Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

“Oh.”
    Her cheeks heated. His quiet laugh was followed by a brief kiss to her lips.
    She savored that as he left her side, tossed the rope through the vent, and went through. Annika climbed up to the opening, her eyes adjusting to the faint glow coming from the opposite end of the hold. Phatéon ’s hull was a dark curve, the hold beyond a darkershadow—but not an endless one. She had the faint impression of cavernous walls, a tall ceiling.
    She heard David’s boots scrape the hull, then the quiet sweep of water as he waded around the ship to study the rest of the hold. A minute later, he tugged on the line, signaling her to join him. Annika clung to the rope, arms aching with strain. The engine room was on one of the lower decks, but the tilt of the ship had raised this side. Her muscles were trembling by the time she neared the floor. His hands gripped her waist, drew her in until she was cradled against his chest.
    “All right?”
    She nodded, the back of her neck stiff with tension. “Where’s that light coming from?”
    “It’s a lantern hung up at the top of the stair. I don’t see anyone.”
    With water splashing at his ankles, he carried her around Phatéon ’s side. Once past her bulk, the light showed more shadows, clearly delineated shapes. The fluyt had capsized, her deep keel jutting toward the ceiling, her broken masts a tangle of timbers and canvas that lay drunkenly against the aft wall. Enormous hydraulic pistons stood at the port and starboard sides—to open the whale’s mouth, Annika realized.
    She’d have marveled if she hadn’t been so terrified.
    Half-submerged bodies strewed the floor. David’s arms tightened around her. Annika held on, stricken. She’d seen death before, natural and accidental—and worse. The neglect of a body in the streets. The terrible glee of the hanging. The quiet horror on Heimaey.
    Nothing this cold. The crew had gotten no chance to fight back. They’d been slaughtered.
    David set her down at the bottom of the stairs, the steel grating slippery beneath her boots. They climbed to the landing, her heart jumping with every small sound. She wanted to protest when David extinguished the lantern hanging near the door, but knewhe was right to. After a second’s thought, she caught up the lantern’s handle and tied it to her pack.
    She pulled her spanner from her belt. His hand gripping hers, he led her out of the hold and along another metal-grated passageway. After twenty yards, he paused.
    “We’re at a junction. A large source of heat lies somewhere ahead of us,” he whispered.
    “The furnace?”
    “Probably. This passage leads there. Another leads left. And there’s a ladder to a round hatch over our heads. It might be a way out.”
    Or it might open up to a bridge, or some other cabin filled with men ready to shoot them. “Which way does it swing open?”
    “Out.”
    A good sign. An outer hatch of a submersible would never open in. “What does the ceiling look like?”
    “A slight curve.”
    Like the top of a whale’s head? She took a deep breath. “Try it.”
    His boots rang softly on metal rungs. She heard a clank, then the distinctive sound of a turning wheel opening a bolt-and-lock mechanism. They both quieted, waiting and listening. No one came to investigate the noise.
    “I’ll open it now,” he said softly. “Pray there’s not a lookout.”
    She did.

Chapter Eight
    The gods didn’t shit in her eye. A fat snowflake drifted through the open hatch, instead. Cloud-filtered moonlight shone like a beacon after the darkness, flooding the passageway.
    Heart in her throat, Annika watched David climb through the hatch. He paused with his head and shoulders exposed, scanning the submersible’s hull. No one shouted an alert.
    David glanced down. “It’s clear.”
    She emerged amidships atop the whale’s back. Half an inch of snow had accumulated on the riveted hull, thinning toward the tail, where the lingering warmth from the furnace melted the falling flakes. Bolted against the port side, a ladder led down to a wooden dock. Like David, she sank into a crouch, trying to make her silhouette as small as possible. Their position offered no concealment.
    But it offered them a view. The whale had docked in a small cove. At the cove’s head, cliffs rose against the clouded sky, with ice sheeting down their jagged sides. Behind the whale lay the sea, the crashing waves a dull roar. The rail camp had been constructedalongside the water,