The wind returned to the rebel skyship with a vengeance as their grappling hooks seized hold of the black vessel. The rebel skyship Kitaraham ground to a halt, it’s hooks and ropes had shredded the enemies rigging.

Maggie staggered at the sudden stop, then held on to the railing.

‘You could have warned me,’ Maggie said. ‘That would’ve been good.’

‘Expect the unexpected in war,’ Pariqamtu’s aura flashed with determination.

‘Of course. We have that expression too. Back home. We just don’t have these mad flying ships blown to hell and gone on the wind.’

The cacophony of the fight erupted around them to replace the silence of their stealthy approach at the speed of the north wind. The rigging hummed with tension, plucked by the gale, while battle calls echoed around the courtyard. Under it all the rebel’s signal horn, blown on a conch shell, boomed to issue orders to the crew.

‘If skyships are blown on the wind, how did Gan steer Kitaraham so accurately?’

‘Why do you prattle?’ Pariqamtu muttered. ‘I am tasked with protecting you, but I don’t have to…’

‘Look.’ Maggie leaned over the windward side and pointed. ’Those huge skyforts. They’re coming closer.’

‘Get back.’ Pariqamtu pulled Maggie back as the first fire arrows streaked towards them. An arrow lodged in the railing, another bounced off a boom sending sparks flying.

‘They are mad. In this north wind we’ll all burn if the fire takes hold.’

Sailors ran with scuttlebutts of water to drench the fire. More climbed the rigging to reef and stow the sails.

‘If fire reaches the sails the whole rigging will go.’

‘And then how will we steer?’ Maggie said.

Pariqamtu dragged her away from the windward side. ‘Keep an eye on any fires on deck. Tell me of any sparks. These dry timbers will be tinder to any flame that takes hold.’

The Kitaraham lurched, pulled downwad.

‘They’re mad. Fire arrows, and now they cut the flight engine so close to ground. These are no imperials.’

‘Then who are they?’

She and Pariqamtu leaned over the leeward railing. The shadowed fortress bloomed with light as another flight of arrows shot up. Fire licked at the hull of the Kitaraham as the crew ran water over the dry timbers, the deck made slick reflected the light of the fires.

Over the side Maggie looked down. In the glare of the flames Maggie saw the black skyship.

‘Blackbirders,’ she said.

‘Nonsense,’ said Pariqamtu. ‘Blackbirders with a skyship? Moored in the center of an Imperial fortress? Utter…’

‘No. Look,’ Maggie pointed.

The deck of the skyship had filled with the blackbirder crew. Some now climbed the Kitaraham’s grappling lines.

‘Boarders,’ screamed Pariqamtu. ‘Prepare for enemy attack from below.’

She pulled a blade from her new back scabbard. The bright metal flashed as it caught the flaming light.

The cries of a gharumal echoed under the tumult of the fight.

‘Reinforcements,’ Pariqamtu shouted. ‘They’re bringing in a skyfort from the vakunam.’

‘That’s what I tried to tell you earlier,’ Maggie said.

A rattling roar rumbled through the skyship’s hull, the deck shuddered and Maggie lurched against Pariqamtu. Huge booming crashes erupted from below ships.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

‘Gan dropped missiles onto the enemy,’ Pariqamtu said. ‘This fight is getting too hot. Come with me.’

Pariqamtu led Maggie to the bridge where Gan shouted orders. He rushed back to the railing to examine the result of his missile strike.

‘Cut the grapples,’ shouted Gan. ‘We have disabled their skyship.’

‘But that’s not what we have to do?’ Maggie shouted.

‘Why are you on the bridge?’ said Gan. ‘Cousin, I told you to stand clear. Keep this one safe.’

‘We have to free the mantas,’ Maggie said.

‘They can be free in death,’ Gan said.

‘No.’

‘Your intelligence proved useful. The black skyship lay where you said it would. It is enough that they will not be able to light their zharaqsa with the death of the nakharavi — mantas.’

‘That was not the plan,’ Maggie stepped up the tall manisaur. ‘We have to…’

‘Plans change.’ Gan stepped to the crewman next to the conch-shell horn. ‘Sound the signal. Cut grapples, and…’

A scream shrieked loud from below.

Gan rushed to the railing alongside Maggie and Pariqamtu.

‘They’re throwing prisoners over the side,’ Maggie said. She stared in horror as struggles on the deck below resolved through the smoke into a line of prisoners being thrust away from the deck.

‘Gan. Stop them,’ Maggie shouted. ‘You can’t let this happen.’

An enemy boarder clambered over the railing. But before they could lass out Gan leapt and struck a mighty swing of his blade and brought them down.

Gan turned, his legs planted on the side of the railing. His aura flashed fierce determination. ‘You’re right Maggs. I can’t.’

Gan raised his blade above his head, and his warbling throaty cry rose in command.

‘Cut their grapples, sound the signal again. Then bring me boarding ropes. Twenty crew, to me!’

Gan gave an ululating call for his crew to come.

‘We take the fight to them.’

Jupiter stared at the battling skyships. The blackbirder’s vessel had been smashed by huge falling boulders that had fallen from the rebel skyship.

Now blackbirders, who had attempted to climb up to their attackers, fell from the cut grappling ropes, swung outwards, then down. Their skyship had fallen low, so most boarders fell to their deaths in the courtyard. Some leaped to the roof of the courtyard buildings as the ships dragged nearer.

Jupiter coughed in the smokey wind. It burned his throat, his eyes. Sparks swirled around the courtyard like small fiery tornados.

‘Tamm. We have to do something. The blackbirders still throw the prisoners to the ground. Their legs are hobbled. It’s murder.’

‘We are but two,’ said Tamm. ‘And we just escaped from them.’

A droning howl rose from the fighting ships.

‘The Kitaraham. Look. They call for attack.’

Through the burning timbers of both skyships, boarding ropes looped down from the Kitaraham. Rebels dropped to the deck of the blackbirder ship, and the two crews began a desperate fight across the deck of the burning vessel.

‘They need to put the fires out,’ Tamm said. ‘Or there will be no ship to win.’

‘The mantas will die,’ Jupiter said. ‘I hear them.’

‘That is the lowing of the Air Lord’s gharumals. They enter the fight.’

‘Then there’s no time left.’ Jupiter ran forward. ‘Come on.

They ran from where they had sheltered from falling debris. Now the burning spars and rigging and ropes lay strewn under the fighting ships. The boulder missiles, dropped from the skyships, had broken the courtyard surface, then rolled through the debris. Acrid smoke twisted in the wind from the north but did not clear, instead it hid the fallen blackbirders, and their victims. Jupiter did not look too closely at the slick red-black blood on the boulders.

‘There is no hope of gaining the deck of the lowest skyship. We cannot climb as we did before,’ said Tamm.

‘Through the building. Come on.’ Jupiter ran past the burning debris as it rained down. He led the way into a courtyard building, and saw, for the first time, garrison guards and military personnel gathered to watch the fight.

‘Get into the courtyard,’ Jupiter yelled to them. ‘There are injured people there, under the skyships.’ He pushed passed them into the building beyond, Tamm close behind.

No one stopped them. No one moved. The horror of the fight transfixed them.

’Get water,’ Jupiter shouted. ‘If the ships hit the buildings all will go up in flames.’

He and Tamm did not wait for a response. But his words served their purpose, they got past and into the building.

Jupiter paused at the steep manisaur style stair leading up the building. The human stair next to it had been blocked off. But he scrambled up the steep treads, more foot and handholds than steps. He could not climb nearly as fast as a manisaur, but fast enough.

‘The roof,’ Jupiter said. ‘We’ll be closest to the skyships if we can get up there.’

They found a balcony, and Tamm boosted Jupiter to the roof, then jumped and scrambled beside him. Sparks from the flames streamed past, snagging in his hair. Jupiter flicked them off and eased over the clay tiled roof towards the edge.

‘This seemed like a good idea,’ Jupiter shouted over the fury of the wind and fighting. ‘From the ground.’

I can’t believe we’re going back to the blackbirder’s skyship again.

He looked across to the blazing ship, poised four levels above the ground, on a slick tiled roof. Manisaurs fought on the deck of the black skyship as the wind flung sparks and debris straight towards him. The streaks of light looked like gunfire, yet he held his hand to his face to protect his eyes, and studied the scene.

There’s got to be a way.

Above he heard a cry.

‘Jupiter.’

He saw Maggie then, she leaned over the railing of the skyship hanging five meters above the other. Her soot-stained face haloed in wild streaming hair that billowed about her face. The Kitaraham’s hull had become well entangled in the blackbirder’s burning rigging.

And his precious outrigger lay bound tight against the side of the Kitaraham. The flames burned closer to The Jupiter now.

He studied the distance to the black skyship’s deck.

Jupiter ran.

He leaped.