Chapter Sixty-Six - A Place to Park Airships

I bounced over to the figurehead and glomped it from behind so that I could better see ahead of us.

The Shady Lady was coasting along quietly through the mid-afternoon sky, carried along by the breeze at our back and navigating thanks to Raynald’s expert twists of the rudder this way and that. I suspect that he was aiming for thermals that I couldn’t see because we would occasionally ride up as if on a large swell for a little ways.

I rather enjoyed the quiet now that the engine was off. Amaryllis didn’t, but that was probably because she had been spooked when the motor exploded and sent the ship’s propeller flying off into the distance and left a bit of a hole in the side of the cabin.

The smoke trailing behind us was kind of pretty, and it also meant that no matter what happened, we would be super easy to find.

I turned around and looked ahead again, then I felt my eyes widening and my smile growing wider. “I can see a city!” I called back while pointing the city in question up ahead.

“Haha! We’ll make it to Greenshade after all! Didn’t I tell you as much, Raynald!” Abraham shouted. He didn’t need to shout over the engine anymore, but I think he was just used to talking at that volume.

“I’m ze one zat calculated our descent, not you,” Raynald said.

“Bah, that’s merely a detail, you old frog!” Abraham said. “It doesn’t matter, in a few hours we’ll hit land and I can finally be rid of you!”

“I zink I am ze one zat it most looking forward to having some time wizout your... loudness,” Raynald shot back.

Grinning, I leaned against the Shady Lady’s figurehead and allowed the wind to toss my hair back (I hoped that Greenshade had a hairdresser or two, I needed a snip). The adventure so far had been plenty of fun. Flying across the sky and playing tag with Amaryllis across the entire ship and just having fun and making new memories. It was all I had hoped for.

And soon we would be landing in another city and setting off on another adventure, it was going to be wonderful!

“Hey, Amaryllis, have you ever been to Greenshade?” I asked.

“I haven’t,” the harpy said as she walked up to the front of the ship and then brought a wing up to shield her eyes from the sun. We would need to find her a nice hat at some point. “I learned a little about it. I had to learn about most cities, but Greenshade is... not inconsequential, but nearly so.”

“Oh-hoh, if my little brother heard that he would be crippled!” Abraham said.

Still smiling, because there was never not a reason to smile, I turned towards Abraham. “You have a little brother?” I could already imagine a younger, slightly more handsome Abraham in my mind.

“Indeed! Little Lewis was a little brat when I ran off to have my first great adventure. Too bad he never followed in his big brother’s footsteps. He’s unhappily married now, with three little ones of his own! My niece is my favourite, but don’t go telling the others! Haha!”

I grinned. Having someone like Abraham as an uncle must have been great. “I can’t wait to meet them all,” I said.

“Your brother is the lord of the city, isn’t he?” Amaryllis asked.

“He is?” I wondered.

“Bah, it’s a silly title. I didn’t want it and Lewis always did want to make a name for himself while hiding behind as many walls as he could manage. I’m sure he’ll be out to greet us when we crash into his backyard, haha!”

“Oh, great, nobles,” Amaryllis muttered.

I stared at her, but didn’t have the energy to point out the bit of hypocrisy in her words. “So, Greenshade, what’s it like?”

“It’s a trade city. A centre for overland travellers moving into or out of the Ostri desert,” Amaryllis said. “It’s also one of the only proper cities near to Deepmarsh where goods can be loaded onto airships and sent over the Darkwoods. A few nearby independent cities trade with Mattergrove through Greenshade, so does the Nesting Kingdom. Just about all of the goods moving into Mattergrove do so through this one city. It’s a wonder it’s not the capital by now.”

“We built the city there because it had a nice view over the cliffs overlooking the desert,” Abraham said.

“There’re lots of humans there, right?” I asked. It would be nice to be surrounded by a bit of normalcy for a little bit. Not that I minded seeing people of all sorts of species around. “Um, except for the travellers, I guess? Wait, do a lot of people travel over land?”

“It’s mostly human, yes,” Amaryllis said. She leaned over the railing next to me and squinted into the distance. “There are some grenoil, but they tend to dislike the dry air. Plenty of ostri and some harpies too. Even some sylphs, but they don’t travel this far from their mountains too often.”

“Awesome!” I said.

“And as for the travel, well, airships don’t run on happy thoughts. They’re faster than overland trade, but you can’t move as many goods, the risk is nearly as high that the cargo will be lost and while faster, a large enough caravan can move more goods in a year than a dedicated airship. In the end it comes down to the terrain and the wildlife. In some regions airships are almost always better, in others it’s more cost effective to send goods over land.”

That was good to know, I supposed. It felt as if the world was going through a slow and steady change, pushing the boundaries of what the people inhabiting the world could do with their magic and creativity. And I got to ride along with that wave of enthusiasm!

Greenshade started to appear in more detail as we dipped through the clouds and came closer to the city. The city seemed to sprawl out every which way, with only the far western end where a large drop lay acting as a natural wall. The road to the west seemed neat and orderly, but the farther out they went the more they zigged and zagged. The houses also didn’t share the same colours as those in Deepmarsh, where nearly every roof was red. Here there was a rainbow panoply of roof colours.

There were also roads leading out of the city and through what I suspected were vineyards and small patches of forests among rolling hills. Small homes with smoke trailing from their chimneys dotted the countryside.

“Pretty,” I decided.

“Hang on!” Raynald called from the very back. “We’ll need to dip and pull up to gain some speed, else we’ll never make it.”

I grabbed onto the rail, then saw that Amaryllis was having a bit of difficulty doing the same with her talons, so I wrapped one arm around her waist and hugged her from behind. Orange, who had been snuggled up near the still warm (and still smoking) engine, padded up to us and perched atop the figurehead’s head just as the Shady Lady dipped down.

Amaryllis squawked, Abraham roared with laughter, and I cheered with glee as we dove towards the ground. The entire ship rattled and clanked, the sails snapped in the wind and I saw some rope and a few odds and ends take off into the air.

My knuckles went white as I hung onto the sides and I felt my stomach dropping inside of me.

The only one that seemed unconcerned was Orange who began to lick a forepaw as if none of this mattered to her.

“And up!” Raynald screamed.

Sails shifted and the Shady Lady rumbled in protest as she began to right herself.

The ground shot past beneath us, much, much closer now than it had been earlier.

Things clanked, the ship wobbled, and I couldn’t continue cheering even though I wanted to because my lungs were busy being crushed against my ribcage.

The Shady Lady levelled off, but at a speed that still had us pushed back by the wind alone. It was, I judged, a small miracle that we had held onto the big balloon above.

“Haha! Good flying Raynald my old chum!” Abraham cheered.

“We haven’t made it yet!”

Greenshade, which had been a sort of blurry mess of indistinct rooftops from above, was now far closer. Perhaps a little too close.

My next cry was one of alarm as we shot past and between a pair of towers, the guards atop them jumping to the side to avoid us.

The city didn’t have all that many tall buildings, which only meant that the people in the streets had a perfect view of the Shady Lady as she shot past and almost rubbed against the roofs below.

Then we were over the fancier parts of town, the place with the nicer homes that had little gardens and greenhouses and, best of all, lots of room between each other.

“That’s my brother’s estate!” Abraham said as he pointed to a building off to one side. It was nice enough, from what I could see in the ten or so wild seconds before we shot past. Kind of like a palace with big wings on either side and a hangar of all things behind it.

The Shady Lady bobbed up, as if catching a thermal. I blinked as the air suddenly went dry, and when I looked back ahead it was to find that we were now off the edge of the western cliff and over a huge expanse of desert that stretched out for as far as I could see.

“Whoa!”

“The Ostri desert,” Abraham said. “Driest, warmest, and sandiest place I ever ran across. More nasty beasties than you could shake a stick at, and nothing worth fighting for entire leagues!”

“Do lots of people live there?” I asked.

“Just the Ostri folk. Nicest people you’ll ever meet. Everyone’s a friend to them, as long as they’re fair,” Abraham said.

“We should visit!” I told Amaryllis who was still tucked up against my chest. I think she might have been shivering a little.

Poor thing. They probably didn’t have roller coasters back in her kingdom.

We shifted around, Raynald spinning the wheel until the Shady Lady was coming around and back towards the cliffs.

Just like the airship port of Port Royal, there were dozens of vessels berthed alongside piers on the rocks side of the cliff, with wooden docks and elevators that were moving up and down along the walls.

“World damn us, ze doors are closed!” Raynald screamed.

“Haha!” Abraham said. “They didn’t see us coming in time to roll out the welcome mat. That or my little brother’s friends want me dead again! What a great way to try and kill me!”

“What?” Amaryllis screeched.

“Oh, no worries! They only succeeded the one time,” Abraham said.

We were now flying straight towards the cliff where I could see large doors built into the stone face. Most were closed, some were opened to show that there were smaller ships, like the Shady Lady, sitting in wait. None had a free open spot.

“My, that was quite the week. See, there’s the countess that--”

“This is not the time for one of your stupid stories!” Amaryllis yelled.

“I like his stories,” I defended.

“You’re an idiot too!” Amaryllis barked.

Abraham, far from being insulted, started to roar with laughter. “Raynald, aim for that one!” he said as he pointed to one of the closed doors.

“Aye!” Raynald said. “Got a plan?”

His plan had better be short, because we were approaching fast.

“Ramming speed, my lad!”

“Zat’s not a plan!” Raynald screamed.

“Haha! One way or another we’re ending this in a cliff hangar!”

***