109

(Ezra)

An Unexpected Party

“Perhaps this place is cursed,” said Lothor, staring around at the mountains and the sea. In the distance a giant squid surged out of the water, chasing some unlucky prey. It landed with a mammoth crash, the spray flying high. The assembled men resolutely turned their backs on the water, moving to survey the wreckage caused by the dragon’s wrath instead.

“It is unholy, certainly,” said Oskar.

“There is a blight on the land,” said Ezra, and the others nodded in agreement. “We need to find its source, and wipe it clean.”

“We found another native settlement,” said Captain Reuben, who had just returned from an expedition with the crew of the Lazy Magpie. “A small one. We did our share of wiping.” He laughed coarsely, and some of the inquisitors joined in.

At the back of his ruined workshop, Ezra saw Ansel’s shoulders tighten. His friend was picking through the debris, trying to salvage what he could from his broken projects. Ezra still couldn’t believe the dragon had actually been in there, disguised as a man, and talking to Ansel. His friend was lucky to be alive. His stomach tightened at the thought of how close Ansel had come to unwitting death. But perhaps they were all just a knife edge away from dying at any given moment. Ezra’s eyes slid to Mammon and Boaz who were threading their way through the wreckage toward the group.

Ezra had offered to help Ansel clear up but had been rudely rebuffed. His friend was in the throes of some foul mood, quite the contrast from his usual jovial self. The difference stung. Ezra glowered at Ansel’s back. He was also fairly sure that his friend was listening to their conversation. Not that he blamed Ansel. Ezra would want to know what was being said if he was not present, even if the pox-addled old men were mostly just tiresome fools.

While he was watching Ansel pretending not to listen, Mammon and Boaz arrived.

“Gentlemen,” said Boaz, by way of greeting. His eyes, as always, were glazed, his doublet food-spotted and his breath foul. Mammon swayed at his side, gripping his arm in an attempt to steady herself.

Lothor acknowledged them with a stiff nod, and the atmosphere turned icy. Ezra moved away, trying not to make his movements too obvious. The demons made him feel ill. Mammon’s was large - looming and indistinct. A constantly shifting creature seemingly made of darkness and malice, shadows shifting around her as she walked. Only its face was clear, eyes following Ezra as if it knew; a demonic smirk phasing in and out of existence. Boaz’s newly acquired demon was small and imp-like. Squat like a spider, the equally shadowy being rode on his shoulder. Far too many spindly legs extending from the bloat of its dark, rippling body, its eyes small and pig-like.

The demons were a constant, sickening reminder that discussion was futile. Attacks from external forces was a moot point when they had already invited evil into the very heart of their new base. Invited it and made them welcome.

Ezra did his best to stay calm, but the constant tension was setting him on edge. His hand caressed the flint in his pocket. Hard and unyielding. It was a bad habit he had picked up, a nervous tick, but it brought him comfort to know cleansing fire was close at hand, whether he would need to use it on himself or before he had the chance to use it on others was yet to be seen.

“We are discussing the natives,” said Captain Joris, his voice disapproving.

Ezra scowled. None of them ever did anything. When Mammon and Boaz were absent there was talk of mutiny, of rebellion, of right and of wrong. Plots were hatched, schemes were laid, but somehow never brought to fruition. When the couple were present it was all whispers and disapproving looks. Someone should drive a blade into the witch’s heart and set her corpse on fire, but Ezra knew why they didn’t do it. It was the same reason Ezra didn’t do it. That pale worm of fear that coiled shamefully around his intestines, bloated and stinking, eating away at his certainty. Paralysing him. His eyes flickered once more to Mammon’s demon. It smiled and whispered something in Mammon’s ear. He pulled his eyes away with some difficulty.

“The creature was barely slowed by the bullets,” Joris was saying. The dragon. Ezra shifted uneasily, reaching fingers out to touch his arquebus at his side, and then retracting them. Around him everyone’s faces mirrored his concern. The hollow men were abhorrent but at least they were easily killed with lead or steel, and seemed brainless. The dragon was a different level of trouble.

“How can we fight such a monster?” said Oskar. He lowered his voice, leaning forward conspiratorially. “The men are scared. Just as things were beginning to look up as well.”

“Beheading,” said Mammon, and her lips peeled back from her teeth as she said it, as though she found the thought delightful. “Beheading should do the trick. Strike the head from the ugly beast’s shoulders and it will trouble us no more.”

“Easy,” said Reuben, a little weakly. “So that’s all. Shouldn’t be a problem at all. Next time there’s a dragon we will just chop its head off.”

“Why did you not warn us of such a menace?” Lothor demanded, roughly. He rounded on Mammon, grabbing her arm. Her demon flared behind her and she hissed, her eyes flashing vivid blue. She looked down at Lothor’s fingers, and he snatched them back. “Apologies, lady.”

“I did not warn you because I did not know,” said Mammon, tossing the white blonde of her hair. Ezra was struck suddenly by how young she appeared. He had never really thought of her as a person, but her tone was so petulant, and she sounded so like one of his sisters, the siblings he had left far behind in another life. The thought unnerved him. She couldn’t have been older than twenty, after all, and he looked at Boaz with fresh disgust. Then he blinked away his idiocy. Even children could be corrupted, and Mammon was far from a child. “I have never seen such a Revenant before. They exist only in legend.”

“Where there is one there are bound to be more,” said Lothor. “We need to be prepared.”

“Harpoons,” suggested Ezra, and the others nodded. He had spent restless nights thinking of ways to kill dragons.

“We should add them to the ships,” said Oskar.

“We need more cannons,” said Lothor, thoughtfully. “More cannons, well placed. Manoeuvrability is an issue though…”

“You mentioned kin, my lady?” said Reuben, his tone subservient and Lothor frowned at him. While the inquisitors agreed, at least privately, that the addition of more savages to their expedition was a bad idea, but the captains argued they were a tool, like any other. To be used. The semblance of unity was beginning to fray.

“If I call on the Loryow King,” said Mammon, “he will send me warriors. And make no mistake, a creature like this has not been seen on these shores for hundreds of years. This is an inauspicious omen. King Vine will want to know. The Ancestors must be consulted and we should deal with the dragon as quickly as possible.”

She laughed then, throwing back her head. The noise she made was not a happy sound, but the discordant tinkle of insanity. She stopped as suddenly as she started, her chin dropping down. “There is no indication the beast is aligned with the natives,” she said, in normal tones. “It might just be a feral thing without thought or allegiance, feeding its need for destruction.”

“Time will tell,” said Oskar, his face sombre.

“A ship,” said Boaz, startling everyone. He hadn’t spoken so far, seemingly lost in a reverie of his own, his eyes watching the sky for stars that weren’t there. His head bobbed up and down several times, but only Ezra could see the way the demon tugged on his hair, riding him like a puppeteer. “To fetch your kin, my dear.”

“Yes,” she replied. “A ship for reinforcements. I’m sure King Vine can be persuaded to part with a company or two.”

“You are going with them?” blurted Ezra. She nodded.

“How else will you find the People of the Moon?” she asked, a quizzical smile on her lips.

“And how long will it take?” demanded Lothor. “We met you on the shores of the desert many miles from here.”

Mammon shrugged. “Less than two weeks,” she said, “there and back. Our Ancestors told us to meet you there, it is not the location of our city. We will need enough cavorite to fly high, if we are to avoid the Old Gods of the sands.”

“Well, we have the cavorite,” murmured Reuben, into the uneasy silence.

“Aye,” said Lothor.

There was half-hearted assent and then the group dispersed.

A few days later the Bright Terror set out laden to the gills with cavorite, and an unwilling crew, most of whom had to be forcibly “volunteered” to sail with Mammon. Their purpose was dual. To source and extract sulphur from the desert hot springs, and to accompany the witch. For those left at the camp, the relief was palpable, despite the worry that the dragon, or an equally dangerous beast might attack at any moment.

Building continued, and work on the star-fort progressed at a satisfactory pace. Ezra kept himself busy riding out on the airships, and badgering the already busy blacksmiths about harpoons and cannons.

Two weeks later the Bright Terror returned, laden with a welcome supply of sulphur but without any additional men.

“They come,” said Mammon, her lips tight, as she swept off the gangplank. “We should prepare appropriate accommodation. They will not tolerate the sun.”

“I thought they would travel with you?” demanded Lothor. Whether the old man was pleased or dissatisfied was anyone’s guess. Ezra certainly couldn’t tell.

“My people need to consult the augurs,” said Mammon. “The appearance of a dragon in this land has unsettled my people greatly. You have to understand. This is a figure out of legend, a great enemy returned once more.”

She swept away with a flip of her skirts.

“I understand very little,” said Lothor, to her retreating back.

“That is because this is no longer our expedition,” said Ezra. “It is hers.”

Lothor shot him an angry look, opening his mouth to retort. Then he thought better of it and walked away, his shoulders set.

“Careful, lad,” said Oskar. “We have enough enemies without fighting amongst ourselves.”

“The truth should never be our enemy,” said Ezra, and some of the other inquisitors nodded, to his surprise. Perhaps they were finally coming around to his way of thinking. Ezra strode off, his head full of all the changes he would make if the fools saw sense and followed his lead. An event likely to occur shortly after they were all dead.

Muttering to himself he wandered among the freshly repaired buildings, hoping the fresh wind blowing off the bay would clear his head. To his abject annoyance his feet took him, unthinking, to Ansel’s workshop.

He stood in the doorway waiting for Ansel to notice him. His friend was intent on some or other complicated project and jumped guiltily, when Ezra coughed. Ansel waved a vague hand in greeting and carrying on fiddling with the paint and wood model before him.

Ezra made polite conversation, feigning interest in the various scribbles and the incomprehensible models, in a vain attempt to engage his friend in conversation. After receiving his fifth monosyllabic response he gave up. Clambering to his feet, he threw a piece of rune-enforced wood onto the table with more force than was strictly necessary as he prepared to leave.

“Careful with that!” said Ansel, scooping up the wood and cradling it like a precious child. He scowled as he checked for damage.

“What is the matter with you?” demanded Ezra, the tips of his ears growing red.

“What?”

“I said, what is wrong with you? Are you deaf now as well as stupid?”

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?”

The two men glared at each other.

“You’ve been acting strangely ever since-”

One of the powder boys who had been napping under the table, rolled out, shot a terrified glance at Ezra, and slunk away, disappearing into the camp. This only incensed Ezra further.

“Ever since the massacre?” said Ansel, quietly.

“I never pegged you for a coward,” said Ezra, his ears humming. There was silence.

Ansel leaned into Ezra’s face, his fingers digging against the hard wood.

“I am not a coward,” he said, his voice very soft. “Now please. Leave my workshop.”

Ezra flushed, his cheeks turning an angry red. He opened his mouth to retort.

“I said, get out.”

“Ansel!” screamed Kip, from beyond the door.

Ansel grabbed his gun and sprinted, without looking back.

Ezra swore.

After a second’s hesitation he ran after him. Was it the dragon? Mammon? Something worse? What could be worse? His mind reeling with possibilities he followed on Ansel’s heels dashing through the buildings and up the slope of the mountain toward the ruined native settlement. Shouts and cries of alarm filled the air as the two men, differences momentarily forgotten, sprinted toward the source of the disturbance.

A crowd was gathering on the windswept mountain slope. It was not a dragon. It was a group of savages, six of them. One of them waving a white flag held on a pole.

“What on earth,” said Ansel, shouldering his gun, as they skidded to a halt.

“Where did they come from?” said Ezra. Ansel shrugged, but didn’t reply, eyes intent on the people before them. The savages were indeed a curious party.

They were led by a tall woman whose skin was as moon-pale as Mammon. Were they the same race? Perhaps, but there the similarities stopped. Where Mammon was wild, with long flowing hair, sloppy clothing, and a careless manner, this woman was all control. Everything about her was as neat as a pin. Despite her obvious femininity, she exuded a military air and her dark hair was cropped close to her scalp. She led behind her a group of nervous looking men, and for some reason one small teenage girl. The girl had a cloth binding her eyes, but was otherwise unremarkable. None of them were visibly armed.

Why were they here? How had they reached this far inside the camp without the watch giving the alarm? Was it retribution for the native massacre? But there were only six of them. How much damage could six people, one of them practically a child, actually do? Ezra’s heart beat in his chest, sweat pricking his brow. Was this a distraction?

“Maybe they want to talk,” murmured Ansel, beside him.

The visitors were soon surrounded, a barricade of lances and guns pointed in their direction. They stood in the centre, one of the men waving that stupid white flag. The leader was calm and contained, but the gathering crowd of Lochlanach was nervous, and the savages behind her equally so. All it would take was one wrong move, the atmosphere was a pebble toss from violence. Lothor was nowhere in sight and no one seemed to know what to do.

Ezra started to push his way forward, but then the crowd parted to allow Mammon and Boaz passage.

“Ho, ho, ho,” declared Boaz, sweeping past, elbowing people out of the way. Ezra could smell the alcohol on his breath. “What have we here?”

Boaz’ hair, Ezra noted, was now nearly as pale as Mammon’s - shot through with wild, white streaks, his eyes the same crystalline blue. No wonder the savages feared the blue-eyed. Mammon’s hair was a voluminous mist behind her, and she tripped as she walked. The witch had daubed blue paint on her eyelids and she was grinning like a shark. Ezra had never seen her so animated, and his gut twisted. A happy Mammon surely spelled disaster for someone.

“It looks like they have come to parley,” said Ezra.

He was ignored.

Mammon swayed up to the leader of the savages and let loose a tirade in the jumbled language the natives spoke. The woman listened politely, her head tilted to one side. Her manner was quite at odds with the drunken shambling of the younger woman. Mammon waved her hands as she spoke, gesturing expansively, her tone by turn aggressive, jeering, mocking. What was she saying? Behind the leader the other savages watched Mammon with facial expressions ranging from the incredulous, to shock and fear. The leader, however, was all diplomatic calm. Ironically this seemed to goad Mammon further, and she rattled on, talking fast and angrily. When she paused for breath the leader interjected a brief sentence.

Whatever she said was met with condescension, and more nonsense. Ezra could not help but be impressed, but perhaps his utter disdain for Mammon overrode his common sense. One savage was much the same as another. This view was confirmed when he spotted the demon lurking at the leader’s shoulder. The shadows were harder to see in the bright sunlight, but there could be no mistake. Ezra hissed through his teeth, and felt Ansel shift beside him.

Meanwhile Mammon gestured at the ruins of the native settlement above them. The leader’s face betrayed no emotion, but the rest of the savage’s faces darkened in anger. The young girl was biting anxiously on her lip. Mammon jabbered on, waving her arms and laughing until Boaz got tired of being ignored.

“What do they want?” he asked Mammon, roughly. “Why are they here?”

Mammon turned to him, startled, and Ezra wondered for a moment if she had forgotten anyone else was there.

“No reason,” said Mammon, and she laughed that mad, tinkling laugh that made Ezra want to punch her in the stomach. The savage leader spoke again, her voice low and patient.

“Have they come to sell us cavorite?” Boaz asked, blearily. “Or to lead us to another vein? When the other ships come we will need more. If our nation is to expand…”

Another frustrating conversation took place, of which the Lochlanach had no part. This time it ended with Mammon drawing out her obsidian blade. Ezra blanched, willing his legs still. The last time he had seen that black blade it had been covered with Otto’s blood, on the decks of the Sky Lion.

Mammon showed the blade to the leader with a smile, then turned to Boaz.

“I’ve remembered something,” she said, brightly. “We need to take these people up to the ruin.”

“What? Why?”

“Now,” Mammon barked. She walked forward so that the leader had to reverse or risk being stabbed in the stomach. They leapt backwards, as Mammon shouted at them in their own language. “Move!” she said in Lochlanach. The savages were herded up the slope, Mammon jeering everyone on with her wicked blade. The leader was doing something with her hands. Ezra kept catching a gleam of light but it was hard to see in the bright sunlight.

“What is happening?” murmured Ansel. Ezra shrugged.

“This is Mammon’s party.”

“No,” said Ansel, frowning. “No! What’s that smell?”

“What?” Ezra looked at him in confusion, then the acrid scent of burning tickled his own nose. A shout went up behind them.

“The Warspite!” someone was yelling. “The Warspite is on fire!”

There was pandemonium.

Ezra turned to see great boiling clouds of acrid smoke pouring off the deck of the largest airship, anchored just below. He whipped his head back in suspicion, just in time to see one of the savages drop something. A smoke bomb. A great cloud billowed out from his feet, enveloping everyone in thick shadows turning noon to instant twilight. People coughed and shoved. Cries of alarm rang out, and the sound of running feet as people ran in all directions. Mammon was screaming orders but her voice was lost in the din.

Ezra’s eyes narrowed. He turned and ran up the slope, stumbling through the dark of the smoke cloud. The savages would make for the circular moongate in the centre of the ruin. It was a gate. How else could they have snuck into the camp? Perhaps he could head them off. Ezra burst out of the smoke hot on the heels of the fleeing savages, or at least he was until he collided with Ansel.

“Come on!” he said, urgently. “I bet they are heading for the gate.”

“I thought I saw someone go this way,” Ansel said.

“You go that way,” said Ezra, “I’m going to wait by the gate in case they try to use it.”

They ran in opposite directions.

Down below the Warspite was belching smoke, and people were rushing to try and extinguish the flames. The smoke cloud was floating like an amorphous blob on the hillside, pushed by the wind, and men were running too and fro. It was hard, from up there, to discern savage from Lochlanach.

Ezra planted himself next to the moongate and set up his arquebus with a grim expression. His hunch paid off moments later. Two of the savages approached the gate, surrounded by a luminescent haze. Magic, he realised with distaste. They were radiant with the stuff. The image swam in his vision, one moment two airmen walked towards, the next two savages - a man and a girl. He blinked the vision away, breathing deeply to steady his hands. Quickly, he primed his gun, lining his sights. Ezra aimed for the larger savage, the bigger threat, and pulled the trigger. There was no way he could miss at this range.

The shot was true, but the savage flung up his hand with a grunt. The bullet just… fell to the ground with a dull thunk, as if pushed by a mighty wind. An impossibility. All three of them stared at it.

Ezra’s flesh crawled, but then he remembered himself and drew his sword. The savages might be unnatural but they bled like any other human, he knew that for a fact. He bared his teeth at the brute. Instead of being intimidated the man leapt at him, sweeping his legs out from under him in one fluid movement. Ezra went down with a cry of surprise, and the two savages dashed past him. They ran for the wall that marked the boundary of the native settlement, scrambled over it and disappeared from sight.

Ezra picked himself up, cursing. Boaz and some others thundered up the path, arriving in a throng of clanking armour and smoking weaponry.

“Where did they go?” screamed Boaz, as if losing them was a personal affront. Ezra pointed to the wall, and they dropped over it, following the savages down the steep gully beyond. He heard the pop and bang of shots being fired a few moments later.

If those were only two of the savages, where were the other four?

Ezra turned on the spot. Should he wait next to the infernal gate or go looking? He felt a lick of moisture on his cheek and looked up. Clouds were rolling down the great slopes of the mountain, flowing in a vast waterfall of tumbling air, bringing with it an all-enveloping fog. How convenient. Ezra let out a disgusted breath as the foul taint of witchcraft swirled around him. The air turned to a sickly haze as he breathed shallow breaths, trying not to let the evil into his lungs.

His head spinning, he leaned onto the gate. The structure was solid at his back, anchoring him to the ground as the mists swirled.

“Ansel?” he called, but there was no answer. Was he alone? Everything was muffled. No, he could hear voices below. The mist was playing tricks with his mind, no doubt as the savages intended. He had just made up his mind to stay at the gate when he felt something – a surge of power, originating in the west. It was nothing like he had ever felt before. More magic, no doubt. The sensation left him disorientated and queasy, akin to jumping into a frigid pond with an empty stomach. Shouldering his arquebus, Ezra swallowed down his dread and ran.

He followed his fear through the ruins of the village, over the dry wall that marked the western boundary, and down the gentle slope beyond. Sound travelled strangely in the fog. He could hear voices and shouts echoing up ahead, and then, just as he reached the thinning edge of the mist he tripped over a body. At least he thought it was a body, until it grabbed him roughly by the arm and pulled him onto the ground.

“Ansel,” he said, in surprise. His friend and several others were lying flat on their stomachs, angling their guns forward.

“Shhh,” said someone.

“Look!” said Ansel. Ezra looked.

Mammon and the savage leader were standing in the tall grass. It was as if they were part of their own private world. These two, Ezra realised, had a history. The very air hummed with tension. It was thick with that gritty, metallic tang he had come to associate with magic. The mountainside was positively vibrating. He tugged at Ansel.

“What?” his stupid friend said looking surprised.

“We shouldn’t be here,” said Ezra, shame pouring down his gullet in a hot wave. Every bone in his body was telling him to run. Someone was about to die, probably in a horrible, brutal manner and he did not want to watch. He did not want to be near Mammon when she gave into her blood-lust. They had already seen her eat the heart of a man, what would she do to someone she hated? As he spoke a volley of shots were fired from the men in the grass. A full score or so bullets speeding towards the couple. No one seemed to care if they hit Mammon, and for a moment Ezra breathed in a sigh of relief. There was no way the savage woman would be able to stop the approaching death volley.

But she did.

With a swipe of her hand, the projectiles were pushed sideways, as if by an invisible force. The lead bullets dropped harmlessly to the ground.

“What is she?” he heard Ansel mutter. And he had to agree. Whatever these people were, they weren’t human, that much was clear. The urge to watch was almost a compulsion.

Mammon attacked the woman, moving inhumanely fast. Her hair spiralling out behind her, as she struck like a snake, sending the woman reeling. The savage leader recovered her balance, lifting up a fist to wipe away the smear of blood from her lip. She smiled, meeting Mammon’s eyes, and then the calm shattered.

She moved. Mammon’s laughter was cut off by a gurgle. The blur of motion too fast to follow, and then the woman was at rest again, her weaponless hands balled into fists at her sides. Ezra blinked. What had happened?

Then it became clear in vivid, crimson detail as Mammon’s head toppled slowly from her shoulders, sliding sideways in a thick red stain. It landed on the ground with a wet thump, her body following shortly afterward.

The savage woman stood in the long grass, the wind whipping at her hair as she studied the remains of Mammon.

“Run,” said Ezra, quietly, putting his hand on Ansel’s back.

Behind them the woman turned, her short, dark hair suddenly as white as snow, her previously dark eyes flashing vivid blue. Her demon reared up at her back.

“What?”

“Run!”