“Throw all the copper kitchenware into this pot,” Fyon Hawkkyn directs as their rune ship soars forward.

He lifts his emerald stylus, crouched with Olilly, Nym’ellia and Kirin at the ship’s stern as he fabricates two plate-size Smaragdalfar runes above the two ceramic pots before him, his silver eyes flicking toward the dragons closing in. Keeping his stylus’s tip on one of the runes, he gestures toward the other pot. “Toss the aluminum into this one.”

Heart thumping in a wild rhythm, Olilly sets to work with Nym’ellia and Kirin, hastily filling the pots.

“Can they get through our shield?” Kirin asks Fyon, a slight tremor in his voice.

“Perhaps,” Fyon answers as he feeds energy into the runes hovering above the pots. “But they’d need to get quite close. And we’re going to keep them from doing that.”

Olilly struggles to keep her breathing even as Fyon deftly magicks the runes into a slow rotation, green magic sparking in the air. She absently notes that his emerald-patterned feet are bare and his tunic is buttoned wrong, but she doesn’t have time to wonder at it.

“All right, get back,” Fyon directs as the lead dragon lets out a malefic shriek and the Mage on its back comes into sharper view. Fyon gestures toward one of the ceramic pots. “The copper in here is about to get quite hot.”

The runes flash verdant light and Olilly is hit by a blast of heat as the copperware is suddenly transformed to black ash and the aluminum is shredded into minuscule filings.

Fyon rapidly fabricates another rune over the copper ash and sets it whirring, an ice-cold cloud puffing out from it. “To cool the reaction,” he calmly explains. “So we don’t blow up the ship.” He waves his stylus over the runes, and they vanish. Then he hoists one of the ceramic pots and pours the copper ash into the pot filled with aluminum filings as the lead dragon soars closer. “All right, Olilly,” he says, raising his silver eyes to her, “I need you to mix this.”

Olilly nods and sets to work, barely able to breathe as Fyon empties his quiver into the space between them and the dragons let out another chorus of shrieks, Fyon’s metal-tipped runic arrows rattling onto the ship’s planks.

“We need to fill the arrows with the metal mixture, and quickly,” Fyon urges.

“What will it do?” Nym’ellia asks as they unscrew the conical arrowheads and fill them with the mixture before screwing the arrows back together.

“These are magnesium arrow tips,” Fyon says as he hastily works. “The runes imprinted on their sides will burst into fire upon impact, which will trigger a copper thermite reaction.”

“Which will do what?” Nym’ellia presses as Fyon nocks a filled arrow in his crossbow and pivots on his knees toward the incoming dragons.

“This.” He levels the crossbow and fires.