The Cloud Riders

By Kevin McGrane

Tess is a 17 yr. old Forest girl who is totally bored with her hum-drum life. While picking berries for the evening dessert, she is chased by a bear and saved by the mysterious people of the sky known as the Cloud Riders. They are a gypsy-like people who sail vast, lighter-than-airships across the continent. Due to the wind and weather, Tess is required to spend a month on board the airship Sun Chaser with its owners, the Windymir family. She travels to strange and exotic cities like Top of the World and Sea Shell City while she is introduced to the life and culture of the Cloud Riders. Meanwhile, she plays a cat-and-mouse game of the heart with the Windymirs’ handsome 18 yr. old son, Cumulus, also known as Cue. Into this idyll barges the warlord, Genghis, who wants to steal a cloud-ship and turn it into a weapon of war, and will not stop at anything to get one. Ultimately, it is up to Tess, Cue, and the Windymirs to stop him and save the Cloud Rider’s way of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin McGrane
• Release date: Apr 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452424866

Kevin McGrane

I am the Rev. Kevin J. McGrane, a priest in the Episcopal Church. I and my wife live on ten acres in the Ozarks we call Windy Hill, after a lifetime of living in the big city, raising a family, and running in the rat race. I’m a pastor of a small congregation, and I publish my work on the internet, post on my blog "The View from Windy Hill", follow my FB page, and look forward to the future.

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The Cloud Riders

By

Kevin McGrane

Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2011 by Kevin McGrane

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Cover by Joleene Naylor

Chapter One

Tess

They were called the Cloud Riders because they sailed their airships majestically among the clouds, slowly, silently, serenely.

Tess found them perplexing. She did not know if she mistrusted the Cloud Riders as many other people mistrusted them, or if she secretly envied them. The old folks of the village said the Cloud Riders were a strange people and not to be trusted—it was said they flew their ships with magic. Magic was suspicious, and, therefore, not to be trusted.

But to soar among the birds! she thought as she craned her head back and shaded her eyes with her hand, looking up at them. "That would make one’s heart sing!"

She could see them now, high overhead, white against the blue sky, five of them flying in formation like geese. Sometimes they flew low enough that she could make out the details of their large crafts. They were fish-shaped, covered with netting from nose to tail, and something like a long narrow barge or boat hung beneath the fish. Colorful banners and flags fluttered here and there, and sometimes the sides of the fish sported a large symbol, like a tulip or a bird. Tess did not know if the symbols had any significance, or they were just for beauty’s sake, like the embroidery on her blouse. The Cloud Riders were so remote and mysterious, no one knew. Sometimes she waved up at them, and someone would look out a window or over a rail and wave back, but that was the extent of her contact with them. Today they were too high even to wave at, with their sails unfurled, which looked like fish fins.

The dinner bell rang in the distance. Oh, no! she thought. Is it lunch time already?

She stood up, brushing stray grass leaves from her skirt, and looked into her basket with a sigh. Only half full again. She should have had a full basket by now. Mama will lecture me again about daydreaming, she thought, and tell me that there won’t be any berry tarts for dessert tonight if I don’t pick enough. It will be back to the fields after lunch. No trip to the village for me.

Tess trudged down the hill and through the woods to their homestead. It was not exactly a farm, for her father was not exactly a farmer. He was a woodworker, one of the best among the Foresti people, and his skills were highly sought-after. He could fell trees, make boards, repair buildings, even make cabinets and furniture. Their own home was the envy of the village. Her father had tongue-and-grooved the wall logs so closely that they required no mortar. When Tess would sleep over at her cousin Lu’s home, she could feel the draft through the chinks in the wall. Not so at the Berrywoods’ home. It was dry and tight.

She ambled through the kitchen garden in back, and washed her face and hands at the well, smelling the aroma of wood smoke and a lunch of leftover stew from last night’s dinner. She realized she was famished, and trotted up the steps onto the veranda that surrounded the house.

Her mother Sara had set places at the narrow table that her father Nathan had made especially for the east veranda so they could catch the cool meadow breeze while they ate. Sara and Nathan and Junie, Tess’s eight year old sister, were at the table, and Sara was ladling stew into a bowl for Junie.

"Do I have to eat the carrots?" Junie whined.

You must eat at least one carrot, young lady, Sara insisted. They are good for you.

Sara lifted the lid from the large iron pot in the middle of the table, and it was half-filled with roasted root vegetables and several pieces of chicken. After cooking much of yesterday afternoon, then reheated on the breakfast fire embers, it looked and smelled positively perfect to Tess. She plopped down on her chair and lifted up her bowl. I will take anything that Junie does not!

Nathan smiled. How could someone so skinny eat so much? he asked no one in particular.

Junie sighed. Okay. Tess can have my carrots.

"You will eat your carrots, Sara said over her shoulder as she poured a generous ladle of stew into Tess’s bowl. Tess will eat her carrots."

Tess picked up a slice of bread from the bread platter and poured some cool mint tea into her tumbler. She was blowing on her first spoonful of lunch to cool it off when the dreaded topic came up.

So how did the berry picking go, Tess? Papa asked.

She thought quickly and made a face. Not so bad. The berries are getting thin on the south hill. I do not have quite enough for a pie. I think about an hour’s picking on the upper glade would fill it up. I have not been on the upper glade in a couple of weeks. There might be more berries there.

Sara nodded absently. Good idea.

Inwardly, Tess breathed a sigh of relief. Got by that one, she thought.

Junie looked up from her bowl and said, You were probably staring at the Cloud Riders again…

I was not.

I saw them sailing over the ridge, Junie pressed. You were probably lying in the grass, making moonie-eyes at them.

I was not! Mama, make her stop!

Exactly what are ‘moonie-eyes’? Nathan asked the table, grinning to himself. Sara glanced at him with a twinkle in her eye, but waved a hand at him to stop teasing as she addressed Junie.

"No trouble-making out of you, young lady, or I will make you eat two carrots. Turning to Tess, she said, And were you dawdling on the south hill instead of doing your chores?"

Mama, I cannot help that cloud ships sail overhead when I am berry picking. Whether or not cloud ships sail overhead does not mean the berry picking is good on the south hill.

Sara sighed. Seventeen year olds have an answer for everything, she muttered.

Nathan intervened. And that one was pretty good, actually. The berries would be pretty much picked over by this time of the season. She should try the high meadow.

The high meadow? Sara protested. Nathan, I do not like Tess being that far away by herself.

She will be fine, Sara. It is just one ridge over. And she can take Rosie with her. Right, Rosie? Rosie!

From around the corner padded an old bloodhound, all droopy ears and sad eyes.

Sure, Mama, Tess said. I will bring Rosie with me.

Cloud Riders, Nathan said to himself. Humph! They say they sail their ships with magic, and steal people’s sheep high up on the slopes! But we are safe here in the forest.

Nathan, stop teasing, Sara said. You will frighten Junie.

Junie, who did not look very frightened, asked eagerly, Do they really use magic, Papa?

Sara stared at her husband, who glanced over at her, and confessed to Junie, Probably not, little one. No one knows how they make their ships fly. They keep it a closely guarded secret.

Why do they sail in the sky? she asked.

Well, it is what they do, her father replied. I cut and work with wood for a living, and the Cloud Riders sail their ships to deliver special goods and important letters to places far away. I hear that the king himself often sends and receives things from other kings by way of the Cloud Riders.

Have you ever met a Cloud Rider, Papa? Tess asked.

"No, but your Uncle Arno has. He sometimes sends his furniture to customers in other cities by way of the cloud ships. He says they are different than people like we, the Foresti…not so different, but different."

How so?

Arno says they are lean, skinny people, and tall, with fair skin and hair. He thinks it’s from them eating clouds instead of food.

Nathan… Sara said reproachfully.

Nathan chuckled. Okay. I don’t know about the cloud eating…but he says they speak differently than we do, and often use strange words. And their clothes are different. More colorful.

So why do people not like them? Junie asked, trying to eat a mouthful of carrots without swallowing it.

Just because they are different, I suppose, Nathan replied. Arno says they are trustworthy and honorable people to deal with…they are just different, and a little distant. They are friendly, Arno says, but they keep to themselves. No one really knows even where they live. It is said they live on their ships, like gypsies.

"…like gypsies…" Tess pondered as she strolled through the upper meadow, picking blue berries from the bushes. They were thicker in the upper meadow, and she thought ruefully how, if she had come to the upper meadow first thing that morning, she would have finished long before lunch and now would be in the village, looking for Lu.

Tess had heard that gypsies were people who lived in horse drawn wagons, and roamed about the countryside, but she did not know much more about them than that, like she knew so little about the Cloud Riders. She sighed. There was so much she did not know, so much she had not seen, so many places she had not traveled to…it was a life of berry picking, fighting with Junie, weekly trips to the village and visits with her cousin, Lu.

And then there is you, Rosie, she said to the family dog, who sniffed about the ground near her feet. You are my best friend, but I sure wish you could talk more.

Rosie sneezed and ambled into the bushes, following some scent only she could detect.

And I wish you would listen more, Tess muttered, pulling more berries from the bushes.

The basket handle was beginning to bite into her forearm, which was a sign that she had enough berries for a pie. She ran one arm through a strap, swung the basket onto her back, and ran the other arm through another strap, turning the basket into a wicker rucksack. She whistled between her teeth, and called out, C’mon, Rosie! It’s time to go!

Rosie was out of sight, apparently following a scent trail. Tess ambled around the bush and saw Rosie deep among the bramble, rooting around.

C’mon, you old bag of bones! Tess chided. Let us go home.

Suddenly, Rosie stood up on her hind legs and turned to face Tess. In a flash, Tess realized that it was not Rosie at all, but a brown bear. Brown bears were rare in the land of the Foresti, but not unknown. It looked back at her with red eyes, and growled lowly.

Quick as a fox, Tess dropped the basket and ran, hoping the bear would simply want the berries and leave her alone, but she was not going to wait around to find out. She had barely taken five strides when she heard Rosie baying loudly. She glanced over her shoulder as she ran to see Rosie harassing the bear, who was now chasing Tess.

Tess knew she could never outrun the bear, and did the only thing she could think of - she picked out the nearest tree limb she could reach and swung up into the tree.

A lifetime of