They got underway around midday, Steelfine’s shouted order to unfurl the sails easily carrying the length of the ship. In response the men in the rigging undid the bindings and the sails fell free to billow in the stiff breeze blowing from the south-west. “Won’t be able to keep true north at this gauge, Skipper,” Scrimshine warned, steadying the Dreadfire’s massive wheel with practised ease.
“As long as you keep us pointing away from the south and clear of any bergs I shall be well satisfied, Mr. Scrimshine.” Hilemore’s gaze tracked over the sails. The breeze was sufficient to put them in motion but he doubted the Dreadfire would manage more than two knots with such meagre canvas aloft.
“Could throw all unnecessaries overboard, sir,” Scrimshine suggested, reading Hilemore’s expression. “Lighten the load. That blasted cotton stuff would do for a start.”
“I’d sooner throw you over the side,” Hilemore told him with a brisk smile before moving to where Steelfine tended to an eight-pounder gun on the starboard mid-deck. “Reckoned it out then, Number One?”
“Not a lot to reckon, sir,” the Islander replied. He used a small penknife to scrape frost from the weapon’s touch-hole then leaned down to blow the powder away. “Pack in a measure of gun-cotton, ram the shot home on top of it, fill the touch-hole with powder then set it off. It’ll go bang for certain, just not sure what state the gun will be in afterwards. So many years in the freezing air can’t have been good for the metal.”
“We’ll undertake a test-fire when she’s ready, use only a small amount of propellant.”
“Aye, sir.” Steelfine glanced up at the partially rigged masts above, lowering his voice, “Permission to speak in candid terms, sir?”
“Of course, Number One.”
“Barring a miracle we’re more likely to starve before we see another Blue. At this speed we’ll need three weeks to reach open water, and we only have food enough for one.”
“I saw food barrels in the hold.”
Steelfine nodded. “Corn meal and salt-beef. But after so many years I find it hard to credit it could still be edible.”
Hilemore made a show of inspecting the cannon’s wheeled carriage for the benefit of any men who might be watching. “As far as the crew are concerned,” he said. “It’s all edible thanks to the miraculous preserving properties of the polar climate. But we’ll stick to our own supplies for now. Might as well use it up, eh?”
“Very good, sir.”
? ? ?
After two days’ sailing Hilemore estimated they had moved a little under ten miles in a generally northern direction. Only five miles south of where we found the spire, he mused, studying the chart he had kept since starting this voyage. In addition to the lack of sail and anaemic winds, progress was further slowed by the need for Scrimshine to navigate around the bergs drifting continually into their path. The ice, fragmented by the mysterious forces that had warmed the region’s waters, was an unpredictable foe. The air was often riven by the thunderous sound of bergs colliding or collapsing under their own weight and more than once Scrimshine was obliged to spin the wheel into a blur to counter the effect of the resultant waves.
“Report from the crow’s nest, sir,” Steelfine’s voice called from beyond the cabin door. Hilemore went out onto the deck, looking up to see Braddon Torcreek pointing to the north. The Contractor captain had been an almost entirely silent presence since they found the Dreadfire, the grief etched deep into the lines around his increasingly hollow gaze. Consequently Hilemore felt a certain guilty relief when the man joined Preacher in the nest on the first day, opting to remain aloft ever since.
Hilemore strained to hear Braddon’s shouted report, grimacing in frustration at the vagueness of it, “Think you’d best see this yourself, Captain.” He went to the mainmast and began the arduous journey up the rigging to the crow’s nest, a task he hadn’t been obliged to undertake since his days as a junior lieutenant. Diminished rations had left him in a poor state for such exertions and he found himself concealing an embarrassing wheeze as he hauled himself into the nest.
“A few points west of due north,” Braddon said, handing him a spy-glass and pointing towards the horizon. Hilemore found it quickly, his heart leaping at the sight of what first appeared to be the tell-tale plume of smoke rising from the stack of a ship. This delusion was quickly dispelled, however, when he gauged the size of the ascending column and its overly dark colour. It rose from a position just within the curve of the horizon and he didn’t need his chart to discern the source.
“Mount Reygnar,” Hilemore said. “Come back to life. Which would explain a great deal.” He lowered the glass, taking in the sight of the fractured ice-shelf surrounding the smoking mountain. The sea was clear at the peak’s base, forming a wide circular lake free of bergs. Tracing southwards in a zigzag course, a comparatively clear channel wound its way to the Dreadfire’s current position. “There must be a fissure running along the sea-bed,” he mused aloud. “The mountain is but a part of it. Beneath us a great deal of molten rock is leaking through the earth’s crust.”
“Seems awful coincidental it would start leaking so when it did,” Braddon said. Hilemore took some gratification from the slight animation to the man’s voice, a sign that perhaps he might not succumb completely to grief after all. “Clay . . .” Braddon faltered for a moment, then swallowed and carried on. “Clay said the city he found beneath that mountain in the Coppersoles was built atop a lake of molten rock. If the same folks built the spire, could be it was connected to this fissure in some way.”
“It could,” Hilemore conceded, once again experiencing the uncomfortable sensation of being dwarfed by the enigma of their discoveries. “In any case, at least we know the way ahead is clear, perhaps all the way to the Chokes.”
“Where your lady-love will be waiting with the Superior.”
“Captain Okanas is not my lady-love.” Hilemore’s tone was curt and he bridled a little until he saw the faint glimmer of humour in Braddon’s eye. Hilemore coughed and raised the spy-glass once more. “I shall need to sketch this,” he said. “Plot a more efficient course.”
“So we don’t starve to death in the meantime, you mean?”
“We have provisions in the hold . . .”