Clash of the Sky Galleons (17 page)

‘Duggin here has accepted my offer to join the crew,’ said Wind Jackal. He smiled kindly at Maris. ‘Since he proved himself to be such a brave and resourceful sky-sailor last night.’

Maris blushed.

‘The
Edgehopper’s
lashed to the fore-deck, Mistress Maris,’ said Duggin, beaming from ear to ear. ‘So it’s both of us coming on this here voyage!’

‘We’re glad to have you,’ said Wind Jackal, and the crew all nodded - especially Tem, who seemed as delighted as Maris at this new addition to the
Galerider’s
crew. ‘Now, to your stations, all of you,’ said Wind Jackal, ‘and make ready to set sail!’

The crew did as their captain ordered. Ratbit headed for the aft-deck, Sagbutt for the gunwales, while Steg Jambles and Tem Barkwater hurried to the fore-deck, where they were joined by Duggin, who checked that his sky ferry was properly secured. Maris went below deck to check on the ship’s medical supplies, following on the heels of Filbus Queep, who was eager to inspect the cargo of tallow. And while Spillins eagerly climbed the mast, exclaiming with delight as he jumped down into his refurbished caternest, Quint joined his father at the helm, his heart racing.

Just then, from a sky cradle on the West Tower, there came the long, sonorous sound of tilderhorns being blown.

‘Must be the launch Hollrig was getting so excited about,’ said Wind Jackal. ‘We’ll let them get all the cheering and horn-blowing out of the way, and then we’ll slip quietly away’ He called across, ‘All ready, Stone Pilot?’

On the flight-rock platform, the Stone Pilot - all facial expression hidden behind the great hood - nodded vigorously.

Quint unhooked his telescope and trained it on the West Tower. A league ship, still in its shipyard cradle, was silhouetted against the bright sky. All round the
balustrade of the newly fitted vessel - both fore and aft - the heads of its crew could be seen, looking down. Some of them were waving. At the centre, on either side of the mast, the rock-burners were blazing with such intensity - sending super-heated air down a series of pipes and pistons into the very heart of the rock - that the great flight-rock itself was glowing.

Below the cradle, at the top of the tower, stood a leaguesman - the Master of the League of Beamlaggers and Boardlayers. He was as wide as he was tall, and dressed in clothes with so many ribbons and frill that he looked almost like a shryke standing there, the wind ruffling his feathers. His high hat, as beribboned as everything else, glinted in the light of the burners and, as it swayed in the breeze, was constantly being prodded back into position by his hat-tipper.

‘It is my honour, my privilege, my duty - as ritual decrees,’ the leaguesmaster bellowed down at the listening crowd above the roaring of the burners, ‘to introduce this …’ He swept a flapping arm flamboyantly behind him. ‘To introduce this, the latest addition to the leagues-fleet, to the sky …’

Quint focused his telescope on the ornate lettering at the magnificent vessel’s prow. Below, on the gantries of the West Tower, leaguemen in high, mid and low hats now prepared to raise them in salute.

‘Bane …’
Quint read,
‘of the …’

‘Bane of the Mighty!’
roared the leaguesmaster, seizing his high hat and waving it above his hairless head.

As he spoke the words, the vessel’s stone pilot - wearing the dark, domed helmet with the single eye-slit favoured by most league stone pilots - took a step forward. Then, reaching up, he gripped the two drenching-levers with both his hands and pulled them sharply down. Ice-cold sand and gravel poured from the sluice-tanks above, saturating the new, white-hot nine-strider in an instant.

As it made contact, the flight-rock hissed so loudly there were some in the crowd who covered their ears. Thick clouds of billowing steam poured out of the rock, rolling across the deck and over the balustrades, swallowing up the crew as they went. And deep within the clouds, the rock could be seen rapidly changing colour -white to yellow, orange to crimson, purple to black …

Creaking and cracking noises filled the air as the flight-rock - which had gone from super-heated to super-cooled in a matter of seconds - bucked and strained inside the shipyard cradle.

The crowd held its breath.

The next moment, there was a loud
clang,
followed by a louder
thud,
and all at once, like a giant mire-clam, the great cradle snapped open.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Three short, sharp reports echoed out as, in rapid succession, the temporary anchor-hooks snapped, one after the other. An instant later, the air trembled with a tremendous
whooshing
sound as the sky ship abruptly hurtled up into the orange-tinged sky so fast it was as though it had been expelled from a giant catapult.

‘Sky be praised!’ the leaguesmen bellowed as the crowd erupted into deafening whoops and cheers.

‘Stone Pilot!’ Wind Jackal called across to the flight-rock platform. ‘Give us lift…’ The Stone Pilot turned, lowered the burners and pushed the cooling-rods into place. The flight-rock took the strain. As it did so, Steg Jambles reached over, pulled the slip-knot to untie the tolley-rope, and the
Galerider
rose steadily and gracefully into the air.

‘Whoooaaahh!’

Behind them, the roaring crowd bellowed with excitement as the
Bane of the Mighty
completed its upward rush, levelled out and, as graceful as a cater-bird in flight, swooped back down through the sky. No one on board the
Galerider
looked round.
Instead, airborne at last, with the wind in their hair and the low sun to the west shining in their eyes, they slipped quietly out of the sky-shipyard and headed off towards the Deepwoods, far, far beyond the distant horizon.

• CHAPTER EIGHT •
GALERIDER

High up at the very top of the great ironwood mast, Spillins the oakelf scanned the horizon, his gnarled fingers idly caressing the silky lining of the caternest in which he sat. The spider-silk was strong, yet soft to the touch. It plugged those annoying gaps in the worn threads of the old caterbird cocoon perfectly - gaps through which, for longer than the old oakelf cared to remember, the icy winds of the Edgeland sky had whistled and howled, chilling him to the bone.

But not any more, Spillins thought, with a smile. Now, with its spider-silk lining, the old nest was almost as good as new.

He continued to scan the horizon with his huge oakelf eyes. Despite the seventy summers they had seen, those eyes had never let him down, still able to spot a hover-grub on a copperwood leaf at a thousand strides.

Spillins ran his fingers over the outside of the cocoon, picking thoughtfully at the matted strands of cater-thread. Spun by glittering caterworms in the Lullabee
Groves of his youth, the cocoon had once shimmered and sparkled with turquoise lullabee light. He had found it just after a caterbird had hatched, and - as was his right - had carefully cut it down. Then, because he had his own caterbird cocoon at last, the young Spillins was able to leave his small and secretive clan in the Lullabee Groves and go out into the wide world beyond, to seek his fortune.

Some oakelves found remote, uninhabited places to hang their cocoons, and concentrated on honing their gifts of inner-sight - such as fortune-telling - by determining the coloured aura of those who sought them out. Others hung their cocoons near villages and settlements and offered their inhabitants the benefit of their wisdom and the insights that came from sleeping in a caterbird cocoon.

But not Spillins.

No, he’d chosen the path that only the most adventurous oakelves chose. He’d hung his cocoon, not from a living tree, but from a dead one - the mast of a sky ship. And he’d found no shortage of masts to choose from, for although every sky ship had a caternest, few could boast that theirs was a genuine caterbird cocoon with a resident oakelf.

Spillins had chosen the newly built
Galerider
as home for his cocoon. It was a choice he never regretted. By day he sailed the sky, while by night he dreamed the special dreams of a caterbird.

‘Ah, dreams,’ Spillins whispered yearningly, his fingers teasing the wispy strands of the cater-thread.

He remembered the very first dream he’d had in the
new, sparkling cocoon. He’d found himself soaring across the sky, gigantic purple-black wings tipped with white beating powerfully up and down. And his eyes … What wonders they had seen. For wrapped up in his caterbird cocoon, he was no longer Spillins the young oakelf. No, he was a great caterbird, soaring majestically across the sky.

‘Nigh on sixty years ago it was when I first climbed up here,’ he murmured, glancing up from the caternest at a passing flock of snowbirds. ‘Scarce seems possible. Sixty years - and three sky pirate captains!’

Hurricane Razorflit had been the first; a vain and impetuous leader who’d met his end on the point of a shryke’s serrated lance. Then Rain Quarm, who was more cautious, but prone to violent rages - and hadn’t lasted long. It was after he had been festooned that the crew had voted unanimously to take on the dashing young captain, Wind Jackal. Spillins smiled. He could still see him as he’d been that day when he’d taken command. The confidence in his step, the fire in his eyes - and his aura, the most wonderful shade of blue, like a summer sky after the sun has set but just before the first stars have risen …

Spillins took a sharp intake of breath as something occurred to him. The last time he’d seen the captain, his aura hadn’t been blue at all, but a poisonous shade of green…

Far below, on the flight-rock platform at the foot of the mast, the Stone Pilot reached up and pulled the burner- lever
down two notches. The flames shrank in on themselves and turned from yellow to the palest of orange. A moment later, responding to the subtle drop in temperature, the flight-rock gained buoyancy and the
Galerider
lifted a little in the air.

The Stone Pilot stood back for a moment, as if assessing the adjustment that had just been made -but the expressionless conical hood gave nothing away. Turning from the burners, the Stone Pilot grasped a clutch of cooling-rods in a gauntleted hand and held them up to the light to examine them.

Long and thin, the cooling-rods were not simply smooth poles. If they had been, there would have been an insufficient area of metal to cool the rock quickly. Instead the long shafts had a series of small
metal discs welded into place at regular intervals along them. While remaining slender enough to slide into the outer stonecomb of the rock, the extra surface area ensured that, when chilled, the rods cooled even the most overheated of flight-rocks effectively.

The Stone Pilot removed a wire brush from a hook on the mast-mounting. Then, sitting down on a small, three-legged stool on the cluttered flight-rock platform, she grasped the brush in one gauntleted hand, the first of the cooling-rods in the other, and began to scrape vigorously at the particles of rock-dust which had fused themselves to the metal.

A flock of snowbirds passed overhead, their mournful cries lost in the vast expanse of sky, and a shudder seemed to pass through the seated figure. For a moment, the scraping ceased while the Stone Pilot checked that the conical hood was securely fastened and the thick greatcoat and fire apron were buttoned up and strapped securely. Beneath the heavy fireproof clothes, it was impossible to tell anything of the individual beneath, which was exactly the way the
Galerider’s
stone pilot liked it.