by S A Shaffer
Another few shots blasted the last of the door to bits. Francisco groaned as he fastened the restraints around his shoulders. Together he and David walked onto the balcony, where Havoc crouched with a wild expression in his eyes. David picked the panther up and tossed him over.
“Perhaps he won’t come back after that.” David said with a nod.
He and Francisco straddled the railing. He heard men forcing their way into the room behind him and saw the gunships swoop in front of the balcony and swivel their chain guns toward them.
“Lad,” Francisco said as he gripped David’s hand. “You’ve done well by me.
David smiled. “On the count of three, then. One… Two… Three!”
Together they jumped and sored far out into the expanse. Time slowed down as it always did whenever David courted death. He saw the gunships try to follow their decent, but they couldn’t maneuver in time, and as David fell, he could see the ships growing smaller in the sunlight. He heard Francisco fire off a few more shots with his repeater—good shots that brought a guard down from the railing. Francisco didn’t seem to fear death as long as he met it with a gun in his hand, a cry in his throat, and enemies at his feet.
Together, he and Francisco left their pursuers behind. They fell beneath the lowest platforms of the alpine resort, and as they fell, the light of the golden days dimmed. They fell further and further until the tree foliage disappeared and only stout trunks remained. The forest floor materialized out of shadow into a variety of greens and yellows. It wasn’t until David could distinguish the algae-covered bogs from the moss-covered dirt that Francisco inflated their life balloon. David felt a jerk as the rope around his torso pulled taut. It’s tension drove the air from his lungs, and he found himself gasping for breath. Yet, they still fell at an alarming rate. At this speed they’d hit the ground and remain alive just long enough to experience the excruciating pain of breaking every single one of their bones. He knew what he had to do. He wouldn’t be responsible for crippling another person in order to prolong his own life. If he cut himself loose, he would die, but Francisco would live. He gritted his teeth in determination and reached for the knife he’d hidden away in his sleeve.
FEEDING THE ANIMALS
David rummaged around in his sleeve, but the knife wasn’t there. The jerk of the rope had knocked it free. He pulled on the rope as they fell, and the ground grew closer. He dug his fingers into the knot, but it had tightened considerably with the tension. He could have loosened it if he had had more time. He even tried biting it, but it was no use. The ground raced toward them, and they fell precariously close beside the trunk of Big Stanley.
“David!” Francisco called. “What are you doing with that rope? Let it be.”
David looked around in frustration and felt the same hopelessness he’d felt all those cycles ago. Memories flooded his mind and brought the taste of bile to his mouth. This time, it was him trying to sacrifice his life for another. He despised the injustice of the whole situation. How many people had to die while Blythe, a murdering scoundrel, sat in peace? Was there no justice in all the Fertile Plains? Was there no Maker at all who cared?
David screamed as his anger got the better of him. He reached out with his ebony arm and dug it into the side of Big Stanley. It sank deep into the bark and jarred his shoulder. He felt the heat of the friction on his face and saw woodchips and splinters in their wake. He dug his fingers in with all his might until they were only a few short fathoms from the ground. Then his hand broke away from the tree, and the motion swung him and Francisco away from the trunk. David braced for the impact, gritting his teeth against the pain of breaking his legs. But the pain never came. Instead an entirely different sensation flooded his senses. Chilled water washed over him and rushed up his nose.
David sat up and spit some algae out of his mouth. A second later, Francisco sat up beside him and coughed. David looked around in shock. His mind reeled as he deliberated on how he still lived. They had landed in a bog. Until their disruption, its green surface was indistinguishable from the rest of the forest floor. As he looked, he saw the long gash he’d made down the side of Big Stanley. He held his Ebony hand in front of his face and wiggled its fingers. It looked as shiny as the day he’d first gotten it. Then he and Francisco looked at each other and uttered a nervous laugh, which grew to a roar bordering on manic. Together they waded to the side of the bog and pulled themselves up its slippery shoreline. David wiped some algae from his face and fiddled with the rope around his torso, but Francisco produced a knife and cut it for him.
“Hang on, that’s the knife I grabbed from the breakfast table.” David said. “How’d you get it?”
“Never mind that.” Francisco said and he handed the knife back to David. “You can have it back now that I know you won’t do anything stupid with it.”
David held the knife in his hand, and then looked back up at how far they’d dropped. Was it luck, or was it providence that he still lived?
“I’ll have that knife.” A girl said from a distance. “And I know exactly who I’ll stick with it.”
David looked over as Bethany stepped through some bushes. Her white robe was covered in green sludge to her mid-thigh, and her satin slippers were nowhere to be seen. Several twigs clung to her blond hair.
“You!” she said as soon as she saw David. “You tossed me off a balcony in not but my sunbathing clothes. Now I’m stuck in a forest without shoes!”
“Now that is a shame.” David said. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to live with myself.”
“Give me the knife.” Bethany said as she held out her hand. “Give it to me!”
But the sound of a gunship burner echoing through the tree canopy cut off the banter.
“Time to go.” Francisco said as he reloaded his repeater.
“To where?” David asked.
“To our skiff, lad. Where else?” Francisco jumped up from forest floor.
“You have a skiff down here?” David asked as he followed suit, ringing the water from his jacket.
“We had one hidden here in case of emergencies.” Francisco said. “I think this qualifies as an emergency.”
Francisco pulled back a branch of a succulent looking tree and jumped back as the head of a leatherwing filled the opening. It presented a double row of serrated teeth and emitted a hissing roar.
“Run!” Francisco said, and he led the way around the bog to the other side of Big Stanly.
Nobody needed to be told. David and Bethany raced after him. David heard large wings beating the air just behind them. All too well he remembered Hephnaire’s warning about disturbing a leatherwing’s nests. They ran through the low foliage of succulent and thorny bushes, staying just ahead of the deafening thud of the beating wings. Then Bethany screamed and stumbled on the ground. David had completely forgotten about her bare feet. He jumped back and dove over Bethany, hoping his body would weather the amphibious bird’s talons better than hers. He felt the rush of wind as something glided over, but then the sound of the creatures flapping grew distant as other roars echoed far behind them. David looked up and saw the beast soring back toward big Stanly, and after a moment of listening, he knew why. He heard the roar of chain gun fire and the screech of leatherwings protecting their nests.
“Come on!” David said. He lifted Bethany in his arms and ran toward Francisco, who had dropped into a gun stance.
“That is a very large flying salamander.” Francisco said.
“Well right now it’s buying us time.” David said. “Which way to the skiff.”
Francisco set out at a quick jog, and David ran alongside with Bethany in his arms. She didn’t say anything as he carried her, but with this new Bethany, silence spoke volumes.
The boglands were nothing like the ethereal treetops above them. Town sized trunks sprouted out of sodden soil. There wasn’t a single patch of bare dirt anywhere. If it wasn’t a tree trunk, then it was a bog, a bush, or a carpet of moss. David found the moss strang
est of all. Decades and perhaps centuries of growth had compounded into thick rolling blankets of greenery several feet thick. While ordinary moss grew only microscopic flowers, this moss displayed fist-sized buttercups that grew on thigh-high canes. They left a yellow smudge on anything that touched them. Dragonflies the size of birds darted around trees and bogs chasing disturbingly large mosquitos that David had trouble ignoring. Bethany swatted the beasts away as he followed in Francisco’s wake.
It didn’t take the gunships long to exterminate the nest of leatherwings. No sooner had the sound of the chain guns ceased, David heard the sound of men and hounds following their trail, and no matter how hard he ran, they continued to close the distance. He felt sweat pouring down his back from the exertion of carrying Bethany, despite her small stature. Finally, Francisco reached into the undergrowth and pulled up the corner of a moss encrusted tarp. He jerked the tarp and it slid off a Mark I Night Hawk, an older military skiff with an open cockpit.
“Nice.” David said as he set Bethany on her feet and checked over the skiff. “Somebody’s updated it a bit; removed the torpedo bay and added a seat—”
“David,” Bethany said as she climbed into the middle seat. “I want to go home. Could you talk about it while you fly?”
David nodded, remembering the hounds and men who were only minutes behind them.
He climbed into the front seat and started up the flight sequence.
“Fly south and east.” Francisco said, but as he climbed into the last seat, he bumped a large blue mushroom the size of a bolder. The top of the mushroom split open and released thousands of glowing seedpods that floated up like bubbles high into the forest shadows eliminated their way.
“Over there.” A voice said in the distance.
Without missing a beat, Bethany reached into a pouch beside her seat and pulled out a gas pistol. She fired three silent shots in quick succession. Two more explosions of glowing bubbles erupted in the distance.
“No, over here!” another voice said.
David looked at her with his mouth agape. “Nice.” He said once he found his voice.
“That should buy us some time.” She said. “Can we go now?”
David switched on the burner and flash heated the pontoons. As the skiff was not in standby, it took several minutes before they gained lift. Bethany’s ruse gave them enough time to get airborne. Only moments before the skiff was ready, a dark shape glided over the skiff and next to Bethany. David looked back and saw Havoc curling up on Bethany’s lap. Evidently Havoc didn’t mind being thrown off a balcony. As soon as his meters stabilized, he slammed the accelerator down, and they rocketed forward. As much as he wanted to superheat his balloon and leave the bogs, he remembered what he had seen when he awoke that morning. A cloudless sky full of gunships was no place for one little skiff. If they remained at low altitude and snuck out of Thornton unseen, they might have a chance. But that chance shattered when a few shots followed them and reverberated through the tree trunks.
David banked around the next tree and had to swerve to miss a gunship on its opposite side. Evidently, they’d sent out patrols. He cut around another tree and checked his mirrors. Two gunships pursued them and, no doubt, signaled the others. He heard the whirr of a chain gun and veered around a tree just as the gun started spitting bullets. They thudded into the tree behind them, and David saw chunks of wood flying through the air in his mirrors. He increased his speed and started zigzagging around the everpine trunks, always keeping a tree between his ship and the angry gunship.
As David banked around a tree, another gunship tried to cut them off. David dove under it and felt the breeze of its passing in his hair. Bethany screamed. The bottom of their skiff passed so close to the ground, and they left a yellow trail of dust where they’d brushed through the moss buttercups. Strictly speaking their skiff was faster and more agile than the gunships, but as more and more airships joined the fight, speed and agility seemed irrelevant. Chain guns ripped through the forest and carved great swaths of destruction.
Presently, David heard Francisco firing his repeater.
“Their armor’s too thick for that.” David shouted over the rush of wind.
“Well I’m too far away to spit on them so it will have to do.” Francisco shouted back and then he unloaded on the closest gunship.
Tracer rounds passed nearer and nearer, even finding purchase in their pontoons. The aerosol sealant did its work, filling the wholes and repressurizing the pontoon, but each whizzing bullet reminded David of their peril.
All at once, David cut around an everpine and the forest opened up into a larger bog than the rest, more of a small lake. He veered back towards the shore and the cover the trees provided when Bethany screamed another cry of terror. A thick globular tongue shot over the skiff and slammed into the tree beside them. Veins and pimples the size of autumn melons speckled the slimy, skiff wide tongue. David heard tree bark crunch and the force of the impact sent a shiver down his spine. He followed the long knobby tongue with viscous dripping saliva back to its source and looked into a gaping orifice in the middle of the bog. Milliseconds later he saw the tongue retract in his mirrors and snap back into a maw with lightning speed. As the mouth snapped shut, he watched a veritable hill roll under the algae-covered waters leaving two bulbous eyes with horned lids bobbing along the surface.
David grunted. “So that’s what they look like.”
But just before he swerved back into the forest, he saw more and more of the Colossus Horned Toads surface and spurt their tongues at gunships. Two found their marks and caved in the sides of the airships sending them spinning into the water. The sight gave David an idea.
As they passed over dry ground, David gritted his teeth and turned hard around an everpine along the lakeshore. The sharp turn pressed him into his seat, doubling his weight. As he looped around it, he sighted a gunship in front of him, and for the first time in the chase, he unloaded his military grade chain guns and cut the gunship to pieces. Then he pressed the throttle all the way down and raced across the lake at full speed. A few gunships foolishly followed.
At full speed, his small skiff was two quick for the colossus toads to catch. A few tried, but their tongues grasped empty air. The gunships were not so lucky. They were battered to bits. One of the larger beasts snagged a gunship with its tongue and then leapt its entire mass out of the water and retracted the bow of the ship back into his mouth.
David used those precious moments the toads provided to break free of his pursuers and race into the shadows of the forest on the far side of the lake. He didn’t let up on the throttle, despite the danger, not when they finally had the lead they needed to make their escape. He only slowed down an hour later when his reflexes dulled, and he brushed the side of a tree with his pontoon. His hair and shirt stunk of sweat, and his seat squeaked with the slime of it. Thirty minutes later, the trees seemed smaller. Another thirty minutes and they were sparsely populated.
“Stay close to the ground.” Francisco said.
“But why?” David asked. “We don’t want to get caught down here.”
“Trust me. Stay close to the ground for another few grandfathoms and then follow the fisher.”
David nodded, understanding now. The Trans-house Fisher ran from Thornton to Huntington. One narrow crack followed the base of the mountains weaving through the countryside. It was too narrow for any gunship to fly within, but a skiff ought to fit just fine. If by chance, anyone still patrolled the skies above or followed behind, they would never see them in the chasm. A moment later and they weaved through the smooth fisher at a relaxing pace.
“How far should we follow it?” David asked.
“Until we reach the Hopkins border.” Francisco replied.
They traveled like that for the rest of the day, only venturing above the fisher to avoid a waterfall or narrow portion. Depression settled on David like a cloud as he realized the implications of their detection. There was little, if any, chance they m
ight have of unseating Blythe or uncovering what the man had planned. Nobody spoke the whole way. They climbed into the twilight sky as soon as they saw the tell tail House Hopkins plains. Though, the moment David pointed them toward the yawning stars, he spotted the glint of an airship high in the sky catching the last glimmers of daylight.
“There’s an airship up there.” David called back to Francisco. “A big one.”
“That’s where we’re headed.” Francisco said. “That’s Mit.”
David nodded and accelerated their ascent. As they neared, the airship grew larger, far larger than any ordinary airship. When the sun faded, lights illuminated along the sides of its envelope like stitches along the exterior. David tried to count the lights in order to estimate the ship’s size, but he lost count every time he adjusted his skiff’s course. Four bays lined its underbelly, and each looked large enough to carry 30 skiffs. David only knew of two Alönian airships this size, and one of them was still under construction. This ship could be none other than The Valor, built as an Alönian supercarrier, but sold off to a private citizen when Blythe cut the Armada’s funding. There were only a handful of citizens who could afford such a jewel, and David knew precisely who purchased this one. He gulped and wondered if he’d made a deal with the devil, again.
SILENCE IS BROKEN
The second bay door opened and admitted David’s skiff passage into the carrier’s immense belly. There was only one vacant skiff dock in the whole bay. Shiny new Mark 2 Nigh Hawks lined the bay armed with their torpedoes and looking ready to launch at a moment’s notice. David waited until he felt the docking clamps fasten onto his skiff. Only then did he loosen his vice grip on the controls and let his head lean back against the seat rest. Fatigue rushed into his limbs as the adrenaline receded, but he wasn’t ready to give in to his exhaustion just yet, not when he sat in the belly of the beast.
