Sky Pirates

by William King

  The whole vessel rang as if a giant were hitting it with a colossal hammer. Ulrik was thrown forward and only the restraining harness kept him from being tossed across the room. He felt sorry for the sailors who were out there and at the same time he envied them. He wished there was something he could do, but there was not. This ship was not his to command. His fate was in the hands of someone else, and he did not like it one bit. He smiled sourly. It was a feeling he had endured too much of late.

  The storm’s howl reached a crescendo, and then fell to the merest murmur of winds sliding past the ship’s hull. Valerius raised an eyebrow. “Is it over?”

  “It might only be the eye of the storm,” said Ulrik, unclipping his harness and making his way to balcony. The armoured glass of the cupola was scored and chipped. Abrasive sand had risen from the desert below. He looked back along the hull and saw that the great rotor housing leaked black smoke. The blades turned feebly, with all the energy of the wings of an injured insect. The sky was mostly blue and clear. The storm receded away behind them.

  None of the other ships of the convoy were visible. Had they crashed or had they merely become separated in the storm? Ulrik had no way of telling. Things did not look so good though—they were stuck on a crippled ship adrift over the Gods alone knew what stretch of the demon-haunted wastelands. He supposed the ship must have a beacon and they could always send the launches to look for help. He did not like to think of what might happen if another storm blew up in the meantime…

  Valerius joined him on the balcony. Like Ulrik’s, his eyes were immediately drawn to the crippled engine. “Looks like we may be in some trouble.”

  Ulrik noticed a small dot in the distance. It approached rapidly. At first he thought it was another ship from the convoy, but then he realised that it was the wrong shape and the wrong colour.

  “I think we are in more than some trouble,” he said, pointing at the enormous black warship coming ever closer. It was a mighty craft, long and sleek and black as night without stars. Red runes glowed along its side. Sleek lateral wings protruded from its side and two massive dorsal rudders jutted from its spine. Though it had no visible means of propulsion it moved through the sky like a shark cutting through the waters of a torture tank. Its prow was carved into the head of a grinning demon god. Ulrik guessed that its captain looked out through the fiend’s red crystal eyes. There was something about the runes and the metal from which its hull was forged that reminded Ulrik of a black blade.

  Warning bells sounded throughout The Pride of Karnak, letting passengers and crew know of their danger.

  “It looks like the pirates have found us,” Ulrik said.

  “I wonder if that’s a coincidence,” said Valerius.

  “You are saying they sent the storm?”

  “That would not be beyond the ability of one skilled in meteorological magic, although perhaps they simply had someone who could predict the storm would hit us.”

  Ulrik wondered about that—the predictions of weather wizards were notoriously hit or miss. Not that it mattered in the slightest. The only question was whether the pirate would board them or simply blast them from the skies and pick the bones of the wreckage.

  The crippled rotors of The Pride of Karnak’s flank began to turn as the captain sought to flee from the oncoming pirate. Ulrik did not give a lot for his chances. He shifted the perception of his eyes up the magical spectrum. A strange red aura surrounded the enemy ship and left a bubbling stream of magical turbulence in its wake. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. He told Valerius about it. The wizard frowned.

  “Demon magic,” he said.

  “Then perhaps you were right about the connection between the black blades and pirates.”

  “That does not give me very much satisfaction at this moment.”

  Turrets of black steel swivelled in the pirate vessel’s side. The barrels of the prismatic cannon, enormous conductive lances tipped with crystal, came to bear. Bolts of reddish lightning arced across the sky towards The Pride of Karnak. The air shimmered around them as the airship’s wards repelled the attack.

  A puff of smoke erupted from the black ship. A shell laden with alchemical explosive smashed into their vessel. The Pride of Karnak shivered at the impact.

  “That was a warning shot,” said Ulrik. “They are telling us not to run.”

  Elementals howled in the depths of The Pride of Karnak as the crew returned fire. Shimmering, colour-changing lightning blazed through the air towards the pirate. The air around it glowed red, and the runes on its side became the colour of arterial blood as it absorbed the attack.

  “What do you think our chances are?” Valerius asked Ulrik. “You’re the expert on this sort of thing.”

  The pirate was a ship of war; their own craft, big though it was, was merely an armed merchantman. “We’d best hope some of the escort come looking for us and soon. I don’t give much for our chances.”

  Valerius gave him a sour smile. “So much for your theories that pirates would not attack a ship of our size, my friend.”

  “No pirate I ever heard of owned a battleship like that?”

  “Apparently times have changed.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “I wish I knew, my friend.”

  “It looks like a thing from the demon worlds,” said Ulrik.

  “You might be right,” said Valerius in a tone that did not reassure Ulrik at all. He had been speaking metaphorically.

  “We’d best arm ourselves. It looks like we’ll be repelling boarders soon.” There was no need for him to say what they were all thinking; no one knew what the pirates did with their prisoners, or even whether they took any.

  The pirate ship was almost upon them. A massive verdigrised doorway opened in the demon’s mouth, falling forward so that it protruded like a tongue. It was boarding ramp. From portals in the side of the attacker, smaller black launches swarmed, each a miniature version of its parent. Armed warriors crowded their decks. Blood red runes glowed in their sides. As they lifted upwards he could see the bottoms of their hulls glowed with them too.

  “We need to get to the lifeboats,” Valerius said. “I don’t think we’ve much chance if we stay with this ship.”

  “I can’t fault your reasoning,” said Ulrik.

  They raced out into the corridor and were almost thrown off their feet by the force of the two ships impacting. The Pride of Karnak shuddered like a desert gazelle with a predatory banthar upon its neck. Ulrik felt the deck vibrate beneath his feet. The chandeliers swung erratically. Small objects tumbled off the tables and dressers.

  “No time to waste,” said Valerius, as he reeled off one wall and then another. Ulrik followed him swiftly, but not as quickly as Rhea. The cat-girl easily kept her balance. They raced through the long metal corridors, clambered down the ladders fixed to the walls.

  Screams and the sounds of fighting echoed all around them, amplified by the hull of the ship. Sword-armed crewmen racing to obey an officer rushed past them in the opposite direction. Fear twisted the officer’s features even as he calmly gave orders. Ulrik knew that all of the crewmen expected to die. Pirates were rarely merciful to folk who fought back against them.

  From a porthole above them a body dropped, followed by another and another. Ulrik caught his first close-up glimpse of the pirates. They wore tattered finery- robes of glamourcloth and evening gowns of mistweave. Some wore the uniforms of sky sailors or their officers. Their skin had a blotched unhealthy quality, as if tainted by mould, and a foul fusty smell hung in the air around them.

  Others looked human enough but there was a mad look in their eyes, as if they were driven forward under the compulsion of demonic sorcery. A huge number had crude grafts attached to their limbs and bodies. Some had arms that ended in tentacles. Others had monstrous claws. Many were huge, far bulkier than a normal man, enormous muscles shifting under leathery armoured skin. They wore amulets with obscene runes, and their leader carried the same
sort of demonic blade that Lem had borne in the Pit. It was as if The Pride of Karnak had been invaded by a horde of screaming, chanting demons.

  Ulrik stepped forward and stabbed with his elemental blade. The weapon caught fire and, blazing with supernatural power, pierced the lower of jaw of the pirate commander. Ulrik drove it upward into his brain. The thing’s eyes popped out as the heat of the blade exploded its brain, and foul jelly spattered the walls. Ulrik stepped carefully over the black blade and swept through the rest of the pirates, smashing them aside and clearing a way for Valerius and Rhea to pass.

  They ran down the ramp into the hold. Valerius clutched an amulet against his chest and chanted the words of a spell. Ulrik saw power flow and knot in the air around them. A nimbus of golden light played around Valerius’s hands as he chanted a spell. Golden light flowed from his aura and where it touched the pirates they shrivelled and burned.

  The wizard nodded with some satisfaction. “I think it best if we find a lifeboat.”

  Ulrik agreed. The Pride of Karnak was doomed.

  Chapter Ten

  They emerged onto an observation deck. Tables and chairs were overturned. Sailor fought with pirate, the savage violence incongruous amidst the antique furniture. Through the huge crystal window, Ulrik could see the rust red desert below them, and the black steel sides of the pirate vessel. Hundreds of screaming gargoyle heads emerged from the metal, as if a horde of demons had been caught forever in the act of emerging from the armour plate.

  A blur above them, caught from the corner of his eye, warned Ulrik. He pushed Valerius and Rhea into cover of one of the overturned tables.

  Crystal splintered as a black launch crashed through the cupola. More pirates dropped from it, blades slashing. At the helm of the ship stood a tall figure robed in scarlet and black, the sign of a red moon worked in brass on its armour’s chest-plate. In the moon’s centre a blood ruby glowed. The figure was taller and leaner than his fellow pirates, and his eyes seemed filled with pools of blood. Ulrik realised he had seen those robes and that sign before. They were the badges of the followers of Molok, the sorcerer who had promised aid to the Council of Captains in Hydra.

  Valerius raised his hand and beam of golden light flickered from it, spearing directly at the newcomer. It raised a hand and a shield of red energy blocked Valerius’s spell. It spoke an awful word of its own, and Valerius covered his bleeding ears, his features twisted in the utmost extreme of agony.

  Ulrik stooped and picked up a razor-edged splinter of crystal as long as his arm. Taking careful aim, he heaved it at the enemy mage. It sheared through the pirate sorcerer’s neck and the head fell away.

  More and more launches crashed through the cupola, bringing more and more of pirates into the fray.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” said Ulrik. “This can’t go on much longer.”

  Ulrik activated his protective amulet and leapt forward, hacking at the enemy with his burning blade, cleaving the altered flesh of the demon worshippers, sending them tumbling away from him. Valerius and Rhea followed. No one else seemed left alive in the chamber.

  “Ahead, ahead,” shouted Valerius. “We must get to the lifeboat dock or we are all doomed.”

  Briefly Ulrik considered the advisability of trying to steal one of the black launches, but he had no idea of how to fly one.

  Sitting in the mouth of a launch tube was a small airboat. It was larger than a gondola, with a streamlined prow and an open top, built of brass and liftwood, designed to hold about twenty people. A large runestone slaved to both the engine and the liftkeel was housed at the rear, just underneath the rudder. Stubby wings protruded from its side, massive rotor from the rear.

  “Get in! Get in!” Valerius shouted. The sorcerous command in his voice was all but irresistible. Ulrik found himself in the pilot’s seat.

  Behind them, more and more pirates swarmed into the corridor. Another scarlet robed sorcerer led them, brandishing a black blade in his hand. Valerius jumped into the lifeboat.

  “Strap yourselves in,” shouted Ulrik as he pulled the quick release lever and the airboat lurched forward, sliding down the long tube.

  The ship erupted from the darkness of the launch tunnel into the light of day. Ulrik’s stomach lurched as they began to drop like a stone. He touched the gem tipped control stick and it came to life underneath his grip. He willed the trapped elemental to waken. It responded and fed power to the liftkeel. The lifeboat gained power and began to rise. Ulrik touched the activation stud for its single rear mounted rotor. The smell of ozone filled the air as it roared to life and pushed them away from the floating hulk of The Pride of Karnak.

  As they raced skyward, he glanced back. Pirates emerged from the launch tube and tumbled off into space, arms and legs flailing.

  The merchantman blazed. Fire raged from stem to stern, billowing in black oily clouds from its side. Arcs of lightning danced along the hull as trapped elementals escaped their bonds. All around it, like a swarm of black stinging insects, pirate air-launches buzzed. He could see no other lifeboats. It looked like they were the only ones to win free.

  Sailors threw themselves over the side, trusting to their lift-harnesses to save them from the long drop. Black launches intercepted them and dragged the gently floating men aboard. Ulrik wondered if it was his imagination or could he really hear their screams. He dialled up the engine power, and pointed the lifeboat’s nose towards the nearest clouds. Hiding among the billows would be the best way of hiding from the pirates.

  “Everybody all right?” he asked. Rhea showed her teeth in a feral grin.

  “Look out,” shouted Rhea, pointing upwards over Ulrik’s shoulder. He followed her gesture and saw a black air-launch racing closer. Pirates swarmed its deck.

  He wrenched the control stick and raced away from it, still aiming for cloud. The black air-launch rushed closer, its movement uncannily silent. Even overloaded as it was, it was faster than they. The lifeboat was not designed for speed. “We’d better get ready to defend ourselves,” he shouted.

  “What with?” Rhea asked.

  The pirates were almost upon them now. One leapt from the demon-headed prow and missed them, dropping towards the desert below. The sorcerer at the helm of the demon craft raised his hand to cast a spell. It blazed towards them, striking the liftkeel. Through his contact Ulrik felt the life being drained from the elemental. If this kept up it would be unable to provide them with lift and they would plummet to their doom.

  Valerius stood up and raked the demon craft with a fire spell. The flames ignited the sorcerer. In the confined space there was little the pirates could do. A few jumped overboard, a few tried to beat themselves out. More leapt at the lifeboat, falling towards them like blazing meteors. One of them landed on the prow, cracking the crystal windshield.

  Rhea leapt forward and skewered him with her knife, then kicked the corpse away. Somehow she managed to easily keep her balance on the lifeboat even as it rocked. Another pirate leapt on them as the demon craft went past. He became entangled in the rotors of the engine. They chopped him to a pulp. A moment later, the lifeboat moved on. Its flight was more erratic now. The impact with the pirate hadn’t done the rotor blades much good.

  Ulrik kept the craft rising. Only a few more minutes and they would be within the clouds and have a chance of getting away. There was an enormous explosion nearby as a shell exploded. The lifeboat began to spin out of control.

  The black ship itself was shooting at them.

  Ulrik made contact with the dying elemental, commanding it to lift them. It responded gamely, feeding the remnants of its life-force into the liftkeel. He threw the power lever forward and they continued to climb.

  The monitor dial needles were in the red, the engine was in danger of overheating. Either important cogs were being jammed by pirate flesh, or the rotor blades had been knocked out of true. Now was not the time to worry about such things, thought Ulrik, sending the lifeboat jinking to the left. Another shell e
xploded to their right. The wash of hot air swatted the lifeboat from its flight path.

  Ulrik prayed that they would soon be out of range. His heart raced. His mouth felt dry. This was worse than being in the Pit. At least there he had a chance of hitting back at his tormentors. Here he felt like a fly being chased around a room by an angry drunkard. Another shell exploded and then another. The force of the explosion buffeted the lifeboat and Ulrik fought desperately to control their flight.

  He risked a glance behind them and saw that three more of the black launches were in pursuit. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. “Get us into those clouds.”

  The pirates zoomed ever closer. A few carried stormlances. Crackling bolts of lightning filled the air around. Ulrik flinched and kept up his evasive pattern.

  The first tattered streamers of ochre cloud surrounded the lifeboat. Ulrik almost cheered as the chill mist surrounded them, but then they were out in sunlight again. He brought the lifeboat screaming around, seeking cover, hoping against hope they would find it before the pirate spotted them. He dived at the centre of the densest cloud mass and urged the elemental to give them more power.

  This time the cloud’s clammy embrace encircled them and did not let go. Ulrik dialled the engine down to nothing so that the rotor sound would not give away their position.

  A new fear sidled into his mind; that one of the pursuing craft would accidentally ram them. He told himself that the chances were small but anxiety continued to twist the arm of reason. He wished the enemy craft had engines so that he could hear them but there was nothing. Being inside the cloud was like being lost in the mists of the afterlife. Every sense felt dull. Cold tentacles of fog embraced them, chilling them to the bone.