Chapter Forty-Two

Zellion used his spear to catch the arm of a Charred swinging a machete at his head. He heaved back, then tripped the fellow—but before he could deliver a death blow, Elegy was upon the Charred, stabbing at him repeatedly with her spear. It didn't cut his flesh, but his soul—and when it went into the Charred's brain, his eyes burned and shriveled like coals, his cinderheart going out.

Once he was dead, she kept going, stabbing down through him into the deck itself. Zellion caught her arm, making her pause.

Maybe we should be a little more…reserved with her weapon, eh? I'll try to remember to blunt it if she goes too far.

Zellion looked Elegy in the eyes again. "Be careful."

She nodded, wide eyed, way too excited. At least she was enthusiastic.

Only one Charred had made it to their ship; he'd come off a hovercycle, which—unfortunately—had fallen behind after he'd leaped over. It was now vanishing into the distance behind them.

The Dawnchaser, the most maneuverable of the Beacon forces, flew a little off from the main formation—which was made up of the four gunships surrounding the small cluster of four densely packed passenger ships.

It was an extremely vulnerable position, something the majority of the Cinder King's pilots seemed to recognize. While their leader and his most elite had flown off in their fastest ships, the rest buzzed around the Beaconites. Fortunately they didn't immediately go for the transports; they took the more obvious option of trying to take out the gunships.

People often aimed for the defenses first, as if there was a kind of hierarchy you were supposed to follow. He wasn't going to complain. Rebeke, following his instructions, swung the Dawnchaser in close to Zeal's gunship—which had five Charred swarming its deck. Once close, Zellion jumped. He hit the deck with spear in hand, drawing the attention of the Charred before they could go for the people inside the cab. At Zellion's suggestion, they'd kept the gunships clear of civilians. Just a pilot and copilot in each one.

That left tons of people on the decks of the transports exposed to gunfire and shrapnel. He tried not to think about that as Elegy landed beside him, and they engaged the Charred on the deck of Zeal's gunship. The two of them made a good team—as Zellion proved effective at seizing attention with his flashing spear and tactical strikes. The Charred focused on him, which let Elegy tear through them with the borrowed weapon.

In seconds, four of the Charred were down, and the last one leaped off the deck toward another gunship passing nearby. Zellion nodded to Elegy, who was grinning, and they followed—soaring through the air. As they landed on this second gunship, they met another group of Charred.

These, though, scattered instead of fighting. They surged off the ship to nearby passing enemy vessels.

That was wrong. Very wrong. He knew from his experience with Elegy that Charred preferred to fight, no matter what. They would only run away if directly and forcibly instructed to do so. He glanced to the side and saw small cinderhearts on the deck—perhaps attached with magnets—glowing from the center with wiring and casing around them.

He grabbed Elegy by instinct and threw her toward the Dawnchaser, which was sweeping back their direction. He jumped a second later, then the ship behind them—poor people in the cab included—went up in a bright explosion of red fire and burning metal.

Elegy landed on the Dawnchaser, then stumbled, staring down at the wreck as it plowed into the muddy landscape below—then detonated again, the shockwave rattling their own ship.

"Cheating," she hissed, her cinderheart pulsing with a white-red anger. "That's cheating."

"There are no rules," he said. "We're the ones who brought cannons to the fight."

He felt like a fool, though. He'd known they used explosives. The Beaconites had deployed them effectively in their initial raid to save their friends. He should have prepared for this. The maneuver made sense, as the bombs would work even if Zellion proved too frightening or powerful for the Charred. They didn't need to fight. They just needed to be mobile delivery mechanisms.

"Get back onto Zeal's ship," Zellion shouted, pointing. "Defend it! Don't let any of the Charred linger long enough to plant more bombs. If they do, toss the bombs overboard."

She nodded as he waved for Rebeke to steer them that direction. Elegy jumped across to that deck, and Zellion pointed forward—to where Charred were dropping off of an enemy ship to the deck of the third of the four gunships.

Rebeke pushed them forward, and he leaped, using the momentum to carry him through the rushing air to land on the ship. A Charred here was charging something against her cinderheart—one of the bombs. It seemed they needed to be primed, which gave him a few moments to break through the others and stab her through the neck.

His weapon wasn't Invested, though. Just a common spear. Shockingly she survived that hit, forcing him to slap her hand and kick the bomb over the side. The explosion rocked the ship as he sparred with three other Charred. At least the one he'd stabbed seemed to have trouble fighting. She could barely keep to her feet.

Thinking of that, he focused on the feet and legs of the Charred. He got in a few stabs, then grabbed the railing and motioned in a circle. The pilot, a woman he didn't know well, got the idea and rolled the ship—sending a bunch of wounded Charred screaming into the mud below while Zellion hung on.

A quick glance told him that Elegy was holding her own on the deck of Zeal's gunship. Aux was extremely effective against enemies who were used to being able to rush in and dominate the fight, unconcerned about whether they might take a hit or two. A weapon that cut through metal and severed souls was an excellent way to punish the overly aggressive.

Elegy finished off the Charred who tried to stop her, then kicked two bombs over the side—they didn't detonate, but instead fell mutely to the mud.

Unfortunately that only protected two of the gunships. One was down. Elegy was on one deck. He was on the third. And the last…

He felt the shock wave as a blast went off nearby. He spun and found the final gunship—piloted by Jeffrey Jeffrey—struggling to stay in the air. It had a gaping hole in one side, where—in the strange way of the cinderhearts of this place—the steel itself continued to smolder. Judging by the way the ship was floundering, it was as good as down—especially as he saw three more Charred affixing bombs to various portions of the deck.

So that was two gunships down. And…

No. Not down yet. That ship was dead. But people were still alive on board.

This time, he didn't need prompting from Auxiliary. He didn't think further; he ran to the edge of his ship and leaped. A moment of rushing wind followed, then he hit the deck of the fourth gunship hard—as it had been approaching too quickly—losing his spear in the roll. He was thrown to the side as the ship rocked.

With a cry, he summoned Auxiliary as a grappling hook and sank it into the deck, holding himself in place. Hopefully Elegy would be able to survive for a short time unarmed.

Wind roaring around him, ship trembling, he surged to his feet and—ignoring the Charred who were charging their bombs—bounded for the cab of the ship. Inside, he could see only Jeffrey Jeffrey, trying frantically to control the ship.

Zellion summoned Auxiliary as a full-sized Shardblade, as long as a man was tall, then used it to slice off the top of the ship's cab like he was opening a can of food. He saw no sign of the copilot; perhaps they'd been thrown free. Zellion pulled himself up over the lip and reached down, grabbing a confused Jeffrey Jeffrey by the coat. Auxiliary sliced the man's restraining belt free, then Zellion grabbed him with both hands and heaved him out.

He looked back as the Charred leaped free of the ship, falling to the mud below, as other ships were too far to reach. Zellion eyed the blinking bombs, then summoned Auxiliary once more. As a shield. On top of one of the bombs.

Zellion jumped onto it as the bomb detonated.

He and Jeffrey Jeffrey were thrown into the air. Zellion caught sight of a flash of color and metal in the chaos, and swung. When everything settled, he hung by one arm from a set of claw hooks he'd formed from Auxiliary, which he'd rammed into the hull of the Dawnchaser. He held Jeffrey Jeffrey by one arm beneath him, dangling above a drop of some twenty or thirty feet.

Looks like he's got a few broken ribs, the knight observes. Severe whiplash. Some nasty bruises waiting to form all along his right side, maybe a concussion.

But he was alive. Zellion hauled him up and tossed him onto the deck of the Dawnchaser. Zellion followed, stumbling up onto the deck. On a nearby ship, Elegy was facing several Charred on her own. He shouted to her, then formed Auxiliary into the shape of a metal ball, easy to throw. He hurled it to her, and she caught it. Aux formed into a machete in her hand.

Zellion turned back to Jeffrey Jeffrey, dazed on the deck. The bearded man looked up, eyes wide, trembling. "Why…" he said. "Why is the light breaking around you?"

Zellion glanced to the side. More fragments hung in the air around him in an arch. Three others glowed on his arms, remnants of a different kind of spren. All were reflections of light in the air, making it seem distorted. Maybe…ten of them? Almost like old times. The remnants of two orders, and the oaths he'd left behind.

Nomad smiled and gestured for Jeffrey Jeffrey to make his way into the cab of the Dawnchaser, which the man did, limping. Zellion prepared himself for the next fight, raising his fists, ready to go hand to hand.

But the enemy forces were falling back for some reason.

There, the knight says. Look, faithful squire. Ships have landed ahead of us.

The Cinder King's entourage. They'd circled a spot on the ground, and had sharpshooters on the decks with rifles pointed skyward. Zellion nodded through the windshield to Rebeke, who took their ship out of the formation and flew it down to do a quick scan. Blasts of rifle fire took bits off the railing and made dents in the hull, but didn't penetrate the thicker armor of Elegy's vessel.

Rebeke surveyed the spot, then met his eyes through the glass. She nodded once, firmly. The ship's prospector scanners had identified a large power source below—as he'd hoped, the Cinder King had led them straight to the Refuge.

It was time to see what was inside.