Sky Pirates

  “I knew you were going to say something like that.”

  Valerius made a grimace that Ulrik supposed he intended to be a smile. “It pains me that I have become so predictable.”

  “Follow me,” Valerius said. They raced through echoing metal corridors until they reached the Ravager’s command deck, bursting in much to the surprise of the white-bearded captain and his deck officers.

  “Sir?” said the captain. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have a plan to overcome our foes.”

  “That is good, sir. We are in desperate need of one. Those Hydran bastards are beating us. It’s that huge floating fortress. We don’t have anything to touch it, and its beams are destroying our largest capital ships.”

  “We are going to destroy it.”

  “How, sir?”

  “We are going to ram it.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but even a ship the size of the Ravager is not going to do much damage to that thing. It is just too big.”

  “It has a weak spot.”

  “Where?”

  “The glowing beacon in the well marks the spot. It is the source of the citadel’s power. If we hit it just right, we can break through the armour and into the core. The mass of this ship will disrupt the spells holding the fortress aloft, maybe even cause it to explode.”

  “It will be suicide,” said the captain.

  “It is suicide to continue fighting anyway,” said Valerius. “At least this way, we have a chance of victory.”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  “Do you have a better plan, captain?” The officer shook his head and looked around at the rest of the men on deck. A few looked frightened, most looked determined.

  “Are you with me?” Valerius asked. The magical compulsions were back in his voice.

  They saluted as one man.

  Valerius turned to the captain and said, “You know what to do. The fate of Typhon is in your hands.”

  The captain signalled full power to the engines. The Ravager plunged downwards, aimed like a spear at roof of the great floating fortress. It had enormous weight and mass, and its speed increased with every foot of the descent but still Ulrik wondered whether it would be enough.

  “We’re going to make Molok pay for what he’s done if it’s the last thing we do,” Valerius said.

  Ulrik thought it most likely would be but he could not see any way out. Valerius seemed determined to carry out his mad plan and if he died Ulrik died. At least this way, he would see the end of the matter.

  The citadel swelled ever larger in Ulrik’s field of vision. By all the gods, the thing was big. From up here it looked more like a small city in flight than an aerial warship. It was an awesome feat of sorcery. The tiny figures of its crew looked like ants crawling over the sides of a wizard’s tower.

  Ulrik looked around the command deck. Every face was grim. The captain’s knuckles where white where he gripped the control wheel. He looked like a man completely absorbed in a task. Coming in at an angle this steep was not something a ship like the Ravager had been designed for. Hitting a target the size of the glowing well would be an immense feat of aerial navigation. The captain looked as if he intended to pull it off.

  Valerius stood at the armour glass window gazing down at the approaching citadel, staring at it as if he hoped to destroy the fortress with the force of his glare.

  Someone on the citadel had spotted what was happening. The smaller weapons of the monstrous flying fortress were brought to bear on the Ravager, and its secondary armament was more potent than the main batteries of many warships.

  The magical field surrounding the Ravager grew brighter and brighter as it absorbed the impact. The huge ship shuddered under the hail of explosive shells. Even as Ulrik watched a great chunk was ripped out of her armoured deck, and dozens of the crew thrown tumbling through the air like broken dolls by the impact.

  The Ravager’s guns returned fire but they were impotent against the spells and armour that protected the citadel of the skies. Ulrik could see that their enemy was beginning to rotate upwards as Molok’s crew struggled to bring their main weapon to bear on their attacker. If nothing else they had succeeded in distracting it from the Typhonian fleet.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another massive Typhonian warship moving into attack position. It seemed like another captain had come to the same conclusion as Valerius. If nothing else, the officers of the Imperial fleet were heroically courageous. Or possibly heroically stupid. Ulrik could not quite make up his mind.

  The citadel wavered as its commander noticed this new threat. Some of its guns diverted their fire to the other Typhonian ship. Ulrik thought it was a mistake. It was giving them the chance to do what they had set out to do.

  “More power to the engines,” Valerius shouted. “We need to be going faster.”

  “I’m giving it all she’s got,” the captain responded.

  “Give it more.”

  Ulrik could see the insect-figures of the pirate crew moving about on the citadel’s roof now. Many had brought small arms to bear and were shooting them insanely at the attacker. They would not do much good where the citadel’s secondary batteries had failed.

  Another explosion wracked the Ravager. She jumped and shuddered under the impact and for a moment, Ulrik thought the ship was doomed.

  “We’ve lost the port engine,” the captain said. “No power there.”

  “Do what you can, captain,” Valerius responded. “We’re almost there.”

  The captain nodded grimly. Out of the corner of his eye, Ulrik thought he caught something flashing towards them. Moments later the whole command deck exploded. Scraps of shrapnel flew everywhere. Billowing black smoke obscured Ulrik’s vision. Sparks flickered before his eyes, and blood filled his mouth.

  They had been hit. Dead and dying lay sprawled through the command deck. Two halves of the captain’s body lay in a pool of blood. Brains and internal organs decorated the walls. Looking around he noticed that Valerius lay on the ground, still breathing. Ulrik checked his own limbs. He had been lucky. He tried to pick himself up but his legs refused to respond. He could not move. His body felt broken. All strength drained from him.

  Ulrik cursed. It had all been in vain. It would be pure chance if they managed to strike the citadel in its weak spot now and given the way their luck had been running he was not going to count on that. He tried to force himself to rise, to grasp the broken control wheel but his body refused to respond.

  Valerius eyes snapped open. His bloody hand moved through a cryptic gesture. A familiar agony blazed through Ulrik’s body as the demonic transformation ripped through him. He felt his skin break and the blood from his leaking veins begin to congeal. His vision blurred and cleared. He found himself aware of thousands of scents he had not been aware of before: the ozone leak of trapped elementals, the strange stink of Molok’s fleshgrafted hybrids, the alchemical tang of spent explosives. The pain did not end with the transformation though. Looking down he could see his limbs were rent with wounds. He wondered if even his demonic form was strong enough to do what had to be done.

  He pushed down again with his claws and managed to get up. He seemed to be the only man standing on the deck. All the rest were dead or unconscious. Looking down, he could see that they were still plunging sickeningly towards the citadel. Bolts of energy and alchemical shells exploded all around them. The crippled Ravager had drifted out of line. It was only going to strike Molok’s flagship a glancing blow.

  Ulrik grabbed the controls, wrestling the huge ship back onto the correct course. A normal man would not have been able to shift the wheel of the crippled vessel. As it was it resisted even his demonic strength. Ulrik let out a mighty roar. Great cables of muscles bulged in his altered limbs. Slowly, inch by inch the wheel began to move.

  The Ravager’s prow swung around. Desperately Ulrik tried to line it up with the glowing well on the citadel’s roof. The prow began to drift off course again un
der the impact of the titanic barrage from below. He threw all his strength at the wheel trying to bring the Ravager back on target.

  How much longer could the airship hold together and its steering systems respond?

  Valerius groaned and stirred, slowly rising to his feet, his jaw dropping when he looked out through the shattered armour glass of the windows and saw the inferno below them. Streamers of smoke surrounded the ship. The stench of ozone and burning flesh filled the command deck. The howl of winds and the thunder of explosions filled Ulrik’s ears. Not much further he told himself.

  A moment later the prow of the Ravager made contact and began to crumple on impact. Thousands of tons of airship moving at tens of leagues per hour smashed into the citadel. The force of the impact forced her nose down. Her own engines, still running, began to drive her towards the ground.

  The leviathan of the skies began to plunge earthwards, taking the Ravager with her locked in a death grip.

  Ulrik did not have time to waste. He grabbed the wounded magician and dragged him through the door. The ground was below them, visible at a terrible angle as both ships plunged to their doom.

  The Ravager continued to hammer downwards through the multiple stories of the citadel. Valerius had been right about it being the weak spot but only a missile as huge as the Ravager had been able to take advantage of that.

  “We’ve got to get clear,” Valerius shouted. His voice sounded weak. Blood bubbled from the corner of his mouth. “There’s more than likely going to be an ungodly explosion when the impact comes.”

  They were almost vertical now, and the slightest further tilt would send them tumbling.

  “Jump!” The wizard shouted.

  Ulrik activated his lift-harness and leapt. For long sickening moments they tumbled through space. Ulrik watched the gargoyle encrusted sides of the sky citadel skim passed. Blurs of multi-coloured chaotic energy ran from them like blood from a wound.

  Valerius grabbed Ulrik’s wrist. The runes on his armour’s chest plate began to glow as the levitation spells kicked in, Ulrik’s lift harness partially supporting him as Valerius towed him away from the area of impact. He had a clear view of citadel and the Ravager plunging towards the ground.

  It seemed like hours but it really must only have been minutes before the impact occurred. Eventually the prow of the citadel smashed into the ground and the whole bulk of the enormous airship went skidding across the dunes of the wasteland, displacing clouds of sand and soil as it ploughed a furrow several leagues long before finally coming to rest with the carcass of the Ravager pressing down on it.

  It lay there inert for a minute and then a huge explosion ran the length and breadth of the citadel. The whole enormous structure leapt upward and broke in two. Strange light spilled from the cracked hull and for a moment Ulrik thought he saw some vast demonic entity reaching up into the sky, a thing part human, part beast, with a face like that of a squid and eyes of pure glowing power. A titanic explosion, so bright it was blinding, erupted and when he looked again there was nothing but a huge crater in which lay the gutted carcass of the flying fortress.

  “There’s nothing more that we can do here,” said Valerius. He set them down on top of a great dune and lay there in the sand, bleeding profusely through his mouth and gaps in his rent armour. Ulrik wondered what would happen once he died. Would the demon finally break free? He was not sure he had the strength to resist it if it did.

  There was nothing to be done now anyway. It was over. They were stuck in the desert far from any help and the wizard was wounded. Anyone who found them would see only a demon standing over a wizard’s corpse.

  A small airboat came closer. Flying low over the wastelands as if the pilot was looking for something. Ulrik stood ready, not knowing whether it was a friend or a foe. The ship swerved as the pilot noticed them and dropped until it was mere inches above the surface, its bow sending up a spray of sand as it approached them. It was a lifeboat from the Ravager. From behind its controls, Rhea waved as she brought it skidding to an ungainly stop. Ulrik was very glad to see her. Valerius smiled once and gave his attention back to the skies. He seemed determined to live long enough to see the end of the battle.

  Rhea began cleaning and bandaging his wounds. Ulrik hoped it would do some good.

  Overhead the two mighty fleets clashed with relentless savagery.

  Epilogue

  Ulrik lay in the laboratory and watched as Valerius made adjustments to the controls of the machine. The wizard moved calmly and without too much hesitation, seeming to have made a complete recovery from his wounds. Rhea’s first aid had kept him alive long enough to be flown back to the Karnak Tower after the Typhonian victory over the demoralised Hydrans.

  Ulrik could not quite believe that Valerius was going to keep his word and watched him suspiciously even though there was nothing he could do if Valerius decided to break his promise. If he killed the wizard, he would be stuck in the demon form forever, and already he could feel the thing within him gathering strength to contest for dominance. While he remained in this shape he would become ever less human and ever more susceptible to its desires.

  Valerius moved his hands over the controls. Ectoplasm clotted in the air before him, eventually taking the same shape as he wore. Another minor adjustment and Ulrik saw his flesh peel away on the image and then certain of his muscles, leaving only knots and cables of strange black chitinous stuff.

  Valerius pulled a brass lever. Beams of light emerged from overhead crystals, touched the image and then passed through to Ulrik’s body. Ulrik braced himself for a surge of agony but nothing seemed to happen. He waited, his mouth dry, his heart racing, trying to deduce if Valerius’s spell had had any effect. He felt something - deep within his body, things spasmed as if great serpents of muscle were uncoiling and working their way into new patterns.

  Now there was pain.

  Bones ground against each other. Muscles tightened. He ground his teeth to keep from screaming. His head felt as if it was caught in a vice. His limbs flailed beyond his control. He knew, deep in his heart, that something had gone terribly wrong. Perhaps Valerius had betrayed him. Perhaps this was how he was going to die.

  Black spots drifted across his vision. He tasted blood in his mouth and decided that he must have bit his tongue in his agony. His skin felt as if it was on fire and looking at his arms and the arms of the image, he could see black spikes of alien stuff protruding from them. It was as if something was hatching from within him, breaking his skin asunder, like an insects coming out of a cocoon.

  The pain intensified to beyond the point where he could take it and he blacked out, feeling that this was a mercy.

  Ulrik opened his eyes and saw Valerius looking down at him. Beyond the wizard’s head he could see the squid faced gods that occupied the ceiling mural of his room in the Karnak Tower.

  “I’m alive,” he said. He could speak. He touched his face. It felt human.

  “There’s no need to sound so surprised,” said Valerius. “I’m not entirely incompetent.”

  “What happened? I thought something had gone wrong.”

  “You want the good news first or the bad news?”

  Ulrik did not like the grim expression in the wizard’s face. He braced himself. “Tell me what went wrong.”

  “I did my best exorcise the demon but it would not go. It has set itself too deeply in your nervous system, it’s bound too tight, it will die if it lets go and it’s not about to do that.”

  “You did not keep your word. You did not free me. Why am I not surprised?”

  “You malign me, Ulrik. You should have more faith.”

  “Why? The demon is still in there.”

  “I did manage to do one thing.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I transferred the binding spell.”

  “You mean you no longer control the demon? You gave that to somebody else?”

  “That is essentially correct.”

  ??
?Who did you give it to, your uncle?”

  “I passed control of it to you.”

  “To me? You mean I can free the demon? That’s a very useful power. I don’t think.”

  “You have a brain, Ulrik, occasionally you might like to use it.”

  “I’m trying but oddly enough I can’t see any advantages to having the power to destroy myself.”

  “Every man has that power. You don’t need to be able to unleash a demon to do that. What I have done is given you a different power. In theory, you ought to be able to transform yourself into a demon at need. And you ought to be able to transform yourself back as well. More to the point, you no longer need to worry about me unleashing the thing.”

  “You mean you don’t have a knife at my throat any longer. If I decided to kill you now there’s nothing you could do to stop me.”

  “I thought you might take that attitude. Which is why I prepared some potent offensive spells in case of that eventuality. If I speak a word, corrosive energies will suffuse your body, eating your flesh away down to the bone. Still, should you wish to make such a suicidal attempt, you are free to do so.”

  “I think I will skip that then. I spent so much time keeping you alive it would be a shame to waste all that effort now.”

  “I am glad you feel that way. I would prefer not to have to kill you. I was rather hoping to offer you a job.”

  “Oh really?”

  “I am still in need of a bodyguard.”

  “And you want me to do that?”

  “You were very good at it. And you have a number of advantages over any other candidate for the job.”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “There are a number of fringe benefits. I will pay you enough to purchase your own ship, at a very good price over the next five years.”

  Ulrik considered this. If he left House Karnak now he would be a penniless ex-Pit Fighter looking for work. On the other hand, if he stayed he would be working for the man who had thought it was a good idea to implant a demon next to his heart. He mentioned these thoughts to Valerius.