Jack Cloudie

until you were right under my nose.

‘In this matter, I think my slave is far cleverer than her perspective suitor.’ He played with the controls and the sphere dug into Omar’s thighs, the young man shouting in pain through clenched teeth.

‘A pound of flesh for your drak — that’s an old bargain. But for this finely formed and highly intelligent slave, I’ll take twice my weight in gold as her price.’

The globe retracted back into the ceiling and Boulous undid the arm and ankle restraints, one of the three slaves coming forward bearing a tray of bandages that the retainer used to staunch the cuts and wounds on Omar’s body.

‘Unfortunately for you, the days when a guardsman could earn such booty during a campaign are in the past,’ laughed the grand vizier. ‘The future belongs to others, last son of Barir. The old days are never coming back. That’s a lesson you should learn from Shadisa here.’ He snapped his fingers and Shadisa and the other two women from Omar’s hometown followed him out and left Omar and the retainer alone in the chamber. Her departure from his life again was almost more than he could stand, an abscess stabbing in his soul. How many more times am I going to have to lose her?

‘A little too good an actor,’ said Boulous, tightening the compress around Omar. ‘A little too good an act.’

If I play the fool so well, it is only because she makes one of me every time she stands close to me.

‘I have agreed a price,’ said Omar. ‘And I have kept my life to earn it, and I have the man who would see me dead walking away thinking that I am a fool.’

‘He is not the only one,’ whispered Boulous. ‘There is something you need to know about Immed Zahharl, but not here. I will tell you back on the surface when we are safely out of here. Now that you have met him, there is a dark secret that you must be told …’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jack watched First Lieutenant Westwick walk across to where he and Master Cardsharp Oldcastle were waiting on the brow of the rocky slope, standing sentry over the Cassarabian prisoners on the floor of the valley below along with the other sailors from the Iron Partridge. She stood for a second silhouetted against the pall of smoke, the boom of explosions from the mined vessel crackling away just out of sight. The empire’s remaining airship had been scuttled beyond repair, and gone with the Kochava Saar was any chance of the crew collecting the prize money that should have been their due from her capture. Is she the most hated person on the airship now, I wonder, or is that still me?

‘Keep an eye on the prisoners, Mister Keats,’ said the first lieutenant.

‘They’re licked,’ said Oldcastle. ‘Good and proper.’

‘They know what’s waiting for them,’ said the first lieutenant, pointing towards the Benzari warriors whooping and hollering as they approached to take custody of the enemy crew. ‘Tribal hospitality with the slim hope of a prisoner exchange or someone back in the empire making their hostage price. Men without hope are men without fear.’

Westwick walked down the slope to greet the lead riders and Oldcastle muttered, ‘I think they know who to be afraid of here, lass.’

Jack saw the prisoners at the head of the column shy away from the female lieutenant, jostling back towards the marines’ bayonets rather than staying close to Westwick at the foot of the slope. The first horsemen to arrive began galloping wildly around the enemy sailors, singing a fierce whistling song and shooting their rifles into the air. Their Benzari marines started waving their navy carbines in response until the giant captain of marines cursed them for savages and they quickly fell silent. Jack had noticed the wiry little marines were treating Henry Tempest like their own god now, a god of war given flesh. His commands were no longer orders, they were the word of tribal scripture.

‘Ah, that’s bad,’ said Oldcastle.

‘The marines seem to be learning navy discipline fast enough,’ said Jack.

‘Not our marines, lad,’ said Oldcastle. He pointed to the wildly circling riders. ‘Them! Look at their guns. Brown Bess pattern rifles, freshly minted, and no doubt right off the back of our Corps of Supply’s wagons. If we’re openly supplying Benzaral with army rifles, that can only mean one thing.’

Jack was about to ask what, but Westwick returned with a sun-faded copy of the Middlesteel Illustrated News under her arm.

‘It’s begun then,’ said Oldcastle.

Westwick nodded and handed the newspaper to the master cardsharp to read.

‘Ah, this is a week old,’ said the officer, flicking through the pages. ‘Parliament imposed a wave of import duties on Cassarabian goods. The first traders that came up north along the caravan road refused to pay our taxes. A temperance movement mob attacked their jinn traders in the upland towns, took axes to their barrels and burnt the mortal alcohol in the street, and then they sent the empire’s merchants scampering back over the border tarred and heathered. Our newspapers are calling it the Great Jinn War. Great for their wicked sales, not so good for the poor devils who’ll be doing the dying and the bleeding for their stories.’

Behind them, the anchor cables holding the Iron Partridge above the hill-line started to vibrate as her engine cars tested their propellers before launch.

‘Then we were already at war when we engaged their two airships,’ said Jack.

There was a strange hissing sound from the armed sailors on the slopes as the news of hostilities spread, the kind of ugly noise a Jack Cloudie would make when whistling through clenched teeth.

‘Stop that disgusting sound!’ the first lieutenant shouted down the slope. She drew her pistol. ‘Captain of marines, any sailor you find making that foul noise is to be arrested and held for flogging.’

‘What is it?’ Jack whispered to Oldcastle. ‘Why are they doing that?’

‘In times of war,’ said Oldcastle, ‘Admiralty House triples the prize money for a captured vessel.’ He nodded towards the waves of heat and smoke rising up from behind the hills. ‘We’ve just blown up a small fortune, Mister Keats. If you can find me an unhappier ship in the navy right now, I’ll crack the blessed shell in your gun’s breech and mix the charge with tonight’s rum ration.’

The hissing from the crew was subsiding, like an angry snake sliding away to bide its time before coming back during darkness to strike.

‘We’re going to war with Cassarabia over some spilt drink?’ Jack said in disbelief.

Oldcastle clapped Jack on the back. ‘Now I know you’ve been in a tavern before, lad. All the finest fights start over a spilt drink. No need to play gently in Benzaral’s disputed acres now, lad. We’re heading over the border and sailing for Cassarabia proper. Into the bloody empire for some bloody action.’

Oh, fine. No prize money, but plenty of chances to die in action. They might as well appoint the first lieutenant as our morale officer. Jack stared at the downcast enemy sailors trudging away surrounded by Benzari horsemen. As prisoners of war their position seemed miserable, but at least they had survived. It seemed that the master cardsharp was going to have plenty of opportunities to make good on his promise to get Jack killed in action.

A whole war full of them.

Jack’s dreams were normally shapeless, formless things; flashes of memories and movement like treacle, and this one had started no differently. But clarity, terrible clarity, was coming, like sunlight streaming through parting clouds — his father on his sickbed in the debtors’ prison, telling Jack in between hacking coughs that the burden of being head of the family was going to be on his shoulders soon. All thoughts of his son’s engineman training forgotten, the fever running so high, Jack’s father was no longer aware that the farm and its lands had long since been sold off — trying to make Jack promise that he would find good positions for his two younger brothers when he took over management of the estate.

His brothers so young they had come to look on the four high walls of the debtors’ prison as home. Their bewildered looks as the three of them were cast out of its gates — the family’s debts annulled after the funeral.