Ahead of us, the greenery ended in a forbidding wall of black and white: a range of peaks that might delight a dedicated mountaineer, but spelled death for us if we met them in flight. Below us lay the western fringes of Tser-nga, the scattered villages and herdsmen who fell under the authority of the Tser-zhag king only because there was no one else around to claim them. “What do we do?”
“Look for a place to land,” Suhail said. “If we can.”
My first two caeliger flights had ended in crashes. I drew in a deep breath, reminded myself of the later flights that concluded in perfect safety, and tried to believe they would be my model today. My heart, already racing from the altitude and thin air, kept up its pace.
The caeliger lurched. Adler swore. I wanted to ask Suhail how far we might be from our destination, but kept silent. The answer was irrelevant. We would land where we could; only after we were safely on the ground did anything else matter.
“There,” Suhail said, pointing.
“I see it,” Adler said through his teeth.
Up ahead lay one of those fields of scree. It was not exactly level—but given a choice between sliding on loose stone and risking our balloon’s integrity on a treetop, our pilot clearly chose the former. The only problem lay in the preposition: the field lay up ahead. To reach it, our caeliger would have to climb once more.
Were it not for the cold, thin air, I might have thought myself back in the Keongan Islands. With the same blind faith as before, I followed the instructions of Suhail and our pilot, doing what little I could to assist. Our craft banked and rose, but not as quickly as the slope ahead drew near—and we were too far to starboard, I could tell. “If we keep on this way,” I called out, “we shall miss it entirely!”
“Wait—” Adler shouted back, intent on the terrain ahead. He could not spare the attention for more.
Just as we drew abreast of our target, a gust of wind caught us and slammed us sideways. The caeliger’s frame crunched with bruising force into the scree, knocking us all off our feet. For one irrational instant, I was certain our landing had broken the gondola—but of course dragonbone is not so easily cracked.
“Kill the lift!” Adler gasped, scrambling back to his feet. We were sliding on the scree, partly forward, partly down, and would soon come loose if we did not settle.
Suhail made it to the valve before I did, and the caeliger’s movement lessened. I drew in a steadying breath. One of the other caeligers soon came to a halt above us on the slope; but the other overshot. Adler spat a curse, watching it go. We all stood, not breathing, until the third caeliger dropped out of sight behind a ridge.
It was, of course, the one carrying the majority of our gear.
But if only one caeliger were to suffer misfortune, I had rather it be the one with fewer people on board. In the meanwhile, as the lightest member of our brigade, I leapt from the gondola with a sack in hand and began to fill it with scree. The craft shifted ominously and slid several meters away as I turned to hand my bounty to Suhail, and I had to fill a great many more sacks before its position was secure.
Finally both caeligers were settled into position. I was by then tired enough to lie down on the rocks and declare my day over, but of course we could not do so. Lieutenant Chendley immediately tightened his boots and declared his intent to hike in the direction of the third caeliger. “I’ll go with you,” Tom said, lurching to his feet.
He clearly wished to be of use. I had no idea of how much laudanum remained in his body, however, and I was not at all certain he should be undertaking anything strenuous until his head had cleared. When I protested, though, he waved me off. “I am steady enough now that my feet are on the ground. And besides, they may need medical aid.”
I could not argue that latter point, and he proved his fitness by scaling a nearby boulder. The sight alone was enough to exhaust me, for even a small exertion is utterly draining at such heights, and our flight meant we had not been given the usual chance to acclimate. It must have set Tom’s heart to pounding, for bright spots stood out in his cheeks against the general pallor of his skin; but the laudanum at least seemed to have loosened its grip, and so we sent him off with Chendley.
The rest of us—myself, Suhail, Thu, and the four pilots allocated to the two remaining vessels—set about examining our craft for damage. I was relieved to see that while the canvas sides of the gondolas had torn in a few places, there was no harm that could not be mended.
While I helped cut a few pieces of spare canvas into patches, I heard Suhail address Adler. “What are your orders now?”
Silence followed this—apart from the wind, of course, which did not cease for even one minute during my time in Tser-nga. Then Suhail spoke again. “You cannot tell me, of course.” He sighed in frustration. Or perhaps he was only catching his breath; none of us could speak in more than brief bursts, as our lungs clamoured for more air. “Then let me rephrase. Should we empty the balloons? There will be much less risk of attention if we do so.”
“No, we’ll keep them filled.”
They had more than enough spare lifting gas to refill all three balloons and fly back eastward. If the pilot wanted them to stay as they were, it could only mean that they intended to fly onward, west across the Mrtyahaima—or at least as far as they could get. Could they return from their scouting mission the same way? I doubted it. In which case, how did they intend to get home? It was one thing for us to jest about the Tser-zhag taking us into custody and marching us back to the Vidwathi border. We were not in friendly territory, but neither were we at war with the locals. Every place the caeligers might plausibly reach, though, was either sufficiently inhospitable to life as to be uninhabited, or in Yelangese control. Unless the pilots managed to find and loot some caeliger supply depot over there, they could not hope to fly back. They would have to abandon the caeligers—likely destroying them first—and somehow sneak back to friendlier territory.
It says something about my own temperament, I suppose, that such a plan seemed astonishing to me. To creep into a hostile environment for the sake of scientific study, I understand; to do the same for military advantage is too daunting to contemplate—even though most would call the latter purpose far more comprehensible.
Had we landed without difficulty, I think the caeligers would have flown on as soon as they could repair the torn gondolas and unload our gear. But our pilots were military men, and would not so easily abandon their companions. Although they were clearly not happy with the delay (and concomitant risk of discovery), they settled in to wait for Tom and Chendley’s return.
Our companions did not appear before dusk, which came shockingly early in that region, the sun vanishing behind the snowy rampart to our west. What warmth the air held—not remotely enough for my taste—vanished as if it had never been, and after some conference, we moved down to a more sheltered spot.
I sat looking at the western sky, still brilliant with light, but cut by the dark knife of the mountains. Suhail sat next to me and said, “Even if the caeliger crashed, most of our gear will have survived. Though it may be scattered halfway to Akhia, and the gathering may be difficult.”
It sounds heartless, when I recount such words and thoughts. Yes, our gear had been on that caeliger—but so had Marbury and Lowe, two corporals in the Royal Scirling Army. What of them? But it was easier for us to talk of inanimate objects, while the fate of two people was in doubt. Both Tom and Chendley were experienced in field medicine; if anyone were injured, they would do everything they could to help. Until we heard from them, we could do nothing to assist. Forming contingencies for our own expedition at least gave us something else to think about.