tunnel floor was clear of liquid before them. ‘There’s air ahead of us.’
‘Always better to do repairs on your blessed boat out of the sea when you can,’ said the commodore. ‘Welding is welding.’
‘The oxygen will be enough to keep the casually inclined away from their pens,’ said Maeva. ‘Our ride is topside?’
‘Let’s see.’
Breaking the surface of the tunnel alongside her two companions, Charlotte found herself in an oblong chamber, a crystalline ramp with multiple launch rails running across its floor. A couple of open-to-water gill-neck craft hung from gantries above, and at the back of the pen, a pair of black oily-hulled darkships skulked. Two massive malevolent stingrays — they appeared to be steaming in the air, as if their presence was enough to make the very substance of the world crawl. Arches at the rear of the chamber led deeper into the Temple of Judgement, sealed with glass doors — but of crew, engineers and temple staff there was no sign. The three of them walked cautiously up the incline, pushing the visors of their diving helmets up into their helms. Disconnecting the voice line that tethered the three of them together, they pulled out shock spears and crept up alongside the launch rails, dripping water down onto the hangar floor.
‘Why do I feel like a mouse, lass?’ whispered the commodore. ‘Creeping up on a piece of cheese dangling from a bait clasp?’
Charlotte craned her neck, looking for any signs of movement in the dock. ‘That’s the point of the assault. Any sea-bishops masquerading as Advocacy commanders inside the temple will be overwhelmed by officials pestering them for orders on how to defend the city.’
Charlotte approached the alien black mass of the ships. It was as if the substance that formed them was alive, throbbing with dark intent.
‘How many can one of these evil boats carry?’ asked the commodore.
‘Two pilots. Up to ten passengers,’ said Charlotte. At least, that’s how Elizica remembers it. ‘Enough to hold the three of us.’
The commodore appeared as though he’d been hoping for a smaller capacity — perhaps one less than his number. ‘Two craft to choose from, but we need to name them for luck. The one on the left we’ll call the Revenue Man’s Soul — for it’s a fact well known that they have none — and the one on the right should be the Witch of Jackals, for it’s her dark magic we must rely on to survive diving to thirty-six thousand feet. Which one of the terrible pair are we to seize?’
‘I’ll take a witch over the office of tax,’ said Charlotte. She approached the craft on the right and touched the crystal under her diving suit. A circular port irised open in the darkship’s hull and a ramp extruded like a lolling tongue. One foot on the ramp and Charlotte was punched backward by a weight wrapping her with a murderous constriction, then she was falling down to the dock. She managed a single surprised croak before a blaze of agony burned across every nerve she possessed. As Charlotte tumbled, she saw Maeva weaving around, her shock-spear blazing erratic bolts of energy towards the craft behind them, loosing bolts even as her body jerked and lurched, spouting blood off her diving suit in a hail of rifle balls; falling, shooting, falling, shooting. Charlotte hit the chamber’s floor as a dead weight, exhaling and gagging, the strangling netting repaying her every movement with sparking pain. Laid out across the hanger, Charlotte’s eyes twisted up, the one thing she could still move without being lashed by the cruel embrace of the capture net. A lock had opened in the craft behind them, spilling sailors with guns — Jackelians by the look of them, the ancient royalist arms of the Kingdom sitting on their Jack Tar hats.
Commodore Black stumbled towards Maeva, clutching a red weal of blood on his shoulder. Shot-drunk and trembling, he landed on his hands and knees by the nomad woman’s side. ‘Don’t move, lass.’
‘I’ve found a way to punish you after all, Jared,’ she grimaced.
‘Save your strength now,’ the commodore pleaded. ‘We’ll patch you up. Just be quiet and let me look at you again.’
‘And how do I look?’ Maeva coughed.
‘Fine, lass. Just like when we first met.’
‘You always were a honeyed-tongued pirate.’
‘Privateer, Maeva. Never a pirate.’
A grey-haired woman emerged from the darkship portal Charlotte had opened, more sailors at her side. Alighting on the dock, the woman smoothly kicked the commodore off all fours and onto his back. ‘There you are brother, lying on your fat arse. That’s the way you like to spend your wars. Before you run away, at least, leaving the rest of us to die.’
‘Mercy,’ coughed the commodore, raising an arm. ‘Parlay.’
‘One privateer to another? I think we’re a little beyond that, don’t you?’ Gemma bent down and reached through the netting binding Charlotte, a blade in her hand. Slicing open Charlotte’s diving suit, the woman reached through and ripped the amulet painfully from Charlotte’s neck. ‘No more stage tricks from you, Mistress Shades. Our mutual friend Mister Walsingham is looking forward to renewing your acquaintance. It seems you owe him a sceptre and he’s not very pleased with all the hoops you’re making him jump through to retrieve it.’
Charlotte tried to speak, but the burning agony was as bad as plunging her fist into a stoked fireplace.
‘The capacitors on the net are very sensitive,’ smiled Gemma Dark. ‘I’d keep your witticisms to yourself, thief girl, until you’re safely locked up in the feeding pens. You did want to visit my allies’ seed-city, no? It’s a long dive down. I’m here to save you the trouble of stealing a darkship. Always happy to give any friend of my brother the scenic journey.’
Maeva groaned on the floor, her fingers reaching weakly for her fallen shock-spear, but Gemma Dark’s foot swept the nomad’s weapon a couple of inches beyond her dying grasp. ‘No, I don’t think you’re coming along for the ride. You’d bleed all over my darkship’s cabin, and while our allies do so appreciate human blood, I’d rather not have to mop it up for them.’ Gemma Dark knelt down alongside Maeva. ‘Your filthy nomad vermin outside Lishtiken didn’t last very long, I’m afraid. The city wasn’t as unprepared for your arrival as it appeared. Time for you to join your friends.’ The commodore’s sister produced a pistol and shot Maeva through the heart, her body shuddering on the floor. Charlotte jounced in shock at the cold-blooded slaughter, the commodore’s moan coming out as half a sob.
‘That’s as much mercy as I have for your kind, sea-wanderer. Same as your seanore friends showed any royalist unlucky enough to be captured crossing your hunting grounds.’ She pushed the commodore away from the nomad’s corpse with her boot, clicking her fingers for the mob of sailors to come and secure him with manacles. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not getting off so easily, brother. We’ll have a proper family reunion, you and I, appropriately unhurried. The sea-bishops have a machine that allows them to drain a mind as if it’s a swamp, but where’s the sport in that? I’ll handle your interrogation the way all traitors to the cause should be treated… your fat arse, an iron bar, and your dear little sister for company.’
‘You didn’t have to kill Maeva,’ whispered the commodore. ‘You didn’t have to.’
‘Oh, I think we should start as we mean to go on, don’t you?’
Charlotte lay on the deck, the sailors deactivating the shock net only to manacle her arms and bundle her up inside the darkship. At least she was free of the vicious shocks pursuing her every roll and twitch. ‘You can’t trust the sea-bishops! Those monsters don’t have allies, they have herds. You’re not their partners. To them, you’re only their supper — delayed.’
‘Trust has always been a pliable notion, thief girl,’ said Gemma, boarding the craft and stuffing Charlotte’s amulet inside her jacket pocket. ‘And when it comes to the hunt, better a flea on the hound, than a flea on the hare, hmm?’
After the shock of the net, Charlotte could hardly stand, and the sailors rolled her into the back of the darkship’s cabin, a featureless dark tunnel leading up to the cockpit. The surface was slightly sticky and wet, as if they were being held in the belly of a beast. She turned over as she slid across the floor, landing next to Commodore Black. With her hands and the old u-boat man’s securely bound, Charlotte noticed the sailors were passing their rifles to one of their number, a young pock-faced man who then exited the darkship with a pile of rifles in his arms.
‘Is that the limit of the alliance you have struck, honey?’ Charlotte called to Gemma. ‘The sea-bishops won’t even let you in their city with ranged weapons?’
Gemma patted the sabre resting by her side. ‘Hold your filthy mouth, thief girl, lest you lose it. I still have this, and its edge is sharp enough for your wagging tongue. My allies don’t need your prattle during interrogation.
