I stepped out onto the deck of the airship. The wind blew a few gusts of hair across my eyes, and I shook my head to try and get them off. When that only resulted in my view being obstructed more, I raised my hands to comb my hair back, tucking a few strands behind my ears. I’d exchanged my ceremonial robes for more practical ones, but maybe I should’ve brought a hair tie.

This airship was constructed differently from those I’d used before. It looked more like a real ship, since it had an open deck with a few structures growing out of it, and weapon emplacements at the sides. A bubble of air qi encompassed it, shielding us from projectiles or, at the moment, birds. It also robbed the wind of most of its force.

I strode towards the front of the airship and took a proper look around. A few clouds dotted the sky overhead. The countryside passed beneath me. It didn’t look too different from further north, with fields, meadows and forests sprawling around settlements, although the ground was hillier. Roads cut straight through the terrain to connect the towns and villages.

Beside my airship, I could make out two others, the leading elements of the formation. One of them looked sturdy, built with a simple design and lots of weapon modules. The other was fancier, with colorful ribbons fluttering around and elegant curves ending in baubles and figurines. Occasionally, I’d get a glimpse of a flying beast with its riders.

I frowned and looked back. “Hey, Tenira?”

My retainer looked over and came to me, trailed by a few others. “Yes?”

I pointed at the left airship. “Aren’t they out of sync? What’s clan Lirta doing, pulling ahead?”

Lei, one of my distant cousins and member of my research team, who’d accompanied me here, snorted. “Probably the young hotheads wanting to get some action.”

“Look who’s talking,” Tenira muttered.

I stifled a smile. With his short brown hair and gangly frame, Lei looked like a nerd, missing only a pair of glasses. I knew he was good with tech, but he was apparently also a fighter known for his fierceness, with a particular fondness for throwing lightning around. I hadn’t seen him in action yet, though.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken a mixed team.” I sighed. “I just thought we needed to integrate them, get them used to working together.”

“We certainly need that,” Tenira said, rolling her eyes.

We’d set off later than planned because of organizational crap, trying to straighten out the details of this little expeditionary force. At least I’d gotten a good read on what I had to work with. From the nobles, that mostly came in two groups: old warriors in the higher stages, answering my call to preserve their clans’ honor or reputation, and young scions out for glory. At least they were all in the fourth stage at minimum.

“They’re putting a bit too much qi into their forward formations, aren’t they?” one of the others asked, a young woman from a vassal clan of the Leri by the name of Aiki Lis.

She was right. They were charging their forward-facing weapons in addition to their shields.

I was getting tired of this. “They need to stop. Tell them, if they go and attack the nomads, I’ll have their overabundance of guts removed,” I growled.

Lei chuckled. “Now that’s the right mindset.”

I didn’t want to leave the initiative entirely to the nomads. I went here to see them and assess the situation for myself, and to bring reinforcements to the detachment covering them. Ideally, they could keep them in check, keep them from spreading out too much until we could properly meet them in battle and crush them. That didn’t mean attacking them head on would be anything but stupid.

I watched the airships in silence for a bit. Clan Lirta’s fell back, taking the qi from their weapons and getting more power to their shields instead.

After a minute, Aston approached, stopping beside the railing. “Your Highness, we’re approaching the nomads.”

I looked forward again and strained my eyes. After a moment, I could see a darkish spot in the distance. “Let’s see,” I muttered.

I cycled some light qi into my eyes, which let me make out the spot more clearly. I could now tell how it was composed of many small elements that were moving around. Then I pulled some light qi into the air in front of me, shaping it with my will. This was a relatively simple technique, which basically created a lens that hovered in the air in front of me, moving along with the rest of the airship. I adjusted it a bit until the nomads came into focus.

I couldn’t tell their strength, of course, but I’d bet they could at least match my soldiers. They moved quickly enough I had trouble keeping my impromptu telescope trained on them. Some of them rode spirit beasts, while the rest jogged along. I couldn’t make out any details of the figures, but it seemed like they wore dark clothing. They moved around a lot, going from group to group, some of them ranging outwards and coming back. I didn’t see anything I could call an organized formation, but there had to be some sense behind their positioning. It made it hard to get a good count.

What concerned me most was their fliers. A number of them rode spirit beasts, both above the horde and ranging all around them, into the countryside. They were probably scouting. I couldn’t see much of the fliers, but they seemed relatively small, not as large as some of the flying beasts I’d seen in the palace’s transport hub.

“Your Highness, we’re getting quite close,” Aston said, a note of warning in his voice.

“Just a little farther,” I responded absently. I wanted to see the Zarieni.

The distance shrunk quickly, but I still put a little more power into my lens, expanding it a bit more so I could get a good look at the people I would fight.

I didn’t even know what I expected, but I felt surprised. Their clothing was pretty diverse. I couldn’t see anything I would call a rank marking, although I probably wouldn’t recognize any system they used. All of them had bits and pieces hanging from or stitched onto their clothes, which tended to be wide and flowing. Their colors varied, but they mostly dressed in ochre, brown or greenish tones, with some black. Some of them carried weapons of all sorts, but I couldn’t make out any patterns behind who did or didn’t.

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Finally, I got good look at their fliers. They rode spirit beasts that all seemed to be some variant of a large bird of prey, although I didn’t recognize them. The riders wore tighter clothing and weren’t as covered up as the rest of the nomads. As I watched, more of them started heading towards the front.

I started feeling a bit nervous. “Turn around, let’s head back quickly!” I called.

I heard people passing my orders on to the pilot and the other airships, but didn’t take my eyes from the nomads. After a few seconds, we decelerated abruptly, and I grabbed onto the railing.

Unfortunately, it would take us a bit of time to pick up speed in the opposite direction, even with qi-powered propulsion. But we were still far away from the raiders. Some in higher stages might see us, but I doubted they’d be able to catch us.

I relaxed my grip on the rail, seeing the airship speed away back in the direction we’d come. I’d need to be more careful in the future, this had been too close.

At that moment, I felt a prickle in my qi senses. Frowning, I let go of my technique, but kept qi flowing to my eyes. Were there shapes moving through the clouds? Wait, where did those clouds come from? There weren’t that many in the sky before!

As I watched, more and more clouds coalesced, growing darker every second. We’d been flying low, but now, I could see mist curling a few meters in front of me. The clouds reached down, billowing closer to us, like dark veils coming to capture our airships. They covered the whole area of the sky, a low-hanging thunderstorm just waiting to let loose on anyone caught in its midst. The wind howled, pushing against us.

I flinched as Aston grabbed my shoulder. “Your Highness, activate your defenses!” he cried.

I nodded. The wind grasped at my clothes and whipped against my face. With one hand, I clamped onto the airship’s rail again. With the other, I touched one of the amulets hanging from my neck, and channeled qi into it and one of my rings. A transparent shield of qi emerged to cover me, prickling against my skin but leaving my hands bare so I could use techniques without worrying about it.

More and more shapes emerged from the clouds around us, their movements hard to track against the growing fury of the storm. Zarieni sitting on their flying beasts, weapons glinting in their hands, qi swirling around them. My senses told me that some of their qi was interwoven with the air around us, gathering in the clouds.

Any idiot could tell they controlled the storm. This must be the Zarieni’s outriders. More and more of them gathered. I knew they’d get more from the main force soon.

The airship cracked and groaned around us. Qi flashed against its shields, illuminating the surroundings in short bursts. As we lost momentum, not just the wind, but the deceleration pulled at me.

By now, the airship’s contingent of soldiers had spilled out onto the deck, armored in qi. They began fighting back, throwing all sort of attacks at the fliers. The airships themselves fired off a few large bursts from their armaments, but the Zarieni were fast, their mounts evading the attacks to let them streak harmlessly into the storm.

Rain drops started to splatter onto my face and soak my clothes. I looked around, trying to assess the situation. The other airships fared no better than ours. One of them seemed to have lost part of its bow, and I could see figures spilling from it. We’d lost our formation, were drifting apart. A bolt of lightning struck the airship next to mine, bright against the dark sky. It left a hole in its deck, the outside burning.

“This is why airships aren’t really used for combat, just transport,” Aston muttered.

I took another look at the soldiers and clan warriors on the ships, realizing that most of them weren’t doing much good. Sure, they threw attacks at the fliers, but they could only form them outside the ariship’s shield, or had to be careful to get them past it. Even so, the shield was almost in tatters, holed and fluctuating from the Zarieni’s attacks. The airship groaned again, tilting to the side.

We didn’t have enough people with affinities for air or sky, even if it had been more robust. And by now, a few of the other airships showed serious damage, with people fleeing them on flying swords or qi techniques. Those actually seemed to do better in fighting back, evading the nomads’ attacks more easily.

“We need to abandon the airships,” I realized. They were too easy to bring down, and too much of a target at the same time.

Aston’s hand left my shoulder for a moment, before it returned with a vengeance. He pressed something into my other hand. I felt the cool metal of a flying sword before I looked down to identify it.

Before I could say anything else, Aston dragged me away from the railing. Other Imperial Guards crowded around us, some of them pushing or towing my entourage with them. I let my guard captain guide me, trying to get off a shot at one rider who came close enough that he dived through the tattered remnants of the airship’s shield. He dove to the side, dodging my lance of light.

We reached an open space at the stern of the airship. Circles of soldiers stood here, defending it against the nomads and leaving us a bit of space.

I didn’t wait for Aston to shove me onto the flying sword, climbing onto it quickly. Aston’s qi flickered over to me, and straps curled from the flying sword to latch onto me and secure my footing. Around me, droves of soldiers lifted into the air.

I ascended, letting them carry me through the whipping wind, over the hull of the airship and into the fury of the storm. I used a bit of darkness qi to keep my sight clear, despite the wind and rain. I hoped the evacuation went well for the other airships, that someone was coordinating it. Because I clearly couldn’t.

It was chaos. Over the howling of the wind, I could hardly hear my own heartbeat. Dark shapes flickered, some so fast I could barely make them out. Fire, lightning, and all sorts of qi techniques streaked through the clouds, illuminating our surroundings in short bursts. If not for Aston always keeping close to me, I might have lost all sense of direction. The soldiers had spread out, giving everyone enough space to fight and evade. We moved across the sky like a school of fish evading predators, just worse.

A boulder flying at me focused my attention back on my immediate surroundings. I dodged, spinning my flying sword around and ducking to let it pass over my head. I teetered a bit, but the clamps built into the material pulled at my feet and legs, preventing me from flying off. I had to thank Aston for them when we got out of here.

But I had no time for distractions. There were more attacks to evade. I had to make sure I stayed with the others, to navigate the chaos of the storm and the raiders’ attacks and find my way around the fight. A few times, I saw an opportunity and struck, sending attacks at the beasts or their riders. One bird got a ball of darkness tearing through its wing. It tumbled down with a loud caw.

I’d seen groups of guards around my companions, but we moved in different directions and I soon lost sight of them. The battle demanded all of my attention.

I couldn’t tell how long we fought. Time passed in a blur of riding the winds, dodging attacks and striking back, trying to tell where my people were, and how things were going. The airships soon vanished into the darkness of the storm, as we moved towards the city we’d come from. Aston guided me away from the thick of the battle, until I lost sight of most of the fighting.

Finally, we passed through the clouds, falling away from the manmade storm and the battle. I glanced back, suppressing a shudder. I think we managed an organized retreat. Somewhat.

Aston slowed down and pulled up alongside me, extending his domain to stabilize my flying sword. It felt like a cushion of air cradled it, yet one hard and sharp enough to cut.

I really screwed up, didn’t I?

My bodyguard cleared his throat. “Your Highness, please focus. We’re not back safely yet.”

I exhaled and turned my attention back to my surroundings, looking at the sky and the landscape below us. He was right.