The Wind Merchant (34 page)

The Lost Fox

Even with its bow crushed and partially buried, its tail lifted off the ground, and its partially deflated balloon draped over the starboard side, Ras would have recognized the ship of his childhood anywhere.

He collapsed to his knees, holding back rage and sadness, but his will to fight the two-fronted battle eroded.

The Brass Fox
came to a stop and Callie stepped off the gangplank, hitting the ground running. When she approached Ras, he had already made it back to his feet and was manically talking to himself.

“No. He came back from worse. Disabled engines wouldn’t have stopped him,” he said methodically, walking toward the back of his father’s ship.

“Who are you talking about?” Callie asked, running after him.

Ras stopped in his tracks and turned back to Callie with tears in his eyes. “He made it all this way and they knocked him out of the sky.” He shoved a shaking, accusatory finger toward
Solaria
.

“What?”

Ras turned again and walked around the aft of the ship to the other side. “Maybe he left me something…a message, note…anything that might tell me where he was going, a—” The sight of a crumpled and black figure in the distance halted him.

Callie almost ran into Ras as she rounded the corner. “Ras, I—” She lost the words when she spotted the body.

 
Ras stood, paralyzed with fear. It was dark enough to allow him to doubt what he knew deep down to be true. He was staring at the corpse of his father. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Callie said, placing a hand gently on his shoulder.

“No, I can’t walk away from this,” he said. Each step closer offered more information as he recognized the bits of jacket that weren’t charred. The body looked to have Elias’ frame even though it lie in a fetal position.

Ras’ heart plummeted when he saw the leather boots. He remembered the day his father had brought them home, retiring the oft-repaired hand-me-downs from grandpa Veir, which Ras currently wore.

Carefully kneeling beside the body with fear and reverence felt like the right thing to do.

After ten years out in the elements, the body was badly burned and withered. Ras slowly peeled off his jacket and placed it over the charred head and torso, allowing himself to imagine the face of his father without having to look at the blackened and grotesque visage staring at the clouds above. The visage he was certain that would turn dream to nightmare for the rest of his life.

Ras let out a scream he didn’t know he had in him. “No! No! This is not how you die!” The tension released from his chest, then tightened again with another heaving intake of air. “I was supposed to find you and you were supposed to save
Verdant
, not me.” He didn’t care that Callie stood behind him. “I can’t do this! Not like you could have. If you only made it this far, then how am I supposed to stand a chance?”

Callie kneeled down next to Ras.

“He wasn’t supposed to die,” Ras said.

“I know.”

“He was so strong, and smart…he always knew what to do.”

“I know.”

“And I have no clue what I’m doing or where I’m going.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is!” Ras turned to look into Callie’s beautiful, calming eyes. He took a breath to catch himself, then spoke softly. “If he couldn’t save
Verdant
, then what hope does his failure of a son have?”

Callie looked at him sympathetically, remaining silent.

“I just…I wanted him back so badly for so long. I
knew
,” he said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, “I knew that he’d come through like he always did.” Ras stared at the ground, then back up to
The Silver Fox
. “What do you do when the man you’ve looked up to all your life is gone? What do you do when your hero dies?”

Callie wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight.

“He knew I didn’t have what it takes to be a wind merchant.” Ras looked over at the body. “He just wouldn’t tell me until it was too late. A mechanic couldn’t destroy a Convergence.”

“
Verdant
doesn’t need a wind merchant, Ras. It needs you,” Callie said. “How many times would a Knack have died where you’ve gone? You haven’t let me down, all right? I still believe in you. I just need you to believe in yourself too. You’ve made it all the way this far without your father, and I’m sure he’d be so proud of his boy right now.” She moved to hold him at arm’s length, not speaking until he met her gaze. “You are a good man, Erasmus Veir. Don’t you forget it.” Tears glistened in her blue eyes. “Take however long you need.”

Ras looked at the wise girl from next door for a moment. “Thank you.”

“Any time.” She hugged him for a good while, then gracefully stood and walked back toward
The Brass Fox
.

Once alone, Ras found a seat on the ground next to his late father. He sat silently for a few minutes, unsure of what to do, then finally spoke. “So…mom’s doing all right.” The words hung in the air. He knew what he must have sounded like talking to what remained of his father, but he needed to speak his piece. “It was tough for a while, but she’s better now. Nobody new. She wouldn’t even look at someone else. Every day we just expected you to come back, y’know?” He took a deep breath. “I wish I could actually talk to you. About life…ships…girls. Well, one girl, but you probably knew that,” he said in a lower volume. “You know how they say it’s like time stops when you meet the right person? I think they got it mostly right.

“Being a Lack has its upsides, I’m learning. When you’re with the right person you don’t feel the void so much. I guess it makes more sense why mom wanted you near. I probably reminded her of the void only you could fill.” He sighed. “I wonder if you’d have made it further if mom had gone with you.” Ras sat for several minutes, taking in the sounds of the night. He eventually stood and brushed off the dirt from his pants. “I know you did what you could.”

The concept of burying a body was foreign to Ras. When people passed away on
Verdant
, they were set adrift among the clouds to find their ways through the fog to the abandoned ground. But now seeing what had become of his father, the only thing Ras could think of to get any closure was to bury the body.

Everyone lands somewhere, and underneath the shade of
The Silver Fox
seems as appropriate as anywhere
.
 

He wiped away the freshly emerging set of tears, remembering waving to the ship years ago as it set off form
Verdant
. His mother would take shallow breaths to keep from crying for his sake. The imagery was too painful to dwell on.

His father needed burying.

Ras climbed aboard
The Silver Fox
where the nose met the ground, searching for the best tool he could find for digging up dirt. Rust and moss covered much of the dead airship. A large portion of the deck had been eaten away, most likely by fire, judging from the state of his father. The glow of the moonlit fog illuminated the gaping hole in the deck, showing the hold. The collection tank his father prided himself on lay shattered, its sharp edges glistening.

Tiptoeing along the railing, he made his way to the Captain’s quarters’ door. Its hinges creaked in protest as Ras pushed it open. The small sea of empty bottles collected at the front of the room clinked out a tune.

Dad didn’t drink
, Ras thought as he stepped inside.
At least not this much. Or in front of me.
He moved past the last of the bottles, turning and making his way to the upright wardrobe. Opening its doors, Ras coughed at the musty smell.
 

Most of Elias’ clothes remained, reminding Ras of long summer days when he would raid the wardrobe to pretend he was his father.

He selected a long, dark blue coat that Elias had worn as a younger man in
Verdant’s
ragtag defense fleet. The coat was thicker than a wind merchant needed in Energy warmed skies, but Elias considered it good luck and wouldn’t part with it despite Emma’s prodding.

Ras had always thought his father looked like a hero from Callie’s books when he wore it. Elias would let the coat envelop little Ras during their flying lessons.

He slid his arm into the sleeve, almost pleased that the coat once again could humor the boy pretending to be the hero.

Shouts in the distance snapped Ras from the memory. He slid back down to the bottles and through the door. He could see an argument breaking out on the bridge of
The Brass Fox
between Dixie and Four. He couldn’t make out the words but the harsh tones filled in the gaps.

“Hey!” Ras shouted, garnering their attention. “What’s going on?”

Dixie began to yell back, “They’re trying—” until Four struck her in the head. She crumpled. Ras’ eyes went wide and he dashed from the bridge down to the sloped deck. Upon reaching the ground at the bow of
The Silver Fox
, he saw Thirty exiting the bay door of
The Brass Fox
, clutching Ras’ large wrench from Derailleur.

“Thanks for flying her to the boneyard for us. Makes the process so much easier,” the white-haired man said.

Ras spotted Callie’s frightened face through the Captain’s quarters’ porthole, and Four delivered a kick to the downed Dixie. Callie yelled Ras’ name as she pounded on the window.

Ras’ father lay unburied after the process these men hoped to repeat with him. Callie was trapped, Dixie was knocked out, his ship was soon scrapped, and he was unarmed. Something broke in Ras, and he had one thing going for him.

He was properly motivated.

Ras let out a war cry and charged toward Thirty, who held the large wrench at the ready. Ras didn’t fear the wrench. He knew its pain and he was too filled with rage to let the idea of a broken arm or rib deter him.

The smug look dissolved from Thirty’s face as the desperate wind merchant tore toward him. He panicked and swung the wrench too early.

Ras ducked, sidestepping as Thirty’s balance went off-kilter from the momentum of the tool. He landed a punch to Thirty’s ribs, turned on his heel and slammed his left elbow squarely into the man’s throat, whose gurgle indicated a failed attempt at a cry of pain.

Thirty swung the wrench again, catching Ras in the stomach.

The pain only fueled Ras’ fury as he wrapped both arms over the wrench, holding it to his body and slamming his head upward, squarely striking Thirty’s nose, disorienting the minion enough to rip away the makeshift weapon.

Ras delivered a kick to the knee of Thirty, interrupting the minion’s grab for the knife in the man’s boot. He tightened his grip on the large wrench and swung with both arms, connecting with Thirty’s temple and laying the man out flat.

Number Four looked over to see both his partner incapacitated and a fire-eyed Ras turning towards him. Four drew his musket and lined up a shot at the young man moving up the gangplank but stayed his hand, as Ras clearly intended to present him with a closer target.

Ras arrived on the deck with a wrench in his hand and malice in his heart. Four leaned casually on the railing, steadying his aim. “Funny how every single ship out here is picked clean.”

“We had a deal,” Ras said, seething.

“What, the one where we tell The Collective we have you and they come running? You do realize we don’t actually have to have you for that to work, don’t you?” said Four. He motioned with his pistol for Ras to drop the wrench over the side of
The Brass Fox
.

Ras held his arm over the railing, but retained a firm grasp. “You see that ship over there?” he said, pointing with the wrench.

“Yeah, it was one of our first.”

“That’s my father’s ship,” said Ras. A bit of motion beyond Four caught his attention.

“Family reunion, how sweet,” Four said, “Toss it.”

Ras took a deep breath and threw the wrench high over his head. A familiar bang and hiss of uncoiling cable filled the air as a magnetic grapple tore the musket from Four’s hands and continued onward to strike the airborne tool. The wrench/musket hybrid fell straight back into Ras’ outstretched hand.

Four looked behind him. Callie leaned out of the Captain’s quarters’ porthole with the grapple gun engulfing her left arm. The cable connected her directly to Ras, who busied himself with prying the musket from the magnet with little success.

Giving up on freeing the musket, Ras aimed the wrench/musket hybrid at Four. “You’re leaving my ship or this world.”

The grizzled man raised his hands slowly, palms open.

The moonlit sky grew dark as a labored screech filled the boneyard, distracting everyone onboard
The Brass Fox
. In the dense fog, a hulking black figure eclipsed the moon, arriving from the direction of
Solaria
and rapidly increasing in size.

It appeared Dr. O would indeed snag his dreadnaught.

Four used his opportunity to seize the taut cable next to him, jerking Ras off balance.

All squabbles about who possessed the gun on the ship became moot when it became apparent that the dreadnaught was on a collision course to crush
The Brass Fox
and every other airship surrounding it.

Ras tossed the musket/wrench overboard through the rope netting and made taking off his highest priority.

“Callie! Cut the cable!” Ras shouted as he began ascending the stairs toward the bridge.

“How?” she asked, looking the device over.

After failing to reel in the musket, Four began running toward Ras, throwing an easily dodged punch.
 

Using Four’s momentum against him, Ras hooked Four’s leg with his own, causing the minion to tumble down the stairs to the deck as Ras arrived on the bridge and worked the controls at the console to start up his one engine.

The groan of the behemoth grew deafening as
The Brass Fox
began its ascent. Behind them, a concussive shockwave caught up with the ship as the tail of the dreadnaught’s body collided with the ground, and
The Brass Fox
’s single engine revved as hard as it could with little effect.