by C. M. Hayden
Taro felt a sharp jolt in his chest. Kyra was down there.
Despite the burning pain in his shoulder, and his loosened prosthetic, Taro hurried to one of the hatches and slid down the ladder to the lower decks. The inside was hot like an oven, and smoke and fire filled the corridors. Every time he turned a hall, a wall of flames forced him to take a different route. The men below were as professional as ever, considering the circumstances. Orders were shouted, fires were dowsed, but there was a palpable panic. They knew the ship was descending dangerously fast.
The door to the engine room was blocked off by several broken pipes, each spewing noxious gas and steam that could melt the skin off one’s bones. Moving carefully, Taro crawled underneath, his leg grazing the hot metal of a pipe, causing him to scream. It melted his pantleg and seared a red line of pain down his thigh, but somehow, he made it to the other side.
Kyra was the only one inside, the two other engineers having been killed by falling debris. She twisted knobs and valves, running from place to place trying to keep the ship from falling apart.
The door to the boiler had blown off its hinges, and steam was hissing out of the chamber.
“Taro!” Kyra shouted upon seeing him. “What’s going on with the helm?”
“It’s gone,” Taro said. “Burnt to ash.”
Kyra checked the cracked altimeter, not taking her hands off one of the stabilizers. She pointed to a smaller helm-like wheel nearby. It was spinning hard, and Taro knew before she spoke that she wanted him to take it. It was moving so quickly when Taro grabbed it, that he almost broke his wrists trying to hold on. Using all the templar he could, he managed to hold it still. The Eventide jerked again, and from the porthole nearby Taro could see that the ship was nearly sideways.
“We need to tilt her back up,” Taro shouted, struggling against the immense force of the secondary helm. He knew that if he lost control of it now, he wouldn’t be able to grab hold again without breaking every bone in his hands.
“Working on it,” Kyra said, struggling against the controls.
She worked fast, seeming disoriented by the extreme drop in altitude. Even this far into the belly of the ship, Craetos’ roars sent a chill through Taro’s body. He could tell how close the monster was, and suddenly the metal and wood of the engine room’s outer wall bent inward, followed by a sound like cracking timber. A set of dragon claws sunk into the side of the ship and ripped the hull away, leaving the engine room exposed to the elements.
The force of the suction almost ripped Taro out into the open air, but both he and Kyra held firm.
“Five hundred feet!” Kyra shouted. “You need to level her out laterally.”
Taro strained against the helm. “How do I do that?”
“The lever on your right controls the pitch, move it fourteen degrees up, until the red lines touch.”
“I can’t hold this wheel with one arm, can you get the lever?” Taro shouted.
“If I let go of these controls, the boiler will explode. You have to do it,” she said. When Taro didn’t immediately respond, she added, “Three hundred feet!”
Taro let go with his right hand and moved the pitch lever upward. His right hand buckled under the wheel, and it moved several inches downward before he was able to stop it. Whereas the helm above deck had been ornamental wood, this one was solid steel. Even so, the handles on it began to bend and buckle under the stress. The steel pins loosened, and the welds seemed like they’d pop under the immense force.
Through it all, however, the ship did stabilize. With it upright, Kyra pulled a hand crank near her and extended what was left of the drive fins. “Two hundred feet,” she said, her voice touching the outer edges of relief.
The ship rumbled again, as if another section of hull had been ripped away.
“One hundred feet,” she said.
Together, she and Taro held the ship steady, and it glided over the valley below, kicking up rocks and dust and leaving a trail of fire and smoke through Caelis Enor.
“Fifty feet,” Kyra said, bracing herself. The pine trees outside the hole in the hull seemed so close, Taro could’ve reached out and touched them. There were mountains and rocky terrain not far off, and he could only pray that the ship didn’t crash into the side of a cliff.
Moments later, the ship struck the ground. Taro was thrown from the helm, and Kyra from the controls. The boiler exploded, the walls buckled, and what was left of the Eventide careened into a forest of pine trees.
Chapter Twelve
Survivors
Fire and smoke filled Taro’s vision. The smoke burned his eyes, choked him, and sent him into a coughing fit. His wits were addled, and it took him a moment to realize where he was. The room flickered with the red and yellow glow of flames, some frighteningly close.
He did a quick check of his body. He had welts going up his side, his shoulder was burnt, parts of his uniform were in tatters, and more than one of his fingers felt as though he’d sprained them. Nevertheless, he was whole. He felt his prosthetic and, thankfully, that too was in one piece.
He rolled onto his side, the act sending a spike of pain through his shoulder. Through the smoke and ash, he searched for Kyra until he spotted her small, ragged figure leaning against one of the engine pylons. She wasn’t moving.
Taro forced himself onto his stomach and dragged his body toward her. It was only ten feet or so, but it was made all the worse by the choking smoke and falling debris. He found the strength to get to his knees and wobbled to his feet, supported by an overturned bulkhead. He retrieved his walking stick, and staggered to Kyra’s side, touching her on the shoulder.
“Kyra?” he whispered, jostling her lightly. He was happy to see she was in one piece, but he knew they were still in danger. The fire was extensive, and the Eventide was quickly turning into a furnace. The steel girders warped and leaned; eventually the ship would cave-in on itself.
“Stay with me,” he said to her, wiping sweat from his face.
Kyra’s eyes cracked open, and she seemed like she wanted to speak but couldn’t quite muster the strength. The ceiling above them creaked and buckled, and Taro knew he had to get them out. He tucked his walking stick parallel to her, and placed one hand behind her back, one under her shoulder, and heaved.
She wasn’t particularly heavy, but between the strap on his prosthetic that he’d lost earlier, his burned shoulder, and still being shell-shocked from the crash, dragging her out of the ship was no easy feat. Coughing and wheezing on lungfuls of acrid smoke, Taro forced himself to move. It wasn’t a moment too soon, as the second his foot touched the soft forest grass outside, he heard the overhead beams in the engine room collapse.
The Eventide had crashed in the foothills of Caelis Enor, the evergreen lands of the dragon broods. Under normal circumstances it would’ve been quite beautiful. The forest they’d crashed in was nothing but sturdy cedar, spruce, and redwood trees dusted with a light speckling of snow on the tops. The forest floor was covered in old pine needles alongside fallen branches and twigs. The forest was ancient, and possibly untouched by mankind.
The Eventide had carved a mile-long black scar through the countryside, cracking the bases of thousand-year-old trees like toothpicks, and incinerating huge amounts of foliage and greenery. Taro dropped to his knees, letting Kyra fall out on the grass in front of him, and took several hard breaths of clean, crisp air. His hands clenched at the wet grass and pine needles, squeezing them between his fingers as he tried to pull himself together.
He was alive. Kyra was alive. That was no small miracle. But what about the others? After a moment of rest, Taro searched the perimeter of the wreckage. Debris littered the forest, girders were lodged inside of trees, gear fragments were broken against rocks, and burning planks lay scattered like leaves around the ship’s fuselage.
Goi
ng back inside the Eventide to look for survivors was not an option. What was left of the hull had collapsed into a fiery mass, crumpled like a piece of thrown-away paper. Men scattered around the immediate area, most having just pulled themselves free of the wreckage. Taro checked them all.
Four warders were dead before he’d gotten to them, either from the crash, the fire, or a combination thereof. Two were still on fire, and he hurried to put them out. The burns they’d sustained were severe, and whether or not they’d survive was impossible to know. Five had limbs broken, some mangled in horrible ways. The ten or so who were largely unharmed helped Taro tend the wounded.
Taro found Lord Cassin near what was left of the starboard turbine. His gray hair was singed black, and his face was bloody. The burns on his arms were mostly on his sleeves, but a piece of debris had struck his face and taken out his left eye. He was awake, however, and conscious as some of his crewmen were pulling him away from the ship.
Fenn managed to survive, too, and even clutched Craetos’ journal in his arms as though it was more precious to him than his own life.
Who knew how many had been thrown from the ship during the crash itself? At Taro’s estimation, twenty-four had survived, out of a crew of fifty. Nearly half of everyone who set out with them from Endra Edûn was dead. Taro knew it was a blessing, maybe even a miracle, that they hadn’t all been killed. This thought brought him no comfort.
Taro cupped his hand over his eyes, staring up at the sky for a sign of Craetos, but the monster had flown off. He had more questions about the situation than he knew what to do with, but for now they’d have to wait. The survivors needed help, and the dead needed to be buried.
Chapter Thirteen
The Search
“Can you help him?” Taro asked as he and Kyra leaned over one of the injured crewmen. He was a warder, no more than twenty years old, who had his right ear and a large portion of his face and hair burned away.
All the bandages and medical supplies were lost in the smoldering wreckage of the Eventide, leaving them severely underequipped to handle the wounded.
Despite losing his eye, Lord Cassin seemed more concerned with the wellbeing of his men than his own pains. He tore a strip of cloth from the hem of his shirt, wrapped it around his bleeding eye with a tight knot, and went to work. With a somber, methodical efficiency, Lord Cassin and his men fetched water from a nearby stream, and cannibalized what clothing they could to bandage the wounded. After several hours, those injured were as well-off as they could be without proper medicine.
Three hours later, Taro found Kyra and Lord Cassin up the side of a small rock face, talking with raised voices.
“We need to get back to Endra Edûn,” Kyra said forcefully. She’d made it out of the whole ordeal with just a bruised face and a cracked rib.
“It’s two thousand miles, we can’t walk it,” Cassin said sharply, then paused for a good long moment. “To be honest, most of these men wouldn’t survive even a short trip. We shouldn’t move them.”
Taro joined their conversation. “Did we save any rations?” he asked, hobbling toward them on his slightly burned walking stick. His own wounds ached, but considering the condition some of the other men were, he didn’t even consider wasting breath talking about his own injuries.
“Almost nothing,” Lord Cassin said bitterly. “When the fires die down, we’ll see if anything survived, but I don’t have much hope for it.”
Kyra looked incredulous. “I don’t mean to disregard the wounded, really. But can we talk about what just happened? Did you see that thing?”
“We all saw it,” Taro said, stone-faced.
“We have to warn my father,” Kyra said. “The Eventide’s cannons couldn’t scratch it. If it gets anywhere near the capital, they’ll have no chance.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that right now,” Lord Cassin said, licking his dry lips and putting some pressure on his still-bleeding eye. “First things first, we need to scout for food and shelter.”
“I don’t agree,” Taro said. “No amount of food or shelter is going to help the wounded. We need to find a town, or get to Castiana on foot.”
Cassin shook his head. “We can’t all go—”
“Not all of us,” Taro interrupted. “Me, Kyra, and Fenn are mostly unharmed. We’ll go ahead to try to find a small village. Or maybe we’re not so far from Castiana.”
“It’s possible...” Kyra said. “Hard to tell. We only really have a vague idea of where the dragon city is...”
Lord Cassin grimaced. “We’ll do that after we get settled.”
“No,” Kyra said firmly. “Taro’s right. We’ll leave at first light.”
Lord Cassin gave her an incredulous look, as if he weren’t used to his orders being questioned. “My decision is final on this, young lady. I’m in charge of this crew.”
Kyra glanced at the burning wreckage of the Eventide. “I’m the ranking officer, here, Uncle. You know that. Stay here with your men, but my first priority is to warn Endra of that…creature. If we find help, we’ll send it back as soon as we can.”
Cassin looked as though he wanted to object, but eventually relented. Kyra was a magister, which marked her as the highest class of officer, and as the Sun King’s heiress apparent, she was higher on the court ladder than even the Sun King’s brother.
There was also the fact that she was right; and while she didn’t say it, the fact of the matter was that warning Endra about Craetos was more important than the lives of a few warders. It was a horrible thought, and not the kind of thing you gave words to, but the destruction Craetos could bring on Endra Edûn was unimaginable.
If it was really under the control of Vexis, as Arangathras had said, then that made it even more dangerous.
Taro got little sleep that night. It was a reoccurring event for him these days, and he’d learned to function on minimal sleep. From the looks on Kyra and Fenn’s faces, they had, too. Still, they were fortunate. They were still breathing.
The trio took as few supplies as they could, hoping to leave the wounded with the lion’s share of what meager supplies were salvaged from the Eventide. They’d have to find food and shelter as they went.
As they set off from the wreckage, Kyra looked back at her uncle, but said nothing.
“A thought,” Fenn said as they hiked through the forest, pine needles crunching underfoot. “They say Castiana is a flying city, right?”
Taro glanced sideways, clutching his walking stick. “That’s what they say.”
“So, even if we manage to get there, how do we ‘get there,’ if you know what I mean?”
It was the earliest hours of dawn, just a breath away from twilight and darkness. The stars were still out, beaming through the dim sky. The sunrise to the east was very bright, but the air around them was cool. Should he have wished it, Taro could’ve warmed himself with his templar, but he was already weak, hungry, tired, and there was no telling how long it would be before they came across food. Templar was a resource he couldn’t afford to use.
Taro shrugged. “We’ll just have to figure it out when we get there. There has to be some way up, right?”
Fenn scoffed, his breath showing in white puffs of smoke. “Sure there is, just learn to fly.”
Taro pointed his thumb backward. “You’re welcome to wait back with the others.”
Without even a moment’s hesitation, Fenn stopped walking and started back. Kyra pushed Taro against the arm, then forcefully pulled Fenn along.
“No, he’s not,” Kyra ordered. “He’s staying with us.”
Fenn groaned. “And why’s that?”
She tapped her forehead with a finger. “You’re our map.”
Fenn gave her a look of profound annoyance. “That’s why you’re dragging me along? I don’t even know where we are
. We could be anywhere in Caelis Enor.”
“Give us your best guess,” Kyra said.
Fenn shrugged. “North,” he said petulantly.
Taro rolled his eyes. “Thanks, that’s really helpful.”
“I’m not a navigator. You should’ve dragged your uncle along,” Fenn said to Kyra.
“He’d never abandon his men,” Kyra said. “We need to come through for them. Please, Fenn, do your best.”
Fenn’s expression softened, and he seemed to understand the gravity of their situation. They were thousands of miles from home, in a foreign land, with absolutely no way to contact help.
Fenn looked into the distance and pointed at a small mountain covered in trees. “We’ll climb to the summit and get a better view of the countryside. Maybe we’ll be able to see the city from there.”
Despite the mountain seeming relatively close, it took six hours to hike there. Partly because of the distance, partly because of their injuries, and partly because of Fenn’s incessant complaining. At one point, he picked a few tree nuts off a gray oak, only for Kyra to snatch them away.
“Those are mine,” he said, trying to grab them back.
Kyra smelled them and frowned. “They’re juna nuts.”
“Poison,” Taro said.
“Did you forget Antherion’s lessons already?” Kyra chided. “Or did you just skip all those botany books in the Librarium?”
Instead of thanking her for saving him from seven hours of stomach pains, Fenn just groaned. “I swear, at least we had food on our magister’s trial. I feel sick.”
“Not eating isn’t what’s making you sick,” Taro said, then made a drinking motion with his hands.
“I admit a drink would go a long way in improving my mood. Got any hiding in that bum leg of yours?” Fenn said with a mean-spirited smirk.
