“The House agrees that blowing up the bluffs is cheaper than fighting a new war. In fact, they’re pulling out all the stops.” He leaned forward, his dead eyes almost gleaming. “We might actually make this work. I was hoping for grudging support, at best. I had no idea they’d hand me the keys to the treasury.”
“Good way to get on the Regent’s Yule list, keeping his city nice and intact. If it works, you’re heroes of the realm. If it fails, oh well, money will be the least of everyone’s problems, won’t it?”
Evis laughed. “Money is never the least of any problem. But look here, Markhat. Remember when I said it would take us a week to get the wagons and the gunpowder up the Brown?”
“I remember.”
“They’ve a got steamboat,” said Gertriss. Her eyes were wide, and I wondered how many of those tumblers of brandy Evis had offered her. “It’s amazing, boss. You have to see it.”
“A steam what?”
“Another line of research the House pursued during the War,” said Evis. “It’s a shallow-keeled, flat-bottomed boat. Burning wood heats water. The hot water turns to steam. The steam drives an engine. The engine-”
“Oh bloody hell,” snapped Gertriss. She grabbed my arm. “Boss, the thing can go upriver. No sails. No oars. No pulling it with chains and donkeys. You just point it north and feed it logs and it goes. Fast.”
“How many of those drinks have you finished, young lady?”
She shook her head violently. “Three. But I’m not drunk, boss. Evis, how fast did you say it could go?”
“Eight knots. Ten if she’s pushed, and she will be.”
“For how long?”
“The whole way. With luck. The steam engine is not without its problems. But our engineers say she’s ready. The House has issued its blessing. We set sail in two days, finder-steamboat and barges and gunpowder and all.”
I finished my brandy in one quick gulp. It burned all the way down.
“You’re serious.”
“Dead serious. Pardon the pun. We have a navy, finder. Hurrah for Encorla’s Irregulars. We fight on land and sea.” He lifted his glass. Gertriss did the same, and they clinked together, and vampire and partner drained their glasses.
“And this steamboat of yours can do ten knots, day and night. That’ll put it at the bluffs in, say, two days.”
“Less. But say two.”
“Hauling enough gunpowder to level a few thousand tons of solid rock.”
“We’ll be towing that on a barge well behind us, but yes.”
“Just how big is this thing, Evis?”
“Huge,” said Gertriss.
“She’s a two hundred and ten feet from bow to stern. Forty-two feet wide. Her draft is only six feet, under a full load. We’ll be seeing four. She’s down at the docks now, getting prepped. The paddle-wheel is under wraps, but it won’t be a secret much longer.”
“No sails.”
“None at all.”
“Did you think to add a couple of cannon?”
Evis froze, face blank.
“Angels and devils, finder. No. No, we didn’t. But we will. We will.”
Buttercup squealed. She was rolling her ball across the floor, where it trailed a twisting nimbus of light.
It reached an empty spot on the floor, and then it stopped, wobbled around for a bit, and rolled back to the little banshee-on its own.
I held out my tumbler for a refill. Gertriss obliged, filling her own glass as well, and chuckling at some secret joke with Evis.
I stayed for quite a while, drinking and smoking and plotting. I laid out my day with Fields, my plan to loosen Lethway’s clenched jaw, my hope that Mama would put a stop to any further hexed visitors before one of them put a stop to me.
All the while, I watched Buttercup play a spirited game of roll the glowing magic ball with a playmate who wasn’t there while Gertriss made googly eyes at Evis and he taught her how to blow a passable smoke ring.
Some days are just strange that way.
I didn’t see the steamboat, that night. Evis offered to take me, but a couple of glasses of his aged brandy left the weight of my day dragging me quickly toward sleep.
He did convince me to spend the night under Avalante’s roof. I didn’t relish the thought of a strange bed, but for all I knew half a dozen irate Sprangs or a pair of Lethway’s bully boys were waiting by my door. I couldn’t have fought off an assault of determined laying hens, and I knew it, so in the end I allowed myself to be domiciled in a guest room slightly smaller than a city block.
They even had a fancy bath with hot and cold running water. I managed to clean myself without being scalded or drowned, and after that I slept the sleep of the truly weary.
Being surrounded on all sides by vampires troubled me not at all.
Morning in Avalante feels like midnight. The halfdead are bleary-eyed and grumpy, disheveled and weary in their tailored clothes. Even taciturn Jerle was jovial by comparison.
I shared a sparse breakfast with the day folk cleaning staff. Their talk was of the trouble heading Rannit’s way, and was mostly filled with wild speculation concerning the Regency’s plans to defend the city and whether or not they would accept Avalante’s offer to take in the human staff and their families, should war reach Rannit’s gates. Most were only too eager to seek refuge beneath Avalante’s walls. A few planned to ride it out close to the Brown and flee by boat, barge and bathtub should the Regent fail to win the day.
Afterward, I went to see Gertriss and knocked, but after a long while she threw a pillow at her door and told me in rather harsh terms to go away. I heard Buttercup giggle once, but she never did more than that.
Evis was long abed. I stopped by my borrowed room and sat on the feather bed and plotted out the day. I’d need to find Pratt, and set a time and a place to corner Lethway. I needed to swing back by my office and see if it was surrounded by hillbilly thugs. And I hoped I could pay Master Sergeant Burris another visit-I might not have Darla’s keen eye for accounting fraud, but I could certainly take her a fresh box of old records to inspect, if the Sergeant could be persuaded to let his precious files leave the Barracks.
I hauled myself off the feather bed and headed out, availing myself once more of a sleek Avalante carriage. I bade the driver to swing by the docks before we crossed the bridge. I wasn’t sure, but I guessed that Evis’s steamboat was being made ready on the Hill side of the River.
I was right. Finding such an odd craft wasn’t hard, and my carriage was waved on past a makeshift barricade after a scowling dockmaster checked my name against his list.
I can always count on Evis to pay attention to details.
I left the carriage right by one of the three wide gangplanks that spanned the sluggish waters of the Brown and led onto the deck of the steamboat herself.
Being a landlocked Rannite, my familiarity with watercraft is mostly limited to barges and fishing tubs. I’d probably know what a mast was, if I saw one. And I could likely pick out a mainsail from a bed sheet three times out of five.
So when I say Evis’s steamboat looked more like a wedding cake than a ship, please take that statement as the opinion of one wholly unfamiliar with either subject.
But there you have it. Her hull was simply a shallow, flat oblong with a slight bow at the front and an enormous cylinder lined with long rectangular paddles at the rear. Sprouting up from this shallow hull was two stories of white gingerbread festooned with windows and doors. A balcony ran the circumference of the upper decks. Chairs and benches were scattered about it, behind an ornate iron rail.
Amidships, two enormous white cylinders rose above it all. I recognized them from Evis’s description as the smokestacks through which the exhaust of the steam engine was routed. Someone had painted a face on the front of the forward smokestack. It had angry eyes and an open toothy mouth.
The whole craft smelled of wet paint and fresh-sawn pine. A gang of men swarmed over her, furiously
