Chapter One Hundred and Sixty - You're Grounded, Young Lady

The sun was well on its way to setting by the time we finally slipped over the Darkwoods and began to cross a wide open field, one filled with a myriad of foot-tall stumps.

“Get ready to drop the anchors!” Clive called across the deck.

Steve and Gordon were already at the anchors on both sides, hands grabbing onto the levers that would loosen the mechanism holding them in place and let the iron weights fall to the ground below and hopefully grab onto something.

“Awa!” Awen called. “There’s something over there!”

I rushed over to her side of the ship and hung off the side to look out ahead. We were only a hundred or so meters away from the ground now, but we were still moving along at a decent pace.

I followed the direction Awen was pointing in and squinted.

“Buildings out ahead!” I shouted. “Off to port!”

Clive nodded. “Aye!” he replied.

I went back to hanging off the side of the ship, one hand holding my hat in place while my ears flopped back with the wind. The buildings out ahead weren’t anything impressive. A lot of long, low houses made of wood set in orderly rows, a couple of warehouses and one bigger building near the middle.

The machinery around it, and the presence of a large sawmill gave away their purpose. A lumber yard.

That explained all the cut-down trees, at least.

“Drop the anchors!” Clive said.

The engine roared, and the propeller started to spin in the opposite direction as usual.

The Beaver tilted strangely and pitched as we started to slow down.

With a great rattle, the anchors dropped, their chains jangling as they fell to the earth below.

“Stow the sails!” Clive said.

Every sail alongside the ship pulled in, taking away the Beaver’s great big wings that caught in the air.

I hopped over to one of those that needed to be manually stowed and started spinning its crank as quickly as I could.

Then, finally, with the snapping of ropes and the rumble of the engine, the Beaver came to a lurching stop. The anchors caught onto something and the ship wobbled about for a moment before settling.

A glance over the edge showed that we were only a couple of dozen meters from the ground now.

The engine sputtered and choked off as Clive cut the gas. It was surprisingly quiet when there was no wind whipping at us and no engine rumbling away in the background. “Let’s crank him down,” Clive said.

Steve and Gordon got to work winding up the chains leading to the anchors, and the Beaver started to lower his way down to the ground below. I wiped the back of a hand across my brow, then grinned over to Awen. “We made it,” I said.

“Ah, I guess so,” she agreed. “That was a bit... a lot stressful.”

I gave her a quick hug, because that was the best way to reduce stress. “No worries, we’re safe now,” I said. “I’m going to go check on Clive and the others.’

Awen nodded a bunch, then gestured towards her cabin. “I’ll be down below,” she said.

I waved her off as I skipped across the deck towards Clive. The older harpy was leaning on the wheel, looking quite tired. “Ah, Captain,” he said when I approached. “That was a good bit of flying, if I do say so myself.”

I nodded. “I’m really happy you’re onboard, Clive, I don’t think we would have made it down here in one piece without you.”

“Bah, I’ve been in worse scraps. Mind you, I was a pinch younger then.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “Will the Beaver be alright now?”

“Aye, he should be just fine. If the weather’s kind tomorrow morning we can take off and head down south. I’ll have to look at the fuel for the engine. I think we burned through a chunk of it there. Still plenty in the bunker, but not as much as I’d like for a trip as long as ours.”

“You mentioned Needleford earlier,” I said.

“Aye. Nice little port. Quiet and out of the way. Lots of lumber and the like passing through. Should be able to get a decent price on fuel there if you do the negotiating,” he said.

“Me?” I asked. He knew a lot more about ships than I did.

He nodded. “They don’t like strange folk, and they think that harpies are mighty strange. They’ll be kinder to you.”

Oh. That wasn’t very nice at all. Not much we could do about it now though. I glanced up and to a sky turning orange. In an hour or two the sun would set and we’d be wrapped in night. “We’ll need to set up a rotation for the night,” I said. “You should get a full night’s sleep though, your job’s too important to do half-awake.”

“If I was a few years younger I’d protest,” he said. “But I’ve learned better since. I’ll take a night’s rest if I can afford it.”

“Cool,” I said. “You certainly deserve it after the day we’ve had. I just hope that our next bit of flying is a lot smoother. And... and I'm sorry about leading us so badly off course. I didn’t mean to.”

Clive waved the comment away. “It’s fine, Captain. No one was hurt, and the worse that happened was that we got blown off course a fair way. It’ll cost us a day in the long run, but that’s all.”

I nodded, then paused as I saw Steve looking over the side of the ship with narrowed eyes. “Captain!” he said.

“You get some rest,” I told Clive before jogging over. “What is it?” I asked.

I really didn’t need to. The thing bothering Steve was painfully obvious. There was a group of humans heading our way, maybe a dozen in all.

They were on foot, all of them in rough work clothes and with axes by their sides. They had scruffy beards and looked to be a bit nervous as they took in the Beaver in all of his bright yellow glory.

“Ah, darn. I think we landed in someone’s field,” I said.

“Should we prepare to pull the anchor?” Steve asked.

I shook my head. “Nah. Can you go get Amaryllis and Awen? And maybe tell mister Bastion too.”

“Aye, Captain,” Steve said before running off.

I eyed the group for a bit. They were still a ways off. It would take a while before they arrived. They didn’t look like they were out to cause trouble. We’d probably just spooked them by landing so close.

Running my hands down the front of my skirt, I made sure everything was nice and neat, then I adjusted my hat while placing one foot atop the railing.

I pushed some stamina into my leg, then shot out ahead and through the air. My feet came out ahead in a wide V and I kept a hand atop my hat to keep it in place.

I landed a dozen meters away from the lumberjacks, rolled twice to bleed off some momentum, then came to my feet while pushing a bit of magic into my Cleaning aura to make sure my battledress stayed nice and presentable.

Doffing my hat, I brought it around with a flourish and pressed it over my chest as I bowed.

I think that maybe wearing such a feathery hat was making me a bit theatrical. “Hello,” I said. “I’m Captain Broccoli Bunch, of the Beaver Cleaver,” I said. “I hope we haven’t landed on your field?”

The lumberjacks all looked over to each other. They were big guys, all of them well-muscled and looking quite tough. I probably seemed rather silly coming up to them with nothing while they had axes and such, but I wasn’t there to fight.

They seemed to elect a leader among their group, an older man with shrewd eyes and a beard that was turning grey at the edges. He stepped up past the rest of them and came to a stop at the front of the group, the head of his axe thumping into the dirt.

“Ahoy,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you, Captain Bunch. I’m, Edmund, of the East Mattergrove Company’s Woodland Harvesting Division.”

That was a mouthful for a company name. I nodded to him and placed my hat back on with only a bit of wiggling to fit my ears back into their holes. “Neat. I hope we aren’t bothering you by landing here?”

“Not really,” he said. “At least, not for now. If you plan to stay, that’s another story.”

I shook my head. “No, nothing like that. We got caught in a bit of wind over the Darkwoods,” I said. “It dragged us over here. The ship’s pilot is really good though, and managed to land us safely. We’re planning on heading to Needleford tomorrow morning.”

Understanding flashed in his eyes, and he gestured to his friends who all seemed to calm down a bit more. “The skies over the Darkwoods can be mighty dangerous,” he said.

“We sort of realized that,” I said. “It was my mistake that got us caught up in them, but it might be for the best in the end.”

He nodded. “Well, it’s one way to get to Needleford. Usually you’d need to skirt near Port Royal then all along the Seven Points. Where’d you hail from?”

“Fort Sylphrot, en route to the Bracklands,” I said.

Edmund frowned at that. “You went way off course then.”

I smiled sheepishly. “Oops?”

He laughed once, a big barking thing, as rough as he looked. “No matter. Most days I’d say that you ought only keep a watch overnight. But we’ve been having troubles lately. Dryads in the woods have attacked our camp a few times. We’ve... negotiated a sort of peace, but it’s cobweb-thin.”

“Dryads?” I asked. I’d only ever met one dryad. Oak had been nice. Especially his chin. “How come they’re causing trouble? And if you’re at peace with them, why is it so thin?”

Edmund rubbed at his chin. “It’s a bit of a long story, I think. Just some nasty business that’s blown up into nastier business. Now we have officials from the East Mattergrove Company here to sue for peace, but it’s not going so well.”

“Huh, that’s unfortunate,” I said. “I met a dryad once, he was actually kind of nice.”

He looked at me strangely. “Nice? Never met creatures more tenacious and violent than those walking trees. Good warriors, some of them. I’ll give them that. But nice isn’t how I’d describe them.”

I shrugged. Maybe we’d met different dryads, or maybe they’d met some under different circumstances.

“If you want, captain, you could dine with the gentlefolk from the company. I'm sure they’d appreciate some company that ain’t as rough as us.”

I glanced over to the Beaver and saw that Amaryllis had made her way down already. Surprisingly, Bastion was with her, and there was a rope ladder extending down the side all the way to the ground, with Awen climbing down rung-by-rung.

“You know, that might be nice,” I said. “We have a bit of good food aboard. If you guys have a couple of good cooks we could make a big meal of it.”

Edmund’s eyebrows rose up. “I’ve never had bun food, but I’ve heard good things about it. I wouldn’t say no to a meal that isn’t something we foraged here mixed with some oats.”

I grinned up at the man. “Then we can call it a little party. I love making new friends! And maybe you can tell me about your dryad problem. I haven’t spent all that much time around the tree folk, but I can maybe lend a hand.”

***