Tin Swift

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 wonder 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