Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [64]
A glow globe hung from the ceiling in the black powder room, and by its light I overturned several kegs of the grainy material and used the axe to smash them open. Powder spilled in dry rivers over the floor. The air began to fill with an ashy dust.
I picked up another keg and carried it to the door, then punched open the top and began pouring a thick trail of gunpowder out into the hold where the cannons were located. The keg was empty by the time the trail reached an outside wall of the ship. I tossed the barrel aside, then turned to drag one cannon away from its porthole, which was big enough to provide me an exit if the drop wasn’t too far. I glanced out, saw the ground some twenty-five feet below. It was a long way but I had little choice.
Drawing my dagger and holding up the axe, I struck one blade against the other, sending a wave of sparks sleeting onto the line of gunpowder at my feet. Light flared up, yellow and ugly. An odor of burning reeked in my nostrils. I turned and slipped through the porthole to dangle for a moment by my hands. Inside I could hear the scorpion hiss of fire running swiftly over black powder, and I let go, slid along the curved hull, dropped to land in a roll and come up running.
I heard the shouts of guards, saw startled faces with wide eyes. I yelled at all of them to run. As I was running. One tried to get in my way, tried to grab at me. I shoved him aside and ran.
Then something huge lifted me. I felt heat, heard a massive whumpf that seemed to envelop me. And I was thrown forward like a doll as the bomb of the ship went up behind me. I rolled over, protecting my face with my hands. A crescendo of flame pillared high in the smoking crater where the airship had been, licking and coiling even against the ceiling far overhead. Acrid fumes twined in the air; debris pounded to earth around me.
I brushed off flaming splinters and ash and stumbled to my feet. The twisted iron of what had once been a cannon lay a few steps to my left, and even as I rose a jagged chunk of steam engine clanged to earth ahead of me, hissing like bacon on a griddle. I staggered around it, stumbled on away from the explosion. Around me, others were rising too. But they were far too dazed to pay attention to me.
Reaching the cavern’s far wall, I glanced up with smoke-stung eyes to scan the painted glyphs that marked the many exits. The prisoner I’d interrogated had told me which glyph identified the tunnel that would lead me to the other cannon-armed airships and, eventually, to Vohanna. That symbol was an eye pierced with four thorns, and when I found it I entered the dark mouth beneath.
To destroy the second ship I came from above. This vessel was not as close to being finished as the first had been, and the scaffolding over the decks was still in place. More elaborate catwalks ran from cavern wall to cavern wall, and there were boxes and bales of supplies stacked upon them. I climbed up the rock wall to one of the walks and then followed it down to the ship.
The chaos I had created helped me. Apparently, all work on this second ship had ceased as rumbles from the destruction of the first reached here. Even as I slipped into the cavern I noted laborers leaving the catwalks and going down to reinforce the guards for defense. They were all alert, but they weren’t watching behind them and they went down like ranked rows of pawns slapped by a hand when the blast wave of a new explosion struck them.
At the third ship I made use of my gray cloak—a guard’s cloak—and of sheer audacity. I raced across the cavern floor, shouting in apparent panic, my helmet seemingly lost, scratches on my face, the stink of smoke heavy upon me. The officer of the guard rushed to meet me. He grabbed my shoulders, shook me. His men gathered around, tension and dawning fear writ large on their faces, especially of those not “controlled