Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [97]
The lookout’s lantern began to swing for the third time.
‘Where is it?’ he asked Ianthe.
She was clearly terrified. ‘I don’t know.’
‘The lookout can see it,’ he growled.
She pointed straight ahead. ‘There!’
And then Maskelyne spotted it. The deadship reared suddenly out of the thick fog like a cliff. It was almost upon them. Maskelyne cursed and spun the wheel hard to port. He wrenched the engine throttle into reverse. But he already knew that it was too late. The Unmer ironclad was going to crash straight into their starboard side, and there was no way Maskelyne could avoid it.
Granger crept along the crew deck companionway until he found a hatch leading down to the gun deck. He listened, and, hearing nothing, slipped down.
A low space ran the width of the ship, divided here and there by mast-collars and monstrous steel-reinforced ribs of dragon-bone. The firing hatches on either side were open, and the emperor’s ranks of bronze cannons gleamed dully in their tackles and breech ropes. The guns were antiques, Imperial Ferredales, forged in Valcinder at least three centuries ago – extraordinarily old and rare, and yet crafted with such skill and precision that their power and range could match many modern shell weapons. Granger almost choked to see that the lanyards now connected to retrofitted flintlock mechanisms in each breech. Each gun must have been worth three million gilders before Hu had ordered them vandalized in this way. Rams, swab buckets and powder rods lay upon the floor beside each gun, while stacks of various missiles – sacks of grapeshot, chain shot and troughs of heavy iron balls – filled the central space between the opposing bulwarks. The powder would be held in the deck below, accessed via a series of smaller hatches he could see in the floor. There was not a crewman in sight.
Granger’s skin itched and burned, but the pain had diminished somewhat. His eyes still felt hot and raw. He paced the gun deck, marvelling at the size of these reinforced dragon-bone arches. Sixty mature serpents had been slaughtered to construct this ship, among them Garamae the Betrayer, who was said to have devoured Lord Marquetta’s baby son during the armistice in 1403. He crouched down and pulled up one of the powder hatches and sniffed. A sulphurous odour filled his nostrils. A faint green glow illuminated an iron floor.
Granger walked over to one of the port gun hatches and peered out. He could see the bone corral upon the dockside, the emperor’s podium, and the Administration Buildings rising up beyond. Most of the crowd had spread along the water’s edge and were staring into the brine, along with many of the emperor’s crewmen. Hu himself stood by the harbour steps beside his launch, guarded by his Samarol bodyguards. He appeared to be having an animated discussion with Administrator Grech and Briana Marks.
Granger padded back to the powder hatch and dropped down. He found himself in a small iron cell. Parchment cartridges of powder stood in neat stacks against the walls. Shelves held boxes of flints, coils of cambric fuse, shredded sailcloth and sealed jars of phosphorous that gave off a dim green luminance. He grabbed an armload of cartridges, then stuffed a handful of flints into his pocket along with a few yards of fuse and climbed back up to the gun deck.
One of the forward hatches offered him the best angle of fire. He sighted along the cannon’s barrel, and, satisfied, winched the heavy gun carriage back on its wheels using the rear tackle. He swabbed the barrel interior, then shoved the powder cartridge down inside it, followed by a cloth wad.