107

Exploration

The fires roared in Ansel’s brain. He lay in the suffocating dark, twitching, feeling the vestiges of the power that had consumed him. The veins in his arm pulsed. The same arm that had cleaved Marlow in two. It felt normal now, but he couldn’t forget the feeling. He played the moment over and over in his mind. Watching the expression on Marlow's face, the dull thump of his body hitting the ground. Just a bag of meat. The look on the woman’s face as she died. The children with their heads smashed in.

The fires roared and Ansel could not sleep.

He turned over. The darkness moved with him. Shadows whispered, just out of sight. Shades tried to speak, faceless night forming lips to murmur as he lay there, willing his brain to distraction. It was no good.

He would get no rest.

Ansel got up and pulled on his boots.

He wandered the deck, waving vaguely up to the watch at the nest. Then, like a ghost he drifted back across to the burned city under the mountain. It was not far. Now they had secured a source of cavorite, worries about burning their last supply had abated, and the ships had flown closer to rest in the more sheltered embrace of the mountain.

The night was silent as he walked, the crunch of his feet over dry earth his only companion. The scent of death and flame lingered on the breeze, but the fires had burnt out. All that was left was ash - ash and human remains. At least, that was what Ansel expected to find as he laboured up the slope in the dark. He wandered among the damaged walls and came to a stop in the centre, next to the round gate that led nowhere.

Around him, the wind whistled through lonely ruins. Ansel had expected to see bodies. He could remember where they had fallen in vivid, trauma-soaked detail. But there was nothing. Someone had removed them, every last one.

The Lochlanach had taken Marlow back to the ships, he knew that. A proper burial was planned for the following day. The inquisitors had planned to return for the savages. But there was no need. Likewise, there was no sign of any survivors.

Ansel couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disturbed. In truth it was both. He crept to the house where he had left Kerra, his eyes sliding off the dark stain on the floor. It was empty. He was the only living creature in the place. They had simply disappeared - both survivors and the dead. But, after all, what would he have done with them? Run away? Turned on his own and fought to the death? Outmatched, outgunned? The very own who would butcher him on the spot if they saw a flame on his finger. He rubbed his fingers together guiltily, as if to extinguish the phantom heat.

Ansel stood in the ruin, looking up at the stars, and felt very small. He wanted to do something. He punched a wall but only succeeded in skinning his knuckles on the wood.

Wandering back outside, he came to a stop in front of the circular structure. It stood in solitary, unmarked splendour. Tracing one finger over the runes, his brow creased in thought. His foot touched something hard. He looked down. Pieces of broken ceramic were scattered across the ground, the source was a pile of rough, earthenware pots piled about the base. The broken ones spilled their innards across the ground. They were labelled with small iron tags in a script he could not read. Frowning, he poked a finger into the closest jar, not knowing what to expect. He withdrew his hand and sniffed, rubbing the substance between his fingers. Gritty. It was soil. Why would there be pots of soil piled around the base of the gate? So peculiar. Opening another jar, he found more of the same. Just pots of earth. Identical.

Actually, looking closer, he could see the soil was varied. Some rocky, some rich and loamy. One pot was full of sand that was vaguely familiar. Desert sand. He sat back on his heels and pondered. Earth from different locations, perhaps? Was it possible the survivors had gotten away? It seemed unlikely they would not have been able to remove all the bodies. Not without aid. The Lochlanach would have seen such a large group exiting the area. But Mammon said the gates were for travel. Here was a mystery he could solve. He would unravel this mystery of the gate, reverse engineer it, and build one of his own. And then he would go… well he didn’t know but he would go somewhere.

It was a travelling gate, there could be no other conclusion. Unless the bodies had got up and walked away by themselves? Which was possible, in this desolate, mad place where dead things wandered in the twilight.

He shuddered, and returned to the ships.

The Lochlanach buried the dead the next morning, shortly after daybreak - Marlow and those crewmen who had died in the attack.

The inquisitors had led everyone in a brief funeral and cairns were erected over their fresh graves. Ansel stood with the crew of the Sky Lion, hands clasped in front of him, his head bowed. Talcott and Riley shuffled to his right. Ezra stood to his left, stony-faced.

“Which would you rather be?” murmured Talcott to Ansel, as the Lothor said the rites. His voice was strange. Hollow and more than a little strained. “The sword or the hand wielding it?”

Ansel glanced at Talcott but did not reply. The young lad’s eyes were sombre as he watched the proceedings. His brown skin had a grey cast to it in the morning light. Ansel was not the only one struggling. He clasped Talcott’s shoulder, and for a moment he thought the younger boy might break down and cry. But he didn’t.

After the funeral everyone wandered off back to their appointed tasks, which were manifold. The discovery of the cavorite mine was cause for great celebration. The vein ran deep and wide with no end in sight. And now, with the convenient removal of the savage settlement, there was nothing to prevent their procurement and the processing of it.

Boaz was firmly in charge, and no one seemed to protest too much. Everyone was too busy. The inquisitors kept their mutterings to themselves, happy as long as Mammon was out of sight and the orders Boaz issued seemed reasonable. No one commented on the man’s rapidly whitening hair, the fixated expression or the increasing luminosity of his eyes. Most of the inquisitors had only met him at landfall. It was easy to dismiss. Just like the missing bodies in the savage settlement. Perhaps wild animals had eaten them. Perhaps Boaz’s eyes had always been a startling, crystal blue. The crew of the Sky Lion knew differently, but no one cared for their mutters.

There was much to focus on, and many jobs to accomplish. It was easy to concentrate on the next task, easy not to think. Teams were set to logging and building. A palisade fence was erected, areas marked out for forges, workshops and the beginnings of a fortress. The initial batch of cavorite was processed, and the remaining rune-masters and Ansel set to work repainting the ships.

Within days the place was a small war camp, with belching fires of industry and mining happening around the clock. The air rang with clangs and shouts. Smoke from the fires hung like an ever present reminder of progress, until it was blown to ribbons by the frequent gales. Food, or its lack, was an on-going concern. Fresh water there was in abundance but there was very little wildlife to hunt. Seabirds were tricky to shoot, and had little meat on them, and no one dared go near the water despite the fact that it was teeming with fish. And then there were the hollows. The iron seemed an adequate deterrent but if it was removed the doorway became a portal spewing horrors at the next twilight. They were easily dispatched with steel but remained a life-threatening menace for the unwary.

“We need iron,” said Lothor. “If we have to keep iron in all the ruddy doorways every dawn and dusk, we need iron. We need to make weapons, we need to build.”

“Not just iron,” agreed Oskar. “The black powder is running low. We need sulfur, salt-peter and charcoal. We need food.”

“Sulfur we won’t find here,” said Audric. “Need a desert for that.”

“Well we know where to find desert,” said Lothor. The suggestion hung menacingly in the air.

“The charcoal burners will be up and running shortly,” said Reuben. “Perhaps the rest can be found…Varangot said the area was rich in minerals.”

Boaz decreed the Sky Lion, as the smallest vessel, should go exploring. Ansel volunteered at once. Audric, two other scribes and Oskar the grizzled old inquisitor from the Magpie were also excited to go. Oskar confessed that geology was his passion. Scouting the lay of the land would be useful, they could make note of any other native settlements, as well as searching for ore and anything else that might come in useful.

It was good to be in the air again, although it felt a little strange to sail without Ezra. He had other duties but then Ansel wasn’t ready to look him in the face.

The breeze was sweet and not too strong, and the Sky Lion was soon aloft, sails snapping and runes perfectly balanced. Ansel sat back on his heels to admire his handiwork. Once he was sure everything was as it should be he made his way to the foreword lookout point, leaving the nest to Talcott. He settled into the gunwale where he would have easy access to the runes in case of a problem. With only half the crew onboard the deck felt spacious and roomy.

Ansel’s spirits lifted with the ship. He forgot the darkness of the last few days in the excitement of exploration, hanging over the railings as they flew in ever widening circles around the base. First, they explored the beaches and cliffs to the western side of the great mountain. The cliffs on this side were steep, dashing themselves into the ocean with only a thin spit of greenery separating land from sea. Not far along they discovered an abandoned native settlement. The buildings looked in good repair and it was a great deal smaller than the town they had razed. Ansel’s anxiety returned at the sight. At least there was no one here to slaughter. Perhaps they had had the sense to flee.

They continued along the coast for a while, then lit the high runes and made their way up and over the mountain range that separated the two bodies of water. Coasting along the peak they found a rich vein of magnetite. Oskar was beside himself with excitement and demanded they land at once. The old man bounced on his toes as they primed and loaded the guns, just in case, before dancing over the rocks to exclaim over the chunky horizontal red and grey stripes. He hacked at the rock with his pickaxe and held a fragment aloft with glee.

“Onwards, lad!” he cried. “Our days of hardship are behind us!”

And onward they went.

The mountaintop was sparse and rock strewn, an alien landscape with tough, hardy bushes growing between the cracks. Approaching the precipice on the far side they had a tense moment as the wind changed. The updraft nearly smashed them against the cliff-face and all the men had to work fast to secure the ropes and sails. Once the Sky Lion was steady they could relax and admire the view. It was stupendous. From the height of the mountaintop they could see miles to the east.

The isthmus was almost flat, with sparkling water on either side. Breakers to both sides caught the light like diamonds flung across the darker green of the ocean. Mountains rose in the distance, and on their flanks a herd of some large animal grazed, the first land creatures they had spotted since their arrival. They turned Sky Lion towards the herd, all of them interested in a closer inspection.

“Perhaps we can get some meat,” shouted Louis, who was hanging off the port railing.

The creatures were grazing in a cluster. They moved as a unit, staying close together and clearly keeping a watch for predators. They looked like cattle, if cattle were bred for war and were the size of elephants. Their hides were dark and hairy, with hunched backs rising from their shoulder blades. Sharp horns protruded from gnarly foreheads. Whatever predators they kept watch for clearly did not come from the sky. Louis and Amos managed to bring down two with their javelins before the rest of the herd stampeded out of range.

Hauling the meat onto the Sky Lion took a while and the judicious use of ropes and muscle, but everyone agreed the addition to their diet would be worth the effort. No doubt they could find some use for the hide and horns as well, thought Ansel.

The Sky Lion meandered along a valley floor, slopes rising steeply to either side. There was snow on the distant peaks. Silver ribbons cascaded off their sides to gush along the valley floor in a tumbling river that wound its way eventually to the sea. They contemplated turning, a difficult manoeuvre given the cliff proximity but ended up burning high runes, and sailing over the top instead. They then dropped down into another winding valley, before turning back towards the camp. The wind was picking up and they wanted to be back well before the sunset.

To Ansel’s relief they had not spotted any more of the savage villages. The place was wild, uncultivated and as far as they could see, empty of civilisation. There were no roads, no farms. No domesticated animals. No buildings. It was, as Varangot said, ripe for the conquest.

Except Ansel had reason to believe the place was not as empty as it appeared.

As the ship turned he caught sight of someone, standing on the ridge. A teenage girl, dark curls streaming behind her in the oncoming gale. She was looking up at them with an expression of wonder. Ansel felt a cold hand grip his innards.

A brief moment of guilt pool in his stomach. He should call out. That was his job, but no one had seen her. He didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to add more blood to his already dripping, crimson hands.

He glanced over his shoulder at the deck. No one else had noticed her. When he looked back to the ridge she was gone, like a spirit in the mist.