He took the tankard and drained it in one go, before slamming it down on the carved table. He looked up at Wind Jackal, suddenly serious.
‘One day’ he said, ‘my name will be carved on this table, next to yours, Captain Wind Jackal, by Sky it will!’
Wind Jackal smiled and raised his tankard in salute. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he said.
‘Back again, are you?’ sneered Glaviel Glynte, his left eyebrow arched high.
Beside him, the bird-creature clucked with amusement.
‘What’s it to be, then?’ said Glynte. He picked up his quill and dipped it in the ink-pot before him.
‘I’ve decided to take you up on the offer of the sky barge,’ said Thaw Daggerslash. ‘And a crew of one … It sounds exactly what I need just now.’
• CHAPTER THREE •
TURBOT SMEAL
The rafters high up above the drinking hall of the Tarry Vine tavern were festooned with hammocks of every shape and size. Grubby spider-silk sheets, which could accommodate several crews, swayed gently beside the hanging-pockets favoured by waifs, oakelves and the lighter sleepers, while in the garret alcoves, captains and quartermasters enjoyed all the privacy that a hanging-drape could provide.
There was, however, no escaping the snuffling, snoring and muttered sleep-talking of the hundreds of sleeping sky pirates. And yet, as their growling snores mingled with the warm woodhop-scented air that rose up from the brewing cellars far below, a heady, hypnotic atmosphere was created that induced sleep in all but the most troubled occupants of the rafters.
Quint lay on his back, staring upwards. Above him, the two sides of the steeply sloping roof came together in the shadows, looking, he mused, like the upturned hull of a great sky ship. On either side of him, the crew of the Galerider added their snores to the general rumbling hum - a sound answered by the tiny batowls that nested in the gaps between the joists.
Next to him, Ratbit smacked his lips together noisily and rolled onto his other side. Sagbutt let out a rasping snort, while further down the line of hammocks, Spillins muttered something in his sleep and gave a small, high-pitched giggle.
Quint glanced across at the garret alcove, where Maris was sleeping. The faint glow of her tilder-oil lamp had faded an hour earlier and, from behind the spider-silk drapes, nothing stirred. Quint turned over in his hammock and pulled his greatcoat around him with a shiver. Despite the warm air and sonorous snoring, he could still feel the dreadful chill of the cliff quarry, and whenever he closed his eyes, the hideous shrieking face of an edge wraith seemed to loom at him out of the darkness.
Sleep, he thought miserably, seemed impossible, even in this warm, safe place.
Just then, from out of the darkness there came a long, agonized groan - like that of a tilder, a hunter’s crossbow bolt buried in its neck, breathing its last. Quint sat up. There it was again, coming from behind the curtain of the garret alcove next to the one where Maris was sleeping.
Quietly, Quint climbed out of his hammock and tiptoed along the narrow rafter to the safety of the garret balcony. He paused for a moment outside the alcove, only to hear the terrible groan once more. Quint pulled back the curtain and stepped inside.
‘F… Father?’ he whispered. ‘Are you all right?’
Wind Jackal was standing at the tall, narrow garret window, the shutters of which he’d thrown open. A chill, swirling wind plucked at his heavy sky pirate coat and ruffled his hair. At the sound of Quint’s voice, Wind Jackal slowly turned, the moonlight catching one side of his face and throwing the other into deep shadow. Beneath his brows, his eyes glinted.
‘He’s out there, somewhere,’ he said in a low voice, scarcely above a whisper. ‘The very thought of it is like a swarm of snickets gnawing at my innards.’
Wind Jackal turned back to the window, where Quint joined him.
‘Father,’ Quint began again, laying a hand on Wind Jackal’s arm. ‘I’m worried about you …’
Wind Jackal surveyed the roofs and towers of the sleeping city spread out before him. ‘Surely you, of all people, understand,’ he shot back, his voice almost a snarl. ‘I have to destroy Turbot Smeal … I have to!’
Quint nodded, but his grip on his father’s arm tightened. ‘What I don’t understand …’ he said slowly, not daring to look at Wind Jackal’s face. ‘What you never told me, and I’ve always been afraid to ask is … why? Why did Turbot Smeal murder my mother and brothers?’
Wind Jackal continued to stare out into the night, his face a silvery mask in the moonlight, as impassive as one of the statues on the top of the Sanctaphrax Viaduct. For a long time he said nothing. But when, at last, he spoke, his voice was a low monotone, as if he was battling to keep the rage and sorrow from exploding out of him, like an over-cooled flight-rock.
‘I have never spoken of it, Quint my son, because I believed that Turbot Smeal was dead,’ Wind Jackal began. ‘I didn’t want to dredge up memories almost too painful to bear. But now I know he’s alive, it’s only right that you should know the whole story …’
He paused for a moment, then continued, never once looking at his son standing beside him.
‘The crew of a sky ship is like a living body’ Wind Jackal said. ‘Arms and legs, hands and feet, stomach, heart - all working separately, but together. All different. All essential…’ He nodded slowly. ‘There must be a captain. The head. Someone to take control, to make decisions … And then the captain needs a strong right hand - someone he can trust with his life if he has to, someone who’ll stick with him, come what may, and watch his back … For years, I had Garum Gall, the most faithful cloddertrog a captain could wish for, and when he passed on to Open Sky …’ Wind Jackal paused.
‘You’ve got me, Father, I’m your strong right hand.’
For the first time since Quint first entered the garret alcove, Wind Jackal looked him straight in the eyes.
‘I’ve got you, Quint, that’s right.’ He smiled gravely, then went on. ‘The left hand,’ he said, ‘should be a fighter. Preferably a goblin, like Sagbutt. Not too smart, but a ferocious warrior in tight quarters. And the arms and legs are the fore-deckers, the harpooneer and his mate - Steg Jambles, Ratbit, Tem Barkwater. Strong and tireless, and highly trained. Then there are the eyes -Spillins the oakelf. And just as important, the heart. The stone pilot, without whom no sky ship could ever come to life and take to the skies. And finally, Quint, there is the stomach …’
Saying this, Wind Jackal paused and swallowed hard as he struggled to keep his feelings under control.
‘The stomach of any sky ship is the quartermaster -and like any stomach, it grumbles and growls and demands to be fed. But it is just as vital as all the other parts. And just as a stomach nourishes the body, so a quartermaster nourishes a sky ship, ensuring it is well-provisioned, its cargo-hold is full and its voyages are profitable. It takes special qualities to be a good quartermaster - strong contacts in the leagues, an eye for a bargain and …’
Again, Wind Jackal swallowed hard.
‘Utter ruthlessness … And Turbot Smeal was the greatest quartermaster of them all!’
Quint looked uneasily at his father, but Wind Jackal seemed to be lost in a world of his own.
‘The Leagues of Undertown!’ He spat out the words as if they were an ancient Deepwoods curse. ‘They seek to control and exploit everything that comes in or out of this great city of ours, their greedy fingers in every Undertown pie. Nothing escapes their influence.
‘There are the great Leagues - the Blood Leagues, for example, which deal in livestock; the Leagues of Construction, which control all building work; the Leagues of Plenty, which trade in manufactured goods of all kinds, and the Leagues of Toil, which control all those who sweat in the workshops making those goods - not to mention the accursed Flight Leagues, whose leaders seek to control all who would take to the skies!’
Wind Jackal scowled, his twisted face white with rage. Quint flinched involuntarily.
‘Each of these great l
eagues is divided into smaller leagues,’ Wind Jackal continued. ‘For instance, the Flight Leagues incorporate all kinds of minor leagues such as cage-forgers, sail-spinners, rope-teasers, clinkers and corkers, welders and weighters … All the trades needed to build a sky ship.
‘By forming into leagues, they believed they could control everything, but they forgot one thing. Each other!’
Wind Jackal paused for a moment to let the words sink in.
‘Every league competes with every other league,’ he went on, his voice low and scathing, ‘whatever fine words the leaguesmasters utter about “sticking together” and “the common good”! They just can’t help themselves. No league ever misses an opportunity to get one over on its rivals - but they can’t ever be seen to be doing it. Oh, no! That wouldn’t do at all. Which is why they need us, Quint, my son.’
Quint nodded. ‘Sky pirates,’ he breathed.
‘Aye, lad,’ Wind Jackal agreed. ‘Free and unbowed and answerable to no leaguesmaster in a ridiculous high hat.’ He sneered. ‘Of course, they hate us and try to stop our ships and seize our cargoes, but at the same time, they need us to do their dirty work - such as raid their rivals’ league ships or disrupt one another’s trade.
‘No leaguesmaster - high or low - would ever admit it, but without sky pirates to carry out their nasty little underhand practices and take the blame, the Leagues of Undertown would descend into open warfare. And that, Quint, my son, would be bad for business! Which brings me back to Turbot Smeal, greatest quartermaster of them all.’
Wind Jackal shook his head and gazed out over the rooftops of the sleeping city. Quint’s mouth was dry, and there was an uneasy fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach.
‘Turbot Smeal … Turbot Smeal…’ Wind Jackal’s voice dripped with hatred as he spoke the quartermaster’s name. ‘I was a young sky pirate captain putting my first crew together when he sought me out. Said we would be good together. And although, even back then, his small yellow eyes and bleached complexion made me shudder, there was something he had to offer. He had useful contacts in the leagues all over Undertown. There seemed to be no swindle or underhand deal that Turbot Smeal wouldn’t get wind of - no one he couldn’t flatter or deceive to get a better deal or gain an advantage.
‘Almost as soon as we teamed up, Turbot kept the Galerider busy, and the profits began rolling in. I made sure Garum Gall, my right hand, kept a close eye on Turbot, and even credited myself with curbing some of the loathsome quartermaster’s worst excesses. Slave-trading, for example. Turbot Smeal knew, no matter what the profit, that I would never, ever deal in slaves. But timber, fine pelts and Deepwoods goods of every kind - we shipped them all and, thanks to Turbot’s contacts, the leagues left us alone.
‘Of course, there was a price to pay. There always is, with the leagues. The price was to accept commissions from different leagues when the occasion warranted it, to raid their rivals’ ships. And we were good at it. There wasn’t a league ship in the sky that would dare to take on the Galerider in a fair fight.
‘We grew richer. I met and married your mother, Hermina, and a year later our first son, Lucius, was born, followed by Centix, then Murix, and Pellius and Martilius. And, last but not least, you, Quintinius …’ The trace of a smile flickered across his face. ‘We moved to the opulent palace in the Western Quays - and life was good. I counted myself the luckiest person alive …
‘At the same time, my old friend Linius Pallitax was prospering also, his career in Sanctaphrax going from strength to strength. Together we actually thought we might be able to change the way things were done in the two cities - reform the leagues and academies and bring Undertowners and academics closer together.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘What fools we were …’
‘Not fools,’ said Quint fiercely. ‘Just unlucky…’
‘Aye, son, perhaps you’re right,’ said Wind Jackal. ‘And yet I should have known that someone as rotten as Smeal could never be changed. I remember the look of leering greed and triumph on his face when he came to me with what I took to be one of the finest deals he had ever brokered - one that would not simply put money in our pockets, but might actually do some good …
‘Following long talks with Purlis Havelock, Leaguesmaster of the League of Furnace Tenders, Smeal had agreed that we would raid a slave ship owned by Meltus Drail’s League of Stokers and Smelters, since the latter had been undercutting their prices by using cheap - and illegal - slave labour. The poor wretches were to be shut up in the Stokers and Smelters’ sewer workshops and worked to death. I was happy to agree to the deal on the strict understanding that the slaves should be released by us back in the Deepwoods.
‘Smeal muttered darkly about profits and waste of valuable time, but the League of Furnace Tenders were paying us handsomely to ruin their rivals, and at last he, in his turn, agreed.
‘So, anyway, the day arrived. Hot and humid it was, as I recall, with ominous, dark purple banks of cloud rolling in from Open Sky. The ambush was due to take place in the morning at six hours on the borders of the Deepwoods and the Twilight Woods. We arrived at the site the night before, weighed anchor in a leadwood grove and cut down branches, which we used to camouflage the vessel before settling ourselves down for the long night ahead.
‘And it was a long night, Quint. Long and unpleasant. I’ve never liked spending the hours of darkness out there in the Deepwoods, and that particular night there was a dry lightning storm which crackled and flashed hour after hour, without a break. It lit up the dark forest, casting eerie shadows and setting the forest creatures off with their hideous screeching and squawking like the spirits of the dead. By Sky, Quint, my thoughts became bleak - and yet, as ever, day was on its way.
‘By five hours the lightning had subsided and the sky was beginning to brighten up with the first glimmering light of dawn. I began to shake off my despond and look forward to the approaching encounter. And sure enough, at half off the appointed hour, Spillins - the eyes of the Galerider - spied the slave ship approaching from the top of the caternest.
‘A blackwood vessel it was - nameless, dark and sinister, and in need of urgent repair. Certainly no one who didn’t already know would have suspected the valuable cargo it held as it sailed across the sky from the Deepwoods to the Stoker and Smelter leaguesmen awaiting them in the foundries on the Mire side of Undertown. We made no move until the rickety sky ship had passed overhead. Then, emerging from our cover and discarding the branches that had concealed us, the Galerider attacked with full force.
‘A harpoon attached to a rope was launched from our prow. It skewered the vessel’s port-side and held it fast. Then, by turning the winch-wheel and tightening the rope, we drew the other ship alongside us.
‘The cowardly leagues crew didn’t put up much of a fight once I’d called for stave-hooks and tolley-ropes and given the command to board. It was all so easy.
‘Too easy …’
Wind Jackal fell still, as if the weight of memories was too much to bear. He groaned and, in the silvery moonlight, Quint saw his father hold his head in his hands.
‘We rounded up the crew of the slave ship and sent them packing in the two open rubble tenders that served as lifeboats on the battered vessel. Then I was just about to open the hold and free the poor unfortunates held there when all at once Spillins, telescope raised, announced that there were two more league ships approaching. And fast!
‘Of course, with half our crew on the Galerider and half on the slave vessel, I was in a very weak position. It was only when Spillins shouted down the names of the two league ships - the Forger of Triumph and the Smelter of Woes - that I realized these were vessels belonging to the League of Furnace Tenders. And indeed, raising my own telescope, I saw Purlis Havelock, the master of the League, himself, at the helm of the lead ship.
‘I had an uneasy feeling, but as yet, no reason to suspect anything might be amiss. They drew alongside, one to the Galerider’s port-side; the other on the starboard-side of the slave shi
p. They had us penned in like tilder in a cage. Havelock started to engage me in pleasantries. About the weather, the Deepwoods, a job well done … Then, while we were chatting, I noticed that something was happening on the other league ship.
‘Havelock’s leaguesmen had boarded and, so far as I could make out, were taking the slaves - frightened-looking woodtrolls - out of the slave ship and placing them in shackles, ready to transfer them to their league ship. I bellowed at them to stop, only for Turbot Smeal to countermand my order from his position next to Havelock. I remember his weasel words to this day
‘“Relax, old friend,” he smirked, waving the leaguesmen on. “We can’t afford a wasteful trip to some woodtroll village who knows where. This way, we get double our fee and Havelock here takes the wretches off our hands …”
‘“Not if I have anything to do with it!” I roared, suddenly aware that Smeal must have brokered a separate deal with the leagues.
‘Unsheathing my sword in a flash, I sliced through the tolley-rope that tethered the Galerider to Havelock’s Forger of Triumph, bellowing to Ratbit on the other side of the sky ship that he should do the same to the harpoon-rope binding us to the slave ship. Then, having commanded Ramrock to cool the flight-rock, I slammed the flight-levers across, raising the hull-weights and giving full head to the sails.
‘We soared up into the air, turned in mid air and - our weapons drawn and ready - swooped back down in a broad arc towards the second league ship before a single slave could be taken on board. It was Purlis Havelock’s turn to be outraged.
‘ “In the name of the Leagues,” he roared. “Attack!”
‘Suddenly, the decks of both league ships were bristling with weapons, and arrows and crossbow bolts were flying through the air at the Galerider. Meanwhile, on board the slave ship, Steg Jambles and the great cloddertrog twins, Grim and Grem, had launched into action. While Steg did his best to steer the slave vessel away from the second league ship, the cloddertrogs threw themselves at the leaguesmen who had come aboard and made short work of them …
Clash of the Sky Galleons Page 4