The Kingfisher glides over the rolling emerald carpet. The canopy is uniform, but for the soaring Livewood trees, each one twice the height, if not more, than the surrounding forest. Big and strong enough to make space-faring vessels from, they are the pride of Evergreen.
The Kingfisher’s flag is only just visible in the last rays of daylight. It’s namesake, a white bird in flight over a deep navy field, just catching the light as the evening sinks into the dim purple glow from the Dark Star around which the seven shards spin.
“Jonas.” Thunder’s short-cropped hair drifts in the evening breeze as she stands on the deck. Mudge stands beside her, their argument stilled. Jonas, the wolf-like man with the amber eyes nods his lazy salute. “Prepare a delivery crew.”
“How many?” His drawl borders on disrespect, but there is an honor to the Wolfpack. Once they find an alpha, it tends to stick. Unfortunately some tend to see ‘alpha’ as a fluid title.
“The usual, a few spooks, a few strong pairs of arms. This shouldn’t be a fight, but I’d rather have a few people to watch my back. If Ray feels disrespected by that decision,” she shrugs lightly. “So be it.”
“Shouldn’t be a fight?” Jonas cocks his head to the side. “You don’t have to worry about me, Captain.”
Thunder nods, dismissing him, and Jonas peels away to gather his lieutenants.
Mudge scans the silent sky. A cold dusk beginning as the shard spins. His knuckles clench and tighten. Tension evident across his broad shoulders. Faerie Country. The Kingfisher follows the thin sliver of silver. The river extending into the distance beneath them. As they draw closer, the break is evident. A mess of white-water that does not reflect the moonlight.
Tiny lights and the faint tinkling of bells are just perceptible through the canopy. The crew had eaten Kendra’s last meal in shifts as they hovered over the lake. Many staring down at the vast town spread cross the shore with longing. It had been a good decision. The rich smells of roasting meats and sugared candies drift up from the darkness below, painting the cool night air with a palette of succulent flavours. Someone hungry enough might get lost in that decadent scent, and thinking the carpet of leafy trees below to look mighty soft and inviting, leap to their death.
They’d seen it happen before.
Faerie Country.
“Where’s Rico?” Thunder asks, scanning the deck. “I want him with us on the ground. He unnerves people. And I’ve a feeling we’re going to want every advantage we can get.”
“Trouble?” Mudge asks, stroking his bare upper lip.
“I don’t know yet,” Thunder responds. “Am I paranoid for expecting it, or wise for preparing without reason?” Thunder releases her exhaust, a curl of smog leaking from mouth and nostrils. The sharp tang of burnt Widowgas cuts through the aroma wafting from below. A few over-eager voyagers cough and splutter as the delightful smells turn to ash in their mouths. “Trouble…” Thunder rolls the word around in her mouth as if tasting it. “Ask me again when we get back on board. You have the helm, Mister Mudge.”
The ship descends as they draw closer to the river. Thunder turns her back on the forest. Perhaps it was a blasphemy, flying a Livewood ship into the heart of the forest.
Perhaps for that, they were cursed.
“Jonas, grab Rico too,” Thunder says, surveying the ground crew. Lily, a thin wisp of a Shadewalker - with glittering eyes and razor sharp fingernails extending over an inch from her slender fingers - and Artemis, the perfectly symmetrical Scythe, ship’s priest, in his vestments of deepest, darkest indigo. Two officers, and three able-bodied voyagers, Cast, Hernan and Dinah. Each one in plain-clothes, with a cutlass slung low on their hip.
“Are you sure, Captain?” Jonas asks. The hushed conversations on the deck still. Only the pop of Mudge’s knuckles cracking breaks the silence. Thunder crosses her arms, meeting Jonas’s gaze with one arched eyebrow. “It’s just that-”
“Again, Jonas?” Thunder asks, an impatient sigh. “Why?”
Jonas has the good sense to save face, adopting a shame-faced look. “I was hungry.”
Thunder stares him down.
“Well, you’ve got five minutes to find him, otherwise I’m dressing you up as a Faerie princess, and you can have his job of making our hosts feel uncomfortable.” Nobody chuckled. Thunder gives a brittle grin as Jonas colours slightly.
“Apologies, Captain.”
“You’re developing a bad habit, Jonas. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Rico is a member of this crew, same as you. Well, not quite the same. You could say that compared to you, he is literally irreplaceable…” the unspoken words hang in the air as Jonas slinks below.
* * *
Nobody could ever predict where on the Kingfisher the odd young boy would spring up. Eventually, as the departure was prepared above decks, a searching crew of voyagers find Rico sitting mute on the floor of First Mate Mudge’s quarters.
With him joining the crew, they descend in a small sloop, lowered from the back of the ship. Thunder carries in her arms a small, heavy chest made of burnished steel.
There is a soft splash as they hit the water, utterly overpowered by the roar of the falls. Perhaps eighty meters tall, the water thunders down the cliff face. Though hard to see in the faint moonlight, a faint greenish glow emanates from the rocks.
“Faerie country,” Jonas says through clenched teeth. He leans over and tousles Rico’s hair. “No hard feelings, right champ?” The boy stares at him, eyes wide and dull.
“Leave it, Jonas,” Thunder grumbles. “He’ll be no good with words for an hour or two. I want you focused. There should be a welcoming party, they know we’re coming.”
With those last words, the forest around them takes on an ominous tinge. The echo of the waterfall is swallowed up by looming branches and dark, malevolent shadows.
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“Fuckin’ Faerie country,” Jonas hisses, the hackles on his neck raised. The air is thick with biting flies and the spray of icy water. “Art, get us some light, would you?”
Artemis, Raven-Priest of Azhure is the ships magician, so to speak. While everyone, barring Rico, had a divine investment, a blessing that was their heritage, the high priests of Azhure know secrets better left untold, and could take the blessing from others. They instill it within their own bodies, adding to the power they wield.
Artemis’s pale skin is flawless, his features perfectly balanced. He would be handsome, if not for his unsettling habit of sitting perfectly still. It gives the impression that he has been drawn or perhaps sculpted by some higher power into the world. He flicks his long black hair to one side and nods.
He lifts one finger, and an orb of warm golden light blossoms in the air above his hand. The miniature sun looks out of place, balanced on his pale, perfectly manicured nails. Still, the light shines, that is enough.
Flickering shadows dance on the banks. An odious giggle whispers through the trees.
“There,” Thunder says, gesturing to a small wooden pier, jutting out from the cliff beside the rushing water. There is nobody there. No watcher at the gate. “Advance, slowly.” The oars swish as the crew strain, rowing against the current.
Water slicks down oiled cloaks and through hair, blurring eyes. Whatever malignant Faerie are watching over the forest do not venture close to the waterfall, and they pull up at the pier unmolested but unsettled. A dignified scramble onto the soaked wood follows.
“Lily, Hernan, keep watch,” Thunder says. The waif-like girl nods, her nails click a lilting rhythm as she steps back, fading slowly into the shadows of the waterfall cliff. Hernan, a stocky Wolfpack voyager with yellow eyes nods a salute.
Stairs slick from the spray disappear into a cavern behind the falls. Artemis draws his hands together, and the golden sun splits into two hemispheres. One, Artemis places just so in the air above the pier, the other lingers on his fingertip. The distant sun flickers, sputtering slightly in the spray.
“Five minutes, maybe less,” Artemis says, his voice a soft, breathy whisper. Jonas draws his knife, holding it in front of him as he leads the way into the cavern.
A small network of channels carved into the floor cause the water to run off a few feet into the depths, and soon the crew are walking on dry stone. Thunder, tallest of the lot, walks with head ducked. There is just enough room for two to walk abreast, though she walks alone, servos humming as she carries the heavy delivery.
The walls of the cavern are pitted with pockmarks and craters, though whether from weaponry, beast or over-zealous miners, it is hard to say.
“Captain,” Jonas’s voice is short, sharp. “Blood.”
Thunder freezes. A crimson smear covers the wall. A short flurry of whispers and gestures pass between the Captain and her Warmaster, and Jonas draws a second knife, disappearing further into the cavern, while the other voyagers remain.
We follow him through quiet twists and turns, before he finds his way into the cavern proper. He stands there in the darkness, nostrils flared. The smell of blood and lantern oil fills the room. Sniffing and listening, he waits. No heartbeats, no movement. The death in the room smells recent, but perhaps within the last day, not the last hour. Assured, he calls quietly behind him, the twisting stone walls carrying his voice to the others.
Light spills into the room, covering a silent scene of chaos. Artemis, tiny sun balanced on his fingertip, steps over the first body and places the light in the center of the cavern. It illuminates a broken table, lying splintered on one side of the room. Fragments of glass from a shattered lantern reflect the light beside it. Assorted papers are spread across the floor, many splattered with blood.
“Jonas, what do you smell?” Thunder rumbles.
“Violence. Obvious… but… surprise. Deeper…” Jonas sniffs, breathing deep. “Something cold.”
“Cold? Faerie? Animal?”
“I’m not sure.” Jonas leans forward and tips over the first body with the flat of his blade. The blood beneath is still wet.
“Wounds are inconsistent,” Artemis says. As a Scythe, he stands as both ship’s magician and mortician. The balance between life and death the eminent domain of the Raven’s children. “Three different means. Knife here, that one… strangled. And… what do you make of this? Blunt force trauma…”
“T-t-table leg,” Rico stutters, his voice shaky. He follows closely behind Thunder, like a puppy. Thunder herself surveys the scene quietly, still holding tight to the cargo. She looks over it at the mess before her.
“Alright, well, we’re here to collect payment and drop cargo off. Whatever happened here is troubling, but lets not get distracted,” Thunder huffs. “Look for valuables, money, they should have been expecting us. Should have been ready for the trade.”
The crew spread out, scanning the room, which looks as if it has been ransacked by a bear. Rico is the first to find the wooden chest, with it’s lid staved in. A tiny cut emerald hides in the corner of the box, a gemstone so small it almost adds insult to the box’s emptiness. Jonas goes over the bodies, finding little of value.
“These are military men,” he says quietly to Thunder, once the room is searched. “And someone has already robbed them of anything important. What were we supposed to deliver? These could be bandits, or they could be Table operatives… Even Navy.” Captain Thunder purses her lips, meeting his amber eyes. “Fine, fine. Don’t tell me,” Jonas growls. “Just… did we trust the contact?”
Thunder nods. “Came direct from Haze.”
“Okay. Are we delivering the package?”
“Not for an emerald smaller than a hummingbird’s tit and a handful of small change,” Thunder says, frustration evident in the lines of her face. “Let’s go. We’ve tarried here too long.”
Thunder let the others lead the way out of the cavern, turning to survey the mess one last time as Artemis’s golden light flickers. She growls in anger, exhaust streaming out of her mouth and clouding the room.
A shriek breaks the low hum of falling water, and Thunder moves.
The crew come out piecemeal, Jonas leading, blades raised and red leather cloak billowing. The second sun Artemis conjured is gone.
A ghastly scene is sketched in faint moonlihgt. Hernan lies on the ground. The sloop disappeared from it’s mooring. Lily stands, panting, a gash across her cheek. Her hands flash as something launches out of the shadows. Small, quick and formed of oily darkness, there is a scrape and cry, and a second gash appears on Lily’s shoulder, cutting through her coat with ease.
Jonas rushes into the fray, his first blade thrown underhand. It catches a shadow and brings it to the ground, chittering madly. Artemis follows behind, his light flickering feebly now. He launches it into the air, pinning silhouettes of darkness beneath. Beings of inky shadow, whether pixie or sprite or faerie godmother, none could say.
“The sun went out,” Lily coughs, her eyes a feral, poisonous green. “They were on us like rats out of an aqueduct.”
“Someone signal the ship,” Thunder says with a ferocity that burns hot in the darkness. She pushes Rico behind her protectively.
Jonas kneels in the flickering light, patting down Hernan’s body. He pulls a flare from the dead voyager’s pouch and fumbles with it. His fingers slip as he attempts to light it. A spark flashes between his fingertips, but it’s not enough to ignite the fuse, not in the constant mist of the waterfall. He begins fumbling through his pockets for flint. Lily stands over him, one hand pressed against her bloody cheek, the other raised in defense. Artemis looks up at his tiny sun, his muscles clench. The light sparks fitfully, a dozen tiny shadows flaunting and flashing at the edge of the circle of sunshine. Waiting.
“Be quick,” he mutters. The Kingfisher hovers well above the canopy, barely visible in the darkness. The roar of the falls overpowers the sounds of their struggle.
Thunder places a hand on her sword, and then reconsiders. She pulls her pistol from her belt. It fits her hand as if designed for it. A careful interlocking of gears and tiny pipes allow the rumbling energies of her semi-mechanical form to power the weapon.
Finally, Jonas breathes a sigh of relief as he manages to light the base of the flare, which launches with an explosive hiss. He mutters, blowing on his singed fingers as the tiny beacon flits upward past the sun. It disappears from view for a few seconds, arcing high.
There is a rushing of wind, a cackle of inhuman laughter, and the flare fizzes out. We hear the splash as it hits the water, but the crew doesn’t. They simply count the seconds and realize the plan has failed.
“Try-”
Thunder’s voice cuts out as the tiny sun gives one last feeble flash, before sputtering away into darkness. Chaos reigns in the night. Thunder pulls Rico close, whispers something in his ear, and then her pistol fires.