The shockwave blasted them to the side, and Gray tumbled aimlessly through the air. Pirin barely clung on. Gray fluttered furiously, then righted herself. She climbed higher, then turned in a wide arc away from the ship and back toward the civilian docks.
Flames flickered all across the wharf, and a few more ships—cargo haulers, mostly—had caught aflame. A set of barrels on the wharf exploded with blue flame, casting an eerie glow up into the sky, and some spare fireworks from the earlier festivities went off.
The glow backlit a few distant, bird-shaped specks in the sky. Pirin squinted. They were mounted riders. There was no way they were friendly. They’d probably taken off from a nearby garrison or airbase.
Pirin still held his sword in one hand. He wasn’t equipped for dogfighting, and certainly not for escaping or defeating a whole horde of gnatsnapper riders.
He glanced back at the passenger liner he and Myraden were supposed to board. It had opened its sails and began to sail out of the port to escape the burning piers and flaming debris on the wharf. A flash of red Essence erupted on the deck, followed by whirling turquoise silk. At least Myraden was alive, but that was about all he could tell.
He and Gray could land on the passenger liner, but that wouldn’t stop the approaching riders from tearing up the ship.
“We’ve gotta lead them away,” Pirin muttered. They might try to shoot down him and Gray, but he’d have better chances in the sky than trapped on a boat.
Pirin turned Gray away from the passenger liner and up into the night sky. When he looked over his shoulder, his pursuers adjusted course. They passed through a wall of mist and smoke, then emerged, fluttering faster than ever. Their gnatsnappers had just launched, and Gray had been flying for hours already today. Flying and dodging and fighting.
After a minute, the riders began firing arrows at him from birdback. They were Aerdian elves, sitting upright on their mounts with recurve bows in hand. Pirin navigated Gray left and right and up and down. He cycled his Essence faster and faster.
His mind slipped out of the present and the faint wind blasted through his soul, showing him memories of flying through shards of stone off the coast of Kerstel, then navigating through a forest, then weaving between the jagged peaks of a mountain range. Gray was an expert flyer, and the same should have gone for him.
Arrows whizzed by. One impaled Gray’s wing. “I’m sorry, Gray!”
She nattered softly, as if to say, I’ll live!
All around him, the Aerdian riders swarmed and seethed. They fired volley after volley of arrows. One glanced off Pirin’s mask. Another sliced his thigh, and one ripped a set of flight feathers off Gray’s wings. She flapped faster and faster just to stay aloft.
Pirin held out his hand, conjured up her mind, and tried to absorb as much of her pain as he could, all while taking the exhaustion away.
He rolled with Gray, leaning and weaving and evading. One Aerdian drew too close, so he held out his sword, cleaving the bird’s tail feathers clean off and sending it spiralling towards the harbour far below.
No matter how much he let himself fall into a trance, relying on his former bird-riding skill and whatever the Memory Chain tried to show him, he couldn’t survive forever. A pair of riders lined up on either side of him, drawing their bows back, ready to skewer him and Gray from either side. It was over. “I’m sorry, Gray,” he whispered. Even if he pushed her down, another set of riders would—
Thwunk.
A heavy crossbow bolt smashed through one of the riders’ light armour, flinging him out of his saddle. An arrow whistled over Pirin’s shoulder and stuck the other rider through the neck.
The elegant, smooth prow of an airship emerged from the wall of smoke and mist. Small, plain white envelope, laden with as many sails as it could carry…
He beamed. The Featherflight. On the top observation platform, Brealtod fired the repeating crossbow, blasting gnatsnappers and their riders out of the sky. Alyus stood on the back platform of the ship’s gondola, firing arrows at the Aerdian riders with deadly precision.
Pirin raised a fist and cheered. In a matter of seconds, the two smugglers had blasted Pirin’s assailants away. Even Gray chirped, her song filled with excitement and relief.
He guided Gray around to the bottom of the Featherflight, where the cargo hold doors hung open. He pulled up, climbing at the last moment to lose speed before fluttering to a halt on the cargo platform.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I’ll be right back,” Pirin told Gray, slipping out of the saddle. He hopped across to the lattice walkway and climbed up to the axial catwalk, then sprinted to the front of the airship. His heart pounded, and he limped, leaving a trail of blood. He could barely think through the exhaustion and pain.
But whatever Alyus and Brealtod were planning, they didn’t know about Myraden. They couldn’t just leave her behind. She knew so much more about wizardry and arcane advancement, and she could help him find a teacher.
Pirin slid down the ladder to the crew quarters and the gondola, where Alyus had locked the ship’s control wheels in place with a broom and a fire stoker. “Alyus!” Pirin called, sprinting out onto the back platform. “Thank you for coming back for me.”
“Figured it was about time I did something with myself,” the ostal grumbled. “Something worth doing, and all.”
“What will this cost me?”
“Nothing. Except some replacement arrows and crossbow bolts.”
Pirin chuckled, then asked, “Can I trouble you for one more passenger, then?”
“You found your wizard friend?”
“I did.”
“Can you trust her?”
Pirin shrugged. “She hasn’t killed me yet.”
“Alright, where is she?” Alyus fired one more arrow, knocking a stray Aerdian rider out of the sky.
Pirin pointed towards the passenger liner, which was now racing out to the open sea with full sails. “She’s aboard that ship.” Pirin ran back into the gondola and to the front, then pressed his face against the window. He looked down at the passenger ship, trying to spot the two wizards. He saw nothing.
“So you’re still heading overseas, eh?” Alyus shouldered his bow, then ran back inside and grabbed the wheels. “We’ll need to lose some altitude. Grab Brealtod and get him to help you tighten the ballonets.”
“Got it.” Pirin climbed up to the axial catwalk as fast as he could, then hollered, “Brealtod! We need to go down!”
The dragonfolk scrambled down the ladder to Pirin. Together, they ran back and forth along the axial catwalk, tightening the ballonets. The Featherflight angled downwards. Its frame groaned, and everything shuddered.
“Pirin!” Alyus yelled. “Get back down here! Brealtod, be ready to release the ballonets and drop ballast! We’ll need to climb fast!”
Pirin climbed back down to the gondola and stepped out onto the back balcony. Gripping the wooden edge, he leaned out. They floated only a few fathoms above the water, and just above the deck line of the passenger liner. As they approached the ship, passengers gathered at the railing, gasping and pointing at the low-flying airship. A pair of Dominion soldiers pushed past, but they only wielded swords, and all they could do was shout.
Pirin didn’t see Myraden anywhere, not anymore.
“Where is she?” Alyus called. “We’ll overtake them soon!”
“I don’t know,” Pirin said. Then, he yelled, “Myraden! Myraden! Jump!” They reached the bow quarter of the ship, and Pirin still saw nothing.
Then the crowd of passengers began to yelp and scatter. A moment later, the deck shattered, and a body flew upwards through it.
Gray cloak, blonde hair, antlers. It was Myraden. She rolled onto her side, groaning, then pushed herself up and readied her spear. Blood seeped from a cut on her forehead, and all she staggered unsteadily. Panting, she spat blood out of her mouth. Her bloodhorn Familiar bounded out a door in the superstructure, then ran to her side.
The seafolk wizard leapt up out the hole in the deck after Myraden. The seafolk seemed relatively unharmed, save for a tattered cloak.
“Myraden!” Pirin yelled again. “The airship! Jump!”
Myraden’s head whipped around. She turned and sprinted through the thinning crowd of passengers, then vaulted over the railing and leapt for the gondola’s back platform. She caught it with one hand, then hauled herself up. “Kythen, jer saii veöutt!”
Pirin wanted to know what it meant. He almost understood, but not quite. She was talking to her Familiar, that much was clear, and she wanted the beast to come closer.
The Featherflight was almost past the bow of the passenger liner. Alyus spun the rudder wheel to the left, keeping them close to the seaborne vessel’s hull.
Myraden’s Familiar charged across the deck. The beast crashed through the railing and jumped the gap between the airship and the back balcony of the gondola. Its red, crystal horns scraped the envelope, and it had to duck its head to fit on. Both Pirin and Myraden ducked inside the gondola proper to make room for the creature.
“They’re on!” Alyus yelled. He let the wheel spin free, then yelled, “Brealtod, now!”
Fabric rumpled and the gasbags crinkled inside the envelope. They lurched upwards. A few seconds later, water gushed out a hatch at the front of the hull. Another waterfall poured out near the stern.
The Featherflight rose at a steep angle, climbing to its cruising altitude. Pirin breathed out a sigh, then looked behind them at the burning port. His heart pounded, but this time, with anticipation.
He pushed one of the gondola’s side windows open as far as he could, then leaned out, looking behind them. There were no more riders chasing them, and the seaships weren’t as fast as an airship. No one would catch up, especially not when Alyus spun the wheel, navigating them into a bank of fog and smoke. A ballista bolt raced through the smoke, the runes on its warhead glowing. The rest of the warships in the harbour must have been firing…
Pirin held his breath and tightened his fists. But the bolt fell short. It plunged into the water to the stern of the Featherflight and exploded, throwing a column of water up into the air.
“And there you go, elfy,” Alyus said. “Out of their range, and they won’t know which way we’ve gone with all this fog. We made it.”
Pirin nodded, then turned forwards. They were away. They headed to the Mainland, and he could learn proper magic, now.