Xalt tapped the justicar on the shoulder and pointed up. Kandler craned his neck back and saw the dragon climbing higher and higher into the air on its leathery wings.
“What is it doing?” Xalt asked. “Trying to escape into the sky?”
The ship slowed down, and Kandler spotted Sallah gazing up at the dragon high above and behind them. Just as the dragon reached the top of its climb and started its downward dive, he understood its plan.
“Full speed!” he shouted back at Sallah. “Full speed!”
The lady knight grabbed the wheel with both hands, and Phoenix leaped forward, but it was too late. The dragon’s power dive gave it far too much speed for them to outrun it.
Kandler and Xalt stood shoulder to shoulder and nocked their arrows. “Fire low,” Kandler said. “We don’t want to hit Esprë, just shove the dragon off his mark.”
They fired their shafts as one, speeding toward Nithkorrh’s legs. The creature ignored them, letting them stab into one clawed foot and the bottom of its snaking tail.
“Duck!” Monja yelled from her spot next to Sallah on the bridge. It took a moment before Kandler realized the halfling’s warning was meant for Xalt and him.
Xalt pushed Kandler aside at the last moment, just as the dragon charged in for its attack. It lashed out with its tail, which smashed into the ship’s deck, right where Kandler had been. The tip of it caught Xalt in the shoulder and spun the warforged about, sending him hurtling toward the bow.
Kandler reached out and grabbed Xalt by the wrist as he went by, but the justicar hadn’t managed to anchor himself. The warforged’s momentum pulled them both toward the gunwale and the empty space beyond.
As he slammed into the railing across the bow, Kandler scrabbled for a good, strong hold and found one, just as Xalt tumbled over the edge. The sudden shift in the warforged’s momentum from outward to downward felt like it might shatter Kandler’s elbow, but he managed to keep hold of both the ship and Xalt too.
The airship slowed down and Kandler fought against gravity to haul the warforged back on to the ship. As he hung over the railing, his arm stretched almost to the breaking point, he looked past Xalt’s dangling feet to the ground far below. From this high up, it didn’t seem real, more like a painting than anything else. The amber glow of the dying sunlight gave the landscape a surreal cast that Kandler wished he had more time to appreciate. If he didn’t let go of the heavy warforged soon, he thought it might be the last thing he ever got to see.
“Release me!” Xalt shouted.
“Pull yourself up!”
“I’m too heavy. I’ll bring us both down,” the warforged said. “Release me now!”
Kandler didn’t bother to respond. He gritted his teeth and locked his knees under the railing along the gunwale. Then he swung his other arm out to grab the warforged too.
It was a calculated risk, and Kandler instantly regretted it. He felt the wood digging into his knees and then starting to slip. Sweat broke out on his brow as he strove to hold on to both Xalt and the ship, and he felt both getting away.
Then a set of hands grabbed him by his sword belt and pulled him back and up hard. He shoved his legs under the railing and pushed with all his might, hauling up with his arms at the same time. He thought the strain might tear the muscles in his back, but as he straightened his legs with the help from behind, he saw Xalt’s head and arms clear the railing and clamp on.
Kandler grabbed the warforged’s shoulders and hauled him bodily on to the airship’s deck. As he did, he fell back against Sallah, who held him in her arms.
“Thank the Flame,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Kandler.
“Wait,” Xalt said, “if you are here, who is flying the ship?”
Kandler scrambled off Sallah to spy Monja standing at the wheel, waving at them. The halfling stood on the spokes in the middle of the wheel, just so she could see over it, but she seemed to be handling the ship well enough. Duro stood behind her, waving his crossbow about as he tried to cover the sky.
“As long as we don’t need any fancy maneuvers, she should be fine,” Sallah said.
The dragon didn’t roar as it approached this time. The first Kandler saw of it, its claws had already touched down on the deck between him and the bridge, its reptilian, orange eye glaring out at him. As the justicar bounded to his feet, the creature set Ibrido and Esprë down on the deck in front of it and started to laugh.
55
Kandler stood and drew his blade as Ibrido leaped from the dragon’s claws and landed on the deck of the airship, the unconscious Esprë in his arms. Beside him, Sallah did the same, silvery flames crawling up and down the length of her sacred sword. Xalt drew a short knife from a sheath on his side, and the three stood ready to face the dragon together.
As Nithkorrh rested his weight on Phoenix, the entire ship dipped in the air, and Kandler lost his footing. Sallah and Xalt went down too.
“Here you are, half-breed,” the dragon rumbled as it flapped its wings to take the bulk of its mass off the sinking airship, which then stopped falling again. “Time to earn your keep. I do not intend to carry you and the elfling all the way to Argonnessen.”
The dragon-elf lay Esprë down on the deck, then drew his blade, a length of what looked like ivory fashioned into a long, curved blade, serrated along its cutting edge. He held it as if it weighed nothing in his hands, swinging it about in tight loops, weaving a deadly defense around him.
The dragon growled with delight, baring its many teeth. It crouched back on its massive haunches, clutching at the airship with its massive claws as its beating wings kept it partially in the air, ready to savor the upcoming battle. Kandler had no doubt it would make quick work of him if he somehow managed to defeat Ibrido. First, though, he had to keep the dragon-elf from killing him.
Kandler glanced up in the sky and had to stifle a smile. He snapped his eyes back down to Ibrido and stalked toward him, making sure he and the dragon kept their eyes focused on him. Sallah strode up on his left and Xalt on his right, each of them keeping pace with him, forming a line across the ship that Ibrido would not be able to dodge past.
The dragon-elf leaped forward, over Esprë’s sleeping body, and swung his sword down at Kandler. The justicar brought up his sword to parry the blow, catching Ibrido’s strange blade on the tip of his own. A strange clang sounded in Kandler’s ears, and when he brought his sword back he saw that Ibrido had notched it nearly in half at its tip.
“You face no sell-sword here,” the dragon-elf said. “No mindless skeleton, no careless vampire.”
Kandler glanced at his weapon again. “There’s more to your blade than to you,” he said, taunting Ibrido. “It’s easy to boast with a dragon at your back.”
“Nithkorrh is only here as an audience. I don’t need his help to deal with trash like you.”
“Well,” Kandler said, “here’s your chance to prove it.”
With that, Kandler, Sallah, and Xalt all turned and threw themselves against the railing that ran along the bow of the ship. Confused, Ibrido stood where he was for a moment, his sword held out before him.
“Cowards!” he shouted at them. “Face me, or I will kill you where you are!”
Kandler kept crouched against the railing and made sure that Sallah and Xalt were pressed in tight there too. He didn’t want anyone going over the edge again. “Hold on tight,” he whispered to them.
Ibrido turned to Nithkorrh for guidance. “What am I to do with such—” Right then, he spotted Keeper’s Claw soaring in behind the dragon. “Master!” he cried.
Startled, the dragon beat its wings harder and lifted a few feet off the deck of Phoenix. The claws that it had dug into the ship, though, didn’t come free so easily. As the dragon tried to free itself, Burch’s shockbolt slammed into it, right between the bases of its wings.