CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE DEAD AIR

‘We’re going to have to put in for repairs,’ Bokko said. ‘It’s as simple as that.’

Drekki drummed his fingers on his desk. Bokko wore a thick sabretusk fur coat over his arkanaut’s gear. It was caked in snow, as if he’d been rolled in icing sugar. Drekki made a mental note not to say that in Gord’s earshot. It might give him ideas about how nice Bokko would taste.

‘How long do we have?’

‘I’ve patched the leak, but if we don’t fix the pipes within the next hour or two, we’re going to run out of aether.’

‘The constant battle, fuel versus speed,’ said Drekki.

‘It’s one we’ll lose on both counts this time,’ said Bokko. ‘The main feed from the tanks to the forward endrin is ruptured and leaking. We can’t fare without it. Currently, we’re using quadruple the normal amount of aether, even with my patching.’

‘Any promising landing sites?’ Drekki asked wryly, because when they both looked out of the porthole, the day was a dim grey smear. The snow was so thick it choked the noonday Hysh to nothing.

‘We’ll have to take our chances, and land at the first place we find.’

‘Right,’ said Drekki tiredly. ‘Let’s get this sorted.’

Drekki and Bokko went out into the storm. Snow piled high on the Aelsling, despite the constant efforts of the crew to sweep it clear. On Drekki’s shoulder, Trokwi peeped miserably and shrunk into his metal feathers. The wind was ferociously gusty, and the ship rocked. Yet despite the gale, and his sealed helm, Drekki could smell the tang of aether venting from the endrin.

Otherek had set up a small brazier in the centre of the deck. Whatever heat it put out was snatched away. Its only contribution was in telling them how deep the snow was, as there was a water-slick circle of bare deck around the brazier. Beyond that, a tall wall of white.

Adrimm shuffled past, working his broom. ‘I hate snow, did I ever tell you that?’

‘Yes,’ said Drekki.

Otherek joined them. ‘I’m looking for a landing site, but I can’t get a fix on anything in this. My instruments are overwhelmed by the leak,’ he said.

‘That really is a poor vulnerability,’ said Drekki, looking at the endrin. ‘I should probably try to come up with a way to make it less… breakable. Let’s see if Ramarius can find us a safe harbour. Uzki!’ he shouted through the blizzard. The beardling was back on deck sweeping snow, his shoulders slumped in a sulk at missing the fight.

‘Yes, captain?’

‘Fetch a flare gun from Locklann. Tell him to put the loudest flare we have in the chamber.’

The lad went off. He came back cradling the gun excitedly. He held it out to Drekki.

‘Nay, lad, I’ll let you fire. Point it over there, angle it up a bit, pull the trigger. Nothing to it.’

The beardling brightened at that. He made sure to hold the gun extra steady, hoping to convince Drekki to let him have a real one.

The aether flare fizzed up and out from the Aelsling. The blizzard swallowed it. A second later, it detonated with a flash that was almost completely obscured, but the bang it made got through the thick veils of snow.

‘I bet he didn’t hear it,’ Adrimm said.

Drekki said nothing. A moment later, Ramarius loomed suddenly out of the weather, wings twitching as he tried to hold position.

Bokko handed Drekki a loud hailer. Drekki lifted it to his helm mouth.

‘Ramarius! We have to put in for repairs. Right now.’

‘There is nowhere safe!’ Ramarius’ shout was faint, almost beaten by the blizzard. ‘We are nearly at the Dead Air. Can you wait a few hours?’

‘Safe don’t matter, nearly there don’t matter,’ Drekki shouted back. ‘This is not debatable. We run out of aether, we’re dead.’

Ramarius craned his head towards the ship, looking puzzled, then seemed to get the gist of the words. ‘Very well.’

He rolled through the blizzard, and flew so that he was just in front of the ship.

‘Follow Ramarius!’

Ramarius took them to a wind-blasted metalith covered in snow. Not a blanket of snow, but snow in a hurry. It blew off the edge in sinuous curtains, ramping up into the sky before flying off in every direction to rejoin the blizzard. It never ran out. There was always more falling behind. The snowflakes raced over the surface as if they were participating in some form of bizarre meteorological sport.

‘This will do. The lee of that ice cliff there. It should be a little more sheltered,’ said Drekki.

Evrokk, a huddled, ice-rimed figure in the cockpit, bent over the controls. ‘Aye, captain,’ he said.

They decreased loft, and lost altitude. The wind dropped. The ship stopped rocking. The snow fell more or less straight down. The Aelsling’s endrins sighed as she sank. Evrokk held her keel a few feet above the ground. Down at the foot of the cliff, it was still, and quiet enough that they could hear the hiss of aether escaping around Bokko’s temporary patches.

Evrokk sounded the horn.

‘Right, lads! Down you go!’ Drekki shouted. ‘The quicker the better, make the ship fast!’

Arkanauts rappelled down the sides, plunging over their heads into the snow around the ship when they landed. They cut channels through the white and took up position. Meanwhile, keel props were pulled out of storage and assembled, then lowered over the side by Adrimm and Umherth.

‘Sky-ships aren’t made to set down,’ Drekki said to Kedren.

‘Another skybeard nonsense,’ the runesmith snorted. ‘Get a Dispossessed dirigible, and it’ll land easily enough.’

‘It’s a flaw, I’ll agree, especially these days, when we’re trading hither and yon,’ said Drekki. Hammering came up from below as the props were lodged into place. The blam-kerchunk! of anchor bolts being shot into the ground came after.

‘Solid!’ shouted Locklann from below. He sounded like he was a thousand raadfathoms away.

Drekki lifted his hand and spun his finger around. ‘Evrokk, shut her down!’ he yelled.

The hiss cut out, followed by the hum of the endrins dying. A sky-ship is rarely still. It is a living thing, in its way, when its metal veins run hot with aether. The silence that descended on the Aelsling was eerie, almost funereal.

‘All right, everybody, get to work!’ Drekki commanded. ‘Let’s get the old girl back in the sky within three hours.’ He ostentatiously set his pocket watch.

Bokko hoisted himself up onto the endrin. Uzki followed.

‘You’re taking the beardling?’ Drekki asked.

‘I’m teaching him, if that’s all right with you, captain. He’s got the knack for fixing,’ said Bokko.

‘I like puzzles,’ Uzki said. ‘A mechanism is just a big puzzle, so Master Bokko says.’

‘Really now? Ah well, you keep at it. Good lad.’

He could tell Uzki was beaming with pride, even through his helm.

‘You’re not coming too?’ asked Bokko.

‘No,’ said Drekki. ‘You carry on.’

The relief radiating from Bokko was palpable. Drekki let him go, knowing the little endrinrigger worked better without his meddling.

While the major repairs were undertaken, the rest of the crew took the opportunity to fix minor damage, and the clatter of hammers set up all over the ship.

Drekki leaned on the railing and looked out over the frozen wilderness. The storm was abating a little. The gusts of wind were fewer and further apart. Visibility was improving. The snow became less hurried, as if worn out by its earlier exertions. It was still impossible to see more than a hundred raadfathoms, but under the cliff there was a modicum of peace. Ramarius curled up in a hole he had melted in the snow a little way away from the ship, where his inner warmth would not destabilise the ice around the Aelsling. Drekki wondered how a being like him kept warm, living up here in the cold. He seemed happy enough, his wings wrapped around himself like a blanket, his nose tucked beneath his tail.

Otherek approached, one of his many devices giving out little whoops and pings.

‘Captain, you’ve got to see this.’

Drekki peered down. A needle jerked insistently across a gauge. ‘Found something?’

‘Now the leak’s stopped, I’m getting clear readings. There’s a mass of metal, only five hundred raadfathoms from here.’

‘And?’

‘It could be a sky-ship. If it is, it could have refined aether in its tanks, which we could use. Or it might have treasure aboard, which we could use more.’

‘I like the part about treasure. Five hundred, you say?’

‘That way.’ Otherek pointed across the plain.

‘Doesn’t look too hard.’ Drekki slapped his hands rhythmically on the railing. ‘Let’s go take a look. It should only take a couple of hours. I’ve not had my fill of adventure for today, and besides, I’d only end up bothering Bokko if we hung around here.’

Drekki got Otherek and Umherth into a party. He made sure everyone else had a job to do, then they rappelled down to the ground.

They trudged over the waste for some time. Duardin being solidly boned creatures, and Kharadron habitually equipped in gear that was heavy even with inbuilt aether lighteners, they sank until the snow was packed as hard as stone under their feet. It never got below the level of their waists, and was often up over their heads, meaning they had to physically force their way through. Otherek responded sourly to requests that he melt a path.

‘It’d take all the aether in Barak-Mhornar to do that,’ he said.

Before long all of them were grumbling as much as Adrimm on a bad day. Still Drekki had them press on. Trokwi tried to scout for them, but the oil in his mechanisms threatened to freeze, and he was forced to crouch on Drekki’s shoulder, where he shivered pathetically.

‘Come on, lads!’ Drekki said. ‘A fine day for a walk, with who knows what treasures at the end!’

‘I’d better get to kill something,’ Umherth growled.

The ship and the drake became indistinct shapes in the snow, then vanished into the white haze.

Drekki lost the feeling in his toes long before they emerged onto a rocky patch swept clear by the wind. They were buffeted as they walked, but it was preferable to playing snowplough. Before long, it started to snow again, and they were soon caked in the stuff. Drekki called a halt where the land began to rise.

‘A little pause, my lads, we can’t see a thing in this,’ Drekki said. Trokwi gave a miserable peep.

‘Not far now,’ said Otherek. He gestured towards the hill with his device. ‘Should be up there somewhere.’

‘I’m not going back. All that walking for nothing!’ Umherth said.

‘Calm yourself, old friend. I’m not saying we go back,’ said Drekki. He looked over the steepening slab of rock. ‘We will rope together. One wrong step and we could go right over the edge. It could be only grunti away. I can’t see further than the end of my beard.’

‘Right,’ grumbled Umherth. He let Drekki clip a length of steel safety line to his belt, then another to Otherek up at the front.

‘I’ll take the rear,’ said Drekki, and attached himself to Umherth.

They slogged on, heads bowed, the wind getting up, making their ascent of the slab tricky. The shower passed, and the visibility improved again. They huffed their way up onto an incline of loose rock and ice, then onto something of a plateau rippled with snowdrifts. A thin sheet of snow blew along at boot height, leaping up into the air off the crest of the drifts, and every time the duardin passed one, a hard spray rattled off their helms.

Otherek stopped and pointed ahead. Drekki struggled to hear him over the wind.

‘There it is!’ Otherek repeated.

The sheets of windblown snow wavered past, and at first Drekki saw nothing, but as they got closer a knoll emerged from the weather, hard and white and all alone. A little closer, and he saw that this was no natural hillock, but banks of snow that had formed around a body of metal. They arrived at the knoll, finding it situated on the crest of a ridge, exactly where the land headed back downwards again. On the other side of the hill was a glacier, huge and rumpled, that swept down into snowy obscurity. The pitch of it was punishingly steep, and they could not see to the bottom.

Drekki ran his hands over the metal. The artefact was lying on its side, the lower part half-frozen into the ice. ‘Kharadron-built, for sure.’ He took a step back, and looked up. ‘It’s a runpozt.’[49]

A runpozt was a beacon comprising a small cabin topped with navigation lamps and horns built directly onto an endrin globe. Smaller than zonbeks, they were commonly used to establish a temporary perimeter, usually around aether claims. A ring of such stations would encircle a mining operation, warning of ongoing harvesting, and telling other Kharadron miners to keep out.

Otherek walked around the hull, twisting the calibration knobs at the side of his anatomiser, and passing its wide head over exposed metal. ‘No aether,’ he said. ‘Tanks are empty.’ He walked up the snow bank piled up on the windward side. At the top, the railings around the main platform were bars embedded in the white. Drekki and Umherth stayed at the bottom. Otherek kicked the hull. It made a hollow clang. Umherth levelled his volley gun.

They waited.

‘Nothing inside,’ Umherth said after a moment. He sounded dis-appointed.

Otherek clambered up a little higher to the instrument clusters and aether signallers.

‘It’s all broken,’ he said. ‘This came down hard.’

He slid back down the snow bank. Together, the three of them continued. They’d almost reached the place where they started when they encountered a gaping hole in the hull.

‘That’s a big breach,’ said Drekki, prodding the edge ‘Doesn’t look like weapons damage. Or crash damage. The edges are bent outward.’

‘Something exploded inside, maybe,’ Umherth said, shifting the weight of his gun on his hip.

Otherek stuck his head inside. ‘The workings are all messed up, but there’s no sign of an explosion. All the machinery is still here.’ He pulled his head back out and looked up. ‘Look at that! It looks like someone prised it open with a giant pair of pliers. And look at these.’ There were parallel scratches all along the hull, where the metal shone brightly through the paint. ‘This damage is fresh. Something’s had a good go at this.’

‘Grots?’ Umherth suggested.

‘Could be,’ said Otherek. ‘This would be a fine prize for those thieving thagi.’

‘Keep an eye out, Umherth,’ Drekki said. ‘We should find the maker’s mark. If this is one of Barak-Minoz’s beacons, we know we are getting close.’ He hunted along the midline of the globe, where the maker’s plates were usually attached. He found an edge of metal, stopped, brushed snow off, frowned, and chipped ice from a plaque. ‘As I thought, here’s the rune for Barak-Nar!’ he said. ‘That can only mean…’

He ran his hand excitedly further down the metal, bent down, and brushed snow off a lip of another plate. He drew Karon and smashed the ice covering it with the butt of the pistol. Runes beneath proclaimed the origin of the platform, clear as day.

‘Yes! Barak-Minoz. I was right. Of course,’ he said. He stood up straight. ‘We must be in the Dead Air, right now.’

Just then a break in the storm passed over them. The snow was stopping. The sky clearing. Hysh fought its way through the clouds. Otherek turned away to look down the slope, where veils of mist and snow peeled themselves back coyly, and he gasped.

‘Drekki, Umherth! We’re here! We are at the Dead Air. We’re already here. The dragon was out with his calculations.’

‘My dear old friend, I’d already figured that out,’ said Drekki, as he and Umherth joined the aether-khemist.

‘Funti drukk,’ Umherth said. ‘Ain’t that a sight.’

Past the crashed platform, the metalith swept down to a definite line where land ended and sky began. The glacier filled most of the downward stretch, turning into a huge tongue of ice that forced itself out over the edge, where it lolled down into nothingness. Where gravity took hold, dozens of huge crevasses radiated in regular stress patterns back up from the brink, gaping knife wounds in the ice that were deep and blue and deadly.

It was far from pristine. All the way down the glacier were lumps of debris, some no bigger than fists, others the size of houses. Many were the wrecks of skycraft, and from a great many species. A shattered human air galleon, its wood dried grey and hard, lay next to the crumpled hull of a Grundstok gunhauler. A deflated squig balloon was half-frozen into the surface. Cargo, broken trees and rocks lay about in profusion, with many more dark hints in the ice. But that shore, magnificent and vast as it was, was nothing compared to the sky. Down past the lip of the island, metaliths floated in a huge swarm, many tangled together by webs of ice. More wrecks hung between them in snares of knotted rigging and balloon skins. A few floated on their own, still buoyant despite their dilapidated state.

Dominating them all was a sky-port, the sky-port, a few hundred raadfathoms below the level of the metalith, still huge despite the distance.

They looked down upon it with a sense of quiet triumph.

‘Barak-Minoz,’ said Drekki.

Hysh fought itself free of the clouds, lighting up the city with its golden rays. Minoz tilted off true. Debris-strewn metaliths crowded it, as gulls will crowd a fishing boat. Minoz was small by sky-port standards, a mere outpost of one of the great duardin cities. It was smaller than Barak-Thrund, the other port of the shoals. Anchorages like these existed in many places in the realms, providing forward bases for aether exploitation, trade, and the military of each of the Kharadron sky-cities.

Size is relative when discussing sky-ports. As a work of artifice it was, by the standards of any other species of creature at large in the skies of the realms, immense: a thousand raadfathoms long, five hundred wide, one hundred deep; big enough to house hundreds of duardin workers and their families. Wharves that could accommodate dozens of sky-ships jutted out from its sides. Like all its kind, Barak-Minoz was heavily fortified, its thick walls and cannon emplacements ringing the upper and lower surfaces, with a broad wall walk and strongpoints studding the circuit.

‘It doesn’t look that badly damaged from here,’ said Drekki.

‘Well, we’re being lucky today,’ said Otherek.

There was a roar from behind them. The three of them turned. Umherth cocked his volley gun ready to fire.

‘Spoke a little bit too soon there, aether-khemist!’

A huge shaggy beast was galloping towards them from the direction they had come. It was a big, quadrupedal thing, higher at the shoulder than Gord was tall, with a back that sloped down to its hindquarters, physically broad and heavy-set, with a long coat of brownish-grey hair broken by stony armour plates. On either side of its head were a wide spread of antlers that glittered with silver and gems, and below them was a flat, curiously human-looking face, also armoured in stone. Massive hooves pounded the ground, kicking up a spray of gravel and ice.

‘Stonehorn!’ Drekki said.

‘What by Grungni’s second-best hammer is that doing here?’ Otherek said.

For a beast whose skeleton was made of heavy minerals, the stonehorn was fast. It built into a lumbering charge, bounding forward, head lowered, bellowing madly.

‘Never mind that, round the back, quick!’ Drekki said.

Umherth opened fire. Streaking lines of aether smacked into the stonehorn’s face, but it lowered its head to protect its vulnerable eyes, and the shots sparked off its rock armour without effect.

‘Stop that,’ said Drekki. ‘You’re just making it angrier.’

Umherth continued to fire, forcing Drekki to drag at the oldbeard and bodily haul him round the back of the platform. Otherek was already inside the structure. Drekki shoved Umherth through the hole and followed, the three of them packing themselves into the small space around the wrecked machinery tight as fish in a tin, as far as they could get from the door.

‘Those weren’t tool marks, they’re teeth marks!’ Otherek said. ‘I should have known the difference. Kedren would. That stonehorn’s been eating the platform. We must be right in the middle of its terri–’

Otherek was drowned out by an enormous clang as the stonehorn hit the platform hard. The whole thing lifted up and rolled onto its side with the squeal of tortured metal and crackle of breaking ice. The three duardin were heaved up and off their feet, bouncing off the walls, ending up sprawled in a tangle of limbs and equipment.

‘Get off!’ Umherth shouted, shoving at the other two.

Drekki struggled his way out from under Otherek. ‘We’ve got to get out of here right… Oh.’

The hole they had come through was flat against the ground. You couldn’t have squeezed a rat out around the edges.

‘Trapped!’ Otherek said. He and Umherth untangled themselves from each other. Outside, the stonehorn snuffled around the station.

‘There must be an access hatch or something,’ said Drekki.

‘There was! That hole was where the hatch used to be,’ said Otherek, pointing at the ground. ‘The stonehorn began eating there. Mark Five runpozts like this only have the one hull door. They don’t need any more!’

‘Isn’t there a hatch up onto the platform, so they can get to the machines from the top?’

Otherek shrugged. ‘It’s a commonly cited design flaw of this pattern.’

‘Great. What do we do now?’ Drekki said.

‘Can’t shoot it,’ Umherth said. He cradled his gun. ‘My aether barely scratched it.’

‘We’d need the firepower of the whole crew and the Aelsling to bring that down,’ Drekki agreed. ‘Mind you, if we did…’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Did you see the gemstones in its horns, lads? We’d be rich off that alone. It must have been scavenging here for years, getting nice and fat off all the wrecks.’

‘Let’s get out of here alive first,’ Otherek said. ‘We need a plan, quick, or we’ll never have use for gems again.’

They could hear the stonehorn pacing around outside, its heavy tread crunching loudly. It stopped, and sniffed, its breath whuffling. It snorted. Giant antlers rang off the sides, clang clang clang!

The duardin reeled. It was worse than being trapped in a temple bell.

‘Drekki!’ said Otherek. ‘Come up with something, fast!’

‘I’m thinking,’ said Drekki. He looked around the chamber. There was nothing in there he could use to hurt the stonehorn. Bits of scrap and pointed metal wouldn’t do the job when aether weapons were inadequate. ‘At least they don’t eat meat.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We are inside its main food source,’ said Otherek. ‘And on its territory. You know how aggressive these things can be.’

‘Not as aggressive as me,’ said Umherth, baring his teeth.

‘Let’s try to look on the bright side, shall we?’ said Drekki.

The stonehorn nosed the side of the platform. It lifted off the ground, shifted a few grunti, and crunched back down.

‘What bright side would that be exactly, Drekki?’ said Otherek.

‘You sound like Adrimm.’

‘I’m moaning for a good reason. Like, being trapped in a tin can by a giant monster made of rock!’

The stonehorn bellowed, and pushed at the platform again. The whole thing skidded along.

‘Oh, I’m going to get you, laddy!’ Umherth growled.

‘Does anyone have anything more constructive than that?’ said Otherek. ‘Why don’t we just wait it out?’

Drekki thought. ‘I don’t think it will leave us alone. We should wait until it rolls this thing over and exposes the hatch, then make a break for it. It’s the only way.’

‘You’ll have noticed that stonehorns run quite fast, Drekki,’ said Otherek.

‘Aye,’ Umherth said wickedly. ‘But if we go different directions, it’s not going to catch us all, is it?’

‘That’s the best you’ve got?’ Otherek asked. ‘Only some of us get flattened?’

‘Umherth, shut up!’ Drekki shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘He’s right, though. It’s what’s going to happen,’ said Otherek.

‘I don’t see you coming up with anything better,’ said Umherth.

The stonehorn mooed loudly, snuffled, and pushed again. This time, it lifted up the platform a fair height, and it crashed down hard.

‘Nice knowing you,’ said Umherth, getting himself ready to leap out.

‘Shush!’ said Drekki, waving his hands. ‘Be quiet, the pair of you. You’re both old enough to know better. No arkanaut left behind! You know the saying, and you know me. You’ve got half the plan. As soon as the way out is exposed, if Otherek sucks the air out of the stonehorn’s lungs with his anatomiser, that might stun it long enough for us all to get away.’

‘Might?’ said Umherth.

‘Better than your suggestion,’ said Otherek.

‘All right,’ said Drekki. ‘Let’s do it. Otherek, get ready.’

‘Already on it,’ said the aether-khemist, twisting knobs on the side of his machine.

The stonehorn put in a concerted effort just then, roaring and lowing, and shoving at the platform. The entire structure juddered along the stone, metal squealing.

‘It’s going to flip us. Brace!’ Drekki shouted. They jammed their legs and arms against the hull.

Roaring triumphantly, the stonehorn heaved. The platform tipped up, and over. They got a close-up view of the creature’s stone-clad face, deep-set eyes and bellowing mouth, along with a blast of hot, animal breath, disappearing as the platform completed its first revolution and crashed down hard. It slid, stopped, and creaked, rocking slightly in the wind. The duardin looked nervously at each other. The entrance was now free. Umherth moved for it.

‘Wait for it!’ Drekki warned. ‘Otherek! Suck out the air from its lungs when it comes back.’

‘Aye aye, Drekki,’ the khemist said. He inched forward, nozzle pointing at the door.

Thundering hooves approached. The stonehorn crashed into the side of the marker station. Otherek tensed, waiting for the creature’s mouth to appear, but all they could see were its huge antlers and the top of its stony scalp. It heaved.

‘Hang on a minute,’ shouted Umherth. ‘What happens if before it tips us back over, it rolls us down this slope towards the island’s edgeeeeeeeee!’

The beacon tipped over again, then again, and it did not stop.

Boom! it went, as it went over on its side and hit the ground. Then, boom! And boom! Boom! Boom! Each revolution faster than the last, each hit on the glacier harder. Otherek, Drekki and Umherth shouted all at once, profanities mostly, as they were thrown around the inside of the marker station like gemstones in a polishing machine. Their gear crashed off the remains of the machines. Drekki’s mouth crashed into his helm rim, and his mouth filled with blood. Umherth screamed with rage. Otherek shouted for aid from the ancestor gods. Over and over they went, faster and faster, until all of them felt sick with it. Drekki was certain that at some point they’d hit something big enough to stop them, or that the array atop the station would snag in the snow, and bring them to a halt, and they’d be far enough away from the stonehorn that they could all get away in the nick of time, just like he’d got away from many other perils a hundred times before.

That did not happen. The station rolled as smoothly along its endrin globe as if it had been a wheel, the lighter upper half wobbling sickeningly like a child’s top. It hit something big, and the whole thing jumped high up in the air, still spinning, Drekki anticipated the next hit with dread.

‘Funti drukk,’ Drekki swore. He was going to die.

Or so he honestly thought for a good twenty seconds, which was the longest brush with death he’d had since he’d stolen the Aelsling and Throkk’s daughter for a life of high adventure.

The runpozt slammed down, jarring Drekki so hard spots of light whirled around his vision and for a moment he forgot where he was. It was an effort not to throw up in his helmet.

Otherek groaned. Drekki sat up. Umherth stirred. Trokwi shook himself off and hopped onto his finely wrought feet.

‘We’re alive?’ said Otherek.

Umherth tried to sit, failed, let out a gruff groan of pain, and fell back.

‘Drukk it, I think me leg’s broken,’ he said.

‘We’ll get you back to the ship,’ Drekki said. ‘Let me just get out and get my bearings.’

The runpozt had come to rest with the hatch halfway up the wall. Drekki clambered up, and out, and slid down the side. At the bottom, he took a moment, unscrewed his helm fastenings, and dropped it on the ice beside himself. He sat gulping at the air. They must have come down some way, for the atmosphere was thick enough to breathe. That was nice in his current state. He waited for the world to stop going round and round.

He vomited copiously all over the ground.

Trokwi fluttered down next to him and trilled.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ said Drekki. ‘How are you? Defrosted yet?’

Trokwi fluted.

‘Good. Let’s take a look at where we are, shall we?’

Trokwi flew up. The sky was now blue, and dazzling; the wind a gentle, cold kiss.

The endrin was wedged into a crevasse in the ice. They wouldn’t be rolling any more, so that was something positive. Drekki staggered around, wiping his mouth, his head still spinning. The light off the snow dazzled him, but it looked like there was a route without crevasses that they could take back up the glacier that would bring them onto the ridge some way from the–

There was a mournful lowing. Shakily, Drekki scanned the horizon. The stonehorn was a silhouette upon the ridge. It saw him, and began to gallop down the slope.

‘Does that thing never give up?’

The clear path became a liability, giving the monster a straight route to the duardin.

‘Funti drukk,’ said Drekki. He turned round and hammered on the side. ‘Toss me the volley gun!’ he yelled. ‘Right now!’

There were sounds of argument. Umherth didn’t like to let go of his precious weapon.

‘Do it!’ Drekki yelled. The stonehorn covered distance quickly. It was getting closer by the second.

There was a clang of metal on metal as someone moved inside, and the volley gun sailed out of the hatch and landed with a thump on the ice. It was rather close to the crevasse. He wouldn’t tell Umherth about that.

‘Trokwi, we’re going to have to lead it away from the others. When I say, get right into its face, do you hear? You need to distract it at the crucial moment.’

Trokwi whistled and sped off.

Drekki loped across the ice away from the runpozt, wincing at the bruises he could feel developing all over his body.

‘Hey!’ he shouted at the stonehorn. ‘Over here, you ugly, rock-faced bozdok!’

He let out a burst from the gun. Several aether-rounds zinged off the stonehorn’s hide. It bellowed in outrage, skidded to a halt, changed direction, pawed the ground and came after him.

‘That’s the spirit!’ Drekki said. He switched direction and went right, running parallel to the beast. Crevasses opened everywhere around him. Dangerous ground. He couldn’t afford to look at his feet. But crevasses were what he was after.

‘Come on!’ he screamed at it, waving the gun. ‘I’m over here!’

He fired behind him. Volley guns were heavy, and he hit nothing but the sky. The noise annoyed the creature.

He turned to the front just in time to see a depthless crack open up in front of him. He leapt it, sending a cascade of snow into the abyss. He ran along the ridge separating it from the next gap. The stonehorn jumped, landing on the same side as Drekki.

‘Funti drukk! Not wide enough.’

He risked a look back. The stonehorn was gaining.

He searched ahead. There was a wide crevasse coming up. He wasn’t sure he could clear it, but he could try, or he could get trampled.

‘No choice at all,’ he panted. ‘Trokwi!’ he shouted. ‘The next one!’

He had no idea if the drillbill heard. The crevasse yawned ahead, wide and blue as an ocean. He took a small axe from his belt and reversed it, so the spiked rear was forward.

‘Grungni, if you really are a god, now would be a good time to prove it.’ He dropped the volley gun, and accelerated into a flat-out sprint. ‘Khazuk-ha!’ he yelled, and jumped.

Behind him, the stonehorn approached the edge. Trokwi dived at its face.

The far lip came flying at Drekki. He swung with his axe. It parted clear air a handspan from the edge.

Drekki fell.

The stonehorn, distracted by Trokwi’s flashing wings, jumped after its quarry. It had no chance. The creature dropped with an angry roar that went on until it hit the bottom with a heavy thud.

Silence.

Trokwi flew over the crevasse, twittering loudly for his maker. His cries were full of mechanical panic.

There was a grunt, the sound of metal chipping ice. Trokwi landed on the lip of the crevasse. The top of Drekki’s helmet emerged, covered in a dusting of snow, then a hand swinging the axe, embedding the spike in the ice. His other hand followed, driving a screwdriver into frozen snow.

Drekki heaved himself up with string of curses in several languages and flopped onto the ground. Trokwi hopped over in front of him, and gave a little peep of delight.

Below, the stonehorn roared angrily, trapped.

‘I’m glad you’re alive too,’ said Drekki. He stood on the edge and peered down. The stonehorn was stuck at the bottom. ‘That’s that then.’

He looked to the drillbill. They stared at each other a moment. Trokwi cocked his head.

‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t just stand there and flew off to fetch the Aelsling? There’s only so much hanging around on the edge of an icy pit a duardin can do in one day. There’s a good fellow.’