Chase the Morning полностью

‘Deck! A smoking teakettle with a soot-black merchantman a’tow! A good league downriver!’

‘All hands!’ roared Pierce. ‘Mr Mate! Ashore with you and roust out that old tarrarag of a tugmaster! All bands! We must have hit her worse than we thought, she pulled in for repairs – and saw us come by – hah! How’s that for defiance, my fine buckoes?’

Stryge’s eye glittered frighteningly. ‘What old man? Who answered? Who came?’

‘A – an old busker, like I said – played the trumpet – he had a – a card, called himself the – Opener of the Ways, that was it –’

Stryge jerked back, Jyp whistled and choked on it, and Mall ran her hands through her hair. ‘Faith, a pretty company to be keeping!’

‘Look, he was kind, whoever he was! He hid me from the cops – he showed me the way back, the Chorazin –he saved my hide! My mind, too, maybe – after that thing in the cemetery I thought I was going off my trolley! Maybe he was the answer to that call of yours –’

‘What thing?’ demanded the Stryge, but in nothing like his normal snarl. I thought I saw a flicker of real feeling cross the stonily malevolent mask; something I might have welcomed, if it hadn’t looked like fear. So I told him, and watched his face crumple. Jyp went ashen, and Mall, to my astonishment, sank to her haunches beside me and hugged me bruisingly hard.

‘The Baron!’ said Stryge with a high shaky cackle. ‘And Legba! The imbecile boy escapes the Baron, meets Legba and calls him a blind old man! As if he’d come to my call, hah!’

‘But who’s to say he didn’t?’ rebuked Jyp softly. ‘This – it’s taking a shape I feared. More at stake than just a raid into the Core – or a girl getting shanghaied – much, much more. There’s strong forces at play here, if the Invisibles are taking a hand.’

‘More than a hand!’ said Mall shrilly. ‘D’you not see? It’s sides they take – and when ever did they do thus? With Stephen here caught in the middle!’

Jyp clenched his fists. ‘And good or bad, they’re ill meddlers with men! Hoy, Mister Mate – what of the tug?’

‘None to be had!’ cried the breathless mate, scorning the plank and swinging himself aboard by the new mainstays. ‘There was three fired up – but two spiked overnight, a’ purpose! A mercy their boilers didn’t blow to blazes! And the last the Wolves took, with pistol’s point as fee! We’ll needs wait hours!’

Pierce threw down his hat and stamped upon it. ‘By Beelzebub’s burning balls! And miss the dawn? Never! Hands to the braces! We’ll after them under sail alone! We caught the bastards before and by hell’s thunders we’ll do it again, if it’s up Satan’s arsegut they flee us! Topmen aloft! Leap to it, rum – rotted whoreson bitch-spawn you be –’

The mate’s leathery face rumpled uneasily. ‘But cap’n – how’ll we know their course to follow? We’ve no way –’

‘Ah, but we have!’ said Mall grimly. ‘The Stryge may check it if he wills, but I doubt his divination will fare better. A contention’s in hand among the Invisibles, t’would seem. So where else would the Chorazin be bound in such case, but to the island that’s their home?’

Jyp smacked hand into palm. ‘That’s it! Well, skipper – for Hispaniola?’

‘Aye, set your course,’ muttered Pierce, the rage drained from him. ‘Hispaniola! Hayti! There’s a lee shore for the soul, a shoal of shadow all a-slather with blood and black arts. But if it must be, it must. Quartermaster, to the helm! And pray God that we are in time!’

The dark green walls loomed above us, brooding, impenetrable, seething beneath a thunderous sky. Emerald fire flashed from the swords as they rang together. Mine was swatted aside like an annoying fly; the broadsword sizzled by an inch from my left armpit. Somehow I parried, jumped back, lifted my guard again, gasping. Several cuts had opened, and I winced as the sweat ran into them. We circled each other, feinting. Mall grinned; it wasn’t the most reassuring sight. She was swaying hypnotically, like a cobra, picking her time and place to strike.

It’d been like that all the way from New Orleans, and I had the scars to prove it. Our frantic departure seemed to be paying off, at first. We fairly flew down that great river on the wings of the morning. Le Stryge claimed credit for the unexpectedly fresh wind in our sails, which went a long way to nullify the advantage of the Wolves’ steam tow; but I was more inclined to credit Jyp’s unfailing pilotage. I had the odd idea, watching him at the wheel, that that calm gaze of his was seeing through the veils of time and space, choosing some invisible thread of destiny and steering a straight course between its tortuous coils, sliding from one to another. I made the mistake of mentioning it to Mall as we snatched a bite of breakfast together on the foredeck.