19. Wyrn.
Wyrn.
JAYCE
“ T hey’ve done it again,” I say.
If we had any doubts the rumored airship with black sails was behind the dragon attacks, seeing them getting chased by Wyrn certainly proves Harlow’s theory. They have the strangest hot-air balloon, thin and twice the length of the ship itself.
“They might finally get what’s coming to them,” Alara says by my side.
During breakfast, we updated the crew on Harlow’s quest and the risks—without giving them the private details of his early life.
Gia and Kuroki were outraged by the idea that someone could steal dragon eggs.
In Hargos, people revere dragons as gods of nature, and their deific status is hard to shake, even for fire scroungers often elbow-deep in their entrails.
Wyrn—thanks to Harlow, I’m now making an accidental habit of calling dragons by their names—is a young female with purple scales.
From a distance, she looks black in the sunset sky.
She dives for the airship, breathing fire over the deck and the black sails catch fire.
Wyrn then takes another approach, grabbing a crew member in her claws before dropping them from the sky.
We’re too far to hear their screams, but not far enough to miss their demise as they crash on the ground.
Harlow gasps behind me, and I reach for his hand and squeeze it reassuringly.
“Let’s see what she makes of them, then we’ll sort through the wreck,” I say.
If there is a wreck left… from what I’ve seen and heard of dragons’ rage, they leave only smoldering ashes behind.
There’s no point in trying to save them from their foolishness. Alara is right; they had it coming.
But something unexpected occurs. The crew of the fancy airship fire their liquid-fire propeller in a powerful burst, and they fly away at top speed, leaving the dragon behind.
Now the shape of their hot-air balloon and hull makes sense; it lets them pierce the air like a javelin.
Wyrn roars and follows them over the sea.
“Shit,” Alara says. “There’s no way we can catch up.”
I growl. “Let’s try anyway. We can’t let them shake us again.”
We leave the Green Isles behind and head toward the continent.
The Blunder is much slower than a modern airship being chased by a mad dragon, and we lose sight of them after half an hour.
I keep my eyes on the compass, steering the ship in the same direction and careful not to let the winds push us too far.
It’ll take us a day to cross the Green Sea and reach the south coast. As Freddy, Alara, and I manage the sails, Gia and Harlow bring us food and drinks to ensure we never have to leave the upper deck.
By nightfall, we finally reach the south coast, and the sky is dark with smoke. The dragon set fire to fields of wheat for miles, destroying the food stores of the great plains feeding Dragonest and Nethermere. A few windmills appear like giant torches in the night, the blades aflame.
“No… What have they done?” Harlow says.
So close to fall, there won’t be time for more crops before winter, and the price of grain will explode. The little people will suffer first, as they always do. Over a hundred years ago, the Reign of Fire’s most dire consequence was the famine that lasted two years on East Hargos.
Kuroki gives us altitude to evade the smoke, and from up here, the destruction is even more daunting. The horizon has disappeared behind a grey wall, and the fields are burning as far as the eye can see. The ravenous fire is spreading thanks to the late summer heat and drought.
The smoke is the very reason we don’t see the dragon until she’s upon us.
Her dark shape appears in the sky over us, and I only have time to pull Harlow into my arms, horror dawning, before she claws at our hot-air balloon.
She pierces the thick dragonhide, and the Blunder begins the dangerous descent.
I throw Harlow into the control room with Kuroki, who has turned the liquid-fire engine to full blast to keep the downsizing balloon inflated.
The ship tilts forward, and Freddy slides on the upper deck.
I have a moment of pure panic, thinking he’s going to fall overboard and to his death, but then he catches the bulwark and hangs on for dear life.
Alara is at the bow, holding a rope and screaming her husband’s name.
I jump and climb the stern, fingernails scraping the deck to reach Wilbur’s invention, the one he called the Last Chance, in the hopes it might save us one day.
“You better work,” I say to the cannon as I take the safety off and trigger the spark igniting the liquid-fire detonation. The parachute explodes out of the wide barrel and into the sky. The Blunder lurches, and I hit the deck as she comes to a brutal halt.
Our descent continues, but slower this time.
Harlow is screaming my name from the control room. Somewhere below decks, Gia is screaming, too.
Mercifully, the dragon is nowhere to be found. She must have realized we weren’t her target, and she left us to die in the crash.
The Blunder might have slowed down, but she’s still incredibly heavy, and we hit the ground hard, the hull dragging on the smoldering field. The liquid-fire engine sputters above our heads under the impact, and an explosion of flames engulfs the control room.
“No!” I shout, terror gripping my soul.
Seconds later, Harlow emerges from the control room, dragging Kuroki out. Freddy—who blessedly survived the crash—reaches them before I do.
Kuroki is screaming, his left arm covered in flames.
“I think liquid-fire spilled on him!” Harlow sobs.
“Water! We need water!” I order, taking my dragonhide coat off.
At that moment, Wilbur emerges from below decks, blood running down his face from a cut on his forehead. He pales when he sees Kuroki and tries to douse the flames with his bare hands, blistering his fingers in the process.
“Hold him down,” I say.
As soon as Freddy complies, I wrap Kuroki’s arm with my dragonhide coat. It won’t help with the burns, but it’ll at least smother the flames.
It works, even though Kuroki is sobbing and thrashing in our arms. By the time Gia appears with a small barrel of water, he has lost consciousness.
We lay him on the deck and douse his arm and body in water, trying to wash away the remnants of liquid-fire. We realize with alarm that a good layer of his skin has melted, and I doubt his fingers are salvageable—the thin bones are visible.
“He needs a doctor. Now,” I say, getting to my feet.
The field of wheat below us has already burned, and a group of defeated peasants has gathered to gawk at the Blunder . I spot a cavalier on a horse in the small crowd.
“Find a way to get him down safely.” I gesture toward Kuroki. “We’re leaving.”
I grab a rope and launch myself over the bulwark and land in the ashes.
I pull out my gun and borrow the cavalier’s horse—I don’t have time for niceties.
Once I have climbed onto the saddle and asked for directions to the closest town with a doctor, Freddy and Alara have lowered Kuroki down in a large crate.
Moments later, we settle him in my arms.
Wilbur watches us from the upper deck, body shaking and his hands blistered. The expression of pure anguish on his face mirrors mine.
“Repair the Blunder as much as you can,” I say. “I’ll send a messenger as soon as Kuroki is in good hands.”
I kick the horse’s side and we’re off. Kuroki’s lifeless body is at my front, his head lolling in the crook of my neck. And even though I don’t believe in any of the gods revered all over Hargos, I send a prayer to anyone who might be listening.
Please… Let him survive.