Sky Song: Overture Read Online Free PDF Page A

order,” said Captain Dirk. “You forced me to endanger all of our lives for the lives of a few. I’d cut your throat here and now, if I didn’t deem you to be the bravest sky pirate I ever met.” At first I thought I’d misheard him, or that this was the beginning of a twisted joke that ended in me getting an ear sliced off, but Dirk lowered his blade and pulled me in under his arm. “Men! Clikk here just went overboard without hook or parachute and saved seven of our brothers.” A hush of awe and wonderment fell across the deck. In Dirk’s eyes, I saw nothing of esteem or reverence. He was making this up as he went. This was all a pretty show to explain his not throwing me overboard.
    Dirk went on, “Clikk is a true sky pirate, a man with no fear of heights or gravity. From this day forth, he will be called Falcon!”
    A great roar exploded from the crew, a sound louder than all the engines and wind put together. They needed something to cling to in this moment of profound horror. We had hunted the cruiser for something as trivial as Skye, and as much as I wanted to believe the disaster was not our fault, I knew why the Hawks carried dynamite, and why Dirk did not allow transgressors to go free. We were criminals.
    I’d seen death before. I’d killed men on merchant vessels and supply ships. This had been my first cruiser. Thinking of that young child and his mother made me sick. They knew what it was to fall. They felt the falling nightmare in their final moments of life, and for them, there would be no waking upon impact.

 
    IV. Dynasty
     
     
    W e drank every cask of Skye we had left. Captain Dirk encouraged us to indulge our thirst. He would ask the emperor to reload our ship with supplies for the journey home.
    The bitter drink went down like jet fuel. Fitz was climbing the cables, hanging off backward and tasting the mist. Baker stirred up a game of Mercy and the men took turns making a muscle and taking as many punches as they could stand. He invited me to participate, but I declined, as I always did since those first few times when I had to tap out before anyone else.
    I drank to forget the wasted raid, and leaned against the center mast, tuning my fiddle. I needed to get blitzed, needed to play music and lose my soul to song.
    “What was the tune Johnnie liked?” asked William, the mandolin player.
    I shrugged and ran my bow hair over a chunk of rosin. I never really knew Johnnie, but I was sorry to have lost him and all the Hawks who perished.
    “‘Copper Monkey’ I think it was,” said William.
    “That one’s fast,” I said.
    “It is…You probably couldn’t keep up.”
    I smirked and swept my bow over my strings to test the pull. “My pace would make your fingers bleed, friend.”
    “That sounds like a challenge.” William strummed the first chord. “Come on then, Falcon. For Johnnie.” He played the first phrase and tapped his foot. I bounced my bow and quickened the tempo.
    The speed duel began. I fiddled like a demon to keep up with William. The men clapped and encouraged our Skye-frenzied jam. I’d never been a spotlight musician before. Normally the men treated me like background noise, but on this night, they knew my name, which was now Falcon. At the end of our song, they applauded.
    “Hey, Falcon! Play The Wench of Amaranthia!” Even Baker was calling me Falcon now, and grinning at me with a glow in his cheeks. I nodded and eased my bow into the first note of the evocative melody. Baker began to sing and Fitz joined in, hanging from his knees as he took the tenor harmony.
     
    She lived in a most mysterious port,
    The pirate town Amaranthia,
    She liked to sing songs of the lustiest sort
    She drank like a man, and she laughed with a snort,
    The Wench of Amaranthia!
     
    Amaranthia! Amaranthia!
    Ah-ha-ha-ma-ra-ra-ra-ranthia. Ha ha!
     
    The other men joined in on the chorus, drinking at the end of each verse. By the fifth reiteration of Amaranthias, they were spitting out