‘So where are all the aliens?’ Peter said.

‘They captured the village, and locked everyone in the skyship holds,' said Vale. 'Then left only enough to control the village.’

The riders formed up on their mounts with heads into the center. They had freed the Clanhome, but had not defeated the enemy aliens. They did not celebrate.

Grey had argued that only River riders should circle up but even his own people urged the Snow Clan to be allowed to join. They grumbling when Walt and Tiz brought their moasaurs up alongside Peter’s mount.

But Vale joked that since their beasts stood on two feet their votes were already known. ‘Allow them to watch. This concerns them too.’

‘Why did the aliens leave the skyship behind?’ said Sarah.

‘They did not use the skyship in the attack,’ said an older rider. ‘Only after. To lock up the clan.’

‘The skyship cannot move fast or where they need it to,’ said Peter. ‘Perhaps they have gone somewhere in a hurry.’

Peter’s mount shuffled impatiently as she sensed his unease.

The blackbirders took the village without warning. They knew Grey and his men had left the village undefended. That’s why they attacked.

He took a sharp intake of breath as it struck him. ‘The rest of the blackbirder aliens know what happened here,’ Peter said. ‘They’ll come back. Soon. We have to leave here.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Thorn. ‘None of the fiends escaped to tell the tale. We made sure of that.’

‘Sarah,’ Peter said in English. ‘Tell them. They won’t believe me.’

‘Tell them what?’ Sarah replied.

‘They must have radio. These blackbirder aliens have modern technology. You saw the portal, and their guns.’

Sarah’s mouth dropped open as she understood.

‘Keep your yammering to yourselves,’ said Grey. ‘If you cannot speak for all then keep your mouth closed. Otherlanders should have no voice in this moot.’

‘They know,’ said Sarah. Peter had begun to understand her. ‘The aliens know what has happened here. They will come soon. These aliens have a device that speaks across distance.’

‘What magic is this?’ said the old man. ‘Next you will say they watch us like the gods.’

‘Yeah,’ said Peter. ‘That’s the next thing I wanted to say.’

‘Tell us,’ said Thorn. ‘We would be fools not to listen to what might be possible.’

Sarah stood on her mount. ‘There is a way for voices to be shone, like a light that passes through all things. Those watching and listening for this light can see and hear. These aliens have entered our world from a place where these things exist. Peter comes from a land beyond ours, Earth, where these things exist. It is not magic. But a tool. The aliens may watch us even now.’

The skyship might even have a radio. I never thought to look.

His mount stomped and began to back away from the circle. 'Easy Girl,' Peter said.

‘Do not break the circle,’ commanded Grey. ‘None, even you, a clanless one, may not break the circle until we have decided.’

‘He is Snow Clan,’ said Thorn.

‘I have adopted him.’ Vale’s voice cut over Thorn’s. ‘And the young boys, though they do not have a voice since they ride beasts that cannot hunt.’

Grey frowned and Peter saw his increasing anger. He and Sarah had undermined him. They stood equal to him in the moot circle.

Thorn stood in his saddle webbing. ‘I speak for the Snow Clan. I fear these aliens will not rest until we are all dead or enslaved. We came to your aid because together we are stronger than either Clan alone. We share blood kinship, and should stand together and fight.’

‘I speak for the River Clan,’ said Grey. ‘This skyship will become our village. We will stock it with our stores and travel away from the aliens.’

‘So you would run?’ said Thorn.

Grey stood and his mount reared up. ‘When we carry our home the world shall pass by around us. Before we settled in these stone Clanhomes we traveled over the world with our beasts. Our ancestors journeyed from the great western land over the wide sea to this place before it became bound in ice. We shall journey again.’

‘So you run,’ said Thorn. ‘And what of the Snow Clan?’

‘Join us. Be bound together again by blood.’ Grey surveyed the circle but he dwelled on Sarah who frowned at the ground.

‘We of the Snow could take this place for our Clanhome,’ said Thorn.

‘For us it will soon be just cold stones,’ said Grey. ‘Even now we move our stores into the skyship.’

Sarah stood. ‘I agree, we should go. The alien blackbirders took this Clanhome and our own easily. But this skyship is not River Clan’s alone. Remember who took it. River and Snow captured it together.’

‘Shall the clans to be bound again?’ said Grey to the circle.

Thorn saw most of Snow’s riders stood here now.

‘I am but one among the Snow Clan. I have long sought to bring our clans together,’ Thorn glanced at Sarah. ‘But I will not force a decision that should be made by all. How do we all stand? Bound together, we stand together.’

Thorn commanded his mount to rear up. ‘Together we stand.’

One by one the riders stood and their mounts reared up.

Grey called out. ‘We stand as one Snow River Clan. I call for us to take the skyship. And go north.’ Grey settled his gaze on Peter who had not reared Girl up.

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Many of the riders slipped back onto all fours and sat in their saddle. Including Thorn. Peter felt Sarah’s gaze upon him.

They can’t do this without me. Or her.

Sarah nodded her head and Peter rose in his webbing, then walked onto Girl’s head as she reared up.

Peter called out in Thaluk then.

Fin’qa luraya

Thuradha vazho zhunaq

Fin thusuvaq zhar

‘And what does that mean?’ said Sarah in English.

Peter turned to her. ‘It’s based on a Thaluk song I heard sung in the north.’ And he translated for her into English.

‘Upon winter’s plain

Across a bridged ravine

Cold north gate opens.’

‘No really,’ said Sarah not understanding even his translation. ‘We can’t fly that skyship alone. Are you going to help?’

‘Yes. If we journey together, and bridge your differences, I will show the way into the North.’

He saw the rest of the circle nodding.

Tulanvarqa makes it easy to understand poetry.

‘We cannot fight the alien blackbirders,’ said Peter so all could hear. ‘There are too many, they have strong weapons, and they come soon. I will help you all fly to the north.’

And there’s a portal in the mountains. If we get to it before the next full moon the cousins can go home.

Grey called them all for a final decision. Even Thorn raised his mount on its hind legs though he did not stand.

‘Like our ancestors,’ said Grey. ‘We travel together as one clan, into new lands closer to the gods.’

The attack came that night.

Thorn had led his Snow Clan back to their camp. He had not been happy exclaiming to Sarah as he left, ‘If you’d only taken Grey from the first we would not be running like this.’

As the great beasts of Thorn’s troupe rounded the path into the forest Peter sighed and stamped his feet against the snow to keep the circulation running. He had warmer clothes now, the felted layers kept his body warm, but his feet never seemed to warm up.

‘The blackbirders will always have come,’ he said to Sarah. ‘And they’re too strong.’

Sarah looked up into the sky then lowered her gaze to the skyship. ‘So how do we sail this thing? It all depends on you now.’

‘We don’t sail it. We’ll tow it. Gather up your mounts, that great monster of yours. I’ll see to the gharumal, though it is too cold for them here.’

They harnessed as many of the mounts and gharumal they could, though the northern creatures did not want to stand in the snow and kept trying to pull free.

Having a pack of hunting carnivores around you can’t be good either.

They towed the skyship into the Clanhome and with the help of hundred of clan they got a chain gang moving stores and food and supplies into the hold.

Peter climbed the masthead and searched the snowy horizon. He hated heights.

You’d think I’d be used to it after all the flying in The Jupiter.

But something about climbing up the mast made his hands sweat and shake even in the cold. He only got high enough to get a view. No matter how he rationalized his mind around the idea of climbing higher his body refused to work.

Heck. My hands could stop holding on.

He willed them to stop shaking. Then he looked around. The forest ran down the slope to his right. The icy river cut into the mountain before the huge mass of rock turned it to the right and east. To the north, beyond the forest where the river opened onto the plain, lay the Snow Clan’s camp. Thorn said they could strike their tents and be ready at dusk.

The Snow Clan’s herd of grazing beasts had been brought close to the forest and would led out the procession.

Too many to count. I need to sleep.

He descended to the captain’s cabin and fell amongst a pile of felted fur feather blankets.

No one is going anywhere without me. I’m putting my head down.

It seemed as if no time had passed before someone woke him.

‘Peter, get up.’ Tiz prodded him. ‘They’ve been looking for you. Sarah’s furious.’

‘Can’t a guy sleep?’ Peter peeled his eyes open.

‘Not according to Sarah,’ said Tiz. ‘They’re ready to go. The moon rises too late to light our way. We need to get moving before the sun has set.’

‘Where is she?’

‘On deck. With Grey.’

‘I’m sure she’s very happy about that.’

Urged to hurry, Peter ran up the stairs two at a time, then strode with purpose towards the bridge in an attempt to look awake.

‘Where have you been?’ Sarah crossed her arms and gave her signature glare.

‘Come. Get us flying once more,’ said Grey. ‘We leave now.’

Peter saw a wild look in Sarah’s eye.

Some people don’t need their beauty sleep, but it might improve her temper.

‘We thought you’d left,’ Sarah said.

‘I’d never leave my Girl.’

Sarah went red. Then her anger descended once more. ‘Your mount is in the hold along with the rest of the crew.’

‘I see. Makes sense.’ Peter grinned, but hurried on before she could say anything more. ‘Sarah. You’re captain. You stay in the bridge and use the communicator to tell me what you need the flight engine to do.’

‘And what am I? A passenger?’ said Grey.

‘No. You’re Admiral Grey Snow, in overall command.’

‘Until Thorn gets here,’ said Sarah.

‘So. What do we call this vessel?’ said Peter.

‘What? How is that important?’ Sarah said.

‘Bad luck where I come from. A skyship needs a name and a captain named for her.’

‘I call this vessel Snowflake,’ said Grey.

Peter laughed. ‘Captain Snowflake?’ His cheeks hurt from his wide grin.

‘What?’ said Sarah sensing he poked fun at her.

‘The captain takes the ship’s name,’ Peter said. ‘I propose we call her Quarrelsome.’

‘If you’re serious about this then stopping making jokes.’ Sarah fell silent and the two man stared at her. ‘We shall call her Hope.’

‘Aye Captain Hope.’

‘But we’re Clan. You shall call me Captain Snow.’

‘Told you Snowflakes would be a good name,’ said Grey.

Peter left before he heard the end of the harangue. But the strangeness struck him.

How come snowflake means the same to me and to the Clan? And why did Grey call her that?

He took a further step.

And I’m understanding Clan again.

That meant something. The last time his tulanvarqa had improved the imp had been close by.

He reached the Flight Chamber and Sarah signaled for the flight engine to raise the skyship. Peter wrangled the controls, the polygons around the zharaqsa shifted, and the the space whirled as vertigo took a hold of him. Then the signal came to hold the height and everything stilled.

Peter took the chance to slip along the central corridor to the bomb bay where a hatch opened to allow the bombardier to spot targets. The cold of the open air bit at him. An advantage of the flight chamber was the heat and zharaqsa pulsed out. Enough to warm the space in winter, or at altitude. Here though the wind had risen and all below swirled white. Ahead the mounts and gharumal together with Sarah’s great vorandruk lent into their harnesses, urged on by River Clan riders, then the beats stepped forward and the skyship began to move. Peter kept moving between flight chamber and lookout. Sarah did not know to lower the skyship as they came down the mountain slope. And Peter did not warn her.

So he saw when the enemy struck.

The skyship had just left the forest the towing beasts had begun to pace across the plain. Night had fallen, but the moon had not yet risen, so the cloud lay across the sky a dim blanket just perceived. The snowy plain lay forty meters below, a swirling mass of white with the shadows of the herd below, and the guardian beasts, ranged around their perimeter.

Herding at night like this is madness.

Then he saw shadows race against the dark shrouded snow. They cut amongst the grazing beasts which reared in fright. Then all chaos reigned.

Shock froze Peter. Should he raise the skyship to keep it out of reach? Or should be lower it to bring the weight of the many Snow Clan warriors to bear upon them?

Peter threw open the bomb bay doors. He kindled glowglobes and set them shining. So he saw it all in the brightness that shone from the belly of the skyship.

With the light came a counterattack. The mounts struck down, while the huge mounts lashed out, at the smaller low slung shadows. The riders freed their chargers from their harness. The grazing beasts huddled in the glow of the bomb bay as the protecting mounts circled and attacked the beasts. He could not see if the attacking beasts had riders. It made sense they would.

The mounts and their riders killed one of the creatures, perhaps by lance or claw. The vorandruk charged in fury and swept a pair of attackers before it out of the light so Peter could not see.

A yipping cry of a alarm echoed from the remaining attacking creatures. The shadows ran north. Their course the same as the skyship.

Straight for the Snow Clan camp.