The Road to Death

62

Kandler opened his eyes to see Monja looking down at him. Her smile faded instantly, though, as a dragon’s roar rattled the airship. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said glancing up, “at least for now.”

Kandler coughed out his thanks as he turned to look for Sallah, reaching out for her with his arm. She lay next to him, her chin and chest covered with blood.

“Is she—?” he started, thinking she was dead, wishing he could trade his life for hers.

The lady knight opened her emerald eyes and smiled at him. His heart leaped in his chest.

“Are you …?”

“Stiff and sore?” she said as she struggled to sit up. She nodded. “You?”

“Happier than I have any right to be.” He reached out and hugged her. As he did, he glanced around, searching for his daughter. He spied Esprë gazing down at him from behind the ship’s wheel.

“I saw what you did, kid,” he called. “You were great. If your mother—”

Esprë cut Kandler off with a scream. He whipped his head about to see Nithkorrh hovering over the ship. The dragon turned to glare down at the group of people gathered there at the ship’s bow.

“How thoughtful,” the dragon said. “Now I can kill you all at once.”

“Scatter!” Kandler yelled.

Xalt helped Sallah to her feet and pulled her to the port side of the ship, away from the others. Duro pushed Kandler in the other direction. Monja raced back toward the bridge.

Nithkorrh roared, then whipped back its neck in the way that Kandler now knew meant the beast was about to spit down at the ship. The justicar sprinted for the bridge, hoping to protect Esprë from the worst of the green acid. As he glared up defiantly at the dragon, Keeper’s Claw barreled into the beast and knocked it from its spot in the sky.

Kandler threw back his head and cheered louder than he had since the end of the Last War.

“Let’s get to the bridge!” Burch said. “When we smack that beast, we’ll want to be as far from it as we can.”

Te’oma raced ahead of the shifter along the length of the ship. He had to give her credit. He didn’t think she’d be brave enough to push the elemental in the right direction—or trust him enough to do what he asked.

When they reached the bridge, Burch pulled her down to hunker behind the wooden console where the now-useless wheel hung. The ship shook so violently that the shifter wondered if they’d make it to the dragon before coming apart.

Burch peeked out over the console and spotted the dragon hanging in the air in front of Keeper’s Claw, terrorizing the other airship below it. Nithkorrh’s roaring at Phoenix’s passengers drowned out the mad crackling of Keeper’s ring of fire. The airship rocketed straight at the dragon, its prow aiming for its heart like a massive lance.

Glancing a hair lower, Burch saw his friends scattering from the dragon, heading in all directions across Phoenix’s deck. They all seemed to be alive, although some were soaked in blood. He didn’t see Ibrido anywhere, which he hoped was a good sign.

As Keeper’s Claw neared, the dragon finally heard it coming and turned to face it. Burch swore, knowing this could not be good. Then an idea struck him cold and clear.

“Come on,” the shifter said, pulling Te’oma to her feet. “Spread those wings of yours. We’re leaving.”

“You’re insane,” the changeling said as he hauled her toward the ship’s stern, her cloak already morphing from black cloth into a set of batlike wings. “These aren’t strong enough to keep us both in the air.”

“They just need to slow us down,” Burch said, wrapping an arm around Te’oma’s waist as he leaped off the back of the airship.

The changeling screamed.

Just as they left Keeper’s Claw, she slammed into the dragon. The canny beast managed to avoid the ship’s prow, slipping up over her to smash into the upper restraining arc instead. Its furious roar rang throughout the mountains as it found its wings too tangled in the ship for it to fly, and it crashed into the bridge, right where Burch and Te’oma had been. The airship’s ring of fire flared again, like a bonfire fed a cartload of dry tinder, and the ship ground to a halt less than fifty yards past Phoenix.

The changeling’s wings beat madly to keep the two of them in the sky, but gravity was sure to win that battle. Holding on to Te’oma by her belt, Burch arched out and around and leveled his crossbow back at the ship. Drifting lower in the sky like a wounded bird wasn’t the best way to loose a bolt, but it beat riding an airship quaking like a toddler in a graveyard, and this time, the target stayed still.

Burch held the crossbow out in front of him at the end of his arm for a moment, waiting for the angle to appear. Then he pulled its trigger and loosed the bolt.

The shockbolt sailed straight toward Keeper’s Claw and smashed into its upper restraining arc, exploding against the curved length of rune-carved wood.

The dragon’s head poked up from the bridge on its long, sinuous neck, and it unleashed a low, evil laugh.

“You missed!” Te’oma cried.

Burch grinned to himself.

“I wasn’t aiming for the dragon.”

The upper restraining arc of Keeper’s Claw toppled forward over the bridge, trapping the dragon beneath it. As it fell, the magic inside it spilled out, and it released the monstrous elemental that had been trapped within its ring of fire for years.

The explosion engulfed the entire airship from stem to stern, including Nithkorrh. The dragon howled an unholy screech as the fire burned through its scales and flash-fried the flesh from its bones. Then it and the remains of the ship began a long, blazing descent to crash into the mountain far below, inscribing an arc across the heavens like a falling star.

The concussion from the blast knocked Te’oma and Burch senseless for a moment, but the changeling’s cloak-wings kept beating. When the shifter managed to clear his head, he saw the deck of Phoenix rising to meet him, and he heard a cheer go up from his friends.