The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1)

by Wilkes, S. D.

  Kite climbed, dragging himself out of the grave as if he'd been the one buried down there. At the top he crawled to a safe distance and sat with his back against a boulder. Only then did the dread seem to fade.

  The Waste Witch waited patiently for him to speak. Though the horror had passed he couldn't stop shivering. Eventually he summoned the courage to tell her what he'd found.

  “That thing is more than just a dead girl's toy,” Ersa said. “If the Foundation wants it then it's dangerous. And that is makes it worth more than any heap of skymetal.”

  Kite slowly got to his feet. “The Weatherens'll come back for it won't they?” he said.

  “Let them come,” Ersa said. “We won't be here.”

  A lucky north wind from the Ashlands blew the sandboat into the container town. The light had lifted a little. Dawn shadows pooled between the containers, but Dusthaven had yet to stir.

  Kite was relieved to be back, if only so they could leave. Dusthaven was too dangerous for them now.

  The sandboat trundled to halt beside the bothy. Kite jumped down from the stern. He didn't bother lashing the sail or chocking the wheels. They'd be leaving soon enough.

  Kite froze.

  New footprints scuffed up the sand near the bothy. The padlock had been sheared off. The loading bay door was open an inch and a wedge of light flickered from the tar-lamp.

  The Waste Witch tumbled out of the sandboat. Kite tried to stop her but she pushed her way in to the bothy and began screaming.

  Cob Savage slouched in Ersa's chair, his grin full of hollows. A shiv dangling idly from his fingers.

  “Get out you devil!” Ersa hissed, scissors ready to stab. “Get out!”

  Kite caught her arm. He pulled her into the corner. If he let her go they'd both be dead.

  Cob had ransacked the bothy. Bedding and clothes lay scattered on the floor. All Ersa's secret things had been tossed out. Things Kite had never seen before. Little books and ribbon-bound letters and old photographs, turned sepia with age. Kite didn't recognised the Askians in them. A man. A boy. A family of three surrounded by salt-white hills.

  “Pretty thing weren't you?” Cob said, toying with one of the photographs.

  “Bastard,” Ersa said, but her fury had faded. She leaned on Kite now and Kite realised she was afraid, as if she'd done something terrible.

  “What do you want, Cob?” he asked, barely keeping his own anger in check. “We haven't done anything wrong.”

  Cob tossed the photograph and got to his feet. He spun the shiv around his fingers. “Gutter wants a word,” he said.

  13

  Gutter Savage

  Cob Savage knuckled Kite hard in the spine. He stumbled onto the Highwrecker’s cluttered deck. The jaws of newly oiled cutting equipment glistened. Hook-chains clanked in racks. Tarps swelled in the morning wind, revealing pyramids of skymetal beneath that gleamed in the pilothouse lanterns. Kite realised he'd made a terrible mistake thinking he could keep the Weatheren's things hidden. It had to be that. What else could it be? And Kite had a pretty good idea who had betrayed him.

  Cob marched him to the pilothouse, passed Gutter's sullen silent crew.

  “Uncle?” Cob called.

  After a moment the salvagemaster stepped out of the pilothouse door, a stub of a cigar flaring in his yellow teeth. Smoke blew through shafts of lantern light.

  “That him?” Gutter said, voice hard as rusted steel. “That the rotten thief?”

  Cob pulled down Kite's hood. The Savages laughed as he scrambled to cover his hair.

  “Caught 'em just in time,” Cob said.

  Gutter Savage stepped into the wedge of lantern light, his acid-scared face looking like an ugly lump of pumice. Kite remembered how Ned Savage earned his name. To prove himself he'd stripped the most toxic wreck he could find: a chemical tanker, out near the Needle Bridge. Most of his crew had been poisoned but Gutter returned to Dusthaven with an iron reputation.

  “Doin' a runner were you?” Gutter said.

  Kite swallowed sorely. “Got no reason to run, Mr.Savage,” he said, trying to sound respectful but it came out all feeble and patronising.

  “That so?” said Gutter and held out a rectangle of the finest, blackest leather - the Weatheren's case. Kite had a sudden fierce urge to flee for his life. Somehow he didn't think he'd get far with Cob itching to cut him open.

  “Way I see it you got three very good reasons,” Gutter said, thick smoke drifting from his lips. “You being a scavvy, a Grey and a rotten thief.”

  The salvagemaster had a notched machete pushed through his belt, the handle bound with copper wire.

  Kite tried to hide the fear in his voice. “I'm not a thief,” he said. “I was on the wreck before you that’s all, watched it come down.”

  Smoke curled from Gutter's nostrils. “Did you now?” he said, dangerously. “What else did you take?”

  Kite kept quiet.

  “Found nothing in the container,” Cob said.

  Gutter's eyes slid to Kite's bag. “Let's see what's in there.”

  Kite stepped back but Cob was quicker. The bailiff jabbed the shiv in his ribs.

  “Next time that'll be for real,” Cob said and took Kite's bag from him.

  Shivering from that evil point stinging in his side, Kite watched as Gutter tore open his bag.

  “What do we have in here then?” Gutter said, bringing out the battered map. “Oh look more stuff from my wreck. I'd say that was proof of theft if ever...what's this? Blood and nails!”

  The salvagemaster's gleaming eyes crawled feverishly over the wrecks and markers, cigar hanging precariously off his bottom lip.

  “I know people who'll kill for a map of the Thirsty Sea,” Cob said.

  Gutter gave his shadowy crew a sideways glance. He lowered his voice. “Best keep it to ourselves for now, Cob,” he said. “Never know who you can trust.”

  “You can trust me, Uncle,” said Cob. He nodded in Kite's direction. “What about him and the Waste Witch?”

  Gutter didn't look up from the Weatheren's map. “Make sure they don't talk,” he said.

  Kite tried to twist free. “We haven't done anything wrong you bastard!”

  In an instant Gutter had pulled the machete and had it aimed at Kite's throat. “I was going to go easy on you, being Greys an all,” Gutter growled, simmering with blood lust. “But I won't tolerate disrespect. Not in my town. Cob, you know what to do.”

  Cob’s empty skull face grinned. “You can trust -”

  The metal deck began to vibrate under Kite's boots. The rigs swayed and creaked in their dry-dock moorings. Chains clanked together.

  “The hell's that?” Gutter said, stuffing the Weatheren's map into his belt. “Thunder?”

  The sound came again. Shaking the whole of Ruster's Roost. Dread seeped into Kite's veins like a night cold. He knew all too well that wasn't thunder. It was the sound of engines.

  14

  The Corrector

  Kite had never seen an airmachine so big, so terrifying. Five times the Highwrecker's length with four decks instead of one she sank through the clouds over Dusthaven. Dozens of shockcannons stuck out along her hull. Each one capable of spitting lightning bolts. A Foundation gunship. A fulgurtine.

  A signal light punched from the fulgurtine's top deck, writing the symbol of the First Light Foundation on the Undercloud. Smaller craft buzzed around the fulgurtine. Beetle-black crawlers with little propellers and evil red lenses instead of eyes. Just like the one Kite'd seen spying on the Highwrecker.

  More than anything Kite wanted to run. To get as far from Ruster's Roost as possible. But he'd been crammed in with Gutter and Cob and the rest of the Highwrecker's surly crew who rallied to their salvagemaster side on the rig's gangplank.

  Ruster's Roost shuddered under Kite's boots as the Foundation fulgurtine set down outside Dusthaven's gates. The backwash blasted a tide of dust over the Haveners who had gathered in the square. Kite could read her name stamped on her ser
rated bow - Occluder.

  Klaxons sounded. The keel cracked open and a section cranked out, slamming down on the sand outside the town. A monstrous maw about to swallow Dusthaven whole. Kite shrank at the sight of the two dozen Weatheren soldiers, all armour and shockguns, marching into the town.

  Some of Gutter's crew too seemed to be having second thoughts.

  “Hold your ground,” Gutter hissed at them. “This ain't going to be another siege like Iron Hill.”

  One of the crawlers flew low over Ruster's Roost, its little lens recording the event. Scientists followed the soldiers. Kite recognised their sterile lab coats and bug-eyed goggles. Others came too. Some dressed in white plastic, others in black leather coats. Men and women, faces hidden behind masks and high collars. Agents of the Foundation, adding significantly to Kite’s panic.

  Last to disembark was an imperious-looking woman. She walked with a kind of arrogant, straight-backed authority. And she wore a uniform - bottle-blue with an oil-black jacket buckled over it - yet she was neither soldier or a scientist. Somehow to Kite she seemed more dangerous than both.

  A Weatheren gentleman shadowed her. Kite had never seen a man so impossibly tall. Towering over them all he’d come ill-dressed for the Old Coast in daft city clothes; a night-black greatcoat, high hat and button spectacles. Kite almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

  The woman halted by her soldiers. Slowly she scanned the bewildered, terrified crowd. Kite dipped his head instinctively. He tried to convince himself the Weatherens hadn't come for him but somehow it didn't seem to be working.

  “Who is in charge here?” the woman’s voice came like thunder, amplified by the crawler’s speakers.

  All heads turned to the Highwrecker's berth. Gutter hawked up a mouthful and aimed it at the dust.

  “Guess that's me,” he called out. “Gutter Savage, Chief Salvagemaster. Who the flying hell are you?”

  “A Corrector, a mere servant of the First Light Foundation,” the Corrector said with the slimmest of smiles. “I’m legally bound to inform you that you, Mr.Savage, your subordinates and tenants are required by law to assist the Armoured Constabulary in their investigations. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.”

  Kite could see the salvagemaster was itching for a chance to show his authority.

  “And if I don’t want to cooperate?” Gutter said.

  The Corrector stared back. “Refusal to cooperative will, of-course, result in your detention for obstructing the law of the First Light Foundation,” she said. “I hope that is clear, Mr.Savage?”

  Gutter cranked out a sour smile. “This ain’t Fairweather, love,” he said. “This is the Old Coast. Law’s different here.”

  The Corrector tut-tutted. “There is no law but the law of the First Light Foundation,” she said.

  “That so?” Gutter said, and chuckled.

  That raised a few uneasy chuckles. But Kite didn't dare laugh.

  The Corrector gazed unsympathetically the grimy, gawking faces. Then she looked directly at Kite. A steel gaze that made Kite think she was searching beyond his googles and hood, to learn his true identity.

  The Corrector turned away.

  “Two days ago the Foundation survey vessel Monitor vanished in the region approximately twelve leagues south-south-west of here known as the Thirsty Sea,” she said, and snapped her fingers. “Vanished without a trace!”

  Kite glanced at the tarps swelling in the wind on the Highwrecker's deck. The ones Gutter’s crew had hastily tossed over their illicit haul of skymetal. Did the fools really think they could hide the evidence that easily?

  “Liftships simply don’t vanish,” said the Corrector, her attention coming to rest on the lines of belligerent salvors. “I have received information that suggests the Monitor has been illegally salvaged.”

  Ruster's Roost became small and dangerous. Sweat prickled Kite's scalp, itched under his collar. His heart beat so hard he half-expected it to burst from his ribs.

  “I should remind you the First Light Foundation retains absolute ownership of all its property, in whatever condition, in whatever territory,” the Corrector said. “That includes the Old Coast.”

  An uneasy murmur rippled through the crowd. The Corrector watched them all closely, hunting for clues. “Anyone found in possession of even a single rivet from the Monitor will be in contravention of Fairweather's sovereign laws,” she said. “And will suffer a severe loss of liberty.”

  No-one moved. Awnings flapped. Grapple hooks rattled. Then Kite sensed movement around him. His blood ran cold. The salvors were whispering tactics. Hidden weapons were being made ready. Right now Kite couldn't think of a worst place to be.

  The Corrector slipped a small leather pouch from her belt.

  “However, I am willing to make this easier for those of you willing to cooperate,” she said, holding it up. “Five hundred royals in silver. The reward for information about the whereabouts of the Monitor, its crew and, in particular, its cargo. ”

  The atmosphere changed instantly. Five hundred royals. More money than most earned in a year. Kite could already see the temptation on dust-blackened faces.

  The Corrector jangled the money pouch. “Give me my answers, skyless of Dusthaven,” she said, her voice amplified louder than ever. “And I shall show you how generous the First Light Foundation can be.”

  No-one moved at first. Then Kite saw a quivering hand inch up. Then another. The Corrector was smart. She must have known how easily loyalties switch in the Old Coast.

  Gutter drew his machete. “You ungrateful bastards!” he roared, acid-scarred face blistering with a butcher’s grin. At that moment Kite knew that Gutter Savage had doomed them all.

  With a ready clatter a forest of weapons sprang up around Kite's ears. A defiant roar went up from the salvors. Some of the crowd joined in but most stood stunned into silence, terrified of the Weatheren response to come. Kite trembled with them, desperate for his chance to escape.

  The Corrector had seen enough. She turned to one of the soldiers. “I want the entire settlement searched, Sergeant,” she said. “No-one enters and no-one leaves unless I say so.”

  The Sergeant, three chevrons on his sleeve, saluted and rallied his men. “Charge your weapons! To arms!”

  A panicking scream echoed across Ruster's Roost. The crowd began to scatter. Defiance and unity soon dissolved with the clatter of armour and the aiming of shockguns. Kite had only one chance to flee. To warn Ersa. One chance to use this chaos to his advantage. Cob Savage had his back to him, the bag loose at his side. In one swift movement Kite tore the bag from Cob's hand and plunged into the crowd.

  15

  Buttons

  “Ersa, hurry!” Kite called, lashing the bags to the deck.

  Shouts and crashes rattled across Dusthaven, punctuated by fierce crackles of mosfire from the shockguns. The battle was louder and coming closer with each second. Scavvies fled by the bothy, stumbling with whatever they could carry. It wouldn't be long before the Weatherens reached the far side of the town.

  “Ith fem! Fe umphelli menth! Fe umphelli menth ith cominf!”

  Kite ignored the mechanikin's muffled voice. There wasn't time to talk about stars and Cloud Rooms now. He ran to the bothy doors. Inside the Waste Witch was feeding the photographs and letters into the stove fire.

  “Foolish to have kept them,” Ersa was whispering, watching the paper blacken and crumble in the shallow flames.

  Ersa soon spotted his shadow. “There are so few of us left now,” she said, the flames caught in her pale, watery eyes. “I was wrong to have kept the truth from you.”

  Kite glanced back at the sandboat. There wasn’t time for this. “Ersa, we have to -”

  “Hear me out.” Ersa interrupted him. “You have a right to know who we are and what the Foundation has done to us. When we’re settled again, when we’re safe once more, I will tell you what you want to know. About Skyzarke. Then you will understand why we must never let them find us.�
�

  Kite nodded. “Let’s go Ersa,” he said.

  Slowly Ersa straightened her back and picked up her stick and the last of her hastily-packed bags. “Lead on,” she said.

  Once the Waste Witch was safely aboard Kite nudged the sandboat out into the path and pointed the prow windward toward the pale horizon of the Thirsty Sea. Flecks of soot drifted on the wind. He could smell hot metal in his nostrils. Soon they’d be safely hidden once more.

  Kite looped the mooring rope over his shoulder and took up the slack. “Where to Ersa?” he said.

  But the Waste Witch didn’t reply.

  Striding toward them against the flow of the Haveners came the Corrector.

  Behind him a sharp metallic clang made him jump. The Corrector’s tall companion stepped out from the containers, dipping his high-hat under the cables strung across the gaps.

  “Don't mind Beaufort,” the Corrector said, the wind scuffing her chopped reddish hair. “He's quite harmless really. May I have a word?”

  Ersa sighed and struggled to her feet. “Help me down,” she said.

  Kite did as Ersa asked, just as he had always done. The Waste Witch took the stick from him and gave him a quick fond glance - the kind usually reserved for her buttons - and whispered, “don't let them catch you, Kite Nayward.”

  Dumbstruck Kite watched Ersa go. She'd never used his name before. Not once.

  The Waste Witch hobbled in front of him and stopped an arm's length from the Corrector. There she raised her stick and pointed. Immediately the giant man took a threatening step forward.

  “Stand down, Beaufort,” the Corrector said. “I'm sure she means us no harm.”

  The man grunted but didn’t speak. He dutifully stepped back, obeying the order without question. An irregular wheezing came from his broad chest as if his lungs weren’t used to the Old Coast air.

  Ersa levelled the end of her stick at the badge on the woman's uniform. Kite recognised a small part of its design. The emblem was similar to the one written on the Undercloud above his head, but with four meaningless words stitched underneath - lux aeterna luceat eis.