by Devin Hanson
Devin Hanson
Rune Scale is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The world of Rune Scale is not Earth. Resemblances and words used to describe flora and fauna are translations used to make it easier for the reader to relate. Mention of a chicken doesn't literally mean a chicken, rather it indicates a domesticated animal of some sort with features and uses similar to that of a terrestrial chicken. Since the story doesn't depend on the chicken-ness of the chickens, the author decided to just call it a chicken.
Copyright © 2016 by Devin Hanson
All Rights Reserved.
Map design by Nolan Pitler
Thanks go to my wife, without whom this book would never have been possible.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Glossary
Chapter 1
To claim the skies
The setting sun cast the sky in a deep orange that faded to blue then finally to black in the east. Towering clouds to the north foretold an unseasonably late storm. Far to the south, mountain peaks forced their way through the haze surrounding a coal-burning city.
A fleet of airships prowled in a wide, lazy circle, high above the cloud layer, the five ships flying a star formation to keep the firing lanes open. Each airship was held aloft by a pair of torpedo-shaped balloons spaced in an equilateral triangle with the gondola supported beneath. Massive steam-driven props pushed the airships through the aether, gliding along at a steady twenty knots against the headwind.
The flagship, the Belathon, pride of the King's fleet, led the pack. Where the other airships were large, even for an airship, with the gondolas measuring a full fifty meters from bowsprit to stern gun, the Belathon was a monster in comparison, nearly eighty meters. It had two tiers of cannon on its main deck and four mounted on the stern. It was a warship from blueprint to launch, not a converted merchanter like the others. There wasn't a screw or a cog in the whole ship that didn't have a purpose expressly devoted to war.
The fleet was the first of its kind, a dragon hunting expedition. The Belathon was designed from the keel up to claim dominance of the skies from the age-old threat of the dragons. There weren't many dragons left, not like stories of the old days, when the sky darkened with leather wings. But there were enough to make flight after dark a bet against a stacked deck. Airships were snugged down safe in their berths before the sun set or they were lost as surely as if the captain had rammed them deliberately into a mountain cliff.
Such was the fate of man, forever hiding beneath the ground or in heavily fortified stone buildings, cowering in fear of the night and the winged death that roamed the skies. Dragons had little interest in crops or fields but would decimate a herd left in the open after the sun set. Even travelers on the road had to be wary and camp beneath heavy tree cover and not have a fire burning once the sun set.
And even then, the sun was scant protection from the dragons. They seemed to prefer to come out and do their hunting at night but that was no guarantee that a dragon wouldn't decide to attack a herd of sheep in the middle of the day, or crash down during market day and slaughter dozens of people before taking to the skies once more.
The Belathon and the fleet were the answer. On this maiden voyage, the fleet of airships would demand respect from the dragons and lay claim to the skies over the Kingdom of Salia. No more would King Delran be trapped at night while his subjects were terrorized and hunted. No more would man restrict his travel to the day. No more would farmers away from the meager protection of cities fear to gather in groups of more than a few dozen.
No more. The Belathon and the fleet would drive the dragons back. They were welcome to their mountains and their lands to the far north, but in this land, at this time, dragons were no longer welcome. Above Ardhal, the city that gave birth to the Belathon, the fleet held their position and would show the dragons that this land belonged to man.
For Andrew Condign, the Belathon was more than just a ship. It was a symbol, a masterpiece of human technology. It screamed power. It declared to all who saw it that humanity was destined to be the unequivocal owners of the sky. He was fifteen years old, the patchy scruff of his beard just coming in, his sandy brown hair blew in the wind as he leaned on the rail of the Caerwin with a spyglass rammed into his eye socket. He swept the glass over the flagship one more time, admired the bulges the twin boilers made in the hull, both streamlined balloons gleaming with overlapping plates of airon armor, then, chastising himself, focused on the horizon like he was supposed to.
Andrew felt his gut clench. Distracted by the glory of the Belathon, he had allowed himself to forget why they were up in the sky. With the sun setting, no less! He swept his quadrant again, looking for that flicker of movement, always expected, but not yet seen. His eyes stung and he pulled the glass away to wipe the sweat from his forehead. A quick glance back at the chronometer confirmed that his shift still had an hour left. An hour of tense searching, an hour of straining to see something that he hoped with every fiber of his being would not show.
A tiny change on the horizon caught his attention and he snapped the glass back up, but it was only a cloud riding a momentary updraft. Andrew drew a deep breath and let it out. The tension was making him see things that weren't there. As he watched, the last harsh sliver of sun winked out, leaving only the salmon glow of the western sky.
"Light lanterns!" Ambrose, Captain of the Caerwin roared from the quarterdeck and Andrew dug a match from his vest pocket and hurried to light the three swamplight lanterns that were his responsibility. The momentary break from scanning the horizon was a welcome change, even if it meant the danger they were in was increasing dramatically. With the sun down, darkness settled over the ships with startling rapidity. With no clouds above to reflect the sun's light from over the horizon, the sunset leached to star-studded blackness in a matter of seconds.
Andrew lit the pilot light of the first lantern and carefully turned up the gas flow until the bank of emitters caught with a rush of igniting gas. He swung the lensed glass faceplate down and cranked the gas up until the knob hit the stop at maximum. Enclosed within the ignition chamber, the roaring flames sounded muffled and the brilliant light shone through the lens, burning a cone of yellow out into the gathering darkness, bright enough to reflect off the cloud layer far below. He lit the other two lanterns under his care and made his way back to the rail.
The twin moons had yet to rise, this being early in the lunar cycle, when both moons stacked on top of each other and Maeis eclipsed Romeda. For the next half hour or so, the only light would be from the feeble stars and their own lanterns.
Timothy, part of Andrew's cannon team, joined Andrew at the rail and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning out into the growing darkness. "I really don't like this."
Andrew shrugged, his shoulders feeling pinched in the standard-issue jacket. "It's not any worse than fighting pirates." His words rang hollow, and Timothy's snort told what he thought of that.
"What do you know of fighting pirates, kid?" Timothy laughed.
Andrew flushed and shrugged. He was big for his age, a full six and a half feet with broad shoulders, though his weight had yet to fill in. "I've been training to fight pirates since I was old enough to lift a sword," Andrew shot back. He had never killed a pirate, had never even been in a real fight, and the minor detail that he wasn't wearing a sword, and, in fact, wouldn't be issued one until he reached officer status he carefully didn't bring up. Being the son of a merchanter, he had gone through self-defense classes and trained for months with a swordmaster in preparation for the inevitable bandits trying to steal his cargo. The swordmaster had praised him, writing in the letter home to his parents that he "had promising instincts and would grow into a fine swordsman."
"This is the last place I want to be tonight," a stocky dark-haired gunner called over. "We should be at home, where it's safe."
"We all volunteered," Andrew pointed out. "In fact, my parents were quite proud to pay for my commission-"
"Maybe you did, Condign," Timothy said grimly. "Some of us didn't have the option."
"Yeah," the gunner added, "Bain't all us rich tossas, hah! Me, I'll take the chance to die out in the air on me own trotters, what. Coughin' meself to the grave in the dark ain't no way for a proper man to go."
Andrew frowned and opened his mouth, but a red flare burst from the stern of the Belathon, a rising star that cast its ruddy glow over the fleet and drew the attention of the men gathered around the lantern.
"Still the engines!" Captain Ambrose yelled and with a heavy clunk, the steam pistons powering the propellers disengaged, plunging the convoy into silence, broken only by the whisper of wind through the rigging and the hiss of swamplight lanterns.
"Dragon!" someone screamed from an airship across the formation, and suddenly the air was filled with the leathery flap of giant wings. In the near-total darkness, Andrew felt more than saw a giant shadow pass overhead then was buffeted by a downward rush of air smelling of burnt cinnamon.
Dragon! Andrew's heart skipped a beat and a wash of primal terror swept over him. The smell and the sound of the wings crushed his spirit as thousands of years of inbred terror fought for control of his mind. He needed to get underground! Now! Night was the territory of the dragons, and humans had to be far, far underground by the time night fell. To be up in the air, at night, was madness!
"Hold your ground, you little polyps!" Ambrose's coarse voice rose above the mewling Andrew hadn't realized he was making. "Are you men? Or rats to hide in the bilge!"
With a conscious effort, Andrew struggled to his feet. He hadn't remembered falling into a fetal position. An explosion shook the night, a great orange fireball launching skyward as one of the airships lost a balloon and the gasses inside it ignited. Only the flagship had armored balloons and the dragon had recognized the weakness. For a few seconds, Andrew could see the fleet about him clear as day and the dragon above swooping toward the Belathon. Then darkness crashed back down and his night vision, totally ruined by the explosion, showed him nothing but the after-image of a rising mushroom cloud.
With a crack, the Caerwin's spotlight ignited, stabbing a brilliant white beam of light into the sky. Andrew's eyes followed it in a daze as it swept around, searching for the swooping dragon. Whoever was guiding the light was as blind as Andrew was, and finding the dragon was just a random, desperate sweep. More spotlights from the other ships joined the search, stabbing out into the night.
The dragon roared, a basso trumpet so deep Andrew felt it through his bones more than he heard it. A sweeping searchlight flicked by Andrew and the blazing white light stabbed with almost physical impact into his eyes. Andrew cried out and threw up an arm instinctively, far too late.
A ripping, popping noise came from the Belathon, followed by a rising flight of flares. For a few seconds, the night was as bright as day and the dragon was plainly visible. Like iron filings to a lodestone, the searching spotlights snapped to the circling beast, illuminating it. It roared again, a deafening blast of sound, multi-toned and almost musical. Andrew found it beautiful, haunting, tugging at some long-forgotten heartstring. Then the dragon swept down on the stricken airship wallowing along with its gondola swinging crazily from its single remaining balloon.
The spotlights showed with clinical clarity the eruption of flame from the dragon's mouth and the palpable force of the fire slamming into the stern of the swinging gondola. Guy wires snapped with sharp retorts and flaming wood spun off in chunks and splinters. Screams filled the air as the crew of the airship slid off the suddenly tilted deck and dropped off into open space. The few with the presence of mind to grab onto something hung, paralyzed, watching in fear as the stern turned into a raging inferno.
The Belathon swung out of formation, turning its great broadside toward the dragon. The stern cannon was the first to fire, triggering a ripple of directed flame down the flank of the ship, followed by the shrieking howl of cannonballs.
"Arm the cannon!" Captain Ambrose screamed, his voice once again snapping Andrew back to the task at hand.
This was something Andrew was trained to do. Grasping the details of his training like a drowning man clings to a piece of driftwood, he stumbled across the deck to his assigned cannon and reached it the same time as the rest of his firing crew did. Wordlessly, he bent down to grasp the spokes of the charging screw and heaved upward, using his legs to apply enough force to get the heavy screw spinning.
Timothy, with Andrew facing off with him, caught the spokes as the wheel started to slow and dropped down, using his weight to keep the inertia going. By the time Andrew got back into position, the screw was slowing down again, and he repeated his upward heave. The two wound the screw out of the breech until it was over a meter out then the screw halted with a clang. Timothy bent down and grasped a low spoke then heaved upward like Andrew had at the beginning of the cycle, and Andrew complimented his effort by throwing his weight downward on his side of the wheel. Finally the screw clanged to a stop, and the two winders stepped back to let Joshua, the gunner, step into position.
The cannon was mounted on a gimbaled axis, letting Joshua track the dragon as it swooped across the sky, illuminated by the blinding white beams of the magnesium spotlights. With a grunt, Joshua jerked a lever and the cannon belched a long tongue of blue flame. The steel cannonball whistled as it vanished into the night, missing the dragon by a good dozen yards.
Joshua cursed. "Again!"
Andrew stepped up and bent down to grasp a low spoke and jerked upward, starting the charging cycle once again. As they worked the screw, Joshua stepped around to the front of the cannon and loaded a steel ball into muzzle, taking care not to step on the rubber hose bringing swampgas to the cannon's breech. Against pirates, the cannon would be firing a fused explosive charge, designed to detonate a fraction of a second after impact, inside the hull of the pirate rather than just blasting straight through. For combat against a dragon, it was decided penetrating power was needed more than explosive force, so the shot were solid iron.
As Andrew wound the screw back and forth, he tried to focus on his work but the dragon kept intruding on his awareness, sending fresh waves of fear through him and making his muscles weak. The screw would falter and Joshua's cries to hurry would spur him on again. His back was starting to burn and his legs throbbed. It felt like he had been spinning the wheel for a whole day rather than the mere minute since the dragon first struck.
The dragon circled relentlessly, always changing direction so their sporadic cannon fire always arrived a second too late. It swooped again on the ruin of its first target, blasting fire into the hull and igniting the stores of swampgas. With a shuddering boom, the gondola vanished in an inferno of blue flame lanced through with the ruddy oranges of wood fire. What remained of the airship dropped out of the sky in a billowing cloud of smoke.
On the dragon's next pass, it swooped so close to the flank of the Caerwin that the downblast from its w
ings knocked Andrew sprawling, his head swimming with cinnamon. He had enough time to marvel at the powerful legs tucked in close to the body, each finger ending in a claw longer than his arm. Dark scales glinted in the swamplight then Andrew was tumbling head over heels.
His world dissolved into burnt cinnamon and his head thwacked against the deck. Stars filled his darkening vision. From a distance, he heard voices calling his name. An arm was being tugged. Intellectually he knew the arm was his, but it seemed like he was watching from a distance as Timothy knelt over him, shaking his shoulders.
"Come on!" Timothy's voice sounded far away and stretched out. "I can't wind the cannon by myself!"
Andrew was on his feet somehow, heaving at the spinning wheel. His mouth was sour with the taste of bile. Had he thrown up? The screw clanged shut and Andrew staggered back, giving the gunner room to aim. His vision throbbed as waves of blackness tried to bury him in unconsciousness.
The dragon landed on the gondola of the Meremacht, the Caerwin's sister ship. Tinny screams from the deck of the Meremacht struggled to make themselves heard over the thunder of the pulse in Andrew's head.
"Fire! Shoot it!" Timothy screamed.
"I can't, I'll hit the Meremacht!"
Andrew leaned against a bulkhead, relief at not having to fight the cannon screw washing through his protesting muscles. He wiped sweat from his forehead and winced as the salt stung burst blisters on his palms. The dragon seemed so far away, someone else's problem, someone else's life. Someone else's ship.
This wasn't at all like fighting pirates.
The dragon ripped into the Meremacht, talons digging through the hardwood deck and ripping great tears as it thrashed about. The armored tail of the beast smashed through the wheelhouse of the Meremacht, sending the pilot flying into space and destroying the ballast controls. The dragon launched itself back into the air and the Meremacht started to list out of formation, smoke boiling out from a fissure in the deck, the cries of the crew lost under the howl of a steam engine tearing itself apart.
