Gerriod was delirious. He had lost count of how many days he had been imprisoned. He had lost sight of why he had been imprisoned. All he had been told was that he was going to Usnach where he would learn the error of his ways. ‘You chose the wrong side!’ his quadrupedal captors had said with scorn, but he had forgotten whose side he was on.
For days he had been manacled to the floor of the ship. He had been confined in the belly of the vessel and the floor of his cell was the very hull of the ship. Strangely, he heard no sounds of water nor did he hear the cries of gillygulls, a sound he had associated with maritime travel since he was a boy. And then he would remember – this was no ordinary ship. It sailed the skies.
Occasionally Caquikki came in to either taunt him or give him enough water to stay alive but not enough to quench his thirst, but for the most part he was left alone. He could hear voices bleeding through the floors above, but they were muffled by the timber boards and brass plates the skyship was made of. The ship did not creak the same way Gerriod’s ship The Crimson Dawn had creaked and he found the absence of such familiar sounds to be disconcerting. The only noise that had accompanied his laboured breathing was the sound of a loose six-inch bolt rolling up and down on a metal plate near his head. It had followed an endless cycle of roll-thud-roll for many days and Gerriod thought that if one specific thing would be responsible for sending him mad, it would be that loose bolt.
Fortunately, he was afforded one of the best views on board. When the Caquikki designed their skyships they realised that the most spectacular view was downwards. With this in mind, they placed portholes along the ship’s keel, from bow to stern. Gerriod was chained over one such porthole so he could witness – as Caliban had requested – the final folly of his people. His hands were fixed into iron manacles so that his gaze was directed downward through the thick glass of the window upon which he lay.
Gerriod’s lips were cracked. He was dehydrated and starved. For all their civilized veneer, the Caquikki treated their prisoners with absolute contempt. The mariner bore the bruises of countless abuses but his skin had stopped registering any pain long ago. He was numb. In mind. In body.
For days he had drifted in and out of a listless sleep. A fog had descended upon his brain and it had become hard to separate his reality from his dreams. He had pictured Usnach countless times before they actually arrived above the island. Having heard the tales of the island in his childhood, he knew what to expect. His father would be waiting for him to bid him farewell. Caliban had robbed him of his reunification with his father in the Endless but there was nothing the madman could do to stop them meeting at Usnach. In his exhausted stupor, Gerriod had played out their final farewell so many times, there were moments he would wake from sleep in an anxious state, unsure whether the conversation in his head was real.
He twisted his head to look at his manacled hands. They were thin and skeletal. All colour had drained out of his skin. Had he a black heart to match, he could almost pass for a Ghul. His fingers resembled twigs and his knuckles pushed through his flesh like granite boulders on a dirty hill. His skin was falling of in large flakes. The decay was almost complete. It had started the moment he held the Tethran dancer’s leprous hands that night when the Worldpool sucked them into the Endless. It was an act of stupidity and kindness he was now paying for with interest. The disease had taken hold of his body and it was an embrace that would be maintained until death wrested his soul away.
‘You know, you don’t look too good,’ said a voice he had not heard in over a year.
‘Dad?’ he gasped as he lifted his head upward.
Sitting on one of the steel ribs that curved down to the ship’s spine was his father. Gamelyn was still wearing the maroon and gold scarf that he had worn all his life. His face was free of the cuts and scars that had covered it when Gerriod had last seen him. He looked as healthy and robust as he did when he stood at the helm of The Melody.
‘Hello Gerriod. Still with us are you?’ he said with a wry grin on his face.
‘I’ve drifted off course Dad.’
‘You will find your way back. A good sailor will always find a way home.’
Gerriod looked at his emaciated limbs and felt embarrassed before his father. ‘There’s not much left of me, I’m afraid.’
‘But your heart’s still beating isn’t it son?’
‘Barely.’
‘As long as it’s beating.’
Gerriod looked sadly at his father. He wanted to reach out and embrace him but his hands were fixed hard to the hull of the ship.
‘Dad, what’s it like where you are?’ Gerriod asked tentatively. ‘You’re not in pain are you?’
‘No, son.’
‘I wish I could go with you. I can’t remember a time when I was at peace.’
The serene look vanished from Gamelyn’s face and he stuck out a hand and gripped Gerriod roughly by the chin. ‘You’ll have plenty of time for peace when you’re dead Gerriod.’
‘I doubt I will have to wait long to find out.’
Gamelyn shook his head. ‘No! That’s not the way of it. You’re still alive.’
‘I have nothing left Dad.’
‘No. You’ve still got some fight in you boy.’
‘Fight? I can’t even remember who it is we’re fighting.’
‘It will come to you, son. Gerriod, I am so proud of you. You have grown up to be a fine man. I just wish…’ He paused and cast his eyes down into his lap.
‘Just wish what?’
‘I wish I had been around to watch you grow up.’
‘You were never really far away.’
‘No. In fact I was just under the lake. If you had a line long enough you could have pulled me back to the surface.’
The sound of a key turning in the cabin door cut through the air.
Suddenly the fog that had surrounded Gerriod for so long dissipated. He knew where he was. He knew why he was there. And most of all, he knew who he was fighting.
The Caquikki Consul Tawhawki Fall stepped into his cell. His hooves clattered upon the boards that lined the floor of the small, dark room.
‘My father has asked me to come down and check on you, make sure you’re awake,’ he said. He pushed his spectacles up onto the bridge of his nose as he gazed down upon his captive. ‘He said Caliban wanted you to see everything.’
Gerriod tilted his head back and glared at Tawhawki. ‘Get out!’ he screamed at the traitorous consul. His voice was coarse. He had not used it in months, not since Caliban had handed him over to the Caquix without any explanation.
Gerriod could see the irony. Caliban had been manacled to the deck of The Melody when Gerriod had unwittingly given him the means to effect his escape – the knife Caliban had used to cut off his own hand. It was an innocent mistake but it had catastrophic ramifications. Caliban would make sure the mariner saw the carnage whose ancestry lay in that mistake.
The thought of Caliban gave him an idea. A desperate foolish idea, but he had nothing to lose.
‘Desperation can make a man do astounding things Gerriod.’
Gerriod pulled his left hand down as hard as he could trying to slide it out of the iron manacles that bound him to the floor. As he pulled, he could see his dead skin building up in flakes and folds where it met the metal of his shackles but this did not deter him. He felt no pain. His leprosy had seen to that. Ordinarily even a leper would not have been able to escape the shackles he was placed in, but the Caquikki’s failure to adequately feed him had reduced the thickness of his wrist to half its normal size. His hand slipped free of the iron that had held it.
Tawhawki had no time to react. Gerriod quickly grabbed the bolt that had been rolling near his head. He did not have to look to find it. He rammed the bolt into Tawhawki’s fetlock with all his strength, shattering the bone upon impact.
With an agonized groan, Tawhawki fell to one knee. Still armed with the iron bolt, Gerriod threw his arm around wildly. It connected with something but this time there was no jarring impact nor did he hear the cracking of bone. All he heard was the tinkling of glass breaking, then a soft squelching sound, followed by a heavy thud, as Tawhawki’s head hit the deck. Gerriod turned his head to see that he had buried the six-inch bolt deep in his Tawhawki’s left eye socket.
The porthole beneath him had a lever but it would not budge. He could hardly believe he was considering exiting the skyship via the porthole, but he knew he didn’t have any other options. Between the cell they had put him in and the main deck of the ship lay five other decks full of Ghul and Caquikki soldiers. If he went that way, he would be cut down before he had gone five yards.
Luckily Tawhawki had the keys to his manacles and Gerriod was able to free himself from his bonds quickly. But it would not be long before someone noticed Tawhawki’s absence. Gerriod was almost paralysed by the thought of losing his newly won freedom and his hands shook as he tried to open the porthole. He could see the edges of the glass had frosted over so he assumed the lever had frozen in place.
He swivelled around onto his backside and kicked at the recalcitrant lever. ‘Open, damn you!’ he growled, but still the lever would not move. He kicked again but his foot slid off the lever and slammed down hard on the glass window. It broke instantly. The glass was not particularly thick – the Caquikki had never consider that anyone would actually want to break through it – and it had become brittle as the frigid air outside embraced the hull of the ship.
The cold air burst into the small room and everything subsided into shocking clarity. Gerriod stuck his head out through the porthole and was sickened by what he saw.
It was not the drop below if that unsettled him, though that would have been enough to make most men retreat. It was what he saw below that nauseated him.
Thousands of Sapphyrran carapaces littered the frozen landscape. Behind them a black smear spread over the ice. Here the black shapes of Helyan soldiers lay under a veil of burning oil.
Behind the line of Helyans, the Acora futilely tried to stand their ground against a gargantuan creature which ground their bodies into the ice as the moved forward with little speed but immeasurable force. Even from this great distance, Gerriod could see the terrible losses the Myrran forces had incurred at the hands, claws and teeth of the denizens of the Endless.
Directly below him Gerriod could see countless Ghul, some on foot, some riding strange beasts he had never seen before. Behind them at one end of the island he could see the Pryderi. They numbered in the hundreds. They were not directly engaged in the fighting but he suspected they were influencing it more than anyone else – the entire island was covered in darkness even though he had watched the morning sun glinting on the sea beneath his porthole only hours earlier. He had heard that some witches could influence the weather, but he was astounded to find that they had covered up the sky.
Between the two warring sides he could see the breach, a dark wound in the bloodstained flesh of Usnach. He could see hundreds of Ghul pouring out the rift. They were like a flood. There didn’t seem any chance of stopping them.
In plain sight of so much carnage, Gerriod’s concerns for his personal safety seemed trite. He pulled himself out the porthole and looked for a way to scale the outside of the ship. The hull was broad much like the shape of The Crimson Dawn before it was crushed in the merciless grip of the Worldpool. Its flat bottom would not make for easy climbing. It was not as if he was unaccustomed to climbing – forty years of scaling masts had given him better balance than most – but the underside of the skyship was something else altogether.
‘I’m going to die,’ he said as he shuffled out the porthole.
The arctic wind buffeted his frail body as he clung to the keel into which the porthole was fixed. A thick brass beam serving as the ship’s keel ran all the way from the decorative bowsprit to the flat transom at the stern of the vessel. There was a small gap where the keel met the oaken beams that comprised the ship’s hull. The space was less that an inch wide but it was enough for Gerriod to wedge his fingers into it and maintain a reasonably firm grip. Straddling the keel upside down he slowly edged his way towards the bow of the ship.
As he shuffled along, he twisted his head about and saw more and more Ghul continue to spew from the dark hole in the middle of the island below.
‘Somehow, I’ve got to stop this,’ he grunted to himself. He returned his eyes to the brass keel he was clinging to, but his focus remained upon the breach far below.
And then an idea came to mind.
Gerriod’s tenacity would have made a Helyan proud. But he had not even covered a third of the distance to the bow when he realised beyond any doubt that he wasn’t going to make it. It wasn’t his willpower that failed him; it was his body. Months locked away in a dank cell in Caquix had weakened him; lack of food and water had caused his muscles to atrophy. He simply did not have the strength to hold on to the keel.
Moments before he fell, a smile crept across his worn face. Despite all the failure, all the torment and death, he had reached a peaceful place. Everyone he cared about was either dead or dying and that knowledge gave him a perverse sense of comfort. He had nothing to lose. Weariness peeled his fingers from the keel and he tumbled out into the cold skies above Usnach.
He did not fall far. He landed ten feet below the ship on the back of a sky snorse. Sela’s hand shot out and grabbed Gerriod by the shirt before he slid from her sky snorse. She hauled him up so he could wrap his arms around its neck.
‘Now where were you going?’ she said in a playful tone that was in total contrast to the precariousness of their situation.
‘I was trying to get up onto the deck of that ship,’ Gerriod answered, deciding that now would not be the best time for him to ask her questions about what she was doing there.
‘And what were you going to do once you got up there?’
‘I thought I would take this boat and sending it crashing down upon that hole. I want to sink into the breach.’
Sela turned and looked over the side of her peg’ii at the breach. She then looked back at the great ship hanging over their heads. ‘That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.’
She smiled and Gerriod realised, he had never seen a Tamuan’s face before. ‘Do I know you?’ Gerriod asked. ‘Your voice sounds familiar.’
‘I’m Sela Noye, the Tamuan consul.’
‘It’s nice to meet you,’ he said weakly. ‘I’m –’
‘You’re Gerriod Blake.’
‘Sela Noye,’ he said having a vague memory of her in the Cloud Chamber. He seemed to remember that she complained a lot. ‘Are you here to rescue me?’
‘Actually, we were planning to attack these ships.’
‘We?’ said Gerriod.
She pointed behind her where ten Tamuans bobbed up and down in the sky bestride the beautiful peg’ii of Cephalonia. ‘Do you know anything about what we are facing here?’
Gerriod nodded. ‘A little. I think there are ten ships in their fleet. The capital ship is captained by Lokota Fall. It’s a troop carrier. The crew is Caquikki but the boat’s hold is overflowing with Ghul.’
‘And the other ships? Do they have Ghul on them?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m not really sure. I’m sorry.’
Sela dismissed his apology. ‘Well, there’s only one way we shall find out. We’re going to board the ships.’
‘So you have a plan?’
‘The ships have guns. They’re held in the air by big balloons. That’s the plan.’
It was Gerriod’s turn to smile. ‘It’s complicated but it might just work,’ he said laughing in spite of the terrible odds facing them. His feeling of peacefulness had not subsided. He was free. Even though he knew he would probably die as soon as he set foot on the deck of the ship above, he was going to die a free man and that made all the difference. ‘I have one thing to ask. You leave this ship to me.’
She nodded. ‘You may try, Gerriod Blake, but we cannot wait forever. This ship must fall. If it looks like you have failed to achieve this, we will do what we can to pluck it out of the sky. We have our orders.’
‘I understand.’ She was looking skyward. The Caquikki fleet drifted in and out of the low-lying clouds like phantoms. He turned around to face her. ‘Do you think we can win this?’
‘I do,’ she said with great confidence. He did not remember her as being characterized by bravado, but here, moments before the most reckless assault ever conceived, she seemed incredibly self-assured. ‘The Caquikki are cowards and they’re not prepared for an assault. They have wrongly assumed that we are all land-bound.’
‘Take me up onto the deck above.’
‘Gerriod you can’t do this on your own,’ she said mirroring his earnestness.
‘I’m not sure how, but I will bring this ship down.’
‘Then take this.’ She pulled a long, black blade from a scabbard that had been hanging by her side. ‘It’s shatterstone. It should help a little.’
‘More than a little,’ said Gerriod happily, ‘but won’t you be needing it?’
‘I never was very good with a sword. I have other weapons.’ She gave her body a shake and Gerriod’s eye was drawn to the blanket of quills that was lying flat against her back. The quills were spreading out slightly, extending. He was glad he was sitting in front of her. Her quills made the shatterstone sword look like a child’s plaything.
‘It is time,’ Sela whispered to the other Tamuans and without a second thought, the peg’ii peeled away from one another and disappeared into the blanket of clouds surrounding them. They rose high so they could approach the ships from above, obscured by the clouds and the great balloons that held the Caquikki vessels aloft.
When each sky snorse was close enough to its appointed ship, it rolled in the air allowing the Tamuans to dismount in a fluid and silent manoeuvre.
On each of the skyship’s deck, the soft sound of each Tamuan hitting the deck went unnoticed. The Caquikki’s focus was outward, upon the battle that raged over a thousand feet below. The Tamuans’ curled up bodies shook momentarily before the savage onslaught of spines was unleashed across the ships.
A few seconds after landing on the skyships the Tamuans turned the cold air above the decks into a thick cloud of quills. Some of the ships’ balloons – the ones that hovered above midships – were ripped to shreds.
So were the Caquikki. The lucky ones were torn apart instantly, but the majority of Caquikki did not die straight away. They were incapacitated in the most brutal fashion. The quills pierced throats and faces. They speared into limbs and hammered into muscle. The Caquikki’s broad, round bodies resembled poorly made barrels from which spouted hundreds of nail-like spines.
The air was momentarily coloured by agonized screams and blood the colour of wine as Caquikki after Caquikki fell to the deck where they lay like giant pin cushions.
‘That’s the price of your damned treachery,’ sneered Sela as she watched the Caquikki crumple to the deck.
Once the Tamuans had cleared the deck of all opposition they ran to the ship’s guns. Most of these were Cold-powered cannons which were mounted on platforms on both sides of the ship. At the bow of the vessels a great harpoon took pride of place behind the ornate, brass bowsprit. Sela paused momentarily to decide whether to fire the harpoon or one of the cannons and quickly realised it did not matter. As long as it put a hole in the remaining balloons, it didn’t matter what she fired. She decided to man a cannon that was facing another vessel just thirty yards to port. She turned the wheel beside the cannon so that it was angled upwards. When she was satisfied with the cannon’s pitch, she set about loading it with a lump of Cold that lay in a wicker basket nearby.
Despite her lack of experience with weaponry of this sort, Sela had managed to aim and load the cannon within a minute. Now she just hoped her compatriots had managed to do the same. The booming sound of cannon fire that filled the air told her that they had been successful.
When Gerriod dropped to the deck of the skyship that had been his prison, the deck was awash with activity. More and more weapons were brought to bear on the Myrrans fighting for their lives on the frozen island below. Cages packed with snarling creatures dragged out of the depths of the Endless were cast over the sides of the ship. Lumps of volatile, blue Cold were also dropped. If it could maim or kill the troops below, it was thrown overboard.
Gerriod crept around the large crates that lay on the quarterdeck, confident he had not been noticed by any of the Ghul or Caquikki above deck. He looked down at the shatterstone sword Sela had given him. Its black surface even shone in the dull light above Usnach.
A crack sounded to his left and another to his right. On either side of him, long bone spears reverberated in the timber of the crate he thought had kept him from view. Another spear thudded into the deck at his feet. A quick glance behind indicated he well and truly had the full attention of all on board.
‘The prisoner!’ cried one of the Caquikki crew. ‘He’s escaped!’ He looked at Gerriod with a stunned expression that quickly dissolved into anger. ‘Kill him!’
The Ghul need no encouragement. The ship’s light cannons were quickly swung around in an attempt to shoot down the surprisingly evasive target of the Tuathan mariner. Gerriod leapt onto the poopdeck as the Ghul took aim. The cannon lurched upon the gunnel as the Ghul marksman jammed the trigger and a spiked iron ball shot viciously through the air towards him. Gerriod dived to his left and the ball whizzed over his head, its spikes narrowly missing his scalp.
He quickly picked himself up from the deck and sprinted towards the Ghul soldier who had fired the cannon. As he ran, we waved the shatterstone sword up high for all to see. The Ghul manning the cannon recognised the deathly metal immediately and quickly set about arming the cannon for another shot.
He ran out of time. Gerriod’s blade sliced through his neck, sending the head that sat atop it sailing over the side of the ship. He quickly threw himself behind the cannon and aimed it at one of the enormous balloons that kept the ship aloft.
His fingers shook on the trigger. Adrenalin had given him a surge of energy, but he could now feel his body beginning to falter. He had to make the shot count. He wouldn’t get a second chance. With the vast balloon in his sights, he fired the cannon…
And missed. The shot had splayed high above the balloon, missing it by a good ten yards. Gerriod dropped his head. It was over. He could hear the Ghul approaching. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw them raise spears and crossbows. He shut his eyes and braced himself for death.
But it didn’t come. Instead he felt the sun upon his face. At first, he thought he was hallucinating, but the warmth of the light upon his skin was undeniable. He opened his eyes to see the Ghul who had surrounded him all burst into flame as a narrow beam of sunlight fell upon the deck. His wayward shot had a most unexpected effect. It had pierced a small hole in the cloud that the Pryderi had cast over the island and through that hole burst a thin ray of hope.
Gerriod looked around. There was no sign of the Ghul other than a pile of ashes that quickly dissipated in the cold wind that blew across the deck. Other Ghul who had witnessed their comrades’ demise had hastily retreated to the darkness below deck, but Gerriod knew they would return. Already the clouds overhead were sealing the tear he had made.
He picked up the shatterstone sword and made his way down to the bow of the ship. The Caquikki crew did not engage him. They were not soldiers and did not know how to react to him. This pleased him. As much as he hated them for their treachery, Gerriod had no time to waste on hand-to-hand combat. All that mattered was bringing down the ship.
He clambered up the platform that held the harpoon above the bowsprit. The purpose of the harpoon was unfathomable and Gerriod was fearful the weapon was merely decorative – what could a Caquikki airship could hope to hunt a thousand yards above the world. His fears were allayed when he took the harpoon’s large, golden barrel in his hands and found that it swivelled. It was even more satisfying to find that it was also armed. The blade of the harpoon protruded from the barrel of the weapon, patiently waiting its release.
Gerriod lined up the balloons that ran from stem to stern. This time, he would not miss. And then he saw something that made him forget the balloons altogether. Or rather someone.
Lokota Fall was wrestling furiously with the ship’s helm. He turned great wheel in his hand and the ship slowly swung to starboard. ‘If he can steer the boat, so can I,’ Gerriod said as he did they unthinkable. He put the Caquikki ambassador in the harpoon’s sights and fired.
The ten foot long metal shaft shot across the deck and nailed the unsuspecting traitor to the thick timber wall at the rear of the bridge. He flailed around helplessly and Gerriod punched the air. The harpoon had sheared right through his stomach and back. It was remarkable that he was even moving.
‘You!’
Gerriod strode up onto the bridge with his sword held before him. He marched over to the writhing figure of Lokota Fall and rested the blade against his face.
‘Do you come here to gloat, Gerriod?’ Lokota gasped as blood poured into his massive lungs. ‘All my fleet is sunk and I am dying. Put down your weapon Gerriod. I am no threat to you. All my crew have fled the bridge in light of your brutality.’
‘My brutality!’ Gerriod growled. ‘What of your treachery to your fellow Myrrans?’
‘Fellow Myrrans!’ Lokota scoffed. ‘We have no more in common with you than we do with the Ghul. We do not look like you. We do not think like you.’
Gerriod was amazed. ‘How could you do this?’
‘ Our decision to support Caliban came down to nothing more than pragmatism. We could see a war was brewing and we just did what we could to ensure that we were on the winning side.’
‘But in the Cloud Chamber… you told us things we did not know about the Ghul. About the Cabal. You helped us prepare –’
‘It was a necessary concession to achieve a greater deception. Nothing we told you affected the outcome.’
‘Outcome? This story has not been written. The winner is not known.’
Suddenly an explosion rocked the ship. At the bow of the vast vessel, one of the balloons had exploded in a ball of flame. Ghul who had ventured out onto the deck scurried back below as shreds of the flaming fabric fell upon the skyship. Without the support of the front balloon the skyship listed forward. Looking out over the bowsprit, Gerriod could see the white ice of Usnach and the dark stain of the breach. The ship was sinking in the sky.
‘It seems your allies grow impatient. They are prepared to shoot down this ship with you still on it.’
Gerriod ignored the comment. ‘They are merely following orders. You have no such excuse.’
‘I offer no excuse. I am not repentant. The Ghul will prevail.’
‘How long have you sided with them?’
Lokota coughed and a thick wad of blood stumbled over his lips and rolled down his chin. His face scrunched up as he tried to speak. ‘Many years ago, I came across ancient texts that detailed the rise and fall of the Ghul. One thing was clear to me – the Ghul would return, and I made sure I was prepared if fortune chose for such an event to occur in my lifetime.’
‘And so you conspired. Helped Caliban commit genocide.’
‘The slaughter of Spriggans? We had nothing to do with it. We were merely beneficiaries.’
‘Beneficiaries?’
‘For decades the Spriggans and Kobolds have denied us the iron filings we required to produce the lighter-than-air gas that keeps us afloat. It could only be found in northern Camulos. The eremitic Kobolds wanted nothing to do with us, and the Spriggans – out of spite and jealously – would not even sell us what we needed. But after the Ghul had finished stripping Camulos of all its shatterstone, we entered and gather enough iron filings to float a thousand Caquikki skyships.’
‘But your allegiance to Caliban? He is our enemy!’
‘He is your enemy Gerriod.’ A spasm of pain shot through Lokota and his hooves stamped upon the deck as he stifled his urge to scream. ‘I regard him as a friend and have done so for well over thirty years.’
‘Over thirty years?’ Gerriod gasped.
‘Oh yes. I knew him before this terrible tale began. It was I who brought the knowledge of the Ghul to Caliban in the first place. It was I who taught him of the Endless, the Incanto, the Pryderi and one hundred other things that he has used to orchestrate his beautiful revenge upon an insidious brother. Unlike Maeldune, I was well aware of the necessity of staying in the shadows. When I heard word of the seal of Sarras being broken, I knew it was time to open the breach under Caquix City. I have been liaising with Caliban long before you discovered you father in the Endless.
Gerriod stumbled through the half-light of the underworld realm.
At one point, he noticed hoofprints in the dirt. He guessed that the hoofprints must have been made by another inhabitant of the subterranean labyrinth. However, he had heard of a hooved race of people living on an island off the coast of Ankara.
‘Hoofprints,’ he gasped. ‘In the Endless. I remember seeing hoofprints in the dirt.’
‘Ah, they would be mine. Or my son’s. I introduced him to Caliban.’
Lokota stared out past the harpoon shaft in his belly. He pushed his spectacles up onto the bridge of his nose despite the fact that one of the lenses was broken. He could see the growing blackness of the breach off the bow and he nodded. ‘I see what they’re doing Gerriod! They’ve taken out the bow balloon. We’re headed into the breach. They plan to block it with the ship.’
‘You don’t have to explain it to me,’ Gerriod said. ‘It was my idea.’
‘You’re only delaying the inevitable. The remaining Ghul will break through and your sad coalition will be finished.’
Gerriod stepped close to Lokota and slapped him in the face. ‘What sort of father are you? You brought your son into fellowship with scum like the Ghul.’
‘Tawhawki has more brains in his tail than you have in that battered skull of yours. He was capable of making his own mind up. He didn’t need me to tell him what to do.’
‘Well you have condemned him by your choice of friends. He is dead. I killed him.’
‘Then I will see him soon,’ Lokota said sardonically.
‘And I will see my father,’ Gerriod added.
Lokota twisted his head around. ‘Dead? Gamelyn’s not dead.’
Gerriod’s face dropped. ‘But I saw him… in the ship. I thought the island below must have –’
‘Ha! You fool!’ Lokota laughed delighted by Gerriod’s confusion. ‘You have been delirious for a long time Gerriod. Your father is not one of Usnach’s lost souls. Not yet anyway.’
It was a revelation both promising and full of despair. Gerriod was plummeting to his death upon a suicidal mission that seemed perfectly reasonable a minute before. But now he had been told his father was still alive, he could think of nothing worse than dying. His father was alive. Someone had to save him. But no-one else knew. ‘I have to live,’ the mariner said to himself, ‘I have to live.’
A winged shadow passed over the deck. It was a sky snorse bearing two riders, one of whom slid from the flying beast and fell awkwardly to the deck in front of him.
‘Ow!’ she groaned as she picked herself up. She pulled her long brown hair back, lifted her head and smiled at him. ‘Hello, I’m Lara Brand.’
‘I know you. You’re the Moraen from the Assembly.’
‘Yes. I see you’ve become suicidal since we last saw one another,’ she said looking at the ground rushing up to crush them.
‘My father’s alive. I could use some help.’
‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘What are you do –’
They were in a swirling bubble of pure magick. It felt like they were swimming in it, but he could breathe and he did not feel wet. The bubble looked as if it would pop with the slightest bump but as the timbers around them shattered and the brass plates bent, the bubble remained intact. A dull, red darkness enveloped them and Gerriod knew, he was back in the Endless.