Animosity IV - The Bleeding Wilds, part 9 - Stormdancing

The Cleavermaw raced downwind at an uncharacteristic speed. The crew had to work hard to keep everything tied down as the high winds pulled at every knot, every sheet of canvas and every plank in the hull.

Kaptain Mogrum stood on the quarterdeck, with one hand on the rigging and one on his hat. A deckhand stood just behind him, clinging on to the gunwales and holding the Kaptain’s Wurrgog Harpoon for him. The helm was fighting hard and it took two orruks at the wheel to keep the sky-ship on its course. The Kaptain squinted through the eye-holes of his mask into the bright sunlight, trying to keep sight of the Kharadron skyvessel that was about four miles ahead and below them.

The orruk sky-pirate crew grinned at each other in glee whenever they found a spare moment - they were all exhilarated by the pace of their flight and they also had to hold on tight to their hats. They all kept half an eye on the chase: The Kharadron ship was now about three miles ahead of them and running its endrins at full speed, but their vessel was heavier than the Cleavermaw and did not have the benefit of sails. The wind pushed them along too, but their endrins did most of the work. If they had both been running against the wind the Kharadron ship would have the advantage, but they were not - they must have a destination they were in a hurry to reach that lay on the same heading as the winds blew, otherwise they could easily escape.

Mogrum subconsciously noted a change in the air pressure and ordered the ship to descend. The orruks jumped into action as they all enjoyed the lurch in the pit of their stomachs caused by this manoeuvre.

The Cleavermaw plummeted and the sails went slack for a minute that seemed to go on forever. Clouds rushed past. The sails filled again with a crack of canvas and the ship picked up even more speed as the air was moving even faster at the lower altitude. But the ship was being buffeted hard, the air was turbulent and the hull complained with loud creaks and groans. The orruks’ grins were wiped off their toothy mouths - they were replaced by serious, even worried looks.

But they were still gaining on the Kharadron ship. Two miles. One mile.

The orruk pirates could make out the individual crew on the Arkanaut’s deck now. There were only a few of them, and they seemed to be watching the Cleavermaw closely too.

The ochre-coloured sands below them were punctuated by umber rock-spines that stood hundreds of feet high. Their shadows stretched across the desert dunes between them in the amber evening light. The Kharadron vessel was heading for the mountains in the distance, just visible through the hazy dust-filled air.

"Kaptain?" said Uzzog as he squinted through his brass spyglass, "I think she might be the Tarragon, one of the Ironclads off of that Able Albern Baking Company."

"Ah, is it now?"

Mogrum grinned as he gave the order to prepare the boarding party, the pirates grabbed their weapons, and as the Cleavermaws bore-down on their prey the Kharadron guns spoke…

~ ⦽ ~

After a year of just sitting on a shelf gathering dust I finally finished building the Cleavermaw; an orruk pirate sky-ship after the style of John Blanche's flying ship paintings.

I added a yard-arm and rigging, a ship's wheel and the structure it is attached to, and a number of smaller components; like the thingy on the roof of the Kharadron Frigate and the spinny-whatsit on the bottom.