“Wait.”
Turning back, she saw him fishing in his trouser pocket for something. “This is against regs,” he muttered. “But sod it, I’m retiring in three months.” He held the object out through the bars, Lizanne recognising it as a penknife perhaps four inches long. “Isn’t much of a weapon, I know,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s something. And”—his sympathetic grimace returned for a second—“as there’s only one way out of Scorazin, it may come in handy if you feel in need of an . . . early release.”
Lizanne reached out and took the penknife. She began to voice her thanks once more but he had already begun making his way back down the tunnel, humming his jaunty tune as the lamplight faded, leaving her in darkness.
CHAPTER 14
Hilemore
“Battle stations!” Hilemore barked, Steelfine pulling the steam-whistle’s lanyard before the words had fully escaped his lips. Hilemore tore his gaze away from the sight of the huge spine knifing through the waves and turned to Zenida. “To the engine room please, Captain.” She nodded and ran for the ladder. “Mr. Talmant,” Hilemore went on. “Signal Chief Bozware: full ahead at two vials!”
“Full ahead at two vials, aye, sir!”
Hilemore fixed his gaze on Scrimshine, who stood with his back to the wheel, staring at the view through the bridge’s rear window in bleach-faced, wide-eyed shock. “To your duty, Mr. Scrimshine,” Hilemore ordered in an even voice.
“Can’t . . .” Scrimshine gaped at him. “Can’t go in there at full ahead. It’s suicide.”
“On the contrary.” Hilemore drew his revolver and pressed the muzzle into the centre of Scrimshine’s forehead. “Failing to obey my orders is suicide. Perhaps, if I toss your corpse over the stern, a tasty morsel might slow our friend down a little.”
Scrimshine’s feverish gaze swung from Hilemore to the approaching monster then back again before he turned and set his hands on the wheel. “He’s too fast for us, even at full ahead,” he said.
Hilemore felt the deck shudder as Zenida lit the vials Chief Bozware had added to the blood-burner. Within seconds the needle on the speed indicator ticked past twenty knots and continued to climb. “Allow me to worry about that,” Hilemore said. “Mr. Steelfine!”
“Sir!”
“Muster the riflemen and toss the Blue carcass over the side. Then run up the stern-chasers. Fire as she bears.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Mr. Torcreek.” Hilemore turned to the young Blood-blessed, who stood clutching the jar of heart-blood he had harvested from the Blue’s corpse, eyes narrowed as he regarded the huge wake beyond the Superior’s stern. There was none of Scrimshine’s horror on the younger Torcreek’s face, more a sense of indecision.
“Mr. Torcreek!” Hilemore repeated, finally capturing the fellow’s attention.
“Captain?”
“One of Red and one of Black.” Hilemore handed him the wallet of product. “Keep that beast away from my ship. And ask your uncle and that mad cleric to take their rifles aloft.”
“Surely will.” Clay inclined his head and made for the ladder, sliding down to the deck with a practised ease which said much for his time aboard ship.
Hilemore focused his attention on the channel between the Shelf and the Chokes as it loomed ever larger in the bridge window. A glance at the speed dial indicated the Superior had now surpassed forty knots and still had more to give. Scrimshine kept muttering to himself as he steered them towards the channel, profanities and sailor’s curses for the most part but with a few Dalcian prayer-spells thrown in for good measure.
“Steady as she goes, Mr. Scrimshine,” Hilemore told him, holstering his revolver and clasping his hands behind his back. “You’re doing splendidly.”
“Gonna fucking die . . .” the smuggler intoned, spinning the wheel to align the Superior with the centre of the channel. “May the ancestors bestow their protection upon a fallen son . . .”
Dual cannon shots sounded from the stern, Hilemore glancing back to see a pair of waterspouts rising from the waves just behind the enormous wake. Perhaps in response, the great spine descended below the surface and the swell faded as the huge body beneath sought the depths. “Perhaps we scared it off, sir,” Lieutenant Talmant suggested, which drew an immediate, near-hysterical cackle from Scrimshine.
“Scared . . . Stupid little shit,” he muttered before returning to his superstitious pleading. “Great-Grandfathers, Great-Grandmothers, look kindly upon this wayward wretch . . .”
Despite his terror, Scrimshine still retained enough presence of mind to safely steer the Superior into the channel, the wheel blurring in his hands as he countered the roiling currents. Despite his efforts, Hilemore soon appreciated that the man’s warnings had not been exaggerated. Some fifty yards into the channel, a tall wave surged out of the Chokes to slam into the Superior’s port side. The ship swayed towards the Shelf as the deck tipped at an alarming angle. For a moment it seemed the frozen massif came close enough to reach out and touch before Scrimshine angled the bows to ride the wave rebounding from the ice, bringing them clear.
“Heavenly cousins show mercy to this dishonoured fool . . .” Scrimshine hauled the tiller to starboard, the Superior swerving away from the rocky shoulder of an islet as the speed indicator nudged forty-five knots.
A flurry of rifle-shots drew Hilemore’s attention back to the stern. The riflemen were at the rail, firing furiously at the swell building up just fifty yards short of the stern. Steelfine was harrying the gun-crews to reload their pieces but Hilemore judged it likely that the beast would be upon them before the battery was ready. The tall spine was once again jutting above the waves, its height even greater now and he fancied he caught a glimpse of the Blue’s head beneath the water. Perhaps it was a trick of the fading light but he detected a certain reddish glow to the animal’s eyes. The signature crack of a longrifle sounded through the ceiling of the bridgehouse as the elder Torcreek or the mad cleric tried his luck. Hilemore saw the bullet impact just short of the spine but whatever effect it had on the Blue was so negligible that its course didn’t alter in the slightest. Hilemore saw Clay step between two cannon, hand still clutching the jar of heart-blood.
“Oh, fuck me!”
Hilemore turned to find Scrimshine spinning the wheel to port. A glance through the bridge window revealed the source of his distress. The uneven but otherwise unbroken line of the Shelf had abruptly altered, a huge, blade-like promontory jutted into the channel leaving a greatly reduced gap.