The powerful winds didn’t deter the crows for long. They laughed—giggled, even—and swarmed back toward the Sun Chaser, as though this were all a game. With renewed vigor, they tried to rip the airship apart.
“You’ll all… suffer…” the crows chanted, their speech bizarre and hard to listen to.
Captain Devlin put two fingers in his mouth and let loose a whistle that pierced the night. I had to cover my ears, and I wondered if its potency had anything to do with his magic.
His roc—the giant golden bird larger than most beasts who walked on land—emerged from the storm clouds, answering the captain’s whistle as though just waiting for a signal. She screeched, drawing the attention of the grifter crows. Then she turned and flew toward the distant clouds, leading the plague-ridden mass of birds away from the airship.
Karna ran to me, her appearance slightly different from earlier. She wore practical sailing clothes, including long pants and a coat. Her blonde hair had been braided and then wrapped into a tight bun.
“Are you hurt?” Karna asked.
I shook my head.
The other woman on deck pulled a zigzag dagger from her belt and pointed it to the sky. “Another one’s coming!” The gold blade glittered with magic, and I knew right away she was the one who had threatened my life.
She wore an outfit similar to Karna, though her pants were striped and her coat went all the way up to her jaw. Her pixie-cut fiery hair reminded me of Zaxis. It fluttered in the breeze, but it was much too short to get into her eyes.
A beast dropped out of the sky. It landed on the deck of the Sun Chaser so hard and fast it almost broke through the wooden boards. It had the scales of a dragon, the wings of a bat, the stinger of a scorpion, and the short face of a snake. It only had two legs, marking it as a wyvern—a type of small dragon typically found up north. The beast was larger than a draft horse, and its wings stretched out twenty feet from one tip to the other.
A man rode on the wyvern’s back. He held a long rifle in one hand and the reins of the beast with the other.
The wyvern laughed as it spread its wings wide. Its chest looked like a second wyvern was ripping its way out of the creature’s ribcage, but then had become frozen in place. A half-formed head, wings, and a single leg dangled from the body of the plague-ridden wyvern.
“Die,” the wyvern said with a rumbling chuckle. “Die, die, die, die!”
Then the beast vomited blood and chunks of flesh. It splattered across the deck of the airship. The vital fluid would’ve sloshed everywhere, but Fain leapt up from the deck and evoked ice. The frosty magic washed over the crimson fluid, keeping it from spreading. A slight dusting of rime covered everything from the railing to the sails.
Wraith went invisible and then appeared by the wyvern’s leg. He crunched the beast’s ankle, but the plague-ridden monster barely noticed. It laughed and gargled another round of infected blood.
The woman with the zigzag dagger also leapt forward. She stabbed the beast in the other leg, and a flash of lightning burst off the weapon and crackled up the wyvern’s side.
The wyvern whipped its tail around and struck the woman, throwing her into the airship’s railing.
The captain dashed to her side with unrivaled celerity, as though he were aided by the wind itself whenever he moved. He didn’t approach the wyvern, however, no doubt because he was worried about contracting the plague.
“Can you handle the wyvern?” Karna asked me, her attention set on the rider. “I’ll take care of its arcanist.”
Before I could answer, Karna dashed across the deck. When she got to the frosty blood, she leapt over the puddles, flipping and jumping, showcasing a whole host of athletic prowess as she nimbly avoided touching anything dangerous. When she neared the wyvern, it tried to bite her—both with its giant head, and then a second time with its half-formed head—but Karna was far faster. She arrived at the creature’s side and then shoved her hand under the rider’s pant leg.
The moment Karna touched the man’s skin, the wyvern arcanist locked up, as though a puppet on strings and his puppeteer hadn’t yet made him move. As a doppelgänger arcanist, Karna could manipulate people, but I hadn’t expected her to have so much control during the heat of combat. With her magic woven throughout the man’s body, she didn’t even need to maintain contact to control him.
The plague-ridden man slid off the saddle of his wyvern. He pulled on the reins, but the beast didn’t listen. Instead of fighting with it, the man walked to the side of the airship, his movements jerked and awkward as he fought against Karna’s controlling magic. When he reached the railing, he planted the muzzle of the rifle against his neck, right where it met the jaw, and then pulled the trigger. The lead bullet slammed through his flesh and sent him staggering over the railing.
The wyvern laughed—unhinged and insane—like the whole event was the best comedy it had ever seen in its life.
Fain snapped his attention to me. “Now’s your chance. Do it.”
I lifted my hand and manipulated the shadows to grab on to the wyvern, but I wasn’t strong enough to keep it trapped for long. And without the added power of being merged with Luthair, I couldn’t make the shadows into viable weapons.
“Attack it,” Fain shouted.
I shook my head. “I don’t have a weapon!”
The last person on deck—the man I didn’t recognize—threw back his buccaneer coat to reveal several weapons. He had two swords of differing lengths, a whole host of daggers, and an intricately designed flintlock pistol.
“Take this,” he said as he unlatched a sword from his belt and tossed it over, the blade still in its scabbard.
I caught the weapon and ripped it out of its protective casing. Fire flared to life the moment the sword was free, lighting up the deck of the airship like a brilliant ray of sunlight. Taken aback, I almost dropped the weapon, but I took a deep breath and regained my bearings.
The edge of the sword remained heated and glowing bright, as if the blade had just been removed from a forge. When I swung it to test the weight, it burned the air, sizzling even small particles riding the current.
The weapon was surprisingly light.
“You’re one of… us…” the wyvern said, staring at the glowing blade in my hands, its dead fish eyes jiggling. “Help me…”
I stepped forward. Luthair shifted at my feet, and despite what I had told him, formed up around me, merging us together as one being.
I can’t sit idle and watch, he said straight to my mind. We’re stronger together. Aim for the beast’s chest.
The wyvern vomited more blood.
I ducked into the darkness, taking the scorching blade with me and leaving the scabbard. When I emerged, I was directly in front of the monster, much to its confusion. With one powerful thrust, I drove the weapon deep into the creature’s twisted chest. The blade sliced through the scales with shocking ease.
The wyvern screamed and tried to claw me with its feet. I dove back into the safety of the darkness and exited on the deck behind the wyvern.
The blade in my hand crackled with power, like it was getting hotter every second it wasn’t in the scabbard. I slashed it through the air, leaving a wake of flame, and sliced through the wyvern’s flank. It whipped its head back to savage me, but that was what I wanted.