skud. One sat behind the swivel-cannon as immobile as stone. Next to him perched the lookout, a woman wearing a pair of Owls, guiding the pilot on his course with silent gestures of loosehand.
The colonel watched her glove glow a ghostly blue in the dimness, impregnated as it was with a dye derived from the lakeweed of Simmer Lake. Each fresh signal was answered with another short puff of the thrusters, or a creak of ropes as one of the manoeuvring sculls was adjusted.
He patted Sergeant Jay on the shoulder and made his way forwards through the press of men. Neither of the two crewmen at the prow acknowledged his presence; both peered over the forward rail with utter attention. They stank of sweat, but then everyone on board did, including Halahan. Worse was the wind from all their loosening bowels.
They’ll smell us before they see us, he thought wryly.
Ahead of the skyboat, the lights of the imperial encampment grew ever closer. Shouts came to his ears, men bawling in surprise or panic. A low rumble announced the Khosian cavalry charging through their camp.
The skud was shedding height fast as it approached the enemy positions, picking up speed in its descent. Halahan shifted around in his crouch to look back along the deck over the heads of his men. Following the skyboat, he could see the odd flush of light against the night sky as one of the other skuds fired a brief burst, manoeuvring itself to stay on course in their wake. Seven squads of men in all, ten Greyjackets in each one. He hoped it would be enough to take the ridge and hold it.
The pilot burned the thrusters for another second, but then the lookout raised her hand and made a fist.
The pilot cut the thrusters and they drifted downwards in silence.
They were sailing over a fringe of the camp now. To the left, Halahan could see the road exposed beneath churned snow, and the distant travellers’ lodge and cottages around it, their windows all lit, and the countless glimmers of the camp covering the surrounding plain. Shadows were flitting across the open ground. Specials, running towards the enemy lines in their four-man squads.
A cloud was moving clear of the moons, lighting up the scene below once more. The struts creaked as the gunner scanned the skies ahead, searching for Mannian birds-of-war. Ice cracked on tensing ropes. The high breeze was pushing them slightly sideways as they went, and the pilot peered through the gloom at the luminous glove of the lookout, but she held it held it there, still clenched in a fist, not moving.
There it was. A ridge of high ground running along the southern flank of the imperial camp, its slopes dotted with sparse, scrawny trees. The skud was approaching on a diagonal course that would take them past the westernmost point of the ridge, where it rose in a steep and treeless bluff. Soldiers were moving on the ground directly beneath them, rousing themselves and gathering arms, though it looked as if their attentions were fixed on the attacks in the main camp.
The skud was coming in low now. A treetop brushed against the bottom of the hull. Halahan peered over the side with anticipation surging in his veins.
One minute, the lookout signalled.
Halahan’s Greyjackets gathered by the rails next to the furled rope-ladders. The nose levelled off and the skud began to slow. Still the breeze carried them sideways. Halahan spotted a few faces looking up at him, but their shouts of alarm were lost in all the confusion. The skyboat passed over a frozen stream, and then the snow on the ground became broken and uneven, and white pools of ice stood amongst fronds of marshgrass that ran all the way to the base of the bluff. The area here was clear of men.
Something flashed on top of the bluff. A shot skittered against the hull, then another.
The lookout turned back to the men on the deck, her eyes hidden by the Owls. She jabbed downwards with her thumb.
At once the Greyjackets cast the rope-ladders over the sides and began to clamber down them. Sergeant Jay was first off the boat. Halahan adjusted his hat and climbed down after him, the ladder swaying beneath his boots.
He landed ankle-deep in water as his feet broke through a thin crust of ice.
Wonderful, he thought. Now I’ll have wet feet all night.
It was darker here with the moons hidden by the rise of ground. Shots