Ryn fell through the air, one hand still clutching Nuthea's.
They tumbled and span. White cloud and blue air rushed around them. Weightless, he had lost his stomach somewhere far above him. The sensation might have been pleasurable were it not for the immediate prospect of collision with the ground below.
Images of his recent past were moving in rapid succession across his mind again. Mum dying. Dad dying. Roofs on fire. Somewhere over the noise of the rushing air he was aware of Nuthea screaming.
The wind seemed to gust all of a sudden.
And then their fall was broken.
Ryn slammed flat onto something hard with a loud thump. His face and limbs stang immediately from the impact, then prickled with aftershock.
This couldn't be the ground. They had stopped falling much more quickly than he had expected. Plus, he was still alive.
Wood, he saw next to his cheek.
He had lost hold of Nuthea's hand. Where is she?
Ryn pushed himself up onto his elbows with effort.
Men stood around them, some brandishing swords, many of them gathered together at a rail at one end of the wooden platform Ryn and Nuthea had landed on. Cannons were sounding, but below them now, from within this ship.
They had landed on the deck of another airship.
"What in seven hells was that?" yelled a voice from somewhere behind them. Ryn only barely heard it over the noise of wind and cannonfire, but the voice was irate.
One man stood a few paces away, staring wide-eyed like Ryn was an Imperial invader come to kill him. He had a shaved head, baggy trousers, a cutlass sheathed at his side.
"Boy'n a girl, Cap'n!" the sailor called. "I think they just fell out of the Imperial ship!"
"Well, what are you waiting for, you fool?" shouted the first voice, matching incredulity with fury. "Tie them up and stow them below! We don't have time for this right now, in the middle of a takedown!"
"Y...yes, Cap'n!" The man hesitated, but then took a step towards them, drawing his sword from the sheath that hung on his belt with a sliding of steel. He held it out towards them. The point wobbled a little.
"You two!" said the sailor. "With me!"
"Not again…" mumbled Ryn, as much to himself as anyone else.
He looked to his side, wondering why Nuthea hadn't said anything yet. She lay sprawled on her front on the wooden deck. Her eyes were shut.
The skysailor moved towards them purposefully.
"Please!" said Ryn, scrambling up, "I think she might be hurt! She needs a healer!" He had to shout over the noise.
The skysailor set his jaw. "Cap'n says you're to be stowed below, so stowed below is what you will be!"
To Ryn's own amazement, he put up his fists. Nuthea might be hurt. "You're not taking us anywhere! She needs help!"
The ship banked harshly to one side and Ryn lost his footing, stumbled and put his foot out to steady himself.
The sailor barely wobbled. Taking advantage of Ryn's stumble, he stepped forwards and punched Ryn hard in the gut with the hilt of his sword.
"Oof!" Ryn doubled over as the wind knocked out of him. Pain in his stomach joined the pain in his head and the pain in everywhere else. The skysailor grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up, and before he knew it Ryn felt a rope being wrapped around his arms and chest, constricting, so tight he could barely breathe.
Then he was being shoved and kicked with barks of "Get in there! Hurry up!" He staggered across the deck in bewilderment, battlecries and cannonfire flying over him. When he glanced back he saw the sailor behind him prodding him, the prone form of Nuthea slung over one shoulder, her hair and hands hanging down limply.
Above them, Ryn saw a huge Imperial airship in the sky, descending rapidly, fire and smoke billowing out from its hull and blimp, a series of huge holes blown in its side. The ship they had just been on before.
Then he was shoved down some steps and through a door at their bottom and along a corridor with more angry barks, through another door into a cramped room not much bigger than a broom cupboard, with only a small circular hole for light.
"Stay in here!" the skysailor said.
He kicked Ryn's legs from underneath him, forcing him to land on his backside with a groan.
The fight went out of him. This was too much. This was the second time he had been taken captive in as many days. And his family… his hometown…
He felt something being propped up against his back. Nuthea. Another cord of rope joined the first that encircled him. The sailor tied her to him so that they sat back to back.
Ryn tried one last time. "Please…" he murmured. "I think she needs to see a healer..."
"Shut up," spat the sailor. "We're in the middle of an assault. You'll stay in here till we're finished. The Captain will deal with you after that."
He slammed the door shut, leaving Ryn in darkness with only himself for conscious company.
"Nuthea?" he said at once. "Nuthea, can you hear me?"
Nothing.
He craned his neck round to try to look at her. He couldn't see much, but he could see that the shillouette of her head was lolled forward.
He turned back round to ease the strain on his neck. "Nuthea, wake up!" he said to the black wall in front of him.
Nothing.
He hoped to the gods she wasn't dead. Actually, he didn't hope it to anyone. What use had the gods been to him these last two days, after his lifetime of devotion and obedience? He just hoped it.
The girl felt warm against his bound arms and back. Ryn tried to slow his rapid breathing and concentrate on the feeling of her pressed against him to work out if she was still alive.
Yes--it was very gentle, but if he focused and tried to shut out the noise of battle above he could feel the slow rise and fall of her body. She was still breathing.
That's a relief. Although...why do I care whether this girl lives or dies? he thought all of a sudden. All she's done to me so far is lecture me.
But she had talked to him all the same. And she was still a human being. And there had been something in the patronising and the lecturing… a sort of antagonistic kindness, of which Ryn realised he had grown weirdly fond...
"And you are very beautiful…" he said out loud.
Ryn sat like that for a long time, just listening to the sounds around him and thinking, and willing for Nuthea to wake up.
The ship continued to bank this way and that, to shudder and vibrate from time to time, but being tied up and sat down as he was none of this threw Ryn around any more. Outside the room, muffled to varying degrees, he could still hear men shouting, cannons firing, and the occasional crunch of wood.
His head still throbbed with so much pain. And his arms. And his legs. And his stomach. His throat was dry. He hadn't had a drink in a long time. At least he didn't need to piss. That was a mercy. How long that would last he didn't know. The ropes were tight on his arms--it felt like they were cutting into his skin. He was hungry. He could barely think straight. His mind was aching fog.
I need to get out of here somehow. I need to get out of here and get my head together and work out what I'm going to do now that… His mother. His father. The houses of his hometown. Dead, aflame, destroyed.
"Mmmmurggghh...?" said Nuthea.
"Oh, you're awake!" Ryn said. He felt her stir and lift her head behind him. "I'm glad you're still alive!"
"...barely," grumbled Nuthea. "Tell me…"
"Yes?"
"...tell me again about how very beautiful I am?"
Oh shit. "You...heard that?"
Nuthea laughed softly. "Where are we?" she asked after another quiet moan of discomfort.
"We're on an airship," Ryn said quickly, keen to change the subject. "A different airship. We landed on it somehow. I think they're...sky pirates. I think they're the ones who we were attacking the Imperials. They shoved us in here while the battle finishes, but I think they're winning."
As if to confirm this, they heard a loud many-voiced cheer go up from outside. The cannonfire ceased. The cheering did not.
They listened out, and beneath the cheering, the sound of the ship's engines grew deeper. Ryn's stomach lurched again. The ship was landing.
Nuthea spoke. "Listen, when they interrogate us, just follow my lead."
"Your lead? Er, alright then..." said Ryn.
Eventually, they felt a jolt go through the ship, and the sound of the engines stopped. They had landed.
Eventually, the sailor who had shoved them in here reappeared.
"Right, you two." His eyes were bright and he seemed unable to stop himself from smiling. "Captain wants to talk to you now."
He wrenched them to their feet, before pushing them stumbling and tripping back up on deck, where he plonked them down on their backsides again.
Ryn had got a brief glimpse of the surroundings they had landed in before he was made to sit down. They were in wide, grassy plains. And a way away, he thought he had gimpsed the wreckage of the Imperial airship lying crushed on the ground. Yes, that was the smoke from it still leaking into the air. They must all be dead. Nobody could have survived a crash like that. Including that officer who killed my mother… Ryn felt a little pang in his heart at that realisation. He was glad that Lieutenant Vorr was dead, but he discovered that he had wanted to be the one to kill him himself...
He turned his attention to his more immediate surroundings.
This time what must be the whole crew of the ship stood around them in a semicircle, regarding them. They largely wore brown leather jackets, and baggy beige trousers, with black boots. Some had goggles on their heads. Most had sheathed cutlasses at their sides. Ryn spotted one or two blunderbuses too. Some were fat, some were thin, some tall, some short. Some had shaved heads, some had thick beards and braids. All were men. All looked at them with a kind of leering curiosity. Ryn reckoned there were about twenty of them, though he could only see the ones in front of him.
In the middle of them stood a young man with a circular leather patch strapped over one eye, brown hair tied back in a ponytail and his own deep-brown, long leather jacket with a ridiculously high collar. His unexposed eye glinted mischievously as he grinned with one side of his mouth, baring stained teeth. One of his teeth was gold.
When he spoke, Ryn recognised the voice of the young man as belonging to the 'Cap'n' from earlier.
"Who are you?" said the man, not bothering with any formalities. "Why were the Empire holding you captive?"
"We're not telling you anything," said Nuthea for the pair of them. "You're just a filthy sky pirate!"
The captain's boots resounded omniously over the deck. Out of the corner of his eye Ryn could see him crouch down in front of Nuthea.
"You've got a mouth on you, havent' you?"
Nuthea spat.
A moment's pause, and Ryn heard the sound of leather glove against skin at the same time as he felt Nuthea's head turn abruptly to one side.
To her credit, she barely moaned.
"She's a feisty one, isn't she, lads? That'll make it even more fun to break her!"
A deep, lecherous jeer went up from the crew.
"Leave her alone!" Ryn found himself yelling. "She hasn't done anything to you!"
The pirate captain turned on Ryn. "Let's see if you're any more obliging, pup. Well? Who are you?"
Ryn didn't see any point in lying about himself. If Nuthea wanted to keep her identity to herself, that was her business. "I'm nobody," he said, more bitterly than he meant to. "A no one. I'm the eldest son from a landowning family in the town of Cleasor. You have no reason to hurt me--or her."
"Well, Nobody of Cleasor, if you're so unimportant, why did the Empire have you captive on one of their airships, hey? Answer me that!"
Again, Ryn didn't see any point in lying to him about this either. "The Empire burned down my village. They killed everyone I know. They only spared me because--ow!"
Even though they were tied back to back together somehow Nuthea had been able to elbow him in the ribs. "Don't!" She hissed.
"'Don't' what?" said the captain.
Ryn was torn. He had no problem telling the sky pirate--but Nuthea wanted him to keep things a secret. Why?
The pirate captain drew one of the twin swords that hung on either side of his belt, producing a long, slightly curved blade. He grinned wickedly, then moved the point of it slowly in front of Ryn's nose, making him flinch. Then he stepped around him and crouched down next to Nuthea, whose body suddenly went very stiff and still against his back.
"Tell me why, or I slit the lady's throat."
"Don't tell him, Ryn!" Nuthea cried out at once. "He's bluffing! He won't do it! He could get far more money by ransoming me!"
Ryn thought that was a reckless thing to say. He didn't think he could take the chance. He had already seen that the captain wasn't afraid of causing pain.
"I have flame-projection powers!" Ryn blurted out. "I developed them all of a sudden when the Empire attacked my village! I think that's why they captured me! Nuthea thinks it's something to do with these magical jewels! They captured her because she has lightning powers! Don't you try anything with me, or I'll scorch you with fire! I've done it before, and I can do it again!"
"By the One… Nuthea said behind him with a sigh.
"You should be grateful…" Ryn couldn't help himself whispering back, twisting his head to look behind him at the back of Nuthea's golden-haired head. I may have just saved your life...
Ryn looked up at the assembled sailors of the airship's crew, standing around them.
A pause.
They burst out laughing. They threw their heads back and guffawed, held their bellies while they shook, and slapped each other on their backs. Some of them wiped tears of mirth from their eyes.
"Alright, alright, that's enough, lads," said the captain after a while, wiping an eye and recovering from his own hysterics. He stepped back round to Ryn's side and held up his hand for silence, that devilish grin still stuck on his face.
Eventually the laughter petered out, but the grin remained.
"Fire and lightning powers?" said the Captain, mockery lacing every syllable. "Magical jewels? Do you expect me to swallow this, runt? If you're going to play games with me, I will toy with you in turn!"
He bent down and moved his sword towards Ryn again, making him wince, but instead of skewering him, he reached past him and cut the cord tying Ryn and Nuthea together with a flick.
"On your feet!" said the captain. "Nobody mocks Captain Sagar Edbini! If you have 'flame projection powers', then show us, boy!"
Ryn stood up and rubbed the sides of his arms where the rope had bound him. He didn't know why this guy, 'Sagar', was calling him a 'boy' when he didn't look that old himself. He must be in about his early twenties. But he didn't have time to ponder that now.
"Er, well," said Ryn, "the thing is, it's all quite new to me and I haven't been able to summon the flames again since the incident at my village. I can't produce them on demand. But I do really have them, I'm being honest. Also, I wouldn't really want to hurt you, or any of your crew, unless I had to in self defence."
It was stupid, but it was true.
The pirates laughed again, Captain Sagar too. They seemed unable to stop themselves.
A bolt of bright white lightning shot out from behind Ryn with and lanced into the rail of the ship with a flash and a crack. It left a charred, black mark where it hit, a thin ribbon of smoke hissing up from it.
The pirates stopped laughing.
"Tie her back up again, quick!" shouted Sagar, spittle flying from his mouth.
His crew appeared hesitant. Nobody moved to do so.
"Good sir," said Nuthea, like she was beginning a stern lecture, "if you think for one moment that I am going to allow myself to be detained once more, least of all by a common skysailor such as yourself, you had best think again, or your life may be forfeit." Ryn took a couple of steps backwards so that he was in line with her. "As you can see, I'm a little more experienced with my own powers of elemental projection than my...companion here." Companion? He was her 'companion' all of a sudden? What did that mean? "If any of you lays so much as a finger on me again, I will turn my lightning on you. Is that quite clear?"
Sagar opened his mouth, then shut it again. His grin was replaced by a deep scowl. After a moment he said, "There's a lot of us, lady, and only one of you. Do you think you can use your little trick on all of us at once?"
"Do you want to find out?" said Nuthea icily. Ryn guessed that she had not enjoyed being slapped.
"Tie them up again, boys!" yelled Sagar.
None of his crew moved.
He looked round at them.
One man, slightly taller and stockier than the rest, who Ryn recognised as the one who had tied them up originally, turned to Sagar and said "But Cap'n… you saw what she just did…"
"Yeah," piped up another, "she must be some kinda witch or something..."
"Bad luck to kidnap a witch," said another.
"'s'what I heard too."
"And, Cap'n, you're the one who just cut their bonds!"
"Yeah! If you want to tie them up again, you do it!"
The Captain's face turned red as a rose. An angry rose. He jumped up and down on the spot like a petulant child.
"How dare you disobey me!" he yelled. "You just took down an Imperial ship under my command! So what if their lifeboat got away? The government of Imfis will pay us handsomely for this! You owe me! This is mutiny! Tie them up again right now or I'll throw the lot of you overboard!"
"Well, you can't throw us all overboard, captain."
"Yeah, that wouldn't be practical."
"No more practical than all of us getting fried by lightning, to be honest."
Lifeboat, Ryn thought, noticing something the Captain had said. So Lieutennant Vorr might still be alive...
"It seems that we have reached something of an impasse, Captain," said Nuthea, holding her head high. "Perhaps there is somewhere we could go to negotiate in private?"
"Ah, you hear that boys?" said the Captain quickly. She wants to negotiate in 'private'. His grin was back. What was with this guy? He had gone from throwing a tantrum to making lewd suggestions on the turn of a gold piece.
One of the skysailors wolfwhistled.
Another brief fork of lightning flashed out and singed the deck just in front of the Captain's foot.
"Alright, alright!" he said at once, leaping back a step. He clenched his jaw and said more quietly, through gritted teeth, "Stop doing that in front of my crew!" He returned his voice to its previous volume. "Fine. By common consent, I will speak to you privately inside my cabin. Come with me." He spun on his heel and walked off. "The rest of you, get back to work!"
"Aye aye, captain!"
As the crew dispersed to attend to various duites about the ship, all of them still unashamedly staring watching Ryn and Nuthea, to a man, the two of them followed the Captain through a door in the ship's forecastle.
"Alright, stop playing around," he said once he had shut the door and they were inside the room with a table and charts. "Where did the two of you really come from?"
"We told you," said Nuthea. "The Empire captured us because we have powers of elemental projection."
"Yes, I can see that in your case. But what about you, Nobody?" He jabbed a finger ar Ryn's face.
"He's just a bit newer to his powers," said Nuthea. "But from what he reports, he definitely has them. It makes sense. The Empire wouldn't have spared his life otherwise."
"And you're just a Nobody from some backwater village?" the Captain continued, still looking at Ryn.
Ryn nodded.
"Fine then, but what about you?" said the Captain, switching back to Nuthea. "You don't look like a Nobody from Nowhere." He eyed the golden band that encircled Nuthea's head underneath her hair. "Where did you come from?"
For a while Nuthea did not reply and her bottom lip disappeared underneath her upper. Then, eventually, she said, "My name is Princess Nutheanna Kaleuthea, of the Matriarchy of Manolia."
The Captain's eyebrows raised above his eyepatch. "A princess! The boys will be pleased…" he added to himself. "What are you doing all the way out here? We're miles away from Manolia!"
"I was on an undercover diplomatic mission in Imfis when the Empire discovered my abilities and captured me."
"A diplomatic mission? What kind of diplomatic mission?"
"An undercover one."
"Yeah, but who to? About what?"
"That is my business."
"Tell me!" demanded the captain, his face turning red again. "Tell me or I'll run you through!"
There was a quiet crackling sound and sparks of electricity played across Nuthea's fingers. Ryn felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
The captain held up his hands. "Alright, alright! Godsdammit, this is going to get tedious quickly… Fine. Well, whatever you were doing, whoever you are, the pair of you sure as hell can't stay on my ship. I can't be having you undermining my authority all the time with this lightning nonsense. Soon as we put into the next port, you're off."
Ryn breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't like how tensely things had been playing out on this ship, and he would be very glad to get back onto solid ground. He had no idea what he would do there of course, but he knew that he preferred solid ground to skytravel.
"I thought you might say that," said Nuthea. "But I have a different proposition for you."
"You do?" said the Captain.
"You do?" said Ryn.
"I do. I have learned things on my journey that I need to report at home. I demand that you fly me to Manolia as quickly as possible."
This time the Captain actually drew his sword with a ring of steel as his temper flared. Ryn and Nuthea both hopped back. "Look lady, I'm the one who does the demanding around here! I am the Captain of this ship, and I won't be bossed around by some arrogant girl, princess or not!"
Electricity crackled around Nuthea again as the top corner of her lip pulled up in anger too.
"Nuthea…" Ryn said, looking back and forth between them, "please, be careful…" He was tired of violence. Mother. Father. Town.
"You can't rely on your party trick forever, wench!" The captain spat. "I have a few tricks of my own up my sleeve! Even if you kill me before I kill you, my crew will overwhelm you! They're the firecest band of cutthroats that you ever laid eyes on! They'll gang up on you all at once! They'll overpower you! They'll murder you in your sleep! And I'll bet you don't know how to sail an airship!" he said finally, presumably as a last-ditch attempt to intimidate her into backing down.
Nuthea let out a deep breath and the sparks that had started to crackle around her dissipated.
"I know…" she said at length. "That is why I am offering you a proposition: My homeland is very wealthy, and the royal family are wealthiest of all. Fly me back to Manolia, and I am sure you will be rewarded handsomely. With gold."
Captain Sagar lowered his sword. This time just one eyebrow, the one above his good eye, crept up. "Gold, you say?"
"Gold. And gemstones."
"Gemstones, you say?"
"Gemstones galore. And there are many beautiful women in Manolia, not least of all my royal sisters."
I find it hard to believe they're half as beautiful as you, Ryn thought. He missed his most recent crush, Fiya. He missed his mother. All dead.
"I am sure," Nuthea continued, "that my family would be very grateful to whoever rescued and returned their lost princess to them…"
The Captain's eyes had gone somewhere else. "Gold… gemstones… beautiful women…" he said quietly to himself. He shook his head and his eyes refocused. "How can I be sure of all of this? What guarantee can you give me?"
"An understandable concern," said Nuthea. "My lightning projection is a guarantee of my word, in more ways than one: Only Manolian royalty are diamond-touched. Only we have lightning-projection powers. But I appreciate that this is not common knowledge."
At this, Nuthea tugged the collar of her faded-white dress forwards slightly, and reached down inside it with her other hand. Ryn felt himself blush, and managed to look away. When he looked back, she had produced from somewhere about her person a short silver chain, and on it a large diamond set in a yellow gold pendant.
"Here," she said, holding it out to the Captain, "take this as a down payment and a guarantee of my good will. There will be much more like this--when you return me safely to Manolia."
Sagar stepped towards her and took the pendant with his free hand, holding it up to his face between two fingers to inspect it.
"Gold… gemstones… beautiful women…" he murmured.
He looked at them again.
"Alright. I'll do it. We'll fly you to Manolia."
"You've made the right decision."
"I know I have. Could...could you please just do me one favour?"
"What would that be?" Nuthea asked. Ryn had an idea what the Captain was about to request. His tone had completely changed.
"Could you tell the crew that I fought you and tortured you into surrendering to me, then ravished you?"
"Absolutely not," said Nuthea at once. "I've never heard anything so base and ridiculous in my life. And Ryn's been here this whole time too."
"You could say that I beat him unconscious?"
"Out of the question."
"How about that I tied him up in the corner and made him watch?"
"No."
"He cowered in the corner?"
"Look, said Nuthea. "Fine. If only to shut you up. I'll tell them that you threatened me and that I gave in and offered you a reward if you took me back to Manolia. That's sort of true, I suppose."
"Done!" said the Captain. "Pleasure doing business with you," he added as they made their way back out onto the deck.