98

Ten

Under Mammon’s lackadaisical eye, crates and barrels of food were loaded onto the ships. The pale woman stood at the prow of the Sky Lion like a figurehead carved from marble, moving only once: to demand someone hold shade cloth over her. Boaz quickly assigned two deckhands to attend her. The uncouth men hovered, fetched and carried, simultaneously fascinated and terrified. Mammon paid them no heed.

Meanwhile, the captains and inquisitors of all ten remaining vessels huddled on the foredeck in hushed and agitated frenzy. Ansel worked nearby, ears straining. Ostensibly, he was checking the runes on the outer decking. As an inquisitor, Ezra was invited although no one asked his opinion. The men stood, heads bent close together, casting wary glances at their savage guide.

“The Empress will judge us and find us wanting,” said Lothor, the senior inquisitor. There was a rumble of assent from the gathered holy men. “This is a wicked prospect.”

“It’s too late,” hissed Kurtz. He glanced at Mammon but her eyes were on the dunes. “We have made the agreement.”

“We need the food,” said Marlow. “Gods dammit, man, we need water!”

“A deal with witches and savages can only end in madness,” said another inquisitor. Ansel didn’t know this one but he stood with the captain of the Bright Terror. An older gentleman, he looked out of place in this wild dessert. Someone better suited to drinking tea in a comfortable chair than fighting for his life on a voyage of discovery.

“Then what is your suggestion?” asked Kurtz, his eyes ablaze, his voice cold and clipped. He turned to face the tall, craggy inquisitor, still rubbing at the bruises on his wrists. “What practical course of action do you propose? A plan that does not involve death by starvation?”

Lothor opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

“We can stay here on the dunes forever,” said Boaz. “We have, oh less than five days till we would die with sand in our throats and flies in our eyes. Four maybe.”

“Flies,” muttered the captain of the Albatross. “Flies implies life. There is nothing for a fly to live on in this godforsaken place.”

“Except our bloated corpses,” said the captain of the Valiant.

“Gentlemen, please,” said Marlow.

“There must be another way,” muttered the elderly inquisitors. He looked like his heart might break.

“While you gentlemen try to think of something,” said Kurtz, briskly, “the rest of use will get on with the business of staying alive.”

“I don’t like it,” said Lothor.

“Noted,” said Kurtz. “Are we done here?”

There was an uneasy silence.

“We will all be judged and found wanting,” snarled Lothor. He stamped across the deck, giving Mammon a wide berth. She smiled at him, her eyes gleaming, as he swung his leg over the rail and onto the ladder.

The rest of the men dispersed to their ships, trailing scowls and equally sombre looks.

Ansel rubbed industriously at an imaginary spot of rust as Ezra came over to lean on the railing next to him. The young inquisitor’s face was like a thundercloud. Ansel didn’t like Mammon either. But not because she was a witch. The inquisitors might be aghast but they were a long way from Stonehaven now. The mores of civilisation were hard to enforce on an empty belly. Morals were a luxury of the living. Ansel rubbed the metalwork so hard he was surprised he didn’t leave a hole.

Kurtz and Marlow were the last to go. They bowed to Mammon, who acknowledged them with a vague wave, and shook Boaz’ hand, before taking leave. The pompous fool was puffed up with self-importance. He strode about the deck, flexing and breathing through his nose, aware the eyes of the fleet were on him. With Mammon guiding them the little Sky Lion which would now take the lead at the head of the fleet.

“The idiot knows not what he is dealing with,” muttered Ezra darkly, his gaze followed Ansel’s across the netting.

“What else can we do?” Ansel asked lamely. His stomach groaned, and Ezra’s let out an answering rumble.

“It might be better to starve,” Ezra said.

Ansel did not trust himself to reply. Instead he moved on to the next rune.

At last all the supplies were stowed in the hold.

“I’m not sure if that’s enough,” said Boaz, frowning and wiping a hand across his sweaty forehead. The sun beat down mercilessly. “For us, yes. But the Unsparing alone has one hundred men.”

“The big one?” asked Mammon. She swivelled in her chair, shading her eyes to look at the ship. The two men attending to her hurried to adjust her shade. “It’s fine,” she said. “It won’t be needed.”

“Why not?” said Boaz. “Are we that close to the cavorite?”

“No.”

Boaz waited. Mammon rolled her eyes.

“The journey will take several days yet. But those men will have no need of food where they are going.”

Boaz gulped.

“How can you be sure?” he asked. “Or rather, how can you be sure we will survive and they won’t?”

“I cannot be sure,” she said. She shrugged, seeming to lose interest in the conversation. Boaz hovered anxiously and she started, as if noticing him for the first time. “The leviathans that haunt these waters,” she said, toying with some of the bone fragments round her neck. Ansel leaned forwards surreptitiously to get a better look. Some of them looked like human finger bones. “The iron irritates them. And of course, your ships are painted with the ground up corpses of their kin.”

“What?”

“Your cavorite? Did you think it was just a mineral ripped innocently from the earth? A rock, ready to be plucked with no consequence? No!” She laughed, her teeth pearly white in the sun. “How ignorant you are, you who fly so carelessly powered by the souls of the dead! Your precious cavorite is mined from the rotted, long dead corpses of the monsters that walked this land. Only – not all of them are dead.”

Boaz stared at her.

Ansel nearly tripped over his jar of paint. Otto swore at him, and he hurriedly corrected himself, ears pink.

“You will see,” said Mammon to Boaz. “But have no fear. You have me to guide you. And the monsters will attack the largest vessels first. They are not without intelligence.”

Ansel’s hand shook as he painted, ears straining. But Mammon said no more.

“And if we fly over land?” asked Boaz. “The course takes us over land, yes? Or it could? At least for a little while? There are no sea monsters in the desert.”

Mammon shrugged again.

“You can,” she said. “Maybe it would be better, maybe not. There are monsters in the sands too.”

“What kind of monsters?” asked Boaz, sharply. “How big are they?”

“Big,” said Mammon, rolling her shoulders. “Maybe they don’t exist and you are right. It might be safer. I don’t know.”

She seemed disinclined to talk further. Boaz waited in frustrated silence. But Mammon would say no more. Boaz relayed the essence of the conversation to Kurtz.

Shortly after the word flew down the line. Kurtz had ordered the fleet to light the low runes. Then the fleet would fly south over the continent. Over the desert dunes.

“At least this way we can see things coming,” said Talcott to Ansel who grunted.

Ansel was too busy to ponder their safety or the dark origins of cavorite. He and the rune-master rushed here and there making sure the Sky Lion’s runes were balanced. On the word, Ansel’s match caught the first rune with blue fire. The interconnected script flared to life. The dim flames flowed across the ship in a rippling wave, linking up with Otto’s runes in the centre. The Sky Lion rose into the air. Both master and apprentice breathed sighs of relief.

Around her the fleet was rising as one by one the ships took flight. Sails were unfurled, the wind was blowing fresh from the north.

“South-south-east?” bellowed Boaz, who was standing next to the sweating helmsman.

“That way,” Mammon extended one pale arm.

“South-south-east it is!” shouted Boaz. And the fleet set sail, the little Sky Lion leading the way.

That night they sailed under clear twinkling stars. The dunes below were like solid, immovable waves in a sandy ocean, bleached of all colour by the night and lit by a pale moon. Below decks they ate well for the first time in weeks. The food the savages had provided was strange but wholesome.

Jethro the cook cursed and grumbled, not knowing how to prepare half the strange items and not daring to disturb Mammon to ask. In the end half of it was served raw. The crew had a wonderful time as each dish was tasted in turn, the men whooped and jeering with enjoyment. There were odd shaped vegetables in strange colours. There was dried meat – tough, chewy and heavily salted but tasting heavenly to stomachs that for months had been filled with nothing but weevil infested biscuits. Another barrel was filled with an unrecognisable meat that the cook declared tasted like pork, despite the flesh being pale and white. Then there were odd, spiky green fruits that smelt unpleasant. Once peeled a ruby fruit was revealed that was delicious and filling. Some of Jethro’s concoctions were practically inedible. Some were delicious. The crew ate them all with gusto, expressing themselves as vividly as only sailors can.

“I have no idea what I’m doing!” shouted Jethro, over the hub-bub. “They don’t teach you how to cook weird foreign food in Stonehaven! I’ve never seen this rubbish before!”

The airmen whooped and cat-called. Boaz slapped Jethro on the back.

“You’ve done a great job,” he said, and raised a water filled tankard. “To Jethro!”

“To Jethro!” yelled the crew. The cook went away, somewhat mollified.

The crew feasted but Mammon did not eat. She retired to the captain’s cabin which Boaz had vacated for her and did not mingle.

“For the best,” muttered Ezra, and Ansel was inclined to agree, despite Mammon being the first woman he had clapped eyes on for the better part of six months.

That night Ansel lay in his hammock in the cramped quarters below with a full stomach. He dreamed of the baker’s daughter who had once let him kiss her behind her father’s shop in Stone haven. He slept well and woke with a smile on his face.

The next few days the fleet made good time. The wind pushed them along at a mighty clip. With the hope of cavorite ahead, food and water aplenty, the crew were in high spirits. The powder boys sang as they mopped the decks, and there was a general air of excitement. Even Ezra momentarily lost his scowl although he didn’t go so far as to grin.

The good mood lasted for three full days, until a monster destroyed the Unsparing in the morning twilight.

There was no warning. The dawn stained the horizon. The serenity was interrupted only by the snap of canvas and the low hiss of burning runes. A moment later the sand beneath them exploded. The desert rumbled and shook, earthquakes rippling out to topple the dunes. A giant worm burst out of the sands, spraying debris. Not a worm, Ansel realised, through the fog of his fear – some sort of centipede. It was longer than the largest ship, its carapace flecked with silver, its eyes luminous blue and wicked.

“Man the cannons!” screamed Boaz. “Light the high runes!”

Ansel rushed to set fire to his match. Men came tumbling out of the cabins, wiping sleep from their eyes. Any vestiges of drowsiness were jolted away by the sight before them. A hundred legs, each as big as a tree trunk wriggled in the sand. The creature undulated towards them, moving sickeningly fast. It was flying, Ansel realised in horror.

“If you fire at the Old God you will anger it,” said Mammon. The witch had drifted out of her cabin and was standing at the railing, looking over with casual interest.

“How should we stop it?” screamed Boaz. She shrugged, and pulled a shawl about her bare shoulders, shivering in the chill morning. As if they had all the time in the world. The giant centipede smashed into the hull of the Unsparing, ripping a giant hole in the underbelly of the mighty ship. Several men went spinning into the air. They landed on the sand with dull thumps and lay still.

“Let it have what it wants,” said Mammon. “Iron will anger it. It is not wise to anger a God.”

Boaz stared at her. The guns from the Albatross and the Warspite roared in the twilight.

“Fire!” he shouted.

Ansel covered his ears as they boomed. The Sky Lion rocked with the reverb. Chunks flew. The monster reared with a shrill, ear-splitting shriek of pain and crashed back into the desert, showing them with sand. A nauseating stench of rotting flesh permeated the breeze. Its tail end whipped around and crushed the bow of the Albatross, as if the ship was made of eggshell. The monster turned in on itself, taking once more to the air, its gleaming oil covered body coiling and twisting. It was so fast. It moved faster than the ships, Ansel realised with sinking heart.

Before they could reload the Unsparing was stomped into the sand by a hundred thrashing legs. The piteous cries of dying men drifted on the breeze, and the sand turned crimson.

“Fire!” screamed Boaz, tears streaming down his face. Once more the cannons roared. Several balls lodged into the thick, oozing body and the giant centipede writhed in agony, its limbs lashing out wildly.

“Mange, get us out of here!”

The helmsman twisted the wheel and the boom went swinging, nearly braining the men on the deck. Ansel grabbed the railing, as the Sky Lion tilted madly. The manoeuvre worked, taking them out of range of the centipede’s death throes. The Albatross was not so lucky. The mid-sized ship went down in a tangle of tortured wood and burning sail cloth.

The giant centipede smashed it as it rolled around, the remaining ships firing cannon shot after cannon shot into its heaving sides.

At last, the beast lay still in the wreckage and the desert was quiet once more.