The Scar - China Mieville [254]
There was no structure to the fighting. The city was burning. Dirigibles moved overhead in ungainly panic. Above it all towered the Grand Easterly. Its dark iron was still silent and empty, still deserted.
Bellis became sluggishly aware that this was bizarre. She stared at the trireme below her. The rope bridge that had linked it to the Grand Easterly had been severed, and so, she realized, had the one beyond it.
Bellis flattened herself carefully against the wall, inched forward, and peered out of the darkest shadows onto the main deck. She saw three dim figures moving with vampir speed, hacking at the chains and knots that attached the bridges to the ship. They split one and sent it swinging into the sea, its far end slapping the flank of the vessel to which it was attached, and then they flitted to the next and began again.
Bellis’s stomach lurched. The vampir were cutting her off, confining her on the ship with them. She pressed against the wall and could not move, as if a film of ice held her.
On an old trawler, below mildewing eaves, Uther Doul put his blade through a man’s face. He turned away from the split, screaming thing he had made and raised his voice over the sounds of violence.
“Where,” he bellowed, “is the fucking Brucolac?”
And as he spoke, he was facing the Grand Easterly. He paused for a second at his own words and looked up at the steamer’s rail, toward its invisible deck and its miles of corridors, where he had left the Lovers in emergency session with their scientific advisors, and his eyes widened.
“Godsdammit!” he shouted, and began to run.
Bellis could hear a voice.
It came from very close to her, just around the corner from where she stood frozen, by the doors to the raised section. She held her breath, her heart quite cold with fear.
“Do you understand?” she heard. The voice spoke tersely, hoarse and guttural. The Brucolac. “He’ll be somewhere in that section—I don’t know exactly where, but I’ve no doubt that you can find him.”
“We understand.” Bellis closed her eyes at that awful second voice. It sounded as if the whispered words were chance echoes in parting slime. “We will find him,” it continued, “and take back what was stolen, and then we will leave, and the avanc will move freely again.”
“Well, I’ll be quick then,” the Brucolac said. “There’s two people I still have to kill.”
Footsteps receded. Bellis risked opening her eyes and moving her head a tiny way, and she saw the Brucolac stalking calmly and at speed toward the raised section of superstructure below which were the Grand Easterly’s meeting rooms.
Bellis heard the door open, and quick wet sounds brushing the threshold as the intruders entered.
Understanding and amazement hit her so hard she reeled. She knew in a sudden gust of insight what those newcomers were, and what—and whom—they were seeking.
So far . . . ? she thought, giddy. So far? But she had no doubt.
Holding her breath so that her terrified hyperventilation would not betray her, Bellis looked around the corner. There was no one in sight.
She tried desperately to think of what to do. She heard a rushing sound and a series of terrible screams from the ships below. She could not help but give a quiet cry when she saw what the intruders’ thaumaturgy had done, what was now happening to the men and women of Armada. She shook her head and moaned, stupefied by the blood and disfigured corpses she saw.
Another burst of energy crossed the air from the Hoddling, and a vivid anger settled very suddenly in Bellis’ guts, making her tremble. Her fear remained, but this new rage was much stronger.
It was directed at Silas Fennec.
You fucking bastard! she thought. You fucking stupid selfish