Free The Hanging Mountains by Sean Williams

said. ‘My parents are dead. I’ve never known anyone else. These people — well, I don’t know who they are to me, but I do want the chance to find out. Don’t worry,’ she added with her usual bravado, ‘I can look after myself. How bad could it be, anyway?’

    His stomach tried to jump out of his mouth as the ground suddenly rushed up at them. Cliff faces and roiling water blurred into one.

    ‘Is this your way of telling me to change the subject?’

    The wing twisted to one side, rose slightly.

    ‘The Divide is too narrow and turbulent where the boat is,’ she explained, tugging vigorously at the frame. ‘I’m going to have to land further up. It’s wider there, and therefore safer.’

    Skender nodded, understanding that he played no part in the decision-making process. The wing swooped downward again, this time aiming further uphill from where the boneship floated, docked at the base of the glowing waterfall. The source of the water lay in a small lake, where the Divide had been dammed. Cupped into a stone niche formed by the collapse of the cliff face, and given space to grow by further collapses, the lake stretched perhaps thirty metres across, with a flat space to the east where the canyon resumed its normal zigzagging progress into the mountains. Not far beyond that point, the cloud cover became impenetrable. Even as the wing came in to land, wisps cut across its flight path, momentarily blocking their view. Cold shivers ran down his neck and spine.

    Snatches of voices reached them as they descended. Hands waved. He hoped it was in welcome.

    ‘I’m starving,’ said Chu, taking aim for the smooth shoulder of land she had picked as their landing spot. ‘And dying for a drink.’

    Skender would’ve been just as happy to curl up somewhere for a quiet snooze, but figured there was little chance of that any time soon.

    He braced himself for landing. His legs would be the first to make contact with the ground, so the one responsibility he did have was to hit it cleanly. Too early and he would never be able to run fast enough to keep up with the wing, thereby driving its nose downwards into the ground; too late and they would land on their backsides. He was gradually improving at it, but he had plenty of bruises to prove that he had learned the hard way.

    He ignored a renewed shouting and waving as the ground came up at them. Whatever they wanted, it would have to wait. Chu tipped the nose up, slowing them. The ground hung just a metre out of his reach. It gleamed slightly. A smell came off it that reminded him of his home’s ancient latrines.

    Only then did he feel the slightest misgiving.

    ‘Wait, Chu. I’m not sure —’

    Too late. Chu brought the wing down and he splashed feet-first into thick, cloying mud. He tried in vain to run but all that did was drag him down more quickly. The wing tipped and wobbled and barely remained horizontal as, first, his legs then Chu’s were sucked in. Eventually, all airworthiness evaporated and they fell face-forward into foulness.

    For a terrifying moment, all was brown and muffled. A hideous taste crept down his throat. He gagged. Then his kicking legs hit something solid, and he managed to force himself — and Chu, strapped to him, along with the wing — above the surface of the mud.

    He choked and spat and wiped at his face. Chu did the same, with a healthy dose of cursing, as her slippery fingers fumbled with the latches. The wing fell away, and he found himself able to stand upright, still submerged up to his waist but at least well clear of the noisome surface. Chu slipped and splashed back in, making a dense glop sound as she vanished under the wing. He tugged it aside and helped her back to her feet.

    ‘Nice landing,’ called a man’s voice. Skender blinked mud out of his eyes and made out a dark figure standing on solid ground some metres away. ‘Are you all right in there?’

    ‘We’ll be fine,’ Chu snapped, pulling away from