Laugh all you want, youngsters, but this eye of mine is the last remaining eye in this Company who saw the Basking Maw and lived to tell the tale. They try and tell you it's only a story, something the elder hands use to scare the fresh blood. But those scriveners and scribblers in the towers haven't seen not a hundredth of what us old airmen have seen, and I've seen enough to tell you I've not seen a hundredth of the mysteries that are abroad in these skies.
I was no older than most of you – I say I was good deal younger than many, for in those days they took us in young. This was before the Temar Company ever flew a vessel, I was taken as a junior hand on a freight-runner out of Zhikav. We used to ply all along the Ussin Belt and beyond into the wilds, bring goods to the Abheski and any other folk that would trade with us, places the Erthani or the caravans couldn't reach.
Well, I'd not been on the crew half a year when we got a contract to fly way out West, where few Abheski ever traded, but this one town was hacking out a living in the shadow of a smoking mountain – oh yes, those are real too, even the scribblers in their offices won't tell you otherwise. They were convinced they'd find gold, picking away at the ground like some godless Anshessi beneath this smoking brute of a mountain – it smoked and spewed all year long, a great dirty crag rearing into the air, not like those slumbering hills in TransOlyen that spit once in a lifetime!
We'd flown far beyond the routes any of you have ever taken, and twice as far again, before we found this tired little camp. We spent barely a day there before turning and coming back again. Our navigator, senseless drunk on what must have been all the brandy those poor miners had stored away, led us straight into the smoke plume from the burning mountain and we got turned every way, blind to all compasses and charts. One and all the crew coughed and spluttered and retched the sick atmoshpere, until the lookout recovered enough to sound the alarm – another vessel, her signals bright and guiding us from the smoke. We gathered ourselves enough to fly towards them to safety – and never was a greater mistake made in all the history of flight.
It's just as you've heard it described – if not worse, for no uncle scaring his nephews or master scolding his charges could truly tell the horrific sight of the Basking Maw. A hull as black as night, somehow sucking your eye to it. Though it was full noon, the sky all around was darker for its presence. Bristling with ragged and fierce batteries, gaping holes promising destruction no lesser than the mouth of that smoking mountain. Its dvint leaving an oily wake in the sky, hanging clear behind it as though untouched by current or cloud.
We turned and fled as fast as any vessel I've ever crewed, and I've crewed them all! The Basking Maw hung behind us all the way, never straining though we pushed our vessel for all it was worth. Jettisoning all the cargo, packing in our few batteries, every prayer every aviator could offer, and yet the Basking Maw hung astern, never falling a handsbreadth further behind no matter what speed we set.
Four days and four nights we raced ahead of the evil craft; not a hand among us slept a minute in all that time, and that, at last, was what brought our downfall. The captain ordered us to ride the edge of a storm, hoping we could lose our pursuers, but the exhausted crew could not match the violence of the winds, and we lost control, tossed asunder, pulled into the heart of the storm and finally cast into the valley below.
Those of us who survived huddled in the cabins and the hold, gripping our pikes and axes lest Grey Baurin and his crew descend to snatch us away, the storm raging without all the while.
And Grey Baurin never came. Whether the Basking Maw was finally put away by the storm, or the deaths of half the crew satisfied their thirst for violence, who can ever tell? When the storm blew over in another half a day, the Basking Maw was no longer in our wake.
After burning the captain and the hands, and burying the navigator and damning him as a fool, we picked ourselves up and began the long flight back to Zhikav. Most of the crew never signed on again, and didn't fly another day in their lives. The vessel was scrapped the following year and as for myself, I've never ventured further west than the Lenla since.
And yet, the east, the east has its own share of horrors and wonders. I could tell you about the time I lived among the Urselk of Hoitan for a season... but you'll have to buy me another drink.
I will be brief. Two successful operations have been undertaken since my last communication.
Thanks to the intelligence supplied by your scouts, we easily discovered the location of the exchange town selected at our last conference. Destruction of the settlement was achieved as is standard. As far as we could tell, all lives were accounted for, and no materiel was left behind after the engagement. I predict this will weaken Erthani ability to access the Vikol region, as we hoped.
The second operation was the more difficult, having never been attempted previously. Shortly after the destruction of the exchange town, I took the liberty of apprehending an Erthani barge a day's travel away from the ruined settlement. No survivors remain to recount this breach of custom and treaty; understanding the gravity of such a breach becoming widely known, every care was taken at all stages of the operation to ensure secrecy.
Having established that this barge was not in convoy and there were no other vessels in operational range, I deployed a small force of marines on either side of the river, to ambush the vessel. The purpose of this ruse was to draw attention away from the skies and cover the approach of our craft – thinking that they were beset by river-bandits, the Erthani would not be prepared for the deployment of a battery and further marines and aviators to board their vessel from above. Their defense was spirited but nonetheless ineffective, and quickly they surrendered their arms. The Erthani's protestations were not surrendered so readily, accusing the crew of my vessel and myself in particular of every crime and misbehaviour known to humanity. The captain was killed in the fighting before she had time to destroy her barge's logs, thus these were secured for your use.
The Erthani casualties were disposed of overboard, while the surrendered crew were marched overland and executed in a clearing – the site's remoteness should allow exposure to the elements and the beasts of the forest to erase all evidence, and with it any likelihood that we should be connected to the barge's disappearance. The barge itself was towed into rocks and allowed to smash itself upon them, and thence sink; should the wreck be discovered, I expect it will be assumed that the crew deserted the ruined craft and became lost in the hostile surrounding country.
All seized cargo from these expeditions will be dealt with by our usual agent in the Ussin Depot. Should you require it, I can provide an account of this engagement – perhaps couched in speculative language – for inclusion in Company Treatises, or for review of the Commission as they consider how to further pursue this current conflict.
I remain in your debt,
Contract-Captain Yar te Yarllen, Location Withheld
