‘We can’t, they’ll fall to their deaths,’ cried Maggie.

Jupiter looked over the side of the outrigger. Three of Gan’s crew climbed the swinging rope. Below them, on the streets, manisaurs running between buildings called out in fear as they fled the fighting. The Air Lord’s skyship’s had closed the gap with the rebels, their towlines streamed behind them to the gharumals that maneuvered them into a attack formation.

‘Keep the kheel spinning Breeze,’ Jupiter shouted. ‘Tamm, lower your tarusha. Gan might have forced them on us but we’re on their side.’

‘I thought we were on no one’s side?’ said Maggie.

‘Tt doesn’t matter what we believe,’ said Jupiter. ‘The rebels and imperials all think they know which side we’re on. There’s no way out of this.’

‘We have to get out,’ said Maggie.

The east wind buffeted the outrigger and they staggered sideways. Jupiter swung the stern around and ran across the wind away from Gan’s Kitaraham. Below, Gan’s crew pendulumed backwards on the dangling rope as they shot towards the western side of the city. The outermost of the Air Lord’s line of skyships moved to close off any way to escape.

Gan’s crew hauled themselves from their rope onto the outrigger platforms. Tamm directed two to either side, and one to the bow.

‘Dhakara,’ the manisaur closest to him said. ‘Ganarasha bids you carry us to where the fighting is most desperate.’

‘He said that did he?’ Jupiter shook his head. ‘What did he say exactly?’

The manisaur sang:

Sail with Aramqhami

On winds to damnation,

Or far golden shores

His dark invitation.

‘He spouted poetry at you?’

‘Dhakara?’

‘Never mind.’ Jupiter’s mind slipped back to Maggie’s song and dance routine. She had held him close to dance.

Why did I step away from her?

He glanced at her now.

A boom echoed from colliding skyships. An imperial vessel , a smaller vanziyaq, fell to the ground amid a burst of flames. A gharumal bellowed, then screamed in pain.

‘Jupiter,’ cried Maggie. ‘Something's attacking the Imperial’s gharumals.’

The flickering light of the downed and flaming skyship revealed more soldiers and a vanguard of calvalry mounted on two legged beasts. Jupiter stared.

Large moasaurs.

‘The mountain clans,’ said Tamm. ‘They enter battle.’

‘Dhakara. We go there.’ Gan’s crewman pointed to the attackers.

‘It is Bergwash Bamrushi,’ said Tamm. ‘He leads from the front.’

‘Yeah, right. Surrounded by a hundred mounted clan from the klaeds,’ Jupiter said. ‘And I know where he’s going. To the Air Lord’s skyship. That’s where Zaj will be, even if she will not go with him. Even if she will fight him. He will try to take her.’

Jupiter saw the problem with the Air Lord’s plan. The towing gharumal held the skyship’s towline as they blew out before them like kites on the wind. The gharumal did not tow so much as influence the direction of the fleet’s maneuvering. That left the land forces supporting the towing beasts isolated from their air support a hundred meters downwind, and 30 metres in the air.

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Now the mountain clans attacked the gharumal. In minutes they had either cut the skyship’s towlines, or had the gharumal under their control and dragged the Imperial skyforts away from the battle. Their formation broke.

Klaed infantry rushed to support the mounted warriors as lines of Imperial marines slid down the towlines to battle the mountain clans directly. Others dropped on lines under the skyforts then ran to attack.

‘Dhakara. We should go there.’

Jupiter pulled the sail tight, then aimed into the wind towards Berg and his guard of giant moasaurs as they fought towards the Air Lord’s flag skyfort.

‘How does Berg and the klaed fighters think they will be able to get at the skyfort?’ said Maggie. ‘It must be 90 feet in the air.’

The Jupiter ran across the top of the fighting, but few looked up.

‘Tamm. Watch ahead for towlines and ropes.’

Gan’s crew were eager to jump, but the outrigger sailed too high, and too fast. But Jupiter angled now towards the fierce fighting at the base of the Air Lord’s skyfort towline

Four gharumal lined up around the towline in teams of two and began to pace along the rope towards the huge vessel. As they ran along the towline they pulled the skyfort lower.

‘They’ll have to move fast,’ said Tamm. ‘Or the skyfort will light up the flight engine.'

‘Too late,’ said Jupiter.

The skyfort surged into the air and toppled the huge gharumal like dice as the rope lifted and angled up. The towrope swung free of the ground and the mass of soldiers, who swarmed frantic to get up the towline, got yanked into the air.

‘They’ll never make it to the skyfort’s deck,’ cried Maggie. ‘The skyfort will cut the line.’

Jupiter gybed the outrigger, the sail whipped over and he angled towards the swinging rope.

‘Tamm,’ Jupiter yelled. ‘Get a hold of that rope.’ He gybed again and sent The Jupiter across the wind now on a direct line to the tow rope and the swinging line of manisaurs still climbing up.

‘Breeze. Spin like you’ve never done before.’

The imp hooted with excitement and dipped his head to the task, his hands a blur of blue in the glow of the spinning kheel.

‘Tamm, stand ready,’ shouted Jupiter. ‘I’m aiming for the bottom of the rope. You others get ready to take hold and tie it on once we have it.’

Everything happened at once. The rope hit between the main hull and outrigger float. It whipped up with a hiss and the smell of burning as The Jupiter ran along its length. Then Jupiter gybed again to slow their headlong rush. Gan’s crewman took a grip on the line, his hand ripped upwards, and he slid towards the rear. Tamm caught him. Then with the rope in one hand, and The Jupiter in the other the two pulled the Jupiter around until the outrigger had joined the pendent that hung from the skyfort. The Jupiter took on a crazy lean even with Breeze’s frantic spinning of the kheel.

But even the two-thumbed hands could not hold for long.

‘Tie it off, but have your long blade ready,’ cried Jupiter.

He caught Maggie’s horrified look as she clung to the sloping hull.

‘Like you said. We can’t let them fall to their deaths.’

And then they did. The skyfort cut the towline, and everything fell.

‘Breeze.!’ Jupiter yelled. But he needn’t have bothered. Sparks flew from the kheel as Breeze spun it faster than ever. The Jupiter rose and steadied.

‘Hold tight,’ he shouted.

The rope twanged taut. The Jupiter rocked. Then steadied. The long pendulum of manisaurs swung beneath them, but they did not fall from the sky.

‘How the heck does this kheel thing work?’ Jupiter said. ‘How can it hold all this weight?’

But they rose.

Jupiter bore into the wind, their speed diminished by the weight, but as the swinging slowed The Jupiter angled upwards. The wind caught the outrigger platforms and she climbed faster than Jupiter had thought possible. Below the manisaurs clung to the rope and climbed.

The first reached the Jupiter.

‘Berg,’ Maggie cried. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘He leads from the front,’ said Tamm.

’Take us to the Hantiviqu, the Airlord’s skyfort,’ said Berg.

‘Berg. You crazy old coot,’ said Jupiter. ‘You should have died.’

In reply Berg lifted his head and sang.

A single life I lead

My hope is forward

My reach is onward

I swing, my path, succeed

‘Yes we know that song too,’ said Jupiter.‘But doing crazy is not a recipe for success.’

‘But there is a deep meaning in the world that goes beyond mere chance.’

Jupiter heard no song or poem in those words and knew Berg did not lie. It went to the heart of him somehow.

‘To Hantiviqu,’ cried Berg.

‘What the hell.’ Jupiter said. He bore away from the wind, let the sail out and headed downwind. ‘Damnation, or the shores gold eh?’

‘Jupiter!’ Maggie said. 'No.'

‘Indeed. Varazha ra Shamhat. Failure and damnation, or success upon the shores of gold.’

‘Two sides of the same coin eh?’ Jupiter said.

'And we can spend but one coin,' said Berg.

'A single life we lead,' said Jupiter.

The Air Lord’s vessel came up on them, but Jupiter did not have enough control of their height. He aimed for the side masts where they angled out low from the main hull. The manisaurs on the rope below hooted their approval.

‘I don’t believe this,’ said Maggie. ‘They’re eager to die. Jupiter get us out of here.’

Then the weight fell away. Berg’s mountain warriors dropped into the rigging as the rope slid close and above.

‘Get me on deck,’ said Berg. ‘I will be with my men.’

‘Who you just met yesterday,’ said Maggie. ‘Jupiter?’

He sighed and turned across the bow of the Skyfort.

‘I still think you're bonkers mad,’ said Jupiter.

‘We must take the skyfort while they have dropped their marines for battle,’ said Berg. ‘There is no time. Do it now.’

Jupiter turned the outrigger into the wind until, in the shadow of the huge vessel, their slide through the air stopped. Gan’s crew grappled The Jupiter alongside the stern quarter. Then they and Berg leapt off.

Jupiter turned the steering vanes to angle the outrigger out and away again. But grappling lines fell from the skyfort’s rigging all about them as cries from the Imperial crew rose up all around.

They were trapped.