Something landed on the deck in front of Clay: an open wallet containing two vials of product. Clay looked up to find Hilemore regarding him with a hard, commanding glare. “Hurry up!” he snapped, nodding at the wallet.
Clay fumbled for the vials, finding that his fingers lacked the strength to remove the stoppers. With a curse, Hilemore crouched to help him, thumbing the stoppers away and jamming both vials none-too-gently into Clay’s mouth. The combined product, full doses of Green and Black, burned on his tongue before making a fiery progress down his throat. The effect was immediate, the Green banishing his weakness in an instant. He sprang to his feet, seeing the Blue’s head was now shuddering as the Varestian woman’s Black faded, flame seeping through its teeth as its jaw began to widen.
Hilemore moved away, barking orders as Clay focused his gaze on the Blue, its jaw clamping shut once more as he summoned the Black. A loud thud sounded from the starboard side as the beast’s body thrashed against the hull. Clay could feel its strength, vastly more powerful than any man he had ever frozen, forcing him to drain product at an accelerated rate.
“If you’ve got a mind to do something,” he told Hilemore through clenched teeth, sweat bathing his skin as the Green thinned in his veins, “it better be soon!”
He heard Hilemore shout some more orders before his voice was drowned by the booming roar of a cannon. Clay felt a hard rush of air as the shell whooshed by less than two feet to his left, quickly followed by a thick cloud of smoke. The last of the product faded as the smoke cleared, leaving him collapsed on the deck once more and staring up at the curious sight of a headless Blue. Blood geysered from the ragged stump of its neck as the body continued to coil and thrash, Clay hearing a scream as a jet of undiluted product found an unfortunate crewman. The drake’s writhing corpse slithered along the Superior’s side before coming to rest on the aft deck, still coiling as its blood left a red stain in the ship’s wake.
“All stop!”
Clay turned to see Hilemore standing alongside one of the starboard cannon, smoke streaming from its muzzle. The gun appeared to have been hastily drawn back and aimed by Steelfine and Lieutenant Talmant, the Islander providing the required elevation by the simple expedient of wedging himself under the barrel and lifting it with his back.
“Mr. Skaggerhill,” Hilemore called to the harvester, who was crouched at Loriabeth’s side, applying a salve to a small blood-burn on her wrist. “Ever drained a Blue before, perchance?”
? ? ?
Exhaustion had forced Clay back to his bunk, where he slept for several hours, drained by the day’s events. He awoke in late evening, emerging onto the aft deck where Skaggerhill and Scrimshine were at work harvesting the Blue. Apparently the former smuggler was the only other hand aboard with enough experience to assist. The Blue’s headless corpse lay on a bed of oilskins, a huge, grisly red-blue crescent. Skaggerhill’s usual method of tapping the jugular was of little use here since the cannon shot had already rent the vessel open, denuding the body of at least half its remaining blood. The harvester had let the corpse settle for a while then made a series of deep incisions where it bulged the most, capturing the outrushing product in steel buckets provided by Chief Bozware. Meanwhile, Scrimshine was hard at work retrieving the valuable organs.
“Best hold your nose, now,” he said, voice muffled behind the welder’s mask he wore and, like Skaggerhill, clad head to toe in thick leather. “This is where we find out what the bugger had for dinner.” With that he sank a broad-bladed knife into the lower section of the drake’s belly and sliced deep and long. The resultant stench had Clay gagging even though he sat on a crate a good fifteen feet away. Scrimshine stood back as a steaming collection of guts spilled out onto the deck, then took a moment to poke through it with his steel-shod boots, commenting, “Seems we weren’t the first ship he happened across in recent days.”
He kicked something free from the mound of guts, something pale and round that rolled to a stop at Clay’s feet. The skull had been mostly denuded of flesh but one of the eyes remained. The blank, milky-white orb stared up at him provoking an unpleasant memory; another dislocated head once gifted to him in a bag.
“Have some Seer-damn respect,” Skaggerhill growled at Scrimshine from behind his mask, receiving only a shrug in response.
The sailor turned to rummage through the drake’s abdomen, prising the lips of the cut apart and reaching inside, muttering, “Let’s be having yer bile duct then, y’bastard.”
“Is it him?” Clay asked. “Is it Last Look Jack?”
“King of the Deep’s arse it is,” Scrimshine replied, still rummaging. “This is a tiddler, lad. If old Last Look’d found this tub it’d be him harvesting us.”
Clay watched Skaggerhill apply a hand to the Blue’s hide next to the final incision he had made, squirting a few more drops into his bucket. “Well, that’s about all the easy money we’ll make,” he said, standing back. “Have to render him down to the bone to get full value and we ain’t got the gear for that.”
“Folk at Kraghurst’ll take what’s left,” Scrimshine said, emerging from the body holding a dark object roughly the size and shape of an apple, which he plopped into a large pickle jar. “Even a rotted Blue’s got value.”
“What about the heart?” Clay asked.
Skaggerhill turned to him, moving clear of the pooling blood and pushing his mask back from his face. “What about it?” he asked with a cautious frown.
“Can you get to it?”
“I guess so. Take a while to saw through his ribs though.” The harvester’s gaze narrowed further. “Why d’you ask, young ’un?”
Clay levered himself off the crate and started back to his cabin. “Just curious,” he said.
? ? ?
That, Lizanne told him, her whirlwinds twisting a little in agitation, is a very bad idea.
Miss Ethelynne told me she drank the stuff twice, he pointed out. And she was fine.
You aren’t her. Heart-blood is a highly unpredictable and barely understood substance. Plasmologists have been attempting to refine it into a usable state for decades, enjoying a singular lack of success. I urge you, Mr. Torcreek, to put such notions aside and concentrate on the task ahead.
As you wish. He hoped his insincerity didn’t show in his mindscape. Although he had become ever more adept in controlling it, he knew he lacked her expertise when it came to fully concealing his thoughts. This time, however, it seemed his growing abilities paid off, for her whirlwinds settled into their usual contained orderliness.
Your position? she asked.
Three days north of the Chokes. Captain’s stopped burning Red on account of the bergs. Must say I ain’t liking the climate much. I knew it’d be cold but this is hard to take.
I’m sure it’ll be harder still when you reach the Shelf. Best keep some Red handy for emergencies.
Surely. Where you at now?
Halfway to Scorazin. He saw her whirlwinds darken again at the prospect ahead and found it unnerving; fear was usually absent from these trances.