Being on Dahk’s skycutter, Nakhevaqum — Flight-Dream, proved to be another world. It moved underfoot more like a boat would. The massive skyfort Hantiviqu had been rock steady in comparison — too slow to respond to the wind.
The guard-captain never let Jupiter out of his sight as the crew assembled and transferred over. It seemed more than the honour guard the Air Lord had proposed. The skycutter needed a small crew but Dahk did not have enough to fully man her.
This made Jupiter uneasy. Dahk may or may not be a rebel, but there had been a hope that some of the rebels that manned the skycutter might be. But the Air Lord’s immediate retinue remained the same, as was his control. Dahk gave no sign he recognized Jupiter. Almost like Dahk had become a different person, truly Captain Nakhevaqum Vishvasalana. Or he had been a good liar all along. At least good for a manisaur.
The guards brought across a hooded and bound captive. Their legs hobbled, ankles bound by a rope to a loop on their waist. The manisaur could walk, but not leap or run. They proved to be the disgraced skyfort captain. He protested his loyalty and innocence.
The skyfort captain’s crime had been to allow another skyship to smash the stern of his vessel in a hard fought battle. Jupiter wondered at the brutality of the punishment. Surely that had been a momentary failure, one that could be learned from. But this captain would instead be punished like him — whatever that meant. Jupiter shivered.
They shared the same fate. From the conversation he had overheard with Tharumiyo, the Air Lord’s hunts ended in death.
For a short time Jupiter had hoped that he might escape, but then the Air Lord’s crew brought over a pack of five large beasts, muzzled and hogtied. They had some of the look of the pirate beasts, the dog-things he had seen on Black Spire. But these were more like lions in size. The blue rimmed eyes were yellow, and darted about even as they were slung by crane aboard the Nakhevaqum. When piled together struggling on the deck, the creatures hummed and buzzed in a shifting unharmonious chorus. The horrifying sound seemed like a dirge that called for his death.
At the sound the disgraced captain struggled against his bounds, and tried to run, but fell over his hobbled legs. He let out a mewling sigh from under the hood that only encouraged the ravening beasts more. The humming erupted into a screech that rose and fell, and rose again, as each beast took up the cry.
Jupiter understood then what it would be like to be hunted, and that the captain knew very well too. Jupiter turned away and he wished he had continued in ignorance for a while longer.
The beasts quieted when they were slung into the hold. But other animals bellowed from below in fear then as they sensed the predator’s presence.
Guards dragged Jupiter to the mast that lay behind the main bridge, and his hands bound tight again. But no hood for him. Perhaps the hood served to hide the captain’s aura and acted like a gag for them.
Then the former captain fell beside him, and his legs bound tight. Its bedraggled fur-feathers made it seem wretched and defeated. Their tail flickered and twitched until the guard-captain stood on it to quiet them. But the tail never fell still, it shivered in a constant flutter, as if the manisaur wailed its distress and pleaded for help.
Jupiter felt much the same, but he knew protest would be pointless. And somehow his defiance had earned some respect from the guard-captain and they left him alone for a time. Even given water from a cup by the guard-captain — though the manisaur held a hand to his long blade in readiness, or threat.
Then the crew cast off the skycutter Nakhevaqum and they pulled clear of the two tethered skyforts. A lowing moan came from below, a gharumal - the behemosaur. The skycutter had replaced the rowing galley with the huge animal tug. The craft floated like a child’s balloon tied to a cow. The image made Jupiter smile — a fleeting death mask grimace, for just as fast, fear clenched his gut once more.
‘How am I going to get out of this?’ He muttered under his breath.
Used to being alone, he had long accepted that he was a loner. If he wanted anything done he had to do it himself. Sure, people helped him. Like Tyler Orr, or teachers from school. But all they did was point him in the right direction.
He knew still had to do everything himself. He stewed in his own thoughts.
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And that’s alright. How it should be… no one deserves anything that they did not win on their own.
But the intense unfairness hurt now. This time he had no way out.
How did I get to here? Why? What have I done wrong?
I didn’t stick to the important things. Got distracted. Now I’ll never help Maggie get home. She’s as stuck as me. Except… maybe she’ll get to live a bit longer than dumb ass me.
Despite himself he fell asleep, so tired that if he dreamed he did not remember anything of them. A kick woke him, then the scrambling of the captive manisaur beside him roused him to alert. Jupiter rolled over to get away. Although impossible to tell, he guessed the manisaur dreamed, and ran in the nightmare that lay ahead of them both.
The guard-captain kicked at the hooded former captain until they started, then stilled. A moan escaped from them but another kick quieted it again. They ignored Jupiter.
Another hour passed and Jupiter noticed the skycutter’s direction of movement had changed. He stood up. In an instant the guard-captain moved beside him with his hand raised as if to beast him down again.
‘Relax.’ Jupiter ducked any possible blow. ‘Let me stretch can’t you? The Air Lord wants me fit. Doesn’t he?’
His movement probably came across a little like a bow of respect and submission. And it worked. The guard-captain just slapped his long blade as a warning.
Jupiter felt far from relaxed himself. He had nowhere to go. A tether now ran from his hands through a ring fixed to the mast with the other end tied to the captive manisaur. As Jupiter stretched, the rope pulled at the manisaur, who cringed away.
‘Relax.’ Jupiter said again. ‘Here. I’ll give you some slack.’ And he moved to lean against the mast. He used this to help him stretch, though he found it harder with hands tied in front.
Without warning the captive manisaur surged to their feet and ran at the railing. Somehow one of its hobbles had been broken. It leapt over the rail and fell off the side. The tethered rope yanked Jupiter hard against the mast ring. The snap of it almost broke his wrist as the force of the impact bent it backwards. But the knot took most of the force of the weight of the manisaur who pulled up short.
‘Haul this one back on board.’ The guard-captain gurgled his strange laugh. ‘It thinks it can fly.’
As three crew took up the rope and eased the pressure on Jupiter’s hand the guard-captain laughed again. ‘Soon enough you will be free. And can fly as much as you like then. For a time.’
As the guard-captain thrust the former skyfort captain to the deck. Jupiter’s fury stare caught his eye. The guard-captain raised his hand to cuff him but Jupiter went cross-eyed, startling the manisaur who took a step back. Jupiter laughed. But the guard-captain put his hand to his long-blade and began to draw it.
‘Guard-captain!’ The commanding voice of Dahk stayed the guard’s action. ‘As you were.’
‘Sir.’ The guard-captain’s response sounded less respectful than resigned. He turned his back on the prisoners and strode away, but drew his blade. The long metal flashed in the sun as he parried and thrust at an invisible enemy as if for exercise. Then he sheathed it once more.
Jupiter was glad not to be skewered by that pig picker. He glanced at the abject manisaur still sprawled next to him. A soft mewl came from the former-captain. Jupiter was not sure if he was disgusted or sorry for the wretch. Just a day ago the captain had attacked the rebels as a loyal Imperial Naval Officer, intent on killing Jupiter’s friends. Should he feel anything for them now?
Instead Jupiter stood with his back to the mast and stared over the sea, and waited for mid-afternoon when he would be taken to the hunt. The drag up the coast came to an end, and they swayed lazily in the sun. But still no one came for them. Off to starboard Jupiter could see an expanse of estuary, beyond lay a wide opening in the forest. A silver braid of water flashed as it flowed through a grey rocky riverbed. This then was the opening to the sentinel path. The route into the interior of the continent.
The other prisoner had hung its head, the sack hung limp low over their chest. Jupiter tugged at the tether, pulled the rope through the metal loop on the mast, and stepped towards the railing. When the rope grew taut, Jupiter tugged until the listless manisaur jerked in alarm.
‘Give me some slack, will you?’ Jupiter pulled again until the manisaur’s arms were up over its head. A sigh breathed from them now as Jupiter leaned on the railing and stared over the wide sea. A slow pounding surf below. The noise of it, wide to either side, was like the breathing of the planet. Slow and regular. It seemed to echo as if in a huge room, but it was just the roll of surf hitting the sand in a chaotic rhythm. If he listened he could almost hear music in the hush and hiss and pulse of the breaking waves.
He watched the horizon as the sky grew darker. It was past mid-afternoon now. By the time he was certain, the light of day had warmed to a pink and purple blush over the sky. White scudding clouds above the dark shifting line of the horizon turned bloody as the sun set in the west.
He stared. There was subtle movement in the clouds. Above the horizon. A flock of huge birds he thought. But as he watched he saw the slow flapping wings of airplanes. Yet that was not right either.
‘Mantas. Huge ones.’
He could not count them as they shifted in a formation that angled across his view. They seemed to come closer for a time, and then drift away. Often one or two would duck into the ocean, as if taking a breath, and then rise to join the others. The light had grown dim when he lost sight of them, and he stared for a long time trying to see them once more.
Just as light failed he saw another large flying beast.
‘Skyship,’ Jupiter said in a low voice.
Just a brief flash of a sail that somehow caught a ray of light from between the western mountains.
Someone lay just offshore, sailing on the sea breeze into land.