The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

‘More of a chance than you gave me when I was exiled from the fleet,’ replied Bull. ‘There’s pistols in the boat, water and victuals. We’ll toss some charges on the shore upriver for your guns. There’s a couple of holes in the shore boat, but if you’re quick at rowing, it’ll stay afloat long enough to get you out of the river and into the rainforest.’

‘Nobody has ever come this far up the southeast fork on foot and survived,’ said Amelia.

‘Not true,’ said Bull, pointing at the drugged steamman. ‘He has. Of course, he didn’t return to Rapalaw Junction with anyone else!’

That drew a laugh from the ring of grinning sailors.

‘Besides, what do you care?’ He shoved Amelia back. ‘You’re staying here. I just brought you topside so you could say goodbye to this old dog …’

‘No, Bull!’ shouted the commodore, but he was kicked to the deck then pushed down the ladder towards the other officers.

‘I don’t know too much about fishing antiquities off lake beds,’ said Bull, ‘so you’re going to help make me rich, dimples. And if we don’t get that far and have to turn back, well, I’m sure there’s someone in Cassarabia who likes to buy them in large for their harem.’

There was a ripple of unease through the crew. One of the stripe-shirted sailors stepped forward. ‘She’s got the hex on her, this one. Leave her, Bull. Leave her here with Blacky and his friends.’

Bull’s hand wavered over his pistol holster. ‘We’ve just got rid of one skipper — any of you think you can do the same to me?’

‘We’re not challenging you, captain,’ said the sailor, ‘but she’s trouble, this one. I can feel it. You’ve seen what happens around her. She draws death to her like wasps to sweet cider. If we carry her along with us, this’ll become a voyage of damned souls.’

Bull turned to his men. ‘How damned are we, then? Freed from the tanks at Bonegate, treading the decks of our own war boat again? A full cargo of flaxen-haired moxies trussed up in our holds — treasure before us, and the fool that drummed us out of the royal fleet quaking on his fat feet at the thought of being stranded out in the jungle. If that’s bad luck, I’ll take a barrelful of it any day. And unless any of you jacks became experts in ancient civilizations while you were treading water back in Middlesteel, we still need the Guardian girl’s knowledge to make us wealthy.’

They seemed mollified and Bull cut the line holding the shore boat. It began to drift back as the Sprite’s engines pulled the u-boat away against the current.

‘You’d break your mother’s heart if she was alive to see this,’ called the commodore as the flow of the Shedarkshe seized the small craft and carried it away.

‘She hated you as much as I did, even before you court-martialled me,’ laughed Bull. ‘Say hello to the sleekclaws and tree spiders for me, uncle.’

‘A seadrinker’s curse on you and for paying back my mercy like this,’ shouted the commodore. ‘But not on your head, Amelia. When Bull’s dogs are struggling in the water, cursing the day they stole the Sprite, the river dolphins will come for you and carry you to safety.’

‘Not unless they’ve developed a taste for this Liongeli soup,’ roared Bull. ‘You take care, uncle, try not to poison the pot of the first tribe of craynarbians you come across with your fraud’s swagger and your landsman’s belly. I’ll take care of your boat and your women for you while you’re off exploring.’

‘Jared, I’m sorry!’ Amelia turned aghast to the new master of the Sprite. ‘He’s your own family and you’re doing this to him?’

‘It was only our bloodline that kept the fleet-in-exile going,’ said Bull. ‘Leastways, it was until his dim-witted courtier’s ways brought your RAN aerostats calling over the free isles.’

‘You’re not going to make it without him and the other officers.’

‘You think?’ Bull gave a final mocking wave to the drifting shore craft. ‘Well, we’ll be doing a lot better than your friends will when they wake up and find out where we’ve marooned them.’

Rifle muzzles shoved Amelia back as she tried to grab Bull. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Blacky can ask your friend Ironflanks. He knows,’ said Bull, amused. ‘That wall of gas is about to become the least of their problems. Your fate has taken a turn for the worse too, girl. Take her below and keep her out of my sight.’

Ironflanks was the last of them to emerge from the effects of his sedation and the uneasiest with it, all four of his arms shaking as the effect of days of quicksilver abuse wore off.

‘We’re not on the u-boat any longer, then?’ noted the steamman, his metal body smoking with condensation as the sun sliced through the canopy, burning off the morning dew from his hull.

‘You tell us,’ said Gabriel McCabe. ‘You’re the expert on this damned jungle.’

‘Your bender has seen us marooned,’ explained the commodore. ‘While you were out of your metal skull, Bull and his gang of pirates ran us up a channel and into a wall of gas that had us barking at the moon as if we belonged in an asylum.’

‘A wall of gas?’ Ironflanks hissed what might have been a sigh out of his voicebox. ‘Then I know where we are, and it isn’t anywhere we want to be. What supplies do we have?’

Veryann pointed to the two pistols, a belt of charges and a pile of water canteens behind them.

‘The pistols are enough to annoy most of what we will encounter in Liongeli,’ said Ironflanks. ‘No boiler-grade coke for me?’

The commodore shook his head.

‘Excellent,’ said Ironflanks. ‘I do so love the taste of wet leaves burning inside my body.’

‘Where are we?’ asked Veryann. ‘I thought we had entered Daggish territory?’

‘We are near their border, at the edge of the nest’s patrol area. But there are some things that even the greenmesh does not want to absorb into its hive.’

Ironflanks stared past the commodore’s bulk to where Billy Snow was holding T’ricola, the craynarbian engineer shaking worse than he was. ‘She has acclimatization sickness?’

‘My armour is expanding,’ said T’ricola, ‘I’m moulting all over.’

‘You are nearly at your full jungle height,’ said Ironflanks. ‘Direct exposure to Liongeli is accelerating your body’s natural cycles.’

‘I detest this place,’ moaned T’ricola.

‘Then it is fitting you survive it,’ said Ironflanks.

‘You know the route back to Rapalaw Junction from here?’ asked T’ricola.

‘We are not going back,’ said Veryann. ‘My company is on the Sprite and my mission is at the source of this river.’

‘Your mission is over,’ said Gabriel McCabe. ‘Your people are slaves that haven’t been sold yet, and even if we caught up with the Sprite, the six of us are not going to be able to storm the boat and take her back.’

‘Gabriel is right,’ said the commodore. ‘I would walk to the end of the Shedarkshe if I thought I would get my precious Sprite back and free our friends, but Bull’s rascals would raise lances and fry us like eels in a frying pan if they saw us clambering over her hull. Our best hope is to make it back to the Junction and send word to Quest. With his resources we can lay an ambush downriver, wait for the Sprite to return and net her on Jackelian territory.’

‘You may be correct,’ said Ironflanks. ‘But you are missing one thing, my softbody friends. I am not going back to Rapalaw Junction. I am taking myself and any of you that want to accompany me to Lake Ataa Naa Nyongmo. Quest will not pay me for a missing u-boat and a failed expedition.’

‘It was difficult enough sneaking up the river in the safety of my lovely boat. What chance do the six of us have on foot, against an empire? What will you be doing with Abraham Quest’s blessed coins?’ demanded the commodore. ‘Melting them down to make yourself a set of gold-plated arms?’

‘If you only knew,’ said Ironflanks. ‘You are welcome to try to return to Rapalaw Junction by yourself. Follow the river northwest, walking along the west bank — avoid any and all villages you come across. In fact, avoid anything that is bigger than you.’

‘Quest’s money cannot be that important to you,’ said Gabriel McCabe.

‘As I said, you have no idea,’ replied Ironflanks.