The Crucible of the Dragon God (31 page)

"Welcome aboard," he said, heaving her up.

"It isn't over yet," Kali said. "Hold on!"

Her advice was well timed because, at that very moment, what remained of the sphere floor exploded upwards, rocking the cradle as a fist of fire and debris punched it from beneath with such force that the conflagration mushroomed momentarily about its edges, bathing them in searing heat. Thankfully, though, the launchpad had moved high enough to avoid serious damage. It wasn't just moving higher any longer, either, whatever dwelven mechanisms had come into play to raise it seemingly only the first stage in an orchestrated series of manoeuvres. As they drew closer to the top of the sphere, the cradle began to revolve slowly and, amidst much groaning of metal, the two halves of the upper part of the sphere began to open. At first Kali thought that they were not going to make it, the hemispheres so rusted that they would fail to part far enough before the ship was crushed against them. But then, with some sheering of ancient and massive bolts, they juddered free and began to open. The sky was visible now, at first as an ellipse and then a much broader swathe, and then in all its azure glory as the inside of the sphere and its massive workings became fully exposed to the evening sky. Kali and the others were no longer
inside
the sphere, however, but watching, staggered, as the sky panned before them, the cradle having begun to swing out on a massive arm the moment the hemispheres had become low enough to permit it to do so, and Kali's attention moved from what they were leaving behind to what they were heading towards. Now she knew the purpose of the walkway from which she and Slowhand had gained access to
Kerberos
. Because as the giant arm continued to move it also turned slowly, the cradle rotating to fit neatly into position next to it, embraced within its stretched horseshoe shape. As the cradle docked at last inside the walkway with a vibrating
thunk
, Kali could barely hold back a giggle of admiration. She had thought the Clockwork King of Orl was a staggering achievement of Old Race engineering but
this
, this was a true marvel.

But it wasn't over yet.

"Hooper, look." Slowhand said, equally awed.

Kali watched as one of the other spheres - the one she had nicknamed
Sunsphere
- began to move on a giant arm through the trees, swinging towards them -
under
them - while at the same time opening to reveal what could only have been the power source that kept the Crucible's creations intact. This was the fire painted on the cave walls of the yassan - the fire they could not leave. Glowing bright against the azure night sky, like some vast brazier, she was looking at the biggest concentration of amberglow she had yet seen.

It came to a stop beneath the cradle and crackling fingers of energy began to dance between it and the underside of the ship. Kali stared at the hull and saw that the runes over its surface had begun to glow.

"The ship feeds," Aldrededor said from the controls. He drew a deep breath as though he himself were being vitalised. "All we can do now is wait."

"Good job, Aldrededor. Good job, everyo -" Kali began, but then stopped as a sudden massive explosion from
Kerberos
blew its interior and half of the sphere into the sky, the arm on which the cradle rested buckling partly as a result. She and the others clung onto whatever they could as the cradle dropped and skewed, coming to rest, creaking and groaning, at a thirty degree angle above the amberglow. All waited a few seconds, listening to the protesting metal beneath them, and then exhaled in relief when nothing else happened. It had been close, but they were safe.

"I guess that saves Jenna a job," Slowhand said, staring at the burning shells of the spheres.

"I guess it does," Kali replied, trying not to think of Tharnak. "So now we wait for them to come through."

"Family reunion," Slowhand said, biting his lip.

"Do you suppose that when Jenna sees what we've rescued, she might have second thoughts about blowing us out of the sky?"

Slowhand stared ahead, shook his head.

"Jenna's Final Faith now, Hooper. The Faith haven't seen this ship and they won't know what it is, but they won't care. If they
did
know, they wouldn't care. Think about it, Hooper. This thing can reach the
heavens
, and do you think they'd allow that? Gods forbid anyone knew the
truth
about what is up there, whatever it is. Because one thing's for sure - it won't be what
they
say it is."

Kali nodded. She turned away, staring beyond the platform over the valley, towards the Dragonfire. They were safe for now, but only for a matter of hours. There was no going back to the sphere now, and nowhere else to hide. They were alone out here. Alone on a precarious arm of metal, in a long lost valley, somewhere at the top of the world.

Outlined by the glow of the fires - natural and magical - she couldn't help but feel like a target.

Chapter Sixteen

The Final Faith breached the Dragonfire at dawn, just as the dwelf had predicted. Four airships as black as Long Night nosed into the lost, each of them emblazoned with the crossed circle of the church Kali knew all too well. But much as she hated everything that symbol stood for, she could not fault the machines behind it. Because while their airships differed from those of elven design - being uglier, ribbed things with more primitive gondolas and with rotors turned by steam rather than amberglow - they were nonetheless similarly and equally functional to the Old Race vessels that had inspired them.

The lead ship was larger and more ornate than its companions - the
Kesar
,
Voivode
and
Rhodon
respectively - and sported a huge gondola lifted by a double gasbag with two huge, thrumming rotors driving it from behind. This was obviously the flagship and its status was reflected in the name Kali could make out on its side:
Makennon
.

It wasn't the ship that drew her attention, though, but the figure she could just make out standing at its prow before a contingent of shadowmages. Even at this distance, a familiar blonde mane of hair could clearly be seen billowing behind the figure as it stared ahead.

"It's your sister," Kali said. "Back to mop up the mess she started."

"Then it's time we were on the move," the archer said. "You got a name for this thing yet?"

"Thought we might call it the
Tharnak
."

"Nice.

Kali followed Slowhand onto the
Tharnak
and, with a nod to everyone, decoupled the clamps securing it to the gantry.

"Aldrededor?"

"I am ready, Kali Hooper. All we need is a destination."

Actually, there are two, Kali thought.

The first had been obvious - Andon because she had to get the prism to the League - but the second had proven difficult. In fairness, it wasn't every day she had to work out where on the peninsula she could hide a
spaceship
. The problem lay in the fact that their civilisation was growing all the time, and there was no guarantee that any choice made today might not be encroached upon in a month's time, six months or a year, as both Vos and Pontaine continued to vie for dominance across their limited land. But at last she had decided. There was one place where they were unlikely to ever go. An inhospitable and downright pitsing dangerous place that defied any attempt at settlement and with which she'd had passing acquaintance. And there, in its vast sprawl, one specific location. An Old Race site that had once had a deadlier purpose but, since its destruction, would provide them with an underground harbour that should keep the ship safe for as long as needed.

"Andon and then east. We're taking this thing into the Sardenne - to the Spiral of Kos."

Aldrededor nodded in approval. Then his eyes closed. A second later, the
Tharnak
stirred, the thin traceries of hull visible between its thread funnels glowing brightly with their restored amberglow charge. There was a barely perceptible vibration in the ship and then the thread funnels themselves began to slowly move until the hull rippled like the reptilian hide it resembled. Dolorosa gasped as the
Tharnak'
s wings shifted slightly and Kali could hardly blame her - because the ship seemed
alive
beneath them.

"Take her up, Captain." Kali ordered.

Aldrededor concentrated and the
Tharnak
rose unsteadily from its cradle, tipping left and right as the ex-pirate became used to the feel of it. The sensation of leaving the ground - becoming airborne - was, Kali had to admit, a little unnerving. Even Slowhand, who had already flown, clung to the deck rails, his knuckles white. Though that, Kali suspected, might have had more to do with the fact that he and Jenna were about to become mortal enemies in a confrontation only one of them might survive.

Aldrededor steadied the ship, the ex-pirate growing more confident in its handling, before turning it towards the approaching airships. It was a manoeuvre that shifted perspective in a way that Kali had never experienced before and that first she found discomforting and dizzying, but then exhilarating.

Watching the walkway skew away beneath the ship, and then the horizon tip diagonally, Kali felt an overwhelming sense of how impossible her current situation seemed. She'd come across many artefacts that were beyond her ken but she couldn't help but wonder how the people of the peninsula might react if they knew that a battle for their future was about to be fought between airships and a flying machine here at the top of the world.

The Final Faith airships were clear now and, sure enough, their decks swarmed with figures, all gathering at their rails to stare at the Crucible's remains. The fact that she and the k'nid had done their job for them would not, Kali suspected, garner a grateful slap on the back and, equally sure enough, once the situation sank in, all eyes - including the coldly narrowing ones of Jenna - turned in the direction of the
Tharnak
. Kali wondered what she made of the strangely shaped craft, and whether, for a moment, she might reconsider her intent and call a truce to examine this remarkable find.

As the ships began to move towards them Kali stared at the
Tharnak's
controls. "I wonder if any of these farking things are weapons?"

Aldrededor spoke from the piloting panel. "Have no fear, Kali Hooper - we have other means to defend ourselves.

"We do?"

"We have the ship itself. Or rather, how it flies."

"You mean use the threads?"

"Indeed. The
Tharnak
stimulates them, and if we can fly close enough to the enemy ships we should be able to disrupt their stability, bring them down."

"Sounds good. But you've only just learned how to pilot this thing. Are you sure you -?"

Kali and the others wrapped themselves around rails as the
Tharnak
executed a perfect roll, three hundred and sixty degrees, leaving a reddened Dolorosa clutching her skirt about her knees when it righted itself.

"Convincing," Kali said, swallowing. "Do it."

Aldrededor winked and concentrated once more. The gap between the
Tharnak
and the airships closed rapidly. On the decks of the airships crewmen and shadowmages yelled in shock and surprise and, for a fleeting second as they hove in on the
Makennon
, Kali caught sight of Jenna frowning before racing along the deck, barking orders to her people.

All hells broke loose.

As the
Tharnak
drew level with the flotilla, the shadowmages aboard the
Makennon
and its sister ships began to weave their powerful magic. Suddenly the sky was filled with bolts of lightning, fire and ice. It was a devastating barrage and had Aldrededor not deftly manoeuvred their ship out of the way, the battle would have been over before it had begun. Having avoided the first barrage, the Sarcrean quickly brought the ship in close to the
Rhodon
, before veering suddenly away to starboard. The resultant play of the threads rippled along the sides of the
Rhodon'
s gasbag like a squall wind and the moorings of the cloth tore away in places, leaving flapping wrents in the envelope. The
Rhodon
lurched suddenly, narrowly avoided collision with the
Voivode
.

Aldrededor wasted no time. As the
Voivode
pulled up to avoid its sister ship, the Sarcrean brought the
Tharnak
about, climbed, and then headed bow to bow with the second craft, intending to climb once more at the last second, generating a thread
wave
to slap the enemy ship down. The
Voivode
was more prepared than her sister ship, however, and even as the
Tharnak
headed towards her, the shadowmages had already discharged a volley of defensive magic, expanding circles of fire that would have been difficult to avoid even without the fireballs that accompanied them. Rather than take their impact on the most vulnerable area of the ship, the prow, Aldrededor did the only thing he could and swung the
Tharnak
around hard, flinging Kali and the others against the rails. The sky steadied itself after a second and Kali realised that while they had been forced to turn and run, they had still managed to inflict damage on the
Voivode
, which was bucking violently in their thread wake. She had no doubt that the same thought had already occurred to the Sarcrean, but she voiced it anyway.

"Aldrededor. Accelerate,
now
."

The air behind them rippled with distortions as their slipstream kicked into overdrive. The
Voivod
e flew into the disturbance and was instantly kicked back, spiralling out of control towards the valley walls. Kali had to give its pilot their due, because they managed to regain some control before the ship impacted. Even so, the
Voivode
found itself colliding with, and badly snarling on, some of the sharper, projecting rocks.

It was their second victory but any element of surprise their manoeuvrability had granted them was gone, now, and even before Dolorosa had finished yelling and punching the air, the
Kesar
was heading in on their bow, moving hull to hull and tight against them on an opposed heading. It was a manoeuvre clearly meant to give the shadowmages already clustering at its rails chance to rake their energies along the
Tharnak'
s side and Kali knew there was no way they would be able to avoid damage.