Page 24 of Company of Thieves
“You’re not abandoning me. I have Prince Akbar to protect me until I can do it myself,” I told Jack, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek. “I’ve made my choice, brother.”
Before he could protest any further, I ran to where the man I assumed was Alan fought with one of the revolutionaries, knocking a disruptor out of the man’s hand before slamming the hilt of his sword down on the man’s head. I leaped over his slumped form, taking the hand Alan offered me, wanting badly to pull out my own sword and join him, but knowing that I would be more of a hindrance.
“Take your damned hands off her,” Jack roared, starting toward us.
“Jack, no,” Octavia cried, both hands on his arm, trying to pull him back.
“I love you both,” I called to them. “And thank you for giving me permission for Prince Akbar to train me!”
“We have to leave,” Alan told me, not sparing a glance toward Jack, who was sputtering indignantly over the lie I’d just yelled, but he couldn’t do more since Octavia was hauling him backward. Alan called to his men, hustling me in the opposite direction. “Etienne is opening fire on the town.”
“Are you insane?” I heard Jack ask Octavia when she pulled him back. “That’s Akbar! He’s brainwashed my sister into thinking he’s nice!”
“She’ll be safe with him, I promise you,” Octavia said, her voice drowned out at a horrible chucking sound. One of the buildings on the square exploded with a force that threw us all backward.
Alan dragged me to my feet, pulling me after him as he ran to the west, away from the square, calling orders as he did so. Ahead of us, one of the men who was holding the horses ran into view, the great white beast rearing and snorting viciously.
“You don’t think—” I started to say, but Alan didn’t wait for me to finish. He simply picked me up and threw me across the saddle, quickly mounting behind me.
I screamed and would have struggled, but decided that would mean certain death not only for me, but for Alan when the revolutionaries bombed him while he was trying to scrape me off his horse’s hooves. Instead, I clutched his leg with both hands, praying I wouldn’t vomit or fall off.
Lights from torches flashed past us as we barreled up the ramp and into theNightwing’s hold, the horse skidding to a halt.
“We leave now!” Alan bellowed before switching into his native language of Kazakh.
Hands grabbed my waist, pulling me off the horse. I weaved a little with all the blood that had rushed to my head, but Alan was there, one arm around me as he more or less dragged me up spiral stairs to the upper decks.
“Charge the guns!” he yelled once we reached the main deck, releasing me before dashing up one more flight to the gun deck. “Fire at will!”
I’d been in a couple of air skirmishes during my time with Jack and Octavia, so I was familiar with how their crew acted when prepping the ship for battle, but it was nothing like Alan’s men. They moved quickly, the aether cannons being primed and charged in less time than it took for Jack’s crew to decide which cannon would be fired first. It was a ballet, a grim ballet to be sure, but one that I had to admire. The roar of the boilers indicated that they had been ready to pump maximum steam into the envelopes and propellers, and I clutched a nearby metal girder when the ship lifted off at a sharp angle. Crewmen ran past and around me, no one the least bit panicked, but every man intent on his job at hand.
I waited until the ship righted itself, then raced up the steps to what I assumed was the captain’s observation deck, the one used for battle.
Alan paced the length of it, holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes as we circled around to put ourselves in a better position to open fire. He glanced briefly at me when I emerged onto the narrow metal deck, clutching the railing when we lurched to the side, making a sharp turn to the south before swinging east. “I would prefer you go to the safety of my cabin, woman.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen. Why is Etienne trying to destroy the town?”
“He’s not. He’s trying to destroy me.”
“By shooting up the town? That’s ridiculous,” I said, horrified as I watched another explosion strike the square, this one sending bits of wood spinning into the night sky. “He’s killing innocent townspeople! For the love of Pete, his own people are down there!”
“He doesn’t care who he murders so long as he thinks he can kill me,” Alan replied. His voice was rough, almost hoarse, and filled with what I thought was impotent fury. He muttered something, then turned and strode back into the airship.
I trotted after him, the adrenaline of the scene in the square leaving me itching to do something, anything. He went down to the deck with the cannons, the bulk of the men there, pumping air into the long iron cannons that had been rolled out through open portholes.
“Are they in sight?” Alan demanded, striding down the gangway, his haste making me run to keep up with him. “Why aren’t we firing?”
“Not yet,” Zand said, leaning out of one of the unoccupied portholes, binoculars to his eyes. “Another five degrees and we should have them.”
Alan turned to say something, but I was right behind him. “I thought I told you to go to my cabin,” he growled at me.
“I am not a delicate little flower who has to be protected,” I snapped.
He narrowed his eyes at my neck, which I suspected showed signs of where Etienne had tried to strangle me.
“All right, I need some protection, but only until I learn how to fight better. I want to help, Alan! Let me help with the cannons.”
“Do you know how to prime them? How to set the inclination and range? How to clean the tube so the aether doesn’t explode in the barrel?”
