Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller by Darren Stapleton Page B

their violence and ferocity first hand in a Blackwing/Slayer battle that had taken to the skies a few years ago. It had torn into the affray and made everyone forget sides and objectives and anything other than personal survival in a scream filled instant of shining teeth and spraying blood. Croel had peeled out of formation and watched on in horror as it had dismembered some of each side’s finest in a flash of black and grey shiny skin and crushing, obliterating teeth. The sight of limbs and blood spattered feathers falling to the Lowlands, hundreds of feet below, had featured in some of his nightmares and would continue to for the rest of his life. Mckeever seemed oblivious to the risk or, if he was mindful, showed no external signs of nerves as he careened towards the Zeppelin’s small landing platform. Its three residents liked to call it the Planche de Vol, and as verbose as Croel studied to be, the meaning evaded him. He assumed it meant stumpy landing plank, as this was the physical incarnation of this bygone, foreign term.
    Mckeever missed it at first attempt, pulled out of his swoop at the last second, banked right and came around again to hit it at full tilt, barking one of his shins in the process and collapsing into the secure external door. Maybe his lack of depth perception was already taking its toll. Croel heard him banging on the thick wood of the door with the flats of his fists, evidently more concerned about the threat of a windshark than he had first considered. As Croel angled down for landing he heard the dead bolt disengage and the door swing noisily open. Mckeever hurried inside and Croel hit the board at a jog and curled his wings in, so it would take him inside in one fluid movement.    
    ‘Nice landing,’ said Loopes, smiling.
    Croel glowered at his cheerfulness.
    Loopes, oblivious, beckoned for them to follow him along a railed gantry and into the underbelly of the ship. ‘Bolt the door behind you,’ he said without looking back. ‘'sharks are flying.’
    Mckeever looked at Croel with two raised eyebrows that said a multitude of things. They said: this teenager is weird. They said: I’m not used to getting orders from a pre-pubescent pup and they said: I’m not looking forward to the journey back. Croel agreed on all points and bolted the door behind them.
    ‘I’m sure your landing platform is shorter than the last time we were here,’ Mckeever said.
    ‘Bitten off,’ said Bronagh entering the room ‘last night the windsharks didn’t even need the scent of blood on the air to agitate them. You did well to make it inside. Beaugent almost didn’t yesterday, they just came out of the blue like…like...’
    ‘I had an aeronautical mile to spare.’ They all looked up to see Beaugent framed by the doorway to the lower deck. Loopes held his hands out about two feet apart to indicate a more realistic appraisal of the distance. Beaugent smiled and compromised with an ‘or thereabouts’ in a deep, gravelled tone.
    To Croel, Beaugent seemed to be like a well-weathered pirate he had read about in one of the historic classics in the library. He spoke in a harsh, rough voice, the timbre alluding to the singsong sway of the sea. He sometimes even interspersed his words with nautical terms and pirate ribaldry. Croel wondered where Beaugent’s eye-patch was and if he ever offered his shoulder up as a perch for some colourful tropical bird or epaulette denoting time served and conquests out at sea. He ran the Orca Crew like it was a ship’s crew and spoke of the Zeppelin always in terms of ‘shes’ and ‘hers’, like it was his partner or wife. Mckeever found the slight eccentricity endearing and enjoyed playing along with the oceanic references. Croel found it tiresome though and delighted in reminding Captain Beaugent, the adolescent Loopes and Gunnery Mate Bronagh that they were not sailors and they were not, and never had been, on the high seas.
    Beaugent turned to address Mckeever