Blazing Blunderbuss (Wyvern Chronicles Book 1)

  Blazing Blunderbuss

  Wyvern Chronicles

  Nix Whittaker

  Reshwity Publishers

  © 2016 by Nicola Pike

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical facts, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

  ISBN: Softcover, 978-0-473-35869-3

  ISBN: Kindle, 978-0-473-35873-0

  Dedication

  To my workmate muses.

  Hara sighed, relieved she had finished her work in the boiler room. It had been cramped and hot work fixing the valve on the compressor unit.

  She was the newest member of the crew, and most of them thought that was reason enough to give her the scab work. Hara was used to the treatment. Her father had always treated her like a gofer even though it was her gadgets that had made his cons possible. Occasionally she would wonder how he was surviving without her gadgets, but she knew one true thing about her father: he was a survivor.

  Hara crawled out of the small space and landed heavily on her feet in one of the larger corridors where crew moved around. She put her tools away and they clanked as she threw the bag over her shoulder. Normally she wouldn’t leave her gear out in the corridor where any Tom, Dick or Harry could mess with them, but she didn’t really have to worry about others at this time of the night.

  It was late, so most of the crew was tucked away and a skeleton crew was knocking about the ship only to make sure they kept on course. It was unusual for her to be working so late. Burning light in engineering could be dangerous, so most of their work was done during daylight hours and using mirrors to redirect light where it was needed in the bowels of the airship. But without the compressor they couldn’t make course changes, and since they were nearing a mountain range it had been worth the risk to have an open flame.

  The engineering crew often spent their days in cramped crawlways, so when the rush job had been ordered she had been sent in. They hadn’t even pretended to draw straws. Hara didn’t particularly mind; she had the touch when it came to mechanical things, thanks to her Oupa.

  In his day he had been a world-renowned engineer. He had taught her a few things in the time she had stayed with him, before her father had dragged her off to play a page boy and invent crazy things for him.

  Most thought Hara was just a teenage boy. Teenagers were often hired for crew work when donkeywork was required. Some must have realized over time that she was a girl, but simply didn’t care. It also helped that she never stayed in one place for very long. Hara wondered if she would have to change up her disguise, as she was starting to look more womanly. Her disguise was one she had been using for a few years, but her body had changed recently as she had come into her own.

  Hara was in her twenties and she wasn’t small. She had curves which were hidden in over-large coveralls. She assumed most knew she was female, but just ignored it. The men who didn’t ignore her gender were the ones she was concerned about. The crew on a ship like this were often the dregs of society. They left her alone because they were all running away as well.

  When Hara had first left her father, she had been in a bad space. She had been in prison and had almost had her head chopped off for what her father had done. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of a judge she would be dead or rotting away in some prison. Hara had been angry at everyone because the one person she wanted to hate wasn’t there. So she had run. She thought she was heading to her hometown, only she never quite arrived.

  Finished with her work, Hara clocked out and headed for her cabin. She shared her sleeping space with another crew member, but he was on watch at the moment, so he wouldn’t be around anytime soon. Hara took advantage of the privacy to clean up.

  She poured the water which had been sitting in her canteen all day into a small dish nestled in a small indent on a table between the two bunks. Everything on the ship was either bolted down or stowed away. One could never tell when the ship was about to be attacked by pirates, and a stray item could turn ballistic in a moment. Hara had been pedantic about stowing things away since the age of five, after a sudden manoeuvre on a transport airship had brained her with one of her father’s books.

  Hara stripped out of her overalls and stood in just her underwear as she washed up with the small amount of water and a sponge. She dreamed of a soak in a copper bath.

  Her Oupa had one outside in his shed. He had made it for his wife and Hara had enjoyed the luxury when she was home. The bath had jets of water which were perfect for massaging sore muscles and getting grease out of all her pores. She shook her head. That particular bath came with conditions she wasn’t willing to live with.

  Hara jumped when the door opened and slammed against the wall with a loud thud. A large man stepped in. He had sailors’ tattoos of naked women up his arms. Hara recognized him and scowled.

  Ivan growled. “I knew it.” He was one of the shovellers for the boiler and had been giving her suggestive looks for the last few weeks. He pushed into the room. His size swallowed the space in the tiny cabin.

  Hara backed up and reached behind her for her tool belt, which she had placed next to the water bowl on the table.

  Ivan stalked closer. “Your hips sway too much like a girl’s. You even have long hair.”

  Which didn’t really mean anything, as most of the men in the world’s navies had long hair tied in queues. Her own hair was loose now, but usually she wore it in a tight queue as well.

  Ivan flexed his hands and she knew he was about to make a grab for her. This wasn’t the first time she had been found out as a girl, but never by the sway of her hips. Maybe it was time to revise her disguise. When she had been discovered the last two times it had been because the men lusted for her and had noticed her growing breasts. They had assumed she was a hussy because she was dressed as a boy, and they had pressed their suits until she had made it clear, sometimes very forcefully, that she wasn’t interested in warming their beds.

  Hara’s hand found her tool belt and she opened up one of the pockets. She had no idea what was inside, but she could make pretty much anything deadly. She grinned when she realized what she had dug out. The small gadget was something she had just finished making. The mechanism was an old and trusted design, but she had only recently received the supplies to make the guts. She had been thinking of a situation just like this for this particular gadget.

  Ivan grinned back at her. “I see you understand the situation, baby.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m going to do the dirty with you? Well, you have to be dreaming, mate, to think that’s going to happen in this lifetime.” She wiggled the fingers of her free hand at his grotesque body. He snarled and didn’t notice the movement of her other hand.

  Hara flung the gadget and a net sprung from a small metal ball. It tangled around Ivan and he cursed as he tried to get out of it. The net was a fine web made from the silk of spiders, sold by a tinker in the empire. The threads were very strong.

  Hara didn’t wait for him to succeed in freeing himself and she picked up one of her tools to swing at him. It struck his head with a heavy thunk. She hadn’t hit him hard enough to kill him, but he might be out for a while. If he was discovered in this room people would assume he was the reason she left, which was only partly true. She was ready to move on. Maybe she wasn’t ready to go home yet, but she was ready to stop running.

  She turned to her things
and dressed in an outfit she had received on her last job with her father. She had never been able to wear it as it showed off her curves too much, but the supple leather pants and linen shirt were just too well-made for her to sell or throw away.

  Once dressed, she strapped on her gear and made sure it wouldn’t wiggle loose. Then she pulled a long slender wooden box out from under her bed. It had leather straps attached to it which she slung over a shoulder as she headed out of her room. She kicked Ivan in passing just for the sake of it.

  Hara took the quickest way to the bottom deck, which opened up to the air. She was lucky it was just after the shift change, as most people had settled into bed by this stage.

  The deck was pitch-black, but she could see the twinkle of a settlement in the distance. Again, luck was with her. Hara had not looked forward to wandering around in the empty expanse of the Roshian plateau.

  Hara finished strapping the wooden box to her back and pressed the switch at the base of the case. The box snapped open and wings spanned out. Without a glance back at the airship she stepped into the void and let the wind take her.

  Gideon blinked as light cracked into the wooden box he was trapped in. He didn’t find himself locked into a wooden box very often, so he watched the crack widen with something more than curiosity. There was a loud snap and the lid of the box was removed completely.

  Gideon looked up at the men who stared down at him. He didn’t jump up and try to escape, as success wasn’t likely with the bands around his wrists. The bands seemed innocuous, but they had made sure he hadn’t escaped from the moment he had woken up in the small, coffin-like box. He had already tried to shift his form, but when he couldn’t, he had studied his very small surroundings. That was when he had discovered the bands around his wrists. He hadn’t been able to see them in the dark, but he had guessed what they were when he could shift his shape.

  Whoever had organized to kidnap him had known well their task. The bands were made out of the elements which had first drawn him to this world, and it made things a little sticky when it came to his ability to change into his true form.

  He didn’t think he was in his home city anymore either. He had been knocked out and he had woken up in this box, and that had been hours before, or possibly even days.

  A man growled and all the men looking down at Gideon stepped away. Gideon slowly sat up and studied the room around him. He was in a seedy room with no windows. It looked like a rundown tavern room set aside for private guests, complete with peeling wallpaper which had once been lovely, but was now faded and stained. The furniture was sparse and also faded. The flower pattern on the fabric now looked like children’s finger painting.

  He had been placed in the middle of the room. The box was uncomfortably shaped like a coffin. The room itself was mostly filled with men. About half a dozen of them glared at Gideon, though he wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve the dark looks. The men all wore tall black boots wrapped with leather straps. They had an abundance of fur on the rest of their clothes. They sure did look warm, and Gideon wished he had some of their fur, as it was cold in the room.

  Gideon grinned and said, “Is it possible for one of you to turn up the heat just a tad? My bones are quite brittle at my age.” Everyone ignored his comment as Gideon looked around to find which one of the men was in charge.

  The man who had growled at the others earlier said, “Are you Gideon, the mathematician?”

  Gideon studied the men. He wasn’t used to being referred to as merely a mathematician. Usually there was an epithet in front of it, like “annoying” or “moron”. He rather liked “moron mathematician” as it was an alliteration and there was some symmetry to the insult. He had worked at the university in the capital for the last four decades as a professor, and even they did not call him merely a mathematician.

  Gideon turned to look at the man before he said, “I’m a mathematician, but I’m not sure I’m the one you want. I know this mathematician who looks just like me. I’m sure he would be happy to help you out, but I’m afraid my plants are going to miss me. I’m sure they’re already wilting.”

  The man shrugged. He was older than most of the others in the room and had a white peppered beard. His fur hat covered oily hair. He stepped forward and said, “I am Nikolai. And if you are a mathematician, then you are the one we want. The men who procured you for us would not have made a mistake lightly.”

  Gideon had been studying the other men in the room and the room itself when Nikolai’s last sentence grabbed his Gideon asked, “Someone procured me for you?”

  Nikolai twitched his nose with his thumb as he thought over his answer and eventually said, “Yes. You are now in Rosha. You are not in the Empire anymore, Professor.” Nikolai’s strong Roshian accent made it difficult to understand all his words but Gideon got the gist of it. He was very far away from friends and therefore trapped.

  Gideon flashed a grin and said, “Excellent, I needed a vacation anyway. Does anyone have a drink? Preferably one with one of those pink umbrellas. No?” When they didn’t answer him he demonstrated what he meant with a few gestures, but the men continued to stare at him, so he shrugged his shoulders in disappointed defeat. It didn’t seem these men had much in the way of a funny bone.

  Gideon studied the room and the other men carefully as he took in what they had said. Something was off and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was the mathematician comment. The reason why people never just called him a mathematician was because they could never get over what else he was.

  This made Gideon turn to look closer at Nikolai. Gideon raised an eyebrow as he realized Nikolai might not know he was a dragon.

  Hara slapped a coin on the tavern counter and said, “A name of an airship which is willing to hire a woman.”

  Hara had decided the previous night as she had walked the last mile to the town that she was done disguising herself as a boy. The walk had allowed her to realize it wasn’t practical, and also it didn’t fix what was wrong with her life.

  Hara had touched down outside of the small town both to think and for practical reasons. She didn’t want to announce to people that she had a glider in the box which was strapped over her shoulder. When she had seen the plethora of airships lashed to the ground outside the town she had known it was a smugglers’ port. Better to be cautious.

  She had been in a few shady ports in her time, especially when her father was between jobs. If it got too hot, even for smugglers’ ports, he would head home for a while. Marvin usually got bored of lying low after a while, and would disappear in the middle of the night. He would return a month or half a year later, depending on his mood or his next con, and come pick her up to make something for his cons.

  It had been his idea to dress her as a boy for their travels, as the male of the species had more leeway than women, even in this day and age.

  Hara’s attention returned to the present when the tavern owner put his hand over the coin. She slapped her hand over his so he couldn’t retreat with the coin underneath until he had told her what she wanted to know.

  He sniffed and said, “There are some captains out back who will take on some women.”

  She flashed the guy a grin and let him take the coin. She went to the back of the tavern. There were several men sitting around playing a game of cards.

  Hara stepped up to the table and waited for them to acknowledge her. It was never a good idea to interrupt a game that didn’t want to be interrupted. Eventually one of the men glanced up and looked her up and down.

  He gave her a suggestive look and asked, “How can we help you, sweetheart?”

  She wasn’t perturbed by his tone as she said, “I’m an engineer. I’m looking for a berth.”

  One of the other men chuckled and said, “You can berth with me, honey.”

  He licked his lips, suggesting she wouldn’t be working as an engineer at all. She sighed. It didn’t look like she would be finding a berth any time soon. She flashed her teeth as
she went for one of her gadgets.

  Nikolai left with many of the other men. Gideon had remained behind with a few guards who made sure he had clothes appropriate for the climate. Gideon had slowed things down by insisting he needed food, complaining that he would faint if he didn’t. He enjoyed playing the role of the academic fop. But once the meal was over the men had tied his hands in front of him. Leaving the bands on.

  As they pushed him out of the room, Gideon said, “Is there any way we can make these just a tad more comfortable? I’m afraid I have very delicate skin which is getting all scratched up by this very coarse rope. You don’t happen to have silk, do you?”

  The men shoved him a bit to get him moving. Gideon ignored their roughness and carried on trying to distract them.

  “Mmm, silk,” he said nostalgically. “Well, I suppose you two aren’t that adventurous. But trust me, silk rope is a good investment.”

  The two guards shoved Gideon again to make him move, but Gideon didn’t stop trying. “I rather like silk rope. You’ll be surprised with what you can do with it. But this rope is oh, so scratchy. Well, if you don’t have silk, then can you take off these bracelets? They pinch against the rope. See?” He shoved his wrists into the face of one of the guards as they maneuvered him out of the tavern and onto the street.

  “They’re all pink, and aren’t they just ghastly? Way too girly for me. I mean, I like my clothes pink and such, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like women. Remember the silk ropes.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, but the two guards were not interested.

  Gideon sighed. It would seem he would have to find another way to get his freedom. Being so annoying that people wanted to either kill him or get rid of him could easily backfire without his ability to change into a dragon.