“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.
63
Sitting on the deck of Phoenix, Kandler couldn’t believe he was still alive. He held Esprë on his lap and kissed the back of her head, not sure he could ever bring himself to let her go. Sallah sat next to him, leaning into him. Every now and then, he heard her whisper, “Thank the Flame.”
He looked at the people arranged around him and marveled at what they’d all been through. Burch paced back and forth at the bow, scouting the sky, making sure no other threats were coming their way. It seemed unlikely, but the shifter wasn’t willing to take anything for granted.
Monja stood on the spokes of the ship’s wheel again, pushing the ship gently toward the southwest, back in the direction of her homeland. The Talenta Plains stretched out before them, holding the promise of a respite if not an actual haven. Could anything protect them from the dangers that still threatened them? Certainly not the tribes of halfling barbarians over which Monja’s father ruled—if it could be said that anyone did.
Xalt sat in front of him, fawning over Esprë. The two had formed a quick bond back in Construct when Kandler had entrusted the warforged with his daughter’s welfare. That link had been cemented when Te’oma had stabbed Xalt in the back and kidnapped the young elf once again.
Kandler guessed that Esprë enjoyed the simplicity of the warforged’s outlook. Here was a creature with little or no history, no twisting lines of family politics full of intrigue. He was about as unlike an elf as you could get.
As for Xalt, perhaps he was just interested in children, having never been one himself. Like all warforged, he had come into the world fully grown, and to discover a person who was not only a child but had been one for longer than Xalt had been alive must have piqued his curiosity to no end.
Duro prowled the deck, reflecting on moments that left him thrilled and then dour. The dwarf grieved for all the good friends he’d lost today, but the thought that he’d helped rid his ancient homeland of the creature that had plagued it for so long pleased him more than he could express. Kandler wondered what the dwarf would do now. Was there anyone waiting for him back home? Or was he now without any ties at all?
Te’oma lay sprawled on her back in the middle of the deck. She hadn’t said much of anything since she and Burch had landed on Phoenix. Kandler was grateful to her for everything she’d done—he didn’t know if they’d have prevailed without her help—but he still wasn’t sure he could trust her. She’d been a strong ally when they’d faced a common foe, but now that the dragon was dead, he couldn’t tell what she might try next.