Gabriel shook his head. “It sounded like—”
“‘Aren’t the shrimp’?” Moog guessed. “What the heck is he talking about? What shrimp?”
“‘Start the ship,’” Clay said under his breath.
Matrick came bolting from the shadows between two columns. His legs were pumping furiously, and he was cradling something against his chest that looked like a white stone wheel. “Start the ship!” he shrieked. “Start the ship start the ship start the fuckin’ ship!”
Gabriel spun. “Edwick—”
“Starting the ship!” yelled Edwick, already dashing toward his chair.
The entire front of the shrine exploded outward. Blocks of stone rained down on the plaza, bursting on impact into spinning shrapnel shards, and a dragon—a real live you-gotta-be-shitting-me dragon—came roaring from the ruin.
Akatung looked much as Clay remembered him: vast and malevolent, armoured in jet-black scales and bristling with enough horns and spines and spikes to hang every hat in the world. And what was more: he still looked fairly pissed about the You guys nearly killed me thing from way back when, so that was probably bad.
Matrick sprinted past the statue of Elavis.
The dragon burst through it without slowing.
Matrick took the steps to the square three at a time.
The dragon was up them in a single stride.
Matrick was halfway to the ship when a chunk of stone clipped his heel and sent him sprawling, huddled protectively around the relic in his arms.
“Stay here,” shouted Gabriel, and took off running.
The dragon lunged at Matrick. Its jaw hinged open like a snake’s, lips peeling back from a double row of razor fangs. Matrick was fumbling with something at his waist, but if he hoped to stop a dragon with a knife …
Not a knife, Clay registered. Something else. A … horn?
The blast Matrick blew made no sound at all, but a plague of insects boiled out from inside—bees and beetles, wasps and weevils; grasshoppers, moths, crickets, cockroaches, horseflies, butterflies, dragonflies, and fireflies that glimmered like stars through a veil of pestilent cloud—straight into Akatung’s mouth. Its jaws snapped shut just short of the king. Its yellow eyes bulged, and then the dragon made a sound like a cat summoning a sticky hairball from the depths of its stomach.
Gabe helped Matrick to stand and the two of them stumbled on as Akatung began coughing plumes of insects into the sky. When they’d climbed aboard, Gabriel took the white wheel from Matrick and offered it to Moog. “Is this it?”
The wizard took it reverently, a look of astonished wonder on his face. “This is it. This is Teragoth’s keystone! See this groove here? When you—”
“Moog.”
“Yes?”
Gabriel pointed. “Dragon.”
“Oh, yes, sorry. Plan B, then?”
“Will it work, do you think?”
Clay looked from the wizard to Gabriel. “There’s a plan B?”
Moog nodded determinedly. “We have to try,” he said, before leaping over the opposite rail and taking off at a sprint toward the eastern gate.
“Where’s he going?”
“The Threshold,” said Gabriel. “Edwick, we need to keep that thing busy until he gets there.”
“Can do,” said the bard. “I’ll take us up—”
“Not up!” Gabe told him. “Not yet. We need to find the others first. Stay as close to the ground as you can.”
“But the dragon—”
“—will be the least of our problems if Lastleaf knows we’re here.”
Clay turned to Matrick. “What’s plan B?”
“No idea,” said Matrick, still gasping for breath. “But it can’t be any worse than plan A.”
Akatung, meanwhile, had fixed them with a baleful glare. His eyes were roaring, hateful hearths. He bellowed something in the incomprehensible tongue of dragonkind that Clay assumed wasn’t a friendly greeting.
“We’d better move,” Gabe warned. “Now!”
Edwick sent the onyx orbs spinning. The dhow veered sideways as the dragon pounced. They plunged between its legs, but a tail swipe clipped the stern and rocked the Old Glory onto her side. The skyship tipped like a riverboat hit by a tsunami, but Edwick managed to steer them straight. The engine frothed as they shot like an arrow down a branching avenue.
They soared over a pile of sloughing rubble, slipped beneath the arch of a towering waterway. Edwick dared a glance over his shoulder. “Is it following us?”
“I don’t—” Clay looked back in time to see the street behind them detonate. Three stories of stonework burst like a sundered dam as the dragon charged through on a tide of billowing dust. “Yes,” he answered. “Definitely yes.”
They swerved onto a narrow lane. The ship bounced between walls and the sail pulsed with static discharge. Akatung came skidding around the corner. He shouldered through leaning pillars and stooping pediments as though they were drunks at the pub.
Another turn saw them speeding down a wide thoroughfare divided by massive plinths displaying a succession of sandaled feet. The statues to whom those feet belonged lay toppled to either side. The skyship swooped between them, left and right. Matrick snorted to himself, watching with amusement as Moog’s owlbear cubs slid and scampered from one side of the deck to the other.
Clay risked poking his head over the rail. Akatung was gaining fast, loping like a dog on all fours, heedless of anything in his path. He saw the barbed fins on either side of the dragon’s head flare open. “Turn!” he yelled at Edwick’s back.
“Why?”
“Turn!”
They cut right as bright blue fire flooded the street behind them. The bard made a left next, hoping to throw off the pursuit. It appeared to have worked, so when Gabriel spotted Barret and his crew in an alley half a block over they doubled back, halting just as Tiamax cut the head from a gnoll with clashing swords.
“Get in!” Gabe shouted.
Barret was cranking the winch on his crossbow. “There’s more of them!” He pointed at a gang of gnolls fleeing down the alley, but then Akatung’s head appeared in the street beyond. There was a sound like ten thousand matches being struck at once, and the gnolls evaporated in a cone of blue-white flame.
“Never mind!” hollered Barret. He tossed his crossbow and scrambled inside. Tiamax gave Piglet a push up over the rail and leapt in after him. The dragon’s breath funneled toward them, near enough that Clay could hear the howls it carried and feel the heat sear his face like a brand, but Edwick was already palming the orbs—they hurtled forward, weaving through a maze of tarnished splendour as fast as the Old Glory could manage.
Clay found himself thankful that Kit wasn’t on board. There’s the art gallery, he could imagine the ghoul droning on. And here was the most delectable little bakery. I’ll tell you one thing mankind has not improved upon in twelve hundred years: scones.
“I see Ashe!” Barret pointed over Edwick’s shoulder. She and Ganelon were pelting headlong down the avenue ahead. They were gaining fast on Kit, who had hiked his bedsheet robes to his knees and was shambling for all he was worth.
“Something’s after them,” said Gabriel.
Not gnolls, Clay thought. There’s no way Ganelon is running from gnolls. He’d as likely see a wolf running from a flock of sheep.
His fears were confirmed as the Old Glory cleared the ruins. Akatung was there, long neck extended, the fins alongside his head fanning like a bellows.
“Hold on!” yelled Edwick. He grappled both orbs and kicked the lever that powered the tidal engine—it shuddered off, and the dhow went slewing sideways, angled so that Ashe and Ganelon, who saw it careening toward them, could leap over the lowered rail. Kit got clipped midwaist, but the Glory swallowed him anyway. Tiamax, who was already holding both owlbear cubs, managed to snatch the ghoul’s ankle before he rolled out the opposite side.