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13 - Death Is For The Lazy

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Suni

It was Kamil’s skyship. And it was in about a hundred pieces. My stomach fell straight through my boots at the sight. How had this happened? Skyships didn’t just crash, didn’t just fall out of the sky. They were too reliable. So then, what? Had this been sabotage? Did this have to do with the Bospurians somehow?

All that was left of the Panagia was splintered wood, churned earth, and a trail of debris scattered two hundred paces or more across the swampy prairie. The wreckage finally came to a stop at the edge of the jungle where the remains of the hull were tipped on one side, shattered and open to the sweltering midday sun. It looked all too much like the ribcage of a corpse, waiting to be devoured by scavengers.

I leaned over the Stormcrow’s rail, scanning for any sign of survivors. Or any bodies at all. None were visible. A small comfort, though we were still too high up to see with any certainty.

Please be okay, please be okay. Kamil, you have to be okay.

I couldn’t begin to process what had happened here. It was all I could do to hope and pray that Kamil, and everyone else, had made it out alive. Maybe they were waiting for rescue nearby? In the jungle? It was impossible to tell—the foliage was far too thick. But if there was someone there, they would see us, right? Would run out to flag us down?

The Stormcrow’s engines guided us toward the ground, humming quietly and steadily, directly contrasting with the chaos of panicked thoughts ricocheting around my mind.

“Ancestors above, spare me the sight!” Senesio collapsed against the ship’s rail, shielding his eyes with the back of a hand. “It pains me to see such a thing of beauty brought so low! A majestic member of his imperial highness’ fleet ruined, abandoned... vulnerable. Think of the horrors that could befall it now, Suni. Why, any old scavenger could happen upon it, could claim its cargo and its priceless, priceless engines.” He shook his head slowly. “What a dreadful thought. Just... dreadful.”

Any sincerity was lost as a smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

“Kamil and the rest of the crew could be injured, or worse.” There was anger in my voice that I hadn’t heard before. A bite to the words that I hadn’t expected, but I didn’t hold back. “And you’re thinking about how you can profit from this?”

Senesio had a way of talking around things, I was learning. Liked to plant ideas without directly saying them so they’d seem like they were your own.

“Profit?” He looked taken aback. “You insult me, Suni. I would never dream of stealing from the empire for profit.” He lowered his voice a touch and leaned in closer. “After all, the favor I’d gain for returning such valuable machinery would far exceed the profit from selling it.”

“You’re heartless.”

“Practical,” he corrected, but I wasn’t listening. I’d already turned my attention from his selfishness so I could focus on the quickly approaching ground.

From the way most people talked about the Far Wild it was easy to imagine it as some terrifying hellscape. When they looked at this place all they saw was the bad. The things they feared. But most of the time, fear was just a lack of understanding. People feared the unknown, but students of the college were taught to plunge into it. Through fear, enlightenment. That was the motto.

We were coming in for a landing and I wanted nothing more than to run down the gangplank and begin searching for Kamil and the others. But that wasn’t practical. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you, Suni. Be logical about this. Think, observe, then act. That’s what Kamil would have done. If survivors had left the area, we needed to know where they’d gone. Step one in that process was understanding the terrain. Where would it have encouraged them to go?

I forced my focus onto our surroundings, taking in every detail. Flanked on both sides by dense jungle, the prairie below us was a long expanse of wide-bladed, verdant green grass. Stenotaphrum secundatum, probably. Or, scratch grass, as many called it. It was the most common type of grass we’d observed in the Far Wild and ran rampant in Lekarsos. Its thin, finely bladed stalks caused near-invisible cuts upon making contact with skin. They didn’t hurt, and honestly weren’t noticeable, until sweat got into them. Then they’d become irritated and itch like a bug bite.

In some areas the scratch grass was topped by little fuzzy white dandelions, so soft they looked to be made of nothing more than a gentle thought. Other areas were swampy, flooded from the constant thunderstorms, no doubt. That’d be difficult terrain to move through, unless the rains had come after the Panagia crashed, turning once walkable ground into a mire. Great blue herons and lesser egrets stalked these flooded parts of the prairie. Their slender beaks were turned down, hunting for drowned bugs or displaced fish, as they waded so gently that the water was barely disturbed.

Around the swampy areas some sort of reed I didn’t recognize sprouted in crowded clusters. Each plant was thick as a thumb and they rose to what looked about twice the height of a man. Even more difficult terrain to cross. It was unlikely survivors would have gone that way.

Cicadas and what sounded like frogs sang from inside these thickets, their song echoing out across the prairie in a buzzing chorus that rose and fell like waves against a beach.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Oz asked, stepping up beside me. “These prairies never get old.”

“I wasn’t looking for beauty.” But he had a point. It was beautiful. It would have been even more beautiful, though, if it wasn’t the crash site of my teacher and his entire expedition.

“Eyes to the front,” Captain Barba snapped as she stalked past. “We didn’t come to bird watch. There’s bigger things to worry about out here.”

“Bigger like more important, or bigger like bigger?” Oz didn’t ask it with fear, but excitement. Captain Barba wasn’t listening, was already giving orders to the crew to prepare for touchdown, but Oz’s question was a good one.

The water birds and flowing reeds made for a nice view, but if there was one thing the Far Wild was abundant in, it was predators.

“There shouldn’t be anything bigger out here,” I said, thinking aloud. “Well, there could be water buffalo and horses, I guess. But predator-wise, what hunts here that’d be a concern to us?”

“Panthers,” Oz suggested, sounding all too happy about it.

“They won’t come after a group this big.”

“Snakes, then.”

“Again, too many of us.”

Oz’s response was cut short by a thud and the deck shook beneath us. We’d landed.

The warm breeze that’d accompanied us in the sky weakened here, then disappeared entirely. The cicadas, seemingly all at once, ceased their song. A single heron flapped into the sky but the others froze in place. A weight seemed to descend on the prairie; a tension in the air as if the whole world was waiting, watching, for what came next.

Find Kamil. That’s what came next. I turned my eyes back to the wreckage. From here it was easy to see that the ship was all shattered wood and scattered supplies. Nothing that could have been a corpse. That meant survivors, right? No doubt the expedition party would be nearby. There was no reason to journey into the surrounding jungle. If Professor Symeos’ reports were to be believed, the prairie was one of the safer areas of the Far Wild.

“Alright, we’ve all heard the stories about this place, boys,” Sergeant Kyriakos said as his soldiers extended the gangplank. “But I’ve yet to meet a story that’s stood up to sharpened Cyphite steel.” The gangplank squelched into the flooded grass of the prairie and he began down it immediately, sword in one hand, shield in the other. Leading by example, I suppose.

He stepped onto the prairie without hesitation. For a heartbeat my breath caught in my chest. I couldn’t help feeling the tension in the air. Half expected the stillness on the prairie to break and some monster to burst from the jungle, to run down the sergeant and make a meal of him.

The silence on the prairie didn’t break. Instead, it slipped away bit by bit. One cicada started singing again and the others soon joined it. A songbird called out from somewhere in the knee-high grass, and then the tension was gone.

I let out a breath that felt like it weighed ten pounds.

“Might not need that sharpened steel after all. Looks safe enough to me, boss,” Corporal Theo said as her careful footsteps tapped on the gangplank. “All things considered, I mean.”

“Pretty sure we saw the last of ‘safe’ when we took off from Lekarsos,” Sergeant Kyriakos muttered, eyes searching the surrounding prairie. “But at present, nothing’s trying to eat us, so that’s probably good.”

“Speak for yourself.” Gabar’s deep, throaty voice called out, followed by the slap of a hand on skin. “Bloody gnats are bleeding me dry.” He swatted at the swarm of dots circling his bald head.

“They’re just giving you a proper welcome,” the sergeant said.

“Can piss right off with their welcome, they can.” Gabar joined the sergeant and Theo on the prairie. Moments later the rest of the Sergeant’s squad followed: Aristos and Leda, eyes wide for any sign of danger.

“Can we go now?” I asked, turning to Elpida. “We need to check the wreckage, need to search for survivors.”

“Need to find out how this happened,” Captain Barba growled. “Soldiers, spread out. Set up a perimeter and keep an eye out for survivors.” She gave the command and Sergeant Kyriakos and his troops obeyed, advancing toward the wreck site. “Elpida, Oz, you’re with me. We’ll find out what happened here.” She turned last to Demetrias. “Get a closer look at the wreckage. Find out if this was a mechanical failure.”

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“There’s no way,” he said, shaking his head. “A vigilance-class skyship can fly with a failed engine. Two would have had to fail at the same time to make them crash like this. And judging from the debris trail, they came down at speed.”

“Take a closer look anyway. Report everything you find.” Captain Barba jabbed a finger at Senesio. “Go with him.” With that she led Elpida and Oz off of the Stormcrow.

“Captain, what am I—”

“Nothing. Stay on the ship,” she snapped. “You’re only here on a technicality.” With that she strode toward the wreckage, Elpida and Oz studying the ground as they went.

My cheeks burned at the rebuke and I averted my eyes from anyone else’s on instinct.

I had to stay on the ship? But Kamil could be out there—could be injured, in need of help. My feet stayed planted in place.

“Ah, the Far Wild,” Senesio said to Demetrias as he extended his arms out to the view before them. “A place of wonder. A place of danger. A place to prove one’s worth.”

“A place to get eaten alive.” Demetrias’ voice was hard to hear as the pair walked farther away from the Stormcrow.

“Death is for the lazy. Who has time for that? There’s still so much wealth to be had, so many adoring fans to—well, be adored by.”

They drew farther away and I was left alone, rooted in place on deck with my cheeks still aflame. The captain had given a direct order and, while on expedition, she and Elpida were my direct superiors. Disobeying now would be a crime.

But this was ridiculous. Kamil was my teacher and like a brother to me. I’d come all this way to make sure he was okay. I couldn’t go against a direct order, though. I was just an apprentice naturalist. I couldn’t... I’d be in...

I raised my eyes to Captain Barba.

She was off to one side, looking at something Elpida was pointing to in a patch of dried mud.

“You stay on the ship,” I growled, then scooped up an extra shield, just in case, and rushed down the gangplank after Senesio and Demetrias.

They were headed for the remains of the hull, following several paces behind the ever-expanding perimeter the sergeant and his troops were creating.

Now that I was on the ground, the prairie was much larger than I’d thought. As if it’d all grown just a bit bigger than was natural. The grass wasn’t knee-high, it was waist-deep. The flooded places were basically swamps. And the jungle. Ancestors above, the jungle.

It stood just beyond the wreckage of the Panagia, a densely packed wall of foliage that loomed two—or in some places, even three—times as tall as the skyship was long. Anything could have been hidden in it. A fleet of skyships might’ve been tucked in with the saw palmetto and coiling vines and no one would be the wiser. Though, being realistic, if anything were hidden in that mess of jungle it’d be a lot meaner than a skyship and probably have more teeth.

The fact that no one had come running out of the wreckage yet was far from encouraging. Kamil would be alive, I knew it. It’d take more than a crash to stop him. I forced myself to believe that as I hurried to catch up with Senesio.

“Disobeying direct orders now, eh, kid?” He laughed. “She’s a bad captain, anyway.”

“Maybe she won’t notice,” I said, ducking into his shadow and out of her line of sight.

“Spread out beyond the Panagia and stay alert,” Sergeant Kyriakos shouted from ahead of us. “Swords drawn, shields up.”

Shield, right. I wasn’t a soldier, but there was no harm in being prepared. I fumbled at the straps of the shield I’d grabbed, tightening them on my arm in my best approximation of the correct fashion.

It was awkward and tight on my forearm, not to mention heavy, but I pushed any thought of it from my mind. Right up until I reached to wipe a stream of sweat from my forehead with the wrong hand and slammed the rim of the shield into my face.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t see that. You know, to save you the embarrassment,” Senesio said, though he was already chuckling.

“Are you okay?” Demetrias asked, concern in his squinted eyes.

“Fine, fine.” I grunted, rubbing at the already rising bump and trying not to think about how stupid that’d looked.

It didn’t take much effort, considering I was soon distracted. We’d arrived at the remains of the Panagia. The bulk of it was still intact, though its flying days seemed done, smashed and battered as it was. Most places there wasn’t much more than giant, gaping holes that opened down to the ship’s crushed and flattened lower levels. Not an unsurprising state to find them in, considering the Panagia only had two engines still attached to it.

What must it have been like for the crew? Clinging on to anything within reach, gripping it for dear life as their ship plummeted from the heavens. Skyships were an incredible invention, a dream made real, but the ground was a solid, rocky thing, which smashed dreams just as easily as it did heads.

Thankfully, though, it seemed not many heads had been smashed here. The downside was that meant no Kamil.

“No bodies,” Captain Barba’s voice carried from the other side of the ship’s hull. “That means survivors.”

“No.” Elpida this time, the guidemaster’s voice coarse as always. “That means predators. And scavengers after.” She spoke with a grim certainty.

Scavengers, maybe. But there’d be evidence of that. This wreck was recent, within the last few days. Turkey vultures, coyotes, and other scavengers would make quick work of a corpse, but not that quick. There’d still be some remains, though I was very glad not to have found any.

“Eyes on that thicket to your right, Gabar. I don’t much care for the look of it.” At the perimeter line, Sergeant Kyriakos was gesturing with his sword.

“Looks like a bunch of plants, boss.”

“If it starts to look like something with more teeth, let me know, huh?”

Gabar grunted his acknowledgment.

“Hold up, what’s this?” There was a scrap of something in the mud. Paper, I realized, as I dug it out. Paper with Kamil’s writing on it! It was just a few words, but I’d recognize his script anywhere.

“This was part of his field journal,” I said as Senesio looked over. “And here, look. There’s more!” I pushed aside some loose boards to reveal several more pages.

“‘Day four of our expedition. Clear skies, little wind.’” I said, reading the first of the pages. “‘We continue toward our first stop to collect water samples. At this point, I’m convinced there isn’t any significant deposit of magnesia ore upriver. But veracity is required, as always.’” The writing went on in other entries, but none detailing the crash or why it’d happened, which, in hindsight, made sense.

“If he’d been able, he would have tried to save his journal,” I said, looking around the wreck site. Had Kamil been injured? Worse? No. There was no evidence of that. No direct evidence, at least.

“He probably had a bit more than journals on his mind as he plummeted out of the sky,” Senesio said with a shrug.

“Speaking of which, let’s get a closer look at these poor engines.” Demetrias struggled to clamber over a mountain of debris.

The sun beat down on us and I could feel my skin starting to burn from so long in its direct light, but a little sunburn was hardly a concern right now.

“Yes, yes,” Demetrias said, as he reached the closest engine. He said it quietly at first, then spoke again, this time louder. “The engine here was blown apart. See, look at this. The magnesia cores inside must have separated for some reason. One blew out and was launched away from the ship, most like. The other, well... ” He pointed to a hole torn through the far side of the Panagia and winced. “Ripped through the hull on its way out. Catastrophic ejection.”

Ouch. Not what I’d wanted to hear. Not at all.

“I’m no engineer, but even I know engines don’t normally blow apart on their own,” I said, looking at Demetrias. “Was the ship attacked?”

He sighed, then wiped at a bead of sweat on his hooked nose and nodded. “I don’t see any other explanation.”

“Engines are valuable,” Senesio said, a hand stroking his mustache. “Two functioning engines and the magnesia ore from the others would raise a king’s ransom—” He was cut short as a branch snapped in the jungle.

My heart skipped a beat and I raised my shield, quick as I could. Something was in the jungle; had been watching us, probably. Waiting for its moment to strike. No, that was the fear talking. Through fear, enlightenment. Get a hold of yourself, Suni.

“On me!” Sergeant Kyriakos shouted, then raised his shield and eased backwards several steps, eyes locked on the tree line.

Another branch snapped, followed by a crash, each sound sending a fresh surge of panic through me.

Squinting in the midday sun I could just make out a thicket of palmetto through the hanging vines and interwoven branches. The taller fronds at the rear shot into motion, jerking back and forth as something hit them lower down, then pushed through at a sprint. Maybe thirty paces from the edge of the jungle.

The crashing grew louder, closer. Something was coming at us, and fast. Twenty paces away now.

I backed away on instinct, shield still held up like I knew how to use it.

The sides of the thicket were motionless, but a straight line down the middle was shaking and waving wildly. The beast in there was headed right for us.

Ten paces.

A flock of birds launched into a panicked flight from the canopy.

Five paces.

My heart was in my throat now, its pounding deafening loud in my mind and drowning out all rational thought.

The last palmetto frond was smashed to the side and the beast burst from the jungle at a full sprint. Except, it wasn’t a beast.

It was a man.

Bloody and limping, smeared in mud and emperor knew what else, but still the blue-and-white uniform that clung to him was unmistakable. It was that of a Cyphite sailor.

“Ancestors above,” I said as I lowered my shield. Relief flooded through me and my painfully clenched muscles fell loose. “It’s just a man.”

The running man came straight at me, arms waving. He was shouting something, too, but the words were stuttered and slurred, too jumbled to understand.

“Calm down,” Sergeant Kyriakos shouted, voice filled with authority as he stepped towards the man, one hand outstretched. “We’re here to help.”

“Uh, boss?” Theo said. “We might have a situation here.”

The palmetto thicket was moving again. And not just a single line down the middle this time. The entire thing was crashing and waving. The canopy above it, too. Seemed the whole jungle was alive with movement. Thrashing and tossing like the sea in a storm.

“Back to the ship. Now.” Sergeant Kyriakos gave the command as he sheathed his sword. I was half gone already. From the burning in my legs to the tilt of my stance, leaning away from the jungle, every fiber of my being was screaming run!

And then a few paces behind the sprinting sailor, the jungle exploded.

Branches bent with groaning screams then snapped entirely, splinters flying through the air and plinking off of my shield. I turned to run again but a gargantuan tree came down with a moan, slammed into the earth and sent me stumbling. I missed a step, turned an ankle, then collapsed. My shield was torn from my arm as I slid on my stomach for a pace.

I’d just begun to pull myself to my feet, spitting dirt from my mouth, when a roar tore through the air. The roar of something giant, something primal, something full of fury and hunger. The very earth beneath me shook with the sound of it. The roar transitioned into a scream, piercing loud, painful loud, then ended in a hiss just as my hearing faded to a shrieking whine.

I couldn’t help myself. I turned my eyes to the jungle. Or, to the hole that had been blown through the jungle, and towards the beast now standing in the middle of it.

“Beast” hardly did the creature justice. It was just an animal, I knew. Just an animal. But ancestors above, it was so much more.

It was a monster. A giant. A horror in the flesh. A dozen descriptions whipped through my mind, followed by the name of the creature as I recognized it from rumors no one had thought were true.

Behemoth komodo.

The monster lizard stood near three times the height of a man, and ancestors knew how many times as long.

I couldn’t help but stare. Despite the terror, or maybe because of it, the naturalist in me took over. My eyes started at the beast’s clawed feet, which looked ideal for digging or disemboweling, then continued upward, passing thick, meaty legs and shoulders and then an even thicker neck. It looked like the creature was all top heavy, weighed down by the mass of its shoulders and throat. For biting and holding on, I knew. That was the build of a predator. And, like most predators, nature had equipped it with a head for catching prey.

It was sleek but thick, must have been a third the length of a skyship’s hull, and came complete with solid black eyes. A forked, pink-gray tongue flicked into the air and as it did the behemoth komodo turned towards the running sailor. A slow movement. Lazy, almost.

It was the movement of a creature that was the undisputed king of the food chain and knew it. The movement of a creature whose wrinkled, muddy leather skin was so thick even a skyship’s ballistae would struggle to pierce it. A creature whose whip-like tail no doubt swung with enough force to split the earth asunder. A creature that, as I stood frozen, took three unhurried steps forward and closed its jaws around the running sailor.