The Kingdom Beyond the Waves by Stephen Hunt

Author:Stephen Hunt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780765360236
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2010-04-30T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Fumes from the liquid below – a dark oil that steamed and bubbled up from the well – kept the commodore coughing and cursing his fate as the others clutched onto the bars of their cage, trying not to make the box swing on the end of its precarious cable. It would not do to hit any of the other cages lowered into the pit on tethers. Not that the other occupants would mind. Whether as a warning, or simply out of pure neglect, their nearest neighbours hanging over the oily well were the carapaces of three craynarbian warriors, flesh long since rotted away through starvation. The smallest of the craynarbians had the sword arm of one of its fellows piercing its thorax, testament to how they had turned to cannibalism in their last desperate days.

‘I shall never complain about the wicked fogs of a Middlesteel peculiar again,’ said the commodore, ‘not if I have to walk through the mills of Workbarrows on a hot summer’s day without a linen mask, then swear in front of a magistrate that the air there is as sweet as the scent of the lilies along the hills of the western downs.’

‘I think the chance of you ever standing in front of a magistrate in Middlesteel are looking distinctly slim right now,’ said Gabriel McCabe, staring at the corpses in the other cages.

‘We know very little of our captors’ motives,’ Billy Snow pointed out. ‘Although I think we can presume they are not benevolently disposed towards us.’

‘Damn feral steammen,’ said T’ricola. ‘I wish Ironflanks hadn’t been taken away. He might have had a few answers for us.’

‘They are not steammen,’ said Billy Snow. ‘I can hear the difference in how they move. Steammen have an honest clunk about their walk; those things that captured us move like panthers in armour, they’re light on their feet, almost organic.’

‘It’s answer enough for me that they dragged Ironflanks away whistling in terror,’ said the commodore. ‘The old steamer recognized those monsters. He’s had prior dealings with them for sure.’

‘Our captors are the beasts that slaughtered the survivors of the airship crash we found,’ said Veryann. ‘Ironflanks intimated in the jungle that the masters of this territory are the architects of the gas wall the Sprite encountered. You do not have to smell the rot from the other cages to know that this metal tribe are a hostile and formidable force.’

The commodore clutched a handkerchief to his nose. ‘Ah, Coppertracks, my fine old friend, I should have listened to you back in Jackals. He said there were dark things in Liongeli that he would not speak of and fool that I am I ignored his mortal advice – left the comforts of Tock House and plunged into this green hell blinded by the inducements of the great Abraham Quest.’

‘He offered you what you wanted,’ said Veryann. ‘He offered all of you what you wanted. For you, Jared Black, a chance to get the Sprite back, for your

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