Tin Swift

  There wasn’t any light up ahead, but the breeze had to come from some kind of opening to the outside.

  “We’re facing east,” Theobald said.

  “East sounds good to me.” Hink was going through his memories of flying over Old Jack’s mountain.

  Not a lot of ships traveled here, and Old Jack had the guns to keep it that way. Still, he’d drifted the Swift silent on no engines over Jack’s on a full moon once.

  “If we’re any sort of lucky,” Hink said between the brief moments of putting weight on his bad leg, “we’ll be somewhere near a clearing. Plenty of valleys between most of these peaks.”

  “And then what?” Theobald asked.

  “I’ll signal for the Swift to come get us,” Hink said. “If she’s anywhere within twenty miles and the sky is clear, she’ll be able to spot us.”

  “You have a signaling device on you, Captain Hink?” Miss Dupuis asked.

  “All airship crewmen carry one. Or should.” He grunted up the uneven floor. “They’ll be looking for it.”

  And then the light from outside, even though it must be late evening, carved a blindingly white hole in the tunnel ahead and just slightly above where they stood.

  It hurt to look at it, and Hink covered his eyes until he could bear the sight. Pretty soon he lowered his fingers and looked at the pile of stones that appeared to be the only way to climb out.

  The tunnel opened wider here. Big enough you could drive two Conestogas and their teams of oxen side by side through it if you had the mind to.

  Cedar stood at the bottom of the rock pile, his hands on his hips, his face tipped up, the wolf pacing silently behind him. He was thinking a route up those rocks.

  “I’ll climb it first,” Cedar said. “Then I’ll help anyone up who might need it.”

  Hink looked around and found himself a rock of suitable size for sitting. “Sounds like a plan to me.” He pulled the flask out of his jacket and took down the last swallow of bourbon. It didn’t do much to ease his pain, but it cleared the dust out of his mouth.

  Cedar clambered up the stones, reached the top in short order, then threw his shadow across the bright as he looked out to see where they’d ended up.

  Didn’t take him much time. Not nearly enough for Hink to catch his breath. But he’d rather be breathless and out in the open sky than stuck down this bunghole.

  Cedar retraced his route down the rocks and brushed off his hands as he walked over to where they were waiting.

  “It’s a clearing. A valley,” Cedar said. “Sky’s clouded, but no rain. I didn’t hear anything in the air, but I didn’t wait very long.”

  “The Swift will be silent,” Hink said. “Either anchored and watching, or set to drift and watching. Don’t worry. She’s out there.”

  Hink stood and cleared the groan out of the back of his throat. “Go on up ahead of me. The leg’s going to slow me a bit on the climb.”

  The others headed to the rockfall. Wil was already halfway up the stone tumble and Theobald was shortly behind him, helping Miss Dupuis and Miss Wright along the rough spots.

  Hink put off climbing until they were nearly at the top, then limped over to the stones. This was not going to be any kind of pleasant.

  He sighed and took the first step up. He hated caves, hated being on the ground, hated worse being underground. For just this sort of reason. Give a man the sky, and he could soar in the heavens. Stick him in a hole and all he did was crawl over rocks.

  He cussed and sweated his way through the climb, and when Mr. Hunt offered him a hand about a third of the way from the top, he did not let pride get in his way of accepting.

  Finally at the top of the pile, the cave opening slanted up a bit. He’d need to hike that, shoot the flare, and keep an ear out for the Swift. He took a breath, steeling himself for the rest of the walk.

  Cedar came up on one side and put his shoulder under his arm.

  “Getting pretty tired of you picking me for your dance partner,” Hink said.

  “Don’t get shot next time.”

  “Next time?” Hink said. “I don’t believe Old Jack will ever let us cross his dirt again.”

  “No great loss,” Cedar said. “A man who can call a ship full of Strange is a worrisome thing.”

  “You sure that’s what those men had been afflicted with? Strange?”

  “They stink of it,” Cedar said. “They stink of the only…man I know who could have done that sort of work.”

  “He got a name?”

  “Mr. Shunt. Strange walking in flesh. Nightmare. Haven’t found a way he stays dead yet.”

  “Like the men out there with too many holes in them getting back up?”

  “I doubt they’ll stitch back together now,” Cedar said. “Can’t say the same for Mr. Shunt.”

  “You have caught the attention of an odd sort of creature, Mr. Hunt,” Hink said. “I’ve seen a few in my days, but none so dead set on killing a man.” They stopped a ways out from the opening to the tunnel, and Cedar let him go. “This should do.”

  Not quite dusk yet, and the clouds were taking on a clay-colored darkness. The wind was unsettled, blowing up over brush, going dead, then rushing down over the tips of the peak. It wasn’t raining or snowing, but the heat of the day was gutted and gone.

  Both men scanned the sky and listened.

  Hink thought he heard an engine, but it didn’t sound like the Swift. Could be any number of ships out this way looking to land at Jack’s for supplies.

  Could be Old Jack had signaled in more than just Mullins and his crew. Could be a fleet of ships, a fleet of Alabaster’s ships hovering in dusk’s arch.

  “You hear that?” Hink asked.

  “One engine?” Cedar said.

  “It’s not the Swift.”

  Cedar nodded, his gaze still on the sky.

  “Flare’s going to let everyone in the sky know right where we are,” Hink said.

  “Going to be night soon,” Cedar noted.

  Not approving or disapproving. This was Hink’s call.

  “It’s worth the risk,” Hink said. “Jack knows these hills. He knows where we got sealed in, and he’ll know where we’re bound to pop out. Could be aiming his guns on us right now.”

  “Then stop talking and fire the flare, Captain,” Cedar said. “Your ship is carrying people I’ve made promises to. Promises I intend to keep.”

  Hink couldn’t help but smile. Cedar didn’t seem the smallest bit concerned that they might be inviting another firefight down on their heads. “You are a reckless and fearless man, Mr. Hunt,” he said. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

  Cedar drew his gun and pulled his goggles over his eyes. “No wonder to it,” Cedar said. “Just skill.”

  The captain laughed. “Miss Dupuis, Mr. Theobald, Miss Wright, be prepared to run if the Swift comes over. But don’t go jumping like a fish on a hook at any rope that lowers. We might have unfriendly vessels looking for us. Are we of an understanding?”

  Miss Dupuis pulled the shotgun off her shoulder. “Perfectly, Captain.”

  Hink drew the flare gun from where it was holstered low on his hip. He took aim straight up, and fired into the clouds.

  A bright orange-pink flame burned a trail up and up, then blew open like a Chinese firework.

  The sound of an engine grew louder. Whatever ship was out there, they’d seen the flare. And they were on the way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Mae was trying not to listen to the sisters. Ever since they had run out of Old Jack’s mountain, the voices had come back in force. Furious. They no longer sang, but screamed for her to return home, clawing at her sanity, stabbing at her mind.

  She didn’t know how she had endured it before.

  When Mr. Guffin had told her they were anchored and she could take off her harness and step away from the wall, she just shook her head. The need, the push to be home at the coven, was so strong she didn’t trust her own feet.

  It would be
too easy to listen to the voices that told her to come, walk, run to them. No matter that there was nothing but hundreds of feet of empty air between her and the ground—if she weren’t harnessed, she just might step out into the wind.

  The sisters’ voices had come on so gradually since Jeb’s death that she hadn’t realized just how much of a torment they had become. Her marriage vows to Jeb had taken the place of her vows to the sisters. But now that he was dead and that vow was broken, her earlier vows, made of magic and blood, were demanding her return.

  And she knew the sisterhood wasn’t so much calling her home as calling for her death.

  They feared her magic. Feared the curses and bindings, oaths and vows she so easily drew upon.

  They feared her. Probably always had.

  Once she returned, if she returned, she would ask them to break this binding that tied her to the soil of the coven.

  She should have never let them throw such ropes around her, but she had been young and afraid of her own abilities. They had told her the bindings would hold her safe, like a net. A way to assure that she never fell into using magic for ill causes. That she never harmed anyone.

  Even though magic could easily lean toward dark results in her hands, she had only wanted to use it for good, for love, for mercy. And the sisterhood could not tell her she had ever done so wrongly. Not without admitting that what they were doing to her now was also wrong.

  Rose was awake, silent, lying on the hammock and staring at the ceiling. Her color was so pale and gray, it was almost as if her skin were turning into tin. Even her lips had a bluish cast. But when Mae brushed her hair back from her forehead with shaking fingers, she blinked and smiled.

  “Have we seen the signal yet?” she asked.

  Mae had to hold her breath against the screaming in her mind and focus on Rose’s lips to understand the words.

  Signal? Oh, yes. They were waiting for a signal from Captain Hink so they could find him and Cedar and those other people. So they could rescue them. If they were still alive.

  “Not yet,” she said. “Soon. I’m sure soon.”

  Rose swallowed and closed her eyes. Mae knew she wasn’t sleeping. She’d offered to give her another dose of the coca leaf tonic, but Rose had refused it. She didn’t even want the laudanum, afraid it would put her too deeply asleep again.

  All she had allowed Mae to do was change the dressing on her wound.

  Her shoulder was hot, and still weeping greenish-yellow fluid. They needed to find the Holder, and remove the key buried in her.

  Even if they removed the tin, Mae wasn’t sure if it would be enough to save her.

  “There!” Guffin said. “The flare. See it?”

  Ansell and Seldom both scrambled to the windows. And so did Molly, who had been whittling on something that looked like a whistle while waiting for the engines to be needed.

  “We want steam, boys?” she asked.

  “Bring her up, Molly.” Seldom was already jogging to the wheel while Ansell and Guffin took their places on either side of him.

  “Hold tight, ladies,” Molly said as she opened the blast door, releasing a billowing wave of heat into the cabin. “We’re on our way!”

  Rose opened her eyes. “Are we flying?”

  “Yes,” Mae said. “We’re flying.”

  They had strapped Rose into the hammock and tied cross lines from the hammock to each wall so it couldn’t swing too far to either side.

  Mae made sure the blanket was tucked tight around her.

  “Can I have the tonic now?” she asked.

  “Of course.” Mae helped Rose drink the tonic straight from the bottle. “Just a sip,” she cautioned.

  “Up anchor!” Seldom called.

  “Aye,” Ansell answered. He worked the winch and cranked the anchor free.

  The ship swayed in the breeze, but seemed to drift for only a moment before the fans were on and the sails were set.

  “We’ll have them soon,” Mae said, to herself, to Rose, to the sisters screaming in her head as she rubbed her hands down the front of her dress, wiping her palms. “We’ll have them and then we’ll be on our way. On our way soon again. Soon. And then,” she said, speaking just to the scream of the sisters voices in her head, “I will break this tie between us.”

  The roar of the fans turning against the wind and the huff of steam clearing the flues drowned her soft words.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Captain Hink scanned the sky, his gun in his hand. Everyone was spread out among the boulders outside the opening to the tunnel, weapons drawn, waiting for the Swift.

  But all he could hear was the engine from another vessel, bigger, heavier. A vessel he did not know.

  He cussed and kept a sky eye. If he didn’t hear the Swift soon, then they’d all take cover back in the tunnel and hope the other ship didn’t get a hard read on that flare.

  And while they were at it they could hope Old Jack hadn’t happened to see the flare light up the eastern sky, and wasn’t willing to send his boys around to do some more shooting.

  They were trapped. He was wounded. And unless they wanted to run through the mountain range on the turn of winter with no provisions other than a few blankets and lanterns, there wasn’t anything else they could do but wait for the Swift.

  There was the chance the ship wasn’t headed toward them, but was coincidentally stopping off at Old Jack’s to resupply. Hink had never met a coincidence he was willing to bet his life on.

  The engine grew louder, but the peaks threw the sound around and broke it up so bad that for all he could tell, there were two or three ships out there.

  “Two engines,” Cedar said from where he stood with the wolf not too far off from Hink.

  Hink tipped his head. “Either you’re full of wishing, Mr. Hunt, or you have damn sharp ears.”

  “I gave up wishing years ago,” Cedar said. “Is it the Swift?”

  Hink took a breath and held it, straining to hear the familiar fans of his vessel. She’d be coming in fast, or at least he hoped to hell she was coming in fast for them.

  Every time he thought he had a bead on it, the wind changed and snatched away the rumble of the fans, and all he heard instead was Theobald sneeze, or the brush around them rustle and scratch.

  Cedar Hunt had said he heard two engines.

  There. Yes. Hink could make out the pulses of two different ships.

  One wasn’t the Swift.

  But he would bet his bottom dollar the other was.

  “Two ships,” he said, loud enough the others could hear. “One’s the Swift. I’d say she’s coming from the…south?” He glanced at Cedar.

  Cedar nodded.

  “She’ll land if we have time. If not, if that other ship decides to take a swat at us, or worse, tries to shoot us dead, then we might want to do a running board. Ever done that?”

  Miss Dupuis shook her head. “Explain. And we’ll follow.”

  “If she lowers ropes, you can catch them and hold on, they’ll winch you up. If it’s a ladder, get on and climb. If it’s the nets, hold still and let them bring you up. And no matter what it is that you’re holding on to, for glim’s sake, hold tight. The winds can knock the skin right off you.

  “If there ain’t any time to pull us up, they’ll fly us out of range of the other ship, then take us aboard. It’ll be cold, and breathing might not be a lot of fun, but you’ll survive if you don’t let go.”

  “Isn’t there anything else we can do?” Theobald asked.

  “Sure,” Hink said. “If you get fired on by a ship that isn’t made of tin, shoot back.”

  The wait was nerve-racking. The rattle of fans grew closer and closer until it was all that filled the air. Hink thought the Swift’s engines sounded louder, stronger than the other ship’s.

  She might be closer. Seldom was a fine pilot in his own right. He knew how to skim the sky. Maybe he’d slip in before that other vessel.

  But as the ships neared, Hink began to wond
er if he’d have to set off another flare. He waited, hoping the Swift was closer than the other ship, hoping she’d got a good read on where they were tucked in.

  He knew from experience it was difficult at best to wave down an airship. If they wanted feet off the ground, he’d have to shoot another light to guide them in.

  Hink stood, aimed straight up. Mr. Hunt looked over at him, and whispered something to Wil, who was crouched tight by his side, and looking…different somehow. It was like the wolf was suddenly tired, all the steam out of him, without enough strength to even lift his head.

  Hink hoped he wasn’t injured.

  “Make fast for her,” Hink said. He squeezed the trigger and sent another wild orange and pink flare into the sky, blooming like a flower against the muddy sky.

  “On the ready!” he called out.

  He’d been right. The ships hadn’t caught tight to their location.

  But now a ship homed into view. Twice as big as the Swift and painted red on her belly, the vessel was all one piece with an attached gondola, like the Swift, nets and lashes attached to her, but no trawling arms. She lifted up over the peak to the north, then nosed down toward them, tail in the air, like a kid bobbing for apples.

  Nosing down revealed all the guns and cannons strapped to her. She wasn’t just coming in to Old Jack’s to resupply. She had seen their flare and was coming for them.

  Crouched beside rocks, they weren’t under enough cover to resist an aerial attack. And those guns had a hell of a lot more range than their firearms. As soon as the ship leveled out and swung broadside, they’d be easy pickings.

  Then they’d be dead.

  “Do you know her?” Miss Dupuis asked.

  “Not yet,” Hink said. “Turn, you bitch,” he whispered to the ship. “Let’s see your true colors.”

  The ship swung to the side and her shadow drew a net of darkness across the valley, rolling over scrub and stone.

  “The Devil’s Nine,” Hink said, a mix of dread and hatred rising hot through his veins. She’d gotten her name for how many cannons she carried. “That’s Alabaster Saint’s ship,” he yelled to the others.

  The ship was still too high to shoot, but it wouldn’t be long before those cannons opened up.