The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1) (11 page)

26
Valkyrie

“I may have underestimated you, Mr.Nayward.”

Austerman had the helm, his stern face lit up by the dials and gauges of the
Windspear
's control panel. Kite guessed Clinker was on the liftship's deck. That was a stroke of luck. But luck never lasted long in this world...

“Land!” Kite demanded.

“Quite impossible, Mr.Nayward,” Austerman said, glancing at Kite's reflection in the black windows. “We are currently over the Scar - hardly a safe place to put down.”

Austerman took his right hand off the bronze-handled wheel and tapped a lever. Once. Twice. Deck lights flashed from the pilothouse roof, illuminating the wedge of the rain-slick deck and a mountain of purple-black thunderheads. A warning for Clinker.

Knowing he had only seconds Kite scanned the pilothouse for his gear. There. Shoved into a cubby near the rack of rolled-up charts. In another compartment was the leather bundle - the mechanikin.

“If you try anything,” Kite said, edging closer. “I'll smash the corpusant. I'll sink the Windspear.”

The storm lit up with tentacles of lightning. Thunder rattled the pilothouse window frames.

“I very much doubt that, Mr.Nayward,” Austerman said. “The fact that you spared a man's life - a man who stole from you - tells me that you are not the killing kind.”

“I'll make an exception for a Weatheren spy,” Kite growled,  approaching the cubby.

Austerman chuckled. “A Weatheren spy? Is that what you think I am?” he said.

A voice burst from the radio set. “Windspear, this is Frostbite, over!”

Another Weatheren voice. Austerman frowned at the receiver, then again at Kite's reflection.

“Windspear, respond, over,” the message repeated.

Austerman swore and snatched receiver.

Seizing his chance Kite grabbed his gear from the cubby and clattered out of the pilothouse door and into a bruising wind. Lightning arced overhead, illuminating a seething sea of clouds and spearing rain.

Boots clanged on the metal steps beneath him. Clinker. His sou'wester and poncho slick with rain. Kite swung the corpusant. “Stay back!” he shouted.

“Watch what you're doing with that thing, lad!” Clinker shouted over the Windspear's turbines, showing the crackled palms of his leather gloves.

Kite sidled by the pilothouse to the foredeck, pulling on his patchcoat   as he went. Over the side he could make out the smear of the land. A featureless tract of soot-black earth slithering with torrents of silver rainwater. Too high to jump without crippling himself.

A flash between the thunderheads. Fast and too horizontal to be lightning. A zigzag vapour trail. An airmachine. The ones that had raided Ruster's Roost - the Murkers.

Kite slapped the rain from his eyes. A second airmachine had appeared. Like carrion birds the Murkers circled the
Windspear
. Lightning seemed to whip at them but never strike. Mesmerised and terrified all at once Kite watched them draw closer until they were flying alongside the
Windspear
, one to starboard the other to port.

One of them banked sharply, cutting across the foredeck. Suffocating exhaust fumes flew in Kite's face, blinding him for second.  Nearby he heard the airmachine land on the deck with a
clang.
The fumes cleared and Kite watched the Murker pilot jumped off the strange airmachine’s deck and stalked toward him, leather flying coat flapping in the rain-lashed wind. Something about the stitched leather mask and the green goggle-eyes and the breathing apparatus wheezing away made Kite fear for his life.

“I want him alive, Valkyrie,” Austerman's voice crackled from the pilothouse speaker.

The Murker called Valkyrie lunged at him. Kite lashed out lash out with the corpusant, the skymetal casing cracking against Valkyrie's temple. The pilot staggered back, stunned by the blow. A gash beaded with blood beneath an L-shaped rip in his mask.

Growling with anger Valkyrie charged, slamming Kite hard against the handrail and nearly tipping him overboard. Kite pushed back, arms flailing. They grappled wildly and in the chaos the corpusant sprang from Kite rain-slicked fingers.

Kite froze. Valkyrie froze too. Both of them transfixed by the tumbling corpusant. By some grace of luck the fragile cylinder missed the railing and sailed overboard where the storm winds sent it twirling away. Down toward the rocks beneath the
Windspear
.

Austerman must have seen the corpusant fall and realising his vessel was in danger swung the
Windspear
into a desperate turn.

“Brace yourselves!” he bellowed through the speakers.

Seconds later Kite was blinded by a flash. A lightning wrapped bubble lit up the Undercloud. He grabbed the cold, steel handrail to steady himself as the
Windspear
's stern bucked in the shockwave. Too late he realised his mistake. Sparks flew from the pilothouse roof. Arcs of evil blue fire whipped from rail to rail.

Light exploded in his eyes. Every muscle twisted and contracted. Liquid fire coursed in his veins. His jaw clamped shut, cracking his teeth. The only sound was a hideous clicking, gurgling noise - his own scream trapped in his throat.

Then the mosfire released its grip. Only a few seconds had passed but to Kite it seemed an eternity had passed. His hot dead legs gave way and he fell, down in to darkness and he did not stop.

27
Dr.Nightborn

A kite.

A glorious, eight-sided kite, stitched together from patches of gold and terra-cotta canvas. Aloft on the storm winds and tethered to the bow of a painted duneclipper. Her claw-shaped sails swelled with wind and sand waves crashed over the bow.

Kite was nameless but he wasn't alone. Around him shrouded ghosts silently piloted the craft. What flesh they revealed - an arm, a hand - was covered in intricate copper-blue tattoos. The Sand Eaters. Nomads from the Ashlands.

Cradled in tattooed arms, he was small and helpless and afraid.  Everything frightened him. The roar of the wind and strange voice singing to him in a language he couldn't possibly understand. Then he realised this was a memory, given life in a dream.

And already it had begun to fade...

Soon unfamiliar sounds invaded Kite’s ears. Lightweight metal tinkling and delicate glass jangling. Hollow rumbles that seemed to bubble up from far below. The eerie echoes of distant singing, sizzling electrics and a
scratch-scratch
scratching noise.

His eyelids burned as Kite opened his eyes. A harsh brightness dazzled him at first but gradually a pale oval came into focus. A porthole. Set into a blue-green wall. The thick yellowed glass scurried with busy droplets of water. Angry purple clouds swelled in the sky outside. Where was he?

Clean linen itched under his chin. Kite’s bad hand and left shoulder had been patched up and bandages bound his numb ankles. All over his skin was tight and he stank of disinfectant soap.

The room Kite was in was long and narrow, lit overhead by clicking mosfire strip lights. Two other beds were made beside his, unoccupied and divided by plastic screens. No liftship or air ferry had space for a sick bay. A fulgurtine then.

But only the Foundation had fulgurtines...

That scratching sound again.

To his left a woman in white coat sat in a high-backed chair at a desk by the door. She was writing with a mechanical pen, its inner workings ticking merrily. Hotly Kite cast about under the covers and blushed. Where were his clothes? His goggles and hood?

“Ah, my patient awakes,” the woman said. She put down her pen and swivelled her chair.

Kite stared. She had pale pinkish skin and eyes bright as new metal. Her face was lovely and kind but somehow sad too, as if she was used to sorrow and pain in her work. A thick braid of hair hung down her front, creamy white and ever so slightly luminous.

An Askian.

“Try not to move,” the woman said, coming to his side. “You've been badly burned.”

“Burned?” Kite croaked. Then he remembered. The
Windspear
, the corpusant, Valkyrie and the mosfire that had struck him.

In a panic Kite tried push himself up from the bed. A hot pain shot from his toes to his ribs, leaving him gasping for breath. He fell back against the pillow, burning all over.

“My legs...I can't feel them,” Kite said.

“That would be the analgesic I gave you,” the woman said, taking his pulse.

Kite didn't know what 'analgesic' meant but he suspected it was something medical. “How long have I been here?” he asked.

“This will be the third day.”

“Three...three days?” he said, looking around. “Where's my stuff? My bag?”

Where was Ember?

The woman raised her hand. “Save your energy for healing your wounds,” she said. “I can't answer your questions but I can tell you that you are safe, Kite Nayward.”

Someone moved at the door. A soldier. A Weatheren.

Kite panicked. “Then why's
he
outside?” he said.

“Ah,” the woman said, without turning. “That's Sergeant Drumlin. He’s mostly harmless. You'll have to ask Captain Shelvocke why he's here though.”

Shelvocke
. Kite screwed up his nose. That was a Weatheren name if ever he'd heard one.

The woman said, “but this is the Infirmary and here, I am in command. My name is Aurora Nightborn. I am the ship's Doctor.”

Kite didn't know what to think of that. An Askian and a Weatheren working together? None of this made sense.

“I'm sure the Captain will answer your questions in good time,” Dr.Nightborn said, as if she had read his thoughts. “But first you must recover your strength. Lie still and try to sleep. I'll be next door, call if you need me.”

Kite watched her leave then fell back to the pillow. Even if he wanted to he couldn't sleep. Rain hammered against the porthole. Rumbles drifted up from the depths of the Murkers' airmachine, vibrating the steel bedstead behind his pillows. Pipes burped and gurgled. The noise was maddening.

The Kite heard a new sound - footfalls approaching from the corridor.

Drumlin saluted with such urgency that Kite half-expected Captain Shelvocke himself to pay him a visit. But this wasn't the Captain. Instead another Askian had come to visit him - a girl.

Boot heels clapping on the tiles the girl marched over to Dr.Nightborn's desk. Without a word she dragged a gloved hand across the papers, until her fingers settled on the report Dr.Nightborn had been writing. She began reading. All the while her left arm remained tight at her side.

Kite couldn’t help but stare. The girl was a year, maybe two older than him. Her ivory hair was dagger-straight, chopped at an angle level with the line of her jaw. She wore the same charcoal uniform as the Sergeant but she had two gold chevrons on her sleeve. An Officer.

Abruptly, the girl turned. Her silver-bright eyes bore into Kite’s own, unblinking, as if he'd committed some terrible crime by simply admiring her. Wishing he was wearing something other than a soapy stink Kite drew the bedclothes to his chin.

“What is it?” he said.

The girl said nothing. For a moment she continued to stare at him, never once blinking. Kite was grateful when Dr.Nightborn returned.

“Fleer,” said Dr.Nightborn. “You're early...”

“It's
Lieutenant
Fleer,” the girl said, her voice little more than a brittle rasp. “And I'm on time, Doctor.”

Dr.Nightborn checked her fob watch. “Yes, so you are,” she said and gestured to one of the spare beds opposite. “Take off your jacket, Lieutenant.”

With a rattle of metal coasters Dr.Nightborn shunted a portable screen to the other bed, leaving a slither of a view between them.

At first Kite couldn't see much of the Askian girl at all - a pale shoulder and the curve of her body under a white vest. Then, Fleer turned a little. A  knotted scar chewed up her left arm from biceps to wrist.

Kite looked away guiltily.

Soon he was compelled him to look again. After all he had never seen an Askian girl and he might never see one again. And while she seemed cold to him for reasons he couldn't explain, he couldn't help but want to know more about her.

Dr.Nightborn slipped a silver hairpin from her breast pocket and pinned back Fleer’s fringe. “Let’s see how you’re healing,” she said and turned the girl's chin with her finger.

A row of ragged stitches hooked under the girl's hairline. Kite frowned, realising it was his own handiwork. What had Austerman called her? Valkyrie.

Suddenly Fleer's thunder-cloud eyes flicked sideways. Kite felt guilty and ashamed. He knew he'd done wrong, spying on her when she was stripped half-naked but he wanted to meet her gaze, to show her he wasn't frightened of her. Whatever she called herself.

Dr.Nightborn gently turned Fleer's chin, breaking their eye contact. “This might hurt a little,” she said and snipped the knots and picked free each thread. Then she expertly set the tender tissue with small suture strips, pausing as the airmachine rocked around them.

All the while Fleer simmered but didn't flinch once.

“Don’t be tempted to scratch it,” Dr.Nightborn said, removing the hairpin.  “You'll have another scar unfortunately.”

Fleer shrugged on her jacket. “One more won't make much difference,” she said and stood. “The Captain asked to speak with your patient.”

Kite sat up too quickly, tugging at his bandages. “Where are my clothes?” he said, teeth clenched.

Dr.Nightborn shook her head. “He's not well enough to answer  the Captain's questions,” she said. “He's been badly injured. As well you know.”

“The boy has only himself to blame,” Fleer said, without looking at him.

Boy.
She'd said it the same way Ersa used to.

“It's your fault I dropped the corpusant!” Kite growled.

Fleer glared back at him. “We could've all been killed by your stupidity,” she said. “Consider yourself lucky you got away with only burns!”

“That's enough, both of you!” Dr.Nightborn said, as if she was bitterly used to separating warring children. “You can come for him in the morning, Lieutenant.”

“I'll send someone,
Doctor
,” Fleer said and marched out of the Infirmary, drawing another brisk salute from the Sergeant.

Dr.Nightborn shook her head. “Really, that girl,” she said.

“You've got no right keeping me here,” said Kite.

“Listen to me, Kite Nayward,” Dr.Nightborn said. “Your body has suffered and you need to recover properly. Despite what you might think you are not indestructible. Now, sleep.”

Kite thumped his head against the pillows. “This place is too noisy,” he grumbled.

Dr.Nightborn went to a cabinet and returned shortly with a beaker of milky liquid. “This'll help you sleep,” she said.

Kite was reluctant at first but the promise of sleep was too great. He gulped it down. “Yuck,” he said. “Tastes like brine.”

Dr.Nightborn took the glass from him and sat on the corner of the bed. “I don't recognise your name. It isn't Askian,” she said. “You are not from an enclave?”

Kite shook his head, even though he didn't really know what an enclave was. “Never met any other Askians before,” he said, eyelids growing heavy. “You're the first. You, and your daughter.”

Dr.Nightborn didn't smile. “Ah, was it that obvious?”

Kite stifled a yawn. Already he could feel himself growing heavier. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling. Maybe Dr.Nightborn was right. Maybe now was the time to rest.

“You look sort of the same,” he said, as the Infirmary light softened to a blur in his eyes.

“Believe me that is where the resemblance ends.” Dr.Nightborn stood up. She had a sad, serene look about her. “You will soon find that everyone has their reasons for being aboard this vessel, Kite Nayward. Now you know mine.”