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.