• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

A rush of light dazzled; the boom followed like thunder, half deafening me in the echoing space. Ashes and embers swirled upward, thickening the air, and the floor planks buckled beneath the bed, dropping one side of it to hang over the ship’s hold below. But the wash of the blaze went quiet where the blast had hit. I coughed, choked, but quickly threw the other two darts, the explosions caving in floor and wall panels but scattering the thickest of the flames. The temperature dropped.

The effect would be temporary. The fire would escape the confines of the cabin and the decks would burn. But we needed only moments. Already, I could feel the ship slanting downward under the guiding hand of the mercenary who had claimed a bit of pilot’s knowledge. I hoped it was enough.

My coughing had turned to gagging now, as I fought to clear my lungs of smoke and draw in a breath. I tried to yell up the stairs for more water but no words came out. I stumbled for the steps, tripped and went down to a knee. Then sturdy arms grabbed me and I felt myself half carried toward the stairs. Kreeg was beside me, one arm wrapped around my shoulders. Rhandh stood next to him and took the axe from my left hand as Kreeg dragged me past. I heard the sound of shattering wood as the Vlih broke open a barrel of water he’d carried with him.

The blue-white window of the sky seemed far away at the top of the stairs. I wished it closer, and in another moment the wish came true. I staggered out onto the deck where the cool breeze thrust against my body. Rannon was there with a sweet, wet cloth pushed against my face and lips. I hacked up black grit. My ears were still ringing from the blasts.

We were headed downward at a steep angle and I could see the mercenary at the controls with his legs spread and locked. His face made a study in concentration as he channeled his mind into the toir’in-or charged wands that drove us.

Braced against the pull of our descent, I glanced over the side of the flyer. The air looked clear and hard beneath us, and further below surged the verdigrised copper of the Shauval River. Grasslands stretched to either side of the banks, broken by large tracts of dark wood, with here and there the blunt square of a plowed holding.

I looked back at the mercenary, who had said he didn’t want to die. No flames roiled through the torn deck by his boots, a sign that my attempts at explosive surgery had been successful for the moment. It was time to get ready for a landing. Or a crashing. We were only a few hundred yards above the river.

I hoped the mercenary had been truthful about what he wanted.

An injured Valyan was carried over to the midship riser and braced between two hitching rails where saddle birds could be tied. Most of the men joined him.

Having dumped the last of his water, Rhandh came up from below to be with us as well. His shoulders steamed smoke as he joined Kreeg, Rannon, and myself. The four of us wedged ourselves into a corner where the riser met the railing. We locked arms, Rannon in the center. My legs were tight about one stanchion, my free arm wrapped around another. The river was coming up hard toward us.

Now, I knew, our makeshift pilot would bring up the nose of the craft so that we would strike the water at a shallower angle, so that we would skip like a stone instead of disintegrating.

Yes. At any instant he would bring up the nose. At any instant!

“Damn!” I muttered, reverting to my native tongue. Why doesn’t he bring up the nose?

But then he did. Slightly. And we hit.

The bow slapped the water firmly and we bounced. Then the port railing smashed in as we slewed sideways in the water. A wave of green river sluiced across us. It held a winter cold and took my breath. I clung tightly to my stanchion, and to Rannon. She nestled quiet in my arms, though some of her men shouted in their fear. We slowed and began to settle. We’d float for a bit.

A ragged cheer erupted. We were down; we would live.

I glanced toward