To say that I was irritated when I found out would have been an understatement. I was indignant at the menial task our regiment was assigned to; following two men in a balloon across the northernmost and emptiest regions of the world, most likely. When I had reenlisted the past fall, I had expected something exciting. There was talk of war, expansion, and I wanted to be in the thick of it. What better place for a soldier, than to be at the head of a glorious, conquering army as it sweeps across the greatest countries of the entire world.
But no, I was assigned to follow two men in a balloon. Of course, most of the advance guard that had sailed into the port town would wait for more of the army to come before they went to fight in the great war that would take place in another world. But my regiment was to follow men who blasphemed the church by stealing a dead cleric's property. That was at least something.
While we was sitting on spiny beds in one of the numerous grubby inns, the sergeant called us downstairs. There we learned that the men we were to follow had gone north. Well, that made things slightly more interesting.
The zeppelin was cramped and uncomfortable. There were about thirty of us in the body, in addition to the other three zeppelins travelling with us, and the spy balloon that had left only a few hours after our quarries had. As I learned many years ago, military zeppelins are not built for comfort, like the luxurious passenger zeppelin I once saw lift off from the Tzarina Viktoriya's palace, many years ago. These zeppelins are built for speed, and to hold the maximum capacity of soldiers and weapons, so they are small and crammed full of equipment, with scarcely enough room to move an arm or a leg, let alone hold thirty men along with their daemons.
My close friend and officer, Romochka, had gotten up to ask the commander what the news of our quarry was, and now came back with a grin on his face, his daemon panting triumphantly at his heels.
"Well, Romo?" I asked, impatient to know what we would be asked to do.
"We're closer to the balloon, Fedya. We had a smoke signal from the spy balloon a few hours ago, but now we're sure we know where they're going. They're heading straight for the hills on the other side of the bay, where they will certainly try to hide in the woods." He flashed me his most charming smile. "We know what to do then."
I caught on, but didn't think that it was as funny as he made it seem. These were actual men we were chasing, despite their blatant disrespect of the church, and of the Authority, by using a dead priest's property to their own ends. They shouldn't be treated so ill, with such a casual air. But I didn't voice my opinions to Romochka, who clearly didn't care.
I thought that it would be a few hours until we caught up to them, from what I could judge of how far we were behind them, so I settled down into as comfortable a position as I could attain, my Quagedse gently nuzzling my side, and thought about home. Archangel was so simple and far behind, compared to this new world we had found ourselves in. It didn't look different, from what I could gather from Romochka's reports, but it felt somehow...changed. Something small had happened to this world that made it different from ours, and I could almost...taste it, if that makes any sense.
When Romochka woke me to tell me about the storm, I realized that I had fallen asleep. And indeed, I could hear the heavy winds, and even the beginning of a rain shower beating on the zeppelin's canvas siding. This would be inconvenient, for certain. It would be difficult to see the balloon we were pursuing in this kind of weather. But, it also would make it more difficult for the balloon.
The rain swept down upon us, and I could almost feel it drenching the zeppelins. And when there was thunder, it was monstrous. I felt it from the longest hair on my head to the heels of my regulation boots. The next flash of lightning was so bright, I could see it clearly through the canvas siding, and it was easy to predict what Romochka came running in to say; one of the other zeppelins had been struck by the enormous blast, and had caught fire, before falling into the sea.
I knew that I should have been unhappy, grieving for the lost men in the zeppelin. Some of those men were my good friends. Quagedse even said something to that extent. However, I felt nothing but a dim curiosity about such a powerful storm. My mind was dancing the same steps I had on the night that I met Elizaveta. How would she live on, after I died. Because I knew that we would die, in this other world. I had known it since I received the orders, back in Archangel. The only question was how.