8 8 A vast cavern in the side of the cliff served as a landing bay for three big skycraft. Constructed out of dark wood, they looked vaguely like old pirate ships, though broader and flatter, with a pair of modest masts and no sails. Each had three lifeboats—one on each side and one at the back.
Jace led Cole toward the skycraft called Domingo, where several men were gathering. Morning light streamed through the open side of the cavern. Out in the blue sky, Cole could see numerous castles hovering.
“Lots of castles,” Cole mentioned.
“We usually have a crowded day after a quiet one,” Jace said. “That’s good news. Two other companies compete with us—the Cloud Skimmers and the Airmen. On a busy day like today we probably won’t have much competition.”
At the gangplank to the Domingo, a middle-aged man with unruly brown hair greeted Cole. “You’re Cole, the new scout,” he said, extending a hand.
“I’m Captain Post. Jumping Sword. Savvy choice.” He handed Cole a cord with a little cylindrical container dangling from it.
“What’s this?” Cole asked, accepting it.
“A poison capsule,” the captain said. “Have they discussed falling?”
“No.”
He jerked a thumb at the sky. “We don’t know if you’d ever land. Could be you’d fall until you starved. As a courtesy, we provide the capsule.”
Cole examined the container more closely.
“Top unscrews from the bottom,” Jace explained. “It’s airtight. The poison reeks, which wrecks any chance to use it as a weapon. They trust slaves here more than most places, but not enough to arm us for an assassination.”
“Put it on,” the captain said. “We all wear one.”
Cole fought down a feeling of dread as he slipped the cord over his head. He hated the idea of carrying something meant to end his own life.
“This way,” the captain said, leading Cole to a battered bin beside the gangplank. He selected a medium-size backpack from among others. “If you fall, this parachute is your best friend. Give the cord a sharp tug, and we’ll try to get a craft under you. The skycraft can only descend so far, but if you pull the cord quickly, you’ll have a chance.”
“Good to know,” Cole said, shrugging into the backpack. Jace helped him adjust the straps over his buckskin jacket.
“Jace is here to coach you,” the captain said. “Listen to him. He’s a survivor.” The captain moved away, giving orders to a group of men.
“Some scouts skip the parachute,” Jace said. “They don’t want the extra weight slowing them down.”
“Do you use one?”
“Always. The risk of a fall is real.”
“How many missions have you done?” Cole asked.
“The next will be my thirtieth.”
“More than halfway there.”
Jace gave him a rough shove. “You trying to jinx me? Never talk about how many you have left. Only what you’ve done.”
“Sorry,” Cole said, feeling off-balance. “I didn’t know.”
“You’ve got all fifty left,” Jace said. “All fifty. Now we’re even. Apology accepted. Looks like they’re ready for you.”
About twenty men, including Captain Post, had lined up along the gangplank. The captain signaled for Cole to come aboard. As Cole walked up the gangway, every man in the line shook his hand and thanked him for his service. There were no grins or jeers. They were serious. It made Cole’s stomach knot. These men were paying their last respects.
Cole was the first aboard, with Jace right behind him. The other men followed, moving to their stations. Jace led Cole to a bench near the front of the skycraft. Cole noticed that it was bolted to the deck.
“Freaked out yet?” Jace asked.
“Kind of,” Cole said. “That felt like a funeral.”
“It’s all you’ll get,” Jace said. “If you don’t make it, they’ll either leave your body on the castle, and it’ll drift off into the cloudwall, or you get buried in the air—the bottomless grave. There’s never a body to bring back.”
“Fun to think about,” Cole said, straining to sound brave.
“You get used to it,” Jace said. “If you live long enough.”
“You should become a motivational speaker.”
Jace grinned.
The skycraft drifted up and forward, not like a plane taking off, but like a weak helium balloon in a soft breeze. “Smooth,” Cole said.
“Most of the time,” Jace agreed. “The helmsman is back there.”
Cole followed his finger to where a man stood on a raised platform behind a large wooden wheel. A pair of tall levers jutted up from the deck, one on each side of him.
As the Domingo coasted out into the glare of the rising sun, Cole shielded his eyes. The day was clear and cool, and they floated along serenely, like how it might feel to travel by blimp.
“Can we stand at the railing?” Cole asked.
“Sure.”
They rose. Cole felt a little unsteady walking with the deck shifting underfoot, but it could have been worse. Once his hands were on the railing, he felt plenty secure. Scanning from one side of the sky to the other, he counted at least thirty castles, some at higher altitudes than others, some larger, all slowly drifting west to east.
“What exactly do I do?” he wondered.
“They’ll take you down in a lifeboat,” Jace said. “You’ll climb down a ladder. Usually nothing much happens until you set foot on castle grounds. Sometimes that alerts the semblances and they come running. Other times nothing happens until you enter a building, or trigger a response some other way. Sometimes the castle is empty—easy pickings. Your job is to scout to see if anything is worth taking and to check for threats.”
“If I get attacked?”
“Run for it,” Jace said. “Get back to the lifeboat. They’ll try to help, but they won’t set it down. Once you’re safe, they’ll assess whether the threat is worth challenging. The guys in the lifeboat will bring weapons. The main ship has two ballistae—see over there?”
Cole saw what looked like a giant crossbow on the deck near the railing.
“They’ll mount that up and get it ready before you go down,” Jace said. “People will be covering you. We all want you to make it. And you have your Jumping Sword.”
“Did you bring your golden rope?” Cole asked.
“Did Mira tell you about that?” Jace produced a golden string, maybe a foot long. He noticed Cole’s perplexed stare. “It gets bigger.”
“She said it can do all sorts of things.”
“It can,” Jace said. “It was a lucky find. But a Jumping Sword has advantages too. I know some guys who did all fifty missions with a Jumping Sword, including some dicey ones.”
“How often does it get dicey?”
“Roughly? I guess one in three missions amounts to nothing. The rest are at least annoying. Maybe one in eight will give you nightmares. That’s not exact. It depends on your luck.”
“Am I a dictionary? You know, you eventually have to run for it, but you know you’ll probably make it.”
“That’s just annoying?”
“Yeah, at least compared to the worst days.”
“What kind of stuff can happen?”
Jace ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve done this a lot, and you just have to be ready for anything. Once, a whole castle exploded, took out an entire skycraft. That was before my time. Nobody made it back. Some of the guys at Skyport saw it through their telescopes. The semblances might want to talk. Some are friendly or at least reasonable. Sometimes they’ll treat you like a guest. They might act nice, then try to backstab you. There can be monsters, traps, bees, poisonous gas, archers, fireballs—you name it. Anything.”
Cole didn’t feel very reassured to know there were millions of ways he might die. He hoped Jace didn’t notice how tightly he was squeezing the railing. Still gliding smoothly, the skycraft sped up enough that wind ruffled his hair.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Cole asked, looking out at the castles. The nearest one was horribly ruined. The next nearest was made mostly out of logs, giving it the appearance of an elaborate frontier fort.
“Not even the captain knows yet,” Jace said. “The spotters are checking our prospects. Badly ruined castles are almost always empty and have nothing worth taking. We wouldn’t go to one like that unless it was the only option. There have been too many bad experiences with castles that look really dark and scary, so we avoid those. Same with any metal ones. It isn’t an exact science. They’re looking for something promising—not too menacing, in decent shape, maybe with some hints of wealth.”
“What if one of the other salvagers wants the same castle?”
“You’ll plant a flag claiming it for the Sky Raiders first thing,” Jace said. “We’re all good about honoring claims. Saves a lot of violence.”
The skycraft went into a long bank, then straightened out. “Looks like we have a prospect,” Jace said, eyes forward. “See the one we’re heading for? They’ll take a closer look, then if they’re still feeling good about it, they’ll send out a lifeboat.”
On the way there, they passed a castle that looked to be made entirely from white styrofoam and duct tape. Another one that was not so near seemed like a natural formation of orange and yellow sandstone rather than something constructed. A few others in various states of disrepair looked more traditional. One floated along upside down.
Sooner than Cole liked, the skycraft turned in a wide circle around a solid gray castle, old but undamaged. The high wall had sturdy towers at intervals, and enclosed a big courtyard with a few smaller structures. The drawbridge was raised. The tallest towers belonged to the main building, which seemed to have been built more for intimidation than for beauty. In one corner of the courtyard, Cole observed a gallows and a guillotine. The sight made him shiver.
There was no sign of life on the walls or the towers, but down in the courtyard figures moved about. It was tough to see many details, but they walked purposefully, weaving among one another. Nobody sat or stood idle.
After the Domingo circled the castle twice, the captain, with two other men, approached Cole. “All we see are women on the move,” the captain said. “There’s an unnatural pattern to their activities. They could be drones, all but mindless. Or they could be dangerous. That’s for you to find out, Cole. The brothers, Jed and Eli, will pilot the lifeboat.”
The pair bore a strong resemblance to each other, though Eli was a little taller and broader through the shoulders. Eli had a longbow and Jed held a crossbow. They looked to be in their thirties.
“We’ll get you there and bring you back,” Eli said.
“Unless you don’t,” Jace added.
Jed smiled ruefully. “Unless we don’t. Come on.”
They led Cole to the rear of the skycraft, where they climbed into a lifeboat with the name Okie Dokie stenciled on the side. Jed squatted at the back, near the tiller and a pair of levers. Cole got situated beside Eli.
“Remember to shout if you use the sword,” Jace advised. “It might not respond if you say ‘away’ too softly. It’s a safety measure.”
“Got it,” Cole said, stomach fluttering, hands trembling.
“Die bravely,” Jace said.
“Die bravely,” the captain and several others echoed.
Cole glanced nervously at Eli.
“It’s unlucky to wish you good luck,” Eli explained. “We use ‘die bravely’ instead.”
“Thanks,” Cole said to the people on deck, with a little wave.
When the lifeboat lurched into the air, Cole caught hold of the side. It flew quite a bit faster than the Domingo and also rocked a lot more.
“The lifeboat is more of a ride,” Jed said with a laugh.
Cole watched as Jed worked the controls. The tiller swayed the boat from side to side. One lever tipped the nose up and down, the other adjusted their speed. Cole felt amusement-park tingles with every motion Jed made.
“We’ll drop you in the middle of the yard,” Eli said. “Just climb down the ladder. If you step on the ground and a monster bursts out of hiding, get right back on the ladder and we’ll soar away. Otherwise, we’ll hover above, helping to spot trouble, ready to swoop in if you need us. Understood?”
Cole watched the castle walls drawing near. His mouth was dry. “Yeah.”
“You never know,” Eli said. “There might be no trouble at all.”
“Castle is in good repair,” Jed said.
“Right,” said Eli.
“And it’s big. And we can see semblances.”
“We can always hope for the best.”
Jed shrugged.
As the lifeboat breezed over the outer wall, Eli leaned forward. “Busy, busy.”
Along the edges of the courtyard, doors opened and closed. Older women entered, exited, and crossed the yard, dressed in plain dresses and shawls.
The lifeboat slowed, hovering.
Dozens of women strode this way and that. None were young enough to be called middle-aged, but none were bent with extreme age, either. Some were empty-handed, some held buckets or brooms. None spoke or looked at one another, their expressions neutral.
“What do you think?” Jed asked.
“Let’s watch them,” Eli replied.
Although they were constantly coming and going, the number of women in the yard stayed at around three dozen. None of them gazed up at the lifeboat.
“What do you think, Cole?” Eli asked.
“Creepy.”
“I’ll grant you that,” Eli said. “Let’s see if this shakes them up.” He tossed a rope ladder over the side. It unrolled, the end dangling a couple of feet above the surface of the yard.
The women took no notice of it.
“They don’t act too alert,” Eli said. “It might mean there is no predator here. They would make easy prey.”
“They could be the predators,” Jed said. “You never know.”
“Only one way to find out,” Eli said, patting Cole on the shoulder. “You ready?”
No part of Cole felt ready. His heart was pounding and his skin felt clammy. Managing a nod, he put a leg over the side and started down the flimsy ladder.