Gravedigger 01 - Sea Of Ghosts (40 page)

Ianthe didn’t answer. She looked at the painting again. ‘But what if you discover I’m
not
psychic?’

Briana laid a hand on Ianthe’s arm. ‘Eat your supper before it gets cold.’

Briana woke to the sound of rain pattering against the windows and the ever-present chatter of Haurstaf conversation: . . .
warlord Pria Ramad seeks to advocate his rights in Chal over . . . six thousand nomio on the twenty-first . . . state that any aggressors will be dealt with using the utmost . . . seven units hiding in the Fryling Bay . . . bring to 254 degrees 20 minutes . . .
Briana tuned it out as best she could, then got out of bed and padded naked across the carpet to the window. The ship rolled heavily under her bare feet. It was a dull, blustery morning outside. Rain streaked the window panes. The sea bucked and frothed under a leaden ceiling of cloud.

Her stateroom stretched across the breadth of the ship’s stern from port to starboard, with duskglass windows on three sides. Normally light and spacious, today the chamber seemed as gloomy as a cave. Briana opened the shutters of her gem lanterns, brightening the room. From her wardrobe she chose a pair of white linen breeches, a spider-silk blouse and her padded woollen jacket from Losoto. She looked at herself in the mirror for a long time, counting every tiny wrinkle and imperfection on her skin. With every year that passed she felt more and more compelled to chart the process of age. It was like watching an enemy’s every manoeuvre: necessary, but depressing. She thought about Ianthe’s perfect skin and deeply lustrous hair and allowed herself a single, luxurious moment of hate.

Then she sat down and poured herself a glass of water, sharpened with a drop of poppy oil and a pinch of anemone.

. . . borakai nineteen six eleven passing through from . . . administer the final payments through an intermediary . . . would not be welcome . . . are you awake . . . ? mark two two four, listening . . . out with his jurisdiction on the first . . .

Shut up!

The chatter stopped. Briana found herself shivering, suddenly afraid that her outburst would be recognized for what it was. A reaction prompted by the anguish of too many foreign thoughts passing through her head. The others would think that she was breaking down.
Am I breaking down?
Briana kept that thought to herself. She counted to five, slowly, trying to relax her thumping heart. Communication across the entire empire had momentarily ceased, and Briana could feel the Haurstaf network trembling with uncertainty. She swallowed hard and sent out another message:

Keep all communication on a peer-to-peer basis until further notice. The next voice I hear is going to find herself cleaning Port Awl horses with her tongue.
She could almost hear a thousand groans reverberating through the ensuing silence. Yellow- and amber-grade psychics would be unable to maintain such intense concentration for long.

The lookouts have spotted a ship to the south.

Briana was about to lash out in anger, when she recognized the voice in her head. It was Pascal, aboard her companion ship,
Trumpet
.

It’s Hu’s steam yacht
, the young psychic added.
And it’s following us.

Granger?

Briana pulled on her boots, gloves and storm mask, wrapped her whaleskin cloak around her shoulders and hurried above deck. Freezing rain lashed her cloak, and the wind snapped at the sails above her. Howlish had trimmed the mainsail and taken down the spinnaker. Even so, the storm was forcing him to luff. The rigging thrummed like plucked wire; the masts groaned. Masked crewmen were busy tying down the spinnaker and securing the fore jib. Under the heavy clouds the Mare Lux looked as dark and angry as she had ever seen it, a great shuddering cauldron of brine. She could smell it through the filters of her mask. The
Herald
’s sister ships,
Trumpet
and
Radiant Song
, lay some distance off the starboard side, their red hulls rising and then crashing down through the waves. Briana grabbed a rail and scanned the southern horizon.
There! A single plume of smoke.

Howlish was in a jovial mood. After Briana had removed her mask and dumped it on the wheelhouse bench, he said. ‘Good morning, ma’am. Fine day for it, don’t you think?’

Briana shucked off her cloak. ‘A fine day for what?’

‘For sinking the emperor’s flagship, ma’am.’ The captain exchanged a glance with the navigation officer.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ she replied.

‘We could always claim he attacked us.’

She smiled thinly. ‘Not even Hu’s going to believe that one man operated the
Excelsior
’s cannon arsenal. Are there any other vessels in sight?’

‘The horizon’s clear, ma’am.’

‘Can we run ahead of her?’

Howlish shook his head. ‘Not in this wind, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We’d only tear the
Herald
to pieces. The
Excelsior
’s engines give her a huge power advantage over us.’ He glanced at his pocket watch. ‘At her present speed she’ll be alongside in about ninety minutes.’

Briana peeled off her gloves and threw them down on top of her cloak. Dealing with an angry father was the last thing she needed right now, especially one who didn’t appear to be the sort to give up and go away quietly. How would Ianthe react? Briana sighed. Sinking her old man might be the best solution after all.

‘Ready the ship for battle,’ she said to Howlish. ‘And signal the
Trumpet
and
Song
to do likewise.’

‘Signal?’ Howlish asked. ‘You want us to use the signal lantern?’

Briana nodded. ‘I don’t want these orders passing through the Haurstaf network,’ she said. ‘Pascal and Windflower are to maintain telepathic silence. We need to be able to deny all knowledge. And not a word of this to Ianthe.’

‘Very good, ma’am.’

Howlish ordered full munitions crews to the gun decks and the
Herald
’s sails trimmed further, sacrificing speed for increased manoeuvrability in these high winds. Guild riflemen took up positions fore and aft, while the rest of the crew battened down in readiness. Signal lanterns flashed between the three Haurstaf vessels.

They were ready long before the
Excelsior
drew near.

Briana watched the steam yacht approach through the stern-castle telescope. She was two-thirds the length of the Haurstaf men-o’-war, but much lower and sleeker, with a single mast and three funnels behind the bridge. Judging by the amount of smoke she was disgorging, Granger was driving her engines hard. Her copper-clad bow cut through the waves like a dagger. Her cannon hatches were open, and the breeches of those antique guns gleamed along both sides of her hull. The sight of those guns unsettled Briana, but she tried to dismiss her nerves. Granger couldn’t possibly have found a crew to man them.

She returned to the hush of the wheelhouse to find Howlish in quiet conversation with the helmsman, signal officer and navigator. Howlish looked up at her arrival. ‘The
Trumpet
and
Song
are about to engage,’ he said. ‘They’ll fall back and signal a warning while we maintain our speed and heading. With any luck we can draw him between their guns. I don’t expect the
Excelsior
to give us much trouble.’

Briana nodded, but the uneasy feeling remained in her gut.

‘There they go now,’ Howlish said.

The two Haurstaf men-o’-war dropped behind, the
Song
maintaining her present heading while the
Trumpet
close-hauled westward across the
Herald
’s stern. Granger’s steam yacht did not deviate from its heading. It came thundering on, smoke pouring from its three funnels as it cleaved through the waves towards the waiting men-o’-war.

‘The
Trumpet
will start to signal now,’ Howlish said.

Briana saw the
Trumpet
’s signal lantern flashing repeatedly upon her quarterdeck. Granger made no reply but kept to his same steady course. He was going to pass between the two warships. ‘Why would he do that?’ Briana said. ‘Why expose himself to danger?’ She watched the steam yacht draw level with the
Trumpet
.

Howlish nodded to the signal officer. ‘Tell them to open fire.’

Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack.

The sound of cannon blasts rattled the dome’s duskglass panes. Flashes of firelight lit the waters between Granger’s yacht and the Haurstaf man-o’-war. A heartbeat passed before Briana realized that the flashes had come from the
wrong
ship. Granger’s vessel had opened fire on the warship.

‘The
Excelsior
just fired on the
Trumpet
,’ the signal officer said.

Howlish looked aghast. ‘He has a crew aboard?’

‘He’s blown a hole in her gun deck.’

‘Why isn’t she responding?’ Howlish said.

‘I see fires, captain.’

Crack, crack, crack, crack.

The steam yacht fired on the
Trumpet
again. Through the drifting smoke, Briana glimpsed fires blooming amidst the warship’s shattered gun deck. And then an explosion blew out the man-o’-war’s entire port side, throwing a cloud of wood splinters and dragon scales across the dark waters.

Boom, boom, boom.

‘The
Song
is responding, Captain.’

By now the second Haurstaf warship had closed on the yacht and opened fire. A score of artillery shells tore through the yacht’s port bulwark and bowsprit, shredding her foredeck and the upper corner of her wheelhouse. Scraps of wood puffed skywards, but the shots had been too high to do any real damage.

Crack, crack, crack, crack . . .

‘Port-side guns.’

The steam yacht’s cannons fired with a series of yellow flashes. Six, eight, then ten Valcinder cannons pummelled the
Song
’s hull in a full broadside attack. And still the shots kept coming, twelve, fifteen guns, the cannonballs smashing the warship’s armour to dust.

‘The bastard has a full gun crew in there,’ Howlish said.

The
Trumpet
was fully ablaze now and going down fast. Smoke engulfed the
Song
, but Briana thought she spied flames there too. The second warship was turning now, attempting to take herself out of the path of Granger’s guns while bringing her remaining cannons to bear on the yacht’s stern.

Briana heard Pascal’s voice burst into her head:
We need assistance. I’m calling the Guild.

Do
not
contact the Guild
, Briana replied.
Maintain silence.

We’re on fire
, Pascal exclaimed.
Going down fast.

Maintain silence
, Briana insisted. She broadcast the order to both women on the two men-o’-war.
We’re coming to help.
She turned to Captain Howlish and said, ‘Do something, help them.’

‘Two seventy degrees,’ Howlish growled to the helmsman. ‘Guns to bear on the enemy’s bow.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

We’re safe enough
. Briana told herself. However mad Granger was, he wasn’t likely to kill his own daughter.

Granger punched the commands into the comspool and depressed the release valve. The orders would be meaningless to any crewman, but Granger didn’t have any crewmen aboard. What he did have was a comspool on the gun deck retrofitted with the flintlocks he’d removed from forty-eight Valcinder Ferredales and attached to the breech vents of those same cannons via a web of rapid-burning fuse cord. For good measure, he’d dipped the ends of each fuse in a concoction of sulphur, glue and yellow phosphorus.

It seemed to be doing the trick.

A few seconds later he heard the concussions from below deck as the cannons fired. Four more rounds of heavy iron shot smashed into the Haurstaf warship on his port side. She was trying to reach now, which was fine by Granger. Evidently the warship’s captain did not know the state of his own gun deck.

Granger’s real target lay ahead of him. The
Irillian Herald
was turning about now, bringing her guns to bear on his bow. And Granger had every intention of letting her do so. He picked up one of the maps lying on the console and wrote across it in big bold letters:

‘Ethan Maskelyne wishes to speak to you, ma’am.’

Briana turned to find one of the men she’d left guarding Maske-lyne’s stateroom standing in the wheelhouse doorway. ‘What?’

‘He says it is extremely important.’

‘Not now.’ She dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand. Everything seemed to be happening at once. Howlish was bringing the ship into battle. The signal officer was flashing the
Song,
trying to ascertain the extent of her damage.

The guard glanced around him, then spoke in a low voice. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, but he says the captain is an idiot and is doing exactly what Colonel Granger wants him to.’