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Rush jogged to keep up with Vance’s strides as they exited the courtroom. Father, Mother, and Olive left their seats and came in line behind them. Once the door shut, he sagged with relief. A small part of him boiled with dread over what would come next, but for that moment, he ignored it. Just the threat of execution being removed was enough to make his head feel like an airship balloon. He swayed as he walked and held out his hands to keep himself steady.
They continued in silence through the maze of halls before coming to a deserted stretch. Vance halted and turned to them. “That went approximately as well as I could have hoped.”
Rush stared at nothing. “I don’t have to sit in that cell anymore. I think that would be the worst punishment.”
He smiled. “You will not lack for labor these six months, I am certain.”
Olive grabbed Rush’s shoulders, spun him around to face her, and wrapped her arms around him. He winced and glanced at Vance, but the captain had his attention on something down the hall. Rush set aside his resistance and hugged her in return. His throat thickened; that would be the last time he saw Olive for six months. Already a hollowness formed in his chest.
She spoke in his ear. “Two months without you was boring enough.” The corners of Rush’s lips turned up at that. “I don’t know what we’ll do for another six months.”
An awkward cough. Rush released his friend and spotted a young volantry official shuffling forward. The boy’s face heated. He stepped back.
The man’s eyes darted between a paper in his hand and the gathering before him. “Benjamin and Sarah Cooper? Olive Booker?”
Father nodded. “That’s us.”
He straightened, folded the paper, and crammed it in a pocket. “I am Lieutenant Carter, here to escort you to the airship. The one that will take you home, that is.” He cleared his throat. “You may, uh…speak any parting words if you so wish.”
Rush stepped close to his parents, and Father placed a hand on his shoulder. “Work hard, son. And remember that, even though you did wrong, we love you.”
He studied the marble ground and fought back a growing emptiness. “I’ll miss you.”
“We’ll miss you too. Hast won’t be the same without you.”
Rush forced a smile. “I don’t know what Captain Bramwell will do without someone to spy on him.”
All three Coopers embraced each other. This time, Rush’s eyes dampened and he squeezed them shut.
With final farewells, the foursome parted. Rush threw a last look over his shoulder as his last friends disappeared around a corner. He sighed, slumped, and trudged behind Vance toward the admirals’ quarter. Silence walked between them all the way across the royal complex.
Rush and Vance stood before a desk, watching the scowling man who sat behind it. He drummed his fingers on its surface while looking over the papers Vance had handed him. “They always send us the worst of the worst. Scum of the earth to fight in the mightiest fleet of airships this world has ever seen.”
According to what Vance had told him before they entered, this man was Admiral Judah Collins, commander of the entire volantry. Maps of unfamiliar places adorned the walls; a cutlass on two hooks hung on the back wall; countless relics of other lands cluttered several shelves. But judging by the man’s girth, he hadn’t been anywhere but this office in some time. Rush wrinkled his nose at the jumble of documents and various trinkets atop his desk.
Vance crossed his arms. “That’s no way to speak of a boy.”
Admiral Collins dropped the papers onto the sea of white. “He’ll just be a liability. We don’t need children to supervise, we need soldiers. Real men. We’ve not even one ship’s worth of volunteers for the armada. A whole country of cowards.” He muttered while sliding papers around. “Back in my day, soldiers just did what they were told without—”
“He’s been to the Pinnacles.”
Collins halted and lifted his gaze for the first time since they had entered the room. Something like respect crept into his eyes. “You’re joking.”
“No, sir. He accompanied the Embark in our discovery of the rebel base. He fought a dragon there.”
He barked a laugh and shook his head. “Dragons. That’s all I need to hear. Sure, he’s been to the Pinnacles.” He crumpled up one sheet and tossed it into a basket beside the desk. “You always were one for the old stories, Hale.”
Vance’s face reddened. He opened his mouth but hesitated and closed it again, swiping his hand through the air. “That is of no consequence. The Court of Arbiters has ordered you to assign him, and so you must.”
“Yes, yes, calm down. You’re not the only one around here who’s memorized the entire royal charter. He’ll come aboard the Skycastle. We needed more powder monkeys anyhow. I expect you, as senior adviser on the ship, to keep a close eye on him.” He dipped his quill into a jar of ink and scribbled on a piece of paper before shoving it across the desk at Vance.
The captain took the sheet and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Rush wasn’t sure what to ask first as they turned and left. What was the Skycastle? What was a powder monkey? Would he be going into battle? But Vance shook his head and touched his lips. “I shall answer later.” He walked outside the office into a lobby, handing the paper to an nearby officer. “Lieutenant Hopkins, please escort Rush to his assignment and show him around. I have other matters to attend to.”
Hopkins grinned. “Yes, sir! Follow me.”
Rush gaped at the ship stretching before him. Hopkins rattled on about it endlessly as they stepped from her docking tower to the deck. “She’s a 60-gun ship-of-the-line, armed with ballistae and collinades. I don’t expect they told you much about those in school, did they?”
He shook his head, only half listening. He gawked at the two thick masts and colossal balloon, at least three times as long as the ship itself. A captain’s quarters sat above the stern.
Hopkins smiled. “Ah, I thought not. Ammiras Collins invented the collinade as a smaller alternative to the cannon for use on airships. And of course, Arcians did not invent ballistae, though we did adapt them for aerial combat, such as in the battle of…”
Rush stopped listening after that. They walked the length of the deck and down a staircase, the lieutenant chattering about the Skycastle’s capacities. Rush missed most of the speech, taking in the marvel of engineering he stood inside.
The ship was arranged much the same as the Embark. They strolled through a bridge with a large bay window, a storeroom, and an armory. But where the watch deck was on the scouting ships, this boasted what Hopkins called a bomb deck. Chutes lined the bottom of the bulkhead where grenades and rockets could be fired at enemies below.
A few words of the prattling finally broke through. “Here’s where you’ll be helping, according to this document.” He squinted at the paper in his hands. “A powder monkey, eh? That suits you well, I’d say. Just need to run up and down the stairs a hundred times per battle, carrying explosives and gunpowder to whoever needs it.” Laughing, as if it were all a grand joke, he began to walk away.
Rush spun to face the lieutenant. “Wait—this ship is going to the Pinnacles?”
Hopkins tilted his head. “Well, yes. It’s called the Skycastle. Castles aren’t known for pleasure cruises now, are they?”
“So I’m going to be in here…while the ship is fighting.”
Sighing impatiently, he nodded. “That’s what we’re doing in the Pinnacles. What, have you been hiding under a rock for the past forty years?”
“Um…no.” He looked down through one of the bomb holes and studied the airfield below.
“We haven’t all day, son. There’s still more of the ship to see. Now, this is where…” He strolled away, all restlessness forgotten in a moment.
Rush couldn’t pull himself away from the chutes. He imagined standing beside one of the holes in a battle, dropping explosives on rebels, cannonballs and ballista bolts hurtling toward him all around. Just the thought caused his heart to pound and his palms to sweat. How was he going to survive fighting in a real battle? Shuddering, he hurried over to Hopkins, who had already moved on to another room.
For a week, the fleet prepared in New Atlantis. The admirals assembled an army that wouldn’t cause a mass uprising, and Rush carried barrel after crate from the cargo lift in the docking tower to the lower decks of the Skycastle. And after he had brought aboard those, the first mate trained him and two other boys on what ammunition to carry where. Rush spent his days working and his nights in the makeshift barracks that sprung up in the meadow below. More crewmen arrived every day and found their roles on board. By the end of the week, over a hundred men crowded the green.
Rush grew increasingly restless and nearly deserted again just for a change of scenery. The walls of the airfield seemed closer every day, closing in and choking him. But as the sun set on the seventh day, the fleet departed. Four warships and three troop carriers steamed northward, spewing great clouds of exhaust into the sky behind them. Standing in the bridge, Vance directed the captain of the Skycastle toward their destination.
At dawn, they entered the Pinnacles. Rush caught glimpses out of portholes as he worked. The lofty peaks slid by outside the window. Eventually, the call rang through the decks. “All hands, to your posts! We approach the target!” The ship sprang into action, crewmen dashing to their assignments. Rush joined the press, heading down the stairs, finding the two other boys, and standing beside them. He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt and crept` toward one of the bomb chutes. Throwing glances down the tube, he caught glimpses of the craggy landscape far, far below. He had stockpiled grenades and rockets at each hole in the deck, but, as the crew told him, it was dangerous to have too many together at once. One perfectly placed cannon shot from the ground could blow the entire deck into pieces.
Footsteps descended the stairs, and all heads turned. Lieutenant Hopkins stood halfway down the steps, his hands clasped behind his back. “Captain Hale says we are but minutes from the ravine. Prepare yourself, men! This is the day we finally destroy the last of our enemies and usher in a glorious age of peace for Arcia. Fight hard, endure like men, and may God be with us all.” A hearty cheer came up from the crew. Rush chewed his lip and rocked back and forth on his heels. If he could have, he would have bolted from the ship and ran all the way back to Hast. He inhaled deeply, stiffened his posture, and steeled his mind.
Seconds crept by as the Skycastle neared. Every eye stared through the bomb chutes and watched for the ravine Vance had described.
A glimmering stream and gaping fissure drifted into view.
As he took in the view, Rush stilled, and his lips parted.
This was, without a doubt, the same ravine the Embark discovered weeks earlier. Yet, it couldn’t be the same place.
Instead of a crevice filled with three airships, he saw…nothing. He noted every detail—the same river, the same narrow cave. But no airships.
Whispers shot between crewmen. It seemed they had also put the pieces together. Hopkins picked up on the silent doubts and retreated up the stairs; the men only loudened in their concerns.
Rush’s scalp prickled, and he stepped back. A dreadful possibility rose in his mind. With the Arcian’s arrogance and the rebels’ constant evasion, something like this was inevitable.
They were all about to die.
His breathing sped up, but before dread settled in, Hopkins returned to the staircase again. All conversation fell quiet at his appearance; Rush’s eyes locked on his nervous expression.
“It appears the rebels were hiding behind a mountain and waiting for our attack. Three gunships and two cruisers. The plans are changing. Please stand by for additional instructions.” He spun around and disappeared up the steps.
The silence that followed deafened him.
Hopkins’ words hung in the air like a storm cloud ready to break. He had confirmed what Rush already knew.
The cloud burst around him, some men shouting after Hopkins, a few praying, and some standing dumbstruck. As dizziness swept over Rush, he bounded up the stairs, through two decks of chaos. Blue-coated soldiers and crew scurried around, loading ballistae and collinades, preparing the ship for a battle they hadn’t expected to fight. Rush worked his way up, swerving between the bustle, and emerged topside.
The colossal balloon blocked most of his vision, but around its canvas edges, he glimpsed airships above them. Their enemies had free reign over the Skycastle—she couldn’t fight back with the balloon in the way. All their weapons were useless until they could gain altitude.
Rush jumped back as a ball of fire fell from the sky. Several other people nearby froze, staring upward. He came beside them and leaned over the railing.
Flames licked the side of the balloon. As he watched, more grenades and firebombs pelted the ship, landing on the balloon and hull. Explosions rocked the deck. A fire sprang up near the captain’s quarters. A rocket shrieked to his right—he twisted to see it rupture on the hull with a flash of orange.
The captain strode across the deck, shouting to some crewman beside him. “We’re just target practice until we can get above them! Get men up to douse the flames. Signal the fleet to drop everything nonessential. We need to go up!”
An officer approached Rush and grabbed his shoulder, pushing him toward the stairs. “Return to your post! We’ll need you down there as soon as we come above the raiders!” He ran off to yell at someone else. For once, Rush agreed with his superior. He retreated down the staircase while collinades thundered and ballistae ratcheted at their gunports. The stench of gunpowder hung heavy in the air.
When he descended the last steps to the bomb deck, all eyes fastened on him. He stared back for a moment before understanding the purpose of their attention. Nodding upward, he described the scene above deck.
Then a cannonball ripped through the hull.
Rush jerked away before even realizing what had happened. The ball had whizzed past, leaving a hole in the floor the size of his head. He gawked at the newly formed window and glanced around at the men. They appeared uninjured, only stunned. What if one had been there? What if Rush had been there?
They stood like statues, as if making noise would attract more bombardment. He inched to the wound in the ship and peeked through it. Another cannonball hurtled toward them, but tired a few feet away and plummeted down. They seemed out of cannon range, but his hands still shook from the shock.
Hopkins jogged down the stairs, and his head swiveled around the scene until he spotted the cannon hole. “Is anyone hurt?” The men shook their heads. “Captain says we’re out of cannon range. Resume the bombing.”
His words seemed a spark on dry tinder—when they landed, the men sprang into action. Rush and the other powder monkeys flew up the stairs, gathering grenades and rockets in bags and carrying them—carefully—down the stairs. The men dropped them through the holes. Rush had delivered two bags of explosives by the time the first bombs hit. The ship was a long, long way up.
On his third trip up the stairs, a shrieking sound made him halt before setting foot on the steps. A strange apprehension held him back.
Until a blast of heat threw him down.
The next thing he knew, he was curled up on the floor, covering his head with his hands. He cracked his eyes open to see the deck above them engulfed in flames and peppered with daylight. The rebels must have hit the munitions store.
As he watched the inferno above him, his ears rang, and his exposed skin stung. A peek at his hand showed it was red and tender. But another realization sunk in, making him almost forget the pain.
The Skycastle blazed. Whatever bomb deck crewmen had survived—including Rush—could only watch as the ship baked them.
The words came to his mind for the second time that day.
We’re all going to die.
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