Hayes / Wallis / Davy Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-7323577-1-6
Verlag: Aetherwatch
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 230 Seiten

Thirteen stories of daring feats and breathtaking action, of heart-wrenching choices, of families formed and families broken, stories of love and loss and victory. You'll meet golems, werewolves, and a wide array of both wizards and pirates. Grab your cutlass and wand, climb aboard, and set sail with us.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hayes, Tyler

Wallis, Wren

Davy, Laura

Kidd, Joshua Curtis

Agner, Mary Alexandra

Counsell, Chelsea

Ryan, C. C. S.

Shea, Timothy

Bisenieks, Hilary B.

Hackwith, A. J.

Rossmore, Kelly

Mace, Jennifer

Yost, Fred

Miles, Jo

Leseproben

by Chelsea Counsell EVERYTHING WAS GOING smoothly until the pirates attacked. For thirty-six hours, Amalie and Silver had taken turns navigating the Benbow from Florence to Peking, trading sleep shifts so that there was always someone at the helm. Her neck itched occasionally with worry, thinking of their cargo and Grandin, the dragon trainer, who had remained below deck for the entirety of the journey. But after a breakfast of cheese and figs around sunrise, a dot appeared just above the horizon, and then she had bigger things to worry about. Keeping her gloved hands on the steering, she leaned forward, eyeing the dot. They were passing through the Qing Empire’s hinterlands. The ground below them was a speckled map of plains and ice-covered mountains. But that dot... It was not uncommon to see other airships near industrial hubs. They’d had a near miss flying over the crowded airspace of Belgrade, and Amalie had expected the same the closer they got to Peking. But they weren’t that close, and the dot kept getting bigger. “Silver, can you make that out?” she asked. “You see it, too?” From his long coat, Silver pulled a brass spyglass, which he held to one eye with his good hand. His other arm dropped off to nothing but a neatly pinned sleeve just above the elbow, above which sat Morpheus, a black dragon the size of a hound, its tail curled for balance around Silver’s throat. Silver hissed a breath through his teeth that made Morpheus’s dark plumage ruffle. “Black flag,” he said of the dot in the sky. “They’re illegal freighters. It’s possible that they’re not pirates, just bootleggers, but at this distance, in Qing hinterland airspace, with us carrying the cargo we are? Unlikely.” Amalie clutched the helm. Her torc dragon, Ratha—a gift from her father upon graduating from the Institute—hissed and burrowed under the collar of her thick shearling coat. So much for being a guard dragon. “What do you plan to do?” Silver asked. “Keep going,” Amalie said with a hardness in her voice that could have rent steel. “Not ‘try to lose them in the mountains’? Not ‘radio for help’?” “There will be no help out here,” Amalie said, feeling irritation well inside her. Her first mission out of the Institute—a mission her father was supposed to lead, had he not disappeared—and she risked losing everything in a pirate attack. The odds had been unfairly stacked against her from the start. “We’re on our own,” she said. “Did you not realize that when they sent a child to do a man’s job?” “You’re not a child.” Amalie’s jaw tightened, and for a moment she looked only at the horizon, where Peking lay. Then she pulled a lever on the steering, releasing a hunk of meat or some other such morsel in the bowels of the ship to inspire the ship-dragon, Sparky, to light his chest fire, heat the water system, and speed up the ship—depending on how serious his cold was. “We’ll fight them if they come,” she said. “I’m going to check on Grandin. Will you take the helm?” “Of course, m’lady.” Amalie nodded and turned to duck down the ramp to the cargo hold. When she reached the hold, lit by golden lanterns on the walls, she froze as every tendon in her body locked. In the center of the room, now free from its cage, stood a four-legged mass of sinew and muscle enameled in iridescent ivory. The mane was the most peculiar part—like blue fire quickening from crest to tail. It sent flickers of opal firelight against the walls. The dragon’s skin was tessellated—dark blue ridges standing out against white shell. And two horns like crescent moons sprung from a brow over a long-whiskered snout, which puffed clouds of steam into the air. Regardless, the strangest thing in the room was not the dragon itself but Grandin, the dragon trainer—a young woman of small, round stature with dark skin and curly hair. There was the dragon, looking like a majestic portent of death with its hand-long canines and fire-blue eyes. And there was Grandin...hugging it. Grandin noticed Amalie and pulled back slightly, stroking a small hand down one of the dragon’s haunches. Her smile was tentative. Amalie’s chest constricted painfully and her lips pulled back in a snarl. “What are you doing?” she snapped. “What did I say about letting it out of its cage?” Grandin flinched, as if Amalie scared her more than the horse-size beast in her arms. “Tianfei doesn’t like the cage,” she said. Amalie’s fists balled. “You can’t just give the dragon free rein of the ship because it doesn’t like the cage!” she said. “There is a ship out there coming closer that is no doubt full of pirates drooling to steal that beast. Do you understand what will happen if we don’t make it to Peking? Not to mention it’s dangerous, just—just look at it.” Indeed, the dragon had begun to step back and forth in agitation, and the steam from its thumb-size nostrils had turned black as smoke. “Pirates or no pirates, I have Tianfei under control,” Grandin said stolidly. She patted the dragon right on the chest. “Everything will be okay. But you’re making her nervous. You should go above deck for a bit, so I can calm her down.” Rage blistered on Amalie’s cheeks, and deep in her coat, Ratha squirmed. How dare Grandin give her orders? That she would tell Amalie what to do on her own mission made her so angry that her mind was like mortar smashing together—she couldn’t even speak. Pursing her lips, she turned and marched up the stairs, throwing the door of the hold shut behind her. The slam shook her reverie, and she moved toward the helm a little less stormily. Silver stood there, tending the wheel. A lit pipe hung from his mouth. “What happened?” he asked easily. Like milk curdling in her stomach, Amalie felt a mix of anger and shame because she felt so angry. “It’s my first mission and I’ve got some lowborn simpleton reining my dragon,” she bit off. She flushed at how petulant she sounded. Her father’s reputation rested on her shoulders; the peace between countries depended on getting the dragon from Florence to Peking. How could she do that if she couldn’t control her own emotions? Silver stepped away from the steering to let her regain control of the ship. With Morpheus crouched on his shoulder like a gargoyle, he moved to the banister and made himself comfortable, leaving Amalie to sulk in her thoughts at the wheel. The dot on the northern horizon bloomed into a ship with two blade-like wings and a black-colored hull. To the east, the Great Wall snaked like a pale river through verdant trees—just beyond that was the city Peking, and though Amalie could not make out the buildings yet, she could see it in her mind’s eye as she had seen it in books, with the clay tile roofs, curved eaves, and Fu Lion statues sitting at magnanimous attention. With Sparky’s help, the pace of the Benbow quickened, sending the landscape by more quickly. But the pirate ship—if it was a pirate ship—nonetheless managed to gain. As it came closer, Amalie saw that the ship’s wings were biplanar, tapering to points, and the hull tapered at the bow to almost a harpoon. If the Benbow were a harbor seal, the black ship was an orca—pointed and sharp, with a deadly bite. For a moment, she fingered the handle of the saber at her hip. Silver reappeared from the cargo hold, and he stood tense near her, resting his hand on his cutlass. She counted ten men on the black ship. Nine standing eagerly at its rails, and one necessarily on steering. Before she could even make out the color of their hair, she knew they were pirates, for the way they eyed her ship was nothing but predatory. Then the black ship was upon them, and all Amalie could do was spin her hands around and around, steering in a vain attempt to circumvent them. She could almost see the bricks of the Great Wall when the black ship harpooned her bow. It was like running aground in air. The entire Benbow lurched, throwing Amalie against the wheel and jarring her arms in their sockets. Silver went floundering across the planks of the deck before rolling upright and drawing his sword. Morpheus scurried up after him. The pirates, for they were pirates, jumped from the black ship onto the deck of the Benbow. Three of them went for Silver, attempting to down him with their cutlasses. The rest—a half dozen—ran below decks for the cargo. Amalie almost felt hurt that they didn’t see her as a threat. Their loss. She abandoned the helm. Caught by the black ship, the Benbow would keep aloft and steady so long as Sparky kept puffing. From her sheath Amalie pulled her glimmering saber, which she wielded almost as confidently as the wheel. Silver held his own against the three pirates. They were younger and perhaps stronger than he, but Silver’s sword hand was steady and quick, like a dragon bite, and Morpheus was like a second sword, slashing out with claws and teeth against the pirates’ vulnerable...