“Annia, can you drag out the map?”
“Sure thing.” Annia reached for her pack and withdrew the map of the Northia Federation that Elania had given us. She spread it out on the floor, and I muttered the Words to a location spell Fenris had taught me – something he’d claimed to have read from one of the Palace’s library books. A greenish-blue dot lit up on the map, showing our exact location just inside the Mexian border.
“Hey! I didn’t even realize we’d crossed the border,” Annia exclaimed. “We must only be a few hours away from our target.”
“Yeah.” I glanced at the gathering storm clouds again. They were still some distance away. “I think we can get another hour of use out of this balloon.”
“Sunaya.” The warning tone in Fenris’s voice was clear. “We’re of no help to Iannis if we get struck down by lightning.”
“I know, but that storm isn’t on us yet.” I put the map away and renewed my efforts in steering the balloon. “We can make it a little further before we have to land.”
“Okay, so maybe I was wrong.”
“Maybe!” Fenris shouted over the howling winds. “Your recklessness is going to get us killed!”
The storm clouds, it turned out, were not the only thing we had to worry about. As we drew closer to them, the winds started to pick up, and soon we were fighting a ridiculously strong, cold current that was pushing us in the opposite direction. The storm clouds were coming in a lot faster than I’d expected – if I didn’t land the balloon soon, we were going to get caught in the middle of a lightning storm.
“Okay, okay, I get it!” Tightening my grip on the steering rope, I focused my attention on bringing us down. “We’re going to land this thing safely, okay?”
A flash of lightning lit up the sky, and two seconds later a crashing boom of thunder raised the hair along my arms. Biting my lip, I concentrated on bringing the balloon down, trying to find a safe place to land. Unfortunately, we were passing over a mountain range, and the trees made it hard to figure out where exactly to aim for. I was going to have to get closer.
“Sunaya!” Fenris shouted. “Incoming!”
I looked to my left, then cursed at the sight of a huge flock of large, black birds with yellow bills headed straight for us. Rushing to the burners, I turned the knob to decrease the heat, and the balloon began to drop, putting us below the level that the flock was flying at.
“Phew –” I began to let out a sigh of relief, but froze as the little bastards changed altitude as well. “Oh, shit. Take cover!”
I crouched down inside the basket just as the flock hit us – and by that I meant literally. The sound of wings beating and beaks cawing created a cacophony that made my ears ring, and I resisted the urge to clap my hands over them to block out the noise. The balloon jostled and swayed as several of the large creatures bumped into it, and my heart dropped as I heard a loud ripping sound.
“Fuck!” I jumped to my feet, then hastily grabbed the edge of the basket for balance as we dropped several feet in altitude. Leaning out the side, I saw a flap of fabric whipping around in the wind, and gritted my teeth. One of those bastards had ripped a hole in our balloon! Frantically, I tore my knife out and sawed off the ropes holding the sandbags, hoping the loss of weight would help slow our descent.
Thunder rolled across the sky again, but I didn’t even bother to look at the storm clouds now – we had bigger problems. Despite lightening the load, the balloon was dropping at an alarming rate, much faster than I wanted it to. I grabbed the steering rope as the mountainside we were headed for came closer and closer into view.
“Steer it that way!” Fenris had jumped to his feet to stand next to me, and was pointing to a patch of land on the mountainside that looked clearer than the rest. “If we can avoid the trees we might be able to patch the balloon up!”
“Okay!” I shouted over the roaring wind, and tugged the balloon in that direction.
“Isn’t there any way to slow this thing down?” Annia asked. She was scrambling about on her hands and knees, securing our baggage as best she could in preparation for what was looking like an imminent crash-landing. “I’d rather not have my bones pulverized, thank you very much!”
“I’m doing the best I can!” I shouted back, keeping my eyes focused on our destination. We were close enough now that I could see the individual branches on the pine trees. My stomach twisted as the ground rushed into view and I realized we were headed straight for a very steep, very narrow ravine.
“Brace yourselves!” I cried as we cleared the treetops, and I ducked back down and grabbed onto the edge of the basket. I squeezed my eyes shut right before we crashed into the hard, unforgiving rock, and prayed to Magorah that we would survive this so that I could see Iannis again.
“Well that went well,” Annia said dryly as we stared up at the smashed remnants of the balloon. We’d hit the rocky wall of the ravine hard enough that the basket had been smashed beyond repair, and it had been wedged so tightly in the rock that we’d been trapped a good twenty feet off the ground. Even in panther form it had been challenging for me to climb out and make it to the ground, and once I did I’d had to help fashion a makeshift pulley system from a coil of rope and some bits from the balloon itself. Engineering wasn’t exactly my strong suit, and I’d been sweating bullets as I’d lowered Annia and Fenris down, but we’d eventually managed to make it out safely.