Pirin waited until Alyus pulled the panel loose from the outside before emerging. When he stepped out, he pretended he hadn’t been responsible for their good fortune. “They’re gone?”
“All gone,” Alyus responded. “With this wind astern, we’ll be at the library by sundown.”
“Did…did he say something about mistfalcons and wraiths?” Pirin asked. “The inspector, I mean.”
“He did, and that’s what I’ll need your help for.” Alyus plucked up his quiver from its hook on the wall and pulled it over his shoulder, then grabbed his bow as well. “Follow me.”
Together, they climbed up through the hull of the Featherflight. They didn’t stop at the axial corridor, though. The ladder continued upwards, and so did they.
It emerged out the top of the envelope and deposited them on a small wooden platform with winches and stays for the sails’ rigging. A long wooden brace ran out the back, engraved with talon slices where the Aerdian patrol’s gnatsnappers had latched onto the ship.
At the front of the platform was a heavy repeating crossbow mounted on a swivel. A cartridge of bolts fed into its firing groove, and a second handle operated the firing mechanism. With the amount of specialty-forged parts a weapon like that needed, it probably cost almost as much as the airship.
“You want me to use that?” Pirin asked.
“If we get attacked, yes.”
Pirin approached it. It didn’t seem too unwieldy. The trigger and the extra handle would take an extra hand, but so long as he stayed light on his feet, he would have a full circle that he could fire in. But he didn’t know how to use a bow, let alone a crossbow. He placed a hand on his sword’s hilt. “Is there no other way I can be useful?”
“Can your gnatsnapper fly yet? Unless you’d be willing to give us an escort, I’ll need you on the bow.”
Pirin grimaced. Gray’s wing and leg were mostly healed, but he didn’t want to push her to a point that he injured her even more. A short, easy flight? Sure. Dogfighting with other birds? No, not wise. “Crossbow it is, then.”
“Thanks, elfy,” Alyus said.
Pirin set his hands on the bow. It was sturdy, but he still felt compelled to be careful with such a precious weapon. He pulled open the cartridge to make sure there were still bolts loaded in it. It was almost full.
“So, elfy?” Alyus asked, pulling his bow off his shoulder. “What are you gonna do once you get your Familiar? What are you gonna do once you’re ‘powerful enough’? I’ve covered for you long enough with Brealtod, but he wants to know what the king of the elves is doing with us.”
Pirin glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. Alyus pulled an arrow out of his quiver and nocked it, then looked up at the sky. The sky was grey, and the looming walls of mist were even greyer. Pirin followed his gaze. At any moment, something could burst out. A the mistfalcons might try to make a tasty meal out of the airship.
“I want to know, too, if that changes anything,” Alyus added.
“I don’t—” Pirin cut himself off. “Keep Sirdia safe. I should lead like a proper king—at the front of our armies, pushing aside anyone in our way. I could protect us from wizards and…put an end to the fighting.”
“So you want to be a weapon?”
“I want to be useful.”
“That’s all you want? To be used?” Alyus shook his head. “Besides, the entire Elven Continent is your country, isn’t it? The sundered nation of Khirdia—reunited under the black-haired elf, capable of resisting the Dominion’s advances through the sheer power of its noble bloodline.”
Pirin tightened his fists and opened his mouth. “I’m not part of that bloodline, not truly. I’m…I’m not sure. I don’t—”
“Aye, I see.” Alyus turned in a slow circle. The mist started to enclose the Featherflight. “You’ve already lost your memory, and you don’t know what you want.”
Pirin growled under his breath. “I know what I want.” To not be an embarrassment. To help. To be more than he started as, and make something meaningful of himself. “When I get a proper Reyad bond, when I fix my Embercore…I’ll try to repair my memories too.”
“That’s not too reassuring.”
Taking a hand off the repeating crossbow, Pirin turned around. “You’re not an elf. Why does it matter to a smuggler like you?”
Alyus paused, long enough to take a deep breath. Then, he said quickly, “Doesn’t matter, no. I just wanna know who I’m carrying, is all.”
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“Well, now you know. Satisfied?”
“Satisfied enough. But—”
Before Alyus could finish, a shadow passed overhead, followed by a rush of wind and a swirl of mist. Pirin placed his finger on the crossbow’s trigger, but had to restrain himself. If he fired now, he’d just waste a bolt on the empty air.
His arm pickled with static, and he smelled something almost-sweet, like freshly washed and perfumed clothes. In the distance, a screech rippled through the fog.
“Mistfalcons,” Alyus said. “Be ready.”
Pirin placed his left hand back on the repeating crossbow and gripped the reloading mechanism. He aimed in the direction that the first had come from. Sure enough, he spotted another distant shadow in the clouds.
He lined up the targeting reticle and clamped his finger down on the trigger. The string snapped forward with a heavy clunk, and the bolt whistled away. But the shadow didn’t alter course, and it didn’t screech—not until Alyus fired two arrows back-to-back. Both resulted in a screech, and the shadow plummeted before it even emerged from the shadows.
“Lead your shots, elfy.” Drawing another arrow, Alyus turned in a circle. “If you aim where they are, you’ll just waste my bolts.”
Pirin pulled the crossbow’s reloading mechanism back. With a clank, another bolt fell into place and the bowstring pulled back. “So…these are the mistfalcons? Do we…uh, look like food to them?”
“Or they’re just really angry.”
The wind picked up, blasting the airship directly from its stern. The rudders stayed straight and the elevator fins level, but Pirin stumbled and nearly fired off another shot.
With the wind came a wall of mist. Gray tendrils reached for the airship, and a fog washed over them. The entire vessel shuddered, threatening to roll, but it didn’t.
“We’ll only be in trouble if we get caught in a wind shear!” Alyus yelled over the gusts. “Keep your eyes on the sky!”
Pirin turned the crossbow to the side, then swivelled it up. He thought he spotted another bird-shaped shadow, and he fired. He’d aimed in front of it, but he couldn’t tell if the bolt hit. As the clouds darkened, it became harder and harder and harder to make out the shadows.
Until a bolt of lightning seared the sky. It illuminated an entire horde, circling above them like a flock of seagulls converging on a fishing trawler.
He fired off two more bolts quickly before he heard a thud behind them. He spun the crossbow around and aimed it. A massive bird twice as large as a gnatsnapper clung onto the airship’s frame with its knife-length talons and razor-sharp falcon beak. Alyus fired an arrow at it. It sliced across the back of the beast’s neck, launching a plume of mottled brown feathers into the air. The falcon screeched, but it kept its grip.
Pirin pushed the crossbow’s handle forwards and then back again, then fired one of the heavy bolts at the immobile target. It grazed the creature’s back, blasting out a spurt of blood and shattered bone. He loaded another bolt and fired again. It struck the beast’s flank, and the force it struck with launched the falcon off the airship.
Another bolt of lightning raced through the sky, followed immediately by a crack of thunder. Snowflakes and hail tumbled through the disturbed sky, pelting Pirin’s shoulders and arms.
“What was that about lightning wraiths?” Pirin shouted. The airship shifted again, and his feet nearly slipped on the slick wooden platform.
“They tend to hunt alongside mistfalcons! That’s all I know!”
“Great…”
“These books better be worth it!” Alyus fired an arrow off into the sky. It struck an approaching shadow in the neck and sent it tumbling down towards the lake below. As the bird’s corpse fell past, its wings left yellow-white streaks of energy in the air. A spark crackled towards the airship.
“The lightning wraiths are riding them!” Pirin yelled. “We can’t let them land!” He wasn’t an alchemist—or at least, he had no alchemy instincts innately ingrained in his body—but he knew what fire and sparks would do to the airship’s lifting gas.
For the next few minutes, they warded off the mistfalcons with arrows and crossbow bolts. Pirin fired only when necessary. Using the reloading mechanism made his arms ache with the strain, but settled into a rhythm.
A falcon landed on the platform’s railing, crushing the thin wood under its weight. Pirin swivelled the crossbow toward it. The lightning energy seeped off its wings and onto the outer hull of the Featherflight. It formed into a weak wraith—the same incohesive shape as the scrap wraith he had fought in No Man’s Land. The creature ripped a scorching hole in the envelope, which the snow and wind cooled immediately. But…if it got lower and ripped into the gasbags…
Pirin abandoned the crossbow. For a moment, he considered drawing his sword, but he knew exactly how to dispel wraiths, and his sword wouldn’t help.
He met Alyus’s gaze for a moment, and sure enough, the moment he tried to use the Whisper Hitch, it destabilized. He pushed it to the limit as he swung over the railing and placed a foot on the envelope
At the last moment, Pirin opened his fist and swiped his hand towards the wraith. He pushed as much Essence into it as he could. The energy blasted out in a straight arc, cleaving apart the lightning wraith and shredding the mistfalcon’s wing.
Another wraith emerged beside it. He blasted another Shattered Palm into the beast, but he didn’t have as much time to charge the Essence. The shockwave of Essence only dispersed a chunk of the wraith.
Damaged, the spirit scrambled away, scurrying towards the nearest mistfalcon. Before it could find a host, Pirin hit it with a third Shattered Palm, completely dispersing it. His hand screamed with spiritual pain, and his Essence channels burned from the inside out.
He scrambled back to the repeating crossbow. For the next half hour, he and Alyus worked to keep the ship clean of any mistfalcons. If the beasts did land and deposit their parasite lightning wraith, Pirin rushed to dispel them. After every Shattered Palm, he had to wait a few minutes for the strain to wear off, or he’d risk ripping his channels apart. The blows had to be precise and perfect.
The clouds lightened, and the flashes of lightning slowed…then stopped altogether. The thunder quieted enough that Pirin could also hear rippling waves, the flutter of sails, and the rattle of ropes and pulleys.
“We’ll make it to your island by sundown!” Alyus cheered. “Hah, I’d like to see a gnatsnapper do that!”
Pirin let his hands slip off the crossbow. They were almost there.