Blazing Blunderbuss (Wyvern Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Talen rolled his eyes at her humor. “Ha ha. Well, is there space for a slightly redeemed thief?”

  Hara grinned. “Definitely, but you might need to man the guns if we ever get in trouble. And the rest of the crew will be your friends for life if you take a stint stoking the fires in the engine room.”

  Gideon huffed and said, “Do we have to bring him along? You already got that clockwork nonsense.” Hara had left Angel back on the ship, though she had had to bribe the creature with a glass bauble.

  She smiled when she turned to Gideon and asked, “Jealous?” Of Talen or Angel, she didn’t particularly care which.

  Gideon huffed again and said, “Of course I am.”

  Hara laughed outright at that. Talen raised an eyebrow and asked, “Is this your man?”

  “He certainly wants to be, but we’re still negotiating. Have you got all your gear, Talen? I think we should leave this town as soon as possible before those men decide they want their money back.”

  Gideon came to walk next to her. He said in a hissed whisper, “Do you trust him? At least the clockwork monster is harmless.”

  “Yes, surprisingly. Certainly more than the rest of the crew. You do know they’re all strangers. Don’t worry Gideon, jealousy is a nasty emotion. You’ll get used to it. Just breathe out slowly and it’ll go away.” She liked that Gideon was jealous. It was a very human emotion.

  They had made it out of Kerak without incident. Alice had stopped apologizing, so life was good. Talen had headed to his room with a saunter. Gideon approached Hara He had been sulking over dinner as she and Talen had reminisced over past pranks.

  Talen had been careful not to mention anything about her father, so he must have already heard about what her father had done to her. Leaving her to serve prison time.

  Gideon leant on the railing next to Hara. Angel sat on the railing and clung on with her small claws as the wind buffeted her. She remained there with the two of them for a long while. Eventually Hara turned to him and said, “I’m not going to sleep with Talen. He’s like an older brother.”

  Gideon turned to her and said, “I don’t like this feeling.” He reached out and stroked one of Angel’s wings. She turned her head to trill at him. Hara caught his hand and tugged him closer. He stood in front of her. She studied him. He was taller than her and he was in serious need of a good haircut.

  Hara reached up and moved his hair away from his face. “You didn’t eat him, though. No more than you would’ve crushed Angel.”

  Gideon shook his head. “I don’t eat humans. Never did. The others didn’t like that I was so queasy about taking lives and that I lived away from them.”

  That was curious, Hara thought. She asked, “Is that why you got into an argument with that dragon in your house?”

  Gideon nodded. “The Emperor of the dragons believes we are all in his collection. I am not. He cannot order me around.”

  “So do you think you’ll be able to order me around if I’m in your collection?”

  Hara was starting to understand this collection thing. There were good things about it and other things that rankled her.

  Gideon shrugged non-committedly and she dug a little deeper. “Would I have to follow any of your orders?”

  He wrinkled his nose and eventually said, “I don’t like following orders, so I wouldn’t expect orders to be followed. But I can’t guarantee I won’t try to order you around.”

  She smiled at him. This collection thing didn’t sound as bad as she thought. She went up on her toes and kissed him. It was much like the kiss he had given her in his house.

  Hara stepped back and patted his chest and said, “We’ll see.”

  She gathered up Angel and left him there. She wasn’t sure why she had said that, as she still had no intention of being in Gideon’s collection.

  Gideon moved through the corridors of the airship. Kale was coming towards him. It was late, and it was strange for anyone but those on watch to be wandering around. Gideon stopped the man by stepping in front of him.

  Kale huffed and said, “Hey, man. What’s up?”

  Gideon frowned; the words and the tone didn’t match. He tilted his head as he studied the man.

  Kale said, “Henry’s making small cakes. Man, that guy can cook.” There was just a touch of disgust to his tone.

  Gideon tilted his head the other way and said, “You will not harm anyone on this ship.” It wasn’t a threat, but Gideon’s tone was very serious.

  Kale frowned. “Hey, where did that come from? I’m here to make sure nothing goes wrong. That’s what muscle is for.” That sounded like truth.

  Gideon nodded and said, “Just make sure that stays true, Kale. Wait until Henry makes soufflé.”

  He flashed Kale a grin. The man didn’t know how to take the sudden change in Gideon’s mood. He gave a half-hearted chuckle and squeezed past Gideon.

  Gideon might have followed the man to see what he really was up to, but he had better things to do. A certain woman to woo. He would deal with the suspicious crewmember later.

  Hara’s hair was loose over the pillow. Hands moved through her hair. Lips brushed over her collarbone. She arched into the touch. She groaned. Flesh moved against flesh. She had had dreams like this before. She settled in to enjoy it.

  She ran her hands over his shoulders and then up into his hair. The hair was longer than she was used to in these dreams. About as long as Gideon’s hair. The man in her arms was suddenly very much Gideon.

  Hara hesitated for a moment, then thought it was just a dream, and where was the harm in that? But just as she was getting into it, she was rudely woken with a hand over her mouth.

  Cold steel pressed to her cheek. A voice said harshly into the darkness, “Don’t make a move, Captain.”

  It was Kale. Damn. She had suspected that her policy of taking on everyone might bite her in the arse. It might get more interesting when Kale tried to wake up Gideon, though.

  Kale swore as Angel attacked him. He let Hara go to fling Angel off, and threw her small body against the wall. There was a crunch and she went limp. Hara used the opportunity to reach for her tool belt on the bedside table. Her legs tangled in her blankets and her fingers had barely brushed the belt when Kale shoved her face-first into her bedding. He grunted with pain as he moved.

  He stood her up and she said, “At least let me put on some clothes.”

  He eyed her in her nightgown. He grabbed her dirty clothes which were over a chair and threw them at her. He also pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. “No funny business.”

  She dressed quickly. As Hara was shoved out of the room, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Angel moved a little.

  Hara was frog marched onto the bridge. She groaned when she saw Gideon was already tied up with the others. So much for Gideon showing his true self and putting an end to this farce.

  Hara had been the last to be rounded up. She was tied up and forced down next to the others. They were all lined up under the window on the bridge.

  She whispered to Gideon, “How did they get you?”

  He leaned over and said just as quietly, “Those wrist bands. I told you they make things sticky.”

  Hara glared at Kale as he turned the ship from their course. Gideon had told her that he didn’t think the Rosh Barkers knew he was a dragon, but why then would they keep using the bands if they didn’t know? She sat with her knees tucked up to her chest.

  She asked after a while, “What do the Rosh Barkers want with us?”

  Kale kept his eyes on the map and the wheel as he answered, “Not you, but the mathematician.”

  He didn’t question her assumption that it was the Rosh Barkers who wanted Gideon, confirming that Gideon wasn’t unlucky enough to have two groups chasing after him.

  Gideon asked, “For what? Because I have to admit, I’m good with numbers and stuff, but really I’m not good for much. Just ask Hara, she’ll tell you I’m pretty much useless.”

  Hara snor
ted. “He doesn’t even take his turn in the engine room. And he can’t cook.”

  There was a grunt from one of the men, but Hara didn’t turn to see who it was. She would have guessed Henry.

  Kale said blandly, “You’ll be told when you get there.”

  Gideon wasn’t ready to leave it alone though. “Won’t it be better if I have more time to think about it? I mean, maths is about thinking.”

  Kale hesitated, and Hara wondered if he would answer at all.

  Then Kale said, “There is a machine which was made before the Empire. It was never completed. We have finished making it, but we now need help calibrating it.”

  Interesting, thought Hara. A machine made before the Empire would mean it was a weapon to take down dragons. In the past, a dragon had been the shadow that had made everyone shiver when it flew over. Raining death and destruction, dragons were the only thing people feared enough in order to make a sophisticated weapon. Especially if finishing it had no longer been a priority when the dragons made the treaty.

  Why would the Rosh Barkers want a weapon to kill dragons? If it was the Rosh government, she could understand. The Empire was looking towards Rosh. With a weapon to use against dragons, the Roshians would be able to neutralize a large part of the Empire’s force if they ever attacked.

  The bands! She glanced at Gideon. Those bands would have been difficult to acquire, but not for an entity as large and powerful as the Rosh government. Now, if they had tricked a group like the Rosh Barkers into making a weapon to use on the dragons, they could test it without having to worry about retaliation against Rosh itself.

  Instead of working against the government, the Rosh Barkers were being used by them. Poor bastards.

  Liam gasped, and she looked to see where he was staring. It was Angel. She crawled along the wall. She was dragging one of her wings, but otherwise looked whole. It wouldn’t be hard to fix that. Hara called to Angel and she scurried across to her and whimpered as she cuddled up to Hara.

  Kale huffed and said, “I thought that thing was destroyed.” He pulled his gun out but he wasn’t fast enough. Angel hid behind Hara. Kale wrinkled his nose and put his gun away.

  Interesting that Kale didn’t want to kill them, thought Hara. Obviously he was planning to use her as leverage against Gideon.

  Gideon was shoved forward, and he glared at Kale. Nikolai was standing before them and Gideon turned to the leader. Kale was a bastard, but he didn’t really have any power in this situation.

  Gideon flicked his head so his hair was out of his face. “Ah, Nikolai, old pal. You have really bad timing. I’m courting a lady, and you’ve really put a kink in my plans of amore.”

  Nikolai snarled silently, wrinkling up his nose. “Professor, your jovial nature seems very misplaced. If you try to escape again, I will kill your crew. Including your lady friend.”

  Gideon waved off the threat with his tied hands. “Oh, they aren’t my crew. They’re Hara’s. I’m not sure why she keeps picking up strays, but it seems to make her happy…” Gideon wanted to rip Nikolai apart for the threat to Hara, but that wouldn’t be very productive at this point without access to the teeth and claws that would do the most damage.

  Nikolai cut him off. “Enough, Professor. We are willing to let you live and your…strays, as you call them, if you will fix something for us.”

  Hara had hinted to him before they had arrived that the thing needing fixing was meant to kill dragons. Gideon was sure of it. There weren’t many mathematicians who could calibrate a weapon to shoot something out of the sky. None of them could predict a dragon’s movements enough to make it accurate enough to be dangerous. But with him, that was a different thing. The ones who had captured him for the Rosh Barkers had probably assumed that because he had no liking for the Empire’s rules, he hated the Empire.

  Gideon motioned with his tied hands to indicate he knew about the weapon. “Yes, your lackey here mentioned something along those lines. So what is this thing you want me to fix? I would appreciate it if we could hurry this along so I can get to back to my lady.”

  Nikolai didn’t seem pleased that Kale had been sharing secrets. “That is not important. You just need to fix it.”

  Gideon would enjoy annoying the Rosh Barkers for the threat they were to Hara. “Oh, I disagree. If it’s a machine to make chopped liver, then the equations are very different from, say, something that flies through the air. So I do need to know what the machine does.”

  There was a long silence from everyone in the room. Nikolai liked his men to crowd around him, it seemed, as there were twice as many men this time as there had been after the first time they had kidnapped him.

  Nikolai eventually said, “It is a machine that shoots bolts of steel into the sky. We have tried it and it shoots, but with no accuracy. We need you to fix this.”

  Gideon shrugged. “No problem. I might need Hara’s help. She’s a brilliant engineer as well as being the Captain. I’m good with numbers, but just look at these hands. Do they look like they’ve done a day of work in their life? Heaven forbid I might mess up my manicure.” Gideon wriggled his fingers in Nikolai’s face.

  Nikolai narrowed his eyes, but ignored his rant and instead said, “Your friends will be staying here on the ship. As a guarantee for your good behavior. You will have to fix it on your own. Even if it means breaking a nail.”

  Gideon knew all their lives were measured in hours instead of years as long as that machine was working—both dragons and the Rosh Barkers. While it existed the dragons would stop at nothing to destroy it, and they wouldn’t care who was in the way either.

  He would have to do something to stall. He would know when he saw the machine. It would have been easier with Hara. She would have been able to put something together with a piece of string and a rubber band which would take down all these men. Ah well, he would have to come up with something. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a terrible idea.

  Gideon asked, “Why do you need a weapon like this, anyway? You guys look like strong men.” He eyed up one of the men standing next to Nikolai. The man looked like he had more muscles than brains. When the man glared at Gideon, Gideon blew him a kiss. The Rosh Barker frowned in confusion.

  Nikolai spat on the ground and said, “We are staring down the barrel of the Empire guns and you ask why we would need a weapon. We do not wish to be the next piece of land to be added to the Empire. We will not be trodden down in the dust.”

  Nikolai went on for a while, berating the Empire and declaring how they, the last bastion of the Roshian people, would fight to their dying breath. It was the typical rhetoric of revolutionaries and none of it really meant anything. Gideon wished he had one of those machines that could record sound and show these people what was really coming out of their mouths, but he doubted it would make any difference. All he could do was stall until he found a way to escape—hopefully a way that destroyed the weapon at the same time. Oh, and of course that freed Hara if she hadn’t managed to come and sweep him off his feet in the meantime. He didn’t want to bet on who would do the rescuing first.

  He grinned at the thought of Hara rescuing him, but Nikolai thought the grin was in response to his own rousing diatribe. The Rosh Barker grunted and said, “Good. Then you will fix the machine for us.”

  Gideon blinked in confusion. Nikolai didn’t seem to notice and motioned for all of them to leave the airship.

  Hara felt Angel behind her. Angel scratched at Hara’s wrists and Hara was about to shoo the small clockwork dragon away. Angel then started gnawing on her ropes which bound her hands behind her.

  Hara shifted forward a little to give Angel more room. Her timing was off, as Kale returned and eyed her suspiciously.

  Liam asked softly, “What do you think they’ll do to us?” Kale glanced at the boy and then went to the door where another guard waited.

  Hara said, “Once they get what they want they’ll kill us and drop our bodies in a place where we’ll never be found.”

 
; Murphy grunted and said, “If we’re lucky and they don’t have any other need for us.” He turned his head and eyed Liam and continued, “You’re a pretty boy. I wonder what kind of price you’ll get on the slave market.”

  Liam went white and Alice hissed at Murphy. “You don’t have to scare the boy. We all know what we would be in for if we were sold as slaves.” That was true for Alice, who had an inkling of what men wanted from her. Liam probably knew as well what someone would want from him.

  Talen said, “It won’t come to that.”

  Murphy sneered. “Oh, so you reckon you can escape?”

  Hara hissed, “Leave it alone, guys. We won’t be sold as slaves and we aren’t going to be killed. I promise you that.”

  Angel finished chewing through Hara’s ropes, but Hara didn’t move. Angel hesitated, then must have realized what Hara wanted and moved out from behind her and on to the others.

  Gideon had managed to fix the weapon in a few minutes. Calibrating the weapon to hit what the weapon was aimed for had been simple. All that had needed to be done was tightening some things and making sure the ring used to aim was in the right spot.

  Gideon held that now as he waved his hand around and nattered. He didn’t know how long it would take for Hara to come to him, but he had to stall until then. He had already figured out what to do to the weapon before he left to make sure it wouldn’t harm anyone. The winch was powered by a steam engine, and it wouldn’t take much to make the whole contraption overheat and blow itself up.

  Nikolai was watching Gideon himself. He had actually sent away his entourage.

  Gideon tapped the weapon with the aiming tool and said conversationally while Nikolai winced at his cavalier nature, “So, this is to kill dragons. What have dragons done to you, by the way? I mean recently. I know they used to chomp on people and eat them, but they haven’t done that in hundreds of years.”

  Nikolai grunted and said, “They are the tool of the Empire and the Empire wants to chew us up. That is just as bad.”