Trarn watched the pirate balloon he had just cut loose swing slowly back and forth on its newly harpoon-pinned line. More harpoon lines punched into the Flounder from above. He had stopped bolting the lower deck pirate crew for only a few moments, and the Flounder was already irreparably caught. I need another target! Trarn whirled his eyes about. Dozens of windows opened and closed in his field of view. Possibilities, all poor. The pirate hulk was built with so many redundant defenses. Its rudder fin and wings had far too many and too thick ropes to bolt loose. Only the lift balloons hung by single lines, but they were heavily protected, and there were too many of them. Suddenly, his eyes alighted on a massive cut in a singular thick line. The hanging weights! The largest one had a cut in its line. The pirate ship had been through a fight recently. There were patches in its balloon and fresh replacement ropes for steering and wings. But they hadn't gotten to that rope yet. He knew he could hit the line. But would it break? One way to find out. Trarn's last cutter bolt hurtled out across the misty air. It struck the gash deep in the twisted silken fibers. The gash widened massively. A few dozen strands now held the massive bag of galena. Splayed fibers wound out from the cord like twisted tree roots. Its remaining strands stretched, but they held. Trarn was so intent on that one perilous rope he didn't notice the ballista-launched net until it struck. The Flounder's top tent rocked and crumpled from the impact. Trarn kicked and scrambled in the mess of fabric suddenly wrapped around him.

"GRATH, THE PIRATE WEIGHTS!!!"

Trarn shouted as loudly as he dared. Fibrous strands pinned his arms to his chest, and he couldn't reach his glass knife easily.

"Hi, little archer."

A jovial voice spoke somewhere above the mess of fabric and net. Trarn froze; a large hand grabbed him by the tunic on his back. The fingers gripped a fistful of his tunic and flight suit. Trarn struggled, but the hand shoved down. It pinned him, bending his ribs. He couldn't breathe! Terror shook him as he kicked his legs madly. His back spasmed from the exertion, and sudden agony shot up his spine like lightning.

Grath heard Trarn's quiet shout. He spun towards the pirate ship, glancing at its weights. Its lowest, heaviest weight sack hung by a few strands. Grath didn't have his crossbow, though. And he could never land that shot if he did. The Flounder floated sideways like a dying fish. Even after he had cut 3 harpoon lines, 7 more had replaced them. Worse still, pirates had started boarding. Two ziplined down the harpoon bolts. One leaped nimbly from the pirate ship, falling slowly towards the Flounder. He was under the effects of float elixir, no doubt. Grath knew they wouldn't take him alive. I am not cloudkin or another valuable "commodity." At most, they might pause to confirm that I am not, if I am lucky. Ahhh, well, the time has finally come, then. I haven't been avoiding death. Grath felt the klienah elixir flowing through his veins now. All the injuries, new and fading, that he had received—the leatherhead vulture's bite to his ankle, that one shard of glass from a pirate splitter bolt that sliced across his chest a month or so ago, the recent talon gouges to his shoulder from the burrowing owl—fell away. The tightness of those scars and the still-fresh pain of those wounds vanished like smoke. Like adrenaline but more focused, he bypassed the pain and nausea of altitude sickness. He would fight until he collapsed. The pirate still falling for the next few moments, Grath ignored. The other two... One was a little larger than Grath; he wielded a slavers' cleaver club, a single-edged, wedge-shaped blade with a fist-sized stone lashed to its thicker side. It was probably ironwood. The other, a smaller pirate, about Grath's size but bulkier, carried a glass-tipped short staff. Both men held shields with no emblem, and their skin was copper-tinged. Raegon pirates. They were one of Prattia's biggest obstacles in conquering the Eathean prairies. Raegon used to be a small kingdom formed around the largest Eathean lake. But once that lake suddenly dried up 70 years ago, the cursed fog claimed Raegon's homeland. The small nation became refugees, mercenaries, and slaves in a mere few months. Oh, and pirates too. Grath charged across the sideways hull balloon of the Flounder. The cotton material bulged here and there under his feet as the sideways pine skeleton of the ship struggled to contain the massive balloon. Grath had to avoid stumbling in the rain-slicked cotton cloth. The spear man was not as close, so Grath charged the big man first. Black walnut, wood-paddle blade met ironwood cleaver.

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CLUNK!!

Grath's arm shook, his hand ringing from the impact. But he only rode the recoil and whirled the blade in a series of circles.

Clunk, clack, click, clunk.

Like a woodpecker on klienah nectar. Grath struck again and again. The big pirate's defense was good, but Grath spotted a flaw. He struck hard against the pirate's shield, changing his strike into a shove at the last second while keeping the man's shield between him and the ironwood cleaver. The shove unbalanced the pirate. He stumbled. Grath didn't relent. In a flurry of blows, he broke the man's shield arm at the shoulder, then his jaw, then his skullcap. The spear man was almost to him now. He stopped short, 20 digits away, and swung his spear. The man was way too far away to reach Grath, but the spear's head detached and hurtled towards Grath like a glistening glass dart. Grath hadn't expected this. He threw up his arms to block, and the glass dart bit into his left forearm, piercing nearly through it. Beneath, my misty grave! Grath swore internally. He quickly dropped his guard and began to sprint towards the man but was stopped short by a sudden grisly tug on his arm. Grath had misunderstood the pirate's odd weapon. The staff acted as a sort of fishing pole. A near-invisible silk thread of the finest quality now led from the staff's tip to a barbed glass spine in Grath's arm. With a sickening grin, the pirate whipped the staff back. The shard ripped out of Grath's forearm. Blood splattered across the Flounder's balloon. The pirate wasted no time in spinning the shard in a wide loop and back at him. Grath could barely perceive it slicing towards him from the left; it was almost invisible in the misty air and rain. He ducked by sheer judgment alone. The glass shard sliced through the rain above his head. With all his might, Grath lunged forward. The whip was still on the backlash. He just had to close the distance. With 3 steps, he was nearly in range. The glass shard whizzed back around, hurtling towards him too fast to see. Grath brought the flat of his blade up to shield his left side. With a loud thockking noise, the shard stuck deep into the wood. Grath yanked the slack thread to himself and cut it with his cord cutter in one clean motion. Now he faced the staff-wielding pirate head-on. Blood dripped from his left arm, and behind that man, the falling pirate was just landing fresh and uninjured, wielding two short ironwood paddle swords...