Overlords of the Iron Dragon Read online

  ‘Let’s wait and hear what Skaggi has found out,’ Brokrin advised. He still felt angry inside but he was curious enough to restrain himself from giving vent to that anger. There was a puzzle here and he wanted to solve it before making an irreversible decision. Why would the Chuitsek risk future trades with the Kharadron by trying to sell them objects stolen from other duardin?

  Skaggi was a long time conversing with Kero, both logisticator and chieftain making broad gestures with their hands as they each tried to explain their relative positions. Finally, Skaggi turned and motioned for Brokrin to join the discussion.

  ‘Come with me and stay alert,’ Brokrin told Gotramm. He didn’t think the Chuitsek intended any kind of treachery, but if they did the duardin weren’t the only ones who could throw their enemy into confusion by knocking out the leaders first.

  Kero bowed his head and folded his arms across his chest as Brokrin came towards him. ‘Great High Chief of Icereach Chuitsek Kero Beareater welcomes mighty cloud-father. May his lodge be filled with many sons and his hammock warm with many wives.’

  Brokrin shook his head, unable to pick more than the term ‘cloud-

  father’ from Kero’s speech. He held up his palm, trying to stop Kero’s genuflections, then turned to speak with Skaggi.

  ‘Three days ago they made a trade with a Barak-Nar fleet,’ the logisticator stated, taking no notice of the scowl that flashed across Brokrin’s face. ‘They sold all their worthwhile goods to them. Must have been a poor logisticator though, since they cut a much better deal than I would have given them.’

  Brokrin waved aside Skaggi’s vanity. ‘That doesn’t matter right now. I want to know how they got all this stuff from Barak-Urbaz.’

  ‘I was coming to that,’ Skaggi said, irked by his captain’s reproach. He gestured to a young warrior sitting behind Kero. ‘A little after the tribe finished trading with Barak-Nar, a hunting party led by Kero’s son Djangas returned loaded up with the goods you’ve been looking over. That was why they lit the beacon again. They wanted to give it back to the duardin. They were hoping we would look favourably on the gesture and offer them gifts in return, but once we were here they started to worry we might hold them to blame instead.’

  The young privateer Gotramm came forwards. ‘Where did they get this?’ Gotramm asked, glaring at Djangas. Unlike the other nomads, the chief’s son didn’t avert his eyes. The hunter clearly felt he had nothing to feel guilty about.

  ‘There’s a valley a few days’ ride from here called the Serpent’s Craw,’ Skaggi answered. ‘Djangas and his men went to hunt there. Instead they found the wreckage of a sky-vessel. They looked around for survivors…’

  ‘I’ll bet he did,’ Gotramm sneered, still watching Djangas.

  Brokrin motioned the privateer to be quiet and urged Skaggi to continue.

  ‘When they didn’t find anyone alive they started scavenging the wreck,’ Skaggi said. ‘Weapons, armour, anything that caught their eye. They figured to keep the best bits for themselves and try to earn our gratitude with the rest.’

  ‘Surrender no tithe to tragedy,’ Gotramm said. He looked over at Brok­rin. ‘The Kharadron Code is explicit on that point.’

  Brokrin weighed his words before replying to the privateer. ‘There’s good reason for that clause. Pay a villain and you encourage him. You make all Kharadron a target for claim-jumpers, kidnappers,’ he looked across the chieftains, especially Kero, before adding one last crime to the list, ‘and wreckers.’

  ‘No wreck. Find,’ Djangas insisted, recognising the last word Brokrin uttered and replying in a broken sort of duardin. The warrior reached to his neck and ripped away the necklace he wore. ‘Take,’ he said, tossing it at Brokrin’s feet. The captain saw that the ornament had been fashioned from fine golden wires, the sort an ironclad’s gyroscope might have inside it.

  ‘They’d be mad or stupid to show this stuff to us if they were responsible,’ Skaggi stated. ‘It would be an admission of guilt.’ A cunning look crept into his eyes as he mulled over the situation. ‘The beardling’s right about the Code, though. We can’t give them much of a gift on the chance they are guilty of something unsavoury. Maybe one twentieth what the stuff is worth. That should smooth things over without encouraging them.’

  Gotramm snorted in contempt at the logisticator’s wheedling. ‘You’re just worried the Chuitsek won’t want to deal with you later on.’

  ‘It is a real concern,’ Brokrin told Gotramm. ‘You don’t put a hole in the mug you drink from. Trading with the nomads opens new markets for our sky-hold and puts coin in all of our pockets.’ He picked up the necklace Djangas had discarded, running the threads through his rough fingers. ‘Still, we have to know if the Chuitsek are doing us wrong.’

  Skaggi grinned at the captain. ‘The salvage bears all the marks of Barak-Urbaz. Their misfortune is our advantage. Do we really need to concern ourselves with what happened?’

  Mortrimm glared at the sharp-faced logisticator. ‘The Code makes no distinction between our kin and those of another sky-hold. An injury against one is an injury against all. I wouldn’t care if it was some slinking vein-poacher from Barak-Mhornar, if someone thinks they can steal from the Kharadron you feed them their beard.’

  Skaggi held out his hands in open apology, glancing anxiously at the watching Chuitsek. ‘I understand and agree, but we have to be practical. There is a delicacy to these things. These are simple ­people, easy to offend. We have to give them some token of gratitude or they will take insult and maybe next time they don’t light the beacon at all.’ Tactfully he decided not to mention the tribe selling their goods to another fleet.

  Brokrin motioned Gotramm to keep quiet when he would have countered Skaggi’s suggestion. Like the logisticator, the captain was taking the measure of the humans, the general feeling exhibited by those in the circle. There was that impression of guilt but there was also an air of expectancy, even hope. Skaggi was right. They couldn’t afford to shut out the tribe completely. Neither would the duardin countenance rewarding possible murderers. However unlikely that prospect was, he could not dismiss it out of hand.

  ‘Tell them we’re taking all their salvage,’ Brokrin decided. ‘They will be paid quarter value.’ He held up his hand to thwart the protest that he saw rising in Skaggi’s throat. ‘Tell them quarter value,’ he repeated. ‘They’ll need to have a generous reward to look forward to because they’re not having it right now.’

  A puzzled look came upon Gotramm’s face. ‘What’s your plan?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re going to look over the wreck for ourselves,’ Brokrin explained. ‘Satisfy ourselves that the manlings came by their salvage honestly. Once I’m convinced of that, I’ll know we’ve upheld the Code.’

  Skaggi shook his head. ‘The Code also stipulates against wasteful expenses,’ he grumbled. ‘We can bring them in hand for a good bit less than quarter value.’

  ‘You’re looking at it from the wrong end,’ Brokrin scolded the logisticator. ‘How much salvage do you think a few hunters could bring back? How much more do you think they had to leave behind?’

  Brokrin’s observation did much to quell Skaggi’s misgivings. ‘I will tell them,’ he said. ‘We will get directions to this valley…’

  ‘No,’ Brokrin interrupted. ‘We won’t take directions. We will take a guide.’ He nodded at Kero. ‘Tell him we want someone to lead us back to the wreck.’ He paused a moment, the anger boiling up inside him again. If there was evidence of treachery, if it did emerge that the tribe was responsible, then there was one manling he wanted there with him. The one who had claimed to have discovered the tragedy. Brokrin pointed at the warrior in question, returning the scowl Djangas wore with one of his own. ‘I want that manling with us when we leave here.’

  Skaggi hesitated. ‘It might make trouble with the chiefs,’ he advised. ‘We could take one of the other hunters if you thin
k we need a guide.’

  ‘I want Djangas,’ Brokrin insisted. ‘If they’ve dealt false with us, let the humans know the consequences. Kero can oppose us now or he can surrender his son as hostage. That is my demand.’

  Chapter III

  The Iron Dragon and her companions soared above the boulder-strewn plains. Patches of greenery showed where the thaw had enabled hardy thorngrass to send up its first shoots. A few more weeks and the plains would appear far less desolate, covered in a mantle of greenery that would draw the mammoth herds out from their winter refuges. It was in anticipation of the returning herds that the Chuitsek had made their camp a few leagues distant. Close enough to hunt the beasts but not so near as to get trampled by the mighty brutes.

  The journey out from the camp had covered a distance that would take the nomads days to travel on foot, in only a few hours. It had given the duardin some time to cool their tempers, to really digest Mortrimm’s urgings for calm and Skaggi’s warnings against haste. Most of all, it was Brokrin’s sombre assurances that curbed their misgivings. If something untoward had been done, they could trust their captain to set it right.

  Gotramm nibbled the corner of a stonebread biscuit and made a show of smacking his lips after swallowing. He wasn’t overtly fond of the heavy, gritty biscuits that formed a much too prominent part of an arkanaut’s rations. Lately, however, he had discovered a new appreciation for them. Djangas didn’t have the stamina for duardin fare – his attempt at biting into some stonebread had chipped a tooth and cut his lip. To eat it at all the nomad had resorted to drowning the biscuits in beer until they became a pasty sludge. Gotramm wondered why the tribesman had brought so little of his own food. Perhaps the Chuitsek held the Kharadron in such superstitious awe they thought a journey on sky-ships would be over before it was time for dinner.

  The tribesman might be primitive compared to the Kharadron, but he wasn’t so simple-minded that he failed to appreciate exactly what Gotramm was doing. He frowned at the arkanaut and turned away to look out over the side of the ship and stare at the plains far below. Gotramm snorted in amusement and took another nibble at the biscuit.

  The irritation was mutual – Gotramm felt justified needling the nomad. Djangas was by turns frustratingly suspicious and annoyingly obstinate. He had never been on a sky-vessel before. Indeed, for all his bravado it had taken some cajoling to make him embark once it was time to leave the Chuitsek camp. There was a certain awe with which his tribe regarded the Kharadron and Gotramm suspected they had all kinds of superstitions about the duardin that went beyond the swiftness of their ships. Djangas had been an ashen-faced shivering wreck as the ironclad climbed away from the earth.

  Unfortunately the man hadn’t stayed that way. Gotramm grudgingly had to admire the nomad’s pluck. Instead of cowering down in one of the holds, Djangas let fascination overcome his fear. First timidly, and later boldly, the young man moved from one end of the deck to the other, gazing in wonder at the lands over which they soared. The nomad, of course, had no air-legs, and every bumpy patch of ill-humoured aether, every shift in the wind currents, had him staggering about trying to maintain his balance. He’d become fiercely agitated when Mortrimm tried to fit a tether to him to prevent him from falling over the side. Skaggi had explained the man’s anger – he felt the duardin were trying to leash him like a dog. Horgarr managed to fit a set of magnetised boots to the manling’s feet once he succeeded in convincing Djangas he needed them. After that, Brokrin had appointed Gotramm to play nursemaid to their passenger and ensure he got into no trouble.

  ‘Beardless horse-fondler,’ Gotramm cursed, watching Djangas lean out over the rail. He ambled forwards and pulled the warrior back. ‘You’re going to fall over and splatter yourself on those mountains,’ he told the nomad, keeping his voice level and placid.

  Djangas didn’t understand his words, only picking up on tone. Gotramm could call the man a damnable grobi-snatcher and the hunter would just nod.

  ‘Maybe I should push you over the side,’ Gotramm said. ‘Would you like that, you gawking idiot?’ By way of response, Djangas simply nodded. Then the man made a cupping motion of his hand and raised it towards his face, muttering some Chuitsek word that Gotramm didn’t know but could guess the meaning of. The privateer’s annoyance rose. ‘More grog?’ he snapped. There was still quite a bit in the stores, but for any duardin away from his hold the fear of running out was always on his mind. ‘You barely kept down the last mug I gave you.’ The nomad either didn’t understand him or didn’t care, continuing to pantomime the act of drinking.

  ‘Growing weary of your friend?’ The jeering remark was punctuated by a loud burp. Gotramm looked around to see Drumark shuffling towards him. The arkanaut felt his irritation grow. They already had Drumark doing his part to drain the grog ration; they didn’t need this human depleting it even faster.

  ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’ Gotramm replied. ‘Drill your thunderers? Take a bath?’

  Drumark raised one arm, trying not to spill any of the beer in the bronze stein he carried. His face wrinkled as he sniffed. He looked back at Gotramm and shook his head. ‘No, I’m good.’ He looked past the arkanaut and grinned at Djangas. The nomad pointed at the stein he held and made the same pantomime of drinking. ‘He looks thirsty,’ Drumark commented, taking a swig of beer. ‘You should do something about that.’

  ‘I’m not taking orders from a manling,’ Gotramm declared.

  Exaggerated surprise showed on Drumark’s face, his eyebrows threatening to tip over his helm. Belatedly Gotramm understood he’d fallen into the Grundstok sergeant’s trap. ‘Oh, I didn’t know that,’ he said with feigned shock. ‘It isn’t what Skaggi was saying…’

  Gotramm looked over at Djangas. The nomad’s pantomime was ­taking on a demanding, almost imperious quality. The arkanaut addressed Drumark through clenched teeth. ‘What was Skaggi saying?’

  Holding up his hand to stave off Gotramm’s question, Drumark took another drink. ‘Well, Skaggi mentioned something about getting you to look after the manling. Make sure he didn’t fall overboard or get tangled up in the gubbins. He felt you’d be dependable enough for the job. Of course he had to sell the idea to the manling.’

  Gotramm’s beard bristled. ‘What did he tell the human?’

  ‘Not much,’ Drumark said nonchalantly. ‘Just how you’d be attending him. Not as a bodyguard – a big bad warrior like the manling might take offence at that. No, Skaggi said you’d be more of a servant. Seeing to the manling’s needs, that kind of thing. He’s an important person, the manling is. Son of Chief Kero and all that. Why, their tribe must own two hundred horses. Absolute height of nobility.’ Drumark laughed and jabbed a thumb towards Djangas. ‘He still looks thirsty, by the way.’

  ‘Skaggi,’ Gotramm hissed. ‘That copper-pinching coin-grubber.’ He didn’t appreciate being used by the logisticator. Not that Skaggi had exactly lied to him, he had just deigned to disclose only certain particulars. It was something Skaggi was quite adept at, skirting the spirit of the Code while always keeping within its rules. ‘I’ll pluck his beard out hair by hair.’

  Drumark ran a hand through his own beard and nodded sympathetically. ‘You’d be better off suckering the prat into a game of dice. His honour’s too slippery to sting. Only way to hurt him is to lighten his pockets.’ He started to laugh then abruptly broke off. His attention had shifted back to Djangas. The nomad wasn’t demanding a drink now. He was at the rail, pointing excitedly at the horizon.

  The duardin could see a dark fissure running through the mountain range they had been approaching for some hours. The cleft was so severe that it looked like some primordial colossus had hacked it from the mountains with an axe. Deep shadows filled the chasm, a ribbon of black slithering its way between the snow-capped peaks.

  ‘Look,’ Djangas declared in barterspeak, pointing at the fissure. ‘There. Sky-folk.’

  �
�Well, looks like we’ve arrived,’ Drumark quipped. ‘That must be what they call the Serpent’s Craw. Where these fellows say they found the ship.’

  Gotramm caught hold of Drumark’s arm and drew his attention to the ground below. Something sparkled in the sunlight. Something big and metal. ‘Whatever he found, there’s more of it,’ the arkanaut said, his tone grim. A cold sensation swept through him. He wished he had a spyglass to make certain, but what was below them certainly looked like a debris field, though much bigger than the ones described to him at the Academy.

  ‘Somebody’s reached the end of their voyage,’ Drumark observed, his voice sombre. He had seen enough crashes at first hand to recognise the aftermath.

  A buzz of activity swept through the Iron Dragon. Skywardens detached themselves from their tethers and started a slow descent with their aether-endrins. Mortrimm and Horgarr were peering down from the aftcastle with their glasses. Brokrin called to the engine room to reduce their speed. Signals flashed from the frigates accompanying the ironclad.

  Gotramm glowered at Djangas, the suspicions about the nomads deliberately wrecking the downed ship rising to the fore. His suspicions were the root of his animosity towards the manling, the near-certainty that Djangas had been party to murder. There were many hills around on which the tribe could have lit a deceitful beacon and plenty of mountains against which the craft could have crashed.

  Drumark disabused the privateer of his suspicion. ‘That puts him in the clear,’ he said and nodded at Djangas. ‘Too much wreckage for one ship and there isn’t an admiral in the sky-holds that would let an entire fleet get suckered in by a beacon. Whatever happened here, it was something else.’

  Far from easing Gotramm’s mind, the sergeant’s words raised new worries. Anything powerful enough to cause such havoc might still be around. He glanced back at Brokrin, thinking of the gargantuan monster that had demolished the captain’s old fleet.