33
Aboard Flying Cloud, high in the freezing sky west of Big Rock:
Repaired and refitted, the pirate ship stole out of dock under cover of darkness, slipping free of its icy cave and into the star-pocked night. Captain Flint was somewhere nearby, but short on crew after a vicious battle. Like Tess, Kaazin and ‘Pilot’, Flint was hunting assassins, but he didn’t know where to start searching. Would probably slip in to follow the Cloud, and promise be drekt.
Tess Nomercy wasn’t the Flying Cloud’s captain. She was only first mate, with a drow quartermaster, a phantom crew, two cats, and a mech-god’s avatar providing a bit of insurance. Her ship called the avatar “captain”, which Tess did her best to ignore. He was part elf and part construct; aboard ship, because Kaazin had something he very much wanted. The souls of his friends, all balled-up like socks and sparkling.
The elf and drow hated each other, and the Flying Cloud wasn’t big enough to contain all that seething resentment. Kaazin stayed mostly below in his quarters. (Plotting, no doubt.) Pilot stood gracefully poised on the highest collection mast, surrounded by blinking and buzzing small constructs. Like spy-eyes, she thought. Everywhere he went on the ship, its ghosts fled away like terrified birds. In a ten-foot circle around him, the Cloud sprang back from a haunted, creaking derelict to squared-away dreadnought. Weird.
Pilot’s voice echoed strangely, with a rattling hum underneath that elvish lilt. His eyes were pale grey, but with glowing lines and dots inside. They were very reflective, too, like Skelly’s. To keep the peace, he stayed aloft watching out for their quarry, coming down only for meals. (He could eat, in this form.)
Her other new shipmate was a very dead skin-changer. According to Stormy, the one who’d hired assassins to murder the former emperor along with Majesty and all hands. The dead woman had been clutching one of Titania’s magical cards when she flopped on their deck in a slosh of blood and spilled guts. From her, they’d learned that their quarry was speeding westward instead of beating for safety on the mainland. The skin-changer wasn’t fully a part of the crew yet, being too freshly slain and still burning with rage. But Stormy knew everything she did, now.
There was a vast reward for the heads of His Majesty’s killers, and Tessa meant to collect it. After that… whatever it was that you did when you turned up rich as a god, she supposed. If they could get off of that haunted pirate ship, anyhow.
These were the things she was thinking, when something buzzed in her skull like Stormy did, but without any actual words. Tess hugged herself, dreading another savage, pounding headache. Then Pilot zipped down from the top of the highest collecting mast, using some kind of rippling force wave. He landed on deck beside Tess, just as dawn kindled morning’s first glow.
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The elven construct was taller even than Kaazin, made of metal, earth-blood and flesh. Looking at Tess, he called in his buzzing constructs, saying,
“There is a vessel at the ragged edge of my scanner range. At least… an echo of copper and wood, very high in the air. Moving too fast for a merchant ship. 300 knots, 213.35 degrees south of west.”
All around him, Stormy’s planks converted to polished teak, and the rail to gleaming brass. Skelly and Tidbit peeked out of a hatch, didn’t like what they saw, and retreated. Tess was too busy counting phantom reward money to care. She grinned, rubbing her hands together.
“Bet that’s our sweet little jackpot, coming to mamma! Hear that, Stormy? Plot an intercept course and bring us about. Run out the guns, lower the masts and haul in the tanks.”
‘Aye, Tess,’ replied the Flying Cloud. ‘The quartermaster has been informed. He is on his way up. I am able to sense the vessel now, also. It may be Loose Ends. Captain, can you scout from sufficient height to provide us with visual confirmation?’
“Aye, that, Cloud. Stand by.”
Pilot launched himself into the air again like a wizard. Very soon, he was no more than a fast-moving spark in the rising light of morning.
‘Ah,’ purred the Cloud. ‘There! Our mark is a modified serpent hunter, and… annnnn…’
All at once, that scratchy, ant-like voice in her head stopped cold.
“Stormy? What is it? What’s wrong?!” Tess demanded, seizing a once-again tarnished rail.
Kaazin arrived moments later, armed and armored in scale-mail and ice. The Flying Cloud remained silent, leaving an echoing void. Worse, the vessel began to heel over, pushed by a sudden cross-wind. Its deck tilted sharply to port beneath them, drawing a sudden, wild yowl from the cats.
“Drek! I’ll have to take the wheel,” snarled the mortal girl. “Something’s wrong with the ship. Maybe the same thing that happened to Majesty. You handle the battle until we’re close enough to grapple and board, drow-boy… and no fighting with gods! Not when there’s money at stake!”
Kaazin glanced scornfully up at the shimmering speck that was Pilot, while Tess turned to race for the distant wheelhouse.
“One bolt, straight through the eye. No fight at all,” he remarked, and then began summoning ghosts. They gathered around him like greenish-pale, trickling fog, awaiting their orders.
“Twist, prepare a boarding party,” snapped Kaazin. “No quarter, no survivors. Look for anything taken from Majesty. Any proof that they did it, at all. Plant something, if you have to. Scarface, man the cannons. Roughhouse, you’re on damage and fire control. Do not await orders from Cloud. Fire at will, and act to defend the ship.”
The phantoms flickered assent, then streamed to their stations, lighting the mast and lines. Their ship’s transformation to battle-mode had stopped halfway through, for the Flying Cloud had gone utterly silent and helpless.
The drow glanced upward once more, measuring distance. Not yet but soon, he thought, drumming the fingers of one hand against the hilt of his sword. First things first, though. Finish Loose Ends, then send a worthless god to the bottom in splintery, frozen chunks. Simple as that.
