The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

‘The Daggish are out there,’ said Bull Kammerlan. ‘If they’re not patrolling this far west, it’s a measure of their strength, not weakness.’

‘I thought it was only Ironflanks who had ventured this far out?’ said Amelia. ‘What do you know about it?’

Bull grinned. ‘The craynarbians around the fringes of the greenmesh worship the Daggish. When you think the gods protect you, you tend to get careless. Easy pickings.’

‘You really are disgusting,’ said Amelia. ‘How many thousands of lives did your slavers ruin in Liongeli?’

‘The way I see it, girl, we were giving them a step up. You’ve only seen a taste of what it takes to survive out in the jungle. Life on a Cassarabian slave block looks pretty sweet after you’ve survived out in this hell for a few years.’

‘That must be why you had to gas their village,’ said Amelia, ‘rather than selling the tribes a passage downriver.’

‘You may be sniffy now, dimples, but it’s my crew’s knowledge of the Shedarkshe that’s kept your skull connected to your neck so far, rather than shrunk down to the size of an apple on some war chief’s necklace.’

‘That’s enough, Bull,’ said the commodore. ‘Your river lore’s got you and your rascals out of a water sentence back in Bonegate, so be thankful for that.’

‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Bull. ‘The water is where we both belong, one way or another, eh?’

‘Old time’s sake only goes so far,’ warned the commodore.

‘Yes, I do seem to remember you saying that at my court martial.’

‘Channel is splitting up ahead, skipper,’ called Billy from his station. ‘Three courses.’

‘Stop, full,’ ordered the commodore. He pulled a speaking tube out of the wall and dialled Ironflanks’ quarters on the panel. ‘Up to the bridge with you, old steamer. You never said anything about a choice of tributaries in the river.’

Commodore Black looked puzzled. There was no answer from the speaking tube.

‘I’ll find him,’ said Amelia, swinging out of the pilot room.

Find him she did, lying in a pool of dark oil that had vomited out between the seal joins around his boiler, the smell of magnesium in the air as his legs jerked and twitched in the delusion of his quicksilver dreams. His trip did not look like a good one. For a moment she didn’t know whether she should feel pity or revulsion for the creature of the metal. She called the master of arms on the room’s speaker tube and Veryann turned up with two of her fighters fast behind her.

‘By the blood of Forman Thawnight,’ swore Veryann, seeing the half-comatose steamman lying on the floor. ‘I thought we had confiscated his stash of quicksilver.’

‘He must have had some more hidden away,’ said Amelia. She ran her finger along the tell-tale trail of white-veined coal dust that lay on a folding table in the corner of the cabin. A terrible thought occurred to her. ‘The quicksilver you confiscated from Ironflanks after he boarded, what did you do with it?’

‘Master of arms gallery,’ said Veryann, ‘locked inside one of the rifle lockers. The armoury is guarded by my people, day and night both.’

‘Let’s go.’

Veryann led Amelia past a sentry and through the u-boat’s narrow training range. A second sentry stood guard over the ship’s small arms store, but despite the Catosian’s vigilance, Amelia’s heart sank when she saw the empty locker that was opened for her.

‘This is not possible,’ said Veryann. ‘The sentries are rotated. There is no shift when this room is not locked and guarded.’

‘Maybe a ghost stole it,’ said Amelia. Damn the traitor’s eyes. The turncoat in their midst had done it again, wrecking their chances as surely as they had burnt out the gas scrubbers. ‘Oh, Ironflanks, why did you have to pick now to be weak?’

‘I should have flushed the narcotic overboard,’ said Veryann. ‘But I thought it might come in useful as an inducement if our steamman scout started becoming uncooperative.’

Amelia checked the grille on the air vent in the ceiling. It was loose. If someone knew the Sprite’s layout well enough … ‘Yes, you should have flushed that filth down the head.’

‘The steamman may not have known there was quicksilver in his coke supply,’ said Veryann. ‘The traitor might have poisoned his coal bins.’

Amelia shook her head. ‘No, Ironflanks knew what he was doing. I don’t know what he’s trying to escape from, but whatever it is, he didn’t need to be fooled into taking quicksilver. Just leaving it on his table would have been enough.’

Veryann looked at her two soldiers. ‘Lie the steamman in his bunk. His dream-state could last for days.’

‘Put a double guard on Ironflanks’ room,’ said Amelia. ‘Nobody to be left alone with him. Two at all times.’

‘Does that include you, professor?’

‘Me, Commodore Black, every jack in this crew.’

‘I didn’t bring nearly enough free company fighters for this expedition,’ said Veryann. ‘There’s not a cabin or hull plate in this underwater antique we’re not guarding now.’

‘And there was me thinking Quest was being a touch paranoid when he put marines on board,’ said Amelia.

‘The cleverest man in Jackals?’ said Veryann. ‘No, I think he was being just cautious enough. There’s a saying in the city-states: just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’renot out to get you.’

Amelia looked over at poor Ironflanks, his voicebox murmuring in some low-level language that sounded like static over the Sprite’s speakers. ‘Damn it, you fool of an old steamer.’

His quicksilver-induced nightmare continued. Theirs was just beginning.

Commodore Black dripped sweat on the pilot room’s map table. The only thing the cartographers knew for sure about the river Shedarkshe was that it continued southeast and eventually ended up at the sea-sized lake that lapped against the shores of the Daggish capital city. ‘Well, Bull, you’re our river man, what do you know about these channels?’

‘The channel on the right doesn’t go as far as the river’s source. The one in the middle is said to be the shortest route and its waters are the widest, but it’s going to be hairy with seed-ship patrols sooner rather than later. The one on the far left steers nor’-east and is reputed to be the long way round, narrow waters at points, but it eventually rejoins the main trunk of the Shedarkshe. It’s out of the way, but that’s where I’d put my money.’

‘It isn’t your money,’ said Amelia. ‘It’s Quest’s.’

‘His money but my blessed boat,’ said the commodore.

‘And I’d like to survive this fool’s voyage with my hide intact enough to spend the bonus that Quest promised us,’ said Bull.

‘We should wait for Ironflanks to recover,’ said Amelia. ‘He knows the greenmesh better than any of us.’

‘Right now he doesn’t know his metal arse from his tin elbow, girl,’ said Bull. ‘You want to lay down here for a few days, you might as well run up a signal buoy with an invite to the first seed ship that sails out this far. We need to wait for night, surface, clean our air, then its deep sailing all the way until we’ve got the lights of the Daggish nest glinting in our periscope.’

‘Better a moving target, right now,’ said Commodore Black. He had made his decision. ‘Mister McCabe, Mister Snow, rig stations for narrow waters. Ahead slow. If that lunatic steamer has his wits about him when we tank for air, we’ll ask his opinion on our course. Right now, left channel it is. Long and easy sounds mighty fine if we are to be dealing with these mortal terrible jungle lords.’

Amelia said nothing. She could sense the danger lurking for them down this tapered offshoot of the Shedarkshe. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something desperately wrong about the commodore’s long and easy channel. And whatever it was, they were sailing straight for it.

Commodore Black pushed the periscope back into the ceiling. ‘Cloudy and moonless, a good night to sit on the surface for a while. Take us up, Mister McCabe. Tank for air. Let’s clean my beautiful girl’s lungs out before we put our necks on the block for these wicked Daggish.’