As I crashed back through the barrier and tumbled onto Sweetwind’s deck, the massive wyvern gave a screeching roar as it gained altitude over the island, searching for the spot my little skiff was hidden. Sprinting for the aft pilothouse, I slammed the emergency dump to flood the ballast with energy. I knew that if that creature put enough effort into a siege on my barrier, it wouldn’t last. Sweetwind’s battle envelope was stronger and I had to get it powered up. If I could fight that creature with the skiff’s main lances I’d have a chance.

I shifted power into the battle wards that made up the protective envelope around Sweetwind and snarled a battle cry as the ancient little skiff seemed to scream in joy as it powered up for combat. Long ago, this hadn’t been a sky herder’s skiff, it had been some sort of warship and it still had teeth and still lusted after the blood of its enemies.

Strapping myself into the seat, I pulled down my googles and stared at the winds, pulling Sweetwind into a gust blowing up and over the island from the swamp and let it carry me along as the ballast continued to fill with power. The power pulsed along the hull, as the ballast gained more strength and power. I needed more distance and more time. Kicking the rudder around I angled the bow of the ship towards the approaching creature and started tapping the heliograph, even as I pulled a lever that released my family’s battle standard. A compartment popped up from the deck and the small banner rose along the tag line to the top of the mast, settling in beside the clan flag and the messenger’s guild sigil.

Tapping away at the heliograph at the other rider didn’t really seem to have any effect. If that other flyer understood the message, it was being ignored. I wondered exactly what those treacherous travelers had told the rider. Probably nothing good I surmised. There was no response, no flashing of light and I couldn’t see any battle pennants from the wyvern as it raced up to meet me. I pulled the altitude mask from the side of my pilot’s chair where it connected with the Sweetwind’s pneumatic system and pulled it over my face as I tightened my goggles.

Just as I expected, it opened up with a torrent of poisonous vaporous liquid that rolled over the Sweetwind in a fog even as I fired the bow lance.

A crackle of iridescent, fiery lightning met the creature in the air and it screamed as the bow lance nearly burned it out of the sky before it did a barrel roll away from the stream of power. The lance coughed out and I shifted my feet and slammed the steering arm to the side, turning and diving the Sweetwind under the creature, the wyvern’s talons missing my rigging by a few feet. As I dived, I shifted the ballast and angled the Sweetwind forward and picked up speed before leveling out over the waves, bringing the ship around for another pass.

The wyvern was limping along, and its rider seemed to be thinking better of another try at the ship as I began carefully feeding power back into the bow lance, watching its swiftly rising thermostat carefully. The small open cockpit on the stern was slowly filtering out the haze of poison, but the gas had burned my skin where it was exposed and I shuddered to think of what could have happened if I had gotten even a single breath of it. Once again, I tapped out a message on the heliograph, the bright signal crystal on my skiff’s bow franticly trying to signal the other pilot to stand down.

I couldn’t sustain combat much longer in any case, my stomach clenched as I looked at the swiftly falling indicators that showed the status of Sweetwind’s storage crystals. This ship may have once been a warship, but those storage crystals had been nowhere near full to capacity even before the start of the fight. By myself, I could barely keep up the reserves and I had only a couple of days of my own power built up. While I had been taking my rest, there hadn’t been an opportunity to cultivate more power for the storage crystals. Normally I just flew with a small reserve and linked myself with the ballast.

Cursing my own stupidity and complacent behavior, I pulled the steering column back and started to climb carefully into the sky, using an economic increase of power instead, a trickle compared to what the ship was capable of. Even then I gave a groan of frustration as a twittering low power alarm flared, and several storage crystals bottomed out. The one advantage of an airship was its climb rate, and I poured everything I had into the ballast, watching more crystals flatline as I turned upwards, my ship pushing the power along it’s hull and clawing at the sky.

Sweetwind became a streak, soaring into the sun’s glare as the wyvern shrieked in protest and gave chase. I gave a feral snarl of my own as I judged the distance and the right moment.

I slammed the rudder around and yanked the Sweetwind into a spin as my bow once again aligned with the wyvern. The sun was directly in the other flyer’s eyes and I doubted the other pilot knew my ship could spin on its axis so quickly.

I gave a shrill shout of triumph as power lanced out in a rumbling, sputtering line of energy and once again and I flatlined all of my storage crystals, nearly blacking out as the extra power was pulled out of me and I screamed as I slammed the emergency shunt to cut off the bow lance. My eyes teared up with the shattering throb of feedback from the lance and my world spun as Sweetwind nearly went into a death spiral as I frantically tried to add more power to her ballast and trim her out. Below me I saw the blackened form of the wyvern falling away to slam into the ocean far below, raising a huge plume from the impact.

I was losing altitude quickly now, and I had to drain both my spare containment crystals I had pocketed earlier just to stay aloft. Blinking away tears of pain and terror, I began to desperately search for a place to set down. I wouldn’t make it to the other side of the island where that valley was, barely to the beach I surmised. The ship shuddered and dipped as the ballast’s mountings jammed and I wept in frustrated terror as I tried to unsuccessfully rock the steering around to unjam the mountings.

My poor Sweetwind didn’t like be wrenched around like that, and it had been a while since I had been able to do a proper overhaul. The ship spun in a lazy arc as I shrieked and cursed in panic as I fought with the jammed mounting before using the rudder to try and straighten her into level flight. There was a wrenching snap from far below and the Sweetwind heaved up in screaming protest as the ballast unjammed and I breathed a sigh of relief, before I gritted my teeth again. There was a lot of grinding and rasping from the ballast now and I knew I would be working on fixing it for ages.

I didn’t make the beach, so I pulled Sweetwind into a sheltered bay on the far side of the island and deployed the outriggers as she skipped, then slammed into the slowly rolling sea with massive rooster tai of washing spray, crashing the protective envelope for a few moments from the force of the impact. I winced up at the crackling barrier as it fizzled for a few moments, trying to reform. I hoped and uttered a quick prayer to my patron there wouldn’t be a feedback blowout.

There was a shuddering, cracking roar that shivered up and down the ship, but somehow there wasn’t a massive explosion from the foci on the mast and bow. The envlope did manage to properly power down without overloading. I whispered a heartfelt thanks to the ancient artificers that had designed my ships’ robust enchantment structure and sagged with relief.

Quickly popping my harness, I stumbled across the deck and rigged the bilge pumps, pulling off their protective coverings and setting them up. Sweetwind wasn’t a sailing ship, but she was watertight and was designed for water landings. Ocean though, even this sheltered bay was asking a bit much. I stumbled on my way to the bow, and trying not to pass out, as I kicked a small anchor overboard from its rack and made sure it caught.

I felt the Sweetwind spin as the anchor held it from the current trying to push it ashore and I sagged to the deck and gasped. Remembering the blackened form of the wyvern and the rider I had downed, I was suddenly sick. My stomach roiling, I rolled over to the railing and vomited. As I heaved up all of that delicious stew I had earlier and I just clung there for a bit and sobbed.

Never in my entire life had I ever killed anything that horrifically before, much less downed another flyer. It had all happened so fast, and… I had liked it. That feeling as I had poured my will and fury into my lance was something that was alien to me. It just made me nauseous to think that I could like to kill so easily, and it also left me a bit terrified. Yes, I had killed many flying menaces in the past, but those were just monsters. I had never killed another Endarian before. I hadn’t seen the pilot bail off, so my lance must have ended the other flyer along with the monster he or she had been riding.

The skymarches were a dangerous place, but few would ever dare to tangle with an airship, even a small one like mine. In the past, it had been enough deterrent that I was flying the guild seal on my mast. No one wanted the ire of the messenger’s guild and had always left me alone. I had also picked routes that I knew were relatively safe, far from the small wars that habitually plagued Prime.

I slowly stood up, gripping the railing and riding the soft swells that Sweetwind had settled on as I made my way belowdecks to survey the damage to the ballast’s mountings.

Sweetwind’s design wasn’t a fixed ballast design like most modern airships, but the ballast was cut in a way that could flex its lines of force along Sweetwind’s wardings at different angles, allowing such violent maneuvers that had managed to save me in that fight with the wyvern. The ship, was quite elderly however, and hadn’t had its mountings rebuilt for many years. I had done my best with her, but it was quite apparent that I had pushed my luck too far and had done some serious damage.

The gyroscopic mounting of the single massive ballast crystal that kept Sweetwind aloft was a mess. I worked on her well into the stifling heat of the afternoon. The longer shadows of near sunset were when I crawled out of the refractory compartment, nearly in tears from frustration and weariness, my body covered in grease and sweat.

I had managed to get the crystal turning properly again but I would need quite a bit of time in port to work on her. The repairs would wipe out my meager line of credit with the guild and I’d be in debt to them for ages. I would also be late with my cargo, earning me no favors. It would take me at least a day or so to build enough energy to lift ship again and I had to get out of here fast. I would lose my deposit on the posting and would have to wait at least a week in penalty for the late delivery.

It was all almost too much. I had been far too cocky, so sure that I could take on what I thought was just a normal wyvern. I should have heeded my own intuition.

“Ahoy! Becca!” I heard the call from the distance and I nearly stumbled and fell as I spun around and saw a large canoe with a dozen people paddling towards me. There were two more canoes behind it, and I saw that they were dragging something with their tow lines.

Pulling up my spyglass, I could clearly see Tombason jumping up and down on the deck of his war canoe waving a white rag and pointing at the carcass of the wyvern, blackened and charred, its wings splayed and the blackened beak open with its tongue extended in a frozen death gargle. They were dragging it behind them and cheering. I gave a half-hearted laugh of irony as I saw the state my downed foe and its frozen expression of surprise.

Well at least they were upholding their end of the bargain, in giving me my share of the “loot” much as it was. My stomach clenched and a cold shiver passed over me when I realized that I was a sitting duck. There was no way I was strong enough to fight all of them if they decided to swarm my ship.

I ran to one of the small deck lances on the starboard side and nearly fainted as I tried to trickle power into it to charge it. I cursed myself again for not keeping extra containment crystals in their prescribed racks next to the lance. The racks were all empty of crystals, and I had to use my own energy to try and charge the weapon.

Moaning as streaks of pain shot over my vision, my head throbbed I turned the barely charged lance to track the war canoe and my hoarse voice echoed out over the pounding of the surf and rushing wind.

“That’s far enough Tombason!” I croaked and he just laughed at me as he saw me using the weapon to keep myself propped up as I swayed on my feet. It was obvious I was not fooling anyone munch less that old sweat.

The war canoe slowly turned as it came up alongside the Sweetwind and Tombason directed his rowers to keep their distance as he crossed his arms and stared me down as I shakily leveled my deck lance at him.

“U’ don looks so good Becca! Do you want mah to leave this here beastie for you? I do thank yaw from the bottom of mah heart! You just did mah a big favor!” He barked with laughter at my scowl and he cocked back his arm and tossed a line towards my deck. I had to release my death grip on my lance and stumble over to jump on their tow line before it slipped off the deck and plunged back into the water.

I tied off the carcass and sagged against the railing as Tombason motioned to his group of travelers and he waved cheekily to me as they turned back towards shore. I gave him a half-hearted rude gesture back and he bellowed with laughter, his voice echoing out over the bay.

I had to strip down and jump into the sea to get a cargo net around the massive creature so I could pull it out of the ocean. I was sick a few more times as I gagged on the smell and got bits of burnt wyvern flesh all over me as I worked. Eventually, I got a net around it and slowly used the stern and mast block and tackles to winch the monstrous carcass up onto the deck. I knew I had to work quickly before any sharks or other oceanic scavengers started picking at it. Already the gulls were circling and landing all over the ship as they cawed and squealed at me.

I saw that the blackened saddle on the beast was empty of the corpse of its rider, but most of the pouches and gear were still on it. I carefully unbuckled the wreckage of the flying rig and slowly went to work trying to salvage what I could from the roasted creature.

Surprisingly, I did manage to fill several buckets with intact scales. I had only destroyed one side of the wyvern, and as I butchered it from my mast I discovered much of it’s internals were intact. I harvested several quarts of blood and managed to separate the valuable poison glands from the rest of the creature. As the evening wore on and I lit my storm lanterns to work into the night, my spirits improved and when I trudged off to wash and collapse into my bed, dead to the world and finally feeling victorious.

My nightmares chased me from sleep long before dawn and I tumbled out of bed and tried not to gag at the miasma of stink that lay over my fair skiff. The butchery had revealed that wyverns smelled just as bad on the inside as they did as they did on the outside, all charred and burnt.

I packed up the valuable organs, blood and scales in enchanted preservation jars to keep them, and was considering how to rend the carcass away to get at the bones. I wasn’t quite sure of their value, but either way I needed whatever I could salvage to pay for repairs to Sweetwind. I knew that the meat was completely inedible at least to me, though the scavenging gulls seemed immune to the toxins.

Not that most of it was fit for consumption after the scorching it had gotten. Yawning, I made my way sleepily to the galley and set to brewing a cup of Kava as I did figures on my navigator pad to try and calculate what it would take to get Sweetwind’s mountings replaced once I got into port.

I could repair the mountings enough to lift ship, but I knew even before I had wrecked them that they were on their last legs. As dawn broke over the far horizon and revealed the sleepy little island, I saw a trail of smoke from the nearby beach and pulled my spyglass out to look upon a small camp. The canoes were pulled up and there was a cook fire being tended by a few early risers from small palm-frond shelters spaced out in a circle around it.

I sipped my Kava and pondered what to make of these strange travelers. They were a rough lot, but I had a feeling that Tombason knew that he could have taken my ship, and decided against it. It didn’t seem they wanted me for an enemy. I smirked at the thought. They had to have seen the entire aerial battle and somehow, I had earned their respect.

I finished up the grim task of rending as much as I could to get at the valuable bones, and tossed the rest overboard to the delight of the gulls and sharks. I had to pull up anchor and drop a bit of my mainsail to get away from the grizzly wreckage I left behind to the scavengers. Later as the day dragged on, I used my bilge pumps to spray off the deck and I got to work scrubbing after I had moved far enough away that the screeching racket of the gulls no longer hurt my sensitive ears.

Even after a few hours at trying to clean off the mess I was barely making headway. I sighed and decided to burn some incense and ask my patron for a stiff squall to scour my deck and help wash out all the bits of gore that had gotten stuck in odd spots. I could feel the beginnings of a blow in my bones and hoped those small dark clouds on the horizon wouldn’t miss the island. I could also use the storm to help cultivate my energy reserves. Any sort of storm would do and it would go a long way to let me get Sweetwind in to port more quickly.