The skymaster finally sighed, recognizing the grimness of their situation. He took a deep breath and bellowed to the crew: “Ready to hard port!”
The faces of the crew turned to him as if he’d gone crazy. All that lay in that direction was the Flame Forest.
“You heard me! On my mark! Go!”
The crew snapped to action, cranking wildly on their winches. Cables pulled hard, and the Breath of Shu turned sharply to the left, tipping up on one wing. Jake and his friends clutched the rail. For a moment, he was staring straight down at the desert. A flutter of vertigo made him woozy.
Then the ship’s keel evened out, and the world righted itself.
Shaduf pointed to the front of the boat. “Maybe you’d better go to the bow, get yourselves as far from the flames as possible.”
Jake recognized the wisdom of his words. “Let’s go.”
He and his friends fled down the stairs and across the lower middeck. They passed crew members hauling barrel after barrel of the ruby-red fire gourds toward the rear of the ship. His plan had to work, or Jake had just doomed the ship to a fiery end.
Still, for any chance of survival, they needed as much speed as possible.
“Ready to dive!” Horus hollered.
As Jake crossed to the bow, the front of the ship dropped, tilting the boards under his feet. He slid to the front railing and grabbed on hard. His friends hit the rails to either side of him.
The roar of the balloon’s forge died behind him, and the ship began to plummet earthward, diving nosefirst. Again Jake found himself staring at the ground as it rushed toward him. Wind whipped his hair, screamed in his ears. Below him, the sandy desert changed to a tangled forest of giant crystals.
“Pull up! Now!” Horus screamed.
With a groan of wood and the piano-tuning keen of strained cable, the nose of the ship lifted.
Slowly, too slowly.
The ground raced up to them.
Pindor mumbled under his breath. It sounded like both a prayer and a curse. Marika leaned hard against Jake.
At last, the ship evened out and raced only yards above the crystal forest. Trees exploded into flame, blasting up behind the ship as the crew dumped barrel after barrel of fire gourds over the stern. Soon a twisting forest of flames filled the world behind them, rising into a fiery wall.
The heat washed over the boat like the searing breath of a dragon.
Jake stared past the fires and watched the royal barge turn sharply away, chased back by the flames. The harpy horde scattered before the smoke and heat, not daring to follow.
“It’s working!” Pindor called out.
Nefertiti gloated. “It will take them a long time to circle around the forest. We’ll reach the Great Wind well ahead of them.”
Jake wanted to be sure. He pulled out the spyglass and focused back through the flames. He steadied his hand to pick out the retreating barge. Black shapes scurried among catapults, and the barge slowly turned to face the forest.
Uh-oh.
“They’re firing!” Jake shouted, his eye still glued to the spyglass.
“But it’s too far,” Pindor said, his voice dismayed by Jake’s desperation. “They’ll never hit us.”
The enemy thought differently. They released a catapult, flinging what looked like a large boulder toward the boat. Then the second catapult fired … and the third.
Jake lowered his glass and stared back toward the flames. The first shot blasted through the fiery wall, sailing high, too high. Pindor was right. The shot wasn’t even close, just a parting potshot. It flew over the top of the ship and crashed into the forest ahead of them.
As it hit, flames burst forth, spiraling high into the sky.
Surprised shouts rang out from the crew.
Jake then knew that Kree wasn’t taking potshots at them. He didn’t need to be accurate—not when the Breath of Shu flew over a smoldering powder keg.
The second and third boulders hit the forest ahead of them, blasting into fresh flames and, in turn, igniting neighboring trees. The firestorm spread wider and wider in a chain reaction.
Horus bellowed, “Dive! Dive!”
Jake’s heart pounded with shock. Dive? Shouldn’t they try to climb above the flames?
As the ship’s nose dipped again, building up speed, Jake suddenly realized the captain’s plan. They’d never make it over the firestorm. The only chance of survival was speed, to ram straight through and hope for the best.
With no time to get belowdecks, Jake yelled to his friends. “Get down!”
Jake barreled into Marika, pinning her beneath him. Pindor pinned Nefertiti. Bach’uuk dove for the shelter of a roped set of barrels.
As the ship hit the wall of flames, Jake sprawled flat. He covered both of their bodies with his cloak, pulling it over their heads. Marika scrambled for his hand until she found it.
They held tightly to each other.
Then the world flared brightly, stinging his eyes. The blast came with a deafening roar and a blistering heat that sought to bake them to the boards.
Jake held his breath, fearing his lungs would boil.
Then darkness fell back over him, and the roar faded.
Sharp cries from the crew reached Jake’s ears.
He tossed back his cloak and rolled free. They’d made it through the firestorm.
But not unscathed.
Patches of fire danced atop the deck as the crew bustled to put them out. But that was the least of their problems. The ship listed to one side. A glance over a rail revealed that one of the rubbery wings had melted down to its bony struts.
Politor burst from belowdecks, rolling out of the hatch in a thick choke of smoke. He came to rest on his hands and knees, coughing heavily.
A loud hissing pop drew all eyes upward.
Air was escaping from the balloon at an accelerating rate as rivulets of flaming, melted rubber dribbled to the deck.
As Jake watched, the balloon shredded wider with a ripping tear.
From the stern, Horus yelled a needless warning.
“We’re going down!”
25
CRASH LANDING
The Breath of Shu gave out its last gasp as its balloon collapsed in flame. Jake crouched with the others on the middeck. Everyone huddled, preparing for the crash to come.
Horus worked to get as much distance as he could from the burning ship. Politor performed miracles, using the remaining wing to turn their deathly plummet into a long glide. Jake watched as the ship cleared the last of the Flame Forest, but they were not out of danger.
Beyond the rail the desert rose in rippling dunes. Gliding above, it was not hard to imagine that the windrider was an ordinary boat sailing through a rolling sea. Then the keel hit the first dune. The entire ship jarred, sliding everyone forward. But the ship had only grazed the top. The windrider flew onward, skidding across another dune, then another. It slowed each time—but they were still flying fast.