Page 1 of Stalk the Sky

Chapter

One

Fieran Laesornysh threw himself into a front flip, landing lightly on the iron walkway that ran along the spine of the Escarlish airship. This high up, his lungs burned with the exertion of breathing the thin air, and he’d ditched his uniform jacket and PT shirt long ago, letting the cold air blast his bare skin.

The ocean spread in a blue-green ink broken only by the white slashes of the foaming waves. A cargo ship plying the waters appeared as nothing but a slim speck, visible due to the white wake stretching behind it.

A faint vibration and gentle thuds came from behind him as his best friend and fellow half-elf Merrik landed his own flip.

Fieran spun to face Merrik again. Merrik, too, had ditched his shirt here in the privacy of the top of the airship. Merrik’s short chestnut hair—more a brown with red highlights rather than Fieran’s brilliant red—glinted in the morning sunlight.

Holding his hands before him as if he gripped the hilts of the swords he’d left at home when he’d joined the Escarlish Flying Corps, Fieran spun and parried an invisible enemy, dodging and ducking. Hints of his magic curled over his fingers, and he didn’t try to fully hold it back. There was no one around but Merrik to see, and he held tightly enough to his control that he was in no danger of incinerating the airship beneath their feet.

Not that Fieran was likely to get into trouble for using his magic here. This particular airship captain had a case of hero-worship for Fieran’s family—his dacha and Uncle Julien in particular—that could rival Pip’s, if that was possible.

Merrik copied his movements, and for several minutes the two of them pantomimed a sword fight, slashing and parrying with their invisible swords.

Despite the crisp wind whipping past Fieran’s face, the stench of smoke still clogged his nose and the taste of ash coated his tongue. No matter how hard he pushed himself in training, he couldn’t quite seem to hold the memories at bay.

Memories of a nighttime attack and bombs falling on the innocent city of Bridgetown. The bodies he’d pulled from the rubble. The flag-draped coffins loaded onto the train with an accompanying honor guard as Fieran, his squadron, and the rest of Fort Linder stood by, saluting the fallen.

The feel of his magic crackling over Mongavarian airships and airmen moments before he let his magic consume canvas and iron, blood and bone, without discrimination. Without mercy.

Today you are Laesornysh.

That was what Fieran’s dacha had stated, naming him not just with the last name he’d inherited but with the elven warrior title he’d now earned. A title meaning Death on the Wind in elvish.

Fieran felt the weight of those words now, five days later, just as much as he had the morning after the attack when his dacha had said them.

Thus the reason he was up here on the top of the airship, pushing his muscles, reflexes, and lung capacity to the brink. Growing up, he hadn’t fully understood why his dacha, the famous elven warrior Prince Farrendel Laesornysh, would often exercise on top of the train as the family traveled from Treehaven, their estate in Escarland, to Ellonahshinel, the elven treetop palace in Tarenhiel.

Now Fieran understood all too well.

The nearly four days of travel had given him all too much time for contemplation. After riding across the Alliance Bridge in army trucks, Fieran, Merrik, the thirty-odd men of their squadron, Pip, and the other mechanics who had been sent with them had boarded an elven train at the station in Calafaren, which hadn’t been damaged in the bombing. The nearly thirty-six-hour train trip took them north through Estyra, then east until they reached the port city of Ninthalor, where they boarded the Escarlish airship.

During their two-day flight after boarding the airship, Fieran had been afforded the run of the airship and courtesy well above what he should have, given that he was a newly minted first lieutenant. The airship’s captain had even offered him a cabin in the officers’ quarters, but Fieran had refused, instead bunking in a hammock among the gas balloons with his men. Both so that he wasn’t quite so smothered by the captain and because sleeping among the balloons made it easier to sneak onto the top of the airship each morning.

Merrik dodged one of Fieran’s imaginary swords just as a shaft of brilliant sunlight broke through the clouds along the horizon, shining so brightly off the metal walkway that Fieran had to squint. The next moment, Merrik grasped his wrist, pinning his arm between their chests as Merrik held his other hand poised as if holding the blade of a sword to Fieran’s neck.

Fieran huffed a breath and held up his free hand in surrender. “I yield. But just so you know, the sun was in my eyes.”

“I still won.” Merrik stepped back, releasing him. “I always win when you are distracted. And you are rather distractable.”

Fieran didn’t have an argument for that. It was far too true.

Shading his eyes, he faced forward, the sun slightly off to his right as the airship traveled northeast. The cold breeze as the airship plied the sky prickled against his sweaty skin.

The coast of Kostaria was nothing but a smudge to their west while nothing but the ocean lay as far as they could see to the east.

Down below, the shapes of two islands came into view. Waves crashed into their rocky coasts while tall white lighthouses marked their highest points. On either side of the channel between them, gun emplacements guarded the vital waterway.

Beyond the islands, icebergs dotted the waters, forming a perilous maze. Despite this, the channel between the islands and the waters on either side were choked with fishing trawlers, cargo ships, and gray-painted iron warships. All the ships easily maneuvered between the icebergs, likely thanks to having a troll on board with ice magic.

Something any Mongavarian ships on their way to attack Dar Goranth wouldn’t have.

Their airship continued on for long minutes more, the islands disappearing behind them.

“We are dropping lower.” Merrik halted next to Fieran at the bow of the dirigible.

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