He looked confused. “What about those twins? You seem to want them to court you.”
“Redden and Railing are friends from way back. That’s all.”
He shook his head. “They don’t look at you like they’re just friends.”
She’d had enough. She put a finger into his chest. “I want you to go sit somewhere else. Right now.”
He hesitated, looked down at her finger, then looked up again and smiled. He got to his feet without a word and walked off.
That had been entirely too easy, she thought, watching after him, and wondered why it bothered her.
Daybreak brought an unexpected change in the weather. Mirai woke to the feeling of cool wind and dampness on her face and rose to find dark clouds moving in from the west. Huge, tumbling black thunderheads filled the sky from horizon to horizon, and it was immediately clear that rain was on the way. Most of the others were already awake and sliding into cloaks and rain slicks, and she was quick to join them.
Austrum walked by, grim-faced and aloof, and did not bother even to look at her. Edras was in the pilot box, unlocking the gears and levers and readying the airship controls. She joined Chance Boy and Rideout, who were trimming the rigging in expectation of the blow, reducing light sheaths to a bare minimum. The rest were lashing down everything that might shift in flight. This was not the sort of day she had envisioned after so many dry and windless ones. Today would be something altogether different, and she did not like to think of what that would mean to their efforts to find the Ard Rhys.
They took time to eat in shifts, their meals quickly prepared and eaten. There was a decided sense of urgency. If they could get moving quickly enough, they might be able to reach their unknown destination before the storm hit. What it had taken the Ard Rhys and company days to reach on foot they could expect to reach in a couple of hours. No one thought this would happen, given the speed and look of the approaching storm, but at least they could make significant progress before they had to anchor and wait it out.
The wind was blowing harder but the rain was still holding off as they hauled in the anchor and lifted away from their mooring site. Mirai stood with Edras in the pilot box, the pieces of the broken coin clutched in one hand, reading the brightening and dimming of their glow to determine the direction the Walker Boh should take. She had not known before what she would have to do in order to find the way. But as soon as the airship had begun to fly, the coins had responded, and it had immediately become clear what was needed. Still, knowing and acting on that knowledge were two different things. The high winds buffeted the Walker Boh like a toy, and she was continually knocked off course. Edras fought the wheel until he was exhausted and suddenly Austrum was there to take his place, seizing the wheel and holding it steady. Mirai glanced at him, but he refused to look back.
When the rains came, they had still not reached their destination. With sheets of rain whipping over them, the light sheaths reduced to tatters and the ship caught in the grip of a north wind shaking her like a cat would a rat, there was every reason to believe they might go down.
“We have to get out of this!” Mirai yelled at Austrum.
The Rover shouted something back that was lost in the wind’s piercing scream. But his hands flew over the airship’s controls, and the airship began to descend toward the layers of mist and the stone spears they concealed.
Forward, Chance Boy on the starboard railing and Pursett on the port shouted back and gestured for them to not go any lower. It was clear they had caught at least a glimpse of the wicked tips of the Fangs right under them.
Austrum reached over and pulled Mirai close. “We have to get down farther if we don’t want to be shaken to pieces,” he shouted in her ear.
“Watch for my signals!” she responded. And without waiting for his response, she rushed forward.
Positioning herself next to Chance Boy, who was barely out of his teens, she peered into the shifting haze of the mist and rain, searching for an opening. She pulled the pieces of the coin from her pocket and took a quick peek through her fingers. The glow was sharp and clear; the Ard Rhys was not far away. Putting the pieces away again, she braced herself against the railing and peered over the side. She could just make out the dark spear points of the Fangs below. She held up her hands where Austrum could see them through the darkness and downpour, motioning him left and then right, guiding him toward a place where a landing might be possible. All they needed to do was to descend far enough to secure mooring lines and ride out the rest of the storm.
Worried that she might be thrown overboard by the turbulence, Chance Boy had secured a safety line about her waist—something she had failed to do herself. She was balanced against the railing, her boots hooked into the struts to help hold her in place. She was being knocked about, but she was holding on and the safety line assured she would not fall even if she was dislodged.
But then she missed seeing a cluster of the spikes materialize right underneath the hull as she signaled Austrum to maneuver toward a hole in the mist. The jagged stone ripped through the planking, knocking the Walker Boh askew and tearing out the hull far enough up on the bow that it took out the railing to which she was tethered.
With a startled gasp, she went over the side and tumbled away.
10
Pain.
It ratcheted through Mirai’s body as she woke and tried to move. It flooded her senses and made her go instantly still.
Something is wrong.
She was hanging upside down, she realized, suspended by the safety line fastened about her waist, swinging slowly back and forth through a shroud of haze and grayness and damp. Rain was lashing her face, blown by storm winds that had not abated in their fury.
How long have I been unconscious?
She tried moving again, and this time realized that she was wrapped up in the safety line in a way that pinned her left arm to her side and tangled her legs. The pain seemed to be generated as much by this as by any injury, although on looking up to where the broken piece of the ship’s rail anchored her to the branches she had tumbled through, she wasn’t so sure.
But at least she was alive.
All was rain and howling wind, so she knew she was still in the thick of the storm and not much time could have elapsed. Maybe hardly any at all. Her head ached fiercely, and she supposed she had struck it hard enough falling through the tree branches to black out.
Then she looked down.
She was hanging over a line of jagged rocks forming part of the lip of a broad ravine. The ravine itself was little more than a black gash in the mix of rain and mist, and she couldn’t tell how deep it went. Huge trees ringed everything, some of them shredded of all foliage, all of them old and gnarled, their limbs twisted together in knots. The ravine zigzagged its way right through their center, in some places exposing huge roots that hung into the deep split like the arms of dead men in an open grave.
She looked away quickly. If her safety line had not caught in the trees, she would have fallen into the ravine.
And she would probably never have been found.
Her thick blond hair had come loose from its bandanna and was plastered against her face, obscuring her vision and causing her further discomfort. Using her free hand, she brushed it away, being careful to move slowly. She couldn’t tell how securely she was fastened to the trees, and she didn’t want to do anything that would cause her to shake loose. Bound up as she was by the safety line, she wouldn’t stand a chance of saving herself.
Peering upward for a long moments, she searched the grayness for some sign of the Walker Boh, but there was no hint of her. In a storm like this one, the airship had probably been blown away from where she had fallen overboard, and the Rovers had no idea how to get back to her. Especially not while the storm was still raging.