Page 46 of Stalk the Sky

Merrik sighed but promptly shook his head. “No. Whatever trouble you get us in, we will go down together.”

“That’s the spirit, especially since a quick way down is what I have in mind.” Fieran raised his voice. “All right, everyone. Anyone who wants to have a little fun grab your mattress and gather at the stairs.”

As Fieran hurried to their room, the noise of boots hitting the floor, voices passing his words along, and the scramble of mattresses being hauled off bunks filled the corridor.

Fieran yanked the sheets and blankets off his mattress, dumping all of it onto the floor. The mattress was comprised of a tough, waxed canvas and the internal padding was barely softer than the stone frame it rested on. Perfect for what Fieran had in mind.

Merrik copied his actions, then the two of them toted their mattresses out of their room and into the passageway. Already, many of the others were also stepping from their rooms, carrying their own mattresses. Even those who had been working so hard on their perfectly taut blankets and sheets had cheerfully ripped off all their hard work.

“What are we doing?” The end of Sticky’s mattress trailed on the ground. Short as he was, the mattress was more unwieldy for him.

“Penguin sliding down the stairs.” Fieran grinned, clamping down on his magic to keep his restless excitement from breaking free. He’d wanted to try this from the moment he’d seen all those stairs.

“Yes!” Several of the men pumped their fists.

Fieran raised his hand. “Now we need to keep this somewhat quiet. We can’t go waking up everyone on the other floors as we go by. So as much as you might want to, you can’t whoop or holler on the way down.”

The others nodded. Then Fieran led the way to the top of the stairs. Well, it wasn’t fully the top, but he wasn’t going to lead them up to Level 24 and risk Lt. Rothilion catching them. He’d ban this for sure.

“Okay, who wants to go first?” The words had barely passed Fieran’s lips before someone was shoving his way forward.

“I do!” Holleran took a small running leap forward, then bellyflopped onto his mattress on the stairs. His momentum sent the mattress shooting downwards, and he gripped it as he tha-tha-thumped down the flight of stairs. At the landing for Level 22, the stairs made a sharp turn. Going too fast to either stop or turn, Holleran whammed headfirst into the stone wall.

Fieran leaned over the railing at the top. Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea after all. “Are you all right?”

Holleran lifted his head. Blood trickled down his face from split skin on his forehead. “I’m fine. I’ve got a hard head.” He swiped at the blood, as if he found it more annoying than painful.

Change of plans. “Everyone, grab your helmets.”

“I’ll grab yours, Holleran,” the man’s roommate called down the stairs before he joined the stampede back to the rooms.

Fieran picked his way between the piles of mattresses left at the top of the stairs. “Still not going to lodge a protest?”

“Giving it serious consideration.” Yet Merrik joined him with just as much alacrity as they fetched their metal, Escarlish helmets from their kits and buckled them into place.

Once everyone was helmeted, a line quickly formed. Holleran, now also safely helmeted and a bandage from a med kit wrapped around his forehead to staunch the bleeding, adjusted his mattress and whooshed down the next flight of stairs. The faint tonk of a metal helmet hitting stone echoed up from below.

“Still fine!” Holleran called back to them.

Fieran found himself shuffled to somewhere in the middle of the line, after Stickyfingers and Pretty Face but before Merrik, Tiny, and Lije. He would have dropped back to let others go first as a proper leader should, but he was just too eager for his turn.

As soon as one person cleared the landing below, the next person took a running start and shoved off. Each time, their helmets clanked into the stone wall at the bottom, but the helmets served their purpose and prevented another injury.

Within minutes, Stickyfingers dove onto his mattress, grinning nearly as broadly as he had when hugging his machine gun. He was still grinning when he clanged into the wall at the bottom.

Once he cleared the landing below, Pretty Face shoved off, the speed and juddering mattress knocking his mustache out of its sleeked style.

Finally. Fieran’s turn. He gripped his mattress, ran a few steps forward, and flopped both himself and the mattress onto the stairs. His breath whooshed out of him as the mattress connected with the stone steps. The hard, canvas-covered mattress bumped downward with exhilarating speed, each stair a breath-stealing shudder. It was all Fieran could do to bite back his shout of elation and clamp down on his magic.

He crashed headfirst into the wall at the bottom with a painful jolt. But the helmet did its job. He quickly turned the mattress, checked that Pretty Face had already cleared the landing below, then pushed off the wall with his feet to send him and his mattress sliding downward again with a rapid thump-thump-thump.

Now this was exactly what he’d needed. The whoosh, the thrill, the reckless abandon. A moment to forget the weight resting on his shoulders.

At each turn in the stairway, he thunked into the wall, adjusted his mattress, then thump-slid down the next set of stairs.

By the time he was on the last set of stairs headed toward Level 1, he was nearly dizzy with the constant turns and motions, his head drumming from the hits against the stone walls.

How suspicious would Aunt Melantha be if Fieran and his whole Flight trooped into sick bay with headaches?

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