Everything that had been magnetized to the dome crashed to the ground.
I wasted no time, taking up a spiked club in each hand and getting to work. I heard Thorley activate the augurblade behind me and join the fray. The clubs were nowhere near as effective as the augurblade, but they worked well enough against my unarmed foes. They also had the benefit of being vastly superior to Two-Pigs’s arm.
The ridgebacks were aggressive, despite being without their clubs. After all, they did have weapons on their faces. They flooded into the empty space which had formerly resided within the dome, charging us with their tusks as they had done with Rindhi a few minutes prior.
Something buffeted me from behind. I took a second bashing an instant later from the rear left side. The ridgebacks cut across our midst like brush strokes across a painting, ramming us from every direction and following through with their tusks. I tried to keep up, but even the medallion couldn’t afford me the reflexes I needed to anticipate so many attacks coming from so many different sources.
I felt my legs leave the ground as a sturdy pair of tusks lifted me. I landed on the high ridge of my assailant’s backbone, then rolled forward and felt the broad muscular neck fling me into the air like it was a flipper in a pinball machine. Before I knew it, I was flailing on my back, looking up into the sun as I got tossed around on an unstable bed of sharp objects.
The Galeskimmer sailed into view over the canyon wall, Sable at the helm and Mr. McMurtry on one of the four-pounders. Thomas was clinging to the gunnel, looking green in the face and less than pleased to be aboard. Dennel swiveled his sights, trying to find a good target. When he realized the cannon wasn’t going to accomplish much in a situation like this, he gave up and drew his cutlass.
Sable brought the Galeskimmer in low, having trouble, with no one to man the sails and no turbines to control the boat’s speed. The turbines were mounted, alright—I could see the rectangle of clean wood and rivet holes where they’d removed the old ones—but the engines weren’t running. Maybe they hadn’t had time to flight check before Thorley bluewaved them.
Meanwhile, I was being punched full of holes myself. What had started out like a bit of rough crowd surfing now made me feel like I was the birdie in a game of badminton being played with meat tenderizers. I only put up with this for a few seconds, of course, before I triggered my wrist spikes and began giving the ridgebacks a taste of their own medicine. I hoped Thorley and the others were faring better than I was.
Sable slowed the Galeskimmer but kept her aloft, hesitant to set down in such hostile territory. Dennel vaulted over the gunnel and into the thick of things. I saw him slashing his way toward me, and felt my living trampoline begin to dissipate as the ridgebacks shied away from my spikes and shifted their focus onto their new adversary.
The bottom dropped out, and I fell into a sea of hooves and clouded dust. Dennel was a better swordsman than I would’ve given him credit for, though it was hard to have a proper duel with enemies who preferred charging to swordplay. The ridgebacks were starting to overwhelm Mr. McMurtry, even as his towering form made its way toward me through the dust.
I picked myself up and felt the medallion reroute pulses of pain through other avenues of my body, as if it were trying to make me forget I was hurt. Sable finally let the Galeskimmer stutter to rest further up the hillside. The canyon was prone to sudden gusts of wind, and I imagined it must’ve been harder than it looked to keep her steady without engines. Not that it had looked easy.
No sooner had Sable landed than ridgebacks began to clamber up the sides of the hull. I followed them, knowing Thomas would get along about as well as a lost sheep surrounded by a pack of wolves. When I got to the deck, it was even worse than that.
He was running from them, scrambling around the ship like a scared cat. The pansy didn’t even try to defend himself; no blunt objects used as improvised weaponry, no desperate wild swings or kicks. Just sheer terror and more crying than any grown man should have a right to do.
Sable drew her cutlass and swung down from the quarterdeck, trying to save Thomas. She landed in the midst of the oncoming swarm and cut them down as they came, but she couldn’t reach him in time. He scurried to the starboard railing—the uphill side of the boat, facing away from the village—and froze for a moment as he considered the distance to the ground. He flung himself over the side just as the first wave of ridgebacks arrived.
“You couldn’t have gotten here like ten minutes ago?” I asked Sable.
“Sure, if you’d bluewaved us ten minutes earlier. I was halfway through filling my chamber pot when we got Thorley’s call.”
“I did not need to know that many details,” I said. The spiked clubs I had picked up back on the ground had long since found their way into things they were not coming back out of, so I snatched up a pair of belaying pins and started clunking ridgebacks on their flat ugly skulls.
I worked my way over to Sable and put my back to hers. The ridgebacks were every bit as tough as they looked, and I soon found myself having to do more dodging than hitting. Hemmed in on the main deck, I was starting to lose my advantage. Then I remembered my solenoid. “Watch your back for a minute,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I launched myself toward the yardarm, but only got high enough to grab on with my hand. I let go of both belaying pins and hung there, clinging for dear life. When I looked down at the ship, something strange was happening. Nerimund, the little duender whose purpose on the crew I’d been wondering about since I came aboard, was finally making himself useful.
Dead things were coming alive. Not dead people or dead ridgebacks—dead things. Wooden clubs were getting up and walking on spindly little legs. My belaying pins went soft and began to slither like snakes. Even the ship itself was waking up.
I saw Thomas emerge from the boat’s shadow as he scrambled up the hillside, pursued by the handful of ridgebacks who’d followed him overboard. He was going to get himself gored if he didn’t start moving a little faster.
Down near the village, Nerimund was standing with his head bowed and his arms spread wide, the most intentional pose I’d ever seen him strike. Eliza stood behind him as the ridgebacks swarmed in, hugging herself and flinching every time one of them came too close. I began to hear their hoarse, braying screams as all the little wooden creatures crawled and slithered over them, wrapping themselves around necks and limbs to snap bones and constrict windpipes. Curved planks whipped out from the hull to clothesline others as they ran by.
I pulled myself onto the yardarm and looked down again. Rifts were opening in the Galeskimmer’s decking to catch hooves and snap ankles, bringing the affected ridgebacks to their knees. Sable strode across the deck, hacking away at the trapped beasts. The planks that had moved to hinder the ridgebacks smoothed out and solidified beneath her feet.
The ship was starting to look like furniture that had been left out in the rain. But the warped, knotted planks began to let go as the ridgebacks died, resuming their curves and mending their straight lines, even tighter than before. Up the hill, Thomas was still running from his pursuers, who’d been too far from the ship to be affected by Nerimund’s weird hocus-pocus. Down the hill, Nerimund collapsed.
I slid down the mast and crossed the deck to the railing, giving Thorley the hurry-up signal to start throwing me the bags of gravstone. He heaved them up one by one, then retrieved Nerimund and came aboard with Eliza and Dennel. Another crowd of ridgebacks was making its way through the village toward us, mourners coming back for vengeance.
When Sable saw the condition Nerimund was in, she dropped to her knees and took the little duender in her arms, stroking his clammy forehead with a blood-caked hand. She looked up with tears in her eyes. “Take the controls, Mr. McMurtry. Thorley, hoist the main.”
I manned one of the four-pounders, even though Sable hadn’t ordered me to. I lit off a shot in the direction of the horde, if only to cause a stir and buy us a few more seconds. The cannonball missed the crowd and ripped through the closest lodge instead, ruining the stone wall and stirring up a dust cloud. We had already begun to lift off by the time I realized, with sudden disdain, that Thomas was still running away up the hill.
I crossed the deck from port to starboard. There was Thomas, scrambling up the incline below with ridgebacks right on his heels. In a perfect world, I would’ve looked the other way and pretended not to notice. But this world was ruled by a bunch of law-lovers, and Thomas, while cowardly and stupid, was no law-lover. So I was going to help him. Not because I liked him, but because I knew it was what Sable would’ve wanted, had she been in better sorts at the moment.
I shot the frayed grapplewire into my hand and lashed it around the mast. I was getting more use out of this thing now than I had before Gilfoyle had cut the grappler off. The winch whizzed inside my arm, trailing metal rope behind me as I ran, hit the railing, and leapt.
I spun halfway around in the air and locked the wire, swooping in to catch Thomas in a fast-moving bear hug. We crashed into the group of ridgebacks and bowled them over. Then the hillside fell away, and we were swinging like a heavy pendulum, the wire wrapping itself around the underside of the boat.
When we reached the apex of our swing, the line went slack. For one sickening moment, Thomas and I were floating at the end of our rope like kids on a swing set. Then the Galeskimmer lurched sideways and tilted in beneath us.
To this day, I’m not quite sure whether it was Dennel’s sharp piloting, or some favorable gust of wind that put us where we needed to be. But somehow, when we began to fall again, we found ourselves destined not for a long swing back, but for the painful safety of the deck. We landed flat on our faces, smacking the planks within inches of the side railing. A less-than-graceful display, maybe, but it got the job done—although the sensation was not dissimilar to what I imagined a belly flop into an empty pool might feel like.
Dennel saw that we were safely aboard and began to bark orders, commanding Thorley and Eliza to cut the sails loose. I didn’t understand how Eliza was still standing, let alone doing any work, except that some single-minded desperation seemed to be pushing her onward. Dennel turned the Galeskimmer, and we began to drift over the village, heading back toward the canyon on a soft wind. I didn’t have time to lay down and rest.
kept moving below us
I checked to make sure Thomas was alive, then peeled myself off him and threw my body overboard. The winch chugged, but not fast enough. My feet slammed down onto the roof of a stone lodge, my knees and ankles crackling like fireworks. I began to jump from rooftop to rooftop, the grapplewire trailing behind me as though I were flying the Galeskimmer like some gigantic kite.
The ridgebacks began to pull themselves up onto the rooftops beside me, but even with the abuse I’d taken, the medallion made me faster. I stayed as close to the Galeskimmer as I could, but I was running out of time. Her sails cracked as she turned into the wind and began picking up speed. I was about to start running out of rope very quickly.
I searched everywhere, scanning my surroundings feverishly. Finally, in the clearing between a cluster of buildings, I spotted Rindhi’s broken body. I hit the ground running, dodging ridgebacks and keeping the winch pulled tight until I reached him and scooped him up. Then we were airborne, zipping upward on the line and barely escaping the reach of the beasts, who began to roar and complain below.
When Rindhi and I were safely on deck, I fainted. That’s not something I’m proud to admit. It was the second time I’d passed out on the deck of the Galeskimmer, and only the third time in my life. In my defense, I think most people—even techsouls—would’ve blacked out and keeled over long before that.
I came around after what I assumed was only a few seconds, because not much had changed on board our modest vessel in the interim. We were skirting the canyonside and rising into a sunlit sky that was heading toward noon, with Dennel at the helm and Thorley and Eliza working the sails. Poor Eliza, still looking like she was on the verge of passing out herself.
Thomas was curled up on the deck, covering his bloodied face with two hands that didn’t look much better. I would find out later that he’d broken his nose and both his wrists in the landing, something I’d never seen a techsoul do before. But he was bleeding blue-violet blood into his hands, so I knew I wasn’t in for any Vilaris-style surprises from him.
Sable was still cradling Nerimund.
I loosed my grapplewire from the mast, then went over and sat down beside the two of them. “Is he going to be okay?”
Sable scrunched up one side of her mouth. “I hope so.”
I started to speak, but hesitated. “Did you know he could do that?”
She nodded. “Nerimund is a Wealder. A Grove-mind.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s a duender thing. They believe that anything that was once alive can be brought to life again.”
“That sounds more like necromancy to me,” I said.
“You’d be surprised how closely related they are.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. Can every duender do stuff like that?”
Sable shook her head, blinking away tears. “Nerimund is a very special little person. He’s skittish and sensitive… and I’ll admit he can be unpredictable at times. He might even appear slow-witted to someone like you. But I could never put into words how much love and gratitude I have for him. It might not seem like it, but he’s done a lot for us. Uncle Angus found Nerimund… or, Nerimund found Uncle Angus… when I was just a little girl. Many years before I ever came aboard the Galeskimmer. He was Uncle Angus’s constant companion; it wasn’t until Maclin abducted my uncle that Nerimund began to bond with Mr. Scofield and me.”
Mentioning Mr. Scofield got Sable even more choked up. “During that storm—the one when we lost the Maclin shipment—I think Nerimund might’ve been the only thing that was holding the Galeskimmer together long enough for us to make landfall. We may not have survived it without him.”
“Today was almost that bad, too,” I said. “I don’t think things would’ve turned out as well if it hadn’t been for him.”
“No, I don’t think they would’ve. But one might say the same about you.”
“I’m surprised. That sounded almost like a compliment,” I said. When I saw the sad smile on Sable’s face, I realized it had been.
While Sable and I were having our little moment, Thomas had gotten up and crawled over to where Rindhi lay. I had become subtly aware that he was sobbing; I hardly noticed when he stopped. But he did catch my attention when he began to yell.
“Come quickly, everyone. It’s Rindhi… he’s still alive!”
Sable wasn’t about to leave Nerimund’s side, but she gave me a nod, so I shoved myself up and converged on the scene with Eliza and Thorley. Rindhi was breathing, alright, his chest making slow little inflations. I wasn’t sure how alive he was, but I knew he wouldn’t be for long if we didn’t get him some help.
“You’ve got to do something,” Thomas was saying. “Someone help him!”
“Is there anyone on board who knows how to patch him up?” I asked.
Eliza shook her head.
“How have you managed all this time without a ship’s doctor?”
“We’ve never had to dock our boat in the wilderness or fight off tribes of wild monsters before. Things have changed since you came aboard, Mr. Nordstrom. We’re couriers, not buccaneers. Mr. Scofield was the closest thing we ever had to a doctor.”
“We need to turn around and go back to town,” I said.
“Don’t you know any first aid?” Thorley asked.
“As I’ve said before… I’m a mechanic. I could fix him up with something that’d keep him alive, but the ridgebacks made off with most of our supplies and I doubt Rindhi’s going to hold together with the paperclips and glue in Sable’s desk.”
“How do you know what’s in the Captain’s desk?” said Eliza.
I opened my mouth to speak, then scratched my head.
Eliza glared. “Stow the excuses, Mr. Nordstrom. We’ve got bigger problems to think about just now.”
“Cap… looks like Civs off the port bow,” called Mr. McMurtry from the helm.
I got to my feet. A pair of Civvy sloops was cutting a path across the Heights, skimming over the wide expanse of foggy moorland that stretched out below us. They were running just about parallel with the Galeskimmer, and moving at a good clip. Too small a detachment to be Kupfer’s boats, I thought. That blowhard has a taste for luxury. Never rides in anything smaller than a fleet of five ships, and he never leaves home without that hideous-looking cruiser of his, The Vigilant. This must be the locals out on a patrol.
But at the speed they were moving, I could tell they weren’t just on some leisurely patrol. They would’ve been paying us more attention, for one thing. Something big was going on. The town on the far side of Torag Canyon was called Clokesby, and it was still about half an hour’s flight ahead of us. For Rindhi’s sake, it would’ve been much quicker to turn around and head back to Lowell’s Market, as I’d suggested.
“Someone get on the bluewave,” said Mr. McMurtry. “See what they’re chattering about.”
Thorley produced the comm I’d given him earlier to call Sable with. He flicked it on and ran a channel scan. We heard the usual squiggly radio sounds and the white rush of static for a while before we got anything.
“… requesting immediate assistance. Attention all listeners: we regret to report to you this afternoon that there is the strong possibility of an imminent collision between Obernale and the Kalican Heights. I repeat: a collision between Obernale and the Kalican Heights is imminent, with the collision site predicted to be somewhere in the vicinity of Clokesby Township. All citizens residing in Clokesby or Obernale who are tuning in to this broadcast are advised to evacuate their homes and seek altitude or safer ground. Again, we have reason to believe that the northwestern edge of the Kalican Heights is on a collision course with Obernale. The stream has altered Obernale’s course so as to push it into the windspace of the Kalican Heights. The Heights are now obstructing Obernale’s flight path in such a way as to trap it in our low-wind zone. We’re… Oh my heavens, I see it! I see it now, just there! The clouds have parted and Obernale is within sight. Dear heavens, the size of it… if we keep going at this rate, if the winds don’t change…”
The signal whistled and cut to static for a long moment. We all stared at each other. I had never been around for a collision as big as this one was going to be, if it happened. The guys in Clokesby’s crow’s nest sounded pretty sure it was.
“How far away is that?” Thomas blurted out.
“Farther than we can reach while we’re moving toward the leeward edge of the floater, if the wind dies down,” I said. “We have no turbines, remember. We’re riding on sails alone.”
Dennel McMurtry frowned, then looked to Sable for orders. “It’s the Captain’s decision. Where are we to make our heading, Cap?”
Sable hesitated. Months of competing with my dear old dad for supremacy aboard my Ostelle had taught me that there were few traits less desirable in a captain than hesitation.
“It’s clear what we have to do,” I said. “Isn’t it?”
Sable gave me a questioning look.
“We need to get our keisters out of here before the collision. There are probably dozens of ships headed this way already. If the Heights run into Obernale, there are going to be casualties. Deaths. This is going to be catastrophic. The obvious course of action is to get as far away as possible, and stay there.”
Sable didn’t seem to like that idea. “And what about all the people who don’t have ships? What are they going to do?”
I shrugged. “Die, I guess. That doesn’t mean we have to be around to witness it.”
Sable’s eyebrows scrunched together. She glanced at Rindhi, then down at Nerimund, then back at me. “I think we ought to do what we can to help. The collision will probably have already happened by the time we get there. People from both islands are going to need airlifts.”
“And if the wind changes? Every doctor who hasn’t fled town is going to be so busy dealing with the fallout that there won’t be anyone to see to Rindhi. Or Nerimund, for that matter. We need to head back to Lowell’s Market, or go someplace big like Everwynd if we want to find a doctor who’s available.” I was in pretty bad shape myself, but I had enough augments to mitigate the damage for now. That didn’t change the fact that I’d need medical attention sooner or later, though.
Sable breathed a loud sigh. “You’re not making this any easier.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that. You might start liking me.”
She didn’t smile.
At the helm, Dennel was getting anxious. “We’ve gotta go somewhere, Cap. Where shall I set my course?”