“The halfbreedsare bred to protect us,” Knavish said, incredulous. “You turned them? How?”
Cyrus walked acrossthe barren shell and climbed the crooked wooden stairs to the bridge deck above.His heart hammered in his chest. Fibian continued at his heels.
“It’s that whitedemon spider,” Knavish spat. “That’s how you did it. That’s how you control them.I should never have left you three alive.”
“Why, Admiral?” Cyrusasked, remaining composed. “It is Admiral now, right? We did what you wanted. TheGeneral’s dead. His fleet is no longer a threat. Only, you got a little more thanyou desired.”
The communicationsofficers held dearly to their quivering pistols.
“I killed yourrunner because I didn’t need him,” Cyrus said, ignoring Sauer’s gun pointed athis head, “same as the gunners below. Do you want to know what happened to yourguards manning the port side cannon? I didn’t need them either, but I need youfive, as long as you make yourselves useful to me.”
He stared fixedlyat each klops, his boldness rising. A black blodbad crawled across one of thesmaller officers’ arms.
“Aaahh!”
The villain droppedhis weapon and cowered back in terror. More spiders began to crawl over the bridgerails. The other two klops dropped their guns and raised their hands insurrender. Cyrus snatched the pistol from Sauer’s grip. The chief stood motionless;contempt smeared across his broad, blotchy face. Knavish glared at his bridgecrew. Only Chief Sauer would meet his gaze.
“The ship, the explosion.A distraction,” the admiral sneered.
He looked Cyrus upand down. They were similarly sized. Knavish was small for a batalha, clevertoo.
“How may I serveyou, Master?” Knavish asked, rising from his seat.
There was a suppresseddisdain in the greasy klops’ tone.
“You can start byfetching my friend his arm,” Cyrus said, stowing Sauer’s pistol in his belt.
He clutched the hiltof his sword.
“If you no longerhave it, your own will do.”
Chapter15
NOT WHAT THEY SEEM
A RUNNER FLED to the barracks to retrieve Fibian’s mechanical arm. Cyrusstood on the bridge deck, trying to assess their predicament.
“We have much todiscuss, Admiral,” he said, as he peered about the stark bridge.
He walked to theparapet and looked out over the vast sea beyond. He was taken aback by twolarge structures, bolted to the hune’s crown, like metal horns mounted to thegiant’s head. The towers stood beyond the wall, at the cliff’s sloping edge,one at the bow’s port side shore and the other at the starboard. The strange twintowers were built of cable and steel and stood twice the height of thebattlements. Metal cords ran from the woods, over the wall, to the tops of thestructures, then down to what could only be Gabriel’s face. Small klops moved amongstthe framework, silhouetted against the dawn sky.
“What are those…”Cyrus started to ask.
A strange shadow passedover the Battle Hune. Alarmed, Cyrus looked up into the sky. The shadows beganto squawk and shriek. Then a flock of sickly black birds swooped down andskimmed the bridge’s roof.
A deep dread filledCyrus’ system. He staggered backward, nearly losing his balance.
“Cyrus,” Edwardcried, from Fibian’s shoulder.
Cyrus searched insidehimself. The terror was not his own. Gabriel!Instinctively, he scoured the dark waters.
Night was giving wayto day. Where the sky met the sea, there was a ragged line of dark ships on thehorizon. An oily black vessel loomed at the head of the fleet.
“The WarriorWitch,” Fibian whispered, his eyes glowing bright.
“The Trollman,” Knavishsaid, grinning broadly.
Gabriel’s fright becameCyrus’ horror. He stepped from the parapet and grasped the hunch-backed batalhaby the neck.
“Sound battle stations!”he demanded, glaring back at the signal officer. “If anyone steps out of line,”he said to Knavish, “it’ll be your head that rolls.”
“Alert thebarracks!” Knavish ordered.
Chief Sauer graspeda black bow and two arrows from the corner of the bridge. The missiles weretipped with egg-sized spheres of wrapped goss. One after the other, the palebatalha touched the projectiles to a wall torch, then fired them high over theisland.
POP! POP!
The salvo explodedabove the trees, illuminating the dark forest in bright bursts of fizzling light.
“We go no further,”Cyrus demanded, mounting the battlements, “Heave to.”
The signal officerdrew his torches from the metal drum and wielded them high overhead, first downthe starboard line, then down the port side.
“HALT!” spotters cried,from the tops of the two steel towers.
Their voices weredistant, muffled by sea and wind. Through a network of pulleys, the towers’ creakingcables grew taut.
Cyrus winced.Gabriel was in pain. The Battle Hune came to a slow, plodding stop. The bridgecrew stumbled forward, metal and wood groaning beneath their feet. The forest’strees swayed and the sea beyond the wall crashed and foamed against the shore.
The port sidewatch clung to a steel post and peered through his spyglass.
“The black ship isrequesting parlay,” the officer reported.
Cyrus looked to Fibian.The froskman stared back, his expression grave.
“It’s a trap,”Edward said, scurrying across Fibian’s shoulders.
Cyrus sensed hismended jaw and the bones of his fused ankle. He stared down at his thick, callousedhands, gnarled and scarred.
“I accept,” hesaid to the signal officer.
He glared out to sea,towards the blockade. He had become the eater of dragons, the beheader of witches,and the slayer of queens. What had the crippled old lady become? Cyrus wanted toknow.
***
THE DAWN SKY was grey and bleak. Wet slush rained from above. The threehijackers followed Knavish to the aft defenses, along the port side parapet. ChiefSauer and the communications officers remained on the fore wall, awaiting orders.
Knavish said thatthe aft shore was the only land low enough on the head fortress to receive a landingparty. Cyrus took quiet inventory of the weapons, the crewmen and the qualityof the defenses as he made his way to the stern.
He studied the portside tower and its heavy cables as he passed beneath the riggings. The steelcords crossed above the wall to a second, smaller tower within the hune’s defenses.Trees had been cleared at the edge of the forest, and in the middle of the clearinga massive wooden crank, like a ship’s wheel, had been mounted horizontally to asteel platform. The cables passed through a block-pulley chained to the
