Peter and Dusty ran their mounts directly back towards the heart of the Clan. A red pall hung over the encampment as dust kicked up by the wind lifted on the west wind to glow red and orange as the sun hung above the horizon.

‘They don’t know yet,’ said Peter.

‘Get to the nearest Clan. Before they attack.’

‘How can you be sure there is even a threat?’

‘My eyes are not what they used to be,’ said Dusty. ‘But I can still see good to the distance. There I see mounts. But no Clan banners. And no Clan would rush in, kicking up dust, in that aggressive way. Clan would stop. Send a lone rider to bid for welcome for the rest to approach.’

The low sun lit the approaching troupe of riders. And now Dusty had told him what to look for, he saw it.

‘They’re blackbirders. How did they get mounts?’ Peter coughed back dust.

‘I don’t know. The devils have magic, evil workings we cannot understand.’ Dusty angled his mount further towards the arriving horde. ‘But we’ll make them pay once again. I’m guessing they took those mounts from another Clan. More people have suffered.’

‘There are more Clan?’

‘All across the plains there are small groups. And maybe larger ones. Not all are Clan. But most have mounts and grazing beasts, so near as can be, they’re kin.’

As they reached the edge of the Clan encampment alarm had begun to spread. People bundled their packs and rushed their children from the edges towards the middle of the camp. But that meant towards the skyship.

The blackbirders want the skyship back.

‘What can we do? Can we carry anyone on our mounts.’

‘No. They are better together. On our mounts we will be singled out to fight.’

‘Fight with what? I don’t have a lance, or a sword, or any weapon.’

‘Your mount will be your weapon. She is enough. A stout fighter.’

‘I know. She’s been dangerous before. But that makes me just a passenger. Not a warrior.’

‘Mount and rider are as one. With you she fights stronger. The bond of love will be there to give strength to both.’

Can Tulanvarqa be enough though?

Dusty led them around the edge of the camp. All had been roused to the attack, and riders now joined them in the vanguard of the defense. Among them Turq and Thorn riding tall with mounted warriors close behind.

‘Invaders,’ said Dusty. ‘They ride. I cannot believe they have any mastery of the mounts. That they ride at all seems strange.’ Dusty glanced at Peter as if comparing his strange ability to the invaders. ‘We will beat them off.’

‘They’ll have guns,’ said Peter. ‘They can hit us from a distance while we need to close with them to fight them.’

‘Then we don’t let them stand off,’ said Thorn. ‘We take the fight to them.’

‘Keep your mount between you and the invaders.’ Turq stood up as more defenders arrived. ‘Use your webbing, move around your mount. They are your first weapon, Do not rely on lances until we close with them.’

‘And do not let your lance to expose yourself to their weapons,’ said Peter. ‘They will shoot you from a distance if you let them.’

‘Form up on me,’ said Thorn.

‘With me on his right,’ said Turq. ‘The dust will hide us. Use it. We will present a small column between us, with the larger body of riders fanning out behind.’

Peter saw that maybe thirty riders had come up. But more arrived. But they did not wait.

‘There is no time. This is the moment.’

Turq took up a red banner, and Thorn unfurled a white one. In the dusty wind they streamed out before them.

The mounts moved forward on all fours at first as the column set their positions. And then with a cry, and a trumpeting from a mount, the warriors of the Snow River Clan rose in their saddle webbing. With their mounts lifted onto their rear legs they rushed at the invading blackbirders. The two hundred meters gap between closed fast.

The shooting began as soon as the Clan bolted forward. The blackbirders perhaps tried to get some shots away before the dust enveloped the charging mounts. Distance would be the blackbirder’s defense, so the Clan ran it down as fast as they could. They needed to fight at close quarters to counter the weapons fire.

Peter swung down onto the side webbing, and urged Girl on. It did not surprise him that she had once been called Grit. The determination she, and the other mounts had, surprised him. The huge beasts began to take bullet fire, but the thick hide, and bulky muscle, did not let the bullets reach anything vital. On the flanking webbing, his head below Girl’s shoulder Peter still felt exposed.

If a blackbirder targets me. I’m toast.

Peter dropped his face covering and spat out the gritty dust. Before raising it again he shouted ‘You go Girl.’ He still laughed as the enemies collided.

Girl reared up and slashed out her claws at a barely seen opponent. Peter swung in the webbing and almost lost his hold as his shoulder bashed against her flank. As Girl dropped to all fours Peter used her momentum to get himself back in the saddle atop her shoulders. The blackbirders would find it hard to target guns when the great beats twisted in their fighting. He yanked on the reins, Girl reared up, and smashed her forelegs onto the neck of the opposing mount.

Peter saw the blackbirder then. They wore a tight webbing harness with weapons that must be guns slung across their shoulders, including a long blade. They raised the weapon to point at Girl’s head at just two meter’s range. Without thought Peter stood and dived across the gap at the blackbirder. He landed on his opponent’s chest. The gun went flying, as did the two riders but each grabbed at the webbing and held on.

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Peter drove his the heel of his hand into the face of the enemy beneath him. Their aura flickered and glitched but their eyes snapped open, then narrowed as they hissed in anger.

The blackbirder twisted under him and they both slipped in the saddle webbing but still did not fall. The blackbirder had one strong grip in the webbing with their clawed feet and Peter had a hold on them as they swung almost upside down. The blackbirder swung their hands around, pressed both thumbs together, and rammed them at Peter’s eyes. He ducked away but took the pointed blow on his neck. He fell back with a gasp, then coughed almost choking. Peter began to lose his hold on the enemy. The fall would be four meters to the hard packed dirt where great beasts stomped and rampaged about.

But as he fell Peter grabbed at one of the weapons. It swung from the blackbirder’s harness and Peter got a stronger hold on it, pulling the blackbirder down after him. As both slipped lower Peter mash his foot into their facial aura even as they both lost their grip on the saddle webbing. Girl raked a claw across the opposing mount’s face and the beast reared away. The lurch threw Peter and the blackbirder into the stony ground. The enemy mount bucked and reared as it broke away from its attacker. Girl took one last swipe and stood a heat beat before she moved her head around to where Peter grappled with the blackbirder.

The carnivore opened her mouth and took hold of the blackbirder’s arm, then Girl whipped her head back and flung them from the ground into the air. The movement also sent Peter flying across the dirt and stones and he landed breathless when his air huffed out on impact. Stones bit at him, his ribcage ached as he gasped, them choked. The dust, thicker on the ground, smothered him as he tried to take a breath. The chaos and noise of battle hid his coughs as he struggled, winded.

He grabbed for Girl’s harness. She lowered her head towards him, then swung back and forth to sniff him out, and all the while she snorted in the dusty air. One side of her face bled, blood pooled over her eye. He butted his head against hers.

‘Get me up Girl.’

On the ground he would be trampled or shot or both.

Or choke.

He gripped her head harness as she lifted him clear of the ground. With a flick she almost tossed him into the air, but onto her head. He fell up, but held on. Scrambled to regain his grip. Girl reared high on her rear legs exposing him to the red light of the setting sun.

Peter pressed himself close to her fur-feathers, the heady musk filled his nose and merged with the steel-flint stink of the silt-strewn air. Then the vertigo rush of Girl’s prancing movement fell away. He stood on her head, high above the dust, the clearer air like a balm to his eyes and lungs. He took a deep breath of relief.

The Clan had broken the blackbirder’s thrust, and diverted it. Now the enemy’s mounts ran around the edge of the roiling Clan. The massed Clan folk bristled with weapons. Peter guessed the blackbirder’s rush away and to the side would be part change in target, but also a defensive movement. By slipping to the side they avoided running into a hundred spears and lances, knives and axes. When the Clan pulled together, with weapons drawn, they had grown too strong to run through. So the invaders ran around. Towards their true goal. The skyship.

Sarah had called the Skyship Hope. But already the Clan prepared to move north, to abandon the skyship. Turq and Thorn rallied their troupe and even now they called for a way to be made through the Clan to the skyship. If the blackbirders had to track around the furious crowd, the Clan riders could run straight through it.

As shouts rolled across the Clan to make way, and the defenders let loose their battle cries, the crowd parted. With their red and white banners planted in their webbing, the vanguard ran on two legs, standing tall on the shoulders of their giant beasts, Lances held high ready to stick it to their enemy. Cheering rose from all sides.

A shiver gripped Peter, but he too joined them in their rush. Girl needed no urging to follow, despite her wounds.

With his head bowed to hide from the dust his mount rose on rear limbs and bullied her way into the middle of the defending troupe. She joined her battle cry with theirs.

Peter’s hoarse voice became lost in the chorus. He held his head up now, the sun burned red in his eyes. And Girl followed the shafts of the setting sun light straight to the skyship.

As Peter’s troupe past the center of the Clan camp, but still three hundred meters from the skyship Vale pulled up short.

A mount had reared up with a rider crouched on its head and roared out a summons. ‘We go north. We leave the skyship. Follow me. The invaders will not attack us. If we leave now.’

‘Grey!’ Peter said under his breath. ‘What the heck are you doing now?’

‘Do not fight them,’ Grey said. ‘If Vale and Turq and the outsider had not taken the skyship we would not be in this danger.’ Grey stood above them all, but wobbled as he pointed away to the east.

‘North’s the other direction you idiot.’ Others also called him out.

‘I have assurance,’ roared Grey. ‘I know this for truth. The aliens will not attack us if we but leave the skyship to them. I will show the way.’ His mount dropped to all fours and ambled away from the setting sun.

‘Perhaps that’s more north than east, but it’s not north,’ Dusty had pulled up alongside Peter. ‘Except that is away from the skyship I guess.’

‘Dusty. Great,’ said Peter. ‘You’re still good.’

‘Turq lost her mount and rides with Thorn. And one of the others fell to their weapons that hit from a distance like an unseen arrow. But their mounts do not strike. They do not rear. If we get close to the enemy they cannot fight. Turq and Vale had the right of that.’

Thorn on his mount led the troupe on until they ran fully to the skyship. But the crowd began to split some staying firm to the strong defensive position, others following Grey. All too many of them wanted to believe they could run from this enemy.

‘They’re fools to follow Grey,’ Peter said as he urged Girl after Dusty. Behind Thorn, on his mount, Turq held the banners of both River and a Snow as they lead the defense. The crowd parted again as the beasts reared up and sprinted the last distance to intercept the blackbirders before they reached the skyship.

More mounts had formed up to face the blackbirders approach. Few riders joined with Grey as he led the defectors from the protection of the Clan.

As Girl came close to the skyship a small figure dropped from the side mast rigging, near where it met the hull, The imp skipped and dodged between the legs of the mounts until he reached Girl. Peter’s mount chuffed a welcome and stuck her leg out for the imp to leap up.

Varuq'hat bounced in front of Peter, excitement and agitation evident in his frantic movements, and yet his head stayed motionless in that strange imp-like manner.

‘The radio. The skyship radio,’ said the imp. ‘It’s been activated.’ Varuq'hat waved one of his devices about. ‘It’s still sending. And the Arthans have been talking too. They knew where the Clan would be. They followed the radio.’

‘But you turned the radio off,’ said Peter. ‘No one else knew about it, except me and you and the cousins. Right? And maybe Sarah could guess about it too. But none of the others would understand it.’

‘That’s just it. The boys and Jan and Sarah and you… you’ve been off the skyship. The radio modulation happened when you were not there at all. So it is someone else.’

‘Who?’

The imp pointed.

Peter turned to look across the clan, and as he did so Girl rose to her rear legs. Together Peter and Varuq'hat stood. Across the mass of agitation, even as blackbirders readied to attack the skyship, one rider fled the Clan and the fight.

‘Grey!’ said Peter. ‘And he said it too. He had assurances…’ Peter swore. ‘Somehow he must have heard us talking about the radio. The sneaky weasel. Worked out how to use it. How?’

‘He is a smart man, even if in his heart he is weak.’

‘Yeah. But it doesn’t affect what happens next does it? We still fight the blackbirders.’

‘It might. There are many people that agree with Grey, but do not like him, and will not follow him.’

Varuq'hat pointed to where Sarah, Turq and Thorn had gathered with the massed force of mounts. Now almost a hundred of them had set a defensive line against the blackbirders and readied to charge.

‘It may be possible to win a little more, but even they will negotiate to leave as Grey has done. Vale and the others will lead the Clan away. They would have left the skyship in time, so they do not care.’

‘You’re right. The Arthans will be back on attack once they have the skyship. They had it before, but still wanted Clan humans. They will want them again.’

‘There’s another thing.’ Varuq'hat put his hands over his face then lowered them as if afraid to say the words. ‘I found zharaqsa. A store of zharaqsa so large we cannot allow the Arthans to keep it.’

‘You mean we can relight the flight engine? We could take off again. We could rise high enough to cross the mountains?’

‘Yes. And more.’ the imp’s voice held fear and awe in an equal balance. ‘There is enough zharaqsa catalyst to fly forever. To fuel a hundred skyships for years.’

Peter’s eyes went wide. ‘We must keep the skyship. We and the Clan can’t survive if they had so much catalyst.’

‘No. None. The fate of worlds might rest on us keeping it from them.’