‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ I said, checking that we were alone before removing my hood.

  ‘Gobtrax is superstitious,’ Quint replied. ‘I don’t want you to get into any trouble on our account, Maugin.’

  ‘Trust me, Maugin, it’ll be all right,’ Maris reassured me. ‘As long as we get back to Undertown soon.’

  ‘How soon?’ I asked.

  Maris gathered her cape around her, and it was only then that I saw the bump. Maris was with child.

  ‘A month,’ she said desperately.

  The three of us looked at one another. None of us needed to say out loud what we were thinking. We all knew that a newborn on a sky vessel was considered bad luck. On slave vessels, mothers-to-be – unlucky enough to have been taken – were often thrown overboard by their superstitious captors. It was a sickening practice, as was slavery itself, of course, and no self-respecting sky pirate would countenance it.

  But Gobtrax was a league captain – and a superstitious league captain at that.

  Footsteps sounded, and Timple came into the galley. ‘Snowbird eggs for breakfast,’ the mobgnome announced with a weary smile.

  Timple had, as he did every day, taken a tray of food to the captain’s cabin for breakfast, before preparing a meal for the rest of us in the galley. That day, Timple was cooking a batch of snowbird eggs scrambled with nibblick and pickled glimmer onions. We were tucking in hungrily when Gobtrax abruptly burst into the galley, Kelter just behind him.

  The captain’s eyes were bulging, his face was red, and when he started shouting, his furious words were punctuated with spit. He slammed his plate of food down on the table.

  ‘What is this?’ he bellowed at the trembling cook, pointing at the side of his plate.

  The mobgnome was at a loss for words and cowered by the stove, terrified by the captain’s rage.

  ‘Salt!’ Gobtrax roared. ‘Salt after sun up! Bad luck for the rest of the day! That’s it! I can’t take any more of your incompetence!’

  Striding up to Timple, he slapped him round the face; right cheek, left cheek, again and again, bellowing the whole time. Timple turned and raced from the galley out onto the deck – which was when Gobtrax turned to Kelter.

  ‘See to him,’ he hissed.

  Without saying a word, Kelter stormed after the mobgnome, seized him by the scruff of his neck, hoiked him up into the air and tossed him over the side of the skyship. The rest of us arrived on deck to see the hapless cook disappearing down towards the Deepwoods far below, his pitiful cry echoing back – before being abruptly silenced as he crashed out of sight beneath the forest canopy.

  Quint turned on Gobtrax, his eyes blazing and his hand moving to his sword – only for Kelter to lunge forward, putting his massive bulk between the sky pirate and his master.

  ‘Calm down, Quint,’ said Gobtrax, his rage seemingly sated. ‘The cook had it coming to him . . .’

  ‘Enough!’ said Quint. ‘It’s time this voyage came to an end.’ His hand was on the handle of his sword and his eyes bored into Kelter’s.

  ‘Very well, very well,’ said Gobtrax, suddenly aware he’d pushed Quint to the limit. He backed away, then turned and climbed the stairs to his cabin. ‘Set a course for Undertown.’

  Kelter followed him, flexing his muscles and not taking his eyes off Quint for a moment. As Gobtrax and his bodyguard disappeared into the cabin, the rest of us returned to our duties, our heads ringing with the sound of Timple’s last, pitiful cry.

  It was little more than an hour later that the storm struck.

  We were heading in a north-north-easterly direction when a bank of dark anvil cloud overtook us, dazzling bolts of fork lightning emerging from its flat base and striking the trees below. The wind had got up, fierce and cold, and fearing the chill of the storm might send us hurtling up towards Open Sky, I lit the burners and kept them going to steady the flight rock.

  Yet as the storm worsened, both Quint and I realized that, if we were going to remain safe, we’d need to tether the leagueship securely down at the forest canopy, then wait for it to pass. Battening the flight levers, Quint took down the sails, while I turned the burners up to raise the temperature of the flight rock still further. But even as I did so, the skyship suddenly entered a storm of freezing hail. With a lurch and a creak, the Reaper of Plenty began to surge upwards.

  At the same moment, as I was grappling with the flight rock, Quint appeared at my side. His face was drained of colour, and his eyes were wide and full of panic.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘I can handle this.’

  But he shook his head. ‘It’s Maris,’ he said, shouting as loudly as he dared over the howl and roar of the storm. ‘She’s gone into labour.’

  Chapter 3

  The hurricane-force winds were battering us from all directions. Despite Quint battening down the flight levers and securing the rudder wheel, the skyship pitched and rolled, tossed around like a lufwood leaf in autumn.

  He had gone down to the cabin quarters in the cargo hold to be with Maris, and there was no sign of either Gobtrax or Kelter, his hulking bodyguard, so I was on my own. If we were to escape disaster, it would be down to me.

  I lashed myself to the flight-rock platform and turned up the burners.

  The intense cold of the hailstorm was making the great pitted flight rock more buoyant than it had ever been since that moment, years earlier, when it had broken off from the rock stack in the Stone Gardens and been harvested by the Sanctaphrax academics with their rock callipers and stone-nets. The rock was now straining in its cradle, taking the leagueship ever higher in the sky. Even with the burners on full, it was all I could do to slow our ascent, let along bring the Reaper of Plenty down to land. And as we rose, the storm grew worse.

  The hail fell hard and dense. The balls of ice, each one the size of a woodapple, pounded down on the decks, the sound like a cacophony of beating drums. The hailstones splintered the deck, ripped through the furled sails and shattered the ornately carved balustrades. If it hadn’t been for my heavy skycoat and protective hood, I would have been forced to seek shelter below decks. As it was, half-deafened by the din, I could feel the sleet pummelling my back, my shoulders, the back of my head.

  The burners flared on either side of the mast in front of me, sending their heat down the copperwood conductors and into the metal of the rock-cage. The flight rock was responding. Our rise had stopped and the Reaper of Plenty was beginning to descend. But not fast enough.

  I checked the oil reserves and cursed the league captain’s penny-pinching ways. For instead of the dark amber of ironwood resin, the tank contained yellow tallow grease: a tenth of the price but half as effective. I should have checked what he was buying at our last layover three days before. Now it was too late. I turned the spigots full on, but at the rate of burn, I knew the tank would run dry in minutes.

  I had to try something else – and I looked around me desperately, wondering what. My gaze fell upon the rock-hammer that hung from the tool rack beside me.

  The forest canopy was getting closer and, though the hailstorm had eased, the burners were starting to stutter as the tank began to give out. When it did, the rock would cool and rise uncontrollably into Open Sky, and the Reaper of Plenty would be lost. My only option was to do something that no self-respecting stone pilot should ever have to do.

  Attack the flight rock.

  If I could chip away enough of the flight rock before the burners ran dry, the skyship would keep descending. But it was risky. I’d have to climb down over a hot rock-cage and chip away just enough to manage our descent. Too much and the skyship would go into a precipitous dive, and crash.

  My head spinning, I hefted the heavy hammer from the rack.

  Suddenly, behind me, one of the hatches opened, and the captain appeared. I saw the bunch of talismans he’d put on for good luck clustered in a bunch round his neck, and the parawings he had strapped to his back. Kelter appeared next to him, carrying that evil-looking cudgel of his and wearing a set of parawings himself. Gobtrax looked around uneasily, his eyes coming to rest on me for a moment. Then, without acknowledging me or what I was doing in any way, he turned and, together with his sidekick, jumped over the balustrade.

  It seemed that Multinius Gobtrax was prepared to abandon ship and leave the rest of us to our fate.

  I watched the two of them as the parawings opened, and they glided down towards the Deepwoods below like two storm ravens. I tucked the hammer into my belt, then, with one last glance at the flight burners, I climbed down from the flight-rock platform and onto the rock-cage.

  As I gripped its bars, I could feel the heat – first through my gauntlets, then through my coat and hood. Halfway down, I clung on with one hand and pulled out the rock-hammer with the other. I reached through the bars and began chipping away at the flight rock. At each blow, shards broke off and whistled past me, soaring skywards as they cooled.

  The heat from the rock-cage was burning through my clothing, and I wanted nothing more than to clamber back up to the flight-rock platform. But I knew I could not. Instead, moving round, I attacked the rock again, sending more shards up into the air. Each blow hurt me deep inside, for I am a stone pilot and have dedicated my life to tending the sacred rocks of the Stone Gardens. Now, here I was, raining down blows on the flight rock in my care.

  The pared-down rock was being heated sufficiently for the skyship to descend in a measured dive. I climbed round to the far side of the rock-cage. My hood reeked of scorched tilderleather and the smell of burning flesh. My flesh. The pain in my hands was excruciating, but I clung on and hammered at the flight rock. We were descending fast now and, I could only pray to Earth and Sky, not too fast.

  I glanced down to see the canopy of leaves hurtling up to meet us in a spinning blur of green and white and . . .

  CRASH!

  The leagueship had struck the upper canopy of the forest, and with tremendous force. There was a splintering of branches; a cracking of hull timbers. Leaves and twigs crashed against the masts, the sails, the rigging – and me, scratching and scraping and threatening to pluck me off the rock-cage at any moment if I didn’t hold on for dear life.

  Branch after branch was shorn off as we continued down through the trees. Then, with a colossal thump, we came to a halt. Above, the flight burners guttered out with a stuttering wheeze. I raised the rock-hammer again, and was about to smash it into the flight rock when I saw that there was no need. The jagged ends of half a dozen shorn-off saplings had thrust their way through the hull, effectively pinning us to the ground.

  The Reaper of Plenty wasn’t going anywhere.

  As abruptly as it had struck us, the storm passed. I looked around me at the wreckage of the ship. It was going to take both hard work and a fair amount of luck to get her skyworthy again.

  As I climbed back up to the flight-rock platform, I heard a cry coming from the cargo hold. My heartbeat quickened.

  It was the cry of a newborn baby.

  Moments later, Quint appeared on the deck in front of me, holding a bundle in his arms, his face flushed with a mixture of relief and joy. The child he was holding was wrapped in an embroidered shawl – the careful stitches picking out a lullabee tree design, and I suddenly realized what it was that I’d seen Maris working on so furtively each night, in between taking charlock tea to her husband in the sky-chart cabin.

  ‘Earth and Sky be praised!’ Quint exclaimed, raising the infant up towards the storm dark skies above. ‘I have a son!’

  ‘So I see,’ came a familiar voice behind us.

  Chapter 4

  I turned to see Multinius Gobtrax standing on the aft deck, a crossbow in his hands and a face like thunder. Kelter stood at his shoulder, his cudgel gripped in a great white-knuckled fist. Their parawings were bent and broken, and their faces were scratched and bloodied.

  ‘A pregnant female on board,’ Gobtrax snarled. ‘No wonder the storm wrecked us.’ He jerked his chin at the baby. ‘That child is sky-cursed. Get it off my ship.’

  Baby clutched in his arms, I saw Quint bridle, his face reddening in anger. I saw also that he wasn’t wearing his sword belt; he was unarmed and defenceless. I reached for the rock-hammer – only for Kelter to shoot me a warning look. Maris appeared beside Quint in the cargo-hold doorway. She was pale, dark-eyed, and her face glistened with sweat. She looked at Quint in desperation.

  ‘What . . . what does he mean?’ she asked.

  ‘You want passage back to the two cities,’ Gobtrax said coldly, ‘you get rid of the brat.’ He snorted. ‘Otherwise you can take your chances out here in the Deepwoods.’

  I looked at Quint, at Maris, at the baby, my heart hammering inside my chest. I knew that there was no way that the baby would survive if they tried to set off through the Deepwoods on foot. And judging by Maris’s flushed cheeks and glittery eyes, her labour had left her with a birth fever, which meant that she too was unlikely to survive an arduous trek.

  ‘Look over there, Captain Quint,’ I said, pointing to a stand of lufwood trees a little way off. ‘That’s a path beneath those trees. And the lufwoods have been coppiced . . .’ I paused. ‘There must be woodtrolls living nearby. Perhaps they might take the little one.’

  ‘What?’ Maris cried, taking the baby from Quint and backing away. ‘You’re suggesting that I leave my baby with a tribe of woodcutters?’

  ‘Not for ever, Mistress Maris,’ I said hurriedly, glancing at Gobtrax’s scowling face. ‘Just until we can get back here on board our own ship.’

  Maris’s eyes filled with tears, and I could see that she was about to launch into a thousand objections – but then Quint turned to her.

  ‘Maugin’s right,’ he said desperately. ‘Woodtrolls are kind, gentle folk. They would take good care of our child until the Stormchaser is repaired and we come back for him. Three weeks it’ll take. Four, at the very outside. I promise you, Maris.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay with him,’ Maris proclaimed bravely. ‘You can come back for the pair of us.’

  Gobtrax kept his crossbow trained on Quint, an ugly smirk on his face. The league captain was enjoying this.

  Quint reached forward to Maris and placed his hand against her brow. ‘You’re burning up,’ he said softly. ‘No woodtroll village would accept you with a fever for fear of contagion.’

  ‘Then you stay too,’ said Maris, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘That’s it. The three of us will stay here in the Deepwoods. Start a new life . . .’

  ‘You make it sound so easy,’ Quint said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking down. ‘We’re not forest folk, Maris. We’re city-dwellers. We have no woodlore or forestcraft to keep us safe. Do you have any idea how dangerous the Deepwoods are? Well, do you?’ Quint’s eyes bored into hers. ‘Woodwolves, wig-wigs, hoverworms, halitoads. Savage goblin tribes and flesh-eating trees . . . On our own, we wouldn’t last ten minutes out here.’

  ‘But . . .’ Maris began, her voice forlorn, the tears streaming down her face.’

  ‘I’m a sky pirate, Maris,’ Quint pleaded. ‘I shall live and die as a sky pirate, and it is as a sky pirate that I shall look after you and our child. Please understand this.’

  Maris nodded bleakly, then, clasping the baby to her, she began to sob quietly.

  ‘Well, if you’ve quite finished . . .?’ Gobtrax broke in. ‘Dispose of the brat any way you see fit. But do it quickly. The sooner we’re skyborne, the better.’ He turned to me, crossbow still raised. ‘Stone pilot?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’ll need to gather ironwood resin for the flight burners, and the hull needs repairs,’ I told him, stalling for time. I could see the desperation in Quint and Maris’s faces.

  ‘Kelter can repair the hull,’ Gobtrax replied. ‘You harvest the resin. We set sail at dawn.’

  I picked up a pair of buckets and a rock-spike, and climbed over the side of the ship and down onto the forest floor. The saplings wedged into the hull, holding the Reaper of Plenty in place, were as secure as a skyship cradle, but when the time came, I knew Kelter could free us with a few blows of an axe. Before that, though, I needed to find an ironwood pine, pierce its bark and tap its resin – a lengthy procedure, but not too difficult.

  First, though, there was an altogether more painful task to perform.

  Quint and Maris joined me, and we set off along the path together. Gobtrax watched us go, tapping his fingers on the balustrade impatiently. But I knew that the captain couldn’t get the Reaper of Plenty up in the sky without me. He had no option but to wait for the three of us to return.

  The path was a typical woodtroll path – winding and narrow, the mud trampled down underfoot by generations of woodcutters who would sooner die than ever stray from it. I knew that if we followed it, sooner or later, we would come to a village.

  As we made our way along the path, others joined it, and I remembered that all the woodtroll settlements are connected, one to the other. The storm had passed by now, but the sun was setting and the shadows were growing long. The air was chill and laced with a soft twisting mist, and night creatures were beginning to emerge from their lay-ups and lairs and fill the air with their haunting howls and cries.

  ‘There,’ Quint breathed urgently, and pointed.

  Maris and I stopped either side of him. Maris was shaking and her legs were all but giving out, the fever draining her strength. In contrast, the baby was sleeping peacefully. I could see the dark curls framing his little head, tiny fingers gripping the edges of the embroidered shawl, and my heart felt like a shattered flight rock.

  Sky only knows what Quint and Maris were going through.

  Just up ahead was a small woodtroll settlement, their lufwood cabins secured halfway up the circle of trees that surrounded the clearing. Small round windows glowed with the light of the lamps and woodstoves that burned inside. With the coming night, all of the woodtrolls had retired to the safety of their little homes.

  Quint took out his sky compass and took readings, which he jotted down in his pocket-scroll. Then he held out his hands to take the baby from Maris, but instead of handing it over, she clutched the small bundle fiercely to her breast. Her face was wet and her eyes were bright with fever.