J. King - PLANESHIFT

The engines suddenly bellowed. Flame burned black smoke from the exhausts. Weatherlight surged. Her keel cracked against a ridge of stone. She bounded free and roared out over tumbled swamps. Four dragons flew directly behind her, their teeth gnashing at her stern.

Sisay yanked the helm toward her. Weatherlight hurtled skyward. She was fast but not fast enough. More white light splashed around her, more jittering clouds in blue.

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire," she muttered to herself. Through the speaking tube, she called, "It's no good! We can't defeat four of them!"

Multani replied in a voice agonized by burns. "Take us low. Take us among the forests. We have allies there."

Sisay shoved the helm to fore. "We could use some allies. Feels like we're the only ones left fighting."

Weatherlight skimmed down the slope. Momentarily, she shook the divine pursuers. Ahead, strangled forests reached bone-white boughs toward the ship. Some of the trees ignited with spill-over beams from the white dragon.

"Tahngarth?" Sisay called, "I hate to ask this-"

"Already there," the minotaur responded from the stern speaking tube. He punctuated the comment with a barrage of blasts from Squee's ray cannon. Even as he fired, Orim tended his red and blistered skin.

Sisay nodded grimly. "Where are these allies of yours, Multani?"

"Right here," Multani replied from the helm, which he twisted hard to port. As Weatherlight banked, the shattered windscreen swept around to show a huge mountain to the fore-not a mountain, but a mountainous tree.

The lead magnigoth strode with lashing roots across the swamps. A company of grim-faced treefolk followed it.

A bright smile broke across Sisay's face. "Oh, yeah."

Tahngarth's cannon fire was joined by blasts of flame from the engine's exhausts. Weatherlight rushed out above the deadwood swamp. Her wake tore the waters below. Dragon gods soared behind her.

"Take us close to the first one," Multani instructed.

The ship sliced across the marshes and flanked the first magnigoth. She turned tightly to port and circled around the massive bole. Ridges of bark flashed past the rail. Sisay dragged on the helm. Weatherlight entered a corkscrew climb. She dragged the Primevals in her wake. They slowly gained on the ship.

Clenching her jaw, Sisay said, "Full throttle, Karn."

The engines thundered, hurling the ship higher. It passed a gaping mouth in the side of the tree.

"Stay close. Buzz the upper limbs!" Multani said.

"Right! Right!" Sisay shot back. "You just keep the wheel from falling apart in my hands!" She cranked it hard to port.

The ship creaked and groaned, wrung by the hands of momentum. "And keep the ship from falling apart too."

An enormous bough swept out before Weatherlight. The ship dived just beneath the swiping arm. Dead ahead, a second branch tried to haul her from the sky. Sisay arced above it. Hands sweating on the charred wheel, she wove her way among the boughs. "These are allies?" Sisay asked. Multani responded, "Trust me,"

From the stern castle cannon, Tahngarth shouted into the tubes, "I can't shoot through branches!" "You won't have to," Multani assured. The largest bough yet swung toward Weatherlight. The ship bounded up, her keel barely clearing the thick bark. The limb passed just beneath her, its branches closing.

Muscular grains clamped down around the green Primeval. It writhed in the magnigoth's grip like a frog caught by a schoolboy. The bough bent. It drew the dragon god down to the gaping mouth below. With a casual motion, it tossed the Primeval within and closed its mouth. A profound swallowing sound told the fate of the god.

"It crossed the world to win back its captive," Multani explained. "The three other Primevals are breaking off!" Tahngarth reported.

Sisay brought the ship hard about. Weatherlight shot from the tangle of branches. "We're going after them. We going to put another one of these beasts to sleep."

Weatherlight broke into clear air above the retreating Primevals. She dropped like a hammer from the sky. The Gaea figurehead loomed mercilessly above the beasts. Wind gushed up on either side of her, seeming almost to move her thick-carved hair. Her eyes gleamed fiercely.

Prow spikes rammed into the back of the black dragon. They punched deep, through scale and muscle and bone. Mere spikes could not kill a god, of course, but they did pin him in place as Weatherlight drove him toward the tar pit below.

The dragon's tail lashed against the keel. It shouted out the word of death, but the sound could no longer slay. That weapon had been undone. The black Primeval thrashed impotently. It shrieked, only to fill its throat with tar. Muck sprayed up around it.

Weatherlight skimmed along, a scant fathom above the tar pit. Gaea watched with impassive certainty as the dragon drowned in tar. At a precise moment, the spikes that had impaled it shrank and withdrew, letting the beast sink away into oblivion. Death was swallowed up in death.

Sisay drew the ship up from the slough. "Even burned and twisted and spattered in tar, we still own the skies!"

"Not yet, we don't," called Orim from the stern castle. She had just finished her healing ministrations on Tahngarth's bums when she noticed dragon shadows swarming the deck. "Look up!"

Sisay leaned forward to peer out the shattered windscreen. Directly above the ship, circling about the sun, were the dragon nations. There were hundreds of serpents. They formed a cyclone of flesh that reached into the sky.

Sisay groaned. Perhaps Weatherlight could prevail against two Primevals, diminished as they were, but she could never triumph over hundreds of dragons. Even as Sisay watched, the creatures peeled away from their circle and plunged down in pursuit.

"Will every last hero be destroyed?" Sisay wondered in dread. "Will all the world be lost?"

Dragons swooped down all around Weatherlight. Their clawed wings scraped her burned gunwales. Their scaly tails lashed her airfoils. Not one, though, turned fiery breath upon her. Instead, every last beast flew onward, ahead of the beleaguered ship. They shot out after the final two Primevals.

The dragons nearest them spouted fire across the sky. They fought their own gods. At last, the tyranny of their minds had been broken.

Sisay breathed in deep gratitude. She clutched the charred helm and gazed out over the swamplands of Urborg.

"Finally-hope."

The engine chose that moment to fail. Its throaty howl grew silent. Only the wind spoke, sliding across the ship's airfoils.

The stick again went dead in Sisay's hand. "How about some power, Karn?" She watched the last shred of swampland sweep away below, leaving only rock-hard slopes of volcanic scree. "We're going to need some power, Karn."

Karn's response echoed hopelessly through the speaking tube. "Yes."

Weatherlight lost lift. She burrowed down through spilling air. The mountainside came up below her.