Clash of the Sky Galleons (22 page)

‘Sixty … fifty …’

With the drenching-tanks empty and the cooling-rods gone, the Stone Pilot had no option but to turn the burners down to their minimum setting. But it was a dangerous strategy. If the gale-force wind should snuff out the flames, then they were lost.

‘Thirty!’ cried Spillins. ‘Twenty! Ten!’

‘Storm anchor away!’ Wind Jackal bellowed.

At the anchor-winch on the aft-deck, Filbus Queep released the winding gear, while Sagbutt, his muscles glistening and popping with the strain, heaved the heavy anchor - an immense ball of polished copper-wood - over the port-side of the
Galerider.

There was the sound of splintering wood as the anchor crashed down through branch after branch of the trees in the forest canopy below. Suddenly, the tolley-rope attached to the anchor went taut - just as the flight-rock steadied the ship’s descent. Now, as the
Galerider
hovered momentarily above the tree-tops, like a tilder-bladder balloon, the storm winds really hit it hard, sending it spinning round and round.

‘Grappling-hooks!’ bellowed Wind Jackal as everything turned into a sickening blur. ‘Stormlash! Or we’re lost!’

At the prow and at the stern, the crew launched their grappling-hooks as the treetops spun past at a dizzying speed. First the prow hook caught fast on an immense sallowdrop tree and the
Galerider
‘s spin was brought to a shuddering halt. Then Sagbutt and
Duggin managed to snag a giant blackwood on the port-side and lash their tolley-rope down.

‘Prow, secure,’ Ratbit bellowed back above the sound of the roaring wind and hissing rain.

‘Aft, secure,’ shouted Duggin from the other end.

The rain was still pouring down and the wind was blowing at hurricane force, whipping the leafy boughs all round them into a frenzy, like a storm-swept sea. Even the huge sallow-drop tree - which had probably stood there for several hundred years - was swaying back and forwards, creaking and splintering as it did so.

Returning to the helm, Wind Jackal surveyed the scene for a moment, then shook his head. ‘We’re stormlashed,’ he said. ‘But the storm’s still not reached its peak.’ He frowned. ‘The safest option is to disembark till it blows over.’

‘Disembark?’ said Maris and Quint together, horrified by the thought.

‘It’s a risk we’ll have to take,’ said Wind Jackal quietly. He raised his head and bellowed to the rest of the crew of the
Galerider.
‘Prepare to disembark!’

Quint untied the rope that had prevented him from being swept overboard, then turned to help Maris with hers.

‘You go first, son,’ said Wind Jackal. Quint nodded. ‘And take Maris with you.’

Quint did as he was told without further question. With Maris behind him, he climbed down from the helm - taking care not to lose his footing as the sky ship lurched and rolled. At the fore-deck, he unfurled the rope-ladder coiled up by the balustrade, and dropped it over the side. It hung down in the air like the lolling tongue of a halitoad, swaying in the rain-drenched gale.

Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself down the ladder, rung after perilous rung, until the upper leaves of the blackwood tree started slapping against his legs. Lower he went, coming a moment later to an immense, almost horizontal branch, with another one growing out of it, which he could hold onto. He eased himself across and looked up.

‘Come on, Maris,’ he called, his heart thumping. ‘You can do it…’

As he watched her climb down the rope-ladder, gripping tenaciously as she took the slippery rungs, one after the other, Quint realized all over again just how brave she was. When she reached the branch, he held out a hand for her to take, and felt a wave of relief as she grasped it.

He glanced up to see Tem Barkwater just climbing over the balustrade.

The tall, lanky youth was about to put his foot on the top rung, when there was a loud, crackling sound up in the sky, far, far above their heads. Quint and Maris both turned to see a vast and dazzling bolt of lightning come
hurtling down through the mist and cloud. It punctured the thick air, leaving a trail of steam in its wake and …

Crash!

The point of the bolt skewered the ironwood mast of the
Galerider.
The newly varnished wood smoked and flared - but, as the torrential rain beat down, there was a hiss and the flames were extinguished before they could take hold.

As the lightning faded, a great rumbling noise started overhead, which suddenly exploded with ear-splitting loudness. And as it did so, Quint saw the flight-burners on the
Galerider’s
flight-rock platform flicker and go out. The flight-rock gave a long loud hiss as the freezing rain hit it.

The next instant, there was the sound of splintering wood and Maris and Quint felt violent tremors as the grappling-hooks were torn from the branches of the tree. As they looked helplessly on, the
Galerider
was swept up and away into the turbulent storm.

Maris turned to Quint as it disappeared.

‘Oh, Quint,’ she whispered. ‘What
now?’

• CHAPTER TEN •
THE ANGLER

For a few moments, Quint said nothing. He was frozen in a crouching position, one arm round Maris, the other clutching the overhanging branch above. His face betrayed no emotion as his dark indigo eyes stared unblinkingly at the boiling black clouds into which the
Galerider
had vanished.

Beside him, Maris pulled her coat tightly around her as the wind howled and the rain lashed down, making the branches of the huge tree buck and bow. Dazzling lightning bolts illuminated the tangle of branches and leaves, which trembled and shook a moment later as colossal claps of thunder broke.

‘What
do
we do now?’ Maris shouted as the rumble died away.

‘There’s nothing we
can
do,’ replied Quint, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. ‘We must stay here until the storm passes, and pray …’

‘Pray?’ Maris questioned, the word snatched away by a blast of wind so violent, it tore the silvery heart-shaped
leaves from the surrounding branches, pitching them into the maelstrom.

‘Pray that the
Galerider
survives,’ Quint told her, his voice loud above the tumult of the storm, ‘because we don’t stand a chance out here without her.’

Just then a great jagged bolt of lightning came crashing down out of the sky. It filled the air with thick mist and the tang of toasted almonds - and struck a tree some thirty or so strides to their right. As the blinding light faded, the turbulent sky seemed even darker than it had been before. Night was falling - and fast.

‘How long do we have to stay up here?’ asked Maris.

Quint shrugged. ‘We’re safer up here than down on the forest floor,’ he said. ‘The Deepwoods are dangerous enough at the best of times, but at night…’ He shuddered. ‘Better lash ourselves down and try to get as comfortable as we can.’

The rain continued to fall as Quint made preparations for the long night ahead. He swung the coiled rope from his shoulder and, having secured one end to the overhanging branch above, tied the other end around Maris’s waist. For himself, he used his grappling-iron, plunging the sharp barbed hooks into the bark and then tying the stout line at the other end to his belt.

‘Now, give me your parawings,’ Quint said, turning to Maris, who was soaked to the bone and shivering uncontrollably.

With trembling fingers, Maris did as she was told, taking care not to let the wind tear the precious wings from her grasp as she did so. She leaned across to Quint,
who had also removed his own, and pushed them into his outstretched hands.

Quint set to work, his fingers, stiff with cold, battling with the fiddly cords and strings. Using the hooks at the outermost edges of the wings, he secured the two sets of parawings to the branch above his head. Then he reached across and, by twisting the shoulder-straps round, managed to tie the pair of them together. He motioned Maris to join him beneath the dangling wings.

She crouched down beside him, her eyes wide with a mixture of curiosity and unease.

Next, reaching up, Quint tugged on the two release-levers. The black spider-silk wings instantly unfurled and billowed out. Quint grasped one of the outstretched wing-tips, Maris grasped the other, and together they pulled the two ends round to form a bell-shaped tent, which Quint knotted securely in front of them.

At last, they were out of the driving rain and wind. Quint slumped down next to Maris and let out a weary sigh.

‘Try to get some sleep, Maris,’ he said, putting an arm round her and feeling the shivering begin to subside. ‘We’ll need all our strength tomorrow if we’re to light a beacon.’

‘A beacon?’ said Maris, stifling a yawn. ‘But how … ?’

‘First, we’ll have to climb an ironwood pine. The tallest we can find,’ Quint said. ‘Then we set fire to the top - the resin in the pinecones burns for days - and just hope that the
Galerider
spots it. That is,’ he added glumly, ‘if the
Galerider
isn’t already a pile of shattered timbers by now …’

Quint felt Maris’s hand close over his own and squeeze it tightly.

‘Try not to think about it,’ she whispered. ‘And get some sleep yourself. It’ll all seem much better in the morning … it always does …’ she added with a wide yawn.

After a while, from beside him, there came the sound of gentle snoring and Quint became conscious that Maris had nuzzled up close, her breathing soft and regular as she slept. He wrapped his greatcoat around her and cushioned her head on his shoulder. All around him, mingling with the rush and roar of the storm, he could hear the nighttime sounds of the forest creatures.

Quint shrank into himself, his skin cold and clammy with fear. Many was the time the
Galerider
had anchored for the night in the Deepwoods, securing its tolley-ropes to the anchor-rings, rocky crags or ironwood pines that lay along the flight paths. But on those occasions, he’d been inside his cabin, tucked up in his hammock, the air filled with the reassuring sounds of the rest of the sleeping crew.

Here, inside this makeshift parawing tent that flexed and strained with the battering wind, it was different.
He felt exposed and vulnerable. Razorflits screeched as they wheeled through the air; rotsuckers flapped past on padded wings, their lamp-like eyes scanning the forest. Fromps coughed, quarms squealed, manticrakes gibbered and croaked, while somewhere far, far away, a solitary banderbear yodelled out to the storm-filled sky…

Although Quint had no memory of dropping off to sleep, he must have, for the next thing he knew, a loud
winnik-winnik-winnik
call was dragging him back to consciousness. He opened his eyes and peered blearily out of the tent to see a sleek lorrel in a nearby treetop calling to the early morning dawn as it groomed its golden fur.

He looked down to see Maris fast asleep, her head in his lap. ‘Maris,’ he whispered. ‘Maris, it’s morning …’

Maris’s eyes snapped open. ‘Wh … what … where am I?’ she said.

Quint untied the parawings, which fell open to reveal the Deepwoods outside. Maris sat up. The rain had stopped and, although the wind was still blowing hard, it was no longer a threat to the trees - or to themselves. As she looked about her, however, Maris noticed various bare patches in the surrounding canopy where some of the greatest trees had come crashing down, bringing others with them.