“Wait, Birdy!” Kite shouted. “That's not a barnacle it's - ”
A red lens snapped open. The thing sprang up on its metal legs. An antenna extended from its casing.
“- a crawler!”
Birdy wailed and jumped back, boots entangled with his safety-line. The broom went spinning away into oblivion. He crashed onto his side and began to slip away.
“Birdy!” Kite lunged and grabbed a fistful of Birdy's sleeve, stopping him from sliding off the nacelle. Behind him the crawler had begun to buzz madly.
“Stop the crawler, Nayward!” Welkin shouted over his headphones. “Leave Birdy, he's on a line!”
The crawler's carapace split open and tiny propeller unfurled. Kite would only get one chance to swat it with the broom. But he'd have to let Birdy fall to do it.
“Don't let me fall, Kite!” Birdy cried, looking over his shoulder at the terrible drop to the fiery scrub of the Thundergrounds. “P-please.”
Welkin ran along the gantry. “Nayward!” he shouted. “Don't let it get away! Leave Birdy, he's on a line!”
The crawler sprang into the air, propeller's blurring.
Birdy looked terrified. “D-don't you dare!” he begged.
Kite swore. He had no choice. “Sorry, Birdy,” he said, and let go.
Birdy went tumbling off the nacelle, his screams fading on the wind. Seconds later his line twanged tight and held.
With both hands Kite swung the broom.
Swack!
The crawler went careening into the Phosphene's hull. Propellers sparked against the skymetal. Bits of legs tore off and it clattered on the gantry, bleeping madly.
37
Snow
Clinker twirled his pliers and grinned at his handiwork. “What you have here, gentlemen, is a Whispercraft Automechanized Spydrone,” he said. “Mark II to be precise. One of the First Light Foundation's sneakiest little buggers.”
Kite leaned in for a closer look. Wiring and circuits poked out of the crawler's belly. Inside glimmered a finger-sized corpusant. He couldn't help but admire the Foundation technology. Even if it had been spying on them.
“How long do you reckon it's been there?” he asked.
“The electroscope didn't pick it up,” Welkin said with a shrug. “Days, weeks, maybe longer.”
Clinker nodded. “Limpets switch themselves off and on to send all kinds of atmospheric and location data back to the scientists on the Ether Shield,” he said. “Easy to miss it if were shut down.”
“Great,” Birdy mumbled. He was still sore and shaken. “Might as well just hand ourselves over to the Cloudguard now save them the bother of sinking us.”
“The crawler's last position is way behind us now,” Welkin said, trying to rally their morale.
“Lad's got a point, Alex,” Clinker said, setting down his tools. “Shelvocke's taking a bit risk heading into the Hiemal.”
“The Captain knows what he's doing, Ray,” Welkin said.
Clinker tapped the crawler's dead lens. “Well, let's hope there's no more nasty surprises waiting for us in the north,” he said. “Whatever happens, this little blighter won't be spying on us anymore for sure.”
“Bet they'll be waiting for us,” Birdy said. He gave Kite a dirty look before stalking toward the stairwell, kicking at nothing.
Before he left the Hangar Deck Welkin clapped his hand on Kite's shoulder. “You did the right thing today, Nayward,” he said.
Kite wasn't so sure. Birdy may have been all mouth but he'd been a useful ally these past few days. Now it looked like he'd made another enemy...
“Ah, don't worry about Birdy,” said Clinker. “Lad's had his heart set on being a pilot long as I've known him, but I think he knows he ain't got the metal for it. He'll get over it.”
Kite nodded slowly. He decided to change the subject. “You and Birdy, you're both from Iron Hill, right?” he said.
“Aye,” Clinker said. “Used to be an engineer on a bagship with Birdy's old man, running all kinds of contraband.”
“You were there during the siege?” Kite said.
Clinker nodded grimly. “Iron Hill was a second home at the time. Until the Foundation turned up. Lost some good mates during the siege, Ben Birdy amongst them,” he said and sighed. “That was a black day, I can tell you. Poor kid, seeing that at his age.”
Iron Hill. Dusthaven. Port Howling. Kite wondered how many more settlements would be crushed by the Weatherens? How many more people would have to see their friends and family slaughtered?
Clinker shrugged. “After that, well, let's just say I began looking for a way to get back at them,” he said.
“So how'd you end up with the Murkers?” Kite asked.
“Well, after Iron Hill me and Birdy found ourselves in a rough place called Wheeltown, out in the Thundergrounds,” Clinker said. “Met this stranger calling himself Austerman. A bleedin’ Weatheren would you believe?”
Kite grinned.
“Told me a fulgurtine had been wrecked not twenty leagues away, brought down by a tornado,” Clinker said. “He had some mad plan to salvage her before the Foundation could find her. He needed an mechanic and I needed a job. Made me an offer I couldn't refuse.”
“How did Shelvocke end up fighting the Foundation?” Kite asked.
Clinker hesitated. “Not my story to tell, lad. We each have our reasons though, be sure of that,” he said. “You got yours. I got mine. The Cap'n's got his. That's the one thing us Murkers have in common, right?”
Kite Nayward the Murker? Not so long ago he'd been planning his escape off the Phosphene. But he had to admit that now he did feel a kind of unity with Shelvocke's patchwork crew.
“Now there's a bad sign,” Clinker whispered, nodding.
Across the Hangar Deck, near the Windspear's stern, Fleer stood at the porthole. Her stare was fixed beyond the glass.
“She's always like this when we head north,” Clinker said and hunched his considerable shoulders. “Puts everyone on edge it does. Means we're almost there though, if that counts as good news.”
Leaving Clinker to finish dismantling the crawler Kite wandered over. Soon he understood what had Fleer so entranced. White specks, translucent as shaved soap, tumbled by the porthole, turning the late afternoon shadows to a cool metallic blue.
Kite decided to risk a conversation. Admittedly he'd gotten off to a bad start with Fleer Nightborn. What with giving her another scar and the whole stormwing thing. Maybe if he tried being friendly for once Fleer's armour would soften a little and she'd give him another chance. Perhaps she'd smile. She might even laugh. He’d like to see her laugh.
“I can't get used to all this weird weather,” he said, cheerily.
Fleer continued to stare out the window. “It's called snow,” she said, eventually in a soft, low voice.
Kite watched a single flake swirled against the porthole glass then settle on the frame before dissolved into a droplet of sparkling water.
“It's pretty,” he said.
Fleer squeezed her left arm. “I hate the snow,” she said and without another word marched from the Hangar Deck.
Kite sighed. “Great,” he said.
38
The Watchers
The Windspear's bow sliced the blizzard winds. Blueish snow whispered beneath her keel, broken only by humps of black volcanic rock. Kite had never known such a brutal cold. Even with the airworker suit and the padded parka lined with soft animal fur, cold gnawed at his fingers and toes. For the first time since leaving Dusthaven he longed for the heat of the Old Coast.
The deck rocked a little in a howling crosswind. Kite steadied himself against the turbulence, watchful of the rocks hurtling by. Nearby Welkin was on lookout, a brass shockgun discharger resting on the crook of his arm. Back in the pilothouse Shelvocke had the helm, with Dr.Nightborn and Fleer with him.
“Is it always this cold?” Kite called.
Welkin nodded. “The average temperature is ten below freezing,” he shouted b
ack. “At night it falls to minus forty. Nights were always the worst. Sky as black as coal. The air too thin to breathe properly. Made me glad of the Undercloud.”
Kite hopped from one boot to the other, ardently trying to keep his blood warm. Minus forty. He couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like piloting an airmachine in these extreme conditions.
A few moments passed.
“Birdy told me you used to fly a thundermoth,” Kite said, conversationally.
Welkin didn’t immediately reply. He brushed the snow-flakes from his goggles and stared into the storm. “Birdy talks too much,” he said and nodded. “We'll be landing soon. Get ready, Nayward.”
Shelvocke brought the Windspear into the leeward side of a snow-ridge and set her down on her haunches. Fleer was first down the ladder. Kite followed, sinking into knee-deep snow. The cold seeped into his boots and numbed his toes. Dr.Nightborn disembarked last, politely refusing his offer of help.
“Be on your best behaviour, Mr.Nayward,” Shelvocke called down. “The mission to Skyzarke hinges on our dear Doctor's success today. I wouldn't want anything to endanger it.”
Kite turned away, resisting the temptation to reply with something witty.
“Good luck,” Welkin said with a salute and the Windspear lifted off, whipping the snow around them.
The Hiemal was a world sponged of all colour. To the north spread a hard white ocean, broken only by wind-sculptured peaks. To the south smears of black-rock tundra where the Phosphene hid herself - the Wildemark. Kite couldn't imagine a more savage place.
Following Fleer and Dr.Nightborn's cue he attached the paddle-shaped snowshoes Clinker had given him. Kite soon found snow was worse than sand. He could barely stay upright long enough to move in any direction. Fleer was the expert as usual. The trick, he quickly discovered, was sliding across the snow instead of walking on it and before long he was catching them up.
On and on they trudged, labouring against the brutal wind for almost a league. The furs Kite wore grew heavy and hot. The goggles clogged with snow. Nothing but white. How could Fleer find anything in this wilderness?
Another ridge rose from the snow. A random scatter of black rock. Or so it appeared at first.
Fleer pointed. “There!” she shouted.
Engine-noise rolled in over the wind.
“Thundermoth scouts!” Fleer said. “Hurry!”
The snow shoes snagged in the snow. Kite stumbled and swore, trying to keep upright. Fleer doubled back and pulled him by the sleeve.
“Nayward, come on!” she cried, dragging him toward the ridge.
The unseen predator was almost on them now. The engines shaking beads off the knee-high snow. Fear gave him impulse.
Ahead of them Dr.Nightborn had already vanished.
“Under!” Fleer shouted, pushing him down.
A hidden ledge. Kite scrambled underneath. Seconds engines tore overhead - the thick growl of turbines.
From inside her furs Fleer drew a hunting knife. A flat ceramic blade for skinning flesh. “They must have picked up the Windspear's engine noise,” she said, between breaths.
“We are safe in here,” Dr.Nightborn whispered.
The thundermoth engines began to fade. “We're never safe,” Fleer said.
Kite's pulse settled as he caught his breath. The air smelt of fish and wood smoke. They'd hidden in some kind of man-made cave, carefully constructed to be hidden from above. The ceiling was shored up with black timbers and the curved walls were fashioned from volcanic rock.
A bothy...
Reed matting covered the stone floor and Dr.Nightborn sat and invited him to sit beside her and wait. Kite wasn't exactly sure what they would be waiting for. As usual he hadn't been told the details. The bothy was cosy enough, but he didn't feel safe at all and after a few minutes he became restless.
“How far to the High Hollows?” he asked.
“The High Hollows cannot be reached on foot,” Dr.Nightborn said. “Someone will come for us.”
“If the message got through,” Fleer said, crouched nearby with the knife between her knees.
The bothy darkened.
“The message got through,” Dr.Nightborn said, rising to her feet.
Two fur-clad figures pushed in, shedding snow and icicles. Men with short ceramic swords and heavy-headed clubs. Men with hard cut features and eyes hidden by bone goggles with slits instead of glass.
Fleer scrambled in front of her mother, the hunting knife held ready. Heart thundering under his ribs Kite balled his hands into fists, ready to fight, but Dr.Nightborn reached for his wrist.
A third stranger entered. A woman, much taller than Dr.Nightborn, with the same strange goggles. “Not one but two Nightborns, lost in the snow,” the woman said, her voice deep and masculine.
“Helka Amberdawn,” Dr.Nightborn said, without smiling.
The Askian woman, Helka, removed her goggles. She stared at each of them in turn with silver sharp eyes, settling on Kite. “You have a gift for finding outsiders, Lady Nightborn,” Helka said. “At least this one isn't a Weatheren.”
“Kite Nayward is one of us, Helka,” Dr.Nightborn said.
“You know the Watcher's rules,” Helka replied. “Or have you forgotten our laws during your travels?”
Fleer showed her teeth. “Since when does a Watcher question a Lady of the Hollows?”
“Watch your tongue when speaking to me, Maiden,” Helka replied. “Your rank on that Weatheren ship is meaningless here.”
Fleer took a step forward. Helka's men did the same. Kite thought his blood would burst from his ears. He'd never seen Fleer so defensive.
“Look at you all!” Dr.Nightborn said. “We are not at war! There is no need for this, Helka. Fleer, put that away. Do as I say.”
Slowly Fleer lowered her knife. Helka nodded to her men and they obeyed. The tension in the bothy eased but only a little. Kite breathed again.
“Helka, I will vouch for Kite Nayward,” Dr.Nightborn said. “You have my word on that.”
“Very well, on your word it shall be, Lady Nightborn,” Helka said, giving Fleer a meaningful look before replacing her goggles. “The Vox Memoria meets in an hour. Come with me.”
39
The High Hollows
The Jadis skimmed the snow. The Watcher's snow-yacht was a bit like Kite's old sandboat only five times the length and instead of wheels she glided on hissing metal runners, swept along by canvas windsails. The whole craft felt airy and light. As if a sudden crosswind might flip her keel side up.
Kite knew there must have been some kind of power plant on-board but there was no engine-noise. Even the windsails produced little more than a gentle hum. Yet the craft must have been doing nearly 20 knots! Silent and white as snow. No wonder the Askians were experts at keeping themselves hidden.
Strapped securely to the snow-yacht's gunwales were a number of head-sized clay pots. The objects didn't look like ballast or even rigging. Some kind of weapon? Kite didn't know what they were either.
From midships to stern the snow-yacht was protected by a stiff canvas awning, camouflaged white like the rest of her hull. Out the wind they sat in snug benches lined with animal hides. Kite found himself beside Dr.Nightborn with Fleer seated opposite, her cheeks pink with bottled fury. Helka and her crewmen kept themselves to the pilothouse at the stern. Kite only hoped the High Hollows would be more welcoming.
Snow sculptures hissed by. Hooks and claws, brittle and semi-solid. Soon black rock crags began to appear between the snow. Some had been deliberately arranged in cairns. Markers, Kite reckoned, similar to those set up by the scavvies in the Thirsty Sea.
Without warning the Jadis plunged under the snow.
Frozen walls rushed by. Down and down they snow-yacht went, into a maze of crisscrossing tunnels hollowed out of the ice and the dark, pitted rock. An eerie glow lit the walls - like the shimmer of a thousand geolumes. Soon Kite lost all sense of direction and depth. Yet the Jadis powered on, slidin
g through one secret passage and then another. He could only imagine how long it had taken Helka's pilot to memorise this route.
The tunnels opened onto to a lake of ice. He craned his neck and gasped. Dripping ice-spikes dangling from the black rock walls, and further up ice merged together in arches.
Askian sentries watched the Jadis glide to the small harbour. The windsails stilled, the fine papery canvas fluttering. Soon the vessel hissed to a halt in one of the free berths.
“This way,” Helka said, leading them ashore.
Kite followed Dr.Nightborn and Fleer into a network of tunnels and ducts. Ancient tide marks stained the walls. These tunnels had once been storm drains or sewers.
Geolume clusters had been set into alcoves, pulsing with a ghostly blue light. Each one worth enough royals to buy a fleet of sandboats. Another time Kite might have been tempted to pocket a few but he didn't think Fleer would be impressed.
Helka lead them down a flight of steps and a clanging steel bridge. The echo seems to wobble through years of dust. Beneath Kite’s boots was an abandoned train station. Four sets of rails ran blind into the darkness. A gigantic carriage, rusted and covered in dust, sat at one of the platforms. Windows yellowed and cracked, long since left to decay.
Kite suppressed a shudder. The memory of the tomb in Hurts Deep came lurching back into his mind. “Where does it go?” he asked.
“The tunnels were built during the long war,” Fleer told him and pointed up the tunnel. “These tracks used to run all the way to Skyzarke. It was how our ancestors escaped the winter. Now they go nowhere. The tunnels were blasted two centuries ago.”
Kite listened keenly, glad to finally expanding his knowledge of Skyzarke and the Askians. But there wasn’t time for more history lessons. Helka took them further and further underground. The air grew warm and close. At the bottom of a flight of stone steps Kite found himself in a metal tunnel. There was a rusted hatch at one end, guarded by two armed sentries. At Helka's command the men opened the hatch. Kite didn't question the need for all this security. He understood it all too well.
The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1) Page 15