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Chasing the Lantern(4)

By:Jonathon Burgess


"Is...is that it?" asked Oscar. "Is it gone?"

The ocean exploded beside him. The serpent reared up, skin blackened and smoldering. Oscar flung himself aside with a scream as it struck out, jaws wide. Lina drew her other dagger, pointing in futility at it. But the serpent pulled back and sank below the waves before anyone else could react.

One minute passed, then another. The pirates spread out to watch the water, weapons held at the ready. It did not rise again though. The serpent was gone.

The crew relaxed. Sarah Lome lay down her oar. Then she spied Oscar and belted out a laugh. Lina glanced over to where the pirate lay in the middle of the boat, shaking, pale and white. He clutched his knife still in the one hand. In the other he held only a small tuft of what was left of Lina's long hair.

Oscar looked down at the bits of hair, then up at the huge woman. "S'not funny!" he yelled. "That could have been my arm!" He scrambled to his feet as others joined in. "It's not funny, damn yer eyes! I almost died, and we're worse off now than before! That damned snake cracked the hull. Look, we're taking on water!"

Lina grabbed up her dagger as she glanced down at the bilge. He was right. Water was dribbling in through several cracks in the wood. And the waves were just level with the gunwales where the sea serpent had crushed them.

"Mr. Pleasant," said their captain.

Lina glanced up at the bow. Captain Fengel had half-turned to face the crew. He had a hand upon the pommel of his sword, though the blade was only drawn an inch, as if he had only just now decided to involve himself in the serpent attack.

"If you are quite done with histrionics," continued Fengel, "I suggest you begin to bail, and the rest of you, row." He swayed slightly, certainly just the swell of the waves beneath the boat. Fengel pointed out at the horizon. Distantly, Lina could just make out a dark speck. "The Copper Isles. We're finally home."

Silence reigned as the crew peered out over the ocean. Then they became ebullient.

"We made it!" cried Oscar Pleasant. "We made it!"

"Wir werden leben!" yelled Maxim, reverting to his native tongue in excitement.

"The Captain did it," said Sarah Lome, voice soft with wonder. She threw herself back down onto a bench and reached for an oar as the pirates all praised the Goddess, their leaky longboat, and the Captain himself. "Quiet," she bellowed at them. "Oscar's right for once. Captain's got us this far, now it's time for us to do the rest, before we all sink. Henry, get to the tiller. Oscar, Geoffrey, Maxim, start bailing. The rest of you, row!"

What followed was some of the most backbreaking labor that Lina had ever been subjected to. Stroke by stroke they approached the horizon, Sarah Lome doing the lion's share of the work, rowing as much as any three other men combined. Henry Smalls guided from the tiller. The rest used their hands to help paddle or bail leaking water from the bilge.

The distant speck resolved into a small island chain as the sun crawled down from the sky. Lina spied no beaches, only sheer sea-cliffs riddled with shining veins of copper and topped with thick and impenetrable jungle. Jagged rocks and outcrops protected the approach from every direction. These were the Copper Isles, a notorious pirate haven and the bane of shipping between the Western Continent of Edrus and the newly discovered continent of Yulan.

Evening found them paddling out of a small canyon waterway into a lagoon deep within the interior of the isles. The cove was ringed by the same sheer, hundred-foot-high cliffs that Lina had seen everywhere else in this place. Green vines and vegetation crept down from the heights to drape across the other waterways that led here, most only big enough for a longboat. The far end of the cove was gentler, and the cliff there slanted down to the water in a series of natural terraces. A town had been built upon these, an echo in wood and stone of the creepers and growth hanging elsewhere above the cove. Lina spotted houses, shops, and workmen's huts, all hanging precariously, linked by rickety bridges and suspended boardwalks. A series of piers stretched out from the bottom of the township, a pair of sail ships now at dock. Mirror to its twin below, the top of the town supported another harbor, though for a very different kind of vessel.

Like great bulbous fish, the skyship gasbags stretched golden and gleaming in the fading sunlight, shining sails spread wide along their lengths. Beneath each hung the long shape of the vessel itself, a hull like any other ship attached by thick cables to the oblong balloon frame. There were half a dozen of the wondrous vessels, and Lina's breath caught in her chest at the sight of them.

This was Haventown. Home port of Fengel's Men and the only sky-pirate den in all the seas that were known.