Above the clouds

King Boor let his howl travel westward and the prey followed his wrath. On wings of polished bronze the delicate aircraft soared over the clouds and reflected the pure sunlight off into the distance. It was a beautiful vessel, made from the finest birch wood and mounted under an immense balloon twice its size that carried it across the cold winds from its native land of Carrinia. It had been travelling for two weeks to reach the merchants harbor of Badour and the crew was starting to get tired and reckless, unaccustomed to such long periods without land leave. The helmsman had started to drift off the plotted course along the royal air space and the lookout had now missed to spot the unusual movements in the cloud bed three times. This was the time to strike.

The captain of the Carrinian ship was a man of grand stature and an equally grand girth. He reminded of a wallowing walrus with his tiny eyes and wild mustache, as he cruised along the deck of the ship of his father. Displeased with the chilly weather but satisfied by the favorable winds he let out a mere grunt at the deck crew to keep up the pace, instead of incorporating the usual belching and spitting. Waddling back to the upper deck he gave away a loud cough to make sure the helmsman was still awake. He got a low hiss as a response.

“Are you still alive you old fart”, the captain asked and began fumbling in his pockets for the cheap silver box of smelling salts his son had given him last year for his birthday.

“Yes sir, if you’d like…” the old man seemed tired and he drifted off almost instantaneously after answering.

“Good, then maybe you could care to call for the navigator.” He breathed in the aroma of the box and shrugged and cursed as the ammonia made his sinuses burn and his eyes water up. At least it made him more aware.

“Wouldn’t you like to yell at him yourself sir?” The helmsman regretted saying it as soon as the words had left his mouth.

With nostrils flaring and eyes starting to get red the captain turned slightly towards his pilot with an empty smile.

“Orders are for following Sievo, you do well to not let that slip your mind again. Otherwise I may need to see you in my cabin.” The old man’s response was to immediately put the steering wheel into locking position and yell for the navigator as he ran down the staircase to the lower levels of the ship.

The captain smiled, now genuinely, and made his way to the railing, watching out over the pale landscape beneath. How it amused him. As the wind howled he held onto his feathered hat and listened to the war song of old king Bore, and wondered who was destined to face the wind maker’s wrath this day. Amongst the deep howling he started to hear something odd that reminded him of the hoarse humming of a beetle like the ones he used to hear in his father’s garden as a child. As he tried to find out if he was mistaken or not, the sound made a quick visit to his left side but when he turned it was gone, like if the beetle had dove down under the ship with the speed of a hawk.

“Most peculiar…” Taking a look over the railing the captain confirmed that there was nothing there, nor beetle nor anything even remotely resembling anything other than a cumulus cloud. But the uneasy feeling lingered still. He cracked his fingers and walked towards the stern where one of the young lookouts sat daydreaming.

“Amin! How many seagulls have you seen!”

The boy jumped off his seat and couldn’t find his bearing at first.
“Uhm, se- seven, sir!” Startled from his nap he blinked one too many times trying to get his eyesight back.

“Seven huh. Seems a bit much considering we’re twenty miles from the nearest ocean, don’t you think?!”

“M.. yes captain, sorry captain.” The boy clumsily hid his hands behind him and waited for the usual beating, but something caught the captain’s eye as he readied his hand, something down in the clouds.

“What do you see down there boy? There, amongst those dense cumulus, you nimrod!”

The lookout hurried to pull out his spyglass and examined the place the captain pointed out with an eager yet unstable finger. Nothing stuck out, just simple clouds moving with the winds, but then as the wind drew a breath and moved to the southwest something black got caught outside the white fog.

“There, something… it looks like cloth sir.”

The captain hogged the spyglass from the boy’s hands and shoved him into the railing. He quickly found what the boy talked about. A black piece of cloth rising from below showing an insignia of a falchion, wings spread out, clenching a dagger and a crown in its claws.

“Pirates…” the captain threw the glass at the boy. “Don’t just sit there! Alert the ship! Pirates!”

The young one ran as fast as he could, letting his precious spyglass fall and roll over the deck. The captain watched as the scourge rose towards them and moved to his commanding post. People yelled as the boy spread the news and panic ensued as the crew readied themselves.

The captain readied his pistol and yelled out his orders as the crew mobilized on the port side of the deck, where they could see the pirate ship rise up besides them. Steam spewed out from its sides as the engines pulled it upwards, faster than any ship the captain had ever seen, and no balloon to help it either. The ship flew on two pairs of majestic, yet frightful wings that remembered of those of a bat. The hull was matt black which didn’t reflect sunlight and it was decorated with a pair of gaping red eyes at the bow which seemed to stare at you wherever you walked from it. The ship didn’t make a sound except when it let out steam or took a new stroke to gain air. The silence scared the captain even more than its appearance.

“Steady men, keep them in your sights, if they come right at us they have no chance!” The captain’s words did little to motivate the crew; they almost didn’t hear him as they looked anxiously amongst each other, murmuring.

The ship closed in, quit and slow, the captain felt like someone on the other side was measuring him, testing him, and he didn’t like the attention.

“Fire a warning round!” his face blazed up and his eyes grew wild. He would not be made the lesser man this day.

The men at the railing all fired one shot from their repeater rifles and with a mighty explosion the first cannon on floor below let its heavy load fly towards the pirate ship’s judging eyes. There were no screams, nor did the cannonball do much more than merely grace the lower part of the hull. The silence made the captain furious.

“Come then filthy vermin! Give me your best shot!” With that said he heard the loud bang of a musket pistol behind him and dropped down as he lost the power of his legs.

“How was that?”

The captain lay on his side on the tar smelling planks and saw it get flooded with blood. He watched dumbstruck as several men jumped over the railing onto the deck from small hovering crafts, on the starboard side of the ship. They had fooled him twice, lying in ambush in their own ambush. The captains last thoughts revolved around screaming at his crew and seeing his little boy one more time, but as he drifted away into the darkness the last thing on his mind was the itching in his nose from the ammonia.

The pirates made short work of the crew aboard the Carrinian vessel christened Forial’s Glory. Their leader stood victorious on the captain’s perch and watched as his men looted the dead and readied the ship for its last navigational calibration. He pitied the poor fool who had fallen for his ruse, so in an act of respect he walked towards the corpse and picked up the captains feathered hat.

“This bird is too fine to be grounded I think. Too bad your other one isn't as lucky.”

A signal was cast between the leader and his second in command, a large man with tattooed arms and a large trench gun hanging in a rope round his leatherjacket clad chest. He nodded and called for all to retreat to their wasps as he walked up to his leader and friend.

“Do you want the honors, sir?”

“No thank you Redcliff. This was your strategy, your stone, so you get to sink this bird.”

The leader gave Redcliff a quick hand on the shoulder and moved to his hovering wasp. The large man grinned proudly and kicked away the lever keeping the steering wheel steady, and then released the lever for balloon control. As he ran for his sortie the immense floating device above gave out a loud crack and started to hiss. The pirates flew off as the Florial’s Glory sank, faster and faster towards the ground from whence it came. Redcliff flew besides his old friend and yelled over the winds:

“Did you find what you were searching for sir?!”

The leader just smiled as he held his new hat to his head and its red feather plume danced in the breeze.