The Crucible of the Dragon God

arrows aimed at Fitch's arms and legs. Flitch tried to deflect them, but he had no chance. The threadweaver was suddenly picked up and carried off his feet by their speed and power, thudding into the packing crate behind him. Fitch roared with anger, trying to pull away from the arrows that held him, but they were so solidly embedded in the wood through the folds of his cloak that he was trapped.

Slowhand took a deep and satisfied breath and walked towards Fitch, pausing only to offer a hand to help the still prone Jenna up. She snatched it without thanks — without even a smile, of relief or otherwise — and rounded on the pinioned threadweaver, pointing at the control panel where Slowhand had been trapped. It buzzed now with a release of energy that, despite Slowhand not knowing what it should sound like, didn't seem quite right.

'You're action was irresponsible and stupid,' she shouted. 'Have you any idea of the amount of power contained in those things?' She pointed at Slowhand. 'Inserting him into the circuit has destabilised the entire system and — '

Jenna broke off, ducking, as the upper left corner of the panel exploded.

'I think she's trying to say you broke it,' Slowhand pointed out. He studied the panel as another section detonated, lighting up everyone's faces. 'If you ask me, I reckon this whole place is going to go up.'

'You fool!' Jenna yelled at the threadweaver.

Fitch actually looked chastised. 'He shouldn't have done what he did. Shouldn't have been able — '

'He's my brother. He's a — '

She's going to say it, Slowhand thought. The name. And when she did, then the world would know the truth. But at the same time he considered this, the panel behind him detonated once more and the conversation abruptly ceased. Because, this time the explosion set off a chain reaction that spread to more panels next to it, and then more after that, and suddenly one entire side of the waystation was aflame.

'Yep, I was right,' Slowhand said, smugly.

'Fark,' Jenna shouted, and she began to move among her people, shouting orders. 'Get everyone back on board, now! You, do as I say! And you! Leave everything not already loaded! Mister Ransom, loose the umbilicals and prepare for immediate departure!'

'Ma'am, we haven't finished refuel — '

'It will have to do, Mister Quinn! If we don't get out of here now, we're not leaving. By the Lord of All, I'll glide this thing into Gransk if I have to!'

Gransk, Slowhand thought. There was that name again. Where the hells was it? What was it? As troubling as the question was, though, something troubled him even more, and that was his sister's attitude to him since he had escaped from certain death. There had been no smiles, no hugs, no anything, and he was beginning to think that the only reason Jenna had fought with Fitch was because she knew how dangerous his unauthorised actions were — that the fact that her own brother had been the spanner in the works didn't really matter to her at all. The realisation left him with a heaviness in his heart that was worse than he'd felt at the loss of Kali Hooper, but it was a heaviness that he could not afford to indulge in right now.

He looked around him, ducking as the explosions from the Old Race mechanisms increased, sending plumes of fire into the paths of the airship crew. Most were on board now, only himself, Jenna and Ransom still uncoupling the ship not on the safety of the deck. And, of course, Fitch. The threadweaver was still struggling against the arrows holding him, and Slowhand was pleased to see an expression of panicked horror had overtaken the usual arrogance that filled that face. His temptation to leave the bastard exactly where he was almost overwhelming but -

Slowhand sighed, swiftly pulled the arrows from Fitch's robes and then bundled him towards the gantry. The last thing he expected — but should have expected — was that at the last minute Fitch would plant his palm on his chest and send him hurtling backwards into a pile of crates. Dazed, he watched as Jenna and the last crewmembers boarded, and the airship was already pulling away by the time he rose and ran after it. The archer tried to make the jump from dock to airship but stopped himself at the last moment by grabbing onto a rail. The gap between them was just too great.

'Jenna,' he shouted as the airship receded further beyond his reach. 'I have to know — is there anything of you left?

His sister stared back, the wind whipping at her face, and Slowhand wasn't sure whether it was that or something else that made her eyes tear up.

Then she dug into a pocket, took out a small object and threw it across the widening gap towards him. Slowhand flung out a hand and then stared down at what he'd caught — a bracelet — before looking back up to question what it was. But, in the brief moment he had looked down, the airship had begun to turn away, as had his sister, perhaps not voluntarily, towards Querilous Fitch. Slowhand roared as the threadweaver approached her and then placed his palms on her skull and the hopes that he had harboured until that moment — that even now he might be able to turn Jenna away from the Final Faith — were finally dashed as his sister quivered beneath Fitch's touch.

Watching the airship descend to the harbour's entrance tunnel, Slowhand could not remember when he had last — if ever — felt so lonely. But there was no time to dwell upon the feeling as another fierce explosion from behind almost blew him off the gantry.

The archer looked around, searching for something — anything — that could help him get off this rock. But the only viable method of transport had already left and all that remained was the bones of its sisterships. Then it suddenly occurred to him that if Jenna and the Final Filth could build their flying machine piecemeal, then anything the Filth could do, he could do too.

Slowhand worked quickly but precisely, skewering bolts of cloth from the rotted dirigibles with arrows from Suresight, before pulling them down and framing them around struts of lightweight metal. He tied the pieces of cloth into place with catgut from his quiver, pulling each piece taut until, when he flicked them, they thrummed like drums above the two triangular sections he had created. Finally he linked the two sections together, creating a makeshift hinge by tying the metal struts to the flexible frame of Suresight itself, swung a strap beneath the two, and then stood back to admire his handiwork.

Looking like a pair of artificial wings, what he had created would not emulate a bird but he could hang beneath it and it would glide. He hoped that was all he would need. There was no time to test its airworthiness, however, as the explosions around him had now become so frequent that they were one solid, roiling mass of ever expanding combustion. The only thing that he could do now was fly.

Slowhand slung the device on his back, tightened the strap, and ran, the precipice that loomed before him doing nothing to discourage him — because if he stayed he was dead anyway. Suddenly, he was in the air and plummeting, and with desperate shifts of his weight from his left and to his right, he managed to manoeuvre the contraption between the numerous metal struts and beams that filled the cavern, dropping past and through them until the floor of the cavern was in sight.

Here, Slowhand arced his body upward, feeling the strain not only on his muscles but on the contraption itself. However, as it groaned in unison with him, his flight path gradually changed from the near vertical to the horizontal. He banked to the left, into the harbour's exit tunnel, its striplights blinking by him, and he could feel the wind from the outside on his face. But with a quite literal sinking feeling, he realised that the air currents within the tunnel were not enough to keep him aloft. Thankfully, the explosions in the harbour above obliged him at that very moment, blasting a wave of heated air and flame down into the tunnel buffeting him forward as effectively as if he had been swatted away by some giant, invisible hand. Slowhand yelled with surprise and with exhilaration and, as the sky darkened around him, realised he had exited the tunnel and was above the Drakengrats once more.

He was just beginning to think he was safe when the entire underside of Thunderlungs' Cry began to blow apart in a series of thunderous and buffeting explosions. There was an ominous cracking from above, too, and as the air about him began, suddenly, to fill with falling stones, rocks and even boulders, he realised that Thunderlungs' Cry itself was coming down. Slowhand cursed and frantically began to manoeuvre the glider through the deadly rain, avoiding pieces of the collapsing bridge by inches and aware that even a single impact could slap him from the sky. Whether through some innate piloting skill or sheer luck, he emerged unscathed, and was about to whoop in triumph when a growing shadow on the distant ground made him instinctively look up.

Ohhh, fark! he thought.

Because Thunderlungs Cry had saved the best for last, it seemed, and — seemingly in slow motion — an entire middle section of the bridge was plummeting towards him.