Voyages of the Flying Dragon (19 page)

Lenis looked down on his sister, numbed by exhaustion. It had taken every ounce of his strength to awaken her fear of the Quillblade and use it to pierce through the barrier the
shintai
had formed around her heart. Even then, the weapon had not wanted to give up its grip on Missy. Lenis's bandaged hands were evidence of that. He was developing an unhealthy talent for damaging his hands. Not a good trait in an engineer.

Missy was worse off. She had passed out in his arms and slept through the night in the doctor's cabin. This, too, was becoming an unhealthy pattern – Lenis watching over Missy's comatose body. The energies of the Quillblade had torn through her system, stripping away her muscles and flesh. She looked haggard. The skin sagged on her frame and there were dark circles under her eyes. There was no telling what harm had been down to her psyche. Lenis shook his
head. He'd
told
her the Quillblade was dangerous. Why hadn't she
listened
to him?

Suiteki was a quivering ball inside his robe, pressed up against his skin. The baby dragon hadn't been present up on the deck, but she was so in tune with Lenis's emotions that she couldn't help but feel what had happened with him and his sister and the Quillblade. He reached inside his robe and placed a hand over her. Suiteki gave a little squawk. It was the sort of noise a Bestia might make if you left it out in the rain to get all sodden and miserable. From somewhere deep inside, he found a pool of reassurance and cupped it in his hand, around the little dragon. Eventually, she relaxed. Her breathing slowed; her shuddering stilled. Finally she slept and dreamt tranquil dragon dreams, and it was his turn to draw peace from her.

Lenis heard someone yelling in Heiliglander in the galley behind him, and on reflex built a bastion of calm around the dragon dozing in his robe, nestled against his heart. He thought he recognised the voice. Turning away from his sister, he looked down on Kanu, who was crouched by the doorway. Lenis had seen him grovelling in front of Missy the night before, but the sight of her vomiting and damaged in the aftermath of her arrival had shaken the boy deeply. Lenis felt sorry for him. Destined to serve Mashu, the Titan had woken to a very different fate. Fate. Lenis almost laughed at the word.

‘Look after her while I'm gone,' he said.

Kanu bobbed his head, imitating a Shinzōn bow. ‘Yes, Mashu.'

Lenis drew his hand out of his robe and stepped out into the hall, closing the door firmly behind him. ‘What's going on?' he asked in a hushed tone. As he'd suspected, Heidi was the one making all the noise. The Heiliglander was glaring at the
Hiryū
's lookout, fists clenched at her sides, jaw set, face crimson.

‘She says she needs to speak with your sister,' Andrea told him, pushing back her wild hair. ‘Something's come up.'

‘Well, obviously she can't speak to Missy right now. What's the problem?'

‘The duke wants to send an escort with us.'

Heidi snapped something in her native language, and Andrea fired back a reply.

‘You can speak Heiliglander?' Lenis asked.

The Ellian lookout shrugged. ‘A bit. It was a Heiliglander airship that dumped me in Shinzō. Look, what do you want me to tell her?' She jutted her chin in Heidi's direction.

Lenis sighed. ‘What does the captain say?'

‘An escort could prove useful, Mister Clemens,' the captain replied from under the mast-shaft. He was just making his way into the mess hall, drawn, no doubt, by Heidi's ruckus. ‘It will give us a numerical advantage if we run into Karasu.'

Lenis nodded. ‘So what's the issue?'

‘It may be difficult for Missy to keep up her charade as Magni in front of the crew of these other vessels, given her condition.'

Heidi was glaring from one of them to the next. She said something in Heiliglander that sounded more like a command than a question. Andrea ignored her.

‘She's supposed to be Magni's herald,' Lenis said. ‘Why doesn't she just tell everyone the goddess wants some privacy?'

Andrea shrugged again and spoke to Heidi. The girl didn't look pleased, but she nodded and strode out of the galley.

‘That one is going to be trouble,' Lenis muttered. The captain chuckled and Lenis blushed. He hadn't really meant to say that aloud.

‘We'd better go and keep an eye on her,' Andrea said and followed the Heiliglander up on deck, the captain close behind.

Gently, Lenis extricated Suiteki from her cave inside his robe and placed her in her nest by the stove. She twitched in her sleep and made a little noise that was more like one of Aeris's mews than her usual caws. Then she wrapped herself into a tight ball and settled back to sleep.

Lenis hurried above decks. When he reached the open air he made his way to the railing between Andrea and Captain Shishi. Heidi was speaking with Duke Freyrsson on the airdock. Lenis couldn't hear what she was saying from here and couldn't understand it even if he could, but she was gesticulating wildly.

‘She's really taking this whole herald thing seriously, isn't she?' Lenis asked without taking his eyes off her
performance. A couple of people had appeared on the airdock. One was a woman who looked to be in her fifties with steel-grey hair and a deeply lined face. The other was a boy Lenis's age. He had blond hair and looked vaguely familiar.

The captain answered Lenis's question, ‘I am sure her motives are pure, Mister Clemens. The Demon threat is –'

‘Demon's wings!' Andrea hissed and leapt over the railing onto the airdock.

‘What's that all about?' Lenis asked as he followed the captain to the gangplank.

Andrea strode across the airdock, passed a startled Heidi and the duke, and went right up to the couple that had just arrived. Without any warning Andrea pulled back her arm and slapped the boy squarely across the face. Lenis heard the smack clearly across the airdock. The boy's head snapped back. He reached up to rub his cheek but made no move to defend himself or retaliate.

‘Hey, sis,' the boy mumbled around his swollen cheek.

Andrea slapped him again. ‘“Hey, sis”? Is that all you have to say to me?'

‘Well, nah,' the boy retorted, ‘if you gimme a minute without smacking me.' Andrea raised her hand again. The boy shied away, but the
Hiryū
's lookout restrained herself. ‘Uh, how you doin'?'

‘Angelus Draconus Florona, you miserable son of a –' She reverted to her native Ellian tongue, and Lenis was sort of
glad he didn't understand the string of invectives she hurled at the boy.

‘Calm down, Andrea,' the woman with the grey hair said. ‘It's not
his
fault you missed the airship.'

‘Ursula,' Andrea almost spat the name. ‘What are
you
doing here?'

The woman shrugged. ‘The usual.'

The captain cleared his throat quietly. ‘Do you all know each other?'

‘Captain Mayonaka Shishi,' Andrea said, ‘may I present Ursula Klinge, captain of the
Geschichte
. And this Demon spawn is my brother, Angelus.'

That explained why the boy looked so familiar. He was even dressed like his sister, in a loose-fitting white top and brown pants. He wore an oversized coat open over his clothes and had the sleeves bunched up by the elbows, making him seem shorter and younger than he actually was. Lenis looked from the boy to Andrea and back again.

‘Hey,' Angelus said when he caught Lenis staring.

‘Oh, hey,' Lenis replied.

The boy pointed behind Lenis. ‘You the cabin boy on that airship?'

Lenis glanced over his shoulder at the
Hiryū
. ‘Um, no. I'm the engineer.'

Angelus whistled through his teeth. ‘Wow. Epic. You must be, like, a genius or something.'

Lenis blushed and looked down at his boots.

‘The
Geschichte
?' the captain asked. ‘Was that not the airship you came to Shinzō on?'

‘It was, Captain,' Andrea replied. ‘They abandoned me in Yukitoshi.'

‘We had to leave early to miss an incoming storm front,' Ursula interjected.

‘Funny. Usually the cabin boy is sent out to round up the crew when that happens.' Andrea looked pointedly at her brother, who flinched again.

‘Give the boy a break, Andy,' Ursula said. ‘It's not his fault he couldn't find you in time.'

‘Don't call me that,
Lucy
.' Andrea crossed her arms over her chest.

Before they could get into a real fight, Heidi came over and started talking to them in Heiliglander. Soon Andrea, Ursula, Heidi and the duke were all in deep discussion. Captain Shishi and Lenis stood by helplessly. Neither could understand what was being said. Lenis was used to not knowing what was going on around him, but it must have been a new experience for the captain.

‘They're talking about taking you to Kolga's temple,' Angelus said suddenly. ‘That's what you wanna know, right? Neither of you can speak Heiliglander?'

The captain inclined his head.

The boy pushed his sleeves back up. ‘My big sis made me learn when we left home. “We ain't never goin' back,” she said, “so get used to it”.'

‘You're both from Ellia, right?' Lenis asked.

‘Yeah, from up north near the Wastelands' border. Except the border's way further south since the Demons ran amok up there.'

‘The Demons attacked your home?'

‘Yeah.' Angelus kicked at the decking of the airdock with his giant boot. ‘Wastelands got bigger. That's why me and Andy left. She said it was safer in the air. Not so many Demons.'

Lenis had heard this sort of story before. It seemed almost everyone in the western lands had lost someone to the Demons. Growing up in Pure Land, Demons had just been scary monsters in tales. They couldn't really hurt you. They weren't quite
real
. Over here it was different. You actually had to live with the Demons on your doorstep. There was no way of knowing when they would attack over the Wastelands' borders. There was no way to predict when the Wastelands themselves would expand into healthy land. And now Ishullanu was bringing the Demons together. All of them. Lenis wondered how even Pure Land could remain safe when faced with such a threat.

‘It'll be okay,' Angelus interrupted Lenis's thoughts. ‘Andy can get real mad, but she'll settle down. It's good to see her, you know?'

Lenis did know. He didn't understand what was happening between him and his sister, but the idea that they could be separated was too much to bear. It had been a constant threat
when they were slaves. The fear of it clung to Lenis still, even now that they were free.

‘So you really just left your sister in Yukitoshi?' Lenis asked.

Angelus glanced backwards and forwards and lowered his voice. ‘Sort of. You see, Charlie, he's our engineer, he and Andy had a bit of a thing goin' on and then he finds out that she –' Andrea snapped something at him in Ellian and Angelus grinned. ‘Well, let's just say it wasn't exactly an accident.' Lenis found himself smiling back. ‘So, you got Bestia and stuff?'

The abrupt change in direction caught Lenis by surprise. ‘Um, yes. On the
Hiryū
.'

‘Can I see 'em?'

Lenis looked to Captain Shishi. ‘Captain?'

‘Of course. Just be sure to leave Magni to her rest. The goddess does not like to be disturbed.'

‘Yes, sir.' Lenis had almost forgotten they were supposed to be carrying the Heiliglander lightning god. Still, as long as he and Angelus stayed near the engine room there was no danger of him stumbling across Missy in the doctor's cabin, or of him waking up Suiteki.

‘Epic.' Angelus had a large smile on his face. ‘Charlie almost never lets me play with our Bestia. How many you got? We only got two, but the
Geschichte
's only half that big. Are they real powerful? I bet they'd have to be to lift that thing off the ground. I once saw an airbarge lift off and it had, like,
fifty Bestia powerin' it. I swear! You can call me Drake, by the way. Short for Draconus. That's my middle name. Only Andy calls me Angelus. I don't like it. It's, like, too formal, or something.'

‘I'm Lenis.'

‘Come on, Len.' Drake grabbed Lenis's hand and all but dragged him towards the
Hiryū
. Andrea shouted something after them in another language, but if Drake heard her, he gave no sign.

‘You must really like Bestia to be an engineer,' Drake went on, seemingly inexhaustible. ‘I love 'em! Charlie says I might be an engineer one day, but he says I'm too young. I bet once he sees you, he won't say that no more. Wait till you meet him. He's a bit stiff, but he's orright. Gustav's the one you gotta watch out for. Cook and doctor. What's with that? Don't know if he's carving you up for dinner or stitching up your insides.'

The boy kept up his monologue all the way to the engine room. He never seemed to run out of breath, and he never paused long enough for Lenis to answer any of his questions. And he asked a
lot
of questions. In spite of himself, Lenis found Drake's enthusiasm infectious.

So did the Bestia. As soon as Drake spotted them he dropped Lenis's hand and raced to their hutch. Ignis jumped up into his arms and began licking his face.

‘Careful,' Lenis cautioned. ‘He's a flame Bestia.'

‘Aw, it's orright,' Drake laughed, as he held the squirming creature at arms length. ‘I'm used to it. Blitzer's a flamie too.
We're good pals. And who's this?' He put a disappointed Ignis down and ran a hand down Atrum's back, all the way down the length of his tail. The boy whistled. ‘That's some tail!'

Lenis found himself grinning. ‘That's Atrum, and that's Aqua. She doesn't really like –'

Too late. Drake had already picked her up and swung her into his arms. He was rewarded with a nip on the chin. Drake squealed and let her jump down. The water Bestia stalked off back to the hutch and leapt silkily over its edge.