Matt Forbeck - Marked for Death

Something large and heavy struck the tower below Kandler. The structure shook to its foundation. Esprл’s scream punctuated the smash.

The bedpost anchoring the sheet snapped, and Kandler fell, pulling the sheet after him.

“No!” Sallah shouted. Esprл let loose with a long, heartbroken wail.

Kandler kicked off from the wall as he fell, in a vain hope he might find some kind of water below to cushion his landing. After only a dozen feet, the justicar crashed onto something solid and flat. He cried out in agony and surprise.

Kandler reached out around him and felt the wooden planks of a deck swaying beneath him. “What?” he said, then he looked around and was struck dumb.

Half of the ring of fire towered over Kandler like a blazing rainbow, crackling as it burned where it hovered in the air. The flames forced back the mists, and he could see along the length of the ship’s deck on which he stood. The vessel looked like a large cutter but stretched out as if a giant had picked her up and pulled her hard at both ends so he could better hurl it through the air. Instead of sails, the ship had a carved wooden harness that arched high out of the bridge and hooked around the ring of fire at its apex.

Burch waved at Kandler from behind the ship’s wheel. “Ahoy, castaway!” the shifter called.

“Ahoy, the ship!” Kandler said as he struggled to his feet. The deck pitched beneath him. “Permission to come aboard?”

Burch barked out a laugh. “Granted!”

Kandler raced along the ship’s deck and up to the bridge. “How?” he asked. “Where?” He just stopped and stared at the shifter. “There’s a legend in this, I’m sure, but we have to get Esprл and Sallah out of the tower now.”

“Think that bang woke up Majeeda?” Burch asked with toothy grin. “I can’t steer this thing worth a damn.”

“Let me give it a shot,” Kandler said. He took the wheel from Burch and felt the polished wood in his hands. As he did, something poked around the corners of his mind.

“It’s the elemental,” Burch said. “The ring. It’s a creature made of pure fire.”

Although Kandler had never ridden an airship before, he understood the basic principles behind them. He reached out with his mind and urged the burning thing to move the ship higher. At first, it resisted, content to burn away in its mystical, circular cage, but eventually it gave in.

Kandler looked up at the window of the ladies’ bedchamber. He saw Esprл and Sallah gaping down at them, and he waved. Esprл squealed with joy.

Kandler noticed that the wheel didn’t move with the ship. It didn’t turn at all. It was just a conduit by which the ship’s pilot could reach the elemental that kept the thing aloft. He willed the ship to come to a stop at the window, but he misjudged the distance in the mist. The ship came to a crushing stop as the starboard railing caught under the window’s stone sill.

Kandler left the wheel and dashed over to the window.

Burch was already there, taking Esprл from Sallah’s arms. Kandler reached out to help the lady knight over the railing too.

At that moment, the door to the bedchamber burst open. Majeeda came shuffling through as fast as her withered legs would carry her.

“No!” the deathless elf screeched. She reached out toward Kandler with a bony hand, raw energy arcing between her fingers.

Kandler grabbed Sallah by the arm and kicked at the stone windowsill with all his might. Already damaged by the ship, the sill gave way. Sallah fell into Kandler’s arms as the ship lurched toward the mist-shrouded sky. The two fell to the deck in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Stop!” Majeeda said. “I command you to stop! You must stop!”

The deathless elf screeched something unintelligible at the people on the ship, and each of them froze in place, unable to move a muscle. Kandler found himself lying underneath Sallah’s armored form, incapable of doing more than breathe at her. He couldn’t even blink.

The airship kept rising.

“No!” Majeeda shouted at the ship from below. “Don’t leave me here alone! You can’t!”

No one on the ship replied. Kandler had a lot of things he wanted to say to the insane wizard, but his tongue refused to move.

“Damn you all to Khyber then!” Majeeda said. “If you won’t stay, then you can all die!”

Kandler heard the wizard chanting again, and then something came crackling at them from below.

A scorching explosion shook the entire ship, tossing it up and to port as if a whale had hit it from below. Kandler and Sallah tumbled across the deck toward the railing. They smashed into it hard, unable to brace themselves for the impact.

The ship pushed higher into the mist, faster than ever. As she righted herself, Kandler realized he was lying on top of Sallah at an awkward angle that threatened to break his wrist under her armored form.

The dark, cloying mist became thinner and lighter as the ship rose higher. Far below now, Majeeda screeched out in anguish. “Don’t leave me!” she said. “Please!”

The ship broke through the darkness of the mist and into the dimness of the Mournland’s overcast sky. After so long in Majeeda’s domain, even this weak light hurt Kandler’s eyes. He winced, and in so doing realized he could move his eyes.

Kandler rolled off of Sallah, who scrambled away. He cast about for Esprл and spotted her several feet down the railing, rubbing her head. He dashed over to her and snatched her up in his arms.

Esprл wailed in fear as Kandler held her. “It’s all right,” he said to her, most of his body aching as he patted her on the back. Her sobs slowed as he spoke. “We’re safe now.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Sallah said. “I smell smoke.”

Kandler pointed up at the circle of fire that encircled the airship like a ring on a finger. “There’s fire all around here,” he said.

“Fire below, boss!” Burch called from the bridge. Kandler saw the shifter was leaning over the port side of the ship and looking at the hull.

Kandler dashed to the rail and stared downward. Flames billowed from the bottom of the ship.

The justicar sprinted up to the bridge, Esprл still in his arms. Burch already had his hands on the wheel.

“We have to bring her down,” Kandler said.

“We’re still going up,” Burch pointed out. “We have to stop that first.”

The shifter handed the wheel to Kandler. He put Esprл down and grasped the wheel in both hands. He reached out with his mind and felt the elemental out there, just like before. This time, though, the creature wanted nothing to do with him. It liked flying straight into the sky, away from Majeeda and her tower, and it wasn’t going to stop no matter how much Kandler might want it to.

Kandler tried again and again, but it was no good. “We’re in trouble,” he said to Burch. “How high are we?”

The shifter leaned over the back railing and looked down. “Fatally,” he said.

Kandler let go of the wheel and scanned the bridge, hunting for something, anything that would help. “Maybe we can toss a mooring line overboard,” he said.

“There’s nothing for it to catch on,” Sallah said as she joined them oh the bridge.

“We can’t just go up forever,” Kandler said, striving to keep the panic from his voice. “It has to stop sometime.”

“Says who?” Sallah asked.

As the knight spoke, the ship stopped rising so fast that Kandler was almost lifted from the deck. Startled, he spun around to see Esprл holding the wheel. “How?” The justicar knelt down next to his stepdaughter and placed a hand on her shoulder. “How did you do that?” he asked.

Esprл beamed down at him sweetly, reminding Kandler of her mother. “You just have to ask nicely,” she said.