The Road to Death

58

Burch could barely hear himself think, Te’oma was screaming so loud. He couldn’t understand how she could make so much noise when he felt like he could barely breathe. He saw her black cloak flapping around her, the living tissue it was really made out of trying to deploy its wings. He reached out and wrapped his arms around them and her, putting an end to that.

“You’ll kill us both!” the changeling cried, struggling in Burch’s grasp. She let go of the airship’s useless wheel and tried to shove him away.

“I don’t plan to die alone.”

“You bastard!” Te’oma screeched. “Let me go!”

“Would you just listen to me?” he shouted in her face, his nose less than an inch from hers. “Try one more thing for me,” he said, trying not to sound like he was begging. “Do that, and I’ll let you go.”

“We don’t have time,” she started. “What is it?” she continued, not waiting for him to press his argument.

“Can you reach it with your mind?” Burch shouted.

“What?”

“The elemental,” he said, jerking his head at the ring of fire. “You’re a telepath. Forget about the wheel. See if you can get its attention on your own.”

Te’oma stared at the shifter for a moment, her hair blowing straight up at the sky as the ship raced toward the ground. He released her and she blinked her white eyes at him once before saying, “All right.”

The changeling closed her eyes and furrowed her brow. For a long moment, nothing happened, and Burch wondered how it would feel to be crushed to death from a fall from such a great height. Would he have any sensation at all of bouncing off the ground after he smacked into it, or would he lose consciousness at that point? Curious as he was to find out, he knew he’d be happy to put off the answers until another day.

The first clue Burch had that the ship was stopping was when he felt heavier. The unexpected change in momentum drove him to his knees. It felt like the ship was swinging from the end of a long rope. Now that it had reached the end of its length, it slowed its descent, hovered where it was for a split-second, and then began its long climb back up again.

Te’oma screamed in delight as the airship zoomed back into the open sky, hot on the trail of Phoenix, which was now moving off to the south. She reached out and embraced Burch, hopping up and down the entire time. The shifter allowed himself a smile and gave her a one-armed hug back. With his other arm, though, he pointed up at the dragon coming down at them again.

“Just won’t give up, will it?” Burch said, pulling himself out of Te’oma’s arms. He picked up his crossbow from where he’d let it fall, thankful that he hadn’t accidentally set off the shockbolt, and he placed it on the bridge’s front railing. Then he got down on one knee and sighted along the shockbolt’s shaft.

The dragon swung back and forth in its flight path as it sped toward Keeper’s Claw, making it impossible for Burch to get a perfect angle at it. With only the one shockbolt left, he was determined to wait for the right moment to loose it. He didn’t miss often, but this attack had to be perfect. He wouldn’t get another chance.

Even if the shockbolt smacked the dragon square in its good eye, though, Burch wasn’t sure it would do a lick of good. He’d already loosed two of these amazing bolts into the beast, and it had still disabled the airship. If it hadn’t been for Te’oma’s psionics, right now he’d be dead.

Still, he didn’t have any better ideas at the moment. The only thing he could think of was to wait until the dragon opened its mouth to devour him before loosing the shockbolt down its rotting gullet. With luck, that would do it. The only trick was that it involved getting close enough to the dragon to be eaten, and Burch wasn’t all too comfortable with that.

“Let him have it!” Te’oma shouted at the shifter. “Now!”

Burch ignored her. The angle was either there or it wasn’t. Some people marveled at his skill with the crossbow. They asked him who’d blessed his crossbow or what kind of magic infused it. He always smiled at them and told them the truth. Most of them never believed him.

You just line up the angle. Don’t loose your bolt until it’s there.

Lots of things got in the way of an angle. People screaming in your ear never helped. Riding a bouncing ship driven by a sullen elemental creature of fire didn’t come up often, but it made things harder. Firing at a moving target, even one as large as a dragon, that was more common.

The trick, if there was one, was to let those other things go, to focus on the task at hand, and to wait for the angle to present itself. When ready met chance, you pulled the trigger.

Sometimes it never did.

The dragon spun in a swashing roll right over the ship and disappeared behind the airship’s rudder.

Te’oma slapped Burch on the back of the head. “Why didn’t you loose? What good does that bolt do stuck in your crossbow?”

Burch snarled at the changeling, and she backed off. That was one distraction taken care of, at least for now.

He hefted his crossbow again and scanned the sky for the dragon. The sun rode low and red in the west now, making it harder to pick out the black-scaled creature against the encroaching night sky.

He was peering out at the bow when the beast appeared over the rudder, having doubled back instead of following the momentum of its loop out to the front of the ship. Burch started to swing his crossbow back to find the angle, but he was too slow.

Nithkorrh whipped its arched neck forward and spat something green and viscous down at the ship.

Te’oma screamed and dove over the bridge’s front railing, trying to avoid the burning acid, but the dragon hadn’t aimed it at her. Instead, it sloshed into the airship’s upper restraining arc and began eating away at the rune-crusted wood.

Burch swore as he sprinted toward the changeling, the dragon’s monstrous laugh echoing in his ears. The ship’s deck jangled beneath his feet, but he kept his legs pumping, the long, dark nails at the ends of his bare toes digging into the wood.

As the restraining arc melted, the ring of fire flared up and out, the elemental straining against its magical bonds. The first burst slashed out and caught Nithkorrh through one of its wings, setting it ablaze. The dragon roared in pain and surprise, and then it was gone, falling away behind the ship again.

When Burch reached the tremulous Te’oma, the ring of fire flared again. The heat singed his mane of hair.

“We have to leave!” the changeling shouted, trying to push the shifter away. “This thing is falling apart!”

“Not yet,” Burch growled in her face. “Not yet.”