Light from the grating above filtered down even as blackbirders ran along above tracking their progress down the corridor.

Peter pumped his legs as he ran down the spine of the skyship. He tried to breathe but he could not get enough air into his lungs and instead he panted in great gasps.

Some plan. Why do I get into these situations?

The rest of the team had overtaken him so they ran past the door to the hold.

‘Sarah. Stop. In here,’ he yelled. The others didn’t understand him but stopped and ran back when Sarah did, then they formed up to face the onrushing blackbirders.

The hold had never been intended as a jail and so a simple bar had been placed over the hold doors. Sarah lifted it free and swung the door open.

The blackbirders above screamed and dropped darts through the grating. The thwacks of the sharp impacts on the wooden deck came close to hitting Peter.

Sarah came out of the hold.

‘Empty,’ Sarah shouted. Then added something in the clan’s language.

’Damn,’ said Peter. Then in Thalak he said, ‘Check the other holds. Both sides.’

Sarah ran forward. Peter staggered back as a dart thudded into the deck in front of him. One of the Rivers yanked a dart from the deck and threw it at the approaching blackbirders.

A hold door burst open and a moasaur bounded out sending Sarah jumping back. The moasaur ran at Peter. He dived to the side as it stomped the deck next to his body. Then the two legged beast ran at the blackbirders. As he got to his feet more moasaurs came from the hold, some at a rush, others slower and with more caution. Peter pressed to the side out of the way of the beasts.

Another hold door opened and a cheer went up. Humans jumped from of the hold, more poured after them. Then as humans filled the corridor the blackbirders struck. But the moasaurs amongst them kicked their legs out at the blackbirders. Both beast and alien screeched in anger at each other and lashed out at those that came close.

Peter ran to join Sarah who had opened the last of the hold doors. She staggered back at what she saw within.

The humans had filled the corridor now and the sudden mass of numbers pressed the blackbirders back even as the moasaurs ran through the blackbirders to a grumbling halt at the end of the corridor.

The humans advanced on their enemy, but cries of pain, and shouting erupted, as dart rained down form above.

‘Move it,’ shouted a large man. Unarmed he led the charge against the blackbirders.

‘What the heck is that?’ said Sarah as Peter joined her in the hold to keep clear of the darts falling from above.

‘I don’t know. Gharumal are big but this thing is off the scale.’ The word came to him then. ‘Vorandruk. I heard about them. Before.’

‘It can hardly fit in the hold,’ Sarah said.

Screams came from the corridor. The humans had got hold of the darts and had rushed the blackbirders. Peter saw they had put them to retreat.

He laughed. ‘They’ve stopped dropping darts. All that did was give us weapons to fight with.’

‘Woah,’ Sarah yelled.

The vorandruk had backed her against the wall. She ducked between its legs. The huge body stood a full five meters above the deck. The beast then ambled out of the hold as Sarah skipped out of the way. The vorandruk pulled up short with a snort of frustration. Its lead rope still kept it in check.

Reinforcements had now poured into the corridor and a shot rang out.

‘They’ve got a gun,’ said Peter. ‘It’ll be a masacre.’

‘Help me up,’ said Sarah.

‘What?’

‘I’m going to ride this monster.’

Peter stepped back. The humans now fought hand to hand with the blackbirders. The gun shot had come from above. Another punched a gap in the mass of humans.

‘You’ll be a target.’

‘Peter. Boost me up.’

He grabbed her lower leg, put his shoulder to her hip, and in one movement lifted her up so she sat on one side of his shoulder. Sarah grabbed the leading rope and used it to climb onto the beasts shoulder like she scaled a mountain. The creature’s hide gleamed black, but across its shoulders and forelegs a huge ruff of rust brown fur-feathers gave it the look of a hulking weightlifter.

Peter jumped but could not grab hold of the rope himself. Then Sarah had cut the rope and the beast ambled free of the hold.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

The vorandruk had a long neck, longer than a horse’s but not nearly as long as a giraffe. The corridor’s huge height kept its head lowered as it paced back along the corridor towards the stern, and the fiercest fighting.

When it bellowed the fighting paused but just long enough for the humans to rush at the dwindling number of blackbirders.

The blast of a gun came from the grating above. A blackbirder had taken aim at Sarah.

Peter’s heart pounded as multiple shots came from the grating. Sarah had slid forward in the vorandruk’s webbing harness and down the neck to avoid the blackbirder’s shots.

Shots hit the vorandruk and it bellowed in anger. It tossed its head as if to shake Sarah off, but as it did so its head crashed against the grating. The gun shots faltered. The beast struck again and the grating cracked.

‘Sarah,’ Peter shouted. ‘Watch out. It’ll hit you.’

And then the grating fell. Not the cracked and broken grill but where the bloackbirder had stood. The alien fell as the Vorandruk’s head shoved the grating aside. The screeching stopped abruptly as the enemy hit the deck.

Sarah slipped onto the vorandruk’s shoulder and urged it forward. Right at the melee between blackbirders and humans. The monster needed no urging as it headed for the stern exit doors.

Peter ran forward between the tree trunk sized pacing legs that squeezed both humans and blackbirders to the sides of the corridor. When the fighting resumed the humans fought with the last of the blackbirders as they tried to run away. Peter had got ahead of Sarah’s monster, and amongst terrified mewling moasaurs he stared at the huge stern doors

How to open this thing?

A blackbirder ran at him, a blade raised high ready to slash at him. Peter turned and rugby tackled them to the ground, the blade clattered away. He saw the counterweighted chain and pulled at it, climbed it, and drew it down. The hatchway opened just as Sarah’s vorandruk barreled up and groan a rumbling rasping cry. The beast shouldered at the part open door and it clattered open.

Then humans, moasaurs, and the huge vorandruk spilled out of the hatch, dropped the half meter to the ground and out into the dawn-lit open field.

Peter stood in the hatch as the last humans limped or were carried from the corridor. The lower deck held no blackbirders now.

We can’t leave this. We have to steal it.

‘Sarah,’ he yelled. ‘We have to put a stop to this.’

One of the Clan ran at him with a firebrand. Others followed.

‘No,’ Peter shouted. ‘We can take it.’

The first of the burning torches landed on the deck. Peter stepped back inside and hauled on the chain as more burning objects were thrown inside then he got the hatch moving lower. Smoke filled the corridor with no outlet once he had the hatch shut. He picked up the first torch and bashed it into the deck, sparks flew but the flame guttered out. He kicked or broke apart the burning brands until the fires stopped and the smoke filled space made him choke.

He ran down the corridor to the bomb bay. It lay in the center of the vessel. The flight chamber would be close by. Just above the corridor. The steps to the heart of the skyship appeared on the right and took them two at a time.

At this, the balance-point of the skyship’s mass, the flight engine could lift and pivot the skyship about itself. The curves of the metal lattice-work panels glimmered in the green glow of the zharaqsa catalyst. The polygonal shapes within the panels now seemed to have a subtle pattern to their random tiling. The strange new math would distract him if he let it.

Long ago he had learned some of the flight engine’s secrets. But he wanted only one now. How to get it flying.

Peter worked the controls, and the flight-engine's polygonal array of edges and faces twisted, the green glow pulsed, then steadied. The ground lurched under his feet as the huge skyship moved and groaned at the sudden acceleration. Then it tilted.

Something's not right.

It had been a lifetime ago since he had watched and studied a manisaur engineer working the zharaqsa catalyst that made skyships fly. So very different to the aether bound in the kheel of his outrigger. His flying sailboat could take a grip upon the universe and skate along a path, not deflected by the wind but working against it to speed forward like a true sailboat.

These zharaqsa skyships could only float and be pushed by the wind like a dandelion seed.

So why is the skyship tilting so much?

He urged the skyship higher, but had to hold onto the control panel as the angle became extreme.

More than 45 degrees.

Then he couldn't tell any more. He clung to the controls, almost lying on them as the deck became a wall. The putrid green glow of the catalyst thrummed and pulsed. The engine pulled energy from the light and made the room vibrate and almost shimmer with constrained force.

Then, like a ball bursting from underwater, the skyship surged upwards, groaning and crying out as if in pain. The sense of vertigo dizzied him and the unreality of his life took another turn.

Something must have held it down. Mooring lines. They’ve been broken.

The communication device from the bridge thrashed about as what remained of the blackbirder crew struggled to control the vessel. But the control needed an engineer to do their bidding.

Huh. Not happening.

Peter eased the zharaqsa back to neutral, and then manipulated the polygon so the sinking feeling returned. As the skyship eased its way back to the ground Peter rushed out to the bomb bay. He opened the doors and peered out. All he could see was white snow of the winter bound plains. It came closer and closer. Back at the flight engine he eased the controls to neutral as the momentum of the huge mass carried it to the ground with a thud. With the controls at negative again the skyship had landed.

Pounding footsteps told him the remains of the blackbirder crew would arrive soon. He ran from the flight chamber but could not head to the central corridor, that’s where the sounds of his enemies came from. Instead he climbed a narrow service stair towards the deck.

As he passed along a person-sized corridor lit with glowglobes he heard a pounding at a door and a warbling language it took a moment for Peter to catch.

A manisaur.

‘What is happening? You crazy fiends. Turn the world upside down why don’t you?’

Peter grinned. ‘It’s good to hear a friendly voice,’ he said at the door in Thaluk.

The banging stopped.

‘Well then. Friend. Let me out.’

This door had a solid construction but had the same door handle lock arrangement Peter remembered from Eoth.

'This has to be a skyship from Eoth. Gharumal. Moasaurs. And now door locks.'

‘Friend? You’re no friend if all you do is yammer to yourself. Can't you get the door open?’

On the wall next to the door sat the lock-handle. Handle-lock. Peter tried it first one way then the other. Then it slid in and clicked open.

The door banged him back across the corridor and he fell to the ground as a dark shape landed on his chest.

Peter stared up at the face in shock.

‘Breeze!’

‘What? Who? Crazy human,’ said the being on his chest. ‘This is no time for laying about. Get up. Get out. Time to fly.’

The being stood and ran along the corridor. It paused at the end and looked back.

‘Come on friend. If friend you be. No time to be wasted.’

Then they turned the corner and disappeared.

It took Peter a moment to realize. Then it struck him. The imp had spoken to him in English.