Upon a Pale Horse: Raiding the Seven Seas (Orc Pirate Book 3) by Simon Archer

Author:Simon Archer [Archer, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 48895257
Published: 2019-11-18T00:00:00+00:00

21

“She ain’t rusted through,” Bord reported as I stepped onto the narrow exterior deck of the ironclad. It was more of a walkway surrounding the armored shell protecting the cannons and crew. Now that I got a closer look at her, I took note that she was smaller than I first thought, maybe the size of The Wasp, about two-thirds the length of my own Hullbreaker, but wider and with a squatly intimidating presence.

“That’s good, aye?” I asked.

“Aye,” he said with a nod. “She ain’t even got thin spots in her hull that we can tell. Yer siren’s been right helpful in doin’ the underwater inspections for us, too.” Bord sighed and hooked his leather-gauntleted thumbs into his broad belt. “In fact, we be thinkin’ she’ll be good to test out in about three days. If she holds pressure, then we’ll be able to sail the day after. Gettin’ back to the Archipelago will be the real test, but if she doesn’t explode runnin’ flat out, she won’t ever.”

“Can ye speed up that timetable?” I looked past the dwarf and into the armored shell. Hammers rang on metal, and distant voices chattered and cursed.

“I’ve already trimmed the fat, Cap’n,” Bord replied. “We be havin’ to replace bits that did rust, an’ none o’ the flexible lines survived the cold, so we have to replace them too. Each o’ these ships was one of a kind, and the helpful bastards that locked her away here decided ‘twould be best if they burned the engineerin’ manuals for her.”

“She have a name?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“Aye,” Bord replied. “Ye’ll likely think it a bit uninspirin’, but I like it: The Echo.”

“The Echo,” I tried the name and nodded. “Ain’t bad. Could mean lots o’ things, too.”

“It could, aye.” The cannonmaster shifted his feet and glanced back through the hatch at a sudden, surprised yell and more cursing.

“Ye have all the supplies ye need?” I asked. Bord had taken charge of the shopping for whatever we might need to get this ship going again, and he’d loaded The Hullbreaker down with parts, oils, and other things.

He nodded. “So far, so good. Once we get everything checked, ready, an’ oiled up, if ye can get the witches to bring over and rig in the elemental stones, that’d be good.”

“They’ll be enough?” I asked.

“Should be,” Bord replied. “If they ain’t, then we need to find another way to feed the furnace an’ the boilers, else The Echo stays right bloody here.”

There might be other ways, I thought, but I’d want to speak with Adra and Ember specifically about them. Could we bind elementals to the ship? Fire would power the furnace, and water would keep the boilers filled. It might work if the stones did not or if they were too slow.

“Let me know soon as ye be ready to test it,” I told the dwarf. “I’ll be takin’ a small crew to check out the rest o’ the island over the next few days.”

“Unless they had a plan for escape,” Bord said, “like as not ye’ll find what’s left o’ the crew.

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