Year of our Lord 1888
In the local tongue of the natives, the impossibly vast icefields north of the Frozen Shore were known as the Echoing Flats.
It made no sense, Joseph Edye mused, for there wasn't anything for sound to echo off of in this blasted hellscape, but he understood the sentiment. The winds howled all day and night, like rakes scarring the surface of the earth and whips slashing through the air. Sleep was a long lost maiden, and peace of mind was drowned out by it completely.
He was already so used to shouting over the winds, he imagined could already be deaf and not know it.
"How long further, Swift Hare?"
Swift Hare peered over the wayside, gazing out to the endless desert before them. Joseph could not fathom what she was looking for, as it was all the same to him - the world in its entirety cut down to two sights; the white land and the blue sky. If it weren't for his shaded goggles, his eyes would have already rotted off his head.
But that was why she was their guide, was it not?
Swift Hare made a motion with her hands which he did not understand, "That cloud there. Wind goes up. Stay away."
Joseph narrowed his eyes, and wondered how she could tell, "An updraft, hm? Master Amondsham, till to nor'-nor'west by nor'west."
He pulled out a compass, "Nor'-nor'west by northwest, aye sir."
"That is Brevelyk," Swift Hare pointed to the wide ice-river to their larboard, "Bear-fucking bastards. Men eat men there."
"Cannibals?" Andrew wrinkled his nose.
There were lights by the banks of the iceflow - clusters of sealskin tents and glowing fires interrupting the otherwise unbroken flats. Every few leagues there would be another small ice-river clan. The natives of the Frozen Shore may be strange folk who worship their own leaders as god-kings and name themselves after animals, but at least they weren't cannibals.
Joseph couldn't fault Swift Hare's hatred for them - and from what he could tell, her people have been warring with the northern clans from the beginning of living memory. Well, anyone would, if the stories about the ice-river clans held any inkling of truth to them.
The Dragonfly continued to ride the currents, catching them at a crosswind which her four wings caught well in hand. It flew them at an angle for greatest attitude - and almost doubled the length of their journey, eddying their way north - but it was progress all the same.
They found Brevelyk's source in the north. Far, far in the north, where even the sky has turned white and melded with the earth into a single blank canvas. It was not so much cold as it was numb, all feeling fading from their extremities and men clutching their glowworms like lifelines. Even the canvas of the sails have gone solid, the faintest signs of frost crawling over the surfaces, prompting the crew to beat them with sticks to crack the ice.
And a sheer wall of a vast glacier greeted them, an infinite beast crawling its way southwards an inch at a time. Crystalline waterfalls ran down its surface like tears, resulting in the many ice-rivers meandering their ways towards the sea.
Swift Hare puffed out a cloud of steam, "I've ne'er been this far north. This is walker land."
"Walker land?"
Hare's eyes widened, "The walkers! You ne'er heard o' them? Gods made of ice who command those who lost their lives in the cold. Only old men come this far north, to offer their souls."
Some old legend, perhaps. Most likely, the old men come here to die, so that they wouldn't burden their families.
"Captain!" Martin Heywood stumbled up onto the quarter, waving his binoculars wildly, "You'd want'a see this. We found it!"
Joseph's heart leapt up his throat, "Tesla City?"
He all but tripped over his feet snatching the device from Martin's hands and leaping for the forecastle, his chest tighter and warmer than the last time he embraced his mother. Gripping the railing with a white fist, he leaned over the bow and peered through the binoculars, sweeping the foot of the glacial wall for any sign on metal.
Then - a shine through the snow, like a shilling glinting off the floor.
Joseph pulled out his compass, then glanced for the streamers. The wind was in wrong direction.
"Fire up the boilers! Stretch canvas!" he shouted, "Tiller, northeast by east!"
"Nor'east by east, aye sir!"
Hot steam hissed through the pipes and vents, and a second wind came over the Dragonfly - a sudden rise lifting them high and swerving starboard. The deck became a flurry of movement as the crew scrambled to prepare a landing party, all the while hoping to catch a glimpse of the lost city.
But as the Dragonfly approached, Joseph's heart only sought to sink further and further.
Tesla City was half-encased in ice, swallowed by the foot of the glacier like a prehistoric insect trapped in amber. Only the metallic gleam of the monolithic resonant coil poking above the snowdrift, shaped like a queer bird's nest, and the depression that revealed the outline of the city. Once, that coil was meant to create some barrier of electricity around the city to shield it from the elements, but Tesla's lofty ambitions only led to the death of those who put their lives in his hands - and his own.
All Joseph knew was that their expedition was a lost cause. Tesla City was buried under hundreds of feet of snow and ice, captured by the Frost. He recorded the location of the site, and prepared to give orders to drop anchor - at the very least, he hoped they could salvage some things from the ruins aboveground.
"Joseph!" Martin called, "There are people down there!"
"What?"
Joseph frowned, gesturing for Amondsham to enter a holding pattern above the ruins. He squinted over the railings - and indeed, there were black dots against the stark white snow, some larger than others. But there were many, like ants scouring over an ant hill.
He slowly raised the binoculars to his eyes.
People.
They were people, shambling around like purposeless dolls, beset by the shadows of greater giants and mammoths. And it gave him pause when he realised that one of the giants was clearly dead - flesh grey and rotting off the bone, innards spilling out and ribs open to the frigid air. And yet, it moved as if it was alive - like a man with arthritis, sure, but alive nonetheless. And it was not the only one; mammoths, men - some more obviously corpses than others, some simply bone and some tendon strings holding it all together.
Then there was a man - tall, gaunt as sticks with skin as cold and white as snow, riding upon a mammoth spider the size of a small snowcrawler. It spotted them with its dead, milky eyes, and raised a long spear of crystal. Joseph stood there, frozen solid, as if possessed by chains and manacles.
Swift Hare gasped softly, like a drowning woman trying not to draw attention out of embarrassment.
"Walkers," she whispered.
And the creature hurled its spear with all the force of a cannon.
Joseph broke free of his stupor, turning on his heel and roaring; "HARD ASTARBOARD!"
The Dragonfly almost swivelled on a dime, sending a gust of air over the deck and knocking men flat to the timber. If it weren't for Gerald's quick reaction, they would all be dead - the javelin blasted past the hull by a hair's breadth, and ripped clean into the larboard envelope above, shorning it open entirely and clearing bursting out the other side.
And the Dragonfly dropped like a rock, spinning wildly while the crew held on for their lives.
Joseph forced himself into a state of calm - and recalled what was to be done if one of their envelopes popped due to stress or freezing. Check if the ballonets were still intact.
A quick glanced informed that they were.
"Empty the ballonets!" he roared, "Reroute the steam and fill them up! Hurry your bloody asses!"
Francis - nimble as a cat he was - shimmied up the ratlines and fought the exploding pressure release and whirlwind of canvas tatters until he reached the interior ballonets. Another man below deck cut off the supply until the lad reconnected the pipes - and a roar of the boilers later and the emptied bellies were burgeoning with steam. With Gerald Amondsham's steady hands, the Dragonfly climbed out of its death spiral, lopsided as it was.
"Balance out the pressure!" he barked, "The rest of you, hunting equipment! Richard, Gerald, keep an eye out for that icy cock!"
His crew burst into action without a word of protest, scrambling for rifles and for the swivel guns, loading in metal harpoons while others brought up bundles of ropes and grapples from below-decks.
"What are you doing?" Swift Hare watched with wide eyes, "You are hunting a god?"
"No," Joseph gripped the railing as the airship swerved to avoid another javelin, "I'm not bloody stupid, little lass. But I'm gettin' myself something to bring back is what I'm doing - else the rest won't believe my ass."
"Right ahead, captain!" one of the deckmates cried, "A mammoth separated from the rest! We gettin' it!?"
He grinned - oh, he loved his crew - the lot of them always knew exactly what he was thinking. They were all just as mad as he was. Well, he would've liked a giant, but they were all back there with the icy bugger and he didn't want to risk the Dragonfly again. Not that he was complaining - he hadn't caught a mammoth before, much less a living dead one, and this would be the greatest quarry of his life. Joseph was already drafting his boasts in his head to shove in Hammer's ugly mug.
"Is it one of 'em dead ones!?" he demanded.
"Aye sir! I can see its bones!"
"Full ahead!" Joseph sprang to his feet, "Spare no coal or wood! Rip up the bloody ship if you have to! We are going home with a catch, or none of us will!"
The mammoth seemed to spot them, for it began to dash back to the main group with a speed that betrayed its size. But the Dragonfly was the fastest airship in New London's roster, and with four wings capturing the skies there wasn't a slightest possibility it could outrun them.
"Harpoons!"
With a series of thumps, the swivel guns fired their payloads - heavy serrated tips punching through the frozen skin and tearing into the soft, rotting flesh beneath.
"Reload!" he howled gleefully, "Full reverse! Brace our sails, drag - drag!"
The deckhands swivelled the beams around, and the sails ballooned with headwind - jerking the entire vessel backwards. As more coal was shovelled into the boilers, the ballonets looked about to burst, whistling as the steel frames rattled dangerously.
"We don't have enough lift!" Martin warned.
"More harpoons!" Joseph ordered, "Begin reeling! Grapples overboard, tie it!"
Four brave men leapt over the side of the ship, ropes around their waists as they were reeled down. The Dragonfly fired off the last of its harpoons, before the steam winches whirred - dragging the ship down as much as it pulled the mammoth up.
Joseph clambered to the other side of the Dragonfly, finding the walker and its dead minions swarming in their direction - rotting giants throwing sharpened trees that didn't reach very far.
Swift Hare suddenly grabbed his shoulder, shouting excitedly in her native tongue.
"What is it, lass!?"
"That cloud there!" she hopped up and down, pointing, "Wind goes up! Updraft!"
He found the cloud she was pointing at, and still couldn't figure out how she knew that.
"Watch the birds for long enough," Hare seemed to read his mind, "And you learn from them."
"Well," he mused, "If it works. Tiller, sou'-southwest!"
"South-southwest, aye sir!"
"All hands on deck, angle those sails flat God damn you all!"
The Dragonfly flew under the specific cloud, and as if on cue the whole ship rattled as the sails were nearly ripped off their frames. Soon, they were above the sea of clouds and sailing back south - gently losing altitude from the weight of their quarry. Hopefully they could find another of those clouds, though he wondered if the Dragonfly's structure could handle another of it.
As the four grapplers climbed up onto the ship, sweat freezing on their skin, Joseph ordered for an inspection of the vessel's structural integrity and for someone to start patching up the broken envelope.
He then allowed himself to slump over the side, the wildling girl behind him like some lost duckling.
"What is it, lass?"
"You fought a walker," she said in wonder.
"More like ran away from," he grumbled, "What kind of man kind throw like that? Skinny bugger can't be natural."
"Look!" she pointed over the side, "You caught a wight! A mammoth!"
Joseph lethargically dropped his head over the railing, finding the not-dead beast writhing in its chains, all nice and secured by a dozen harpoons and a whole forest of ropes and bindings. He thought he saw a milky brain peeking out of its fractured skull.
"Well," he breathed, "Do I still need to write a report, or will this suffice?"