The Scar - China Mieville [205]
The Lovers were to fight in separate arenas: he from the warship Cho Harbor, she from the airship Nanter. They were taking their leave of each other. They kissed, tonguing deeply and murmuring the ecstatic sounds that Bellis recognized from her eavesdropping. They muttered to each other, telling each other they would be together again very soon, and Bellis realized that there was nothing touching about their parting, nothing tragic. They did not kiss as if it was their last chance, but hungrily and lasciviously, eager for more. They felt no fear; they seemed to feel no regret: they seemed to long to part, so that they might come together again.
She watched them with the disgusted fascination she always felt. Their scars twitched like little snakes as their faces moved against each other.
The Crobuzoner ships were less than ten miles away.
“Some of them will get through, Uther,” said the Lover, turning to Doul. “We can afford to lose ships, aerostats, submersibles, citizens. We can’t afford to lose the city, and we need you here to protect it. As our . . . last line.
“And Doul,” she said finally, “we can’t afford to lose you. We need you, Doul. You know what to do. When we get to the Scar.”
Bellis did not know if the Lover had forgotten that she was present, to have spoken so openly, or if she no longer cared.
The last dirigible had gone, taking the Lovers to their stations. The avanc had been reined in, and the city had slowed. Doul and Bellis were alone. Below them, women and men armed themselves on the broad deck of the Grand Easterly.
Doul did not look at Bellis or speak to her. He stared out past the Sorghum. Less than five miles now separated the Armadan navy and the wedge of snub-nosed Crobuzon battleships. The distance was reducing.
Eventually Doul turned to Bellis. His jaw was clenched, his eyes open a little too wide. He handed Bellis a flintlock. She waited for him to tell her to get below, or to stay out of the way, but he did not. They stood together and watched the battleships closing.
The man kisses his statue, and strolls unseen behind Bellis and Uther Doul.
His heart is beating quickly. He is packed and ready. He is carrying everything he owns in his pockets and hands. The man is disappointed but not surprised that Armada did not agree to parley. This way will be slower—though perhaps, he acknowledges, ultimately no more bloody.
So close, so close. He can almost step onto the deck of the Morning Walker. But not quite. It has a few miles yet to come. They’ll send a boat for me, he thinks, and prepares to receive them. I told them where I’d be.
Uther Doul is speaking to Bellis now, motioning to the frantic throng below. He is taking his leave of her; he is leaving her behind on the raised roof, descending to be with his troops, and she is watching him, hefting the gun, keeping her eyes on Doul as he descends.
The man knows that those who are coming, his compatriots, will have no trouble finding him. His descriptions were clear. There is no mistaking the Grand Easterly.
Separated by three miles of sea, the two navies faced each other. The Armadans in a mongrel mass of vessels in all colors and designs, sails and smoke billowing above countless decks. Opposite them, the Morning Walker and its sister-ships approached in formation, grey and darkwood blistered with large-bore guns.
A swarm of dirigibles approached the Crobuzoner ships: warflots and scouts and aerocabs weighed down with rifles and barrels of black powder. The air was still, and they made quick progress. At the front of the motley air force was the Trident, surrounded by smaller vessels, and aeronauts in single-pilot harnesses, swaying below their small balloons.
The Armadan captains knew that they had the weaker guns. Their ships were more than two miles from the enemy when the New Crobuzon ships began to fire.
Sound and heat burst over the sea. A fringe of explosions and boiling waves advanced way out in front of the Morning Walker like outriders. The