The next day, he was woken by Miyan entering the hospital. She held a basket with her right arm looped around it.

  “”said James.

  “Maa seh-a,” Miyan replied. She walked over to his bed and set the basket down. She gestured to it. “,” she whispered.

  James gave her a coy smile and leaned forward. His side twinged with pain, but he chose to ignore it. The basket was covered by a thin, white cloth. James pulled it aside, surprised to find two folded garments inside. An off-white buttonless shirt with an open neck that he had seen other men wearing during his outing with Daekhota. The other garment was a pair of green trousers made of a light material. The clothes were ideal for the heat of the day.

  “Miyan,” he said with a smile. “” He thought for a moment, trying to find the words in Sehtalen. “Ena naya talen.” He nodded his head as he spoke.

  Miyan nodded back, giving him one of her sweet smiles that made his heart skip.

  James watched her walk across the room, her hips swaying in a natural manner. He raised his eyebrows and looked away. He put on the clothes, surprised with how well they fit him. The simple rags he had been wearing since his arrival were ill fitting and uncomfortable.

  “?” he asked, holding out his arms to show her how they fit.

  Miyan smiled and nodded at him. “Tu ilam-ena, Na-tol.”

  James thought for a second. “Thank you,” he replied in Sehtalen. He chose to leave English behind for now.

  Miyan walked forward, her hands clasped at her stomach. “James, Daekhota comes for you.” She looked to the ground and then back up at him. “Be careful.”

  James nodded. “I will.”

  It was almost an hour before the door of the hospital opened. Daekhota greeted James and Miyan. “Come, James.” James didn’t fully understand what he said next, but got the jist they were going for a ride.

  …

  James watched with horror as Daekhota strapped the second saddle to the dragon’s neck. He fought the shaking of his limbs and took in slow breaths in a futile attempt to slow his hammering heart. The stable was already warm, rays of sunlight beaming through the slats and windows of the stable.

  Daekhota stroked the dragon’s neck. “Calm now, Liana.” He looked at James and said something about it being his first time to the dragon.

  Liana snorted two distinct puffs of grey smoke from her nostrils and shook her head.

  “Na-tol,” said Daekhota. “.” He grabbed his waist with an exaggerated demonstration. “” His English came out with a sing-song accent. He had taken to understand that the locals were using as a name for him. He had no idea what it meant, but he thought it sounded rather flattering.

  James nodded his understanding. He eyed the dragon nervously. Her amber eyes studied him, not with the predatory intent that he expected, but with a surprising intelligence.

  “Come, Liana,” said Daekhota as he opened the stable door. The huge creature loped on her four huge feet. They left distinct footprints, like a giant lizard. The dragon dropped her head and tucked her wings as she exited the building. Her emerald scales almost glowed in the sunlight, semi-translucent shards of armour that shifted with the dragon’s movements.

  Daekhota stopped her a few yards away from the building, enough to give room for her wingspan and ten yard long tail. Liana stretched her wings, revealing her true size. Wing tip to wing tip, she would have been almost as wide as the H.M.S Mystery. The membrane between the wings was a deep amber colour with defined blood vessels etched through them. Liana screeched and gave her wings two slow flaps. Air rushed around James. He swallowed, feeling the power of the dragon.

  He walked up to Daekhota who stood by the second saddle. He tapped it with his hand. James blew air through his lips and nodded. Stirrups hung on leather straps and ended in loops of brass. “Alright, what’s the worst that can happen.”

  James stuck his moccasin into the stirrup, grabbed the front and back of the saddle where Daekhota gestured and hauled himself up. He misjudged how much he needed to jump and hit the side of the dragon’s neck with his hips. He fell to the ground with his foot still inside the stirrup, the leg sticking in the air.

  There was a laugh from behind him. He knew exactly who it would be. Daekhota helped his foot out of the brass rung and James hauled himself to his feet. He brushed himself off and saw Azael in the corner of his eye.

  James placed his foot into the stirrup again and grabbed the saddle. He hopped a couple of times on his left leg to test the jump and then forced himself up as high as he could. He almost sent himself flying over the other side of the saddle, but pushed his arms at the last moment allowing him to pause his momentum. James swung his left leg over the saddle and found the other stirrup.

  Daekhota deftly launched himself into the front saddle, turning and smiling at James.

  Turning his head, James looked over at Azael who stood with a dark look on his face. He watched as the other rider walked to his own dragon who was standing just ahead. He hopped into the saddle and threw his dragon into the air. The amber wings beat hard, drumming air in sudden bursts of power.

  Daekhota handed him a long object that seemed to be made of ivory, two long slits had been cut into it. A leather strap was tied at either end. Daekhota had the same object strapped to his forehead. He pointed at the object on his head. James understood and pulled the strap over his head, resting the ivory on his forehead. “Are you ready, Na-tol?” Daekhota asked over his shoulder.

  James nodded. Daekhota turned forward and kicked his legs.

  Liana screeched and her wings stretched outward. James’s heart hammered and nerves knotted his stomach. He swallowed in anticipation as the wings raised.

  As the wings rushed downward, the dragon leapt on her powerful legs. James was thrown down into his saddle. In shock, he grabbed Daekhota’s hips.

  Liana’s wings vibrated as the membranes caught the air. Thundering, the wings beat at the air and James felt the unmistakable sensation of being airborne, the perceptible feeling of a slight weightlessness. He watched as the ground began to recede.

  His fear melted into awe as they ascended. James looked from the beating wings to beyond the edge of Liana’s neck they straddled. Becoming an ever shrinking speck was the unmistakable shape of Miyan stood at the door of the hospital.

  When they were sufficiently high, Daekhota nudged the dragon with his thighs, sending the dragon swooping forward. The air caught in Liana’s outstretched wings, the edge of the membrane shuddering as the wind passed over the wings.

  They tipped forward into a shallow dive, gaining momentum. The dragon lifted and beat her wings, accelerating them after Azael in the distance. In a moment, they reached the edge of the city and then flew over a large forest that stretched for as far James could see.

  As Liana’s speed increased, the wind hit his face harder. His eyes squinted and watered against the barrage of air. He remembered what Daekhota had given him and pulled the ivory over his eyes with a hand he gingerly removed from the rider’s side. He adjusted it until he could see through the slits. Immediately, his eyes felt more comfortable.

  The dragon was not done accelerating, the air now pommelling him and Daekhota. His hair whipped on his head, blown back by the sheer force of the air.

  The ground scrolled beneath them. They turned, revealing the expanse of the ocean he suspected he had crossed on the Mystery. Daekhota directed the dragon towards the coast and then turned so the winding beach was below them. James looked at the white caps and waves as they crashed against the near white sands. Palm trees reached for them. Birds moved in groups, seeming to turn away from the dragons flying above them.

  Azael’s dragon swooped below them and rose up on their left, the wings but yards away. He made hand gestures at Daekhota. He responded with his own, some kind of acknowledgement, he suspected. It was a form of communication similar to semaphore they used on airships.

  They rode for an hour, following the coast of this land that James – until a few days ago – had never known existed here in the Unknowns. As they flew, James’s nerves calmed, allowing him to enjoy the sensation of flying. , he thought. A strange feeling came over him. Flying an airship was one thing. But flying on the back of a dragon at this speed was something else.

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  It was exhilarating.

  …

  The dragons turned with the coast, flying over the tip of an outcrop of rock coated in trees. Beyond, a beach stretched around a cove and disappeared around another bend. In the middle of the cove was the shattered remains of the H.M.S Mystery. Her hull had been reduced to a pile of crumpled wooden beams and slats. The balloon draped over the airship like a funeral shroud for the fallen craft.

  The sight of his beloved airship pulled at James’s heart strings and he felt a lump form in his throat. She had done her best to get her crew to land, even if he was the only survivor of the Mystery’s final voyage.

  Daekhota sent Liana into a descending gyre, turning over the remains of the airship. The manoeuvre gave James a chance to see the terrible state of the airship. He came to the uncomfortable conclusion that she was, truly, unrecoverable.

  Liana turned out of the gyre and stretched her wings, easing them towards the ground. Her subtle downstrokes grew stronger as the beach neared. When they were but feet from the sand, she hurled her wings downward. Sand bellowed around them and the leaves of the palm trees waved with the force of her strength.

  She landed softly, furling her wings. The membranes folded, sounding like sails being retracted.

  Daekhota hopped out of his saddle and offered his hand to James.

  James lifted his right foot out of the stirrup and took the strong hand of the rider. He climbed down unceremoniously. For a moment, he felt unsteady, his body had become accustomed to the undulation of the dragon. His legs had also been tensed against Liana’s neck to keep him seated correctly in the saddle. It took a few steps for James to walk off the feeling.

  As he and Daekhota made their way towards the wreckage, Azael brought his dragon down on the beach. He remained in the saddle, eyeing James with suspicion.

  James paid him little heed and turned away to look at the destroyed airship.

  “Up here,” said Daekhota, pointing towards crumpled slats that formed a natural ladder up the side of the hull.

  James nodded and found a handhold and began to climb up the side of the airship. The wood creaked, complaining at his weight. He hauled himself up onto the deck and became dismayed at what he saw.

  In the dull amber glow of the balloon canopy, he saw the scattered bodies of his crew. Days of decomposition had bloated the bodies. Flies danced, fat and dark, around the cadavres. The sickly sweet stench of death filled his nostrils as he breathed in the warm air. He held the cuff of his shirt up to his nose.

  James made the mistake of walking over to one of the dead men. The skin of his face moved, almost as though the deceased man’s cheek was twitching. A white maggot wiggled from a tear in the skin by the man’s ear and James realised that the movement was a horde of the things eating the man’s flesh from the inside out.

  He turned and ran to the remains of the shattered gunrail and vomited into the brush below. James turned and wiped his mouth with the arm of his shirt. He looked at the stain, regretting that he had dirtied the shirt Miyan had gifted him.

  James turned back. Fat bodies were slumped in a haphazard manner across the deck. James thought. He suspected that – now decay had really set in – any attempt to move the bodies would result in them bursting, spewing their vile innards.

  The thought turned his stomach.

  “I see you here,” said Daekhota, pointing to where the stairs below deck had once been. James joined him at the mouth of the dark opening into the bowels of the airship. A hot stench rose from below, a vile breath of death.

  , thought James. Even though all was lost, he still felt the pull of duty. He was, after all, the captain of the airship at the time she went down.

  James tentatively tried one of the remaining steps. The board creaked but held. He climbed down into the darkness, bathing his body in the stench that emanated from the darkness. He held the sides of the stairs, bracing himself against falling into dagger-like shards of wood and killing himself.

  He reached the bottom and looked up at Daekhota. The rider climbed down the stairs himself. The two men ventured into the darkness. Inside the ship, the stench was practically unbearable. Flies buzzed in a chaotic chorus, giving the darkness a haunting sense of life when all there should have been was death.

  James’s mind filled the darkness with ghouls and ghosts, spirits of the dead crew. He clambered over fallen beams. The airship creaked and groaned, the death rattle of the dying craft.

  He found where his cot should have been, his wooden crate was nowhere nearby. James suspected that it must have tumbled further into the darkness during the force of the crash.

  His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, he now saw beams of light cutting into the belly of the ship. He could make out the destruction – and the bodies that huddled amongst the detritus that had once been their belongings.

  James found the crate. It had tumbled beside a body. A shock of grey hair knotted around the head of the body. , thought James. He clambered over more wreckage until he stood over the body. The crate had fallen on its side, nestled against Old Stokes’s body. The man had seemed to cradle the crate, his arms and legs half wrapped around it. The other side of the crate was wedged against a fallen beam, a mighty piece of oak that he had no chance of lifting.

  His hands touched the man’s arm and shoulder. The body was surprisingly warm. “Stokes,” James whispered, not wanting to shock the man. He had no idea of what injuries the man might have had. He gently pushed the man’s shoulder, the man’s torso began to turn but his hips prevented him from fully turning on to his back. Grey hair still covered the man’s face. “, Stokes. ”

  James grabbed the man’s knee along with his shoulder. The entire body began to turn. He almost had him, one last shove and Old Stokes would be on his back, allowing him to survey his injuries.

  He pulled at the limbs, easing the body over. Just as Old Stokes was about to fall onto his back, James felt a sickening sensation. The leg seemed to melt out of the hip socket, like a leg of cooked chicken twisting out of the joint. Meat falling off the bone. The shoulder did the same. The leg and arm fell to an unnatural angle. The man fell onto his back, revealing a bloated stomach that wobbled in the gloom like a full waterskin. The grey hair fell from the face, revealing the lifeless – and eyeless – face of Old Stokes.

  James turned and vomited, splattering the remaining contents of his stomach into the dark recesses of the wreckage.

  He could not stop himself from turning and looking at the gawping mouth and dark eye sockets of Old Stokes. He seemed frozen in a final scream, staring into the abyss of Hell.

  James crossed himself and looked away. He carefully climbed forward and reached over the stench of the dead man. He did his best to ignore the sounds coming from the belly and flesh, the gnawing and slithering of countless maggots.

  He opened the chest, paper and belongings fell out. He rummaged inside and felt the leather of his journal. He grabbed it and shoved it into the band of his trousers, just above his buttocks. He rooted around, feeling for anything else important he should take. He found his other pistol, one of his prized possessions. Captain Dunstable had gifted it to him on his twenty-fifth birthday. He found the pouch holding a small horn of powder, the damping rod and flint.

  A belch came from Old Stokes. An intense scent of death washed over him. James decided that anything else inside was not worth trying to salvage. The last thing he wanted was Old Stokes deciding to revive himself.

  James climbed forward, pulling the string of his pistol over his head. The gun swung as he clambered towards the Captain’s cabin.

  The deck had fallen in, half covering the doorway. The door had been blown off its hinges, revealing the mostly destroyed room within. Light beamed in through the smashed windows, revealing the beating waves of the ocean as they crashed into the beach. “,” he breathed, relishing the fresh sea air that wafted through the windowless remains of the rear of the ship.

  The once proud desk lay shattered against the far wall. Ornaments were scattered about the room. James made his way towards the remains of the desk. He pulled it away from the wall, hoping not to find another body smashed between the desk and the wall.

  James breathed a sigh of relief, finding nothing in the gloom but more ornaments and leaves of paper. He pulled the desk back further until he could access the contents of the broken drawers. He found the thick tomb that was the leather bound airship’s log. He lifted the heavy book and slammed it onto the top of the desk.

  A thought came to him.

  He rummaged through the drawers and found two quills, the feathers had somehow remained in pristine condition. A bottle of ink he found in the depths of the desk. The bottle had not smashed, nestling itself in the deepest corner of the desk. He held the quills and ink bottle in his hand and shoved the journal under his arm.

  James turned back towards the doorway, the death infested darkness beyond. He took a final deep breath of sea air and crouched back through the doorway. He held his breath for as long as he could, clambering back through the wreckage. His lungs burned, willing him to breathe. He didn’t want to, but soon had to give in. He exhaled and took in a breath of air. It was a mix of decay, rotting fruit, and faeces. He did his best to put the source of the smell out of his mind.

  He knew it would be all he could smell for days.

  Returning to the stairwell, he handed the smaller items to Daekhota and the two men climbed back up to the deck. James took one last look at the deceased crew, and the sorry state of the H.M.S. Mystery.

  James waited for Daekhota to descend down the side of the airship before crouching down to toss each of the items down to the rider. He turned around and carefully made his way down. His feet touched the soft sand. He took in several deep breaths of fresh air.

  Daekhota eyed the pistol around his neck. James smiled and slowly took it off and offered it to Daekhota. The rider nodded and put the string around his own neck, as he had seen James wear it. James was allowed to hold the log and his journal, as well as the pouch. The two men made their way across the sand, towards the awaiting dragons. The creatures watched them with golden eyes, that strange sign of deep intelligence coming from the dragons.

  “said James in English, for he did not know the Sehtalen word for it. “You uhm ? He asked, not knowing the word. He gestured with his arms and made a hawking sound with his mouth. “ he said, pointing to the ship.

  “Ah, halor,” said Daekhota. He made the same movements with his hands and repeated the same sound. “Halor.” The rider gestured for James to walk back away from the airship.

  “Liana,” said Daekhota. The dragon craned her long neck towards her rider. He pointed towards the airship. “Ula halor.”

  The dragon’s mouth opened, revealing her twelve inch long teeth. A rasping breath inhaled, and James watched as her gullet glowed with the unmistakable glow of fire. His eyes drew wide.

  The dragon spewed a vitriol of flame, a jet that flew past James. Heat singed his skin and he cowered away from the intensity of the flame. The fire licked the hull of the ship and he watched as the wood almost instantly caught fire. The jet of flame lasted for around ten seconds before it ended. James watched as the airship quickly became engulfed.

  The flames mushroomed into the air, standing perhaps thirty feet high. The roar of the conflagration was immense. And the heat was impressive. As the awe of witnessing a dragon breathing fire abated, his mind returned to the moment at hand. He bowed his head and recited the Lord’s prayer.

  James stood watch as the H.M.S. Mystery burned.