Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) by Jonathon Burgess Page A

taproom burst out into laughter. Natasha smiled. Long, painful hours had gone into training the parrot.
    Captain Fengel gestured at the scene. “That fairly much sums it up,” he admitted.
    Natasha only rolled her eyes. She glanced at the airships and the evening sky above them. “You’ll live,” she said. “Which means that you can damned well come over and keep me company with all the horny bastards who think they’ve still...got...” She trailed off with a frown. Then her eyes widened in surprise. “Goddess’s hairy arms!”
    Fengel followed her gaze. The flickering glimmer he’d seen a moment ago was larger now. A cold thrill of fear shot through his belly—what he’d taken to be a lantern was now several blazing fires, each as large as a man.
    He shot to his feet.  “Fire on the Skydocks!” he bellowed aloud.
    Garvey’s Hole evacuated. Some pirates ran off to fetch their captains, others to spread the word. Fengel led his crew towards the stair up to the upper terraces, with Natasha right beside him. Visions of the Dawnhawk aflame hung foremost in his mind.
    Not again. Oh Goddess, not again . His last ship had died burning, eaten by a living magical fire. He’d got almost all of his crew safely away, but the final eruptive blast that ended her still haunted his dreams.
    The gaudy structures of the Yellow Lantern Terrace flashed by. Whores, sots, and sailors looked up from dim alleys, or poked their heads out the windows as the pirates raced past. Fengel ignored them all, intent on the walkways that provided the fastest way through the ramshackle warren that was night-shrouded Haventown.
    Fengel rounded the last corner before the stair to the terrace above and slammed into someone. Natasha ran into him in turn, followed by their crew, colliding into a confused knot of people rushing for the stair from the other direction. Fengel shoved his way free, until he could clearly see the hirsute man he’d collided with. It was James Glastos, captain of the airship Powderheart. He was not on congenial terms with the fellow.
    “Fengel!” cried Glastos, reaching for his cutlass. “Set me adrift at sea, will you? Well, damn you to the farthest Realm Below. I’ll gut you like the whoreson dog you are!”
    Natasha appeared with a dagger tight against the man’s throat. “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” she snarled, low and dangerous.
    Blades and truncheons appeared in the hands of the pirates around them, Natasha’s and Glastos’s both. Fengel frantically threw up his hands. “There’s no time for this! The Skydocks are ablaze!”
    Captain Glastos stepped back and pushed Natasha’s dagger away. “I’ve a pair of eyes myself. Where do you think I was going before you and your buffoons tripped into me?”
    Off to catch the pox, most like . Outwardly, Fengel only glared at the pirate. He was insulting, irascible, and ultimately intolerable. There was a reason Fengel had abandoned him to die once. But there were more important considerations at the moment.
    He stepped back, bowed low, and gestured at the stair hugging the cliffside with exaggerated theatricality. “ Please, my good captain. Do go first, so long as you and your men move .”
    Ugly glares were shot back and forth among the crewmen, but Glastos only nodded and bolted for the stair, climbing with Natasha and Fengel just behind.
    They ascended to Nob Terrace, where crowds were already forming. A few of the more quick-witted were pounding desperately against the compound wall of the Brotherhood Yard, shouting for help with the strange, explosive gasses that lifted the airships, which only the Mechanists knew how to handle.
    Fengel raced alongside his fellow captains, bellowing with all the practice of long years at sea, shouting at the bystanders to clear the way. Past the taverns and costly homes of Haventown’s elite, the Skydocks were a beacon, its airship gas bags reflecting the infernal blaze of the decks