Karvys Drak’Thul's boots left scorch marks on the deck as he charged. The dead wyvern's blood still steamed behind him.

  “Reggie!” Nick called, not taking his eyes off their enemy. “Protection!”

  Just as Karvys Drak’Thul reached them, his massive greatsword sweeping in a horizontal arc, Reggie’s orange barrier appeared around Nick and Seo-ah. The blow sent Seo-ah and Nick flying back, but the barrier prevented it from doing any real damage, and the tactic cost Karvys the split second need for Stacy’s Maul, glowing with the aura of a ravager, to slam into the dragonkin’s weapon, robbing it of momentum as Reggie followed up with a well-timed swing of his own hefty zweihander, driving Karvys’s weapon into the deck.

  Before Karvys could pull his blade back for another swing, Amanda came in with a low sword thrust that slid into the gap between the captain’s greaves and cuisses.

  “You dare!” Karvys Drak’Thul yelled in frustration and pain. He beat his wings once, quickly lifting him a foot off the deck and forcing Amanda to retract her blade as he flew back a few feet.

  Before Reggie, Stacy, or Amanda could take advantage of the opening they’d created, the dragonkin rotated in midair, his greatsword extending in a circular sweep that caught Amanda across her shoulders, just an inch too low to decapitate her. Her armor and Reggie’s enchantment absorbed most of the blow, but the impact sent her sprawling across the deck, her sword clattering away from her grasp.

  Stacy raised her maul just in time to block the captain’s follow-up strike. Without the help of Reggie’s armoring skill, the impact drove her to her knees, the metal deck beneath her feet warping under the force of the blow as Stacy held her ground. The haft of her weapon began to glow red-hot where the flaming greatsword bore down upon it.

  “You’re weak,” the dragon commander taunted, pressing down harder.

  With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, he angled his blade and slid it along the haft of her weapon, shifting the attacking force suddenly. As if she didn’t care about her fingers, Stacy pushed off her back feet, ready to headbutt the captain even if it left her injured. The captain, seeing the incoming blow, retreated back half a step, shoving her back and delivering a kick to her midsection that sent her airborne and back six feet, crashing into a cluster of wooden barrels. The barrels burst open with a loud crack, spilling their contents. As she got to her feet her left arm hung limply at her side, the pauldron dented inward at an angle that suggested the shoulder beneath was dislocated.

  The second a gap opened up between Stacy and the captain, a loud bang filled with arcane energy rang out as Allen, finally having a clear shot, had fired off a round.

  As if fate itself was protecting Karvys, the bullet failed to pierce the dragonkin’s throat, instead tearing through his armor and punching a hole in his chest just beneath the spot where a human’s collar bone would be, creating a vulnerability in the captain’s defense.

  Allen immediately fired off a second shot, but Karvys managed to block it, aura covering his gauntlet as he caught the incoming projectile with one hand. The captain simultaneously shot out a blast of fiery energy with the other hand that exploded inches away from Allen, wrecking the artificer and his rifle at the same time.

  Nick, circling for a pincer attack with Seo-ah, wasn’t close enough to strike yet, but he didn’t want to let up on the momentum, so he grabbed one of the knives off of a fallen dragonkin corpse and he flung it right at Karvys.

  The thrown weapon, lacking aura or any great amount of force, barely caught Karvys’s attention as it clinked off his metal armor harmlessly, but it served its purpose. He turned to look at Nick, who charged straight at him, giving Seo-ah an opening to strike him from behind, her spearhead digging into the gap in his armor that accommodated his wings.

  Karvys yelled in anger and shouted, “You filthy, scaleless tree-forsaken apes!” at the top of his lungs, turning as fast as he could to retaliate against Seo-ah, but a large glob of goo exploded out of one of Topaz’s canisters right in front of his face, covering his entire head and blinding him. Nick followed up the attack, jamming his spear into the other wing-opening in his armor.

  The second the spear was lodged into the captain’s back, Nick began increasing the weapon’s weight as fast as he could, trying to root the scaled bastard in place as Seo-ah pushed even harder with her own weapon, the two of them positioned right behind the dragonkin as they tried to pin it in place. Both worked as hard as they could to push the captain down to the ground and completely destroy his mobility as they dug their weapons in deeper and deeper, waiting for Stacy and the others who were now fighting in front of the commander to finish him off.

  Suddenly, Nick’s Weight of Dedication, its enhanced weight bearing down on the spear’s tip, pierced the dragon’s rib cage and struck what would be the lung in a human. However, the moment the tip of the weapon pierced whatever dragonkin organ it was, fire spewed out and incinerated the thermal armor covering Nick’s left shoulder, scorching his flesh, before sweeping toward Seo-ah.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Down!” Nick yelled, worried she’d be struck by the draconic flames as he and she both abandoned their weapons.

  As the fire burst out of the captain, runes on his helm and armor began to glow. Half a second later, his mouth opened wide, and a viscous liquid erupted outward—a substance that glowed white-hot and smelled of sulfur and molten iron. Where it touched the deck, it liquefied the metal and left nothing more than bubbling pools of destruction.

  "Move!" Nick shouted, grabbing Seo-ah’s hand as he yanked her away from the fight, and the two of them rolled across the deck, the heat so intense that even his unscorched skin felt like it was broiling.

  “SON OF A—!!” Seo-ah shouted, and as Nick looked over, he could see that the fire venting out of the dragonkin’s back had caught her in the chest, tearing through her armor and leaving burn marks from her right collar bone halfway down her left breast.

  Adele rushed to their side, her hands already glowing with healing magic as she tended to Nick and Seo-ah’s wounds.

  The next second, Topaz launched a green poison canister right in front of Karvys, the gas igniting the moment it came in contact with the flames, blowing up in his face. The concussive force sent Kravys flying back and into the wall behind Nick and Seo-ah.

  “DIE!!!” Stacy yelled as she flew through the air after him, maul in hand and Amanda behind her.

  An eruption sounded a moment later as the spears Nick and Seo-ah had shoved into his back, driven deeper as the butt ends hit the wall, fully punctured whatever organ was venting the flames.

  Stacy, half a second behind, struck him right on the chest as hard as she could with her maul. The spears, braced against the wall as the captain was slammed farther back, burst out of his chest. His helmet blown apart by the explosion, Karvys opened his mouth and vomited boiling blood down his chestpiece, and Amanda lunged forward and rammed her sword straight into between his jaws, the tip of her blade finally coming to a stop as it dug into the back of his skull.

  “Nnn,” Stacy grunted as she hammered the dragonkin’s skull once for good measure.

  “She’s saying, ‘Good job, boss. I really enjoy fighting alongside you, and I’m looking forward to the next time we can indiscriminately kill super tough monsters and get great loot,” Amanda explained between huffs, trying to catch her breath after the tough fight.

  Just looking at the two of them, Nick could see that they hadn’t come out of it unscathed either. Parts of their armor had melted off around their arms, leaving divots in their flesh that were half an inch to an inch deep. Despite all that, they looked happier than ever.

  Nick noticed that Taejo, Oliver, Rosemary, Christina, and Maria were standing next to a few of the Black Witch’s knights, holding broken engine cores as they rushed to Nick. He could tell from looking that they were beaten up and worn down and had more blood on them than a butcher, but they were alive. They had survived one of the most gruesome, chaotic fights Nick had been in and had come out the other side still breathing.

  “This is the part where you give a speech and solidify your power base as the ruler,” the Black Witch’s words crept into his ears as he took in the moment. “Never forget how important faith is for us.”

  There’s no need, Nick thought, looking at those around him. I don’t believe a single one of us, me included, wouldn’t die for one another. This is my family after all. Still, he couldn’t help but want to say something to them.

  “We did great, everyone,” he began, wincing a little as he thought about the Black Witch’s perspective. “We’ve rescued our people, we’ve killed the threat, and we’ve bought time. But that amount of time isn’t enough. This will only be the beginning, and we won’t have the element of surprise always on our side.

  That’s why, Allen, I’m going to need you to start analyzing this ship as thoroughly as you can. We need to know the full extent of their technology. Taejo, you’re our mage here, so I need you to make a copy of every rune you see here. When we get back down to the ground, share them with Clarissa and Spencer to see what we can learn. The rune magic they used didn’t seem to require as much magical energy as our spells. Maybe there is a way to reverse engineer them and amplify our own abilities.

  Christina, I’m going to need you to use your speed and collect every note or piece of writing you can find. Everyone else, gather the weapons, strip the armor, and get as much of this metal as you can find. We’re going to put Reggie to work the moment we get back to the base!”

  “Boss,” Topaz interrupted, “I hate to be the one to say . . . but, uhh . . . you realize we’re on a ship several hundred feet above the ground, right?”

  “Yeah, why?” Nick asked, looking over the side and immediately realizing what she was getting at.

  “‘Cause . . . we’re not going to be in the air for much longer,” Maria said, holding up the cracked engine core in her hand.

  “Then that’s even more reason to move and move quickly,” Nick replied, eyeing the distance to the ground. They weren’t in a free fall yet, or they’d have less than seven seconds before they hit the ground, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be a potentially deadly crash. The ship was already dropping and picking up velocity quickly. “If Ironhart had the Black Witch’s people disrupt the engines, he’s gotta have a plan to get off! But if he doesn’t, be back here right before the crash!”

  Nick’s eyes darted left and right, trying to find where Sir Aldric Ironhart went. He wasn’t actually confident that they’d find him in time, and they didn’t have long before Nick would have to come up with his own solution to get off the ship before it crashed.