The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1)
Read The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1) Online
Authors: S.D. Wilkes
First published by Petrichor Press 2015.
Text copyright © S.D. Wilkes, 2015.
Cover artwork copyright © S.D. Wilkes, 2015.
The moral right of S.D. Wilkes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events depicted in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
http://www.theimmortalstorm.com
For my Dad
Kite Nayward scratched the dust from his goggle-glass and squinted up at the wreck. Half-submerged in the side of the dune the bones of the ancient ship had long since been picked clean. The hull had been stripped. The decks gutted. Bulkheads of worthless rust were all that remained, arcing from the grey sand like the ribs of a long-dead whale.
Kite huddled against the hot, chemical wind gusting from the dunes. Why had the Waste Witch brought them here? This close to dark they should have been heading east for Dusthaven and what passed as safety, not out on the hard fringes of the Thirsty Sea.
Kite climbed closer to the dune-top, his boots sinking and sliding in the treacherous sand. Closer now he scanned the skeleton wreck again. First by salt-water then by the Thirsty Sea’s toxic air, the steel had blistered a sickly rainbow of corroded blues and oxide reds. Metal took forever to decay. After all that time Kite doubted an inch of decent scrap would be left for a scavvy like him. But the Waste Witch wasn’t often wrong. Maybe Kite’d find something valuable in there after all. Maybe he’d find treasure.
Then something caught his eye. High up where wind-caught debris fluttered in the rusted beams. Something white as salt. Something grinning at him…
A skull.
Kite dropped to the sand, heart thumping. The jawless skull had been daubed on the bulkhead, a hacksaw and mallet crossed beneath. Kite swore silently. Every scavvy in the Old Coast knew that mark. The Tom Skull they called it - the mark of the Savage Salvage Company.
Gingerly Kite lifted his head, searching the dunes for the tell-tale sign of salvors. The ocean of sand gave nothing away. No lantern lights or cutter sparks. No clang-clang of hammers. Nothing but the wind whistling by his patchcoat hood and the rumble of thunder from the Undercloud’s belly.
Quick as he dared Kite slid back the way he’d come. Down to the cool shadows between the dunes where he’d moored the sandboat. The Waste Witch sat hunched on the deck, long waxy fingers drumming on the shaft of her bone-white stick.
Kite tugged away the sandy folds of his scarf and wetted his salt-cracked lips. “It’s one of Gutter’s wrecks,” he said, tasting the familiar burn of the toxic air on his tongue. “The Savages’ll skin us both if they catch us out here.”
Wheezing from the effort Ersa slowly rose to her feet, brushing away the sand that had gathered on her lap. “You’d better make sure the Savages don't catch us then,” she said, her scratchy voice dry as the air. “Get me down, boy.”
Lightning spat into the distant dunes, turning the Undercloud a flickering purple. Kite hunched his shoulders. “Maybe we should head back, Ersa,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“We’re here now aren’t we?” Ersa said, gesturing for him to approach.
Kite grumbled his objection. Not that it’d do much use arguing with the Waste Witch. Once Ersa had her mind set, not even the wind could change it.
“I suppose you're going to tell me there's treasure in that wreck?” he said, stooping beside the hull.
Ersa clawed her way on to his back. “Treasure's where you least expect it, boy,” she said, a milky eye winking at him from under her hood.
Kite lifted Ersa from the deck, the weight of her bones pressing his boots deeper in the sand. Gently he set her down on her sandals. For a moment Ersa steadied herself on his arm, wheezing like a punctured bellows.
“Go on boy,” Ersa said and waved him away. “And don't forget your bucket.”
Soon, bucket in hand, Kite laboured back up the dune, retracing his fading tracks. The furious wind crackled drifts of sand against the leather patchcoat, threatening to steal his hood. Thankfully Kite knew the weight of the bearings and bolts stitched into the seams would hold the hood low over his goggles. After all losing his hood could lose him his life.
Before long Kite’s skin itched and his lungs burned and he wished he was back in the bothy with the Undercloud safely locked outside.
Treasure.
Kite snorted. What a joke. All scavvies hoped they'd find treasure one day. Some prize exposed by the shifting sands. Some small piece of luck, missed by a thousand grubbing hands, that would carry them to Port Howling and beyond. Kite was no different, but he was no fool either. If there was real treasure out here in the Thirsty Sea it would take more than a scavvy's luck to find it.
Ersa was still some way behind him. Stabbing her stick in the sand, placing her sandals in his tracks. Every now and then she'd stop to catch her breath and rub at her ruined hip. Kite frowned, recalling how not so long ago he’d been the one placing his too-big boots in Ersa’s footprints. A lifetime of breathing the poisoned air that laced each hot, acid breath had taken its toll on the Waste Witch. Hollow bones and wet lungs. Man or child. The Undercloud showed no mercy.
Kite paused in the shadow of the wreck and looked out over the Thirsty Sea. Beneath the endlessly churning storm of the Undercloud nothing living moved. Just dust devils corkscrewing into oblivion on distant dune-tops. Ever watchful of the encroaching darkness Kite remained alert.
Compacted spoil heaps littered the shadows beneath the wreck, half-buried in the shifting sand. With the trowel Kite chipped free a fistful of scavenge the salvors had missed; a few fat bolts, a finger of copper piping and a rusted spring. Hardly the kind of treasure he had in mind but worth a few royals in Dusthaven’s market nonetheless. He dropped them into the bucket, adding the finds to the rest of the day's haul. Then he pressed on into the belly of the old ship and froze -
A dozen blood-red eyes watched him.
Nailbirds. Squalid, thumb-winged things with metal beaks curved like sickle blades and tempers to match. Kite began to creep sideways toward the bulkhead, trying not to intimidate them. The oily eyes followed him. Then something squished unpleasantly under his boot. Guano. A great slick of the stuff, glistening with rainbow puddles and raging with a communal stink. The nailbirds arched their backs and hinged their beaks, flashing gash-red gullets.
“Rarh-rarh!” Kite yelled, flapping his arms and kicking sand at them. “Rarh-rarh! Go on get lost!”
Striking their rusty feathers the nailbirds waddled indignantly into the litter-strewn bowels of the wreck, leaving their scar-pink eggs unattended. Kite tightened the scarf over his nose, fighting the urge to gag against the stench. He knew Ersa wasn't interested in filthy nailbird eggs. Woven from conducting wire and peppered with beads of solder and old circuit board chips the nests were worth more than a bucket of rivets. Treasure. Of a kind. Kite grinned. Maybe Ersa was a real witch after all.
Just then the wind roiled, whipping up a swirl of gritty sand that crackled against his hood. A Tom Skull leered from its home on the blistered steel bulkhead opposite. Kite avoided its gaze. As if he needed a reminder of the risk they'd taken coming here.
Waiting for the Waste Witch Kite guessed the length of the old ship. A hundred metres stern to bow and twenty wide at the shallow beam Kite reckoned. No space for containers or drums she must have been a cruise ship or a ferry. Maybe one of those luxury liners he'd heard stories about. Carrying fancy passengers from port to port. Kite often imagined how odd it must’ve been to sail on salt-water. He’d piloted his sandboat often enough to appreciate the skill of it. What must it have been like? Observing a clear horizon instead of the unbroken, bruise-coloured Undercloud. Navigating by the sun and stars instead of the rattle of bone markers...
“Daydreaming again, boy?”
Kite nearly jumped out of his sand-filled boots.
“J-just thinking that's all,” he mumbled.
Ersa laughed dryly. “Boys your age shouldn't be thinking,” she said, snatching up fallen nailbird feathers.
Kite stiffened. “I keep telling you I'm not a boy
,
” he said. “I'm fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” Ersa chuckled. “You're fourteen if you're a day. Probably...never can quite remember when I rescued you from those Sand Eaters. Oh look copper! Told you there was treasure here,
boy
.”
Kite ground his teeth but said nothing. Fourteen or fifteen, what difference did it make? He wasn't a boy anymore that's for sure. Not that it seemed to matter to the Waste Witch. Do this,
boy
. Do that,
boy
. To her he'd always be
boy.
Sometimes he wondered if she even remembered his real name!
“Don’t just stand there, go keep an eye out,” Ersa said, pointing her stick.
After checking the structure Kite found a foothold on the bulkhead and began to climb. The wind haunted the heights, howling like a mariner’s ghost. Up and up, Kite climbed, up into the beams where rivetboys had chalked the steel with lewd graffiti.
On a good day you could see twelve leagues in the half-light, maybe more. But this wasn’t a good day. Rippled on their windward flanks the dunes undulated in all directions like folds of old dry skin. Kite traced the sandboat's tracks, all the way back to where the pale line of the Bone Roads dissolved into the shadows. The shadows gave him an itch. The two of them still had a long journey back to Dusthaven. No scavvy wanted to be caught out after dark. Worse things were hiding in the Thirsty Sea than the Savage Salvage Company...
Lantern lights flickered in the dunes.
Kite leaned in, his heart beating a little faster. He watched the string of pale lights dipping through the gloom. A salvor's rig? A scavvy gang?
A few seconds passed and the lights vanished and reappeared where the Bone Roads cut their way beneath the cliffs. Kite relaxed against the rusted steel, shifting a little to relieve his numb backside. Probably just a trading duneclipper heading east for Broken Beach or a saltbarge returning to Saltlick from the brine pools. Nothing to worry about.
Then Kite heard the sound of drilling.
He sat bolt upright. The noise seemed fixed on the wind and far too close. Metal on stone. Somewhere south of the wreck, out in Hurts Deep and, like the beating of his heart, steady, regular and gathering in speed.