The ends of the ether. The shadow of an idea formed in Fletcher’s mind. Again, Ignatius’s mind filled with fear at Fletcher’s intent. Even Athena was against it. It would be like running through a hail of bullets and hoping they hit his pursuers instead.
“This way,” Fletcher murmured in Ignatius’s ear, coaxing him in a new direction. The loyal Drake turned without hesitation, trusting his master’s judgment. Fletcher only wished that he trusted himself as much as Ignatius did. It was madness—but it was the only idea he had.
On they flew. A herd of Indrik gazed at them as they passed by, great giraffe-like creatures with mottled gray fur, thick elephantine legs and heads more akin to horses. A pack of mangy Canids prowled in their wake, waiting for a youngster to separate from the herd. The jungle was alive with sounds: the buzzing of lesser Mites close by, and in the distance, the deep lowing of a Gunni—a strange creature that Fletcher knew to appear much like a bear-sized wombat with antlers.
But Fletcher could barely take it in, for he had to thread Ignatius through the thicker parts of the forest, where the Wyverns would struggle to follow. He felt a pang of guilt at his good fortune in one respect—the shaman’s smaller demons had followed Sylva. Only the Ahool could make a proper pursuit, but Fletcher knew that Khan was too smart for that. Even so, he drew Gale out of its holster in case he was wrong.
Ignatius saw it before he did, jolting a warning through Fletcher’s mind. A flash of red sand ahead, where the trees began to thin. The deadlands.
Now.
Ignatius picked up speed, hurling himself through the air with haste born of desperation. They shot out of the jungle like a musket ball, half-blinded by the bright desert sky as they left the shadowy confines of the trees.
The Wyverns roared, but Fletcher knew he had caught them by surprise—they had not thought he would leave the safety of the undergrowth. They had a slim head start. A chance.
The red dust of the deadlands hung in the air above the dry landscape, coating Fletcher’s cloud-wetted skin in a fine layer of red. He squinted through the haze as Ignatius soared over the rust-colored sands. The ground below was littered with boulders, funneling the wind into whirling cyclones of dust that stretched into the sky, trundling across the barren terrain.
Behind, a fireball sizzled the air, slamming into Ignatius’s side. His haunch shook like a horse shooing a fly—the fire would do little damage to a Drake. Fletcher was not so lucky, the next singeing his hair and baking his face as it crackled past his left ear.
He turned and saw the nearest Wyvern was so close it was snapping at Ignatius’s lashing tail, its teeth gnashing dangerously close. The shaman stood with a javelin poised, but Fletcher leveled his pistol and the Wyvern veered away to protect its master. It thudded into the Wyvern behind and the two tangled in the air, buying Fletcher and Ignatius precious seconds.
“Faster,” Fletcher cried, pressing himself down to make a smaller target. Ignatius’s wings thrummed the air in the final stretch toward their destination. The Abyss.
It yawned before them, endless darkness beyond the sheer cliffs that made up the disk’s edge. They shot into the depths. This was where he would find out if his bet had paid off.
The orc territory was several days’ flight from the ether’s edge and separated by a mountain range. He had guessed that the orcs rarely roamed here; their knowledge of the creatures that lurked in the Abyss would be limited.
Behind, the Wyverns balked. Fletcher knew that the demons would be filled with fear yet unable to communicate why to their masters. He could see the shamans urging their demons on, until the first five swooped into the veiled recesses over the cliff line.
Ignatius flew deeper still, for the Wyverns hesitated, circling where the light still reached them. Fletcher raised his sword in fake triumph, as if he was escaping into the gloom. He tried to ignore the yawning darkness beneath him, and the extreme danger he had put himself in.
Even as Khan hung back, his Ahool refusing to go over the edge, his bellows urged the remainder on, until the entire squadron of ten was soaring over the bottomless expanse beneath, leaving their leader behind.
The sky above was dark as pitch, and Fletcher could see the Wyverns silhouetted against the ring of light from the rim beyond. Ignatius slowed and turned to face them, even as the inky depths stirred beneath. This was it.
A tentacle whipped out of the void, snatching a Wyvern from the air and dragging it screaming into the Abyss. More followed, flailing at the panicked Wyverns. Fireballs streaked at random as the demons scattered in panic.
The first Ceteans rose from the gloom. Fletcher froze in terror as he saw the clustered eyes that blinked at random and gaping maws filled with serrated teeth. A mess of pincers and tentacles grew from their tortured bodies—none looked exactly alike but all were a nightmarish mishmash of organs and limbs. He could hear the monsters’ high-pitched squeals of agony all around him and felt a strange mix of pity and horror.
Ignatius was already moving, spinning in the air as the first tentacles reached toward them. Fletcher’s world flipped again and again as Ignatius flitted to and fro. It was out of his hands now. All he could do was hold on, trying not to scream as the tentacles whipped by.
Already three Wyverns were gone, and another flew riderless toward the rim, its purpose forgotten. Six remained, swooping desperately to avoid the grasping Ceteans. Far away, the black dot of Khan’s Ahool hung in the air, watching half his air force disappear in a matter of seconds.
A jerk wracked Ignatius’s body, nearly throwing Fletcher from his perch. A tentacle had ensnared Ignatius’s midriff. The Drake roared in panic as they were dragged down, beating his wings desperately to slow the inexorable pull toward the massed monsters waiting below.
Fletcher turned and fired Gale’s second barrel into the tentacle, but it held fast, the octopus-like suckers rooted to Ignatius’s skin. He cursed and tugged free his khopesh, hacking desperately at the rubbery appendage. The wounds spurted a putrid white liquid with every strike, near blinding him. Still they fell, and Fletcher thought that any minute they would be torn apart by tooth-lined gullets.
Another tentacle lashed toward them, but a blast from the last of Ignatius’s fire breath sent it writhing away. Then the tentacle parted with a final chop from the khopesh, and Ignatius propelled them back into the sky.
The severed tip fell away, only to be fought over by the slavering monsters below. All around them, the corpses of the fallen Wyverns created similar battles for sustenance, and the frenzy gave Ignatius a brief respite. Fletcher looked back at their pursuers.