“What the hell’s happened?”

Cove could hear Drift shouting as they scrambled, along with several other members of the crew up onto the deck.

Cove wiped furiously at his wet eyes with his sleeve so as to better see what was happening. Captain Shin was at the steering wheel, wrenching it violently left and right but for some reason the ship wasn’t moving.

“We’re ice trapped!” a panicked call went out from the rook’s nest up high at the top of the mast.

“What does that mean?” Cove asked, tugging at the sleeve of the man nearest him who turned out to be Morris.

“Means the cloud glacier froze around us quicker than we was movin’!” Morris replied, spitting tobacco out at the floor. “Means we’re bloody buggered!”

Cove suddenly realised how freezing he was. The front of his shirt was still sodden from the soap suds in the galley and the wind up here was icy and unforgiving.

Nearly everyone else was dressed up in thick winter coats and fur hats.

“Back inside,” Drift snapped, hurrying over and moving to grab Cove’s arm. Cove flinched out of the way just in time. He didn’t want the other boy to touch him ever again. Cove noticed a strange expression flash across Drift’s face before he turned and disappeared down the main trap door. Cove followed him before he froze out in the elements.

A meeting was called in the dining room, nearly all the shiphands were present and Captain Shin was sat at the head of the table studying some kind of navigational chart.

“No one else will be taking this route for weeks,” one man piped up anxiously.

“Well we don’t have rations to wait,” Gordon interjected. The cook was stood by the door with his arms folded across his stained apron.

“We can’t break through, the glacier’s too thick,” someone else announced. “We’d need a breaker ship to come get us out.”

“There’s no way to send a message,” Robbo called out, “a bird would freeze in these clouds and drop dead before it go to the nearest city.”

“What is the nearest city?” Fletch asked, peering over to get Shin’s attention.

“Trolvbard,” Shin replied, his index finger running along the lines of a map.

“This area’s got cloudbergs,” Drift stated causing the rest of the room to go quiet. Cove didn’t understand why that information was having such an effect.

“Exactly,” Shin nodded, “we need to send a party out on foot to get help from Trolvbard.”

“That’s suicide,” Fletch whistled.

“Not if we stick to the ‘bergs,” Drift replied, “where the clouds solified enough with the glacier we can make it across.”

“What if the weather changes?” Fletch asked, throwing up his hands and giving Drift a look that clearly implied he thought him insane. “The ledge you’re standing on suddenly becomes fluffy water vapour again! Not to mention there’s rumoured to be stratus yetis in these parts!”

“Oh here we go,” one of the men laughed.

Cove felt himself tense, surely stratus yetis and cloud krakens were just part of sky sailor folklore?

“I’m telling you I saw one once!” Fletch bit back.

“Yeah, after seven pints o’ grog!” Morris called out with a guffaw.

“Enough!” Captain Shin rose up and thumped both his fists against the table. “Men travelling by foot across the cloudbergs is the only chance we’ve got.”

“Christ,” Fletch muttered, shaking his head.

“Thank you for volunteering Fletch,” Shin nodded as the other boy blustered and went purple in the face.

“Cap’n,” Drift said, “I’ll go.”

“I thought you would,” Shin nodded, “no one would know how to navigate the ‘bergs better than you.”

Cove frowned at Drift, wondering why the other boy would possess some intimate knowledge of the frozen structures suspended in mid air as if by dark magic.

“I’ll go,” another man piped up, coming forwards into view.

“No,” Shin shook his head, “you’re too heavy Samuel, there’s a reason why I’m selecting the youngsters.”

“Some of the ‘bergs won’t hold much weight,” Drift explained, “and if we need to cross parts of a glacier we can’t risk it.”

A cloud glacier? Cove shuddered, he knew how paper thin the ice was meant to be on some of those.

“Fletch, Drift, Hanzo, Robbo, Caden, Marcus, Elgar and Cove,” Shin announced, pointing round at the assembled crowd.

“Wait, what?” Drift took a step forwards to the captain. “Sir, not Cove.”

“He’s the lightest on board the entire ship,” Shin replied bluntly, not looking Drift in the eye.

“He’s just a kid,” Drift snapped.

Cove’s eyes widened, he had never heard Drift argue with the captain before and this time it was all because he thought Cove was too incompetent to help.

“I’m fine-“ Cove began, but Drift wheeled round at him, angry eyes flashing.

“Shut up Cove, you don’t know what you’re talking about. For once just shut that fucking mouth of yours!”

The room fell awkwardly silent as a few men coughed to clear their throats.

“Cove goes,” Shin replied, quietly but firmly. “He is my purchase after all.”

“He could die out there,” Drift stated, turning back round to the captain.

“You all could,” Shin shrugged, signalling that the meeting was at a close.

An hour later and Cove was being bundled up with all sorts of supplies and a thick fur coat.

“Keep it as light as possible,” Drift snapped, walking round to inspect the members of the travelling party.

“Give me your boots,” Fletch said to Cove as he hurried over with a hammer and spikes. They were bashing the spokes into the soles of everyone’s boots to give them better grip on the slippery slopes of the cloudbergs.

“Why is Drift in charge?” Cove asked Fletch, genuinely confused. The other boy might be a favourite of Shin’s but he wasn’t high ranking.

“He didn’t tell you?” Fletch frowned, hammering the last nail into Cove’s boot and handing them back.

Cove shook his head, noting that Fletch had lowered his voice to make sure they were not heard by the other boy.

“He was a baby when a passing junk found him on some stratus drift ice. That’s how he got his name.”

“What?” Cove screwed up his face. “That’s impossible, he would have frozen.”

“He wouldn’t have been there for long,” Fletch shrugged, they think a cloud city’s moorings melted in the unusual heat that summer and went crashing down to the earth. That’s where they reckon Drift came from. His parents must have been able to throw him to safety at the last moment.”

“People build cities in the clouds?” Cove asked in horror, the idea was terrifying.

“Used to,” Fletch shrugged, “back when they though these glaciers were stable. Ever since, Drift’s been the best at walking on cloud frost, just comes naturally to him see?”

Cove glanced across to where Drift was bending down to lace up his boots tightly. Spikes of blue hair falling over his face, hiding determined green eyes.

“Time to move,” Fletch sighed, slapping Cove brusquely on the arm. “You scared kid?”

“You’d have to be stupid not to be,” Cove snapped miserably, earning him an assessing look from Fletch before the other boy nodded.

“Correct answer.”

Cove shouldered his pack containing the lightest rations they could source from Gordon’s galley. There was also an emergency flare. The flares weren’t bright or powerful enough to be used to signal Trolvbard from the ship, but they could be used if a member of the travelling party got separated by the ice drifts.

By the time the eight of them emerged top side the gang plank had been lowered for them to disembark the ship. They would have to cross a small section of glacial ice first before climbing their first cloudberg.

The air had become colder and Cove’s breath left his lips in puffs of mist.

“Stay close together guys,” Robbo called back as Hanzo walked between them, linking their wrists with a rope he had appropriated from some old rigging.

“Here we go,” Fletch muttered as they began to descend down the plank, the whorls of wood already dusted in a fine covering of snow.

Cove glance back up at the top deck of the ship, Captain Shin was standing watching them with a grim look on his face.

“Think he expects us to make it?” Fletch asked.

“If we die he dies too,” Drift bit out, his eyes catching Cove’s before flicking away.