The ghosts of barak mino.., p.13
The Ghosts Of Barak-Minoz, page 13
‘Now!’ Drekki shouted.
Evrokk spun the wheels. Regasified aether roared through opened pipes. The Aelsling lurched up.
The voids rolled past each other, the icebergs parted. The Aelsling scraped through a gap into clear air. The bergs crashed together with a doom-laden boom a few handspans off the keel.
‘That was too close,’ Drekki said under his breath.
They were in the open area between aerial strata. It was dark, blocked from the sun; the little light that filtered through was dim and blue. Above and below, skybergs jostled one another, but the way ahead was clear. The dragon was there.
Ramarius slowed, using his wings to glide, allowing the Aelsling to catch up. Drekki handed over to Evrokk.
‘You have the helm.’
‘Aye, captain.’
‘Keep up the speed.’ Drekki went to the side to speak to the dragon. Ramarius fell alongside the ship. ‘A glorious day!’ said Drekki breezily.
‘Not what I’d call it,’ muttered Adrimm, who was sweeping ice off the deck nearby.
‘We have a clearer path ahead,’ said Ramarius. ‘Drekki Flynt may take his ease. The ice stays open for many miles. We shall proceed for a day and a half, then we must brave more narrows for our exit. Then we are done.’ He swooped and laughed. ‘By all the gods of the realms, this is fine flying!’
Ramarius accelerated. Evrokk opened up the endrins, and the airscrews chopped steadily. Curls of ice crystals wisped around the bow like the spray on the sea. A skyberg turned above, opening a hole to the sky to faraway Hysh. A spear of sunlight plunged into the gloom, catching the icy mists, making them shimmer.
This affected Evtorr, and he began to mutter, and jig from side to side.
‘Pretty, so pretty!’ Evtorr cried.
Evrokk shouted Locklann over to take the helm, and hurried to his brother’s side.
‘He’s having a fit!’ Evrokk said. But when he got to Evtorr, the lost skyfarer was firm on his feet. He flung out an arm, and began to declaim.
‘See the light, the glow, the golden aether above, below. The bluish tint of icy bright, that traps this place in frigid night! That frost that dances in the sky, the wind that breathes as Aelsling flies! It whispers gaily on the air, “Watch for Drekki, faring there!”’
He did a little bow.
The crew applauded.
‘Well, listen to that. He might have lost his mind, but his poetry’s better,’ said Drekki.
‘Evtorr, Evtorr!’ Evrokk said. He took his brother’s helm in his hands, and peered into the lenses, his voice tormented by hope. But Evtorr had fallen silent again, and stood stock still, his head twitching.
‘I don’t care if he’s found his art and can string a few rhymes together,’ moaned Adrimm, tucking his broom under his arm and clapping his hands together. ‘I’m funti freezing.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
TROGGOTHS
A day and a half passed without incident. Ramarius led them to the way out as promised. As they got closer to the edge, evidence of things living in the maze became apparent. Ramarius hunted there, after all, so things had to make it their home. Then something in particular gave Kedren cause for concern. He leaned out over the edge, watching intently.
‘Captain,’ Kedren said. ‘Look over there.’ He pointed to a grubby shelf of ice.
Drekki took out his spyglass. The shelf was overhung, almost a cave. Through the glass he saw smears of dung and blood all over it.
‘You see it? Looks like troggoth sign to me.’
‘Hmm,’ said Drekki. Kedren knew a thing or two about troggoths. ‘Ready the crew. We could be in for a fight.’
The expanse of open air closed in, getting narrower. The high, wide, open space was broken up by fangs of ice. Isolated to begin with, these protrusions grew more numerous, and the ceiling of the lead lower, until the Aelsling was sailing through a series of narrow channels. The going was slow. There was more and more aether around them, until all the ice shone with golden light, and Otherek’s excited shouts competed with the sound of his instruments.
Drekki checked the ship’s compass. The aetherically charged needle should always point to the edge of the realm. In the passages, it was confused by the aether trapped in the ice, and was spinning around upon its bath of chamonite.
Drekki tapped the glass dome. It did nothing to stop the antics of the needle. He looked about. This was difficult ground. Every lump of ice looked like all the others. The channels shifted constantly. Drekki reckoned he’d last an hour navigating without Ramarius before he was totally lost.
His crew couldn’t see the peril. The liquid gold of aether shone everywhere around them. In closed helms, eyes glinted. The gold was almost close enough to scoop up in a bucket.
‘Look at that!’ Adrimm said. Aether light danced all over him.
‘We should mine this place,’ said Bokko greedily, his tools hanging limp in his hands. More of the crew were drifting towards the gunwales, duty forgotten.
‘It is a rich seam,’ Otherek said. His instruments were pinging louder than ever. His excitement mounted. ‘Very rich!’
‘If we staked a claim,’ said Umherth, ‘we’d never have to work again.’
Uzki laughed wildly to see it.
They were entranced by the gold, each of them lost in private thoughts of wealth. Except Drekki. There was no way the Geldraad would fund an expedition somewhere this dangerous when there were easier lodes to plunder. He knew that, though the pull of the gold was hard to suppress, and he made sure to keep his eyes off the alluring shine. He told himself any claim would be practically worthless, and it would take hours for Otherek to gather enough readings to ensure good documentation. He told himself this and he told himself again. Still the gold pulled at his heart.
He marched to the cockpit and sounded the horn.
‘Watch it, lads! You’re getting the fever! There’s plenty of aether at the end of this voyage. Back to your positions! Gord, see to it! And you, Evrokk, keep your eyes ahead.’
Gord, whose interest in gold of any kind was limited to its power in purchasing food, began shoving the others away from the side.
‘Back to work!’ he said. ‘Go on! Shiny time is over.’
Then he stopped.
‘Look at that!’ he bellowed, his ogorish voice blasting the Kharadron out of their reverie. ‘Troggoth!’
Gord followed his announcement by discharging his handcannon, obscuring what he’d seen with gun smoke. When it cleared, there was nothing there.
It was enough of a warning for Drekki.
‘All hands! Prepare for combat!’ he shouted.
The ship’s horn wailed. The bell rang. Hrunki leapt into the turret and slammed the hatch over her head. Aether light glowed as she charged up the sky cannon. The rest of them pointed their guns outwards, the gold-spell broken.
Nothing happened for a while.
They puttered on, Evrokk softly cursing at every course correction he had to make. The aethershine dimmed to nothing, the bergs crowded more tightly, making it darker at every turn.
Ramarius flew back to make sure they were with him still. Trokwi buzzed about his head.
‘There are troggoths ahead. Many of them!’ Ramarius said.
‘We’ve seen,’ said Drekki. ‘Is there another way?’
‘No,’ said Ramarius. ‘Fly fast and true and Drekki will live.’ He swung around and flew on, the channel so narrow there he had to bring his wings right in, and shove off a skyberg with his legs to get through. As the Aelsling approached the gap, Trokwi descended to his perch on Drekki’s shoulder.
‘It better not get tighter than that,’ Evrokk said.
‘Tighter than a cutter in its scabbard,’ Drekki said with a grin. Evrokk’s hiss of indrawn breath only made him laugh. The hull kissed ice on both sides. Drekki heard things whispering and moving, and saw the glint of ice-cold eyes from deep crevasses. But they did not attack, and he dared hope they might leave unmolested.
He had a thought. ‘Uzki, get below.’ Better to be safe than sorry.
Uzki protested but Drekki’s glare was fierce even through his helmet lenses. The youngster headed inside, head drooped.
Beyond the narrow channel, the passage opened a little, and he found the way lit by daylight. They were nearly out. They were in a large cavity in the floe, a cave whose walls were made up of huge, shifting chunks of ice. On the far side was a tall slit of a flat, brilliant white. A faint breeze came from there.
‘The exit is there!’ Ramarius said. ‘Come now, duardin!’
It was then that a fist-sized chunk of ice exploded on the forward endrin.
Drekki ran to the space between the two globes and looked up.
‘Movement! Get me a light!’
The ship’s searchlight angled upwards and snapped on, revealing huge figures clambering about on the ceiling, claws punched deep into the ice. They were hard to see because they were white, with frosted plumes of bluish fur on their forearms and calves. Dozens of pairs of cold blue eyes turned upon the ship.
A collective hissing filled the cavern. The troggoths raked at the bergs, swinging effortlessly from the ice as they hacked huge chunks out and hurled them at the Aelsling. Boulders rained down by the hold-full.
Drekki dove back under the shelter of the endrins. ‘Open fire!’ he roared, as ice bounced off the deck.
Aethershot blasted from every side of the Aelsling. A strobing light reflected off the ice, sending every motion into the jerky animation of a beardling’s zoetrope. The troggoths let out shrieks of outrage as they were hit. But troggoths are tough, and renowned for swift healing. Though they howled, their bodies swallowed much of the aethershot, and they became angrier.
Hrunki drew a bead on one with the cannon and let fly. That did the job. The troggoth exploded; another was shaken loose, and fell screaming into the ice below.
‘Hah! Try regenerating from that,’ Adrimm gloated.
Drekki stood upon the poop, loosing shots from Karon. He couldn’t see where they went: the effusions of so many aether weapons in a dark space with reflective walls made a nonsense of vision, and the troggoths were perfectly camouflaged. They took on aspects of what they ate, so the wisdom went. This lot had eaten a lot of ice. They blended into it, invisible but for their glowing eyes.
Through the flicker he saw a troggoth leaping from the ceiling cave. It hit the Aelsling. It roared, showing rows of teeth rusty orange with iron.
‘Funti drukk!’ Adrimm yelled, turning about and shooting at the troggoth. It bounded forward, huge, ice-clear talons swiping. Umherth peppered it with shot. It knocked him aside, and he skidded along on his back, swearing loudly. The troggoth punched at Adrimm, sending him flying. On the ledges of the cavern walls, more troggoths gathered. Some were getting ready to jump.
‘Stand back!’ Kedren yelled, unleashing the fiery belch of his blunderbuss. Rune-inscribed pellets roared out in a cone, igniting as they flew. Flesh hissed as the pellets sliced into the troggoth, and it howled and reared back, beating at the flames the pellets set in its fur. The wounds in its skin did not close. Fire was anathema to them. Kedren cast down his gun, and pulled his axe up from its belt loop. Runes incised in the head flared into life, the edge burst into flames, and the runesmith went in swinging.
The cannon boomed again. More troggoths were knocked free from their perches, but they were jumping now, lots of them. One landed on the deck with the snapping of bones, but as Drekki watched he heard them click back into place, and saw its wounds reknit. He ran at it, great axe raised, and decapitated it before it could rise.
Kedren’s burning axe brought the first troggoth low. The turret fired again. Ice fell from the cave roof, hammering at the ship. Drekki loosed off shots and made for the prow.
‘Hrunki!’ Drekki pounded on the turret. The speaking hatch swivelled down. ‘Hrunki! Get out of there. You’ll bring the roof down on us. We need your eye on deck.’
‘Aye aye!’
The turret hatch swung open. Hrunki came out firing a pistol in her uninjured hand.
They were into the mass of the troggoths now. Drekki had never seen so many in one place, had never even heard of such a gathering. There were dozens, hundreds maybe, all lined up on the skybergs, hurling lumps of ice at the ship and roaring in their uncouth tongue. Most were too far away to do much harm, but there were more than enough that could.
Bullets of compressed aether fizzed through the air, keeping the decks clear. Every troggoth that leapt aboard was cut down by concentrated aether-fire, and finished off by Kedren with his fiery axe.
There was a clanging from the endrins. Drekki guessed a troggoth, clambering all over them, razor-sharp claws raking up curls of metal from the globes. Already, Bokko and Otherek were engaged; he could hear them fighting. Bokko yelled for aid. A huge billow of superheated air roared from Otherek’s anatomiser. The scalded corpse of a troggoth slipped off the endrin and bounced from the gunwales, then vanished into the deeps.
‘Kedren! Fancy exercising your axe?’ Drekki called. ‘There’s more of them up top.’
Kedren split the skull of the troggoth he was fighting, then cut off the remains of its head with a single swing. He nodded. Together, they clambered up the shrouds, Drekki to the forward endrin, Kedren to the rear.
They were just in time. Drekki arrived to find a troggoth looming over Bokko, swinging wild fists at the endrinrigger. Bokko was desperately fending them off with his cutter. It was more swatting than swordplay, and he was rapidly tiring. Otherek looked on, anatomiser wavering, unable to intervene for fear of flash-boiling his friend. Drekki fired the skyhook from the top of his axe, letting it thump into the ice a raadfathom ahead of the Aelsling. He squeezed the lever, the compact aether-winch reeled in the line, and he let the harpoon whip him up and over the endrin top. As he reached the apex of his short flight, he came close to the ceiling; a troggoth swiped for him, and he proffered a rude gesture with his free hand.
‘Stay off my ship, you frozen bozdoks!’ he hollered.
Being that close to one was not pleasant. They stank, as all troggoths do, of unclean places, and blood-rich dung, and the spilled guts of their unfortunate victims.
His descent was swift, the line reeled ever shorter as the Aelsling passed under the embedded hook. Drekki grinned at his own perfect timing, landing feet astride. With a sharp tug, he yanked his skyhook free from the ceiling, simultaneously drawing Karon and opening fire.
‘Enjoy the sharp words of my dear old mum,’ he said. ‘For she spoke as harshly as this gun!’
The broad spread of his pistol hammered into the troggoth’s back. It moaned at the burn of the bullets, clawing at itself in pain. Drekki swung his massive axe around one-handed, the runes Kedren had stamped into its blade flaring, until the edge burst into flame. The troggoth was unbalanced. Drekki took advantage, the awkward surface proving no difficulty to his experienced feet, magnetic boots clamping him to the globe, and cut through the troggoth’s leg with a swing of his axe. The troggoth slipped, the talons on its remaining foot scraping deep scratches in the metal. Bokko stabbed it hard in the gut, then it fell.
‘About time, captain!’ Bokko shouted.
‘Aye aye, Bokko, better late than never.’ Playing his axe across his front in figures of eight, Drekki put on a fiery display. Troggoths within grabbing distance recoiled from the flames.
‘Captain!’ Bokko called. ‘Behind you!’
Drekki sidestepped. Bokko shot past him with his pistol, drilling a troggoth sneaking along the ceiling neatly between the eyes.
Together, Drekki and Bokko kept back other troggoths who might be tempted to give boarding a try. Kedren and Otherek did the same atop the other endrin.
Foiled, the troggoths swung back and forth on the ceiling, screeching and throwing icicles like spears.
The ceiling climbed higher. The troggoths up there were left behind. That still left the ones on the ledges to the side.
Drekki risked peering down. The crew were all unharmed, no injuries. Ice piled on the deck, stained with reeking, black troggoth blood.
‘Drukk! But there are a lot of them.’ He elbowed his endrinrigger. ‘Still think we should be mining this ice field, Bokko?’
‘I hope Khenna’s all right,’ he said. ‘This noise will be playing havoc with her. She has a…’
Drekki rolled his eyes. ‘A headache. Yes. We all know.’
A roar came from ahead. Drekki looked over the endrin, and Aelsling’s hammer, forever extended forward.
Ramarius was flying at them with his mouth gaping wide. It was a fearsome sight, and made Drekki shudder.
‘Cover your faces!’ Ramarius roared.
‘Ancestor’s dongliz!’[46] Drekki yelled, guessing what the dragon intended. ‘Stop!’
Too late. A blast of flame followed, washing along the length of the Aelsling. Drekki turned from it, the fire whipping around his legs. Sudden, unbearable heat replaced the biting cold. It was, admittedly, worse for the troggoths, who shrieked and fell burning from the hull of the ship. Ramarius roared in triumph and rushed by.
‘Are you mad?’ Bokko yelled.
Metal groaned dangerously. From cold to hot in a fraction of a second. Rivets burst.
Ramarius was banking around for another pass.
‘No, Ramarius!’ Drekki shouted. ‘No!’ He waved his axe frantically.
Trokwi shot off the captain’s shoulder straight at the face of the drake. Ramarius pulled up short, the fire dying in his throat before he could unleash it.
‘Last thing we need, fire on top of ice,’ shouted Drekki, driving back a troggoth from a ledge with his gun before it could leap. Another came bounding on all fours; he shot it in its glittering face, and it dropped heavily, skidded, and tumbled bonelessly over the edge.
