Clash of the Sky Galleons (21 page)

Shivering herself, Maris stared all round, her eyes wide with a mixture of excitement and awe. From one side of the sky to the other, the air was crystal clear. Only down at the far horizon was there any hint of colour -and that, the faintest smudge of yellowy-pink. She leaned against the balustrade and, craning her neck, peered down.

There, far below her now, was the top of the storm-clouds. Dazzling white and as fluffy as bolls of wild woodwool, the whole lot was in movement, with wisps of mist swirling above the rest like the steam in a cauldron of hot bristleweed broth.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ she sighed, her breath coming in thick billowing clouds of white steam. She looked at Wind Jackal, then at Quint. ‘What happens now?’ she breathed.

‘We wait up here as long as we can,’ said Quint, trying to stop his teeth chattering. ‘And hope the storm has blown past when we descend. Button up your greatcoat, Maris, it’s going to get very cold …’

Maris, though, was not listening.
‘Look!’
she gasped.

But Quint had already seen. As the
Galerider
had climbed higher, so the temperature had continued to drop. Now it had become so cold that sky-frost had
struck. As though one of the painters up on the viaduct walkway had applied a snowy wash, the entire sky ship was abruptly turning white - starting up at the top of the mast and rapidly moving down.

‘Oh, my!’ Spillins cried out in alarm, as his caternest was suddenly touched by the thick, crunchy layer of whiteness that turned the downy spider-silk lining as hard as marble.

Down the mast it ran, and along each and every rope and folded sail. The sailcloth, normally so soft and pliable, turned instantly stiff and inflexible, and fragile as glass. Round the hull the frost went, cracking and creaking as it turned the black rigging white. Even the glowing flight-rock began to cool once more - and though the frost melted as quickly as it formed on the flight-rock’s cage, the intense cold ensured that it re-froze as rows of jagged icicles that became thicker and thicker with every passing second.

Wind Jackal shook his head. ‘You’ve done your best, old girl,’ he muttered, patting the
Galerider’s
wheel.

They had tried to hover above the storm. It hadn’t worked. Now, there was only one thing they could do.

‘To your stations!’ he bellowed. ‘Prepare to descend! We’re going to have to stormlash, lads!’

Instantly, there was a flurry of movement on the flight-rock platform. With the ice building up on the metal rock cage, the flight-rock had already begun to cool. If they didn’t act immediately, the
Galerider
would hurtle for certain. Wielding a huge sledgehammer each, Tem and Steg climbed over the rock cage, slamming the heavy tools at the great icicles one by one, until they shattered and fell away with the sound of splintering glass.

Meanwhile, the Stone Pilot pumped the heavy brass bellows for all she was worth. The flames of the burners roared as they turned from orange, through yellow, to a white so intense that when Maris turned away, she saw an afterglow of pink wherever she looked.

As the flight-rock itself began to glow, its buoyancy dwindled and a shudder ran through the frozen timbers of the
Galerider.
The next instant, the sky ship began its descent, heading back down through the crystal sky towards the billowing cloud far, far below. And as it dropped, the frost began to thin and melt, the rigging slackened and the sail-rolls thawed.

‘Crew, to your storm stations!’ roared Wind Jackal, adjusting the flight-levers with practised fingers. ‘It’s going to get pretty rough down there, lads. But hang on,’ he told them, ‘and be ready to stormlash when we get down to tree level.’

Quint reached across to take Maris’s trembling hand, and squeezed it warmly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he
whispered as he untethered himself - though whether he was reassuring her or himself, he couldn’t tell.

Steg and Tem climbed up from the flight-rock cage and raced back down to the fore-deck to prepare the grappling-hooks. Sagbutt and Duggin hurried from the aft-deck, making their way respectively round the port and starboard bows of the sky ship, hurriedly unleashing the rigging-locks and re-attaching them with a ten-point increase in the slack. Quint helped Filbus Queep and Ratbit check the tolley-rope and attach it to the heavy storm anchor. Meanwhile Duggin hurried to the bow to check that his beloved sky ferry, the
Edgehopper
was still securely lashed.

Up at the helm beside Captain Wind Jackal, Maris held her breath as the
Galerider’s
descent accelerated. As it did so, the timbers creaked and the fittings rattled …

‘Cloud at a hundred strides depth,’ Spillins’s voice rang out. ‘Fifty … thirty, twenty, ten …’

As they abruptly dropped down into the storm, Maris let out a cry of alarm. Everything had changed in
an instant. The thick cloud was moist and clammy on her skin, and her nose twitched at a familiar smell…

‘Toasted almonds,’ she whispered, as the sound of rushing air filled her ears.

She looked round about her. But apart from the faint glow of the two flight-rock burners, each one surrounded with a soft, fluffy halo, she could see nothing.

The
Galerider
was falling; tumbling down through the thick air, pitching now to port, now to starboard, while its hull bucked - prow down, prow up, like an unbroken prowlgrin frantically trying to throw its rider.

‘… and tether the staysail to …’

‘Help me with …’

‘Get that rope tied more tightly or …’

The snatches of muffled orders filtered back from the decks below her. Beside her, she could hear the flight-levers click and squeak, as Wind Jackal ran his fingers over them; raising, lowering …

The buffeting winds hammered against the sky ship from all sides, sending shock-waves pulsing through the entire vessel. The rigging whistled and groaned, and slapped against the hull. The mast creaked and splintered. And behind them, from somewhere high up in the aftcastle, an ominous knocking sound got louder and louder as a loose nether-stanchion banged against the rudder, over and over.

Then, all at once the cloud abruptly curdled and cleared, and Maris found that she could see the rest of the ship. There was the fore-deck, the misty figures of
Tem and Steg, Quint and Ratbit, now lashed to the gunwales. On the flight-rock platform, the hooded figure of the Stone Pilot was tirelessly working the bellows, while just below her, on the fore-deck, Duggin, Queep and the great hulking figure of Sagbutt crouched beneath the
Edgehopper.

Whoopf!

The cloud returned, thicker than ever, and the
Galerider
began pitching and rattling as though the whole vessel had been clasped in the jaws of a vast sky monster that was shaking its head to and fro. All round her, Maris could hear wood cracking and sailcloth tearing.

‘Prepare to stormlash!’ Wind Jackal bellowed. ‘Man the tolley-ropes!’

Maris pushed her windswept hair out of her eyes and looked down.

Suddenly, the clouds cleared again. Quint was rushing up the staircase onto the helm. Behind him, Filbus Queep and Sagbutt were struggling to control a large triangular sail which, its tether rope frayed and snapped, was flapping out of control. And behind them - far, far down over the side - she caught a glimpse of the green forest, hurtling up to meet them.

‘Tree canopy at five hundred strides and closing,’ Spillins shouted from the caternest.

‘Take the wheel,’ said Wind Jackal, stepping aside. ‘When we hit tree height, lock the hull-weights into position, and hold her level.’

Quint nodded and took the wheel of the
Galerider,
his face a grim, expressionless mask. The clouds flashed
past - now thick as tilder blankets, now thin as gauze.

‘Sure you can handle it?’ Wind Jackal looked into his son’s eyes.

‘I’m sure,’ said Quint, in a hoarse voice.

‘Good lad,’ said his father and, brushing past on his way down to the aft-deck, he whispered to Maris, ‘Stay with him.’

Maris smiled as bravely as she could. The next moment, her smile turned to a gasp of terror as the port bow of the
Galerider
was suddenly struck with such force that it keeled right over. If it hadn’t been for the rope Quint had tied about her waist, she would have been thrown off the helm, over the balustrade and down to the forest below.

With the wind came the hail - huge balls of ice the size of snowbird eggs which hammered the stricken vessel, beating out a deafening tattoo against the port-side of the wooden hull.

‘Prepare to cast the storm anchor!’ Wind Jackal bellowed above the pounding clatter as he struggled down the stairs to the aft-deck, arm raised so that his heavy sky pirate greatcoat might afford some protection. ‘We’ll be at tree level any moment now …’

‘Three hundred strides to the tree canopy!’

As the wind howled and wailed round them, like a choir of mad banshees, the sky vessel’s descent eased, but the storm still buffeted and pummelled the
Galerider,
making her buck and shudder.

The hail gave way to rain - torrential, driving rain that lashed the deck, followed almost immediately by
lightning. Great crackling explosions of dazzling light that roared and thundered around them, making the
Galerider
dip and lurch even more alarmingly. Suddenly, there came a deafening
crash!
as a jagged spear of lightning found its mark.

‘Tem! Tem!’ Steg Jambles’s voice cried out. ‘Over here, lad. My leg’s trapped.’

‘Hold on, Steg!’ Tem shouted. ‘I’m coming!’

The youth battled his way across the bucking deck. Down on his knees, the rope round his waist keeping him from being tossed from the ship, Tem crawled desperately towards his comrade. But it was heavy work. For every two strides he went forward, he slipped back one …

‘Tree canopy, two hundred strides!’ shouted Spillins.

‘Sagbutt! Queep! The storm-anchor winch!’ Wind Jackal roared from the aft-deck. ‘On my command, let it go!’ Turning, he raised a hand and shouted across to the flight-rock platform. ‘Stone Pilot,’ he bellowed. ‘Prepare to give us lift…’

The Stone Pilot nodded back, but Maris could see the difficulty she was in. With the platform as unstable as the rest of the sky ship, tending the flight-rock was proving far from easy. Even so, as Maris watched, the hooded figure managed to grasp a clutch of cooling-rods and stagger across to the burners, twice falling heavily in the process.

Beyond, on the fore-deck, Tem reached Steg Jambles, to find a large winch-wheel had broken free of the harpoon-casing and was lying across the harpooneer.

‘I can’t feel my leg,’ Steg muttered. ‘I can’t feel it at all.’

‘I’ll get you out of here,’ said Tem, shifting around and readjusting his tether-rope. He reached down, seized the winch-wheel and took the strain.
‘Urrgh!’
he grunted.

But it was no use. The heavy ironwood disc was far, far too heavy.

‘Ratbit!’ Tem shouted. ‘Help me!’

With a great effort, the mobgnome crawled towards Tem across the fore-deck. Together, the two of them seized the heavy winch-wheel - struggling to keep their footing on the slippery, sloping deck as the
Galerider
continued to pitch and lurch.

‘One, two, three … Heave!’ cried Tem.

The two of them pulled with all their might. The winch-wheel shifted - not much, but just enough for Steg to pull his leg free.

‘Thank Sky’ he groaned as he rubbed his calf tenderly. ‘It’s all right, I think,’ he said.

With Tem for support, he struggled to his knees and, trying hard not to slip with the torrential rain lashing down, crawled back to the gunwales beneath the flight-rock platform.

‘Bruised,’ he said. ‘But nothing broken …’

‘One hundred strides!’ The oakelf’s voice rang out. ‘Ninety … eighty …. seventy …

The
Galerider
shuddered as another stormcloud hammered into it, sending the Stone Pilot sprawling. The cooling-rods shot out of her gauntleted hands and tumbled down into the forest below.

‘Lift!’ Wind Jackal cried. ‘Give us lift, Stone Pilot!’