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

outhouse finally collapsed, weapons gone, dancing, hopping, and skipping about as they slapped at themselves.
    Both men were covered in spiders.
    Thick, hairy, and black, some as large as a man’s hand, there were hundreds of them, skittering about frantically across the meters of webbing that now clung to Michael and Allen like the sheets of someone playacting a ghost.
    “Get them off, get them off!” yelled Michael. Allen just screamed.
    Lina stared. Revulsion and horror roiled in her stomach. She raised a hand and then pulled it back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rastalak recoil.
    Allen looked to Lina, one eye visible through a shifting mess of hairy, chitinous bodies. He raised his arms and tottered her way. “Help me!” he cried in a high-pitched wail.
    Lina turned and ran. She was down the alley and back out onto lantern-lit Nob Terrace in a heartbeat, crossing it to slam into the boardwalk rail. Haventown fell away before her, its lanterns and lamps glimmering like a thousand lazy fireflies, all reflecting from the network of brass pipes spreading out from the great bundled chimney of the Gasworks. Lina ignored the sheer drop and twisted back about, dagger at the ready, her skin shuddering with the crawling of a thousand phantom legs. Rastalak appeared out of the mouth of the alley only moments ahead of Allen.
    “There!” Lina said, pointing frantically with her dagger at an open rain barrel just beside the mouth of the alley. “In the water, in the water—put him in the water!”
    Rastalak stepped forward gingerly, then grabbed up the moaning, flailing, web-covered Mechanist in two hands. A quick shove, and Allen was dunked upside down into the barrel, sinking up to the waist. Rastalak leaped back, flicking arachnids away from his arms as Allen flailed madly and the barrel toppled over. It landed with a crash and shattered into flinders, sending out a great gush of water and spiders that left a moaning, sodden apprentice Mechanist behind.
    Lina stared at him, heart in her chest as her tongue tried to crawl down her throat. Wait. Where’s Michael?
    The tromp of many boots against the boardwalk interrupted her. Lina turned to see an assorted gaggle of pirates and townsfolk approaching. Most held lanterns high and weapons bared, as if they expected imminent attack. A few of her crewmates from the Dawnhawk walked with the crowd.
    Fengel moved at the head of the pack, quelling concerns and giving orders. Her captain always had a commanding presence, but it struck Lina then that she’d never seen him so positively in control as he was now. Though the eye-patch-shaped monocle was still ridiculous.
    “Ah,” he said, focusing on Lina. “Miss Stone. There you are.” He held up a hand, forcing the group to a stop. “Have you completed your sweep around the Skydocks?”
    A long, singular groan echoed up from where Allen lay across the alley mouth. Lina managed a nod. “Y-yes, sir,” she replied, taking a step back as a huge, hairy spider crawled across the boardwalk between them. “From the top of the Skydocks to the bottom, around the Sindicato manor and through this area.”
    Fengel rubbed his beard. “Oscar can’t have gotten too far. Oh.” He snapped his fingers and gestured to the alley. “Back behind the distillery here, have you looked? There’s an old outhouse. He may have taken up inside.”
    Lina blinked at him.
    “No one uses it anymore,” continued Fengel. “We had to have it boarded up.”
    Lina opened her mouth, then shut it.
    “A nest of Black Wrigglers settled in it. Nasty, vicious sort of local spider. Ah, there’s one now.”
    Lina hung her head with a sigh.
    A figure appeared in the alley mouth. It was Michael Hockton. He was very pale, except for the bright inflammation of hundreds of spider bites covering his skin. His shirt was gone, and one trouser leg was torn up the side.
    Lina made to run to him, but Fengel’s voice checked her short.
    “Crewman Hockton!” barked