The Crucible of the Dragon God (32 page)

It was time to give Aldrededor a helping hand.

Unslinging the crackstaff, Kali lodged herself against the rails and let loose a burst of energy towards the nearing shadowmages. However she found she had underestimated them as, one by one, they deflected the incoming charges with hastily erected shields, ricocheting it back in her direction.

"Hooper, go for the envelope," Slowhand urged, suddenly beside her. "I'll cover you."

Kali didn't question the archer, immediately bracing the crackstaff and angling it upwards just as the
Kesar
nosed into range.

The shadowmages spotted what she was trying to do as she aimed and prepared to launch another volley at her. But before they could loose their magical assault, they fell to the deck bucking and screaming as Slowhand unleashed rapid volleys from Suresight. His arrows provided Kali with the cover she needed, and she used the time to unleash a raking assault from the crackstaff, moving it slowly and determinedly across the enemy airship and tearing a gash in its envelope Suddenly venting gas, the
Kesar
tipped violently and, amidst much scrabbling and screaming, the shadowmages tumbled from the gondola to fall through the trees to the valley floor below.

"Hah!" Dolorosa shouted after them. "Thatta is whatta you get fora working with the
Final Feelth
!"

Aldrededor banked the
Tharnak
to starboard, pulling away from the battlegroup and the
Makennon
, taking advantage of the chaos to head for the Dragonfire rather than challenge the superior ship of the Faith flotilla.

Unfortunately, the
Makennon
had not been idle while he had outmanoeuvred her smaller sisterships, bringing its heavier bulk about in a manoeuvre that was perfectly timed. Even as the
Tharnak'
s bow turned to the Dragonfire, Jenna's flagship came seemingly out of nowhere to loom massively and directly in front of them, nose to nose, blocking their way to the exit from the valley, their artillery trained on the Old Race craft.

The message was clear

You want a fight? I'll give you a fight.

Kali moved to the front of the deck and found herself in direct eye contact with Jenna. Seeing Kali, Slowhand's sister smiled coldly. Slowhand came to stand by Kali's side, but if the archer had any hope at all of his sister's resolve weakening in his presence, it was dashed as her smile failed to falter.

"I see Fitch hasn't returned with her," Kali said through clenched teeth. "You still think there's no chance we can talk her round?"

"Hooper, the
fact
Fitch hasn't returned with her answers that one. Look at her - that cadaverous bastard's job is done."

Kali swallowed. She could tell that Jenna was actually enjoying this moment.

"Back us up," Kali said to Aldrededor. "Gently."

The
Tharnak
began to slowly reverse. Slowhand looked at Kali questioningly and, on the
Makennon
, Jenna frowned. But then with a wave of her hand she ordered the
Makennon
to follow them. Keeping the ships nose to nose.

"Keep going," Kali said.

"Hooper, what the hells are you doing?"

"
Keep going
."

The
Tharnak
continued to reverse and the
Makennon
followed her. Had they continued the game that way, they could have played all day, nudging through the valley, but then Slowhand spotted something that would soon put paid to their backward flight.

"Er, Hooper..." he said.

Kali turned and saw that, behind them, the
Rhodon
,
Voivode
and
Kesar
, scarred and damaged though they were, had taken up positions in their path, enclosing them in an arrowhead formation. And those shadowmages that had survived the first assault lined their rails ready to unleash a fresh assault.

Jenna seemed to have them exactly where she wanted them.

"Bring us to a stop." Kali said.

"So what now?" Slowhand asked. When Kali didn't answer, he added, "Hooper, she's an expert tactician. There's no shame in being outmanoeuvred."

Kali looked at the archer, but couldn't hold his gaze. Had she been facing anyone but his sister her next move would have been delivered with some degree of satisfaction but -

"I'm sorry, Liam."

"For what?"

"Finishing what you started."

"I don't understand."

"For once," Dolorosa elaborated, "the bossa lady did not make it up as she went along."

Slowhand stared at the two women as they moved to the ship's rails. He looked down. Below them, a great number of small, wavering flames were visible in the treetops, covering the canopy like stars. Slowhand knew instantly what he was seeing and snapped a look at Dolorosa and Kali - just as they raised their arms and dropped them down.

From the cover of the jungle more than a hundred burning arrows were unleashed by yassan archers and arced upward towards the three smaller airships, puncturing their envelopes and firing their rigging and gondolas A second volley came, firing those parts of the ships untouched by the first wave and doubling the damage. There was no escape and nowhere to hide from the devastating rain and, as the third volley filled the sky, it was intermingled with a renewed chorus of panicked and agonised screams. Their was nothing the shadowmages could do to prevent the surprise attack, though some of them tried, sweeping the jungle canopy with energy bolts that cut a swathe through the vegetation. But for every Yassan that was caught, three more still wielded their bows and the shadowmages themselves became targets, falling to their arrows. It took only seconds before the
Rhodon
,
Voivode
and
Kesar
were little more than flying funeral pyres and then they were only pyres, not flying at all.

Kali watched the remains of the airships spiral down into the jungle. Only the
Makennon
remained. As the flagship hung there, the yassan archers emerged fully from their cover, and once more Dolorosa and Kali raised their arms. All across the jungle canopy the Yassan waited poised. Kali and Dolorosa swallowed and turned to Slowhand, their arms stayed, awaiting the archer's word. Aldrededor, too, turned. The decision -
the word
- had to be his.

For his part, Slowhand simply moved up to stare across the gap between ships, his mane of blonde hair blowing in the wind. Across that gap, her own hair blowing and eyes defiant and unblinking, Jenna stared back.

A second - an eternity - passed.

The archer's jaw tensed.

"Fire!"

Their eyes tearing, aware of the enormity of the decision Slowhand had just made, Dolorosa and Kali dropped their arms, and the volley of arrows turned the flagship into a flying inferno within a matter of moments. While Dolorosa had not had much time to train the yassan, train them well enough she obviously had, because amidst the volley, certain arrows did not randomly target the ship itself but instead those members of the crew manning the cannon, dropping them as they prepared to return fire.

Finally, the bow of the
Makennon
began to dip.

As Dolorosa pointed out, to a chorus of curses, the flagship of the Final Faith, while indeed beginning a slow dive, did not seem to be diving fast enough. Its angle and rate of descent was sluggish and lumbering, perhaps fitting of a ship its size. This was not a problem in itself but a problem
did
lie in the fact that that same angle and rate of descent was forcing her stern upward. If it continued as it did it would soon flip completely over toward the
Tharnak
. If it hit, it would swat the ancient spaceship out of the sky.

Aldrededor was visibly struggling to pull the
Tharnak
out of its path. As the Final Faith flagship continued to nose heavily downwards, the ex-pirate finally managed to force the
Tharnak
into the beginnings of a climb. It seemed they might make it - but it was going to be close. Close enough, in fact, that they found themselves able to watch the last moments of the
Makennon
and her crew in intimate detail.

Pulling up even as the
Makennon
angled down, the
Tharnak
flew along the
Makennon'
s deck, finely manoeuvring through the metal ribcage that had supported its all but burned out envelope. As they accelerated past they could see just how much damage the yassan archers' arrows had done.

Kali watched Slowhand watching the deck of the
Makennon
, following the actions of his sister amid the chaos rapidly developing there. It was testimony to Jenna's command skills that the ordinary crewmen still followed her orders - though the contingent of shadowmages aboard had already succumbed to panic - trying to beat back the flames despite the fire's inevitable triumph. Jenna strode the deck as if she could restore the
Makennon'
s flightworthiness though, even at a distance, Kali and Slowhand could see the strain thinning and greying her face. But, in the end, Jenna had little choice other than to accept the ship's doom. The sheer amount of collapsing rigging, support struts and explosions defeating any effort that could be made to stay what had to come. And at last it happened. A combination of spreading fire and detonations that conspired to separate the ribbing and remains of the envelope from the gondola completely.

The
Makennon
began to fall to jungle below.

Jenna faced her demise with dignity, anchoring herself at the airship's wheel and standing steadfast The last thing Slowhand saw before she was obscured by the overturning hull was his sister staring directly into his eyes.

Goodbye, brother. I wish I knew what might have been.

"She's going to clip us!" Kali shouted over the roar of the dying ship as its tail swung towards the
Tharnak
. Even as Aldrededor struggled to gain more height there was a bone-shaking vibration that juddered the ancient craft right to its core, throwing Kali, Slowhand and Dolorosa to the deck.

As the Sarcrean struggled at the control panel there was a dull boom from the underside of the ship and the amberglow layer beneath the thread funnels crackled and darkened.

"We have lost the use of half of the funnels on our port side and a third on our starboard, Kali Hooper. The retro funnels are gone completely. Though we have some limited manoeuvrability remaining, I fear it is not enough to enable us to negotiate the Dragonfire."

"We're going to crash?"

"We are going to crash."

Behind her, Slowhand slammed his palms onto the rail and walked to the
Tharnak'
s stern, staring down at the smouldering remains of the three smaller airships and the
Makennon
, reflecting with a certain calm that perhaps it had indeed been fated that he and his sister should die together.

They were going down and what they needed was a miracle.

What neither he, or anyone else aboard expected, was that they got one.

From the still burning remains of the Crucible, something was rising. Something that, at first, looked like a plume of smoke but, on second glance, turned out to be something else entirely.

It moved more slowly than smoke, for one thing, and seemed to be made up of countless tiny shimmering particles. As all aboard the ship watched, the particles began to coalesce.

For Kali and Slowhand, it reminded them of the dwelf slowly taking shape within its sphere. But this was something quite different. A long, undulating worm-like was body was forming, kept aloft by majestic wings that stretched far and wide.

The red eyes of the creature regarded them. Then the dragon flew towards them.

"Oh, shit." Killiam Slowhand said.

"Great Grandma of the Gods." Aldrededor and Dolorosa breathed together.

Only Kali said nothing and smiled to herself, knowing what was actually happening. This was what the dwelf had meant when he'd said that there had been one last thing he had to do. Whatever technology and magics he had left - and she suspected this was more magic than technology - the doomed ancient one had somehow reconnected them to the dying Crucible and produced at last the one creature of peninsulan legend they had never recreated. Why he was doing this now, she didn't know, and nor did she know how much of the dwelf's consciousness existed in his creation but, in the end, it didn't matter. As its people watched in awe from the jungle canopy, the Dragon God rose over them.

"It's coming right at us!" Slowhand warned.

"There is nothing I can do," Aldrededor confessed.

"I don't think it means us harm," Kali said. "It might even be coming to help..."

"Help?" Slowhand repeated.

"A-ha. Look."

Slowhand and the others did, but not for long, as they were too busy ducking. Because despite Kali's assurance, they could not help but instinctively drop as the massive creature flew directly at the ship and then swooped overhead, so close that the downdraught from its wings beat the air around them. As they watched in amazement, the claws attached themselves to the
Tharnak
and pulled the entire craft up beneath it, towards its belly, as if for protection. As soon as the ship was secure the creature proceeded to fold its vast wings about the craft, pulling it in tight.

The very last thing they saw, before the creature entirely enfolded the craft, was the Dragonfire before them.

"Hold tight!" Kali shouted. "It's taking us through!"

"What the hells do you mean, taking us through?" Slowhand screeched.

"Slowhand, sometimes you've just got to have a little faith!"

Faith and a pretty good sense of balance, Kali thought to herself. Because for the next few seconds - but what seemed like an eternity - she and the others found themselves being flung from one side of the deck to the other as the creature manoeuvred through the cave system. And then, suddenly, they were through.

The dragon's wings opened and the
Tharnak
was lowered by its claws, and they found themselves being flown high along the pass.

"My Gods!" Slowhand said.

"No," Kali corrected. "
Their
God."

The archer, like the others, looked to the rails, and saw the yassan emerging from a hundred cave mouths along the pass. As the Dragon passed over them they fell to their knees and emitted a great roar of worship that resounded deafeningly through the mountains. And as it did, the dragon's long neck waved slowly from side to side, as if in acknowledgement.