skonen_blades

“It’s time!” shouted the referee through the trumpeted voice amplifier.

Lieutenant Jeffrey Dalmerson closed the engraved lid on his pocket watch and slipped it back into his vest pocket before starting up the Fist of Peace. This was his champion machine, he mused to himself, and he’d be damned if some upstart Duke from the neighboring province would be allowed to brag any further about his own prowess. He had to be taken down a peg.

He twisted the ends of his bright-red moustache and looked at the glowing buttons and dials on the Fist of Peace’s dashboard. Everything was lit up in greens and blues, ready for pursuit. His was the championship medal and it hung there off of the main forward hatch-hasp, glittering in the darkness. It had been there for years.

He felt at home here, locked in to the machine he designed and built. Like a rabbit must feel at home in the darkness of its own warren deep in the earth, he thought. He didn’t feel claustrophobic in the slightest. Rather, he felt comforted by the enclosed space, almost more comfortable in its embrace than in his own wife’s arms.

Outside, the crowd sat on either side of the starting line in their best clothes under wide-brim hats and sun umbrellas. It was lovely day for a picnic and many of the spectators had used the day as a perfect excuse to have one.

Derek Von Tumberlay perched on the porthole lid of his own machine. Evil’s Rest, it was called, and the violet lightning slashes painted on the sides of its black turrets were a little ridiculous under the hot sun of midday with the birds singing in the surrounding grounds of Dalmerson’s estate.

This was to be a Home Turf Turnaround version of the Jester’s Court-race with Dalmerson sportingly giving Tumberlay the advantage of Prima-vante. Lieutenant Jeffrey Dalmerson was strapped in and waiting. The Fist of Peace was humming and ready to go, floating a few inches above the waving blades of grass.

Tumberlay was being slightly rude by continuing to remain outside his main porthole but insolence was something the Duke was never short of. Born into riches, his own father was almost hoping the Duke would lose the race and perhaps lose interest in the extremely costly sport of Thrum Racing altogether. Gaining some humility would go a long way towards making him a better ruler. A father could hope.

Derek Von Tumberlay was a long, jagged man with an incongruously soft and bushy white moustache. His goggles made him look like an insect and the straps of his pilot’s helmet dangled like the ears of a spaniel. His leather pilot’s uniform was snug to the point of showing off his emaciated form. He was a skeleton dressed in brown ready for glory or humiliation.

He’d boasted at one too many parties about being the country’s best Thrum Racer no matter what claims Lieutenant Jeffrey Dalmerson had made to the contrary. He’d been heard and challenged. Today it would all come clear.

If he was nervous, it didn’t show but there were glances behind waving fans that seemed to wonder is maybe this show of brashness and disregard of etiquette was merely a shield for the fear of the battle to come.

With a yawn and a stretch, he straightened, fastened his helmet and rapped twice on his the side of his machine before stepping down and closing the porthole behind him.

The rivets glinted in the sunlight and the blackness of his machine looked merely like a hot place to be rather than a threatening thrum-runner. Once inside and alone, Derek Tumberlay betrayed his nervousness by undoing the collar of his flight suit. He was already sweating.

“Thrums to the line, Marks take your angles.” Said the referee.

The two bulky Thrum-Runners edged forward with a low-frequency hum that shook the bones of the giddy sitters on the grass. They craned their necks forward for the start.

Devil’s Rest was shaped like a Library with a crenellated roofswing masking the join between the rudders and the motor. It was a beautiful machine. Painted black and held together with purpled iron braces that helped mortar the brick, it was floating miniature shard of the Duke’s black castle back in the neighboring province of Arrythmia. It looked like it was doing 1/2c just sitting there at the start line.

The Fist of Peace had white Curved Linebox frame with blue and grey trim edging the anti-chamber pockets. From some angles, the flares and exhaust tubing on its massive house-sized hide made it look like an oversized human fist, where it got its name. The pennants of Holgaria snapped in the wind from its shining silver turrets.

There was no doubt as to the crowd favourite but as to the pilot’s skill, there was a thrilling doubt as to who would come out the winner. In his heyday, the Lieutenant would have been able to win with his eyes closed but he was no longer a young man.

And while Tumberlay had the clumsiness of youth against him, he also had the recklessness that would lead him to take risks a seasoned driver might not take. Honour was also at stake and for young men, that could be a matter of life and death in and of itself.

“On your marks. Ready. Set.” Said the referee.

The painted sign on the starting post flipped back.

“ON YOU GO!” shouted the referee over the whooping of the crowd.

The two ships sped off into the winding forest track, leaving startled birds behind them and a gaggle of onlookers that started make bets and excited conjecturous small talk about the competitors.





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