Dragon Choir (14 page)

Delik’s men
lined up the captured Jandans.

“
Tikis,” called Delik. “Get your men to separate out the
officers. We’ll need to get as much information as possible. Make
them understand we are serious.”

“
Strange battle,” rumbled Hurn. “That all?”

“
We need a solid guard in the prison hold,” said Delik. “It
will be full soon. Can you keep them in line down
there?”

Hurn grunted
and stomped down through the hatch to the lower decks.

“
What about Minni?” Elrin pointed to the dissipating smoke and
the bodies on the deck inside the cabin. “She hasn’t come out
yet.”

“
Plenty of tricks to keep her busy. She’s probably stuffing
her pockets while she’s in there. Don’t fret, she can hold more
than her own, lad.”

Elrin wasn’t
convinced; the putrid gas would have overwhelmed her by now. How
could they be so calm? Elrin fought the urge to run in to find her.
He wouldn’t last long if he did. Even outside in the open he was
near retching with the lull of the ship on the water and the
residual gas hanging in the air. He resigned himself to trust
Delik.

Delik shouted
into his loudhorn. “Hear this! If you serve the Council of Jando
under duress or penalty, if you have no commission or office of
merit, then you are free.”

The captured
sailors and marines weren’t sure if it was a trick or not. One man
walked towards the gangplank.

Delik
presented his offer. “All those who wish to leave will be escorted
from the ship to wait in a safe house until we have an
understanding of your intent.

“
If you can’t bear the yoke of your Jandan masters, join us.
If you’re sick of the Temple taking your flesh for sin; join us. If
you want to see the Council bare their own bones instead of taking
ours; join us. If you want a Jando that is just, a Jando that is
free; join us.”

An officer
spat on the deck. “The Good Lord will burn you, body and soul!”

“
Ha! I’ll be earth for Ona before your ‘good’ lord gets his
arse off that throne of bones.” Delik turned away from the officer,
addressing the marines alone. “Make your choice now.”

Half of them
chose to leave. Before they were escorted from the ship onto the
docks, the volunteers pointed out the officers hiding amongst them.
Some of the veteran officers had removed their rank insignia during
the fray. Some had cast off their entire uniform. Two officers had
replaced their own uniforms with those taken from lower ranked
sailors killed in the melee; bloodstains and all.

Tikis pulled
these two from the group, one hand wrapped around each neck. He
dropped one of the officers to the deck and pinned him with a
clawed foot, pushing the air from his chest. The other man was
thrust into a headlock.

With a
twitching tail, Tikis cast his eyes over the Jandans lined up
before him. “Officers will be questioned, one by one. Answers will
be checked with others and us.” Tikis flexed his bulging bronze
arms. The officer in the headlock squirmed, his face bright red
with panic and exertion. “Clemency, if ones cooperate. If ones
refuse to cooperate or ones deceive us, then ones die.”

The drakkin
brought his fist down upon the officer in the headlock, shattering
his skull like an egg. The sickening wet impact splattered blood
and brain matter upon the deck and on the man pinned below. It was
too much for the other Jandans. One of them vomited, which prompted
another to do the same, as Tikis pummelled the officer’s head
again. He thrust his clawed hand through the broken shell of the
man’s skull and drew out a fist full of brain. He threw his head
back and swallowed it like an oyster.

“
Delicious.” Tikis reached in and drew forth another handful
and slurped it into his maw before dropping the body to the deck
with a limp thud. The officer stuck underfoot passed out while
Tikis sucked the remnants of brain from his fingers.

“
This is how deceiver ones die.” Tikis stared at the officers,
then over his rebel unit. The officers looked away, but his unit
held their heads up unwavering.

The lizardman
lay the same intense examination on Elrin. The young Calimskan
lifted his chin and held firm, though his instinct disagreed with
that course of action. Tikis licked his mouth clean. Elrin had no
idea how to read those hard eyes or his lizard face. Heat flushed
his cheeks. Why was Tikis staring at him? He’d done nothing but
help the rebels, probably to his own detriment.

Tikis flicked
his tongue out and Elrin blinked. The drakkin’s stone cold eyes
squinted and he burst into chittering croaking laughter, releasing
the young man from the standoff. Being humiliated by the drakkin
was marginally better than being eaten. Elrin could accommodate the
embarrassment.

The Jandans
who took the clemency were handed rations and shell as they were
escorted off the ship. Once on the docks, they were loaded into
wagons and carted away.

The new
volunteers were each coupled with a rebel crewman, as were the
mutineer crew. They had no desire to return to Jando and end up in
prison, or worse still, end up as poached parts for the redeemers.
Jando would see them no mercy.

The same
applied to Elrin; he was an outlaw to both Calimska and Jando now.
The rebels were all he had, unless he cleared his name.

Minni emerged
from the broken doorway carrying what appeared to be a large tome
under her arm. She removed her mask with her free hand and stuffed
it into her belt. Elrin wanted to hug her, though he couldn’t of
course. She would embarrass him somehow. Besides; it wasn’t the
proper thing to do. She wasn’t his wife or sister, he barely knew
her.

“
What are you staring at me like that for?” Minni grinned.
“Have the boys finished sorting their toys ou—”

“
Signal!” called down the spotter from the nest.

An osprey
perched on his arm, flapping its wings to balance against a fresh
wind kicking up. He pulled a rolled up parchment from the sea
eagle’s message container and relayed it down.

“
Two galleons approaching, at arms. Two galleons remain at
sea. Request orders.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Code

“
Minni! Hurry up and
open the damn codebook. There’s not much time left.” Delik clapped
his hands as though that would speed her up. It didn’t of course;
Minni being Minni slowed her inspection more, no doubt just to irk
him. “Don’t bother looking for traps on the thing. Just get it
open.”

“
Forgive me if I ignore that advice. I’m not so partial to
death by poison.” Minni placed the book on the deck and knelt
beside it. Delik and Elrin hung over her shoulder as she pulled out
the seal and examined the tome, figuring out where to place the
seal.

“
What is it exactly?” Elrin asked Delik.

“
It’s what the Council agents use to communicate. If you don’t
know the code, you can’t understand what they are saying or how to
return communications. We’ll use it to figure out what they are
saying with those flashes of light.”

“
Are you sure it’s a codebook?” asked Elrin.

The last thing
Delik needed now was a nosy know-it-all Calimskan. “The codes are
inside. Now shush and let her open the damn thing.”

At first
glance the book appeared like a large tome, perhaps a spell book or
Jandan holy text. On closer inspection though, it was just a fancy
wooden box. There were three tones of timber. One side was bone
white with an embellished border in ebony and mahogany flowers. The
other side was all ebony bordered with mahogany and white stars.
Flaming rays beamed across the surface.

“
There is no place for the seal. Nothing matches.” Minni
rubbed her hand softly over all of the surfaces and edges. “It’s
smooth, one piece by feel.”

“
It can’t be, look at it.” Delik poked at it. “There are
different colours and grains. Try pushing on the designs in the
borders.”

Without a reply signal, those two galleons would come round
the headland and open fire. Delik knew this was where his plan
could sink. Minni’s sabotage would have been less risky, but taking
Pelegrin and
Juniper
was too good an opportunity to let pass. What a catch to
ransom; Pelegrin’s father, the Lord’s High Admiral, would free four
score rebels to get him back alive. The old bastard sat on the
Council and had half of Jando in his pocket.

While Minni did her best to access the codes, Delik’s mind
raced toward the consequences of failure. If the Jandans thought
Pelegrin was captured and the ship had mutinied, they wouldn’t
hesitate to sink
Juniper
and level Rum Hill at the same time. They’d chop
a leg at the knee to banish the rot from a toe, such was the Jandan
cure for most things. Rum Hill couldn’t be sacrificed, they were
not to be blamed for his strategy, it wasn’t an option.

Without the
codes the rest of his plan would be too difficult to pull off.
Minni needed to work faster, but saying so wouldn’t help. She knew
what was at stake and worked her fingers like adders, striking out
all over the wood, even tracing the seal over top and bottom hoping
something would trigger it to open.

“
Why are you doing that?” Elrin asked them.

“
Making sure Delik doesn’t catch a splinter.” Minni joked, but
her eyes betrayed growing frustration. She wrapped her knuckles on
the wood then shook it, listening for a rattle.

“
Open it Minni! You said you knew how!”

“
Oh no I didn’t, Scrambletoe. You said the seal would open it.
You said I would have plenty of time. A lot of bollocks is what you
said!”

Elrin picked
it up to examine the markings. “It doesn’t open.”

Ignoring
Elrin, Delik was determined to set Minni in line. “It was your
contact that said the seal would open it. You dragged the Jandan
scum to me!”

“
Who said you should trust him? Hell, I didn’t. Why do you
think I killed him?”

“
This isn’t actually a book you know.” Elrin tried to get
their attention.

Delik gave him
an incredulous look; annoyed by the persistent intrusions into
things he knew nothing about. With Minni’s admission of murder
Delik’s irritation grew all the more and he threw his hat to the
deck. “You killed him? Why the hell did you do that? He was our
best informant!”

“
Well, obviously not very accurate,” Minni casually turned her
eyes to the headland. “In more ways than one.”

Was she
worried, or keen for more sport? Cool as ice that woman—and never
to blame. Damn her to ash if anyone could figure out her game.
“What is your bloody problem?” Delik raged.

“
With you or with the dead informant? He had a certain
peccadillo that wasn’t to my taste. And you? To be honest, you’ve
got more than a few traits I thi—”

“
It doesn’t open!” Elrin yelled at them.

“
We know!” Delik turned on Elrin in his frustration. “I
thought you Calimskans were all brains. Haven’t you been
listening?”

“
No, no. You misunderstand me. It doesn’t have to. Open, I
mean. It doesn’t work like a book or a box. It’s a magical tablet.
The seal doesn’t open anything. It just, sort of, unlocks the
messages.”

This was all
too convenient for Delik’s liking. How did the boy figure that out
so fast? Just when you start to trust a lad, he pulls a trick like
this. If he wasn’t a Jandan agent, how did he know about this
device?

“
Hand me the seal, Minni. I think I know how to work it.”
Elrin put his hand out for the dragon seal.

“
Delik?” Minni made a curious face.

Was that a
splash of doubt in her eyes? A rare thing, that. Though, it was
typical of her to leave off making the tough call herself. Delik
knew he would have to let Elrin use the device. With the Jandan
galleons on their way they didn’t have another option; Elrin was
their only chance.

Damn the
informant for feeding them half-arsed information and damn the
Jandans with their secret bloody messages.

“
Go on then, give it to him,” said Delik. “Show us what you
can do, but if you screw us lad, by Ona, I’ll drop you where you
stand.” He stood back and waited, his face red and arms
crossed.

Elrin set to
work, speaking half to himself as he went. “One side of the tablet
is for sending a message and the other is for receiving them. I
think father called it the transcriber; it was so long ago since I
played with one. Both it and the seal are needed; together they
turn light into words and words into light. What do you want to say
to the ships? Exactly.”

Shaking his
head in wonder, Delik was taken by the easy confidence Elrin had
with the object the rebels had coveted for so long. Suspicion stole
his words for a moment, running his thoughts on a tangent. The
Calimskan was sharp; too sharp. If the lad was an agent for Jando
or Calimska he was good, but he’d not be good enough for long
enough. Time had a way of revealing the truth of things, the lad
ought to be careful not to trip on a lie and take off his toes.

Gathering his
thoughts to the immediate task, Delik dictated a false message.
“Request Assistance. Commodore Pelegrin injured. Critical. Black
powder explosion. Taking water.”