By Fire Above_A Signal Airship Novel Read online

  “Still am, I flatter myself to think.”

  “With a nice wardrobe and a half-decent wig, you could have gone to a university somewhere.”

  Josette ran fingers through her unruly hair, frowning when they caught in a tangle near the back. “A realistic plan, except for the prickly fact that Garnian universities don’t take women.”

  “I know that! I meant studying abroad! Somewhere like…” She was silent for an unusual length of time, considering all the years she’d had to think of someplace. “Like Sotra or someplace like that. Someplace civilized.”

  It took everything Josette had to keep herself from picking a hurtful comment from all the candidates that sprang to mind. She was on the brink of failing, when Bernat walked over and provided a blessed interruption. He wrapped her mother up in his arms, and they embraced for such a long time that Josette had a chance to cool off.

  When they released each other, Josette leapt immediately into questioning, in case a lack of employment should tempt them back to distraction. “How’s our honored guest doing?”

  Bernat smiled with pride, and perhaps with other emotions better left unspoken. “I have him convinced of the hopelessness of his regiment’s situation. In his mind, several experienced battalions have joined the 132nd since he was captured, so that now there are thousands of frothing berserkers at the gates of Durum, inspired by a sort of demigod, who refrains from retaking the town single-handedly only out of politeness. All that remains is to work out a way to broach the subject of the magazine without raising his suspicions.”

  “Work it out soon,” Josette said. “The 132nd must attack tomorrow morning, so we must be out of here before dark.”

  “Today? We’re leaving in broad daylight?”

  “Whatever the dangers involved, it’s safer than doing it at night. Going down is easy. Coming back up is a great deal harder. Doing it in the dark would be suicide.”

  Bernat narrowed his eyes. “I’ve noticed that, whenever you dismiss a course of action as being suicidal, we often end up doing it anyway. Half the time you make fun of me for being worried about it, after the fact.”

  Josette narrowed her eyes to match. “Nonsense. I don’t do that. Sergeant Jutes, do I do that? You can answer honestly. You know I won’t hold it against you.”

  Jutes seemed to know no such thing. “I wouldn’t say half the time, sir. Perhaps … ehh … a quarter of the time?”

  “Come on Jutes,” Bernat said. “It’s at least three-eighths.”

  Jutes stood ramrod straight, looked directly ahead of him, and said, “Never was any good at fractions, sir.”

  Josette threw up her arms and heaved a defeated sigh. “Very well. In the future, I’ll try my best not to make fun of you for questioning my riskier plans. Satisfied?”

  Bernat replied with a smile and a little bow.

  “Now get back to work on that Vin.”

  He bowed again, and without a word returned to the table, where the fusilier was probing around inside his mouth with a finger. Once Bernat sat down, and his rear end was finally out of view, Josette’s mother regained her focus and said, “Weather’s clearing up. Should be a lovely day.”

  “Then you should stay nearby,” Josette said. “We’ll want to take advantage of the favorable weather to get out of Durum, as soon as Bernat gets his information and we can put a plan in place.”

  Her mother looked at her for a long time, as that hint of a smile became more and more explicit. “Thank you, Josie,” she said. “Thank you for doing this.”

  Josette, not knowing what else to say, took a step forward and gave her mother a short and rather awkward hug.

  *   *   *

  ABOARD MISTRAL, THE rumor took less than a minute to travel the length of the keel and spread to the entire ship’s company. Canvas hatches were thrown open all along the starboard side, and each had at least one face peering from it.

  Kember was peering, too, out of a large ventilation hatch beside the condenser, with Private Grey on one side and the chief mechanic on the other.

  “Where the hell did it come from?” the chief mechanic asked, as if the thing they were all staring at might have sprung out of thin air.

  “It was there all along,” Kember said, barely keeping hold of her nerves. “It was there all along, hiding in the cloud cover.”

  “How do you know?” Grey asked.

  Kember didn’t look at her. “Gut feeling, I guess.”

  The object of their anxiety was an airship—a chasseur with the very same sardine shape as Mistral, the same four-airscrew configuration, and the same two bref guns on the hurricane deck. A few of the crewmen who hadn’t had a look through a borrowed telescope still insisted that she must be the Levant or Ostro, somehow hurried out of the construction yards in Kuchin, rather than believe the Vins had a ship so indistinguishable from Mistral. And indeed, she might have been Mistral’s twin sister, except for the Vinzhalian winged horse painted on the tail and the name Ayezderhau on the bow.

  She must have had a sharp captain, to escape detection until now—a sharp and patient captain, willing to wait days for the perfect ambush opportunity. She would have still been lying hidden in the clouds even now, if the midday sun hadn’t burned them off in an unexpected change from the usual weather.

  “So how do we support the assault, if we have to fight that thing at the same time?” Grey asked. “And us with a bum steamjack, and bags ready to explode the first time a shell hits us?” It was not, apparently, a rhetorical question. She actually expected Kember to have the answer.

  “I … I don’t know,” she had to admit. “The captain will know. Once we pick up the captain, she’ll work something out. She always has an idea, doesn’t she?”

  That thought gave a boost to morale, at least. Grey nodded, and a sly grin grew on her lips. Chief Megusi nodded, too, though he could not have acquired his confidence in the captain except by secondhand account.

  “What’ll we do until then?” the chief asked.

  “Just circle on opposite sides of the town, I expect. Neither of us wants a fair fight, so we’ll give each other a wide berth.”

  “Until someone sees a chance for an unfair fight,” Grey said.

  “Right. So make damn sure nothing goes wrong with our steamjack. We can’t let them know our condition, or they’d come down on us in an instant.”

  Grey nodded and went to her post.

  Yet it was not Mistral that gave the first sign of engine trouble. A quarter of an hour later, it was the Vin chasseur spouting black smoke from her keel, amidships. Soon it was pouring from the seams of the hatches along her length, and even rising from the top of the envelope at the aft crow’s nest. The Ayezderhau’s hurricane deck grew more crowded, as men left the keel to keep from being suffocated.

  The predatory side came out in most of the crew when they heard about this, or saw it for themselves. Kember felt it as fiercely as any of them, and wondered what was keeping Lieutenant Hanon from coming about and charging for them at full steam.

  It’s what the captain would do, she thought. But as soon as she came to that conclusion, she paused to examine it and found it wanting. No. No, the captain would smell a trap. The captain would question the unlikely and convenient happenstance of the Vin airship suffering such a disaster at just this moment. “Chief,” she said, keeping her eyes on the other ship through the open hatch, “what would a bucket of tar look like, if you tossed it into the firebox and left the inspection hatch open?”

  She turned to see his expression shift from sanguine to anxious. “About like that,” he said.

  No sooner had the implications sunk in than the crewman at the companionway relayed the order, “Steamjack to half power!”

  “Oh, hell,” Kember said. She was on the hurricane deck by the time the order was carried out and the ship coming about.

  “Sir,” she said, close to Hanon’s ear, and just loud enough to be heard, “I think we should remain on station.”
/>   Hanon turned to her, wearing that smug look of his. “Not that I have to explain myself to you, Ensign, but we won’t be gone long. I’ve already signaled the regiment and received permission to give chase, so long as we return by nightfall. A quick aerial kill, which you should count yourself lucky to share in the glory of, and we’ll be back here in a flash.” He looked forward and laughed. “Look at her turn to run! Limping along like that, we’ll be on her before the hour is up.”

  “It’s a ruse, sir. Think about it.”

  Hanon’s smug look turned sour. “Are you suggesting I haven’t, Ensign?”

  “No, sir. Of course not, sir. Only, I don’t think we’ll catch her so easily. It’s only a bunch of harmless smoke, see? It looks bad, but there’s no sign of fire and the airscrews are still turning. What sort of steamjack failure could cause that?”

  “I’m not interested in the mechanical details, and neither should you be.” He turned forward again. “So rig the ship for action. I’m going to make you eat your words, Ensign.”

  *   *   *

  BERNAT BROKE HIS last ginger cake in two, and offered half to Private Zeren Khirklov. The Vinzhalian fusilier accepted readily, and bit into it. “Wish we had these back home,” he said, his words muddled not just by a full mouth, but because he was trying to keep the spicy cake away from the exposed pulp in his cracked teeth.

  “I have another bag aboard the airship,” Bernat said, feigning distraction. “I’ll send you home with it, when this is over tomorrow.”

  Khirklov paused in mid-chew, and spoke with such force it blew gingery crumbs across the table. “Tomorrow?”

  Bernat met his gaze, but still stared through him and into the middle distance. “We attack the breach tomorrow at first light. I expect the whole thing will be over by breakfast.”

  “Won’t be that easy.” Khirklov set down the rest of the cake, and stared hard at Bernat’s unfocused eyes.

  Bernat looked away. “Not easy, no, but it will be quick. I have no doubt that your boys will fight valiantly, that they’ll inflict dreadful casualties on the besiegers, but the besiegers will win. It’s not your fault. It’s only a matter of numbers.”

  Private Khirklov folded his hands on the table, humbled. “And the Shark,” he said with a resignation.

  “And the Shark.” Bernat offered the poor man a wan smile. “Your fellows will fight well, I have no doubt. Honor will be satisfied. But you’ll lose—if not by breakfast, then at least by lunch.” He reached out and patted the fusilier on the hands. “There’s no shame in it. No dishonor. It’s a simple matter of bad luck, and nothing can change it now.”

  Khirklov was silent.

  “What we can change, Zeren, is what happens next—what happens after. That is the moral dilemma that has weighed heavily on my mind. Because, you see, as it stands now, your entire regiment is apt to be turned over to the newly restored authorities in Durum, to stand trial for…” Bernat made a show of searching for the most diplomatic way of putting it. “For what they perceive as crimes against them.”

  “Now hold on,” Private Khirklov began, before Bernat quieted him with another pat on the hand.

  “I know. It’s going to be a sham.” He looked over his shoulder, at the men napping or sitting idle in the basement room. “They’re only out for blood, but they’ll get it. Those of you who aren’t executed outright will go home without teeth, without eyes, and probably without genitals—which will be a damn awkward conversation to have with the wife.”

  Khirklov took his hands from the table and placed them in his lap.

  Bernat gave it some time to sink in, and then continued, “I have an idea that might prevent it, however. They might turn you all over to me and my men, for interrogation, if my methods can provide a few morsels of information…”

  The fusilier’s contemplative expression immediately turned to stone.

  “Nothing sensitive,” Bernat said, holding his hands out in a placating manner. “Nothing that amounts to anything, really. Just a few irrelevancies and confirmation of things we already know, to keep the worst from happening. Such as, you’re from the 64th, right?”

  Khirklov said nothing.

  “I’ll write down that you said yes, for your sake. And there are about five hundred and eighty men remaining in your regiment, right?”

  This time he nodded.

  “See? Nothing we don’t already know. And you fought in the battle for Arle, and at Canard, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Which is of no import to Garnian intelligence, such as it is, but should dazzle them just the same. When your army retreated from Canard, did your regiment participate in the rearguard action?”

  “Yes,” he said, and smiled with pride. “The 64th was at the back of the retreat, ’cause we was at the front of the attack.”

  “How many attacks did you fight off from the rearguard?”

  “Maybe a score.”

  “And what sorts of forces attacked?”

  “Cavalry. Mostly dragoons, I think.”

  Bernat jotted it down, and made a show of comparing it to a separate, already-prepared list, which was actually only a list of sexual positions he’d copied out of a book. “Good, good. And how many battalions were left in Durum, initially?”

  “Just ours.”

  “And how many reinforcements did it receive, between then and now?”

  “A score or so.”

  Bernat looked up and arched an eyebrow, looking across the table more in alarm than anger. “This can only work if you tell the truth, Zeren. If they catch you in a lie, they’ll say my methods are useless, and leave you to the tender mercies of these brutes.” He indicated the men behind him. “Do you really want me to write down that it was only a score or so?” He kept the pencil poised over his sheet, ready to record the damning lie.

  “Might be my memory lapsed for a moment there,” Khirklov said, swallowing. “I think it was closer to a hundred.”

  Bernat let out a sigh of relief. He wrote the figure down, then waggled the pencil in a chiding manner. “You had me worried for a second, Zeren. Now, the night you were captured…” He unfolded a map of Durum, laid it on the table, and handed the pencil over to Khirklov. “What was your patrol route?”

  The fusilier hesitated, until Bernat helpfully turned the southwest corner of the map closest to him, as if he already knew exactly where the route was, and meant to make that area easily accessible. Khirklov nerved himself and traced a roughly square path through the streets.

  While he did, Bernat hardly paid attention, and instead gave the appearance of being absorbed in his own document. Given the nature of that document, this did not require much in the way of acting. When Khirklov was finished tracing, Bernat glanced up briefly, gave a cursory nod, and went back to his reading.

  Only this time, Bernat’s attention to it truly was an act, and what he actually contemplated was the patrol route. The circuit Khirklov had drawn surrounded an area that would be ideal for a powder magazine. The center was far enough from the wall that an accidental detonation wouldn’t damage it, but close enough for efficient transfer of cartridges. But was that the magazine? Or did Khirklov’s route only interlock with others, the lot of them surrounding the magazine only when taken together?

  He called up the image of the map in his mind, so he wouldn’t have to look up again and betray his thoughts. A wide, straight avenue cut through the very middle of Khirklov’s patrol route from east to west, and kept going right across the town. A street that wide could easily accommodate supply wagons coming from the east. Not only that, but a tunnel could have been made to the west by cutting a trench down the center of the avenue and then simply covering it over.

  His gut told him that it was the place, and with time running out, he decided to risk everything on one toss.

  “So, you were just making a simple circuit around the powder magazine, here?” Bernat leaned over the map and pointed vaguely toward the center of the patrol ar
ea, his finger far enough from the map that he could be indicating any number of buildings.

  Khirklov nodded. “Right.”

  “Go ahead and mark it, then, in your own hand. They might recognize mine.”

  Without a second thought, Khirklov circled a building.

  Bernat smiled. “I think that should be enough.” He folded up the map, tucked it into his coat, and reached across the table to shake Khirklov’s hand. “I believe you’ve just saved your entire regiment, Zeren.”

  The private looked down, suppressing his pride. “Thank you, sir,” he said, and the poor bastard really seemed to mean it.

  The gnawing desire to see Zeren suffer, the impulse Bernat had suppressed through the long interrogation, now told him that this was the time to stand up and casually announce that anyone could do as they wished with the Vin bastard. It was so perfect, and would make such a perfect story, that he nearly went through with it despite his better judgement, if only for the sake of showmanship. When would a better time arise? He imagined himself walking triumphantly to Josette, not even looking back while the others closed in around the Vin and pummeled him into a bloody mess. To slap the map into her hand while that went on behind him would truly be a crowning moment.

  “Sir?” the Vinzhalian said.

  Bernat smiled, or rather smiled sincerely, where before it had only been an act. “Thank you, Zeren,” he said, and turned about.

  To hell with it. There would be other people to beat the shit out of. There always were. Besides which, it now seemed that this was a test put before him by some greater force. Perhaps it was a chance to prove he was not beholden to the urges brought by his soldier’s heart, a chance to show that he was their master. And perhaps there would be other tests like this—indeed, the more he thought of it, the more certain he became—and with each one he would prove himself again, until in the end he was afflicted no more.

  As he traversed the room, the others seemed to recognize, despite Bernat’s practice at bluffing, that something had changed, that the interrogation was finished. They rose in anticipation, Corne all but drooling at the prospect of having a go at the Vin.