The Trials of Boy Kings

Chapter 4: Gordon's First Ride

Chapter 4: Gordon's First RideGordon's sight was just returning. Through a gray haze of dim lights and colors, he tried to focus. Darkly colored, blurry figures were moving around far off in the distance. He blinked furiously to clear his vision and tried to remember what happened. Those girls in white. The powder must have been something to make me sleep.

He was laying on a rope bed with a small blanket over his legs. His eyes had finally started to clear enough to see he was tied to the bed. But where am I? From the scenery going by, he realized that he must be in the air. But if he was on an airship, was he going back to Trunculin?

His heart sank as he realized that must be the truth. Only his kingdom had airships, and Trunculin must have had agents in Artoth to capture him. He wondered if he was the only prisoner onboard. I finally get to ride on an airship, and it's taking me to my death.

He looked at his hands, which were bound with metal shackles. He moved his hands and found that they weren't very tight. He stretched his neck and looked all around. He could only see two men talking near the front of the ship.

He wiggled his wrists and found that he could take the shackles off easily. He supposed they were not meant for a thirteen year old, or they might have thought he would be asleep longer. From the front of the deck he heard, “Go check on him. See if he's awake.”

Gordon froze. He didn't know if he would have time to get his hands back through the shackles, so he put his hands in the same position and put the small blanket back over his hands. He kept his eyelids open just a tiny bit as the man stood over him. Gordon tried to control his breathing as though he was still asleep. The man stood there a moment and walked off. “He's still out,” the man said to the other.

“Good. I don't want to deal with some brat who thinks he's a king,” and both men laughed. Gordon untied himself from the rope bed and got up slowly and carefully, grateful that his legs had not been tied. He checked his belt and found he still had his weapons. Both longknife and short were there. I'm being guarded by careless men, he thought.

He knew that any airship would have more than two men in their crew. As he cautiously looked around, something was wrong. This looked like no airship he had ever seen. Naturally, airships were highly guarded secrets. They didn't let just anyone get close to them. But Gordon has seen them flying many times around his kingdom, studying every detail when he could. Even from on deck, where he had never been before, he could tell that something was not quite right.

First, he noticed that it was too small, painted strangely, not anything like his kingdom's colors. And everywhere he looked there was random items: bags of sweet salt, grain, and large rolls of clothing. It looked like the hold of a watership that did trading. Traders often had small crews. Maybe this ship had only a few men onboard after all.

There were also no lanterns. There were a few arrow guns with large arrows, but no other weapons like the fire weapons; the kind by which Gordon had almost been killed once. He glanced at the men up front, who were still looking forward. Gordon was near the back of the ship. He knew he couldn't take two grown men on his own. He could only think of one thing he could do, but he would have to time it very carefully.

The two men were up front and jesting about the girls in white. “I wish they had stayed when they dropped off the boy. They would have been better company than you,” said the man piloting the ship.

The other man said, “They wouldn't give an ugly dog like you a second glance … is something wrong?”

The man said, “We're losing height. Strange …” the man said, looking around, “Hey!”

He spotted Gordon at the back of the ship, standing on the railing, reaching up to the floating section of the ship. Being spotted, Gordon worked faster, using his longknife to slowly slice through the airship's rear floating section. He could feel the air escaping quickly as the airship lost more height.

The pilot stayed at the wheel, while the other man came running for Gordon. As he approached, he shouted, “Wake up!” Gordon saw the heads of three men pop up from near where he had been on the rope bed. Gordon realized that there were other men aboard after all. They had just been napping. His situation just got even more dangerous.

Gordon cut faster.

The pilot shouted back, “Stop him now, we're losing too much air… you two! Start throwing things overboard. We won't clear the gates.”

Gordon stopped cutting, hearing what the pilot had said. He didn't want his first airship ride to fall from the sky. He thought if it sank slowly enough, he might be able to get close enough to the ground to jump off. That seemed more and more unlikely.

The first man reached him. As the man reached for him, Gordon jumped down off the railing. Gordon slashed his longknife at the man. The curved blade connected with his calf and the man went down, screaming with surprise.

Others were fast approaching, and they all drew their knives when they saw the boy attack. Gordon hadn't really thought of what he would do next. He looked around and noticed that the ship was headed straight for a large gate. It was enormous. He knew the pilot could not get more lift with all the gas escaping. A few men were throwing things overboard, but they were still sinking.

Two more men were almost to Gordon, who sheathed his longknife and dove for the railing. He grabbed for the rope hanging there, as the man closest to him shouted, “No!”

Gordon was over the railing, hanging from the rope. He doubted the men would cut his rope and let Gordon fall, but he had a bigger problem. The large gate was surrounded by sheer mountain cliffs.

Gordon struggled to stay on the rope as the airship lost height and veered towards the mountainside. He was nearly flung against the jutting rocks and small trees growing out of the cliff wall. He slowly and painfully made his way down the rope, while one of the men climbed down his own rope about six feet from Gordon's. The man was being swung around wildly, “Fool boy, climb back up…”

Before he could finish his thought, the man's rope hit the mountain and an outcropped tree caught him. The rope went slack with the man no longer on it. Gordon was not close enough to the ground to let go. They were still at least fifty feet in the air, and the airship was going down so quickly, that he would have been killed even if his feet touched the ground.

The ship was dropping faster, and Gordon wondered if he should have stayed onboard after all. The airship came close to the mountain again and Gordon saw the tree before he hit it. He grabbed for the leaves, and let go of the rope. It was no use, he realized. He lost his grip and started tumbling through small trees and brush, down the steep mountain.