The Crucible of the Dragon God (2 page)

Now that they were at a stop, it was the first chance Slowhand had had to properly study the creatures.

A little over the length of a stretching man when they unfurled for the kill - a manoeuvre he had seen on four occasions and fervently wished that he had not - he saw now that they seemed to be neither animal, vegetable or mineral. They looked like a tangle of roots of glistening black wood that writhed about each other, as if suffering the death throes of the tree from which they had come. Except that they had come from no tree - the way his arrows had bounced from them proving that whatever it was they were made of, it was not wood. As tough as their bodies were, however, it did not prevent them being infinitely flexible. While they seemed to favour pursuit of their prey while in the form of a rough, gnarled, rolling sphere, chance glances had revealed that form shifting constantly between tumbleweed and what appeared to be a running shnarl and, on occasion when obstacles needed to be negotiated, even the briefly airborne form of some predatory bird. But of all their incarnations, it was the one that had slaughtered his companions that Slowhand could not shake from his mind.

He recalled his horror as he'd tried to fend off the k'nid who had closed rapidly on his guide and helpers, because while he'd expected them to be simply crushed beneath the rolling forms or smashed from the rocks to fall below, that wasn't what had happened at all. Instead the creatures had unfurled
to reveal a red and fleshy interior and simply swallowed their victims before returning to a tangled sphere form. And no more than two or three seconds later each man had been deposited back outside the sphere, but all they were now were piles of stripped and steaming bones.

And now it was his turn. Unless some miracle occurred.

Slowhand looked around in desperation for a way out, but there was nothing. Thunderlungs Cry simply projected too far from the rest of the rocks to provide any escape route. As the front rank of the k'nid began to crackle towards him, he was beginning to think the most merciful way out would be to jump, when he glanced something approaching from the north. Something in the sky.

What was that? A cloud? A bird? No, too small to be a cloud. Too big to be a bird. Unless it was a small cloud, of course. Or a big bird. Yes, a very big bird.

Then it slowly sank in what it actually was he
was
looking at.

It was a thing of inflated cloth like a giant balloon, with a thing of wood, like a gondola, slung beneath it. On the deck of that gondola he could just make out the tiny shapes of people. He realised then that he was looking at some kind of...
airship
.

A
flying
machine.

"Hey!" Slowhand shouted, desperately waving his hands above his head. "
Hey!
"

If the people on board heard him, however, they chose to ignore his cries, as the airship continued on its route without any reaction at all. He shouted again, but once more with no effect. The airship was closer now and he could see the people aboard, busied in the tasks he presumed were needed to keep the craft aloft.

If Slowhand couldn't bring the airship to him, then he would have to go to the airship.

Forcing his wonderment aside, the archer calculated its height and trajectory relative to the Cry, and while on the one hand the news was good - it would pass
beneath
the Cry - on the other it was bad. Too
far
beneath.

Slowhand double-taked on the k'nid and the airship. If he jumped from this height he would likely bounce right off the balloon and plummet to his death, so that height needed to be reduced. As far as he could see there was only one way to do that. He would need a rope. A rope he didn't have.

He sighed in resignation. It was as unbelievable as it was inevitable.

To make the ladder he needed, his clothes would have to come off. And to make the ladder long enough, that meant
all
of them. It was certainly the most unusual place he had had to resort to such action, and it was almost a pity he didn't have an audience but then, in the dire circumstances in which he found himself, there would be little if any time to show off his assets.

Okay
, he thought as he pulled off and tore into strips his tunic, pants and shorts, and the mountain wind whistled around his lower regions,
his reduced assets
.

Standing there in just his boots, feeling disturbingly exposed considering the proximity of the k'nid, he quickly tied the clothing together and then, in turn, looped it around and secured it to the lip of the Cry. That done, he took a firm grip of the cloth and slipped slowly over the edge, where he dangled for a second before lowering himself down hand over hand as the flying machine drew closer.

A thought suddenly struck him.

I'm stark naked in a pair of thigh length leather boots, with a bow slung on my back, a thousand feet up in the air
,
and whoever's on that ship is in for a big surprise
.

It was actually a bit kinky and he made a mental note to investigate the business possibilities of such goings on, on his return. Perhaps he could earn a few extra golds doing this for hen parties, birthdays and the like.

If
he returned that was.

Because if he was going to do this it was now or never.

Slowhand hung there, his thighs clenched tightly around the stretched remains of his pants, revolving slightly as the flying machine nosed onward, manoeuvring itself at last beneath him. There was still a hundred and fifty feet or so between him and it, but for a second before it came directly under him and his view was obscured by the bag that seemed to keep it aloft, he could make out in more detail the deck of the gondola that was slung beneath it. There at least eight people continued to busy themselves with piloting the craft, a couple of them agitated, pointing and shouting roughly in his direction. But what they said, was lost in the shrieking of the wind. Slowhand tried waving once more, one-handed, keeping a firm grip on his makeshift rope, but his potential saviours were clearly too involved with their duties to notice him.

Who the hells were these people?

Timing his drop to a split second, so that he would impact directly in the centre of the flying machine's airbag, he let go.

He manoeuvred himself as the wind whistled by him, turning so that he would impact on his back, glancing downward to ensure his target remained dead centre of his fall.

Slowhand suddenly found himself impacting so hard on the flying machine's airbag that the wind was knocked out of him. He lay there for a second, squirming and cringing in pain - not quite as soft as he'd expected considering this thing was light enough to
fly.

The realisation came once more that he was lying on some unknown machine that flew like a bird or floated like a cloud but clearly wasn't either, and a sudden desire to feel something firmer than cloth beneath him possessed him.

The main centre of activity was towards the front of the airship, however, and until he knew who he was dealing with he thought it wise to descend from the airbag at the opposite end of the craft.

He turned onto his front and crawled towards the rear, using the thick ropes that reinforced the airbag to pull himself along. Slowhand was about to flip downwards when he pulled suddenly back with a "
Whoa!
"

The reason for this was what had so far been hidden from his view
behind
the vast balloon. A great, orange orb that pulsed there with an energy unknown to him, but which made his scalp itch, his eyes bulge and his skin throb. Whatever it was, it seemed to be powering the craft, but he wanted nowhere near it.

Instead, Slowhand manoeuvred himself to where he could drop to a quiet part of the deck and, using the ropes to restrain his descent, slipped downwards until he could grab the lowest rope and flip himself over to land feet first on the deck below. His impact was quiet enough but he still dropped into a gentle squat, as if his additional weight might prove too much for the airship and force it out of the sky. He stayed that way for a few moments, gazing left and right at the still level skyline, then experimented further by thumping the deck with his fist, harder and harder with each swing. Satisfied that the machine was still aloft, he rose to a standing position and jumped on the spot, once - tentatively - then again, and then, in a state of merry disbelief, over and over again. The deck remained solid beneath him.

There was only one thing left that he had to do to prove to himself that what was happening was happening. Slowhand ran to the side of the deck and peered over its railing, down towards the floor of the valley, far below. If he could have reached, he would have swung a hand below the hull, checking for invisible supports or struts. But he realised that was even more implausible than what he was seeing and, at last, came to accept that he was indeed up in the air with nothing underneath him.

No doubt about it. He was
flying
.

Well, okay, the machine beneath him was flying.

"I see your clothes still fall off at every opportunity. For the Lord of All's sake, throw him a cloak someone."

Slowhand turned around.

The crew had made their way from the nose to where he stood and were gathered in a semi circle, regarding him. Whatever individuals he had expected to be manning this strange craft, he had to admit he hadn't expected it to be
them
. He looked at the cloak emblazoned with a crossed circle without saying a word. It wasn't the fact that they were Final Faith that disconcerted him but rather who appeared to be leading them.

Tall, lithe and possessed of the same windswept mane of blonde hair as himself, she hadn't changed much in the six years since he had last seen her.

"Hello, sis."

"Brother."

Slowhand swallowed. It wasn't the unexpected encounter that made him do so, but the way Jenna had said that single word. For a moment he had forgotten that while his sister may not have altered physically, the Faith had long since indoctrinated her into their ways. She was not the person he had known, and that 'brother' had been delivered almost as if she were conversing not with her own flesh and blood but simply a fellow member of her damned religion.

"Jenna," he said. "
Jenna
..."

"As touching as this reunion is," a figure behind Jenna said, "we have a problem requiring your attention."

Jenna looked at him and the figure threw back his hood. Slowhand felt an involuntary snarl curl his upper lip. He was staring at a man he had not seen since his incarceration in the Final Faith's dungeons beneath Scholten Cathedral. Querilous Fitch. That he was here, with Jenna, made his blood boil - because this was the man who played with people's minds.

"Was it you?" Slowhand demanded. "Was it you who took my sister away?"

"I hardly think now is the time -"

"We're talking!" Slowhand growled.

"You will be
dying
if you do not heed my words," Fitch said matter-of-factly, and looked up.

Slowhand followed his gaze, as did Jenna.

The airship was now passing out from under the shadow of Thunderlung's Cry, but the outcrop of rock was barely visible for the number of dark shapes that were dropping from it towards them. The archer felt his heart lurch. Seemingly with scant regard for their own survival, the k'nid were flinging themselves at the airship, many of them plummeting past into the abyss, but others falling on the balloon, whilst their brethren clawed for purchase on the hull of the gondola.

"Dammit!" Jenna declared. "Persistent little bastards, aren't they?" She span to the crew. "All hands - prepare to repel boarders. Mister Ransom, Mister Leech, take us hard to port, full power. This'll be a rough ride, people, but trust me we'll shake our visitors off."

"Shake them off?" Slowhand said. "You must have weapons. Use them!"

"What good did
your
weapon do, brother?" Jenna snapped back at him, striking Suresight dismissively with the back of her hand. "Tell me that!"

Slowhand couldn't deny how useless his bow had proven, and looked desperately at the k'nid, biting his lip. "Is there something I can do?"

"Yes. Stay out of the way."

With that, Jenna moved off to position herself just behind the two men manning the airship's twin wheels, barking orders from where she stood, omitting only Querilous Fitch whose duty seemed to consist wholly of standing stock still and glowering at the archer. Slowhand ignored him, unable to help but be impressed with the way this crew handled their strange vessel.

Since the debacle of the Clockwork King, he had come to regard the Final Faith not only as dangerous but as dangerously irresponsible. Blundering buffoons whose interference in the peninsula's past could bring it close to doomsday. But here it was different and he was sure that was due in no small part to the tactical skills of his sister. She handled her crew with ease and they repaid her with utmost loyalty. Slowhand felt a momentary surge of pride, recognising that she had obviously come a long way since the last time he had seen her, even if her development had taken place under the auspices of the Faith.

The only thing that gave him cause for concern now was what the hells she was doing - especially as the airship was heading straight for the rock face.

"Urm, Jenna..."

"Steady as she goes," Jenna ordered, seemingly unphased. "Steady... steady... and... turn
now
!"

Both of the men manning the wheels reacted instantly, spinning hard to the left. Slowhand felt the deck tip beneath him as the gondola swung beneath the canopy. It swung so far, in fact, that as the dirigible went into its turn, the side of the hull and the airbag scraped against the face of the rock. The air was filled with a wrenching that sounded as if the gates of the hells themselves were opening.

Jenna's manoeuvre had been executed perfectly but there had to variables - the prevailing wind, air pockets - in an airship such as this, and what had been executed perfectly in theory did not necessarily turn out so in practice. It wasn't her fault, then, that the hull sounded to him like it was in danger of tearing itself apart. Despite being told to stay out of the way, Slowhand couldn't help but feel like the protective brother and raced to the guard rail, unslinging Suresight as he went and then using the bow to push off from the rockface. Slowhand staggered back, yelping, as he was punched in the face and then spun away from his position. He glared into the angered face of Jenna.