The sky ogar

Prologue 

Have you ever had a family day trip on a skyship? In summer, you would have flown over the villages, soaring high above the clouds and across the ice blue lakes. When you flew, there would have been blue skies, a soft breeze and that wonderful sense of freedom. When you flew, there would have been the fields far below, boats with their brightly coloured sails and even a school of porpoises. You probably got taken to one of the nearby farms and landed the ship so that you could have a picnic. Travelling by skyship in the summer is like that. 

But travelling on an expedition to unknown lands is another matter. You should try a skyship trip when the wind whispers, the thunder rumbles the ground and the sky is split apart by jagged lightning. You should try being there when sky ogars attack, scrambling across the hull ready to spit their poisonous saviour onto your skin or worse – rip the skyships inflatable apart. You should try being there when the food runs out and there is not even a drizzle of water in the barrels. Few people would wish that on anyone. Even experienced flyers think twice about travelling east over the lake. No one knows what creatures might live there. Rumours have it that there are cave-robins, stone-bears and flying hippopotamuses. Few would for an encounter with a frost dragon… and most say that the rumours are for a good reason.

Chapter 1

The crowds gazed up at the skyship Aurora and gasped as it lifted up into the sky as the fumes seeped into the air. Captain Cecil stood at the steering wheel, shouting out orders. Smirking, Cecil was super excited to be setting off onto one of his greatest adventures of all time. They had done it! 

David and Keira stared down as they rose higher and higher,  the crowds turned into tiny blurry dots. The Aurora had just passed Theydon City and were about to approach Box beach as they sailed on they could see the sun shimmering down onto the sea making it look like a diamond was bobbing down the sea. 

They could hear the waves crashing down onto the sand and the gale wind whispering as it blew Keira’s hair in her face. Waving to the distant crowds, David and Keira stared at each other. Grinning, Keira was happy to be finally on the adventure she has always wanted to go on. Inside, her stomach was fluttering and her heart seemed to skip a beat. Is this the right thing to do? 

Within an hour, the Aurora was already flying across box beach. Down below, Keira could see boats sailing across the ocean, schools of fish migrating and flocks of birds catching their food. David sighed ”I wonder if we will ever find the map” twiddling with his thumbs. Grasping the rigging Keira replied” and I wonder if we will come across anything unpleasant because I don’t want a repeat of last time, when we met sky dragons and goblins. That was horrendous.”

As the sun set, a catastrophe happened. A sheet of mist covered the sky. They couldn’t see where they were going but David could see a glimpse of green and lights shining on the river.