Timberjack wheeled in for attack, appearing around the side of a Talon. The new outflyer nearly collided with it head-on, and my entire body cringed at the close shave. But our allied pilot wove just past the enemy, close enough that I halfway expected to see sparks where the ships kissed. The Timberjack over-corrected in a panic—and slammed directly into one of the crumbling Talons, with a violent explosion.
For a moment, it was as though the vengeful echo of Dougal MacLeod had risen from the grave to rain fire on our enemies. The ship screamed past us, and I found myself staring at the bright red chimaera rampant of Clan MacLeod which had been painted upon its wings.
It wasn’t Dougal MacLeod, of course. But I had a good idea of who had come to our rescue.
Cheers erupted on deck as the MacLeod outflyer thundered past us. Anger, fear, and relief all battled for prominence in my throat—but I found myself cheering with everyone else, nevertheless, as the last Timberjack peeled away in retreat.
The longhorn rang, signalling an incoming transmission. I flicked the dial quickly to answer the request.
“Damn it, MacLeod!” I managed. “What are you doing here? How did you even find us?”
“Oh, ye know,” Aesir replied nonchalantly. “Stretchin’ me wings. Did ye know ye left a locator in Uncle Dougal’s outflyer? Still tuned to the Rose an’ all. I thought it shouldn’t go to waste.” His smug grin was so loud, I could hear it all the way from the Rose.
I groaned softly. Resetting the locator in Dougal’s outflyer had been the absolute last thing on my mind in Pelaeia.
“MacLeod—” I started.
“Don’t even start,” Aesir interjected sharply. “Ye’d be scrap in Tiirdan’s Talons if I hadn’t come by—”
“MacLeod—” I tried again, more urgently.
“By thunder, ye need my help, an’ yer bum’s out the windae if ye think—”
“MacLeod, for the sake of the Tuath, watch where you’re going!” I yelled.
Aesir’s outflyer had looked to be speeding directly for one of the Talons—but even as I spoke, he shrugged his ship around it, easy as you please, and continued talking.
“I’ll be a sheep’s uncle ‘afore I spend the rest of my days rustin’ away on a mountaintop—” he continued emphatically.
“Aesir!” I shouted. “Welcome aboard the Rose, you magnificent clunkhead! Now keep an eye on our tail and make sure the last Timberjack doesn’t come back!”
Aesir’s laughter echoed across the line as his outflyer peeled away into a defensive position.
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” he replied with relish. “I’ve got yer six.”