Max sat in the galley of the Lightning-hound. Two long tables sat side by side, electric lamps flickering overhead. Across from him sat Fell, who was still working his way through a bowl of warm stew. Wynn entered the galley, her boots clanging against the iron floor.
Fell dropped his spoon in his bowl, his face immediately turning towards her. “How’s Gyda?” he asked.
“She’s better,” Wynn answered, smiling gently. “She was dehydrated. How long were up in that cave?”
“Uh…a couple days,” Fell answered after a moment, already returning to his soup.
“Do you feel up to answering a few questions?” Max asked. Fell nodded slowly at last.
“We need to find out what happened,” Wynn reiterated. “Who attacked your village?”
Fell seemed to freeze, his body going stiff. “The bad men,” he answered.
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Wynn said sternly.
“Wynn…” Max began.
“The fires are still fresh Max. Whoever did this can’t have made it too far away. We need answers now.”
Max glanced at Fell, who flicked his gaze between the two of them. He didn’t seem enthusiastic. “Alright…who are the bad men? What did they look like?” Max asked.
“Um, they were mixed, all different kinds. But they all wore black clothes.”
“When did they come to your village? Why did they burn it?” Max asked.
“They’ve been around for awhile,” Fell answered. “They took some people away at first. And then they came back, a lot more of them. That’s when they…” tears were beginning to form again.
“I’m sorry for rushing you,” Wynn said, placing her hand on Fell’s shoulder and kneeling down beside him. “But if you can tell us how long ago they left, what kind of ships they were in, it would help us find them.”
“It was this morning,” Fell answered. “They left before you came. After they burned the village. They had airships, three black ones with red fins. Their ships were bigger than yours.”
“Was there any kind of marking on the ships? In white paint?” Max asked, his eyes beginning to light up.
“Uh, yeah. A circle with weird squigglies,” Fell nodded. “How’d you know that?”
“I’ve seen it before,” Max said. “Do you know which direction they took off in?”
“No. When they went up in the air we stayed in the cave.”
“Alright, thanks kid. Finish up your soup and then I think you should get some rest.” Max stood leaving the kid to his own devices. After giving Fell a quick hug Wynn followed.
“The Black Company?” Wynn asked once they had exited the galley.
“That’s what it sounds like,” Max agreed.
“Why in muspelhiem do they think they could get away with murdering civilians?” Wynn asked angrily, her face red. “They’ve been on shaky ground for years, and now they think they can kill our people. We have to find them Max.”
“We will,” he assured her. “But first we have to figure out where they’re heading.”
“How do we do that?”
“There are only a few directions they would probably head in. There aren’t that many islands way out here.”
“So you’re just going to have to guess?”
“You have any better ideas?” he responded, his voice growing more assertive.
“No,” she answered finally.
“Get your people back on the ship and maybe we can catch up to them. We can fly twice as fast as their transports.”
“Yes, sir,” Wynn said, nodding. She turned, slamming her fist against the wall before heading down the corridor.
Night was falling on the Lightning-hound. The ship was still on high alert twelve hours after leaving Fell and Gyda’s island behind. In those twelve hours the had made it to three other island chains, but with no sign of the Black Company ships that Fell had described. Max stood on the bridge, listening to the sounds of the ship rumbling underneath him. The wind pushed against the windows, causing them to creak and pop. The ship’s chief navigator, an elderly norlander possessing a posture hunched over with age, stood next to him. She stretched out a map of the southern Okeanos Sea, placing four paperweight stones on each corner of the map. She pushed her eyeglasses back up her nose and squinted towards the chart. Max noticed that the corners of it were frayed and yellowed.
“How old is that one, Jan?” Max asked. The woman was a late addition to the crew, and almost as unorthodox as he was. She had once held a captain’s rank in the norlander navy, commanding a cruiser. She had retired, decades ago, and lived in the north until her husband died. Rather than stay at home alone, she had reenlisted. He had no idea how she had passed a physical.
“Not as old as I am,” she said with a smile. “But it’s a copy. The original was made by an Achaian navigator about three hundred years ago. He disappeared for ten years and was thought dead, and then suddenly reappeared at the Museum in Kassandreia carrying a bag full of charts. No one had ever set foot on the southern continent before him.”
“What would be on an old chart that isn’t on ours?” he asked.
“You’d be surprised. Come here.” She motioned him over to chart and placed a finger upon it. “Several of these islands don’t appear on our newer charts. The reason for that is that no one ever found them, so they assumed that the navigator had made a mistake. But the rest of his charts were pretty accurate.”
“Are the islands keys?” Max asked. “Don’t map makers put fake landmarks onto their charts to find out if some other map maker is copying their work?”
“That’s a popular theory.”
“Unless your implying his islands got up and moved?”
Jan shrugged and once again pushed her glasses up her nose. “Something happened once when I commanding the Spear. We came across an island that wasn’t on our charts and I nearly dismissed my navigator, thought he had gotten us off course. Then our compasses started going screwy.”
Jan paused and pointed to a particular island on her old chart. “I ordered the ship down and the magnetic problems got worse the closer we got. We tried to put her in the water but hit the bottom, nearly punctured the gas chambers. The whole island was made of iron.”
“An island made of iron? Why haven’t I read about this?”
“High command classified my ship’s logs, I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Of course, all of those old codgers are dead now, and I figure the kids in charge now don’t even know about it.”
“What else did you find?”
“Nothing else. We had a hole in our hull and were taking on water, so I ordered us up and away, and never saw the place again.”
“Did they send other ships to follow up on what you discovered?”
“If they did they never told me about it.”
Max scratched his chin. An island that wasn’t on any chart would be the perfect place to hide. “Can you find one of the islands on that Achaian’s chart? The closest one to Fell’s island.”
“Aye, Captain, I think I can do that,” Jan answered. She grabbed a ruler and pencil from the table and began to chart their current position against the Achaian’s map. Her hands shook, but she had an energy and focus that Max hoped he too would have at her age, if he lived that long. “Nearest island is six hours, depending on the wind.”
“Alright, put us on course,” Max nodded. “You have the bridge.” He exited the bridge and made his way to his cabin belowdecks. He opened his door to find the room illuminated by moonlight. Wynn sitting in his bed, her back against the wall.
“Hey,” he said. He removed his cap and jacket, placing them onto an empty coat hook on the wall.
“Hey,” she answered back. “Still nothing?” Her voice lacked its usual warmth.
“No,” Max said. “We would have been extremely lucky to find them by chance, given we didn’t have their heading. They could have been going to one of the nearby islands…or they could be on the other side of the Okeanos. But Jan had an interesting idea.”
“What’s that?” Wynn asked as he sat next to her.
“There may be some islands not on the charts. She came across a strange one that matched a centuries old chart, back when she was a captain.”
“Was that when the Imperium was still around,” Wynn said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
“What would be a better place to hide than somewhere that nobody else knows exists.”
“I hope your right,” Wynn admitted, finally turning towards him. “I really just want to kill somebody Max. You were supposed to find them already so I can end the bastards that murdered our people.”
“I’m trying,” he shrugged.
“Yeah. Wish you would try faster. Lay down so I can use you as a pillow.”
“Yes ma’am.” He pulled off his boots and got into bed, allowing Wynn wrap her arms around his midsection and place her head on his waist. “We got six hours, approximately, until we get to the nearest of these mystery islands.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
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