They almost flew past Dulfer’s Reach. It was only a speck on the horizon, silhouetted against the setting sun, when Pirin spotted it. He was on lookout duty on the upper platform.

He ran to the center of the platform and ripped open the hatch, then yelled down the ladder, “To the south! To the south! There’s an island!” It couldn’t be anything else; they had been sailing for three and a half days, and this had been the only island they saw.

Pirin slid down the ladder, falling all the way to the crew quarters. Myraden scrambled up from one of the cots, and Brealtod climbed down the ladder just behind Pirin. They all met Alyus in the gondola. He was already spinning the wheel.

“Wind’s blowing from our stern quarter, favouring south,” Alyus said. “We can still make it if we adjust the sails. I’ll keep on the wheels. Elfy and Antlers, you two go with Brealtod and help him with the sheets.”

Pirin followed Brealtod back up to the top of the airship, with Myraden close behind. They climbed as fast as they could. When they reached the top, they swung over the edge of the lookout platform. Holding onto the ropes (called stays) that reached out to the ship’s horizontal masts, they slid down the envelope. Brealtod walked out to the end of the spar, holding his arms out to keep his balance.

They’d done this plenty of times, but it still made Pirin nervous. He slipped down onto the spar as well, but he crouched and kept one hand on the rope above. His breathing accelerated, and he hadn’t realized he had been maintaining a cycling pattern until it broke. At least his Reyad hadn’t been active.

Brealtod tied a knot at the end of the spar. He hissed three times at Pirin. Pirin didn’t understand the language yet, but three hisses meant that he was supposed to tie his knot as well. Myraden had picked that up soon enough, too. There were two extra knots to fasten, though these were much closer to the main hull of the airship.

Pirin wrapped his legs around the mast. To take his mind off the choppy waves a half-mile below, he looked up at Brealtod and said, “You knew a wizard once, right?”

Brealtod nodded. He navigated around Pirin and Myraden as they tied their knots, dragging a rope from the tip of the sail all the way back to a small winch on the top of the spar.

“How does a wizard form better or worse Timbers?”

Brealtod shrugged, then began to spin the winch, winding the rope tighter. The spar shifted, taking a different angle. For a second, the sail began to flap, its edges rippling and luffing. Then, when Brealtod had the right angle, the sheet flattened out and blossomed back into the wind—only this time, it was at an angle better-suited to turning.

The airship’s rudder fins tilted, and the ship began to turn. The wind blasted against the ship’s flanks and the frame began to groan.

They moved further down the Featherflight’s hull. On both sides of the airship, there were two sets of sails. Wordlessly, they adjusted the second set the exact same way as the first. With three sets of hands, the process was fast.

When they reached the third sail, Pirin asked again, “How powerful was the wizard in your hometown?”

“If he was from Esybia, like most dragonfolk,” Myraden began, “their wizards would have very limited advancement resources. Very much like Sirdia.”

“He…wasss…a…Flaresssss…” Brealtod hissed with great effort. “Thhhhhree…Timbersssss…”

Pirin nodded. “Did he have any perfect Timbers?”

The dragonfolk shook his head side to side as he spun another winch, tightening a rope.

Pirin glanced at Myraden. “What’s the point of a perfect Timber?”

“The stronger your foundations, the stronger your magic can become,” she said plainly. “With weak Timbers, powerful techniques will shatter your soul. With strong Timbers, you can use stronger techniques with less strain. But my meagre knowledge would not be worthy of your status as king.”

“Yet I keep wringing information out of you.” Pirin finished tying a knot, then bent down and clutched onto the spar to keep his balance.

“Embercore…sssslow,” Brealtod said, pointing a clawed finger at Pirin’s chest. “Naturally…makessss…ssstrong…Timberssss.” Again, he shrugged. “Gather…all…the…Essssencssse…before…forming. Lessss…cracksss…”

“Sorry,” Pirin muttered. “I’m probably asking too much. But still, thank you.”

They adjusted the last sail, then climbed back inside the airship and returned to the gondola. There wasn’t much work that had to be done to make the airship go down; they were already sailing lower than usual, and they were leaking more and more lyftgas every minute.

There had been another Rustler attack every morning, and this morning, there had been two. No more punctures to the gasbags, thankfully, but the patches the Brealtod had made weren’t holding. Apparently, it was hard to patch an airship’s gasbags while it was flying.

But now, the island was centered in the gondola’s windows. Alyus held the wheels steady, and they had a straight shot. Nothing should—

A Rustler’s screech ripped through the air.

Pirin recognized it immediately. It pierced the wooden walls of the gondola and reverberated around. He groaned, then rubbed his ribs. He was still bruised from getting tackled through the airship, and the thought of another skirmish made them ache twice as bad. Still, he drew his sword.

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“Not again…” Alyus complained, leaning towards the front windows of the gondola.

Pirin ran out onto the back balcony of the gondola, and, clutching the wooden wall beside him, he leaned out as far as he could. He looked up, trying to see past the curve of the envelope above them. He couldn’t see straight up, but he didn’t need to.

To the side, a dark cloud of Rustlers swooped through the air, bobbing up and down on the currents of the Eane. It was a bigger flock than he had ever seen before, and he doubted they had enough arrows aboard to kill all of them. They’d tear the Featherflight to shreds just to gnaw on the wood.

Pirin cycled his Essence, preparing a Shattered Palm. If he needed, he could carve through a few at a time. As he breathed, he strained his eyes, trying to pick out any Rustlers swooping towards them.

“Elfy, you have my permission to use the repeating crossbow!” Alyus called. “We’ll need all the help—”

“Wait,” Pirin said. “Look. None of them are coming towards us.” The Rustlers were flying parallel to the Featherflight. They were even matching the airship’s descent path.

“By the Eane,” Alyus breathed. “They’re heading to the island.”

Pirin sheathed his sword, then stepped away from the edge of the balcony and ran back inside the gondola. Myraden’s hand still hovered over her spear, which she wore around her body like a sash.

“We just need to land, right?” Pirin asked. “Maybe the Rustlers nest there. The locals have to have a way of keeping them off the airfield.”

“Sacred beasts like Rustlers only nest where the Eane is in highest concentration,” Myraden said. “Where fields overlap, or places of great power. It does not help that something has agitated them.”

“Dulfer’s Reach is one of those places?” Pirin asked.

“If it is, it has not been for long. The Dominion would have a stronger presence there if they knew.”

Pirin ran forward to the front windows of the gondola. By now, the island appeared much larger. It filled the window, shore to shore. A beach of white sand curved around one side, and a steep rocky cliff wrapped around the other. In the center, a tall mountain climbed up to the clouds, its flanks covered in trees and shrubs.

The rustlers picked up speed. They outpaced the Featherflight and swooped down towards the peaks of the island. They became little black specks, then nothing at all.

“I’d rather they do that than rip us apart,” Alyus grumbled.

“That is what they are supposed to do,” said Myraden.

The airship circled around the peak of the island’s central mountain. Pirin and Brealtod climbed up to the axial catwalk and tightened the ballonets, making the airship even denser and helping them descend. When Pirin returned to the gondola, they were hovering over the side of the island with a steep, rocky shore.

Alyus steered the airship towards an outcropping. At first, Pirin thought it was a tongue of rock sticking out over the water, but the closer they got, the lighter it became, until Pirin realized that it was a large wooden platform. A network of trellises and beams supported it, holding it just high enough that the waves couldn’t reach it. Large gnatsnapper nests had been built in the cracks and crevices, giving it more volume, and the enormous, sparrow-shaped birds roosted in it.

Alyus spun the elevator fin wheel over and over, adjusting their pitch so that they were just above the wooden platform. There were three other airships on the platform. Only one was bigger than the Featherflight, and all of their envelopes were shredded and tattered. Their sails were folded, and they were roped down to the platform with spiderwebs of rigging.

“Looks like we haven’t been the only ones getting attacked,” Pirin said, tilting his head at the other airships. It was hard to say how fresh the damage to the airships was; the last light of the day was fading, and there were no torches so close to an air harbour—lyftgas was incredibly flammable. But if the tears hadn’t been patched yet, then the damage must have been recent.

As soon as the Featherflight’s gondola passed over the edge of the harbour, everybody but Alyus jumped out. Pirin dragged a rope from the ship’s bow down to a bollard on the very far side of the platform. He tied it off with a simple knot that Alyus had taught him, then tugged on it to make sure it was secure. The others took their own ropes and tied them off.

Once the airship was secured, they gathered outside the gondola.

“Just gotta patch it up,” Alyus said. “Get the envelope fixed, and the gasbags too.” He put his hands on his hips. “And that chunk of the frame we cracked. You and that Rustler, I should say.” He pointed at Pirin. “What are you waiting for? We need—”

A voice shot across the platform, cutting him off. “You there!”

Pirin looked up. A pair of Dominion soldiers in silver armour ran across the platform, their silver armour clanking and their white cloaks rustling in the breeze. Both were humans; they had no horns like Alyus.

“Pardon me?” Alyus asked, turning towards the soldiers. “You’ve got my apologies if we’re not supposed to be docking here, but could you please direct us to the civilian docks?”

Both of the soldiers halted in front of Alyus.

“I thought there wasn’t supposed to be a huge Dominion presence here,” Pirin hissed, pulling his hood up over his hair.

“This is not a huge presence,” Myraden whispered back. “These two must be from the local garrison. Look at their armour. It is dented and rusty.”

“These are the civilian docks,” one of the soldiers said, addressing Alyus. “We just need to check your ship in, sir. Then you can be on your way. The Rustlers have been causing chaos all around this island, two weeks’ flight in all directions, and we’ve been taking in damaged air-haulers from all over the Adryss.”

“This here is the Featherflight,” Alyus said, poking his thumb up at the airship. “And I am Alyus, if you need that. These are all my crew.”

The other soldier held a sheet of parchment, and he began to jot down what Alyus said. The first soldier asked a few more questions, then nodded respectfully at Alyus and backed away. Before he could leave, Alyus asked, “Where can we get some more supplies, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Turn left once you reach the treeline and follow the trail for a little, and you’ll reach a village,” the soldier said. “You can buy what you need there.”

As soon as the two soldiers had left, Pirin blurted out, “I can help get supplies.” If there had been people from far and wide all seeking refuge on Dulfer’s Reach, maybe someone would know about a wizard in the area who could help.

“Right,” Alyus said. “Elfy, Antlers. You two’re on supply duty. We need some titanwood beams and standard airship envelope-wrap. Got it?”

“Got it.”