eSteampunk Vol. 01 No. 02 Page 10

  Willow tucked Sir Furrybottom under her arm. “Right, you need us.”

  “Looks like…. What do you say, Agatha? Join us?”

  Agatha nodded. “We should try for my gun, in case there are more Draggers around.”

  “Agreed.” Tom peered over the side at the Mist. There were still patches clinging to the scorched buildings below, but not many. Far down the slope though, the Mist boiled upwards, clawing its way toward Milton for a second round. Tom whistled under his breath. This wasn’t how Mist was supposed to behave. Once most of the people were dead the Mist always retreated, taking the Draggers with it. They never came back for just a few stragglers.

  “I’ll drop down first. Rest of you follow, fast as you can.” Tom grabbed the rope and slithered over the side, scampering easily to the ground. The dead Draggers there were starting to smell. He looked around and cocked an ear for laughter, but there was no sound.

  “All clear!” He looked up to see Agatha half-way down, climbing almost as quickly as he had.

  “Catch!” Willow stuck her head through the trapdoor and tossed Sir Furrybottom down.

  Tom snagged the bear with a grin. “Welcome aboard, yer knightliness. You wouldn’t happen to have a sword, or some kinda weapon to go with the title, would you?” The bear didn’t respond. “Yeah … thought not.”

  Agatha alit beside him. “Who you talkin’ to?”

  “Oh … ahem, nobody.” Tom tucked the bear beneath his arm.

  “You were talking to the bear, weren’t you?”

  Tom grinned sheepishly. “Uhh, no ... ‘course not.”

  Agatha groaned. “I can’t believe I’m following an idiot who talks to toys.”

  Willow dropped to the ground and retrieved her bear. Nikki followed close behind.

  “Ready?” Tom gave them a once-over. Nikki had his jacket on still, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold in spite of it. Willow hugged her bear tightly, and Agatha stood loose, like an athlete preparing for a run.

  “Your friends went that way.” Agatha pointed up an alley.

  Tom nodded. “I’ll take lead. Then Willow and Nikki, Agatha, you take rear-guard.”

  They quickly fell in line and Tom set off at a quick walk toward the point where they had lost track of Oleg and Giles.

  At the intersection, Willow pointed to the right. “That way.”

  It seemed right to Tom, so he led them up the road. It wasn’t long before they came across Oleg’s body. There wasn’t much left to identify him by, but the gun belt and Agatha’s revolver. Tom’s knife lay on the ground nearby so he picked it up and wiped it clean of blood on Oleg’s pants while Agatha retrieved her weapon. There was no sign of Giles.

  Tom heard laughter in the distance. “Let’s get goin’.”

  Agatha dropped a final round into the revolver and shut the loading gate.

  “Keep the same order as before.” Tom set out at a light run this time, but the laughter drew nearer. It echoed between remnants of the buildings, making it seem to come from all directions at once.

  Tom increased the pace until Willow could barely keep up. They rounded a corner and a figure burst from behind the corner of a building. Nikki screamed. The sun was at its back, partly obscuring the face.

  Tom recognized him anyhow. “Shit Giles, you scared the crap out of me!”

  Giles just laughed in response. He bared his teeth and approached them, mouth stretched into a wicked smirk.

  Tom whipped out his knife as Dragger-Giles charged.

  From behind he heard Agatha shout, “More comin’ from behind!” Then a series of evenly spaced gunshots.

  Tom lunged forward, slashing Giles deeply across the arm, but the former Airman ignored the wound, and with unnatural speed grabbed Tom by the throat.

  Another slash across Giles’s belly spilled a mass of hot organs across Tom as he fell backwards under the heavier man, but did nothing to slow the beast. Spots and sparkles drifted before Tom’s eyes as he flailed madly with the knife. The smell of his father’s breath came up in Tom’s memory again, and rage enveloped him, but it wasn’t enough. Giles had manhandled Tom before, and as a Dragger he was twice as strong. Finally in desperation Tom thrust his knife as deeply into Dragger-Giles’s belly as he could, angling upwards.

  Giles gasped, and his grip weakened. His eyes went vacant for a moment, then it was him, the real Giles again. His breath was rapid and shallow and a look of desperation came over him. “Sorry ‘bout chokin’ you ‘gain…” He coughed up blood, “Seem to be doin’ that a lot lately.” Then he sighed and sagged in Tom’s arms.

  Tom withdrew the knife, and rolled Giles to the side. He got to his feet, quivering and unsteady. His stomach lurched, trying to give back what wasn’t there. Tom choked back the bile and fought to steady his nerves.

  At his shoulder Agatha whistled low. “Maybe you’re not useless after all. I cleared ‘em up behind, but there’s more on the way.”

  After passing Giles’s knife to Nikki, Tom set out again. The laughter of Draggers followed them closely, never gaining or falling behind, but increasing in volume and intensity with every step. By the time they reached the airship yard Tom figured there must be a hundred of them.

  They burst into the open space of the port and saw it was strewn with the wreckage of zeppelins. Most were mangled beyond recognition, but Tom caught sight of a stretch of fuselage he recognized as Myrmidon’s. He paused for a moment in shock. Nearly everyone he had known for the past two years would have been aboard.

  As they picked their way through the wreckage toward the mooring tower for the one zeppelin still in the air, the Draggers burst from between buildings. They poured from streets and alleys into the tangled mess of smouldering airships and howled with laughter at the sight of their prey.

  Chapter 4

  “Go, go!” Tom pointed toward the tower where the last surviving airship floated. He ushered Nikki and Willow past and paced beside Agatha in the rear. The name Hecate was printed on the bow of the airship, and it floated with only the bow-line keeping it from drifting away on the breeze. The only way to get to the bridge would be to climb the tower, traverse the steel bow-line, and climb down the rigging on the underside of the envelope to the gondola. No problem for him, and he was confident Agatha could do it, but Tom worried about Nikki and Willow.

  Agatha turned every few paces and blasted a shot at the Draggers, reloading on the run. Every shot found its mark, but it was far from thinning their ranks. With those still pouring out of the streets, the Draggers grew more numerous by the second.

  Ahead the two sisters had reached the tower. They scampered up the ladder with Tom and Agatha not far behind. When they reached the top, Willow and Nikki paused.

  Tom rushed past them. “No time for explanations, just watch what I do and follow!”

  He lay flat on the cable and dangled one leg below. Pulling with his arms and pushing with the other leg, he quickly shimmied across the makeshift bridge to the envelope. Then Tom swung to the rigging underneath and scrambled clear. Willow and Nikki had some difficulty, but made it across, and Agatha came last. By that time the Draggers had nearly made it to the top of the ladder. Agatha turned, dangling from the rigging, and pulled out her revolver.

  Boom. Boom. Two shots, two Draggers dropped from the ladder. The second swept several beneath him from the rungs as he fell.

  “Come with me, we gotta get this thing moving!” Tom tugged on Nikki’s arm. She followed as he guided her along the rigging underneath Hecate’s envelope. More shots echoed behind them as they climbed. When they reached the walkway surrounding Hecate’s gondola, Tom swung down easily and helped Nikki.

  “Release the guyline and get us moving!” He pushed her toward the bridge, and Nikki rushed to obey.

  With a thump, Ag
atha landed next to him.

  “Where’s Willow?” Tom turned toward the rigging just as her scream cut the air.

  “I can’t make it!” Willow had jammed her elbow through a hole in the rigging and clung to her stupid bear as she dangled there like bait for the Draggers.

  The Draggers for their part were swarming up all sides of the tower now, mostly ignoring the ladder. Many of them fell, but that didn’t do anything to slow the mob down. The first had nearly reached the guyline.

  Agatha dumped her spent casings on Hecate’s deck and hastily reloaded. “Three shots left!”

  “Make ‘em count!” Tom turned behind them and pounded on the glass of the Hecate’s bridge. “Release the guyline!”

  Nikki was frantically fiddling with controls inside, she looked at him with panic in her eyes. “Broken! It’s all busted up in here!”

  “Oh shit. Agatha, cover me, I’m going for Willow.” Tom swung back on to the rigging and clambered toward the frightened girl.

  Boom. A shot whizzed past Tom and missed every single Dragger. Deadeye Agatha sure picked a bad time to lose her nerve. He climbed on, hoping her second shot would be better.

  Boom. Another clean miss. What the hell was she shooting at? She must have been shaking with fear. Not that it mattered, three Draggers more or less wouldn’t make much difference.

  Boom. One Dragger made it onto the rigging as Agatha’s third shot blasted past. Tom scrambled toward Willow, trying to beat the beast there.

  “Could have at least shot that one,” he muttered under his breath.

  More Draggers were trying to make it across to Hecate, but instead of climbing across the cable they were jumping and falling. Tom didn’t have time to figure it out. He scrambled for Willow, reaching her just before the Dragger woman.

  Tom stuck an elbow and a knee into the rigging and drew his knife. The Mist-possessed woman took no precautions against falling, and she scrambled, upside-down across the rigging and leapt the last few yards to grab Tom around the waist.

  The move caught him by surprise, and Tom’s grip on his knife slipped. He made a snatch for it and missed. He watched it spin away beneath him, glinting in the sun. The woman had an iron grip around him and she hugged him close. Tom was just counting his stars, he could probably hold on long enough for Agatha to come help, and with her hands tied up the Dragger wouldn’t be able to do much more damage. Then she leaned into him, like a lover, and bit deeply into his chest muscle.

  Tom screamed. The Dragger’s teeth cut through skin and muscle. She pulled her head back, tearing a ragged hunk of flesh away. Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Willow reach inside her bear and pull out a miniature sword. As the Dragger woman leaned her head back, gorging on Tom’s flesh, the little knife flashed and cut a neat line across her throat. The Dragger’s eyes closed. The rictus of a smile faded from her face. Blood spewed from the cut, and her grip relaxed.

  “He does have a sword….” Tom looked from the bear to Willow. “That bear was holdin’ out on me.”

  Willow just slipped the incredibly sharp little thing away and put her free finger to her lips. “We’re not what you think.”

  The Dragger fell away and disappeared through a partially burned-out roof. Tom gazed down. It shouldn’t be rooftops. They should still be over the airship yard. He looked over his shoulder toward the guyline.

  The twisted ends of the steel cable flapped in the breeze, cut in a ragged line where three bullets had ripped through it.

  * * *

  “No signs of life.” Agatha reported back as Tom read the logbook in the Skipper’s chair on the bridge.

  Nikki was working out which controls were still functional in the mass of smashed gauges and controls of the bridge while Willow tried to find the appropriate charts so she could plot their course as the wind swept them away from Milton. They’d all eaten some hardtack from the galley and drunk their fill of water, which was enough to keep them going, but Tom’s stomach grumbled for real food.

  Tom leaned forward and winced. His chest had a rough bandage across the bite-wound and it hurt like hell. “Signs of death?”

  “Lots of blood, and most of the ship is messed up bad, but no bodies. Anything on your end?”

  Tom snapped the black-covered logbook shut. “Nothin’… whole lotta questions, very few answers. Seems the old Captain died a week ago, and his logbooks are gone. This one starts with landfall in Labrador. Some mention of a passenger named Ishara, who was some high muckity-muck. It ends with docking in Milton, no mention of the Mist or nothin’…. Oh and it says they were carrying lead bars as cargo. Did you find ‘em on your survey?”

  Agatha nodded. “Yep, though why anyone would carry so much lead is beyond me. What?—” She stared gape-mouthed at the open bridge door.

  Tom and the others turned to see a beautiful young woman wearing a white dress in the doorway. She had dark olive skin and long, flowing, black hair.

  “Who are you? What happened here?” Tom stood and took a step toward the woman, with Agatha close behind, but the woman turned and fled. By the time they reached the door she was gone.

  “What the hell! I thought you said there was nobody else aboard?”

  Agatha shrugged. “I looked everywhere. She must have a hidin’ spot. I heard smugglers sometimes have secret compartments, maybe….”

  “Well let’s search again. I’ll help this time.”

  “You sure? You’re still bleedin’.”

  Tom looked down. Blood seeped through the bandage and dribbled onto his bare chest, leaving a red trail. “I’ll be fine. Nikki, lock the door behind us. Don’t let anyone else in.”

  “Okey doke. You got a secret knock, or how do I know it’s you?”

  “I’ll say ‘it’s me, Tom, open the damned door!’”

  Nikki grinned sheepishly. “Right…. Suppose that’d do.”

  * * *

  Two hours later Tom’s chest felt like it had been front-and-centre at a cattle stampede. He was hot and dirty, and no closer to finding the woman’s secret hiding spot, but he did have a good feel for the layout of Hecate. She was a roomy craft, with berths for twelve crew, a well-appointed captain’s quarters and beside it a small but luxurious suite, obviously intended for the mysterious passenger. That was a bit of a head scratcher, because the vanity, complete with expensive soaps, brushes and makeup, wardrobe full of fine clothes and even the four-poster bed all appeared completely unused. There was a mess hall that could fit all former passengers and crew if they squeezed in tight with a decently appointed galley and full larder. The ship had an armoury with enough guns and ammunition to impress even Agatha, and far more than any ordinary trader would need (Tom strapped on a revolver that Agatha recommended to him while they were there). There was even a well kitted-out machine room, with every tool a man could need to keep Hecate in proper running order if he knew what he was about. Lastly, a cargo bay, underneath the crew-portion of the gondola was accessed by climbing down a companionway. It had enough room to fit a stagecoach and a team of horses, and had a two-ton winch elevator.

  “We’ve got only one engine. It keeps overheating, but it runs, and we also have full rudders and bladder control.” Nikki reported when Tom and Agatha returned.

  Tom sniggered.

  “The gas bladder, dimwit!” Nikki threw out her lower jaw.

  “Aw, don’t pout. Makes you look like a man.”

  Nikki went red and gritted her teeth. “With only one engine we can barely manage a straight course with the rudder full-over. If the wind blows us too far starboard we’ll have to do a complete three-sixty to get back on track.”

  “What kind of speed can you manage?”

  Nikki shrugged. “Top speed, ten, maybe twelve knots. Slower if the wind forces us to circle around a lot, and I need to rest the engi
ne forty-five minutes of every hour to keep it from overheatin’.”

  “Fuel?”

  “Gauges are smashed, so I had Agatha check the tanks. She says they’re completely full.”

  “Any chance of getting the other three engines going, or better cooling on the one?”

  “Not as it stands.” Nikki swept a hand over a badly beaten-up portion of the panel. “It took all I know to get that one going.”

  Tom rubbed his jaw. “I see. Anyone know how to fix it?” He looked each of them in the eye in turn. “Right then.” He flopped down in the Captain’s chair. “Willow, plot us a course for the nearest place we can get some repairs done.”

  “Aye Captain.” Willow grinned at him.

  Agatha frowned. “He’s not the Captain!”

  “Got the charts right here Captain.” Willow glanced down at her plotting table and shoved Sir Furrybottom to the side. “Should be a coupla days if Nikki can hold a fairly straight course.”

  “Pilot Nikki, take your sister’s course direction. Both of you teach Agatha enough so she can take shifts.”

  Agatha snorted. “I don’t take orders from you.”

  Tom shrugged. “It makes sense, you’ve gotta admit.”

  Agatha shook her head. “And what’re you gonna be doin’?”

  Tom stood and walked to the door. “I am going to fix us some proper grub.” On the threshold he turned back. “Oh, I nearly forgot. So long as we haven’t found our mystery guest, Nikki and Willow are always to be accompanied by me or Agatha or in a safely locked room.”

  © Jonathan Hunt |

  http://huntillustration.carbonmade.com/

  As he turned and walked away he heard Willow’s “Aye Captain,” followed immediately by Agatha, “He’s not the Captain!”