Clash of the Sky Galleons (6 page)

‘Most High Academe,’ Thaw Daggerslash broke in. ‘Linius Pallitax. I met him once … A wonderful academic and kind-hearted to a lowly sky pirate.’

Maris melted. ‘He was kind to everyone he met, no matter how grand or humble.’

‘Such a tragic loss,’ said Thaw, his face etched with concern. He turned to the captain. ‘But Wind Jackal, my old friend, I couldn’t help noticing a certain tension in the air. If there is anything wrong …’

Wind Jackal shook his head. ‘Crew business,’ he muttered. ‘Nothing that need concern you.’

Thaw Daggerslash’s pleasant smile didn’t falter. ‘Of course not, of course not,’ he said amiably. ‘But you know, if you ever need a second-in-command, I’m still available.’

‘You’re a talented sailor, Daggerslash,’ said Wind
Jackal, ‘and one day, you’ll make a fine captain - if you only have the patience to work your way up. Besides, as I told you before, I have a son …’

‘True, true,’ Thaw Daggerslash smiled, giving Quint a pat on the shoulder. ‘And I’m sure he’ll do you proud, Captain Wind Jackal, sir.’

‘No hard feelings, then?’ said Wind Jackal, handing the young sky pirate a tankard of woodale.

‘No hard feelings!’ said Thaw with a laugh.

He took the tankard and drained it in one go, before slamming it down on the carved table. He looked up at Wind Jackal, suddenly serious.

‘One day’ he said,
‘my
name will be carved on this table, next to yours, Captain Wind Jackal, by Sky it will!’

Wind Jackal smiled and raised his tankard in salute. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he said.

‘Back again, are you?’ sneered Glaviel Glynte, his left eyebrow arched high.

Beside him, the bird-creature clucked with amusement.

‘What’s it to be, then?’ said Glynte. He picked up his quill and dipped it in the ink-pot before him.

‘I’ve decided to take you up on the offer of the sky barge,’ said Thaw Daggerslash. ‘And a crew of one … It sounds exactly what I need just now.’

• CHAPTER THREE •
TURBOT SMEAL

The rafters high up above the drinking hall of the Tarry Vine tavern were festooned with hammocks of every shape and size. Grubby spider-silk sheets, which could accommodate several crews, swayed gently beside the hanging-pockets favoured by waifs, oakelves and the lighter sleepers, while in the garret alcoves, captains and quartermasters enjoyed all the privacy that a hanging-drape could provide.

There was, however, no escaping the snuffling, snoring and muttered sleep-talking of the hundreds of sleeping sky pirates. And yet, as their growling snores mingled with the warm woodhop-scented air that rose up from the brewing cellars far below, a heady, hypnotic atmosphere was created that induced sleep in all but the most troubled occupants of the rafters.

Quint lay on his back, staring upwards. Above him, the two sides of the steeply sloping roof came together in the shadows, looking, he mused, like the upturned hull of a great sky ship. On either side of him, the crew of the
Galerider
added their snores to the general rumbling hum - a sound answered by the tiny batowls that nested in the gaps between the joists.

Next to him, Ratbit smacked his lips together noisily and rolled onto his other side. Sagbutt let out a rasping snort, while further down the line of hammocks, Spillins muttered something in his sleep and gave a small, high-pitched giggle.

Quint glanced across at the garret alcove, where Maris was sleeping. The faint glow of her tilder-oil lamp had faded an hour earlier and, from behind the spider-silk drapes, nothing stirred. Quint turned over in his hammock and pulled his greatcoat around him with a shiver. Despite the warm air and sonorous snoring, he could still feel the dreadful chill of the cliff quarry, and whenever he closed his eyes, the hideous shrieking face of an edge wraith seemed to loom at him out of the darkness.

Sleep, he thought miserably, seemed impossible, even in this warm, safe place.

Just then, from out of the darkness there came a long, agonized groan - like that of a tilder, a hunter’s crossbow bolt buried in its neck, breathing its last. Quint sat up. There it was again, coming from behind the curtain of the garret alcove next to the one where Maris was sleeping.

Quietly, Quint climbed out of his hammock and tiptoed along the narrow rafter to the safety of the garret balcony. He paused for a moment outside the alcove, only to hear the terrible groan once more. Quint pulled back the curtain and stepped inside.

‘F… Father?’ he whispered. ‘Are you all right?’

Wind Jackal was standing at the tall, narrow garret window, the shutters of which he’d thrown open. A chill, swirling wind plucked at his heavy sky pirate coat and ruffled his hair. At the sound of Quint’s voice, Wind Jackal slowly turned, the moonlight catching one side of his face and throwing the other into deep shadow. Beneath his brows, his eyes glinted.

‘He’s out there, somewhere,’ he said in a low voice, scarcely above a whisper. ‘The very thought of it is like a swarm of snickets gnawing at my innards.’

Wind Jackal turned back to the window, where Quint joined him.

‘Father,’ Quint began again, laying a hand on Wind Jackal’s arm. ‘I’m worried about you …’

Wind Jackal surveyed the roofs and towers of the sleeping city spread out before him. ‘Surely you, of all people, understand,’ he shot back, his voice almost a snarl. ‘I have to destroy Turbot Smeal … I
have
to!’

Quint nodded, but his grip on his father’s arm tightened. ‘What I don’t understand …’ he said slowly, not daring to look at Wind Jackal’s face. ‘What you never told me, and
I’ve always been afraid to ask is … why?
Why
did Turbot Smeal murder my mother and brothers?’

Wind Jackal continued to stare out into the night, his face a silvery mask in the moonlight, as impassive as one of the statues on the top of the Sanctaphrax Viaduct. For a long time he said nothing. But when, at last, he spoke, his voice was a low monotone, as if he was battling to keep the rage and sorrow from exploding out of him, like an over-cooled flight-rock.

‘I have never spoken of it, Quint my son, because I believed that Turbot Smeal was dead,’ Wind Jackal began. ‘I didn’t want to dredge up memories almost too painful to bear. But now I know he’s alive, it’s only right that you should know the whole story …’

He paused for a moment, then continued, never once looking at his son standing beside him.

‘The crew of a sky ship is like a living body’ Wind Jackal said. ‘Arms and legs, hands and feet, stomach, heart - all working separately, but together. All different. All essential…’ He nodded slowly. ‘There must be a captain. The head. Someone to take control, to make decisions … And then the captain needs a strong right hand - someone he can trust with his life if he has to, someone who’ll stick with him, come what may, and watch his back … For years, I had Garum Gall, the most faithful cloddertrog a captain could wish for, and when he passed on to Open Sky …’ Wind Jackal paused.

‘You’ve got me, Father,
I’m
your strong right hand.’

For the first time since Quint first entered the garret alcove, Wind Jackal looked him straight in the eyes.

‘I’ve got you, Quint, that’s right.’ He smiled gravely, then went on. ‘The
left
hand,’ he said, ‘should be a fighter. Preferably a goblin, like Sagbutt. Not too smart, but a ferocious warrior in tight quarters. And the arms and legs are the fore-deckers, the harpooneer and his mate - Steg Jambles, Ratbit, Tem Barkwater. Strong and tireless, and highly trained. Then there are the eyes -Spillins the oakelf. And just as important, the heart. The stone pilot, without whom no sky ship could ever come to life and take to the skies. And finally, Quint, there is the stomach …’

Saying this, Wind Jackal paused and swallowed hard as he struggled to keep his feelings under control.

‘The stomach of any sky ship is the quartermaster -and like any stomach, it grumbles and growls and demands to be fed. But it is just as vital as all the other parts. And just as a stomach nourishes the body, so a quartermaster nourishes a sky ship, ensuring it is well-provisioned, its cargo-hold is full and its voyages are profitable. It takes special qualities to be a good quartermaster - strong contacts in the leagues, an eye for a bargain and …’

Again, Wind Jackal swallowed hard.

‘Utter ruthlessness … And Turbot Smeal was the greatest quartermaster of them all!’

Quint looked uneasily at his father, but Wind Jackal seemed to be lost in a world of his own.

‘The Leagues of Undertown!’ He spat out the words as if they were an ancient Deepwoods curse. ‘They seek to control and exploit everything that comes in or out of
this great city of ours, their greedy fingers in every Undertown pie. Nothing escapes their influence.

‘There are the great Leagues - the Blood Leagues, for example, which deal in livestock; the Leagues of Construction, which control all building work; the Leagues of Plenty, which trade in manufactured goods of all kinds, and the Leagues of Toil, which control all those who sweat in the workshops making those goods - not to mention the accursed Flight Leagues, whose leaders seek to control all who would take to the skies!’

Wind Jackal scowled, his twisted face white with rage. Quint flinched involuntarily.

‘Each of these great leagues is divided into smaller leagues,’ Wind Jackal continued. ‘For instance, the Flight Leagues incorporate all kinds of minor leagues such as cage-forgers, sail-spinners, rope-teasers, clinkers and corkers, welders and weighters … All the trades needed to build a sky ship.

‘By forming into leagues, they believed they could control everything, but they forgot one thing. Each other!’

Wind Jackal paused for a moment to let the words sink in.

‘Every league competes with every other league,’ he went on, his voice low and scathing, ‘whatever fine words the leaguesmasters utter about “sticking together” and “the common good”! They just can’t help themselves. No league ever misses an opportunity to get one over on its rivals - but they can’t ever be
seen
to be doing it. Oh, no! That wouldn’t do at all. Which is why they need
us,
Quint, my son.’

Quint nodded. ‘Sky pirates,’ he breathed.

‘Aye, lad,’ Wind Jackal agreed. ‘Free and unbowed and answerable to no leaguesmaster in a ridiculous high hat.’ He sneered. ‘Of course, they hate us and try to stop our ships and seize our cargoes, but at the same time, they need us to do their dirty work - such as raid their rivals’ league ships or disrupt one another’s trade.

‘No leaguesmaster - high or low - would ever admit it, but without sky pirates to carry out their nasty little underhand practices and take the blame, the Leagues of Undertown would descend into open warfare. And that, Quint, my son, would be bad for business! Which brings me back to Turbot Smeal, greatest quartermaster of them all.’

Wind Jackal shook his head and gazed out over the rooftops of the sleeping city. Quint’s mouth was dry, and there was an uneasy fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach.

‘Turbot Smeal … Turbot Smeal…’ Wind Jackal’s voice dripped with hatred as he spoke the quartermaster’s name. ‘I was a young sky pirate captain putting my first crew together when he sought me out. Said we would be good together. And although, even back then, his small yellow eyes and bleached complexion made me shudder, there was something he had to offer. He had useful contacts in the leagues all over Undertown. There seemed to be no swindle or underhand deal that Turbot Smeal wouldn’t get wind of - no one he couldn’t flatter or deceive to get a better deal or gain an advantage.