The Skrill Riders
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Clive Winthrop pulled in the mainsail sheet and adjusted the tiller and liftwood trim in response to a change in the wind. The skiff raced through a clear, cold sky two hundred feet above the desert. He reveled in the joy of sailing a fast boat with the woman he loved sitting beside him. He knew they should head back. He'd promised Captain Hawke they would only be gone for two hours. And he'd have to do a lot more tacking on the return leg.
Alana gasped and pointed over the starboard aft quarter. Winthrop looked in that direction and saw a flock of small black dots. Birds, he thought, and wondered why they frightened Alana. But then his Earth-born expectations fell away and the dots resolved into something else, creatures he had never seen but had heard described many times. They were skrill, large Martian flyers; plant-eaters but as dangerous as Cape buffalo. And that was not the worst of it. As the skrill came closer, Winthrop saw that each flyer had a rider.
A Skrill
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“Alana, take the tiller,” he said and moved so she could.
“It is the Queln,” she stated. Her voice did not waver and Winthrop felt a pang of fear for her.
“I suppose it must be,” he said. All he knew about the Queln was that they were fierce tribesmen who lived in the craggy mountains where they tamed the skrill as flying mounts. They lived by raiding caravans, villages and, sometimes, even cities. He could see details now. The skrill were the size of a horse. Their rear limbs, extended out straight behind them, were fused together. Their forelimbs were held straight out to their sides. Large, triangular flaps of skin stretched between the limbs on each side. They stroked the forelimbs so the skin flaps caught the air and propelled them through the sky. Their reptilian heads sported two long sharp horns.
Winthrop loaded the Lee Metford rifle that Gunner McKeown had insisted he bring. One advantage of being the scion of English aristocracy was that he'd learned to shoot as soon as he was old enough to hold a gun. He aimed at the nearest skrill rider, leading the target, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. As he breathed again, he saw the nearest rider jerk, then slump in his rigging. The skrill sensed the death of its master and went out of control, crashing into another skrill. Winthrop worked the rifle's bolt, loading another round into its chamber. He fired, missed, reloaded, fired and hit a rider or skrill, he couldn't be sure. He kept firing steadily, killing or wounding at least three more. The Queln kept coming.
Flyers swooped around the liftwood sailboat. Winthrop feared the skiff might capsize and crash. He flipped the trim controls to set them down on the ground. The skrill grounded with them. Instantly, the riders dismounted and charged.
Winthrop ducked a spear. He swung his rifle as a clumsy club. He heard Alana scream. He felt the Lee Metford jar in his hands as it struck something. The last thing he saw was a spear shaft swinging at his head.
#
He felt pain. His head ached and throbbed. His hand reached up instinctively and he winced when he touched the barely scabbed-over cut on the side of his head. He opened his eyes and the light hurt, too. He concentrated on focusing his eyes. He saw his fingertips and they were bloody.
Slowly, carefully, Winthrop sat up. He was on a woven reed mat in a dimly lit hut or tent. A Martian sat with crossed legs on the other side of the enclosure, watching him.
“You are awake.” The Martian spoke in the trade tongue of the region. Winthrop understood well enough, thanks to Alana's lessons.
“Where is Alana?” he said. “The woman who was with me, is she alive?”
“Your woman is well,” the Martian said. “She is in the care of my wives.”
He looked at Winthrop for a long moment. “What are you?”
“I am a human. I come from Earth, the third planet from the Sun. The humans from my nation, Great Britain, are settled on the far side of Mars, around Syrtis Major.”
“A lowlander captured from a caravan told stories about aliens from the blue morning star. I did not believe him. It sounded like fantasy tales for children. Now, it seems, he spoke truly.
“I am Shan Koloth, rithall of the Clan Targ of the Queln.” Rithall translated roughly to “skylord.”
“I am Clive Winthrop, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy of the British Empire.”
“You killed three of my warriors, Clive Winthrop, and wounded two others. One of the dead was my cousin and the hunt leader. Such a feat shows great skill as a fighter and great courage. That is why you are still alive . . . that and this.” He picked up the Lee Metford rifle from where it had lain beside him, out of Winthrop's sight.
Koloth examined the alien weapon, similar to the muskets with which he was familiar yet far superior in effectiveness. “They say our ancestors could make things like this. I wonder if it is true. It doesn't matter. This is real and here. With guns like this I could do much more than raid caravans and villages. How do I get more?”
“You don't,” Winthrop said. “They are made on Earth and brought here at great expense to arm our soldiers and our allies. My people would never hand them over to barbarian tribesmen.”
Koloth's long, batwing-shaped ears twitched and Winthrop realized calling him a barbarian to his face might not be wise. But the Martian skylord stayed focused on the discussion. He asked, “Not even to save your life?”
“I am a minor officer in our Navy, not important enough to trade for anything.”
“Then you will have to pay for your life another way. Calon, the brother of the hunt leader you killed, is unhappy that I have let you live. He has challenged you to a cage duel. His anger is genuine, of course, but he has another motive as well. Calon thinks to be skylord some day, and he would like that day to be sooner than later. He thinks that killing you will make me look weak in the eyes of the clan. He may be right. But I have decided to accept the challenge anyway. You will begin training to ride the skrill tomorrow.”
#
The noise from the skrill pens deafened Winthrop. It was almost as overpowering as the smell. His guard, one of Koloth's younger sons, led him to the cage master, Suonuk. The old man stood tall and straight but age and wind had wrinkled and toughened his skin to the texture of a ruumet breehr's hide. His bright, intelligent eyes looked at Winthrop skeptically.
“The skylord wants you trained to ride a skrill,” the cage master said in a voice conditioned to shout over the winds. “You are to learn in a hand's worth of days the skills our young warriors spend two years acquiring, and only three of ten of them survive the teaching. Will you survive?”
“I must,” Winthrop said, “Koloth has commanded it.”
Suonuk grunted doubtfully. He opened a gate and they entered the pens. In one of the pens, a large skrill circled restlessly. “This is Cloud Breaker,” Suonuk said. “He's young and strong and not so aggressive as most of his brothers. He will take your arm off at the shoulder, given the chance, but won't crawl over another skrill to do it.”
Cloud Breaker rolled an eye at them and then charged the fence. Its long horns scythed the air but could not quite reach them. It hissed and its breath, reeking of rotten plant matter, washed across them. Winthrop studied the animal, assessing its capabilities and mood. Then he leaped the fence and landed next to the beast. He grabbed its horns, twisting and lowering his weight against the skrill's neck. He spoke quiet soothing words, meaningless, but his tone was calm and reassuring. Slowly, the skrill stopped struggling against his Earth-born strength. He continued talking to it, gradually releasing pressure and stroking the side of its neck.
Winthrop saw that a leather bridle was permanently fastened to the skrill's jaw with brass rivets and that steel blades were painfully clamped to its claws. The cruel treatment of a dumb beast angered him but he did not allow the emotion into his voice. He stood, continuing to stroke Cloud Breaker's head and looked at the two stunned Queln clansmen. “All right, then, let's begin my training, shall we?”
As soon as he could, Winthrop had the clan smith fashion a mouth bit and removed the rivets from Cloud Breaker's jaws. He got rid of the claw blades and rearranged the saddle harness so it was more comfortable for the skrill and more secure for him. He hand fed the flyer its meals of mountain plants and liftwood leaves and twigs. Under Suonuk's direction, he rode Cloud Breaker on short flights from one side of the pens to the other. When he'd shown he could do that without falling off, they began longer trips higher into the mountains, always accompanied by Gar, the skylord's young son who was both his escort and guard.
Riding a skrill was even better than cloud sailing. Cloud Breaker had quickly adjusted to his use of reins and knee pressure to control their flight and seemed to prefer the silent direction to the loud clicks and hoots the Martians used. Winthrop flicked the reins and pressed a knee to the flyer's side and they swooped down in a curving turn. The land below and the clouds above wheeled about them. The wind whipped his hair and clothes as the skrill's powerful wings beat the air, driving them at a speed he had never experienced. They were flying even faster than the Danger at full steam. The complete sense of freedom was exhilarating beyond description.
Winthrop pulled up a mere fifty feet above the jagged rocks of the mountain side and they soared back into the sky. He looked over his shoulder and saw Suonuk and Gar struggling to keep up. He laughed into the wind and, for a few minutes, forgot the danger he and Alana still faced. But that thought never left his mind for long. He marveled at the joy of real flying but could not really enjoy it until Alana was safe. The skrill and rider leveled off and slowed to let the clansmen catch up. The old cage master scowled at his dangerous stunt but Gar smiled in recognition of a kindred spirit.
“You have a natural talent, Redskin, I'll give you that. If you were not such a strange looking creature I might think you a lost child of the Queln. You've proven you can fly. Now, let's see if you can fight at the same time.”
Gar trained Winthrop with the khivatt, a short spear that reminded the Earthman of a Zulu assegai. Gar fitted a quiver to his saddle harness that held three khivatts. Each had a wood shaft about three feet long and a sharp, leaf-shaped bronze blade that added another foot to the spear's length. The khivatt was well suited to stabbing but could be thrown as well. Winthrop did not have a natural talent for spear handling.
Sweat stung Winthrop's eyes and he shook his head violently to clear his vision. He could not afford a moment of blurry sight. Gar lunged, snapping his khivatt in a powerful thrust that Winthrop barely managed to parry. Winthrop tried to think of the Queln spear as a saber and he was a pretty fair fencer, but somehow his skill with a sword didn't translate well. He stepped back, giving ground and trying to regain his balance. Gar attacked again, this time twisting his spear around Winthrop's in a repost that nearly ripped it from his hand. He managed to retain his grip but felt himself leaning past the point of recovery. He hit the ground hard. He gasped in pain as the hardwood spear shaft dug into his side.
Gar shook his head and squatted beside the Earthman, indicating he should rest for a moment and catch his breath. “I have grown fond of you, Redskin, and it will sadden me to see you die.”
“Are you that sure Calon will kill me?” Winthrop asked.
“I am very good with the khivatt,” Gar said, “and that is not bragging. But Calon is better. Still, a miracle may happen.”
The clansman seemed to study him for a bit. Then he said, “Why are you here, Winthrop? I don't mean right this moment, sprawled in the dust. I know how you got there. I mean, why are you here on our world, come from so far away? Was it that bad on you world?”
That question took Winthrop aback. Was it that bad at home, he wondered?
“No, Gar,” he said, “it wasn't bad. England is a really marvelous place in many ways. But it is limited in opportunities, especially for someone like me. I'm the fifth son of a Cornish baron, that's like a minor chief, and that means there was virtually no chance of me inheriting my father's title and position. It was either the clergy or the military, so I took a commission in the Royal Navy. I loved to sail so I requested a billet on Mars because I had read of how they sailed ships in the sky. And it got me as far away from home as I could get.
“I never thought of myself as adventurous but here I am, in love with an alien woman on an alien planet, learning to ride a flying beast and fighting for my life. It's so strange, I know I may die tomorrow but I feel more alive right now than I did in all my years at home.”
“I almost envy you, Redskin. I too am the younger son of a chief. I am watched always for any mistake that might bring disgrace to my father but I know I will never be more than I am now. I look at the mountains and wonder what is on the other side. I wonder what it would be like to travel to the far lands and be responsible for no one but myself.”
Gar stood and reached down his hand to help Winthrop up. “Enough jaw flapping. More practice may keep Calon from killing you in his first attack. Let's go again, Redskin!”
Continued on Page 2
(Author's Note: This story is set in the universe of Space:1889, which is Frank Chadwick's trademark for his roleplaying game of Victorian-era spacefaring, and is used with his permission.)
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Space:1889 is Frank Chadwick's registered trademark for his game of Victorian Era space-faring. He has granted permission for the use of the background of Space:1889 for the stories presented here. All text, illustrations, photographs and design are © 2000-2007 Dan Thompson, except where otherwise noted.
