“We are waiting for a ride,” Mzed said, hooking a thumb at the column of smoke. “It shouldn’t be long.”
“A strange snowfall, that drifts up,” Sedra said suddenly. She looked down at the checkerboard, picked up her remaining piece, and made a long string of jumps that removed all half-dozen of Nightshade’s pieces. The arcanist got up, staring dreamily into the sky, while behind her Nightshade swore and kicked the board over.
“Balloon coming,” Dogsbreath said, stowing his work in his pack and getting to his feet. “Signal flags—they’re coming down for us.”
“Do you recognize the colors?” Mzed said.
“Not apart from the Skysail flag,” Dogsbreath said. “Must be an independent.”
Skysail. Jirina had heard of the aerial sanctuary, the city that floated above the clouds. Skysail traders came and went from Drannith a few times a year, bringing goods from far-off lands. Along with Lavabrink, it was one of the longest-surviving sanctuaries, though around the Citadel it was commonly said that only Drannith truly defied the monsters, instead of hiding from them or running from them.
“We’re going to Skysail?” Jirina said.
“It’ll be a quick trip, don’t worry,” Mzed said. “We’re going to need a fast ship if we’re going to catch up with your boyfriend.”
Jirina could see the balloon now, descending quickly. It was a fragile-looking craft, a wooden hull no bigger than a large bath suspended from a bulging sack of liftgas. Whirring fans at one end pushed it through the air, assisted by large, adjustable wood-and-paper fins. The balloon was painted bright blue, with a string of colorful flags fluttering behind it. Someone was waving to them, and Mzed waved back. As it approached, a weighted line fell toward the hilltop, which Toothcracker grabbed and held fast.
“Where are you bound?” Mzed hollered.
“Back to ‘Sail,” a young man called back. “Looking for passage?”
“Six of us,” Mzed confirmed.
“That’ll take more gas,” the young man said. “You can pay?”
“We can pay.” Mzed looked at Jirina. “Remember. Expenses.”
***
The skyship was almost too small to fit Jirina and the hunters, with all their packs and equipment. The young man, who turned out to be named Tef and comprised the entirety of the crew, connected a clay jug to the balloon and opened a valve, letting more gas into the bag with a hiss until the craft lurched back into the air. The big rotating fans at the rear, evidently driven by magic, whirred back to life, and soon they were cruising through the air at considerable speed.
Jirina had never considered herself afraid of heights, and she’d walked along the railings of the highest balconies in the Citadel, much to the despair of her minders. Something about seeing the entire country spread out below her like a map was still unsettling, though, and she found herself gripping the side of the ship hard. She was very conscious of the fragility of the gasbag, and how many flying monsters there were, with sharp teeth and claws…
If they were in the skies today, however, they were after more tempting targets than the little balloon, and it was only a few hours before they sighted the lights of Skysail. It became visible first as a dark mass on the horizon, with twinkling points of colored light scattered across it, moving like fireflies. Gradually it resolved, through wisps of cloud, into a fantastically complex mess of tethered balloons, hanging walkways, and skyship decks, all connected by a web of ropes and linked together with ladders and nets.
Other skyships hovered around, in the process of loading or unloading. A ship didn’t so much dock with the city as become temporarily part of it, its deck linked with the rest, until its captain decided to go and the lines were cast off. Jirina had a hard time imagining what it would be like to live in a place like this, where any “building” might vanish at the whim of whoever owned it, and the whole city could easily break apart in the face of a threat, like a flock of birds facing a hawk. It made her oddly homesick for Drannith’s solidity, the permanence of its granite walls and crystal spires.
Tef brought his little balloon up to the edge of a long, rickety walkway, where a squad of children waited to catch the line he threw and tie his craft up in exchange for a few coins. Mzed hopped over the side without even waiting for the lines to be tied off, apparently unbothered by the sway of the planking under her feet. Jirina followed, swallowing a roll in her stomach, and the rest of the hunters disembarked behind her, already bickering. Mzed had picked out one of the dock-children, a scruffy girl in rags, and flipped her a copper.
“Is Vermilion in port?” she said.
“These past two days,” the girl said promptly.
“Where can I find her?”
At the girl’s raised eyebrow, Mzed sighed and handed over another coin. The girl rattled off a string of directions that meant nothing to Jirina, but the hunter seemed satisfied.
“About those expenses,” Mzed said.
Jirina rolled her eyes. “I’m sure my father will reimburse your small change.”
The hunter barked a laugh. “Not that. Captain Falk has the ship we need, but he doesn’t come cheap, and I don’t have enough ready cash to hire him. You’ll need to write him a draft.”
Jirina winced. Her father would not like having to pay up to some sky pirate. But he’ll like losing Lukka even less. “Drannith will pay,” Jirina assured the hunter. “If this Falk can deliver.”
“He’s a pain, but Vermilion is fast and well-armed,” Mzed said. “Dogsbreath?”
The dog-masked hunter materialized at her side. “Yeah?”
“Take everyone to the usual pub and buy a few rounds.” She handed some more coins. “I’ll come get you when we’ve got our ship.”
“How come he gets to carry the cash?” Nightshade complained.
“ ‘Cos last time you lost it all betting on darts,” Toothcracker rumbled.
“Tiny butterflies,” Sedra trilled, “dancing and dancing but never landing in the right place.”
“Shut your hole,” Nightshade grumbled. “That bloody girl cheated.”
Mzed set off down the walkway and Jirina followed. They took a strange, winding path, climbing up ladders and across stretches of netting, stepping from skyship to skyship without more than a nod to the inhabitants. It was like a city with no streets, Jirina thought, with each house just opening directly into the next, so to get anywhere you had to walk through your neighbors’ living room.
There were some common areas, broad squares of planking suspended from their own heavy-duty balloons. These were mostly markets, where everything under the sun seemed to be for sale. Weapons and armor from Drannith sat alongside stonework and mechanisms from Lavabrink, endless varieties of ropes and gear made on Skysail itself, and other commodities harvested from the world below.
The people were of all sorts, too, from traders wearing the flamboyant Skysail styles to soberly dressed Drannith merchants and masked hunters with their huge, spiked weapons, along with many others Jirina couldn’t identify. At a stall selling used books, an imposing woman with long, dark hair dressed in flowing silks flipped through one volume after another, to the rising irritation of the shopkeeper. As the crowd swelled around the stall, the woman assembled a stack of volumes nearly taller than she was, paid the surprised vendor, and walked briskly away with the whole thing effortlessly balanced in her arms.
Jirina frowned at the stalls full of monster parts—horns, teeth, bones, skin, anything that could be preserved and used. That trade was illegal in Drannith. The point of killing monsters was to keep people safe, not to make a profit.
“Do you spend a lot of time here?” Jirina said, as Mzed ably threaded her way between market stalls.
“A fair bit,” the hunter said. “Drannith pays the best bounties, but Skysail’s the best place to spend them. You wouldn’t believe the things you can buy aboard the right sh
ip.”
“I suspect I would,” Jirina said darkly.
“Maybe you would at that,” Mzed said, a slight smile showing on the burned part of her face. “Here’s Vermilion. Just don’t let Falk get to you.”
Before Jirina could ask for clarification, Mzed was climbing yet another rope ladder, the bones on her armor rattling. Jirina followed, ascending to the deck of a large skyship. It was tethered only loosely to the rest of Skysail, straining under the pull of three lumpy gasbags as though it were eager to be off. Vermilion was the size of a proper ocean-going ship, with multiple decks and an elaborate system of fans and rudders. Fore and aft, a pair of ballistae were mounted on revolving turrets. At least a dozen men and women were at work on deck, under the supervision of a short man in a flaring black coat and enormous purple hat.
“Captain Falk!” Mzed said.
The man in the coat turned and smiled hugely, spreading his arms. He had a craggy, lined face, with a great bushy beard and wild unkempt eyebrows. His coat flapped behind him as he strode over.
“Ahhh, the lovely Mzed,” he said. “My dangerous beauty.”
“Shove it,” Mzed said. “Nobody’s called me a beauty since that elemental melted my face, and they weren’t exactly lining up before that.”
“Ah, but I see past your outer façade to your truest heart,” Falk said, bowing deep.
“Which is just as ugly, I promise you.” Mzed pushed Jirina forward. “I brought you a client.”
“And a fine looking one at that,” Falk said, with another bow. “And who might you be, my dear?”
“Captain Jirina of Drannith,” Jirina said, voice icy. “My father is General Kudro.”
“The General’s daughter!” Falk doffed his hat, his hair gray and thinning beneath it. “That makes you practically royalty.”
“We don’t have royalty in Drannith,” Jirina said. “I need to hire your ship. We’re in pursuit of a traitor and a flying monster, and we don’t have time to waste.”
“Oooh, that sounds like a fine story.” Falk replaced his hat, and his eyes took on a calculating glint. “Were it just myself, I would love to take on the task just to please a beautiful lady, but unfortunately Vermilion and her crew have certain requirements. Food and liftgas, repairs and refits–”
Jirina pulled her personal seal out of a pouch in her pocket, a tiny brass rod intricately cut with a hard-to-duplicate mark. It was intended to prove her identity when she sent back reports, but it would serve just as well for this purpose.
“I can write you a draft on the treasury of Drannith,” she said. “My father will honor it.” Falk leaned forward eagerly, and Jirina closed the seal in her fist. “But I will keep it on my person and seal it only once we get what we’re looking for. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Falk said. “There’s no flying beastie born that can outrun Vermilion, depend on it. When will you be wanting to cast off?”
***
Lukka had never traveled by monster before. By rights, he should have been in a panic, but instead he found himself calm. He knew that the thing wasn’t going to hurt him, in a new way he had a hard time describing.
Hanging from its mouth by his belt was decidedly uncomfortable, though, and once they were well aloft he tried to make the thing understand this. Shouting at it accomplished nothing, and so he reluctantly tried closing his eyes and recapturing the feeling he’d felt in the clearing.
It killed my squad. Anger bubbled up inside him, but he saw again the strange web of compulsion that had pushed the cat toward Drannith. Does it matter? It’s still a monster.
And right now, it’s all that’s between me and a mile-long drop. He pushed his emotions down, trying to force his mind to calm. It’s all right, he thought at the thing. I’m all right.
Almost at once, he felt its sensations in his head—the wind under its wings, the slight unaccustomed weight of its passengers.
Carefully, he tried to send back a feeling of his own, the pain in his back and stiffness his current position was causing. He felt the winged cat turn its attention to him and tried to push through an image of it extending a paw for him to grab on to.
Somewhat to his surprise, the monster did exactly what he wanted. Lukka grabbed hold of its fur as it opened its jaws. He could feel muscles shifting under its skin as its bat-wings beat steadily, and wind whipped past him. He very carefully didn’t look down, but his feet tingled with the keen awareness of the void underneath him.
Fortunately, the thick fur provided excellent handholds. Lukka pulled himself up the monster’s front leg until he was sprawled across the back of its neck, a much broader and more reassuring platform. Here he found Vivien, who at some point had climbed up from the thing’s side to its back and now sat cross-legged just in front of the slowly beating wings.
“Ah, good,” she said. “I was trying to figure out how to suggest we land, for your sake.”
“Thanks for the consideration,” Lukka muttered. He crawled forward and rolled over onto his back, sprawling in the winged cat’s thick fur. It was surprisingly comfortable. “I don’t suppose you know where this thing is taking us?”
“You would know better than I would,” Vivien said. “Are we heading toward the Ozolith?”
“Roughly,” Lukka said, after glancing at the sky.
“Then I suspect that is our ultimate objective. Though I certainly hope there will be stops along the way.”
“There’d better be.” A wave of sudden exhaustion washed over Lukka, and he closed his eyes, just for a moment. Gods, it’s been a long day.
He wouldn’t have thought he could fall asleep on the back of a flying monster, but when he opened his eyes again, the sun was high in a cloudy blue sky, and the winged cat was descending rapidly. Vivien was on her feet, shading her eyes with one hand.
“What’s going on?” Lukka rolled over, not confidant enough in his balance to stand.
“We appear to be landing,” Vivien said. “There’s a large crystal formation. Do you think it’s the Ozolith?”
Lukka raised his head, and saw they were heading for the side of a steep-edged ridge, where large red crystals jutted out like a row of teeth. He shook his head.
“The Ozolith is bigger, and surrounded by rings of smaller crystals,” he said. “I think it’s a lot farther, too.”
“Then I admit I don’t know where we’re headed,” Vivien said. “Can you get anything out of our friend?”
It’s not a friend. Lukka bit back the sarcastic response. If it helps us, it’s a useful tool, but that’s all. He closed his eyes and reached out, sending a gentle interrogative feeling. The sequence of images and emotions that came back was confusing.
“It’s…going to meet someone?” he said. “Someone is calling it? Something of that nature.” He frowned. “It can feel the energy that flows everywhere. The crystals concentrate it, so that’s where the feeling is strongest.”
“Fascinating,” Vivien said. “Can all monsters do that, do you think?”
“Hells if I know,” Lukka said. “Nobody’s ever talked to the bloody things.”
***
The winged cat spiraled in toward the crystals, losing speed gradually until it was able to land with barely a jolt to its human passengers. Lukka slid off as quickly as he could, relieved to have his boots on solid ground again. Vivien lingered on the thing’s furry back, crawling forward to scratch it behind its ears. It gave a long rumble of satisfaction.
“All right,” Lukka said, turning in a circle to look around. Apart from the angular crystal formation, there wasn’t much to see, just dry plain and a few dusty trees. He looked back to the winged cat. “What are we doing here? Is it just time for your nap?”
“She stopped because I asked her to,” said a new voice. It was a young woman’s, thinned by distance. She laughed as Lukka turned around again and couldn’t find her. �
�Halloooo! Up here!”
He craned his neck, and finally spotted her, sitting out on the tip of the crystal at least fifty feet in the air. At that distance all he could make out was a pale face and a mass of pink fur.
“Who are you?” Lukka shouted. “And who do you mean, she?”
“She is your monster, obviously,” the girl called back. “Haven’t you given her a name yet?”
“I’m not in the habit of naming monsters,” Lukka said.
“Well, my name is Brin,” the girl said. “Hallo to you as well, by the way, I like your bow.”
“Thank you,” Vivien said, sliding off the winged cat’s back. “My name is Vivien Reid. His name is Lukka. Would you like to come down here? It might be easier to talk.”
“I was gonna,” Brin said. “But that’s a Drannith uniform, isn’t it? Not sure I trust you.”
“It’s all right,” Lukka said bitterly. “I’m an outcast.”
“Oh! That’s all right then. So am I.” She hopped to her feet, spread her arms, and stepped off the crystal.
Lukka blinked, then winced, expecting Brin to splatter against the unforgiving ground. Instead, something large and pink appeared at the base of the crystal, as if from nowhere. It was a racoon-like creature, smaller than the winged cat but still the size of a horse, plump and roly-poly looking with a coat of long, soft pink fur. It rolled onto its back just in time for Brin to land on its protruding stomach and bounce off, laughing, hitting the dirt with both feet and windmilling her arms to keep her balance. The raccoon-thing flipped over again and waddled over to her, chirping like a baby bird.
“This is my monster,” Brin said, scratching the thing’s neck to its evident delight. “His name is Roland. Rol for short.”
Lukka set his jaw, though he had to admit the pink-furred thing seemed more hapless than threatening. Brin was even younger than he’d guessed, a teenager. Her clothes were all leather and homespun, carefully patched and maintained. A ruff of pink fur adorned her shoulders, matching Roland’s color. Her hair, wild and spiky, was the same shade.
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