Things had not gone well for Quint since he stormed out of the Knights Academy. His first voyage as captain of the Stormchaser was meant to set us up with a tidy sum and establish Captain Quint and all of us in his crew as sky pirates to be reckoned with. For myself, I was confident I could handle the flight rock in all weathers, and the rest of the crew were just as capable.
Tem Barkwater was the best harpooneer in all of Undertown. Stope, Phin and Raffix were from Sanctaphrax and had learned their trade up in the academy with Captain Quint, where they were known as the Winter Knights – but that’s another story.
Then there was Hubble, our faithful albino banderbear to provide muscle, and Spiker the oakelf who, as lookout, was our eyes and ears up in the caternest at the top of the mast. Mistress Maris was ship’s healer, tending to any injuries. And lastly, Slyvo Spleethe was the quartermaster, in charge of cargo and stores, and who could be trusted to put the Stormchaser’s interests before his own – a rare thing for a sky pirate quartermaster.
And yet, through no fault of the captain or the crew, the Stormchaser’s first voyage under Quint’s command proved disastrous. Three days out from Undertown, rotbugs infested the hull-sails, eating half of them away and forcing us to turn around. We limped back to a boatyard in the boom docks, where we discovered the rotbugs were the least of our worries.
Weevils had infested the aft deck, sky barnacles had wrecked the rudder wheel, while the flight weights had been all but eaten away by rust. We might have had the finest crew in all the Edge, but without money, there was just no way that the Stormchaser could be made skyworthy. And without completing a voyage, where was Quint to find that money?
There was no option but for the crew to split up for the time being and go their separate ways. The ‘Winter Knights’ took up jobs in Sanctaphrax, while Hubble, Spiker and Spleethe found work in the timber yards of the Flight Leagues. And as for me? Well, I was approached by a league captain, one Multinius Gobtrax.
I remember that day well . . .
I was hooded up and heading to Quint and Maris’s lodgings when Gobtrax stepped out of a side alley, along with that hulking great cloddertrog bodyguard of his – Kelter. Stupid and mean, he was, but mostly mean. I could tell from the height of his hat that Gobtrax was small-time – a minor league captain, scrapping for whatever morsels fell from the tables of the ‘high hats’.
Anyway, Gobtrax blocked my path, his pale grey eyes peering at my hood as his pudgy hands reached for his sword. Kelter, cudgel in one hand, reached to grab me with the other. But I ducked round him and kicked away his legs with a blow to the back of the knees. He fell face down in the black mud of Midden Row like a beached oozefish – but not before Gobtrax had drawn his sword and backed me into a doorway with the point of its blade.
I cursed Sky and Earth for not being more vigilant but, what with the state of the Stormchaser and the crew splitting up, I’d had a lot on my mind. I had no choice but to listen to this low-hatted league captain as he talked at me – especially since Kelter had got up out of the mud by now and was standing, blocking my escape.
‘You’re Quintinius Verginix’s stone pilot if I’m not mistaken,’ Gobtrax said, his moist, fleshy lips flecked with spit as he spoke. ‘From what I hear, you and your captain are in need of a berth.’
I shrugged, but he wasn’t letting me go that easily.
‘It just so happens that I’m in need of a stone pilot. And a competent navigator . . .’
Gobtrax stopped, and the smirk on his fat lips suddenly disappeared as the tip of a sword plucked the league hat from his head. The three of us turned to see Quint standing there, Mistress Maris on his arm and his sword in hand, the league captain’s gaudy hat skewered on its tip.
‘That there is the best stone pilot in Undertown,’ Quint said with a smile, glancing at me, then at Gobtrax’s hat before tossing it back to him. ‘League of Plankers and Beamers, I see,’ he added, nodding at the embroidered patch on Gobtrax’s skycoat. ‘One of the minor leagues.’
Gobtrax scowled, and I could see it was all he could manage not to set Kelter on him. But then his expression changed. The smirk returned, and he repeated what he had said to me about his need for a crew.
‘The Plankers and Beamers might be a minor league right now, but I . . . I mean we,’ he corrected himself, ‘have big plans. And they start with a voyage to the Deepwoods to a very particular series of locations that require careful and accurate skycharting. There could be a sizable amount of money in it for a good navigator,’ he added.
I saw Quint’s eyes light up, if not at the thought of crewing for this pompous league captain, then at the prospect of the money he might make – money that would enable him to refurbish the Stormchaser, and pursue the life he’d always dreamed of as a sky pirate captain. He turned away, and he and Maris engaged in a short but agitated conversation. Maris kept glancing across at Gobtrax, and I knew that she was trying to persuade Quint to turn down his offer. But then Quint turned back.
‘My wife Maris is an accomplished healer,’ he said to Gobtrax. ‘It’s the three of us – or none of us. For one voyage only.’
Gobtrax looked at Maris, his eyes glinting unpleasantly. ‘The late High Academe of Sanctaphrax’s daughter, a member of my humble crew – who’d have thought it?’ he said with a sneer, then thrust out his hand to shake Quint’s. ‘Quarter profits between the three of you. Do we have a deal?’
Quint hesitated for a moment, then took the league captain’s hand and shook it firmly. ‘It’s a deal,’ he said.
‘We set sail tomorrow,’ Gobtrax announced. ‘At dawn.’
And so, the following day, concealed inside my stone-pilot’s suit, I accompanied Quint and Maris to the berth of the Reaper of Plenty – which, despite its fancy leagueship name, was a cramped-looking skybarge with an ornate two-storey aftcastle built onto its stern. We arrived at six bells, exactly on time, though Gobtrax was waiting for us impatiently, strumming his fingers on the fancy balustrade.
Quint greeted him amiably, and the three of us stepped aboard. I was sent to the flight rock to prepare for our departure; Quint went up to the helm to align the flight levers and take the wheel, while Maris was shown to our cabins – which turned out to be little more than sectioned-off corners of the cargo hold. Gobtrax settled himself down in a wing-back chair on the quarter deck, Kelter standing at his side, and called for a tankard of sapwine.
A small crew, Gobtrax had said. Well, it was small all right. Apart from Gobtrax and Kelter, and the three of us, there was only one other crew member: Timple the cook. Bandy-legged and whey-faced, the old mobgnome looked as though he’d had all the fight knocked out of him under Gobtrax’s command. He came limping up from the galley and handed the league captain a tankard – only to be clipped around the ear for not bringing the bottle. The mobgnome scuttled away under a rain of blows from Kelter as we loosed the tolley ropes and rose up into the sky.
That first day, we travelled over the glistening white mud of the Mire, the treacherous glow of the Twilight Woods and on far into the Deepwoods, only resting up when the light began to fail. For the next few weeks we sailed over the seemingly endless forest, settling into our various roles.
Timple was in charge of the galley, preparing three meals a day for the captain and crew. Gobtrax’s meanness made the mobgnome’s task a hard one, but with his expert use of herbs and spices, syrups and salt, he was good at turning even the simplest of ingredients into tasty dishes. And when she wasn’t busy mixing up tinctures and poultices for Gobtrax’s endless array of imaginary ailments, Maris helped him.
Quint’s job as navigator was to plot our course through the vast Deepwoods, and record our voyage on the sky chart that Gobtrax kept in the small ante-chamber next to his luxurious cabin. In addition to the detailed notes on wind currents and storm fronts, he also marked the chart with the exact length and time of travel which, together with readings from his sky compass, accurately plotted the course of our voyage. Without a well-kept sky chart, no skyship could hope to find its way around the endless Deepwoods. It was painstaking work – which is why Gobtrax wanted no part of it.
The league captain was a lazy good-for-nothing, content to sit in his wing-back chair all day, drinking sapwine and issuing orders, while at the helm Captain Quint kept the Reaper of Plenty on course with well-set sails and carefully adjusted flight levers. And after mooring at dusk, Quint would work late into the night on the sky chart, with Maris bringing him endless mugs of charlock tea to ward off fatigue.
As for me, as the stone pilot it was my job to maintain the flight rock; cooling it ready for departure, heating it for landing, and ensuring that it was always carefully tended, to keep the Reaper of Plenty airborne. Not that it was particularly demanding work. The flight rock was small – just large enough to maintain a steady buoyancy – and had none of the liveliness and lift of the magnificent sky galleon rocks I had once tended. Unlike those rocks, with this one I could set the cooling rods and burners at the beginning of a flight and hardly need to adjust them all day. It was dull work, and meant that the Reaper of Plenty was ponderous and unable to exploit the faster air currents higher in the sky. Instead, as I stood on the small flight platform in my hood and gauntlets, we slowly made our way just above the treetops, day after endless day.
One voyage, Quint had insisted, when we signed up. I now understood the wicked little smile on Gobtrax’s face when he’d agreed – it was proving to be a single voyage with no end in sight.
After the first few months, Gobtrax’s plan became clear. He was charting the locations of a very particular type of tree. Or rather, he was using Quint to chart them. Growing in dank, marshy areas, in stands of a thousand or more, the great bulbous trunks and emerald foliage weren’t difficult to spot once I’d learned to look out for them.
For these were sumpwood trees, their wood the most buoyant of all Deepwoods trees. Gobtrax had discovered their existence from a captured shryke, and now was intent on cornering the market in a timber that everyone in Undertown and Sanctaphrax would want to buy. Once he had gathered enough locations, Gobtrax planned to auction the information off in lots and make a fortune. By comparison, our share would be small – though more than enough, on our return, to refit the Stormchaser handsomely and to relaunch Captain Quint’s career.
Everything would have worked out fine if it hadn’t been for Gobtrax’s greed. Once he appreciated how talented a navigator Quint was turning out to be, how well Maris rationed our stores, and my own skill with the flight rock, he kept extending the voyage, going further and further into the Deepwoods in search of more and more sumpwood stands. And as we sailed on, I noticed a change come over Maris.
At first, she had seemed radiant and happy, but as the months passed, she grew more pensive. Her face looked drawn and tired, and she began to wear a long black cape that covered her, head to foot. And as Maris became more withdrawn, Quint too seemed to become tense and concerned. Many times I’d enter the cramped quarters in the cargo hold to find the two of them locked together in whispered, urgent conversation, only for them to fall silent when they saw me. On several occasions, I asked them both what was wrong, but neither would tell me.
Finally, one morning, I found Maris weeping silently in the galley, with Quint trying to comfort her.
‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ I said, checking that we were alone before removing my hood.
‘Gobtrax is superstitious,’ Quint replied. ‘I don’t want you to get into any trouble on our account, Maugin.’
‘Trust me, Maugin, it’ll be all right,’ Maris reassured me. ‘As long as we get back to Undertown soon.’
‘How soon?’ I asked.
Maris gathered her cape around her, and it was only then that I saw the bump. Maris was with child.
‘A month,’ she said desperately.
The three of us looked at one another. None of us needed to say out loud what we were thinking. We all knew that a newborn on a sky vessel was considered bad luck. On slave vessels, mothers-to-be – unlucky enough to have been taken – were often thrown overboard by their superstitious captors. It was a sickening practice, as was slavery itself, of course, and no self-respecting sky pirate would countenance it.
But Gobtrax was a league captain – and a superstitious league captain at that.
Footsteps sounded, and Timple came into the galley. ‘Snowbird eggs for breakfast,’ the mobgnome announced with a weary smile.
Timple had, as he did every day, taken a tray of food to the captain’s cabin for breakfast, before preparing a meal for the rest of us in the galley. That day, Timple was cooking a batch of snowbird eggs scrambled with nibblick and pickled glimmer onions. We were tucking in hungrily when Gobtrax abruptly burst into the galley, Kelter just behind him.
The captain’s eyes were bulging, his face was red, and when he started shouting, his furious words were punctuated with spit. He slammed his plate of food down on the table.
‘What is this?’ he bellowed at the trembling cook, pointing at the side of his plate.
The mobgnome was at a loss for words and cowered by the stove, terrified by the captain’s rage.
‘Salt!’ Gobtrax roared. ‘Salt after sun up! Bad luck for the rest of the day! That’s it! I can’t take any more of your incompetence!’
Striding up to Timple, he slapped him round the face; right cheek, left cheek, again and again, bellowing the whole time. Timple turned and raced from the galley out onto the deck – which was when Gobtrax turned to Kelter.
‘See to him,’ he hissed.
Without saying a word, Kelter stormed after the mobgnome, seized him by the scruff of his neck, hoiked him up into the air and tossed him over the side of the skyship. The rest of us arrived on deck to see the hapless cook disappearing down towards the Deepwoods far below, his pitiful cry echoing back – before being abruptly silenced as he crashed out of sight beneath the forest canopy.
Quint turned on Gobtrax, his eyes blazing and his hand moving to his sword – only for Kelter to lunge forward, putting his massive bulk between the sky pirate and his master.
‘Calm down, Quint,’ said Gobtrax, his rage seemingly sated. ‘The cook had it coming to him . . .’
‘Enough!’ said Quint. ‘It’s time this voyage came to an end.’ His hand was on the handle of his sword and his eyes bored into Kelter’s.
‘Very well, very well,’ said Gobtrax, suddenly aware he’d pushed Quint to the limit. He backed away, then turned and climbed the stairs to his cabin. ‘Set a course for Undertown.’
Kelter followed him, flexing his muscles and not taking his eyes off Quint for a moment. As Gobtrax and his bodyguard disappeared into the cabin, the rest of us returned to our duties, our heads ringing with the sound of Timple’s last, pitiful cry.
It was little more than an hour later that the storm struck.
We were heading in a north-north-easterly direction when a bank of dark anvil cloud overtook us, dazzling bolts of fork lightning emerging from its flat base and striking the trees below. The wind had got up, fierce and cold, and fearing the chill of the storm might send us hurtling up towards Open Sky, I lit the burners and kept them going to steady the flight rock.
Yet as the storm worsened, both Quint and I realized that, if we were going to remain safe, we’d need to tether the leagueship securely down at the forest canopy, then wait for it to pass. Battening the flight levers, Quint took down the sails, while I turned the burners up to raise the temperature of the flight rock still further. But even as I did so, the skyship suddenly entered a storm of freezing hail. With a lurch and a creak, the Reaper of Plenty began to surge upwards.
At the same moment, as I was grappling with the flight rock, Quint appeared at my side. His face was drained of colour, and his eyes were wide and full of panic.
‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘I can handle this.’
But he shook his head. ‘It’s Maris,’ he said, shouting as loudly as he dared over the howl and roar of the storm. ‘She’s gone into labour.’