Sky Song: Overture (7 page)

IX. Forest

M
aive steered her ship towards the thicket of trees where Dirk and Molly had fallen. She drove with an impressive amount of nerve, plummeting suddenly, swooping around and skimming over the treetops.

I knew this woodland from my father’s stories. It was the origin of fairytales, a sprawling forest of pine, yew and juniper. Once upon a time, a witch lived there and lured children to her home full of wind-up toys, and every child who went inside became one hence. Father also said wolves inhabited this forest, and wove between the trees at night.

We hovered and discussed our course of action. With no place to land, Maive suggested one of us take a flare gun, climb down by ladder and gather as many survivors as possible until rescue arrived. Baker volunteered.

“I’ll go with him,” I said.

“Absolutely not,” said Baker.

“Why not?”

“Your dress alone will slow us down.”

“Not as much as your shoddy sense of direction!”

“Both of you, get out,” said Maive.

I stuck out my tongue and made a nasty pig face. What would have normally made Baker laugh and punch me in the shoulder only made him roll his eyes.

“If you wish to climb out of a copter in a ball gown, go right ahead,” he said.

Fitz cleared his throat. “I should accompany Maive in her search for this Belle fellow. Women should never travel alone,” he said. “I wish you luck, brothers.” He blinked and looked me over, but didn’t bother correcting himself.

A vaulted trap door lay at our feet. Baker twisted the release and swung it open. “Ladies first,” he said, lowering the rope ladder.

Climbing ladders in a ball gown was more difficult than I expected, and I had expected it to be pretty difficult. Wind blew my skirt about like a bell. I compressed the hoop structure and pinned it to my abdomen, but as I descended from the aircraft, it fell and tripped me. I grasped the rungs and calmed my body, regaining good form. At the bottom I dropped onto a twisted branch and traversed a twiggy maze, my dress catching on every little snare.

Baker waited behind me and said nothing as we climbed down, even when I stopped to rip my hem free. Coming out of the leafy canopy, I saw Dirk and Molly hanging from a tree, harnessed together with layers of leather belts. Their parachute was tangled in the branches above and they were too high up to cut the lines, and too precariously situated to swing from side to side.

“Captain!” I called out. Dirk looked about, but he couldn’t spot me.

“Clikk? Is that you?” he called back.

“We’re coming to help you. Don’t move!”

“Someone there?” One of the men moved between the trees below us. It was our cook Jasper, a stout brown-bearded man with wide shoulders and stiff legs. He dragged his deployed parachute behind him. Baker and I scaled the tree and landed nearby.

“Left my dagger on the Wastrel,” Jasper said. “Buckles jammed.”

“I’ll cut you loose,” said Baker. He used his dagger from his boot. “Bring your canvas with you. We’ll need it to get the captain down.”

“Who’s yer friend, Baker?” asked Jasper, licking his teeth as he undressed me with his eyes.

“It’s Clikk,” said Baker. “He’s a…”

Jasper frowned. “Falcon’s a girl? I’ll be damned.” We left it at that and pushed on. The cook gathered his knotted parachute into a ball and carried it over his shoulder.

At the small clearing beneath Dirk and Molly, Baker took on the role of delegation. “Tie the strings to the stronger branches and we’ll move around to make a sort of trampoline.” We started at three different points and moved clockwise, attaching the cords to various trees. We had to keep the bottom of the tarp high enough off the ground so when Dirk and Molly came bounding down, they wouldn’t smash into the earth. Baker and Jasper were able to shimmy up the trees to tie their knots, but I was stuck on the ground in my ludicrous dress.

“Baker, lend me your dagger,” I said.

He was three meters over my head, but he nodded, and hopped down. He handed it to me by the hilt.

“This will only take a moment,” I said, slashing open the elbows in my sleeves. I cut the dress a few inches below the waist, detaching skirt, hoopskirt and petticoat in one rigorous go of sawing and stabbing.

“Careful, turtledove,” Baker said. “You’ll clip a wing.”

“Don’t be a cad.” In my bloomers, I would actually be able to move about and climb. Once I had a moment to myself, I could remove the corset for even more range of motion.

Baker took his dagger back, but was too distracted to sheath it. He raised his eyebrows as he observed me.

“What?” I said. “Now I won’t slow you down.”

“No, popsy, but now Jaz will try to have a peek at your cargo.”

I grabbed him by his collar, and got an inch from his face as I whispered, “Call me popsy or turtledove or any other pet name, and I will cut out your tongue.”

Baker didn’t back off, but instead tapped my chin with the hilt of his dagger. “With what now… sweetheart?” He winked at me.

I nodded and feigned a little laugh. Then I sucker punched him in the gut. Baker pushed me and staggered back.

“Knock it off!” ordered Captain Dirk. “Get us down from here!”

Baker spit in the dirt like the hit was nothing and went back to climbing trees. I was able to knot my parachute cords as high as the rest of them and we soon had a stable trampoline.

Dirk helped Molly slip the belts. She screamed as she fell and bounced on the tarp below, layers of pink satin fluttering. I helped her down.

“Oh, Clikk, thank the stars!” she exclaimed, leaping into my arms. “The pirate man said to trust him and so I gave him my dress and went with the other pirate in his ship!”

“Oh, good,” I said. “But next time a pirate tells you to trust him, you mustn’t. Understood?”

Molly frowned and nodded.

“Good girl,” I said. “Help is on the way.”

Next came Dirk. He cut himself free and came down thrashing his legs. The parachute canvas broke his fall and we helped him to his feet as well.

“Good work, boys,” he said. “Where is Maive?”

“Off to find your contact,” Baker said. “Gave us this flare and told us to gather survivors.”

“Right,” said Dirk. “Let’s find the rest. We’ll need everyone we can get. We just murdered a bloody emperor.”

“Captain,” said Baker, motioning towards me all of a sudden. “Clikk… um.”

Dirk nodded. “Hello there, Clikk.”

“Captain!” I saluted.

“How long have you known?” asked Baker, folding his arms.

Dirk shook his head. “Pretty much from the day she asked to join my crew.”

“You told us it was bad luck having a woman on the ship.”

“I also told you your cock would fall off if you pissed over the rail.” Dirk grinned and Molly spewed giggles. “Superstitions are made up with practical reasons behind them, brother. A woman on a ship is only bad luck if the men know she’s there, for it’s the men who are the unlucky bit of the equation. I can explain it all, but let us not tarry here any longer.”

We hiked through the forest, in search of our brothers. Captain Dirk fed Baker some morality tale about two neighbors who quarreled over a tree planted on the border of their two lands. When the tree yielded naught but shade, the men had been friends, and had gone there to climb and read. But one day, while climbing, one of these men—he was called Jon—discovered the tree grew an occasional apple. His neighbor Adam saw him eating it and asked where he got it. Jon told him the truth about the tree between their lands that grew delicious fruit. They decided to divvy up the apples, but often there was an uneven yield, or some of the apples were bigger and healthier than others.

At this point in the story, we had discovered four more survivors, including the mandolin player William and one of our pilots No Nose Ned. He’d lost the tin patch that covered his missing nose, forcing us to witness the unsightly effects of syphilis.

Each time we found some more of our men, they asked who I was, went through the same amazement as everyone else and then asked Dirk how he could allow such a thing on the Wastrel. Dirk would summarize the beginning of his bizarre parable and continue in his explanation.

He went on to say the two neighbors decided they should divide the months. Jon would take fruit one month, and Adam would be able to harvest the next. This worked well, until the season for apples ended, and Adam had to go longer without them than Jon. When the apple season returned, it was yet again Jon’s turn to harvest. So the unlucky Adam was angry and consumed with hate for his neighbor. One day, he waited beneath the tree with a knife in his hand. When Jon arrived to take his first harvest of the season, Adam stabbed him in the throat, killing him forever.

“As opposed to killing him temporarily,” giggled Molly.

“What is the point of this story?” asked the twelfth man we had rescued.

“Well,” said Dirk, cutting down a spider web, “I don’t remember the ending exactly, but this is why men have Adam’s apples.”

“You messed it up from the start,” Molly said. “The tree is a woman, and she gives her fruit to the men because she is generous and wants them to be happy. So when Adam kills his friend, the tree is unimpressed with mankind. She puts the core into the apple as punishment, and the next time Adam goes to eat one, he chokes. And men have had Adam’s apples ever since, so that women will remember they are greedy.”

“What does that have to do with bad luck on an airship?” asked Baker.

“Oh, right.” Dirk stared blankly.

I groaned in frustration. “If the two neighbors had never known the tree had apples, they would have remained friends. Just as if there is a woman on the ship, and nobody knows, her being there won’t cause any fights or fires.”

“Perhaps not fights, but what about the fires?” asked Jasper.

“We only have another hour of light,” Dirk said. “We should make camp.”

We had to get off the ground if we didn’t want to be eaten alive by insects. We used the canvas from the parachutes to sling hammocks. I chose branches high up and situated amongst smaller branches that would make noise if anyone tried to climb my way.

Suspended away from prying eyes, I adjusted my clothing. My bodice was too tight for me to loosen my corset underneath, and I had reached a breaking point of agony. I ripped it down the middle and pulled at the laces of the infernal undergarment. The ability to draw long, deep breaths was a liberty I had taken for granted.

“Nobody is to bother Clikk or Molly tonight!” ordered Dirk. “Save it for the brothels in Nelise.”

His warning didn’t make me feel any safer, but as I fell asleep that night, I didn’t care what happened to me. The prince and princess were alive, and their cause gained strength with every brother we found. The sounds of the forest after dark, the wolf howls and cri-cri, were louder than I expected, but something about the crackling of fire and the soft voices of men put my nerves at ease. Their flame and our numbers would keep most predators away.

Baker was still up, regaling a few sleepless mates with the story of how he and Fitz stole the witch’s copter. I couldn’t help but listen. In fact I longed to join them, but part of me knew I didn’t belong sitting at that campfire with their lot. They would only laugh at how funny it was to finally know why Clikk was such a loner, never pissed in front of others or took his shirt off to sunbathe at dawn.

“So to board her, Fitz and I climb down the hull of the Wastrel and grapple onto the bottom. We go peeking into windows until we find one with only a single guard posted. I crack it open with my dagger, Fitz leaps through, and he chokes the guard out from behind, fells him like nothing. But as soon as I hop in, another guard comes in. He charges me, and the bloody oaf lands himself right on my dagger!”

The men laughed and Baker shushed them down to a chuckle.

“I never thought that could actually happen. Anyways, we take their uniforms and guns and go moving about the ship, stealing every alarm bell we can find and amassing a collection in a utility closet. An officer approaches us in the hall and asks us to investigate some noise heard by one of the maids, so we head into this room with a red door, and inside are three women all tied up, one of whom has all her hairpins pilfered. Immediately, we know this is Clikk’s handiwork.

“We return to our superior officer and Fitz contrives some story about the bride having wedding jitters. The officer informs us that the bride is supposed to be in the blue room and that we must escort her out of the red at once. With this information, we proceed to the blue room. There, waiting patiently, is the little princess in her wedding gown. That’s when Fitz gets his great idea. He actually fits into the dress.”

The men roared with laughter and then quieted themselves as some of the restless sleepers cursed down at them. “Shut up, you wankers!”

“Is Fitz a woman too?” whispered Jasper.

“No,” laughed Baker. “At least I don’t think he is. Anyway, while Fitz and Molly change their clothing, I go to where the witch’s ship is being held. I rewire it and fly it around to the window of the blue room. The princess hops in and Fitz goes up to get married and greets the groom with a pair of pocket automatics.”