Shadow - Monsters, Machines and Mad Scientists!: Episode CLXI

Drums. Drums in the streets.

That's what they thought, at first, those few alert souls - their hearing perhaps sharper and more acute than most - who first heard the cannons going off.

"Did you 'ear that, Michel?" One surprisingly lucid drunk asked across the table he had been propping himself up on in the Maelstrom's Heart. "Sounds like a festival, or somefin'. Maybe we ought to be partyin' outside!"

His friend had not heard it. His friend was slipping into an alcohol-induced sleep from which, it seemed the gods so willed, he would never awaken, for when the drums came again, louder and more sustained, it was clear - if only for seconds - that they were not drums at all.

"Wait," the first drunkard had time to exclaim, "those aren't drums, those're can-"

But his insight remained incomplete, as the barrage of hypostatick bombs rained down across the harbour front, sinking vessels with indiscriminate ease, obliterating shops and houses and littering the streets with debris. The Maelstrom's Heart did not survive.

It was late evening. The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon, casting its amber-jade light across the district of Shalereef, turning rain-darkened alleys and winding, river-streets into sickly sweet vistas, of glow and sheen, a blessing at the end of another dark, dreary day. It was rare that anyone got to see the sun these days, and mere fluke that, as the sun set, it passed over a hole in the cloud-layer – and the tentacles above that - to send its crepuscular rays, like beams of hope, onto the soaked district. It would have been peaceful, soporific, even, had the seafront not been on fire. And yet, in that contrast of lights, the one gentle and summery, the other hot and angry and life-threatening, there was a kind of beauty.

Frostfire watched it all from the deck of the Terror, a newly built dreadnought and the flagship of the Noble Society's massive fleet. The Terror was almost the size of a small city district in and of itself and, constructed with the combined resources of the Noble Society and the Lakhmaspawn, it was a monstrosity of pipes and clockwork, tentacles, eyes and teeth. Even Frostfire had been taken aback by its appearance when he had first beheld it.

And now it was like an island in an archipelago, drifting towards the shore, hundreds of hypostatick cannons and spawn-launchers pointed towards the harbour, blasting everything to nothingness.

It was extreme. Frostfire new that, but Tiberius (and, he assumed, Lakhma) had decided that this extreme prejudice approach was the only way to ensure that his uncle, and the other misfits of his company, had no boltholes to hide in and no way to escape from their assault. Only one group would make it to the final obelisk alive, and once it was returned to its place and activated, it would be for Lakhma's glory that it would be used.

Not that Frostfire cared. He wasn't in this for the religious fervour, neither for glory nor delight in destruction. He had only one aim, the same he had had since he had left the forest of Blackfeather, himself and Spriggan the only survivors of the massacre brought about by the Former Baron's Daemon, and, ultimately, by the treachery of Doctor Rosetta Barkham.

Tiberius had explained it all to him, after one of his perverse, tentacular submarines had found him with barely any oxygen left, stranded on the bottom of the seabed, forgotten by all his so-called friends. The Countess had escaped Fracture, had made the decision to oppose Lakhma and, ultimately, had joined with the Former Baron. That had made the path he must take all the simpler, for everyone he could blame for the loss of his army was on the same side now and, after all, the enemy of his enemies could, for a while at least, be his friend.

So he had signed on, joined Tiberius' growing army, and now, here he was, surveying the havok they were raining down on Shalereef, knowing that each explosion, each collapsing building, meant more humans dead - burned to ashes, crushed beneath masonry, or poisoned by the living pellets of the Lakhmaspawn.

But once I have the head of Doctor Barkham in my talons, it will all be worth it, he thought, every Feather-cursed moment of it.

"Is it not beautiful, Frostfire?"

The Spiketail flinched despite himself. Tiberius' soft, cultured voice held just enough menace to be genuinely creepy when he wasn't expecting it.

He moved aside on the railing, partly to cover his reaction and let Tiberius take the place beside him. The Baron's pale, thin hands clasped the lichen-encrusted metalwork like the claws of some animal, feral in intensity, monstrous in intent, and his eyes reflected the fires of Shalereef as if the flames had always been there, hidden in the irises.

"It is certainly effective, my Lord," Frostfire replied at last. He had learnt early on that Tiberius responded well to sycophants, and he needed the current Baron Von Spektr to remain well-disposed towards him.

"Oh, but I am not talking about mere efficacy, Frostfire, you know that," Tiberius replied with a smile twisting at the corners of his mouth. "This isn't just an action, all functionality and purpose, this is art. Look at the form of it all, the shape of the carnage, the style. It is, as I said, beautiful."

And there was a beauty to it, hadn't he thought so himself just a few moments before, and yet... It was not the kind of beauty that Frostfire himself would ever live for. It was a beauty one never truly wished to see in life. Still, he had always made the most of the situations he was in.

"Yes, my Lord, and you, of course, are the artist."

Tiberius' smile spread and Frostfire knew that, once again, he had found the right words. He looked out across the bay, across the burning sails and smoking ruins and took comfort in the knowledge that everything was going as it needed to.

And that's when the steamer appeared before them, blinked into existence where before there had only been smoky seawater and air.

"At last," Tiberius said - it sounded like he was holding back laughter, "the guests of honour have arrived.

At first Ellis thought that the Absolution had appeared in the middle of a thunder storm. The air seemed charged, the noise and light and heat were all that he would expect, but there was no rain, and then he turned and saw the devastation of Shalereef and knew that, even on Shadow, no mere storm could cause such carnage.

"It has begun already," said Doctor Barkham, "we have no time to waste."

"But how can we...?" Ellis began, but there was no way to finish the question. Seeing the state of the harbour and the size of the fleet bombarding it – not to mention the roiling tentacles in the clouds above, reminders of the massive enemy they hoped to defeat - he was filled with an overwhelming sense of despair. There was no way to beat such odds, they were impossibly outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. The end had finally come.

"We have to make for the shore!" Siren called out over the roar of the cannons, "activate the hypostatick engines, full power!"

Everything had been recharged at the Secret Isle whilst they were searching for the other obelisks and Ellis knew that they should have enough power to boost them for quite some time, but even so, how could they outrun those guns?

The Absolution lurched as the engines kicked in and Siren hurried over to the wheelhouse to take control of the steering. Almost immediately she made the vessel make a sudden ninety degree arc and, even as she was still turning, spun the wheel back around the other way. Water erupted green and orange and purple and black to either side and the crew were tossed to and fro, forced to grab on to whatever or whoever was nearest them. Ellis watched in impotent horror as one young lad tipped straight over the rail to disappear amidst the churning waves. Someone shouted ‘Man overboard’ through the din, but there was nothing they could do. Stopping amidst the barrage would be suicide.

Despite the obvious danger of moving across the deck, Ellis could see that a number of figures were converging on the wheelhouse. The Former Baron was first amongst them, followed closely by Doctor Barkham and Rockspark. It was clear that they felt the need to discuss their plans further and, for once, Ellis wasn’t interested. He didn’t want to leave the relative safety of his corner of the deck, but he could see Siren’s determined face as she wrestled with the wheel and he knew he didn’t really have a choice. Heart won out over head more often than not.

Grabbing hold of the rail, and trying hard not to slip on the slick surface of the deck, he began to haul himself aft, hand over hand as the boat lurched one way and then another. Splashback from explosions drenched him in successive waves and once or twice pieces of shrapnel seemed to whistle past his head, though he hoped they were further away than they sounded. With every other turn he would catch a glimpse of the burning shore, a little nearer each time, and wondered how they were ever going to dock without being obliterated by artillery. Then, suddenly, he was level with the wheelhouse. It was only a few metres away, but there was nothing to hold onto in the intervening distance, just smooth, drenched deck, tilting wildly with the waves.

I can do this, he thought. I just have to time it right, but I can do this.

He waited until the Absolution rolled to port, turning the distance between into a slippery slope, then, hoping he had the timing correct, he let go of the rail and fell towards the wheelhouse. The drop was worse than he had expected, feeling almost vertical, and there was no purchase at all to be gained on the deck which slid past underneath him like some high-octane waterslide.

And then, mere inches from the door to the wheelhouse, the boat rolled back the other way, Ellis slowed, stopped and started to slip backwards, with no guarantee that the rail would catch him if he tumbled towards it.

This is it, he thought, I’ve messed up and now I’m going to die!

His head fell back and banged against the deck, sending black spots across his vision and making it harder to make out when he needed to grab for the rail. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t hold out any longer. This was going to be the moment when he finally gave up.

But there was a sudden clamping sensation on his left leg and his slide stopped instantly, jerking his hold body and making him bang his head a second time. Whatever had got hold of him now began to haul him in and, dizzy and disoriented, he looked up to see the face of Rockspark, straining with his weight, holding onto the wheelhouse with one taloned hand and dragging his semi-conscious body with the other.

The Absolution rolled once more and Ellis and Rockspark landed in a tumbled heap inside the wheelhouse. Someone closed a door and the violence outside became muted at last.

“Thank… thank you,” Ellis said, shaking his head into painful clarity as Rockspark picked himself, and then Ellis up.

“You are welcome, as always.”

“Touching, I’m sure,” Rosetta said, caustic as always, “and I’m glad my experiment remains intact, but can we return to what we were talking about? Time has never been more short!”

“Well, there’s only one thing we can do,” the Former Baron replied, leaving Ellis to guess the context, “we’ll have to activate the experimental alterations I made to the Absolution back in the Blood Vaults. Anything else would be suicidal.”

“And what if the alterations turn out to be equally suicidal, Franck?” Siren shouted from her place at the wheel. Ellis was impressed she could concentrate on the argument and piloting the ship, but even so he wished she’d focus only on one at a time and he knew which he considered to be the more important.

“Then we die,” the Former Baron replied bluntly, “but at least we’ll have tried, unlike the time when my cousins Hans and Eliza were slowly digested by an acidnectar plant just because they didn’t even try opening the greenhouse door my father had only pretended to lock. They weren’t the smartest of my relatives, it has to be said.”

“Much as it pains me to commend the ramblings of a madman,” Rosetta chipped in, “Von Spektr is right. We have no other choice!”

“Fine!” Siren replied, “but if you destroy my ship, I’m tormenting you all in the next life!”

“Good,” said the Former Baron, rubbing his hands together, “then we can stop all this weaving about. Put the engines on full power and head towards that slipway over there,” he gestured vaguely.

“Which one?”

“The one with all the rubble around it.”

“Oh, so helpful, Franck!”

“Oh, for goodness sake, just keep going straight!”

The harbour began to loom large before the Absolution’s bow.

“And then what?”

“And then I do this,” the Former Baron replied calmly, and he leaned forward and pulled a lever.

And the Absolution ran aground…