It was a cold, windy November night, especially 30,000 feet up, and aboard the Enduring Majesty, the situation was terse.
After nearly two centuries of peaceful cooperation, negotiations had finally broken down between the warring princelings of the Hominan Empire, following the death of the Holy Human Emperor, Charles II of Steelhelm earlier in the year. His death had been sudden, an assassination by anarchist bombers at a dock in Marisia during a rail tour of the Empire, and in all five of the Human Kingdoms, his death had set a heavy precedent for an unpredictable, violent and dolorous future.
His only heir, Charles III, sat worriedly in the armored airship’s officerial quarters under armed guard, while down the hall in the navigation room, the few generals still loyal to the imperial family plotted the next move of the Loyalist forces, known now as the Blue Army. The Yellow Armies of the Southern Kingdoms and the Green Army of The Republic of Westerland had raised armies against the loyalists of the capital since negotiations had ceased. The Imperial forces were not entirely alone of course; they still held the allegiance of the Kingdom of Northland, and most of the colonies were still loyal to the Imperial Crown, but the situation was still dire. The few remaining troops in the capital directly loyal to Charles were busy handling a proletarian revolt, and deep down, Charles knew this was not another trivial war of states to be put down by the united armies of Hominia. This was civil war, and until now, he had been right in the middle of things, cooped up in the Imperial Palace. That was until the Southerners had begun shelling Steelhelm.
Charles sighed, his breath becoming condensation on the icy porthole beside him. He’d been given preferential treatment over every last person in his city to escape. All of them had no doubt either been blown to bits or gassed by the Southerners’ horrid chemical weapons, developed to down Buffalo and other rogue dry lands creatures native to their Kingdoms. And here he was, sitting in comfort aboard the fastest, safest diplomatic airship in his father’s personal envoy. Well, technically his airship in two years once he came of age for coronation. Why hadn’t his father just taken an air tour of the empire? He would have probably been completely safe from the dissidents of the over-democratized merchant republic to the west of Steelhelm.
A knock at the door took the young crown prince away from his thoughts.
“Your highness? Are you decent?”
Charles smirked. “Of course, Des. Come in.”
The door swung open with a satisfying hiss of pressure, and in stepped Desmond, Charles’s personal bodyguard. “And future fixer,” Desmond had once told him, though Charles was still unsure whether the man had meant it as a joke. Either way, the man was a first-rate fighter, one of the most decorated airmen of the Imperial Army’s Air Corps, and an excellent right hand man.
The youthful veteran had retired from the Air Corps at the age of 30, at the personal request of the Emperor to serve as his son’s guard following the death of his older brother, Alexander. Like his father, dissidents had claimed him at a rally. However, thus far, Desmond had done a flawless job of ensuring that his master did not meet a similar fate. In their flight from the palace alone, he had dispatched twenty revolutionaries who had broken into the citadel.
“Our generals have been talking, sir, and we think that our best move now is to withdraw our remaining forces from Steelhelm, and proceed directly to the Northern capital at Frost Peak.”
“What? Why? Our people in our capital will be helpless.”
Desmond shook his head.
“They’ll be fine. The Southerners will only kill an initial few when they come in as a show of force. They won’t be butchering them block to block.”
Charles furrowed his eyebrows.
“But what happens when the Republicans come to try and take the capital from the West?”
Desmond smiled.
“The Southerners will protect them!”
Charles sighed.
“I don’t like it. I won’t have my armies defending another kingdom.”
“Sire, if we don’t get our forces out now, they won’t survive to defend another kingdom.”
“You said that they would only kill a few!”
Desmond scoffed.
“Not if they’re our soldiers. The Southerners’ll kill as many of them as they can!”
Charles nodded in eventual assent.
“Fine.”
“Very good. We’ll be in Frost Peak in 2 hours.”
“The ship’s already going there, isn’t it?”
"Yes sire."
“So I really didn’t have any say in the outcome of that situation?”
Desmond gave Charles an approving smile, and stepped back towards the doorway.
“No sire. Just training you for when you do.”
The two shared a laugh, and Desmond left, saying a muffled, “lock the door behind me,” as he did so. Charles did so, and again found himself in solitude, looking down from the portal at the Imperial lands below. The ground was no longer the grey-brown urban sprawl of Steelhelm, but the harsh, unrelenting white of Northland. They had definitely crossed out of his family’s sovereign lands.
Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw a flash of light through his porthole. Then, all of a sudden there was a great blast, and the entire airship bucked to one side with tremendous force. Charles was thrown backwards onto the floor, and for a minute, the air was dominated with the noise of falling equipment and shattering glass. When the ship finally stopped shaking, it came to level slightly slanted, and both the floor and chandelier in the officerial quarters sat at a new, awkward angle. Charles sighed; whatever had hit them had knocked out one of the ship's stabilizers. Of course, they were not entirely bested.
For about a minute, all that Charles could hear were shouting, horns, and the whirr of machinery as the Majesty went into war footing to retaliate. Both above and below him on the gun decks, he could hear sky sailors loading swivel guns, and in the hallway outside, he heard the marching of boots and the loading of pistols. A split second later, Des burst through the door, a repeater pistol in one hand, and a piece of paper in the other.
“C’mon, I’ve got a map of the ship. Let’s get you out of here.”
Charles smiled, and followed his bodyguard down the corridor. The lush, comfortable walls of velvet and gold were marred by the harsh red emergency lighting aboard the ship, and as he sprinted down the hallway, sirens and horns wailed in his head. Guardsmen and sailors sprinted past in the hallway at equal frequency, and some saluted Charles as they came by him. After a minute or so they arrived at the aft air deck, where, after donning sky sailor’s masks, Desmond fitted a flier.
“Um, Des? Aren’t there any two-man fliers? It’s pretty stormy out there.”
Desmond sighed. “These are reconnaissance fliers. The lifeships are on the foredeck, but so is the impact site, so we don’t want to go up there.”
“What crashed into us?”
“White Army raiding cruiser. Fully loaded. We think it’s probably the first of hundreds.”
“Hundreds going south? Without our compliance?”
“Indeed.”
“Ah. I take it they’re no longer our allies then?”
“No. We believe that now it’s every Kingdom for itself.”
Desmond took a moment so Charles could enjoy the gravity of the situation, then pulled a small gilded repeater from his boot holster, and handed it to the young prince.
“Here. I can only assume you’re clear on operation.”
“Quite. So I’m flying this thing myself?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll grab one too. I’ll be right behind you.”
Desmond offered a reassuring smile, and Charles tentatively clambered onto the flier, and kicked the engine. The machine’s arcanite engine sprung to life with surprising speed, and in a flash, Charles was sent hurtling through the sky. It took him several seconds to grasp the machine’s controls, but eventually he managed to turn his breakneck hurtling into a comfortable, horizontal flight. A few seconds later, Des flew up beside him on a similarly Spartan flier. The machines were ultra light, made out of flexible jungle wood from the Republic’s Zebrican colonies, and stayed aloft with two speedily flapping wings of ethereal, air-catching fabric. Sky sailors often referred to the machines as “wooden dragonflies,” and right now Charles was seeing the comparison. The thing’s flappy, uneven flight was incredibly taxing to maintain, and even as the air got thicker and thicker, his descent was not easy. Beside him, Desmond maneuvered his flier with ease; his reflexes honed to aeronautical excellence.
After a long, if thankfully uneventful flight, the two Royalists set down their fliers on a snowy hillside. Desmond dismounted his vehicle in a single, graceful gesture, and Charles fell forwards off his arcanite mount into the soft snow, thankful to be on terra firma again.
“Safe,” Desmond quipped smugly. “Well, a little more safe at least.”
As if on cue, an industrial searchlight flashed in the distance, signaling the presence of a White Army mechanized squadron.
“Shit… get down!”
Before Charles could reply, he was tackled down into the snow by his bodyguard, and looked up to see a massive shadowy figure hurtle through the air a few dozen feet above them.
“Griffin!”
The searchlight wasn’t hunting them, Charles realized, and for a moment, he was relieved. This was most likely a Griffin watch. Most of Northland was rife with the creatures, and the majority of the Kingdom’s battle-hardened soldiers had spent years fighting with them.
Any army accustomed to fighting an enemy that moves in three dimensions must consider conventional battles trivial, Charles thought.
In this particular instance, however, the might of the Northlanders did not prevail. Charles watched prone as the ten-man hunting squadron was meticulously eviscerated by the graceful beast, then gasped as the creature flipped the squadron’s armored steam sleigh as though it were moving a chair around a ballroom.
“Did the beast just... upend that tank?”
“Yes. We should find better cover.”
The two hurried up the hillside away from the preying Griffin, and finally hid behind an immense boulder.
“Still have that pistol?”
Charles patted the front pocket of his jacket instinctively.
“Of course.”
“Get it out.”
“Why?”
“Because that thing saw us back there, and she’ll be over here soon.”
“How can you tell that’s a ‘she?’”
Desmond stifled a wry grin.
“Because males get more… creative with their prey.”
Before Charles could reply to this, his ears were filled with a thundering, semi-avian roar, and a great shadow was cast down on them. The Griffin was standing on the boulder above. Charles looked to his left and saw that Desmond had already drawn his pistol, and he followed suit. The Griffin looked down at his somewhat diminutive weapon, and scoffed.
“What’s that, your sister’s gun?”
Charles’s jaw dropped.
“Griffins can talk?”
The Griffin laughed, surprisingly humanly.
“Is this your first time to Northland?”
Desmond cut in gruffly. “Yes, and if you don’t want to die, I recommend letting us continue, so we can visit more often.”
The Griffin looked unamused.
“Cute act. Nice little officer suits too. What’s your name?”
“None of your business.”
“Well if you don’t tell me I’m definitely gonna kill you.”
Charles was taken aback by the Griffin’s unrefined speaking style. She must have picked up the common tongue from some Northlander guttersnipe. He looked to Desmond, who sighed and nodded for the prince to lower his weapon.
“Fine. I am Captain Frederick Robur, and this is my ward, Prince Lysander of the Sothern Kingdom of the Red Hills.”
Charles remained silent, hoping that the massive beast would not take notice of their unmistakably blue imperial uniforms.
“Okay, what brings you both up to Northland on two single-man flying machines?”
“The prince’s mother lives in exile in Frost Peak, and she is on her deathbed. We were making steam for the city when our airship ran afoul of pirates, and we were forced to extricate.”
The Griffin scoffed. “Geez, that’s a bummer.”
“So now…” the young officer paused for dramatic effect.
“Now what?”
Desmond offered up the creature a mercantile smirk.
“Are you familiar with the geographic makeup of the Kingdom of the Red Hills?”
The Griffin was caught off-guard.
“No…?”
“A quarter of our land is arcanite fields, and another third is rich with iron, silver, copper, and gold. Between the two, we are one of the wealthiest kingdoms in the South. Were you to see us safely to Frost Peak, the prince’s mother would see you handsomely rewarded.”
The Griffin raised her bushy eyebrow. “You just said she was dying.”
Desmond nodded. “Exactly. Not dead, but dying. Ergo, time is of the essence.”
Charles could see that in the Griffin’s eyes, she was being faced with an existential crisis. Her kind did not cooperate with humans! They were the sworn enemies of most of the sentient races! Indeed, most of the world was well aware of the threat they posed should they ever finally unite, and for all she knew, she was about to aid in that. There might not even be a dying mother to handsomely reward her... but the temptation of wealth and gold was too alluring to pass up…
A moment passed, and finally the Griffin let out a groan and jumped down beside the two humans. On all fours, Charles had to look up a few inches to meet eyes with her.
“Get on my back, now. Let’s get this over with.”
Desmond climbed onto the Griffin first, Charles second, and after a moment’s preparation, the immense beast leapt into the air with satisfying velocity. Her huge wings spread out on each side of the two, and immediately began to beat the air around her furiously. The intensity of the ride was terrific, and Charles was baffled at how much smoother the Griffin was to ride than the scout flier.
“I’m Gilda by the way,” the Griffin shouted back to them.