Every day the past week, Pirin had been woken up by a flock of Rustlers.

Upon hearing their shrill shrieks for the seventh morning in a row, he sprung upright in the Featherflight’s cot, nearly bashing his head against the low ceiling. With a groan, he rolled to the side and flopped down onto the deck of the airship’s crew quarters.

The entire vessel swayed. The upper envelope ripped, the titanwood frame groaned, and the sails fluttered. They were already leaking lyftgas out of one gasbag, and they didn’t need the Rustlers tearing anymore holes in the ship.

Pirin ran to the ladder and climbed up as fast as he could, passing between two leathery gasbags. He reached the axial catwalk just in time to find Brealtod. The dragonfolk man hissed something, which Pirin didn’t understand—except for a hint of urgency.

Rubbing his eyes, Pirin turned back to the ladder. Before he continued to climb, he put his eyeglasses on. Everything came into focus a little better, like he’d wiped mist off a pane of glass. Then he inhaled sharply and pulled himself up the rungs as fast as he could.

When he neared the top of the ladder, he began to cycle Essence with a breathing technique. He used the fastest technique he knew—it would be the best for combat.

At the top of the ladder, he pushed open a wooden hatch. Cold wind blasted into the corridor, followed by blinding daylight. Shielding his eyes, Pirin climbed out onto the airship’s top platform. It was a square of wood ten paces in any direction, perching gently atop the airship’s envelope.

Now where were the Rustlers?

Pirin’s head whipped back and forth, searching for the creatures. He knew exactly what to look for by now. They were deer-sized squirrels with flesh stretching between their legs. Apparently, they were fond of titanwood. Specifically, gnawing on it.

“Glad you could join us!” Alyus yelled. He drew his bow back and fired an arrow towards the stern of the ship. It impaled a Rustler through the neck, earning a screech from the beast and sending it tumbling away into the clear blue skies.

“Where’s Myraden?” Pirin asked.

“In the gondola, keeping it safe.”

“You locked the ship’s wheels, right?”

“Our course is steady, elfy.”

Pirin glanced at the repeating crossbow mounted on the edge of the platform, but they didn’t have many spare bolts for it, and if this pattern kept up, they’d need as many spare bolts as they could get. Instead, he said, “I’ll clear off the ship’s spine by hand. You focus on the far away ones.”

“Atta boy,” Alyus said. He drew his bowstring back, then fired off another arrow into the sky.

Pirin ran to the edge of the platform. He grimaced. Along the back of the ship, the flock of Rustlers had started to land. They swooped down, their legs splayed and sinewy sails unfurled. A network of channels rippled under the flesh, glowing bright blue with Essence. These were sacred beasts, like a kharybou, but they weren’t nearly as strong or old. They flew around in flocks, drifting on the currents of the Eane as if they were birds riding in air thermals.

They were nothing but destructive.

Pirin drew his sword, then bent down. A rope ran from the platform all the way back to the vertical stern fin. Pirin swung down off the platform and clutched onto the rope with his free hand, using it to keep himself steady. He placed his feet on the airship’s bright white envelope, feeling for the titanwood frame beneath.

As an elf, he was best suited to this task. He was slender, and his bones were light. But if he fell, there was nothing below but open ocean—for miles in any direction.

“Then you’d better not fall,” he told himself.

Once he had his footing, he inched towards the nearest Rustler. Its claws clutched onto the envelope and ripped the fabric, revealing the gasbags beneath. But they weren’t after the lyftgas.

The Rustler opened its mouth, revealing a set of sharp teeth. It bent down and sunk its maw into the titanwood. As it chewed, it leaned further and further forwards, until its claws reached off the edge of the titanwood beam and began to scrape against the surface of the gasbag below.

A previous attack had already ripped a small hole in a different gasbag, and they didn’t need anymore leaks.

“Hey!” Pirin yelled, waving his sword arm. “You haven’t buried any nuts here! Go away!”

The Rustler looked up, staring at Pirin with beady eyes. It was young—probably only five decades old—and it wouldn’t be terribly strong. Then it opened its mouth and let out a high-pitched shriek.

“Alright, I’ll take that as a no,” Pirin muttered.

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He wrapped his elbow around the rope and held his hand out towards the Rustler. He figured he could get away with using his Night’s Nudge technique. If he forcefully put it to sleep, it’d fall right off the back of the airship.

Staring into the creature’s eyes, he cycled his Essence, conjuring a misty orb in the palm of his hand. But without a Reyad with Gray, he had no way to stabilize his techniques. His Essence loop was incomplete.

It was a good thing he could make the most out of his Embercore curse.

As the technique began to destabilize, he flooded his arm with more Essence. The Rustler pounced, leaping along the envelope towards Pirin. Pirin timed his breaths and pushed more Essence to the palm of his hand. His channels burned and needles blasted through his skin.

A blunt surge of blue Essence shot out of his hand and struck the Rustler in the chest. Bones snapped, and the beast shrieked again. The force of the blast sent the creature tumbling backwards along the spine of the airship, before it fell limp and tumbled away into the sky.

Apparently, that counted as an arcane technique too—the Shattered Palm.

Another Rustler leapt at him, its mouth wide and its teeth bared. It spread its legs, using its sails to get extra distance out of its glide.

Pirin swung at it with his sword, aiming for its neck. Instead, the tip of his blade scraped across its chest. He ducked to the side, slipping under the rope, then slashed again. He sliced through the flaps of skin between its legs. It staggered to the side. Pirin drove his sword forwards, stabbing through its neck.

The Rustler’s skin was tougher than a man’s, but it wasn’t impenetrable. He pushed harder, driving the blade all the way through.

The Rustler’s body slid off the blade and rolled down the side of the envelope. Sparks of visible, manifested Essence spilled into the air in a trail behind it. The Rustlers may not have been strong enough to form manabulbs, but they still had Essence in them.

Pirin adjusted his grip on the rope, then flourished his sword and continued forwards. It would have been nice to have Gray with him, but she was still sleeping in the cargo hold, and there hadn’t been any time to wake her up. He was on his own—mostly.

There were three more of the beasts perching on the back of the airship. They screeched, apparently recognizing that Pirin posed a threat.

That was a first.

Two of the Rustlers turned away and leapt off the back of the Featherflight, but one stayed. It scurried along the spine of the airship, racing towards Pirin with its jaw wide. Its claws tore more gashes in the envelope and scratched the wooden frame.

Pirin tried to prepare another Shattered Palm, but the Rustler reached him before he could unleash it. It pressed its paws against his shoulders, and its claws ripped through his coat, scratching the skin beneath. Lances of pain seared through him.

The Rustler kept pressing, pushing him down. His grip on the rope broke, and he landed hard on his back—right where the other Rustlers had been gnawing the airship’s frame.

The weakened wood shattered beneath him. He fell through a small gap between a pair of gasbags and landed hard on the airship’s axial catwalk. The Rustler landed beside him.

But Pirin had been cycling his Essence the entire fall. He pushed himself up and, holding his arm out, he blasted a Shattered Palm into the Rustler’s forehead. It wasn’t as strong as the first time he used the technique—he hadn’t had as much time to charge it—but it still sent the Rustler skidding along the catwalk.

The beast scrambled to its feet, swinging its claws around wildly. It cut a small gash in a gasbag beside it before Pirin drove his sword through its ribs. It collapsed on the walkway. With nowhere to go, its body began to decay into black dust and ash.

Pirin shook out his arms and winced, but his injuries weren’t bad. A few bruises and cuts wouldn’t kill him.

Brealtod ran down the catwalk, hissing and holding out his arms.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Pirin said. He pointed at the new slices in the gasbag beside him. “Got anything to patch that with?”

The dragonfolk nodded, then ran back off in the other direction.

Pirin sprinted back to the ladder and looked up to the platform. The hatch was still open. “Alyus! Are you—”

“We’re drifting!” Alyus yelled back. Another arrow whistled off his bow. “I’ve got things covered up here! I need you to go to the gondola and turn the rudder wheel one rotation starboard!”

“Starboard?”

“To the right!”

“Got it!” Pirin yelled back. He climbed down the ladder to the crew quarters, then down one more short level to the gondola. It was a small oval room with a curved wall of glass windows at the front and a balcony at the back.

Myraden stood on the balcony, her Ískan Silk spear unwound. As a piece of loose silk, it was nearly thrice as long. Her fingers glowed blue with Essence; she was using her Bloodline Talent to guide the spearhead. It swept back and forth along the underbelly of the airship, impaling and slashing at Rustlers.

She had things under control down here, which was natural; she was still a stage ahead of Pirin—the Catch stage—and as far as Pirin could tell, she was nearly at the stage’s peak.

Pirin turned to the ship’s wheels. The rudder wheel faced forwards, and Alyus had shoved a broomstick through its spokes to lock it in place. Pirin pulled the broomstick out, freeing the wheel, then spun it to the right.

The entire frame of the Featherflight groaned, and the ship began to turn to the right. As Alyus had instructed, Pirin spun the wheel one whole rotation. It was heavier than it looked. The rudder chain shifted slowly. Finally, when Pirin had the ship’s wheel where it needed to be, he shoved the broomstick back through its spokes to lock it.

A gust of wind blasted into the gondola; Myraden had pushed the stern door open. “I think that was the last of them,” she said.

“Well, let’s hope it’s the last for a little while,” Pirin said, rubbing his shoulders. “At this rate, we’re not going to be in the air for much longer.”

A few seconds later, Alyus’ footsteps thudded down the ladder, and he dropped into the gondola. “They shouldn’t be like this, even on the open sea. I’d only ever see a flock or two when I was doing runs over Uberioch’s Bay.”

Pirin grimaced. “Can we still make it across the ocean?”

“Ah…” Alyus rubbed the back of his head. “We were going to need to resupply our food and water at some point, but now we’ll need to get some more lifting gas.”

Pirin crossed his arms and stepped back. “Then we’d better find a place to set down sooner than later.”