The Aeronaut's Windlass, Page 41

  The warrior looked unhappily from Rowl to his wounded companion. Then his fur abruptly settled and he looked away, lashing his tail left and right. “It is this way,” the Nine-Claws said. “Follow me, stranger.”

  Rowl promptly pounced on the warrior’s back and set his teeth in the back of the cat’s neck, a death grip if he chose it to be. The cat sent up a kit’s yowl and flattened to the ground.

  Rowl spoke though his teeth were engaged, as it was a cat’s prerogative to do. “I am Rowl, kit of Maul of the Silent Paws of Habble Morning, and I am in no mood for insolence. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, Rowl,” the warrior hissed.

  “Run and tell your chief that I come,” Rowl snarled, and sent the warrior on his way with a sharp nip and a cuff to his ears. The other cat shot off into the chamber ahead of him, and Rowl padded after him, as if in no great hurry whatsoever.

  Cats gathered around him, just as before, and Rowl could feel the eyes on him, including those of dozens of kits. Good that he had accomplished most of the rough business before he entered the chamber. Kits were silly things at the best of times, and they would certainly have been imitating him in an instant had he engaged the other warriors before their eyes.

  All kits needed to learn about blood between cats and what it meant, and what made it necessary—but while they huddled in a chamber full of frightened tribe members was an ill place indeed to begin their education. For that matter, he was pleased Littlemouse hadn’t seen it happen. She had such a high opinion of the cats’ ability to manage conflict without violence. She had never gotten it through her gentle head that there was a time for a soft paw and a time for red claws. The burden of a chief, or a chief’s kit, was to know one from the other.

  Rowl entered, trailing a third of the warriors of the clan, while the other two-thirds gathered around Naun’s meeting area. As he sauntered into the center of the chamber, Rowl saw Naun sitting up upon his table, staring down with unreadable eyes. The warrior Rowl had berated was crouched in front of Neen, Naun’s kit, speaking quietly, his fur flattened. Neen, for his part, looked outraged.

  The cats he had wounded entered, the first tattered but in essence whole. The second might lose the eye Rowl had scratched. Bad luck for both of them. They padded gingerly around Rowl to join their compatriot near Neen.

  Clan Chief Naun studied the wounded warriors with steady eyes, and then drew himself up and wrapped his tail around his paws, hiding his claws. It was generally considered either a posture of peace or one of veiled fury. Naun had excellent control. Rowl wasn’t sure which it signified.

  “Chief Naun,” Rowl said, not waiting to be addressed. “Urgent matters bring me to your territory.”

  “Warriors,” Neen yowled to the chamber. “This creature has drawn the blood of our kin. Tear it to shreds.”

  A low growl rose around the room. Rowl felt a surge of something like alarm. He might not be able to fight the entire populace of the Nine-Claws warrior caste with only his own teeth and claws, though it was difficult to be certain. He did not let his . . . concern . . . show, of course. Such things were not done. He faced Naun and came to a halt, wrapping his own tail around his paws, in mirror of the Nine-Claws chief.

  Something like a twitch of amusement might have shaken Naun’s whiskers. Then he growled, far down in his deep chest, and the room became silent and still.

  “I will hear the Silent Paws stranger,” Naun growled.

  “Father!” snapped Neen.

  Naun’s head turned toward his kit. His eyes stared, level and unblinking.

  Neen let out a low growl.

  Naun regarded his kit for a moment, then turned to Rowl. “Your words will mean little to me,” Naun said, “if I do not know that you see clearly what troubles my realm, young Rowl.”

  Rowl yawned. “Your people have been hunted like prey, O Naun,” he replied.

  At that, the chamber again filled with growls of outraged pride.

  “Hunted!” Rowl snapped, rising and spinning toward the Nine-Claws nearest him. Offended or not, Rowl had defeated two of their warriors, one of them the chief’s personal guard, without taking a scratch in return. They shied away from him. “Hunted!” Rowl said again, turning back to Naun. “Or why else have you gathered your kits into this chamber, all together, like a brood of tunnel mice. You hope to protect them.”

  Naun’s eyes narrowed to slits. Then his tail tip twitched once, an acknowledgment. “And?”

  “Your people fear the silkweavers and their brood,” Rowl continued. “These are no wild creatures of the surface. These are weapons. They are under the control of a human. A human who threatened you with the death of your kits should you not cooperate with its aims.”

  “He knows nothing of our ways!” snapped Neen, rising and padding out toward Rowl. “Nothing of what our people may gain!”

  Rowl twitched his whiskers smugly at Neen. “Ah,” he said. “They have offered you both cream and claw, then. What was the bribe, should your people remain uncommitted to the human war?”

  “New territory!” Neen snarled. “New tunnels and halls in which our folk can hunt, our tribe can grow! Halls free of the human plague!”

  Rowl regarded Neen with pure contempt. “So said a human to you? It must therefore be true.” He flicked his tail at Neen as he would at an annoying kit and said, “You are no warrior. You are no hunter. You are an idiot.”

  “Father!” Neen said, whirling to Naun. The fur of the prince of the Nine-Claws bristled with outrage. “Will you permit him to say such things of our clan?”

  Naun made a rumbling sound in his throat. Then he turned to Rowl and said, “Our kits are our future. What would you have me do?”

  “Teach them,” Rowl growled, letting his voice carry to the hall. “Will you bow to the will of humans? Will you show them how to meow and purr for human charity next? To catch their mice and leave them as gifts? To besot themselves on human plants, human drink?” Rowl lashed his tail and bounded up onto the clan chief’s furniture, all the way to the level just below Naun. “Naun, chief of the Nine-Tails. I would have you show them what it means to be free. To be cat.”

  Rowl turned to the room before hisses of outrage could rise. “I have climbed the ropes to the den of the silkweavers.” He lifted the claws of one front paw. “I have slain their brood by the score, and my humans have slain them by the hundred. They are dead. Their matriarch lies dead and rotting in a human tavern. Their mature hunters lie crouched around the approaches to a human camp in your own tunnels. In territory that these interlopers have taken from you all.” He whirled back to Naun. “Now is your time, Nine-Claws. They have no forces left to fall upon your kits. Now is our chance to strike them down. Give me every warrior in your clan. Let me remind them what it is to be cat. To deal with anything that would harm your kits with tooth and claw!”

  A chorus of excited yowls and low battle cries went up with that, enough to draw Naun’s gaze from Rowl to scan the chamber.

  Naun’s eyes came back to Rowl and his voice dropped to a low, low growl, one for Rowl’s ears alone. “Is what you say true?”

  “By my paws and ears, by my whiskers and tail, it is true, O Naun,” Rowl said.

  “He lies!” Neen screeched. “He seeks to use us! To shed our tribe’s blood to protect his humans in their war! To leave our kits vulnerable and defenseless!”

  Rowl spun his head toward Neen, his vision suddenly sharpened with rage, his mouth suddenly watering with a need to taste blood.

  “Presently,” Rowl said, “I shall grow weary of your mewling.”

  “I say this creature is a fool!” Neen cried. “I say that his mouth is full of lies! I say that he cannot see or hear or hunt! That this useless creature knows nothing!”

  The words rang out into sudden silence, as well they might—for Neen had uttered the deadliest insult one cat could utter to another.

  “Useless,” Rowl purred, very quietly.

  Silence quivered, tense and wait
ing.

  “You give me your word,” Naun growled finally, his eyes closing almost entirely. “You, a stranger. My kit tells me that you are filled with lies. How am I to know which of you is right?”

  “With your permission, clan chief,” Rowl said, a growl throbbing in his words, “I shall show you.”

  Neen let out a hiss, his fur rising, his claws sliding from his paws. Neen was large—larger than Rowl. His fur shone with health, and his claws were long and sharp. He stood upon his home territory, surrounded by those loyal to him, and, having not done battle multiple times in the past several hours, he was fresh.

  Rowl would have no chance of surviving battle with the prince of the Nine-Claws, not with all the warriors and hunters present who would support him—but if the clan chief permitted it, he might be able to beat Neen, standing alone.

  Naun stared hard at Rowl for a long moment, as if waiting for any quiver of movement.

  Rowl faced him, completely still, showing every ounce of respect he could muster.

  “Yes,” Naun said then.

  Rowl, prince of the Silent Paws of Habble Morning, let out the throaty music of his war cry and flung himself at Neen, claws extended, with Littlemouse’s fate hanging in the balance.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Spire Albion, Habble Landing Shipyards, AMS Predator

  Gwendolyn opened her eyes and regretted it almost at once.

  She had never drunk wine or other spirits to excess, though she had seen the effects it had produced in any number of House Lancaster’s armsmen after various holiday celebrations. She had always found their winces and green faces somewhat amusing.

  She suspected she would have more sympathy for them in the future. The light did not merely hurt her eyes—it stabbed it with rotted, rusty old swords. Her heartbeat sent pulses of pain through her skull and down her neck as if on wires, and for the life of her, it was everything she could do not to simply roll to one side and commence evacuating the contents of her stomach.

  Wait a moment. Had she become drunk? The last thing she remembered was the mad old etherealist singing sadistically unfortunate lyrics to a truly disgusting aeronaut’s song, and then . . .

  And then . . . an enormous surface creature? Though surely that was an artifact of the feverish barrage of nightmares she’d endured for she knew not how long. Perhaps this was simply a hangover. If so, she had some apology notes to write to Esterbrook and his men.

  She found herself letting out a groan and that hurt as well, on top of everything else, as if sudden fingers of fire had dug into her ribs and her back. She put a hand to the pain, and found that it met with something a little rough and tight. She had to open her eyes to see what. Bandages. Beneath a rather thin shift, her torso had been wound with bandages until they were almost uncomfortably tight.

  She had been injured, then. While drinking? God in Heaven, please no. Benedict would never let her hear the end of it.

  She lifted a hand to her aching head and found more bandages there, for goodness’ sake. Her head pounded in steady time. A head injury? Ah, then. Perhaps she hadn’t humiliated herself after all. Perhaps she’d simply had her wits scrambled by a blow of some kind.

  That settled, she turned her eyes to the room she was in. Wood. All wood, walls, floor, and ceiling. One wall was slightly curved. She was most likely aboard an airship, then, which would make the wall a bulkhead, and the floor a deck, and the ceiling a . . . Well. She wasn’t sure what ceilings were called on airships. Ceilings, she supposed.

  There was another occupant in the room, a man she didn’t know, from his dress one of the sailors aboard Predator. He was armed with sword and gauntlet, but he was currently sitting in his chair and snoring heavily. There were bags under his eyes. The poor man looked utterly exhausted, and one of his legs was dressed with a bandage. One of the men wounded in the first Auroran attack, perhaps? Poor fellow. He was doubtless there to guard her and make sure she didn’t get out of bed without speaking to some sort of physician, who wasn’t there anyway, so there seemed to be no real sense in waking him. And besides, she was barely clothed.

  Gwen sat up slowly. Her head spun wildly for a moment, and then settled down again. There was a pitcher and a mug on a nearby table that proved to be water. She drank three mugs down, hardly stopping to breathe, and in a few moments felt nearly human.

  Gwen found her clothing lying in a heap nearby. It was stained with . . . goodness, what was that horrible purplish color? And they smelled absolutely hideous. She winced with distaste, put them down except for her gauntlet, and began to rummage quietly through the compartment’s cabinets, until she located a modest collection of men’s clothing in a trunk. She donned the shirt and the pants, found that they hung off of her like a small tent, and spent the next few moments rolling up the sleeves and legs. Then she donned her gauntlet and felt somewhat better when the cool presence of its weapons crystal rested against her palm.

  She looked down at herself when finished, and felt certain that Mother would be entirely scandalized by her appearance. It would do.

  Gwen left the cabin quietly to find her cousin. Benedict would mock her outfit, too, but he’d know what was going on. She opened the door and stepped into mist-shrouded, late-afternoon daylight. Afternoon? How long had she been asleep? Her last memories trailed off around eight o’clock the previous evening, and she found that gaping blank space in her mind unnerving.

  Even eerier, the deck of Predator was utterly empty.

  “Hello?” Gwen called.

  There was no answer.

  She frowned and began pacing the length of the ship. No one in the masts. No one in the galley or the kitchen. No one in any of the passenger cabins, and the door to the captain’s cabin was locked.

  Gwen rubbed wearily at her eyes, and it was just then that she heard a man’s voice bawling vile curses, muffled by the planks of the deck. Gwen moved over to the hatch leading belowdecks, and the curses grew clearer and louder. She followed them, and in short order found herself in the engineering room, the beating heart of Predator, where the air hummed with the steady drone of an active power core crystal.

  For a second she thought that the room’s floor was littered with corpses, but after a moment she saw that it was covered with exhausted men who had simply stretched out on the floor and gone to sleep. Several were snoring, though that sound was being drowned out by the invective of the one man still on his feet.

  He was stocky and bald, and sported an enormous, bristling mustache. His coveralls were stained with sweat and grease, and though he wasn’t particularly tall, his hands looked strong enough to crush crystals in his fingers. He was crouched in front of the adjustable hemisphere of curled copper bars known as a Haslett cage, and he was working ferociously on an awkwardly placed bolt that secured one of the bars in place. The angle was bad for the wrench, but his stumplike forearms couldn’t slip through the bars of the cage very easily, and he was having trouble wrangling the tool into position.

  Gwen stepped over a sleeping man and said, “Excuse me, sir.”

  “What?” snarled the bald man, without looking up from his task.

  “I’m looking for Sir Benedict Sorellin. I was wondering if you’d seen him?”

  The man grunted. “He in here?”

  Gwen looked around the room at the sleeping men. “Ah. Definitely not.”

  “Same answer,” the man growled. The wrench slipped as he began to apply pressure, and he wound up gouging his hand on the frame. “Curse you for a whore!” he shouted. “Bloody strumpet! You’ll be the death of me!”

  Gwen blinked several times. “Excuse me, sir? What did you say to me?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” the man bellowed, going red all the way across his bald pate. “I was talking to the bloody ship!” He shot a look over his shoulder and froze there, his mouth open for a moment. Then he scowled, turned back to the Haslett cage, and began trying to squeeze his arm inside to grab the wrench he’d dropped. “Fantastic. L
ike I don’t have enough to do already. Now I have to deal with aristo-brats, too. Captain hates me. That’s what it is. ‘You can’t go fight, Journeyman. You have to stay on the ship and fix her up enough for me to ruin, Journeyman.’ God in Heaven, the man hates me.”

  Ah, the ship’s chief etheric engineer, Journeyman. She’d heard his name mentioned when the ship was docking. Well, chief engineer or no, Gwen felt as if she should have been pinning the man’s ears back— but her head hurt horribly. She really didn’t feel like smashing it against any more metaphorical walls. Or literal ones. “Sir, I’ll be glad to leave you to work. If you could please direct me to the captain, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  The man’s eyes whipped around to her, narrowing. “My what?”

  “Lair,” Gwen said quickly. “I said I’d get out of your lair.”

  The man scowled again and went back to reaching for the wrench. “Captain’s gone. Doc’s gone. Every deck hand still on his feet is gone. It’s just my crew and these hired slackers left, and Tarky, but Tarky’s barely able to hobble along. Guess that means your Benedict is gone, too.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Motherless whore-spawned mistsharking tunnel rat!” Journeyman snarled, jerking his hand free.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Gwen sighed. She stepped over to the cage and, before the engineer could object, slipped her slender arm easily between the bars, plucked up the wrench, and drew it back out again. She flipped it in her hand and offered it to him handle-first.

  Journeyman eyed her, mustache bristling. Then he snatched the wrench and said, “You shouldn’t play with a ship’s systems. If you’d brushed your hand against the wrong arc, you’d have gotten the shock of your life.”

  “That’s why I didn’t touch any of the active arcs,” Gwen replied calmly. “You’re only running power from the topmost bars at the moment, are you not?”

  Journeyman’s eyebrows lowered, then rose. “Huh. You think you know something about ships, do you?”